by Libba Bray
“Evie.” Theta shook her awake.
“What? What? I… I was dreaming. Deeply dreaming,” Evie panted. She put a hand to her heart.
“Of Mabel?”
“Yes,” Evie said, surprised. “There was a place on a map—”
“Gideon, Kansas,” Theta said.
Evie was too stunned to do much more than nod. There was a knock at their door. When Evie opened up, she was surprised to see Sam standing there in the corridor, shirtless and barefoot, wearing a dazed expression.
“Hey. I hope I didn’t wake you. I had the strangest dream.…”
“A map. Gideon, Kansas. Mabel?” Evie asked.
“Okay. We might be spending too much time together,” Sam said.
Isaiah wandered down out of his compartment. “I saw Mabel,” he said on a yawn.
“Start packing,” Evie said, opening up her trunk and taking out the few things she’d need. She’d pay Zarilda for them out of her check.
“Packing for what? We got two days of shows in Jefferson City,” Sam called.
“Not anymore,” Evie called back. “We’re going to Gideon.”
By eight o’clock, they’d packed their things. Sam broke the news to Zarilda.
“I surely hate to see you go,” Zarilda said. They’d pulled into the depot. The whole circus had come to see them off. Johnny the Wolf Boy had tears in his eyes. “Aw, come on over here and give your Auntie Z some sugar.” Isaiah fell into Zarilda’s embrace. He hated to say good-bye. She kissed the top of his head and tucked a Hershey bar into his knapsack. “If you get hungry.”
The entire company lined the roadway to wave the Diviners off. Arnold had lent them a truck the circus used to move supplies. It was a big, lumbering thing, but it would drive them where they needed to go. He also provided a road map.
“You be careful now. What with those Shadow Men and that terrible Roy out looking for you. Not to mention the ghosts,” Zarilda said.
“Gee, Zarilda, when you put it that way, sounds like we don’t have a chance in hell,” Sam said.
“I’m serious, Sam Lloyd. Be careful who you trust. Stick to the back roads. And keep your head down—you tend to get a li’l cocky, my friend.”
Sam spread his arms wide while walking backward. “I’m not cocky. Can I help it if I’m just that good?”
Evie batted her lashes. “You could always try.”
Theta had opened the map.
“Lemme look,” Sam said.
“You can’t read a map,” Theta said without moving.
“It’s true. I hate maps. And directions. And rules.”
Theta hadn’t been back to Kansas since she’d run away after her power first came in. Kansas was the place where she’d been abandoned by her parents. Kansas was Roy and pain. She did not want to go to Kansas. But sometimes you had to do things you didn’t want to do, things that frightened you, if they were the right things. With her finger, she followed the squiggly line through Missouri and into Kansas. Gideon was a tiny town in the northwestern part of the state. She whistled. “That’s a long way.”
“Then we’d better get started,” Evie said. Mabel had reached out at last. Mabel would be there waiting. Mabel needed her.
“If you ever decide the circus life is for you, well, you know where to find us come November,” Zarilda said.
There will be a November for you, Evie thought as they waved good-bye to the circus. We’ll make sure of it.
While Ling waited for Jericho to buy their train tickets, she thought about the dream and fought the uneasy feeling in her gut. She had spoken to spirits in dreams plenty of times. What she’d seen last night had been indeterminate. Had that been Mabel’s ghost? Was she issuing an invitation, or a warning? And if Mabel Rose was no longer at rest, what did that mean?
Alma wasn’t happy about Ling and Jericho leaving for Gideon. She stood on the train platform in the early morning light. There was still a bit of sleep crusted in the inner corners of her eyes where she hadn’t managed to get all of the previous night’s makeup off. “Can’t you at least stay on till Detroit? You don’t even know anything about this town.”
“Jericho and I had exactly the same dream, Alma. And Henry was there, too. I can’t explain it, but I know we have to go,” Ling said. “It’s a sign.”
“What if it’s a bad sign?” Alma asked.
“That’s the trouble with signs,” Ling said. “You don’t know till you get there.”
While Ling said her good-byes to Alma, Lupe lay on the backseat of the Ford with Jericho. “I can’t believe you’re leaving me,” she said, wrapping her arms around his waist.
“Just for a little while,” Jericho said. He stroked her hair away from her face.
“You’re gonna find you some other girl out there. I just know it,” Lupe said.
“Not one who can play drums like you can.” Jericho kissed Lupe on her perfect mouth. He thought about Evie less and less. “You are my ranita.”
Lupe burst out laughing. “Do you mean mi reina?”
“Does that mean ‘my queen’?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what I meant. What was the other thing I said?”
“You called me your little frog.”
“You’re that, too.”
“And you are mi amado,” Lupe purred into Jericho’s ear and kissed his neck.
“What is that?”
“My love.” She sat up and buttoned her blouse. “Gideon, Kansas, eh? I’m pretty sure the only thing to date there are cows.”
“I won’t ask the word for that.”
They held each other for another minute. “You be careful. I’m scared of those ghosts, Jericho.”
He kissed the top of her head. Me, too, he thought.
Jericho waved to Ling as he headed toward the platform.
“I guess this is it,” Ling said. She and Alma hugged, and Ling breathed in Alma’s scent, trying to memorize it. Ling could hear the chugging of the train and see puffs of black smoke coming around the bend.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said. About us being something new. Something we don’t know the name for yet,” Alma said.
Ling prepared herself for bad news. “And?”
“I was thinking, I like new.”
Ling let sail one of her biggest smiles.
“So do good, all right?” Alma said.
“All right.”
“You ready?” Jericho asked Ling.
“No.”
“Good. Me, neither.”
Ling and Jericho boarded the Atchison & Topeka headed to Gideon. Whatever was waiting for them there, they’d meet it head-on.
GIDEON
Gideon, Kansas, was a small, pleasant-enough-seeming spot on the western edge of the state. Down the long stretch of Main Street, there were the usual suspects: A hardware store. A barbershop. A cafeteria with gold lettering on its windows advertising that it served BREAKFAST, LUNCH, AND SUPPER, and a garage with two round-topped gasoline pumps out front alongside a pillar of stacked tires. In front of the bank, the Stars and Stripes fluttered at the top of a flagpole. A row of houses with deep front porches so much the better for sitting out on a fine summer’s evening with a pitcher of lemonade shared among neighbors while children ran up and down the street after fireflies with mason jars. And in front of those houses were the rows of telephone poles to keep people connected. Birds hopped along the wires, curious about what was going on down below. At the end of the block sat a white-steepled Presbyterian church with a sign out front listing the worship time: Sunday morning, ten o’clock. And at the other end sat a small train depot bordering railroad tracks that disappeared into the distance on either end. It was the sort of town, Henry thought, that appeared on postcards representing America.
They had parked the roadster pickup on a side street where the three of them watched the citizens of Gideon through the dirty windshield.
“Seems friendly enough,” Memphis said, nervous.
“Sur
e. Friendly town. Friendly people. Friendly crosses burning in the night,” Henry said under his breath.
Bill opened the door. “Come on. Let’s see if the others made it.”
The citizens of Gideon seemed fairly ordinary. They shopped and stopped in for a shave at the barbershop or visited the bank teller. And if they glanced toward the newcomers in their midst, it was momentary. They had stories in their heads, and they went about their business.
“Why did Mabel tell us to come here?” Henry said.
“Beats me,” Memphis answered.
Henry slowed, squinted, then grinned. “Hey!” he shouted, waving. He nudged Memphis and Bill. “Look!”
Just ahead, in front of Frederickson Masonry Store, stood Theta, Evie, Sam, and Isaiah, looking just as lost.
“Isaiah,” Memphis said, choked up. Then: “Isaiah! Isaiah!”
Memphis was running toward his brother as fast as he could and narrowly missed being hit by an auto motoring down the street. Memphis scooped his brother up in his arms. When he saw Theta coming up behind Isaiah, he wished he could do the same with her, but he didn’t dare out here on a street in western Kansas. He looked into her eyes, and she returned the gaze of affection.
“Hey, Poet.”
“Princess,” he said.
And if it could be said that two people could embrace inside a gaze, then it was true for them. Henry kissed Theta’s cheek and she kissed his and then they were hugging, the unlikely brother-sister act.
Isaiah talked a mile a minute, trying to tell Memphis the entirety of his journey out on the sidewalk of Gideon. “…and they had lions, Memphis, real lions, and I got to feed ’em. Me. I did it. Well, with a li’l help from Arnold.…”
Memphis held his brother close and didn’t let him go, wouldn’t let him go ever again.
“See, I told you they’d meet us here.” Ling’s voice, reprimanding Jericho. They were down at the bottom of the street, just up from Gideon’s train depot.
Evie waved her arm like a window washer. “Ling! Jericho! Over here!”
“Baby Vamp, we gotta work on your quiet voice,” Sam said, sticking his hands in his pockets and looking down at his shoes. “What happened to ‘let’s not call attention to ourselves’?”
“You made it,” Evie said as Jericho and Ling drew near. “Oh, I’ve missed you both. Hello, Jericho!”
“Hello, Evie. You changed your hair.”
“Yes,” she laughed, running a hand through it.
Henry barged in and dropped his boater hat on Ling’s head. “Take it off,” she said.
Henry did as he was told. “You’re happy to see me, though, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Ling said with absolute sincerity. “Yes. I am very happy to see you.”
“Well, gee. Now I’m… what is that word you use, Sam? To mean overcome with emotion?”
“Verklempt?”
“I am verklempt,” Henry said.
“Gesundheit,” Evie chimed in. Being reunited with her friends made her giddy. She’d missed them so.
“I might remind you that you’re all wanted by every Pinkerton, every sheriff, every Shadow Man in this country. Might be better if we broke up this li’l reunion,” Bill warned.
But none of them could stand to be separated again. It was true, though, that they needed a safe place to congregate. The local library had a little sitting garden off to the side. They met there to catch up while life in the town went on around them. Men piled out of trucks and ambled into the feed store. A quartet of boys started a stickball game down one of the streets, and Isaiah ached to join it.
“We were with the circus,” Isaiah announced to everyone else.
“My pals from before New York,” Sam said. “They—”
Henry grinned. “Don’t tell me—you were the high-wire act, Sam, and Evie, you were the high wire.”
“Hysterical,” Evie said and rolled her eyes. “Where were you?”
“Stuck on a levee in Greenville, Mississippi,” Memphis said. “We got caught in the flood.”
“I’m glad you’re safe,” Theta said.
“Where were you?” Evie asked Jericho and Ling.
“With the Harlem Haymakers,” Jericho said.
“What is that, some kinda farm league?” Sam asked.
“Harlem’s all-girl orchestra,” Ling said proudly. “Alma helped us get away on the TOBA circuit.”
“An all-girl orchestra?” Evie said. “That must account for it. Jericho, you look pos-i-tutely different—I can’t quite put my finger on it.”
“It’s because Jericho has a girlfriend named Lupe now,” Ling said. She was not about to watch the Jericho and Evie sideshow start up again.
“Oh?” Evie said with a smile that Theta and Henry had come to know as her radio smile—bright and fake.
“Well, gee. That’s swell, Freddy. Just swell,” Sam said.
Jericho looked embarrassed. “Thank you, Ling.”
“You’re welcome.”
Jericho stole a glance at Evie, who was doing her level best not to look at him, he knew. He still had some feelings for her. He couldn’t deny it. But his time with her had always been fraught, colored by John Hobbes and Will, Sam and Mabel and Hopeful Harbor. With Lupe, he’d started something fresh. Something that had no past. He liked that. A tiny, petty slice of his heart was glad Ling had blurted out the truth. He wanted Evie to know that he could get along just fine without her.
“So why are we here?” Ling asked.
“Did you dream of Mabel? Was it Mabel who told you to come?” Evie asked.
Everyone nodded.
“But why Gideon, Kansas? Doesn’t seem like anyplace special,” Jericho said.
Down the street, the boys’ stickball game had become contentious. They argued until someone’s mother yelled out the front window at them to stop squabbling.
“Something feels strange to me,” Ling said.
“We’re fighting ghosts and trying to figure out how to repair a hole between dimensions. You might have to be more specific,” Sam said.
“Why Gideon? It’s just an ordinary town,” Ling said.
Jericho folded his arms. “I just said that.”
“No, you didn’t. You said it didn’t seem like anyplace special.”
“That is quite literally the same thing.”
“Maybe because it’s so ordinary, it was a safe place to meet,” Henry speculated. “Mabel said, ‘That is where we will meet.’”
“She also said, ‘That is where you will understand,’” Ling said.
“Understand what?” Sam said.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” Ling started. “It’s about us and the ghosts…”
Isaiah…
The voices of Memphis and his friends faded to a murmur. It was Sarah Beth he heard now.
Isaiah, talk to me.…
His eyes rolled up in their sockets and his body went rigid as the vision swept through him like a brushfire, pulling him into their shared space of the dark room. There, Sarah Beth kneeled and brushed the pale yellow hair of her porcelain doll. She glanced up and smiled. “Isaiah! Where are you? When are you getting to Bountiful?”
“We’re on our way, but we had to stop in another town first.”
“What do you mean?” Brush. Brush. Brush.
“Our friend Mabel, she came to us in a dream and told us to meet in Gideon, Kansas.”
Sarah Beth stopped brushing the doll’s hair. “Who?”
“Mabel Rose. She’s passed on, but—”
“Why did you listen?” Sarah Beth said. She seemed angry.
“She’s our friend.”
“Why did you listen?” Sarah Beth repeated. No, not angry. Scared.
Behind Sarah Beth, the dark was not a nothing. It was full of terrors. It dropped away, and Isaiah began to shake as if the world were tilting off its axis. He saw himself back at Jake Marlowe’s Future of America Exhibition, in the Fitter Families tent, holding fast to the bronze medal he�
��d wanted but that they wouldn’t let him have, the one that read, YEA, I HAVE A GOODLY HERITAGE. All the things he’d seen with that medal in his grip came rushing over him in their horror now: Visions of bone-thin prisoners behind barbed-wire fences. Tall smokestacks belching a foul pollution into the air. Boxcars with hands reaching out of the slats. Now there was more coming: Gray skies choked with smoke. Humans struggling for survival among shriveled crops and polluted streams. Piles of dead bodies, so many that it made it hard to weep. As if people were no more than stones and there was no point in crying anymore because there was nothing to be done. The horror rolled over everything, unstoppable. Behind it all, Jake Marlowe’s golden machine churned eternally. The Eye symbol beamed out from the forehead of the King of Crows. Isaiah could see him lurking inside its golden body, like he was part of the machine, and he was grinning, and his eyes, his eyes were a forever night that nobody could wake up from no matter how hard they tried.
Isaiah came out of his vision. He was lying on the ground with his head in Memphis’s lap and all his friends crowded around him.
“Is that boy all right?” some lady was asking, and Bill was telling her that the boy was fine, just having a fit that would settle in a minute, no need to worry none, and it all sounded like a conversation underwater. Isaiah needed to warn them that Gideon wasn’t safe. But he couldn’t seem to speak.
The low rumble of thunder reverberated through the town. Jericho squinted up at the sun. “Doesn’t look like rain.”
But the thunder answered differently.
“Gracious,” a woman on the street said. “Sounds like we’re about to get a storm, Frank. You’ll want to pull in the rugs.”
“Oh, it’s just some clouds squabbling, Florence. It’ll pass.”
The thunder came again, heavy and pounding, as if some wild thing had broken free of its cage. The people of Gideon came out of their shops and filling stations and pretty houses with nice front porches. They gathered in the street. Dark clouds were swirling above the town. A red pulse beat behind them, like a fire ready to break out.
“What is that?”
“Never seen anything quite like it.”
“It was pure blue a minute ago!”