Adelaide Proctor fished a nitroglycerin tablet from her pillbox, placed it beneath her tongue, and waited for her angina pains to subside. It had been a nightmare that had brought on this spasm—something about an old hand-cranked music box that played a song that had been popular when Adelaide was young. The song’s beauty had stirred her longing, promising her everything she’d ever wanted if only she’d follow it deeper and deeper into dreams. Adelaide sensed it calling out to other sleepers, too, like a radio transmission from a far-off station late at night. But then the dream shifted, the song was lost, and she saw Elijah standing silently on the edge of the cornfield, his face painted in deep moon-shadow. “Addie,” he’d whispered, beckoning, and her heart began to gallop wildly, a riderless horse, until she woke with a start.
The tablet worked quickly on the tightness in her chest. Once her heartbeat slowed to a steadier rhythm, she forced herself from her bed and staggered to her own music box, atop a small oak cabinet tucked into a corner of the room. When she lifted the box’s lid, its tiny Moulin Rouge dancer figurine jerked into motion. With two fingers, Adelaide silenced the dancer’s song before it could wake her sister, Lillian. Inside lay a flannel jewelry bag housing a small iron case with the initials EJH. Adelaide opened the case and examined its contents—a lock of dark-gold hair, a tooth, a sliver of finger bone, and a tintype of a young man in a gray uniform. Seeing that everything was secure, she placed the iron case back in its bag and closed it away, locking the doors of the cabinet once more.
Next she gathered a shallow bowl, matches, a candle in its brass holder, a roll of bandaging, bundled sage, and a small crooked silver dagger. These she added to her handbag. She emptied the salt can into each pocket of her robe, grabbed the handbag, and, with the burden of salt weighing her down, shuffled down the hall to wait for the elevator.
The elevator operator rode Miss Adelaide all the way to the very depths of the Bennington without a word; he’d only been there two weeks and had already learned not to question the Proctor sisters. While the lift rumbled down, Miss Addie chanted softly to herself, “The land is old, the land is vast / He has no future, he has no past / His coat is sown with many woes / He’ll wake the dead, the King of Crows.”
The elevator gates clanged open on the Bennington’s underworld. The young man at the elevator’s controls peered into the darkness. “Shall I wait for you, Miss Proctor?” he asked uncertainly.
“It’s quite all right, dear. I’ll ring you shortly. Run along now.”
Shaking his head, the young man closed the gate and the elevator groaned back up, leaving Addie alone in the dim basement. Immediately, she took out the candle and lit the wick, waiting for the glow to brighten the gloom. She fed one end of the bundled sage into the flame and waved it through the air, spreading out in wider circles. Next she wiggled up the sleeves of her robe and nightgown. The paper-thin skin of her wrist glowed nearly blue in the dim light from the narrow street-level windows that ran along the park side. Speaking ancient words, she slid the small knife across her thumb, hissing as she dripped blood into the bowl. She pressed her bloody thumb to the basement’s eastern corner before marking the room’s three other corners. This done, she bandaged her finger, then scooped salt from her pockets, sprinkling frost-thin lines along the windowsills, where she hoped the janitor wouldn’t find them. Night pleaded at the windows to be let in. Addie snuffed the candle, gathered her things, and pressed the elevator’s call button, watching the golden arrow tick down the floors to the bottom.
When the doors opened, the elevator operator helped Addie onto the lift. “You smell smoke, Miss Proctor?” he asked, alarmed.
“It’s only sage. I smudged the basement, you see.”
“Beg your pardon, Miss Proctor?”
“I lit a bundle of sage and smoked the room.”
Curiosity and suspicion proved too much for the young man at the controls. “Now, Miss Proctor, why’d you want to go and do a thing like that?”
“For protection,” Addie said, resolute.
“Protection from what, ma’am?”
“Bad dreams.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Proctor. I don’t follow.”
Miss Adelaide whispered urgently, “I’m keeping out the dead, my dear. For as long as I can.”
The elevator operator kept his thoughts to himself, though he’d be sure to mention this to the building management before his shift ended. No doubt they wouldn’t want the old woman burning down the whole building. With a small shaking of his head, he yanked the gate shut and turned again to the controls, and the gilded doors closed on the dark of the basement.
“Good morning, good morning!” Evie called as she flounced down the halls of WGI wearing a broad smile that masked the hangover from the previous night’s party. As promised, Evie had popped out of the cake at midnight. As expected, she’d popped right into a boozy party that went until well into the wee hours. She’d kill for another few hours of sleep. In the hallway, the day’s hopefuls clamored to be put on the air. Every morning, there was a line of new talent looking to make a name on the radio.
“I can sing just like Caruso,” one fellow explained before launching into an aria so loud Evie was fairly certain it could be heard out in Queens.
“What about me?” another man with a nasal voice piped up. “I can do fourteen different bird whistles!”
“Oh, please don’t,” Evie muttered, rubbing her temples.
As Evie dropped off her cloche and coat with the coat-check girl, another of Mr. Phillips’s many secretaries, Helen, hurried toward her. “Miss O’Neill! I’ve been looking for you. Mr. Phillips would like to speak with you. Immediately.”
Evie’s gut roiled as Helen ushered her into Mr. Phillips’s private office, an enormous corner room of gleaming cherrywood walls on the tenth floor with a view of Midtown Manhattan. A gold-framed oil painting of a godlike Guglielmo Marconi inventing the wireless took up an entire wall. His painted expression gave no hint as to Evie’s fate.
“Wait here. He’ll be in shortly,” Helen said and closed the door.
Was Mr. Phillips firing her? Had she done something wrong? By the time she heard Mr. Phillips’s patrician voice telling his secretary to “hold all calls,” she was so anxious she could’ve climbed the pretty walls.
Mr. Phillips swept into the room with the sort of calm confidence that had helped him make a fortune in the stock market. His suits were tailored in London, and he had an apartment in the city and a house out on Long Island where he hosted legendary parties attended by film and radio stars. But radio was his one true obsession, and WGI was his baby. Talent that Mr. Phillips didn’t like had been fired mid-show: An emcee or act would be ushered out of the studio during a musical number and immediately replaced with a new act.
“Good morning, Miss O’Neill,” he said now, taking the seat opposite her. The sun glinted off his silvery hair. “You’re front-page news today, it seems.”
He slid a stack of newspapers toward her. The Daily News. The Herald. The Star. Every one of them carried a station-approved glamour shot of Evie, along with a screaming headline: