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“When you’re ready to take up horseshoes or yodeling, let me know. So I can go the other way,” Henry said, making Evie laugh all over again.
Later, while Evie was resting in her room, she was surprised by a visit from Isaiah.
“I have something for you. Been saving it,” he said shyly. He offered Evie the blue-black feather.
“Where’d you get this?” she asked, sitting up in bed.
“In Gideon. I stole it from the King of Crows.”
Evie trembled, excited. “This comes from his coat?”
Isaiah nodded. “He didn’t like that I took it.”
“No. I imagine he didn’t. That was very brave of you, Isaiah.”
Isaiah beamed. He’d done a good thing. Somebody saw. “I thought maybe you could read it.”
Evie knew she should rest. But the temptation was too great.
“All right. I’ll give it a try. Isaiah? If something… should happen to me, run for the others, all right?”
“All right.”
“Here goes,” she said, goin
g under. A moment later, she came out of her trance. “Huh. That’s odd.”
“What’s odd?”
Evie twirled the feather slowly by its shaft. “I couldn’t get anything from it. There was a great amount of squawking. And whispers. And then when I pressed into it further…” She shook her head, as if she couldn’t quite believe it herself. “Nothing. Pos-i-tutely nothing.”
Evie rested. She did not remember her dreams. When she woke, the sun was high in the sky. She challenged herself to a walk to the barn, determination in every step. There was no choice; she simply had to build up her strength. There was too much at stake. She nodded at Mr. Olson and Jericho, who were inside working on a piece of machinery.
“Evie! What are you doing out of bed?” Jericho asked.
“I’m perfectly fine. The cat’s pajamas,” she lied.
“Jericho, hand me them pliers there, will ya?” Mr. Olson said.
Jericho went back to his repairs. He had been remote with her in Gideon before the attack. Evie wondered about what Ling had said, that Jericho had a sweetheart. Had it been a fling, or something more serious? Traveling with an all-girl orchestra sounded quite glamorous. His sweetheart probably was, too. Evie thought about her own looks just now. She was pale and thin with drab hair that hadn’t seen a beautician’s comb in ages. Oh, why should it bother her? But it did. It wasn’t so much that Evie wanted Jericho as she wanted him to keep wanting her. It was utterly selfish, she knew. More about her vanity than anything else.
The old Evie would’ve flirted with Jericho. She would’ve reached for all her feminine wiles to pull his desire back to her. She was not the old Evie. Instead, her interest was piqued by a ham radio taking up space on a table against the wall.
“You have a wireless!” she said excitedly.
“Belonged to my brother, Joe,” Mr. Olson said, glancing over his shoulder. “He was a radio operator in the navy during the war and took a real liking to it. He built that crystal set himself. After he died, the radio came to me.”
Mr. Olson didn’t seem to want to elaborate on his dead brother, and Evie didn’t press. “Does it still work?”
“Sure does.” The farmer put down his pliers. He wiped his hands with a bandanna as he made his way to her. “Why, I’ve heard news from as far away as Topeka. It can get you the news faster than the papers can sometimes.” He shook his head and scratched the back of it simultaneously. “Seems like everything moves fast these days—motor cars, radios, and bad luck. Joe was real handy—could build or fix anything. He built him an iron windmill tower and attached an antenna to the top along with a—whatchamacallit—a transmitter! That’s it over there in the corner.”
Evie knew how it all worked, but she wasn’t about to let on. Who would suspect a girl of knowing such things? Who would suspect a girl of using that knowledge to help counter the story Jake Marlowe, the Founders Club, the Shadow Men, and all the powerful men behind them were putting out about Diviners? She patted the radio’s side and smiled coyly. “Oh, my. I surely do love Captain Nighthawk. It’s my favorite program. Gee, Mr. Olson, would you mind terribly if I came out here to listen at night? I promise not to play it too loud.”
“Be my guest.” Mr. Olson chuckled. “That radio’ll probably be grateful somebody’s taking an interest in it. I never was much for it.”
“Oh, glory hallelujah!” Evie whispered excitedly to the others later. “Now we can keep up with the news. We can stay one step ahead of trouble. If there are ghosts out there, or towns in trouble, we’ll hear about it from the amateur radio operators. But more than that, we can tell others about what we know. We can warn them. Get them to join us in the fight. We can tell them what to look for.”
“What’s the range on that thing?” Sam asked.
