AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What’s been going on a lot longer?” Eloise asked.
“Nothing,” Ling said. Jericho glanced over his shoulder and caught Ling’s eye. She shook her head.
“I’ve got one for you,” Eloise said, in between bursts of blowing on her nail varnish. Ling was amazed that she could paint her nails on a moving bus. “I heard from my friend Joe, who heard it from his friend Jorge, who got it from his girl, Fatima, and she got it from her cousin Johnny, who plays with a territory band on the circuit.”
“Lord, Eloise, we don’t need the whole begat’n Bible. Just tell the story,” Alma said.
“Just letting you know where I heard it. Anyhow, two weeks ago, they went to play a little town in the Piney Woods of Louisiana.” Eloise pronounced it Loose-ee-ana. “But when they got there, they said that town was just plain gone.”
“What do you mean, gone?” Jericho asked.
Eloise shrugged. “Gone. Nobody there anymore. They said it looked picked over, like a big old vulture had got to it. A ghost town. It was like Judgment Day had come to call. And when they were leaving, Johnny said he swore he could see strange storms passing through, tearing up the sky.” She winked. “But Johnny likes to exaggerate. Probably they just didn’t want to play that town ’cause the booze was no good, and they needed to make up a story for the promoter.”
“Seems like there’s a lot of ghost stories these days,” Lupe said, burrowing into Jericho’s side again.
“There’ve always been ghosts,” Dorothy said.
“You think it’s true, that the Diviners are making it happen?” Sadie asked.
“No, I don’t,” Alma said decisively. “That’s bunk!”
“Don’t get hot, Alma. Nobody accused you of being a Diviner,” Sally Mae said.
“What if I were?” Alma challenged.
“Then we’d all be five thousand dollars richer!” Doc called from behind the wheel.
And everybody laughed, grateful for the break in the tension. Everybody except for Ling, Jericho, and Alma.
“I think one of those Diviners even has the same last name as you, Mary,” Sally Mae called. “Better watch out they don’t confuse you two!”
Ling stiffened.
“That Diviner’s name is Chan, not Chang,” Lupe said with annoyance.
“Mary’s no Diviner,” Babe tutted. “That girl can’t even sing. If she had some kinda powers, wouldn’t she at least be able to sing?”
“It’s all right,” Alma whispered to Ling. “Nobody would turn you in.”
Ling nodded, but something about Babe’s and Eloise’s stories unnerved her more than usual. A sense of something bearing down that was far too big and coming much too fast for them to handle on their own.
ZENITH, OHIO
“Zenith, Ohio! Coming in to Zenith, Ohio!” the conductor called as he walked through the train car. Evie’s heart began to beat faster. She snugged down the window and stuck her head out as they approached. There it was—her hometown, just as she’d left it.
“They should’ve named it Nadir, Ohio,” Evie grumbled.
Sam put an arm around her and rested his chin in the space between her neck and shoulder. She liked the weight of him there. “Where should we go first, Baby Vamp? Can I see your room? I’ll bet it’s very frilly.”
“We are not going anywhere. Did you forget that I can’t show my face in that town?”
“Shame. It’s such a nice face.”
“Aw, you’re all wet.”
Evie was going home. When she’d left in infamy as “that troublemaking O’Neill girl,” she’d vowed to come back as a star. For months, she’d harbored fantasies of returning, decked out in her New York finery—the latest fashion from Bendel’s or Bonwit Teller, maybe something that had come all the way from Paris. It brought her great satisfaction to imagine sashaying into the town’s swankiest hotel, stockings rolled down, hem shortened to a scandalous length, and being escorted to the very best table, where she would hold court. She’d look those Blue Noses and Mrs. Grundys who constantly judged her square in the eyes and give them her brightest smile, but they would know that she hated them.
Now those phonies thought she was a disgraced radio star guilty of treason. Instead of coming home a glamorous It Girl, she was returning as an anonymous circus clown.
