“There are choices you make, things you do, that you don’t know are wrong when you do them. Only time gives you that perspective. Only history,” Will pleaded.
“We made mistakes,” Sister Walker said a bit more crisply. “And now we must atone for those mistakes. I’m sorry, but it’s going to take all of us to fix it.”
Evie’s laugh was bitter. “After you murdered my brother? After what you did to our mothers? After you engineered us to be your little army of freaks and kept the truth of it from us? When did we ever get a say in any of it?” Evie shook her head and backed away. She couldn’t even look Will in the face. Not after what he’d done to James and the other soldiers. “I hate you for what you’ve done. I’ll hate you till my dying day! I will never, ever have anything to do with you again!”
Evie bolted from the room.
“We didn’t know. I swear we didn’t know,” Will said again as the others filed out.
As if that made any difference.
Sam ran after Evie, calling her name. She sank to her knees on the museum’s damp yard. Sam scooped her up and held her to him. “Hey, hey, hey, Sheba. I’ve got you. I’ve got you. Listen, you and me and the others. We’ll see this thing through. All right? C’mon, Baby Vamp. Shake your head if you hear me.”
Evie turned her tearstained face to him. Her cheeks were splotchy, her eyes swollen. “I’m so angry, Sam. So, so angry. I want to punch at the world and keep punching, but what good would it do?” She hiccup-cried with rage.
Sam cupped her face gently. “You. Me. All of us. No matter what.”
Finally, Evie allowed a small nod, whether of agreement or defeat, Sam couldn’t be sure. But it was a start. He helped her to her feet. The others were in the yard now.
“What do we do now?” Henry asked.
“So far, our decisions have been made for us. It’s time we started taking back the power,” Memphis said.
“We have to get Conor back,” Evie said.
“What about the rest of it?” Ling asked. “How do we find out about the Eye?”
“You think the man in the hat was telling us the truth about asking the ghosts for clues?” Henry said.
Evie couldn’t rid her head of the image of the dead descending with open mouths on Luther Clayton. “It’s all we’ve got to work with. We hunt those things down. We make them tell us what ‘Follow the Eye’ means. And we ask about the King of Crows, too—what he wants and how to defeat him. We’ll use that knowledge to get Conor back, to find out about my brother, and to close the breach and fix what Will and Sister Walker and Marlowe started once and for all.”
“What do we do with the ghosts once they tell us what we need to know?” Ling prompted.
“We obliterate ’em. Every single one,” Sam said.
“I don’t know,” Ling said. Hadn’t she spoken with ghosts in her dreams? Hadn’t they given her and others advice? Were there “good” ghosts and “bad” ghosts, the new breed Sister Walker and Will had mentioned? What if all the ghosts were connected somehow—and connected to the Diviners as well? “Seems shortsighted. After all, we don’t really understand what sort of energy they are or where that energy goes when we—”
“I just want them gone,” Evie said firmly.
“And it seems like it makes us stronger. We gotta build up our power if we’re gonna go up against what we saw last night,” Sam said, and Ling couldn’t argue with that.
“What about those Shadow Men?” Henry said. “I’ve got the feeling they don’t want us around at all.”
“Those bastards have my mother somewhere. I look forward to kicking in their teeth,” Sam said, and spat.
“Memphis, what’ll those Shadow Men do to us?” Isaiah said.
“Anybody wants to come after you, Ice Man, they gotta go through me first,” Memphis assured him, but Isaiah didn’t look comforted.
“We need to make ourselves indispensable. It’s harder to disappear people who are seen,” Evie said, wiping away her tears. Theta handed her a handkerchief and Evie blew her nose. “I say we announce ourselves as the only choice to eliminate the city’s ghost troubles. I’ll call Woody, get him on the trolley, and ask people to call in to the News with any sightings. We’ll have ourselves splashed across the papers every day if we have to.”
“Not me,” Memphis said. “Papa Charles and Owney Madden can’t see what I’m doing, or I’m a dead man myself.”
“Gee, I don’t know. We say we’re chasing ghosts, we’ll be the laughingstock of New York,” Theta warned.
“You seen the headlines? People are scared of the ghosts. We take care of ’em, we’ll be folk heroes,” Sam said.
“I’m not worried about some ghosts scaring people,” Ling said. “I’m worried about what people do when they get scared.”
Will and Sister Walker watched from the museum’s lighted window, gray silhouettes.
“I can’t stay with the professor anymore,” Sam said, nodding over his shoulder.
“You can bunk with Henry and me,” Theta said, and Henry nodded.
“Second question: Where do we meet now that the museum’s not an option?” Henry asked.
“The Hotsy Totsy?” Memphis suggested.
Sam winced. “That cover charge is steep. Not that I can’t steal it, but that leaves the rest of you.”
“It’s too hard for me to get there from Chinatown,” Ling said.
“We could meet at the Winthrop,” Evie suggested.
“White folks can meet at the Winthrop,” Memphis said tightly with a glance to Ling, who nodded.
“Swell. We’re the only Diviner ghost service in town without a meeting place,” Sam said, tugging on the brim of his fisherman’s cap.
“We can use the rehearsal room in the building on Twenty-eighth Street where David and I compose. It’s noisy, but it’s cheap,” Henry said.
“This afternoon, we meet up in Tin Pan Alley, at Henry’s spot,” Evie said.
“Memphis, I’m beat,” Isaiah said, stifling a yawn.
“Just a minute, Ice Man.”
Memphis trotted after Theta. “Theta,” he called, but she didn’t stop. Memphis held her arm gently. “Theta. Talk to me. Please?”
He slipped his fingers through hers. “Careful,” she said, but Memphis held on.
“You’re not gonna hurt me. You’re not,” he insisted.
“Now you know what’s inside me.”
“Yeah. The girl I love.”
“You know what I mean.”
“So what? I don’t care about that.”
“But you will. One day you’ll look at me and you won’t feel safe.”
“No. I won’t. I love you. That won’t change.”
Theta’s resolve was falling apart. If she told Memphis the truth about Roy, he’d want to stand up to Roy. And then Roy would hurt Memphis. Maybe more than hurt him. She had to end it decisively. Burn it all down. Make him hate her. That was the only way to keep him from coming back. That was the only way to keep him safe.
Theta drew on every bit of her acting skills. “It ain’t that. It’s you and me. We live in different worlds.”
“Hasn’t stopped us yet.”
Theta forced a coldness into her voice. “Things have changed. I’ve got a contract with Vitagraph. I’m going to be a star. I can’t risk that on you. Sorry, Poet. We had a good run.”