A whistling park custodian cleared soggy missing-persons signs from the lampposts. Ling waited until he’d moved on.
“Remember when I told you that the dead appear when they have a message to deliver? And that they almost always choose a dream scene that reminds them of a favorite place—like my auntie standing in a garden she loved, or Mr. Hsu in the Tea House, where he ate every single day?” Ling took a deep breath. “Well, sometimes the dead come back instead to a place where they have unfinished business. They can’t leave until it’s resolved.”
“You think there’s some unfinished business George has to take care of here in City Hall Park?” Henry said, gesturing to the pigeons strutting across the stones.
“Not George. The woman in the veil.” Ling gave Henry a sideways glance. “What if I told you the people in my neighborhood think that this sleeping sickness in the city isn’t a sickness at all, but a haunting? They say it’s the work of a restless spirit.”
“Do you believe that?”
“I know it sounds ridiculous, but I’m starting to wonder if it might be true.”
“I thought you were a scientist.”
“Just because I believe in science doesn’t mean I ignore superstition. Sometimes there’s a basis for those superstitions. And anyway, I’m not the only one who’s wondered. You did. And Wai-Mae warned us about the tunnel. She said she could feel the ghost, and that the ghost frightened her—‘She cries’ is what she told me.”
“The Crying Woman comes,” Henry intoned. “Well, hold on to your hat; here’s where it gets even more interesting: Last night, after I woke you up from inside the dream… by the way, I had planned to hold that impressive skill over your head, but now I fear it’s not appropriate.”
“Just tell me what happened,” Ling growled.
“The moment you left, the dream world went dark.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like a theater whose show is finished for the night. It’s hard to explain, but it’s almost as if once you were gone, or once we weren’t there together, there was no need to keep up the whole shebang. And a few seconds later, I heard a woman crying inside the tunnel.”
Ling breathed in sharply. “You didn’t go in, did you?”
“A woman was crying, Ling! Despite my misgivings about my parents, they did raise me with proper manners. I can’t ignore a damsel in distress.”
“No. I suppose you can’t. What happened next?”
“The dark glowed with greenish light. I heard that growling again, and then—I can’t swear to this—I thought I saw someone moving inside.”
“Her?”
“Possibly. And then my alarm woke me.”
“Wai-Mae mentioned that there was a bad death,” Ling said. “Every night when we see that woman run past us, she’s clearly in distress. And there’s the blood on her dress.”
“Yes. Bloody clothing is often a clue that something has gone awry,” Henry said. “But why would our mystery woman have anything to do with this sleeping sickness, if you truly think that’s the case?”
“I don’t know. I’m working from a theory. It might not be the correct one. I can’t help but think that George wants me to know something about her, that he’s trying to lead me to clues.”
Henry clamped his hands under his armpits to fight the cold. “Right now, the only clues we have lie in that dreamscape. We’ll have to piece it together from that, I suppose.”
“Agreed. So,” Ling said, counting off on her fingers, “there’s the Beach Pneumatic Transit Company. The fireworks. Someone named Anthony Orange Cross. Devlin’s Clothing Store.”
“Haunted trousers. It always comes back to the haunted trousers.”
Ling gave Henry a withering glare.
Henry nodded. “Fair enough. No haunted trousers.”