Damp wind gusted against Mabel as she hurried along Central Park West ahead of the rain. She kept one hand on her hat and the other on her nervous stomach as she practiced what she’d say when she knocked at the museum.

“Good afternoon, Jericho! I was just passing by.”

“Oh, Jericho, are you hungry? There’s a swell diner down on Broadway.”

“Jericho! Fancy meeting you here. At the museum. Where you work. Every. Day.”

Mabel growled. She was lousy at this sort of coy game-playing. If only she could say what she really wanted to say, flat out.

“Kiss me, you fool!” Mabel exclaimed, lifting her arms skyward. A passing postman tipped his hat and gave her a hopeful smile, and a horrified Mabel shoved her hands deep into her coat and marched up the sidewalk, muttering to herself the whole way.

As Mabel approached the museum, she slowed, noticing the two men in the brown sedan. A life on the front lines of the labor movement had trained Mabel to keep alert for oddities, and something about these men seemed off. They were just sitting, watching the museum. Well, they weren’t the only ones who knew how to watch. Mabel stopped beside the driver’s-side window and tapped gently on the glass.

The driver rolled down the window, scowling just slightly before correcting his expression with a smile. “Yes, Miss?”

Mabel smiled. “I beg your pardon. Could you tell me the time, please?” She made sure to get a good look at the two of them, as her parents had taught her: Gray suits. Dark hats. Curious matching lapel pins—an eye with a lightning bolt.

“It’s just past one, Miss.”

“Thank you very much,” Mabel said and crossed the street, letting herself into the museum. “Steady, Mabel,” she whispered before pasting on a smile and blowing into the museum’s grand library with a cheery, “Hello! Anybody home? Jericho?” She dropped her coat and hat on the outstretched paw of the giant stuffed bear.

Jericho’s blond head poked up from behind the stacks of dusty boxes cluttering the top of the long library table. “Mabel. What brings you here?”

Mabel’s throat felt tight. On the front lines, she had faced hostile union-breakers, men with guns. Why was talking to this one boy so terrifying? “I was just hungry and passing by. Oh! Not that I thought you’d have food here,” she said, wincing at her bungle. Quickly, she gestured to the table. “Gee, it’s like something vomited paper in here.”

Jericho raised an eyebrow. “That’s certainly descriptive.”

Strike two. “Sorry,” Mabel said. “What is all of this?”

“Will’s notes from his paranormal-researcher days. We found them in the cellar. I’ve been going through them for the past hour. Did you know there’s mention of Diviners since the dawn of this country?”

Jericho paused, and Mabel wanted to respond with something clever. But being this close to Jericho made her antsy. “Huh-uh.”

“John Smith writes about a Powhatan brave—a healer and mystic—who visited Jamestown. A Diviner servant in George Washington’s household had a vision that helped Washington narrowly avoid capture by the British. And there’s evidence that a few of the witches at Salem were actually Diviners. But this is when it gets really interesting.”

Jericho jumped up from the table. From behind a bookcase, he rolled out a large chalkboard. Mabel could just make out the faint remaining chalk lines of Evie’s notes from the Pentacle Murders investigation. Quickly, Jericho swiped the eraser across the surface, eradicating the last traces of her presence from the museum. He wrote the date September 1901 on the chalkboard.

“All right. I’ll bite,” Mabel prompted. “What happens in September 1901?”

“The assassination of President McKinley?” Jericho chalked McKinley beside 1901.

Mabel blushed. “Oh. Oh, of course.”

“It seems that in August 1901, a Diviner, a former slave named Moses Freedman, tried to warn the president about a possible attempt on his life. But no one believed him. In fact, he was taken into custody under suspicion of being an anarchist agitator, and was questioned for months following McKinley’s assassination. They held him for nearly a year without charging him.”

“But that’s illegal!” Mabel protested. “What about habeas corpus?”

“Suspended, under the constitutional provision stating that a person can be held without charge if the public safety might require it.”

“That’s a slippery slope toward fascism,” Mabel grumbled.

“I’m sure Moses Freedman would have agreed with you.”

“What happened to him?”

“In early July 1902,” Jericho said, adding that date to the board, “he has a vision about a possible mine explosion in Johnstown, Pennsylvania—another warning that goes unheeded—”

“The Rolling Mill Mine Disaster. It was one of the worst mining disasters in American history. It killed more than one hundred men,” Mabel blurted.

Jericho raised an eyebrow. “Impressive.”

Mabel shrugged away the compliment. “If your parents were union organizers, you’d know these things, too. Some girls are raised on fairy tales; I was raised on mining disasters.”

“You had a very interesting childhood.” Jericho gave a little half smile, and Mabel felt it deep down.

“So,” she said, clearing her throat. “Rolling Mill?”

“Right. Rolling Mill. After that, President Roosevelt sits down with Moses Freedman and determines that he’s telling the truth. And that gives him an idea. In 1904”—again, Jericho scribbled with his chalk—“the president creates the U.S. Department of Paranormal to explore the fantastical world. He wants to find and use Diviners to work in the interest of national security. After all, if you’ve got someone whose supernatural abilities can help them see disaster or danger coming, why not use them?”

“So where does Dr. Fitzgerald fit into all of this?”

Jericho wiped his hands against his trousers, leaving chalk-dust finger streaks. “He was recruited for the U.S. Department of Paranormal. He traveled the country seeking out Diviners, testing them, hearing their stories, and registering them for the government.”

Mabel whistled. “You’re right. That really would perk up the Diviners exhibit. But won’t Dr. Fitzgerald be angry that we’re using his private letters and research from that time?”

“Then he shouldn’t have left it to us to save his museum,” Jericho said bitterly. “We’ll only use the letters about Diviners.”

“How long did you say you have to put this exhibit together?”

“Ten days.”

Mabel shook her head. “That won’t be easy.” It seemed impossible, in fact. Unless… “Would you like some help?”

Jericho’s eyes widened. “Are you volunteering?”

“Reporting for duty.”

He gave her another half smile. “That would be swell. Thanks.”

“Well, then,” Mabel said, feeling on solid ground for the first time. “Let’s get to work.”

Mabel riffled through one of the files, pulling out a photograph of five people posed in front of an overgrown crepe myrtle. “Is that… Dr. Fitzgerald?”

Jericho nodded.

“He looks so young. Oh, not that he’s old now! He just looks… not quite so worried as he usually does.”

A handsome, dark-haired man with a bold smile stood beside Will, one arm thrown across Will’s shoulder as if they were brothers.

Mabel gasped. “Is that who I think it is?”

“Jake Marlowe. He and Will were friends. Once,” Jericho said.

Mabel felt it would be impolite to press Jericho on that point, so she left it alone. Jericho hoisted a strange, dusty contraption from a crate. It was a small wooden box, roughly the size of a cracker tin. A hand crank stuck out from its right side, and in its center was a long glass tube with a pencil-thin, two-pronged filament inside. Just below the filament was a numbered meter that counted in tens from zero to eighty.

Jericho dropped the odd device onto the table. He and Mabel cocked their heads in unison. Mabel tried the rusty crank. It squeaked its displeasure. “I give up. What on earth is that?”

“Not sure yet. I’m hoping one of these letters will give us some clue. Here. You take this crate and I’ll take that one. Put aside anything that has to do with Diviners.”

For the better part of an hour, Jericho and Mabel sorted through and made stacks of what seemed promising. Plenty of it was just junk—books gone to pulp, water-damaged photographs, a shopping list or postcard with a banal inscription: The flowers are in bloom. Lovely. Jericho turned his attention toward a small cache of letters nestled deep inside his crate. Every single one was addressed to Cornelius from Will. There were none from Cornelius back to Will. Jericho pulled the first letter from its envelope.

Hopeful Harbor, New York

February 11, 1906

Dear Cornelius,

Jake is most intrigued by the discovery that these Diviners seem to emit much greater radiation than the average person, similar to the ghost readings we’ve gotten, and that Diviners have the capacity to disrupt electromagnetic fields. He speculates that these properties could be applied toward any number of advances, from medicine to industry to our nation’s defense. Dear Cornelius, believe me when I tell you that these discoveries are as exciting to our merry band of explorers as the sighting of this verdant land must have been to the earliest travelers to these shores. We stand on the precipice of a new world, a new America, and I am certain that Diviners are the key to her extraordinary future.

Fondly,

Will

At the bottom of the page, Will had drawn a sketch of an eye-and-lightning-bolt symbol.

“Hey! I think I may have found the name of our mysterious machine!” Mabel said, waving a piece of aged paper. “It’s called the Metaphysickometer.”

“That’s a mouthful,” Jericho said, coming to stand beside Mabel and read over her shoulder.

“Yes. Um. It is. Uh… anyway. Will refers to it in this letter,” Mabel said.

New Orleans, Louisiana

February 23, 1906

Dear Cornelius,

This evening, I attended a ritual led by Mama Thibault, sixty-two years of age, born in Haiti, now resident priestess of a voudon shop on Dumaine Street. Locals come to her for help with any number of complaints, from physical ailments to spells for true love or the lifting of imagined curses. A hospitable woman with twelve grandchildren to her name, all of whom dote upon her, Mama Thibault said she’d been able to speak to the dead since the age of twelve. “The dead do not frighten me. Takes the living to do that,” she claimed. After consulting with the lwas, and extracting a fee of five cents for her services, she allowed us to test Jake’s Metaphysickometer during her ritual. As she slipped into her spiritual trance, the needle jumped to forty, then fifty, indicating the increased electromagnetic activity we’ve come to associate with the presence of ghosts. Interestingly, Mama Thibault herself seemed also to vibrate at a slightly higher frequency, interfering with the operating of much of our machinery. Jake was baffled but intrigued by this finding. Margaret and Rotke have gathered samples.

I hope you are well. Spring shall come soon enough.

Fondly,

Will

Mabel patted the strange box of wires and gears and needles. “Well, hello there, Metaphysickometer! Pleased to meet you. Gee, an early Jake Marlowe invention! Might be valuable. I wonder why he never touts this one like he does everything else?”

“He doesn’t like to talk about his failures,” Jericho said, stepping over to examine the machine.

Mabel’s brows came together in a V. “You don’t like him much, do you?”

“I admire what he’s accomplished. I respect his achievements. But he’s not a man who thinks about the cost of those achievements.” Jericho paused. “Or so I’ve heard.”

“Sure would be great if we could include a demonstration of this beauty in the exhibit. I wonder how you make it work.”

“Will’s letter said it measures some sort of ghostly electromagnetic radiation. So I suppose if there are no Diviners and no ghosts, you get a quiet machine.”

“Suppose. Of course, it’s been living in the cellar all these years. It might not work at all,” Mabel said, thumping the glass. The needle didn’t budge. “Oh! I found some photographs, too. Here. This one is of Mama Thibault. Let’s put her picture with her letter. Perhaps we can find other pictures and pair them all up. Did you find anything useful?”

“Um… here. This one was promising,” Jericho said, grabbing a letter from a stack he’d put aside.

St. Eloysius, Louisiana

June 21, 1906

Dear Cornelius,

I do not know whether or not the fires of hell actually exist, but I can tell you that, if so, the cotton fields of Louisiana on a hot summer’s day are good practice for those torments.

“Ha!” Mabel said. “The professor has a sense of humor. Or he did once. Sorry. Go on.”

Today we met with a young sharecropper, Guillaume “Big Bill” Johnson, who has the extraordinary ability to hasten a peaceful death for ailing animals. While we watched, he entwined his fingers in the mane of a horse with a broken leg. “Shhh, now. Don’t fuss, Clara. Be over soon,” he murmured sweetly. The horse trembled mightily for a count of three, and then she slipped into death as if going to sleep. The effort took the wind out of young Guillaume, too. Though barely nineteen, he stands well over six feet and possesses an intimidating strength but a gentle nature. He seemed rather enamored of Margaret and consented to a sample.

I do hope New York’s stifling heat hasn’t inconvenienced you much.

Fondly,

Will

“Guillaume Johnson… Hmm. No picture of Mr. Johnson, I’m afraid. I’ll keep looking. What are these samples he keeps referring to?” Mabel asked, leaning back in her chair by the fire. “It’s mentioned in quite a few of Dr. Fitzgerald’s letters.”

“I noticed that, too,” Jericho said, sitting across from her. “Hopefully one of the other letters will make it clear.”

Mabel glanced at Jericho shyly. It made him nervous, like he was supposed to do something, but he had no idea what that was.

“Right. Back to it. I’ll be upstairs if you need me,” he said, carrying his crate up the spiral staircase to the second-floor balcony. From behind the stacks, Jericho watched Mabel at work. Her blue dress was smudged with dust, but she hadn’t made a fuss about it. Of course she wouldn’t. Mabel Rebecca Rose was too solid for that. Her only crime was being sweet on him. Why couldn’t he return her affections in the same way? She was certainly smart and clever. How many girls knew about mining disasters and labor strikes?

The bedeviling thing about Mabel was that she always seemed to do what other people expected of her. She was the very definition of a perfectly decent girl—earnest and helpful, with an unshakable faith in her constructed belief that people were, at heart, good. Jericho wasn’t sure he shared that sentiment.

Since the night Evie had ended their brief romance, Jericho had resented Mabel. If not for Mabel, he’d told himself, he and Evie might’ve had a chance. But now he wondered: Had Mabel just been a convenient excuse? Had it been Sam all along?

Mabel caught him looking. She patted her hair self-consciously. “Did you need something?”

“No,” Jericho said, and quickly turned back to Will’s letters, coming to one that intrigued him.

October 1, 1907

Hopeful Harbor, New York

Dear Cornelius,

It has been quite a time here. Earlier this week, members of the Founders Club, a private eugenics society, visited as invited guests of Jake’s. They were quite interested in our findings about Diviners, and over dinner, there was much spirited debate. The gentlemen of the Founders Club argue that we can create the strongest, most exceptional America through the careful selection of superior traits, as one would with livestock. They believe Diviners are this superior stock. But only white Diviners. No Negroes, Italians, Sioux, Irish, Chinese, or Jews need apply. They argue that these people lack the correct moral, physical, mental, and intellectual properties to advance our nation and make her the shining city on the hill.

I have never seen Margaret so angry before: “We are a democracy, sir, and Diviners are evidence of that democracy and of the proof that all men and women are created equal. For these gifts have been given in equal measure to people of all races and creeds, regardless of sex, whether rich or poor.”

The great debate escalated far beyond the polite decorum of a dinner table, and we adjourned before dessert so that a cordial spirit could be maintained. In the privacy of our offices, Rotke made her position quite clear—“I won’t be part of it. Not as a scientist. Not as a Jew. Not as an American.”

I agreed that their position was nonsense. Margaret was much more frank in her rebuke. I shan’t repeat her words here. We were resolute: We would thank the Founders Club for their time and interest and send them on their way. Through it all, Jake remained quiet. At last, he rose from his seat and crossed the floor. Even in this simple action, he demanded our attention.

“Don’t you see? We can take their money without telling them what we’re really doing. We’ll continue to conduct our own research on Diviners. Here and there, we’ll trot out a little something to keep the old men happy in their eugenics quest, parade a Diviner or two before them. Simple.”

“You’re wrong, Jake. They’ll come to own us in time,” Margaret insisted. “Mark my words.”

Jake shook his head and let out a peeved sigh, which did not settle well with Margaret, I can assure you. “Margaret, you’re too suspicious,” he insisted. “You don’t trust anyone.”

“If your people came to this country in chains, Mr. Marlowe, you might have the same mistrust,” Margaret responded evenly, but her eyes—hard, alight—told the true story of her emotions.

Next, Jake appealed to me, man-to-man. He threw an arm around my shoulders like a brother and squeezed. “William, surely you’re on board?”

“Well…” I began but said no more. It was cowardly, but my feelings on the matter are quite confusing. I don’t care for the Founders Club and their sham science of eugenics. But I don’t want to stop our research into those mysteries that lie beyond this world, either. It has become my whole world.

At last, Jake made his way to Rotke and put his hands on her shoulders. “Darling, we need their funding. What we receive from Washington isn’t enough, and I’ve used nearly all of my trust.”

“Even if you can see that money comes from a terrible place?” Rotke challenged.

“Just don’t look in that direction.”

Then Jake took Rotke’s face in his hands, the hands that will shape this new America through steel and the atom and whatever we uncover of the supernatural world.

“Trust me,” he said as he bent her face toward him so that he could kiss her gently on the forehead.

I heeded Jake’s advice and did not look in their direction anymore.

“I’ll smooth things over with the old coots. Stay and enjoy the fire,” Jake assured us. And with that, our brave son, our golden boy, sailed off with a bottle of his family’s best brandy and a fistful of cigars to secure our future. But I fear the damage is done with Margaret. She and Jake will never be friends after this.

As for Rotke, she and Jake are to be engaged, I hear. A better man would be happy for them. After all, Jake has been my closest friend for six years. But I am not a better man, and I am not happy.

This afternoon, Rotke came to me. I could see by her eyes that she had been crying. She asked me to walk with her for a spell. We strolled the woods beyond the manicured hedges of Hopeful Harbor. I begged Rotke to tell me what was troubling her. “It’s Jake,” she said, wiping away tears. “We quarreled. He doesn’t want me to tell anyone I’m Jewish. Not his family, certainly not those eugenics idiots. ‘Darling, no one even knows you’re Jewish,’ he told me. ‘They don’t have to know. You don’t look it.’”

I asked Rotke the question in my heart then. “Does being Jewish matter so much if you don’t believe in God?” For as you know, Cornelius, I’ve never understood this obsession with where we are from that we Americans seem to have. We are from here, are we not? Sometimes I find this clannishness, these ties to old homelands, ancient traditions, and familial bloodlines, to be nothing more than fear—the same fear that keeps us praying to an absent God. If anything, I hope that our research into the great unknown of Diviners and the supernatural world proves that we are all one, joined by the same spark of energy that owes nothing to countries or religion, good and evil, or any other man-made divisions. We create our history as we go.

Rotke sees it differently. “It matters to me, William. It is a part of all that I am. A reminder of my parents and my grandparents. I can’t dismiss them and their struggles so easily. If I marry Jake, I’m afraid I shall be erased.”

She began to cry again, softly. I didn’t know what to do. I am not adept with crying women, especially crying women whom I secretly love. Before I knew it, I was kissing her. Yes, I kissed my closest friend’s fiancée. It was not the gentlemanly thing to do, Cornelius. I know you do not approve. I wish that I could say I regret it. I do not.

Rotke broke away from me, pink-cheeked from more than just the cold. Naturally, I apologized profusely until she had recovered enough to say, simply, “I believe we should go back now.”

You warned that my passions would get the better of me, Cornelius.

Jake greeted us upon our return. He was in grand spirits, practically boyish. “We have our money,” he said, waltzing Rotke around.

I looked away. Once you’ve learned how, it gets easier to do.

Jake clapped me on the back. “This is the start of everything. And you needn’t worry: I’ll handle all the affairs. You won’t have to engage with the Founders Club at all. I’ve ordered champagne to be sent up to the drawing room. See if you can find Margaret, and meet me there.”

Jake wants money for his experiments and inventions in his quest to build an exceptional, unassailable America. Margaret, the victim of this country’s less shining side, wants to prove that all men and women are created equal. Rotke wants to understand the realm beyond this one as well as her own gifts. As for me, my ambitions are great but without form. I don’t know what I want, save for the one woman I cannot have.

This is far too immodest a letter, Cornelius. The champagne was a fine vintage, and I am quite drunk. It doesn’t matter a whit. You won’t respond to this letter, as you’ve not responded to any of my entreaties. Likely, you won’t even read this.

I hear from Lucretia, whom Margaret saw in the market when she visited the city last week, that you’ve had a troubling cough. I do hope your health improves.

Fondly,

Your prodigal son,

Will

Dumbfounded, Jericho put the letter down. Why had they never talked about any of this? After Jericho’s illness crippled him and his parents had abandoned him to the state, it was Will who’d stepped in as guardian. He had sheltered Jericho, fed and clothed him, and taught his ward what he could about running the museum and about Diviners. For that, Jericho supposed he owed him a debt. But Will hadn’t given Jericho the parts that mattered most. He hadn’t given himself. The two of them had never gone fishing in a cold stream early on a summer’s day and shared their thoughts on love and life while they watched the sun draw the curling morning mist from the water. They’d never discussed how to find one’s place in the world, never talked of fathers and sons, or what makes someone a man. No. He and Will spoke in newspaper articles about ghosts. They conversed through the careful curation of supernatural knickknacks. And Jericho couldn’t help but feel cheated at how little he’d gotten when he’d needed so much more.

Why was there so much silence between men?

“Jericho?” Mabel called, bringing Jericho back to the present. “Sorry, but I have to head home now.”

“I’ll be right down,” Jericho said, pushing the letters to the side. As he did, an odd scrap of paper fluttered to the floor. It was a very brief note in Will’s handwriting. There was no date. It read, simply:

Dear Cornelius,

You were right. I was wrong. I am so very sorry.

Sincerely,

Will

“Thanks for your help today,” Jericho said, easing Mabel into her coat. “It was a nice change. I’m used to working with Sam. Or rather, working around Sam.”

Mabel shifted from one foot to the other and back again. “I could come back and help you some more. If you want me to,” she said, agreeable to the end. The way she looked at him just then, with a mixture of curiosity, affection, and admiration, was rather nice. Maybe it would be nice to be adored for once.

“That’s okay. I can manage,” Jericho said after a pause.

“Oh. Sure,” Mabel said, trying to hide her disappointment. “I suppose you’ve heard the news about Evie and Sam,” Mabel said as they walked the long hallway. “I had no idea she and Sam were engaged. She never said a word. Did Sam say anything to you?”

“No,” Jericho growled.

Mabel knew she shouldn’t have brought up the topic of Evie. But now that she had, it was like a scab she couldn’t stop picking. “Well. I suppose we should be happy for them.”

“Why?” Jericho asked.

“Because…” Mabel let the rest of the sentence die on the vine.

Outside, the street lamps winked on, trying to do battle against the gentle gray of the late afternoon. A few snowflakes swirled in the blustery air. Mabel shivered as she stood uncertainly on the top step, wondering what she could say to prolong the moment. A Model T shuddered down the street, and Mabel remembered her earlier strange encounter.

“Oh! I nearly forgot to tell you. I noticed something odd on my way in today. There were these two men in a brown car just sitting, watching the museum.”

Jericho craned his neck, looking up and down the street. He shrugged. “I don’t see anybody now.” He crossed his arms, pensive. “I suppose they could be taxmen.”

Mabel shook her head. “Those fellows don’t sit quietly in cars. They come right up to your door and turn out your pockets. These men reminded me more of Pinkertons, or Bureau of Investigation.” Mabel shoved her hands back into her coat pockets. “Well, see you at the Bennington.”

“Yeah. See you at the Bennington,” Jericho said, watching Mabel walking away in her deliberate fashion.

Why was he still pining for a girl he couldn’t have? Evie certainly wasn’t sitting around sighing over him. Apparently, she was out every night with Sam, having the time of her life. It was high time he did the same. If he’d learned one thing reading through Will’s letters today, it was that there was a whole world out there waiting to be explored, and Jericho was tired of caution.

“Mabel!” Jericho bounded down the steps after her. “Would you like to go to dinner or to the pictures sometime?”

Mabel’s face quicksilvered from shock to barely suppressed giddiness. “I’d love to. When?”

“Oh. Um. How’s tomorrow?”

Mabel grinned. “Tomorrow’s perfect.”

“I’ll come for you at eight o’clock, if that’s agreeable.”

“Very, very agreeable.”

Back in the quiet of the library, Jericho congratulated himself. “I have a date,” he said to the empty room. A date. That was good, wasn’t it? It was progress. He gave the Metaphysickometer a gentle thump and set about tidying up the papers nearby.

Under the glass, the needle gave a tiny jump.