Текст книги "Ganymede"

Автор книги: Cherie Priest

Соавторы: Cherie Priest
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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

Five

Agatha Knotts turned another card over.

The Hanged Man was revealed, suspended by his foot over a grill. The weathered edges of the paper were fuzzy from humidity; a crack in the old stock split across the gallows. The whole pack was worn like this, from years of use by skillful fingers – decades of patterns, possibilities, and promises spread across a bright silk scarf beneath a parasol.

Josephine sighed. “I was hoping for something a little more auspicious.”

Agatha shrugged and said, “It’s not the worst you could’ve pulled. Think of it as balance, your world suspended between two tugging forces.”

“It is helplessness.”

“It is not.”

“Give me the last one,” Josephine urged. She was careful not to glance over her shoulder, or to peer from left to right. The Square in front of the Saint Louis cathedral was not so crowded now. Curfew would descend within minutes. The fortune-tellers with their stands, their small tables draped in bright colors, their battered and mystical tools … they were folding up shop and preparing to leave before the Texians made them go.

The statue in front of the church cast a horse-shaped shadow that stretched the beast into a monstrous mockery of four legs and a rider drawn spiderlike between the angled lines of the church’s pointed spires. Josephine did not look at that, either, because she already knew the hour was late.

The fortune-teller said, “Temperance.”

“Oh, for pity’s sake.”

“Again, you are thinking too narrowly, my friend.” Agatha tapped the card with one long fingernail. “The lady does not stand for restraint – no more than you do. Consider how metal is forged. This is another card for balance, for the subtle power that comes after a trial.”

“You’re making this up.”

With a flick of her wrist and a very fast sweep, Agatha scooped the cards into her palm. “You’re the one who asked me to read. If you don’t believe, I don’t mind. But there’s no need to be rude.” She shuffled the stiff rectangles idly, jostling them in her hands, slipping cards in and out of the stack and massaging them back into the whole. She lowered her voice and was careful to keep her eyes on the orange silk before her. “It won’t be long now.”

“I know. Give me another spread. A short one.”

“Another row for you to mock?” The colored woman in the pretty shawl lifted an eyebrow, mocking back. It was friendlier than it appeared. Agatha and Josephine had known each other since childhood, and their differences ran deep without coming between them.

Josephine dropped her voice as well, making a show of reaching into her bag for another warm coin to set upon the box that served as a table. “Another excuse to linger. I want to see how they clear the Square. I want to see if the new man comes and sweeps it himself.”

“Three cards, then.” She spread the pack in an arc and said. “Choose wisely, and concentrate on your question, so the cards can respond.”

“I’ll do no such thing,” she mumbled. Even so, a query buzzed through her mind in a flash. Will Cly come – or will I have to find someone else?She shook her head, doing her best to empty it of the superstition. Then she randomly tapped three selections. “Those.”

“Very well,” Agatha said with a patient, practiced nod. As she removed the cards and retrieved the rest of the deck, she asked under her breath, without meeting her companion’s eyes, “Hazel said you spoke with Madame Laveau?”

“Yes. Four nights ago. She saved me.” She said it matter-of-factly. Regardless of her opinions on tarot or the stars, or God or the devil, or any other unseen thing alleged to walk the city … she believed in the elderly vodou queen.

Agatha remarked, “She has not spoken much about the Dead Who Walk. Some people think she made them herself. They say she’s building an army of the damned to throw the Texians out of New Orleans.”

“They can say whatever they want. I do not believe she made the zombis.”

“Zombi? Is that what she calls them?”

Josephine nodded down at the cards, maintaining the fortune-seeking charade in case they were being watched. It was safest to assume, in the occupied city. They were always being watched. “Do you know the word?”

“I do.” For a moment she paused, as if she censored herself. “It should not surprise me. It is an old word, an African word brought to the islands, and then to the delta.”

“Is it like your cards? One meaning on the surface, and another below?”

“It implies that the dead have brought their state upon themselves, and that they are restless because of their own sins.”

Josephine murmured, “Aren’t we all?”

“It is a good word. Or an appropriateword, I should say.” She turned her attention to the cards once more. Revealing the first, she said, “Here we find Justice. He suggests satisfaction and success, brought about by leadership and cooperation. Whatever question you asked the cards, this is an auspicious answer.”

Josephine said, “I asked them nothing.”

Agatha did not argue. She flipped the second card. “The ten of wands. You must beware of your own responsibilities, and keep your own house. Someone may try to deceive you, or play you for a fool.”

“Meaningless. That’s every day of my life.”

“So skeptical, for someone who so badly wants guidance.”

“Is that what you think I want?”

“Well”—Agatha reached for the third card—“you want something. Look, it is the six of swords.”

“And what does that mean?”

“Change, and swiftly coming. It is a card that urges concentration and focus, lest your goal be lost. And I suppose that’s meaningless, too.”

“You know me so well.”

The fortune-teller’s hand hovered over the spread. Impulsively, she pulled another card.

“What are you doing?”

“Asking a question.”

“I thought it was foolish to read one’s own cards.” Josephine repeated something Agatha had told her once before.

“Not a question for myself,” she said, turning it over. “A question for you. Ah. The Magician.”

“Now that’ssomebody I could use, right about now.”

Agatha shook her head. “In this case, I think he stands for you.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because as you said, I know you so well.” She smiled and leaned forward, pretending to explain some arcane bit of divination, but only leaning in so that even the closest observer might not overhear. “You believe Madame Laveau? You do not think she made the zombis, or controls them?”

“She says they Walk through no magic of hers. But she controlled them a bit. I saw her do it.”

“Hm.”

“I do not think she was lying, and I do not think her control is absolute. Nor,” she added quickly, “do I think any magicis involved.”

“How did she control them?”

Josephine hesitated. “I should say instead that she stopped them. She stunned them, with a very loud noise, and something about it … the timbre of it, or the tone. Something made them all stand still. But I don’t know if I could repeat her success, and I would not dare to try.”

“It’s wise of you, to defer to her judgment.”

“I don’t believe in magic. I don’t believe in cards, or curses. But I believe that Madame Marie has power, and I have no interest in offending her. Besides, she saved me.”

“You believe that?”

“I knowthat,” she confirmed. “I was trapped between the dead and the alligators, and she intervened.”

“Then she wants something from you,” Agatha said coolly.

“Whatever it is, she can have it.”

The fortune-teller retrieved her cards again, and resumed her slow shuffling. “If I were you, I’d be careful what I promised to the little queen. I would not offend her myself, but beware of what you offer unbidden.”

“Does that advice come from your cards?”

“No, it comes from my heart – one old friend to another: Be careful of her motives, and the favors she asks of you. I believe she means well for the city, but also that she leans quite hard on the ends justifying the means. At any rate, look: you’ve used up all your tarot time, which will come as a relief, I’m sure.”

Josephine heard the rolling-crawlers before she saw them. She’d know them anywhere; she listened to them for the last three nights patrolling beneath the Garden Court windows every hour on the hour as the curfew that seized the city was forced into effect. Ostensibly, this new measure was meant to address the disappearance of Colonel Betters and Lieutenant Cardiff four days previously, and just this once, Josephine didn’t doubt the Texians and their sincerity. They wanted to know what had happened to their officers, and they didn’t understand anything about the Dead Who Walk, the “zombis” whose population had risen so much over the last year.

It was hard to blame them, except that they’d failed so thoroughly to listen. Anyone could’ve told them.

The people who worked the docks, who managed the piers, who loaded and unloaded cargo both virtuous and clandestine. The men who drove the ferries over the river, who worked the engines on the little flat boats that carried people across the bayous and into the islands in the bays; the women who separated shells from seafood in the old canneries, who mended the nets down by the shore under the heat of the sun reflected off the river, and off the ocean.

They could’ve asked the rich children who were warned by bedtime stories about the zombis, or the poor children who were threatened with zombi punishment when they misbehaved. They might have asked the old folks who knew to shutter their homes against the dead as if against a storm; or they could have inquired after the young folks, who were fast enough to run and knew all the ways of escape from the in-between world down by the water.

Anyone in the city could’ve said, “Yes, the men-shaped things Walk the shores and roam the abandoned spots where no one else dares to go. They moan and cough, and chase and bite. They kill, and you’d best be leaving them alone.”

But the Texians had largely kept to their barracks and bases, and they did not ask about the occasional soldier or sailor who went missing … and later, perhaps, was seen again in a terribly transformed state. Desertions were not so very rare, after all.

Over the years, the occupation had become a stable and sedentary thing. The men on top of the command chain ignored the citizens’ complaints, just as they ignored Marie Laveau and her church, and her graveyard pastimes.

Anything out of sight can be ignored, when knowing the whole story is too much trouble.

But Colonel Betters and Lieutenant Cardiff were gone, or worse than that – and if anyone but Josephine knew precisely what had become of them, no one was saying. If any bodies had been found, no one had honored them with a public burial. If anyone Walked, no one was speaking of it. Instead, the Texians went to ground like frightened animals, enforcing old rules and instituting new ones to keep people indoors at night.

And so the rolling-crawlers came puttering on their diesel engines, around the corners and through the alleys toward the Square in front of the Saint Louis cathedral. The last of the determined fortune-tellers and corner preachers and salesmen offering boiled crawdads or knuckles of sugarcane, everyone who’d insisted on staying until the final moment … they all admitted defeat, and grumbling, they put away their stalls, their makeshift stands, and their wares.

The rolling-crawlers were called such because they patrolled on hard-rubber wheels that bounded independently of one another on floating axles, allowing the carriage-sized craft to climb forward over curbs and navigate the narrow streets of the old Gulf city.

They were both better and worse than horse-drawn affairs. Better because they left no manure. Worse because they were louder, and the diesel stink of their exhalations polluted the damp, heavy air – which locked on to the best and worst of odors, keeping all smells close to the earth.

The fortune-teller said, “There’s the new fellow. He came tonight, after all.”

“I heard he only just arrived yesterday,” Josephine replied, scanning the scene.

“Two days ago,” Agatha corrected. “I’ll say this for the Texians: They replace their own fast.”

“I hope they don’t replace Cardiff anytime soon.” Josephine rose to her feet and stretched, then began to help her friend break down the little station from which she earned most of her living. “I won’t be too brokenhearted if there’s no one to focus on a certain lake project anymore.”

“It wouldn’t break my heart either, but I won’t hold my breath. I hear Travis McCoy is more trouble than two Cardiffs and a mule. He’ll be patrolling for your prize”—she used her preferred euphemism—“sooner rather than later.”

Josephine asked, “Where is he? Do you know what he looks like?” She held a hand up over her eyes, shielding them from the last of the sun’s setting glare as it bounced off the windows on the far side of the Square.

“Over there.” Agatha tossed her head, indicating a large rolling-crawler, painted Texas dun. “Yellow-haired maniac atop the biggest brownie. That’s him.”

“How do you know, if he only got here the other night?”

“He’s the only one I don’t recognize. The rest of these lads”—she waved in the general direction of all four corners—“I’ve seen before. Not closing down for curfew, but around the Quarter. Besides, he’s the only man being driven around, like the machine is his private cabriolet.”

He was young for a man sent to marshal a city, probably the madam’s own age – if not younger – and he was lean inside a uniform that fit him well, and was buttoned up to the top despite the early evening warmth. He had the ramrod posture of a lifelong military peg, and the lantern jaw of someone who ought to be twice his size, though the fluffy reddish-blonde beard made his exact lines hard to determine.

Given what could be seen of his face, Colonel Travis McCoy possessed the kind of bone structure that’s considered “strong” on a man, and would be “unfortunate” on a woman.

While Josephine and Agatha closed up shop and sneaked glances at the rumbling machines as they puttered around the Square, the colonel lifted an amplifier to his mouth. He said something, but the words weren’t loud enough and no one heard him. He fiddled with the electric coils and turned a dial, then tried it again.

This time his voice bellowed out – boosted by a handheld device shaped like a witch’s hat.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I can see that most of you are in the process of wrapping up your daily business, and I thank you for your promptness.” His accent leaned toward the higher-class end of the Texian spectrum. He sounded like he’d had an education someplace else, but exactly where, Josephine couldn’t pinpoint. “I do apologize for the inconvenience, and would like to remind you that this is for your own safety.”

“Like hell it is,” she grumbled.

“Hush now,” Agatha urged. “At least he’s being polite.”

“I don’t care if he hands out five-dollar bills while he brushes my hair and calls me sweetheart,he’s closing down the Square for no good reason.”

“I’m trying to look on the bright side.”

“There’s a bright side?”

Agatha folded up her scarves, wrapped her cards, and gathered all the small things that were part of her trade. She then placed them inside the overturned box-table and picked it up. “There might be. Think about it this way: New Orleans has a zombi problem. It’s also occupied by the most heavily armed military in the world, and now that military is on alert. It’s a long way to go for a glimmer of light, but if nothing else good ever comes of Texas squatting here, I’d be glad if they can clear the dead out of the in-between, down by the river.”

Josephine held out her hands, offering to help carry something. Agatha jutted her elbow out, pointing crookedly at the parasol, so her friend picked it up and closed it, then held it under her arm. “You give them too much credit. For all we know, they’re the ones who brought the dead. We didn’t have any zombis before they moved in, now, did we?”

“You’ve got me there. Hey, mind your mouth.”

Josephine boosted an eyebrow, but didn’t ask questions. A moment later, she heard the pounding footsteps of someone jogging up behind her. She pivoted on her heel and saw a man in his twenties sporting a brown uniform, homing in on her like a man with a purpose.

She bristled and gritted her teeth, but Agatha put on the sort of smile worn by a woman who earns her living dealing in pleasantries with unpleasant people. The fortune-teller exaggerated her accent when she called out, “ Bonsoir,boy – and there’s no need to rush us. We’ll be on our way, you just give us half a minute.”

Huffing and puffing, he drew up to a stop immediately before them and removed his hat. “Not trying to rush you, ladies. I’m—” He threw a fast, sharp look back at the rolling-crawlers, and toward Colonel McCoy. “—I’m looking for Miss Josephine Early, and that’s you, ain’t it, ma’am?”

Cautiously but coldly, she replied, “Yes, that’s me.”

He crushed the brown flop hat in one hand and punched it absently with the other. “Ma’am, I have a message from Fletcher Josty,” he said.

Agatha was puzzled, but Josephine was careful not to reveal any hint of recognition. “I’m sorry, I can’t say that I understand.”

“This ain’t my uniform, ma’am. I took it off a fellow I left back in the Rue Toulouse alley. Fletcher said to give you this.” He reached into his pocket and produced a folded note. “And I’m begging you, read it fast. It’s only a matter of time before some of these boys figure out none of ’em know me.”

Josephine hesitated, but took the note. She recognized Fletcher Josty’s handwriting immediately: Barataria attacked. Rick injured. Holding on at the fort. Her stomach clenched, but she had too many questions to lapse into outright panic.

“Wait, now – wait,” she said, holding out one hand toward the man in the Texas uniform. “Someone’s hit the pirate quarter?”

“ Thatsomeone over there, on the lead brownie. His first rule of business when he got to town the other day was to plot it out, and yesterday he ordered the raid. Ma’am, we need to get off these streets. Hurry along, will you? I’ll walk back with you to the Garden, all right?”

“All … all right?…,” she said, not moving, not taking her eyes off the note. “I just, I don’t understand.”

Agatha broke in. “You heard him, let’s go. I’ll come with you, we’ll all of us walk.” She put an arm on Josephine’s hand and tugged.

“You’re right. Let’s go. Here, I have an idea.”

With a swift knock of the parasol’s handle, she struck Agatha’s box out of her grasp. It toppled to the ground and landed on a corner, breaking in two. The fortune-teller said, “Hey!” but the pretend-Texian got the idea and said, “I’ve got it, ma’am. Let me help you carry these things.” And in a whisper he added, “It’ll give me an excuse to join you, see?”

Throughout the rest of Jackson Square, the last of the stragglers were being ushered on their way, and the Texian soldiers were assisting where it was necessary or helpful, or where they were impatient to have the streets cleared for the evening hour.

Josephine struggled to keep from shaking as the three of them abandoned the common area. The church doors closed as they walked past, and the darkness had fallen nearly enough to call it night – so that when they ducked into the alley to the right of the church, they were suddenly all but invisible. In those narrow minutes between the sun going down and the gas lamps being struck, they were indistinguishable from the shadows.

The cathedral loomed above them, its iron fencing and thick stone walls blocking them in like a fort. Josephine drew up short in the alley, unwilling to step into the Quarter beyond, not yet. She seized the young man by the shoulder and spoke quickly, quietly.

“Why would McCoy invade the bay? What was my brother doing there, and how did he get hurt? Where is he now?”

As fast as he could, the man rapid-fired his responses. “I don’t know why McCoy took the bay, I only know he gave the order and it happened – but it took ’em all day. Pirates don’t hand over easy, especially not when they’ve been dug in somewhere for so long. Your brother was there hitching a ride on a Cajun rig called the Crawdaddy,doing I’m-not-sure-what. Rick got caught in a firefight and he’s taken two bullets. Neither of them killed him, but he needs a doctor, and that means he’s got to get upriver. Nobody in the city will risk treating him right now, and with the curfew – well, he’s still at Barataria, holed up with Fletcher and one of the Lafitte boys,” he said. “But they’ll move him out one way or the other, come morning. They’ll get him someplace safe.”

“How bad is it? And don’t you lie to me, now.”

“I didn’t see him, I only agreed to run the message from Fletcher. Let’s get back to the Garden Court, and we can talk about it. I’ll tell you everything I know.”

“I have to go to my brother.”

Horrified, Agatha said, “You don’t mean it, Josie! Let the men take care of their own. When he’s out of town and all healed up, you can go meet him. You’ll do nobody any good by throwing yourself in harm’s way. Think what Rick would say if he knew you were coming.”

“He’d tell me to get the hell back into my house and he’d see me on the other side. But he isn’t here, and I never listened to him much, anyway.” Her words cracked around the edges, and she was glad for the darkness. “ I’mthe elder. It’s his job to listen to me,and mine is to…” She tore the note to tiny pieces and dropped it into a stream of manure and river runoff along the street’s edge. “Mine is to take care of him. Just like I promised Momma I would.”

A rolling-crawler went roaring past the alley, filling the slim space with diesel fumes and a rattling echo that rang around the walls. It dimmed, the brownie moved on, and Josephine continued. “I won’t leave him out there, nursed by pirates who can’t stitch a button. I’m going to him, and I’m going to take him to the bayou myself – so Edison Brewster can run him north and get him the help he needs, if he needs more of it than I can give him.”

“Josie, you’re daft.”

“You know it’s true, both of you,” she appealed to her companions in turn. “If he stays there, under siege on the islands until morning … God knows what’ll become of him. No.” She shook her head, not clearing her thoughts but winding them up. “No, I’m going after him. I’d rather die knowing than sit at home and wonder.”

The young man sighed and caught her arm when she turned to run back the way she’d come. Before she could haul off and hit him, he said, “Fletcher told me you’d say as much. He said you wouldn’t stay put and it was up to me to keep you from coming out there, but he also told me it was a lost cause from the get-go.”

“Do you know where they are? Right now?” Josephine asked. She pried her arm out of his grasp.

“Just like the note said, they’re at the fort – unless somebody’s moved them. I’ll take you there, if you won’t have it any other way. But first, we have to get off the streets. The patrols will catch up to us any minute. Hurry up now, back to the Garden Court,” he begged. “We can leave from there – it isn’t far, is it?”

“Only a few blocks. And you’re right, I have to go home first. Come on, let’s go.”

“Josie?”

“Aggie, you coming, too?”

“No, I’m heading back to my own place like a law-abiding citizen. But I want to say good luck, and I love you.”

Josephine swallowed hard, then kissed Agatha on the cheek. “Don’t say such things. It’s like you don’t think I’ll be back.”

“I hope you’ll be back,” she said. Josephine didn’t answer.

Instead she fled the alley and rushed back down the warren of narrow blocks overhanging with balconies and lamps, streets wet just like always. Her feet slapped side by side with the young man’s as together they darted through the Quarter. All along the way, doors were being closed and windows were being drawn; shutters were being pulled and lights inside were coming on, same as the lights in the streets – lit one by one as low-ranking Texian enlisted men complained their way up and down the ladders to spark the lights and brighten the gloom.

They slipped inside the Garden Court just ahead of the first patrol of rolling-crawlers, their dastardly engines churning and lumpy wheels rolling up and down over the curbs, splashing through puddles, and spewing ghost-gray clouds with every shove of every cylinder.

Josephine slammed the door shut behind them and nearly locked it, but changed her mind when she realized she was only frightened.

Curfew or no, this was an after-hours business. So long as customers stayed off the streets, no one had gone to the trouble of shutting them down. Business was off by about 30 percent, yes. But it could be worse. It could be off altogether, and locking the front door would be a start in that direction.

The madam’s sudden and dramatic entrance stunned the lobby’s occupants into silence.

Delphine Hoobler and Septima Hare had been talking together on the long dais, but their conversation drew up short and now they stared at their employer. Likewise, Olivia Tillman and her suitor had paused on their way upstairs, and the perennially present Fenn Calais had stopped in his tracks, Ruthie under one arm and Caroline under the other.

“Miss Josephine?” asked the old Texian with the deep pockets and large appetite.

She put one hand on her chest beneath her throat, and did a ladylike show of not gasping for breath. “I beg everyone’s pardon, please,” she said – directing the apology first to the unknown guest and Fenn Calais, then the rest of the ladies. “The curfew, you understand. This gentleman was trying to find his way here, and I only stepped out to lend him a hand. Please, everyone. Carry on, and let’s enjoy the rest of the night.”

But Ruthie slipped out from under Calais’s arm, quickly replaced by Septima – with Fenn’s blessing, or apathy. She came back to Josephine, who dropped herself onto the hard-padded couch beside Delphine. Still waiting for the coast to clear, she gave the men another half minute to retreat and then gave her orders quietly as the women gathered around and the man who’d accompanied her stood stiffly, nervously by the door. He looked out the window, watching through a slit in the curtains.

“I’m leaving tonight,” Josephine said. “For a day or two – that’s all. My brother’s been hurt, and I need to see him.”

“Deaderick?” gasped Ruthie. “What happened?”

“He’s been shot, but he’s alive – and he’s going to be all right, I’m pretty confident of that. I have to go take care of him, though. I have to help Fletcher Josty move him safe back to the bayou. From there, Edison will take him up the river to a doctor, if we can’t find one any closer.”

Olivia’s eyes welled up with tears. This was not an uncommon event, but just this once, Josephine didn’t mind it. The young woman asked, “Is he in town? Why don’t they bring him to town? We’d find a doctor for him here. Maybe Dr. Heuvelman—”

“Miss Tillman,” the madam said with less than her usual measure of patience. Olivia was lovely, kind, and well intentioned, but sometimes painfully slow. “Between the curfew and his face being on wanted posters from Metairie to the Gulf, that’s possibly the worst idea in the world. I’ll go to him and get him moved, and then I’ll be back here by week’s end.”

Ruthie, on the other hand, was much sharper. “He’s not in town and he’s not in the bayou? Where is he?”

“Somewhere else. This fellow here – I’m sorry, darling, I didn’t catch your name.”

“Gifford,” he provided. “I’m Gifford Crooks.” Upon suddenly finding himself the most interesting person in the room, he blushed and kept talking. “I’m with Mr. Pinkerton’s Secret Service – his Saint Louis office, working with the bayou boys as of last week. I’m … new. This is my first job.”

“I’d have never guessed it,” Josephine said dryly.

“He’s a Pink?” Marylin’s face hardened.

“The Union hires them sometimes. They sent Mr. Crooks here to give me the message. “Marylin, I’m leaving you in charge for now. Swap off with Hazel if you need to take a customer, and Ruthie – I know you stay busy, but you’re third in command.”

Ruthie said, “No.”

“Excuse me?”

“No, ma’am. I’m coming with you.”

“You’re doing no such thing. You’re staying here and working. I know you have a soft spot for Rick, but there’s nothing you can do to help except get in the way.”

Ruthie turned to Gifford Crooks and asked, “Did you tell her the same thing, when she told you she was coming along?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You leave him out of this!” Josephine commanded. “You’re not coming, and that’s it.” Ruthie could prove problematic, if they were intercepted and searched.

“I amcoming.” Then, in French – because it was easier for her, “You’ll need me, if something goes wrong. You’ll need someone to come back and tell everyone what’s happened.”

“Nothing will go wrong. And any fool can run a message home.”

“Well, I sure as all hell hope nothing goes wrong,” Ruthie blasphemed in her native tongue. She strolled to the hall closet and removed her best navy blue jacket, a jewel-toned silk confection with more pockets than anyone would ever guess. “And I may be a fool of an errand girl, but I will not be left behind. I’ll be back in two shakes. Don’t leave without me, because I do not want to run and catch up.” With that, she climbed the stairs.

Josephine growled, “Fine! Since Ruthie can’t be trusted to stay put on her own, she’s coming with me. If anyone shows up and asks for her by special request, tell him she’s down with a fever and they can come back Friday night. I’ll offer a discount for the wait.”

Marylin listened to every word with great concentration, committing the whole of it to memory. “Ma’am?” she asked when Josephine stopped to take a breath. “You willcome back, won’t you?”

“Yes. By tomorrow, or the day after at the latest.”

“But if this is dangerous, and I suppose it must be … what if you don’t?”

Josephine looked around the room, meeting their eyes one by one. In every face, she saw fear. “I willbe back, and Rick willbe alive. You trust me?”

All the ladies nodded, some more slowly than others. Olivia sniffled and wiped at her nose with the back of her hand, even though she was holding a handkerchief.

“Good. Then keep trusting me, and I’ll be back soon.”