The pipe below him buckled. The world turned gray.
The jinniyeh hung in tatters.
She drifted upward, trying to focus. Every part of her shrieked in pain. The forge below her was a dark pool of ash—but the pipe had been twisted shut. A thin stream of water ran from its bent lip.
The iron-bound jinni lay on the floor below it.
She dropped to his side, keening in horror. Was he alive? This was all her fault, she hadn’t meant to—oh, it had all gone so terribly wrong—
She jumped at a sound nearby: a fist, knocking upon a door. “Hello?” a voice called. “Mister Ahm—Uh, Mister al-Hadid?”
She looked to her lover, then flew to the door and took form, nearly screaming with the pain of it. She turned the lock with shaking fingers, twisted the knob and pulled.
On the other side of the door was a boy—a man?—who wore a cap with a shining metal badge. He stood staring at her, his mouth open in shock.
“Help him,” she pleaded, and vanished into the air.
* * *
It wasn’t long before the entire Asylum knew the story of Kreindel Altschul and her bicycle messenger.
The tale greeted the children as they returned from their adventures, group by reluctant group. They traded it back and forth in the dormitories along with the contraband they’d gathered: chocolates and chewing gum, tobacco cards, pairs of dice, stolen oranges. With each retelling the tale grew more impressive and elaborate, until Toby had fought off a dozen Irishmen single-handed, and Kreindel had pledged her eternal love to him at the Amsterdam gate.
The girls of Dormitory 2, Room 3 talked of nothing else; all swore, with deep solemnity, that they’d marry a Western Union boy someday. They were clustered together in their room, in the midst of a dramatic reenactment, when the door opened and Rachel Winkelman strode in. She smiled into the silence, and held up a shining quarter.
“Who wants to earn this?” she said.
* * *
Charlotte Levy walked along Twelfth Avenue beneath the Riverside Drive Viaduct, listening to the thrum of tires on the pavement above. She hadn’t been able to face returning to her apartment, not after watching Toby ride away with her message in his pocket. She needed to walk, to think.
Toby Blumberg. Older, taller, stubble upon his chin, his thoughts full of everything she’d tried to leave behind. And Kreindel! Her image shining in his mind: a small, dark-haired girl, walking beside his bicycle. Would Yossele have attacked those boys, if Toby hadn’t intervened? How many lives might Toby have saved that morning, without even realizing it?
The Viaduct ended at 129th, the roadway merging into the park above her. A drift of decaying leaves lay at the base of the embankment, left over from the autumn. On impulse she took off her gloves and scooped a few damp handfuls into her coat pockets, then climbed the steps that curved around the hill, past Grant’s Tomb and the Claremont Inn and into the park itself.
The river to her right was a flow of silver, seen in glimpses. The park turned from lawn to trees: maples and elms, cherries, maidenhairs, their leaves still young and freshly green. She walked among them, staring up into their canopies, then reached out a hand to one of them, marveling at its rough bark. Charlotte Levy had never once allowed herself to do this. She’d made a new life for herself, but it had been a rootless, undernourished thing, and now she could feel it withering away again. She wondered what she’d be left with, when it was gone.
She crouched down at the base of the tree, emptied the mulch from her pockets, and worked it into the soil with her fingers. A girl on the path stopped to watch her quizzically. She smiled at the girl, then stood and brushed the dirt from her hands. She would have to go back to the basement, she realized; there was still the matter of Monday’s inspection. She couldn’t simply hope that the headmistress would fail to notice its hidden inhabitant. If she could rearrange the room, she might disguise the alcove entirely. Perhaps that would gain them all enough time to arrive at a better solution, once her message reached its destination.
Chava Levy must not know. Was her guess about the “ghost” correct? She had no right at all to the jealousy that had filled her at the thought; no right, either, to ask for his help, after everything that had happened. But she feared that she’d never be able to open the locket herself, not for Yossele. She’d hesitate, make excuses, forgive him for everything that she would abhor in herself. The locket was useless to her—she needed the man who’d made it.
* * *
It was just a dream, Julia Winston thought.
Despite the headache that had dogged her since the morning, she was in her study, attempting the usual motions of a Saturday afternoon: a review of the household ledgers, as well as correspondence with those distant family members who wrote her dutifully in hopes of an eventual bequeathment. Make-work, all of it, designed to fill her superfluous hours, her superfluous life.
With each scratch of her pen the headache grew worse. She longed to lie down, but the thought of returning to her dream of the night before was too dreadful to contemplate. The dream had accompanied her through the day, with its image of the woman bending over Sophia like some vampiric spirit, ready to drain the life from her veins.
It was just a dream, she told herself again. It wasn’t real, for God’s sake.
A knock came at the door; a maid appeared, bearing an envelope. “This just arrived, ma’am. They said it was urgent, but didn’t wait for an answer.”
She took it, and read:
Dear Mrs. Winston:
My apologies for writing to you in such a fashion. The manager of the Hotel Earle on Waverly Place tells me that one of his guests is using your
