Lair of Dreams
Mr. Forman took the hint. “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the Pears Soap Hour stage—Mr. Bob Bateman!”
To polite applause, a handsome man came forward. He seemed sweetly nervous. “How do you do, Miss O’Neill?”
“I’m doing much better now that you’re here,” Evie shot back, enjoying the audience’s laughter. “How can I be of help to you today, Mr. Bateman?”
“It’s awfully nice to meet you. You’re such a swell girl and all.”
“Gee, Mr. Bateman, that’s awfully sweet of you to say,” Evie said. “Oh, you brought me a comb. Golly, I hope this doesn’t mean that my bob looks a fright!”
More laughter. It was a great audience, a great show—one of her best. She hoped Mr. Phillips was paying attention.
“Oh, no, Miss O’Neill. You look beautiful,” he said, and Evie actually blushed.
“Careful there. This young lady’s engaged to a Diviner,” Mr. Forman interjected, to the crowd’s delight.
“He’s a lucky fella,” Mr. Bateman said, and Evie’s smile wobbled just a bit. She no longer knew what game she and Sam were playing.
“This comb belonged to my best pal, Ralphie,” Mr. Bateman said, and Evie snapped back to the moment.
“Oh. Uh-huh,” she said.
“He died during the war.”
There were clucks of sympathy from the audience.
“Gee, I’m sorry,” Evie said. “My brother was a war hero, you know.”
“Yes. I’ve heard that. I figured you might be sympathetic to an old Army man like me. The thing of it is, when he was over there, Ralphie married a French girl on the quick, but I don’t know her name and, well, the family has been trying to find her all these years. I’m sure you understand. I thought maybe you could get a name for us?”
Mr. Bateman put the comb in her hands. It was just an old tortoise comb, something you could get at any drugstore. Nothing special. Evie closed her eyes. She rubbed her thumb over the tips of the teeth. Then, when she was ready, she held it between her palms, pressing gently, and waited for information.
But the comb didn’t seem to want to yield its treasures to her. To get at its memories, she’d need to go deeper. That was unpredictable on the radio. But Bob Bateman was a war hero, and everyone was waiting. Evie would not send him away with nothing. Gritting her teeth, she dove further under, concentrating so hard that she could feel sweat prickling along her upper lip and trickling down her spine. Evie forgot caution. She cared only about getting a read, no matter what it took.
Her head jerked back as the vision flared. The sensation was a dizzying one. She was running. No. Something was moving. The scenery. Trees. Rocks. More Trees. Seen through a window. Ah! She was on a train. Evie breathed through, searching for her footing in the memory, and was rewarded with a steadier picture. Yes, she was in a train compartment crowded with soldiers. A card game was in play on the small tray table. A skinny, dark-haired boy sprawled across his seat, writing in his diary. There was no girl in sight. Perhaps she was elsewhere on the train. Evie would find her.
“Anybody know where we’re headed?” the diary writer asked. He seemed nervous. His eyes. There was something familiar about his eyes. Brown. Sad.
“They never tell us nothin’,” the card dealer answered around the cigarette in his teeth.
“Just seems funny they didn’t tell us.”
“We’ll find out soon enough,” the dealer said. “Who’s in?”
The longer Evie stayed under, the more she felt that there was something strangely recognizable about all the men, something she couldn’t quite place. Stay light. Don’t go too deep. That was the name of the game on the radio. But Evie was in deep already. She needed to know.
Outside the windows, the land rolled on. Trees. Hills. Light snow fell.
The dealer flattened a card against his forehead, facedown. “What am I holding, huh? What is it? Who can call it? Joe? Cal?”
“It’s the Ace of Spades,” came a new voice, so shocking in its familiarity that Evie could scarcely breathe.
With a grin and a head shake, the dealer threw the card on the table, faceup. Ace of Spades.
“Son of a bitch,” a freckle-faced soldier said. “Right again.”
“That’s our Jim,” the diary writer said. Evie went cold inside. She’d placed his face. The soldier with the gun. The one who’d tried to shoot her on Forty-second Street. Her arms shook and her legs trembled. Nausea crept up into her throat. It was too much. She needed to quit, but she couldn’t—not yet. She had to see the soldier’s face. The one who’d guessed the card. She had to know who…