Spirits in the Park

by Scott Mebus

  For Rory was a Light, and a Light didn’t just see the hidden city of Mannahatta. A Light could also reveal that world to others. But opening people’s eyes was dangerous, as he discovered when Bridget had her mortal body stolen by the evil magician Hex—all because Rory opened her eyes to Mannahatta. Rory would never expose a mortal to that danger again, if he could help it. So as he walked the streets of New York, he refused to acknowledge the wonders around him for fear of dragging someone else into a world they never asked to see, holding him forever apart from the people around him.

  His mind elsewhere as he dribbled, Rory accidentally hit the side of his shoe with the ball. It bounced away, disappearing into the trees.

  “Crap!” he cursed to himself. Annoyed, he ran after the ball, diving into the brush. The greenery grew particularly dense along the path, and at first Rory couldn’t even see his basketball for all the branches and leaves in his way. Finally, he spied orange through the green; there was his basketball, resting against the trunk of a huge elm tree. He reached down to pick it up when suddenly his wrist blazed fire.

  “Ow!” he cried, falling back. What was that? He checked his wrist to see if he’d been stung by something. It looked perfectly fine; the skin was unbroken and the small bracelet of purple beads he always wore appeared unharmed . . . Wait a minute. The bracelet. How could he have forgotten?

  These were no ordinary beads, of course. The bracelet was made of pure wampum: the Native American mystic shells that not only made beautiful jewelry, but also, according to Wampage, held a variety of magical powers. Among this bracelet’s properties was the tendency to grow warm when other wampum was near. But he had never felt it blaze so hot as it did now. What was setting it off?

  Curious, Rory moved his arm over the dirt at the base of the tree until he found the spot where the bracelet burned hottest. Then he dropped to his knees and began to dig.

  A small pile of dirt formed by his side as he shoveled deeper into the ground at the base of the elm. Finally, after lifting up a particularly large clump of earth, he spied something poking out of the bottom of the elbow-deep hole he’d dug. His wrist was on fire as he reached down to pick up what appeared to be a dull black bead. But bead after bead followed, until a long loop of wampum dangled from his fingers. He brushed off the dirt and took a good look at what he’d found.

  It appeared to be a necklace, fashioned out of a single string of beads. The beads themselves alternated between black and purple all the way around. He couldn’t begin to guess how old it was. But even though it was dirty, he could tell it was beautiful.

  He couldn’t explain what happened next. He was always the last person to do anything rash. But for some reason, despite his better judgment, he found himself lifting the necklace up over his head, letting the wampum beads fall gently around his neck.

  A roaring sounded in his ears as the world around him began to blur. The noise grew louder and louder, threatening to burst his eardrums, as if a fierce wind were battering him senseless. He felt himself blown back, but not through the air; rather a hurricane thrust him somewhere inside, with such force he closed his eyes in fear. When he opened them again, he was somewhere, and someone, else entirely . . .

  She sits anxiously by the newly lit fire, concentrating closely on the beads in her delicate, white hand. The soft light of sunset bathes the purple-and-black wampum in a golden glow, as if to reassure her that the magic is working. It hadn’t been easy to learn how to bend the wampum to her will, and if not for her new husband’s father sitting across the fire giving her encouragement and wisdom, she would have long since given up. Even now, she fears the beautifully worked beads will reject her unskilled mind and refuse to hold her command. She teeters on the edge, a moment from giving up all together.

  “Do not waver,” her father-in-law encourages her. He seems so young with his long black hair bound up with eagle feathers and unlined face bare of the tattoos many of his people wear to display their inner selves to the world, but his eyes are as old as stone. “Olathe, it is almost done.”

  Olathe. That is her name now, here among her new family. She will not go back to the girl she had been. Her own father has made certain of that. She is a Munsee now and her old name is as dead as her past.

  Determined, she bears down harder, willing the wampum to accept her. Finally, with a soft sigh, she feels something give and the beads open like tiny flowers in her mind. She looks up in joy, pride bursting from her lips.

  “I did it!”

  “You did, indeed, daughter of my heart,” he agrees, grinning hugely. He radiates the same wisdom and strength as his son, her husband. If only her own father had been so wise and good, she would not have been forced to make the wrenching choice between her old family and her new one. Her father-in-law reaches over to pat her hand. “Buckongahelas will be proud of his young bride. You have learned one of our oldest skills so quickly, even though you are only newly among us. It is as if you were listening at Sooleawa’s feet since birth.”

  “When can I begin giving it memories?” she asks, eyes shining at at his praise.

  “You can begin now, if you wish,” her father-in-law informs her. “You have opened the beads, and they will fill whenever you hold them and concentrate. But be careful. They will overflow before you know it. There is room for maybe three true memories inside the necklace, so choose them wisely.”

  Only three . . . so few. She glances around the bustling camp, where the entire Munsee nation had set up temporary quarters earlier that day. All around her, newly planted trees and weak patches of thin grass remind her of the newness of this man-made wilderness in the center of Manhattan Island. The Munsees have been invited here, to live in peace with the gods, but apart in a land all their own. Hope shines upon every face as the Munsees put aside their centuries old struggle for the island in the name of a future free of war. Even Buck felt it; he’d traveled to the house of her father that very morning to beg him to consider a reconciliation. She holds out little hope for that, however. Her father is not a bad man, but he can be hard. She will survive without him. She has a new family now, one that loves her. Clutching the necklace in her hand and filling it with its first true memory, she smiles at her father-in-law, who winks back. How she was so lucky as to find a husband as good as Buckongahelas and a new father as openhearted and kind as Tackapausha, she will never know . . .

  The roaring overtook Rory, blowing him from one memory to the next as he closed his eyes beneath the pressure. That man was Tackapausha? he thought. But he seemed so peaceful . . . Then his eyes opened again, and he was elsewhere . . .

  She pushes through the brush, Tackapausha at her side, worry tearing at her heart. Buck had not returned the night before from his visit to her father and she does not know what to think. Her father-in-law’s face does not appear disturbed, but judging by the speed with which he leads her on, he feels something is wrong. Buck should have been back by now. What has happened to her beloved?

  She stumbles; she’d been up almost the entire night. Last night, she’d been unable to sleep and had decided to travel toward the edge of the park by starlight to meet her husband on his way home. But instead of finding him, she’d happened upon a very strange procession moving through the trees, led by a familiar face that sent her ducking for cover behind some thick bushes. Willem Kieft, the black-eyed first adviser, guided a party of spirits into the park under the cover of night, some holding torches while the others bore shrouded boxes upon their backs. Recklessness overpowered her better sense. She and Buck had often wondered about Kieft; she would not let the chance to discover one of his secrets slip away. So she followed alongside them unseen, all night, as they traveled north through the new wilderness. Kieft set magical snares as he walked to punish pursuers, but she stayed close enough to spy where he placed them and thus avoided them easily. Even still, she lost the party at the base of the Great Hill, and when Kieft finally reappeared, he was alone. What had he been doing? What was hidden up in th
e treacherous mountain passes of the Great Hill? Not foolish enough to tackle the climb alone, she had raced home to tell Buck all about it as the night sky brightened into early dawn. But he had never come home. So all thoughts of Kieft and his secrets flew from her mind as she and Tackapasuha set out to find what had become of her husband. Which led them here . . .

  They step out of a small copse of trees. Before them looms the wide circle that forms the southwest corner of the park. Well-dressed mortals in their horse-drawn carriages rattle around the circle as they make their way downtown, completely unaware of the spirits emerging from the park into their midst. Suddenly she gasps as her husband bursts into view, racing across the circle while dodging the trotting horses and fine carriages, a look of desperate horror on his face.

  “Beware!” Buckongahelas yells as he approaches them. “It is a trap! They have betrayed us!”

  “I don’t understand,” Tackapausha says haltingly at her side as a wave of horror washes over her. “Who has betrayed us?”

  “Hamilton!” Buck calls back, crossing the last bit of road to join them. Olathe reels as if struck. “We must hurry! He has betrayed us all . . .”

  A shot rings out, overpowering all other sound. Buck stumbles, his face startled. The white shirt he had donned to curry favor with her father suddenly blossoms red as her husband, her heart, sinks to his knees, mouth opening in pain, before falling over to land face-first in the dirt. There, he lies still.

  The world slows around her as her beloved bleeds into the ground before her. In the center of the busy traffic circle stands a man with a pistol in his hand, the horse-drawn carriages passing in front of him, hiding, then revealing him, over and over again. The smoke from the gun obscures his face, but something about the way he carries himself is familiar to her.

  “Meester,” Tackapausha whipsers next to her, his fierce voice promising murder or worse, and she realizes that the man behind the pistol smoke must be Harry Meester, who had always been her friend. So many betrayals, it tears at her heart . . . but at the moment she cannot think about the man with the pistol. She needs to get to her husband. But before they can cover two feet, a brilliant blue light shoots up before them, cutting off their view of the city. They bounce right off it as if it were stone. Throwing themselves against the barrier, she and Tackapausha hammer and shout, but they cannot break through. The trap has been sprung and she is caught in its snare. She drops to her knees, reaching up to clutch at her wampum necklace as the tears begin to fall unchecked . . .

  The roaring returned, drowning out that heartbreaking sight as Rory was pushed onward. In the midst of his sorrow at the murder of Olathe’s beloved, a glimmer of recognition beckoned. He’d heard of Kieft’s midnight trek into the park before; the magician Hex had tried to trick Rory into opening the Trap just to get at that same secret. And this woman knew where it was hidden! But he barely had time to dwell on his discovery before he tumbled into the final memory . . .

  She runs through the woods, the necklace dangling from her hands. The man chasing her is near; she can hear the disturbance in the brush behind her. She does not have much time. She knows it will be her death if he catches her. She has uncovered Kieft’s secrets and her life is forfeit. If only she had understood what she had seen up there on the mountain. She thinks of the sheet of parchment she took from the cave, the one treasure she had recognized. Before the man chasing her gets too close, she can use the magic it teaches to protect herself. But the price is steep and she might not even survive the invocation. Yet she can think of no other way out.

  She never should have set out from the Munsee camp alone. But she couldn’t stay there. No one seemed to blame her, but they couldn’t look at her, either, and she understands why. Tackapausha had sunk into a deep depression; the death of his son and the betrayal by his friend hit him hard. He had begun to speak bitterly about revenge, which made Olathe unbearably sad. Through the gods’ treachery, the wars between Munsee and Newcomer will come again, laying waste to Mannahatta. Maybe Kieft’s secret hidden in the high reaches of the Great Hill, incomprehensible as it may be to her, would be the key to averting catastrophe. After all, it seems a bit too coincidental to her: Kieft hides his boxes of strange items in the cave the night before all of Central Park is encased in an impassable barrier? Far too convienent for her liking.

  But the frightening truth is that there is no one left for her to tell about what she’d seen up on the mountain. She is all alone now. She grasps at one slim hope, the last resort of last resorts before she turns to the parchment in her hand. She will leave a trail behind for the one person she swore never to talk to again: her father. Perhaps when the Trap is opened, whenever that may be, he will come looking for her. It is unlikely, given how the two of them left matters, but it is all she has to hold on to. After everything, she still loves him; maybe he still loves her as well. It isn’t much, but she knows no other option with her pursuer so close behind.

  She closes her eyes to concentrate, setting a charm onto the necklace that will call to her father if he comes within fifty paces, a trick Sooleawa the medicine woman herself taught her. Then he will wear the necklace, learn of her fate, and, hopefully, follow her trail, starting at the cave atop the Great Hill. She checks the half a token she keeps in her pocket to make sure it is safe. She’d left its other half in the cave—its magic called out to its brother in her possession, serving as a beacon that was to lead her back to Kieft’s hidden treasure room up on the mountain. But with her pursuer almost upon her, her plans must change. Now she must hope that her necklace leads her father to that cave, where the half token she’d left behind waits to guide him to her, wherever she might be. If she lives, he will find her. If not . . . she pushes away the fear and lays her necklace down, beneath a newly planted elm, and begins to cover it with leaves, all the while checking over her shoulder for signs of he who pursues her. Come quickly, Father, she prays. Come quickly . . .

  The hazy world of the distant past fell away as Rory lifted the necklace from around his neck. His eyes remained unfocused as he shook his head to clear it; the feelings of sadness and fear didn’t lift away as easily as the necklace. He blinked, then started in shock. Someone was kneeling down right in front of him, inches from his face!

  “Tell me you are really not this stupid, Rory Hennessy,” the figure said sharply. Rory relaxed as he recognized those playful, mocking eyes.

  “Soka?” he whispered. Actually, her eyes didn’t seem so playful right then. In fact, the Indian girl looked ready to smack him.

  “My mother told you not to enter the park until she calls you.” Soka’s voice was tight with fury. “And yet here you are. That is bad enough. But this . . . !” She grabbed the necklace from his hand. “This seems like a wish for death. Wearing unknown wampum? You could have died, or your mind could have been taken over by some evil spirit residing in the necklace, or a million other things I do not wish to think about! Did someone hit you on the head recently? Have you eaten any strange berries? There must be some explanation, because otherwise I have to believe you are really that dumb. And then we’re all in trouble, because that means my people’s fate rests in the hands of a nitwit!”

  Soka finished her tirade, sitting back to catch her breath as she glared at him. He couldn’t help noticing how pretty she looked as her fingers tugged at her single braid in frustration. The last time they’d met, she had told him he had a nice nose, moments before her brother, Tammand, started shooting arrows at him. Now here they were, together again, with her brother nowhere to be found, and his heart leaped at the opportunity to talk to her without the fear of becoming a human pincushion. Perhaps the love Olathe felt for her husband still coarsed through him, which was why he opened his mouth and said something dumb.

  “Your hair looks nice.”

  Soka blinked, thrown. Rory started to scream at himself inside, aghast at his own stupidity. He really shouldn’t be allowed to talk to girls. But then, finally, Soka’s frown melted away a
nd she began to laugh.

  “You . . .” she began, shaking her head. “Pretty Nose . . . you know you could have died.”

  “I don’t know why I did it,” he protested. “It just seemed like the right thing to do.”

  She nodded, begrudgingly.

  “Well, you are Sabbeleu, and that means you see the true nature of things; this wampum is meant to be worn and you must have felt that.” Soka lifted the necklace to take another look, running her fingers across the beads. “What did you see when you wore this?”

  Rory described Olathe and her sad story. Soka looked thoughtful.

  “We all know how Buckongahelas died,” she said. “Though it happened before I was born. Tackapausha will not let us forget it.”

  “Do you know what happened to Olathe?”

  “No one has ever mentioned her,” Soka admitted. “I will ask my mother; after all, apparently this Olathe learned our magic from her. Of course my mother will wonder why you ignore her warnings and risk your life by coming here. This park is filled with many dangers. We Munsees are not the only inhabitants of this park, you know. You are lucky I was the one who found you, and not someone, or something, else.”