by Libba Bray
“You can get well,” Memphis said. “We’ve still got a fight ahead of us.”
“Yes,” Evie said. The memory of Gideon flooded in. Mabel. It made her dizzy. She wanted to run away from what she’d seen. Evie tried to stand, swayed, and fell back into the chair.
“Back to bed with you, Sheba,” Sam insisted.
Theta and Sam helped Evie upstairs to her room and into bed. Theta shooed Sam away. “Scram, Lloyd.”
“But—”
“No ifs, ands, or buts to it. I need to see to her. You can bump your gums at her later,” Theta said, shutting the door over his protests. “Let’s take a look at you, Evil.”
Theta helped Evie out of her filthy dress. Evie wrinkled up her nose. “Something smells pos-i-tutely putrefied.”
“That’s you. Three days, no bath?”
“You might want to burn that dress.”
Theta made a face as she tossed it to the floor. “Mm-hmm.” She peeled back the dressing she’d made the night before. “Well, it looks better than it did. I’ve been reading Miss Addie’s spell book about herbal remedies and poultices. I applied fresh ones morning and night,” Theta said.
“Like a proper witch,” Evie said, peering down at the serrated injury. The puncture marks. The feathery charcoal veining mixed with a puckered pinkness and fading bruises. It would leave a substantial scar, she knew.
“Does it hurt bad?”
Evie winced and nodded. It was the wound to her heart from Mabel’s betrayal that hurt the most. “Theta, do you think that was really Mabel in Gideon?”
Theta sat next to Evie on the narrow bed. “It sure looked like her.”
“I wanted to see her again so desperately. I couldn’t bear the thought that she had left me. I couldn’t let go.” Evie took in a shuddering breath. “I suppose I was always a little jealous of her. She was smart and good. I wanted her to need me. If someone so good could need me, then I couldn’t be all bad.”
“Would you stop with that?”
Evie ignored Theta. “The truth was, I needed her. Desperately. Enough that I disturbed her rest.”
“I don’t know, kid,” Theta said gently. “Ling always says that when you walk in dreams, you find out that people are much more than one thing. Maybe you were wrong to disturb her rest, but maybe some part of Mabel wasn’t completely at peace.”
Evie took this in. What did it really matter now? The Mabel Evie had known and loved was gone. The real Mabel had been so much more complicated than Evie wanted to admit. Simplifying people was a way of not having to think too much about them, to make them fit into your own story. People were inconvenient, though. Behind the idea of a person you constructed to suit yourself, the people you loved had their own stories—whole worlds going on inside—and you ignored them at your peril.
“It’s funny. I used to feel that I wouldn’t care if I died. I just kept throwing myself at life, hoping I’d hit a bull’s-eye eventually. I thought death would be a relief from all that feeling. A relief not to have all that pain. Not to care so much,” Evie said. “I’m sorry. I’m probably shocking you. Blame it on my sickness.”
Theta let out a little ha. “You think you’re the only one who ever feels that way? For an object-reader, you miss a lot about people.”
“You, too?”
“Sure. Sometimes. It’s like being swallowed up by Loneliness, capital L.”
“That’s it.” Evie was so grateful to hear another person voice her feelings that she was afraid she would cry. She wanted Theta to stay right there on the side of the bed forever.
“I used to think nobody felt that way. Now? I figure everybody feels that way here and there,” Theta continued.
Evie swallowed against the lump in her throat. Her voice was husky. “How do you go on… with all that loneliness inside you?”
Theta held Evie’s hand and looked her straight in the eyes. “You gotta make that son-of-a-bitch spit you back out again.”
Evie laughed. Laughter was good. It was a step toward life.
“There’s things out there that wanna kill us. We can’t kill ourselves,” Theta said.
Evie’s eyes welled with tears, but she didn’t want to cry. She’d been lost in darkness for days. There was sun outside her window, and her friend was beside her.
“Here. Bend down. You’ve got hay in your hair,” Evie said.
Theta blushed, and Evie suppressed a grin imagining just how it had gotten there. Theta leaned forward and Evie brushed it free.
“Swell. I’m glad to know we’ve reached the grooming stage of our friendship.”
Evie’s smile was short-lived. “Theta.”
“What is it?” Theta patted at her coveralls. “Do I have a live chicken on me somewhere, too?”
“I have to put things right with Mabel. It’s my fault, and I’ve got to fix it.”
“Evil…”
“I’ve got to, Theta!”
“Okay,” Theta said. “But don’t fall into the same trap.”
“What do you mean?”
“You can’t do everything. Mabel has to want to fix it, too.”
“There’s one thing we can fix right now,” Evie said. “Darling Theta, can you help me get a bath?”
Theta wrinkled her nose and offered her hand. “I was afraid you’d never ask.”
After another day in bed, Evie begged to get up and be useful. She sat out on the front porch enjoying the May sunshine while she cut up potatoes for planting. Sarah Beth came to sit at Evie’s feet.
“Do you remember anything?” she asked.
“No. Not really,” Evie said.
“Me, either,” Sarah Beth said, and Evie didn’t know what she meant. With a giggle, Sarah Beth reached her fingers into the bowl of water, fished out a hunk of raw potato and popped it into her mouth, and then ran away, clearly gleeful to have gotten away with her potato theft.
Henry and Sam came by.
Sam leaned against the porch railing and grinned at Evie. “I heard the prettiest girl in the world was sitting on this porch in Nebraska.”
Henry batted his lashes. “Oh, gee. Thanks, Sam.”
Evie laughed. “I look pos-i-tutely a fright, Sam.”
“How would you know? You can’t see and you won’t wear cheaters,” Sam shot back.
“When are we going to start working on strengthening our powers?” Evie asked.
“Baby Vamp, you’re not well enough.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“You got winded walking to this porch.”
“I was just excited about the cows. I heard they give gin. Oh, look, we’ve lost too much time already, and it’s all my fault!”
“A few more days, okay? I won’t almost lose you twice,” Sam said with such love that Evie was too undone to argue.
“All right, Sam. You win. A few more days. But I’m going to have to come up with a hobby to keep from losing my mind out here on the prairie.”
“When you’re ready to take up horseshoes or yodeling, let me know. So I can go the other way,” Henry said, making Evie laugh all over again.
Later, while Evie was resting in her room, she was surprised by a visit from Isaiah.
“I have something for you. Been saving it,” he said shyly. He offered Evie the blue-black feather.
“Where’d you get this?” she asked, sitting up in bed.
“In Gideon. I stole it from the King of Crows.”
Evie trembled, excited. “This comes from his coat?”
Isaiah nodded. “He didn’t like that I took it.”
“No. I imagine he didn’t. That was very brave of you, Isaiah.”
Isaiah beamed. He’d done a good thing. Somebody saw. “I thought maybe you could read it.”
Evie knew she should rest. But the temptation was too great.
“All right. I’ll give it a try. Isaiah? If something… should happen to me, run for the others, all right?”
“All right.”
“Here goes,” she said, goin
g under. A moment later, she came out of her trance. “Huh. That’s odd.”
“What’s odd?”
Evie twirled the feather slowly by its shaft. “I couldn’t get anything from it. There was a great amount of squawking. And whispers. And then when I pressed into it further…” She shook her head, as if she couldn’t quite believe it herself. “Nothing. Pos-i-tutely nothing.”
Evie rested. She did not remember her dreams. When she woke, the sun was high in the sky. She challenged herself to a walk to the barn, determination in every step. There was no choice; she simply had to build up her strength. There was too much at stake. She nodded at Mr. Olson and Jericho, who were inside working on a piece of machinery.
“Evie! What are you doing out of bed?” Jericho asked.
“I’m perfectly fine. The cat’s pajamas,” she lied.
“Jericho, hand me them pliers there, will ya?” Mr. Olson said.
Jericho went back to his repairs. He had been remote with her in Gideon before the attack. Evie wondered about what Ling had said, that Jericho had a sweetheart. Had it been a fling, or something more serious? Traveling with an all-girl orchestra sounded quite glamorous. His sweetheart probably was, too. Evie thought about her own looks just now. She was pale and thin with drab hair that hadn’t seen a beautician’s comb in ages. Oh, why should it bother her? But it did. It wasn’t so much that Evie wanted Jericho as she wanted him to keep wanting her. It was utterly selfish, she knew. More about her vanity than anything else.
The old Evie would’ve flirted with Jericho. She would’ve reached for all her feminine wiles to pull his desire back to her. She was not the old Evie. Instead, her interest was piqued by a ham radio taking up space on a table against the wall.
“You have a wireless!” she said excitedly.
“Belonged to my brother, Joe,” Mr. Olson said, glancing over his shoulder. “He was a radio operator in the navy during the war and took a real liking to it. He built that crystal set himself. After he died, the radio came to me.”
Mr. Olson didn’t seem to want to elaborate on his dead brother, and Evie didn’t press. “Does it still work?”
“Sure does.” The farmer put down his pliers. He wiped his hands with a bandanna as he made his way to her. “Why, I’ve heard news from as far away as Topeka. It can get you the news faster than the papers can sometimes.” He shook his head and scratched the back of it simultaneously. “Seems like everything moves fast these days—motor cars, radios, and bad luck. Joe was real handy—could build or fix anything. He built him an iron windmill tower and attached an antenna to the top along with a—whatchamacallit—a transmitter! That’s it over there in the corner.”
Evie knew how it all worked, but she wasn’t about to let on. Who would suspect a girl of knowing such things? Who would suspect a girl of using that knowledge to help counter the story Jake Marlowe, the Founders Club, the Shadow Men, and all the powerful men behind them were putting out about Diviners? She patted the radio’s side and smiled coyly. “Oh, my. I surely do love Captain Nighthawk. It’s my favorite program. Gee, Mr. Olson, would you mind terribly if I came out here to listen at night? I promise not to play it too loud.”
“Be my guest.” Mr. Olson chuckled. “That radio’ll probably be grateful somebody’s taking an interest in it. I never was much for it.”
“Oh, glory hallelujah!” Evie whispered excitedly to the others later. “Now we can keep up with the news. We can stay one step ahead of trouble. If there are ghosts out there, or towns in trouble, we’ll hear about it from the amateur radio operators. But more than that, we can tell others about what we know. We can warn them. Get them to join us in the fight. We can tell them what to look for.”
“What’s the range on that thing?” Sam asked.
He tapped a finger against a dial and Evie removed his hand.
“Sorry,” he said.
“Ling’s smiling,” Henry said. “It’s like a Santa Claus sighting. Shhh, now. Don’t disturb it.”
“Don’t you see?” Ling said.
“Not yet,” Henry said in a singsong voice.
“Radio transmits and receives electromagnetic waves. We can amplify the signal. Using our powers together. We can make this radio signal go as far as we like. Or far enough, at least,” Ling said. “That should be our first test.”
“Do you think they’ll know?” Evie said.
The dead. It was unclear to what extent the dead’s powers were still linked with theirs.
Ling thought. “Sam, can you make us invisible long enough to put some magic into this thing?”
“Yeah. I think I can do that.”
As they got back to their chores, Evie took Memphis aside. “Can you meet me in the barn tonight after Ma and Pa Olson go to bed?”
Memphis gave her a funny look. She grinned. “Trust me: I’ve got a pos-i-tutely brilliant idea.”
THE VOICE OF TOMORROW
Bedtime came early for the Olsons, as it did for most farm people. Evie watched for the light under their door to go out. She counted silently to two hundred, then she tiptoed downstairs and out into the cool Nebraska night under a mantle of stars. She came around back to the farmhands’ sleeping quarters and tapped on the window. Memphis snugged it up. “Meet me in the barn,” she whispered.
The Olsons’ barn was a far cry from the pristine studios of WGI. Hay covered the floor. Milk pails and tackle hung from hooks. Instead of New York City swells, her audience was made up of horses, cows, and pigs sleeping in their pens, giving off the occasional whinny, moo, and snort. But it would do. She dragged two stools up to the worktable with the ham radio, listening to the hum as it warmed up, and readying the receiver and microphone.
The barn door slid open as Memphis let himself in.
“What’s this clever plan you’ve got?” he asked.
Evie patted the stool next to her and Memphis took a seat.
“You know how you’ve been sending those letters from the Voice of Tomorrow?”
“Was sending,” Memphis said, his face clouding over.
“Exactly my point. Welcome to the new Voice of Tomorrow.” She slid the microphone closer to Memphis.
He stared at it. “You… want me to talk on the radio?”
“Pos-i-tutely.”
“I don’t know how.”
“You do what you always do—you tell your story! But you tell it into the microphone, and it’ll reach thousands all at once. You don’t have to worry about the Shadow Men scaring the Daily News into not publishing your stories. You can go directly to the people. We need to tell people what’s happening in this country, and this is a pos-i-tutely brilliant way to do that.”
In the Bible of Memphis’s youth, the Word was the beginning. God spoke the universe into being. For Memphis, poetry was not just words on a page; poetry was life. Speeches led men into battle. Fairy tales had the power to frighten or explain. Story was creation. It was the promise of a true more.
Evie flipped a switch and the radio hummed.
“Don’t we need Sam to…” Memphis wiggled his fingers.
Evie laughed. “Just a trial run,” she whispered. “Ready?”
He exhaled a nervous breath, shook out his hands, and nodded.
Evie got up on the microphone. “Good evening, defenders of democracy. This… radio program could be coming to you from an underground storm shelter in the heartland of America. Or from a reservation in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Perhaps we are broadcasting from a ship anchored off the coast of California, or from a tenement on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. We are everywhere, just like the radio waves reaching you in your living rooms at this very moment. Perhaps you’ve heard of us in the newspapers—the Voice of Tomorrow. Perhaps you’ve heard that we are radicals. Well, if the honest truth about what is going on in this country is radical, then so be it. There are ghosts in this land, ladies and gentlemen. Whether you want to believe it or not, they’re here. And we’re going to have to face up to it if we want to survive.�
�� Evie paused. She looked over at Memphis, who nodded. Evie turned back to the microphone. “And now, a message from the Voice. Of. Tomorrow!”
Evie shifted and Memphis took his place in front of the microphone. His heart sped up as it always did when he had to speak in public, even if he couldn’t see that public, and it amazed him to think that once upon a time, when he was the Harlem Healer, it had been no trouble at all for him to stand up in front of the congregation and heal the sick. But those had been his people, his church, with his mama standing by, smiling at him to show that it was all right. It had been three years ago, and it was forever ago, and he was no longer that young man who knew everything. At this particular moment, he wasn’t trying to convince anybody of anything. He only wanted talk to them, human being to human being. He only hoped he could be heard.
From his pocket, he retrieved the poem he’d written that morning and tried to get the words to sit just right in his mouth.
“America, America,
Who are we?
brothers and sisters, sons and daughters
I’ve seen the best of us, braving floodwaters
on eight miles of drowning earth.
Refugees, refugees
I’ve seen the hopeful, bathed in the torchlight of
Liberty, that harboring girl.
I’ve seen the worst of us, torches in the night
A mockery of the torch in the harbor.
Oh, America, America,
God shed his grace on thee,
Now He asks from His nightclub in neon heaven—
Think upon four score and seven
And ask yourselves, Is this who we are?
Is this who will we be?
Who will we be?”
Moved, Evie nodded at him to continue. Memphis held up the paper and shook his head. There’s no more, he mouthed.
“That concludes this inaugural program of the Voice! Of! Tomorrow! Stay tuned, America.”
Evie powered down the radio. “How do you feel?” she asked Memphis.
“Aahhhhh!” Memphis leaped up, laughing as he shook out his hands to release his nerves. He beamed. “I feel for all the world like a lamp somebody finally figured out how to plug in.”