Lair of Dreams (The Diviners #2) (40 page)

“Henry!” Ling called as she walked the familiar path past the giant Spanish elms of the bayou. Henry and Louis, bathed in sunshine, sat on the weathered dock. Henry responded with a wave. “Hurry! Before our alarms go off,” Ling said.

“Be right there!” Henry called back.

“’Evenin’, Miss Ling!” Louis shouted and waved to her. The sun shone brightly down on him, and Ling got a funny feeling in her stomach, some warning she couldn’t yet name.

“All good dreams must come to an end,” Henry said, joining her, flushed and happy as they walked the forest path. “What’s that mark on your dress?”

“Dirt,” Ling said, snapping back to the moment. She brushed at the stubborn stain.

“I thought it was another experiment. Like the ash.”

“No, but I do need your help. I want to see if I can wake you from inside the dream.”

Henry shrugged. “All right. I’m game. What do you want me to do?”

“You only need to stand still.”

“Sounds like my music career so far.”

“And stop making jokes,” Ling chided. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

“Here goes: Henry. It’s time to wake up,” Ling said. Nothing happened. “Wake up, Henry!” Ling said again, louder this time.

“Try shaking me awake,” Henry suggested.

Ling grabbed Henry by the shoulders and shook him, softly at first, then more violently.

“Whoa there! Don’t want to scramble my brains!”

“Huh.” Ling reached over and pinched Henry’s arm.

“Ow! Is this science or just an excuse for you to beat me up?”

“Sorry,” Ling said sheepishly. She stood back, thinking. “There’s got to be a way.…”

“Maybe
I
should try to wake
you
up,” Henry said.

Ling scoffed. “I am not very suggestible.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Is that a challenge?”

“No,” Ling said. “Just a fact.”

Henry arched an eyebrow. “Care to put that to the test? For science?”

“It will be a waste of your time, but be my guest.”

“All right, then.” Henry raised his hand like a sorcerer. “Oh, Ling Chan, Madame Curie of the dream world,” he intoned dramatically, barely keeping a straight face. “Sleep hath released thee! Now is the time thou must waketh!”

Ling rolled her eyes. “You’re an idiot.”

“Fine. I will be pos-i-tute-ly serious.” He cleared his throat and stared at Ling. “Wake up, Ling.”

After several long seconds, Ling smirked. “I told you so,” she said, breaking off a sprig of pine from a nearby tree and inhaling its fragrance.

Henry had been kidding before, but now he wanted to rise to the challenge. If there was a way for them to wake themselves inside the dream, there’d be no need for alarms. Theta wouldn’t be angry with him, because she wouldn’t know he was dream walking. He
thought about it for a minute. How had he helped Theta change her nightmares?

Henry turned to Ling once more. “Darlin’, you’re tired and you need your sleep. You’d really like to wake up now, back home in your bed, so why don’t you?”

Ling’s mouth went slack, and her face settled into a peaceful expression. And then, with the briefest sigh, she vanished from the dream world. For a moment, Henry was too stunned to move.

“Ling?” He swiped a hand through the air where Ling had stood. “Huh. Well, what do you know ’bout that?” he said, feeling quite pleased with himself. He couldn’t wait to lord it over Ling tomorrow.

Just then, crackling light appeared inside the tunnel like fireflies on a hot July night, and then the bayou began to darken, the gray sky eating up the last of the shining color as if shutting down for the night. The edges of the dream world wavered and curled up like someone had pulled the thread, unraveling the fabric of it till the cabin, the trees, and the flowers lost their rich detail.

Henry heard soft crying inside the tunnel.

“Hello?” Henry said, approaching.

A song drifted out, and Henry recognized it as one his mother used to play on their piano in New Orleans, back when she could do such things. He’d always sort of liked the old tune.

“
Beautiful Dreamer, come unto me…
” he sang softly, a calming habit, because he was uneasy. Just under the music was that unsettling growl he and Ling had heard once in the station.

“Hello?” he said again.

A gust of wind blew from the tunnel, and with it, a thick whisper that surrounded Henry:
“Dream with me.…”

The whisper made Henry feel warm and loose, as if he’d had a strong drink. He drew closer to the tunnel. Something was moving in the dark. Briefly illuminated by the short bursts of light was a girl.

“Wai-Mae?” Henry called.

There was another pop of light and Henry saw the outline of a
veil. He blinked, and in the afterimage, he saw disquieting things that made him wish that he weren’t there alone, for the figure in the tunnel was coming slowly toward him.

In the next second, his alarm rang. And then Henry was waking, his body immobile as he lay in his bed at the Bennington.

When Ling woke from her dream walk, her body ached and the back of her mouth tasted of iron. She wiped away blood from where she’d bitten her lip on the way back. But it didn’t matter, because Henry had done it. He’d woken her up, and Ling smiled despite the split lip.

“Eureka,” she murmured, exultant but also exhausted, just before she fell into a true, deep sleep in which she was only a mortal, not a god. Come the morning, she would barely remember her dreams of George Huang, his pale, glowing skin cracking open in fissures as if he were rotting from the inside, as he lurched through the subway tunnel with fast, jerking, puppetlike movements, hands reaching and clutching, as he approached the sleeping vagrant taking shelter between the concrete archways. Nor would she remember the unholy shriek torn from George’s throat as he descended upon the screaming man and the underground was filled with the lightning-flash phosphorescence of the hungry, broken spirits answering George’s call.

“I don’t know if we should allow Ling to go to the pictures with Gracie and Lee Fan, what with things being the way they are,” Mrs. Chan fretted as she parted the lace curtains of their second-floor window and peered out at the police burning the contents of yet another store where two victims of the sleeping sickness had worked.

“Let her go with her friends,” Mr. Chan said. “We’ll manage for a few hours. It’s good for her to be away from all this.”

“But you be careful, Ling,” Mrs. Chan said. “I heard from Louella that they’ve begun stopping Chinese on the streets and checking them for the sleeping sickness. And there’s been worse. Charlie Lao and his son, John, were harassed outside their shop on Thirty-fifth Street. John has a black eye to show for it. I’ll be glad when this is over.”

“It will never be over,” Uncle Eddie said, and Ling knew he didn’t mean the sleeping sickness.

The moment they reached Times Square, Lee Fan and Gracie went shopping, while Ling went to the pictures, as they’d discussed beforehand, agreeing to meet up later. Now a giddy excitement took hold of Ling as the words
Pathé News
flickered across the slowly opening curtains. Two distinguished-looking men strolled along a snowy path,
hands behind their backs. And then there were white words on black screens:

The image shifted, and a dark-haired man, handsome as a matinee idol, waved to crowds from his open-air touring car. Ling smiled, her face bathed in the movie’s glow.

On-screen, the great Jake Marlowe’s lips moved silently as he spoke into a microphone before a large crowd gathered downtown. The scene shifted to black again:

For a moment, Ling allowed herself to imagine another newsreel that might play someday, in which she was one of those giants of science shaking hands with great men like Jake Marlowe while her parents looked on, proud. And she was starting to think that her dream walking just might hold the key to the scientific discovery that would make her imaginings reality. For if she and Henry could travel to another dimension of dreams and create within that nebulous world, perhaps time and space and, yes, even matter itself were nothing more than constructs of the human mind. Perhaps there was no limit to what they could do or where they could go once they’d learned to see differently.

The organist launched into a zippy tune, signaling the start of
The Kid Brother
. Ling placed her gray hat securely over her ears, grabbed her coat and crutches, and sidled up the aisle past the surprised usher.

“But, Miss, the picture’s just starting,” he said.

“I know,” Ling said. “I only wanted to see the newsreel.”

Out on Forty-second Street, the air had grown colder. Tiny flecks of snow danced in the wind. Ling’s breath came out in a puff, and even this was thrilling. Energy. Atoms. Qi. A newsie hawked the day’s headlines—“Chinese Sleeping Sickness Spreads! Mayor Vows: Not Another Spanish Influenza Epidemic in Our Lifetime! Threatens Full Quarantine in Chinatown!”—and just like ice crystals, dreams, and movie images of Jake Marlowe, Ling’s happiness vanished. She looked down at the sidewalk, keeping her face hidden, and walked on. A crush of people blocked the city sidewalk and overflowed into the street, upsetting the taxi drivers, who honked their displeasure. Ling couldn’t go through and she couldn’t get around. She wanted to ask someone what was happening but she didn’t want to call attention to herself. A heavy, military-style drumroll echoed in the streets. It sounded like a parade, and Ling pushed deeper into the crowd, searching for a better vantage point.

And then she saw: The drum-and-fife company preceded orderly rows of men in white hoods and robes marching in lockstep down Broadway waving American flags and hoisting banners proudly proclaiming
KEEP AMERICA WHITE AND YOU KEEP AMERICA SAFE
and
THE
WATCHER NEVER WEARIES
. Around Ling, many in the crowd applauded and whistled, cheering on the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.

“Excuse me, excuse me,” Ling said, turning against the tide of people, desperate to get back to Forty-second Street and the bus home. A young man sneered at her as she pushed through: “There goes one of them dirty Chinese now.”

Everything in Ling’s body went tight with fear. She wished she hadn’t been so eager to get rid of Lee Fan and Gracie.
Just get to the bus stop
, she told herself and kept walking. The man and his friends followed, taunting.

“Hey, you—girl!” The young man’s voice had shifted from sneering to something-to-prove. “Where you going? I’m talking to you!”

Ling’s heart pounded. She didn’t dare look back. The men were close, though, and the bus still too far. Three months ago, she could’ve broken into a run to get away. Now the jangle of her leg braces was loud in her head as she struggled on, and her arms shook from trying to move her crutches so fast. She was afraid she’d put a foot wrong, lose her balance, and fall in the street. Some people watched what was happening with expressions of vague discomfort, one man even giving a meek “Hey, now! Leave her be.” Others barely noticed before moving on. No one stepped in to stop the bullying, though. Ling’s head was down but her eyes were up, searching the streets wildly for a place to duck into for help. A restaurant window’s neon sign boasted
BEST ROAST BEEF IN NEW YORK!
just above a new, hand-lettered sign that read, simply,
NO CHINESE ALLOWED
.

“You’re a long way from home, aren’t you, girl?” the man called. “Do you even speak English?”

He was right behind her. She could smell his aftershave lotion. To her right, the giant marquee of the New Amsterdam Theatre beckoned. Ling changed course, heading toward its doors. Her crutch came down hard in a pothole, jarring her entire body. She was close to tears. And then Henry stepped out of the theater’s alleyway, blowing on his hands in the cold.

“Henry!” Ling shrieked. “Henry!” she screamed again.

He saw her, went for an automatic wave, and froze.

“Help m—” Ling cried as a clod of muddy ice hit her, hard, knocking her off-balance. Her purse dropped and the clasp broke, scattering the contents as she fell.

“Dirty Chinese! Go home!” the young man shouted as he ran past with his friends, laughing.
I am home
, Ling wanted to say, but the words were stuck in her throat as she sat sprawled in the wet muck of Forty-second Street.

“Cowards!” Henry shouted. He was suddenly beside her, helping her to her feet, fetching her crutches, gathering her things off the street and putting them back into her purse. “Ling! Are you all right?”

“I’m f-fine,” she mumbled. Her eyes brimmed with tears. “I just, just need to go home.”

“All right. I’ll take you.” Gently, Henry brushed the dirt from her coat. As he did, his gaze traveled to Ling’s braces, her crutches, and the ugly black shoes, and for just a second, his bright smile dimmed. He recovered quickly, his smile too polite, the way people looked when they didn’t want to upset you. And the tears Ling had kept at bay streamed down her face, hot and shameful.

“Oh, hey. Hey, darlin’,” Henry put an arm around Ling, and she stiffened at his touch.

“I’m sorry,” he said, releasing her. “You’re pretty shaken up. How about a cup of hot cocoa first? You like cocoa, don’tcha?”

“I’m fine. Just… point me toward the bus.”

“Well, now, you see, I have a firm policy that I never drink hot cocoa by myself. It’s against my religion.”

“You have a religion?” Ling sniffled.

“Well, no. Not really. But if I did, that would be the first commandment.”

Ling wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and chanced a sideways glance at Henry. He was standing there in his tweed coat, his slim shoulders hunched up toward his ears and a thick plaid scarf wound around his neck, as if he were an overly wrapped Christmas present, her purse dangling from his elegant fingers. He looked ridiculous, and she wished she could laugh, but instead, she was crying.
Earlier, her heart had been full of wonder as she watched the newsreel, thinking about a world of atoms and change and possibility. Now the moment had shifted into something else, and she didn’t like it. The snow salted down, coating them both in wet flakes.

“One hot cocoa,” Ling said, taking back her purse. She nodded toward the restaurant window’s
NO CHINESE ALLOWED
sign. “If you can find somewhere that’ll let me in.”

“Don’t worry. I know just the place,” Henry said and offered his arm.

“Sorry it’s only tea,” Henry said across the small marble-topped table from Ling. “But at least it’s hot.”

They were in a basement speakeasy located on a narrow Greenwich Village street. Ling blew on her steaming tea and looked around warily at the flocked red wallpaper, better suited to a bordello; the women with closely cropped hair and mannish suits; the men sitting close together.

“What sort of place is this?” Ling whispered after an uncomfortable silence.

“A safe one,” Henry answered, stirring milk into his tea. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth before?”

“I didn’t want you to feel sorry for me. I get enough of people staring at me in horror. Or pity.” She took a sip of her tea. It was still too hot. “It’s just… in the dream world, I’m the way I used to be. I can run and dance. I’m strong. Not like here. I didn’t want you to see me this way—weak.”

“Darlin’, you may be a lot of things, but weak isn’t one of them. How long have you been…” Henry trailed off.

“Crippled? If we’re going to have this conversation, there’s no point in being precious,” Ling shot back. “Not long. Since October.”

“And will you always…?”

“It was infantile paralysis,” she said firmly.

Henry nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said after a pause.

“Why? You didn’t cause it.”

“No. But I’m sorry nonetheless. It’s terribly unfair.”

“Nobody promised life would be fair. That’s why I love dream walking so much. It’s the one place where I feel like myself. Where I’m free.”

“Well, I’ll drink to that.” Henry raised his teacup and took a sip. “To the place where we can be free.”

Two men from the corner table got up to dance, hands joined, cheeks pressed close together, and Ling tried not to stare. She hoped her discomfort wasn’t too evident.