by Libba Bray
“Your friend is really sick, isn’t she?” Sarah Beth asked as she skipped a pebble across the rippled back of the river.
“Yeah. I s’pose she is,” Isaiah said.
“Let’s moon glow,” Sarah Beth said abruptly.
“But we couldn’t bring on rain.”
“No. Let’s moon glow to see if we can find out anything about your friend.”
Isaiah agreed that this was a good plan. But he didn’t want to hold her hands out here where anybody could see them, so they curved around out on a jetty that Sarah Beth said was usually underwater.
“Not too close,” Isaiah said, mindful of the river.
“Let’s really go all in,” Sarah Beth said. “Let’s see what we can do together when we truly put our minds to it.”
“All in,” Isaiah agreed.
They joined hands. The pleasant, warm sensation enveloped Isaiah. He was in that dark place he was coming to know as the in-between space where he and Sarah Beth would meet.
Sarah Beth?
“I’m here, Isaiah.”
He saw her outlined by shadow. She held out her hand here, too. He reached for it, concentrating for all he was worth. Suddenly, they were in a forest of barren, broken trees, and it was night but there were no stars, only fat birds with many eyes watching them from sickly branches.
“Isaiah? Where are you? I can’t see you! Come find me.”
Isaiah wound his way through the dark wood until he came to a desolate clearing and a golden, spiderlike machine rising up to a sky churning with electricity. He still couldn’t find Sarah Beth. The machine gave Isaiah a funny feeling, though, like a slumbering giant in a fairy tale who might wake and bring his foot down to crush Isaiah. Like Jack and the Beanstalk, he thought.
I think that’s the Eye, the machine that’s causing all the trouble.
“Ohh. Do you see him anywhere?”
Isaiah pushed deeper into this vision. It felt as if he were flying across fields of death, until at last he spied the King of Crows sitting upon a high throne made from skulls and bones. Rats poked their twitching noses from eyeholes before scampering back inside with a flick of their long pink tails. The dead surrounded the throne, staring up at him with worshipful eyes.
“Where are you? I-I can’t find you. I’m scared, Isaiah!” Sarah Beth said.
“I hunger,” the King of Crows said.
“We hunger,” the dead responded.
“I would have more.”
“More.”
“They are keeping it from us.”
“They are keeping it from us.”
“Let us take back what is rightfully ours. The time is now.”
“The time is now.”
Isaiah’s mother was there in the crowd, but she was not looking up at the King of Crows. She was looking at him, and her eyes were wide. Isaiah started to call to her, and she put a finger to her lips and shook her head desperately. Around her, a ripple passed through the dead. They sniffed and growled.
“Who goes there?” the King of Crows demanded.
Isaiah was frightened. He wanted out of there. Sarah Beth? Sarah Beth!
He didn’t know enough about how their moon glow worked. What if he ran and she was left behind? The dead were moving, sniffing for him.
“Isaiah? Isaiah! Where are you?” Sarah Beth called.
Sarah Beth, we gotta go now!
The starless night was alive with birdlike shrieks and growls. He felt the touch of Sarah Beth’s fingers inside his vision. And then he was being pulled from the land of the dead into a different vision. What Isaiah saw now was the river at the edge of the Olsons’ farm. Swollen to twice its size, it moved with terrifying swiftness. Sarah Beth’s socks and shoes lay in the grass beside a rock covered in blood. He did not see her. Where was she?
The vision expelled Isaiah. He came out of it, gasping and trying to get his bearings. He was back by the thinning stripe of river, which gurgled tamely, and there was no blood on the rocks that he could see.
“Isaiah?” Sarah Beth was breathing heavily, too. “Did you see him?”
“Uh-huh.”
“He’s planning something, isn’t he?”
“Sure seems like it,” Isaiah said, but as with all his visions, he couldn’t say when this would take place.
“I hope your friend heals up quick. We need to get to work before it’s too late,” Sarah Beth said. She frowned. “What is it? Your face has gone all funny.”
“Did, um, did you see anything else?”
“No. Did you?”
Isaiah felt guilty about the river vision. What if what he’d seen had been some warning about Sarah Beth? She wouldn’t see her own future coming for her, probably. He didn’t know for sure, and he didn’t want to scare her. What if she didn’t want to be his friend anymore?
Sarah Beth stamped her foot. “Isaiah!”
“You, uh, you said your mama doesn’t let you go in the water?”
Sarah Beth growled low in her throat and twirled around. “She won’t let me do a doggone thing!”
“What if your mama’s right about that river being dangerous?”
Sarah Beth rolled her eyes. She put her hands to her hips. “Don’t tell me you’re gonna fuss at me, too! Never you mind about Mother. Tell me what else you saw!”
“I saw his throne in the forest. All made of bones!”
Sarah Beth nodded. “Me, too. But how come I didn’t see you there?”
“Dunno.” He thought for a moment. “Maybe we can only talk to each other.”
“Maybe. Well, no matter. Now we know where he keeps himself. That’s something, isn’t it?” She wiped a hand across her brow. “Whew. Moon glowing sure does make you tired, though. Doesn’t it?”
“Sure does.”
There had been a rock covered in blood. Her shoes. Her socks. Isaiah’s stomach hurt from keeping this secret. He wished he knew what to do. He lay back in the grass and stared up at the clouds changing shapes in an effort to calm his racing mind.
“At least we’re learning how to control it some. Neither one of us has had a fit since you’ve been here. I reckon if we keep at it, we’ll get so strong we’ll never be tired at all.” Sarah Beth lay down next to Isaiah. He could feel the heat of her small body. It made him nervous, though he couldn’t say why.
Isaiah got quickly to his feet. “Let’s go feed the mama cat.”
They walked back to the house, carrying the pail of minnows between them. Isaiah resolved to keep Sarah Beth safe. He’d make sure she didn’t get hurt in the river. He’d keep her away from it, if necessary. As they walked, Isaiah told Sarah Beth all the “Who’s this?” jokes he knew, and was delighted when she laughed and asked for more, and soon, his earlier worry eased.
His smile vanished, though, as they rounded the barn. Bill Johnson was drinking from a cup of water. A memory flooded Isaiah. In a vision months ago, he’d seen a man like this, tall and broad-shouldered and mighty as an African prince, and there had been a warning in it. Ghosts on the road. Isaiah hadn’t thought of Bill at the time because the man in his vision had been young and strong and Bill was still Blind Bill Johnson and he was old and worn out. Isaiah had seen a fat wall of dust billowing up in the distance with something mean and white glinting inside it. Ghosts on the road.
“What’s the matter?” Sarah Beth asked.
There was no scary wall of dust out there now that Isaiah could see, only a plain dirt road leading nowhere for miles. The day was sunny and fine, and Bill Johnson was fine, too.
“Nothing,” Isaiah answered and let that go, too.
Sam couldn’t remember ever being so exhausted. “Even my tongue is tired,” he said as Mrs. Olson rang the bell for supper.
“Not tired enough,” Jericho said.
The Diviners washed up and joined the Olsons at the table, where they tucked eagerly into a hearty dinner of roast beef and potatoes. Theta asked Sarah Beth about the vision that had brought them to Bountiful in the first place. “Y
ou said you know how to stop the King of Crows?”
Sarah Beth nodded, beaming.
“She waiting for an invitation?” Sam muttered to Memphis, who elbowed him to keep quiet. “Fine, no hurry,” Sam grumbled. “It’s only the end of the world we’re worried about here.”
Sarah Beth glared at Sam. “I don’t have to tell you if you’re not going to be a gentleman. I only like gentlemen.”
Memphis flashed Sam a Didn’t I try to tell you? look. “Apologize,” he whispered to Sam.
“I’m sorry, Sarah Beth. Go on,” Sam said, chastened.
“We have to work on our powers,” she said. “We have to work on our powers together. We weren’t all together before. And we won’t be till your friend wakes up and gets stronger.”
“Her name is Evie,” Ling said.
“When Evie gets stronger,” Sarah Beth said. “You said your powers were like wild horses you can’t control. I’m the reins. I can keep everything controlled. Like your mother does, right, Sam?”
What his mother did was beyond what anyone should be asked to do. Sam hoped Sarah Beth wouldn’t have to absorb the pain his mother did. “Sure. Right, kid,” Sam said.
Sarah Beth tossed her hair over her shoulder. “I am not a kid.”
“Goodness. All this talk of powers makes me feel unsettled. It isn’t good for Mr. Olson’s digestion. Why don’t we discuss something more pleasant over supper?” Mrs. Olson suggested.
But no one could think of much to say, and they passed the rest of the meal in silence.
Just before turning in, Sam went upstairs to see Evie, where he found Sarah Beth sitting on Evie’s bed, holding her hand. Sarah Beth’s eyes were closed and her lips were moving.
“Whatcha doing?” Sam asked.
Sarah Beth jumped. “Lands’ sake! You like to stop my heart!”
“I’ll bet your heart’s too strong to stop just from the sound of my voice, though it has had that effect on lots of girls older than you,” Sam said.
Sarah Beth didn’t laugh. She was a little humorless, Sam had noticed, which put him at a disadvantage in trying to make friends. “Whatcha doing with Evie?”
“Praying. Mother said I should.”
“Oh,” Sam said. “Well. That’s real nice.”
“Will she get better?” Sarah Beth asked.
“Sure. Sure, she will.”
“What’s the matter with your voice?”
“Nothing. Just, I ate some bread and, uh, it… it scratched my throat is all.”
“You sounded like you were gonna cry.”
“No. Naw. I don’t cry, kid.”
Sarah Beth bristled. “I keep telling you! I’m not a kid. I’m a lady.”
“Sure. Of course you are.” He bowed to her in a courtly way.
This made Sarah Beth smile and blush just a little, Sam saw. He felt sorry for her. Thanks to Project Buffalo, Sarah Beth Olson was still a kid in so many ways, but she clearly didn’t want to be. Like anybody, she wanted to be loved and adored, desired, even, and here she was all alone on this farm for so long she’d had to invent a different version of herself just to feel okay.
“Thank you for sitting with Evie. I’ll take over now, my lady,” Sam said. He bowed.
Sarah Beth giggled. She jumped up and half curtsied. “I hope she gets better,” she said and closed the door behind her.
Sam dragged a chair to Evie’s bedside. He checked the dressing Theta had put on Evie that afternoon. The wound was smaller, the edges no longer a bruised black. Her lips were still pale gray, though. Sam rubbed warmth into Evie’s cold hands.
“Hey. Hey, Baby Vamp. It’s Sam. You remember me? The fella who’s goofy for you? I was just thinking about that first time I saw you in Penn Station. You were looking at yourself in the shop window, making sure your hat was on straight. I could see your reflection. You weren’t sure if you looked like a city girl or some rube from Ohio. My first thought seeing you… well, my first thought was, That there is a bona fide mark, Sam Lloyd. Gonna level with you, Baby Vamp. Street smarts you did not yet have. But watching you bite your kisser and fix your hat, I thought, Why does a tomato like that doubt herself? Even then, I knew you were like the Fourth of July inside a person. And then I stole twenty bucks from you like a lousy bum. But that twenty bucks brought me back to you, so maybe I’m also a real smart bum.”
Gently, Sam brushed a curl back from Evie’s cool forehead. He was relieved that at least she was no longer feverish.
“I know I got a reputation as a cake-eater and a con. I can’t keep you in pearls, and the only joint I can afford is a hash house. I never wanted my name in lights the way you did. Me? You know I operate like a shell game, don’t see me and all that jazz. But if that’s what you wanted, well, by golly, I’d be in the front row, cheering you on.” Sam cleared his throat, but his voice stayed thick. “I’m cheering you on right now, Baby Doll. I’m in that front row telling you you can do this, you can get stronger and stronger, and then you’re gonna rise up outta that bed and show us all that Evie O’Neill moxie. You got to, okay, honey? Because I can face just about anything the King of Crows throws at us. But I can’t do it without you. Ikh hob dikh lib. I love you, Evie. I love you.”
Mrs. Olson knocked and opened the door, carrying an oil lamp that blazed the edges of her white. “Time to let her rest, young man.”
Sam wiped his eyes quickly so Mrs. Olson couldn’t see. He kissed Evie’s forehead and tucked the blanket up under her chin. He watched her for a few seconds more. Her eyelids twitched. She was sleeping, but her mind was active.
“I wish I knew what she was dreaming,” he said.
Shadow.
And light.
She was in the desert under a bloodred moon.
“It is going to happen soon,” Memphis’s mother said.
The King of Crows sat upon a tall throne fashioned from all manner of bones. Twisted inside this dreadful reliquary was Mabel. Her hands pushed out from between two rows of skulls as if reaching through the bars of a cage.
Miss Addie on the steps of a church. Her eyes widened. “There’s a fox in the henhouse.”
The Eye churned gold. The noise of it was like a dying man trying to breathe and scream at the same time.
James. His eyes were haunted, weary, as if he had lived a thousand lifetimes in a matter of seconds and saw nothing but that for an eternity.
Stop. This. Please. We are trapped inside a loop of time we are trapped we are trapped we are trapped!
Inky clouds snake-whipped the red sky. The mountaintops caught fire. The dead dotted the wasteland. They opened their mouths like radios and the song poured out:
“Pack up your troubles.
Pack up your troubles.
Pack up your troubles.
And smile
Smile
Smile.”
The song was warped and it was everywhere.
“This keeps happening,” they said, and crumbled to ash.
Evie felt their deaths inside. She screamed in pain.
The soldiers’ faces twisted in fresh agony.
James.
“There’s a fox in the henhouse!” Miss Addie shouted. “Everything is connected.”
The dead spoke their lament: “This keeps happening.”
The circle turned. She saw it happening again and again. Each time, the soldiers were sucked up through the portal and into the Eye.
Mabel crouched among the rotting leaves. “The world is a terrible place. It never learns.”
That isn’t true, Evie wanted to say, but her mouth was full of dirt.
The song started again. The phonograph a circle.
Pack up your troubles.
This keeps happening.
Pack up your troubles.
Smile, smile.
This keeps happening.
Smile.
“They’re playing our song,” the King of Crows said and smiled. “Come. Let’s dance.”
Purplish veins pulsed under
Evie’s pale skin. Something trying to be born.
No. No, I won’t let you. I won’t!
She tore at her skin as if she could pull out the sickness.
Evie screamed as the ground began to swallow her whole.
WIRELESS
The next morning, as the Diviners shared breakfast in the Olsons’ kitchen after their early chores, Evie shuffled in, pale and weak, and leaned against the doorjamb. “Am I dead?”
Mrs. Olson screamed and dropped the cup in her hand, which Jericho reached out and caught.
“Are we all dead?” Evie mumbled. She inhaled, breathed out. “Death smells like bacon.”
“Evil? Evil!” Theta was up and running, guiding her friend to a seat at the table just as Evie crumpled from exhaustion. Mrs. Olson hurried to bring Evie a tin mug of cool water.
“How’re you feeling?” Jericho asked, smiling at her.
With the morning sun on his face, he put Evie in mind of the Blake painting he’d shown her back at the museum. “Like I just lost a fight with Jack Johnson,” Evie managed. “How long have I…?”
“Three days,” Ling said.
“…eight hours and forty-two minutes,” Sam finished. Sam was there, kneeling beside her. How happy she was to see him. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in days.
Evie touched a hand to her side and doubled over. “That smarts.”
“So don’t touch it,” Ling said.
“What is this?” Evie noticed the bandage around her middle, the dressing Theta had made.
“Just some folk remedy,” Theta said. “Courtesy of the Proctor sisters, if you’re on the trolley.”
“Ah,” Evie said. “I am now.”
“We were worried sick about you, Baby Doll.” Sam held her hand. His was warm, and she was grateful for it just now.
“I had the strangest dreams,” Evie said. “But I can’t remember them now.”
They’d felt important, though. Like clues. Or warnings.
“Memphis healed you!” Isaiah said.
“Tried to, at least. I kept it from getting any worse, I s’pose.”
“Memphis. Darling Memphis. How can I ever thank you?” Evie said.