“The time is now,” he said in a voice as raggedy as his coat.
The heart slipped from his fingers. He threw back his head and raised his long, bloody fingers to the slate-gray sky. The clouds churned. Wind bent the wheat. He spoke the words, and lightning crackled on the tips of his fingers. It arced up and out. The sky was wild with fierce light. A spear of it struck the side of a lone tree and it caught, a burning signal on the great ochre plain seen by no one but the wind, heard by no one but the waking dead.
The man in the stovepipe hat walked across the broken field, toward the sleeping towns and cities, the factories and cotton fields, the train tracks, roads, telephone poles, and ticker-tape parades. Toward the monuments of heroes, toward the longing and disillusion of the people. Light crackled around him as he walked, and behind him, the ground was black as cinders.
SITTING ON TOP OF THE WORLD
At the edge of the fog-shrouded forest, James beckoned. Evie could hear the huh-huh of her breathing as she followed him through the snow and the trees. The smell of pine was strong, the air was crisp, and even in her dream state, Evie was aware that this was different. Wrong. She had never heard her breath or smelled the pine before. Evie brushed a hand over a tree, and the bark was rough against her palm. As before, she followed James down into the clearing, with its doomed soldiers. She looked to the right. The heavy fog thinned at the top enough to show her a crenulated roofline and what looked to be turrets. A castle? Evie wondered.
The sergeant dropped his cigarette and Evie wanted to cry out to him, tell him to run. But she couldn’t. She was only a spectator in this dream. The flash, when it came, seemed infinitely brighter, more powerful than it had before. Evie pushed up out of the trench and ran through bloody fields of poppies. James waited. In sleep, her muscles tensed, waiting for the moment when he removed his gas mask and became a hideous apparition.
James’s hand went to his mask. When he pulled it away, he was still the golden boy, the favored son.
He opened his mouth and she tensed again, waiting for some new horror.
“Hello, old girl,” he said in a voice she had not heard in ten years. “They never should have done it.”
Evie woke with a small, strangled gasp, her forehead damp with sweat. Her hands shook. He’d spoken to her! Air. She needed air. She climbed the fire escape and found her spot on the roof. The night air dried the sweat on her arms. She was chilly—it was November now; summer had fled for good—but she couldn’t face going back to her little room and her troubled sleep. On the edge of Central Park, a drunk zigzagged from curb to street, howling out a girl’s name and crying. Occasionally, he turned his face toward the sky, as if pleading with an unseen court for mercy, then shook his head.
A sound from behind startled Evie. Jericho was there, his coat over his pajamas, book in hand.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you,” Jericho said.
“I’m already disturbed.”
“You’re shivering.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.” He took off his coat and put it around her shoulders.
“Now you’ll be cold.”
“I don’t feel it so much.”
“Oh,” Evie said.
“Did you have the dream again?”
She nodded. “But it was different. He spoke to me, Jericho. He looked right at me and said, ‘They never should have done it.’ ”
“Who? Done what?”
“I don’t know. But I can’t help feeling that this is more than a dream, that he’s trying to tell me something very important.”
“Or it’s just a dream because you miss him. I still dream about my family sometimes.”
“Maybe.”
Jericho took her hand in his. The thrill of his touch traveled the length of her arm, and this, too, she tried to ignore.
“I didn’t think… I didn’t dare to hope that you’d understand. I assumed you’d think I was a freak,” he said.
“We’re all freaks. We could get jobs on the boardwalk. Come see the Misfits of Manhattan! Small children and pregnant ladies not permitted.” Evie laughed bitterly, blinking back tears.
“All this time, I thought I was alone. Different. But you’re different, too.” He was looking at her in a new way. “For the longest time, I wanted to die. I figured that I was dead inside already, that they’d killed me when they turned me into a machine. But I don’t feel dead anymore.” His face was so close to hers. His hand was on her back. “I know what I want now.”
“What’s that?” Evie whispered.
There was nothing awkward or tentative about Jericho’s kiss. He pressed his mouth against hers with a ferocious insistence. Every part of her felt awake and alive.
Evie pushed him away. “I can’t.”
“Why not?” His expression hardened. “Is it because of what I am?”
She shook her head. “It’s because of Mabel.”
He was looking into her eyes. “Well, I don’t want Mabel. I want you. Tell me you don’t want me to kiss you, and I won’t.”
Evie said nothing. Jericho pulled her close and kissed her again. Evie kissed him back, happy for the feel of his lips on hers. Happy for his hands knotted in her hair, happy for his shirt gripped in hers. That was how the world worked, wasn’t it? You set your sights on something, and life came along with a sucker punch. Mabel wanted Jericho; Jericho wanted Evie. And right now, Evie wanted to forget. Kissing Jericho tonight didn’t have to mean anything. Tomorrow, the crank would be turned anew, and the gears of the world would lurch into motion. She could still fix things tomorrow or the day after. But this was right now, and right now she needed this. She needed him. Evie nestled against Jericho’s broad chest and let him cradle her in his arms. He kissed the top of her head as they looked toward the east, where the sun rose, staining the buildings with a faint watercolor hope.
But something was coming. Something she didn’t understand. Something terrible. And she was afraid.
“You all right?” Jericho murmured, his lips against her neck.
“Yeah. Everything’s jake,” she lied.
Down on the street, the drunk stopped calling for his girl. He sank to his knees, rested his head against the hard cobblestones, and cried. “What we lost, what we lost…”
Somewhere in one of the faceless buildings, a radio played, Al Jolson’s cheery voice drowning out the misery of the drunk in the gutter: “I’m sitting on top of the world… just rolling along—just rolling along….”
The sun cleared the horizon. The light stung her eyes. “Kiss me,” Evie said.
He took her face in his hands and his kiss blotted out the sky.
Author’s Note
A lot of research went into creating the world of The Diviners. Many hours were logged in various libraries and archives or spent pouring over books, PDFs, primary sources, and photographs. No historians or librarians were harmed in the making of this book, but some were badgered extensively with questions. I am grateful for the aid and expertise of these wonderful, knowledgeable people.
That said, this is a work of fiction, and in order to serve the gods of story, certain liberties must be taken. The author assumes sole responsibility for this willful act of narrative tinkering. (Narrative Tinkering is my new band name. I imagine it’s a postmodern hipster band of varying degrees of beardification. But I digress.)