Page 8 of Alchemy of Secrets
It’s supposed to be a perfect day, sunny with a light breeze, but you don’t feel the breeze, just the sun, as you reach the towering iron gates of the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. It’s pretty beyond them: green grass, tall trees, stained glass, and marble buildings.
It feels more like a movie set than a cemetery.
In fact, you think they might be filming something to the right.
You see a series of black pop-up tents, a few golf carts, and a number of people strutting around importantly, much like the many peacocks that call this place home.
You avoid them—the people and the peacocks—choosing to walk straight down the middle of the cemetery.
The back of your neck is sweating. You always thought graveyards were cold, but this one is hot, all sunshine and palm trees. And yet you have the prickly sense you’re being watched.
A dried palm frond drops to the ground behind you and you turn. That’s when you notice the view. The center path you’re on is lined in dark graves and spindly palm trees; they point straight toward the hills in the distance, where the famed HOLLYWOOD sign looks down on the dead.
It’s a great view of the iconic sign, but you don’t linger. You’re running late for class.
Everyone else must have already found the right grave because you don’t see any other students.
To your left, your eye snags on a tombstone with an unexpectedly familiar phrase.
Above the name Mel Blanc are his famous words “ THAT’S ALL FOLKS .
” The phrase always seemed cheerful to you in cartoons, but now it feels sad.
The sorrow stays with you as you make your way toward the mausoleum in the back.
Finally, you see a dozen other classmates just beyond the entrance. Each week there are fewer students. Week by week the classes have gotten more difficult to find, as the Professor’s clues have become more complicated. You feel proud of yourself for piecing together the clues and making it here.
The mausoleum doors are already open, but you notice there are heavy chains for when they’re closed.
One of your classmates rattles the chains as you walk past. You say you don’t believe in ghosts, yet you can’t help briefly wondering if the chains are there to keep people out or to lock the spirits in.
The first thing you see inside is a dusty piano. Though you probably shouldn’t, you can’t resist tapping a yellowed key. It’s soundless. Dead, like all the people laid to rest here.
To your right and to your left are halls of marble squares with bronze name plaques and matching vase sconces on both sides. Most of the vases are empty, but you pause at one that holds fresh gerbera daisies, with a number of lipstick kisses lining the marble around it.
It’s the grave of Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel.
This isn’t the Benjamin you’re looking for, but you’re not the only one of your classmates who takes note of the famous gangster. One of them leaves a penny at the grave, while another adds to the collection of lipstick kisses.
You move on toward the back.
There’s a large fan embedded in the wall, but it slows to an unfortunate stop as you reach the end and find the names you’re looking for: Isla Saint and Benjamin James Tierney.
The graves are side by side. Isla doesn’t have any vases or an epitaph, but Benjamin does.
Loving Father, brilliant mind, gone too soon.
You’re familiar with his story, so you don’t expect to feel choked up, but you do.
“Usually, I take students to the hotel where Isla and Ben both died, but those ghosts are not as friendly.” The Professor sighs loudly, as you turn to see her now sitting on the dusty piano bench.
She’s dressed in heavy black; she even has a hat with a little net veil.
At first you think it’s theatrical, but then you wonder if maybe she knew Isla Saint and Benjamin J.
Tierney. They died more recently than most of the cemetery’s inhabitants—almost fifteen years ago—and they are far more famous as well.
The Professor gives you all a minute to come closer before she continues.
Benjamin J. Tierney and Isla Saint were once the Hollywood royals.
Their fame and their love story began in 1996, when twenty-five-year-old Tierney’s time-bending masterpiece, Mirrorland , which starred Saint, became the top-grossing film of the year.
It outsold the second-highest-grossing film of that year, Independence Day , by over $250 million.
You know this because you read the Wonderpage before coming to class—and you’ve seen the movies.
During the filming of the Mirrorland sequel, Puppet Kingdom , Tierney and Saint cemented their fame by leaving their significant others (Victoria Monroe and Sebastian Friday) and eloping halfway through production.
It was all anyone talked about, until Puppet Kingdom was released in late 1997 and became an even greater success than its predecessor.
In 1999, the third film in the trilogy, Lostland , broke every box office record and spawned a universe of spinoffs.
Although, in your opinion, none of the spinoffs are as good.
Benjamin J. Tierney was a genius. There has never been another like him.
After the original Mirrorland films, he signed on to write and direct another trilogy for Jericho Monroe Entertainment.
The first two films, Price of Magic and Symphony of Death , were financially on par with the Mirrorland films. However, the productions were so fraught with misfortune, many believed the franchise was cursed.
There were fires on set, multiple car accidents involving cast and crew members, several reports of amnesia, and one day, during outdoor filming, an entire flock of doves died midflight and fell from the sky.
The third film, which was supposed to be released in early 2007, was initially delayed for a year.
Tierney said he needed more time to research the script and finish writing, but no one has ever seen a single page.
It has long been suspected that Tierney’s true reason for the delay was that he believed the Price of Magic trilogy was cursed, and he was afraid to finish it.
Around this time, Saint, who had taken a break from acting to spend time with her and Benjamin’s twin daughters, made her grand return to Hollywood by starring in the gritty 2010 drama Conclavity .
This film earned Isla Saint her first Academy Award.
It’s said she cried during her entire acceptance speech.
You tried to find the speech online, but there are no recordings of it. When you looked for it, you found videos of everyone else who won an Oscar. But all that came up for Isla Saint were articles about how, that same night—February 27, 2011—she murdered her husband.
Even before reading the Wonderpage, you knew this. You might have just been a kid when it happened, but everyone knows how their love story ended.
“The official crime report says that Isla shot Benjamin with a gun just like this,” says the Professor as she stands, opens the lid of the piano, and pulls out a dull black revolver.
“Don’t worry, this weapon is merely a prop.
” She smiles her Mona Lisa smile, and you’re not sure you believe her.
“Isla shot her husband twice—once in the heart and once in the head—before turning the gun on herself.” The Professor points the gun at her head, making you flinch.
“The tabloids said it was all because of another woman. A young unknown actress named Jessica Travers, who Benjamin was having an affair with. Of course, Jessica never confirmed these rumors because she died by suicide the same night.”
There’s a click. The Professor has pulled the trigger.
Your heart stutters and stops before starting again.
The gun is just a prop after all. The Professor’s head is intact, or at least it looks that way on the outside.
“Don’t worry, my dears. I have no wish to die, and I don’t think that Isla Saint did, either.
” The Professor sets her gun on the bench.
“How many of you have heard the Hollywood Rule of Three—that if one celebrity dies, two are certain to follow? I’m not sure when it began, but I can tell you it’s a lie.
All three of these deaths are part of a cover-up, a bit of misdirection, to hide the real reason Isla and Ben were killed. ”
The Professor lowers her voice to a whisper that makes all of you move closer.
“By now, I’m sure many of you have tried to find the devil at a hotel bar, and I probably should have said this before: Be very careful.
Hollywood was not built on dreams, it was built on favors from the devil, and the devil does not handle it well when those favors aren’t paid back. ”