“Anybody know where we’re headed?” the diary writer asked. He seemed nervous. His eyes. There was something familiar about his eyes. Brown. Sad.
“They never tell us nothin’,” the card dealer answered around the cigarette in his teeth.
“Just seems funny they didn’t tell us.”
“We’ll find out soon enough,” the dealer said. “Who’s in?”
The longer Evie stayed under, the more she felt that there was something strangely recognizable about all the men, something she couldn’t quite place. Stay light. Don’t go too deep. That was the name of the game on the radio. But Evie was in deep already. She needed to know.
Outside the windows, the land rolled on. Trees. Hills. Light snow fell.
The dealer flattened a card against his forehead, facedown. “What am I holding, huh? What is it? Who can call it? Joe? Cal?”
“It’s the Ace of Spades,” came a new voice, so shocking in its familiarity that Evie could scarcely breathe.
With a grin and a head shake, the dealer threw the card on the table, faceup. Ace of Spades.
“Son of a bitch,” a freckle-faced soldier said. “Right again.”
“That’s our Jim,” the diary writer said. Evie went cold inside. She’d placed his face. The soldier with the gun. The one who’d tried to shoot her on Forty-second Street. Her arms shook and her legs trembled. Nausea crept up into her throat. It was too much. She needed to quit, but she couldn’t—not yet. She had to see the soldier’s face. The one who’d guessed the card. She had to know who…
And then he was there. Right there. Smiling and bright-eyed and so young. Just the way she remembered him.
“All right,” her brother said, grinning. “Which one of you wise guys took my comb?”
In the next moment, Evie slipped to the stage floor. She was vaguely aware of a commotion around her, voices that sounded as if they came from underwater.
“Miss O’Neill? Miss O’Neill!” cried Bob Bateman.
“Please, stay calm!” said Mr. Forman.
Excited murmurs from the audience. Anxious voices: “Make her stop!” “How?” “Do something!”
And then someone pried the comb from her stiff fingers, severing the connection. Evie came to with a great, heaving inhalation, as if her lungs had stopped working for a moment and were now desperate for air. Her head lolled from side to side. The bright white lights hurt her eyes. Evie’s knees buckled as she tried to stand. The studio audience gasped. One of the Sweetheart Singers rushed over to prop her up. The back of Evie’s tongue tasted of blood. The inside of her cheek was raw where she must’ve bitten it. Mr. Forman provided a glass of water, and Evie gulped it down greedily, not caring that she spilled it down the front of her dress. Pushing off from the Sweetheart Singer’s embrace, she lunged toward Bateman on unsteady legs.
“Where… where did you get this?” Evie choked out when she could speak again. The studio lights were daggers. Her eyes watered and her nose ran. She was afraid she might vomit.
“I told you, it was my buddy Ralphie’s.…”
“That’s not true!” Evie half yelled, half cried.
The audience was uncomfortable with this unseemly display. They’d come for a good time and answers about lost pets or family treasures whose secret histories might connect them to royalty or millionaires. Mr. Forman tried to intervene, but Evie’s voice rose over his. “Where did you get my brother’s comb?”
“Say, now—I came on for a little help,” Bateman snapped, but he seemed more unsettled than angry. “I don’t have to stand here and listen to this.”
In the booth, the engineer gestured wildly to Mr. Forman, who practically shoved the Sweetheart Singers up to the microphone, where they launched into an upbeat tune to drown out the drama unfolding in front of them. Bob Bateman grabbed the comb from Mr. Forman and started down the middle aisle toward the doors in the back even though the ON AIR sign glowed red. Evie stumbled after him, eliciting further murmurs of disapproval and shock from the audience, but she didn’t stop, careening like a rolled marble down the hallway of the radio station after Bob Bateman.
“Mr. Bateman! Mr. Bateman!”
The man hurried his steps. She burst through the doors and out into the madness of the street. Cold rain fell in fat drops that stuck to her eyelashes. Bob Bateman was halfway down the street. Evie chased after him and grabbed hold of his arm.
“Where did you get that comb?” she demanded through clenched teeth.
“Look, I already told you—”
“You’re lying. You’re lying, you’re lying!” She was crying now. Big hiccuping gulps. Making a scene right there on Broadway, with everyone looking on. But she was beyond caring. She only wanted the truth. “How did you know my brother?”
“What?”
“My brother, James! He was on that train. The vision—I saw him!”
Bob Bateman’s face showed panic. He gave the street a quick glance and leaned in close to Evie, lowering his voice. “Listen, sweetheart, it’s not even my comb.”
“What?”
“It’s not mine, okay?”
“B-but you s-said—”
“They paid me to say that. It’s not even my comb,” he said again.
“Who? Who paid you?”
“I don’t know. Some fellas in dark suits… Adams! His partner called him Mr. Adams.”
“Why would they do that?”
“How should I know?”
“Take me to them.”
“You’re crazy,” the man said. Evie latched on to his arm with both hands. “Let go!”
“Not until you take me to them.” Evie dug her nails into the man’s arm to keep him there.
“Ow! I said let go!” The man stepped down on Evie’s instep. She howled more in shock and anger than in real pain, and he yanked his arm free. A crowd had gathered to watch the spectacle.
“Crazy,” Bob Bateman groused to everyone watching. “She’s crazy! Those Diviners are all crazy!” he yelled and ran off.
By the time the wet, bedraggled Evie returned to the radio station, the Pears Soap Hour had ended. She hid behind the thick, fanned leaves of a potted plant, watching a group of men smoking in the lobby, and listened to Mr. Forman’s voice piped through the loudspeakers as he explained to the audience sitting by their radios that “Miss O’Neill has taken ill, overcome by the spirits from beyond.”
“Overcome by spirits, all right,” one of the smoking men quipped.
Mr. Forman reminded listeners that Sarah Snow’s Mission Hour was coming up next. The Wireless Wonders Orchestra played the Sweetheart Singers on, and they sang an inoffensive tune to make housewives happy.
Evie waited in the ladies’ lounge until her audience had cleared out and a new one came in. Sarah Snow’s soothing voice reverberated in the Art Deco fortress of WGI.
“Evie, there you are.” It was Helen, Mr. Phillips’s secretary. She looked a bit stricken, like someone delivering a bad telegram. “Honey, Mr. Phillips wants to see you.”
“Oh. Pos-i-tute-ly,” Evie said without fizz. “Let me just freshen up.”
Helen patted her arm. “I’ll let him know.”
In the mirror, Evie dabbed at her face and hair with a towel. She wiped away the spidery mascara beneath her eyes and put on a fresh coat of red lipstick. She trudged down the forever hallway, her heels clacking across the gleaming marble floors. She reached Mr. Phillips’s office and kept walking, all the way to the back door. Then she broke into a run.
ANNOUNCER
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen of our listening audience. This is Reginald Lockhart, coming to you from the WGI studios in New York City. Wherever you are, the Black Hills of South Dakota or the rugged plains of the Heartland, whether you are a weary worker building the great towering monoliths of our cities or a businessman who has built an empire… all can find comfort and salvation through Miss Sarah Snow, God’s messenger on the wireless.
(Organ music plays out. Smiling grandly, Sara
h Snow, in a dress and cape, a spray of white orchids pinned to her left shoulder, steps to the microphone and opens her arms wide, as if to embrace her audience.)
SARAH SNOW
Thank you, Mr. Lockhart. Welcome, brothers and sisters! Now, I know that it has been a rather unsettling evening. But there is nothing that the power of prayer cannot soothe.
I know you will join me in praying for Miss O’Neill. Worry not—for the Lord is with thee. Brothers and sisters, as you know, there is no greater country than ours. “America, America, God shed his grace on thee / And crowned thy good with Brotherhood, from sea to shining sea.…”
Yes, from sea to shining sea, we are an example to nations. The bright torch of liberty in a dark and troubled world. God has tasked us to be the gatekeepers, and each and every one of us is a steward of Americanism.
(A lone man shouts “Amen.” This is followed by ripples of embarrassed laughter at the man’s impulsive exclamation. Sarah Snow smiles good-naturedly.)
SARAH SNOW
Oh, hallelujah, amen! That’s right, brother—don’t be shy about showing that the Holy Spirit moves in you. Don’t hide your light under a bushel! Rejoice and sing! Hallelujah!
(Silence.)
SARAH SNOW
I said, “Hallelujah!”
(Isolated calls of “Hallelujah!” ring out.)
SARAH SNOW
Yes, yes, hallelujah, indeed, friends. (Pause) What does it mean to be a steward of Americanism? What does God ask of us here in this most blessed of nations? God says, “Be shepherds to the flock of freedom! Turn back that old, crafty Mr. Wolf and keep my precious flock safe!” And what do we answer? Do we answer, “Gee, Lord, that wolf doesn’t seem like such a bad fellow? He might take a sheep now and then; that’s what wolves do. I’m busy over here with my own concerns. Let someone else tend to the flock.”
(Sarah Snow looks into the audience, allowing her gaze to travel across the room slowly. A woman answers, “No.”)
SARAH SNOW
Oh, amen, sister, amen! We answer, “Yes, Lord! We will be your shepherds of freedom! We will watch over your flock and see it grow, see it spread into every land! We will defend the borders of that freedom from all threats, by whatever means we must.”
(A stagehand produces a handkerchief, which Sarah Snow puts to her brow, blotting. She drinks from a glass of water.)
SARAH SNOW
But sometimes, brothers and sisters, sometimes we don’t know what the wolf looks like. Sometimes that wolf creeps in wearing sheep’s clothing, with false papers or an anarchist’s heart, or with the ability to read your deepest secrets from your personal property. Sometimes the wolf smiles a friendly smile and says, “Why, I love these sheep, I love freedom,” and waits for you to turn your back.
We have to keep vigilant against these threats to our flock. We must be suspicious of the wolf among us. We have to strike at the wolf, to turn him out like Jesus turned the moneylenders from the temple!
(Calls of “Amen!”)
SARAH SNOW
Now, I hear some people say, “But Sarah, if we do that, aren’t we giving up our freedoms? Aren’t we betraying the very ideals we claim to be defending?”
Freedom demands sacrifices, brothers and sisters.
Do you allow your children to do whatever they like? Of course not. You want to keep them safe. And so you say to them, “You may not play in that yard. Stay away from those children down the block; they aren’t the sort you want to associate with.” And what do you do when your children disobey? You punish them. You do it out of love and a desire to keep them safe. But you have to do it; you have to do it if you love your children.
Well, we love America. And just like our precious children, we want to shepherd America. To keep her safe.
But there are the wrong sort of children down the street, brothers and sisters. Anarchists who hate our freedoms and want to destroy it with bombs and bloodshed and unions. Bootleggers and gamblers who pollute our morals with sin. And so-called soothsayers who claim they can do what only God Almighty Himself can do, who put themselves above democracy, above God. Listen now to the word of the Lord!
(She holds up a Bible, opening it to the page she needs, reading aloud.)
SARAH SNOW
“There shall not be found among you anyone who… practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And because of these abominations the Lord your God is driving them out before you.”
(Sarah Snow closes the Bible and clutches it to her chest with her left hand, raising her right hand high.)
SARAH SNOW
Therefore, brothers and sisters, let us be the Lord’s faithful shepherd and drive the wolf out before us! Drive him out! Expose him for what he is—a wolf who would eat us from within. Only then can we be safe and sound. Only then can America shine a light on the rest of the world like a true shepherd of democracy, like a missionary of Manifest Destiny. Hallelujah!
(This time, the radio audience erupts into a rousing, full chorus of “Hallelujah!” without prompting. Sarah Snow smiles, then raises a hand to quiet the people.)
SARAH SNOW
God bless you, God bless all true Americans, and God bless the United States of America. Now please join me in singing “Christian, Dost Thou See Them?”
(An organ hums. The choir takes up the hymn.)
SARAH SNOW
Christian! dost thou see them
on the holy ground,
How the powers of darkness
Rage thy steps around?
Christian, up and smite them,
Counting gain but loss,
Smite them by the merit
of the Holy Cross!
The radio played in the parlors of the Foursquares in Minneapolis and in the kitchens on the South Side of Chicago. The sermon reached the ears of senators and congressmen, of preachers tending congregations and reformers attending meetings on Prohibition. It crackled along wires strung through the ether and was reborn in the office of the boss overseeing the migrant workers, the farmer worrying about a crop in the frost, and the factory foreman preparing his production quotas for the next morning’s shift.
The hymn’s marchlike strains played in the small home in Lake George, New York, where Will spoke with a little girl who’d seen from her attic window one cold night a dozen flickering wraiths coming across the winter-frozen lake as the sky churned and flashed above them. Will sat perfectly still as the little girl told him how these ragged spirits seemed to be heading somewhere, drawn by some invisible thread, but that when they came upon a fawn, they surrounded it and fell upon it, feasting with such a frightening ferocity that the poor animal scarcely had time to cry out, and the girl sank down to her floor away from the window, well out of sight, afraid they’d come next for her.
In the studio, the hymn ended.
Sarah Snow pronounced her balm of a benediction, soothing the weary hearts of a skittish nation on the verge of change.
It was followed by a cheery appeal for Arrow shirts, the shirt that makes the man.
A terrible uneasiness weighed on Ling as she made her way to see Uncle Eddie at the opera house. She shouldn’t have let Henry go like that. She should’ve made him stay and drink some tea until he’d sobered up a bit. Maybe if he’d stayed, they could’ve talked about what was really happening inside that dream world and what they needed to do to stop the veiled woman before it was too late.
“Where are you going?” a policeman said, putting up his hand. “Nobody leaves the neighborhood tonight, Miss. Mayor’s orders.”
“I’m just on my way to see my uncle down the street.”
The policeman noted her crutches. He nodded her on. “All right, Miss.”
The opera house was noisy with the banging of hammers. Two of Uncle Eddie’s apprentices pounded the edges of a painted canvas to a wooden frame. The doors
of the large wardrobe were open, and Uncle Eddie brushed lint from the colorful costumes inside. Ling ran a finger down the curving pheasant feather of the Da Dao Man’s headpiece. “Uncle, how do you get rid of a ghost?”
Uncle Eddie stopped, mid-brush. “That is a very odd question.”
“Hypothetically,” Ling added quickly.
“Hypothetically? For the sake of science?” Uncle Eddie said, not missing a beat. Ling kept her expression neutral, and after a moment her uncle went back to brushing the costume clean. “Is your ghost Chinese or American?”
“I don’t know,” Ling said.
“Well, for us, we say you have to give a proper burial. In Chinese soil. You must perform the proper rituals and say the prayers to give the spirit rest.”
“What if that isn’t possible?”
“You put a pearl in the corpse’s mouth. For an American ghost…” Uncle Eddie’s eyes twinkled. “Tell it there’s no money in haunting and it will go away. Careful!”
Uncle Eddie’s attention was diverted to the stage, where the two stagehands struggled with the large canvas flat. It wobbled and threatened to fall over.
“Ling, do you want to see something special?”
She nodded and followed her uncle to the edge of the stage. The men had averted disaster, but the canvas flat faced backward now.
“Everyone needs training.” Uncle Eddie sighed. “Turn it around, please! This way!”
The two men turned very slowly, positioning the flat against the stage wall, painted side out.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Uncle Eddie said. “It’s the original canvas from the last time the opera was performed. They wanted to have an American audience, so they made it more like an American play, with scenery.”