And Sister Walker remembered Lavinia Cooper. The light shining into the room where she lay in Frederick Douglass Memorial Hospital. Before the Devil breaks you. Well, let the Devil try. Margaret Walker was up for the fight. “Who do you think has been getting these boys ready for the battles ahead, old man?”
Bill’s lips tipped into a smile. “Ain’t old no more. Plenty a kick left in me.”
Will charged into the collections room with a gas lantern and a burlap sack. “There’s some apples, cheese, bread. Canteen of water.”
“Thank you,” Memphis said. It wasn’t much, but it was something. It would see them through a few days if they were careful. Memphis would give his ration to Isaiah if it came to it. He thought of Theta again; she’d have no idea where he’d gone. “Professor, can you tell Theta that I’ll get in touch just as soon as it’s safe?”
Will nodded. He kicked back the carpet and yanked up the iron ring on the secret entrance to the cellar. A plume of dust circled up. Memphis’s heart began to beat faster.
“Do you know where the tunnel lets out, where it ends?” he asked, peering down into the dark hole.
“Cornelius never said. I’m afraid you’ll be traveling blind,” Will cautioned.
Bill snorted and swung his legs over the edge. “Been doing that most of my life.”
He lowered himself down the rickety steps, dropping to the basement’s floor with a rustling of the dirt. Isaiah and Memphis followed. Will handed down the sack of provisions, which Memphis passed to Bill, and the lantern, which Memphis kept. He looked over at his brother’s wide eyes. He needed to keep Isaiah safe. That was everything.
But where was it safe?
“May the spirits guide you,” Will said from above, and closed the door.
Memphis let his eyes adjust to the dark. The air was close. It smelled of earth and dust. Of the past and the future.
“What do we do now, Memphis?” Isaiah asked.
Memphis took a deep breath. He lifted the lantern. Its glow fell across the murals that had been painted on the road to freedom and shone what light it could into the long uncertainty ahead.
“One foot in front of the other,” Memphis said. “We keep walking.”
After Will had covered up the passage again, he marched into the library and up to the second floor. From his hollowed-out copy of The Declaration of Independence, he retrieved the files he’d kept on Project Buffalo. Most of it was there. Enough of it to be damning at least.
“I’m taking this to T. S. Woodhouse,” he announced to Sister Walker. “I’m telling him everything and letting him print every word. We have to stop this madness.”
“You think anyone will believe us?”
“We have to try.”
“There more files in here?”
Will nodded. “Upstairs. Tucked into The Federalist Papers.”
Margaret smirked. “You do like your gallows humor, Will.”
Margaret went upstairs, disappearing into the stacks, not wasting any time. It was so like her, and Will realized how much he admired Margaret. How much he needed her. She had been a true friend. She made him braver, always had. An overwhelming feeling of gratitude and love bubbled up inside him.
The front door opened and closed so softly that it might not be heard by a visitor. But Will knew the sounds of the museum as if it were part of his own body. He was alert. Ready.
“Afternoon, William,” Mr. Adams said as he and Mr. Jefferson entered the library. Mr. Adams touched fingers to the brim of his hat without removing it. “It’s been a long time.”
“Not long enough,” Will shot back.
Adams snickered. “And here it was I thought Margaret Walker was the spitfire. Speaking of, where is the troublesome Miss Walker?”
“Do you think Margaret Walker is foolish enough to stick around here?” Will said loudly on a laugh, hoping that his voice carried up to the stacks. Oh, stay hidden, Margaret!
“Sorry this isn’t a social call, William. We’re here on business. Now. Where are the files? We know you must have them. And where are Memphis and Isaiah Campbell?”
“Too bad you don’t have a Diviner to help you find the things you’ve lost,” Will said.
Jefferson backhanded him for it. It shouldn’t have been surprising, but it rattled Will nonetheless. Upstairs, he saw Margaret’s frightened face peek out from behind the stacks. Will wiped the blood from his split lip. He wished he had a cigarette.
“Now, now. Don’t be impertinent, William,” Mr. Adams said. “We’ll find them, with or without your cooperation. But with your help is a far better scenario—at least, where your health is concerned.”
Will nodded and walked slowly to the mammoth fireplace. “Cornelius Rathbone had this carved especially for the library. It actually has a name. It’s called the Fires of Knowledge. Did you know that?”
“Touching.” Adams had pulled a round of thin piano wire from his pocket. He wound the ends around each of his middle fingers.
Will reached down and palmed a handful of old ash from the fireplace’s unkempt hearth. It was gritty and stained his fingers gray. Around him, he could feel the ghosts of Cornelius and Liberty Anne. “‘It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done,’” Will said.
“That from Cornelius Rathbone, too?” Jefferson sneered.
“It’s from a book. Dickens. A Tale of Two Cities.”
“I don’t get it.”
“No. I don’t expect that you do.”
Adams tensed the wire between his fingers. “Where are the files and the Campbell brothers, William? I won’t ask a third time.”
“They’re long gone,” Will lied. “Your days are numbered.”
Adams grinned. “Not like yours.”
The agent took a step forward. Will tossed the handful of ash into the man’s eyes. Adams howled in rage and pain. In the space of the three seconds it took for William Fitzgerald to bolt across the library’s Persian rug toward the half-open doors, the futility of his situation welled up inside him in a way that nearly resembled hope in its giddy freedom. He was alive as he had not been in some time. All his nerve endings burned with life, as if discharging their last impulses. His mind whirred with memory. He thought of the first time he saw Evie in this room, like a ray of rogue sun forcing itself through the gloom, as he lectured to schoolboys about America’s supernatural past. He thought of studious, quiet Jericho sitting at the table with his books and cocksure Sam creeping around, always looking for an angle to work. He thought of Memphis Campbell’s poetic, shining soul and Isaiah Campbell’s unbridled optimism and of their frightened, determined faces as he’d lowered the cellar door, and he hoped they were well on their way. He thought of dear, funny Henry and brilliant, straightforward Ling and resilient Theta with her hidden strength—all of them refusing to be pressed under by the world’s thumb. He thought of James and Luther and the wrong he had done them, and he prayed he would know their forgiveness yet. He thought of Margaret, his friend and occasional enemy, but mostly friend, and he hoped fervently that she had heard his warning and had hidden herself. She would be needed in the days to come.
At last, he thought of Rotke’s beaming face in the cold winter sun, her laughter whipping along the wind: Oh, Will, that’s you all over!