The Diviners (15 page)

Memphis held his breath. He could hear his blood pounding against his skull.

“She helps me with my ’rithmetic,” Isaiah said.

Aunt Octavia stood for a minute. “Well. You be careful around her, you hear me?”

Memphis let out his breath in a small whoosh. “Yes, ma’am,” he and Isaiah said as one.

“Memphis, I know you wouldn’t get your brother mixed up in the Devil’s business,” Octavia said, fixing him with a stare. “Not after all this family’s been through.”

Memphis’s jaw tightened. “No, Auntie. I wouldn’t.”

Octavia held his gaze for a few seconds longer, then poured iced tea into their glasses. “I promised your mama I’d look after you. I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to either one of you.” Octavia cupped Isaiah’s cheeks in her palms and kissed the top of his head. “Go wash yourself up for supper. Memphis, you say grace tonight. And after dinner, you can get the Bible from the china cabinet for Bible study.” When Memphis didn’t answer, Octavia called loudly from the kitchen, “Did you hear me, Memphis John Campbell?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Memphis grumbled. One day, he’d get the two of them out of his aunt’s house.

When they were washed to Octavia’s satisfaction, they sat around the old wooden table that their grandfather, a carpenter, had made as a wedding present to his young wife, their heads bowed.

“Dear Lord, we thank you for this bounty which we are about to receive….” Memphis said the words without feeling. He wasn’t thinking of being grateful for supper, but of the bounty he hoped to receive for himself. He prayed for his place in the world: his own words in a book and a reading at a salon on Striver’s Row, a place at the table with Whitman and Cullen and Mr. Hughes.

“… In Jesus’s name we pray. Amen.”

Octavia passed a casserole dish of baked sweet potatoes.

“I want you two to be very careful out there. You hear about that business down under the bridge?”

The boys shook their heads.

“I expect not. I heard it from Bessie Watkins, who got it from Delilah Robinson, whose husband works down at the docks. He called her just a little while ago. Woman got herself carved up by a madman.”

“That’s inappropriate dinner talk!” Isaiah said through a mouthful of potatoes.

“Take your elbows off the table. And don’t talk with food in your mouth. That’s what’s inappropriate.” Octavia shook her head as she buttered a piece of bread. “Don’t know what this world’s coming to. Feels like it’s all spinning too fast toward Judgment Day.”

Memphis hated it when his aunt talked this way. She never missed a chance to worry that the end was nigh—and she never missed a chance to worry everybody else with her thoughts.

“Well, all the same, I want you to be careful. Isaiah, I don’t want you going anywhere after dark by yourself. Memphis, you see to it, now.”

Memphis swallowed down his mouthful of potatoes. “Me? Marvin left you in charge, didn’t he?”

“Don’t use that tone with me. And don’t call your father Marvin.”

“That’s his name, isn’t it?”

“As a matter of fact, I got a letter from your father today.”

“Is he coming back?” Isaiah said.

Octavia put her let-’em-down-easy smile on, and Memphis knew what was in the letter without even reading it.

“Not yet, baby. He’s still getting settled.”

“He’s been getting settled for nearly three years,” Memphis said, dropping an unwieldy spoonful of beans onto his plate.

“The man’s working hard and sending back money for the two of you. You don’t know everything, Memphis John.”

“What happened to the lady under the bridge?” Isaiah asked, and Memphis shot his aunt a dirty look.

“Never mind about that, now. Eat your beans. And drink your milk or you won’t grow.”

“And then we’ll have to call you Shrimpy. Old Shrimpy Campbell,” Memphis teased, trying to distract his brother. “So puny, folks had to carry him around on a piece of toast. So small he wore a hat made from a tooth. So incredibly stunted that even the tadpoles felt sorry for him.”

Isaiah blurbled up some milk, laughing. Octavia started to reprimand them both, but even she couldn’t keep from giggling. So Memphis kept the story going, spinning it out wildly, as if it could weave them all together and keep them there in that moment with strings of words.

In the quiet of her kitchen, Sister Walker turned on the radio. It hummed and hissed, then came to life with a man’s voice promising the benefits of the Parker Dental System. She left it on. That nagging cough was back, and she fished a lozenge from a tin near the sugar canister, then lit a match under the kettle for tea. The work with Isaiah was promising. Very promising. It had been a long time since she’d seen anybody like him. But she cautioned herself against too much excitement. She knew well that such a promise could flare, then dim and fall away entirely, like she’d heard it had with Memphis.

Sister Walker stepped back into the parlor and turned on a lamp. The bulb chased the evening shadows from the room. She
lifted a painting of Paris from its hook and rested it against the wall by her feet. Behind the painting, a small, faint square had been cut into the plaster. She lifted the square and from the space inside the wall retrieved a thick portfolio. Sitting on the pristine sofa, she flipped through the files, reading over the material, looking for anything she might have missed. In the kitchen, the teakettle screamed. Sister Walker startled, then laughed at her own skittishness. She secured the files and sealed the wall, centering the picture again. The tea was hot; it soothed the rattle in her chest as she riffled through the newspaper clippings she’d been accumulating.

If she was right about Isaiah Campbell, the power was coming back. What did that mean? How many others like him were there? What were they capable of?

And how long before they were found?

It was late when Evie, Will, and Jericho returned to the museum. Up in the tall stacks of the library, Uncle Will pushed from shelf to shelf on the rolling ladder, running a finger along weathered spines, handing things to Jericho. He shouted down to Evie, “See if you can locate a Bible. You should find one in the collections room.”

Evie didn’t relish going into that room, especially at night. “Can’t Jericho do it? He knows the museum better than I do.”

“Jericho is assisting me, and as far as I can tell, you’re capable of walking. You did insist on coming today, did you not?”

“Yes, but—”

“Then make yourself useful.”

Evie stepped quickly through the rooms of the museum, switching on lamps as she went. She didn’t care if the electric bill was enormous; she wanted it as bright as the Great White Way. At the doorway of the collections room, Evie paused, searching with her eyes only, in the hope that she’d locate what she needed without having to actually walk around in that cavernous space filled
with mysterious objects. When it was clear she’d have to go in, she cranked up the old Victrola to keep her company and chase away the shivers. It was a tinny recording of someone playing ragtime piano. The jaunty tune helped ease her jitters as she got on with her search of the room. In the corner by the fireplace, she tripped over something under the Persian rug. Lifting a corner, she saw an iron ring in the floor for a small door, like a storm cellar. It was too heavy to lift and looked as though it hadn’t been touched in years. She patted the rug back down. On a side table, Evie spied a Bible holding up a potted fern. “And Mother says
I’m
a heathen.”

The music had stopped. The record hissed with a few seconds of silence, and then a man on the record began talking. “Been able to see the dead all my life,” he drawled. “Some of ’em just wants peace and rest. Not all of ’em, though. Not by a long shot. There’s evil in this world, evil in the hearts of men, evil that live on—” Evie scraped the needle across the record and ran from the room without turning out the lights.

“What took you so long?” Will asked when Evie came panting into the room. He and Jericho had assembled a stack of books, which they were tucking into Will’s attaché case.

“I walked to Jerusalem for the Bible. I knew you’d want an original,” Evie snapped. “Did you know there’s a door in the floor?”

“Yes,” Will answered.

“Well, where does it
go
?” Evie asked with irritation.

“There are stairs to a secret cellar and a tunnel. This was a stop on the Underground Railroad. Sojourner Truth herself hid former slaves below,” Will explained. He took the Bible and put it in his case. “It’s probably only home to rats and dust now. Shall we?”

Evie and Jericho waited on the long, wide front steps as Uncle Will locked the museum. The lamps had come on, giving Central
Park an eerie glow. Out of the corner of her eye, Evie caught sight of something that drew her gaze back.

“What is it?” Jericho asked. He followed Evie’s gaze into the park.

“I thought I saw someone watching us,” Evie said, scanning the park. She saw nothing there now. “I must’ve been mistaken.”

“It’s been a very long day,” Jericho said gently. “I wouldn’t be surprised if your eyes played tricks on you.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Evie said, but she had the nagging feeling she’d seen Sam Lloyd, of all people. She had a vague impression of him leaning against a tree in that overconfident posture that annoyed her so. But Jericho was right—there was no one there now, only the lamppost and the park.

Sam stayed hidden behind a jagged slope of rock until they were gone. She’d seen him. Just for a second, but it was enough. What was it about that girl that made him lose his street smarts? He’d come to the museum hoping to sweet-talk her into giving him back his jacket, but then he’d seen the detective and decided to return when the museum was empty to steal the jacket—and anything else he might need.

Sam had bided his time in the hustle and bustle of Times Square. He’d spotted his mark in a sailor idling uncertainly on the corner of Broadway and Forty-third Street. The streets had been crowded with people heading home from work. Most pickpockets considered this a good time to ply their trade, when folks were distracted. But Sam had a little something extra on his side: an eerie ability to move among people unnoticed. It wasn’t that he was invisible; more that he could redirect people’s thoughts elsewhere
so that their eyes simply didn’t register him. He had only to think,
Don’t see me
, and the person wouldn’t. He was quick, too, moving with catlike speed. In those moments, all he heard was his own rhythmic breathing as he extricated a wallet from a pocket, snatched a purse from a restaurant table, or stole bread from a store shelf. He didn’t know why it worked, or how—only that it did. It was how he had survived on his own for the past two years.

He had a clear memory of the first time it had happened. He’d been young—ten or eleven, maybe; it was sometime after his mother had left. His father had a watch, which had belonged to Sam’s grandfather. Sam had been told not to touch it, and it was precisely that edict that made the watch so appealing. One day he’d sneaked it out of his father’s drawer and smuggled the treasure in his coat to show the other boys in the schoolyard in the hope that they would understand its value and stop teasing him for his accent, his clothes, his smallness. Instead, they’d ridiculed him. “This? It’s just a cheap watch,” the leader said, and he smashed it on the ground. Sam had been afraid to go home and face his father. As he sat on the sofa waiting, he wished for a place to hide. When his father came home, Sam’s fear was so great that he felt like a small child again, imagining that he could simply close his eyes in a game of hide-and-seek and the other person wouldn’t see him. He heard his father’s footsteps coming closer, heard him calling Sam’s name.
Don’t see me
, Sam thought. “Don’t see me,” he whispered over and over, like a prayer. And then, oddly, his father looked right at him and kept walking, calling his name as if he were a ghost.