Lair of Dreams

But the comb didn’t seem to want to yield its treasures to her. To get at its memories, she’d need to go deeper. That was unpredictable on the radio. But Bob Bateman was a war hero, and everyone was waiting. Evie would not send him away with nothing. Gritting her teeth, she dove further under, concentrating so hard that she could feel sweat prickling along her upper lip and trickling down her spine. Evie forgot caution. She cared only about getting a read, no matter what it took.

Her head jerked back as the vision flared. The sensation was a dizzying one. She was running. No. Something was moving. The scenery. Trees. Rocks. More Trees. Seen through a window. Ah! She was on a train. Evie breathed through, searching for her footing in the memory, and was rewarded with a steadier picture. Yes, she was in a train compartment crowded with soldiers. A card game was in play on the small tray table. A skinny, dark-haired boy sprawled across his seat, writing in his diary. There was no girl in sight. Perhaps she was elsewhere on the train. Evie would find her.

“Anybody know where we’re headed?” the diary writer asked. He seemed nervous. His eyes. There was something familiar about his eyes. Brown. Sad.

“They never tell us nothin’,” the card dealer answered around the cigarette in his teeth.

“Just seems funny they didn’t tell us.”

“We’ll find out soon enough,” the dealer said. “Who’s in?”

The longer Evie stayed under, the more she felt that there was something strangely recognizable about all the men, something she couldn’t quite place. Stay light. Don’t go too deep. That was the name of the game on the radio. But Evie was in deep already. She needed to know.

Outside the windows, the land rolled on. Trees. Hills. Light snow fell.

The dealer flattened a card against his forehead, facedown. “What am I holding, huh? What is it? Who can call it? Joe? Cal?”

“It’s the Ace of Spades,” came a new voice, so shocking in its familiarity that Evie could scarcely breathe.

With a grin and a head shake, the dealer threw the card on the table, faceup. Ace of Spades.

“Son of a bitch,” a freckle-faced soldier said. “Right again.”

“That’s our Jim,” the diary writer said. Evie went cold inside. She’d placed his face. The soldier with the gun. The one who’d tried to shoot her on Forty-second Street. Her arms shook and her legs trembled. Nausea crept up into her throat. It was too much. She needed to quit, but she couldn’t—not yet. She had to see the soldier’s face. The one who’d guessed the card. She had to know who…

And then he was there. Right there. Smiling and bright-eyed and so young. Just the way she remembered him.

“All right,” her brother said, grinning. “Which one of you wise guys took my comb?”

In the next moment, Evie slipped to the stage floor. She was vaguely aware of a commotion around her, voices that sounded as if they came from underwater.

“Miss O’Neill? Miss O’Neill!” cried Bob Bateman.

“Please, stay calm!” said Mr. Forman.

Excited murmurs from the audience. Anxious voices: “Make her stop!” “How?” “Do something!”

And then someone pried the comb from her stiff fingers, severing the connection. Evie came to with a great, heaving inhalation, as if her lungs had stopped working for a moment and were now desperate for air. Her head lolled from side to side. The bright white lights hurt her eyes. Evie’s knees buckled as she tried to stand. The studio audience gasped. One of the Sweetheart Singers rushed over to prop her up. The back of Evie’s tongue tasted of blood. The inside of her cheek was raw where she must’ve bitten it. Mr. Forman provided a glass of water, and Evie gulped it down greedily, not caring that she spilled it down the front of her dress. Pushing off from the Sweetheart Singer’s embrace, she lunged toward Bateman on unsteady legs.

“Where… where did you get this?” Evie choked out when she could speak again. The studio lights were daggers. Her eyes watered and her nose ran. She was afraid she might vomit.

“I told you, it was my buddy Ralphie’s.…”

“That’s not true!” Evie half yelled, half cried.

The audience was uncomfortable with this unseemly display. They’d come for a good time and answers about lost pets or family treasures whose secret histories might connect them to royalty or millionaires. Mr. Forman tried to intervene, but Evie’s voice rose over his. “Where did you get my brother’s comb?”

“Say, now—I came on for a little help,” Bateman snapped, but he seemed more unsettled than angry. “I don’t have to stand here and listen to this.”

In the booth, the engineer gestured wildly to Mr. Forman, who practically shoved the Sweetheart Singers up to the microphone, where they launched into an upbeat tune to drown out the drama unfolding in front of them. Bob Bateman grabbed the comb from Mr. Forman and started down the middle aisle toward the doors in the back even though the ON AIR sign glowed red. Evie stumbled after him, eliciting further murmurs of disapproval and shock from the audience, but she didn’t stop, careening like a rolled marble down the hallway of the radio station after Bob Bateman.

“Mr. Bateman! Mr. Bateman!”