by Mailie Meloy
Xiao followed her eyes to the bag. “Are you an opium addict?” he asked.
“Medicines,” she croaked.
“Are you a doctor?”
She shook her head.
“A thief?” he said. “Sneaking aboard. We do not tolerate thieves!”
“Water,” she whispered.
The captain seemed to consider, then barked a command.
Footsteps on the deck, and a small woman lifted a tin cup to Jin Lo’s mouth. The water was faintly metallic. Jin Lo thought she had never tasted anything so sweet. If the barge captain was Xiao, of the family of acrobats, then perhaps this was his wife. And the flying attackers would be his sons, the little girls who stood on their hands his daughters. Jin Lo didn’t see the commander.
When she could speak again, she asked, “Where is your passenger?”
“That is not your concern,” Xiao said.
“You know nothing about him,” she said. “He is a dangerous criminal.”
Xiao frowned, but seemed ready to hear more.
“He has stolen a bomb from the Americans,” she said, because she had no strength to invent a lie.
“You see?” Xiao’s wife said. “I told you it was something bad.”
Xiao looked pained.
“Please untie us,” Jin Lo said. “I must find him.”
“He is gone,” Xiao said.
Jin Lo struggled to sit up straight. “Where?”
“He took your boat.”
Jin Lo looked to the rail, and indeed, Ned Maddox’s boat was gone. “Please go after him!” she said.
Xiao shook his head. “One should not climb on a tiger’s back,” he said. “It is hard to get off.”
It was a proverb from Jin Lo’s childhood that had always infuriated her. It told people to stand by, in a bad situation, and do nothing. “But you’re already on the tiger’s back,” she said. “You took that man aboard. He will kill people, and start a war.”
“I will not put my children in danger,” Xiao said.
“They are already in danger! The whole world is in danger! You can help!”
She thought the captain’s wife looked uncertain. But Xiao’s face was impassive. He was determined not to get involved. Jin Lo struggled, but her wrists were chafed raw, and she couldn’t get them free.
Chapter 45
A Portal
Janie couldn’t sleep. She rolled back and forth until the sheets twisted into a rope beneath her, wondering how to help Jin Lo when they didn’t know where she was. Her parents were up late talking to Pip about the script, and she heard their murmuring voices.
Then it was morning. Her father was calling, “Breakfast! Come an’ get it! Can’t work if you don’t eat! Can’t eat if you don’t work!”
Janie pulled the pillow over her head. But the clanging of dishes and the smell of cooking made their way into the room. She dragged a brush through her hair, remembering her mortifying meeting with Evie the actress, all uncombed. Then she pulled on a pair of yellow capri pants and a white button-down shirt.
At the table, Pip looked chipper and rested. Janie slumped into the chair beside him. “Morning,” she mumbled.
“My audition is today,” he said.
“Mmm-hmm,” she said.
“Wish me luck?”
“No!” Janie’s mother said. “You’re supposed to say ‘break a leg.’”
“Or merde, if you’re French,” her father said.
“I thought that was just for dancers,” her mother said.
Benjamin shuffled out and dropped into a chair, looking as exhausted as Janie felt. Her father dropped a plate of eggs in front of him, but he pushed it away.
“Eat!” her father said. “Mangiare! Coraggio!”
“I’m not hungry,” Benjamin said.
“You two clean up the kitchen before you go out,” Janie’s mother said.
Janie groaned.
“You have no other responsibilities!” her mother said. “The least you can do is some dishes.”
“Dai, dai, dai, ragazza!” her father said jovially.
Janie made a face at him.
When her parents finally left, bundling a suddenly nervous Pip out the door, Janie was alone with Benjamin for the first time since they’d sat together in the chair in Rocco’s hotel room.
“I wish we had no responsibilities,” she said.
“I wish we knew what to do about the ones we have,” he replied.
“I’ve been thinking about that.”
“Me too,” he said. “A fat lot of good it’s done me.”
She took a breath. “The commander’s son went through the After-room to get to China,” she said. “At least we think that’s what he did, to find his father.”
Benjamin said nothing, and she could tell he was still angry that she had gone to the After-room without him.
“So,” she said, “I thought maybe we could do that, too. Go through it.”
Benjamin frowned. “But he was a ghost.”
“Yes,” she said.
“And we’re not,” he said. “So we’re not really in the After-room, when we go. We’re just connecting to my father’s mind.”
“But it seems to be possible to use the After-room as a portal,” she said. “To travel through it.”
“Yeah, possible for a dead person!” Benjamin said.
Janie knew that his anger at her was making him resist the idea, but she didn’t know how to make it go away. “I’m sorry that I went to the After-room without you,” she said quietly. “We didn’t know what else to do.”
“It was so dangerous, Janie!” he said. “You could have died!”
“But I didn’t.”
They stared at each other. Was it really fear for her safety that had upset him, or was it, as Doyle had said, his condescending ideas about what she could and couldn’t do? Finally he said, “Okay, so theoretically, if I went through the portal to China, how would I get back?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “But maybe you could use the connection to me, since I just took the powder. It would be like a rope you could follow back.”
He shook his head. “It’s a crazy idea.”
“We might be on the verge of a nuclear war,” she said. “Wouldn’t you do anything to stop that?”
“That’s not a fair question.”
“Why not?”
“Because it doesn’t matter if you would do an impossible thing, to keep something terrible from happening. It’s still impossible!”
Janie turned a fork over, on the table. “Do you remember the trip on the icebreaker?” she asked. “With all the stars overhead and the white bow wave churning under the rail of the boat? The first time we ever kissed?”
Benjamin nodded.
“Well, that’s what I used to think about,” Janie said, “when we used the powder to communicate, and I had to think about you to make the connection. But it was a long time ago. So much has happened. I think we should have a fresher memory to work with, in case you need it to get back from China.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think I can get to China.”
“Benjamin,” she said.
“What?”
She leaned toward him and kissed him, and an electric current seemed to pass right through her body, and to ground itself in the floor beneath her feet. She had waited for this moment for so long. His lips were warm and soft, and she could feel the heat radiating from his face, in the morning light through the balcony window. She had a feeling that a transformation was taking place, a chemical reaction, and the touch of his skin was the catalyst. It was like the moment of taking flight, the moment of becoming invisible, the moment the flowers all burst into bloom in the Physic Garden.
She pulled back and looked at him. “Did you feel that?” sh
e asked.
He nodded, and she didn’t know how to read his expression.
“I think that would bring me back from anywhere,” she said.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he said hoarsely.
Janie stood up, disappointed, and gathered plates from the table. Maybe he didn’t feel the way she did. Maybe he never had. It probably was crazy to think they could travel through the After-room, or that a kiss could bring them back together. A kiss didn’t change anything. How could it? She ran water in the sink.
“What?” he asked.
“You were supposed to say it would bring you back from anywhere, too,” she said.
“How was I supposed to know that?”
She shook her head.
“Anyway, I don’t know that it would bring me back,” he said.
Janie started to laugh, and pressed her fingers against her eyes to chase away the tears that were welling up. If he hadn’t felt it, then he hadn’t felt it. And there was no chemical reaction if it wasn’t there for both of them. The connection was everything.
“Okay,” Benjamin said. “I’ll ask my father if your idea will work.”
She nodded, and ran water in the greasy frying pan.
“Do we really have to do the dishes?”
“My parents asked us to,” she said. “And we should try to get rid of the ghosts, too.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s not the worst thing ever to happen in Rome.”
Janie turned on him. “Your father always said there are unintended consequences, when you start altering the natural world,” she said. “And that our job is to try to limit them.”
“That was his job,” Benjamin said. “And mine.”
Janie stared at him in disbelief. Benjamin was so sure that he was alone in the world, with his burden and his talent and his grief. “Do you think I haven’t become involved in your work?” she asked. “Do you think I’m just some—cheerleader, on the sidelines?”
“No.”
“So it’s my job, too! The ghosts are my fault, and I have to fix it.”
Benjamin scowled. “I don’t know what you want from me,” he said.
“I want you to let me in!” she said. “And I want you to care about the world. About anything!”
“I do care!”
“Well, then show it!” she said.
Chapter 46
Another Telegram
They cleaned the kitchen in silence, Janie’s face flushed with anger and embarrassment. She wished she hadn’t kissed Benjamin. She wished he had kissed her back. She didn’t know what she wished. It was all too confusing.
They took a cab to the center of the city. They still weren’t speaking to each other, but at least the ghost problem didn’t seem too bad. Janie saw one or two shadows pass fleetingly by.
Outside Vili’s apartment, they knocked, and he opened the door. “Were you followed?” he asked.
“I don’t think so,” she said.
He shut the door behind them. The Pharmacopoeia was open on the table, and a low hum of voices came from a small radio. “I’ve been listening to the BBC,” Vili said. “To see if there’s any word of the bomb. There’s nothing so far.”
Doyle was asleep on the couch, his mouth slightly open, snoring. An uneven scattering of orange stubble had grown in on his chin. Janie wondered if he would feel her disgust and wake up.
“I received another telegram,” Vili said.
Janie’s heart leaped. “From Jin Lo?”
“I don’t think so,” Vili said. “But it’s in our code.” He spread the paper on the counter. It was written in typed letter combinations that didn’t mean anything to Janie. But above each combination was Vili’s handwriting working out the code. She leaned over to read the penciled-in words:
GREETINGS KIDDIES LONG TIME BEATI POSSIDENTES
Janie felt as if a cold hand had reached in and grabbed her heart.
“It’s from Danby,” she said. She could hear his lazy English drawl even in the telegramese. And he was the only person she knew who communicated in Latin tags. She had assumed Danby was dead by now, sunk somewhere in the China Sea.
Benjamin seemed too choked with anger to speak. Danby was the real cause of his father’s death. He had threatened to kill Benjamin, and forced the apothecary to make the uranium immune to their methods. So a bomb made from it would be unstoppable. It went against everything they stood for, and Benjamin had devised the smokescreen to escape.
“I’ll kill him,” Benjamin whispered. Janie had wanted Benjamin to care, but now she was afraid of the look in his eye. His nostrils flared. “I really will.”
She looked at the telegram and dredged up her Latin from where it was buried in her mind. “Beati possidentes,” she said. “Blessed are those who possess. Does that mean that he has the bomb?”
“It might refer to the uranium,” Vili said.
“Or to Jin Lo,” Benjamin said. “He must have found her, if he has your code.”
“He could have obtained the ticker tape from the telegraph office,” Vili said. “But I don’t know why he would write to us.”
“Because he loves an audience,” Janie said. She had first known Danby as a charming Latin teacher. “There’s no point in doing what he’s doing if no one knows.”
“I’m going to China now,” Benjamin said, almost spitting the words. “And I’m going to strangle him.”
Vili looked puzzled. “Going how?”
“I had this idea,” Janie said, “that we could go through the After-room, the way the commander’s son did.”
Vili frowned and waited for more explanation.
“It’s some kind of portal between worlds that Benjamin’s father is keeping open,” Janie said. “Or the ghosts couldn’t keep coming in. Right? At first it was just for communication, but then the commander’s son passed through it.”
Vili rubbed his temples, thinking. “In a sense.”
“But Benjamin pointed out that we’re not actually there, when we go,” she said. “We’re only connecting with his father’s mind.”
“Exactly,” Vili said. “You only have access to that world as his mind has access. And if he is keeping the After-room open, then it would collapse if he took you to China. There would be no way back here.”
There was a silence while they all considered what that meant. Benjamin could get to China, mentally, but he couldn’t come back. His body would still be in Rome, but Janie had seen how quickly his body started to shut down when his mind wanted to leave it.
“Okay, I take it all back,” she said. “It’s a really bad plan.”
But Benjamin’s breathing was harsh and uneven. “I’m going.”
“No!” Janie said. “I didn’t understand what it would mean!”
“I’m going,” he said. He grabbed the jar of powder off Vili’s shelf and drew a glass of water from the tap. “I’ll just talk to my father. I won’t do anything stupid.”
But the look on his face made Janie worry. She was afraid Benjamin liked the idea of going to China with his father and never coming back. It would be like their old days on the run, forever. I have been half in love with easeful death.
“You’re too upset,” she said. “You won’t be able to control your breathing.” She reached for the jar of powder, but Benjamin pulled it away. She turned to Vili. “Don’t let him go!”
Vili looked uncertain. “It might be our only way to help Jin Lo.”
“And stop a nuclear war,” Benjamin said, staring her down. “Because we care about the world. Right?”
Janie shook the sleeping Doyle on the couch. “Wake up!” she said.
The magician snorted and jerked out of sleep.
“We need you!” she said.
Doyle swung his long legs down to the floor, knuckled his eyes,
and saw Benjamin with the glass of water. “Oh, not this again,” he said.
“Be ready to help him,” Janie said. “And bring him back.”
Doyle scratched his head and yawned. “All right,” he said, in a bored, singsong voice. “Remember to breathe.”
“This is serious!” she said. “Be serious!”
Benjamin tapped the powder into the glass and swirled it around. Janie could see him drawing air deep into his lungs, preparing.
“You know, there are nicer places to visit,” Doyle said. “Paris. Morocco. Venice!”
“Be quiet,” Janie said. She wished Doyle wouldn’t take everything so lightly. What if the After-room collapsed, and Benjamin couldn’t get back? What if it was too late to help Jin Lo anyway, and there was going to be another world war?
“Sweetheart, you worry too much,” Doyle said, rubbing his temples. “Stop thinking. You’re making my head hurt.”
Benjamin lifted the water glass. But before he could drink, Primo came tumbling in through the door, sweating and dirty-faced. He was talking so fast and so frantically that Janie couldn’t understand. Something about gli amici, something about il libbro.
Vili translated: “Rocco’s men are on their way here. They want the Pharmacopoeia.”
“How does Rocco even know about the Pharmacopoeia?” Benjamin asked.
There was a silence.
Doyle looked sheepish. “Well, I maybe—told him.”
All of Benjamin’s formidable rage at Danby transferred to Doyle. “You did what?”
“He wanted to know about your powers!” Doyle said. “He was making an investment, he needed to know your bona fides! Due diligence, you know? I had to assure him that this wasn’t just some kid. That you have this special book that’s been passed down through your family, that tells you what to do.”
Benjamin jumped up. “We have to go.”
“Where?” Janie asked.
“I don’t know!” he said. “Somewhere else!” He swept the Pharmacopoeia off the counter and stuffed it into his satchel, then dumped the glass of water into a potted plant.
In her mind, Janie ran through the places they knew in the city. Where would they be safe from Rocco, a man with so much power? They were strangers here. There was only one place where they had connections and allies: a city within the city, with a wall around it, and many places to hide.
