Lair of Dreams

“Careful,” Marlowe cautioned, and Jericho wasn’t sure if he meant the model or Jericho himself.

“I honestly don’t know what will happen. Because you’re the only one who’s come this far. Just you.” Once more, Marlowe leaned forward, his face grimly determined. “Jericho, let me help you. You’ll get your girl. You can have everything you want. Together, we will be part of greatness.”

Just like on that spring morning ten years before, Jericho could feel hope’s snare around his ankle. If he submitted to Marlowe’s grand plan, became part of his experiment, could he have a better chance at happiness? Would he be considered not a freak but a golden son—a prototype for the new, exceptional American? Could he have everything he wanted?

Could he have Evie?

Choices.

Already Marlowe had restored order to the toppled model, everything in its place.

“I’ll think about it,” Jericho said, enjoying the irritation flitting across Marlowe’s face. The great Jake Marlowe couldn’t control everything, after all.

“As you wish,” Marlowe said.

He went to his left pocket, fished out the small vial there, and placed it in Jericho’s palm.

Jericho stared at it, confused. “Where are the others?”

“You earn them. That is one month’s supply. I’m giving you thirty days to make up your mind. After that, you’re on your own.”





“Isaiah!” Memphis shouted. “Did you do this?”

He showed Isaiah his defaced poetry book.

Eyes wide, Isaiah nodded.

Three of the pages were covered in disturbing drawings. Isaiah’s pencil had gouged the paper.

“You’re acting like you’re two instead of ten,” Memphis griped. “I know you’re mad at the whole world right now, Isaiah, but you can’t be doing this. You can’t ruin a man’s personal property.”

“I didn’t mean to. I was asleep,” Isaiah protested.

Memphis didn’t know whether to believe Isaiah or not. The way he’d acted lately, he could’ve done it out of spite. Now the poem he’d worked so hard on was a shambles. Memphis wasn’t even sure he could recover any of it.

“I was having another nightmare,” Isaiah said. “Those are the monsters in the subways.”

“Monsters. In the subways.” Memphis’s laugh was short and bitter. “They pay full fare?”

“I saw them!” Isaiah yelled. “She made them. They’re down there. They’re hungry.”

“Isaiah! I swear.” Memphis threw his hands in the air and let them fall to his sides again. He held up the book. “You owe me.”

“What’s all this fuss about?” Bill Johnson said, tapping into the room.

“Nothing, Mr. Johnson,” Memphis grumbled. He pointed a finger at Isaiah. The finger was a warning. “But I’m not leaving anything of mine around you anymore.”

Memphis tucked the book inside his coat.





Isaiah trudged alongside Blind Bill as they walked through St. Nicholas Park, his baseball glove under his arm, the ball cupped in his other hand, and a scowl on his face.

“Now, what you got to do next time,” Bill instructed, his blind man’s cane tapping out ahead of him on the path, “is you got to put a li’l spit in your palm—just a li’l bit, now. Not too much. That’ll make that old ball fly like it has an angel’s wings.”

Isaiah was quiet. Bill didn’t need to see the boy to know that he was angry. He could hear it in the way Isaiah kept kicking up dirt as he walked. Memphis was supposed to take his little brother to play ball, but he was so angry about Isaiah drawing in his book that he’d refused. Bill knew he was a poor substitute. Just like he knew Memphis Campbell had healed Noble Bishop and lied about it. It still made Bill furious to think about the healer using his gift on that old drunk and not doing a goddamn thing to help Bill. Seemed like he and Isaiah had something in common: They were both mad at Memphis.

“Little man!” Bill said brightly, hoping to cajole the boy out of his mood. “Why’nt you tell me one of your funny stories you got, ’bout frogs or what-have-you?”

“My mama and daddy used to tell me stories,” Isaiah said. “Memphis, too. Before he went and got a girl.”

“That so?” Bill could infer Isaiah’s shrug in the silence. “You want me to tell you a story, then? That it?”

Sniffling. Then: “Don’t care.”

“Mm-hmm. Tell you a story, tell you a story,” Bill said, nodding and thinking. “All right. There was this fella—”

“That ain’t the way you start a story!” Isaiah interrupted.