Before the Devil Breaks You by Libba Bray
“Suppose it could’ve been Ling’s doing, then?” Memphis suggested.
“But I couldn’t get inside the dream with Henry,” she answered. And the dead aren’t speaking to me right now.
Memphis put a hand on Henry’s shoulder. “Evie was right beside you. Could you have been picking up on her emotions somehow, living through her memories?”
“I’m telling you: I was in his body, living his dream.”
Evie nestled closer to Henry and looped her arm through his. “What do you remember?”
Henry blinked up at the ceiling. “A house—brick foursquare with Irish lace curtains at the windows, a side porch off the kitchen.”
“That sounds like our house!”
“Then I was in a forest. I heard this awful hum rushing through me, sort of like the throbbing of a wounded, mechanical heart. I thought it would drive me mad.”
“Did you ever see what it was?” Ling asked.
Henry shook his head.
“Does that mean James isn’t dead?” Theta asked.
Evie would give anything for James to still be alive. To hear him calling, “Where is my sister, brave Artemis?” as he used to do on warm summer evenings when the two of them would run around the garden trying to catch fireflies in mason jars to light the night. After James was killed, Evie had never again tried to catch lightning bugs. They were magical creatures, and she couldn’t bear to cage them.
Henry was picking absently at his shirt cuff. He looked unhappy.
“What’s the matter, Henry?” Evie asked.
He winced. “Wherever James is, I don’t think it’s a good place. There was terrible pain and fear. I’m sorry to tell you that.”
Evie didn’t know if what Henry had experienced was a dream or something far too real, but she couldn’t bear the thought of her brother suffering.
“He has to be dead,” Sam said. “Evie saw what happened to the one forty-four when she went into Luther’s memories. Will and Sister Walker confirmed it. All those soldiers—they’re gone.”
“Yes. But gone where?” Ling said.
Evie walked all the way back to the Winthrop to try to clear her head. At a newsstand, she bought the late-edition Daily News, frowning at a flattering front-page article about Sarah Snow and how she would be giving the opening prayer at Jake Marlowe’s Future of America Exhibition, complete with a great quote from Mr. Phillips about Sarah being “WGI’s brightest star!”
“I thought I was WGI’s brightest star,” Evie grumbled. And then, on page seven—seven!—was a tiny article by Woody about the Diviners banishing a ghost from a warehouse on the West Side.
“Say, aren’t you the Sweetheart Seer?”
Evie looked up to see a smart-set couple, all long pearls and spats, walking a wiry terrier.
She brightened. “That’s right!”
“There’s a ghost—save me! Save me!” The man burst out laughing.
“That isn’t funny,” Evie said. It felt like being slapped.
“Come now. It’s all a publicity stunt, isn’t it? You and your phony friends. Your days are numbered,” the man sneered.
“She used to be so delightful on the radio. Now she’s just a real wet blanket,” the woman agreed as they went on their way.
By the time Evie reached the Winthrop, her misery was a fully fleshed companion. She’d thought that hunting down ghosts and getting rid of them would’ve made the Diviners the talk of the town, welcome at every nightclub and swank hotel. She’d thought the citizens of New York would be grateful. But more and more, they were laughing at Evie and her friends. The Diviners were becoming a city joke. And they still had no answers about the Eye or Conor.
Evie picked up the phone to call Uncle Will. Then she thought about what Henry had told her, about James being in some sort of terrible place, and she slammed it down again. She was cheered to see that Jericho had mailed her a letter. She sliced it open with a fingernail, hoping she hadn’t ruined a perfectly good manicure, and read:
Dear Evie,
I hope this letter finds you well. Spring is trying to arrive here. I believe I saw a brave daffodil poking its yellow head up from the cold ground today. You would love the estate and all its furnishings. As a matter of fact, I saw an old antique that might interest you, Buffalo Gal. I know how you’ve been looking for just such a piece for your new home, and I know how you love to take on a Project. Perhaps you can come get a read on it and tell me if it’s of value?
Mr. Marlowe invites you and Ling Chan to his estate this Friday to stay the weekend. He’ll send a car to meet your train. I’m sure you’d love it here. It’s very beautiful. Say hello to the others for me.
Fondly,
Jericho
Evie fell back on the bed, smiling her first smile of the day. At least one thing was going right. They could finally get those cards read. And Jericho. She would see Jericho.
ALWAYS WATCHING
Theta couldn’t sleep. When she shut her eyes, she thought of Memphis. She missed him so much it felt as if she’d been emptied. As if she’d been abandoned on the church steps once more. And soon, she’d have to answer to Roy as well.
Archibald jumped up on the bed and pressed his whiskered face into hers. She kissed his furry head. “What am I gonna do about this mess, pal?” she asked the cat as he purred.
Theta poured Archibald a saucer of milk. There was a knock at her door. Theta tensed: What if it was Roy? What if he’d smooth-talked his way past the doorman like she knew he could do?
Theta opened the door to a distraught Miss Addie.
“I… I can’t find it. I can’t find my apartment,” Miss Addie said, running a trembling hand through her loose gray hair.
“Come on,” Theta said, throwing on a robe. “I’ll take you back.”
It was heartbreaking, Theta thought, the way Miss Addie could be so clear about some things and then her mind would lock up and she’d sit blinking out the window at the day, getting frustrated or angry or silent. Theta had been making a habit of stopping in to see the Proctor sisters each evening. She liked the way they took care of her, liked listening to their tales of days gone by—A great big steam train… Well, by the time I arrived at Aunt Martha’s that pink dress was coated in coal dust—but the tales that thrilled her the most were their stories of the paranormal. They told her about the charms they’d made—this one is for strong blood and this is for good sleep—the babies they had helped midwife back in Virginia, the spells they’d cast: for love, for courage, for safe passage both in life and in death. About the ways of salt and sage, of candles and earth, of clapping and bells.
But what is most important is intention, Miss Addie had cautioned. You must work always to understand your own heart so that it cannot be used against you. Know yourself here and here, she’d said, pressing the tip of her gnarled finger just above Theta’s heart and then to her forehead.
As they waited now for the elevator, Miss Addie suddenly stiffened. “He’s here,” she whimpered. “Oh, we must hurry! There’s not a moment to waste!”
They rode the elevator to the Bennington’s crumbling basement and stepped out into the gloom. Theta jumped as the golden doors closed behind them and the elevator rattled back up. It was very dark. The only light came from the weak glow of street lamps leaking through the high clerestory windows. Theta toggled the light switches but they didn’t work.
“I don’t think we should be down here, Miss Addie,” Theta warned.
“My salt!” Addie said, reaching into her pockets and coming up empty-handed.
Theta pressed the button for the elevator. “It’s okay, Miss Addie. Let’s go back upstairs and have tea. There’s nobody…”
Theta strained, listening. There it was—a shuffling, scraping noise somewhere deep in the basement. Mice, she told herself. Because lies were the only defense she had. Even though her heartbeat said otherwise. So did the gooseflesh rising up the center of her back. She’d just detected a smell. Rot. Decay. Death.
<
Miss Addie mumbled incantations under her breath, stopping short as one word whispered out of the darkness like a long-held desire: “Adelaide…”
“Wh-what was that?” Theta asked. Her knees buckled slightly. Her mouth was dry as sawdust.
“It’s him,” Miss Addie said, terrified. “It’s Elijah.”
The basement suddenly seemed enormous and too small at once. The shuffling grew louder until Theta wanted to scream. In the dark, she made out a tall figure, coming closer. The figure stepped into a shaft of street light. Theta gasped. Elijah might have been handsome in life. In death, he was a hideous specter. Maggots crawled from the wounds on his body and fell to the basement floor with a plop. His Confederate uniform was eaten through with rot, the few remaining buttons tarnished. His face was skeletal, half of his cheek eaten away so that Theta could see through to the teeth inside, the black drool dripping from the sides of his cracked, pale lips. Monster, she thought.
He spoke: “You did this to me, Addie. You brought me back.…”
“I didn’t mean to,” Miss Addie whispered. “I loved you so.”
“You’re the reason I have no rest.”
Miss Addie put a hand to her heart. Theta didn’t know if she was more afraid that Miss Addie would die right there or that she’d die and leave Theta all alone with the terrifying Elijah.
“I have come for you, Adelaide. You are mine, my love. We will be together forever and ever.…”
“No, please. It was a mistake! I don’t want it,” Miss Addie cried.
Elijah did not like this. His voice became angry: “Too late, Adelaide. You made the bargain. Now you must honor it. Or have you no honor, Adelaide Keziah Proctor?”
A disorienting chorus of whispers shot around the basement: “The old bitch. Bitch. Thinks she has power. Kill the bitch. Suck the power from her veins. She should pay for what she did. Old bitch. Show her no mercy!”
With a growl, Elijah reached for Miss Addie, and Theta thought of Roy. Monsters. Fury rose up inside her. Flame engulfed her arms as she screamed, “Get back!”
Elijah stopped where he was, a grinning menace.
“Get back, you son of a bitch!” Theta growled. It was primal. She was primal.
Elijah unhinged his jaw and screamed with demonic force. Miss Addie cried out in terror—No, please, no! Fear returned to Theta, dousing her fire. Her hands were small and cold. And she had only one thought left: Run.
She grabbed Miss Addie’s arm and hurried up the stairs with her until they’d reached the safety of the lobby, where the night doorman and the elevator operator stared at the two panting, terrified women as if they had emerged from hell itself.
Upstairs in the Proctor sisters’ living room with its many charms of protection, Theta wrapped Miss Addie in an afghan. Miss Addie sat in her chair staring out the window at the park as Theta told Miss Lillian about everything that had happened in the basement with Elijah.
Miss Lillian poured out three cups of strong, woodsy-smelling tea. Confetti-like leaves floated up to the top of the cup. “Drink your tea, dear.”
“I want to know about Elijah.”
“When Elijah was killed during the War Between the States, my dear sister was lost to her grief,” Miss Lillian said. “She studied every enchantment and spell until she found what she needed: a working to return the dead to life.”
“If you don’t mind my saying, that sounds like a bad spell.”
“She was sixteen,” Miss Lillian said gently. “What did she know? Only that she would do anything to have her Elijah back again. That night, for the first time, she met the King of Crows.”
Theta sat straight up. “Miss Addie’s talked to the King of Crows?”
“Oh, indeed, she has. It’s where her troubles started. She bargained with him for Elijah’s life. But the King of Crows tricked her, you see. Elijah returned to her, as promised, but not as he had been.”
Theta shuddered thinking about the thing she’d seen in the basement coming after Miss Addie.
“What can you tell me about this King of Crows?” Theta pressed. Maybe she could find out something that would help them find Conor or the Eye. “Where does he live?”
Miss Lillian frowned. “Live? No. He must steal from others to live. He’s a trickster and seducer. He preys upon your worst instincts, upon your greatest fears and deepest wounds. His treaties are bad promises that feed on the dark of our souls.”
Miss Lillian shook her head and tucked the afghan up around her sister’s neck. “Once, his influence was limited. Something has loosed the restraints on the energy of the dead and allowed him greater power in this world.”
“But why? What does he want here?”
“Oh, my dear.” She closed her eyes and exhaled, weary. “He wants everything. Greed is in his very bones. His soul is a great emptiness that can never be filled. Nothing will ever be enough for him. You’ve seen his monsters, like Elijah—they take from the living, but most of it goes to him. He takes. That is what he does. It is his only reason to be, his sole enjoyment. He feeds on pain and chaos and trickery. Power is his true aim. He would do anything to hold it, anything to stay and corrupt.”
“You’re in great danger, I fear. All of you,” Miss Addie said quietly, still looking out at the budding branches of Central Park, pale in the rising light. “You and all of your friends. The dead are everywhere. He will keep corrupting them. He will try to corrupt the good spirits to his will.” Miss Addie turned to Theta. “But you can help to stop him.”
“How?”
“How. How! Your fire!”
Theta was taken aback by Miss Addie’s sudden burst of anger. “I nearly burned down the psychiatric hospital! People could’ve died! I don’t understand this thing that lives inside me.”
“You saved Adelaide tonight with that thing that lives inside you. You mustn’t let it best you. You’re in charge of it. Not the other way around,” Miss Lillian said with a hint of scolding.
“I can’t help it. It just… comes on me whenever I’m angry or upset or…” Theta thought of kissing Memphis. Or full of desire. “I can’t stop it.”
Miss Lillian scoffed. “Stop it? Why, that’s a fool’s errand. Shape it, yes. Stop it? You can’t. You mustn’t.”
“The gift is yours. It has chosen you,” Miss Addie insisted.
“What if I hurt somebody with it?”
“Haven’t you been hurt?” Miss Lillian asked.
Theta thought of Roy’s fists. Mrs. Bowers’s cold cruelty. Even the first wound of abandonment. “Yes.”
“And here you still are. No. The question is this: Haven’t you been hurt enough?”
Miss Addie suddenly sat forward and picked up Theta’s teacup, examining the leaves. “You’re brokenhearted. I can feel it. No wonder it hurts so. For this is true love,” she said sadly.
“The world has always feared what we can do,” Miss Lillian said to Theta at the door. “Why do you think they’ve tried to hang and stone and burn us? You can claim your power or let them take it from you.”
“For the last time, I’m not a witch.”
Miss Lillian smiled and patted Theta’s cheek. “Keep telling yourself that, dear.”
Back in her apartment, Theta spread salt over the windowsills and across the threshold as she’d seen Miss Addie do, saying the words of protection she’d heard the old woman say many times. Then she sat on the sofa and cuddled Archibald, who burrowed into her side. “You might wanna steer clear for this, kitty.” She kissed his head, then placed him on the floor.
She examined her hands. They were just ordinary hands.
“This is dumb, but here goes,” Theta said to the empty room.
What’s in my heart? What’s in my mind? she asked herself.
Warmth pooled in her palms, getting hotter. She
What’s in my heart? What’s in my mind?
For just a moment, her concentration was as clear as a beam. She felt a deep connection to a past she didn’t know. One with fire, sun, and sky. The heat spread up her arms and settled deep in her belly until Theta felt as if she could set the world on fire. She liked this feeling. She saw Roy screaming as she burned his face. She liked that feeling, too. And suddenly, the heat was everywhere, an inferno inside her. Her hands were white-hot with so much power that it terrified Theta. As if her joy and rage and lust would consume her.
“No!” she cried.
She stumbled toward the bathtub, feeling as if she were scorching the very ground as she ran. She fumbled with the tap, filling the tub with cold water, and then she tumbled into the bath to soak herself, pajamas and all. Steam rose from the water. Nervously, she looked back to see if her apartment was on fire. Or if she’d left scorched footprints across the floor.
But it was perfectly fine.
OTHER DIMENSIONS
“Ah, there’s my golden son now! Say, you look like a million bucks!” A grinning Marlowe called out from the breakfast room as Jericho entered wearing the new clothes Marlowe had bought him: tweed trousers and a pullover sweater that fit him like a glove and made him look like a rich college swell. He’d packed on so much muscle that he’d needed a new wardrobe.
“Think Evie will like it?” Jericho asked, taking a seat at the table where a perfectly sectioned grapefruit sat waiting for him. He dug in with the silver spoon.
Marlowe’s smile dipped. “I think any young lady would like it. You should cast your sights higher than Miss O’Neill. After all, you’re a prize! Why throw yourself after some Diviner with a less-than-sterling reputation? And now I hear she’s cooked up some sort of publicity scheme around ghost hunting,” Marlowe said with obvious distaste.