The Diviners (52 page)

“Sorry. It’s just that… you’re not what I thought.” He hadn’t meant to say it like that.

Evie was tired and scared and her headache had really taken hold. And now Jericho thought she was a freak. He was afraid of her. She thought somehow it would be different with Jericho. He was a deep thinker, a philosopher, but he was no different from the small minds of her small town. Angrily, she grabbed his cold hand and clamped her own over his watch.

“That’s right, I’m a real sideshow act,” she said. He tried to pull away, but she dug her fingers under the watch. “How’s about it, Jericho? Would you like me to tell you your secrets? All the little lies you keep hidden from the world?”

“No!” Jericho jerked his hand away from Evie’s so quickly that he nearly lost his balance.

Tears stung at the corners of Evie’s eyes and a lump rose in her throat. She wasn’t about to cry here, and so she ran from the library and shut herself in the bathroom.

“Nice work, Frederick,” Sam grumbled and went after her.

Sam sat on the floor outside the bathroom door, hoping Evie could hear him. “Doll, I don’t care if you can read every secret I’ve got. I don’t even care if you keep me sitting outside this john all night. Well, my legs would care, but don’t mind them—they like to complain.”

Evie didn’t respond, and Sam blew out a gust of trapped air. He’d never met anyone else with a strange gift. Never. So there were two of them. A pair. A pair was good.

“There’s nothing wrong with you. I just want you to know that.”

Silence.

“Take your time, doll. You know where to find me. I’ll keep your seat warm.”

In the bathroom, Evie leaned her head against the door. “Thank you,” she whispered, though Sam was no longer there to hear it.

The stranger stood in the dark of the basement, listening as the house whispered to him. He could tell something wasn’t right. The house felt violated. Unclean. He would have to repaint the symbols to restore it to its purity.
Anoint thy flesh and prepare ye the walls of your houses.
The sacred covenant kept.

Naughty John plucked the scrap of Evie’s coat from the edge of the laundry chute. Again, the house whispered to him. A girl. A girl had done this violation. She would pay for her transgression. But first, the house must be prepared in time for tomorrow’s offering.

Whistling the old tune, he felt for the secret door. It opened for him, and he was welcomed inside with sighs and whispers.

When Detective Malloy came to call the following afternoon, he didn’t look happy. He gestured to the crowds of visitors. “Business is good, I see.”

“We’ve gone from forgotten to fad in a few weeks,” Will said. Two giggling college girls asked for Will’s autograph and he politely declined, much to their disappointment.

Detective Malloy watched the exchange. “That’s the trouble.”

“What do you mean?” Evie asked. She’d never seen the detective quite so businesslike. He was uncomfortable—that much was evident. But she had no idea why. After all, shouldn’t he be pleased that his old friend’s museum was finally in the black?

The detective lowered his voice. “Will, there’s talk that you might be involved in the killings.”

Will’s eyes widened. “What?”

“That’s bunk!” Evie protested.

“I know. But it doesn’t look good—the fella who knows everything about the occult, who gave us the tip on Jacob Call, whose
museum is now the hottest ticket in town, getting written up in all the papers—”

“I had nothing to do with those newspaper articles, I can assure you,” Will snapped, and Evie hoped no one could see her blush.

“I’m just saying, you might want to stay out of it. Leave it to the police.”

“But we’re so close,” Evie said. “We’re going to find him.” She wished they could tell Detective Malloy what they were really up against, but of course that was impossible. How could they confess that they were looking for a ghost? He’d lock them up forever.

“Will, I’m telling you, as a friend, you’re off the case. Go back to teaching. I’ll handle it from here.”

Uncle Will squared his shoulders. “What if I say no?”

“Then you’re on your own. I can’t protect you.” Detective Malloy put his hat back on. “Fitz, don’t do anything dumb. Know when to quit.”

“Are we going to quit?” Evie asked after the detective had gone.

“Not on your life.”

By evening, Evie, Jericho, Sam, and Will were once again crowded around the table in the library.

“The ninth offering, the Destruction of the Golden Idol,” Evie said. She swore under her breath. “He’s out there ready to kill again, and we don’t have any idea where he’s going.”

She buried her head in her hands.

“Don’t let your frustration get the better of you, Evangeline. Think. Golden idols…” Will flicked the wheel on his silver lighter, creating sparks and squelching them with his thumb.

“Gold. Money, greed—Wall Street, a banker or a broker?” Jericho said.

“The Golden Palace in Chinatown?” Sam threw out. Evie could hear the exhaustion in his voice.

“In the Bible, it’s a golden calf. But we can’t be sure the offering is biblical in reference. The Book of the Brethren is a pastiche, remember?” Will said.

“We’ll probably be here all night,” Evie said, sighing.

“I don’t think we have all night,” Jericho said.

“None of you has eaten,” Will said suddenly, and Evie knew he must be hungry himself or he’d never have said anything. “I’m going to Wolf’s Delicatessen on Broadway for some pastrami sandwiches. Keep working. I won’t be gone long.”

“Let me see that,” Evie said as Will left, taking the Bible from Jericho. They hadn’t spoken more than a few words since he’d discovered she was a Diviner. She was still smarting from his comment. Evie read the Bible passage again and again, searching for some clue, but it wasn’t coming.

“Worshipping false idols. Worshipping false idols…” Something was trying to take shape in her mind. “What’s the name—” She broke off mid-thought, flipping wildly through the Bible. She put her finger on a passage. “Ba’al,” she said suddenly. “The worship of Ba’al. Oh, god…”

“What is it, doll?” Sam asked.

“I know where he’ll strike next,” Evie said, already grabbing for her coat and hat.

“Where are we headed?”

“The Globe Theatre!” Evie yelled.

“What’s at the Globe?” Jericho asked.

“The Ziegfeld revue,” Sam said and ran after Evie.

Theta sat at her dressing room mirror, cold creaming the last of her makeup. The mirrors were hung with scarves and boas. The wardrobe mistress had already put away the rapidly discarded costumes as the girls hurried to meet their stage-door Johnnies and stockbroker boyfriends. Except for her, the theater was empty. Theta had always liked the feel of an empty theater.

Theta was six when she made her debut in the Peoria, Illinois, musical emporium as Little Betty Sue Bowers in a pinafore dress of red, white, and blue, and silver tap shoes that sparkled under the lights. She sang and danced to “God Bless America” while her overbearing foster mother stood in the wings, mouthing every word. The audience was charmed. “The Ringleted Rascal,” they called her, and “Betty Baby Doll.” Soon she was playing the Orpheum Circuit throughout the Midwest. Theta hated vaudeville, hated the hours of work, the drafty backstage rooms, the leering “uncles” who invited her to sit on their laps. Crisscrossing the country, all those little towns and their dying music halls. Every night Mrs. Bowers would set her hair on rollers and smack
Theta on the rear with the hairbrush, saying, “Don’t you ruin it.” Theta had been too terrified to sleep, afraid she’d muss those curls and get another, much harder smack come morning. She’d never been to school. Never had a birthday party or a real friend.

By the time Theta was fourteen, it was clear she was no longer the Ringleted Rascal. She was developing a woman’s body and face, with long, shapely legs and a pout of a mouth. She was too old to play the adorable little girl and too young to play the more risqué acts. Theta was on her way to being unemployable. They’d just signed on for a monthlong run at the Palace in Kansas City when Theta met a handsome soda jerk named Roy. She eloped with him two weeks later. That had proven to be an even bigger mistake than staying with Mrs. Bowers. At first, Roy had made her feel protected. But Roy soon became obsessed with her—what she wore, where she went, whom she saw. Once, he’d even locked her in the bathroom all night while he went out with his boys. Theta had picked the lock and crawled out of a second-story window to get away. Roy hadn’t liked that. He hadn’t liked that at all.

The next morning, with her eye swollen and bruised and her lip split open, she’d tried going home. She stood on the front porch of the boardinghouse with her small plaid felt suitcase. Her tears stung her raw mouth. “Please, Mama. I’m sorry,” she’d pleaded.

“You made your bed, you lie in it, Betty Sue,” Mrs. Bowers had said and shut the door.

Theta had tried to be what she thought a good wife should be, but every little thing seemed to set Roy off: Her stockings were crooked. The toast was too brown. Her long hair, thick as broom bristles, wasn’t put up like a proper lady’s, making her look “like some kinda Indian squaw!” The house wasn’t tidy enough. If she didn’t get a good cut of meat from the butcher, she was a terrible housekeeper. If she did get a good steak, well, then she must have been
flirting. The sting of the hairbrush was nothing compared to the smack of Roy’s hand. Nights were the worst. She would grit her teeth and stare at the ceiling, waiting for it to be over. Once, she tried to get a part in a sketch at the Palace, but Roy forbade it, and anyway, pictures were the new fashion. The vaudeville theaters and music halls were being refitted as grand movie palaces. The days of vaudeville were coming to an end. Sometimes, when Roy was away at work and the heat from the diner below would rise up through the linoleum, baking the apartment in an afternoon haze, Theta would strip down to her slip, roll back the carpets, and dance to the radio, imagining she was Josephine Baker at the Folies Bergère in Paris. In these fantasies, it was not the imagined love and adulation of the audience, the collective desire, that fueled her. Rather, it was the sense of absolute freedom, of dancing because she could, dancing because she enjoyed the dancing and not because she was expected to do it.

“
Why you gotta be such a mean old Daddy?
” she’d sing along in her husky voice, the fingers of one hand splayed across the slim curve of her belly. With the other, she’d reach higher and higher, as if she might, at any moment, pluck a star from the heavens or punch a hole in the sky and make her escape. It was during one of those sultry, stifling afternoons on the prairie that Theta lost herself to this smallest of escapes, singing along to the radio (
“Love me sweet, honey, like you ought to do”
) and reveling in the gyrations of her body so completely—
her
limbs,
her
hips,
hers
,
hers
,
hers
only—that she didn’t hear Roy’s key in the lock.

“Well, well, ain’t this a picture?” he growled, and she turned with a gasp to see him taking up the whole of the doorway, chest bowed slightly forward, muscular forearms pressed against the doorjamb like a sinewy slingshot waiting to snap. “This how you spend your time while I’m off working?”

He’d come home drunk and mean. Her mind whirred with preparations, the many small ingratiations, the hopeful peace offerings and distractions from his anger she’d need to have at the ready in order to avoid a beating.

“You want me to get you some dinner, Roy? You just sit and relax and I’ll make you a sandwich,” she said, hoping the desperation didn’t show in her voice.

“A sandwich? That your idea of a home-cooked meal?” Roy shouted.

She’d chosen poorly. It wouldn’t matter if she cried out or screamed. She’d done that plenty of times. No one had come to see about it. Shades were drawn and windows closed against her misery. That was the way of the town. She’d learned to bear it in silence. It made the beatings shorter, she’d discovered. His hand had threaded through her hair, as a lover’s might, but there was nothing loving in the hard yank that made her eyes water, that bent her neck toward him, crooked her body so that she could only follow like a dog at its master’s heel. The first slap was a warning. Her cheek stung with it.