by Libba Bray
The next day, Memphis wrote whenever he could. During a break when baling the hay. After planting corn. While Sam, Henry, Bill, and Jericho cooled off on the porch with tall glasses of lemonade before they started in on the rest of their chores. He’d always worried that he didn’t really have anything to say. But the last few weeks and last night had shown him that he did. He’d just finally stopped trying to say it like other people. As himself, he had plenty to say.
For the next few nights, after the Olsons had gone to bed, Evie and Memphis stole out to the barn. It gave Evie a sense of pride that she knew how to get the radio up and running. Those months at WGI had made her a star, then they’d been witness to her spectacular fall. Now they were giving her a sense of purpose beyond fun or fame. It wasn’t just Evie anymore; it was all of them.
They were still afraid to use their powers as a group, though. Instead, they paired up in different configurations, concentrating on sending the signal farther, hoping it worked. True to his word, Sam gave them cover while they touched the radio. One night, Evie asked the others to join in for a little radio play she’d written with Memphis’s help. Theta, Sam, Henry, and Isaiah played their parts. Even Jericho agreed to read one line.
Only Ling refused. “It’s like a hideous school play.”
The Diviners crowded around the one microphone, taking turns and trying not to bump heads as they did.
Evie: Once upon a time, in a country much like our own, a terrible evil stalks the land.… The King of Crows and his Army of the Dead approach, as the good citizens of the nation sleep soundly in their beds, oblivious to the danger that awaits them.…
Theta: There’s wickedness in the land. Don’t you see? The King of Crows and his dead are coming. They’re here! Look! I see them glimmering in the corn and on Main Sleet.
“Street!” Evie whispered.
“Work on your handwriting,” Theta whispered back.
Sam: I hear there’s towns being turned into whole ghost towns. Why, didn’t you hear about Gideon, Kansas?
Jericho: No. How come we haven’t heard anything about it, then?
Sam made a face at Jericho’s wooden delivery. Jericho shrugged.
Henry: Maybe they don’t want you to hear about that. They’d rather you think the Diviners are wicked, when they’re simply trying to stop catastrophe!
Evie nudged Isaiah and he strummed his thumb against a saw, making an otherworldly sound.
Isaiah: Gosh Almighty!
Isaiah looked very pleased with himself.
Ling rolled her eyes and whispered to Theta, “This is so corny. I am embarrassed for all of you.”
Evie: Citizens of this land, never fear, for the Diviners are here. But all citizens must do their parts. Beware! Be aware! And now, a message from the Voice! Of! Tomorrow!
They paused for Memphis’s nightly poem. He was getting more comfortable in front of the microphone, adding touches of all he carried with him—the storefront preachers, the rapid-fire cadence of the barbershop, Walt Whitman and Langston Hughes and Bessie Smith, the wild improvisation of jazz. When he spoke, it was like listening to something exciting and new, and Evie hoped they were reaching people out there in the dark. She hoped somebody somewhere was listening.
Someone was listening.
Several schoolteachers in Lincoln crowded around their boarding room radio. An elderly couple in a little brick house in Iowa. The Timmons family, in the front parlor of a cousin’s house in St. Louis, the first stop in their great migration north.
“Daddy, is that…?” Moses asked, eyes alight.
“I’d bet my last nickel it is,” Nate answered, feeling the same hopeful fire.
Someone was listening.
In her cell, Miriam Lubovitch heard and did what she could to boost the signal further. It was reaching into homes in Idaho. The migrant camps of California. The mills of New England. The oil fields of Texas. In his newsroom, T. S. Woodhouse listened; he threaded fresh paper into his typewriter. In one of the many empty rooms of his California mansion nestled among the redwoods, Jake Marlowe heard. He telephoned the Shadow Men, but they were in their brown sedan, also listening.
Someone else was listening.
The dead under the earth.
The dead crawling out of the earth.
The dead streaming into the countryside.
The dead were listening.
“‘Who is the Voice of Tomorrow?’” Evie read from the Omaha Morning World Herald. It seemed that several newspapers had picked up the story about the unusual radio broadcasts being heard all over the nation. No one could tell where this Voice of Tomorrow radio show originated. Where were these people? Who were they? Were they connected in any way with the mysterious poems and letters that had been published by the New York Daily News? Or was this a new outfit who’d been influenced by those poems? Were these folks patriots or traitors?
Evie thought back to Mrs. Withers teaching American History at Zenith High School. Truthfully, she’d paid very little attention in class; she’d been much more concerned with getting Edward Schultz to notice her or daydreaming about being famous one day. Mrs. Withers was telling the story of some American Indian battle and how the Dutch had managed to “subdue them.” Evie had only been listening because Edward was out with mumps, and she’d had nothing better to do. But she had thought at the time, very briefly, about that word, subdue. And she’d wondered, what would the Indians have said about that same battle? Now, reading about herself and her friends, she realized how much it mattered who got to tell the stories that ended up in the newspapers and the history books.
“There is no greater power on this earth than story.…” she muttered.
It was something that Will said once. He’d said that people thought borders and lines on a map made nations, but that in truth it was stories that did. In her memory, she could see Uncle Will pacing the floor in the dusty, wonderful museum. (Oh, how she missed it! Why had she not appreciated it then?) How passionate he had been. How long ago that seemed.
Stories were power. And whoever controlled the story controlled everything. A story could bring people together, or it could tear them apart. It could spread like a sickness, infecting people. It could lead them into battle or shake them into seeing what they had refused to see before. The Shadow Men. Jake Marlowe. Harriet Henderson. Roy and the KKK—they were all trying to get people to buy into the story they were telling. The Voice of Tomorrow was a story, too. And like many stories, it had grown bigger. It was no longer a person. It was a movement.
In New York City, people were beginning to ask questions: Why weren’t they allowed to hear Margaret Walker speak for herself? She had been the last person to see Will Fitzgerald alive—perhaps she had valuable information! Some in the city weren’t willing to accept what Detective Malloy and Mayor Jimmy were telling them about her. They wanted to hear her story told from her lips. Outside the jail, a growing number of protestors gathered, shouting for justice. From her cell, Margaret Walker listened to the swell of voices. She hoped by the time she got to speak, it would not be too late.
In his tiny apartment a few blocks from Tin Pan Alley, David Cohn kept his radio on. He’d read about the broadcasts in the Daily News. The sound of his lover’s voice coming through the speakers had brought him to tears. He missed Henry like nobody’s business. When this was all said and done, he intended to kiss Henry DuBois IV as he’d never been kissed before—enough to knock the doubt and the ghosts from that boy’s mind. David sat at his desk writing lyrics for a melody he couldn’t quite hear, but one that he knew Henry would. It was a love song. It was their love song. He prayed they would all survive long enough for Henry to sing it.
“Come home to me, Henry,” he whispered.
In her shop, Harlem’s number one banker, Madame Seraphina, listened, laughing softly, like a cat. “Well, well, well,” she said. “Fight on, Baby Oungan.”
Backstage at a Masonic lodge in Louisiana, Alma and Lupe heard the gossip from others
who’d been listening. Territory bands spreading the news as they went. “I tell you what, it’s really got me thinking about how things are—and how they could be,” somebody said. “How they should be,” Alma corrected.
Harriet Henderson also heard. Her fingers tapped against her typewriter keys, pecking out words of doubt and accusation.
Men in white hoods listened. They passed the word along to other men, who passed it along to Roy, who drove into the mythic West with a fire in his belly, Manifest Destiny come calling with both fists on the wheel.
The news reached Jake Marlowe in his laboratory deep in the majestic redwoods. “What do you mean you can’t tell where it’s coming from?”
“They’re doing some kind of Diviner hoodoo on it,” the Shadow Man explained. “Impossible to get a fix.”
“Nothing is impossible,” Jake said. He said that so often it had become his slogan. And as if to prove his point, at that moment the Eye began transmitting to him from the other dimension, delivering a message from the King of Crows himself.
“They’re coordinates,” Jake said. “He wants us to go to the desert. Death Valley.”
“When?” the Shadow Man asked. There were people in Washington who’d want answers, not questions.
“He didn’t say when. He has some new specifications for the Eye.”
Excitedly, Jake watched the instructions roll off.
Someone else had been listening, too.
One day followed the next. The bright blue mornings pushed up from the land like a barn raising, a promise of something solid and good. Sometimes, when Theta rubbed the washing against the scrub board in the steel tub and looked out at the waving wheat, she could swear she heard the ghostly thunder of buffalo running across the plains. She shut her eyes and let that sound rumble through her soul. Memphis wrote by lantern light every evening. Isaiah tended to the kittens, feeding them milk from an eyedropper, feeling like a proud father when they’d take a few toddling steps. Henry gave Mrs. Olson lessons on the family pump organ in the parlor so that she could play whenever the church organist went to visit her daughter’s family in Lincoln. Ling taught her how to make beans the way her father did in the restaurant, and Mrs. Olson, in turn, introduced Ling to her family’s recipe for apple butter, which Ling found so delicious she wanted to spread it on everything. She couldn’t wait to share it with her parents, back in their apartment on Doyers Street. And with Alma, wherever she might be. Ling hoped she was safe. Out here, surrounded by so much peaceful beauty and far from danger, it was easy to forget how great that danger actually was. But all they had to do was watch Evie fighting to regain her strength to be reminded.
Bill hadn’t worked the land in more than a decade, but it came back to him quickly. It felt good to use his hands, to remember the ways of the earth. But this time, it felt good because he was doing it for somebody who was not Mr. Burneside. At the thought of his name, Bill spat into the dirt. He’d tried, but he still couldn’t forgive the man for what had happened to Samson. Bill had cared for that powerful horse every day for five years. Theirs was a special bond. And Samson had died all because of an arrogant man’s pride. Bill had warned his boss not to take the horse out in that flood, but that pompous fool couldn’t let himself be wrong. In the end, Samson broke his leg, and it was Bill who’d had to ease the great animal’s passing. He’d cried the whole time. He’d loved that horse as he’d loved no other. Yes, it felt good to work the land on his own terms. The honesty of his body clearing and planting. He liked it out here under the big sky. Maybe he would have some land of his own yet. Maybe even a wife, a family.
Still. Late at night, he was unsettled. It was Isaiah’s vision about the ghosts on the road that continued to haunt him. Which road? When? The boy’s prophecies weren’t all easy to decipher, and this one kept Bill on edge. He vowed to stay sharp, looking out for any hint of danger. This he could do. Everybody had a part to play. These young bloods were the future. Bill’s part, as he saw it, was to do whatever he could to keep them safe.
PROPOSAL
Mrs. Olson had insisted that Evie sit on the porch steps and soak up the sun.
“It’ll do you good,” she said, patting Evie’s shoulder, then going inside to make a rhubarb pie that Evie could practically taste.
Sam entered the yard. He took off his cap and bowed. “Pardon me, aren’t you the Sweetheart Seer of Cowtown?”
“I’m terribly sorry,” Evie said, rolling down her stockings and stretching out her legs. “But I’m not supposed to listen to a thing Sam Lloyd says. Doctor’s orders.”
“Speaking of doctor’s orders, when this is all over, I’m gonna take you to Goldberg’s Delicatessen on Fifth Avenue.”
“What’s so special about Goldberg’s Deli?”
“Doll, you have never had pastrami like this.”
“You know, I really thought this was going to be a much more romantic conversation.”
“What could be more romantic than sharing the world’s best pastrami sandwich?”
“I could think of a few things,” Evie said flirtatiously.
“Oh, yeah?” Sam bent low so he could peek through the screen door into the house. When he was satisfied that no one was watching, he sneaked over and kissed Evie deeply.
Evie broke away and craned her neck, looking for the Olsons. “Sam, don’t. You’ll get us in trouble.”
“I invented trouble. I know how it works. But hold on a minute. I want privacy for this next part anyhow.” Sam held Evie’s hand. “Don’t see us,” he intoned, rendering them invisible to everyone but each other. They were sitting on the porch steps with a view of the long road, the greening fields, and all that blue sky above. The kind of sky that made you feel infinite. Sam kept stealing glances at Evie. He rolled a tractor nut between his grease-stained fingers. “Ever seen one of these?”
Evie glanced at it. “Sure. In a picture of the crown jewels once.”
“Ha!” Sam laughed.
“What is it?”
“It’s a nut.”
“A… nut?”
“Yeah. See, it, ah, it slips over a bolt like… say, hold out your fingers for a second, I’ll show you.”
Evie gave Sam a dubious look and put out her hand. “Sam Lloyd, don’t you get that stuck on my finger!”
“Don’t worry. Plenty of grease on it,” Sam said. He slipped it easily over her ring finger. It was too big. “Like that.”
“And what does this nut do?”
“It joins two things together. And that makes things work. In union. Like, you know. A marriage.” Sam kept turning the nut around Evie’s finger slowly.
“Well. Now I know all about how nuts and bolts work. I’m practically an expert.” Evie went to remove the nut, and Sam covered her hand with his.
“Don’t take it off just yet, will ya?”
“Sam?”
It seemed to Sam that he had never in his entire life been as nervous as he was just now. Or as sure. “Evie O’Neill, would you marry me?”
Evie raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t we play these roles already? A few months ago?”
“That was pretend. I mean on the level. Evie O’Neill, would you do me the honor of becoming Mrs. Lamb Chop?”
Evie could scarcely catch her breath. “If you’re pulling my leg, Sam Lloyd, I swear on all things holy…”
But his face didn’t have even a trace of a smirk.
Evie beamed. “Well, I’m telling you right now that you’ll have to find me a better ring. I am pos-i-tutely not wearing this one.”
“Does that mean…?”
Evie laughed and threw her arms around Sam’s neck. “Yes! Yes, Sam Lloyd. I will marry you!”
“Hot dog!” Sam lifted Evie up and twirled her around.
“Ow!” she said and grabbed her side. “War wound.”
“Sorry, Baby Vamp,” he said, putting her down gently.
But then they were kissing and Sam felt just like that blue sky shining over the newly tilled soil of the Nebras
ka prairie. Limitless. He cupped Evie’s face between his palms and stared into her twinkling eyes. “Listen, I’ll need to keep that twenty dollars I stole from you. For the ring.”
“Sam!” Evie rolled her eyes and laughed. “Oh, who cares?” she said and kissed him again.
The air was oppressive, and still the rains would not come. Jericho feared that all their work would be for naught without it.
“The crops need rain,” Isaiah said to Sarah Beth as they sat in the corn, hidden from view. “You think we can try again?”
Sarah Beth grabbed his hands. “All right. Let’s bring on the rain.”
“Rain, rain, rain,” they intoned, louder and louder till it was nearly a shout, and then Isaiah felt them joining, the vision coming on. In it, rain clouds rolled over the countryside. He could practically smell the iron of a deluge. When he came out of it a minute later, though, the sky was still blue, and Isaiah was disappointed that their gifts were not sparking as he’d imagined they would.
They abandoned the corn for the river, where they took off their shoes and stuck their toes in the water. Sarah Beth showed Isaiah the fish sidewinding between the rocks. They took turns tossing sticks and pebbles into the water and watched them float downstream. That morning, Isaiah had noticed a fine peach fuzz budding along his upper lip. In a few days, he’d be eleven, not quite a man but no longer a boy. He stroked his upper lip, hoping Sarah Beth would notice. Instead, she palmed a rock and raised it overhead. “I’m strong,” she said and slipped in the grass, nearly tumbling into the river.
Isaiah pulled her back from the brink, remembering the vision—the river, the rock, the blood. “You got to be careful, Sarah Beth.”
“I will. Thank you, Isaiah.” She looked down at his arm, the ropey muscle trying to come into being.
Isaiah felt proud. “Getting a mustache,” he said.
“That so?”
“Mm-hmm.”
Sarah Beth grinned with mischief. “Duck!” she shouted.