He’d found Louis in a dream, so it was possible to do it again. All he had to do was go back in and give him a suggestion, the way he’d done with Theta when she had a nightmare. That was it! Through the dream world, he could get Louis to come to him. But that meant he’d need Ling once more. That was the key—the two of them together. Tomorrow, he’d ask Ling to help him, no matter how much it cost.
“Henry Bartholomew DuBois the Fourth!” Theta marched in, her sleep mask pushed up haphazardly on her forehead so that she resembled a drunken pirate. She slapped off the alarm clock and turned on Henry, furious. “What’s our deal, Hen?”
“Now, Theta…”
“Don’t you ‘Now, Theta’ me. What’s our deal?”
“No more than—”
“Once a week,” Theta finished.
“Theta—”
“This is two nights in a row, and after you promised me today—”
“Theta—
“If you think I’m gonna lose my beauty sleep while you—”
“Theta!” Henry croaked out her name with the last of his strength.
Theta snapped out of her temper. Worried, she fell to her knees beside Henry. “Whatsa matter, Hen? Holy smokes, you okay?”
Henry smiled with chattering teeth. “I’m s-swell. Theta, I f-found him. I f-found Louis,” Henry managed to say before he fell, utterly exhausted, into a dreamless sleep.
Adelaide Proctor fished a nitroglycerin tablet from her pillbox, placed it beneath her tongue, and waited for her angina pains to subside. It had been a nightmare that had brought on this spasm—something about an old hand-cranked music box that played a song that had been popular when Adelaide was young. The song’s beauty had stirred her longing, promising her everything she’d ever wanted if only she’d follow it deeper and deeper into dreams. Adelaide sensed it calling out to other sleepers, too, like a radio transmission from a far-off station late at night. But then the dream shifted, the song was lost, and she saw Elijah standing silently on the edge of the cornfield, his face painted in deep moon-shadow. “Addie,” he’d whispered, beckoning, and her heart began to gallop wildly, a riderless horse, until she woke with a start.
The tablet worked quickly on the tightness in her chest. Once her heartbeat slowed to a steadier rhythm, she forced herself from her bed and staggered to her own music box, atop a small oak cabinet tucked into a corner of the room. When she lifted the box’s lid, its tiny Moulin Rouge dancer figurine jerked into motion. With two fingers, Adelaide silenced the dancer’s song before it could wake her sister, Lillian. Inside lay a flannel jewelry bag housing a small iron case with the initials EJH. Adelaide opened the case and examined its contents—a lock of dark-gold hair, a tooth, a sliver of finger bone, and a tintype of a young man in a gray uniform. Seeing that everything was secure, she placed the iron case back in its bag and closed it away, locking the doors of the cabinet once more.
Next she gathered a shallow bowl, matches, a candle in its brass holder, a roll of bandaging, bundled sage, and a small crooked silver dagger. These she added to her handbag. She emptied the salt can into each pocket of her robe, grabbed the handbag, and, with the burden of salt weighing her down, shuffled down the hall to wait for the elevator.
The elevator operator rode Miss Adelaide all the way to the very depths of the Bennington without a word; he’d only been there two weeks and had already learned not to question the Proctor sisters. While the lift rumbled down, Miss Addie chanted softly to herself, “The land is old, the land is vast / He has no future, he has no past / His coat is sown with many woes / He’ll wake the dead, the King of Crows.”
The elevator gates clanged open on the Bennington’s underworld. The young man at the elevator’s controls peered into the darkness. “Shall I wait for you, Miss Proctor?” he asked uncertainly.
“It’s quite all right, dear. I’ll ring you shortly. Run along now.”
Shaking his head, the young man closed the gate and the elevator groaned back up, leaving Addie alone in the dim basement. Immediately, she took out the candle and lit the wick, waiting for the glow to brighten the gloom. She fed one end of the bundled sage into the flame and waved it through the air, spreading out in wider circles. Next she wiggled up the sleeves of her robe and nightgown. The paper-thin skin of her wrist glowed nearly blue in the dim light from the narrow street-level windows that ran along the park side. Speaking ancient words, she slid the small knife across her thumb, hissing as she dripped blood into the bowl. She pressed her bloody thumb to the basement’s eastern corner before marking the room’s three other corners. This done, she bandaged her finger, then scooped salt from her pockets, sprinkling frost-thin lines along the windowsills, where she hoped the janitor wouldn’t find them. Night pleaded at the windows to be let in. Addie snuffed the candle, gathered her things, and pressed the elevator’s call button, watching the golden arrow tick down the floors to the bottom.
When the doors opened, the elevator operator helped Addie onto the lift. “You smell smoke, Miss Proctor?” he asked, alarmed.
“It’s only sage. I smudged the basement, you see.”
“Beg your pardon, Miss Proctor?”
“I lit a bundle of sage and smoked the room.”
Curiosity and suspicion proved too much for the young man at the controls. “Now, Miss Proctor, why’d you want to go and do a thing like that?”
“For protection,” Addie said, resolute.
“Protection from what, ma’am?”
“Bad dreams.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Proctor. I don’t follow.”
Miss Adelaide whispered urgently, “I’m keeping out the dead, my dear. For as long as I can.”
The elevator operator kept his thoughts to himself, though he’d be sure to mention this to the building management before his shift ended. No doubt they wouldn’t want the old woman burning down the whole building. With a small shaking of his head, he yanked the gate shut and turned again to the controls, and the gilded doors closed on the dark of the basement.
“Good morning, good morning!” Evie called as she flounced down the halls of WGI wearing a broad smile that masked the hangover from the previous night’s party. As promised, Evie had popped out of the cake at midnight. As expected, she’d popped right into a boozy party that went until well into the wee hours. She’d kill for another few hours of sleep. In the hallway, the day’s hopefuls clamored to be put on the air. Every morning, there was a line of new talent looking to make a name on the radio.
“I can sing just like Caruso,” one fellow explained before launching into an aria so loud Evie was fairly certain it could be heard out in Queens.
“What about me?” another man with a nasal voice piped up. “I can do fourteen different bird whistles!”
“Oh, please don’t,” Evie muttered, rubbing her temples.
As Evie dropped off her cloche and coat with the coat-check girl, another of Mr. Phillips’s many secretaries, Helen, hurried toward her. “Miss O’Neill! I’ve been looking for you. Mr. Phillips would like to speak with you. Immediately.”
Evie’s gut roiled as Helen ushered her into Mr. Phillips’s private office, an enormous corner room of gleaming cherrywood walls on the tenth floor with a view of Midtown Manhattan. A gold-framed oil painting of a godlike Guglielmo Marconi inventing the wireless took up an entire wall. His painted expression gave no hint as to Evie’s fate.
“Wait here. He’ll be in shortly,” Helen said and closed the door.
Was Mr. Phillips firing her? Had she done something wrong? By the time she heard Mr. Phillips’s patrician voice telling his secretary to “hold all calls,” she was so anxious she could’ve climbed the pretty walls.
Mr. Phillips swept into the room with the sort of calm confidence that had helped him make a fortune in the stock market. His suits were tailored in London, and he had an apartment in the city and a house out on Long Island where he hosted legendary parties attended by film and radio stars. But radio was his one true obsession
, and WGI was his baby. Talent that Mr. Phillips didn’t like had been fired mid-show: An emcee or act would be ushered out of the studio during a musical number and immediately replaced with a new act.
“Good morning, Miss O’Neill,” he said now, taking the seat opposite her. The sun glinted off his silvery hair. “You’re front-page news today, it seems.”
He slid a stack of newspapers toward her. The Daily News. The Herald. The Star. Every one of them carried a station-approved glamour shot of Evie, along with a screaming headline:
SWEETHEART SEES HIM AS HER GROOM.
LOVE IS IN THE CARDS FOR DIVINER GAL.
FLAPPER OF FATE IN SECRET ROMANCE.
“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” Mr. Phillips asked.
“I… I can explain, Mr. Phillips,” Evie said. Under the table, her foot tapped like mad. He would fire her, send her packing, and everything she’d enjoyed the last few months would be gone. When she saw Sam Lloyd again, Evie would need Theta to hold her back to keep her from killing that boy in every way she could imagine—and she had quite an imagination. Evie took a deep, calming breath. Use your vowels, she told herself. Everything sounds better with proper enunciation. “You see, it isn’t quite what it seems.…”
“No? I certainly hope it is what it seems, dear girl,” Mr. Phillips answered, his eyes brightening. “It’s spectacular!”
“It… it is?” Evie squeaked.
“Indeed it is. WGI has been flooded with telephone calls all day. The switchboard operators’ fingers are exhausted. People are crazy about your engagement. They can’t get enough! They want to know everything about it. Why, it’s the biggest thing to hit New York since—well, since you announced you were a Diviner. The ‘It Girl’ has found her ‘It Boy.’”
A tickle nagged the back of Evie’s throat. “Oh, gee, well, I wouldn’t exactly say Sam is my ‘It Boy.’”
Mr. Phillips waved her words away. “The point is, my dear girl, that you and your lucky fellow have made the WGI family very happy. Finally, we’ve got a leg up on NBC. You and your beau are going to put us over the top. Already, the advertisers are calling. They want to support the station that has the Sweetheart Seer and her fiancé.” He smiled. “And when our advertisers are happy, I am happy. You are about to become very famous, my dear.”
“I am?”
“Yes. What would you say to being on the air two nights a week? With a small raise, naturally.”
Two nights a week? The only other people with that sort of clout were stars like Will Rogers and Fanny Brice. Evie couldn’t keep the smile from spreading wide across her face. “That’d be the berries, Mr. Phillips.”
“Consider it done. And, of course, we’ll want to arrange press for the happy couple.”
“Oh. Well, gee, I-I don’t know. It’s all rather new,” Evie said. Her voice had gone high, like she’d been given ether.
“Nonsense.” Mr. Phillips glowered, his bushy brows coming to a terrifying, angry V mid-forehead. “We’ll arrange it. The public’s appetite must be fed. I want you and your fellow”—Mr. Phillips stole a glance at the newspaper story—“Sam out as often as possible. Every night if you can. Now that Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald are in Europe, Americans are hungry for a modern couple to take their place.” He lowered a finger at her. “You two are it.”
Evie burst into uncontrollable, nervous laughter.
“Is something the matter, Miss O’Neill?”
“Everything’s jake,” Evie said in a somewhat strangled voice. “Could I make a telephone call, please?”
In the privacy of Mr. Phillips’s office, Evie waited for Sam to answer and looked out the tenth-floor windows at tall buildings enveloped by winter fog. Down below, the people hustling along Fifth Avenue seemed rather small. Evie liked being this high; she felt quite powerful, indeed. She’d like to stay up here among the clouds. Evie picked up the day’s paper and stared at her name in bold print. Yes, she liked this very much. She just had to get Sam on board.
The operator broke the silence. “I’ve got that call for you, Miss O’Neill.”
Sam’s voice crackled over the line, filled with smirk. “Well, if it isn’t the future Mrs. Lloyd.”
“Daaarling,” she trilled. “I’ve missed you.”
There was a brief pause on the other end, then: “Uh-oh.”
Through the crack in the door, Evie could see Mr. Phillips and the WGI secretary pool hovering, hanging on her every word. She perched on the gleaming edge of the lacquered desk and laughed like they’d taught her in elocution class, low in her throat, with her head thrown back as if she were catching the wind in her hair. It was supposed to be alluring and high-class, the devil-may-care laugh of a lady of leisure. “Hahahaha. Oh, you! Darling, I simply must see you. Shall we say luncheon at noon? The Algonquin?”
Another pause. “Are you feeling okay, Sheba?”
“Now, don’t be late, dearest. We have so much to discuss, and you know that every moment away from you is like torture. Adieu!”
Evie hung up before Sam could say another word.
On her way out, Evie shared the elevator with Sarah Snow. Evie noticed her stockings right away—gray herringbone, very chic. For an evangelist, she was quite fashionable. That was a large part of her appeal. God’s flapper, some called her. She gave the subject of Jesus a little hotsy-totsy. A missionary’s daughter whose parents had been killed in China when she was only thirteen, Sarah Snow heard the call at the tender age of fifteen. By the time she was twenty, she’d crisscrossed the country twice, holding tent meetings and preaching about the evils of liquor, dancing, and socialism. She’d married at twenty-one and lost her husband to tuberculosis before she’d turned twenty-three. Now, at twenty-five, she was trying to reach her flock on the radio—Moses on the Wireless. That she called for a return to simpler times appealed to plenty of Americans lost in a world turning too fast for them to find their footing. That she was a passionate speaker brought scores to her revival meetings. That she was pretty didn’t hurt a thing.
Still, she didn’t have nearly the following that Evie did. In fact, the gossip around the station was that the only reason Sarah had managed to hold on to her show was that there was nothing better to slot into that hour, and it would look bad to fire a foot soldier for Jesus.
“Congratulations on your engagement, Evie,” the evangelist said, giving one of those saintly, closed-mouth smiles that Evie couldn’t have managed if she practiced in a church mirror for a year.
“Thank you, Sarah.”
“Is he a Godly sort of fellow?”
Evie suppressed a loud “ha!” “Well, he certainly does know how to make a girl appeal to the Lord.”
“I wish you every happiness. I heard they’re putting you on two nights a week now. Is… is that true?” Another closed-mouth smile. But Evie sensed the worry behind it. Sarah Snow might have her eyes on the cross, but her heart was full of ambition. It almost made Evie like her more. Almost.
“Yes. It’s true,” Evie said brightly.
Sarah faced forward again, her eyes on the golden arrow counting down the floors. “I suppose everyone loves a great romance.”
Evie’s smile faltered. “I suppose so.”
Evie blew into the Algonquin and shook the damp from her cloche. The maître d’ led her through the packed, oak-paneled dining room. Every head turned as Sam rose to greet Evie.
“Lamb Chop!” Sam clasped her hands and gave a small sigh.
“Makes me sound like dinner,” Evie muttered through clenched teeth.
“Does it, my little Venison De Milo?”
Evie glared. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
Sam whispered into her ear, “More than you can imagine.”
A waiter appeared. “Shall I bring you the Waldorf salad, Miss O’Neill?”
“Yes, thank you. And coffee, please.”
“Mr. Lloyd?”
Sam gave a small sigh. “Usually I feast on our love, but since the lady’s having some
thing, I’ll take a Reuben. Extra horseradish. And an egg cream.”
“As you wish, sir,” the waiter said. “You two must be very happy.”
“Over the moon. Who’d’ve thought a regular schmoe like me could land a gem like Baby Doll here,” Sam said.
Evie had to lock her hands around her knees to keep from kicking Sam under the table. Once the waiter had gone, Evie leaned forward, her voice low. “Laying it on a little thick, aren’t you, pal?”
Sam shrugged. “I heard we were in a romance. Thought I’d play along. But if you’d rather not, I’ll call the papers right now and tell ’em the truth.”
“You’ll do no such thing, Sam Lloyd! You got us into this mess. Now we’re stuck.”
“Is that so? Tell me why I shouldn’t fess up to the news boys.”
“Do you know how many calls the radio station got today about us? One thousand!”
“A… thousand?”
“One-oh-oh-oh, brother. And they’re still calling! Mr. Phillips wants to put me on two nights a week. This is going to make me famous. More famous.” She glared at Sam. “You, too, I suppose.”
Sam rubbed his chin, grinning. “I bet I’d be good at being famous.”
“How lucky for us all,” Evie snapped. “The point is, if you tell them it was just a joke now, I’ll look like a joke, too. Nobody wants to back a joke. Makes people grumpy. There’s only one solution, I’m afraid. We’ve got to play out this hand for a bit.”
The waiter delivered a plate of rolls and Evie dove for it. Being anxious made her hungry. She could’ve eaten ten rolls. Sam laced his fingers and leaned his elbows on the table, inching his face closer to Evie’s. “Yeah? What do I get out of this deal, Baby Vamp?”