The Tombs

by Deborah Schaumberg

  Thorn ran to the cabin and returned carrying the familiar barnacle-encrusted wooden box. My mother ran her hand across the top, a look of awe on her face, then she raised her eyes to my father, questions flooding through them.

  My father hung his head. “When I located Khan and the others, Nikolai Moralis came to see me. He told me how he’d convinced you to marry me even though you were afraid to do so. He’d shown you your power was a gift, not a curse. All these years I’d scorned him, foolishly believing he was out to steal your heart, and now I’m eternally grateful to him. He gave me the crystal, for you and Avery.”

  With teary eyes, my mother opened the lid. Then she commanded, “Thorn, lower this ship, now!”

  Jeremiah Thorn let loose his deep rolling laugh.

  My father grinned. “You heard the woman! Open the air intakes. Make sure the lateral propellers clear those buildings.” He handed Mother off to another strong crewmate and sprinted to the bow.

  “I never thought I’d see this again.” My mother handed the crystal to me. “I do not have the strength to use it. But you do.”

  “Mother, I don’t!” I shook my head vigorously. “I’ve tried. I can do nothing with the crystal.”

  She placed a hand on my cheek. “I can tell you what to do, but you have to believe in yourself.”

  As she spoke, we flew toward the roof of a building adjacent to the square. If we were lucky, we would get there before the protesters, but I lost track of them as we dropped from the sky.

  What my mother had said seemed so simple. Can I make it work?

  I watched in amazement as my father and his crew maneuvered the ship into position, using air currents as handily as the flow of water. And all the while, the pendulum of the giant clock swung from side to side with ceaseless precision.

  Assisted by two crewmates, I scurried down the cargo net to the roof, wincing in pain from the injury to my arm. The building was only three stories high, and when I peered over the edge I saw the assembly directly below. As we were so close to the Tombs, my father was anxious to take to the sky again. I stared down. If Khan and Indigo had escaped, I’d never find them now, with all these people clogging the streets.

  Ogden Boggs stood on the stage, arms raised to silence the deluge of applause. His enormous ego, as well as his paunch, seemed to have swelled even further since I’d seen him at the party.

  As I turned to take the crystal from the crewmen, an eruption of screaming and other commotion broke out in the square. I spun back to see police forming lines, shouting. The approaching mob was a raging river of bodies, like floodwater breaking down a dam.

  Angry cries reached my ears. “Tear down the Tombs! No more crows! Stand against the Commerce League! Unite against Boggs!”

  I’m too late! But then I thought about what my mother had said. Even if I can help just a few, it will be worth it. As she’d instructed, I squeezed the crystal with both hands. I focused harder than I’d ever done before; my sight shifted immediately. I knew I’d never forget what I saw below. Like thick tar, an obsidian river of energy flowed through the streets of the city.

  Possibly due to the crystal, the fury below reached up, touching all of my senses. I smelled the hostility. I tasted its bitter venom. It sucked at my breath and burned my skin. I could not let it consume me.

  I turned my attention to the crystal. My fingers found the ridges along one side. I pushed energy into each one, starting at the base of the crystal and moving up, like a pathway toward the top. At the last ridge, I pressed my fingers into the gap and bowed my head, placing my forehead on top of the crystal.

  Energy flooded into the crystal, each facet expanding it and multiplying it. The radiant light amplified and grew until I was sure it must rival the sun as it spread across the sky. But an empty feeling enveloped me. No one can see it but me. I felt a painful lump in my throat, knowing my mother had been wrong.

  In the next moment, a rapid torrent of images snapped through my mind. They flicked by so fast I could barely see them, but I felt every one in the deepest part of my soul. It was limitless. Every misunderstanding, every cruel word, every argument. Feelings of judgment, pride, envy, alienation. Memories . . . memories that held people back, that divided neighbors and made people do hurtful things. Tears streamed down my face. I heard myself screaming, felt myself falling to my knees, and then, the crystal slipped through my fingers.

  I tried to grab for it. I flung my arms over the edge of the parapet wall and watched as it hurtled to the square below.

  A black man, who’d managed to push through the line of police, saw it. Without thought to his own safety, he threw down his weapon and grabbed a finely dressed woman who was yelling in support of Ogden Boggs. He swung her aside. The crystal smashed to the ground where she’d been standing. It shattered into millions of tiny pieces.

  I broke it. I’ve failed.

  The flustered woman, still in the arms of the protester, took a step back. “You . . . you saved my life.” She withdrew a fan and waved it desperately in front of her face. “Thank you, sir.” The man nodded and turned away with a little smile on his face. Both of their dark auras transformed into light.

  Next to them, a man in a cape and a shiny top hat lowered his fist from the air and pointed at the glass shards painting the street. “I haven’t seen a projectile like that since the Battle of Bull Run.”

  A beggar in a wheelchair, who’d been cursing aloud only moments before, nodded in agreement. “Was there myself. Lost my legs at Bull Run.”

  “I’m very sorry to hear that, soldier.” The caped man saluted the beggar and handed him some bills. The same thing happened—their energy brightened.

  Although the clash carried on around the square, I saw pockets of light radiating out into the crowd. It was beautiful. Where it touched one person, it spread to another. But while some laid down their arms, listened to one another, others carried on fighting.

  Of those whose energy remained dark, two stared directly at me from the stage—Ogden Boggs and, behind him, hiding in the shadows, Dr. Spector. I was sure Spector had come to take credit for his serum, to get the recognition he craved, but now that he spied me from below, his good eye hardened, dark and inhuman. He had no crow-guards with him, as they’d been run out or captured by the rioters.

  My father called down from the ship. “Avery, we must go.”

  I could not tear my eyes away. Perhaps the police would shift allegiance and arrest Ogden Boggs and Dr. Spector. Some officers were already helping the workingmen, protecting them, directing them away from the square.

  I cringed as a band of men climbed over the stands and charged the stage, their energy murky and dark. Ogden Boggs saw them too late. He tried to run but tripped and rolled onto his back. They were upon him, bludgeoning him with sticks and clubs.

  “Spector! Help me!” he screamed.

  Dr. Ignatius Spector looked down. I would never forget the cold-blooded smile that slipped across his painted lips before he slunk, like the worm he was, into the deepest of the shadows and disappeared.

  Ogden Boggs was dragged from the stage. Someone called out, “The gallows!” A chant echoed through the mob. “Hang him! Hang him! Hang him!”

  My eyes flew to the courtyard of the Tombs. Already the gates had been cast aside and the walls overrun. The grenade had destroyed the top floors, and the mob was ravaging the rest. The Tombs would never imprison anyone again, of that I was sure. My only hope was that the other seers and Mr. Gentry would make it out alive.

  I watched with shock and repulsion as Boggs was lugged into the yard. He roared as they pulled him up the steps of the gallows.

  It was over within minutes. They reset the trapdoor, slung the noose around his neck, and pulled. The mighty beam of the gallows protested its grim obligation but carried it out nonetheless.

  For the second time that day, a body hung lifeless in the yard.

  The death of Ogden Boggs had a mollifying effect on the mob. As the din quieted so
mewhat, I heard my name. Across the street I saw Khan waving and yelling for us to go. He was with Katalina and some other Gypsies. My heart jerked. Indigo was not with them.

  “We’ll find him!” Khan called up to me. They pushed through the crowd. I strained my eyes until I could see them no longer, hoping they’d reappear with Indigo.

  Then my father’s men were beside me. “Miss Avery, it’s dangerous. We must go.”

  I saw where their eyes were fixed. A battalion of militiamen marched toward the Tombs. One shot would bring the balloon, and the ship, crashing to the street.

  Tears streamed down my face as I turned away from the Tombs—away from Khan and away from Indigo.

  Epilogue

  The Cassiopeia

  We’ve been drifting for days now. I clutch the rail and look down. Water. As far as I can see, water.

  My father stands beside me, scope to one eye. Once again, he refuses to go back. “Do you know what they’ll do to me?” he says. “I bombed a government building.” He snaps his scope closed and softens his voice. “There’s no going back, Avery.”

  He takes out his pipe and tobacco pouch, pinches and packs the dried leaves, then cups his hand to light them. I catch the cherry-whiskey scent before it wafts away on the wind. The smell reminds me of home. We no longer have a home, or if this ship is it, then we are like the Romany travelers of old who roamed from place to place.

  Father returns below to attend to my mother. Her recovery has been slow but steady. She’s strong one moment, full of fitful nightmares the next. The important thing is, I have my family back. I tell myself this again and again. I got my mother out of the Tombs.

  My eyes are swollen from crying, but there is nothing I can do. I can only watch the endless blue far below.

  Not knowing is the hardest part. I fabricate a story in my head. Maybe Indigo used his power to escape. Maybe he ran from the yard before the mob arrived.

  Even as I play out the images in my mind, doubt creeps in. Tears roll from my eyes, freezing into ice on my face. I leave them there, relishing the prick of pain. I want to feel pain. I didn’t flinch when Father re-dressed the hole in my arm. The bullet went clean through. Pain is better than the numbness that is smothering me.

  The memory of Ogden Boggs’s murder haunts me, and while that darkness will linger in the city for a long time, there was light in the square, too. People rose up and joined in unity to challenge him. Before my father’s men pulled me away, I even saw wealthy spectators standing alongside working-class protesters to stop the militia from advancing into the people. The worst part is that Spector escaped, with no one able to stop him.

  Seraphine chirps, and I turn to watch her hop along the rail. We’d used Geeno’s tracking device to follow Seraphine’s erratic descent. We found her half dead on a nearby rooftop. Geeno and my father fabricated an extraordinary mechanical wing that clicks and whirrs as she flies. I think she’s still getting used to it, because she tends to fly in circles.

  The Cassiopeia, named for a constellation of stars and my mother’s nickname, Cassi, flies high and maneuvers nimbly. She is a work of staggering genius. Her rigid balloon, filled with hydrogen, easily carries the sixty-foot wooden ship, an old clipper abandoned in the rear of the navy yard. My father added the steam-driven engine and the clock that helps to power her motion. The last clock, I think wistfully. He built the Cassiopeia right under the noses of the people who dishonorably discharged him.

  I slip into my second sight and am momentarily distracted by the intensity of the ocean’s shimmer, but then I see my hands. There’s a stain of dark energy swirling with the pale. I don’t know if it will ever go away, and part of me does not want it to. I never want to forget the life I took, that I killed a man. I killed a man. I think I finally understand the shame and remorse that tore my father apart after the Civil War.

  I wish that I could see the colorful spectrum of human emotion that Indigo told me about during our time together in the Tombs, but my sight doesn’t work that way. Mine is a simpler view of a soul. I see the subtle shades of our true selves—good and bad, light and dark . . . fear and courage, humiliation and honor . . . the parts that make us human, I suppose. Even as the thought crosses my mind, I second-guess myself. If that was true, then Spector also has some amount of humanity in him. If so, I never saw it.

  I’ve discovered much about my ability since I caused the explosion at the Works, and I fully intend to learn more, now that I have my mother back. I’m told the explosion was a chance occurrence, but I’m not sure. I know that I am an aura healer. I have the ability to help people see for themselves what is causing them hurt, or fear, or anger. And I can push them toward change, toward transformation, toward empathy for others and themselves, but as I’ve seen, they must be willing participants in order for it to work. If only I could show them the other aspect of my ability, the one I am truly mesmerized by: the gift of seeing the universal energy connecting all of us, connecting all living things. Then they would know that to hurt another is to hurt oneself. Things would be different if they saw that.

  Questions continue to batter my brain. What will Spector do now? And who will stop him when he emerges, as I fear he will? If I ever get my father to return to it, what will be left of the great and terrible city of New York?

  Geeno comes up from below deck and stands by my side. My father plans to adopt him. He will be my true little brother, it seems.

  “Avery, tell me again how you escape from the Tombs. Please.”

  I nod. “All right. Just give me a moment.”

  His face brightens. He loves the part about the parrot, Pepper.

  I laugh at the irony of it. Everyone thought it would be my special gift of sight that would help me save my mother from the Tombs. But in the end, it was my skill as a welder.

  As I’d once done from my roof in Vinegar Hill, I stare in the direction of Manhattan Island. It’s no longer visible, but I picture my last view of it before we’d drifted out to sea. I’d watched the glimmering lights meld together, until all that was left of the city was a gleam on the horizon.

  I thought that if I got my mother out, I would feel complete. Instead, I brood over the ache I feel inside my chest and ask, What about the pieces of myself that I lost? Khan. Indigo. Tony. Leo. Oscar. Katalina. Hurricane. Each name brings a stab of pain like a string pulled taut from deep within me. Especially Hurricane. There is a hollow inside of me. I left my living, beating heart behind, as surely as if it had been carved from my body. If only my father could fabricate a heart of metal to take its place—one that does not feel, one that does not hurt. But alas, even Father’s genius has its limits.

  Still, I wonder, How can I live without my heart?

  Geeno and I watch Seraphine leap from the rail into the endless blue sky. She has no hesitation, no fear, only her will to fly. I notice she is already adjusting, learning to use her new wing. A flutter of hope flares in my chest. I have my family; maybe together we can face this uncertain future.

  Seraphine calls out. I close my eyes and let her shrill cry wash over me. Maybe one day I’ll return and heal my broken city . . . and my heart.

  Author’s Note

  Dear Readers,

  The word Gypsy

  In America, most people think of the word Gypsy as a term that refers to Bohemian culture. However, today many Romani people consider the word Gypsy to be a derogatory term, and Roma is often used to refer to all Romani groups. But in 1882, when my story takes place, the word Gypsy was most common, and the Romani people referred to themselves as Romany or Romany travelers.

  I have opted to use Gypsy with a capital G to emphasize that it is a proper noun and not a behavior or a slur. I’ve used Romany when members of the group refer to themselves.

  The Tombs

  The Tombs was a real prison built in 1838. It was modeled after an Egyptian mausoleum and “designed to strike fear into the hearts of potential criminals.”

  Built over Collect Pond, a dumping
ground for slaughterhouses and tanneries, the Tombs began to sink from the moment the cornerstone was set and was gloomy, damp, and leaky throughout its existence until it was torn down in 1897.

  It did not house an asylum in the basement! (That we know of.)

  Learn more: nyhistorywalks.wordpress.com

  The Brooklyn Bridge

  The construction of the Brooklyn Bridge loomed over Avery’s neighborhood. The project began in 1869 and was a dangerous undertaking. Close to a hundred men suffered from the bends and between twenty and thirty people died during the process. The bridge was completed in 1883.

  Learn more: ny.curbed.com/2013/5/22/10241220/130-years-of-brooklyn-bridge-photos-decade-by-decade

  Did you know?

  There really was a Civil War Balloon Corps.

  In 1882, children as young as six worked twelve to eighteen hours a day, six days a week, for a dollar.

  Before labor unions, the government supported the use of violence to break a strike and often sent a militia to aid the wealthy business owners. Many died in “the war between capital and labor.”

  Learn more: sageamericanhistory.net/gildedage/topics/capital_labor_immigration.html

  Peregrine falcons nest atop the New York bridges! (There’s a falcon webcam.)

  Learn more: www.newnybridge.com/falcon-camera/

  While there is much actual history in The Tombs, there are also many intentional departures from facts/timing. This is a book of historical fantasy, and I hope you enjoy it as such!

  —Deborah Schaumberg

  Acknowledgments

  There are so many people I would like to thank for helping me make this dream come true that I hope I can list them all.

  Steve, thank you for always believing in me even when I am full of doubt. You help me believe in myself. Skylar and Ryan, thank you for being part of every step of this journey. Your energy is beautiful. Thank you to my mom, for teaching me I can do anything I put my heart to, and my late dad for teaching me to set my imagination free. I’m thankful for my sister Gina, who taught me that life is precious, and my sister Jennifer, who teaches me to put things in perspective. I’m grateful to all my other amazing family members for their support.