Meridiana called mere hours before she arrived in New York City—a visit which caught Tabitha entirely off-guard, though she had known her friend long enough to be unsurprised by such spontaneous travel. “I’d love to catch up with you over tea,” she said. “How does noon look for you?”
Tabitha, who had only just retrieved her backpack and paid the monthly storage-locker fee in cash peeled off from her hoard, pressed her back against the building’s outside wall to let a tour group pass on the sidewalk. “My schedule looks clear.”
“Wonderful. Meet me at the rooftop garden at the Met—that’s my favorite. My treat, of course.”
Of course. When Tabitha arrived at the designated location—she had not even realized there was a rooftop garden at the Metropolitan Museum of Art—Meridiana was already waiting at a table, a delicate porcelain teacup in front of her and a matching pot in the center of the table. When she stood to offer a hug, Tabitha saw she wore a thirties-style dress in a soft lake blue, which was both charming in the setting and looked amazing with her fiery hair.
“Love your dress,” said Tabitha, taking the seat across from hers. “And the view up here is incredible. You can see the entire city.”
“I know. I always try to come here when I’m in town, especially when everything’s in bloom. As it is now, since it’s almost Midsummer.” She raised her eyebrows meaningfully.
“My Searcher isn’t letting me forget. Is she ever a piece of work. She tried to tell me I have to stay below Twenty-Third Street so she can more easily keep track of me.”
Meridiana, lifting her teacup, let her lip curl with derision. “She can’t do that.”
“I pointed that out. I have a couple of dreamers I’ve been visiting uptown, and I wasn’t about to abandon them just to save her the effort of doing her job.”
Meridiana looked at her warily. “Oh, not you too. These attachments to humans—”
“I’m not attached to them emotionally. I’m just doing the same thing we all do when we have to.” Her friend looked at her blankly, so Tabitha said, “Provide the dream, collect the perks. They can afford it.”
Her brows rose in understanding. “Ah. Well, mine, as you know, just happen to leave the perks sitting out on the dresser. And I have some little arrangements with their assistants about travel and whatnot. No one is surprised, come daylight.”
The server brought Tabitha a glass of ice water flavored with rosewater and sprinkled with petals. It was vaguely annoying to have her friend draw the slim distinction between Tabitha’s behavior and her own—the woman who, according to legend and rumor, had secured her place at the shadowy edge of liturgical life by engaging in an affair with Pope Sylvester II in the church’s early days. Life was undoubtedly simpler with such connections.
Tabitha leaned in a bit. “As lovely as that sounds, sometimes you just need to be a demon about it and take what you need. I know it’s unseemly, but so was what Sam had to do during the Depression to keep clothes on our backs. And then, he was selling it outright.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that. I can’t imagine you think there is.”
“Of course not. I only meant that Sam isn’t attracted to men, but that was the available market. He didn’t enjoy the work.”
“I’ll bet he managed. The incubi tend to like that more than they let on. In any case, it’s an honest exchange.” Meridiana’s gaze wandered casually along the rooftop’s perimeter, and Tabitha knew that, even now, she was evaluating who she might visit later. “Not to moralize to you, Tabitha, but you must understand that there’s a difference between a negotiated payment for services and, for lack of a better word, pickpocketing. The latter risks raising suspicion. Especially these days, when these humans might find each other on some dreadful internet forum and start drawing connections between pleasurable dreams and the cash disappearing from their wallets. Even for a demon, it’s outside your scope of work.”
Tabitha shrugged. “It’s temporary. I can’t feel but so guilty about it under the circumstances, when I can’t get a real job or settle into a place while I’m trying to get this resolved. The justice court was ridiculous. It’s such a farce to act like I brought down the end of the world by making that one suggestion to a dreamer I knew would handle it very reasonably.” She sipped her rosewater; the flavor was sublime. “I still miss that dreamer. Cameron was a good guy, and oh, my God, his body.”
Now they were back in territory that was more comfortable for Meridiana. She smiled indulgently across the table. “Your man is no small shakes, himself. When I saw him at Isaac and Susanna’s, I hope you don’t mind, but I had to fondle him a bit. I stayed north of the belt, I assure you, but that ass of his—have I brought this up before?”
“Once or twice.”
She rolled her eyes heavenward. “No words. In any case, when I spoke to him, he brought up an interesting argument that I wanted you to have in your pocket before you speak to the Leaders at Midsummer. He pointed out that when a demon visits a person, we must announce our presence. The person must be given the opportunity to summon or dismiss us. We can’t just lurk, as your Searcher did.”
Tabitha frowned thoughtfully. “That’s true. Though the Searcher didn’t act upon Cameron. She was there to make trouble for me.”
“That’s just the point. She’s a succubus, not some other type of demon like a familiar or a dealmaker. There was only one valid reason for her to be in that apartment, and that was to give Cameron a lovely dream. Did you slip under his door, or did you knock?”
“I slipped under.”
“Then she had every reason to assume you were there to do your job, and she shouldn’t have followed you in. If she wanted to act in her role as an enforcer, she still shouldn’t have crossed the dreamer’s threshold once you’d already done so properly. Completely out of bounds. I mean, if that’s how we’re doing things now, why not bring in a whole host of new succubi to watch, while she’s at it? It can be like med school, with the class of interns gathering around the bedside of an unusual case.”
Tabitha, who had been drinking her water, struggled not to laugh as she swallowed. “Some dreamers would enjoy that quite a bit.”
“No doubt they would. But rules are rules, and Sam is right. This whole case should have been thrown out.”
“Well, you can come along with me on Midsummer and act as my lawyer. The bottom line is, this is really about what Sam did, and they won’t be satisfied until he’s thoroughly punished or they’re placated. If I try to wriggle out of it, they’ll just go after him in some terrible way.”
“All too true.” Meridiana poured herself a second cup of tea, and a breeze fluttered through her curls. “I don’t know what to tell you there, except that I’m trying to help him stay mindful of who he is and not to despair so much that he does anything too stupid. Because he does seem quite despairing at times.”
Hearing this from Meridiana, who was not given to any special pity over emotions, troubled her. “I’ve been worried about that. It’s seemed like—well, his girlfriend has quite the Instagram profile. It gives the impression that he’s holding up pretty well.”
Meridiana gave her a sharp look. “Let me see it.”
“It’s—all right, here you go.” Tabitha pulled it up on her phone and handed it to her friend. “You’ll see what I mean. It’s all food and snuggles and endless fun. I’m not sulking about it or anything. I know he loves me. But he seems to be taking things in stride.”
Meridiana scrolled through the photos, her face growing more disapproving by the moment. “Oh, Sam.”
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“It’s good, in a way. It keeps me from worrying overly much.”
“It’s ostentatious. Why do humans feel the need to create these elaborate advertising campaigns for their relationships?” She turned the phone around and flashed a picture to Tabitha, punctuating it with an irritable squint. “Really?”
“I know it’s—hey, let me see that.” She took back her phone and looked at the photo—the most recent one, a nighttime shot, showing Amy nestled back against Sam as they straddled an O-shaped swing that glowed with an inner purple light, like an otherworldly moon. “That’s the Lawn on D.”
“The what?”
“These swings. They’re at a public park on D Street in Boston.” She read the caption at the bottom: A little fun before work calls tomorrow! #LawnOnD #irishboys #fiveregionsfoodtour #tothemoonandback. “What are they doing in Boston?”
“Taking their absurd little show on the road, apparently,” offered Meridiana. “The only thing that isn’t a joke about that picture is his thigh muscle in those jeans.”
“Oh, stop.”
“I’m serious, Tabitha.” She gave the phone a final disdainful look and picked up her teacup again. “Please don’t take all the rainbows and unicorns there at face value. To be entirely honest with you, I would describe Sam’s mood, politely, as bleak. I’m not trying to frighten you. But I do care about that guy, and not just because he’s so pretty, at least from the neck down. It might be worth taking your case back to the Leaders next month to see if you can get perhaps a little reprieve. A lighter sentence on appeal, perhaps. Or conjugal visits.”
Tabitha snickered. “Wouldn’t that be nice. I’m pretty sure that defeats the purpose.”
“In the meantime, there’s a team effort to keep his spirits up. I mean authentically up.” She swiped a hand in the direction of the phone. “Not . . . this.”
With a thankful smile, Tabitha acknowledged the gesture. But despite her friend’s reassurances, and the beauty of the setting in which she found herself, and the sight of the silver skyline that normally made her feel a sense of possibility and hope—in spite of all of this, she felt the return of that creeping sense of dread. She was doing all she could, and no one could judge that it was anything less. But what if it was not enough?
~ * ~
In the afternoon, once she and Meridiana had parted ways, she returned to Amy’s profile and looked at her recent posts in more detail. A couple of weeks earlier she had been in Los Angeles; Tabitha scrolled back to the pictures of palm trees and tacos and margaritas with her friends, but no Sam. Those bore the same hashtag about a food tour, and a click on the tag revealed that this was some sort of promotional event in which small businesses from around the country gathered in various cities to offer their selections to a larger audience. Cascade Mocha Crafters didn’t seem to be making it to every stop, but they were certainly in Boston now.
Despite Meridiana’s dismissiveness toward the relationship, the photo of the two of them on the swings got to Tabitha in a way none of the others had. Boston was their place—hers and Sam’s. They had walked the cobblestone streets of Beacon Hill together when the city was still lit by gaslight, and in the evening its sounds were the paperboys’ cries and the clop of horses’ hooves and the Irish country music starting up in the taverns, fiddle and flute and bodhran. In the 1960s they had lounged on the great grassy stretches of the Common, Tabitha in her short dresses and Sam in grubby jeans and band shirts with his old guitar resting on his thigh, and sang the folk songs of the day—for the little bit of money it brought them, but just as much for the pleasure of making music together. They had talked about visiting the Lawn on D, but never got around to it. Tabitha didn’t appreciate Amy picking up where she had left off.
While she was stalking her way through Instagram, an email came in from the genealogy contact for Johnny Poole. The message was a welcome distraction, and she read it right away.
Dear Ms. Duncan,
Greetings and salutations, and thank you for getting in touch. Johnny Poole was my great-grandfather’s half-brother, and all I have for him are the birth/death dates you saw on the Hart Island site (1843–1862). I have a good deal more about my great-grandfather, Frank McNamara (not Poole), a Union soldier who fought with the 119th Infantry Regiment at Gettysburg. He’s a real Horatio Alger story—grew up in poverty (with Johnny and three other brothers), fought in the war, then returned to New York and got involved in the construction business, which made him quite wealthy. If only his sons had invested half as well . . . but regardless, I’ve attached what I have for him. Maybe it will shed some light on Johnny’s background.
Yours sincerely,
Ray McNamara
The attachments included a family tree, a will, and a Civil War record—all well and good, except that they didn’t relate directly to Johnny. She had been hoping for some sort of account of the fatal crime—a police report, a yet-unseen news item, even a sensationalistic witness account of the fight, as unlikely as such a thing was. It was all rather maddening to find so little. But then, perhaps it was a blessing in disguise not to spend time chasing down more information about someone who had ultimately lost the fight anyway.
With the long afternoon still ahead, she picked up a swimsuit and a change of clothes from the small stash in her locker, locked up her backpack, and walked over to the public pool at the recreational center that overlooked the East River. During the day the lap lanes were not too crowded, and she could take a shower, which was not strictly necessary for her but more refreshing than the self-cleaning cycle of elemental shifts. Showering at the public pool was one of the tricks of zero-rent city living that she had picked up over the generations, and it worked as well in Manhattan as it had in Lowell or Portland.
Her swimsuit was a simple blue one-piece designed more for competition than for looks. She bound up her hair into a ponytail and hopped into the water, then ducked under and began to swim. The cool blue world beneath the water, silent and calming, felt like home to her; it was no wonder she had retreated into it at that crucial moment so long ago, when given the choice between water and sky. Prior to that day, nothing in her life had hinted that she was anything less than a model Puritan girl. The accusations of her peers—of sickening them, haunting their dreams, controlling them from afar—had utterly bewildered her, but in retrospect, she should have seen it coming. She was a mama’s girl, introverted and bookish, far more inclined to sit under a tree with a cat and a book of poems than to gossip with the other girls her age. She was also pretty, and had attracted the awkward romantic attentions of one of the better-looking boys in town, although she did nothing to encourage it. Until the day she was accused, it had never occurred to her how toxic a combination that had been. Once the witchcraft hysteria that had infected the countryside reached Andover, the other girls were only too happy to be rid of her.
Still, she would have assumed that her virtuous life would provide a straight path to heaven. It wasn’t her deeds that had damned her to the earth, but something within her, some nascent impurity she had been too innocent then even to understand. Somehow, over all those years when she was collecting eggs and helping her mother deliver babies and sitting on a hard bench to listen to the Sunday preaching, her soul was forming itself into something that would flee in terror from an angel’s light. But once it did, and she had no choice but to operate beneath all virtue, she found that she liked the work just fine.
At the end of the lane, she stopped and hiked her arms onto the edge, resting her chin on her hands. She took a cleansing breath of cool air.
A swimmer coming in through the locker room door caught her eye—a woman she saw here regularly, wearing a black bikini that showed off her flawless figure and her dark hair twisted up in a bun. Looking at her now, however, Tabitha realized with surprise that she was the same woman who had spoken to her on the night of the fire in SoHo. Before she could climb in, Tabitha scanned a practiced gaze over her body in an effort to figure out how old she was, in succubus terms. The Mara body, rebuilt from the soul’s perception of itself, always came out an idealized version of the human original: its perceived flaws corrected, its impairments healed, its visible age aligned with its owner’s idea of his or her prime. Tabitha, having been trained from birth to guard herself against vanity, had reemerged only modestly prettier, with darker hair and slightly larger breasts than she’d had originally; Sam, who had always been indifferent to his appearance, claimed he looked exactly the same except for the part of him that had long been of disproportionate importance to him. But one could often guess what era a succubus had emerged from by the nuances of her figure: wasp-waisted, or boyish, or voluptuous, according to the feminine ideal of her day. Those most recently made tended to be either unnervingly thin, a trend which Meridiana especially liked to rant about, or curvy in the extreme.
This woman’s proportions were similar to Tabitha’s. It was a safe bet that she was old—or pre-Victorian, in any case.
She crouched down and got into the next lane over. The opportunity was far too good to pass up. “Hi,” Tabitha said. “I saw you the other week. At the fire.”
“Yeah, I remember you.”
“So sad, what happened to that guy.” Tabitha had read about him in the news the following day—a young drug addict, probably too doped-up to even realize what had been happening around him.
The woman tucked a loose piece of hair behind her ear. “Yeah. Crappy deal.”
“I’m Michelle, by the way.” She reached over the lane divider to offer her hand. The woman’s cool demeanor made her doubt herself, causing her to retreat to the false name out of habit. Perhaps the woman was human after all, and it was merely a coincidence that she had used one of the signal phrases.
She shook her hand briefly. “Julie.”
“Are you from here?”
“Manhattan, 1799.”
The answer, phrased in the conventional Mara way, made Tabitha grin. “Massachusetts, 1692.”
Julie ducked down until her chin touched the water. “Damn, you’re old.”
Tabitha laughed. “Thanks.”
Julie submerged her head, then popped back up. “Good to meet you.”
“You, too. Suppose we’ll see each other around.”
“Yep,” said Julie, and she dove under the water, swimming away so quickly that only a long silver ripple suggested she had been there at all.