by Mailie Meloy
The powder. The night was warm, and Janie had gone to dinner without her jacket. She’d taken it off when she thought Benjamin was going with them, or she wouldn’t have left it behind. He was pretty sure she’d left the jar in the pocket—here, in the apartment. The thought made him nearly dizzy with longing.
But he wasn’t going to go to the After-room on his own. He had promised. He had to get to dinner. First he had to find a clean pair of trousers, and pull on his socks. Then his shoes. One had slid under the bed. The laces were knotted. Everything was so difficult. He knew that Janie’s parents would require conversation of him. There would be questions and jokes—her father’s terrible jokes.
There was a knock at the door.
He assumed it was Janie, coming back to check on him, and he opened the door.
In the hall stood Doyle the Magnificent, ginger-haired and seedy, in a tan raincoat. Beneath his eyes were fading bruises, green and yellow, sliding down his face, so that he looked like a moldy cheese.
“Buona sera!” Doyle said. He was standing with the tallest man Benjamin had ever seen.
“What are you doing here?” Benjamin asked.
“Making amends. I’m sorry I was such a jerk. Come on, let’s go see your pops.”
Benjamin glanced up at the giant.
“Don’t worry about Gianni,” Doyle said. “He never speaks, and he doesn’t understand English. He barely thinks, or at least I can’t hear it. It’s amazing—if I stand very close to him, he actually dims other people’s thoughts.”
“Why is he here?”
“He’s our driver,” Doyle said. “Wait’ll you see the car! C’mon, let’s go.”
“Why would I ever trust you again?” Benjamin asked.
The magician tilted his head to one side. “People make mistakes, Benjamin. To forgive is divine, and it’s also adult. Don’t be a child.”
“I’m expected at dinner.”
“What, to talk about the fake movie and listen to bad jokes?”
“How do you know about the movie?”
Doyle threw his head back in impatience. “Do we have to go through this again? The filter’s gone. So what’s in your head is in my head.”
“The Scotts will worry about me.”
“You’ll leave a note. Do you have a curfew?”
It wouldn’t have occurred to the Scotts to give Benjamin a curfew, because he never went out. “Not exactly.”
“Then get the powder and let’s go, before I have Gianni throw you over his shoulder. It will be much more dignified for you to walk down the stairs.”
Benjamin looked at the two men. The giant could certainly overpower him, if he wanted to. So was he being kidnapped? Somehow, he didn’t think so. And either way, going with them seemed like a way to move forward. Doyle could help him talk to his father. If Benjamin didn’t go, he would be stuck in this exhausting holding pattern, doing pointless things. Scouting locations for a movie that only existed to give Janie’s parents something to do.
“Just a minute,” he said.
He went to Janie’s room, where her blue jacket was hanging on the doorknob. He reached into the pocket and touched the smooth glass jar. He felt a sting of conscience. But the powder didn’t belong to her. He had made it. He slipped it into his own jacket pocket and felt a rush of power.
“Now leave a note,” Doyle said. “Find some excuse. You’re out for a walk.”
Benjamin scribbled a note.
“Let me see,” Doyle said, and he read the note over. “The aqueduct!” he said. “Very clever.”
Benjamin went to leave the note on the table, and saw three oranges in a basket. He looked at Doyle, standing at the door next to Gianni, who dimmed other people’s minds. But dimmed wasn’t shut off. So could Benjamin scramble the transmission of his own thoughts?
He concentrated on the memory of the Trevi Fountain, to block whatever might get through to Doyle. The great muscular water god, the rampant horses, the triton charioteer blowing a shell as a horn. The rushing roar of water that drowned out everything. He tipped the basket and spilled out three oranges on the floor. The rush of water. The leaping stone horses. The crowds throwing coins over their shoulders.
“Come on!” Doyle said. “Before they come home!”
Benjamin followed him down the stairs.
“Been to the Trevi Fountain, have you?” Doyle asked.
“Yes,” Benjamin said.
“Spectacular, no?”
“Sure is,” Benjamin said. Horses. Tritons. A rush of water.
“Did you throw a coin in?”
“We forgot,” Benjamin said. Coins, rusted turquoise on the bottom of the pool.
A dark red Alfa Romeo, polished to gleaming, was parked outside the building. It was the most beautiful car Benjamin had ever seen, but getting into a stranger’s car suddenly seemed a very bad idea. He hesitated. Doyle opened the door and Benjamin took a deep breath and told himself he was moving forward. He climbed in. Doyle got in after him. The giant folded himself improbably into the driver’s seat, and the car pulled away from the curb.
Chapter 26
The Herbalist
Jin Lo steered the boat into the harbor at Xiangshan, in search of a telegraph office and supplies. She had written to Vili in code, with an old cipher devised by the apothecary, and she needed to send her message to Luxembourg. And their food and fuel were running low.
With Ned Maddox hidden in the boat’s cabin, she walked into town. She nodded to people she passed, so they wouldn’t wonder who the unfriendly stranger was, but she also tried to seem as uninteresting as possible, unworthy of their attention. The telegraph office was closed, so she asked directions to an herbalist’s shop, and was sent to a small house in a crowded lane. When she knocked there was no answer, so she pushed open the door.
The first room in the house was a bare kitchen with a concrete floor and a pot simmering on the stove. Jin Lo passed through a hanging curtain into a second room lined with rickety shelves holding rows of bottles and jars. An old woman in a loose shift sat in a chair, sizing her up.
“Good afternoon,” Jin Lo said.
The old woman nodded.
Jin Lo walked along the shelves, feeling oddly calmed by the familiar rows of glass bottles and porcelain jars. She chose carefully, scooping dried leaves and powders from the bottles into small paper packets, under the herbalist’s watchful eye.
“You have a good supply, grandmother,” she said.
“The best,” the woman said.
“May I visit your garden?”
The old woman’s look turned to one of suspicion. “Everything is here.”
Jin Lo made an acknowledging movement of her head. “There are certain things that would be better fresh,” she said. “More effective.”
“Dried is just as good,” the woman said.
Jin Lo had a chocolate bar from Ned Maddox’s navy provisions, and she took it from her bag and set it on the little table where the woman sat. “It would be a great honor to see your garden,” she said.
The chocolate in its bright white wrapper disappeared so quickly into the folds of the shift that it was almost like a magic trick. “Come with me,” the old woman said.
They went to the garden, laid out in neat rows in a little plot behind the house. Jin Lo walked on the boards that ran through it and understood that this was no ordinary herbalist. Her old teacher had given her a passphrase to identify others in China, however scattered, who were doing the same ancient work. Jin Lo spoke the words idly, as a passing comment on a patch of rhubarb, the roots of which were effective at suppressing fever: “The da-huang will soon come into flower.”
But the old woman didn’t take it as an idle comment. Her face lit up, and after a moment of searching her memory, she answered as Jin Lo had known she would, with the passphrase’s c
orrect response: “Then the fruit will take wing.”
Jin Lo smiled at her. “My name is Jin Lo,” she said.
The woman took her hand and held it, then led her back inside to show her the contents of a cabinet hidden in the wall. Jin Lo had never seen such treasures. Everything she might have dreamed of finding was there.
“Tell me, grandmother,” she said, when she had gathered everything she wanted. “Why is the telegraph office closed?”
“They were passing information to Chiang,” the herbalist said. “Mao’s army came and destroyed the machine.”
“I see,” Jin Lo said. “Tell me another thing. Can one buy fuel without papers or a ration ticket?”
The woman considered. “You can pay?”
“I can.”
The old woman wrote a name and address on a slip of paper. “He will sell a little fuel, but you must go as soon as you have it. He is not strong in his convictions, and might give you away.”
Jin Lo took the address and thanked the old woman. She returned to the boat, burdened with packages.
“Was it successful?” Ned Maddox asked.
“Halfway. The telegraph machine was destroyed.”
“So now what—Bat-Signal?”
She was interested. “What is Bat-Signal?”
“Something from a comic book. A spotlight in the sky.”
She shook her head. “That won’t work.”
“It was a joke,” he said.
She frowned. “Jokes are not useful.”
“Does everything have to be useful?”
She stared at Ned Maddox. It was a question that barely deserved an answer. Of course everything should be useful.
He said, “I’d argue that jokes are useful, because they make you laugh, and that makes everything else easier.”
“It did not make me laugh,” she said.
“I’ve gotten used to making jokes for myself,” he said. “I’ll try to do better.”
Jin Lo shrugged. “If you wish,” she said, and she set about sorting her new store of supplies.
Chapter 27
Honor
When Benjamin, Doyle, and the giant arrived in the room at the Hotel Majestic, a man sat waiting. He wore a light gray tailored suit and his hair was swept back. He seemed unnaturally still, in one of two deep leather chairs. Benjamin thought the man looked like a snake, coiled and waiting to strike, and he turned to Doyle. “What’s going on?”
“Relax,” Doyle said. “Just listen to what he has to say.”
“Please sit,” the man said.
He had an Italian accent and a smooth, resonant voice. The voice seemed snake-like, too: slithery and cold-blooded.
Benjamin sat in the second chair, his legs trembling. If this man was the snake, Benjamin was the mouse. Doyle and the giant remained standing, and Benjamin had the uncomfortable sensation of being guarded, his escape cut off.
“My name is Salvatore Rocco,” the coiled man said. “You may have heard of my cousin Giuseppe, in the city of Detroit.”
“Joey the Haberdasher,” Benjamin said, trying to sound brave.
Rocco smiled a thin smile. “My cousin was an apprentice tailor once, in his youth. It is difficult to escape one’s past. Doyle tells me you have a remarkable talent.”
Benjamin shook his head.
“Ah, you are modest, too,” Rocco said. “Doyle tells me that he promised you something, and did not fulfill his promise. In my life, in my work, honor is everything. When a man gives you his word, he gives you a piece of his soul. I have brought Doyle here to recover this piece of his soul.”
Benjamin swallowed. “That’s not the reason I’m here. You don’t care about his soul.”
Rocco paused, then said, “My mother died last year. Sometimes, when I am alone in a room, I smell her perfume. I believe she is trying to speak to me. She has something to say. I would like to speak to her once more, and I believe you can help me. But first, Doyle will teach you what he promised.”
“Where, here?” Benjamin said.
Rocco opened his hands and looked around at the elegant room. “There is something wrong? You will talk to your father, and then I will talk to my mother.”
Benjamin considered. Janie would say he shouldn’t go to the After-room alone—or surrounded by strangers—but the jar of powder was so heavy in his pocket. He had come so far. And Doyle knew how to help him. “All right,” he said. “But I want just Doyle in the room.”
Rocco tilted his head. “Why?”
“It’s too distracting, to have other people around.”
Rocco nodded. “Very well,” he said, and he stood. “My own suite is upstairs.” Accompanied by the giant, he left and closed the door.
Benjamin could feel his heart beating in his chest as Doyle filled a glass with water. Benjamin tapped a few grains of powder into the glass, swirling them around until they dissolved. Then he and Doyle sat down in the two chairs, facing each other.
“You remember what I told you about the breathing,” Doyle said.
“Yes,” Benjamin said.
“That’s how you stay tethered to your body. It’s easy to get caught up and forget where you belong.”
“Okay,” Benjamin said. “You’re sure you know how to do this? I mean, with dead people?”
Doyle shrugged. “In my experience, living people give you more trouble. And we’re not going after your mother, right? Just talking to your dad who’s close by. Nice and safe.”
“Right,” Benjamin said.
“Okay,” Doyle said. “First think about where the breath starts, with your diaphragm, how it fills up your lungs, all that stuff. Sounds kind of goofy, I know.”
Feeling self-conscious, Benjamin took a breath, noticing it expanding his lungs from his stomach to his collarbone. Janie had figured out how to do telekinesis. He ought to be able to figure out breathing. He thought about all the little air molecules bouncing around inside him. Then he exhaled, feeling the muscles in his chest relax to empty the air out. He inhaled again, imagining the oxygen-rich air coming in, passing through his alveoli into his red blood cells. He exhaled: the used air full of carbon dioxide flowing out.
“The hard part,” the magician said, “is to have a conversation while you’re keeping that tether—while you’re thinking about breathing. You have to do both things at once. Like rubbing your belly and patting your head. Try talking to me, while you pay attention to that slow, steady breathing.”
Benjamin concentrated, keeping his focus on the inhalation, the exhalation. With effort, he said, “What should we talk about?” His voice sounded artificial and forced.
“What you want to say to your father,” Doyle said.
Benjamin felt a hitch in his breath. “I just want to see him.”
“But what do you want to say, specifically?”
A long moment passed, during which Benjamin realized he wasn’t breathing at all. It was none of Doyle’s business. But finally he squeezed out: “That I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what? Are you breathing?”
“No.”
“Sorry for what?”
Benjamin took a noisy, shallow breath through his nose. He wanted very much not to cry. “For what I did.”
“And what did you do?”
“I was trying to save us.” He felt the tears coming. “I made a smoke screen. But I did it wrong, and it poisoned him—I poisoned him.”
The magician let out a long, low whistle. “Is that true?”
“Yes,” Benjamin said, miserable.
Doyle shook his head. “You must’ve had that in a concrete vault, in that skull of yours. I had no idea.”
“Janie knows.” Benjamin’s throat felt so swollen that he could hardly get the words out. “It’s why—I can hardly talk to her.”
“Janie
doesn’t think you’re responsible for it,” the magician said.
“She should.”
“But she doesn’t. I’d know if she did.”
“But she should! I am responsible!”
“She knows it wasn’t your fault.”
“But it was.”
“Are you breathing?”
Benjamin shook his head again. The room was blurred and his jaw was trembling.
“So let’s try this again,” Doyle said. “And work on the heartbeat, too. You have to slow it down. Keep it from racing, the way it’s doing now.”
Benjamin turned his attention to his heart and found that it was pounding against his rib cage, trying to escape. He imagined it slowing. His muscles were tingling with adrenaline, and he imagined it draining out of them.
After a minute, he whispered, “It’s working.”
“Good,” the magician said. “Now—keep your heart slow and add the breathing.”
With effort, Benjamin did. The slow, full inhale. The emptying exhale.
“Okay,” the magician said. “Why do you want to see your father?”
Benjamin breathed in. Heart slow. “I want him to say that he forgives me,” he said. He breathed out. “I want to know that he does.”
“Good,” the magician said. “Are you breathing?”
“Yes,” Benjamin said.
“All right,” the magician said. “Drink up.”
Chapter 28
In the After-Room
Benjamin was in the dark, but the dark was different. Clearer, somehow. He had the same sense of a room without corners, but now it wasn’t so hazy. He saw the particles shimmering in the distance, but he would not be drawn toward them. His mother was too far away, he understood that now. Outside the boundary of the room, closer than the glinting particles, he could see figures. Human figures, but shadowy and gray. And drifting. There had been no figures before, and these were drawing closer.
