The only person who didn’t seem to regard Mabel’s mother with awe was Evie. More than once, Evie had imitated her mother perfectly: “Mabel, daaaahling, how can you complain that you haven’t had dinner when the huddled masses have yet to breathe free!” “Mabel, daaaahling, tell me: Which dress says Savior of the Poor and Saint of the Lower East Side to you?” And as much as Mabel felt called to chide Evie and defend her mother, she had to admit that it was one of the things she loved about her old friend: No matter what, Evie always took Mabel’s side. “You’re the real star of the Rose family,” Evie would insist. “One day, everyone will know your name.” She only hoped that Evie could make Jericho see Mabel that way, too.
Jericho. It embarrassed her how often she thought of him. All those romantic fantasies! She was supposed to be so sensible, but when it came to that boy, she was lost to storybook notions. He was so smart and studious and soulful—not some drugstore cowboy, like that Sam Lloyd, all flattery and promises to any girl who’d fall for it. No. Jericho’s affections meant something. That was the challenge, wasn’t it? If you could make a fellow like Jericho fall for you, well, didn’t it prove just how desirable you were?
Mabel thought of all of these things as she moved through Union Square, handing copies of The Proletariat to workers. She waved at the folks manning the table for the Wobblies, but they didn’t notice her, and so she moved on, feeling lost in the crowd. If she decided to disappear, would anyone feel her absence?
“Who are your leaders?” Mabel’s mother called from the platform.
“We are all leaders!” the crowd answered.
Mabel felt a hand on her arm. She turned to see a young woman holding a baby, accompanied by an older woman in a head scarf.
The young woman spoke in fractured English. “You are the great Mrs. Rose’s daughter?”
I have a name. It’s Mabel. Mabel Rose. “Yes, I am,” she answered irritably.
“Please, can you help? They took my sister from the factory.”
“Who took her?”
The woman spoke with the grandmotherly woman in Italian before turning back to Mabel.
“The men,” she said.
“What men? The police?”
The woman looked around to be sure no one was listening, and then said softly, “The men who move like shadows.”
Mabel didn’t understand what the woman meant by that. It was probably a nuance of language that didn’t translate quite right. “Why would someone take your sister? Was she organizing at the factory?”
Again, the girl looked to the older woman, who nodded. “She is… profeta.” The girl seemed to search for the right words. “She… talks to the dead. She says they are coming.”
Mabel frowned. “Who is coming?”
The shriek of police whistles sounded on the edges of the park, along with shouts and cries from the crowd. A tear-gas canister landed in the crowd, and the park was subsumed in a chemical fog that burned the eyes and throat. Mabel could hear her mother pleading for calm over the microphone, and then the microphone was cut off. The crowd pushed and shoved. People ran screaming as the police descended on the workers. Someone bumped Mabel hard and sent her newspapers to the ground, where they were immediately trod into bits. Mabel couldn’t see her parents through the gas and surging crowd. Coughing and disoriented, she pushed her way through the chaotic crowd and took off running, coming face-to-face with a policeman.
“Gotcha!” he said.
Panicked, Mabel darted up Fifteenth Street toward Irving Place, the policeman’s whistle blasting to alert others. There were easily five cops chasing her now. She started toward the iron gates of Gramercy, but strong hands yanked her into a service doorway behind a restaurant. She started to yell, and a hand clapped over her mouth.
“Not that way, Miss. It’s crawling with cops,” a man’s voice whispered in her ear, and Mabel quieted. A moment later the police marched past, clubs drawn. She watched from her hiding place as they gave up and headed back to Union Square.
“Thank you,” Mabel said. She looked at her savior for the first time. He was young—not much older than she was.
He shepherded her away. “You’re the Roses’ daughter, aren’t you?”
Even here she couldn’t escape it. “My name is Mabel,” she said, as if daring him to contradict her.
“Mabel. Mabel Rose. I won’t forget it.” He gave her hand a firm shake. “Well, Mabel Rose. Get home safely.”
An explosion came from somewhere nearby. “Go now,” her mysterious savior said and ran swiftly down the alley, vaulting up the fire escape and disappearing over the rooftops.
Back at the Bennington, Mabel took the elevator to the sixth floor. Two of the hallway lamps had burned out ages ago, casting the passage in constant shadows, which always gave Mabel a bit of the heebie-jeebies. Mabel heard whispering at the far end of the darkened corridor and froze. What if the police had followed her after all?
Against her better judgment, she crept forward. Miss Addie stood at the narrow window in her nightgown. Her long gray hair hung in tangles. She cradled a bag of salt, which she was pouring out onto the windowsill in a fat line. Salt seeped from a hole in the bag and pooled on the carpet below.
“Miss Addie? What are you doing?”
“I have to keep them out,” Miss Addie said without looking up.
“Keep who out?”
“There are awful events unfolding. Something unholy is at hand.”
“Do you mean the murders?” Mabel asked.
“It’s begun. I can feel it. In my dreams, I have seen the man in the tall hat with his coat of crows. A terrible choice is at hand.” Miss Addie’s hand fluttered about her face like a wounded bird. She seemed confused, like a woman waking from ether. “Where is my door? I can’t find it.”
“You’re on the sixth floor, Miss Adelaide. You need the tenth. Here, I’ll take you.”
Mabel took the bag of salt from the old woman and helped her into the elevator, securing the troublesome latch on the gate.
“When the cunning folk stood accused of the ’craft as if it were a game, and our gallows bloomed with the dead, the man was there. When the Choctaw were marched to their ruin on the Trail of Tears, the man was there.”
Mabel counted the floors, willing the elevator to go faster.
“They say he appeared to Mr. Lincoln upon an evening before the War Between the States. It was as if a hand had come down and pulled out the heart of the nation, and the very rivers bled, and the land’s wounds would not heal.” Miss Addie suddenly turned and stared right at Mabel. “Terrible what people can do to one another, isn’t it?”
Mabel hurriedly slid back the gate to let Miss Addie out of the elevator. She knew she should help her to her door, but she was too spooked. “It’s just down the hall on the left, Miss Adelaide.”
“Yes, thank you.” Miss Addie took the bag of salt from Mabel and stepped out into the dim hallway. “We’re not safe, you know. Not at all.”
But Mabel had closed the gate and the elevator was already descending.
“Terrible what people can do,” Miss Addie said again.
From the elevator, Mabel watched the old woman’s bare feet hobbling away, a trail of salt and the lace hem of her nightgown left in her wake like sea foam.
OPERATION JERICHO
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen of our radio audience, and welcome to the Gerard Whittington Hour, brought to you by Marlowe Industries. Yes, Marlowe Industries—Bringing You Tomorrow, Today. From the very latest innovations in aviation and security to helpful household appliances for the housewife, Marlowe Industries…”
“I still don’t understand,” Evie said over the soft croon of the radio. She lay on the sofa with the illustrated book in her hands. “None of this answers the mystery of the first four offerings. If the Pentacle Killer is truly following the rituals in this Book of the Brethren in order to raise some anti-Christ and bring about Armageddon, why start with the fifth offering? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Detective Malloy reports no similar murders prior to the discovery of Ruta Badowski’s body,” Jericho said. He was seated at the dining room table with his notes.
Will, as usual, was pacing. “It is mysterious. But this much we do know: If the killer is following the offerings in the Book of the Brethren, and it certainly seems he is, we may be able to prevent the next attempt….”
Evie read the seventh offering aloud.