Buildings toppled. The remainder of the church across the river crumbled into the water. Another distant office tower simply gave way, crashing like felled timber into a smaller structure beside it. Molly closed her eyes and felt herself lifted, and she tried not to picture the devastation all through New York, both in the original Drowning City and in the newly flooded Uptown neighborhoods, where even more elegant spires and gleaming hotels were coming down.
“Climb,” Joe said. One word, and only one.
Molly opened her eyes, forcing herself not to think about how many lives had been lost today. She put her arms around Joe’s neck as if embracing him, the stone and earth of him rough on her skin, and then she climbed him as if he were just another edifice in the sprawling city in which she had spent her life clambering.
When she got hold of the next fire escape landing, she dragged herself up and over the railing. Joe followed, pulling himself up with a strength no man could ever have matched. Only after Joe stood next to her did she become aware of the soft whimpering from the stairs below them and look down to see Dr. Cocteau still nursing his shattered hand. He shook his head, whining and muttering to himself.
The world started to tremble again.
“Hang on!” Molly shouted, grabbing Joe’s arm.
Then it stopped, as quickly as it had begun, and she stood there hanging on to him with no interest in letting go. Joe barely seemed to notice. His gaze was distant, and it took Molly a moment to realize he was not lost in some strange catatonia, but staring north at the intersection where the currents from side streets swept together.
“Oh my God,” she whispered.
“No,” Joe replied quietly. One word. But she understood his intent. The events unfolding in that intersection had nothing to do with any god she had ever known.
The Felix-creature had begun to rise from the river, tentacles dancing toward the sky even as his lower body undulated in the water. Floating, he began to emerge completely from the water, and this time when he cried out, the pain and sadness were gone from that keening wail. What remained felt to Molly like a song of yearning, and of home.
The old god reached down for its child, its form still shifting, never solid or definable to the human eye. Yet it lowered long, wavering tendrils downward as though pushing from one dimension into another. The lower it reached, the more substantial its tentacles became, until they began to twirl around those of its offspring, caressing and circling each other like elephants’ trunks, gentle and loving.
Dr. Cocteau erupted from the stairs with a scream that Molly thought must have torn his throat to shreds. Still cradling his ruined hand, he rushed up to the landing where she stood with Joe. But he barely seemed to remember they were there, rushing past them, even bumping against Joe as he raced across the fire escape landing to the next set of stairs.
“Please!” Dr. Cocteau screamed, tears streaming down his face into his filthy white beard. “Please don’t leave me!”
Molly looked at the old god and its offspring, and already they seemed to her to exist in another reality. The Felix-creature rose, curling himself in the vines of his father’s affection. Jagged blades of light arced across the sky, but no thunder followed. Whatever storm brewed above the city, it was nothing of this dimension.
“Take me with you!” Dr. Cocteau screamed. “I did all of this! I dedicated my life to this—you can’t just leave me here! Look at me, damn you! I am your brother! I know you see!”
He reached the top of the fire escape and hung halfway over the railing, one hand grasping pitifully at the sky, trapped in the human body into which he had been born, and that had now become his anchor.
“Don’t leave me!” he cried, in a final, bloodcurdling shriek that ravaged his voice, so that afterward he could only open and close his mouth in a sad pantomime.
Molly watched in fascination as the old god and its child began to rise together, but they were not ascending into space. The slits in reality had begun to heal, and both creatures started to blur and run, as though they were simultaneously vanishing and slipping through a drain into the vast unknowable dimension where they belonged.
She saw Dr. Cocteau slump against the railing. He said something else, and she thought she could make out the words his lips had formed. They’re so beautiful.
A single tendril from the Felix-creature drifted downward as if on an errant breeze. At first it seemed like the simple result of its swaying. But then, in an instant, it lengthened and straightened, reaching out so swiftly that it was only when Dr. Cocteau began to laugh that Molly looked up to see that tendril twining around the madman.
She held tightly to Joe, whose stone face remained impassive as they watched Dr. Cocteau lifted into the air, wearing an expression of utter bliss. The tendril coiled around him, hauling him gently but quickly into the sky, so that in a matter of seconds Molly could barely make him out among the fading, pulsing shapes of the old god and its child.
They slipped out of the world even faster then, their silhouettes running like mercury, draining back into un-dimensioned space. The city had fallen silent and still again, save for the voice of the river, and Dr. Cocteau’s scream echoed out over the flooded wreckage like the piercing cry of some great bird of prey.
As the seams between dimensions were resealed and the creature that had once been Felix Orlov vanished from this reality forever, Dr. Cocteau broke into two pieces. Half of his corpse was tugged through the closing dimensional curtain, but the other half plummeted into the river at the same intersection where the Felix-creature had cried out his lonely misery.
Molly held a hand over her mouth and watched in horror as Dr. Cocteau’s upper body floated past, bobbing in the water, white skin and hair glinting in the light from moon and stars that filtered through the remaining clouds. For just a moment, she caught sight of his face and saw the rapturous smile on his lips, and then she had to turn away. She pressed herself against Joe, but instead of human warmth, she had to take what meager comfort she could from the rough, stone embrace of the golem.
Chapter Twenty-four
As Molly held on to Joe, she heard the distant sounds of a city beginning to realize the worst was over. With a snort and a roar, an outboard motor coughed to life. Hundreds of boats would be plying the canals and waterways of Lower Manhattan within minutes, some people attempting to escape the ruin and others trying to rescue their friends and neighbors. Even the thieves and Water Rats looked out for one another at a time like this.
She wondered how many had died, how many buildings had fallen, and how many others were damaged in ways that were less visible. Molly had known entire neighborhoods by heart, every rope ladder and makeshift bridge, but now she would have to approach every structure that remained standing with great caution, every step wary. Everyone would.
And what of Uptown? The residents of Lower Manhattan—the original Drowning City—would look after themselves, as they always had. But the people Uptown had existed for generations in a bubble of self-regard, an aura of imagined perfection and privilege. What would they do now that the towers had fallen and their utopian dream had been shattered? Molly figured that help would reach them swiftly from surrounding communities, places on the other side of bridges that had now likely been destroyed. They would be in shock and disarray, wondering why such a catastrophe had befallen them and how they could go on.
Most of the Uptowners had spent their lives pretending Lower Manhattan was a deserted shell, like some old haunted house, a place to be ignored except by children and the superstitious. But Molly had a feeling they would be paying attention now. If they wanted to recover and rebuild, if they wanted to survive in the Drowning City, the people would have to look south. Asking for help would mean acknowledging all the years that had gone by in which they had never offered it. Molly wondered if Manhattan would remain a splintered city, or if this horror would bring Uptown and Downtown together again at last. Together in despair and hope.
Several blocks
away, someone began to scream. There must have been other screams before, Molly presumed, but with the symphony of chaos around her, she had not heard them. This one cut across the evening sky as clear as a church bell, high and frantic. The voice belonged to a woman who fell silent after a handful of seconds. Molly could picture her, a wife or mother or lover crying out in grief at the loss of husband or child or cherished friend. But it wouldn’t just be death that forced that scream from her—it would be the brutal intrusion of change, the knowledge that nothing would ever be the same again.
Molly shuddered at the thought, breath hitching in her chest. She pressed her cheek against the rough stone of Joe’s body, felt her tears sticking against her skin where her face touched him. A small steamboat with pipes that whistled like teapots passed by no more than thirty feet away, moving upriver in relative quiet. The soft whistle was obliterated by a grinding, coughing noise as a longboat powered by with black smoke chugging out of the exhaust. The air suddenly filled with the stink of burning oil, and the smell made her think of Simon Church.
Molly pulled back from Joe, though they remained in a strange, awkward embrace. In the moonlight, when he cocked his head at a certain angle, he looked almost as he had before, and she could imagine he was still human. But the edges were too rough, and in the shadow of the building, the scars and fissures in his stone features picked up glints of light that showed what he really was.
She searched his eyes, finding a tiny spark of recognition amidst the confusion there. He seemed to know her, and then he cocked his head, as if he’d lost the memory somehow.
“You called me Joe,” he said, his voice a grinding rumble.
“That’s your name,” she explained, trying to tighten her grip on his arm for emphasis. But he didn’t seem to notice. His skin was cold stone. She doubted he could even feel her touch.
“Is it?” he asked, frowning.
Molly nodded. “Joe,” she echoed, staring into his eyes, attempting somehow to reinforce the name.
“Thank you,” he said. “I’ll try not to forget.”
Joe narrowed his eyes—stone, but somehow still human, with perhaps a hint of illumination from within—and studied her one final time, regarding Molly as if she were a puzzle he knew he ought to be able to solve. Then he took a step back and turned around, walking unhurriedly to the fire escape railing. He grabbed the underside of the iron grating above him and pulled himself up so that he was standing on the railing, about to jump.
“Wait!” Molly shouted, a rush of panic going through her. She had no idea where she would go next, or what she would do. “Where are you going?”
Joe frowned, as if it had been the most foolish question he’d ever heard.
“To hunt witches.”
He dropped over the side of the fire escape and plunged into the river, water splashing high all around him. But the river rolled on, the current swirling, and in an instant he had left no trace. The water closed over him as if he had never been there at all.
Numb and lost, Molly stared down at the rushing water. She blinked and looked up, glancing around at the changed landscape of the Drowning City, and wondered where she would go. With Felix gone, she had no real home. If the theater hadn’t been badly damaged, she could live there, but it would not feel like she belonged.
She looked downstream, watching the water flow out to the Atlantic, and realized that more than anything what she wanted was to go with Joe. Something had happened to his mind along with his body. His memories were a mess. Even if he wasn’t the Joe she had first met, he was still going to need someone, a friend. Maybe more than ever.
A friend, she thought. And then she swore softly, realizing where she had to go.
The fire escape below her was too damaged for her to descend, but that was all right. She would go over rooftops or through the interiors of buildings, begin mapping the new layout of the Drowning City. She climbed the metal steps, her boots ringing on the iron grates. Whatever it took, she would make her way to her destination. She owed Joe that much, at least.
* * *
Mr. Church’s ghost was waiting for her in his study when Molly entered the room. Working and living with a medium meant she had seen ghosts before, but never like this. The specter loomed over the dusty bones that were all that remained of its corpse, head hung in regret so powerful that it filled the room. With only the light from the moon and stars to illuminate the darkness of the study, the spirit had all the substance of morning mist, ready to burn off at any moment. After her first glimpse of Church’s ghost, Molly moved from side to side, hoping to get a better look, but it seemed to become even less solid instead of more. It had no lower body, and where its hands hung down, its fingers drifted in and out of view as though lost in a cloud.
The specter did not look like the Mr. Church she had known. Its facial features were still dour but much younger, and the haunting silhouette showed no sign of having been tampered with. Church’s spirit revealed him in his prime, before the need for magic and mechanisms to prolong his life. Molly found herself less shocked at the fact of his death than she had been at the knowledge of his long life.
A shiver went up her back, icy fingers creeping along her neck. She took a step backward, intending to depart. She had come here to tell Mr. Church what had become of Joe, but no one remained for her to tell except the ghost, and she didn’t much want to talk to the dead. That had been Felix’s trick, not hers.
Yes, the ghost said, his voice a whisper in her ears, like a soft breeze rustling her hair. It seemed to come from everywhere in the room and nowhere, all at once. You should go.
Molly agreed. Fear rippled through her as she took another step back. She could hear the grief in the voice of Church’s ghost, but she was afraid to spend even another moment in that room. When she had first seen the ghost, she had felt only sadness. But now fear embraced her, and she no longer cared about putting either Joe or Mr. Church to rest.
Then the ghost looked up at her, and the depth of the sadness in his eyes drew her in.
I think now that I was selfish, the ghost whispered. Phantom tears touched the edges of his bottomless eyes. I had lived so long and bid farewell to so many friends and associates that I had decided I couldn’t bear to have another partner. I had resigned myself to a lonely life, but I’d begun to grow tired of it. Of living such a solitary life, but also simply of living.
Molly stared, heart pounding in her ears. Her body wanted to run, but her heart would not allow it. She had to hear the rest. The ghost drifted nearer, eyes imploring her to understand.
When the golem came to life, I thought that somehow it must be a reward for both of us. The universe had given me a brother or a son, grateful for all that I had done to fight suffering in the world. And the golem—Joe—like Pinocchio, he had become a real boy, with an opportunity to learn what it meant to be human. He had waited hundreds of years, standing in a box, but now he could live and die as a man.
Molly stood in the midst of the dust and the strange books and artifacts that Mr. Church had acquired during his long life, and she could not help thinking that Joe had been one of those things. The thought troubled her deeply.
“He did die,” she said. “In Brooklyn Heights, at the cemetery. They shot him so many times … he must have died.”
Again, Church’s ghost hung his head, but now she saw the shame in his posture, the regret that weighed so heavily on him.
I had no choice but to bring him back. Someone had to stop Dr. Cocteau.
Molly stared at Church’s ghost, gooseflesh prickling her skin. As the words sank in, she raised a hand, afraid for a moment that she might be sick.
“You … you did it to him on purpose?” she asked. “You’re saying God, or the universe, gave him this gift of being human, and you took it away?”
Church’s ghost lifted its cold gaze and stared at her. You would be dead now, otherwise. And if Dr. Cocteau had somehow learned to use the Pentajulum … reality itself was in danger.
If I had asked Joe, he would have willingly sacrificed his humanity for the lives of so many others.
“Cocteau would never have learned,” Molly protested.
He was … he was my best friend, Molly. If there had been any other way …
Molly exhaled, closing her eyes for a moment as grief settled even more heavily upon her.
“So, what now?” she said, staring at the ghost. “You’re still here. Is this you now? You’re going to just keep lingering however you can, holding on to the world until it gives up spinning?”
Not at all, the ghost whispered. Its voice remained the tiniest breath upon her ear, but now it had diminished further, Mr. Church’s regret quiet and yet overpowering. My soul will pass from the world now, and you will be the only person alive who knows the true story of Joe Golem. He’s out there wandering now. You must find him, Molly, and remind him who he is.
“He knows who he is,” Molly said.
He knows what he was. You need to help him remember what he can be.
“Me?” Molly asked, incredulous, shaking her head. “How the hell am I supposed to do that?”
Church’s ghost stared down at the withered husk of his own mortal remains. You have to help him recapture his humanity, so that one day he can truly, finally, die as a man.
A hundred thoughts filled her head, a hundred reasons why she could not possibly do as Church had asked. But before she could summon a word in reply, the ghost faded from the world, leaving Molly McHugh alive but alone in the Drowning City.
Outside, the water had calmed, as if New York was holding its breath. But soon the current would strengthen again, the river churning toward the sea. The tide had shifted, and it was headed out.
Joe Golem and the Drowning City: An Illustrated Novel Page 22