Before the Devil Breaks You

by Libba Bray

  “Ahem. You are interrupting my dramatic reading,” Evie said.

  Her mission? To forgive the man who so recently attempted to murder her, Luther Clayton. While there, Miss O’Neill became aware of a far greater danger to the inhabitants of the asylum, for it seems that ghosts haunt the halls and moors of Ward’s Island, or so claim the patients. Some folks might say that believing in ghosts is enough to put one into an asylum. Yet, in light of the recent, unfortunate murders there, it’s hard to doubt them outright, especially now that they’ve got a Diviner on their side.

  “There is pos-i-tute-ly a ghostly presence at the asylum,” Miss O’Neill insisted to this reporter after her brief visit. “Why, with my Diviner sensibilities, I detected it right away! I know how deeply the doctors and nurses care for their patients, and that is why I urge them to have my uncle Will Fitzgerald and his team of Diviners out to investigate and rid the island of any spiritual trouble right away!”

  The brave and kind Miss O’Neill did not worry at all about her own safety but was only concerned with the well-being of Luther Clayton and the nearly seven thousand patients housed at the asylum. “I fear they are in great danger!” Miss O’Neill insisted.

  This newspaper eagerly awaits the response of the hospital administration.

  Mabel gave Evie a hard squint. “You’re using those poor people so you can get back to the asylum and Luther Clayton.”

  Evie started to protest, but there was no conning Mabel. “Maybe I am. But they did talk about ghosts, Mabesie. And Luther knows something about James. We keep getting these messages—‘Follow the Eye’—and Luther said, ‘The Eye has him.’”

  “What do you think that means?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why I pos-i-tute-ly have to see him again!”

  Mabel considered this. “And you talked Theta into doing your show tonight?”

  “I didn’t talk her into it,” Evie said with a bit of umbrage. “She wanted to do it.”

  That afternoon, Theta had pretended to be a secretary from WGI, calling up the press to announce that the Sweetheart Seer would have a very special guest that evening, Miss Theta Knight of the Ziegfeld Follies.

  “If the luck of the spirits is on her side tonight, Miss O’Neill will uncover the mystery of Miss Knight’s past in Russia,” the “secretary” had promised in a nasal voice. “It’ll be a swell show. You don’t want to miss it for the world.”

  “I hope you know what you’re doing,” Mabel said. “That Harriet Henderson doesn’t like you.”

  “Gee, thanks, Mabesie.”

  “It’s the truth. Ignore it at your peril!” Mabel said in her best Nana Newell voice, making Evie laugh. Mabel’s smile faded. “It is the truth. And you do ignore it at your peril. She can twist the story any way she likes. And once she writes it in her paper, people believe every word as fact, whether it is or not.”

  Evie waved away the comment. “Let me worry about the Harriet Hendersons of the world.”

  “I do worry about them,” Mabel said.

  “Will you come to the show tonight? Theta and I are going to the Hotsy Totsy afterward. It’ll be the berries!”

  Mabel blew on her nails. “Sorry. I’ve got a meeting.”

  “All these secret meetings. When will I get to meet the mysterious Arthur Brown?”

  “Oh, sometime.”

  Never, Mabel thought.

  By the time Evie and Theta arrived at the radio station, a crowd had gathered outside along with the press. As expected, Harriet Henderson was front and center.

  “Oh, Miss Knight! Miss O’Neill!” Harriet called, waving her lace handkerchief, a gift, she’d proudly reported, from Jake Marlowe himself. It was no wonder to Evie that Harriet only wrote glowing articles about Jake.

  Evie winked at Theta. “Like clockwork.”

  Harriet sidled up to the girls. She was short and solid as a barber’s pole and wore a ridiculous hat festooned in enough netting and flowers to look like a wedding cake. Around her neck was a fox stole. The fox’s button eyes stared straight ahead while its mouth bit into its tail. A biter, just like its owner, Evie thought.

  “Miss Knight. Don’t you look lovely,” Harriet cooed. Her voice was nasal and flat, straight out of Buffalo.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Henderson. I love your…” Theta pointed to the fox. “Animal.”

  “Hello, Mrs. Henderson,” Evie said brightly.

  Harriet gave her a tight smile. “Miss O’Neill.”

  Evie imagined Harriet taking a cream pie to her overly powdered face.

  “My goodness, Miss Knight, I didn’t realize you went in for Diviners,” Harriet said. It sounded innocent enough, but the girls knew that nothing Harriet said was innocent. Even her grocery list was probably a trap.

  “If Miss O’Neill’s powers can help me find out who I really am, I’m all for it. Hip, hip, hooray for Diviners, I say.”

  “Hmm.” Harriet’s eyes glinted with something hard as she pivoted to Evie. “Miss O’Neill, is it really true that you think there are ghosts on Ward’s Island?”

  “It is, Mrs. Henderson,” Evie said, using every bit of those elocution lessons the radio station had forced her to take. “Why, the patients are scared to death! I do hope the warden will allow me back before it’s too late.”

  “Too late for what?”

  “Indeed,” Evie said as ominously as possible. She could feel Theta about to break into giggles.

  “Why do you think that man tried to shoot you, Miss O’Neill?”

  “I suppose that’s a question for Miss Snow to ask the Lord.”

  “Evil, don’t push it,” Theta muttered under her breath.

  But Evie wanted to push it. She’d grown up in a small town of small minds. She knew a Blue Nose like Harriet when she saw one—the types to smile and feign concern, then tear you apart behind your back. People like Harriet Henderson only rose by climbing up the misery steps of someone else’s misfortune.

  “Perhaps that man—”

  “Luther Clayton.” He has a name, Evie wanted to shout.

  “Yes. He’s a war hero, is he not?”

  “Yes.”

  Harriet smiled, and Evie’s stomach flipped as if registering an alarm a second too late. “You see, I heard that fellow, the war hero, wanted to shoot you because you were a Diviner, and he believed that Diviners can’t be trusted. That they are a plague upon the nation. Must be awful to be doubted by one of our finest, our boys back from the noble fight. What do you say to that, Miss O’Neill? Should we be more afraid of Diviners, perhaps, than we are of any supposed ghosts?”

  “Golly, look at the time! I’m afraid Miss O’Neill has a show to do!” Theta pulled Evie toward the door before she could lose her temper and say something she’d regret come the morning papers. “Don’t take the bait, Evil.”

  But Harriet Henderson wasn’t finished. “Miss Knight!” she called after the girls. “Is it true that you spend a great deal of your time up in Harlem with Negroes? My spies have seen you there quite a lot. I do wonder, what’s so interesting uptown?”

  The fear hit Theta like a lightning strike. All she could do was stare back at the cold light of Harriet Henderson’s eyes.

  “You keep on wondering, Mrs. Henderson—it’s swell for the mind!” Evie said with forced jollity. And this time, it was Evie pulling Theta to safety.

  “That reptile! That pinched-face, stupid-hat-wearing reptile!” Evie groused as she and Theta powdered their noses in the ladies’ lounge.

  “Well, that reptile has a lot of power.” Theta’s eyes met Evie’s in the mirror. “Say, I’m having second thoughts about letting you use that scrap of baby blanket for the reading tonight. I know we wanted to make it look authentic, but…”

  Evie lowered her voice. “Don’t worry. I’ve got it all figured out. When we’re up there, I won’t be able to feel a thing. Promise.”

  Every seat in the audience was filled tonight. Sarah Snow slipped into the audience at the back, along with Harriet Hen
derson. Mr. Forman, the announcer, welcomed Evie to the stage and they shilled for the sponsor: “Pears is American pure,” Evie said, reading from her script, trying to give the line extra enthusiasm so they’d be happy with her. So far, they were still boosting her show rather than Sarah’s, and she meant to hold on to their support. At last, Mr. Forman called Theta to the stage to much applause. She greeted Evie warmly, whispering in her ear, “I hope you know what you’re doing, kid.”

  “Just follow my lead,” Evie whispered back. “Welcome to the Pears Soap Hour, Miss Knight. I understand you have no memory of your former life in Russia?”

  “I only have this scrap of blanket. It was with me when I was found at the orphanage. If you could find something about my lost family, why, I’d be awfully grateful, Miss O’Neill,” Theta said, like the great actress she was, and Evie had to bite her lip to keep from giggling.

  “Leave it to me. And to the spirits, of course.” Evie took hold of the scrap of blanket Theta had brought. The wool was old and scratchy and rich with memory. Evie could sense its power, but, as promised, she’d taken precautions: Backstage, she’d glued small squares of paper to her palms in the hope that it would dull the signals from beyond. She closed her eyes and pretended to go under. “I see a sweet little boy… perhaps your brother?”

  “Oh, gee, I hope so!” Theta said, playing along.

  Evie drew in a sharp, sudden breath. The audience gasped, too, on the edge of their seats. “Oh. Oh, no.”

  “Miss O’Neill? Are you all right?”

  Evie staggered. “Why, this has never happened to me before… I’m… I’m receiving a message from beyond.…”

  Evie peeked through her lashes. The audience was eating it up. Here goes, she thought.

  “We… are the ghosts of Ward’s Island,” Evie intoned as if in a deep trance. “Help our spirits rest or face…” Face what? What would get her back to the asylum? “Our vengeance!”

  Evie swayed softly, meaning to faint for pure drama—why not?—but something wouldn’t let her. Some very real memory was fighting its way through to her, paper shields be damned. The whispers of Theta’s past curled inside Evie’s mind like smoke. She saw white. A blanket of fresh snow. Blood dotted the snow. A trail of it led to a tiny village thick with black smoke from burning houses. Bodies lay facedown in the bloodied snow like discarded dolls. There were men moving through with rifles. Evie’s muscles tensed. She’d seen those men before—the gray suits. A frightened woman clutching a baby to her chest waited until the men had turned the other way, and then she ran frantically from the burning village up the hill toward the cover of trees. Her moccasins sank into the heavy snow with each step, and her long black braid thumped against her back. The memory of this mother’s terror was strong; it wormed its way inside Evie’s own chest. Just as the woman reached the tree line, the rifle shot found its mark in the woman’s back. Gravely wounded, she dragged herself toward an ancient oak, secreting the bundled baby inside a hollow there. And then she lay back, her lifeless eyes staring toward the unforgiving sky. The eyes were deep and brown. Just like Theta’s. As the men pulled away from the village on their horses, a trapper emerged from the woods. He fell to his knees in that same snow and wiped tears from his bearded cheeks as he retrieved the bundle of fussing baby, warming it against his chest under a fur pelt. This golden-bearded man was the baby’s father. Evie could feel his fear and great sorrow as he grappled with a heartrending choice. Next, Evie saw the church steps, saw the light spill out from inside the church as the nuns approached the wriggling baby swaddled in its only inheritance, a blanket.

  Evie stumbled out of the memory to see Theta’s face, so like the faces in the snow.

  In the back row, Sarah watched closely.

  Harriet took notes.

  “What did you see?” Theta asked later at their favorite booth in the Hotsy Totsy. Theta kept looking nervously over her shoulder for anyone who might be one of Harriet’s spies.

  “Theta, do you have any memory of a village on fire?”

  Theta’s eyes widened. “It’s a dream I have sometimes. There’s all this snow. And then I can smell smoke and see blood on the snow.”

  “I’m not sure that’s just a dream.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Theta, I saw those fellas in the gray suits. They were shooting up a village and then they set it on fire. I think it was an Indian village. And I saw your mother. She tried to run away with you, but they shot her. And then, a trapper came along and found you—your father. He was the one who left you on the church steps. I could feel that he didn’t want to, but he felt he had to; you weren’t safe with him.”

  Theta took in a shuddering breath. She’d had a mother who had loved her enough to spend her very last breath protecting her, and a father who’d tried to do the same. Theta blinked back tears thinking about what her life could have been with parents who loved her so. “Where was this? Could you tell?”

  Evie shook her head. “Out west somewhere. There were mountains and trees and snow. It was really pretty. Like a postcard.”

  Theta’s chest was tight and achy. She’d never known so much about her past before. “Feels like there’s this hole in the center of me, and I keep trying to fill it but I don’t know how,” she said, drawing on her cigarette. “Like there’s part of me that’s just been erased.”

  “But you’re not erased! You’re here. Right now.”

  “That’s not it. You know where you come from. Your parents. Your brother. Your house. Your town. You got a story. Me? I got no story. I’m making it up as I go along.”

  “Aren’t we all?”

  “It’s not the same thing.” Theta’s eyes welled up with both sadness over her emptiness and frustration at not being able to make Evie understand.

  Evie covered Theta’s hand with her own. “I’m glad I’m part of your story.”

  “Me, too, Evil. Even when I wanna kill you for acting dumb.”

  Evie frowned. “Was that nice?”

  “No. But it was honest. That’s how much I love you.”

  “Could you love me a little less?” Evie grumbled.

  “You wanna be real friends or pretend friends?”

  Evie sipped her drink. “Fine. I love you, too. And I wish you’d trust me more.”

  “I trust you.”

  “Now who’s lying?”

  Theta had spent her whole life pretending to be other people, both onstage and off. It was her armor. Her adoptive mother, Mrs. Bowers, had never wanted to hear about what Theta was feeling. “Betty Sue, no one likes a complainer. Now get out there and smile like you mean it.” Smile. Dance. Entertain. It was what she’d been taught. And then Roy had come along. At first, Theta had mistaken his interest for love. Everything she ever said to him became a weapon to be used against her. So she just stopped saying anything. It had taken a lot to trust Henry. She wanted to open herself up to Evie and Memphis and the others, but it was scary. What if she got hurt as she had been hurt before?

  “Why would those gray suits burn down the village? Doesn’t make sense,” Theta said, changing the subject.

  “I don’t know. But I’m starting to be very afraid of those men.”

  Theta was afraid, too. The whole world suddenly felt like too much, as threatening as Roy in one of his slow drunks, when she could see his rage and disappointment rolling in like a destructive storm.

  “Well, well, the party’s all here,” Henry said as he scooted in next to Evie along with Sam, Mabel, Memphis, and Ling. “Congratulations, by the way, you two.”

  “Thanks. For what?” Evie asked.

  “Seems Will got a call after your show tonight from the warden out at the asylum. We’re going out tomorrow to investigate ‘the ghostly menace.’” Henry wiggled his fingers and made a face.

  “It worked!” Evie said.

  “Yeah. And our reward is to spend a day at an asylum. Hip, hip, hooray,” Theta sniped.

  “All we have to do is walk around w
ith the Metaphysickometer, talk to a few people, and get me in to see Luther Clayton.”

  “Just promise me we’ll be out of there before it gets dark,” Theta said.

  “I promise,” Evie said.

  “Meet me downstairs?” Memphis whispered to Theta. She waited a few careful minutes, then slipped backstage and downstairs, joining Memphis in the small room where they’d had their first encounter six months before. She locked the door behind her and sat on his lap.

  “Missed you,” Memphis said.

  “Yeah?” Theta grinned. “How much?”

  “I could show you, but I’m not real sure how good the lock is on that door.” He kissed her, slow and sweet. It made Theta dizzy with wanting.

  “I was thinking about something the other day,” Memphis said between kisses.

  “Don’t make that a habit,” Theta joked. Once she and Memphis started kissing, she never wanted to stop.

  “When we first met, and you saw the drawing I’d done of that eye symbol, you said you’d dreamed of it, too.”

  “Yeah?” Theta said, suddenly nervous.

  “Well, just seems funny. You’re not even a Diviner.”

  I’m not a Diviner. I’m a murderer.

  “Maybe it’s from being around Henry so much,” Theta said, feeling rotten for the lie.

  “Reckon that could be it.”

  Theta snuggled in to Memphis, resting her head against his chest. She didn’t want to think about Diviners or eye symbols or notes from mysterious strangers. She only wanted to have this moment together. Memphis kissed the top of her head and wrapped his arms around her. “Papa Charles still making you heal for him?” she asked.

  “Mm-hmm. There hasn’t been any trouble for a few days. But I never know when he’ll come for me. Makes me a little sick afterward, though. The first time, when I healed a fella who’d been shot, I had these little sores on my hands. They’re gone now, but…”

  “Gee, Poet. Maybe you better stop.”

  Memphis’s eyebrows shot up. “Say no to Papa Charles? No, thank you. Besides…” Memphis bent his head to Theta’s and sucked gently at her lower lip, then kissed her fully, like a thirsty man drinking from a well. “I don’t wanna talk about that just now. You wanna get out of here for a while?”