“Do. You. Deny. It?”
“No, sir,” Memphis said, his voice nearly a whisper. “But I’ve only done it that one time,” Memphis lied. “I don’t know if I can do it again.”
“Then I guess now’s as good a time as any to find out.” Papa Charles stubbed out his cigar. “Grab your hat and come with me.”
Out in front of the Carringtons’ apartment building on 127th Street, a handful of schoolgirls skipped rope and sang a clapping song. They giggled as Memphis walked up the stoop and Papa Charles rang the bell, but Memphis was too uneasy to play along with them and they picked up their clapping song again: “Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack, all dressed in black, black, black…” they sang, and a shiver crawled up Memphis’s spine.
“Afternoon, Bessie. We’re here to see Mr. Carrington. I believe he’s expecting us,” Papa Charles said, handing over his hat.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Charles,” Bessie answered, taking their coats, too. She smiled shyly at Memphis. “Hey, Memphis.”
“Hey, Bessie,” Memphis said.
“Lord, I hope you know what you’re doing,” she said in hushed tones as she led them upstairs. “I’m scared to even change the bedsheets.”
They followed Bessie down the hall to a closed door, where she knocked gingerly. “Mr. Carrington? Mr. Charles and Mr. Campbell are here to see you, sir,” she said.
“Show them in,” came a muffled voice.
Bessie opened the door wide, stepping aside so that Memphis and Papa Charles could enter the sick woman’s room, then closed the door quickly behind her as she left.
The bedroom was still and gloomy. The drapes had been drawn. Mrs. Carrington lay in the four-poster bed with her mouth partially open. Her lips quivered just slightly, as if she were about to speak, and her fingers twitched where they lay against the covers. Under the lids, her eyes moved back and forth. A cluster of red marks showed on the pale map of her neck. Memphis tried not to stare at the marks, but he couldn’t help it.
“Thank you for coming,” Mr. Carrington said. He smelled of liquor. “Do you need anything before you, um…?”
Papa Charles placed his hands on Memphis’s shoulders. “He’ll be just fine. Won’t you, Memphis?”
“Yes, sir,” Memphis croaked, and he hoped that was true.
“Would you all kindly bow your heads?” Memphis asked Mr. Carrington and Papa Charles. It wasn’t that he wanted them to pray; he just didn’t like being watched. It made him nervous. Once the men complied, Memphis approached the bed and placed his hands lightly on Mrs. Carrington’s arm. Whatever is good in this world, be with me now, he thought and shut his eyes.
The connection came faster this time, the current of it traveling up Memphis’s arms. Under the warm yellow sun, the hands of ancestor spirits welcomed him. But no sooner had Memphis joined to Mrs. Carrington than he sensed that something was wrong. Every time the healing began to take hold, it was quickly undone. Something was fighting him.
His mother’s voice came to him. “Memphis, stop!”
His mother was there in the tall reeds, and she looked scared.
“Mama?” Memphis said.
The spirits of his ancestors faded into mist. Angry clouds moved across the sun. It grew colder.
“Memphis!” His mother choked and coughed. A tuft of feathers tumbled from her lips. Her eyes were huge; her voice rasped toward a squawk. “Memphis, get out now!”
But it was too late. His body twitched and jerked as he was pulled under a great wave, and when he surfaced again, it was as if he were awake inside Mrs. Carrington’s dream. He was on a blue bicycle, riding through a bright green field of freshly mown grass that smelled of high summer. Mrs. Carrington’s laughter echoed in his ears. She was young and free and happy. The happiness affected Memphis like a drug. His body relaxed. It was nice here in Mrs. Carrington’s dream, and Memphis struggled to remember his purpose.
He was supposed to heal this woman. To wake her up.
As he renewed his concentration, a shrieking voice broke through. “Who dares disturb my dream? I will make you live in nightmares.…”
The warmth vanished. Cold flooded through his veins. Memphis wanted to break the connection, but he couldn’t. Something had him, strong as an undertow. He struggled against its pull, but it was no use. The bicycle, the field, the sun—all of it went away. It was dark now, and he couldn’t move. Where was he? Far away, through a dot of light, lay a train station. One minute, the station was beautiful; the next, it was nothing more than a rotted, filthy ruin.
Memphis had been trying to heal Mrs. Carrington, and still, they were joined. He felt what she felt. Her mind desperately wanted to drift back to the happy time in the grass and the blue bicycle. Her yearning was a gnawing hunger clawing at Memphis’s guts, as if its craving would never be satisfied. But Memphis sensed, too, that the dream was draining Mrs. Carrington’s life force. In order to heal her, Memphis would first need to stop her dreaming. But how?
Wake up, Mrs. Carrington, he thought. There are people who want you to come back. Wake up.
A threatening growl interrupted Memphis. He lost his concentration. What was that sound? The dark sparked with flashes of green. A figure approached. She wore a long dress and a veil. Mrs. Carrington’s heartbeat sped up; so did Memphis’s. The tunnel was loud with an awful din. The ghostly figure came closer. Memphis could sense great rage and sorrow in her, something beyond his healing.
“Who intrudes on my dreams?” the woman shrieked. And then her eyes widened with recognition and a strange joy. “So much life in you! More than all the others. You could feed these dreams for a long, long time. Dream with me.”
Her mouth was on his, sucking the life from him even as her kiss promised him everything he ever wanted. Flocks of hopes fluttered past Memphis’s eyes: Memphis and Theta sitting beneath a lemon tree under a warm sun, a typewriter on his lap. Isaiah laughing as a little dog jumped for a ball. Their mother hanging wash on the line, smiling over at her boys while his father smoked his pipe and read his newspaper. But when Memphis struggled against this dreaming, nightmares intruded: Soldiers blown apart. His mother wasting away to nothing on her deathbed. A fearsome wood and the man in the stovepipe hat holding out his palm, emblazoned with the eye and lightning bolt. “You. And I. Are joined.”
These terrible things turned him back toward the beautiful dreaming.
His eyes blinked open to buttery sun shining down on a grand town house. The door opened, and a butler welcomed Memphis inside. “Evening, Mr. Campbell. Take your coat, sir? Everybody is awfully excited to hear you tonight.”
The butler handed Memphis a program: Miss A’Lelia Walker presents new poetry by Memphis John Campbell.
“Just like Langston Hughes, Mr. Campbell. You’ve made it, sir.” The butler paused outside a second door and smiled wide. “Would you like to go inside, sir?”
The last of Memphis’s resistance gave way. All he wanted was to have that door opened for him and to walk right through. “Yes. Yes, I would. Thank you.”
The second door opened into a grand parlor filled with elegant people who greeted Memphis’s arrival with applause. The applause grew, and Memphis never wanted it to stop. He was losing himself to the room and the joy and the want. Theta blew him a kiss from the front row. The great A’Lelia Walker, patron of Harlem poets, writers, and artists, drew back a curtain, and behind it was a table holding a stack of books with Memphis’s name on the spine.
“My book,” Memphis murmured, a half smile on his lips.
From high atop a shelf, the crow squawked something fierce.
“Go away, bird,” Memphis said. “This is my night.”
When he looked toward the table again, he saw that it sat inside a long, dark tunnel.
“You don’t want to keep them waiting, do you, Mr. Campbell?” A’Lelia Walker asked. Her hand threatened to snap the curtain closed, shutting him out.
“No, ma’am,” Memphis said.
The growling was back. It was thick
er now, almost a hornet’s nest buzz. The smiling audience crowded around Memphis. “Dream with us…” they whispered, and urged him forward toward the table of books and the hungry dark waiting behind it.
With a great flapping of feathers, the bird caromed about the room. In the mirror, Memphis saw the warm sands and his ancestors. One of those ancestors, a man with a tall staff, spoke to him in a language Memphis did not know but which resonated deep inside him, urging caution. Look closely now, it seemed to say.
The muscles of Memphis’s neck tensed against some unseen threat and his heartbeat doubled. He turned his head. Mrs. Carrington stood in the corner, her face pale and her mouth struggling to speak.
“Don’t. Promise,” she wheezed. “It’s. A. Trap.”
Memphis opened one of the books that carried his name, riffling through the pages.
Blank. Every single page, blank.
Look closely now.
“Where are my words?” he asked.
“Words don’t matter. Dream with us.”
But Memphis knew that words did matter. Look closely now.
“Where are my words? Why have you taken my stories?” he asked.
As soon as he said it, the curtain to his dream slammed shut. A’Lelia Walker vanished, and the edges of her shining parlor peeled away. He was back in the long dark tunnel now, with those strange greenish lights winking on, raining down. The crow left its perch. It pecked at Memphis’s cheek. He gasped and put a hand to his wound. Blood pooled on his fingertips. Quickly, Memphis grabbed hold of Mrs. Carrington’s wrist. In his head, he heard the distant drums of his ancestors, and, acting on some primal instinct, he smeared her with his blood. Memphis cried out as a great roaring rushed through him, like a dammed ocean unleashing its power at last.
In the next second, Memphis fell on the floor beside Mrs. Carrington’s bed. His arms shook and he gagged as if he might vomit. He felt as if he’d run full-out for miles. Muffled voices became clearer.
“Memphis! Memphis, sit up now, son. Come on.” Papa Charles’s hands were on him, helping him off the floor.
In her bed, Mrs. Carrington sat straight up. Her dark eyes were wide and blinking. Her fingers clawed at the air. Her mouth opened and closed as if she had been drowning and was now trying to choke the last of the water from her lungs.
“Emmaline!” Mr. Carrington cried as he rushed to his wife’s side. “Emmaline!”
With a shuddering gasp, she inhaled.
And then she was screaming.
MIRACLE ON 125TH STREET! DEPARTMENT STORE KING’S WIFE WAKES FROM SLEEPING SICKNESS! screamed the front page of the late-edition extra.
Eager New Yorkers swarmed around the newsies, whose fingers could barely keep up as they peeled off the freshly printed newspapers, which told of Mrs. Carrington’s miraculous awakening. From her sickbed, Mrs. Carrington reported that she could remember nothing from her time asleep except for a happy dream about riding a blue bicycle and a music-box song. Mr. Carrington claimed that his wife’s sudden recovery was due to “the great healing power of the Almighty himself.” Sarah Snow came round to take a picture, a fresh orchid pinned to her very fashionable dress as she sat at Mrs. Carrington’s bedside. The Carringtons made no mention of Diviners or of Memphis.
But as Blind Bill Johnson sat in the Lenox Drugstore sipping his coffee and listening to Reggie read the story aloud to an eager group of patrons, he knew who had done the healing.
The time for patience was over.
On the evening of what should have been Mabel’s first date with Jericho, she had come down with a terrible cold. Now that the rescheduled evening had rolled around at last, Jericho was second-guessing every choice he’d made. He’d gotten a reservation at the Kiev, a tearoom in the West Fifties where patrons could drink tea, eat blintzes, and dance to the orchestra between courses if they liked. He didn’t know why he’d chosen that place. He wasn’t a dancer, and taking a girl to a restaurant with dancing announced your intention to do just that. The whole evening had begun to seem like a bad idea, but it was too late to back out now.
“Hey, Freddy!” Sam said as he blew through the front door. “Listen, I gotta step out—holy smokes! Is that a… are you wearing a tie?” Sam leaned against the wall and watched Jericho as he struggled and failed for a third time to make the proper knot.
“I have a date,” Jericho said, unraveling it once more. “Why are you covered in dust? Never mind. I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know.”
“You’re right. You don’t want to know. And I hope that date is with an antiques dealer, because that thing around your neck is a genuine artifact. Did you find it in the museum or on a dead clown?”
“Go away, Sam.”
“And leave you in a time of crisis? Huh-uh. You need me. More than you know. Wait right here,” Sam called as he raced toward his room. Jericho heard drawers opening, and a moment later Sam returned with a very fashionable gray-striped necktie. “Here. Borrow one of mine.”
Jericho regarded it dubiously. “Who’d you steal this from?”
“Fine,” Sam said, holding it out of reach. “Go out in your grandpa’s tie. See if I care.”
“Wait!” Jericho swiped the gray-striped number from Sam. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. So, ah, who’s the lucky girl?” Sam asked, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. When Jericho ignored him, Sam grabbed one of Jericho’s Civil War soldier figurines and held it up to his mouth. “Oh, Jericho,” he said in a high-pitched voice. “Take me in your arms, you big he-man, you!”
“Please put General Meade back in Gettysburg. You’re changing the course of the war. And it’s just a date.”
“With girls, it’s never just a date. First lesson, Freddy,” Sam said.
“As always, I’m grateful for your sage advice,” Jericho said, finishing the knot.
Sam nodded approvingly. “You clean up nice, Freddy. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” Sam grinned as he dropped into Will’s chair.
“Such as behave like a decent human being?” Jericho said, reaching for his hat and scarf from the hall coatrack.
“Who just gave you a proper tie?”
“Get out of Will’s chair.”
“You’re welcome!” Sam shouted as the door closed.
“I’m sorry about my mother and father and all those questions they asked,” Mabel said as she and Jericho sat in a leather booth inside the Kiev. “For radicals, they’re practically Republicans about my suitors.”
“It’s all right,” Jericho said, watching couples old enough to be their grandparents glide across the worn parquet floors to the tepid strains of a second-rate orchestra. It was a far cry from the sort of nightclubs Evie and Sam attended every night. He hoped Mabel wasn’t too disappointed with this choice.
“Nice place,” Mabel said, just like the good sport she was.
“Mmm,” Jericho said around a mouthful of gooey pastry.
“It’s nice that they have dancing.”
“Yes. Dancing is… um, nice,” Jericho said. He felt like a horse’s ass. And Sam’s necktie pinched.
Mabel sipped her spicy tea, her stomach churning with nerves as she tried to think of a conversation starter that would turn the evening around, and fast. “Say, I’ve got a fun game!” she said, finally. “If you were a Diviner, what power would you want to have?”
“I’m not a Diviner,” Jericho answered.
“Neither am I. That’s why it’s a game.”
“I’m not good at these sorts of games.” Jericho ate another bite of blintz.
I’ve noticed, Mabel thought, and stirred her tea for the twentieth time.
“Fine. What sort of power would you have?” Jericho asked.
“Oh. Anything would do, I suppose. It would just be nice not to be so hideously ordinary.” Mabel laughed and waited for Jericho to disagree with her: Why, don’t be silly, Mabel—you’re anything but ordinary. Why, you’re extraordinary all on your own!
“There’s no such th
ing as hideously ordinary. If something is hideous, it’s automatically extraordinary. In a hideous way.”
“Never mind. Let’s change the subject,” Mabel grumbled.
“I told you I wasn’t good at this game,” Jericho said. “Besides, the more I read about Diviners, the more I think it’s a curse as well as a gift.”
“What do you mean?”
“Diviners are truth-tellers. But people rarely want the truth. We say that we want it when, really, we like being lied to. We prefer the ether of hope.”
“But hope is necessary! You have to give people hope,” Mabel insisted.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
Jericho folded his arms across his chest. “In an amoral, violent world, isn’t it unconscionable to keep offering hope? It’s like advertising for soap that never gets you clean.”
“Now you’re just being cynical.”
“Am I? What about war? We keep grappling for power, killing for it. Enslaving. Oppressing. We create ourselves. We destroy ourselves. Over and over. Forever. If the cycle repeats, why bother with hope?”
“But we also overcome. I’ve seen people fight against that sort of oppression and win. What you’re talking about is nihilism. And frankly,” Mabel said, taking a steadying breath, “frankly, that bores me.” Nothing emboldened her quite as much as someone claiming the good fight couldn’t be won.
“How is it nihilism to embrace the cycle and let go—of attachments and morality and, yes, the opiate futility of hope?” Jericho fired back. Mabel’s naiveté annoyed him. She might think she’d seen the world, but, really, she saw only a particular slice of the world, neatly bordered by hedgerows trimmed daily by her parents’ idealism. “All right,” he pressed. “If you believe in hope, what about true evil? Do you believe there is such a thing?”
Mabel felt as if the question were a test, one she might easily fail. “I believe real evil is brought about by a system that is unjust or by people acting selfishly. By greed.” She’d never really articulated her thoughts on the matter before, and it satisfied her to say them aloud.