Theta knocked firmly on Evie’s door in the Winthrop Hotel. “Open up, Evil. I know you’re in there. I’ll just keep knocking until—”

The door swung open to reveal a very rumpled Evie, a velvet sleep mask pushed up on top of her tangled curls. She regarded Theta with a look bordering on murder. “What’s the big idea, waking a girl before it’s decent, Theta?”

Theta pushed past Evie. She eyed the empty bottles and glasses littering the filthy room. “Big night?”

“The biggest.” Evie yawned, falling back onto the bed. “Before the party proper, we had a little merry here in my room. I met this maaarvelous burlesque queen from Poughkeepsie, some darling stockbrokers, and a very entertaining fellow who could bounce a quarter off the end of the dresser and have it land in a glass of gin on the nightstand and… aaaah! Are you trying to kill me, Theta?”

Late-afternoon sun pierced the hotel gloom through the window where Theta had yanked the drapes aside.

“Depends.”

“Depends on what?”

“Whether or not you keep using that phony accent around me.”

Evie rubbed her forehead. “Oh, applesauce. Theta, will you have a talk with my head, please? Tell it to stop playing the marimba across my skull.”

Theta sniffed the nearby glasses, finally finding one that didn’t smell of gin. “Hold on.” She disappeared into the bathroom, returning a moment later with a glass of water and two aspirin. “Down the hatch. Doctor’s orders.”

“What’s the rumble? What’re you doing here?” Evie managed to say between gulps.

Theta had been trying to figure out how to talk about this with Evie for weeks. She narrowed her eyes. “If you breathe a word of what I’m about to say, I swear I’ll hunt you for sport and wear your skin as a coat.”

Evie opened one eye. “It would have a satin lining, though. Promise me it would.”

“Evil…”

“All right. I’m shutting up.” Evie mimed locking her lips and throwing away the key.

One of Theta’s eyebrows shot up. “Boy, do I wish that really worked,” she muttered. “Okay. Listen: All these Diviners running around—”

“Not this again…”

“What happened to shutting up?” Theta barked and Evie quieted. “These Diviners. Any of ’em dream walkers that you know about?”

Evie rolled onto her side, her brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, are any of ’em able to walk around inside a dream just like they were walking around Times Square. Sleeping, but fully awake at the same time.”

“Inside people’s dreams?” Evie asked, confused.

Theta threw up her hands and rolled her eyes. “Do I need elocution lessons? That’s what I said.”

Evie scoffed. “That is pos-i-tute-ly impossible.”

“It’s not.”

“Pull the other leg!”

“Henry can do it.”

Evie propped herself up on her elbows. “You’re telling me that Henry, our Henry, can walk… in dreams?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. Henry’s a Diviner.” Theta tore into her handbag and pulled out her silver cigarette case. “Evil, you gotta let me smoke or I’m gonna chew all my fingernails off.”

Evie made a face before waving her approval, and Theta slipped a cigarette free and tapped the end of it against the case’s hard shell. “You remember at Christmas, when Henry asked you to read his hat because he was trying to find Louis?”

“Yes. I wasn’t much help, though.”

“Well, Henry finally found Louis in the dream world,” Theta said, lighting up and taking a drag deep into her lungs. “That ain’t all. He’s met another dream walker. A girl named Ling, lives in Chinatown. Every night, they’ve been meeting inside dreams and walking around. He thinks I don’t know, but I do.”

“Gee, sounds like a swell talent. So what’s got you all balled up about it?”

“You know how you get sick if you read too much? It’s the same with Henry and dreams. We had a deal—no more than one hour a week. Evil, he’s walking every night now, and I don’t even know how long he’s under. He’s missed rehearsals, and even when he shows up, he isn’t really there. His mind’s on dreams,” Theta said on a stream of cigarette smoke. “He’s the only family I got.”

“What can we do? You want me to come with you and we’ll sit Henry down?”

“Lecturing Hen won’t help. But this lecture might.” Theta pulled out a newspaper advertisement and shoved it into Evie’s hands.

“‘The Society for Ethical Culture presents World-Renowned Psychoanalyst Carl Jung: Symposium on Dreams and the Collective Unconscious,’” Evie read. “Gee, say that three times fast.”

“We got a dream question, we go to the dream expert.”

“‘Eight o’clock in the evening on January…’” Evie stopped reading. “Theta, that’s tonight!”

“Yeah. So you’d better get moving. It’s gonna be a full house. I’ll meet you there on the front steps of the Ethi-Whatchamacallit at seven thirty.”

“Theta, I can’t. Sam and I are going to the pictures tonight—the theater owners asked for us in particular. They’ve got a special projector that can play sound on film! Isn’t that the elephant’s eyebrows?”

“Yeah. Terrific. Listen, tell Lover Boy there’s been a change of plans. If he’s gonna be married to you, he’ll have to get used to that.” Theta squinted hard at Evie. “Whatsa matter? You’re making a face like you got caught stealing cookies from an orphanage.”

“No, I’m not.”

“That proves it. You’re definitely guilty of something. Spill.” Theta folded her arms and waited.

“Oh, all right.” Evie sighed. “I need to confess to somebody before I go mad. This romance with Sam? It’s a publicity stunt.”

Theta slapped her hand on the bed. “I knew it! I smelled something as phony as your new accent!”

“Hey!”

“I know you’re crackers, Evil, but I’m glad to see you’re not that crackers. So was I right about you and Jericho?”

Evie hung her head. “It was just the one time. Oh, Theta. I’m such a terrible friend. I am the worst friend ever!”

“Don’t get fulla yourself. I’m not crowning you for it,” Theta grumbled. She drew hard on her cigarette. “If you’re really goofy for Jericho, you should tell Mabel. If he’s not dizzy for her, well, she can’t be sore at you about it.”

“Oh, yes, she can! You don’t know Mabel. Beneath that bleeding heart lies a grudge factory.”

“Well, she can’t stay sore at you forever—especially if you’ve spared her months of batting her peepers at a boy she can’t have.”

“But what if I don’t really like Jericho enough, not in the way he likes me or the way that Mabel likes him? Then I’ve led him on. Toyed with his affections and broken Mabel’s heart for a selfish whim.” Evie pulled the blanket up to her chin. “And then there’s Sam.”

Theta narrowed her eyes. “What about Sam?”

“Sometimes when Sam’s pretending to be in love with me, my stomach does funny things.”

“Well, get some milk of magnesia and stop it. Listen, the best thing you can do about Sam is play your part and forget about it. I know that type. He’ll have another tomato on his arm in twenty minutes.”

Evie frowned. “I’m not a tomato.”

Theta stubbed out her cigarette in a glass. “Evil, I know you—you’ll sort out this boy trouble. Frankly, it’s the least interesting thing about you. And right now, we got bigger problems.”

“Right,” Evie said, straightening up. “Henry. To the rescue we go.”

“I’ll see you at the egghead lecture at seven thirty. And seven thirty means seven thirty, kid. Eastern standard time. Not Evil-O’Neill-anything-but-on-time time.”

“You’re one to talk,” Evie groused. “You never make it to the theater when you’re supposed to.”

Theta tucked her clutch under her arm and held the hotel room’s door open with her foot as she yanked her gloves back on. “I like to give Wally the vapors, I’ll admit. But I’m always on time for my friends.”

“Yeah? Well… well,” Evie sputtered. “Well, at least I don’t smoke!”

Theta posed in the doorway. “You sure about that? Let’s set you on fire and find out.”

Evie hurled her pillow at Theta, who was quicker. The pillow hit the door and bounced onto the floor with the rest of the garbage.

At fifteen minutes past eight o’clock, Evie leaped from a cab on the corner of Sixty-fourth Street and Central Park West and rushed up the steps of the New York Society for Ethical Culture. A murderous-looking Theta glared down at her from just outside the closed doors.

“I said seven thirty,” Theta barked, grabbing Evie by the arm and steering her into the foyer. “Maybe instead of elocution lessons they should give you telling-time lessons.”

“Sorry, but at the last minute Mr. Phillips asked me to read something for his wife’s cousin. I couldn’t very well say no to the boss,” Evie huffed out as they pushed through the doors into the foyer, where Mabel waited. It was Evie’s second glare of the evening, although Mabel’s was more exasperated than murderous.

“Oh. Hi, Pie Face. I didn’t know you were coming,” Evie said.

“I happened to run into Theta on her way out, and since I’d planned to attend the lecture, I suggested we come together. She said she wants to know about dreams and the unconscious for her acting,” Mabel said.

“Yes. For her acting,” Evie said evenly and did her best not to look at Theta.

“The lecture’s already begun, though, and the usher told me absolutely no one can go in,” Mabel said.

“Oh, don’t you worry. I’ll take care of it.” Evie flounced over to the man at the door. “How do you do? I’m Evie O’Neill. The Sweetheart Seer? Gee, I’m awfully sorry we’re late—I was visiting a children’s hospital, you see, and—”

“I’m sorry. No one is admitted.” The man stood like an iceberg.

“But I’m the Sweetheart Seer!” Evie said brightly. When the man seemed unimpressed, she added, “I read objects with help from beyond? WGI? I’m a Diviner.”

“Then you should be able to read the time,” the man said, pointing to the advertisement for the lecture. “I’m afraid what you are is late, Miss. No admittance.”

Back outside, Theta marched down the steps, puffing madly on a cigarette. She whirled around to face Evie. “I told you seven thirty.”

“Yes, I believe we’ve established that,” Evie huffed. She stared back at the closed doors, dumbfounded. “That man has never heard of my show.”

“What’re we gonna do now?” Theta said, more to the sky than to anyone else.

“You really need to ask him some questions for your acting?” Mabel asked.

“Yeah,” Theta said after a pause. “I really do.”

“Then bundle up and follow me,” Mabel said, walking toward Central Park.

“Where are we going?” Theta asked, grinding her cigarette under her heel.

“The Kensington House. Apparently, Dr. Jung stays there when he’s in New York.”

“How do you know that?” Evie asked.

“An old friend of my mother’s once hosted a fancy luncheon for him in Geneva,” Mabel answered as they crossed the street and headed into the park.

Sometimes Evie forgot that Mabel’s mother had been a Newell, one of New York’s great society families, before she married Mabel’s father and was disowned. She wondered what it must be like for Mabel to know that an entire side of her family lived with maids and butlers and chauffeurs to take care of their every need while Mabel shared a two-bedroom flat with parents who actively campaigned against that sort of wealth and privilege.

“Do you ever see your mother’s family, Mabesie?”

“Once a year,” Mabel said. “On my grandmother’s birthday. Mama sends me out on the train and a driver picks me up in a Rolls-Royce.”

“Your mother gave all that up for love?” Theta asked.

“Yes,” Mabel said. “And because she wanted to be her own person, with a different sort of life.”

“That’s a lot to walk away from.” Evie whistled.

The grainy halos of the park lamps lit up the barren branches of the stately winter trees flanking the cobbled path inside Central Park. The glassy surface of the frozen pond reflected the waxing moon, making it seem attainable. The tops of Fifth Avenue’s tony apartment buildings shone in the distance as the girls’ shoes crunched through the remnants of old snow.

“How are things with Jericho?” Evie asked Mabel, keeping her voice light, as if she were asking about the weather. “Has he tried to kiss you again?”

“Evie!” Mabel sputtered at the same moment Theta said, “Jericho kissed you?”

“Gee, I might as well tell the Daily Mirror as tell you,” Mabel complained.

“I’m sorry, Pie Face, really, I am. But it’s just Theta, and she’s thrilled for you. Aren’t you, Theta?”

“Sure I am.” Theta flicked a glance Evie’s way. The glance said, What are you doing? Why are you torturing yourself? Evie fluttered her lashes in response: I do not know what you are insinuating. I am above your petty insult.

“No, he hasn’t,” Mabel said, unaware of Evie and Theta’s little exchange. “But we’ve been very busy putting the exhibit together.” Mabel cast a suspicious glance at Evie. “You are coming, aren’t you, Evie? You won’t let some radio nonsense keep you?”

“I said I’d be there and I will be there.” Evie sniffed. “Oh, look! It’s started snowing. Isn’t it beautiful?”

The girls stopped at the top of an archway and watched the glistening flakes flutter down over the pathway and rolling lawn. The night held its breath for a moment. In the hush, they could hear jazz and merriment coming from the nearby Central Park Casino, whose lights shone through the gaps in the trees, making Theta think of the lighthouse and Memphis. She’d tried calling his house that afternoon, but hung up with a “Sorry, wrong number” when his aunt answered the phone. Snow melted on the backs of her gloves, and she felt that strange stirring in her gut. In the dream, it was always snowing. Snow everywhere. Henry said dreams were clues, but for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out what her dream wanted her to know.

“Say, Mabel, you find out anything interesting for this Diviners falderal?” Theta asked.

“Oh, all sorts of things. It’s in the exhibit,” Mabel said without elaborating further. It was her private experience with Jericho, and she didn’t want to share it. Especially if Evie was going to blab all of Mabel’s personal information without a second thought.

“The full creepy crawly, huh?” Theta pressed. “People who can talk to ghosts. People who can see the future and read objects, like Evil here. People who could, I don’t know, burn things, set them on fire.”

“Set things on fire?” Mabel scrunched up her face. “Goodness, no! Nothing like that.”

“Honestly, Theta, and you call me Evil,” Evie said with a laugh. “Where’d you come up with that one?”

The slightest tingle rippled along Theta’s fingertips. “Just making conversation. It’s freezing,” she said and walked faster through the falling snow.

In the quaint lobby of the small, traditional Kensington House, the girls waited, until at last a very tall, white-haired man wearing wire spectacles and a tweed jacket strolled inside. He puffed on a pipe.

Mabel poked Evie and Theta. “That’s him! Come on!” she whispered urgently.

“Dr. Jung?” Mabel said, rushing to greet him. Evie and Theta followed.

“Yes. I am Dr. Jung.”

“Thank heavens! We’ve been waiting for you.”

“Have you?” Dr. Jung’s brows formed a V atop his spectacles. “Forgive me. Did we have an appointment?”

“No, but we’re desperate to talk to you. It’s a matter of some urgency.”

The psychiatrist blew out a puff of smoke, considering. He allowed a polite smile. “Well, then, I suppose you had best come this way.”

After they introduced themselves, Dr. Jung ushered Theta, Mabel, and Evie into a cozy, handsomely furnished office lined with shelves of important-looking books and bade them sit before settling into a chair himself.

“Now, how may I be of help to you?”

“Doctor, what do you know about Diviners?” Theta asked.

“I thought you wanted to know about acting,” Mabel whispered.

Dr. Jung waited for the girls to settle. “Ah. I have heard of them,” he said, his Swiss accent neatly clipping the ends of his words. “So. Am I to understand that you are interested in psychic phenomena and the paranormal?”

Theta cut her eyes at Mabel. When Theta had invited Mabel along to the lecture, she’d had no idea they’d end up talking to Jung himself. There was no way around it. She’d have to let Mabel in on the truth. “I suppose so. See, I have a pal, a Diviner, who can walk in dreams. I mean really walk around inside them, like he’s awake, seeing everything.”

Mabel’s eyes widened. “Who is it?”

“Who do you think?” Theta said.

“It’s Henry,” Evie confirmed.

“Wait a minute—how do you know this?” Mabel swiveled from Evie to Theta. “Why does Evie know?” She swiveled back to Evie. “So you can keep some secrets, just not others.”

“Honestly, Mabesie, are you going to make me wear the crown of thorns for long?” Evie said through gritted teeth. “I’m sorry!”

Dr. Jung cleared his throat, and the girls quieted. “Lucid dreaming, you say? That is quite a power, indeed. Please. Continue.”

“Lately, my pal Henry and this other dream walker, Ling—”

Dr. Jung’s eyes widened. “There are two?”

“That was going to be my next question,” Mabel said, giving Evie a wary glance.

I don’t know this one, Evie mouthed to Mabel.

“It’s a long story,” Theta said. “The point is, they’ve been meeting up in the dream world in the same place every night—a train station. And from there, they go to some magical-sounding place where they can touch things and smell flowers and… well, from what Henry tells me, it’s all very real. Look here, Doc, I know it sounds like we’re lunatics, but it’s true.”

Dr. Jung rubbed his eyeglasses clean with a handkerchief. “Your friend and his compatriot walk freely through the unconscious realm. They are at play inside the psyches of many people, as well as engaging with the experiences and memories of all humanity—the collective unconscious.”

“Sorry, Doc, you lost me,” Theta said. “What’s this collective unconscious?”

The psychiatrist hooked his spectacles over his ears again. “Think of it as a symbolic library that has always existed, which houses all our personal and our ancestral experiences and memories, shared knowledge that each individual seems to understand on an innate level, like an inheritance. Religion. Myths. Fairy tales. All of it gains its power from the collective unconscious. And dreams are like a library card, if you will, that provides access to this great archive of shared symbols, memories, and experiences.”

“Can it hurt you, though? If you get hurt inside a dream, you wake up. But what about if you’re living inside that dream, like my friend Henry? Could something bad happen to him or to Ling?”

“An interesting question. Have you ever heard of the shadow self?”

Evie and Theta shook their heads.

“It’s a dark side, isn’t it? Like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, if I’m not mistaken,” Mabel said, and she took some satisfaction in knowing this.

“Yes. That is so.” Dr. Jung blew out puffs of spicy tobacco. “Every one of us has a conscious self. This is the face that we present to the world every day. But there is another self, which remains hidden even from our own minds. It contains our most primitive emotions and all that we cannot abide in ourselves, all that we repress. This is the shadow.”

The psychiatrist relit his pipe. At the strike of the match, Theta’s hands began to prickle.

“Is this shadow self evil?” Evie asked, and for a moment, her mind flashed on John Hobbes and his terrible secret room.

“It depends on how fiercely one guards against the shadow self and to what lengths he would go to protect himself from that knowledge. Such a person doesn’t even know he is doing evil. Think again of your Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The goodly Dr. Jekyll is, one might say, possessed by his shadow self, Mr. Hyde, who does unspeakable things. Dr. Jekyll projects—that is, assigns—his intolerable qualities onto the split self, Mr. Hyde. That is an extreme example, of course, but it does occur. That is the shadow’s greatest power over us—that we do not see it. Once we are conscious of our shadow, we can become enlightened.”

“I think my pal Henry has a shadow side—”

“Everyone has a shadow side,” Dr. Jung corrected gently.

“How do we get him to stop and wake up?”

“The only way to correct the shadow is to become conscious of it. To accept it and to integrate it into the whole person. Perhaps your friend will find this solution on his own by exploring his dreams, for our dreams wish to wake us to some deeper meaning. All that is hidden eventually reveals itself, no matter how fervently we fight to keep it locked away.”

Theta thought about her dreams, of the snow and the horses, the burning village. And Roy. Always Roy. How hard she worked to keep her past in the past, where it couldn’t harm her. But now the head doctor was saying she couldn’t keep a lid on it forever. The uncomfortable itching in her palms had progressed to a burning sensation.

“Are you feeling well, Miss Knight?” Dr. Jung said, his brow furrowed. “You seem anxious.”

“It’s, um, awfully stuffy in here is all.”

“Actually, it’s a bit chilly,” Mabel said.

“I-I just need some air. We’ve already taken up too much of your time, Doctor. Thanks. You’ve been swell.”

Panicked, Theta sprang from her seat. As she did, a book fell from a shelf behind the psychiatrist, knocking over a candle. The flame lit a section of Dr. Jung’s coat sleeve, but the psychiatrist snuffed it out before it could truly catch.

“Gee, I’m awful sorry,” Theta said, horrified. “I shouldn’t’ve jumped up so quick.” She tried to conjure cool thoughts—ice cream, winter wind, snow. No. Not snow.

“All fine,” Dr. Jung said, examining his scorched sleeve. He retrieved the book from the spot on the rug where it had landed, spine up, pages fanned, and examined the page. “Hmm. Curious, indeed. Didn’t you say you felt too warm, Miss Knight?”

“Yes,” Theta whispered.

“What is it?” Evie asked.

“A meaningful coincidence. A powerful symbol from the collective unconscious.” Dr. Jung held the book open for them to a drawing of a grand bird consumed by fire. “The Phoenix rising from the flames.”

The book was open to page number one hundred forty-four.