by Libba Bray
The boys groaned as Will fired off a dizzying plethora of information and their pencils struggled to keep up.
Evie slipped out and went to wait for Will in his office. The steady click of the mantel clock kept her company as she took a look around. His desktop was awash in newspaper clippings and perilous-looking stacks of books. Bored, Evie leafed through the newspaper clippings. They were reports from towns across the country of ghost sightings, hauntings, and such strange goings-on as dead relatives appearing for seconds in a favorite chair and red-eyed “demon” dogs who frightened the caretaker of a junkyard in upstate New York. Some of the clippings were two or three years old, but most were recent—from the past year. Evie started reading an article about a girl who claimed to be able to speak to the dead and who had been warned by “kind spirits” of trouble to come. She’d just gotten to the part about the girl’s sudden disappearance when Uncle Will announced his presence with a soft clearing of his throat.
Evie shuffled the clippings to one side. “Hello, Unc.”
“That’s my desk.”
“So it is,” Evie said brightly. “And a tidy one it is, too.”
“Yes. Well. I suppose it’s fine this time,” Uncle Will murmured. He took a cigarette from a small silver case in his breast pocket. “You’re looking well.” Will lit his cigarette and inhaled deeply. “Did Jericho show you the museum?”
“Yes, he did. It’s very… interesting.”
“Was your trip comfortable?”
“Swell, although I was pickpocketed at Penn Station,” Evie said, and then wished she hadn’t. What if Will decided she couldn’t look after herself and sent her back to Ohio?
Uncle Will raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
“A hideous young man named Sam Lloyd. Well, that was the name he gave me before he kissed me and stole my twenty dollars.”
Will squinted. “He what?”
“But don’t worry. I can take care of myself. If I ever see that fella again, he’ll wish he’d never tangled with me,” Evie said.
Will blew out a plume of smoke. It hung thickly in the air. “Your mother has told me that you were in a spot of trouble back home. A prank of some sort.”
“A prank,” Evie muttered.
“And you’re to stay until October?”
“December, if possible. Until the coast is clear back home.”
“Hmm.” Will’s expression darkened. “Your mother has petitioned for you to attend the Sarah Snidewell School for Girls. They are overburdened at present, so your schooling, it would appear, falls to me. I’ll provide you with books, and, of course, you are free to attend my lectures. I suggest you make use of our many fine museums and lectures through the Society for Ethical Culture and whatnot.”
It dawned on Evie that she was free from the tedium of school. The day just kept getting better.
Uncle Will thumbed absently through a book. “You’re seventeen, is it?”
“According to my last birthday.”
“Well. Seventeen’s certainly old enough to do mostly as you please. I won’t keep you on a leash as long as you keep out of trouble. Do we have a deal?”
“Deal,” Evie said, astonished. “Are you sure you’re related to my mother? There wasn’t a mix-up in the nursery?”
Will’s smile flickered for a second and disappeared. “Your mother has never quite recovered from your brother’s death.”
“She’s not the only one who misses James.”
“It’s different for her.”
“So they say.” Evie swallowed down her anger. “That bit you were talking about back there—people who could see the future or…” She took a breath. “Read objects. Diviners. Do you know anyone like that?”
“Not personally, no. Why do you ask?”
“Oh, no reason,” Evie said quickly. “I suppose if there were Diviners, they’d be all over the papers and radio, wouldn’t they?”
“Or, if history is any indication, they’d be burned at the stake.” Will gestured to the many bookcases surrounding them. “We’ve an entire library devoted to such stories if you’d like to read more about America’s supernatural beliefs.” He stubbed out his cigarette in an overflowing ashtray. “I’m afraid I’m running a bit behind, and I’m sure you’d like to unpack and freshen up. The Bennington isn’t far from here—ten blocks. Shall I have Jericho walk you over?”
“No,” Evie said. Even a ten-block walk with stoic Jericho would probably be painfully dull. “I’ll be jake on my own.”
“Pardon?”
“Jake. Swell. Um, fine. I’ll be fine. I’ll go find Mabel. You remember Mabel Rose? My pen pal?”
“Mmm,” Will said, distracted by another book. “Very well. Here is your key. There’s a dining room just off the Bennington’s lobby. Help yourself to something to eat, and ask them to put it on my bill. Jericho and I should be home by half past six at the latest.”
Evie slipped the key into her handbag. She hadn’t had a key back in Zenith; her every move had been monitored by her parents. Things would be different here. Things would be perfect. She went to hug Uncle Will, who stuck out his hand for a shake.
“Welcome to New York, Evie.”
IT’S JUST THE BENNINGTON, DEAR
“Mabel!” Evie embraced her friend and waltzed her around the lobby of the Bennington, drawing stares from the denizens of the apartment building. “Oh, I’m so happy to see you!”
“Golly, you’ve changed,” Mabel said, taking in Evie’s stylishly curled short hairdo and her flapper fashion—the drop-waisted nautical dress and red coat with its poppy-embroidered capelet at the back.
“You haven’t. Still the same old Mabel. Let me look at you!” With a dramatic flair, Evie stepped back to take in the sight of Mabel’s drab, ill-fitting dress with a hemline that landed well below her knees. It was funereal. Actually, it was a dress that needed a good burial. “Mabel, you still haven’t bobbed your hair?”
Mabel ran a hand over her long, thick, auburn curls, which were softly coiled and pinned at the back of her neck. “I am exercising my individualism.”
“You certainly are. And so is the good old Bennington.” Evie let out a low whistle, startling a man retrieving his mail from the brass mailboxes set into the wall. The Bennington had the shabby beauty of a formerly fashionable address. The marble floors had chipped corners, the furniture was worn, and the paint was dingy, but to Evie, these quirks only made it all the more charming.
“Be it ever so humble,” Mabel said.
“Can you believe it? You and me and Manhattan? We’ll be the queens of the city!”
As Evie began to lay out their plans, starting with a shopping trip to Bergdorf’s, an absolutely stunning girl strode into the lobby. She wore men’s pajamas under a man’s blue silk bathrobe, and her jet-black hair had been cut into a Louise Brooks shingle bob with bangs. Her dark eyes were smeared with traces of the previous night’s mascara and kohl. A silk sleep mask had been pushed down around her neck.
“Who is that?” Evie whispered.
“That is Theta Knight. She’s a Ziegfeld girl.”
“Holy smokes. A friend of yours?”
Mabel shook her head. “She terrifies me. I’ve never worked up the nerve to say more than hello and ‘Isn’t it a nice day?’ She lives here with her brother.” Mabel pursed her lips knowingly. “Well, she says he’s her brother. They don’t look a thing alike.”
“Her lover?” Evie whispered, excited.
Mabel shrugged. “How should I know?”
“These came for you, Miss Knight.” The doorman handed over a dozen long-stemmed red roses. Theta stifled a yawn as she ripped open the envelope on the card.
“ ‘A rose for a rose. With my dearest affections, Clarence M. Potts.’ Oh, brother!” Theta shoved the flowers back at him. “Give these to your girl, Eddie. Just toss the card first, or you’ll be in hot water.”
“Oh, you can’t throw those roses away. They’re the bee’s knees!” Evie blurted.
Theta squinted at her. “These stems? They’re from creepy Mr. Potts. He’s forty-eight, and he’s had four wives. I’m only seventeen, and I’m not looking to walk the middle aisle and be wife number five. I know plenty of chorus girls who’re regular gold diggers, but not me, sister. I got plans.” She nodded to Mabel. “Heya. Madge, right?”
“Mabel. Mabel Rose.”
“Nice to meet ya, Mabel.” Theta fixed her liquid gaze on Evie. “And you are?”
“Evangeline O’Neill. But everyone calls me Evie.”
“Theta Knight. You can call me anything—just not before noon.” She produced a cigarette from her pajama pocket and waited for the doorman to light it, which he did. “Thanks, Eddie.”
“Evie’s staying with her uncle, Mr. Fitzgerald,” Mabel explained. “She’s from Ohio.”
“Sorry,” Theta deadpanned.
“You said it—and how! Are you from New York?”
Theta arched a thread-thin eyebrow. “Everybody in New York’s from someplace else.”
Evie decided she liked Theta. It was hard not to be taken by her glamour. She’d never known anyone in Ohio who lived on her own terms, wore silk men’s pajamas into a public lobby, and could toss a dozen roses like they were a cup of Automat coffee. “Are you really a Ziegfeld girl?”
“Guilty.”
“That must be terribly exciting!”
“It’s a living,” Theta said on a stream of smoke. “You should come to the show some night.”
Evie thrilled at the thought. A Ziegfeld show! “I’d love to.”
“Swell. Name your night and I’ll leave a coupla tickets for you both. Well, I’d love to stay and beat my gums, but if I’m gonna hit on all sixes later, I gotta grab my beauty sleep. Swell to meet ya, Evil.”
“It’s Evie.”
“Not anymore,” Theta called over her shoulder as she disappeared into the elevator.
“I can’t believe you’re really here,” Mabel said. She and Evie were seated in the Bennington’s down-at-heel dining room having a couple of club sandwiches and Coca-Colas. “What did you do to get drummed out of Ohio so quickly?”
Evie toyed with the ice in her glass. “Remember that little trick I told you about a few months ago? Well…” Evie told Mabel the story of Harold Brodie’s ring. “And the terrible thing is that I’m right, and he comes off looking like the wronged party, the hypocrite!”
“Gee whiz,” Mabel said.
Evie studied Mabel’s face carefully. “Oh, Mabesie. You believe me, don’t you?”
“Of course I do.”
“And you don’t think I’m some sort of sideshow act?”
“Never.” Mabel swirled the ice in her glass, thinking. “But I wonder why you’re suddenly able to do it. You didn’t fall and hit your head or something, did you?”
Evie arched a brow. “Thank you.”
“I didn’t mean anything by it! I just thought there might be a medical reason. A scientific reason,” Mabel said hastily. “Did you tell your uncle about it?”
Evie shook her head emphatically. “I’m not rocking the boat. Everything’s copacetic with Unc right now, and I want it to stay that way.”
Mabel bit her lip. “And did you meet Jericho?”
“I did indeed,” Evie said, finishing her Coca-Cola.
“What did you think?” Mabel asked, leaning in.
“Very… solid.”
Mabel let out a small squeak. “Isn’t he beautiful?”
Evie thought about the Jericho she’d just met—quiet, serious, sober Jericho. There was nothing remotely seductive about him. “He is to you, and that’s what matters. So what have you done about this situation?”
“Well… last Friday, when we were both standing at the mailboxes?”
“Yes?” Evie wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.
“I stood very close to him….”
“Uh-huh.”
“And I said, just like this, ‘Nice day, isn’t it?’ ”
“And?”
“And that was it. Well, he said yes. So we were both in agreement about the weather.”
Evie collapsed against the banquette. “Holy smokes. It’s like a party without any confetti. What we need is a plan, old girl. A romantic assault of epic proportions. We will shake the walls of Jericho! That boy won’t know what hit him.”
Mabel perked up. “Swell! What’s the plan?”
Evie shrugged. “Beats me. I just know we need one.”
“Oh,” Mabel said.
“Oh, Mabesie, sugar. Don’t worry about that. I’ll think of something. In the meantime, we’ll visit the shops, go see Theta in ‘No Foolin’ ’ at the Follies—I’ll bet she knows all the hot spots—Charleston till we drop. We are going to live, kiddo! I intend to make this the most exciting four months of our lives. And, if I play my cards right, I’ll stay on.” Evie danced in her seat. “So where are your folks tonight?”
Mabel flushed. “Oh. There’s a rally for the appeal of Sacco and Vanzetti downtown. My mother and father are representing The Proletariat,” she said, reminding Evie of the name of the socialist newspaper Mabel’s parents operated and distributed. “I’d be there but, well, I couldn’t not see you on your first night in town!”
“Well, I suppose I’ll see them tomorrow.”
Mabel’s face clouded. She shook her head. “My mother will be speaking to the women’s garment workers union. And Papa’s got the newspaper to see to. They do so much for so many.”
Mabel’s letters were filled with stories of her parents’ crusading efforts in the city. It was clear that she was very proud of them. It was also clear that their causes left them with little time or energy for their daughter.
Evie patted Mabel’s hand. “It’s just as well. Parents get in the way. My mother is impossible since she caught the disease.”
Mabel looked stricken. “Oh, dear. What’s she got?”
A slow smile stretched the corners of Evie’s lips. “Temperance. In the extreme.”
Their laughter was interrupted by the approach of two elderly ladies. “That is not how young ladies behave in the social sphere, Miss Rose. This carrying-on is most unseemly.”
“Yes, Miss Proctor,” Mabel said, chastened. Evie made a face that only Mabel could see, and Mabel had to bite her lip to keep from laughing again. “Miss Lillian, Miss Adelaide, may I present Miss Evie O’Neill. Miss O’Neill is staying with her uncle, Mr. Fitzgerald, for a time.” Under the table, Mabel’s foot pressed Evie’s in warning.
Miss Lillian smiled. “Oh, how lovely. And what a sweet face. Doesn’t she have a sweet face, Addie?”
“Very sweet, indeed.”
The Misses Proctor wore their long gray hair curled like turn-of-the-century schoolgirls. The effect was odd and disconcerting, like porcelain dolls who had aged and wrinkled.
“Welcome to the Bennington. It’s a grand old place. Once upon a time, it was considered one of the very best addresses in the city,” Miss Lillian continued.
“It’s swell. Um, lovely. A lovely place.”
“Yes. Sometimes you might hear odd sounds in the night. But you mustn’t be frightened. This city has its ghosts, you see.”
“All the best places do,” Evie said with mock-seriousness.
Mabel choked on her Coca-Cola, but Miss Lillian did not take note. “In the seventeen hundreds, this patch of land was home to those suffering from the fever. Those poor, tragic souls moaning in their tents, jaundiced and bleeding, their vomitus the color of black night!”
Evie pushed her sandwich away. “How hideously fascinating. I was just saying to Mabel—Miss Rose—that we don’t talk enough about black vomit.” Under the table, Mabel’s foot threatened to push Evie’s through the floor.
“After the time of the fever, they buried paupers and the mentally insane here,” Miss Lillian continued as if she hadn’t heard. “They were exhumed before the Bennington was built, of course—or so they said. Though if you ask me, I don’t see how they could possibly have fou
nd all those bodies.”
“Dead bodies are such trouble,” Evie said with a little sigh, and Mabel had to turn her head away so as not to laugh.
“Indeed,” Miss Lillian clucked. “When the Bennington was built, in 1872, it was said that the architect, who had descended from a long line of witches, fashioned the building on ancient occult principles so that it would always be a sort of magnet for the otherworldly. So as I said, don’t pay any mind to the odd sounds or sights you might experience. It’s just the Bennington, dear.”
Miss Lillian attempted a smile. A blot of red lipstick marked her teeth like a bloodstain. At her side, Miss Addie smiled into the distance and nodded as if greeting unseen guests.
“Please do excuse us, but we must retire,” Miss Lillian said. “We’re expecting company soon, and we must prepare. You will do us the honor of calling one evening, won’t you?”
“How could I not?” Evie answered.
Miss Addie turned suddenly to Evie, as if truly seeing her for the first time. Her expression was grim. “You’re one of them, aren’t you, dear?”
“Miss O’Neill is Mr. Fitzgerald’s niece,” Mabel supplied.
“No. One of them,” Miss Addie said in an urgent whisper that sent a shiver up Evie’s spine.
“Now, now, Addie, let’s leave these girls to their dinner. We’ve work to do. Adieu!”
The Proctor sisters were barely out of the dining room when Mabel convulsed in a fit of giggling. “ ‘After the fever, there were the paupers,’ ” she mimicked, still laughing.
“What do you suppose she meant, ‘You’re one of them’? Does she say that to everyone she meets?” Evie asked, hoping she didn’t sound as unsettled as she felt.
Mabel shrugged. “Sometimes Miss Addie wanders the floors in her nightgown. My father’s had to return her to her flat a few times.” Mabel tapped her index finger against the side of her head. “Not all there. She probably meant you’re one of those flappers, and she does not approve,” she teased, wagging her finger like a schoolmarm. “Oh, this really is going to be the best time of our lives, isn’t it?” she said with such enthusiasm that Evie put Miss Addie’s upsetting comment out of her mind.