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Woody hurried down the steps and walked quickly away from the monument, breaking nearly into a run. The footsteps followed. Frantically, he hailed a taxi, exhaling in relief as they pulled away from the curb. “Gotcha, you bastards,” he muttered. The traffic was murder. By the time the taxi reached Union Station, Woody was sure he’d missed his train. The station was mostly deserted at this hour. The ticket windows were closed. A few bums walked through, looking for scraps or a place to sleep. It was another hour before the next train to New York City. Woody took a seat inside an empty telephone booth and shut the door. The adrenaline left his body, and Woody nodded off from the sudden fatigue. He dreamed of his ancestors on the boat to America, pale and hungry and hopeful. “Seamus,” his grandmother said. “Wake up, boy.”
Woody woke with a start. He didn’t see the Shadow Men, but he felt them. They were here inside the train station, he knew. Some prickling on the back of his neck told him it was so. Woody left the phone booth. He patted the file beneath his suit jacket. If the men caught up to him, he needed to make sure he had no “seditious materials” on him.
A station maid swept the vast sea of floor. On her small wooden cart lay her coat. Woody took out his pencil and scrawled “Attention: New York Daily News—URGENT!” across the folder containing the files, and then stuffed the folder into that coat, marveling at the notion that the fate of this particular piece of truth now rested in the pocket of a cleaning woman in Union Station. He hoped she would get it to the paper. All he could do was trust.
The Shadow Men entered the waiting room, but they didn’t seem to see Woody. Where could he hide? The men’s washroom? If they followed him in there, he’d have no way out. Keeping his head down, he slipped out and hurried to the track to wait for the train.
They were coming. Of course they were. But Woody was a Bronx street kid. He hopped onto the tracks and into the dark stretch of tunnel. He’d find a spot to flatten himself, hide, wait it out. Behind him, the Shadow Men hopped onto the tracks, too. And Woody began to feel real fear. Carefully, he stepped over the rails, moving deeper into the darkness. He stopped short when he saw the ghost of Will Fitzgerald once more. He shook his sorrowful head, and it put Woody in mind of the murdered president whose memorial he’d just seen.
“Good evening, Mr. Woodhouse.”
Woody turned around slowly, thinking of his grandparents who’d come to America to escape the troubles back home.
The Shadow Man’s razor flicked open with an echoing crack. Far down the tunnel, too far, the headlamp glow of the last train to New York began to brighten the gloom. It caught on the razor’s sharp edge—in the dark… so sharp!
It gleamed like a thing you’ve been expecting your whole life.
Sacrifice.
THE STORYLESS GIRL
Theta Knight did not know where she came from. There were no baby pictures of her, no memories shared by relatives, no funny nicknames that could be explained with, “Well, you remember the time…” She had been born, she felt, without a story. There wasn’t even a house; Mrs. Bowers had kept them on the road, performing in vaudeville, for most of Theta’s life. When she’d been young, she’d sometimes run a finger longingly over newspaper illustrations of happy families sitting around a dinner table. They were advertisements for something she couldn’t recall—canned peas or dining room tables. But what it felt to Theta was that they were advertisements for a family and a happiness she’d never be able to buy.
It was why she’d fallen so hard for Roy. Yes, he was handsome. And yes, when he looked at her with those big brown eyes, she swooned. But mostly, she had felt seen and wanted. Chosen. And that was hard to give up, even after the hitting started. If Roy didn’t love her, Theta had thought, then it meant that what she’d secretly suspected about herself—that she was unlovable—was true. When she thought about that, the hole inside her opened wider till she feared it would swallow her, and she tried harder to please Roy so that he would love her again. It seemed better than drowning in the emptiness. That was the trouble with having no story of your own. You tended to believe in whatever story somebody told you about yourself.
Adelaide Proctor, on the other hand, had a story. It was all right there in her diary. Her family. Her love for Elijah. A line of ancestors going back to Salem and, before that, England and burning witches. Like Theta, Miss Addie was also from fire.
One line from Addie’s diary stuck out to Theta. Addie had gotten into an argument with her father, about what, the diary didn’t say.
I was so very cross with Father today, and I told him so. For this offense, he took away my books as punishment. “I don’t like you when you’re cross,” Father said to me. “It is unbecoming of a lady, Adelaide.”
Anger made a girl not just unlovable, but unlikable. It got her punished. It could even get a girl killed. If Theta had ever smarted off to Roy, well, she was pretty sure she wouldn’t be around worrying about ghosts and lost witches. Addie had been angry enough at the King of Crows to try to best him at his awful games. And she had, for a while. But just as when her father had taken away Addie’s books, the King of Crows had the upper hand.
“What is it with these creepy fellas who think they can own a girl?”
For months now, Adelaide Proctor had been telling Theta to look into her heart. To know herself. Theta had mistakenly thought the old woman was telling Theta to let go of her anger. Theta’s own shame had misled her. Miss Addie wasn’t telling her to stop being angry. She was telling her to let herself get good and mad.
“When you free yourself, you free me,” Theta repeated, feeling the itch of pent-up fire in her palms.
In Theta’s dreams, a white clapboard church loomed. Miss Addie stood at the top of the church steps. The wind whipped her long white hair around her face. The church doors opened, and in the dark behind Miss Addie were trees with trunks like dried snakes.
“Theta, it’s not a sickness. He has me. Break the spell.”
“How do I do that?”
“Look into your heart, Theta, and you will know what to do. When you free yourself, you free me.”
The tree limbs uncurled themselves from the base of the dead tree and coiled themselves around Miss Addie’s frail body, crisscrossing her chest like the lacing of a corset, and yanked her back inside. The church doors slammed shut.
Theta woke with her heart racing. She blinked against the shadowy room. Nothing seemed amiss. It was the dream; that was all. The door was shut, just as it had been when she went to bed. Unsettled, Theta left the room she shared with Ling and walked thro
ugh the dark kitchen and dining room, coming at last into the front parlor. Moonlight seeped in through the windows. Looking out, she could see the dim silhouette of acres of corn. All calm. Why was she so frightened? All she wanted was to be safe in bed. But what if her bed wasn’t safe?
Theta stood on the rug in the parlor, listening. Wind. The soft rustling of corn. The small creaks and groans of an old house. And something else. A faint hiss, like gas slowly escaping a tire. What was that?
A night fog was rising in the cornfield, making it hard to see. Theta tiptoed out onto the porch. This is nothing, Theta. Don’t be such a baby. Her heart hammered anyway. The hiss grew louder. Crickets? Bees? The smell hit her first. The unmistakable stench of decay. And then she saw Elijah coming through the corn.
Theta stumbled backward. I got rid of you. I got rid of you in Gideon.
