by Libba Bray
Theta wasn’t about to let that happen. But how could she free Addie in time? “What can I do?”
Miss Lillian left her sister’s bedside and returned after a moment, a slim, well-worn leather book in her hand. “Her diary. Her spells. Go on, take it. She’d want you to have it.”
Theta opened it. It was inscribed, To our Adelaide with love, Mama and Papa. Christmas 1860. The pages crackled as Theta turned them. Miss Addie’s elegant cursive filled each one.
“All she knows of the King of Crows is in that little book. I hope that it can be of help to you,” Miss Lillian said. “Please. Please, bring her home, Theta.”
ADDIE
Adelaide Proctor’s body lay perfectly still, but her feverish mind dreamed of a dew-kissed meadow. Sweet clover as far as the eye could see. And daisies—her favorite. What a glorious morning it was! The sun pushing up fine and warm. The day would burn into a perfect summer beauty. Addie gathered marigolds in her arms, singing “Gentle Annie” as she did:
Thou will come no more, gentle Annie
Like a flower thy spirit did depart;
Thou are gone, alas! like the many
That have bloomed in the summer of my heart.
She stooped to twist a flower from its stalk and add it to her pile. When she raised her head, she was pleasantly surprised to see her lover, Elijah, standing at the edge of the field. The bright sun burnished the top of his blond head to a high gleam. Addie waved and called to him. He did not return the wave but began walking toward her. How she’d missed him! He’d been somewhere.… Where was it? Had he traveled to see his cousins in Charlottesville? She couldn’t remember, but it seemed he’d been gone for ages. Oh, she was impatient for him to reach her, and so she hurried her steps to meet him, thinking of the evening ahead. They might take her pa’s wagon into town. Lillian would have to come, of course. Their mother would insist on a chaperone. No matter. She and Elijah would find a way to steal secret kisses. She loved the press of his lips against hers, a joining of souls. They’d be married soon enough. Yes, he’d asked her to marry him—she remembered now! But they had to wait. Why was that?
A cannon fired, far off. The ground shook a little. Plumes of smoke rose from the distant woods. But never mind that now, for look! Elijah was getting closer. His skin shone clean as a new nickel. He was almost too bright to bear, like an angel fallen to earth. It felt like forever since they’d kissed behind the barn and Elijah had promised they would set up house on a farm down the road from her parents in a cabin he’d built with his brothers.
Addie’s steps slowed. Her brothers. Something about her brothers. The sun was a fixed dot in the sky. Again the unseen cannon whistled, and there was a great thumping wheeze, like a steam-powered thresher getting too hot.
Elijah. Yes, Elijah. Go to him.
No, wait. Her brothers. Her brothers were… dead. Some awful fever, wasn’t it? A buzzing whine like bees. The machine grew louder, screamed. Where was that hideous sound coming from? She sang over it:
We have roamed and loved mid the bowers
When thy downy cheeks were in their bloom…
Elijah, getting closer. Walking stiff-legged. Strangely.
There was no wind in the meadow. Why was there no wind?
Now I stand alone mid the flowers
Alone.
While they mingle their perfumes
o’er
thy
tomb.
A fly landed on Addie’s cheek. She slapped as it bit. Sickly wine-dark blood pooled in her hand. Unnatural. Unnatural. The flies were everywhere, and her brothers and mother were all dead, she knew. Had died during the War Between the States. The war…
And Elijah?
Elijah was nearly to her. Nearly to her with his lips that had once kissed her so sweetly. Nearly to her with his sharp teeth bared like a rabid dog’s when it growls and, no, that couldn’t be right, and mercy, but it was suffocating in the meadow—why was there no wind? The nickel gleam of Elijah’s face was no angel’s glow but the glare of raw bone peeking through ragged holes in his decomposing skin. Maggots had infested the filthy wool of his gray uniform.
(He’d gone to fight.)
Black flies swarmed the still air around him.
(They would marry after the war, after the war, they would marry.… )
The flies crawled across his rotting skin and cold lips because Elijah was dead, was dead, had been dead for sixty years. And just before her dead lover reached out to grab her hair, Addie screamed.
She hitched up her skirts, turned, and ran back toward the white clapboard church in the distance with the black wagon hearse drawn by six white horses out front. Behind her, Elijah was still coming, and there were more dead with him: Spirits who had not been content in death. Some who wanted vengeance. Some who had dealt violence in life and whose bloodlust had never left them. The petty, the empty, the lost, the grudge-holders, the desperately lonely, the weak. Husks of souls who had made bad bargains with the man in the stovepipe hat. Whatever the cause that kept them from eternal rest, these spirits were in thrall to him. Just like Elijah. But Addie had seen to that. She’d made the deal that had cursed her lover. She’d wanted him to rise from the dead, and he had, in his Confederate grays, and now, now she realized the folly of it all. How wrong she’d been. How wrong they had been. Elijah, dying for a bad cause. Addie, resurrecting what needed to stay dead.
Addie ran past the hearse. The skeletal driver tipped his hat. “We’ve been waiting for you, Adelaide.”
With a cry, Addie stumbled back. The church doors opened and she ran inside. But there were no pews, no pulpit. She had glimpsed this place once before, on the night she’d made a deal with the man in the hat. This was his land, the land of the dead. A jaundiced moon hung above the twisted fingers of dead trees, stripped of all life. The sky had been emptied of stars.
“Good evening, Adelaide.” The King of Crows sat upon a throne of skulls. Beside him stood a sad woman whose dark brown skin erupted in feathers. Her eyelashes twitched—feathers. He had cursed this woman, too, Addie knew. She’d entered into a bargain to save her boys, and he’d made her his shape-shifting messenger between worlds, part woman, part crow. This was Viola Campbell. Mother of Memphis and Isaiah Campbell.
Perhaps they could help each other. Help the Diviners before it was too late. But when Viola tried to speak, it was only a squawk, just before she coughed up a small frayed tuft.
“Adelaide Proctor. Did you think the King of Crows would not come to collect on a bargain?”
The King of Crows. There wasn’t enough power in any world for him. His greed was as insatiable as his cruelty.
“Let me go. I’m just an old woman of no use to you.”
“But you might be of use to them.”
“They’ll stop you.”
“The Diviners.” The King of Crows laughed. “What fun I shall have with them. And with you.”
“What do you want?”
The King’s dark eyes reflected no light. “Everything.”
“You want to remake the world in your image, like a malevolent god?”
“Your world created me. I am born of your want and greed and neglect. Your death wish. And I shall come to collect. Keep dreaming, Adelaide Proctor. For when you finally wake, you shall be one with the land of the dead. Another hungry spirit in my army.”
He gave Addie a push in the center of her chest, and she fell backward into an open grave, sinking down for what felt like forever, and far above, the King of Crows stood at the edge, laughing as he watched her fall.
HISTORY LESSON
At six o’clock, Madame Seraphina, Harlem’s number one banker and vodou priestess, opened the door to her basement shop and ushered Evie, Jericho, Henry, and Theta inside. Up and down the block, her loyal runners kept watch from stoops and street corners, ready to alert her with a whistle if it came to that.
“With Papa Charles gone, Dutch Schultz is trying to squeeze in on the Harlem numbers game. His
boys roughed up a Diviner, an Obeah man, over on Lenox Avenue a few days ago. I don’t go anywhere without protection now,” Seraphina said in explanation. “Not after what happened to Papa.”
She disappeared into a room hidden behind velvet drapes and reemerged a moment later with Memphis, Isaiah, and Bill in tow.
“Memphis!” Theta ran to Memphis’s arms and they held each other tightly. Theta kissed him—mouth, cheeks, nose, mouth again. She didn’t care who saw or if they were embarrassed by so much open affection. “Where were you? I was so worried.”
“The Shadow Men came after us. We escaped through the tunnel that leads from the museum.”
“We got stuck in the sewers! There was a ghost after us!” Isaiah exclaimed.
“A ghost?” Evie said.
“Sewers?” Theta said with a grimace.
“Good thing your auntie dropped off those fresh clothes for you,” Seraphina said. She laughed. “Wouldn’t bring ’em here, though. She made my runner go to Mother Zion to get ’em. That woman is pious. I will give her that.”
Sister Walker emerged from behind a curtained doorway. She appraised Bill coolly. “You promised me you’d look after Memphis and Isaiah, get them out of town.”
Bill puffed out his chest. “Wadn’t my idea to come back.”
“Will Fitzgerald paid with his life so you all could escape,” Sister Walker said.
“That’s why we came back. I had to know that everybody was okay,” Memphis said, holding Theta close.
A whistle came from outside—the prearranged signal from Seraphina’s runners. Everyone tensed as someone banged at the door.
“Shadow Men!” Isaiah said.
“Or Bible salesmen,” Henry whispered.
“Whatever you do, don’t let the Bible salesmen in,” Evie whispered back. “They’re harder to get rid of than murderers.”
Theta smacked Evie’s arm. “Stop joking around. This is serious.”
Madame Seraphina peeked out through the drawn drapes, then opened the door. Ling Chan stepped inside and took in the sight of everyone huddled together. “What?”
Theta let out her breath in a whoosh. “We thought you might be the Shadow Men.”
“I don’t think those fellas knock,” Jericho said.
“Come. Have a seat,” Madame Seraphina said, and Ling eased herself into a chair and rested her crutches against one of its velvet arms.
Henry was grinning at her. Ling exhaled in irritation. “What?”
“You’re ten minutes late,” Henry said, gleeful. “I didn’t know you could be late.”
“I had to ask my cousin Seamus for a ride. Do you know what he does?” Ling didn’t wait for an answer. “He eats corned beef for lunch, and then he breaks wind in the car with the windows rolled up. It’s a very long ride from Chinatown to Harlem.”
“I hope this won’t take too long,” Henry said apologetically. “I took a new job at the Ambassador Hotel.”
“Bellhop?” Bill asked.
Henry looked chagrined. “Playing Chopin waltzes in their lobby.”
Evie made a face. “That stodgy place? It’s full of dew-droppers and four-flushers looking for some egg to keep ’em in the good life.”
Henry sighed. “I know. But I’m very sentimental about the money.”
Memphis cleared his throat. “We’re all here and accounted for, Sister.”
“Almost,” Evie said quietly.
Sister Walker crumpled into a chair. She was a tall, broad-shouldered woman, but she seemed suddenly smaller and more fragile.
“Is it true?” Evie asked. “Did those Shadow Men murder Uncle Will?”
Sister Walker nodded, fighting tears. She coughed several times, the cough boiling up from her like tea in a heating pot. She searched in her pocketbook and found a lozenge to soothe her throat. When her emotions and the cough were under control, she spoke slowly, with great effort. “I was upstairs in the stacks when they came in. Will warned me to stay out of sight. All I could do was listen.”
Evie pictured her uncle struggling against the two Shadow Men as they strangled him to death. “Why didn’t you do something?” she demanded. “Why didn’t you scream or… or… he was your friend. Why didn’t you stop them?”
“So they could kill me, too?” Sister Walker held Evie’s gaze until Evie looked away. “Will made it quite clear that I should stay hidden. He wanted me to survive, to bear witness. So I could bring this.”
From her pocketbook, she removed Will’s dusty library edition of The Federalist Papers and dropped it on the coffee table.
“The professor wanted us to have a history lesson?” Henry said.
“In a manner of speaking. This is what’s left of our files on Project Buffalo,” Sister Walker explained. “These files are proof. Proof of our experiments on a vulnerable population of women. Proof of the powerful men who stood to gain from it: The Founders Club. The United States government. Senators and tycoons and generals. Jake Marlowe.”
“You,” Evie said pointedly.
“If you think they would’ve let a woman like me benefit from this research, you don’t know much. I resisted once and went to prison for it, if you’ll recall,” Sister Walker answered with cool anger.
Ling opened the book. Official-looking papers had been folded and shoved between the pages. Everything was there—names, dates, progress. There were signatures from two different American presidents, as well as a secretary of war. There was mention of the man in the stovepipe hat in dreams and visions and warnings, all of it ignored. Over Ling’s shoulder, Evie read quickly down the page and found what she was looking for: James Xavier O’Neill. Of the U.S. Army. Unit 144. It galled her that she would have to go to Marlowe tomorrow night and try to make peace for the sake of putting an end to the Eye and her brother’s misery. To save the world she’d have to compromise with the enemy. “How do we know that’s what really happened? How do we know you didn’t call those Shadow Men yourself?”
“You’ll have to take my word for it,” Sister Walker said. Her cough returned.
“Let me pour you some tea,” Seraphina said.
Sister Walker put up a hand, then relented. “Thank you.”
Ling held up the pages. There were about a dozen of them. “We need to get these documents to the newspapers.”
Seraphina snorted. “You think your institutions will save you? They’re part of this.”
“She’s right. I don’t think a Big Cheese like Mr. Hearst will publish them. He’s pals with the same people who paid for Project Buffalo. Rich, powerful people protect other rich, powerful people. I should know,” Henry said bitterly.
Memphis nodded at Evie. “Your friend T. S. Woodhouse might print it.”
“That rat at the Daily News?” Theta said, an unlit cigarette bobbing against her lower lip. “Why, he’d publish his grandmother’s diary if he thought he could get enough column inches for it. At the museum, he was offering Evie a shoulder to cry on and trying to get a quote all at the same time.”
“Woody is pos-i-tutely the worst,” Evie agreed. “He’s unscrupulous and murderously ambitious and, if what I read from his wallet once is true, he has some rather unorthodox habits of a sexual nature—”
Henry raised an eyebrow. “How unorthodox?”
“—which I would prefer not to discuss. Until later. With cocktails. But he’s the only one who’s believed us about everything so far. He wants the truth as much as we do. And he never quits.”
“Then I say we take it to the rat,” Memphis said.
“And then what?” Theta said.
“Then they arrest the Shadow Men for Uncle Will’s murder,” Evie said.
Seraphina shook her head and cackled as she returned with two cups of tea, one for herself and one for Sister Walker. “Those people? They always get away with murder. They got away with killing Papa Charles. Nobody’s writing about that in the Daily News, I notice.”
“You think those Shadow Men killed Papa Charles?” Memphis a
sked.
Seraphina’s expression said everything.
“Fine. I’ll take those papers to Mr. Woodhouse myself, then,” Memphis said.
“We can’t go to Woody just yet,” Evie blurted.
Theta eyed her suspiciously. “Yeah? What are we waiting for, Flag Day?”
Evie took a deep breath and let her words out very quickly. “We can’t because we have to meet with Jake Marlowe tomorrow night. After we attend Sarah Snow’s memorial.”
“I beg your pardon?” Sister Walker said.
“The hell we do!” Theta growled.
“Wait just a minute—when did this happen? Who arranged it?” Ling asked.
“Jericho and I did,” Evie said.
“Without asking the rest of us?” Ling said. “Who died and made you boss?”
“My uncle Will,” Evie said through her teeth.
The conversation turned even more contentious, everyone talking at once, hurling accusations and counteraccusations while Sister Walker tried to calm tempers.
“I’ve seen the Eye of Providence! I’ve seen what horrors it can do!” Jericho said at last, raising his voice above the din until everyone quieted. “The Eye and the time loop with Evie’s brother and the One-Forty-Four is what’s keeping the breach between our world and the land of the dead open. But it’s wildly unstable. It’s releasing all sorts of strange energy. Marlowe keeps needing to recharge it, and for that, he’s using Diviners.”
“Using them how?” Ling said nervously.
“He attaches them to the Eye and it sucks the life from them.”
“We have to save Sam,” Evie declared. “I won’t let him be fed to that awful thing.”
“The King of Crows is toying with Marlowe, doling out instructions for keeping the breach between worlds open permanently,” Jericho continued. “Do you really want to leave that in Jake’s hands without telling him what we know?”
“My god. He’s still using it,” Sister Walker said, disgusted. “He was supposed to destroy it after what happened during the war.”
