Prologue- The Terros of Gracey Manor pt1

Dear Reader,

          I take pen in hand & give you warning. No doubt this book was discovered amongst the floppy rabbits and intrepid spacemen in the fiction at your local bookseller’s or a friendly but misguided librarian recommended it for some fanciful reading on a dark and stormy night[1]…Yet I assure you, it is all true. The evil of which I speak is real. I fear for those who pay no heed, who even today, unprepared, enter that accursed house, risking body and soul for the thrill of touching the invisible world. These follies take hold of you in mysterious ways. You are never the same again. I myself hardly escaped and do still hear a treacherous voice calling me to, “Hurry back”[2].

                                                Michael Ironman

                                                Oct. 31, 1970

                                                New Orleans

Prologue

            It was my grandfather Jedediah who sparked my love of books. Countless the hours he would sit and read to me. All a boy’s favorites: Jungle adventures, pirates and old western yarns. We’d share fables of talking animals and the wonders of King Arthur’s court. Together we would peer into the Land of Tomorrow and then walk down the streets of his youth.[3] Yes, it was Papa Jed who convinced me that ghosts were real, him and Old Melcher’s books.

Melcher Eisner[4] was born 1723 in Germany and came to America years before the Revolution. He possessed two books about witchcraft and the occult; books which some people most fervently desired. The family legend says that upon arrival he met and fell in love with a beautiful Native woman named Ota. They lived happily and she bore him two sons. However, one day Melcher caught his bride reading and muttering words from one of the forbidden books. He was furious beyond measure. He snatched the book from her hands and grasping an iron mallet sought to end her life then and there. She fled from before his anger and was never heard from again. Melcher then took his sons, the booksand translating his name to Ironman, set out to disappear on the western frontier.

My ancestor did not know that Ota had her own secrets.

In the summer of my 21^st year Papa Jed and I drove from San Francisco to the family homestead near Chicago[5]. On that trip he confided in me a terrible fact: the story was true! Melcher had indeed had the books. They were entrusted to him and his heirs forever that the powers therein might be hidden from those who used such witchcraft.

Laughing out loud I said, “Okay Pa, sure. But tell me one thing- Why not destroy the books? Then the spells would be lost forever.” I never saw his hand move before it struck my face. Careening and spinning down the highway, we finally came to rest somewhere in the Utah desert.

“Never laugh at the books”, he growled, “Never doubt! Why do you think I prepared you all those years? You!! You are the next guardian and you must believe.” He seemed to shrink after the exertion. “The books must be kept safe so that the knowledge of how to fight them doesn’t fade. I’m too old and haven’t the strength to act in case of peril. It is on you now. Your father never believed the stories but you did.” His eyes drifted away as he whispered, “There is great power in belief and imagination.[6]” Although my cheek doubted his claim to frailty, somehow my heart knew him to be right.

            Almost a year later, on his deathbed, Jedediah slipped me a key. Deposit box number 347-639[7]. Without a word he passed away, yet I knew what lock this key fit. Jed had been very excited when the little town of Marceline, Missouri[8] declared its only bank to be a historical landmark. “Jesse James almost robbed it once but he heard there wasn’t any money there anyway. Doubt if there is anything in it today. Probably just some old grandmother’s secret cookbooks”, he said with a pointed look at me. “Old friend of my Pa’s was from Marceline. Elias[9] was a good man, always drawing funny pictures. I wonder what ever happened to him.”

            For 20 years I left the books right where Jed had put them. It seemed as safe a place as any. Until a month ago when a freak tornado, out of season, dropped from a clear blue sky right on that bank and ripped it in half. The new vault was found in the high school swimming pool across town. The only thing touched was the bank and all that survived were the oldest deposit boxes, set in the very foundations of the building. There didn’t seem any connection to my planned trip to New Orleans for two days later. I had become a rare book dealer now and a very large, very old library was being auctioned as part of an estate sale. So easy it was to make a side trip and collect my special charges. I would find a suitable place for them when I returned. Strange, how things worked out so well.

            I arrived at “Nahlins” on a hot and humid afternoon. Everything seemed to be holding its breath as hurricane Lillian[10] was three days out. Yet even she wouldn’t sweep the history from this place. The past & present lived together in the city. Every deep corner harbored the unknown and the air was thick with magnolias and murder.

Sol dropped lower in the sky as I left the French Market[11], turned onto Rue Royale and searched for hot jazz and a cold mint julep.[12] Night fell in an instant and out of the shadows stepped a man almost invisible in the gloom.

“I am Le Un. I oppose La Nombreux. Some things should not be in this city. Take it and leave!”

He was gone before my startled shock had worn off. “Take what?” I wondered. Bemused, I walked for a few minuets and then realized I had become lost. High walls and dark mocking windows[13] rose above me. Half-fancied eyes peered from behind curtains and laughed at my ignorance. Feeling danger and malice reaching out for me, I fled through the night until I found

Royal Street

again. My breathing didn’t slow until long after I got to the hotel.

            In my work, one comes to expect disappointment. An old collection in a city like New Orleans might yield books from before the French Revolution, brought here to raise the cultural level of a backwards provincial colony. The promise of a great find was enormous. But no, I remembered my last trip here and the worthless mounds of paper, mildewed by 200 years of sea air. Much like the dark alleys of this city, old books may hide unpleasant truths behind the facades. So, with resignation, I was willing to consider anything which might still be in good condition and wasn’t surprised to only find two volumes. A small book of children’s stories and some folktales.  I purchased both for a minimal sum and went back to my room for rest and a look at my new treasures.

            The little volume was quite worn and protested as I gently prised open the cover. This was not to be believed! Yet all my training told me this was indeed an unpublished Uncle Remus story! Such a book would be worth a small fortune to the right buyer. My eyes flew over the words but soon dejection set in. This was unlike any other Remus tale, so different as to be rejected out of hand. It was full of dark magic, witchcraft and murder. I too would have counted it a forgery and doubly false, save for a name which floated lazily in my memory.

            I will not relate the whole story for that would take long indeed. Yet I will tell it as it touches on me and mine and the Evil.

---

[1] Chilling Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted Mansion LP copyright 1970(?) Disney

[2] Little Leota at the exit to the Haunted Mansion

[3] This is a trip around Disneyland starting at Adventureland.

[4] Melcher Eisner was a real immigrant to Philadelphia in 1753. I have no idea if he was an ancestor of former Disney chief Michael Eisner but I am playing it so.

[5] Walt Disney attended high school in Chicago.

[6] A nod to Fantasmic and Mickey’s imagination.

[7] Spells DISNEY in a telephone dial. Thanks Jo!

[8] Walt Disney’s birthplace.

[9] Walter Elias Disney

[10] WED’s wife.

[11] French Market by Jennifer Davisson, “jdavisson” on Flickr.com

[12] Yes, the julep bar is just outside the south gate of the FM, but Michael doesn’t know that!

[13]

New Orleans Square

by Eric Lynxwiler, “Jericle Cat” on Flickr.com