Lair of Dreams

“Memphis. Son…” Her voice was raspy, her words slow, as if it took great effort to speak. “We h-haven’t much t-time.” She clutched her stomach as she gagged, vomiting up a small, feathery tuft. A thin stream of oily drool dripped from her lips. Her voice thinned to a croak. “Follow. The. Eye. Heal. The. Breach.”


Dark, roiling clouds massed on the horizon, blocking out the sun. Angry light crackled against the churning sky and pitchforked down into the earth. Ghosts appeared in those brief flashes; they swayed in the wheat like shimmering scarecrows. These dead bore no resemblance to the shadowy spirits who’d welcomed Memphis into the healing space. There was nothing benevolent or ancestral about these wraiths. Instead, there was something terrible and hungry about them, as if they could eat and eat and never be filled.

Another storm of lightning lit up the sky, and Memphis could see that it swirled around the man in the stovepipe hat. It balled in his palm. He seemed delighted by this. His laugh was everywhere at once. He extended a hand toward Memphis, and though he was far away, his face loomed large and close. “Mine,” the gray man said in a voice as old as time. He strode through the field toward Memphis, and the dead moved with him.

Memphis’s mother coughed and spasmed with some violent change. Her eyes widened as she fought to whisper one last word: “Run.”

Before Memphis’s eyes, his mother was swallowed up in a whirl of blue-black feathers and desperate cawing as she transformed into a crow and flitted up, crying into the angry sky. She dove down and tugged at Memphis’s collar with her beak, as if trying to pull him away from that place, but the man in the stovepipe hat and his retinue of dead were like a magnet, drawing him in. Memphis could hear his heartbeat pulsing in his ears. His eyes fluttered. He felt as if he could fall and never stop falling.

The shock of feathers across his cheek like a slap startled him. The crow cawed in his face, and Memphis jolted out of his healing trance, sweating and confused. His hands still gripped Noble Bishop’s arm, but Noble himself lay on the ground, still as death.

“Mr. Bishop, you gotta get up now,” Memphis pleaded, panicking as he shook the motionless old drunk. “Mister, please, please wake up. Please!”

Terror curled inside Memphis. He was close to crying. High above, the sky pulsed with lightning. Wind kicked up, sending dead leaves skittering down the street. A pounding rain started. Lightning struck a tree across the street and a branch fell off, burned and smoking. Memphis dragged the old man into the alley, where he could be protected.

“Sweet Jesus,” Memphis said, looking down at Noble’s still body. “I’ve killed him.”

A couple of policemen walking their beat came down the street. Memphis knew these particular cops were dirty for Dutch Schultz, and they’d love nothing better than to take one of Papa Charles’s runners in for any offense they could think up. Murder would be a hell of a charge.

“Mr. Bishop please, please wake up,” Memphis pleaded.

Noble Bishop coughed and breathed. And then he settled into a light snore that was the best sound Memphis had ever heard.

“I did it,” he said, grinning in astonishment at his hands. “I did it,” he said again, almost reverently. The cops were nearly there.

“Hey! There’s a sick man here!” Memphis shouted from behind the protection of the wall. Once he saw the cops heading toward the alley, he turned and ran away, climbing up and over the fence toward home.





PART TWO





The gloom of January weighed on New Yorkers. The days were short and the nights were very long for people who’d grown to fear sleep. Mothers kept close watch by their children’s beds. The rich asked their servants to sit nearby and wake them every few hours. The bootleggers’ business was booming. The city was wary and afraid and close to violence.

But for Ling and Henry, it was the nights they lived for. Dreams provided an escape from the worries of the real world, a refuge of hope and possibility. While they waited in the beautiful old train station, Henry would play the piano, trying out new songs, looking to Ling for approval or boredom. If she wrinkled her nose as if something smelled bad, he abandoned it. But if she cocked her head to the side and nodded slowly, he knew he was on the right path.

“Anytime you want to come to the Follies, just say the word, and I’ll get you the best seat in the house,” Henry promised.

“Why would I do that? I can listen to you here.”

“It’s not just me, you know. There are grand dance numbers and singers, big stars. It’s very glamorous, don’tcha know?”

“It sounds long and tedious.”

“Most people love the Follies.”

“I’m not most people.”

“Darlin’, truer words were ne’er spoken,” Henry said and laughed.