The Diviners by Libba Bray Page A

could take the subway out to Coney Island, dip their toes in the Atlantic, and ride the Thunderbolt roller coaster. In the evening, she’d find a party and dance as if there were no dead brothers or terrible dreams. It was all going to be the berries.
    Evie brought her arms back to hug herself. She rubbed her nose on her sleeve and crooned in a soft voice, “
The city’s bustle cannot destroy the dreams of a girl and boy. I’ll turn Manhattan into an isle of joy.
”
    The train rattled past, startling the pigeon into flight.

    In the blazing canyons of brick and neon, the city carried on. People met and parted, hurried and idled. Subways rumbled. Car horns bleated. Traffic lights cycled from green to yellow to red and back again.
    In Harlem, Blind Bill Johnson lay on his cot in the long room of other cots inside the YMCA and waited on sleep. It was warm in the room, like the press of sun on the back of his neck when he used to work the cotton fields back in Mississippi. He could see that butter-thin sun of memory now, the way it had broken through rain clouds and glinted off the dark car that carried the shadow men.
    Mabel Rose read Tolstoy by lamplight and tried to block out the sound of her parents’ arguing in the other room. At last, she rolled onto her back, staring up at the ceiling and imagining that a few floors above, Jericho lay in his bed, also awake, thinking only of her.
    In the African graveyard, leaves scuttled across long-quietgraves and onto the lawn of the house on the hill. The broken angel statue did not feel the cool of the long shadow passing over the yard. Its sightless eyes took no notice of the stranger wiping the blood from his hands as he took in the majesty of the starry sky. And its deaf ears did not hear the chilling whistle of the tune from long ago as it idled briefly on the wind before being lost to the frantic, yearning jazz of the city.
    Miss Addie stood at her large bay window looking out at the Central Park Reservoir and Belvedere Castle, bathed in the slightly orange glow of the moon. She rocked gently on her heels and sang a song she had known since childhood.
    “Tea’s almost ready,” Miss Lillian said, joining her at the window. “Ah. Look how the moon hits the Belvedere. Beautiful.”
    “Indeed.” Miss Addie put a hand to the glass, as if she could hold the castle in her palm. “Do you feel the change, sister?”
    Miss Lillian nodded solemnly. “Yes, sister.”
    “They’re coming.” Miss Addie turned her eyes back to the park, keeping watch over the night until the moon paled against the early dawn sky and the untouched tea had gone ice-cold in its cup.

THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE
     
    Evie’s first week in New York City had proved to be every bit as exciting as she’d hoped. In the afternoons, she and Mabel took the El to the movie palace to watch Douglas Fairbanks, Buster Keaton, and Charlie Chaplin, and one particularly warm day they’d ridden the Culver Avenue Line out to Coney Island. There, they dipped their toes in the cold surf of the Atlantic and strolled past the penny arcades and carnival-like amusements, pretending not to notice the calls of the Boardwalk Romeos who begged for their attention. When Mabel had finished with her schoolwork and Evie with her recommended reading from Will, they window-shopped at Gimbels, trying on shawl-collar coats trimmed in fur and brimless cloche hats that made them feel like movie stars. After, they’d buy freshly roasted peanuts at Chock Full O’Nuts or stop for a sandwich at the Horn & Hardart Automat, where Evie thrilled at retrieving her food from the little glass compartment after she’d deposited her coin and pushed the button.
    Evenings, Evie and Mabel went downstairs to the Bennington’s shabby dining room and sat beneath its sputtering lights todrink egg creams and plot their great Manhattan adventures. When Mabel had to help her parents at a workers’ rally one evening, Evie took the liberty of