by Libba Bray
“Ohio,” Evie said with scorn.
“Baby Vamp here’s from Ohio. She just loves her hometown,” Sam singsonged.
“If I never see that place again, it’ll be too soon,” Evie said.
“Well. Everybody’s gotta be from somewhere. I’m from Texas myself. But, big as that state is, it wasn’t big enough to hold me. I guess I’m just a born traveler. There’s nothing like the thrill of bein’ in a different town every week. Meetin’ all those people. Realizing we’ve all got dreams and a need for a few hours of shared wonder. Guess I’m a circus woman, through and through. Oh, I also enjoy taking their money. Sure beats working the family farm. Lots of folks don’t have much going on. The circus brings a little magic to town, and everybody wants magic in their lives,” Zarilda said, finishing up the last few bites of her lemon cake.
“Unless that magic comes from Diviners,” Theta added dryly.
The room got very quiet.
“All right. Time to level with us, Sam. You know I don’t keep secrets from my circus family,” Zarilda demanded.
Sam confessed everything—from Project Buffalo to the King of Crows, Jake Marlowe’s Eye, the restless dead, and their hope that reuniting with Sarah Beth Olson in Bountiful would provide the answers the Diviners needed in order to defeat the King of Crows and close the hole between dimensions. When he had finished, the tent was pin-drop quiet.
Polly the Bearded Lady leaned against Bella the Strong Man for comfort. “Are there really ghosts out there? Bad ghosts?” she asked.
“I’m afraid so,” Evie said.
“I’ve communed with the spirits some before,” Zarilda said. “They never bothered me none.”
“This is different,” Evie said. “These ghosts are joined to the King of Crows. It’s his Army of the Dead.”
“Well, what’s he training his army to do?”
“That’s just it—we don’t exactly know. We’re hoping Sarah Beth will be the ticket. She seems to have the answers we need.”
Zarilda whistled. “Well, I will do ever’thang in my power to git you where you need to be.”
“Hey! Would ya look at that?” Sam grinned, tapping the list of towns they’d be visiting. “Looks like we’ll be heading straight for your hometown after all, Evie.”
Evie’s eyes widened in horror. “What?” She ripped the list from Sam’s hands and read through. There it was, right after Morgantown, West Virginia: Zenith, Ohio.
“It isn’t funny,” Evie fumed as Sam chuckled.
“Oh, come on—can I help it if I’m dying to see the town that spawned you, Baby Vamp?”
“Spawned is about right. It’s an oozy swamp of a place, all vipers and crocodiles. It’s so inbred, it’s a miracle people have their own teeth. Besides, what if people recognize me?”
“In your clown getup? Sister, if they do, you’ve got a whole secret life you never told me about.”
“Zenith,” Evie groused. “I’d almost rather have the Shadow Men take me.”
Sam got quiet. “Don’t say that.”
“Sam…” Evie said. He left the table and walked down the hill toward the pond.
“Sam!” Evie called out, following him. “Oh, Sam. I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry.”
She threw her arms around his neck and covered his face with kisses.
“Say,” Sam said, coming up for air, “I like the way you apologize.”
“Don’t get used to it,” Evie said with a laugh. “I’m very rarely wrong, don’t you know. Oh, Sam. Won’t you tell me what’s eating you?”
They walked down near the elephants.
“I saw things when I was hooked up to the Eye. Things I couldn’t understand. It was like time was all around me, and the past and present and future were all mixed up, with different outcomes each time.”
There had been a future without her. And that had frightened him the most. But how could he tell her that?
“I don’t understand.”
“Ling and Jericho are the Einsteins, not me, Baby Doll. All I know is, I saw lotsa different futures playing out. But then I saw the King of Crows. He had this hourglass. He said all those stories would just become one. The one he’s in charge of—death and horror, everywhere.”
Evie rubbed her arms against the sudden goose bumps. “Well, we simply can’t allow that to happen. We’ll have to stop it. That’s all there is to it.”
“It’s got something to do with the changes Marlowe’s making to the Eye. The King of Crows is whispering in Marlowe’s ear. And those bums have still got my mother.”
“We’re going to get her back. I promise. And we’re going to kick those Shadow Men in the shins.”
“Sounds like you’re drunk when you say that.”
“I wish I were,” Evie grumbled. “I suppose I could always get sizzled on Doc’s homemade hooch.”
“Only if you want to grow hair on your chest. Say, Evie?”
“Yes, Sam?”
“Would you mind apologizing to me again?”
Evie smiled and wrapped her arms around his neck once more. “I’m sorry, Sam.” She leaned forward inch by inch, parting her lips seductively, getting Sam hot under the collar. At the last minute, she dodged and kissed him playfully on the cheek. That was Evie. She had a way of making even ordinary moments into fizzy affairs, and he was grateful for the distraction.
He smirked. “See, I don’t believe you’re sorry.”
“How about now?” Evie said, kissing him so passionately that Sam’s head went as buzzy as if he’d fallen from a great height.
“The question is, how sorry?” He wanted to hold her all day and all night.
“Very, very sorry,” Evie said.
She pressed herself against Sam, and he was overcome both with desire and gratitude. Kissing her pushed away his pain and made him feel, for the moment, that all their futures would be all right. He drew her in closer. He wanted more than just a kiss, and from the way Evie’s lips traveled his neck, Sam thought she did, too. Eyes closed, he moaned. “Whaddaya doin’ to my head, Baby Vamp?” He laughed and opened his eyes. “Say, that tickles!”
“Jeepers!” Evie jumped back as an elephant’s curious trunk explored Sam’s ear.
“Hey, what’s the big idea?” Sam said, whirling around. “Hattie? Aww, it’s Hattie! I guess she remembers me.”
“Doubtful,” Evie said, laughing.
“Yeah? How you figure that?”
“Hattie is a woman. If she remembered you, Sam, I’m sure she’d slap your face with that trunk,” Evie said. She looked up at him through her lashes. “Well. I suppose I’d better go cool off. Don’t want to cause a scandal on my first day with the circus.” She turned and walked back toward Theta and their cabin.
He didn’t want her to go. Ever. “Wait! You gonna apologize for that comment about Hattie?” Sam pointed to his lips.
Evie grinned and kept walking. “Not on your life, Sam Lloyd. You still owe me twenty clams.”
Sam watched her go, fighting the urge to run after her and beg her to stay with him all night. With a sigh, he turned to Hattie. “I think she might be part elephant, too, the way she never forgets.”
Jake Marlowe crumpled the note Evie had left on his desk for him. He was furious, Miriam Lubovitch knew, and this pleased her.
“How did she get in here?” Jake demanded of Jefferson and Adams, who had the audacity to act unperturbed. “This will not be appreciated by your employers.”
“You asked us to bring you the Russian. If you’d wanted two Russians, you should’ve said so,” Jefferson said and bit into a pistachio.
“My son is American,” Miriam corrected. “And he is missing?” A cruel mirth lit up Miriam’s eyes. “How is it people are always leaving you, Jake?”
Jake glared and Miriam sobered. He’d never hit her himself. But she could feel he was on the verge. Marlowe paced the length of the room, and Miriam wondered if he knew he was doing exactly what Will Fitzgerald used to do.
“Well,”
he said, running his fingers through his slicked-back hair. “We’ll just have to get him back. Along with all of his friends. You’ll help us with that, won’t you, Miriam?”
“Why should I do this? Why would a mother work against her son?”
“We could force you,” Adams said.
Miriam stared straight ahead and would not meet his eyes. “When I am free of these chains, I will break your mind into pieces.”
“Enough, Miriam,” Jake said. “You’ll help us because there’s a price on Sam’s head. Isn’t it better that we find him and the others and bring them in safely?”
Miriam scoffed. “Safe? This is safe?” She lifted her chin and spoke with pride. “I know my Sergei. He is clever. I will—what is it you say? Place my bets on him.” She nodded at the crumpled note. “And his friends.”
“The Eye is unstable, Miriam! You know this.”
“The Eye you built is unstable,” she said pointedly. “Maybe you should not have built it to begin with.”
Jake changed his tone. He smiled. “Miriam. Miriam. Think of all we’ve been through. All we’ve done toward this moment.”
“All you’ve done!”
“You were part of the department, Miriam. Don’t forget that. You were there, too.”
Miriam couldn’t deny this. She’d not wanted to come when they’d asked, but once she’d been recruited, she had felt a fierce pride that she, a Jewish immigrant from a Russian shtetl, a fortune-teller, might prove an American hero. If only she’d known then how disastrous it would be, how she would lose years with her son, and for what? She’d tried to warn them. No one had listened.
“I know it’s been difficult, Miriam. We’ve all sacrificed so much—you most of all. Do you want that sacrifice to be in vain? We are so very close to marching into that other dimension and making it ours. We could have dominion over death! We can claim that land and control the King of Crows! We only need to keep it open a little while longer, until I can finish the modifications. But without Diviners, we can’t charge the machine to its full power.”
“You make it all sound so reasonable.”
“We are creating the future, Miriam. Just like we did seventeen years ago. But without our babies, our Diviners, our weapons, we lose.”
He smiled as he patted her hand. And in that moment, Miriam knew she hated Jake Marlowe more than she had ever hated anyone, even the Tsar, and that was saying something.
Miriam yanked her hand free. “Then you lose.”
A furious Jake Marlowe nodded to the Shadow Men. “Take her back. Chain the door to within an inch of its life. And then go find me some Diviners.”
THE HARLEM HAYMAKERS
As Alma had promised, the bus for the Harlem Haymakers’ barnstorming tour of the country showed up promptly at nine thirty AM.
“Do you know what a miracle that is? A bunch of musicians showing up on time?” Alma laughed.
Henry would love that joke, Ling thought. She hoped Henry was okay, that he’d gotten away all right last night. She’d asked Alma to grab some newspapers. Every one of the papers was a special edition, with screaming, giant headlines:
TERROR IN TIMES SQUARE! MANHUNT ON FOR DIVINERS!
PUBLIC ENEMIES! MARLOWE OFFERS BOUNTY!
MEMORIAL MAYHEM! DANGEROUS DIVINERS WANTED FOR TREASON!
“Anything about the others?” Jericho asked as Ling scoured each one.
Ling shook her head. “If they’d been caught, the papers would be talking about it.”
“I guess that’s good, then,” Jericho said. “We all managed to get away.”
“Not Sister Walker,” Ling said. “If they try her and she’s found guilty, she’ll face the electric chair. She didn’t kill Will Fitzgerald. I know she didn’t.”
“How are we going to prove that she didn’t?” Jericho asked.
“All finished,” Alma said, snapping her suitcase shut. She’d let Ling pack some of her clothes to wear on the road.
“Sorry I didn’t have anything for you,” Alma said playfully to Jericho. “We can pick up something for you on our travels.”
“I’ll be all right,” Jericho said.
Alma made a stink face. “If I have to ride that bus with you, friend, you’re going to need a change of underwear.”
“Oh.” Jericho blushed so hard, Ling was afraid he’d burst.
Outside by the bus at the curb, a skinny dark-skinned man wearing a tan fedora and a red bow tie shouted up the steps. “Shake a leg, Alma!”
“I’m shaking, aren’t I?” she called back.
Jericho carried down the two suitcases and tied them to the roof of the bus alongside the instruments already piled there. The skinny man eyed Jericho. “How do?”
Jericho extended his hand. “Freddy Smith.”
The other man gave it a solid shake. “Heywood T. Holliday. But everybody calls me Doc.”
“Doc… Holliday?”
Doc grinned. “It gets me some funny looks sometimes. But it’s memorable! You, uh, a friend of Miss Alma’s?”
“Yes. I think.”
“Which one is it?”
“I think,” Jericho said. “Excuse me.”
Jericho fell in beside Ling. “Need anything?”
“Yes. Not to be wanted for murder. And to figure out how to stop the King of Crows,” Ling said.
“I mean more along the lines of getting on the bus.”
“I can manage,” Ling said.
Alma jogged along right behind them, full of good cheer, a slash of red lipstick livening up her mouth and making her smile even brighter. At her neck was a pretty pink silk scarf tied into a lopsided bow. “Doc! These are my dear friends, Mr. Freddy Smith and Miss Mary Chang. They’re… cousins. They’re headed west to visit a sick aunt. I told them they could ride with us, seeing as we’re going that way.”
Doc folded his arms at his chest and motioned Alma to the side with a jerk of his head. “Miss LaVoy,” he said evenly. “You know I’m not running no taxi service. Who are these people you’re putting on my tour bus? And one of ’em is a man!”
“Yes, I can tell. I had anatomy in school.”
“Alma.”
“I told you, Doc, they’re friends of mine. Friends in need.”
“Do I look like a charity? Who said I got two empty seats?”
“If you don’t want Leah to know about Martha, and Martha to know about Shirley, I suggest you bring them along,” Alma said, fluffing and straightening the bow at her neck as if that were her only real concern.
“Now, that’s just doing a fella dirty,” Doc complained.
“Now, see here, the big fella’s strong. He can unload all the instruments and haul ’em back up again. And he can be our muscle on the road. Or help us get food or whatnot when we can’t find colored accommodations,” Alma said.
“And the lady?”
Alma winked. “Honey, she’s with me.”
Doc’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh. That’s how it is?”
“Yep. That’s how it is.”
As Ling boarded the Ford AA bus, she was stunned to discover that the Harlem Haymakers were women. “Mary Chang, Freddy Smith, may I introduce Harlem’s finest all-girl orchestra!” Alma proclaimed. “Everybody, these are my friends Mary and Freddy.”
The girls, some of whom looked to be as young as Ling, said their hellos. Seeing Ling’s crutches, a big-boned girl with reddish hair got up to offer Ling her seat up front. Ling thanked her and moved to the back, where she wouldn’t have to talk to strangers. She didn’t like small talk and wasn’t good at it, and she had no intention of starting to learn now. When Jericho got on, he felt the women’s eyes on him, scrutinizing.
“Hmph,” one girl in a blue cloche said and raised her eyebrows to the girl sitting next to her. A girl in a fur-trimmed shawl-collar coat fluttered her lashes at Alma. “You bringing along your sweet man, Alma?”
“Mr. Smith is here to help us with the equipment on this trip, and to be our muscle,” Alma said, head held high, a
s if she dared any girl to dispute her story.
“I got some equipment he could help with,” one of the women whispered to her friend, and they burst into cackles.
“Laaadiess, please,” Alma trilled.
A girl checking her lipstick in a compact mirror laughed. “Don’t play auntie, Alma!”
“Comport yourselves with dignity,” Doc growled from the driver’s seat, earning boos and hoots, calls of “Pardon me, Daddy!” and plenty of rolled eyes from the girls.
“I must’ve been plumb out of my mind to take this gig,” Doc muttered. He pushed the electric starter and the bus purred to life. “Next stop, Philadelphia, P-A! Look out, America—here we come!”
Ling and Jericho learned everyone’s names. The girl in the fur-trimmed coat was Guadalupe—Lupe to her friends—and she was the drummer. Doc was the promoter and bus driver. The blue cloche girl was Eloise; she played clarinet. The kind girl up front who’d offered Ling a seat was Babe: “I play the saxophone.” The girl checking her lipstick was Dorothy, who played piano. There were the twins, Sadie and Sally Mae, both on trumpet, and Emmaline, a pixie of a girl with a dusting of freckles across her nose who informed Ling and Jericho that she played “banjo, guitar, and poker, but not in that order.”
“And I sing and dance and lead the band,” Alma said, stretching out her long legs on the seat.
“Here come the Harlem Haymakers!” Lupe called and whistled.
At a stoplight on 125th Street, several police wagons blocked the street. Police officers fanned out, going door to door, stopping in all the businesses.
“Who’re they looking for?” Babe asked.
“Bootleggers, I’ll bet,” Alma said quickly as Ling shrank down in her seat and pulled her coat collar up.
“Must be somebody big,” Doc said from behind the wheel. “Guess I’ll have to go around.”
“Say, who knows all the words to ‘California Rose’?” Alma started up a song to distract everyone, and soon the bus was full of Harlem’s all-girl orchestra singing every blues and jazz number they knew. The bus ride took them downtown to Canal Street. As they rattled past Chinatown, Ling got a catch in her chest. The news would be hitting her street, too. Ling worried about how much shame this would bring to her parents. All the gossip flying around the neighborhood: “Did you see about Ling Chan?” “Yes! An anarchist!” She worried that people would stop going to their restaurant or—worse—that people would show up to harass her family. Ling loved her parents deeply. They were good parents, and she had tried to be a good daughter. It was astonishing how quickly your life could be upended. One day, Ling could walk, and then, after her sickness, she couldn’t. Yesterday morning, she had been a good citizen; today, she was a wanted criminal with a price on her head.