by Libba Bray
When they were washed to Octavia’s satisfaction, they sat around the old wooden table that their grandfather, a carpenter, had made as a wedding present to his young wife, their heads bowed.
“Dear Lord, we thank you for this bounty which we are about to receive….” Memphis said the words without feeling. He wasn’t thinking of being grateful for supper, but of the bounty he hoped to receive for himself. He prayed for his place in the world: his own words in a book and a reading at a salon on Striver’s Row, a place at the table with Whitman and Cullen and Mr. Hughes.
“… In Jesus’s name we pray. Amen.”
Octavia passed a casserole dish of baked sweet potatoes.
“I want you two to be very careful out there. You hear about that business down under the bridge?”
The boys shook their heads.
“I expect not. I heard it from Bessie Watkins, who got it from Delilah Robinson, whose husband works down at the docks. He called her just a little while ago. Woman got herself carved up by a madman.”
“That’s inappropriate dinner talk!” Isaiah said through a mouthful of potatoes.
“Take your elbows off the table. And don’t talk with food in your mouth. That’s what’s inappropriate.” Octavia shook her head as she buttered a piece of bread. “Don’t know what this world’s coming to. Feels like it’s all spinning too fast toward Judgment Day.”
Memphis hated it when his aunt talked this way. She never missed a chance to worry that the end was nigh—and she never missed a chance to worry everybody else with her thoughts.
“Well, all the same, I want you to be careful. Isaiah, I don’t want you going anywhere after dark by yourself. Memphis, you see to it, now.”
Memphis swallowed down his mouthful of potatoes. “Me? Marvin left you in charge, didn’t he?”
“Don’t use that tone with me. And don’t call your father Marvin.”
“That’s his name, isn’t it?”
“As a matter of fact, I got a letter from your father today.”
“Is he coming back?” Isaiah said.
Octavia put her let-’em-down-easy smile on, and Memphis knew what was in the letter without even reading it.
“Not yet, baby. He’s still getting settled.”
“He’s been getting settled for nearly three years,” Memphis said, dropping an unwieldy spoonful of beans onto his plate.
“The man’s working hard and sending back money for the two of you. You don’t know everything, Memphis John.”
“What happened to the lady under the bridge?” Isaiah asked, and Memphis shot his aunt a dirty look.
“Never mind about that, now. Eat your beans. And drink your milk or you won’t grow.”
“And then we’ll have to call you Shrimpy. Old Shrimpy Campbell,” Memphis teased, trying to distract his brother. “So puny, folks had to carry him around on a piece of toast. So small he wore a hat made from a tooth. So incredibly stunted that even the tadpoles felt sorry for him.”
Isaiah blurbled up some milk, laughing. Octavia started to reprimand them both, but even she couldn’t keep from giggling. So Memphis kept the story going, spinning it out wildly, as if it could weave them all together and keep them there in that moment with strings of words.
In the quiet of her kitchen, Sister Walker turned on the radio. It hummed and hissed, then came to life with a man’s voice promising the benefits of the Parker Dental System. She left it on. That nagging cough was back, and she fished a lozenge from a tin near the sugar canister, then lit a match under the kettle for tea. The work with Isaiah was promising. Very promising. It had been a long time since she’d seen anybody like him. But she cautioned herself against too much excitement. She knew well that such a promise could flare, then dim and fall away entirely, like she’d heard it had with Memphis.
Sister Walker stepped back into the parlor and turned on a lamp. The bulb chased the evening shadows from the room. She lifted a painting of Paris from its hook and rested it against the wall by her feet. Behind the painting, a small, faint square had been cut into the plaster. She lifted the square and from the space inside the wall retrieved a thick portfolio. Sitting on the pristine sofa, she flipped through the files, reading over the material, looking for anything she might have missed. In the kitchen, the teakettle screamed. Sister Walker startled, then laughed at her own skittishness. She secured the files and sealed the wall, centering the picture again. The tea was hot; it soothed the rattle in her chest as she riffled through the newspaper clippings she’d been accumulating.
If she was right about Isaiah Campbell, the power was coming back. What did that mean? How many others like him were there? What were they capable of?
And how long before they were found?
THE HEARTS OF MEN
It was late when Evie, Will, and Jericho returned to the museum. Up in the tall stacks of the library, Uncle Will pushed from shelf to shelf on the rolling ladder, running a finger along weathered spines, handing things to Jericho. He shouted down to Evie, “See if you can locate a Bible. You should find one in the collections room.”
Evie didn’t relish going into that room, especially at night. “Can’t Jericho do it? He knows the museum better than I do.”
“Jericho is assisting me, and as far as I can tell, you’re capable of walking. You did insist on coming today, did you not?”
“Yes, but—”
“Then make yourself useful.”
Evie stepped quickly through the rooms of the museum, switching on lamps as she went. She didn’t care if the electric bill was enormous; she wanted it as bright as the Great White Way. At the doorway of the collections room, Evie paused, searching with her eyes only, in the hope that she’d locate what she needed without having to actually walk around in that cavernous space filled with mysterious objects. When it was clear she’d have to go in, she cranked up the old Victrola to keep her company and chase away the shivers. It was a tinny recording of someone playing ragtime piano. The jaunty tune helped ease her jitters as she got on with her search of the room. In the corner by the fireplace, she tripped over something under the Persian rug. Lifting a corner, she saw an iron ring in the floor for a small door, like a storm cellar. It was too heavy to lift and looked as though it hadn’t been touched in years. She patted the rug back down. On a side table, Evie spied a Bible holding up a potted fern. “And Mother says I’m a heathen.”
The music had stopped. The record hissed with a few seconds of silence, and then a man on the record began talking. “Been able to see the dead all my life,” he drawled. “Some of ’em just wants peace and rest. Not all of ’em, though. Not by a long shot. There’s evil in this world, evil in the hearts of men, evil that live on—” Evie scraped the needle across the record and ran from the room without turning out the lights.
“What took you so long?” Will asked when Evie came panting into the room. He and Jericho had assembled a stack of books, which they were tucking into Will’s attaché case.
“I walked to Jerusalem for the Bible. I knew you’d want an original,” Evie snapped. “Did you know there’s a door in the floor?”
“Yes,” Will answered.
“Well, where does it go?” Evie asked with irritation.
“There are stairs to a secret cellar and a tunnel. This was a stop on the Underground Railroad. Sojourner Truth herself hid former slaves below,” Will explained. He took the Bible and put it in his case. “It’s probably only home to rats and dust now. Shall we?”
Evie and Jericho waited on the long, wide front steps as Uncle Will locked the museum. The lamps had come on, giving Central Park an eerie glow. Out of the corner of her eye, Evie caught sight of something that drew her gaze back.
“What is it?” Jericho asked. He followed Evie’s gaze into the park.
“I thought I saw someone watching us,” Evie said, scanning the park. She saw nothing there now. “I must’ve been mistaken.”
“It’s been a very long day,” Jericho said gently. “I wou
ldn’t be surprised if your eyes played tricks on you.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Evie said, but she had the nagging feeling she’d seen Sam Lloyd, of all people. She had a vague impression of him leaning against a tree in that overconfident posture that annoyed her so. But Jericho was right—there was no one there now, only the lamppost and the park.
Sam stayed hidden behind a jagged slope of rock until they were gone. She’d seen him. Just for a second, but it was enough. What was it about that girl that made him lose his street smarts? He’d come to the museum hoping to sweet-talk her into giving him back his jacket, but then he’d seen the detective and decided to return when the museum was empty to steal the jacket—and anything else he might need.
Sam had bided his time in the hustle and bustle of Times Square. He’d spotted his mark in a sailor idling uncertainly on the corner of Broadway and Forty-third Street. The streets had been crowded with people heading home from work. Most pickpockets considered this a good time to ply their trade, when folks were distracted. But Sam had a little something extra on his side: an eerie ability to move among people unnoticed. It wasn’t that he was invisible; more that he could redirect people’s thoughts elsewhere so that their eyes simply didn’t register him. He had only to think, Don’t see me, and the person wouldn’t. He was quick, too, moving with catlike speed. In those moments, all he heard was his own rhythmic breathing as he extricated a wallet from a pocket, snatched a purse from a restaurant table, or stole bread from a store shelf. He didn’t know why it worked, or how—only that it did. It was how he had survived on his own for the past two years.
He had a clear memory of the first time it had happened. He’d been young—ten or eleven, maybe; it was sometime after his mother had left. His father had a watch, which had belonged to Sam’s grandfather. Sam had been told not to touch it, and it was precisely that edict that made the watch so appealing. One day he’d sneaked it out of his father’s drawer and smuggled the treasure in his coat to show the other boys in the schoolyard in the hope that they would understand its value and stop teasing him for his accent, his clothes, his smallness. Instead, they’d ridiculed him. “This? It’s just a cheap watch,” the leader said, and he smashed it on the ground. Sam had been afraid to go home and face his father. As he sat on the sofa waiting, he wished for a place to hide. When his father came home, Sam’s fear was so great that he felt like a small child again, imagining that he could simply close his eyes in a game of hide-and-seek and the other person wouldn’t see him. He heard his father’s footsteps coming closer, heard him calling Sam’s name. Don’t see me, Sam thought. “Don’t see me,” he whispered over and over, like a prayer. And then, oddly, his father looked right at him and kept walking, calling his name as if he were a ghost.
Sam was at a loss to explain it. He remembered something strange his mother had said to him once. They were in the bathroom, and she was cleaning the scrapes he’d gotten after the school bullies chased him home and pushed him down on the street. “Don’t worry, lyubimiy. You have gifts they do not.” “What do you mean?” he’d asked, wincing as she pressed a damp cloth to his scraped chin. “In time, you will see.” In time, he did see, but he wondered if that was what she had meant after all and, if so, how she could have known.
Trying to keep warm in the slight chill, Sam had watched the sailor carefully and thought of his jacket. It wasn’t the wool peacoat itself but the postcard hidden inside his pocket that mattered. It wouldn’t seem like much to anyone else—just a worn drawing of majestic, snow-capped mountains and tall trees. No helpful postmark accompanied it. On the back were three words scrawled in Russian. That postcard was the only thing Sam had brought with him from his father’s house in Chicago when he ran away, taking refuge in a traveling circus heading east. In the six months since he’d arrived in New York, he’d barely been able to survive. But fortunes could change quickly. The papers were full of stories of self-made men, like Henry Ford and Jake Marlowe. Sam, too, would make his fortune, and then he’d find the place in the postcard. He’d find her.
Evie, her uncle, and the Teutonic giant had obviously left for good, so Sam flicked open his Swiss Army knife and easily picked the lock on the museum’s door. For an egghead, that professor was pretty dumb about safeguarding his treasures. Street light pressed against the museum’s stained-glass windows. It gave the gloom inside a warm amber glow. Sam waited for his eyes to adjust, then slipped through the quiet old mansion looking for his jacket. This whole affair could’ve been avoided if he’d used his skill on Evie O’Neill back at Penn Station. But for some reason, he’d wanted her to see him. He’d wanted to talk to her. And when the time came, he’d wanted to kiss her as much as he’d wanted her money. That had been his undoing. Now here he was in the Museum of the Creepy Crawlies, searching in the dim light for his jacket.
It had been so much simpler with the sailor. The man had idled on the corner, confused about whether to go forward or turn right or left, and in that moment, Sam had read the poor chump perfectly. When the sailor had finally crossed the street, Sam had come from the other direction. Don’t see me, he’d thought, and even when someone looked in his direction, it was with a hazy, unfocused glance. Sam moved seamlessly through the crowd and lifted the sailor’s wallet from his pants pocket with ease, then walked away without being noticed.
Where was his jacket? Sam chanced turning on a desk lamp. The light fell onto a stack of newspaper clippings a good two inches thick. He riffled through the stories, dismissing them with a smirk. Ghost stories. Spooky tales invented by folks who were afraid of living. Or who wanted attention. He knew the type. Then Sam’s smirk faded as his eyes fell on a small article from a Kansas paper that told of a fifteen-year-old girl who fell ill with the sleeping sickness. Just before she died, she repeated a phrase that baffled her family. It was only the same two words, over and over: Project Buffalo.
Sam returned the article to the stack with suddenly shaking hands. If this Professor Fitzgerald knew something about it, then he needed to find a way to stick close to him, maybe by staying cozy with his niece, which sounded like a pretty swell proposition. Unless she killed him in a fit of pique. She certainly seemed like the sort of doll who could do it. Sam smiled at the thought; he liked a challenge. And that one was definitely a challenge. All he needed was a way in.
He spied it hanging on the wall in the collections room: CEREMONIAL MASONIC KNIGHTS TEMPLAR DAGGER AND SCABBARD OWNED BY CORNELIUS T. RATHBONE, D. 1855. That ought to do it, Sam thought, tucking it into his shirt. He left the museum as he’d found it. By this time tomorrow, he’d have his jacket, and maybe a little reward money, too.
THINGS NOT SAID
Evie went straight to Mabel’s apartment and the girls scooted past the cigarette smoke–filled parlor, where Mabel’s parents were hosting a political meeting. As they shut the door to Mabel’s bedroom, they could hear the adults arguing about workers’ rights over cups of coffee.
“What’s the matter? You look terrible,” Mabel said.
“It’s been a real lulu of a day, old girl.” Evie told Mabel about Ruta Badowski’s grisly murder, leaving out the part about the shoe buckle. She knew Mabel—she was as much of a crusader as her parents. She’d probably march Evie down to the police station and make her confess. But Evie didn’t want to relive a minute of the terrible things she’d seen.
“How awful! Do you think your uncle Will can help them find the killer?”
“If anyone can, it’s Unc. He’s a genius.”
“Are you going to help?”
Evie shuddered. “Not on your life-ski.”
In the other room, the arguments escalated into shouting. Someone pounded the table and yelled, “We must do more!” while Mrs. Rose shushed and soothed.
“Mabel, could I sleep here tonight?”
Mabel’s eyes widened. “You want to sleep through that?”
Evie nodded. She needed the noise. It might be enough to drown out the nightmares.
&nb
sp; Mabel shrugged. “Suit yourself. Here, have a nightgown.”
Evie held up the chaste, high-necked gown, examining it with a scowl. “If I should die in the night, please remove this.”
“Could you please remind me why we’re friends?”
“Because you need me.”
“I think you have that reversed, Evie O’Neill.”
“Probably.” Evie kissed Mabel’s cheek. “You are an absolute doll of a pal, Mabesie, my girl.”
“Don’t you forget it.”
They crawled into Mabel’s bed and watched the light make patterns on the ceiling in the dark. They talked of Operation Jericho and poor dead Rudolph Valentino, and they talked, too, of their futures, as if they could shape the glittering course of their destinies with secret confessions offered like prayers to the room’s benevolent hush. They talked until their words grew sparse with their drowsiness.
“Have you ever known something that you were afraid to tell?” Evie asked. She was more tired than she ever remembered being.
“Whaddaya mean?” Mabel slurred.
“I’m not sure,” Evie murmured. She wanted to say more, but wasn’t sure how to begin, and Mabel was already fast asleep.
Under a crumbling eave in the old house, a spider waited and watched as a hapless fly ventured into its web. When it became clear that the fly was hopelessly trapped, the spider scuttled forward, entombing the creature in a shroud of silk.
Like the spider, the house was also watching. Waiting. It had waited for many years, through the deaths of presidents and the fighting of wars. It had waited as the first motorcar roared down dirt roads and the aeroplane defied gravity. Now the wait was over.
Deep in the bowels of the old cellar, the furnace flame coughed to life. Behind the furnace lay a secret passageway to a hidden room whose walls glimmered faintly with symbols painted long ago in preparation. The stranger turned a crank and, high above, a metal grate, rusty with neglect, screeched open to reveal a night sky untouched by the phosphorescence of city lights. It was the perfect place to watch listless clouds drift by. To gaze at the stars. Or to catch the full glory of a prophecied comet as it burned past. The stranger stood naked beneath that sky. His shimmering skin was also a tapestry of symbols. He placed the eyes upon the altar and bowed his head, waiting, like the spider, like the house.