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“I think tonight during the show, you and I should experiment by trying to combine our powers,” Ling said.
“What kind of experiment?”
“I don’t know. Hence my use of the word experiment.”
“Touché. But I’m not truly a Diviner,” Jericho said.
“I’m not so sure about that. Your strength—that comes from Marlowe’s serum?”
“I suppose it does,” Jericho said. “I didn’t have it before.”
“So he made you into a Diviner. Like all of us. You are a Diviner.”
A Diviner. A robot. An experiment. That’s what Jericho felt like. Marlowe’s science project. As if Marlowe were a god making something from clay in his image, or the image he desired. A golden son. Only Jericho was no golden boy. He was a mess, all balled up about his Jekyll-and-Hyde nature. He was afraid of his impulses and desires. It made him think of the German film he and Ling had wandered into back in Times Square, with the mad scientist transferring the soul of a woman into a machine.
“I suppose so,” Jericho said quietly.
“You are. I’m sure of it. The night we fought the ghosts, and on the night of the memorial—both times, I could feel you in there with us.”
“You could?” Jericho said. He didn’t know why this made him feel so hopeful all of a sudden.
Ling nodded. “Could you feel us?”
“A little.”
“Well. A little is something. It’s a start,” Ling said.
She granted him a real smile that made him feel, for just a moment, like he was not alone. He wished he could tell Ling about what he’d seen in the woods, but he was afraid. If he didn’t say it aloud, it was like it didn’t happen. He knew Ling. She would want to know everything. She would want to make sense of it. He’d have to tell her about the Daedalus program. He’d have to tell her that every single one of the men who were involved began to deteriorate over time. They went mad, lost their strength, died. Every single one of them, except Jericho. That was why Marlowe had wanted him as his Übermensch. What was it Marlowe had said? Something about Jericho’s makeup that was exceptional. Something Marlowe coveted for his lousy eugenics program. Jericho didn’t want to be his experiment. He also didn’t want to end up like those other fellas. Like Sergeant Leonard.
He knew the question she’d ask: You haven’t had anything strange happening to you, have you? No. He would not tell Ling. And then it wouldn’t be true.
“Tonight, then,” Ling said.
“Tonight,” Jericho agreed.
They stopped for gasoline and sandwiches at a little shack near the Clinch River in a pretty valley protected by hills blooming with dogwood. They were huddled over their lunches at two picnic tables, everybody talking about how swinging the Chester B. Mosely Orchestra had been the night before, and Ling liked hearing how the acts would pick up little things from one another, urging one another on toward excellence. She knew that during the next performance, the girls would try something new and daring they’d learned, and maybe it would work and maybe it wouldn’t, but it was all about the risk. A light fog spilled over the tops of the hills. It was pretty, but it gave Ling the heebie-jeebies.
“Something feels strange about this place,” Ling said, biting into her bologna sandwich. She missed her parents’ cooking.
Alma peeled back the bread to remove a slimy pickle. “The only strangeness is this sandwich. Ugh,” she said out of earshot of the girl who worked the gas station and who was bringing out a pitcher of iced tea.
“You mean, like it’s haunted,” Jericho said. He polished off half of his roast beef with nary a complaint.
“Or will be.” Now, why had she said that? Such an odd thing to say. “Is there a graveyard near here?” Ling asked the girl with the tea.
“You really know how to make an impression,” Alma muttered and tried to hunch down lower to hide her embarrassment.
The girl shook her head. “Not that I know of. Why do you ask?”
“This land—feels like there’s some power in it. Something bad,” Ling said.
“You’ll have to excuse Miss Chang,” Alma said. “She’s got a delicate condition.”
“No, I don’t,” Ling protested.
The girl from the gas station laughed. “You sound like Old Man Hendrix!”
Jericho’s blond brows furrowed. “Who?”
