“Come on, Ice Man.” Memphis took his brother’s hand.
“Take care of my boys, Mr. Johnson,” Octavia said, wiping her eyes.
“Like they was my own,” Bill promised.
“Memphis John.” Octavia worried her hands for a minute, and then she pulled Memphis into a tight hug. Aunt Octavia was a solid, strong woman. But Memphis could feel her fear. When she released him, her face was resolute. “Go on, now.”
“They’ll come here,” Bill warned.
Octavia snorted. “Good luck to ’em, then.”
Memphis checked to make sure that all was clear, and then the three of them were stealing down the street, eyes searching every corner, every shadow.
Octavia Louise Joseph, born in Haiti to a teacher and a nurse, brought to America when she was a baby. Octavia, who’d taken her first steps on the sidewalks of Baltimore, made her way to New York City, taught school, who’d buried a sister and raised her sister’s kids. That Octavia called on all of her strength as she sat on the sofa with her Bible.
“Jesus, help me now,” she whispered.
Across the street, a brown sedan slowed. Two men in gray suits got out. Octavia put a calming hand on her stomach to soothe the butterflies inside.
“You will not get mine,” she said quietly, and waited for the enemy at her door.
Will stood on the sidewalk outside the museum. A wash of bloodred paint had been tossed across its limestone facade. The sign had been defaced as well. Just one bold red word: Murderers.
Will let himself in. Glass crunched under his shoes. A rock lay in the spray of shards. The stained-glass window had a jagged hole in it now. Will picked up the rock, feeling its banal weight in his hand. He didn’t bother turning on the lights. He slipped into the library, left the rock on a table, stacked kindling and newspaper—SARAH SNOW: OUR FALLEN ANGEL—in the cold mouth of the enormous fireplace, and fanned the spark till it caught. It was too warm for a fire, but he lit one nonetheless. The flames cast shadows up the walls and across the ceiling’s mural of the Founding Fathers signing the Declaration of Independence, a host of angels and demons looking on.
There were ghosts in the room: Rotke, Mabel, Cornelius, James. Will couldn’t see or talk to them. He had no talent for that. But he could feel them nonetheless. Their presence was a steady weight on his heart, as if all their hands pressed against his chest at once.
Remember us.
Remorse and fear nearly overtook him, and so he was grateful when Margaret Walker came into the library and put the mug of steaming coffee beside him.
“Well, that’s it, then. The tax office won’t hear our appeal now. The museum is officially done for,” Will said, his voice a hollow echo in the nearly empty library. It made him unbearably sad to think of Cornelius’s strange home for the supernatural being bulldozed to make way for some modern apartment building with no memory of what had stood there before.
Margaret eyed the rock. “Another one.”
“Yes. It’s going to get ugly, isn’t it?”
Sister Walker let out a grunted hmph as she poked the dying embers. “You say that like someone who’s never had to see how ugly things really are.”
“Yes,” Will said. “Yes. What do we do?”
Will’s question was rhetorical, but Sister Walker had little time for the rhetorical. “Do you understand now? Are you beginning to see?”
“I am.”
Sister Walker gave the ashy kindling one last good poke and it sparked into flame. She hung the poker on its hook and wiped her hands clean. She turned to Will.
“Good. Now we fight.”
Someone was pounding at the museum’s front door.
“Did you lock it?” Sister Walker asked warily.
Will nodded. The pounding got louder. Will palmed the rock and the two of them moved quickly down the hall. Will threw open the front door, surprised to see Memphis there with Isaiah and a tall man Will had never seen before.
“Professor. They’re after us. I need to come in,” Memphis pleaded.
“Memphis? Are you all right?” Sister Walker stopped in her tracks at the sight of Bill Johnson. She put a hand to her mouth as her eyes widened. “It’s you.”
“Afternoon, Miss Walker,” Bill said, removing his hat. “Been a long time.”
“Guillaume. I thought you were dead.”
“In a manner of speaking, I was. Lost in the wilderness, you might say. But I’m coming back, yes, I am coming back. Those Shadow Men, though, they looking for us. I got to get Memphis and Isaiah away from here.”
“We can keep you safe,” Sister Walker said.
“Like you kept me safe before?” Bill challenged. He shook his head. “Ain’t taking orders from nobody no more. I’m the only one knows what those Shadow Men can do. How many of ’em there are, how they think. I’m taking these boys to safety. While I can.”
“I have a car. I can drive you,” Will said.
“They’ll be watching the roads—and watching you, sir. Both of you. Memphis here had an idea.”
Memphis nodded toward the collections room. “The tunnel. The old Underground Railroad passage. We can get out that way.”
“Memphis, that hasn’t been used in decades. There’s no telling what shape it’s in or if it still has an opening somewhere. You could end up trapped down there,” Will said.
Isaiah looked frightened. Memphis thought about what it would be like to walk for maybe miles underground, only to reach a dead end. What if they got lost? What if there was a cave-in? But what choice did they have?
“Professor, right now those men are in Harlem asking after Isaiah and me. How long before they find us? My face is known,” Memphis explained. He shook his head. “No. Has to be this way. We’re leaving. Through the tunnels.”
He hoped he was making the right decision.
Will nodded. “All right. You’ll need provisions. Wait here,” he said, heading toward the kitchen.
“Where else would I go?” Memphis whispered. He could hear Will rummaging in the kitchen. Sister Walker was staring at Bill Johnson, at the smatterings of gray in his black hair, the lines on his face, Memphis realized. He was no longer the young man she had known once upon a time. She spied the mark upon his hand.
“Shadow Men gimme that. A brand to make me theirs.” He appraised Margaret coolly. “What ’bout you? You got yourself a mark from your thirty pieces of silver? Or your hands still smooth and clean?”
“I tried to stop them,” Sister Walker protested.
“Not hard enough,” Bill said.
Sister Walker narrowed her eyes. Her voice was a low warning. “Don’t you dare preach to me, Mr. Johnson. I spent time rotting in a prison cell for my act of resistance.”
“So I heard,” Bill answered. “What’s done is done. I done wrong, too. We carry our sins forward, Miss Walker. What matters now is doing right by these boys. Time to step to, Margaret Walker.”