Lair of Dreams (The Diviners 2)

“What’s all this fuss about?” Bill Johnson said, tapping into the room.

“Nothing, Mr. Johnson,” Memphis grumbled. He pointed a finger at Isaiah. The finger was a warning. “But I’m not leaving anything of mine around you anymore.”

Memphis tucked the book inside his coat.

Isaiah trudged alongside Blind Bill as they walked through St. Nicholas Park, his baseball glove under his arm, the ball cupped in his other hand, and a scowl on his face.

“Now, what you got to do next time,” Bill instructed, his blind man’s cane tapping out ahead of him on the path, “is you got to put a li’l spit in your palm—just a li’l bit, now. Not too much. That’ll make that old ball fly like it has an angel’s wings.”

Isaiah was quiet. Bill didn’t need to see the boy to know that he was angry. He could hear it in the way Isaiah kept kicking up dirt as he walked. Memphis was supposed to take his little brother to play ball, but he was so angry about Isaiah drawing in his book that he’d refused. Bill knew he was a poor substitute. Just like he knew Memphis Campbell had healed Noble Bishop and lied about it. It still made Bill furious to think about the healer using his gift on that old drunk and not doing a goddamn thing to help Bill. Seemed like he and Isaiah had something in common: They were both mad at Memphis.

“Little man!” Bill said brightly, hoping to cajole the boy out of his mood. “Why’nt you tell me one of your funny stories you got, ’bout frogs or what-have-you?”

“My mama and daddy used to tell me stories,” Isaiah said. “Memphis, too. Before he went and got a girl.”

“That so?” Bill could infer Isaiah’s shrug in the silence. “You want me to tell you a story, then? That it?”

Sniffling. Then: “Don’t care.”

“Mm-hmm. Tell you a story, tell you a story,” Bill said, nodding and thinking. “All right. There was this fella—”

“That ain’t the way you start a story!” Isaiah interrupted.

“Say, now! Who’s telling it?”

Isaiah missed stories. His mama used to tell good ones, all about a rabbit in Mr. McGregor’s garden and a warrior named François Mackandal who ran down from the hills to chase the bad men away. Sometimes, Isaiah would get the stories confused and François Mackandal would be a farmer chasing a rabbit down the hill. His daddy liked funny stories. And Memphis told the best stories of all. He missed when it was just the two of them together in the back room watching the night lights of the city climbing up the wall while they waited for sleep to come, back before all this nonsense with that girl, Theta. He missed the way it had been once upon a time. Isaiah felt like crying again. He turned it into anger at Bill for not knowing the right way to tell a proper story.

“You gotta start with ‘Once upon a time,’” Isaiah insisted.

“Well, well, well, all right, then,” Bill teased. “Once. Upon. A time. That better? You happy now? Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there was a race of proud people. Kings and queens. Like the pharaohs of old.”

“Is this a Bible story?”

“You never gonna know you keep running your mouth.”

Isaiah kept quiet.

“And the land these people lived in?” Bill continued. “It was something. Fulla magic, and the people was fulla magic. And there was lions and fruit trees and everything you could want.”

“Everything?”

“Didn’t I say everything? Everything still mean everything, don’t it?” Bill started again. “But the people of that land was betrayed. Men come and stole ’em away from their kingdom—had to put chains on ’em to keep the magic down. Then they put ’em on ships and brought ’em to a new land. A hard land where they worked all day and all night long. And they suffered. They suffered. And then, a long time later in that new land, along come a prince.”

“Like in ‘Cinderella’?”

“Naaww,” Bill said, affronted. “This fella look like you and me. Big and strong and black as night. They said he was so strong he could grab the straps of a plow with both hands and pull that old plow better’n any horse. This prince had a powerful magic. He could suck the life right outta things. Could put an old dog down if its time had come or take the boll weevil sickness off the cotton. Yes, sir. That prince was mighty powerful. And that made some folks nervous, you understand? Too. Much. Power.” Bill spat out the words on a fierce whisper. “Soon, ever’body was talking ’bout the prince and sayin’ he killed people.”

“Did he?”

“No. No, little man, he didn’t,” Bill said softly.

“What happened?”

Bill took in a deep breath. The air smelled good, like chimney smoke and sunshine on snow. “One day, some men come and they took the prince to see the king’s castle and ask him to show off that power of his. First, they brought in a chicken. Old squawking chicken, and the first thing that prince thought was, There’s dinner.”

Isaiah laughed. “I ate four drumsticks last night!”

“You got a good appetite.” Bill reached out and patted the boy’s head. Once upon a time, he might’ve had himself a son like Isaiah Campbell, a boy who liked baseball and frogs and tall tales. If things had been different.