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Isaiah shrugged, unimpressed. “Doesn’t seem like much.”
“Just wait till we start working, and you generate energy. Then that needle will bounce around like an excited puppy. It’s one of Jake Marlowe’s finest early inventions,” Will said.
“Jake Marlowe built this?” Ling said, drawing closer.
“Yes. When we worked together. In the United States Department of Paranormal,” Sister Walker explained.
“Ling’s his greatest admirer. She met him at his Future of America Exhibition announcement. He’s promised her tickets to the exhibit’s opening day,” Henry explained.
“Jake Marlowe.” Mabel practically spat his name like a curse word. “Did you know his miners are striking?”
“Now you’ve done it,” Evie said under her breath.
“They’re living in tents with their families. They’re cold and hungry. But the newspapers refuse to report it,” Mabel continued.
“Then they should show up for work and not complain,” Ling said.
Mabel’s voice grew even more heated. “The conditions at his mine are terrible! They’ve been mining uranium twelve, thirteen hours a day, and getting awfully sick from it.”
“Why does Jake Marlowe need so much uranium?” Ling wondered aloud.
“I don’t know,” Mabel said. She’d never really stopped to think about it before.
Ling scoffed. “We all have to work hard,” she said, returning to the argument. “I know people in Chinatown who work seventeen hours a day. My parents never take a day off. I feel like a bad daughter being here and not there, helping them. As for your unions, I don’t see them sticking up for Chinese workers.”
Henry managed a strained smile. “I love this play. I can’t wait till it comes to Broadway next month,” he said, trying to smooth things over.
Ling knew Henry was kidding and she knew it was because he hated to see people fight. But it bothered her anyway, the way he slid around anything too uncomfortable. Ling didn’t have that luxury. She was an outsider among outsiders—a half-Chinese, half-Irish, partially paralyzed girl living in Chinatown. She could not escape the looks of pity and discomfort she garnered when she struggled into a room on her crutches. All those eyes on her, then all those eyes looking away out of a fear that they could catch the bad luck of her. It had taught her to be blunt, to lash out first. Better to frighten people a little and keep them at a distance than to suffer the eventual disappointment of them. Better to wound a little than to hurt a lot. Even Ling’s gift made people u
ncomfortable. The messages she carried back from the ancestor spirits she spoke to during her dream walks weren’t always what the relatives who’d hired her wanted to hear. When that happened, they often took it out on the messenger: Ling. Only in the scientific world, among the beauty of theories and observations, equations and atoms, did Ling feel she truly belonged. And in dreams, where she could do anything, even walk. Even run.
Ling turned her attention to the Metaphysickometer. It was cruder than Marlowe’s sleeker, newer inventions, and it encouraged her to know that everyone, even Jake Marlowe, had to start somewhere.
“What does it do?” she asked, examining its many dials.
“It measures electromagnetic radiation. Both ghosts and Diviners seem to emit much more of it than the rest of the population. In theory, Diviners together can disrupt or create energy fields.” Will flipped a switch on the box’s side and turned the crank a few times until a pleasant hum warmed the machine. The needle tipped up and down like a conductor’s baton. “Quite a bit of it in this room right now.” Will switched it off and the needle dropped like a fainting ingenue. “Mr. Marlowe was quite interested in what could be made from that energy—whole industries might be powered from it.”
“I thought Jake Marlowe hated Diviners,” Theta said. “He’s always running ’em down.”
“How come he does that if he used to be one of you, Sister?” Isaiah said, flipping the switch on the Metaphysickometer on and off until Sister Walker stopped him.
“Yes, what happened? Did one of the Diviners pick out the wrong Christmas present for him?” Evie said.
“Socks,” Sam agreed. “It’s always socks.”
“It’s a long story,” Sister Walker said. “And not important at the moment.”
“That Metaphys—needle thing—is all fine and dandy. But what about weapons? What do you have that gets rid of ghosts? Is there a Jake Marlowe ghost container lying around somewhere?” Evie asked.
“Ghosts were once people,” Will said. “People want things. Even dead people. You have to figure out what that thing is. John Hobbes believed he was the anti-Christ and that he could only be banished by luring his essence into a holy relic and destroying that relic. Wai-Mae could not rest until she could face the trauma of her death, until her bones had been given a proper burial. There isn’t one solution. You have to see them ghost by ghost.”
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.
