Lair of Dreams (The Diviners 2)

“Gee, that’s pretty. Who wrote that?”

“I guess I did. I said light too many times, though.”

“I didn’t notice,” Theta said.

“I sent some of my poems to the Crisis today,” Memphis said, handing Theta his flask.

She took a sip, wincing as the alcohol burned her throat, then handed it back to Memphis. “What’s the Crisis?”

“Just the most important journal in Harlem. It’s edited by Mr. W.E.B. Du Bois himself. Lots of people have had their work published there—Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Zora Neale Hurston.”

“Memphis Campbell,” Theta said, grinning.

“Maybe,” Memphis said wistfully. “May… be.”

“You found anything new on that crazy eye symbol?” Theta asked.

“Nothing yet. I swear, I’ve searched every book I can find about symbols and eyes. I don’t know where it comes from, but it’s got to have an origin. Everything comes from somewhere, and somewhere is everywhere. Everything is connected, my mama used to say,” Memphis quoted, imitating the gentle rise and fall of his mother’s musical Caribbean accent. “Gonna take you back to my homeland sometime, and then you’ll know. You’ll see the thread that stretches across the ocean.”

“Did she ever take you?” Theta asked.

Memphis stopped smiling. “Naw. But she used to tell Isaiah and me all sorts of tales about Haiti’s history and all kinds of African folklore, about our family and where we’d come from and how we got here. Origin stories. I tell you, my mother had a story for everything.”

Theta hugged her knees to her chest. “You miss her?”

“Yes,” Memphis said, keeping his eyes on the shadowy hills. He drank from the flask. “Yes, I surely do.”

“You got a lot of nice stories,” Theta said softly. “I don’t have that. I don’t have an origin story. Just fuzzy memories and this one dream that’s like a memory, but I can’t really see it, not all the way.”

“Tell me what you do see, then.” Memphis offered Theta the flask again, but she shook her head.

“It’s white, like… like miles of snow. And there are funny red flowers in the snow, spreading everywhere. I hear screaming and horses whinnying and there’s smoke and then there’s nothing. I wake up.” She shrugged. “That’s the only story I got.”

“We could make our own stories,” Memphis said. “You and me.”

For a week, Memphis had been rehearsing this speech in the bathroom mirror. But now all his words failed him. So he took Theta’s hands in his, watching the light sweep across the room. “Theta…” He cleared his throat, started over. “Theta, I love you.”

Theta’s smile vanished. She didn’t answer.

“That wasn’t quite the response I was hoping for,” Memphis joked, but his stomach was as tight as piano wire.

“Gee, Poet. I just… I didn’t expect that.”

“Theta,” Memphis said, “I feel I need to warn you: In about five seconds, I’m going to tell you that I love you. There. Now you know to expect it.”

Theta still wasn’t smiling. “The last fella who told me that… it didn’t go so well.”

“Well, I’m not the last fella. I’m the right fella.”

There are things you don’t know about me, Theta wanted to say. Things that might change how you feel about me. She didn’t think she could bear that disappointment. Theta bit her lip. She ran a finger across the back of Memphis’s hand, an idea forming. “When you heal people—”

“Used to. Haven’t tried it since Isaiah.”

“Sure. But when you used to do it at the church, could you heal anything?”

“Most things, I suppose. I couldn’t help my mother,” Memphis said, and Theta gave his hand a gentle squeeze.

She looked up into Memphis’s face. “Can you take something away with your healing?”