“Who they are … is hard to say at the moment,” Van Stavern admitted, the eye lowering. “The Court have been frustratingly adept at hiding their aims and identities. What I can tell you is that they’re ruthless, they’re insidious, and they appear to have a sizable collection of their own, yes. But rather than just hunting relics, the Court often sets them out in the open, exactly where they’re likely to do the most damage. We’ve tied dozens of supernatural disasters to their activities.”
“Like what?”
The eye widened. “Haunted dolls are a favorite. Can’t tell you why so many dolls end up as relics. A few cursed puzzle boxes.… Oh, several years ago we encountered a relic that’s a kind of murderous poem. No containing that one, I’m afraid.”
“No way!” Emrys gasped. “The Laughing Man is real?”
“That’s the one! And yes, so I’d avoid reading it aloud after dark. Nasty bit of work. The Yellow Court was responsible for the poem being published widely.”
“It almost sounds like the Yellow Court is conducting experiments,” Hazel said thoughtfully. “Watching how people use the relics—or how the relics use them.”
“An interesting—and disturbing—idea,” the book muttered. “But whatever their goals, as the newest members of the Order of the Azure Eye, it is your duty to oppose them.”
“Like, fight them?” Hazel asked. “How? We’re not wizards or monster hunters. We’re just kids.”
“I’m not fighting anyone!” Serena cried. “Certainly not on the word of some creepy talking book. How do we know anything he’s saying is even true?”
“Serena, how can you deny what’s happening?” Emrys waved his arms wildly. “We’re standing in a room that couldn’t fit into our whole building, much less a single apartment. This is real! And so are the bad things hurting people in New Rotterdam.”
“That’s exactly the problem,” Serena shot back. “I get it, we like horror—movies. Urban legends. Fiction. The whole point is getting scared in a way that’s safe. But this is really, truly dangerous! Even he said so!” She pointed toward the Atlas on the floor. “Who knows if that Whistler is coming back?”
Emrys felt himself vibrating with frustration. Serena was the most fearless person he knew, and now she was balking? Hadn’t she just been scoffing at the very idea of living in fear? Emrys was the anxious one of the group—the downer. But now that they were on the precipice of something incredible, it was like they’d switched places.
“The danger is already here!” he said. “It’s just that nobody wants to look at it! We’re being given the chance to do more than sit around worrying about the world, waiting for grown-ups to care.”
Serena groaned. “How do we know that’s really Alyx Van Stavern in there? We aren’t even sure he’s one of the good guys!” Her expression softened a touch. “I get why you want this, Emrys. I do. But there’s so much we don’t know yet. We need to think before we agree to be a part of some supernatural war.”
Emrys glanced pleadingly to Hazel, hoping she’d back him up.
But his friend hesitated, biting her lip.
Emrys’s heart skipped a beat. While it was true that he and Hazel had been close for years, she and Serena had history, too—history that he wasn’t a part of. Emrys was the newcomer: to New Rotterdam, to their building, and to this strange, teetering friendship triangle. Where Hazel and Emrys connected through shared passions, Serena called to Hazel’s sense of logic. He honestly couldn’t tell which was winning.
But then Hazel’s mouth stretched into a thin, determined line. “I’m with Emrys,” she said. “Now that we’re here—how can we turn back?”
“You can’t,” Van Stavern’s voice sounded from the book. “What is seen cannot be unseen. The Atlas has already chosen you.” The blue orb at the center of the Atlas narrowed. “You’ve all been marked by the Azure Eye.”
This article is protected.
The Laughing Man 
From the New Rotterdam Wiki Project
The Laughing Man refers both to a popular children’s poem and the figure described by the poem itself. First printed in the New Rotterdam Watcher in 1973, “The Laughing Man” was submitted to the paper’s first (and only) Children’s Poetry Contest by eleven-year-old Cecilia Pike.
Grinning ’neath the moonlit sky,
the laughing man has caught your eye.
Dancing, racing, writhing game!
He’s seen your face. He knows your name!
Laughing. Screaming! Whooping cheer.
The laughing man rings in your ear.
Gaining. Almost. Nearly there!
He’s close enough to grab your hair.
Fingers reaching, footfalls spry.
If he gets you, then you will
While most initially believed the missing word was the result of a printing error, the paper eventually revealed that it was a purposeful omission on the part of the young author, “inviting readers to supply the ending of their choice.” Even so, the Watcher received numerous complaints about the poem’s strangely menacing tone. It wasn’t long before rumors began circulating that the rhyme itself was cursed, and anyone who finished it—inserting the logical final word at the poem’s conclusion[1]—would be butchered by the Laughing Man.
Indeed, the summer of 1973 saw a rash of grisly murders. While most of the killings were eventually attributed to serial killer Jack Allen Casey, a number contained conflicting details that cast doubt on his involvement. “The Laughing Man” quickly entered the public imagination as an enduring local taboo.
In 2008, reporter Emily Hatcher-Thorn began planning a piece commemorating “The Laughing Man” for the Watcher and hoped to interview its author, Cecilia Pike, who would have been forty-five at the time. Instead, Hatcher-Thorn discovered that the only New Rotterdam resident to bear that name had died a hundred years prior to the poem’s printing, murdered on the night of June 7, 1873. Cecilia was eleven years old at the time. Days after posting her discovery on social media, Hatcher-Thorn herself went missing. Her whereabouts are still unknown.
Notes
1. Editorial note. As many of our administrators are New Rotterdam residents with strong feelings about the subject, official policy is that the poem’s final word will never be included in the body of this article. For this reason, editing privileges are locked.
