“What sort of place is this?” Ling whispered after an uncomfortable silence.
“A safe one,” Henry answered, stirring milk into his tea. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth before?”
“I didn’t want you to feel sorry for me. I get enough of people staring at me in horror. Or pity.” She took a sip of her tea. It was still too hot. “It’s just… in the dream world, I’m the way I used to be. I can run and dance. I’m strong. Not like here. I didn’t want you to see me this way—weak.”
“Darlin’, you may be a lot of things, but weak isn’t one of them. How long have you been…” Henry trailed off.
“Crippled? If we’re going to have this conversation, there’s no point in being precious,” Ling shot back. “Not long. Since October.”
“And will you always…?”
“It was infantile paralysis,” she said firmly.
Henry nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said after a pause.
“Why? You didn’t cause it.”
“No. But I’m sorry nonetheless. It’s terribly unfair.”
“Nobody promised life would be fair. That’s why I love dream walking so much. It’s the one place where I feel like myself. Where I’m free.”
“Well, I’ll drink to that.” Henry raised his teacup and took a sip. “To the place where we can be free.”
Two men from the corner table got up to dance, hands joined, cheeks pressed close together, and Ling tried not to stare. She hoped her discomfort wasn’t too evident.
“Speaking of free,” Henry said. He took a deep breath. “As long as we’re being honest, I should… I want to tell you the truth about Louis.”
Henry’s heart beat quickly. Why was being himself with another human being more terrifying than anything he could imagine in a dream?
“When I said that Louis was my friend, that wasn’t entirely true. He’s more than just a friend. He’s the only boy I’ve ever loved. He’s… he’s my lover.” Henry sat back and folded his arms across his chest. His expression was a dare. “So. Go ahead, Miss Chan. What do you have to say to that?”
Henry. And Louis. Lovers. It was a bit shocking, but it also explained so much that hadn’t made sense, something Ling had felt deep down. Years before, Ling had overheard a bit of gossip about Uncle Eddie and the real reason he’d never taken a wife. It was because of his friend Fuhua. The two of them were said to be closer than brothers. They went everywhere together. One day, Fuhua was arrested for gambling. During the interrogation, it was discovered that he had entered the country illegally by pretending to be someone else—that he was a “paper son.” There was nothing to be done. Within a week, Fuhua was deported to China and forbidden to enter the country ever again, breaking her uncle’s heart. Or so the gossip went.
“Is it true?” Ling had asked her mother later. In those days, she shared everything with her mother.
Her mother had gotten very upset. “That’s a terrible thing to say about your uncle, Ling!”
“Why?” Ling had asked, her cheeks hot with a shame she didn’t understand.
“Because it’s… unnatural, two men together. It’s a sin. Ask Father Thomas. He’ll tell you,” her mother said. “You mustn’t ever say that about your uncle again, Ling.”
Ling hadn’t cared if the story about Uncle Eddie was true or not; she’d been upset to think of her beloved uncle unhappy. After her mother’s explanation, though, the idea had taken root in her: This was wrong and sinful. It was an idea she’d never had to challenge until now. But Henry wasn’t wrong. He sometimes made jokes when he should be serious, but he was kind. She might not fully understand his life, or he hers, but she realized that in the dream world, they’d been telling each other truths all along. She liked Henry. She liked Louis, too. Ling had spoken to the dead plenty, and not one of them had ever said a word about love being a sin. Until the priests could satisfactorily prove their hypothesis, she would take the word of the dead over the priests’.
“Very well,” Ling said at last.
Henry’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s it? Just ‘very well.’”
Ling warmed her hands on the sides of her cup. “Yes.”
“You are a strange one, Ling Chan,” Henry said, shaking his head, the relief apparent on his face.
“I’ve never had a friend like your Louis. I’ve never really had friends.”
“Their loss,” Henry answered.
Ling turned on him. “Are you saying that just because you’ve been trained to be polite? Or do you mean it?” Ling put up a hand. “Don’t answer out of habit. Be truthful.”
“You really aren’t much for social niceties, are you?”
“Why should I lie? What good does that do?”
When she had lain in the hospital after the infection with her legs paralyzed, the nurses had smiled politely and told her not to worry. But she knew from their eyes there was reason to worry, and being told otherwise only made her fear greater. It was her uncle Eddie who had been honest with her.
“Will my legs get better, Uncle?” she’d asked him. “Will they be like before?”
“No, they will not,” he’d said, his face and voice resolute so that she wouldn’t have false hope. “This is how it is now. There is strength in acceptance, Ling. Your legs have been taken from you. But how you choose to live with that has not.”
“I prefer the truth,” Ling now said to Henry, a little less bitterly.
Henry hadn’t been trained in honesty, only avoidance. Back in New Orleans, he’d been raised with the sort of southern manners that meant never really saying what you thought. He’d learned to smile and nod and go along, to call something “interesting” instead of “hogwash.” To be a good southern gentleman meant prizing politeness and pleasantry above all else. Being honest was a strange sensation, like using a long-neglected muscle.
“I think being friends with you will be challenging,” he said at last.
“‘Will be challenging’?”
Henry shrugged. “I suppose you’re stuck with me now, Miss Chan. I apologize in advance.”
Ling’s smile was big and goofy.
Henry whistled. “That smile of yours is a real beauty.”
Ling shook her head, letting her hair cover her face. “It’s stupid.”
“Right. What I meant to say is, that stupid smile of yours is a real beauty.”
This time, Ling actually giggled.
“The creature laughs!” Henry said.
“I’m not such a killjoy!”
“Actually, you are. A bit. Hey! I’m giving that honesty you asked for a twirl. How do you like it?” Henry said.
“You’re awful.”
“Oh, you say the sweetest things. I think you’re awful, too, darlin’,” Henry said, and Ling couldn’t fight her grin.
“Thank you for saving me today,” she said.
“Thanks for saving me, too.”
The little jazz band in the corner picked up the beat. Boys led their partners onto the floor, moving them gracefully around and around. Ling watched the dancers wistfully, tapping her fingers softly against the table. Henry saw it all.
“Would you care to dance?”
Ling’s face clouded. “This isn’t the dream world.”
“I know.” Henry stood and offered his hand. “One dance.”
Ling stared at Henry’s fingers, and then she grasped his hand and let him lead her to the floor. Mostly, they shuffled in place slowly, but it didn’t matter to Ling. She was dancing. It was almost as good as dream walking.
As they emerged onto snowy Barrow Street, Henry looked at Ling and asked, “Why do you do that?”
“Do what?” Ling asked.
“Yank your skirt hem down over your braces when somebody looks at you.”
“They’re ugly. People are bothered by them.”
“They’re not bothering me,” Henry said, and Ling unfurled another of her rare smiles.
“So you really don’t like girls?”
“I like g
irls very much. Just… not in the marrying way, if you follow.”
Ling nodded.
“More important, I like you, Miss Chan. Friends?”
“I suppose so.”
Henry smirked. “That was a very Ling Chan answer. If you ever give me a compliment, I might fall over dead. What’s the matter now? You’re frowning again.”
“Henry, could I show you something?”
“As long as you promise it doesn’t involve small children or yodeling.”
“Neither. But I do need you to come with me downtown. Unless you’re afraid?”
“Darlin’, I’m only afraid of bad reviews,” Henry said and flagged down a taxi.
On the ride downtown, Ling told Henry of her haunting dream about George Huang, and about her curious finding in the library on the Beach Pneumatic Transit Company.
“It was a real place—the first New York City subway. It opened in 1870, they stopped using it in 1873, and then it was sealed for good in 1875,” Ling said. “And Henry, the drawings of the station were remarkably close to what you and I see each night in the dream world.”
“The fountain? The piano?” Henry asked, and Ling nodded. “The goldfish?”
“Even the goldfish. And it was built beneath Devlin’s Clothing Store! So why is an old train station showing up each night in our dream walks?”
“You know how dreamscapes are—they’re a jumble of symbols, odd bits of mental string collected from our daily lives, and other people’s as well.”
“Yes, and like a river, they change constantly. But you asked the question first: Why do you and I keep returning to the same place, where the same sequence of events plays out in the same order, each night, like some sort of loop?”
“I did say that, didn’t I?” Henry mused, rubbing his chin. “That was very smart. I feel much better about my standing as a member of the imaginary science club now. All right—why? And what does it have to do with George, and with us?”
“That’s what I want to find out.”
The taxi stopped at City Hall Park. Henry paid the driver, and Ling showed Henry the grate by the water fountain. “This is where George took me that night. He led me here, very deliberately. And then he pointed to those buildings across the street. Do they seem familiar?”
Henry cocked his head and squinted at the block of Broadway between Murray and Warren. “If I’m not mistaken, it looks a bit like the street where we start our dream walk each night.”
“I believe it is.” Ling eased onto the park bench and loosened the straps on her braces, rubbing the soreness from the spots where the leather chafed. “That building on the corner of Warren and Broadway was where Devlin’s stood before it burned down.”
Henry sat beside her on the bench and stared at the new building occupying the corner now. It bore no resemblance to the one in their dreams. “So this spot is somehow connected to our dream each night, but we have no idea why, and George wants us to know… something about it.”
A whistling park custodian cleared soggy missing-persons signs from the lampposts. Ling waited until he’d moved on.
“Remember when I told you that the dead appear when they have a message to deliver? And that they almost always choose a dream scene that reminds them of a favorite place—like my auntie standing in a garden she loved, or Mr. Hsu in the Tea House, where he ate every single day?” Ling took a deep breath. “Well, sometimes the dead come back instead to a place where they have unfinished business. They can’t leave until it’s resolved.”
“You think there’s some unfinished business George has to take care of here in City Hall Park?” Henry said, gesturing to the pigeons strutting across the stones.
“Not George. The woman in the veil.” Ling gave Henry a sideways glance. “What if I told you the people in my neighborhood think that this sleeping sickness in the city isn’t a sickness at all, but a haunting? They say it’s the work of a restless spirit.”
“Do you believe that?”
“I know it sounds ridiculous, but I’m starting to wonder if it might be true.”
“I thought you were a scientist.”
“Just because I believe in science doesn’t mean I ignore superstition. Sometimes there’s a basis for those superstitions. And anyway, I’m not the only one who’s wondered. You did. And Wai-Mae warned us about the tunnel. She said she could feel the ghost, and that the ghost frightened her—‘She cries’ is what she told me.”
“The Crying Woman comes,” Henry intoned. “Well, hold on to your hat; here’s where it gets even more interesting: Last night, after I woke you up from inside the dream… by the way, I had planned to hold that impressive skill over your head, but now I fear it’s not appropriate.”
“Just tell me what happened,” Ling growled.
“The moment you left, the dream world went dark.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like a theater whose show is finished for the night. It’s hard to explain, but it’s almost as if once you were gone, or once we weren’t there together, there was no need to keep up the whole shebang. And a few seconds later, I heard a woman crying inside the tunnel.”
Ling breathed in sharply. “You didn’t go in, did you?”
“A woman was crying, Ling! Despite my misgivings about my parents, they did raise me with proper manners. I can’t ignore a damsel in distress.”
“No. I suppose you can’t. What happened next?”
“The dark glowed with greenish light. I heard that growling again, and then—I can’t swear to this—I thought I saw someone moving inside.”
“Her?”
“Possibly. And then my alarm woke me.”
“Wai-Mae mentioned that there was a bad death,” Ling said. “Every night when we see that woman run past us, she’s clearly in distress. And there’s the blood on her dress.”
“Yes. Bloody clothing is often a clue that something has gone awry,” Henry said. “But why would our mystery woman have anything to do with this sleeping sickness, if you truly think that’s the case?”
“I don’t know. I’m working from a theory. It might not be the correct one. I can’t help but think that George wants me to know something about her, that he’s trying to lead me to clues.”
Henry clamped his hands under his armpits to fight the cold. “Right now, the only clues we have lie in that dreamscape. We’ll have to piece it together from that, I suppose.”
“Agreed. So,” Ling said, counting off on her fingers, “there’s the Beach Pneumatic Transit Company. The fireworks. Someone named Anthony Orange Cross. Devlin’s Clothing Store.”
“Haunted trousers. It always comes back to the haunted trousers.”
Ling gave Henry a withering glare.
Henry nodded. “Fair enough. No haunted trousers.”
A gray storm cloud drifted over the top of City Hall for a moment, obscuring its cupola. Ling watched the cloud dissipate, transforming into a less ominous version of itself. “‘Murder! Murder! Oh, murder,’” Ling murmured. “Maybe the veiled woman was murdered, and she… needs us to find her killer so she can rest?”
“I’ll bet it was the wagon driver—‘Argh, Miss, ’tis the horses that drove me to murder!’ Get it? Drove me to murder? Thanks, folks. Two shows daily!” Henry wiggled his fingers, then dropped them again. “Sorry. What if this Anthony Orange Cross was the killer?”
“And he chased her and killed her in Paradise Square—‘Beware, beware, Paradise Square!’” Ling added.
“Wait a minute!” Henry sat up very straight. “Adelaide Proctor!”
“If this is another joke, I’ll skin you alive.”
“There’s an old woman who lives in my building, Miss Adelaide Proctor. Likes to wander the halls in her nightgown and season the carpets with salt and talk about murder and mayhem and other unsavory spooky things. She’s a bit… odd.”
“You mean crazy,” Ling said.
“I’d say eccentric.”
“That’s a nice way of saying c
razy.”
“As I was saying, the other day, she looked right at me as I was getting on the elevator and said, ‘Anthony Orange Cross. Beware, beware, Paradise Square.’”
Ling threw her hands up in exasperation. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“It didn’t come up in conversation! Besides, I’m in the theater, darlin’. I meet an awful lot of strange people. It’s an occupational hazard.”
“How did she know that exact phrase?” Ling pressed. “Is she a dream walker, too?”
“Not that I know of. At least, I’ve never seen her wandering the dreamscape on her broomstick. She asked me if I could hear the crying.” He paused, his eyes on Ling. “You’re making that frowning face again. Not the usual Ling-Chan-contempt-for-most-of-humanity expression, but something more akin to dread.”
“I don’t like this, Henry,” Ling said. “Something isn’t right. Can you speak to the crazy lady and ask her what she knows?”
“Yes, for the sake of our mystery, I will endure an afternoon with the mad Proctor sisters,” Henry said.
A distant clock tolled five. Ling gasped.
“Now you’re really starting to scare me,” Henry said. “What’s the matter?”
Ling gathered her crutches. “I was supposed to be home a half hour ago.”
“Oh, is that all? I thought you’d seen the ghost of Anthony Orange Cross.”
Ling’s expression was grim. “I’m not afraid of ghosts. But I am afraid of my mother.”
The moment Henry and Ling entered the Tea House, Mrs. Chan marched toward them, drying her hands on a towel, her eyes flashing. “Ling Chan! Where have you been? I have been worried sick! Lee Fan and Gracie have been back since half past three. I nearly had half the neighborhood out looking for you!”
For the first time since Henry had known her, Ling appeared truly cowed.
“I-I… um…”
“I beg your pardon, ma’am,” Henry jumped in, pouring on the southern charm. “I don’t know if you remember me—Henry DuBois the Fourth, from the science club? Gee, I feel awful. This is entirely my fault. You see, Ling was separated from her friends, and I just happened to come along. Naturally, I wanted to be certain she was safe. But then I was so utterly entranced by our discussion of Einstein’s relative theory…”