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“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
thought about what the Proctor sisters had said. What Sister Walker and Will had said. She thought about her friends and the way it felt when they were together.
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.
Jericho glowered. “Evie is a swell girl. And I’m not throwing myself.”
“Now, now, don’t get sore. I’m simply saying you can do better. Why, after this exhibition, when the girls get a gander at you, you’ll have your pick. It will be, ‘Evie who?’”
Jericho couldn’t imagine such a thing. For him, there was one girl, and Evie was it. He was thrilled to receive her reply that she would be up to visit come the weekend, and he wasn’t about to let Marlowe derail his good mood. “What will you do with this serum once it’s perfected?” Jericho asked, forking waffles onto his plate.
Jake’s eyes gleamed as he stirred his coffee. “Why, sell it, of course. What if, simply by taking a New and Improved Marlowe VitaHealth Tonic each day, expectant mothers could grow a nation of healthy, exceptional Americans whom you could count on to make the right-thinking choices? Crime would plummet. Industry would advance. Patriotism would soar.” Marlowe leaned back against the cushion of his chair. “We would be the greatest and most powerful nation on the face of the earth.”
Jericho swallowed down his bite of waffle. “But isn’t that strange and wonderful unpredictability part of humanity? Aren’t all of our differences what already make us a great nation?”
Jake leaned forward again, his dark brows furrowed. “Some people just can’t be assimilated. Remember the bombings that took place on Wall Street a few years ago? The work of foreigners! What if war came to us again? How could we be sure that the Italian shoemaker or German sausage-maker would be loyal to America?”
Jericho didn’t like the direction the conversation was taking. He’d been warming to Marlowe, and this was a cold note. “You still haven’t said—what will I do at the exhibition?”
“Mostly demonstrations of your superior strength and health. The perfect walking advertisement for the glorious future of Marlowe Industries’s newest health advancement. And it’ll make me a very rich man to boot.”
Jericho laughed. “You’re already rich. Why do you need more money?”
“You can never be too rich,” Marlowe said with a wink. He paused, then: “I need the money to fund my real passion.”
Jericho had assumed the super-powered vitamin tonic—and Jericho’s part in it—was Marlowe’s real passion. He couldn’t help feeling a bit rejected by this new knowledge that he was second. “And what’s that?” he asked coolly.
Marlowe smiled like a man with the most delicious secret in the world. “What if I told you that there is another world out there, Jericho? A dimension of untold wonders just waiting to be discovered and claimed?”
“I’d probably say you’ve read too many H. G. Wells novels.”
