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“Oh. Why’s that?” Woody asked.
“On account of the blindness.”
Only now did Woody realize that Mr. Peterson could not see.
“Of course, I wasn’t fully blind then. But I was losing my sight, sure enough. Nothing they could do to stop it. My hearing was just fine, though. I heard Mr. Marlowe and that other fella—oh, what was his name…?”
“Mr. Fitzgerald?”
“That’s the one. They argued. Mr. Marlowe said he couldn’t take a chance with my blood. It was tainted. He said the Founders Club wouldn’t like it.”
Woody made a note. The Founders Club. All these wealthy, important men who believed in eugenics. Hadn’t Evie mentioned them at one point? It was all coming together, piece by piece. It would be a real lulu of a story.
“What were you being recruited for?”
“Oh, some experiment. Magic, don’t you know. Marlowe was building a machine that ran on Diviners energy. There were these kids around. All of ’em guessing cards and reading objects. One of ’em got a terrible nosebleed. The army took everything over at one point. I remember that.”
“The United States Army?”
“That’s the one we’ve got, isn’t it? Anyhow, I left for a time. My wife was dying.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Happens to us all in the end, Mr. Woodhouse. Nothing to be done.”
Woody was coming to like Mr. Peterson’s dry humor. “How’s that cigar?”
“Wonderful. Thank you. I went back to see Mr. Marlowe, though, during the war. I’d had a premonition that something catastrophic was going to happen up at Hopeful Harbor. That’s his family estate, you know.”
“What sort of premonition?”
“Oh, couldn’t make much sense of it at the time. Something about a big hole torn in the sky and another world on the other side of it. A terrifying world, Mr. Woodhouse. Full of dead, hungry things.”
Woody could tell that this memory still had the power to unsettle the old man.
“What happened when you told Mr. Marlowe?”
Mr. Peterson’s jaw tightened. “He clearly thought I was an old fool, even then. He told me I was mistaken. That something wonderful was about to happen there. Something that would change the course of the nation.” Mr. Peterson sighed. “Well, there must’ve been truth to what he said, because I never heard boo about it. The war ended. Mr. Marlowe went on to give us all sorts of wonders—medicine and all manner of inventions. And here we are. Except…”
“Except?”
“Well, sir. The spirits have been talking to me again lately. Showing me terrible things, Mr. Woodhouse. I know I’m not long for this world. They’ve told me that, too. My heart, you see. It doesn’t work right. My lungs are filling up.”
“What have the spirits been telling you?”
“That that hole I saw back in ’seventeen did come to pass, and those dead, hungry things have been coming into this world all these years, getting stronger, all because of him.”
“Him?”
“A tall man in a hat and a coat made of crows. The spirits who tell me these things, they’re mostly good. They’re afraid, Mr. Woodhouse. Of what might come to pass if this King of Crows gets his way.”
“And what’s that?”
“Pestilence. Violence. Death everywhere. An army of dead eating the living down to ash.”
Woody took it all down, writing so fast he could hardly keep up. The information was explosive. He couldn’t wait to get back to New York and start his report. But first he had to go to Washington, D.C. He had to search for the office Margaret Walker had told him about. He had to find whatever records he could in the archives to support his story. Then and only then would he report.
“Thank you for your time, Mr. Peterson.”
