Lair of Dreams

“I see her,” Evie said dreamily.

“You do?” Sam’s voice was so hopeful.

“She’s lovely, Sam. Truly.”

Evie breathed in and out, letting herself go under by degrees, getting more of a picture. The first memory was small and simple: A very young Sam sat beside his mother as she stroked a hand across his hair. There were few things more powerful than a mother’s love, and that’s what Evie felt here: No matter what Miriam Lubovitch had told those men, she loved her son very much. As much as Evie’s mother had loved James, which was infinitely more than she’d ever loved Evie. It wasn’t true that parents didn’t have favorite children. They did, and Evie had not been it. The pain of that memory reached through the booze and squeezed a fist around Evie’s heart, threatening to derail the reading. In defiance, she pushed deeper into the photo’s secret history.

Now she saw a beautiful room with marble floors, heavy crystal chandeliers throwing off prisms of light, and walls hung with expensive-looking portraits of expensive-looking people. There were children in the room. Some sat at tables drawing pictures or answering questions. Some fussed with their collars. One little girl played with her doll.

But where was Sam? Was he here?

And then she saw young Sam seated at a table in a corner, his mother standing just behind his chair, looking nervous. Across from Sam sat Will’s long-dead fiancée, Rotke Wasserman. She drew a card from a deck, hiding its face. “Let’s try one more time. Sam, can you tell what card I’m holding?”

“Um, Five of… Clubs?”

“Why don’t you try again,” Rotke urged.

“King of Hearts?” little Sam lisped from a mouth with a front tooth missing. “Jack of Diamonds!”

Rotke smiled at Sam but shook her head at his mother.

“Am I in trouble?” Sam asked.

“Nyet, bubbeleh,” his mother said, kissing him on the cheek. “Go out and play.”

The memory blurred around the edges, and Evie leaned into it. Children played on the grass on a stretch of perfectly manicured lawn. It was a beautiful spring day, and their joy was infectious. But one child was crying. Evie followed the sound to the girl with the doll.

“What’s the matter, Maria?” Rotke asked, crouching before the child.

The girl began to answer in Italian.

“In English, please.”

“The boat is on fire. It’s sinking,” the little girl cried. And as she did, other children seemed to become agitated as well, as if they had all seen the same dream.

“Rotke! Rotke!” A man ran out of the house and onto the lawn, and Evie’s mind swam. Fair hair. Spectacles. Younger, yes, but it was most definitely Will. Evie was so surprised that she could barely concentrate on what her uncle was saying.

“… Message over the wireless… the Germans have torpedoed the RMS Lusitania. They’ve killed Americans.”

The past buzzed like a staticky radio seeking a signal. And then it landed tenuously on some other bit of history briefly recalled:

“Miriam, the government has asked us to recruit Diviners. Project Buffalo. We need your help.”

Sam’s mother, frightened: “I don’t like the plan.”

“It will be fine. There are precautions.”

“What you want to do—it’s dangerous. It will draw bad spirits.”

“We’re going to win. Come to the Harbor, Miriam. I’m asking. They won’t.”

Evie lost her footing in the reading. Images came too fast, like a film sped up—so much memory and emotion she felt sure she’d be lost inside them if she didn’t let go. She collapsed against Sam as she took her hands from the photograph. He put his arms around her, holding her close. “I got you. It’s okay.”

Evie rested her cheek against his warm chest and listened to the rhythmic comfort of Sam’s heartbeat as she waited for the dizziness and trembling to subside. She liked the weight of his chin atop her head and the smell of shaving cream clinging to his neck. She should sit up, she knew, but she didn’t want to.

“Did you get anything, doll?”

Should she tell Sam she’d seen Will? What would he do if he found out that Will knew his mother and had been lying all this time?

“You were at a table, and Rotke was asking if you could guess at the cards in her hand. But you couldn’t. I don’t understand: Why was she testing you?”

“Beats me, Sheba. I don’t remember any of this stuff,” Sam said, frowning. He rubbed at his forehead, as if that motion could shake loose the memories. “How come I can’t remember?”