"Hurry up" Hendrickson

“Indeed not,” said the shorter Cox. “Even that was only prologue to the horrors that plagued this landscape. It was sometime later that another group decided to move here. It was in nineteen seventeen, just after the First World War had ended. The twenties had not yet begun to roar, but the first small, weak squealings of the time were beginning. It was a modern moment, and it was a spiritist moment. Some descendent of the Fox sisters, the story goes, with his own talent for calling up the dead in ever more and more elaborate stage shows. He had been doing so through the war, avoiding his call to service, and usually his routine included calling up the spirits of soldiers who had died in the conflict. Expensive fees were commanded to enter his performances, and eventually he was one of the nouveau riche.

“His name was Hurry, as in ‘hurry up’, and he was usually billed as Harry, due to the confusion. HIs last name, too, helped in this endeavour: Hurry Hendrickson. The H.H. billing that he used after too many mistakes with his name made people think that he was Houdini. Of course, Houdini tried desperately, vainly, to prove that this spiritist was one of the worst fakes of them all, to show the charlatanry that he believed was inherent in every psychic and medium. Books suggests Houdini proved Hurry wrong, but the truth is-- the truth is, despite all scientific evidence, everyone believed that Hurry was genuine. His ability to bring “Voices from Beyond the Front” home either truly worked, or gave people enough hope in the face of the sacrifices of the war that the culture, at large, needed very much to believe in his abilities.

“He moved in here, after amassing his fortune, after dreaming of the house. Or so he said to the press when he was interviewed. He intended to retire, at thirty two years of age, to the house. And Hurry brought a whole train of admirers, attendants, and hangers on with him. Kind of like you, right?”

She stared right at me, for a longer moment than made me feel comfortable. I thought I could hear her saying some warning in some silent, psychic language. But just when I was about to ask her to repeat herself, the other of the Cox’s continued the long history of the house.

“Movie stars, musical stars, singers, writers, newspaper men-- all the usual train of partiers that characterized the wild parties of the twenties. And of course spiritualists, cultists, mediums, and the like. All of them came to play at this place. After it was built, of course, in a strange and victorian style. The style that remains today. There are rumors that Aleister Crowley once slept here, maybe even held a mass, but there are no records to prove it at the town library--”

“You really get into this stuff, huh?” asked Roman.

“More so than I would imagine police usually would.” added Robert.

The Coxs waved their hands in protest. The larger one stepped back behind the smaller one, placed her hand on her right shoulder.

“This town doesn’t have much to go on but for the history. Besides, this house has long been abandoned. When we heard that there were people moving into it, the whole town started to dig back through the history. The newspapers put out a few articles on the subject.”

“We should probably get a subscription to those,” I said.

“What small town has newspapers?” asked Miss Gilda. But no one seemed to either hear her or care. The Coxs just went straight back into telling their story. As before, the shorter of the officer’s narrated:

“So Hurry Hendrickson moved in to the house, after he had it built, specially, to his own design. The whole thing was based on a dream he had. But what he forgot to reveal to his guests was that the dream he had was a nightmare. He never even revealed the nightmare to his new wife, Maria “Memoria” Liffels, and she was the central figure of the dream. He dreamed of the house, first, and a sweeping panoramic view. He dreamed of a lamppost, which he faithfully built, in a small grove outside-- that same small grove you must have lately been in-- and most of all he dreamed of the large layout of the house, of the attic and the basement, and of all the floors in between.

“He dreamed of a great party. The kind of party that becomes legendary: something like Paris in the Belle Epoque.Or something like the parties of the upcoming decade. There is something strange, in his dream, though it not so strange for it being a dream: all the people are wearing the fashions one might expect at Versailles. He cannot tell, from the first, if the party is a typical party at Versailles, or is at this house he has been shown and the people are dressed up in fancy dress.

“The speech anyone makes seems to make sense to Hurry, but it is not English. In fact, it sounds mostly like gibberish after each person is done speaking, like so many shadow voices overlapping one another. He cannot recall what anyone has said, and when he eventually realises this, he drops a glass of wine that he has been holding. It shatters and he can seem to see the sound waves splashing outwards: the shattering has happened both in real time and in slow motion. He begins to run down through the twisting halls of his future home.”

“That’s when he saw his wife, Memoria. She was another psychic, so I think he believed she was aware of the dream as well,” said the taller Cox, taking over the tale. “As he was fleeing the party and the shattered glass, the sound of that breakage kept repeating. Over and over. Louder and louder. One break on top of another break on top of another break of the same thing. His ears both burned with the sound that filled his head and the world around him. Every corner he turned, every room he explored, even up to the attic, the sound still followed him, hunting him down-- haunting him.

“But, in the attic, just at the window, he saw the figure of his wife. Memoria turned towards him, her arms outstretched, and asked him to follow her. He did so, and they leaped together through the window, and seemed to touch down in that lampshaded grove. He thought of it as salvation, because after he finally reached the earth everything around him turned to a strange, midday white, light a large sun shining through the windows. His diary says that he smelled lilacs before waking up. He took that to mean, as he had learned, he said, through his mediumship, that the place was the safest of all places in the world.

“And then he moved in. And for three or four years he threw parties and lived contended in the manor. He was not to the manor born, as the expression goes, but it seemed that his own manor was born for him. This was a good time for our small town, and it is during that time, thanks to the money spent by those visiting Hurry that we have a courthouse and our small police department. Otherwise we wouldn’t even have main street. After all, a small contingent of servants who did not live at the manor (Hurry wouldn’t allow it, though there was room) needed palces to live. And they must have been our ancestors, I suppose.”

“Not mine,” said the other Cox. “I come from Cinnara-- glad to be away from there, though, that reckless city. This country, with the way the light seems to affect it, with the way the light opens up and casts an almost fictional glow, like something out of a poem or a film, is far better than the dirty water running through the concrete cracks of the town.”

“I don’t know,” said the other officer, “the city is nice once in a while. There’s less of an iconoclasm there. Everyone seems to be together, you know, clicking with each other.”

“What happened to Hurry?” asked Miss Gilda.

“Huh?” The Coxs, distracted by their conversation about the different values of cityscape and countryside seemed to have forgotten all about the tale the were telling about the house.

“What did he call it, for example?” Miss GIlda asked. “He must have given it a name.”

“Oh, yes,” said the tall officer. “He named it after the first animal he saw on the property. A small crow was waiting where he would eventually lay the foundations of the building. About where the threshold would be. He recalled the old poem: ‘and the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor; and my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor shall be lifted-- Nevermore!’.

“He called the place Nevermore.”

“That’s the name I was going to give it--,” I said. “I had a dream in the grove…”