The Diviners (9 page)

With his left arm, he gestured to the broken-down Bowery, with its Christian missions and flophouses, fleabag hotels and tattoo parlors, restaurant-supply stores and rinky-dink manufacturers.

“ ‘Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city.’ ”

He pointed to where a couple of drunks slept on the stoop of a flophouse. “Terrible. Someone should clean up this sort of riffraff, turn them back at the borders. They’re not like you and me, Miss Bates. Clean. Good citizens. People with ambitions. Contributors to this shining city on the hill.”

Ruta hadn’t ever thought about it before, but she found herself nodding. She looked at those men with a new disgust. They
were
different from her family.
Foreign.

“Not our kind.” The stranger shook his head. “Once upon a
time, the Bowery was home to the most stupendous restaurants and theaters. The Bowery Theatre—that great American theater, which was a sock in the eye to the elitist European theaters. The great thespian J. B. Booth, father of John Wilkes Booth, trod its boards. Are you a patron of the arts, Miss Bates?”

“Yeah. I mean, yes. I am. I’m an actress.” For some reason, Ruta felt a little giddy. The streets had a pretty glow to them.

“But of course! Pretty girl such as you. There’s something quite special about you, isn’t there, Miss Bates? I can tell that you have a very important destiny to fulfill, indeed. ‘And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet and decked with gold and precious stones….’ ”

The stranger smiled. In spite of the late hour, the strangeness of the circumstances, and the aching in her legs, Ruta smiled, too. The stranger—no, he wasn’t a stranger at all, was he? He was Mr. Hobbes. Such a nice man. Such a smart man—classy, too. Mr. Hobbes thought she was special. He could see what no one else could. It was what her grandmother would call a
wróz.ba
, an omen. She wanted to cry with gratitude.

“Thank you,” she said softly.

“ ‘And upon her forehead was written a name of mystery,’ ” the stranger said, and his face was alight with a strange fire.

“You a preacher or something?”

“I’m sure you must be eager to call your family,” Mr. Hobbes said in answer. “No doubt they’ll be worried?”

Ruta thought of her family’s cramped apartment in Greenpoint and tried not to laugh. Her father would be awake next to her mother, coughing off the damp and the cigarettes and the factory dust in his lungs. Her four brothers and sisters would be crammed together in the next room, snoring. She wouldn’t be missed. And she wasn’t in a hurry to return.

“I don’t wanna wake ’em,” she said, and Mr. Hobbes smiled.

They walked a dizzying number of side streets, until Ruta felt quite lost. The Manhattan Bridge loomed in the distance like the gate to an underworld. A light drizzle fell. “Hey—hey, Mr. Hobbes, is it gonna be much farther?”

“Here we are. Your chariot awaits,” he said, and Ruta saw a broken-down wagon, the old-fashioned kind, drawn by an old nag.

“I thought you said it was nearby.”

“But you’re tired. I’ll drive us the rest of the way.”

Ruta climbed into the buggy, and its gentle swaying rhythm and the clopping of the horse rocked her to sleep. When the old buggy stopped, all she saw was a hulking ruin of an old mansion on a hill surrounded by weedy vacant lots.

Ruta shrank back. “I thought you said you had a boardinghouse. Ain’t nothing here but a wreck.”

“My dear, your eyes play tricks on you.
Look again
,” Mr. Hobbes whispered low.

He waved his arm, and this time she saw a charming block of attached row houses, warm and homey, and at the end, a fancy mansion like the kind millionaires lived in, people with names like Carnegie and Rockefeller. Why, this Mr. Hobbes fella might even be a millionaire himself! The light drizzle turned to rain. Her velvet beaded shoes with the rhinestone buckles—her prized possession, worth a week’s pay—would be ruined, so she followed the man across the street toward shelter. A black cat crossed her path, startling her, and she laughed nervously. She was getting as bad as her superstitious aunt Pela, who saw evil omens everywhere. The door screamed shut on its hinges behind her and Ruta jumped. The man smiled beneath his heavy mustache, but the smile brought little warmth to his piercing blue eyes. This thought occurred to her fleetingly, but she dismissed it as silly. She was out
of the rain, and in a minute she could sit and rest her bone-weary legs.

The place smelled wrong, though. Like damp and rot and something else she couldn’t put her finger on, but it unsettled her stomach. She put a hand to her nose.

“Alas, a poor unfortunate cat was lost in the walls. His
aroma
, I’m afraid, lingers,” Mr. Hobbes said. “But you’re cold and tired. Come sit. I’ll make a fire.”

Ruta followed the man into another room. Squinting against the dark, she could see the outline of a fireplace. She stumbled and put out a hand to steady herself. The wall felt wet and sticky against her flesh. She yanked her hand away quickly and wiped it on her dress, shuddering.

Mr. Hobbes stepped in front of the cold, blackened fireplace, and in the next moment a roaring fire appeared. Ruta tried to make sense of the sudden flames licking inside the chimney.
No
, she told herself. He had put in wood and struck a match. Of course he had. She couldn’t remember it, but that’s what must have happened. Boy, that marathon had done a number on her head.

“I-I think I oughta ring my folks after all. They’ll be pretty sore if I don’t.”

“Of course, my dear. I’ll wake my sister. But first, I promised coffee.”

Suddenly, the cup was in her hand.

“Drink. I won’t be a moment.”

With a bow and a tip of his funny hat, the big man disappeared from view. She could hear him humming, though, and she decided she didn’t like that song. It made her skin crawl for some reason. The coffee was strong and hot. It had a bitter aftertaste, but it filled her empty stomach, and Ruta drank it down. Still, it
was no match for her exhaustion. Her eyelids fluttered as she watched the fire. Heavier and heavier…

Ruta woke with a snap of her head and a chalky taste on her tongue. The fire was out. How long had she slept? Had she called her family? No. She hadn’t. Where was Mr. Hobbes? What about his sister? A rat skittered across her shoe. Ruta screamed and leaped up, noticing that she felt oddly watched, as if the room itself were alive. She could swear the walls were breathing. But that was impossible!

“Mr. Hobbes?” she called. “Mr. Hobbes!”

He didn’t answer. Where was he? Where was
she
? Why had she gone with him? She was smarter than that—running off with a complete stranger. No, he wasn’t a stranger, she reminded herself. He was Mr. Hobbes, kindly Mr. Hobbes who thought she was pretty and special. Mr. Hobbes who might be related to millionaires. Who might be her ticket to the big time.

So why did her breath catch so?

Around her, the house seemed alive with some evil. There. She’d said it.
Evil
. This word occurred to her just as she passed the lone gas lamp. Its sputtering flame cast doubt on the true nature of the walls. One minute, they were a rich golden hue. The next, Ruta stared at filthy paper peeling away from the plaster in ragged strips. Long streaks smudged across a spot illuminated beneath the lamp. She looked closer and saw dirty fingerprints. No. Not dirt. Blood. A bloody handprint. Four. Only four fingerprints. One was missing.

Ruta’s heart fluttered wildly and her legs jellied. This had been a terrible mistake. She would leave at once. Ruta turned and watched in horror as the last of the illusion crumbled and the house transformed before her eyes into a dark, rotting hole, the rot crawling up the walls to meet her. The smell hit her like a punch,
making her gag. And there were rats. Oh, god, how she hated rats. With a little cry, Ruta stumbled forward, as if she could outrun the dark coming to get her. Where was the door? It was nowhere to be found! Almost as if the house were keeping it from her. As if it wanted to keep her here.

“ ‘And upon her forehead was a name written in Mystery: Babylon the Great, the Harlot…’ ”

She couldn’t see the stranger but she could hear him, now whistling that god-awful song of his. There had to be another way out of here! A window off to her right looked promising, and she raced to it. Through the wooden slats nailed there, she could see a bum stumbling into the vacant lot across the street to take a piss.

“Hey! Hey, mister, help me! Please help me!” she shouted. When he didn’t hear her, she beat her palms against the wood. She tore at the immovable planks until her nails were bloodied, her palms crosshatched with splinters. Outside, the oblivious drunk finished his business and wandered off into the night, and Ruta sank to the filthy floor, sobbing.

When Ruta was three, her mother had locked her in a trunk so the landlord wouldn’t find out they’d had another baby and kick them out on the street. She’d sat there alone, cramped, quiet in the dark, and utterly terrified. It seemed like hours before they let her out, and ever since, any feeling of being trapped made her feel like a scared child again. Panic emptied her mind of logic. She wandered the sprawling house in desperation. Mazelike hallways funneled her into squalid rooms; doors opened onto brick walls. All around her, she heard the man’s terrible whistling. At last she spied a door she hadn’t tried. She put her hand on the knob. The floor gave way beneath her, and she plummeted down a long chute into a foul, forgotten hole of a basement. Her ankle throbbed where it had bent beneath her weight and she cried out with the
pain. She tried to take a step but it was agony, and she crashed back to the hard, cold dirt floor.

The floors above her creaked. She could hear the stranger’s distant whistling. Her mind emptied of everything but thoughts of survival. She blinked in the darkness, forcing her eyes to adjust. She had fallen quite a ways; the cellar was very deep, probably twenty feet below street level. She was sure she could scream all day and not be heard. What she needed was a weapon. She dragged herself by inches, feeling with her hand for something, anything she could use. Finally, her hand came to rest on a smooth stick. It was lightweight, but applied with enough force against an eye or a throat, it could wound. She held the stick tightly to her chest and waited. Far above her, a door clanged open, allowing the thinnest shaft of light to penetrate. She could see a staircase behind a wall, but there was no way she could manage it in her current state. The stick was her best shot. She might have to do more than wound.

Mr. Hobbes closed the door and the light vanished. She was plunged into total darkness again, just like in the trunk. Ruta struggled to keep her breathing quiet when she wanted to scream with all her might. The stranger’s footsteps drummed dully but evenly toward her, and she realized he no longer had his cane. His song echoed in the cellar. This time, he added words:
“Naughty John, Naughty John, does his work with his apron on. Cuts your throat and takes your bones, sells ’em off for a coupla stones.”

The saliva caught in the back of Ruta’s throat; she was too frightened to swallow. The old furnace flared suddenly to life, filling the room with an orange light that cast macabre shadows.

Ruta scuttled behind the gauzy ruin of a curtain hanging on a forgotten clothesline and watched through the grainy fabric. She couldn’t see Mr. Hobbes, but she could still hear him.

“ ‘… Babylon the Great, the Harlot Adorned and Cast upon the Sea, the Abomination of the Earth. And this was the fifth offering as commanded by the Lord God.’ ”

Ruta’s tongue was heavy in her mouth. Disquieting things skittered at the edges of her vision, but when she turned her head, they had vanished. Her left leg had gone numb.

“ ‘And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.’ Are you listening, Ruby?”

Ruta held fast to her stick and was silent.

The man fed something into the furnace and it flared. “ ‘And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.’ ”

The man walked the perimeter of the room as he spoke. “ ‘But the unbelieving, and the abominable, the whoremongers and idolaters shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone. For only the chosen shall rise with the Beast. And the world fall to ash.’ ”

He was on the far side of the room; she could tell by his voice. Ruta’s vision blurred and her stomach roiled. With horror, she realized she could not move her legs at all. What was happening to her? She thought back to the doused handkerchief and the coffee she’d drunk, and her heart beat wildly. What had been in them?
She looked again at the stick in her hand and saw that it was a bone. Ruta cried out and dropped it in revulsion. The curtain shot back. Mr. Hobbes loomed over her like a fiery god.

“Don’t be put off by my appearance, my dear. I am only beginning to manifest.”