Then the Museum of Natural History. What a great place. The huge skeleton of a real brontosaurus. The convincing life-size model of a T. Rex. Always before, the T. Rex spooked me. It didn’t spook me that day.
Lunch at Woolworth’s. A grilled-cheese sandwich and coleslaw. Mom couldn’t believe I didn’t want dessert. She assured me that we could afford it. But I said, “No, thanks, I’m stuffed.” The truth is, I wanted it. But I didn’t want to take the time to eat it.
We rode a bus back to our neighborhood, all the way down to the community center. For twenty minutes, Mom sat beside me on the bench and listened to me play piano in the Abigail Louise Thomas Room. Then she had to go home, change, and head off to Slinky’s.
She said, “You’re the man, Jonah. Duke Ellington’s got nothing on you,” and she kissed my cheek.
She thought I’d spend another couple of hours at the keyboard; and on any other Saturday, I would have. But I had other intentions. Besides, I was too nervous to practice effectively. Nevertheless, I needed to remain at the community center for half an hour to avoid encountering my mother when I returned home. I passed the time by playing the melody of “Magenta Haze,” one of Duke’s symphonic pieces, a slow and easy drift from first note to last, which I had to translate from the soprano saxophone solo that was the heart of it.
I needed feedback about what to make of the witch’s final visit to my bedroom the previous day. The only other person with unnerving experience of her dark side was Mr. Yoshioka.
When I rang his doorbell on the fifth floor, having brought six of my mother’s chocolate-chip cookies on a paper plate, I didn’t know if he would be home. He worked long hours, sometimes on Saturdays, too. But when he opened the door, he seemed to be expecting me.
“Will this be a celebration, Jonah Kirk?”
“A little bit, yeah, I guess.”
He accepted the cookies, and I took off my shoes. Minutes later, we were sitting in his living room with tea, cookies, and those odd little cakes that I pretended to like more than I really did.
I told him everything about Eve Adams that I’d so far withheld, including that her real name was evidently Fiona Cassidy and that I had first seen her in a dream. I didn’t mention Miss Pearl, who had brought me that dream as surely as she’d brought me a piano, because she was a mystery in herself, and one mystery layered on another seemed sure to confuse us at a time when I desperately wanted some clarity.
Although Mr. Yoshioka had been understanding in the past and treated me with the same seriousness that he would bring to any conversation with an adult, I was prepared for his expression of disbelief when I spoke of a prophetic dream. Instead, he listened without expression and, when I finished, he nodded and sipped his tea and closed his eyes as if to consider what I had revealed.
His silence somewhat unsettled me, so that I said, “It’s true, sir. She was in the dream, the two of us in some tight space, with the sounds of rushing water all around.”
He opened his eyes and said, “There is no need to insist. I do believe you. When I was fifteen, I dreamed that my mother and sister perished in a fire. Seven days later, they did indeed burn to death. Their screams were at first very shrill, sharp with pain and terror. But soon they became like the haunting cries of certain nocturnal birds, as if they were beyond pain but not beyond sorrow, as if they were sorrowing over their untimely departure from this world as their souls were borne away on wings and into silence.”
As on my previous visit, my host had provided a tiny pitcher of orange-blossom honey, with which I had sweetened the tea that he took straight. His revelation was so horrible that I could not think what to say, and I picked up my cup and took a sip to buy a little time to process what he had just told me. Although the tea had been sweet a minute ago, it was bitter now, and I put down the cup.
“When did it happen?” I asked.
“On September fourteenth, 1942, but I do not wish to talk about it further. I brought it up only to explain why I accept the truth of your dream without reservation. Over the years, Jonah Kirk, I have come to believe that we who have suffered greatly may from time to time be given the grace of foretelling, so that we may act to spare ourselves from further torment.”
“But in spite of your dream, your mother and sister … they died seven days later.”
“Because of my failure to believe in that grace, because of my anger and my bitterness and my denial.”
Usually, the condition of his heart could be read, if at all, only in his eyes, for he wasn’t given to dramatic facial expressions. Now, however, for a moment, his face became a portrait of desolation.
“Because of my failure,” he repeated.