by Libba Bray
“All is connected.…” Sam said.
“What’s that?” Evie asked.
“Something I heard when I was in Marlowe’s Eye. All is connected. Us. Them. The dead and the living. All of it.”
“And we’re connected to the dead and the King of Crows,” Ling said. “So how will we defeat them without also destroying ourselves?”
No one had an answer for that. They were, they knew, flying blind.
“I keep telling you,” Sarah Beth said, exasperated, “if we share our moon glow—”
“Our what?” Sam said.
“It’s what we call our gifts,” Isaiah explained, registering the dirty look Memphis was throwing his way.
“Sounds like a perfumed soap,” Sam said.
Evie elbowed him. “Behave.”
“Well. It does,” Sam muttered.
“What were you saying, Sarah Beth, before you were so rudely interrupted?” Evie asked.
“We hafta strengthen each other. Get used to sharing our powers.”
“Well,” Evie said, yanking up her sleeves and putting out her hand, “I suppose there’s only one way to find out.”
For the past few months, whenever the Diviners had used their powers together, it had been mostly with one aim: obliterating the ghosts. It was harder than they thought to switch gears. What shape should their powers take? How could they make that happen? They might feel the spark of something, but in the next second, they could sense one another’s fear and indecision, and then, just as quickly as it had come on, the spark would disappear. The Diviners tried again and again, but nothing worked very well or for long. They might make the air around them wobble slightly, and once, for a moment, they could hear voices swirling down the telephone lines, but they were gone in seconds. They weren’t discovering anything new or significant. Nothing that could help them defeat the King of Crows. It was as if, when they joined hands, each one was lost in a fog, unable to access the others. As one hour became two, the Diviners began to feel desperate and exhausted. Tensions flared. Accusations followed.
“You shouldn’t have made a joke before we started, Henry. It ruined our concentration,” Ling snapped.
“I don’t think one joke will be the end of us,” Henry answered in kind.
“My bones ache,” Ling said. Standing for so long was murder on her spine. Memphis helped her sit.
“Something is wrong,” Evie said. “Don’t you feel it?” The sun beat down on the back of her neck. The wound in her side throbbed.
The Diviners sprawled out in the prairie grass, feeling frustrated and out of ideas.
“Maybe what we did in the past with the ghosts took away some of our gifts,” Memphis said.
“When we killed them, you mean?” Henry said.
“For the last time, you can’t kill a ghost. They’re already dead,” Ling snapped. When Henry flashed her an annoyed look, she muttered, “I’m simply being factual.”
“When we destroyed the ghosts. Is that more factual?” Sam said.
“Don’t yell at Ling,” Evie chided.
Sam spread out his arms. “Who’s yelling? I’m not yelling. I’m just… nudging.”
“Words and accuracy count,” Ling said.
“So you’ve said. A lot,” Henry grumbled.
Theta held up her hands. “Fine. Everybody’s had their say. In her spell book, Miss Addie talks about intent. About knowing what’s in your heart. Maybe that’s the way to go.”
“What’s in my heart is wanting to end this thing so we can go back to normal,” Sam said.
“Yeah? Define normal,” Memphis said.
“Whaddaya mean?” Sam asked.
“I’m not so sure I want to go back to how things have been,” Memphis challenged.
“I don’t understand, are we fighting the King of Crows or aren’t we?” Isaiah asked.
“I’m just saying that not everything is jake for all of us,” Memphis said, looking at Henry and Ling and Isaiah.
“It seems so impossible,” Evie said. “Who are we? Not even a dozen people going up against… all of that?”
“What if not all of us make it back?” Theta said quietly. “What if none of us do?”
“Well, I’m awfully glad I’m broke, then. Makes it easier to face certain death knowing I won’t be giving up an apartment on Fifth Avenue,” Henry said. When no one even cracked a smile, he added, “That was a joke.”
“Haha,” Theta said without mirth.
“Told you: We’ve got to build up our strength so we can destroy the man in the hat,” Sarah Beth said. “He’s tied to that machine and the dead. If he goes, it all goes.”
The next day and the day after that, the Diviners got together in the evenings to work. They were already exhausted by the demands of the farm, though. The strain was beginning to show in their bodies. Tiny sores appeared on Memphis’s forearms, and he didn’t know why. Ling pulled out strands of loose hair. Evie was still weak and needed frequent breaks. And more than once, Theta’s uncontrolled firepower had forced them to drop hands quickly as it traveled through and singed them.
By the third night, they were aching and injured and no closer to a breakthrough.
“Here goes nothing,” Theta said, grinding her cigarette beneath her heel and joining the circle.
“Theta, we’ve got to at least try,” Evie said.
“What if I burn you again?” she said, embarrassed.
“You’ve got Miss Addie to think about. And I’ve got Mabel,” Evie reminded her, and Theta came and took her place beside Evie.
“Just imagine the King of Crows’s face when he sees us standing up to him,” Sarah Beth said and grabbed Evie’s other hand. Evie made contact with a signet ring Sarah Beth wore and was flooded with a rush of memories, and just as suddenly, the memory was snatched away. Evie broke away, gasping.
“Baby Vamp! You all right?” Sam asked, approaching Evie and Sarah Beth.
“I-I’m jake. Just… got spooked, I suppose.”
Once Evie got her bearings, she noticed that Sarah Beth had wandered away and was chattering to Isaiah about the kittens. She seemed perfectly fine. But Evie knew: Something truly terrifying had happened to Sarah Beth Olson.
Evie waited until she and Mrs. Olson were washing dishes before she found the courage to ask about what she’d felt. “I don’t mean to pry, Mrs. Olson, but did something happen to Sarah Beth, perhaps during one of her fits?”
Mrs. Olson busied herself scrubbing a sink that was already sparkling clean. “Yes. Sarah Beth had a very bad episode. Last year. Summer.”
“What happened?”
“She died.”
“She… died?” Evie said.
“Just for a little while. She had no pulse. Her eyes were… fixed.” Mrs. Olson blinked away tears. “But then she came back! God returned her to us. And after that, I knew the Lord had to have a plan for my Sarah Beth. And now here you are. Well, I can’t help but think this was what the Almighty intended. For Sarah Beth to join with you on your mission.”
A short time later, as Evie rested on the porch, she watched Sarah Beth heading to the barn with a rag doll in each hand.
“You feeling all right, Sarah Beth?” Evie asked, worried about the girl’s constitution. She hoped they weren’t harming her in any way.
“Mercy me, you sound like my mother!” Sarah Beth said with enough umbrage to amuse Evie.
“What’s that all about?” Henry asked. He was just coming up with Ling.
Evie shared Mrs. Olson’s story.
Henry whistled.
“Mmm,” Ling said, her brow furrowing.
“The definitive Ling Chan mmm,” Henry said. “All right. I’ll bite. What does that mmm mean?”
“What if it wasn’t God who returned her?” Ling asked.
Isaiah had been in the barn visiting the new calf. He heard Sarah Beth and decided to sneak up on her and give her a proper scare. She was over by the thresher, playing with two of her rag dolls. It was strange for
Isaiah to know that Sarah Beth was nearly the same age that Memphis, Theta, and the others were. She seemed so much younger, as if she were only a year or two older than Isaiah himself. He sometimes thought of her as being like a doll, too. One of those fancy porcelain kind that were kept on a high shelf so they wouldn’t get soiled. Hidden by three tall hay bales, Isaiah watched Sarah Beth. He couldn’t make out what she was saying very well. That garbled voice of hers was soft and babyish and hard to hear. He could only catch little bits here and there as she pressed the two dolls against each other, making them kiss.
“…forever and ever… you’re the most beautiful girl in the world.…”
Isaiah wondered if she was thinking about Sam or Jericho or Memphis, or even Isaiah himself. That made him blush something fierce. Sarah Beth stopped mashing the dolls together. Absently, she ran a hand across her small breasts and closed her eyes, lost to some other private thought. Isaiah’s shock turned quickly to embarrassment. He coughed so Sarah Beth would know he was there and bent over his shoe, pretending to tie it.
Her shadow loomed across the pale straw as she towered over him. “You shouldn’t go sneaking up on a person like that.”
Isaiah finished tying his shoe. “Didn’t know you was here,” he said, hoping she couldn’t read his embarrassment. But Sarah Beth never seemed to be embarrassed about anything. “Whatcha doin’?”
Sarah Beth’s expression softened. She held up a doll made from a flour sack. “This one is the lady. And this one is the gentleman.” The gentleman was made of burlap, with red stitches for eyes. “They’ve been courting. They’re in love, but they can’t get married yet. They will, though.”
“Can we go see the kittens now?” Isaiah asked.
Sarah Beth and Isaiah crawled under the porch so Isaiah could cuddle Mopsy and the others. He liked the feel of their fuzzy heads brushing against his cheek. He kissed Mopsy and put her back with her mother.
“They’ll be weaned soon,” Sarah Beth said.
“What’s that mean again?” Isaiah asked.
“They won’t be going to their mama for food. They’ll have to find it themselves.”
“Won’t you feed ’em?”
“Not much to feed ’em with. Daddy said they gotta go. We can’t afford ’em.”
It crushed Isaiah to think of the farm without the kittens. Maybe he could convince Mr. Olson to let him keep Mopsy. Of course, first he’d have to convince Memphis.
“Come on,” Sarah Beth said. “Let’s go play in the corn.”
Isaiah had come to like the old, dried cornfield. It was their private shelter, like a secret kingdom right outside the farmhouse. Deep in the corn, there was a bed of brittle, yellowed husks ready for the spring burning. Isaiah and Sarah Beth lay on top of them and looked up through the swaying stalks at the blue sky, talking about all the places they’d like to see someday.
“Tell me about New York City!” Sarah Beth said.
“It’s pretty nice,” Isaiah said, thankful to be talking about something he knew.
“I want to see it. I want to see London and Paris and the Nile. All the places that only exist on my little globe.”
“Me, too.”
“But I want to go with my husband one day,” Sarah Beth said and giggled. She cupped her hands around her mouth to protect her secret as she whispered, “One day I will.”
Isaiah blushed. He didn’t know if she was trying to tell him that she liked him the way Memphis liked Theta. Isaiah didn’t feel that way about Sarah Beth, but he didn’t want to hurt her feelings or make her mad, so he just said, “The Nile’s in Egypt. That’s where the Pharaohs lived. I read about them in the Bible.”
Sarah turned on her side and rested her head on her elbow. “Do you have a special sweetheart?”
Isaiah glanced sideways very quickly but did not turn to meet her face, which was too close for his comfort. “Nah,” Isaiah said, embarrassed. He’d thought Alma was the prettiest girl he knew. Sometimes, he wondered what it would be like to kiss her. He wondered how you kissed. At the picture show, fellas like Rudolph Valentino mashed their mouths against the girl’s mouth, but Isaiah couldn’t really figure out what they did once their lips were pressed up against each other’s like that. It didn’t look particularly romantic, but people sure did get hot under the collar watching it.
Sarah Beth was looking at him peekaboo from under her curtain of hair. She smiled her tiny smile. “I could show you how to kiss proper. My gentleman won’t mind.”
Isaiah’s heartbeat quickened. Most fellas he knew minded when you kissed their sweethearts. They minded quite a bit. “I don’t believe I better,” he said and felt the heat rise in his cheeks.
“Oh, Isaiah,” she giggled. “It’s like sharing moon glow. That’s all.”
Sarah Beth pressed her lips to his and held them there. It felt like kissing something with no give, a rock or a tree. Isaiah sat up and pulled away. Sarah Beth’s face was hard to read. Had she liked the kiss? (He had not.) Did she want another one? (He hoped not.)
“How was that?” she asked and bit her bottom lip.
“Fine, I suppose.”
“You suppose?”
“I ain’t got nothing to judge it by. That was my first time.”
Sarah Beth lay back on the corn silk again. “When my gentleman makes me his queen and we are in Paris or Egypt, I shall kiss him all the time.” Sarah Beth wrapped her arms around herself and made kissing noises.
“How did you know about the King of Crows and how to stop him?” Isaiah blurted. He wanted to know, but he also wanted her to stop making those embarrassing noises.
“Hmm, should I tell you?” Sarah Beth said coquettishly and giggled. “Seeing as you are my very best friend, I reckon I can. It was during one of my bad fits. My heart stopped beating for a full hour!”
Isaiah didn’t think that could be true, but he said only, “Golly, Moses! That’s a long time!”
“I was there, in the land of the dead. I had a vision.” She cupped her hands and whispered, tickling Isaiah’s ear. “There’s something about his coat and all those stories inside the lining. It’s all there. Every single story. All the history. But he lets the people choose. They see what they want to see. They hear what they wanna hear. They tell what they wanna tell.”
“What’s that got to do with stopping him?” Isaiah asked. He was getting tired of her games.
“His story’s in there, too. You have to be able to stare through all of it to see what’s really there.”
“Have you seen it?” Isaiah wanted to know.
“Maybe,” Sarah Beth said, all high-hat. “Ladies are allowed to have secrets. It’s part of their charm.”
“I have a secret, too,” Isaiah said. Because suddenly, he wanted to share something with her the way she had with him. And maybe he wanted to one-up her, too. “I plucked a feather from his coat. In Gideon.”
Sarah Beth’s mouth fell open. “Where is it? Can I see it?”
“I gave it to Evie.”
Sarah Beth pouted. “You gave it to her instead of me?”
“So she could read it!”
Sarah Beth seemed to mull this over. “Well. What did she say?”
“She couldn’t get anything from it.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me till now. You must never lie to me like that again. Not if we’re to be friends. Don’t you see? We got these powers because we’re special. We’re the chosen.”
“We got these powers because they gave our mamas some kind of vitamins called eugenics. We’re experiments.”
Sarah Beth tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Maybe for you. Mine’s natural.”
“No. No, it ain’t.”
“Mine is natural!” Sarah Beth barked, but like a quick summer storm, she calmed. “I’ll bet yours is, too. We came after them. Like I said, we’re special. We brought down the rain!”
That made some kind of sense to Isaiah. His auntie always tutted that pride goeth before a fall, but Is
aiah liked feeling a little apart from the others. He liked feeling special.
“Where’d Evie put the feather?” she asked.
“Beats me.”
“She really couldn’t get anything from it?”
“That’s what she said.”
“She’s probably lying.”
“She wouldn’t do that.”
“My mama and daddy lie to me all the time,” Sarah Beth said, quiet-like. “They don’t want me to know how sick I am. Or that they’re afraid of me. They act like they ain’t, but they are.”
“How come they’re afraid of you?” Isaiah’s parents had never been afraid of him that he could recall.
“’Cause I’m not like them. They wanted an ordinary, pretty girl who’d help around the farm and not be any trouble. I’m a burden. They say I’m not but I know I am. I can feel it. Just like you can feel the truth behind what folks say.”
“Like I said, I ain’t afraid of you.”
Sarah Beth smiled real big, and that made Isaiah happy. “I know. Friends?”
“Friends.”
She scrabbled to her feet and set off at an uneven run. “Last one to the tire swing’s a rotten egg!”
From a short distance away, Bill watched the two of them taking turns on the swing. “Don’t like the way Sarah Beth plays with Isaiah,” he said to Memphis. They were mending a break in the fence near the road. “Don’t seem natural.”
“Nothing about any of this is natural,” Memphis said. “That girl can’t help the way she is.”
“Ain’t that.”
“What is it, then?”
“Her parents baby her too much, for one.”
Memphis couldn’t disagree with that. The Olsons loved their daughter, but they’d let that love keep them from disciplining the girl. They treated her like a fragile little bird who might break. Memphis didn’t think she was fragile and believed that her parents should give her a chance to show how resilient she could be. But it wasn’t his place to say so.
“What else?” Memphis asked.
“Don’t know. Sometime, they run off together into the corn or down by the river, and when they come back, Isaiah seems… different. Not himself. I think the boy might be getting sweet on her.”