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“Thanks, O’Neill,” the soldier said.
Evie gasped as her brother came into view. His pocket had been stitched with his name: JAMES XAVIER O’NEILL. He wore an armband embroidered with the radiant eye-and-lightning-bolt symbol.
“This stuff really gonna help us beat the Germans?” James asked.
“If everything goes as planned tomorrow, you men will be the most powerful force on earth,” Marlowe assured him.
“How’s about that, huh? Ain’t that just bully?” The bloody-nosed soldier said later as he flopped onto his mattress in a long room flanked by rows of neatly made beds. “The most powerful men on earth—the new Americans!”
Luther sat on the bed opposite writing a letter. “What was wrong with us before?”
“Aw, Luther. Don’t be a wet blanket,” another soldier called from his bed, where he polished his boots. “He’s making us
special. Don’t you wanna be special?”
“Sure. I suppose. But…”
“But what?” the boot polisher said, exasperated.
“What do they want us to do with these new powers?” Luther asked.
The bloody-nosed soldier shrugged. “Fight the Germans! Keep our shores safe from the enemy. Win the war. We’ll win all the wars!”
“I don’t think they’re being completely honest with us about what they’re doing,” Luther said.
“That’s Uncle Sam!” A soldier laughed. “Need-to-know only.”
“It’s just… I’ve been having odd dreams about this fellow in a tall hat.”
“Has he got a gray face and a nose sharp as a beak?” James asked.
“Say, I’ve seen that fella, too!” another soldier said.
The others quickly agreed.
Luther raked a hand through his dark hair. “The dead, they talk to me now, you know, and some of ’em warned me about that man in the hat. They say, ‘We shouldn’t let him loose or give him too much power.’”
“What does that mean? Let him loose how?”
“I dunno.” Luther drummed his pencil against his thigh. “There’s this messenger. A bird. Last night, that messenger told me to be careful. Said it was a trap. And then… then they killed that bird.”
The others were listening now, afraid.
“Gee, why you got to say such terrible things, Luther? Why you got to be so spooky?”
“I’m only saying, something about this experiment stinks. They’re not being on the level with us. About what’s on the other side.”
“I can tell you what’s on the other side—French girls!” One of the soldiers curved his hands through the air in the shape of a woman’s body. The gloom was dispelled by talk of sweethearts left behind, of whether or not European girls were “friendly” and loved American boys. Of glory and right and might.
“Always writing, Luther. What do you write about?” One of the other soldiers ripped Luther’s letter from him.
“Give that back!” Luther made a grab for it, but the other soldier was bigger and pushed him back easily.
“‘Oh, my darling,’” the soldier read aloud to the others. “‘I long to hold you in my arms and wish that we were far from here and safe to love…’”
James snatched the letter away. “Come on, Gilroy. Enough.”
“You’re always protecting him. Saint O’Neill,” the big soldier teased. “Come on, read it to us, why don’tcha? Live a little.”
