Lair of Dreams

  “I don’t know yet. Just something I’m playing around with,” Henry said. He seemed embarrassed, like he’d been caught telling his deepest secrets.

  “I like it,” Ling said, listening intently. “It’s a sad sort of beautiful. Like all the best songs.”

  “Is… is that a compliment?” Henry put a hand to his chest in a mock-faint.

  Ling rolled her eyes. “Don’t get cute.”

  Sister Walker had been driving for twelve hours straight, so while she napped in her room back at the motel, Will kept a grip on his coffee cup and stared out the window of the Hopeful Harbor diner. Crepuscular light veiled the tops of the snow-dusted hills. The sky was a distant bruise. A bronze plaque in front of the courthouse across the street commemorated a spot where George Washington had once tasted victory. Quite a few Revolutionary War battles had been fought in this part of the country, Will knew, battles that turned the tide of the war and helped decide the fate of a new country, taking it from an exciting idea of self-governance to possibility and then reality. A government by the people, for the people.

  America had invented itself. It continued to invent itself as it went along. Sometimes its virtues made it the envy of the world. Sometimes it betrayed the very heart of its ideals. Sometimes the people dispensed with what was difficult or inconvenient to acknowledge. So the good people maintained the illusion of democracy and wrote another hymn to America. They sang loud enough to drown out dissent. They sang loud enough to overpower their own doubts. There were no plaques to commemorate mistakes. But the past didn’t forget. History was haunted by the ghosts of buried crimes, which required periodic exorcisms of truth. Actions had consequences.

  Will knew this, too.

  “More coffee?” the waitress asked Will and poured him a fresh cup anyway. “Shame you’re here at such a miserable time of year. The road up into the mountains is awful treacherous just now.”

  “Yes,” Will said. “I remember.”

  “Oh, so you’ve been here before?”

  “Once. It was a long time ago.”

  “Gee, what you ought to do is come back in the spring, drive on up there to the old Marlowe estate. Beautiful grounds. It’s closed now, but they open it up in the spring.”

  Will fished out a quarter and left it on the table beside the full, untouched cup of coffee.

  “Thank you. I’ll do that,” he said.

  Back in the motel, by the weak light of a bedside lamp, Will read through his stack of clippings gathered from newspapers around the country:

  THE BOSTON GLOBE

  “… I was walking in old Salem, up near the hill where they used to hang the witches, you see, when Buster, my dog, barked up a storm, and a terrible feeling come over me. I saw them silhouetted by the mist in their black dresses, some with heads wobbling on broken necks and eyes dark with hate.…”

  THE CEDAR RAPIDS EVENING GAZETTE

  Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Stuart of Altoona have asked for any assistance in locating their daughter, Alice Kathleen, who disappeared on her way home from a territory band dance. The orchestra in question, the Travelers, has also disappeared, and curiously, no other territory bands can remember much about them at all, though there are many accounts of people who’ve gone missing once the band has come through town.…

  THE NEWPORT MERCURY

  … Passing by the site of a former slave auction block, the ship’s captain, John Thatcher, claimed to hear terrible cries and swore that he saw, for a moment, stretched out along the port, the ghosts of whole families in chains, their eyes on him in accusation, inciting in him a feeling “as if a day of reckoning were at hand…”

  THE DOYLESTOWN DAILY INTELLIGENCER

  … Mrs. Coelina Booth will not enter the woods beyond her home anymore, for she believes they are haunted by malevolent spirits. “I noticed the birds had stopped singing in our trees. Then I got a chill for no good reason, and I heard giggling. That’s when I saw them—two phantom girls in pinafores with teeth sharp as razors and all around them the bones of the birds.…”

  … The longtime groundskeeper reported graves desecrated and one tomb left open.…

  … Graves disturbed… cattle mutilated…

  … Sudden fog rising up on the road late at night near the old church cemetery…

  … The farmer discovered his faithful horse, Justice, by the drinking pond, “torn apart and covered in flies.…”

  … Claimed to see a gray man in a long coat and a tall black hat out in the field during a lightning storm…

  … Claimed to see a man in a tall hat standing in the graveyard under a yellow moon…

  … Claimed to see a man in a tall hat leading a band of ghosts into the dark woods…

  As the last of his convenient illusions tore away, Will turned off the light and slipped into bed.

  But sleep did not come for a very long time.

  Sam and Evie stood in line at the main branch of the New York City post office, watching the large wall clock’s filigreed hand tick off precious minutes. The post office was surprisingly busy. Long lines, and it wasn’t even Christmas. At window number six, a statuesque redhead grew exasperated with the addled clerk, who couldn’t seem to locate her package. “Could you look again, please?” the woman asked in a clipped, slightly British accent. “It was sent parcel post two weeks ago from Miss Felicity Worthington and addressed to Mrs. Rao, Mrs. Gemma Doyle Rao.”

  “Excuse me, but aren’t you Sam and Evie?”

  Evie turned around. A young woman in a flowered hat beamed at her, excited.

  “Guilty!” Evie said, preening.

  The woman gasped. “I adore your show! Oh, do you think I could get an autograph for my mother? It would make her so happy, and—”

  “Sorry, sis, we’re not in the Sam ’n’ Evie business just now,” Sam said, shutting her up.

  “That was rude,” Evie whispered to him through clenched teeth.

  “We don’t need the attention right now, Sheba. This is why it’s good not to be famous.”

  Evie’s eyebrows shot up. “That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard come out of your lips, Sam Lloyd. And you say a lot of stupid.”

  “Next,” the clerk called, waving Sam and Evie over.

  “How ya doin’, Pops?” Sam said. “We need some help with an address.”

  “No kidding,” the clerk deadpanned without looking up. “Where to?”

  “Oh, no, we’re not mailing anything,” Evie said. “We’re curious about an office here in this very building.”

  The clerk glared over the top of his glasses. “Two years away from a watch and a pension,” he said with a sigh. “What office is that?”

  Sam handed over his mother’s mysterious file. The clerk frowned. He disappeared into the mystical recesses of the post office. A few minutes later, he returned. “Sorry. I can’t help you with that unless you’re with the United States government.”

  “What do you mean?” Evie asked.

  “That office is restricted. Belongs to the feds. Or it did once. It’s not in use anymore. Sorry.” He handed back the file. “Next!”

  “How’re we gonna get back there?” Evie asked as she and Sam walked away from the window.

  Sam thought for a minute. “What we need is a distraction. Something that’ll get us a big crowd in here.”

  “You want a big crowd?” Evie repeated.

  “That’s what I said.”

  “I just wanted to be sure. Sometimes you mumble. Here. Sign this.” Evie handed Sam a scrap of paper and a pencil. She signed her name beside his. “Leave it to me.”

  Evie pranced past the line of impatient people, swinging her beaded handbag on her arm. The young woman who’d recognized them was at the clerk’s gated window now.

  “I am terribly sorry to interrupt,” Evie said, smiling at the woman. “Here’s your autograph, darling.” To the clerk, she said, “I’ve already forgotten—which stamp do we need for the marriage license again?”

  The clerk o
nly looked confused, but the girl gasped, then bit her lip.

  “On second thought, never mind. I’m sure I’ll find it. Can’t keep the justice of the peace waiting,” she said, winking at the girl.

  Humming, Evie tottered away, then hid herself in a spot with a view of the telephone booth.

  “Any second now…” Evie said to herself, watching through the fronds of a potted palm.

  Their young fan skittered toward the telephone booth, not even bothering to shut its folding door all the way.

  “New York Daily Mirror, please,” the young woman shouted into the receiver. “Yes, is this the Daily Mirror? Well! Hold on to your hat, because I’ve got a scoop for you. I’m at the post office, the big one on Eighth Avenue? The Sweetheart Seer and Sam Lloyd are here. They were collecting a marriage license, and I heard them saying something about a justice of the peace. They must be planning to elope!” She paused. “Well, I have no idea why they’d be procuring a marriage license at the post office, but they’re here, and you’d better hurry before they get away!” The girl clicked her finger down on the disconnect bar, then placed another call. “Yes, the Daily News, please…”

  Satisfied, Evie sneaked back to Sam under the stairs to wait.

  “What did you do, future Mrs. Lloyd?”

  Evie grinned. “Good things come to those who wait.”

  Sam gave her that lupine grin. “That a promise?” he said, and Evie’s stomach went flippy-floppy again.

  They didn’t have to wait long. Within ten minutes, a crew of competing reporters rushed the building. On the street, people took note, and soon the post office was mobbed by New Yorkers excited by the prospect of catching the famous couple trying to elope. Sam peeked out to see police arriving to hold back the sudden swarm of fans. It all had the feel of a friendly riot.

  “Is this enough of a distraction for you?” Evie asked.

  “Sheba, this is a first-rate confluey.”

  The last of the day’s sun streamed in through the high windows and fell across Evie’s face, lighting it up—lips quirked into a smile of amusement, dark blue eyes gone to squinting because she probably needed a pair of cheaters but was far too vain ever to wear them. She was grinning now, really enjoying the spectacle. Sam had spent time traveling with a circus, but being with Evie was its own circus, a real trapeze act. He wanted to do something grand and ridiculous to prove himself to her—like go to Belmont and bet all his money on a horse. Hell, he wanted to buy her the damned horse and name it for her. It was stupid to let a girl get under his skin this way. But he didn’t feel like stopping it.

  “What is it?” Evie said, patting at her hair. “Is there something on my face?”

  “Yeah. There’s a face on your face.”

  Evie rolled her eyes.

  “It just so happens to be a really nice face,” he said, and he could swear that he saw Evie blush.

  “Over there!” someone in the crowd shouted, but they were looking the wrong way, toward a man and woman walking a small terrier on a leash. The cops shouted and blew their whistles as the crowd broke free, surging toward the other side of the post office and the hapless wrong couple about to be swept up in their frenzy.

  “Let’s ankle, Baby Vamp!” Sam reached for Evie’s hand. She clasped her fingers around his, and Sam reveled in the sureness of it as they sneaked down the stairs into the basement, enjoying the sounds of chaos from above. They passed through a large main room where sorting machines hummed and hammered, creating a constant, mechanized thunder. Letters shot down clear tubes and into waiting trolleys to be sorted by postal workers too busy to notice Sam and Evie as they passed through. At last they came to another portion of the post office, which splintered off into a vast warren of drab hallways. The search was starting to feel fruitless when, finally, they came to a set of stairs that led down one more level to a long, cheerless line of office doors.

  “B-118, B-120,” Evie called as they walked. They passed several more, and a men’s room. “B-130!” The dark, pebbled window of B-130’s door still bore the ghostly traces of former lettering that read, simply, STATISTICS. “That’s a good way to keep people out—make it sound like a flat tire of a place.”

  Sam jangled the doorknob. “Locked.”

  “What now?” Evie asked.

  “Wait a minute.” Sam fished in his pocket for the key he’d gotten from his contact. He tried it in the lock but it wouldn’t fit. He groaned.

  “We could break the glass,” Evie said.

  “Last resort. We don’t want anybody to know we were here.” Sam pressed his face to the glass, cupping the sides of his eyes to block the hallway’s glare. He could just make out a shaft of light coming from up high on the right by the lavatory. “Hold on. I’ve got an idea,” Sam said, heading to the men’s room.

  “I do not believe that answering the call of nature qualifies as an ‘idea.’”

  “Just hold on to your hat for a second,” he said, disappearing inside. A moment later, the men’s room door opened again. Sam leaned out and crooked a finger at Evie.

  Evie folded her arms. “You want me to go in there?”

  Sam waggled his eyebrows. “Don’t you just love a cozy spot for two, Baby Vamp?”

  “There’s nothing more romantic than a row of urinals, Sam, but what’s your plan?” Evie said, following him inside.

  “That.” Sam pointed to a small hinged window near the ceiling. “It leads right into office B-130.” Sam laced his fingers together, palms up. “Come on. Upsy-daisy. I’ll give you a boost.”

  Evie’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re joking.”

  “I used to do this in the circus all the time. Piece of cake.”

  “Why do I think that piece of cake is going to be Pineapple Evie-Upside-Down Cake?” Evie grumbled.

  “Those shoes look dangerous. Better take ’em off first.”

  “I love these shoes more than you, Sam.”

  “We’ll come back for them.”

  “They’re from Bloomie’s. I’m not leaving them.” Evie slipped off her satin Mary Janes and bit down on the leather straps, letting the shoes dangle from her mouth.

  “So that’s what it takes to shut you up!” Sam joked.

  “Ah will draaahhph dese on your heeaad. Ah schwearrr Ah weeeal,” Evie managed to say as she stepped onto Sam’s finger bridge and he hoisted her up. Evie grabbed hold of the window as her stockinged feet scrabbled for a hold on the slick white-tiled wall. “Saaam!”

  “Hold on!” Sam stepped up into a urinal and wedged his shoulder under Evie for extra leverage.

  “Naaah eenufff!” she called, slipping.

  “Okay. Then I’m apologizing for this in advance,” Sam said. He placed his hands firmly on her backside, boosting her up. He was glad Evie couldn’t see his grin. “Take your time. I’m good.”

  “Saaam, Ah’d kick you if Ahh were’n afraaay you drophh me.”

  With a grunt, Evie scrambled through the window and landed with an audible thud on the other side.

  “Evie! You jake?” Sam called.

  “Yes. Fortunately, there’s a desk by the wall. Sam?”

  “Yes, Mutton Chop?”

  “Remind me to kick you later.”

  “Will do,” Sam said. “Just don’t forget to unlock the door.”

  Sam ran around front as Evie opened the door, arms spread wide in a welcoming gesture. “How nice of you to stop by. I think you’re going to love what I’ve done with the place.”

  It took a few seconds for Sam’s eyes to adjust to the gloom. He wished he’d brought along a flashlight. “The dust is a nice touch.”

  “Isn’t it, though? I had a decorator come in. I said, ‘I’d like something a bit Fall of the House of Usher, but less cheery.’ Honestly, where are we, Sam?”

  Not much remained of whatever the U.S. Department of Paranormal had once been. Three desks. A few chairs. An oak file cabinet. Bookcase lined with begrimed volumes of large, rather dull-looking books. An American Eagle Fire Insura
nce calendar hung from a rusted nail on the wall, left open to April 1917. Beside it was a map of the United States dotted with thumbtacks pressed into towns in every state. Each thumbtack had been assigned a different number: 63, 12, 144, 48, 97.

  “What am I looking for?” Evie called, opening and closing desk drawers, where she found nothing but dust balls.

  “Anything with the words Project Buffalo on it,” Sam said, marching to the file cabinet. It was locked. “Got a hairpin?”

  Evie rummaged in her purse and came up with one, and Sam slipped it into the lock and yanked open the drawer. It was empty. They were all empty.

  “Dammit!” Sam punched the side of the cabinet. “Ow,” he said, shaking out his hand.

  “What now? There’s nothing here,” Evie said. She and Sam stood at loose ends in the middle of the office.

  “I really thought we’d found it,” Sam said quietly, and Evie could tell how disappointed he was. It meant so much to him, and this was the best clue they’d had so far. She looked around for something, anything, that might prove useful.

  “Sam…?” Evie said, an idea taking shape.

  “Yeah?”

  “Didn’t you say you found that letter from Rotke in a book?” Evie nodded at the bookcase.

  A flicker of hope quirked Sam’s lips. “Baby Vamp, you’re a genius.”

  “Oh, Sam, you’re just saying that because it’s true.”

  They dove for the large leather-bound books. Evie swept away a layer of dust. “Ugh. That’s the end of these gloves. ‘The Declaration of Independence.’ Say, I’ve heard of that,” she said. When she opened the book, she found that it had been hollowed out, the pages cut into a ragged box that held two slim glass bottles. Whatever liquid the bottles had contained had long since evaporated, but a crusted blue film remained inside.

  “Booze? Perfume?” Evie opened and sniffed one, shaking her head. “Definitely not either.”