The Twilight Prisoner (2 page)

Back in their small apartment on 104th Street, Jack was relieved to find a message from his father, a professor at Columbia University. His note said that he had a faculty meeting and would be working late. Jack needed to talk privately to someone who could help him control his abilities enough so that the spirit world wouldn't ruin his night out with Cora. He picked up the phone and dialed a number he hadn't called in a long time.

Augustus Lyons was New York's foremost doctor of the paranormal, though Jack was certain that no one would know it from his shabby office. As he sat in the small, empty waiting room on the twenty-third floor, he wondered how Dr. Lyons even managed to pay the rent. Jack seemed to be his only patient—or his only living one, at any rate. Gladys, Dr. Lyons's ancient, blue-haired secretary, was busy with her usual task of sorting through death certificates. Jack had to clear his throat several times before she even noticed him.

“Dr. Lyons is busy right now,” she said without even looking up.

“But he told me to come right over.”

Gladys peered over the top of her bifocals and frowned. “You're lucky he was able to squeeze you in on such short notice, Jack. Have a seat.”

That was fifteen minutes ago and no one had come into the waiting room or left Dr. Lyons's office since. As he waited, Jack opened up The Unofficial Guide to the New York Underworld, a thin book that Euri's friend Professor Schmitt had given him during his visit there. Jack always carried the guide around with him in case he ended up in the underworld again. It explained the real rules to the underworld, the ones that the ghosts who guarded and managed the underworld didn't want anyone to know. Jack turned the fragile pages till he reached a chapter entitled “The Truth About Haunting” and began reading:

“For the most part, the official line on haunting is true—that it is a benign afterlife pastime that has no effect on the living. Unless the living use a Ouija board or other occult means, they cannot see or hear the dead and will only have the barest awareness—a vague feeling, unusual dream, or unbidden memory—of their presence.”

Jack snorted. The writers of the
Unofficial Guide
had never factored in a living person like him. He continued reading:

“But there are exceptions to this rule. Occasionally, in theaters, historic dwellings, and other spaces prone to paranormal interference, the dead can have a real impact, creating spots of extreme heat or cold, affecting electrical appliances, moving furniture.”

Jack nodded, remembering Edna Gammon, a ghost he had met in the underworld who haunted the St. James Theater and had broken a light and tripped a living chorus girl during a performance of The Producers.

“In addition, the newly dead can sometimes temporarily disturb their living loved ones, hiding car keys, causing the telephone to ring, and, a particular favorite, messing with alarm clocks. In rare cases, usually after a tragedy has divided the living and the dead, this type of paranormal interference can continue for months or even years (see
Who Moved My Glasses?: Confessions of a Poltergeist
by Molly Mellon Minks).”

“We should have gone out the window,” a voice hissed.

Jack looked up. An impatient-looking man in a bowler hat and mustache was floating across the waiting room next to a stately woman in a bell-shaped dress carrying a pink lace umbrella. “If one of the guards were to see us . . .” the man continued in a tense whisper.

“Pish posh,” interrupted the stately ghost. “We would just tell them we were going for a stroll.”

“Dr. Lyons has a talking board!”

“Is it our fault what the living play with?” the lady ghost said with an uninterested yawn.

“You wouldn't take that view if the guards saw your hand on the indicator—” The ghost in the bowler hat suddenly caught Jack staring at him. Jack quickly turned away. “This place gives me the willies. I could have sworn that boy just saw me.”

“Please, Mortimer,” said the woman in the bell-shaped dress. She jabbed her umbrella at Jack, who flinched.

“Did you see that?” roared the man.

“Sorry,” Jack squeaked, turning to face them.

The lady ghost screamed and fainted into her companion's arms.

Gladys peered curiously at Jack. “Did you say something?”

“Just talking to myself,” he said.

Jack turned back to the ghost in the bowler hat. “I'm perfectly harmless. . . .” he whispered. But with a terrified expression, the ghost flew through the wall, carrying the limp woman.

With a sigh, Jack settled back into his seat. How would he ever explain a moment like that to Cora? Just like Gladys, she would think he was crazy.

“Hello, Jack.” Dr. Lyons's obese form loomed in the waiting-room doorway. “Why don't you come on in?”

Jack followed Dr. Lyons down the dimly lit hall and into his office. A haze of candle smoke drifted through the air, making it smell like a birthday party had just taken place. The office was just as ramshackle as the last time Jack had been there, lined with rows of crumbling leather-bound books with fading titles and sagging spines. The only nice object was a bookcase made of lifelike tree limbs that contained Dr. Lyons's collection of tokens, Playbills, baseball cards, and other New York memorabilia. On his first visit to Dr. Lyons's office, Jack had found his golden bough, the object that gave him passage to the underworld, in this bookcase. It had been an old subway token that flashed gold. But this time, nothing on the shelves sparkled or glittered. A Ouija board lay on Dr. Lyons's desk, next to one of the still-smoking candles. Dr. Lyons gestured for Jack to sit down on his worn couch. “So,” he said, lowering himself into his armchair, “what did they look like?”

“Who?” said Jack, even though he had a feeling he knew who the doctor was talking about.

“The spirits. The ones you saw in the waiting room.”

“How did you know I could see them?” Jack asked.

Dr. Lyons chuckled and pulled out his bulky 1947 Polaroid camera. The flash briefly lit up the room and left dancing white lights in Jack's eyes. Dr. Lyons bent over the developing photo. After a moment, he held it up so Jack could see. Jack looked overexposed—his face and body were nearly transparent—but the rest of the photo looked perfectly normal. “You still have your powers,” Dr. Lyons remarked.

Jack nodded. “She was tall. She looked like someone from the nineteenth century. Someone wealthy. He was shorter with a mustache and a hat.”

Dr. Lyons laughed. “She said she was a maid.”

Jack looked confused.

“A lot of spirits lie,” he explained. “Or conceal things.”

Jack thought about Euri and how she had kept both her real name, Deirdre, and her suicide a secret until he had spent several days with her. He often wondered what else she hadn't told him. But Euri wasn't why he was here.

“The reason I wanted to see you is that I can't control it,” he said. “I mean I can't control when I see ghosts. Some nights I do and some I don't.”

Dr. Lyons opened up Jack's patient file and took notes. When Jack was finished, Dr. Lyons looked up. “Your powers may be developing as you grow. Or fading. I'm afraid I can't tell which. You're the only patient I have with abilities like this.”

Jack frowned.

“But why does it bother you? If the spirits are troubling you, Jack, you just have to learn to ignore them.”

Jack felt the color rush to his face. “Tomorrow night,” he blurted out, “I have something to do. I just want them to go away. For a little while.”

Dr. Lyons's eyes twinkled, and Jack wondered if he guessed he was meeting a girl. “Very well,” he said, heaving himself out, of his chair. “Let's see what we can do for you.”

Dr. Lyons waddled over to his bookshelves and traced a pudgy finger along the rows of titles. He slid a plain little volume with a cross on the front of it from the shelf. “
Saints, Demons, and Mysteries of the Church,
” he read, and openeditup. “Now, let'ssee. Ghosts, ghosts, ghosts. Yes... ‘Those frequently troubled by spirits should pray to St. Dymphna, patron saint of mental disorders.'”

“I'm not crazy,” protested Jack.

Dr. Lyons stuffed it back onto the shelf. “You're right. Not helpful.”

Next, he produced a smaller book with Chinese characters embossed in gold on the front. He flipped through a few pages and then stopped. “‘This is an ancient feng shui remedy,'” he read. “‘Keep a mirror with you at all times. If the spirit sees itself in the mirror, it will become frightened and leave.'”

Jack imagined carrying a mirror around with him on his date and flashing it in front of him. “Is there anything less . . . obvious?” he asked.

Dr. Lyons went back to studying his collection of paranormal books. “Ah, here we go,” he finally said, pulling a slender, peeling volume from the shelf and holding it up for Jack.
Night Watch
by Lodowyck Pos was written in elaborate script on the front cover. “Lodowyck Pos. This should do it.”

“Who's Lodowyck Pos?” Jack asked.

Dr. Lyons flipped through the book. “He lived in the city when it was a Dutch colony and a pretty wild place.

In 1658, he organized a precursor to the police department called the Rattle Watch, a group of citizens who patrolled the streets at night. Occasionally they would have run-ins with ghosts, mostly those of Lenape Indians. Here, I'll read you what he advises.”

Dr. Lyons cleared his throat. “‘Our watch did have occasion to encounter spirits, both young and old, which gave a great fright to our company. An Indian woman, hearing of our plight, offered a remedy of such good effect that I made certain that my entire company carried a supply in a small pouch. It contained: one bulb of garlic, one bunch of five-finger grass, one stick of cinnamon, one leaf of echinacea. During our watch, no person possessed of this remedy was troubled by a spirit presence.'”

Jack gave Dr. Lyons a skeptical look. “So you really think that works?”

“These old folk remedies can be quite powerful,” said Dr. Lyons, closing
Night Watch
and putting it back on the shelf. “And it is subtle. You could hide the pouch in a pocket and your girlfr—I mean no one would notice it.”

“I'm just going out with friends,” said Jack.

“Of course, of course. Whomever you're with won't notice it.”

Jack wasn't quite sure something as simple as a bunch of herbs would keep ghosts away, but it was worth a try. He stood up to leave. “Thanks. I should go.”

But as he reached the door, Dr. Lyons called his name.

Jack turned around. “Yeah?”

“Even if a ghost does try to bother you, remember, you are the one who's alive—and in control.”

“Right,” said Jack, though he didn't feel that way. Ignoring ghosts didn't seem possible. Shouting at them seemed to work much better. With a quick nod, he left the office, hoping that tomorrow he wouldn't see any ghosts at all.

The next afternoon, back at his apartment, Jack mashed the five-fingered grass, which he had found in Chinatown and looked disappointingly like oregano, with a cinnamon stick, the echinacea his father took when he felt like he was coming down with a cold, and a bulb of garlic. As he was stuffing the concoction into a sandwich bag, his father wandered into their small galley kitchen.

“What's that?” he asked.

Jack peered down at the bag. “It's, uh, for a chemistry project.”

“Smells like garlic,” his father said, wrinkling his nose.

Jack stuffed the bag into his backpack.

“So, you're enjoying science these days?” his father asked.

Jack nodded.

“Remind me then sometime to show you the cyclotron over at the university.”

“What's that?” Jack asked, eager to change the subject.

His father slid onto a stool. “Ever hear of the Manhattan Project?”

“Doesn't it have something to do with the atom bomb?”

“It was the project to make the first one. A group of physicists started it at Columbia during World War II. The cyclotron was one of the first machines they split atoms in.”

Jack felt himself becoming interested despite the urge to get his backpack—and the ghost repellent—away from his father. “And it's still there?”

“Part of it supposedly is, a giant electromagnet in the basement of Pupin Hall. The physicists used the network of tunnels under the university to transport radioactive material in and out of Pupin.”

“Really?” said Jack.

His father rubbed his hands together, warming to his subject. “The university keeps Pupin locked, but there was a story some years back that a student sneaked down through the tunnels and brought back some uranium. He didn't like his roommate, so he stored it under the guy's bed.”

“That sounds like an urban myth,” said Jack.

“The roommate did glow for several weeks.”

Jack rolled his eyes.

His father chuckled. “Well, just be careful with that chemistry project of yours. You don't want the same thing to happen to you.”

His father ruffled his hair, and Jack pulled away with a grin. “I'm going out with some friends tonight.”

“I'm glad to hear it,” said his father. He opened his wallet and gave Jack a couple of twenties. “Spend it wisely.”

A little after five o'clock, Jack left his apartment and began to walk down Broadway to meet Cora. It had been another unseasonably warm fall day. Along the avenue, old women wheeling metal shopping carts stopped to squeeze the apples and oranges stacked in colorful pyramids outside the delis. Strollers zigzagged around them, the babies inside obscured by string bags sagging with groceries. Students from Columbia, dressed head to toe in black and carrying low-slung messenger bags, drifted toward the subway, heading downtown for the night. A balding man sat on a bench in the median park and read the
New York Times
, which fluttered ever so slightly as cars whizzed past him.

Jack felt the front pocket of his backpack, reassuring himself that the ghost repellent pouch was inside. He glanced at himself in a store window. Even though he had just showered, the gel he had used for the first time made his hair look greasy. He walked on, checking the time on the pocket watch the poet Dylan Thomas had given him during his visit to the underworld. He tried to slow his pace, not wanting to be too early.

In his head, he practiced some interesting things he might say, but after a while gave up and concentrated instead on the smells that accompanied a warm day in the city. The doughy scent of H&H bagels; the refrigerated vegetable odor of an air-conditioned grocery store; the fume of hot brake pads drifting up from the subway grate; the sweaty, earthy, pungent smell of . . .

Jack pulled the pouch out of his backpack and sniffed it. A strange odor—like a mix between an Italian restaurant and a public toilet—was emanating from it. Jack stuffed it as deep into his backpack as he could. But now he was worried. He walked a half-block and sniffed again. This time the only thing he smelled was something sweet. He turned and found himself standing in front of a dozen plastic buckets filled with flowers: blue spidery orchids, big red roses, pink speckled lilies, and purple irises with spear-shaped leaves.

That's what he would do. He would get Cora some flowers. Girls loved flowers, and their smell would mask the strange odor of the pouch.

A pretty Korean woman appeared from inside the grocery and flashed Jack an encouraging smile.

“How much are the roses?” he asked. Roses seemed like a safe choice—girls always wanted to get them for Valentine's Day, and they had a nice smell.

“Eighteen dollars a bunch,” the woman said. “I can put a little baby's breath in that. Very pretty for your girlfriend or mother.”

Jack looked in his wallet. If he wanted to pay for Cora's dinner, and perhaps a movie, he couldn't spend eighteen dollars on flowers.

The woman noticed his hesitation. “How about the lily? I can make a nice bouquet. Very pretty. Fifteen dollars.”

“What do you have for ten?” Jack asked.

The woman grinned. “Oh, I see. You're looking for a bargain. Well, you are in luck.” She pointed to a bucket of drooping yellow flowers. “They were shipped yesterday from South America. Because of this hot weather, they arrived a little tired.” She propped up one of the yellow heads. “But very pretty, see? Usually they would be expensive—they are a spring flower, but I'll sell you one bunch for five dollars.”

“Daffodils?” Jack said doubtfully.

“Narcissus,” the woman corrected. “Very pretty. And a nice smell, too.”

“Really?” Jack said.

“Better than roses.”

Five minutes later, Jack approached Seventy-ninth Street, gripping the bouquet of narcissus in his sweaty hands. Just as the woman had promised, they had a sweet, cloying smell that had actually started giving Jack a headache. But at least he could no longer smell the pouch. And in a few minutes, he would be handing them over to Cora. When he held them at a certain angle, they didn't even look so wilted.

Up ahead, Jack spotted Cora standing near the subway entrance where they had arranged to meet, chewing vigorously on her gum. She spotted him and waved, and Jack waved back. Seeing her, he no longer felt nervous. She looked excited to see him. As soon as he reached her, he handed her the bouquet.

“Wow, flowers,” said a voice a few yards away. Jack turned to see Austin leaning against the subway entrance railing. To Jack's dismay, he was very much alive.

“Shut up, Austin!” said Cora. But her eyes widened. “For me?”

Jack felt his face grow hot. He thrust the bouquet into Cora's outstretched hands.

Austin joined them and gave Jack a light punch on the forearm. “Maybe I should leave you two alone.”

That would be nice, Jack thought. But instead he turned to Cora. “They were on sale,” he muttered helplessly.

Cora's mouth twisted, and Jack couldn't tell whether she was embarrassed or trying not to laugh. “Ellen was supposed to come, too, but she had a sore throat,” she explained. After an awkward moment, she held up the drooping bouquet. “Thanks for these, Jack. They're really nice.”

Jack wondered if he could just go home. His date, which had never really been a date in the first place, was ruined. He didn't even need a ghost to tell him that.

“What's that smell?You wearing cologne, Jack?” asked Austin with a sly wink in Jack's direction.

“It's the flowers,” said Cora, sniffing at the bouquet.

Austin wrinkled his nose. “No, something else. Itmust be from the subway. Let's go.”

“Where?” asked Cora.

Austin shrugged. “We could go to my place.”

Jack knew that Austin lived in an enormous apartment in the Beresford, one of the fancy buildings on Central Park West.

Cora blew a bubble. “Sound okay, Jack?”

Jack was about to lie and say it sounded fine when he thought of Euri. The Jack that Euri had known wouldn't just give up. He'd find a way to compete with Austin and win Cora over. The first step was to keep her out of Austin's fancy apartment and take her somewhere just as exciting. “Or we could go to Columbia,” he said.

“Is there a party over there?” asked Austin, looking intrigued.

“Something better,” said Jack. “Have you guys ever heard of the Manhattan Project?”

“Sure,” said Austin. “It was the project to build the first atom bomb. My great-grandfather worked on it.”

“Really?” asked Cora.

“No joke. He was this physics genius.”

Jack tried to ignore Cora's impressed look. “There's still a part of the project, this machine called the cyclotron, hidden in the basement of Columbia,” he said. “Not many people know about it. But if you guys want to do a little urban exploring, I can take you there.”

“I don't know . . .” Austin started to say.

“They sometimes have secret parties down there,” Jack added. “Really crazy ones.”

This was a lie, but he knew Cora wouldn't call him on it. She hadn't been to any crazy parties either—not with her mom checking in on her all the time.

“I'm in,” said Austin.

“Cora?”

Cora gave him a skeptical look, and, for a second, Jack thought his plan had failed.

“Oh, why not?” she finally said with a snap of her gum. “A little urban exploring. And then we can go to Austin's when we're done.”