Before the Devil Breaks You by Libba Bray
Theta reached into her pocketbook for a stick of gum. “No offense, Professor, but if I run into a ghost, I’m not asking it to dinner so we can talk things over.”
“Why don’t we begin?” Sister Walker led the group to the rug and the circle of chairs she’d put out.
“Say, how come Memphis and Isaiah call you Sister?” Sam asked, settling into his seat.
“We know her. She was friends with our mama. She lives near us,” Isaiah said.
Sam tried out his most charming smile on Sister Walker. “So can I call you Sister, too?”
“You may call me Miss Walker,” she answered, turning her attention to the Metaphysickometer’s dials.
“Was she ever a nun or a cop?” Sam whispered to Memphis.
“No. But I was a government agent,” Sister Walker said with a hint of a grin.
For the next few days, the Diviners reported to the museum when they could, in varying configurations, while Sister Walker and Will worked with them, pushing the boundaries of what they’d been able to do. There’d been small gains: By keeping a hand on Henry’s arm, Memphis could lessen the duration and intensity of Henry’s post-dream paralysis. If Evie read an object when Sam was near, she was somehow able to reach much deeper into the object’s past. “It’s almost as if your don’t see me routine has the opposite effect on my reading, Sam.”
“I’ll send you a bill,” he joked.
“I’ll deduct twenty clams,” Evie shot back.
But nothing so far had made a truly significant or lasting change in any of the Diviners’ powers. Sister Walker reassured them that this was all a normal part of the process, but it still felt like failure.
“We’ll just try again tomorrow,” Sister Walker said gently each time, but everyone knew that she and Will were concerned, and the Diviners themselves were growing frustrated. Whatever storm Liberty Anne had prophesied was still on the horizon, and they were no closer to knowing what it was or how to stop it.
It wasn’t just that the testing of the Diviners’ skills was going poorly that had everyone on edge. Ghost sightings had increased in the city. Every day, there was new, worrying gossip—disturbances heard in apartment hallways late at night. Rooms that went so cold that condensation formed on every surface. Objects gone missing only to be found later far from where they belonged. A diner cook had come in early one morning to find a towering stack of cans in the middle of the kitchen. All the windows and doors had been locked from the inside. A honeymooning couple at the Plaza Hotel left in the middle of the night, insisting that something shook their bed and whispered terrible things as they tried to sleep.
Ghosts, they all insisted. Ghosts, the people repeated.
The fear caught like a spark in wind and spread across the city. It was laughed at in speakeasies. Discussed down at the fish market and in the stands of Yankee Stadium, where the locals stopped to watch Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig practice. It was whispered about behind the perfume counters at Macy’s and Wanamaker’s and among the pushcart peddlers of the Lower East Side. Numbers were played for it in Harlem. At Webster Hall, a phantom-themed drag ball was planned. And in the noisy rooms of Tin Pan Alley, songwriters capitalized on the spooky phenomena with danceable ditties—“Goo-Goo-Googly-Eyed Ghosts!” “The Revenant Rag!”—because, after all, a buck was a buck. Switchboard operators’ fingers ached from patching in frightened callers to the police stations. Most reported pale faces spotted in mirrors or wispy movements glimpsed on the other side of fogged windows.
Ghosts.
The reporters followed up—it made for good morning copy:
—What were they doing? they asked.
—Watching us, the people said.
—Just watching?
—Just watching. Closely, though. Like they were studying us.
Sometimes there were more frightening sightings that made the back pages of the tabloids: A night watchman making his rounds in Brooklyn followed noises to the weedy lot behind the factory. When he lifted his lantern, its weak glow fell upon a pack of glowing things, hairless and deformed, their wan bodies covered in sores, their sharp mouths smeared in blood as they feasted on squirming rats. Before he ran for his life, he thought he heard them whisper, More. Late on a chilly night, the caretaker of Prospect Cemetery heard an animal’s cries. He stepped onto the path in time to see the ghost of a woman in Puritan gray floating between the tombstones, the hangman’s noose still tight about her neck, a mewling cat tucked beneath her incandescent arm. The hanged woman stopped suddenly, turning her head completely around on her broken neck until it faced backward. And then she hissed at the caretaker, and he saw that her eyes were clay-pale and soulless in her pallid, peeling face.
On his way into the 21 Club with yet another starlet on his arm, Mayor Jimmy Walker tried to soothe the city’s fears. “Seems like most of these so-called ghost sightings can be traced back to poisoned bathtub gin. If you see ghosts, you might want to call your bootlegger instead of the mayor’s office,” he joked.
There were reassurances: The honeymoon couple at the hotel didn’t want to pay for the room. The diner cook was angry with his boss and had likely stacked the cans himself for attention. The poor night watchman hadn’t slept in two days. The caretaker’s wife had left him for another and he was not himself. That was good enough for most New Yorkers. People who hadn’t felt the air go cold as death’s hand as they passed the flophouse where several forgotten men had died. People who didn’t hear the faint whinny of horses followed by the momentary vision, camera-flash quick, of a funeral carriage driver whipping down the cobblestones along the seaport. Who hadn’t had disquieting dreams, visitations from dead relatives warning that a storm was coming.
“Why aren’t we out there making a name for ourselves fighting these ghosts?” Sam asked after yet another disappointing effort at combining their abilities had resulted in nothing but headaches, nosebleeds, and exhaustion.
“I’ve told you—we don’t want to panic the populace,” Will said.
“But the populace is already panicked,” Sam said.
“No,” Will said gravely. “True panic is ugly. You’ll know it when you see it.”
That afternoon, Ling and Sister Walker worked side by side, comparing notes on the Metaphysickometer’s readings.
“You don’t like Mr. Marlowe much, do you?” Ling said at last.
“I admire his genius and I deplore his methods.”
“How could you work by his side if you hated him—”
“I didn’t hate Jake—”
“Disliked him, then.”
“In this life, you have to work with people you dislike. You find compromises. But sometimes you find that a person’s beliefs are so harmful that you must speak against them. You can’t let such harmful statements stand without challenge. They have a tendency to grow into tumors.” Sister Walker paused.
“Is that why you went to prison?” Isaiah asked, and Ling’s mouth opened in surprise.
Memphis nudged Isaiah hard with his elbow. “Isaiah! Apologize.”
“What? Ever’body knows Sister went to jail. She knows it most of all!”
“Isaiah,” Memphis warned.
Isaiah stared down at his shoes. “Sorry, Miss Walker.”
“That’s all right, Isaiah. You didn’t mean any harm.”
“Is that true?” Ling asked.
“Yes.”
“So did you steal something?” Isaiah asked, unable to help himself. “Did you kill somebody, Sister?”
“No. And no.”
“Then what?”
Sister Walker took in a deep breath. “Sedition.”
“What’s that?” Isaiah asked.
“It’s when you rile people up and disobey authority.”
“When I acted up, my mama just got the switch. Who’d you make mad?” Isaiah asked.
“The United States government,” Sister Walker said. “I spoke out against something I thought was wrong. I tried to stop it.”
“We were at war, and I worked for the Department of Paranormal, a government agency.” Sister Walker took a sip of her tea, then continued. “They said what I did wasn’t patriotic.”
“Weren’t they right?”
“I suppose it’s all in how you define patriotism. Some say that’s only saying good things about your country. Others say that it’s speaking against what you feel is wrong with your country and trying to make a change.”
“I don’t understand. Isn’t freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment?” Memphis asked.
“Guarantees. You mean, like the Fourteenth Amendment?” Sister Walker said pointedly. “All right. Now you know about that secret, too. Will there be any more bloodletting required, or may we get back to your training?”
Memphis leaned down and whispered to Isaiah. “You’re gonna hear about this on the way home.”
“It’s all right to ask questions, Memphis,” Sister Walker said. “That’s how we learn.”
“Sister, I think you might be a Diviner with that hearing,” Memphis said, shaking his head.
“Sam, I’d like to try testing your powers again,” Sister Walker announced. So far, they’d had little luck in boosting his gifts. He tried not to let it bother him, passing it off with jokes—Can’t improve on perfection!—but it made him feel small and lacking, like when he was a kid in Chicago running from the bullies who tormented him with fists and taunts of Jew! When he realized he could make those bullies go blank in his presence, Sam had, for the first time in his life, experienced what it was to be powerful. That power had gotten him from Chicago to New York. It had helped him survive on the streets. He’d come to rely on it. In fact, he’d been downright cocky about it. But now, surrounded by everyone else, what he felt was competitive.
“Let’s try a control. Theta? Would you mind?” Sister Walker asked.
Theta blanched. “Me? Oh, I don’t know, Sister.…”
“Aw, Theta’s too smart to fall for my hooey,” Sam said, trying to save her. “Besides, she knows all about my powers.”
“So does most of New York City by now. The question is, will your powers work now that they are known? Does that knowledge affect people’s suggestibility?”
“Oh. I hadn’t thought about that,” Sam said.
“Theta, could you, please?” Sister Walker extended a hand to her.
Theta put out her cigarette and, feeling nervous, took a seat opposite Sam.
“Okay?” Sam asked.
“Okay,” she said.
“Evie, since Sam seems to affect your reading ability, let’s see if you have any sway over his powers. Come sit close to him, if you would, please,” Sister Walker said.
With a pained sigh, Evie left the comfort of her chair and came to sit beside Sam. She liked the way he smelled, like spicy aftershave and something else, something she could only describe as Sam.
Sam squinted at her. “You jake? You look funny.”
“I’m fine. Just… don’t steal anything from me,” Evie warned.
“Here goes.” Sam thrust his left hand toward Theta. “Don’t see me.”
Theta blinked and Sam’s shoulders sagged. She could see him losing confidence.
“Try again,” she urged. “Go all out.”
“You sure?” Sam said quietly.
“Yeah. Think about putting me right to sleep.”
“Sam’s good at that,” Evie grumbled.
“Okaaay,” Sam said, breathing deeply.
Theta took hold of Sam’s other arm, and he looked into her eyes, thinking of every time he’d been doubted. A memory swam into his head. The night his mother kissed him good-bye. I must do this, Little Fox. Our country needs me. But I will be home soon enough. He never saw his mother again. He would find her. He would get stronger and he would find her.
“Don’t. See. Me,” Sam growled.
Static charged the air, raising the hair on Evie’s arms and the back of her neck. She blinked, a bit dazed. Sam was no longer beside her. Had she gone under?
“Sam? Sam!” Evie called as she turned in her chair, searching.
“You already tried that little stunt, Evie.”
She could hear Sam’s voice, but she couldn’t see him. At his desk, Will had gone slack and glassy-eyed, as had Mabel and Jericho. Theta stared straight ahead. Even Henry, Ling, and Isaiah looked dazed. Other than Evie herself, only Memphis and Sister Walker were alert.
“I’m not pulling your leg, Sam. Honest!” Evie put out a hand and yelped when she touched something solid. He was right next to her. “Sam. You’re…invisible!”
“I am?”
“Yes, you’re—aaah!” Evie shrieked, and leaped from her chair. “Stop tickling me!”
“This is the best day of my life!” Sam’s laughter rippled the air where he sat, and then he began to reappear like a ghost image on film until he was fully restored.
“Twenty-two seconds,” Sister Walker said, clearly excited. “That’s how long you were invisible.”
“Five seconds. That’s how long it’s gonna take me to give you a black eye,” Evie said.
Ling blinked, coming fully around. “Wh-what happened?”
“Sam went invisible. Unfortunately, he came back,” Evie told her.
Ling opened her notebook, excited. “Where—where did you go when you disappeared? Do you feel strange in any way?”
“Sam is strange in every way,” Jericho said, shaking his head and getting his bearings. Mabel and Will were still under, Evie noticed.
“I didn’t go anywhere. I was right here. But it’s funny. I felt really alive—like I was hitting on all sixes!” Sam scratched at his arms. “Jeepers, that smarts. Aaah! Feels like ants!”
“That could be an aftereffect of the invisibility,” Sister Walker said.
Sam left his chair to rub his back against the grizzly bear’s stiff hide. “Wait—my swell new power gives me a rash? Aww, that ain’t fair at all!”
Theta snorted, drawing Sister Walker’s eyes. Too late, Theta realized that she should have faked going under for longer. The Metaphysickometer hummed loudly as the needle shot to the other side for a second, then settled.
Sister Walker eyed her suspiciously. “Theta, have you ever experienced any abilities?”
Theta tucked her hands under her thighs in case they got the idea to heat up. “No.”
“Were either of your parents gifted?”
“I wouldn’t know. They left me on a doorstep when I was a baby.”
“Oh. I’m sorry,” Sister Walker said.
“Why doesn’t Sam’s power affect you, Miss Walker?” Evie asked. The others were starting to come around now, and Ling was filling them in on the breakthrough.
“Training,” Sister Walker said. “I suspect Memphis’s healing powers make him immune. As for you, Evie, it would appear that you and Sam share a special bond.”
Evie looked over at Sam, who was still scratching himself against the bear. “Swell,” she said.
Sister Walker still scrutinized Theta. “It’s possible that you have some latent power you’re only now coming into, Theta. If you could let us test you—”
“The only test I’m doing is a screen test for Vitagraph. And then it’s on to Hollywood, to one of those pretty bungalows with a lemon tree out back. They say the sun shines out there all the time, Miss Walker. I like the sun. So, please, just look after my pals and leave me out of it,” Theta said, grabbing her pocketbook. “’Scuse me. I need to powder my nose.”
Theta sneaked out to the small scrap of garden behind the museum. She unfolded the note that had been left on her makeup table back at the theater. Somebody knows.
“You ever gonna tell ’em?” Sam said from behind her.
Theta quickly stuffed the note deep into her purse. “You might warn a girl before sneaking up on her.”
“Defeats the purpose of sneaking up.” Sam folded his arms and leaned against the cold br
Theta squished a mealy acorn under her shoe. “Tell ’em what?”
“About what happened down in those tunnels, how you set fire to one of those wraiths with your bare hands.” When Theta didn’t answer, Sam pleaded with her. “Theta, you got a big power. Bigger than mine. We might need it?”
“Shhh!” Theta hurried over to Sam and lowered her voice. “Whatever this disease is inside me, I just want it gone.”
“Maybe they can help you with it,” Sam tried.
“Nothing doing.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m the only one of us whose powers are bad!” Theta blurted. “Makes me feel like I’m dirty or something. Like a killer.” Theta looked Sam in the eyes. She hated feeling so vulnerable. “You gonna snitch on me?”
Sam let out a long exhale. “Nah. I’m no snitch. But I really wish you’d tell the professor and Miss Walker about what you can do.”
“Yeah. Well,” Theta said sadly. “We all wish for something, don’t we?”
CHASING GHOSTS
Before heading out, Evie paused at Will’s office door. The light from his lamp bled under the crack, along with the sound of his old Victrola playing a classical record, and Evie could imagine Will staying up half the night, reading spooky ghost reports in the deepening gloom while a Chopin nocturne kept him company.
Evie knocked and poked her head in. “Mind if I come in?”
“Make yourself at home.”
“Same old Creepy Crawly,” Evie said, taking in the mess of papers and books and odd supernatural knickknacks. She picked up a book from the edge of Will’s desk and was surprised to discover it wasn’t some macabre ghost tome but Dickens. “A Tale of Two Cities?”
Will managed a fond smile. “That happens to be my favorite book.”
Evie made a face. “It’s no one’s favorite book.”
“It’s mine,” Will said on a laugh. “It reminds us that even in the midst of chaos and terror, there is the capacity for change. For a new and better society. For selflessness. I admire Sydney Carton tremendously.”