Lair of Dreams (The Diviners #2) (46 page)

“I’ll let you be,” Bill said. With his cane, he tapped his way down the hall and out the front door, where he heard a robin singing. Bill snatched the bird up, and in a moment, its song was stilled.

Theta knocked firmly on Evie’s door in the Winthrop Hotel. “Open up, Evil. I know you’re in there. I’ll just keep knocking until—”

The door swung open to reveal a very rumpled Evie, a velvet sleep mask pushed up on top of her tangled curls. She regarded Theta with a look bordering on murder. “What’s the big idea, waking a girl before it’s decent, Theta?”

Theta pushed past Evie. She eyed the empty bottles and glasses littering the filthy room. “Big night?”

“The biggest.” Evie yawned, falling back onto the bed. “Before the party proper, we had a little merry here in my room. I met this maaarvelous burlesque queen from Poughkeepsie, some darling stockbrokers, and a very entertaining fellow who could bounce a quarter off the end of the dresser and have it land in a glass of gin on the nightstand and… aaaah! Are you trying to kill me, Theta?”

Late-afternoon sun pierced the hotel gloom through the window where Theta had yanked the drapes aside.

“Depends.”

“Depends on what?”

“Whether or not you keep using that phony accent around me.”

Evie rubbed her forehead. “Oh, applesauce. Theta, will you have a talk with my head, please? Tell it to stop playing the marimba across my skull.”

Theta sniffed the nearby glasses, finally finding one that didn’t
smell of gin. “Hold on.” She disappeared into the bathroom, returning a moment later with a glass of water and two aspirin. “Down the hatch. Doctor’s orders.”

“What’s the rumble? What’re you doing here?” Evie managed to say between gulps.

Theta had been trying to figure out how to talk about this with Evie for weeks. She narrowed her eyes. “If you breathe a word of what I’m about to say, I swear I’ll hunt you for sport and wear your skin as a coat.”

Evie opened one eye. “It would have a satin lining, though. Promise me it would.”

“Evil…”

“All right. I’m shutting up.” Evie mimed locking her lips and throwing away the key.

One of Theta’s eyebrows shot up. “Boy, do I wish that really worked,” she muttered. “Okay. Listen: All these Diviners running around—”

“Not this again…”

“What happened to shutting up?” Theta barked and Evie quieted. “These Diviners. Any of ’em dream walkers that you know about?”

Evie rolled onto her side, her brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, are any of ’em able to walk around inside a dream just like they were walking around Times Square. Sleeping, but fully awake at the same time.”

“Inside people’s dreams?” Evie asked, confused.

Theta threw up her hands and rolled her eyes. “Do I need elocution lessons? That’s what I said.”

Evie scoffed. “That is pos-i-tute-ly impossible.”

“It’s not.”

“Pull the other leg!”

“Henry can do it.”

Evie propped herself up on her elbows. “You’re telling me that Henry, our Henry, can walk… in dreams?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. Henry’s a Diviner.” Theta tore
into her handbag and pulled out her silver cigarette case. “Evil, you gotta let me smoke or I’m gonna chew all my fingernails off.”

Evie made a face before waving her approval, and Theta slipped a cigarette free and tapped the end of it against the case’s hard shell. “You remember at Christmas, when Henry asked you to read his hat because he was trying to find Louis?”

“Yes. I wasn’t much help, though.”

“Well, Henry finally found Louis in the dream world,” Theta said, lighting up and taking a drag deep into her lungs. “That ain’t all. He’s met another dream walker. A girl named Ling, lives in Chinatown. Every night, they’ve been meeting inside dreams and walking around. He thinks I don’t know, but I do.”

“Gee, sounds like a swell talent. So what’s got you all balled up about it?”

“You know how you get sick if you read too much? It’s the same with Henry and dreams. We had a deal—no more than one hour a week. Evil, he’s walking every night now, and I don’t even know how long he’s under. He’s missed rehearsals, and even when he shows up, he isn’t really there. His mind’s on dreams,” Theta said on a stream of cigarette smoke. “He’s the only family I got.”

“What can we do? You want me to come with you and we’ll sit Henry down?”

“Lecturing Hen won’t help. But this lecture might.” Theta pulled out a newspaper advertisement and shoved it into Evie’s hands.

“‘The Society for Ethical Culture presents World-Renowned Psychoanalyst Carl Jung: Symposium on Dreams and the Collective Unconscious,’” Evie read. “Gee, say that three times fast.”

“We got a dream question, we go to the dream expert.”

“‘Eight o’clock in the evening on January…’” Evie stopped reading. “Theta, that’s tonight!”

“Yeah. So you’d better get moving. It’s gonna be a full house. I’ll meet you there on the front steps of the Ethi-Whatchamacallit at seven thirty.”

“Theta, I can’t. Sam and I are going to the pictures tonight—the theater owners asked for us in particular. They’ve got a special projector that can play sound on film! Isn’t that the elephant’s eyebrows?”

“Yeah. Terrific. Listen, tell Lover Boy there’s been a change of plans. If he’s gonna be married to you, he’ll have to get used to that.” Theta squinted hard at Evie. “Whatsa matter? You’re making a face like you got caught stealing cookies from an orphanage.”

“No, I’m not.”

“That proves it. You’re definitely guilty of something. Spill.” Theta folded her arms and waited.

“Oh, all right.” Evie sighed. “I need to confess to somebody before I go mad. This romance with Sam? It’s a publicity stunt.”

Theta slapped her hand on the bed. “I knew it! I smelled something as phony as your new accent!”

“Hey!”

“I know you’re crackers, Evil, but I’m glad to see you’re not
that
crackers. So was I right about you and Jericho?”

Evie hung her head. “It was just the one time. Oh, Theta. I’m such a terrible friend. I am the worst friend ever!”

“Don’t get fulla yourself. I’m not crowning you for it,” Theta grumbled. She drew hard on her cigarette. “If you’re really goofy for Jericho, you should tell Mabel. If he’s not dizzy for her, well, she can’t be sore at you about it.”

“Oh, yes, she can! You don’t know Mabel. Beneath that bleeding heart lies a grudge factory.”

“Well, she can’t stay sore at you forever—especially if you’ve spared her months of batting her peepers at a boy she can’t have.”

“But what if I don’t really like Jericho enough, not in the way he likes me or the way that Mabel likes him? Then I’ve led him on. Toyed with his affections and broken Mabel’s heart for a selfish whim.” Evie pulled the blanket up to her chin. “And then there’s Sam.”

Theta narrowed her eyes. “What about Sam?”

“Sometimes when Sam’s pretending to be in love with me, my stomach does funny things.”

“Well, get some milk of magnesia and stop it. Listen, the best thing you can do about Sam is play your part and forget about it. I know that type. He’ll have another tomato on his arm in twenty minutes.”

Evie frowned. “I’m not a tomato.”

Theta stubbed out her cigarette in a glass. “Evil, I know you—you’ll sort out this boy trouble. Frankly, it’s the least interesting thing about you. And right now, we got bigger problems.”

“Right,” Evie said, straightening up. “Henry. To the rescue we go.”

“I’ll see you at the egghead lecture at seven thirty. And seven thirty means seven thirty, kid. Eastern standard time. Not Evil-O’Neill-anything-but-on-time time.”

“You’re one to talk,” Evie groused. “You never make it to the theater when you’re supposed to.”

Theta tucked her clutch under her arm and held the hotel room’s door open with her foot as she yanked her gloves back on. “I like to give Wally the vapors, I’ll admit. But I’m always on time for my friends.”

“Yeah? Well… well,” Evie sputtered. “Well, at least I don’t smoke!”

Theta posed in the doorway. “You sure about that? Let’s set you on fire and find out.”

Evie hurled her pillow at Theta, who was quicker. The pillow hit the door and bounced onto the floor with the rest of the garbage.

At fifteen minutes past eight o’clock, Evie leaped from a cab on the corner of Sixty-fourth Street and Central Park West and rushed up the steps of the New York Society for Ethical Culture. A murderous-looking Theta glared down at her from just outside the closed doors.

“I said seven thirty,” Theta barked, grabbing Evie by the arm and steering her into the foyer. “Maybe instead of elocution lessons they should give you telling-time lessons.”

“Sorry, but at the last minute Mr. Phillips asked me to read something for his wife’s cousin. I couldn’t very well say no to the boss,” Evie
huffed out as they pushed through the doors into the foyer, where Mabel waited. It was Evie’s second glare of the evening, although Mabel’s was more exasperated than murderous.

“Oh. Hi, Pie Face. I didn’t know you were coming,” Evie said.

“I happened to run into Theta on her way out, and since I’d planned to attend the lecture, I suggested we come together. She said she wants to know about dreams and the unconscious for her acting,” Mabel said.

“Yes. For her acting,” Evie said evenly and did her best not to look at Theta.

“The lecture’s already begun, though, and the usher told me absolutely no one can go in,” Mabel said.

“Oh, don’t you worry. I’ll take care of it.” Evie flounced over to the man at the door. “How do you do? I’m Evie O’Neill. The Sweetheart Seer? Gee, I’m awfully sorry we’re late—I was visiting a children’s hospital, you see, and—”

“I’m sorry. No one is admitted.” The man stood like an iceberg.

“But I’m the Sweetheart Seer!” Evie said brightly. When the man seemed unimpressed, she added, “I read objects with help from beyond? WGI? I’m a Diviner.”

“Then you should be able to read the time,” the man said, pointing to the advertisement for the lecture. “I’m afraid what you are is late, Miss. No admittance.”

Back outside, Theta marched down the steps, puffing madly on a cigarette. She whirled around to face Evie. “I told you seven thirty.”

“Yes, I believe we’ve established that,” Evie huffed. She stared back at the closed doors, dumbfounded. “That man has never heard of my show.”

“What’re we gonna do now?” Theta said, more to the sky than to anyone else.

“You really need to ask him some questions for your acting?” Mabel asked.

“Yeah,” Theta said after a pause. “I really do.”

“Then bundle up and follow me,” Mabel said, walking toward Central Park.

“Where are we going?” Theta asked, grinding her cigarette under her heel.

“The Kensington House. Apparently, Dr. Jung stays there when he’s in New York.”

“How do you know that?” Evie asked.

“An old friend of my mother’s once hosted a fancy luncheon for him in Geneva,” Mabel answered as they crossed the street and headed into the park.

Sometimes Evie forgot that Mabel’s mother had been a Newell, one of New York’s great society families, before she married Mabel’s father and was disowned. She wondered what it must be like for Mabel to know that an entire side of her family lived with maids and butlers and chauffeurs to take care of their every need while Mabel shared a two-bedroom flat with parents who actively campaigned against that sort of wealth and privilege.

“Do you ever see your mother’s family, Mabesie?”

“Once a year,” Mabel said. “On my grandmother’s birthday. Mama sends me out on the train and a driver picks me up in a Rolls-Royce.”

“Your mother gave all that up for love?” Theta asked.

“Yes,” Mabel said. “And because she wanted to be her own person, with a different sort of life.”

“That’s a lot to walk away from.” Evie whistled.

The grainy halos of the park lamps lit up the barren branches of the stately winter trees flanking the cobbled path inside Central Park. The glassy surface of the frozen pond reflected the waxing moon, making it seem attainable. The tops of Fifth Avenue’s tony apartment buildings shone in the distance as the girls’ shoes crunched through the remnants of old snow.

“How are things with Jericho?” Evie asked Mabel, keeping her voice light, as if she were asking about the weather. “Has he tried to kiss you again?”

“Evie!” Mabel sputtered at the same moment Theta said, “Jericho kissed you?”