Smoke and Dagger

by Douglas Wynne

  She smoothed her skirt and closed her eyes and had just settled in to meditate on the hum that no other visitor seemed to hear when the man in the gray coat finally spoke.

  “You can feel it, can’t you? Even though you never touch it.”

  Catherine opened her eyes. His bearded face hovered beyond the contours of the rock. He rose and moved around it, his eyes intent upon hers—dark, but not without a flicker of kindness. Or was it curiosity?

  “Do you know what they call it? The Indians who worshipped it before it was brought here?”

  Feeling exposed in the beam of the man’s gaze, she longed for her coat. She shook her head, the slightest of gestures.

  “Tomanowos. It’s a Chinook word. You may have passed their artifacts on your way here. It means, spiritual power.”

  Catherine didn’t doubt this man knew exactly what path she took on her visits. Did he also watch from some shadow on the days when she took the elevator to the fifth floor for research? Had he ever stalked her on campus? The notion gave her a chill, but there was nothing lascivious in his gaze. Rather, what she saw in the lines around his eyes was the academic interest of a scholar encountering a rare specimen in the field.

  But how did he know? How could he unless he felt it, too?

  “They worshipped it. Before the white man wrapped it in chains and put it on a truck to New York. Now children with no sense of its power treat it like a Jungle Gym.”

  He drew a breath and broke eye contact. Was she giving him the hard stare her father was always commenting on? There was sadness in his eyes, but not shame. Voices ricocheted along the granite walls of the corridor, but for now, they were alone. The stranger’s eyes focused on the stone as he continued his lecture.

  “The Clackamas tribe of the Willamette Valley considered it an emissary of the sky people. They collected rainwater from its crevices, which they drank as a healing tonic. Warriors anointed arrowheads with the holy water to imbue them with power.”

  He settled on the bench beside Catherine. “When the settlers on the Oregon Trail moved the tribes to reservations, the meteorite went unnoticed until a Welsh immigrant found it and tried to make a buck off it. That was 1902. The Oregon Iron and Steel Company almost decided to melt it down for raw material.”

  Catherine felt her face betraying shock at the thought. The man leaned forward, nodding his head and lacing his fingers around his knee. He wore a gold signet ring on the middle finger of his right hand, graven with a symbol that resembled a tree branch with five prongs. It tickled a memory. Something she had read. But whether she’d come across it in her academic work or her private obsession with secret societies, she couldn’t recall.

  “A piece of a shattered planet’s core, crashed to earth and traveled on an iceberg down a flooded valley at the end of an ice age, and they were going to melt it down for raw material. We have a rich widow to thank for its preservation. Sarah Dodge bought the meteorite for a small fortune and donated it to the museum for all mankind to share.”

  The voices of the schoolchildren had moved beyond the doors of the auditorium, and for a moment it felt as though she and this man whose name she didn’t know, who insisted on giving her an education she hadn’t asked for, might be the only two souls in all of the museum. Meteorites were not her field of study; she was an anthropology student. And yet she found herself riveted, hanging on his every word.

  “Thousands have seen it since we acquired it in 1906. But few have possessed the sensitivity to sense its raw power.”

  “You said ‘we.’ Do you work for the planetarium?”

  “Forgive me.” The man extended his hand and she took it. His skin was soft, though his ring chilled her fingers. She felt a tingle at the touch, a subtle but almost physical vibration. “Walter Hildebrand. Curator of the Hall of Minerals and Gems. And whom do I have the pleasure of meeting?”

  “Catherine.” She stopped short of speaking her last name, though she suspected he already knew it. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean about feeling something, except that it sounds like superstition, if you’ll pardon my candor.”

  Her bluff elicited a wry grin. “Touch it then,” he said, gesturing at the stone. “Go on.”

  She stood and moved away from the bench, her back to the empty corridor. She had only his word that he was on the museum staff. He came to his feet, stepped forward, and laid a hand on the meteorite. Catherine held her breath. When nothing happened, she realized she’d expected a reaction from the man, or even from the rock itself—a flash of light or a modulation of the vibration thrumming in her chest. But why should there be? People touched the thing all day long.

  “I feel it,” he said, answering the silent question that hung between them. “I can attenuate it. Not the power it radiates, but my sensitivity to it. At the risk of sounding like a spiritualist, I’ve strengthened my aura, tempered it like a plate of armor. I could teach you. If you care to learn.”

  Curiosity and nerve were not qualities Catherine Littlefield had ever been accused of lacking, but there were times when she felt more like a girl far from home than the intrepid anthropologist she intended to become. And this was one of them. It was too much. The hall was her sacred place, and though it was often crowded with the unwitting, what she felt here, in the rock's presence, had belonged to her alone. Until now.

  Without a parting word, she turned and fled, her footsteps slapping echoes off the walls until she was cloaked in the anonymity of the exhibit halls, drifting among the tourists, in the shadow of a giant squid suspended above the milling crowd.

  2

  If not for the signet ring, Catherine would have tried to avoid further encounters with Walter Hildebrand. Her academic work was accumulating like the snow on the ground for every hour she’d spent mesmerized by the Willamette meteorite, so the presence of a stalker was all the reason she needed to cut the distraction out of her routine. But when she tried to focus on her books and banish the man from her mind, the symbol nagged at her, setting off a chain of associations. From a branch etched in gold to the Golden Bough to the Germanic etymological roots of the man’s name. Before long, she was digging through books that had nothing to do with her course work, reading about Rosicrucians, Theosophists, poets, and pagans. And so it was that she found herself lurking behind a plaster cast of a monolithic Easter Island head on the eve of the winter solstice, spying on the Hall of Minerals and Gems from the relative darkness of the Pacific Peoples exhibit.

  She’d spent the previous evening lurking around the fifth floor administrative wing on the pretext of visiting the library and had followed Hildebrand from a discrete distance when he left his office at 4:45. He’d taken the stairs down to the fourth floor for a final sweep through the long rows of glass cases in the Hall of Minerals and Gems before leaving work for the day. If that was characteristic of his daily routine, she could pick up his trail here again. Something about the man told her he was meticulous. When she checked her watch and saw it was already 4:50 with no sign of him, she considered hurrying across the hall and taking the elevator to the ground floor to watch the exit. But in the spacious Roosevelt Hall, she couldn’t count on a crowd to conceal her this late on a weekday. At least from her hideout behind the statue, she could be sure of trailing behind him. If he appeared.

  She checked her watch again. It was a silver art deco piece that her parents gave her for graduation: 4:56. She told herself that no matter how methodical a man was, things came up that might keep him at his desk late. Phone calls and loose ends. If she had time to monitor his routine for a week, she might gain the confidence to trust in it, but her gut told her she didn’t have a week. Today was the solstice, and if his ring indicated the affiliation she suspected, it had to be tonight when she followed him. It was only an intuition, but a strong one, and she’d learned long ago to trust her hunches. They seemed to originate in the same part of her mind that was sensitive to the energy radiating from the meteorite in the corridor three floors below.


  Catherine was preparing herself for the possibility of being spotted by her prey crossing the span of well-lit glass cabinets and white pillars when a long, gray overcoat came into view, moving briskly around a corner and up a row to her left toward the Origins of Man exhibit.

  A drop of perspiration traced a rivulet from behind her ear to the scarf draped around her neck. She exhaled softly and waited for him to reach the shadows of the adjacent hall, then followed.

  When he took the elevator, she took the stairs, a jaunt that left her short of breath and overheated in her winter attire by the time she reached the bottom.

  He left the museum via the exit onto Central Park West. Catherine was grateful for the early dark of December when the closing time crowd carried her out onto the wide stone steps, though it did nothing to conceal her as she crossed the street with a thinning number. Fortunately, Hildebrand did not look back, allowing her to follow his dusky coat into the trees.

  The snow on the ground caught the light of the footpath lamps, extending the radius of illumination and requiring her to keep a greater distance than she would have liked. She almost lost him near the triple-arch stone bridge, but was able to pick up his tracks in the snow, having noted their size and shape at the start of her pursuit. Soon they were wending a course through the Ramble—the tangle of woods that skirted the lake.

  The ring suggested membership in the Order of the Golden Bough, a secret society devoted to ceremonial magic and mysticism. Little was known of their initiation ceremonies and teachings, but some scholars theorized that they were influenced by the ancient priest-kings of Nemi, guardians of the sacred tree beside the lake known as Diana’s mirror in Rome, as reconstructed by Sir James George Frazer.

  Hiding behind the Moai head in the warmth of the museum, Catherine had clung to this theory with conviction. But now, in the cold and dark, creeping among the tangled shadows of tree and branch, doubt crept in. Overgrown and secluded, the Ramble had a reputation for homosexual trysts. She imagined it was too cold for that on the darkest day of the year, but what if she was following him to such an encounter?

  If so, she would retreat quietly, she decided, unsure if it would be a disappointment or a relief. Her boots were serving her well, but already her fingers were going numb. She squeezed her hands together, trying to get the blood circulating, and plodded onward, grateful that the snow at least masked the sound of her footsteps.

  Away from the lamps that lined the paved paths, Catherine’s eyes acclimated to the darkness. Above the lake, the waning moon conspired with the skyscrapers to blot out the stars. She waited in the shelter of a shelf of rock for Hildebrand to reach the top of a rise, then followed quickly when he disappeared down the other side. At the crest, she looked down and caught her breath. His silhouette descended toward a ring of candles that sent waves of yellow light lapping at the base of a gnarled oak. At the fringes of the circle of light, a group of masked figures in overcoats stood motionless.

  The white masks reflected enough candlelight to resemble alabaster animal faces, their details blurred by distance. Was one in the shape of an eagle’s beak? Did the curling lines of another represent the mane of a lion?

  Hildebrand showed no reluctance to approach the figures, and as the assembly parted to make room for him, Catherine watched his shadow stretch to take on the horns of a bull. When had he donned a mask? And where had he concealed it before? He’d carried no briefcase or bag. She crouched low and strained to hear over the wind rising off the lake, whistling in the bare branches. But no sound reached her from the congregation until Hildebrand joined their ranks and a bell chimed from some unseen quarter.

  A hooded man was thrust into the circle with a shove that sent him to his knees. Catherine had crept close enough to see his hands were bound with rough rope behind his back. The black hood covering his head was tied with another length of rope, which trailed in the snow behind him. She could see his breath moving the hood where his mouth would be. The one who had thrust him forward stepped back, his mask that of a dog, fangs frozen in a perpetual grimace. Catherine was reminded of the ceremonial masks on display at the museum, the varied forms the witch doctors wore: birds and bears and the disk of the sun. Embodiments of the energies encountered in mankind’s dance around the seasonal wheel. This pageantry was surely another incarnation of the same drama, staged by and for the spiritual edification of well-to-do academics. She told herself this, but it did nothing to soothe the anxiety churning in her stomach at the sight of the ropes, the hood, and the sword that now emerged from the shadow of the dog man’s coat, pulling a blazing line of the scant light to its keen blade like a magnet.

  There was a glint of gold, and she saw that the man in the sacrificial victim role—she was still certain it must be a role—wore a thin crown atop the black hood. A twisted vine twined between the gold prongs. She couldn’t be sure, but it looked like mistletoe.

  Hildebrand stepped into the circle now, the shadow of his mask’s horns stretching out before him in the ashen snow. The sword hovered inches above the kneeling man’s neck while Hildebrand recited a verse in a rolling baritone she wouldn’t have thought him capable of:

  From where the Witch's Fortress

  O'er hangs the dark-blue seas;

  From the still glassy lake that sleeps

  Beneath Aricia's trees—

  Those trees in who’s dim shadow

  The ghastly priest doth reign,

  The priest who slew the slayer,

  And shall himself be slain.

  The dog man touched the blade to the back of the man’s neck, causing him to flinch as if the blade had transmitted an electrical shock. Then he hefted it aloft, poised for the killing stroke. The condemned didn’t beg or struggle to gain his feet, and Catherine thought again that it must be theater. But for what audience?

  The sword swept downward. She screamed, “Stop!” and the blade veered off its trajectory, swishing the fabric of the executioner’s coat where it came to rest at the end of its arc.

  The masks turned toward her in unison. Could they see her face among the shadows? She considered running, but they were already upon her, the dog and eagle seizing her by the arms and dragging her into the light.

  Dark eyes regarded her through the bull mask. Hildebrand. A foot came down on the back of her leg, buckling her knee and dropping her to the frozen ground. She turned to the victim who knelt beside her. White-gloved hands removed the crown from his head. A second pair grasped the rope around his neck and tugged at the noose, loosening it. His head swiveled toward her as the hood was tugged away to reveal not a face but another mask. This one didn’t resemble an animal, but a frowning man rendered in the same archetypal style, waves of alabaster hair swept back from a high brow and impassive blue eyes twinkling in the candlelight. She saw no gratitude there, only a cold curiosity. Then he rose to his feet and stepped away, and Catherine felt the cold metal of the crown placed upon her own head.

  The poem echoed in her mind, teasing some recollection that wouldn’t come. She’d heard it before but couldn’t place it in context under duress. She drew a deep breath and struggled to calm her mind. Her senses heightened by fear, she heard every rustle of fabric, every shuffle of shoes as the officers of the ritual adjusted their positions around her to the mournful whistle of the wind in the trees. She felt cold to the core, but a strange calm settled on her mind as she watched the shining sword rising in her peripheral vision. A delicate rumble of thunder resounded from somewhere in the trees.

  Holding her breath, she heard a voice that might have been Hildebrand—One, two, three…Let the Queen headless be!—followed by the rasp of steel ripping the air. She forced herself not to flinch. The slice terminated in a clang and the crown tumbled from her head, taking a lock of her hair with it. Red strands fell to the snow in the center of a gold circle braided with leaves and berries.

  Sensing a shift in the positions of those around her, she looked up. The dog presented the sword to the bull. Image
s from tarot cards and paintings flickered through her reeling mind. Dogs as guardians of the threshold. Mithras, the bull-headed god, as hierophant, initiator. The four evangelists of the Bible as Lion, Bull, Eagle, and Man. Had she really just gambled her life in Central Park, two hundred miles from her home and parents, surrounded by a gang of men with a blade? Bet it on an anthropological hunch about the nature of their game?

  Yes, she supposed she had. Laughter bubbled up in her chest at the thought. Only the intensity of Hildebrand’s eyes—if that was even his real name—helped her to suppress it.

  He raised the sword, but this time in a non-threatening ceremonial gesture, and she knew what he was about to do. He touched the flat of the blade to each of her shoulders in turn. “Catherine Littlefield, daughter of Gerald, I grant thee entrance unto the outer circle. Do you swear to serve the order with fealty and to guard its secrets with your life?”

  “I do.”

  “Do you accept that should you reveal the mystic teachings or the true identities of your brethren, you shall face the sword a second time?”

  Knowing it would be impossible to reveal the identities of masked men, she nodded. “I do.” Two syllables that felt reckless, impulsive, and exhilarating. A blind marriage. She had long dreamed of finding fellow seekers, of being initiated into their ranks, but it had always seemed like a dim and distant possibility, and if there was anything she feared in that moment, it was that the secrets wouldn’t live up to the proffered penalty. No sooner had the words passed her lips than the candles went dark. The scent of burning bee’s wax wafted past her on a curling wisp of smoke.