“Then why’d you disappear?”
“Because I promised your mother a long time ago that I’d protect you. That night, it seemed to me that I’d become exactly the threat that your mother feared. I decided that the best way to protect you was to leave. To cut all ties, for your sake.”
Toby mulled this over. On the one hand, it sounded like a reasonable, well-argued decision. On the other, it struck him as the sort of thing that adults liked to say when what they meant was I was terrified, so I ran for it. For now, he decided, he’d keep that opinion to himself.
A slightly rueful expression had passed across her face; he had the oddest sense that she’d guessed what he was thinking. “Next question, please,” she said.
He decided to take the plunge. “Why don’t you ever get older?”
She closed her eyes and laughed once, helplessly. “Toby.”
“Don’t tell me I’m imagining it.”
“I won’t. I promise. It’s only . . . I worked very hard to hide all of this, you know.” She thought a moment, and then said, “I don’t age because I simply don’t. It’s . . . not something that I can do.”
“Why not?”
Silence. He let it stretch, but she only stared uncomfortably at her lap. He was reminded of the photographs: her hunched shoulders, her uneasy expression. “Fine,” he muttered. “Next question, I guess. Who’s the evil old man in the dance hall?”
At that she looked up—startled, even alarmed. He had the unsettling sense that she was trying to peer inside him. “You used to have nightmares,” she said, “when you were little.”
“Still do,” he said.
“Is that what they’re about? The evil old man?”
He nodded. “It’s the same thing every time. He’s holding my wrists, and I can’t move. He doesn’t say anything, just grins at me. It goes on and on.” Just thinking about it had made his knee start to bounce; he stopped it with his hand.
“Are you yourself, in this dream?” she asked. “Or are you someone else?”
Toby frowned. He was himself in the dream, wasn’t he? It had always been such a part of his life that he’d never considered . . . And then another puzzle-piece slid into place, with a click he felt in his bones. It wasn’t a dream at all. Dreams changed, even just in little details here and there. They weren’t exactly the same, every single night. So if it wasn’t a dream, then what was it? A memory? Whose?
The realization made his heart pound. It’s Ma’s memory. It happened to her.
She was watching him carefully—but he decided to say nothing of his suspicions. She’d never confirm them; and besides, it felt too awful to say aloud. He might just end up crying. “So who is he?” he asked instead.
“He was . . . an evil old man, exactly as you said.”
“Is he still alive?”
She considered. “Not in any sense that matters.”
“What does that mean?” But she only shook her head.
“Look,” he said, irritated, “maybe it happened to—to someone else, but he’s been in my mind for as long as I can remember. Doesn’t that count for something?”
“Toby, I’m sorry. I truly wish I could tell you.”
He took off his cap, ran a frustrated hand through his hair. These answers weren’t much better than nothing at all, but he was certain that if he pressed her too hard, she’d get up and leave. “Fine. Who’s Sophia Williams?”
That seemed to confuse her. “Sophia . . . Williams?”
“That’s what she called herself.”
“Can you describe her?”
“A lady in her thirties. Shorter than me, blue eyes, brown hair braided like this.” He drew a circle around his own head. “She’s got a sickness of some kind. Anemia, she said it was. And there was a ghost in her hotel room.”
Her eyes went wide. “A . . . what?”
He described it: the open window, the pressure in his ears, his certainty that something was behind him and that Miss Williams knew it too. “If it wasn’t a ghost, then I don’t know what to call it.”
“Where was this?”
“The Hotel Earle on Washington Square, yesterday evening. I think she’d just arrived. She sent a shipboard cable to your friend Ahmad, a few days ago.”
She considered this. “A ship . . . across the Atlantic?”
“I think so. The name sounded like a merchant ship’s, and they’re mostly the ones making the crossing, these days.”
She nodded. There was a strange look on her face: troubled, but also . . . hurt? Jealous? “I could hazard a guess about the nature of this ‘ghost.’ But only a guess,” she said firmly, “and I won’t say it aloud.”
“But,” he said, “whatever it is—could it be a danger to your friend?”
She frowned. “Why do you ask?”
“In the cable, Miss Williams said that she had to see him, but that you weren’t supposed to know about it. It said, Chava Levy must not know. It made me wonder why she didn’t want you around. I thought maybe she didn’t want you protecting him. And seeing as how he hasn’t left that building ever since Mr. Arbeely died . . .” He broke off at the look on her face, suddenly certain that he’d said too much. “I’m sorry,” he said, wanting to kick himself. “But it’s true. He just doesn’t come out. I think . . . I think he’s in a bad way.”
She sat there, utterly stricken. For a moment he thought she was about to cry. “Oh, Ahmad,” she whispered. She stared out at the water, then gathered herself and said, “Toby, I won’t ask how you’ve learned all of this. I won’t scold you for spying, or meddling, or being terribly indiscreet. You were right to do all of it, and it’s my own fault that you felt you needed to.” She shook her head. “I thought that if I disappeared from your life, that all of this would disappear along with me. I didn’t think . . . “She trailed off, her eyes troubled. Then she said, “As it happens, you’ve come at exactly the right time. Will you deliver a message to Ahmad for me? I need
