Lair of Dreams (The Diviners #2) (5 page)

“Is it?”

“Well, sure. He’s gone,” Evie said a little defiantly. “It’s all going to be the berries from now on. Nothing but blue skies. Just like the song.”

“I don’t know about that,” Theta said, leaning her head back against the cool bathroom tiles. “You still dreaming about that eye symbol?”

“No. I’m not. My dreams are pos-i-tute-ly the swellest,” Evie said, but she didn’t look at Theta when she said it.

“It just seems like something’s bubbling up. Something bad.”

Evie slung an arm around her pal’s shoulders. “Darling Theta. There’s no need to worry,” Evie said, expertly stealing her flask back from Theta. “Do you know, in the taxi on the way here, I saw a billboard for Marlowe Industries. It said ‘The future of America.’ The future is now, and we’re on the tippy-top of the world. Our best lives are waiting for us around that next bend. We just have to reach for them. Forget bad dreams. They’re just dreams. Let’s drink to the future of America. The future of us. Long may we both reign.”

Evie clinked her flask against Theta’s glass. The bathroom blurred a bit, giving it a soft glow. Evie liked it blurry.

“There’s something else I gotta ask you,” Theta said softly. “It’s about this whole Diviners business—”

“Most of them hocus-pocus phonies,” Evie warned, holding up a finger.

“What I wanna know is, you ever hear of somebody who had a power that was dangerous?”

“Whaddaya mean?” Evie asked. “Dangerous how?”

They were interrupted by a sharp pounding on the hotel room’s door, followed by a gruff voice calling, “Open up. Police.”

“Horsefeathers!” Evie launched herself from the tub, poured her gin into the mouthwash tumbler, and stumbled woozily across the room, exhorting everyone to hide their booze. She spied Sam in the corner avidly kissing the Hungarian circus performer.

“No class a’tall,” Evie tutted on her way past.

She threw open the door. Two policemen flanked the hotel manager. Evie managed a big smile even though her head ached. “Oh, hello! I hope you’ve brought ice. We’ve run out.”

The manager muscled his way in. “The party is over, Miss O’Neill,” he said with barely suppressed fury. “Everyone out! Now! Or I’ll have you all thrown in jail.”

A boozy exhale escaped Evie’s lips, momentarily lifting a curl that immediately fell into her eyes again. “You heard Papa. Better get a wiggle on, everybody.”

Drunken party guests gathered misshapen hats, loose shoes, bow ties, and stockings, and shuffled through the door after the police. Sam left with the Hungarian circus girl in tow.

“She’s too tall for you,” Evie hissed.

“I’ll bet she can bend,” Sam shot back with a grin.

Evie kicked him in the behind.

The manager handed Evie a folded note.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“An eviction notice, Miss O’Neill. You have until eleven o’clock tomorrow morning to vacate these premises permanently.”

“Eleven o’clock? Gee. But that’s before noon!”

“I weep,” the manager said, turning on his heel. “Sleep tight, Miss O’Neill.”

Theta grabbed her wrap and headed for the door, shaking her head. “Don’t worry, pal, she’s well on her way to being tight.”

At the door, Evie grabbed Theta’s arm. “Say, Theta, what were you telling me before the cops came?”

Theta’s big brown eyes showed worry for just a second. Then she let the tough-girl mask slide back into place. “Nothing, Evil. Just hot air. Get some sleep. I’ll tell Jericho you say hello.”

When the last guest had cleared out, Evie stumbled to the window and opened it, breathing in the cold night air as she stared at the neat window squares of light and thought of all the lives taking place behind them.

Why did Theta have to mention Jericho?

Evie had petted with lots of boys. Her world was good times. It spun like a roulette wheel. Boys were fun. Boys were playtime. Boys were distractions. Jericho was not a boy.

Just now, with the room emptied of revelers and the prospect of the long, hollow night looming, Evie craved the comfort of another human being. It wouldn’t hurt to talk to him, would it? she reasoned as she fumbled the hotel phone from its cradle.

“Good eee-ve-ning,” she said to the operator, the alcohol suddenly thickening her tongue so that she had to work to sober up her speech. “I’d liiike to place a caaall to Bradford… eight-ohhh-five-niiine, pleeease.”

Evie wrapped the telephone cord around her index finger as the operator made the connection. Probably Jericho was sleeping, or perhaps he was out with another girl having the time of his life, not thinking about her at all. What if Uncle Will answered the phone?

What was she doing?

Evie slurred into the receiver, “Nev’r mind, op’rator. Cancel this call, please,” and quickly hung up.

A collection of spent bootleg bottles, half-spilled cups, and overflowing ashtrays covered the top of the bed. Evie was too tired to clean it up. Instead, she grabbed the silk coverlet from the chaise and curled up on the floor like a child. She’d lied to Theta about the
dreams. They still came, bewildering, stained in horror. The soldiers. The explosions. The strange eye symbol. And on the worst nights, Evie dreamed she was still trapped in that house of horrors with John Hobbes whistling down the stairs while the wraiths of the Brethren poured from the walls.

“Ghosts. Hate ghosts. They are terrible… terrible people,” Evie mumbled sleepily, her head spinning as it rested on the rug. For a moment, her hand strayed to her neck again, searching for a comfort that was no longer there.

After leaving the Grant, Henry had found a little club, where he played piano until the wee hours. It was inching toward three by the time Henry let himself into the tiny flat he shared with Theta at the Bennington Apartments. He peeked through the crack in Theta’s bedroom door and saw that she was fast asleep with her silk mask over her eyes to block out the haze of city bright that crept through the windows despite the shades. Henry shut her door and made his way to the small card table awash in onionskin sheet music filled with his blotchy notations and unfinished lyrics. In the center of the table was an old coffee can marked
HENRY’S PIANO FUND
. For well over a year, Theta had been stuffing it with every dollar and bit of change she could spare to pay Henry back for taking care of her when she had needed it most. He stared at the song he’d been trying to get right for the better part of a week, then slumped into his chair.

“This is a sorry affair,” he grumbled, crumpling the page and tossing it onto the floor, which was already littered with his previous attempts.

Back in New Orleans, on the riverboat, when someone played a wrong note, Louis would grin and say, “What that cat ever do to you, you gotta make it cry like that?”

Louis.

Henry pushed aside the music and set a metronome in the center of the table. Then he wound the arm of his alarm clock and placed the
clock on the windowsill, dangerously close to the edge. Henry released the metronome’s pendulum and settled his lanky frame into a worn chair beside a hissing radiator. For comfort, he put his straw boater on his head. The metronome’s steady ticking grew louder, drowning out the soft bleating of New York City street life, lulling Henry into a hypnotic state. His eyelids fluttered—once, twice.

“Please,” he said softly. And then he was under.

Henry came alive inside the dream world with a choking gasp, as if he’d been holding his breath underwater. For the first few seconds, there was only panic as his confused brain sought to make sense of what was happening. Slowly, his heartbeat settled. His breathing relaxed. Henry blinked, allowing his eyes time to adjust to the dream light. Sharp and unforgiving, it rendered ordinary objects—a haystack, a wagon, a face—starkly beautiful or, at times, slightly ghoulish.

Right now, that strange brightness caught the faces of a herd of buffalo whose deep, dark eyes watched Henry impassively.

“Hello,” Henry said to the majestic beasts. The buffalo opened their mouths, and music poured out as from a radio.

Henry grinned. “Shall we dance? No? Next time.”

Stretching behind Henry was a tall, snowy hillside whose top disappeared into a cloud bank. Theta sat on a rock nearby, watching the village below, where ropes of smoke twisted up from a row of floating, houseless chimneys.

“Hey, darlin’,” Henry said, standing beside her. The brightness of the dream gave her cheekbones a cliff’s-edge sharpness, like a German film star. She seemed agitated. “Bad dream?”

“Yes,” Theta said in an eerily flat voice. “I don’t like the looks of those red flowers over there.”

Henry followed Theta’s gaze. Where the buffalo had been was now a field of poppies. As he watched, the flowers trembled into flames and melted into thick red pools. Theta’s breathing quickened, signaling the descent into nightmare.

Henry’s voice was soothing. “Listen, Theta, why don’t you have another dream? How about the circus? You like the circus, don’t you?”

“Sure,” Theta said, smiling slightly. When Henry looked again, the flames had been transformed into a funny little juggler who kept dropping his pins on purpose.

“I gotta look for Louis now, Theta.”

“Sure, Hen,” she said, and then Theta was gone.

Majestic pines shot up from the ground. Their gray shadows spilled boldly across the white floor of the forest. On a tree stump, the needle of an old Victrola caught again and again on the damaged grooves of a slightly warped record, distorting the song:
“Pa-uu-ck up your trou-u-u-u-bles in your o-oold kit b-u-ag and s-uu-mile, smile, smi-i-ile.…”

Beside the Victrola, a soldier mimed the words as he danced a little soft shoe. His smile was unnerving. Nearby, a group of soldiers sat at a table, playing cards. The cards all carried the same painted image of a macabre man in a long, dark coat and a stovepipe hat. The man’s black eyes were bottomless.

“We’re about to get started, old boy. You’ll want to take cover,” one of the soldiers said before securing his gas mask, the side of which had been stamped with an eye and a lightning bolt. That same symbol shimmered on the foreheads of the soldiers, a ghostly tattoo.

“The time is now!” a sergeant barked.

The soldiers quickly fell into position. The phonograph’s needle skipped:
“Pa-uu-ck up your troubles… troubles… trou-u-u-u-bles… troubles.…”
The smiling, dancing soldier faced Henry once more, but this time half of his face had been eaten away. Flies swarmed the rotting flesh along his jaw.

With a gasp, Henry stumbled backward, scrambling up the hill and into the forest, away from the camp. Beneath his feet, the snow vanished like a tablecloth snatched from under a place setting by a skilled magician’s hands. Now he stood on a weather-cracked road that stretched out toward a horizon line so sharp it seemed painted. Wheat fields lay on either side. The sky churned with storm clouds.

On the windswept prairie, his mother sat in an enormous red
velvet chair. The wind whipped her silver-threaded hair across her delicate face. Henry couldn’t feel the wind or smell the dust—he never could on a dream walk, just as he couldn’t touch people or objects—but he was aware of the idea of both. Henry’s father stood behind his wife, one hand on her shoulder as if to keep her from flying away. His father’s face was stern, disapproving.

“Saint Barnabas told me the truth,” his mother said, wide-eyed. “It was the vitamins. The vitamins did this to you. I should never have taken them.” His mother began to cry. “Oh, why did you leave me, Bird?”

“Please don’t cry, Maman,” Henry pleaded, his heart sinking. Even in dreams, a fellow wasn’t safe.

“What is this filth?” his father’s voice boomed. In one hand he held a letter, which grew so big it blocked out the sun. Henry’s heart pounded against his ribs.

“It was the vitamins,” his mother said again, and she held out her bleeding wrists. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“Stop. Please,” Henry said. He shut his eyes and tried to seize control of the runaway dream. Why could he change dreams for others, but never for himself?

“Louis! Louis, where are you?”

The wind kicked up dust on the road, and in the dust, Henry could make out faint figures, as transparent as Irish lace at a sunstruck windowpane. Leading them was the man he’d seen on the tarot cards—the thin man in the tall black hat. Henry started toward them, but a crow darted in front of him with a great flapping of feathers, as if urging him away from this place, ahead of the dust and the things moving inside it.

And so Henry ran after it, deeper into the wheat field.

Ling’s eyes fluttered open inside the dream to a flurry of pink-white petals falling down around her. Sitting up, she found herself in a garden of cherry trees in full bloom. The place had no meaning for Ling,
so she surmised that it must have had meaning for Lee Fan’s grandmother. Often when she conjured the dead, they returned to a place they’d loved in life—or a place of trouble they revisited in order to put that trouble to rest.

Before sleep, Ling had offered prayers and joss money out of respect. She’d put Mrs. Lin’s ring on the index finger of her right hand. Now, as respectfully as possible, she called for Mrs. Lin and waited. Ling didn’t know why she had the power to manifest the spirits of the dead inside dreams. They didn’t come for long—usually just long enough to answer the question posed to them, and then they were gone, back to wherever their energy was scattered.

Another person might’ve seen the power to dream walk and speak to the dead as a spiritual gift. Ling had no such sentimentality. To her, it was a scientific puzzle, a great “Eureka!” moment waiting to be explored, examined, quantified. Was a visit from the dead proof that time was merely an illusion? Was there something about Ling observing the dead that made it happen, as if the dead needed her consciousness in order to take form? Where did the dead come from? Where did their energy go afterward?
What
was that energy? Did the existence of ghosts mean that there might be more than one universe, and dreams were the beginning of a way into them? With every dream walk, Ling searched for clues.

Soon, Lee Fan’s grandmother appeared. A subtle, shimmery aura fuzzed the edges of her. This was how Ling knew the dead. She paid attention to the golden glow, making mental notes like a scientist would: Was Mrs. Lin’s aura stronger? Brighter? Did it waver or hold other colors? Did she appear more like a solid or a wave? Did any event precede her appearance?

“Why do you disturb my rest?” Mrs. Lin demanded, snapping Ling back to the task at hand.

“Auntie, I’ve come with a request from your granddaughter, Lee Fan. She can’t find the blue dress made for her in Shanghai and wondered if you might help her find it. She’s afraid of offending her aunt and uncle, and wishes—”

“She isn’t afraid of offending anyone,” Mrs. Lin interrupted sharply.
“Tell my granddaughter that I am not to be summoned for such trivial concerns and that if she cannot keep up with her things, I don’t know why she expects me to do so from beyond the grave.”

Ling suppressed a smile. “Yes, Auntie. I will tell her.”

“She is a foolish girl who—” Mrs. Lin cut off abruptly, her expression shifting from irritation to fear. “It isn’t safe,” she whispered, making Ling’s pulse quicken.

“What do you mean, Auntie?” Ling asked. Already she was losing her connection to Lee Fan’s grandmother, who began to fade.

The unseen machinery of the dreamscape lurched into motion, and Ling felt herself falling. She landed on a dirt road that seemed to stretch on forever. To her left, a swath of ripe wheat rippled like a burnished sea under a daytime sky. To her right stretched the long twilight expanse of the city, heavy with smoke and fog.

“Hey! You there!”

A sandy-haired boy wearing an old straw boater hat waved to Ling from the edge of the wheat field. Ling was so startled she couldn’t speak. This boy wasn’t a part of the dream.

This boy saw her.

He was awake—awake and walking, just like Ling. All of Ling’s scientific curiosity left her. For the first time on a walk, she was afraid.

“Hey!” the boy shouted and moved toward her. And all Ling could hear in her head were the words of Lee Fan’s dead grandmother:
It isn’t safe.

Ling turned and ran as fast as she could toward the city.

“Wait!” Henry called, but the girl was swift. She folded into the fog of the city. Another walker! Henry had never come across anyone who could do what he did. He needed to catch up to this girl. He had to talk to her. Maybe she could help him find Louis somehow. Buildings appeared like dark handprints of paint against a primed canvas: apartment buildings, shops, and restaurants. The distant scaffolding of the
elevated train. Banners lettered with Chinese characters rippled in the breeze. Henry knew this place. He was in Chinatown.