“Maybe he really is trying to help her,” Ling said. She didn’t want to think bad things about Jake Marlowe.
“So, what does Marlowe want with Anna Provenza?” Sam said.
“There’s more,” Jericho said. He flicked his eyes to Sam.
“What?” Sam challenged, and for a minute, Jericho wanted to hold back.
It is our choices that define us, he reminded himself.
“Marlowe did an experiment with me. Something called sensory deprivation. I felt as if I were not in my body but floating in some other dimension, some porous realm between worlds. I heard voices. Terrible voices.”
Evie frowned. “Where were they coming from?”.
“I don’t know. Marlowe wanted me to talk to them, though, and tell him what they were saying. The voices told me that the door must be opened as before and that the souls must be refreshed.”
“What does that mean?” Evie asked.
“I honestly don’t know. But there was another voice that broke through and told me to keep quiet. That those voices couldn’t be trusted. I honestly didn’t know what was happening—whether I’d just imagined it or not.” Jericho looked at Sam again. “The woman had a Russian accent. She told me her name was Miriam.”
“Just like Conor!” Evie said. “Sam…”
“You… you talked to my mother?” For all the reasons Sam had disliked Jericho, this one hurt the most. Why would she speak to these other fellas—to Jericho, of all people—and not to her own son? “What did she say? Did she tell you where she was?”
“No. But she said I was in danger. That he was making a mistake.”
“What if—” Ling stopped short.
“What if what?” Henry said.
“What if she was talking to you from the land of the dead?”
“No!” Sam said, pointing a finger at them. “She is not dead! Conor heard her, too.”
“That’s no guarantee,” Ling said.
“How do we even know it’s your mother, Sam? What if it’s just one more trick from the King of Crows?” Evie said.
A reedy horn blasted faintly in the distance.
“Our car,” Ling said. “They’ll be looking for us.”
Evie gave the clearing one last backward glance, hoping for some signal from James, but it was just a dead place inside the woods. “I don’t like that you’re here with him,” Evie said to Jericho on the walk back to the estate. “It’s not too late to come with us.”
“I don’t think I should just now,” Jericho said, and let the why remain unspoken. “I’ll stay here and keep looking for clues. See if I can find out anything more about Anna Provenza. It’s the least I can do. Somehow, I’ll get up to that solarium and poke around.”
Back at the estate, Marlowe’s fancy Rolls-Royce was packed and ready to transport the Diviners to the train station. “Well. We’ll see you at the exhibition, I suppose,” Evie said, looking uncomfortable.
“Sure. At the exhibition,” Jericho echoed.
He ached to hold her. He would probably never hold her again.
Evie watched Ames shutting the lid of the trunk over their cases. She didn’t know what to think. She’d cared deeply for Jericho; still did, really. Like her, he was deeply flawed. His open admission of his faults and foibles was a relief compared with the sanctimonious, sure-of-themselves people she’d known in Zenith, Ohio. The ones who’d turn up their noses at messy girls like Evie, then slink off and commit their sins in the dark. But was it enough? Where did you draw the line? Evie’s heart ached as she shook Jericho’s hand and climbed into the backseat. She had never been less sure of the lines between right and wrong, between desire and destruction in her life.
“So long, Jericho,” she said.
“So long, Evie,” he echoed.
Good-bye, Jericho thought. Because this was good-bye. Even if she didn’t say it outright. He hated Marlowe for what he’d done. And he hated knowing that a beast lurked somewhere inside his own soul. I’m sorry, he wanted to shout to the heavens. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
“Don’t take any wooden nickels,” he said. It was what Sergeant Leonard always said. For all Jericho knew, it was the last thing he’d probably ever say to Evie, and it was the dumbest.
As the car curved down the long driveway, Evie glanced back at the turreted estate. Jericho was still standing there with the sun glinting off his shoulders until it seemed that he was the sun itself.
NO REAL HARM
Jericho found Marlowe in his pristine study. “How was your visit with your friends?” Marlowe asked.
“Evie will probably never want anything to do with me again after what happened yesterday.”
“No real harm came to her,” Marlowe scoffed.
Jericho reeled. “No real harm? I attacked her!” Jericho wanted to punch Marlowe. “What’s in that serum you gave me? I want to know. I deserve to know.”
“I told you, vitamins.”
“What else?”
“It’s a highly calibrated secret formula patented by Marlowe Industries.”
“What else?” Jericho demanded.
Jake Marlowe’s eyes went flinty. “You really want to know?”
“Yes, for the hundredth time—yes!”
“Diviners’ blood.”
The room went sideways. Jericho thought back to Will’s letters to Cornelius. Samples. All those samples. “You said you don’t believe in Diviners,” Jericho said. It was all he could think of in the moment. His mind simply wouldn’t work.
“Not their mumbo jumbo, no. But I can’t deny that the energy they produce is of enormous value. They are extraordinary in their way. Connected to that other world, you see. The trouble is…” Marlowe looked pained. “Frankly, some of these Diviners are of less noble stock.”
“How do you mean?”
“Coloreds. Jews. Catholics. Degenerates. They’re not real Americans.”
Jericho couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The minute he let his guard down with Marlowe and started to feel sympathy for him, the real Jake Marlowe came bubbling up like tainted water from a rusted fountain.
“But I’ve figured out a way around that, see. I take their blood, strip out what I need, and irradiate the formula to purify it.”
“You’re putting irradiated formula inside me?”
Marlowe chuckled. “Jericho, radiation is the safest thing in the world. Why, it’s good for you! Makes the blood strong! I drink Marlowe Industries radium water, myself.”
For weeks, Jericho had been operating at peak performance. He’d reveled in it. But now he could scarcely think. “What happens to the Diviners? How do you find them?”
“Now, see here, it’s all on the up and up,” Marlowe said, sounding like an exasperated parent. “These Diviners are volunteers who sign up through Fitter Families for Future Firesides at state fairs and whatnot.”
“And do you explain to them what you’re doing?”
“All research is protected. You know that. They volunteer because they want to do what’s right for their country!”
“Like that woman I saw? Anna Provenza?”
Marlowe’s expression darkened. “Anna is different.”
“She’s not a mental patient, is she?”