Witch in the White City: A Dark Historical Fantasy/Mystery (Neva Freeman Book 1), Nick Wisseman [best novels for students .TXT] 📗

“In the wall—I’ll explain in a moment. I’m coming in. Just ... don’t be alarmed.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Please: just wait a moment.”

“... All right.”

After clearing out the rest of the gap, she took another deep breath and donned the necklace.

Instantly, the same giddy energy filled her, a cocktail of effervescence and adrenaline and life. But she was ready for it this time. Ready for how pliable it made her feel, how easily she could bend, fold, and squeeze through the slender opening that should have been impossible even for her. Flowing like molten bronze, she poured out from the wall in a rush so exhilarating she almost couldn’t bring herself to take the necklace off.

She managed, though. More easily than before—stability returned to her body as she stood to face her slack-jawed father, the cowry shells dangling from her hand.

“Neva?” he mumbled after a moment.

“It’s like your whistling,” she said, suddenly conscious that he was viewing her in her smallclothes. Well, he’d come to watch her belly dance once. This wasn’t that much more revealing. “Something I’ve always been able to do.”

He blinked, still disbelieving. “You have?”

“Yes.” Unsure how to proceed, Neva regarded the man who’d conceived her but raised her otherwise. She could see Derek in him: dark hair, good looks, trim build. But Mr. DeBell looked nothing like Augie. Or her.

Yet he’d drawn them all in perfect detail.

Neva gasped when she noticed what he’d created on the sheet of paper dangling from his fingers: a picture of her, Augie, and Derek on one side, Jasper and Abiah on the other, and himself in the middle. Between him and his natural children stood Mrs. DeBell. But between him and his bastard children was a colored woman Neva had never seen before. “Is that my mother?”

Mr. DeBell glanced down at the beautiful, tenderly rendered image. “Yes,” he answered, a dusting of wonder in his voice. “That’s Betty.”

Neva reached her hand out slowly; he let her take the paper.

Her mother bore the resemblance Mr. DeBell lacked—Neva could see the same determined nose, aggressive cheekbones, and curious eyes in the depiction of herself. And that of Augie.

Dear God, it was painful to look at.

“I never knew you could draw so well,” she murmured. “It’s ... lifelike.”

Mr. DeBell shrugged. “The Pinkerton wanted me to sign a confession. I meant to, but I ... started sketching.”

Neva considered him afresh. His clothes were an uncharacteristic shamble: ill-fitting castoffs he must have scavenged after waking from his extended blackout. The cloak she’d seen him in the night before was on the floor, jumbled next to his right leg ... which was caked with blood; his pants were too short, and she could see the red crust on his exposed lower calf. “Can you walk?”

“What?” He looked down. “Oh. Yes, it’s fine.”

“Good. Let’s go.”

Mr. DeBell seemed set to refuse. But his face grew flushed, and seeing the color rise in his skin brought warmth to her own.

“No,” Neva hissed. “Fight it. You can control the fever if you try.” She proved it by swallowing her rage and hate before they could overwhelm her, funneling them down her legs and out her toes, like a tree flushing bad water through its roots. The insects’ venom wasn’t truly gone—she knew the infection still lingered—but the visualization helped her navigate her emotions.

Mr. DeBell had a harder time of it.

His face was purpling and his fingers pulsed with the need to grab and tear. Slowly, as if overcoming an invisible binding, his lips began to pucker. He’d be whistling any second now.

Neva could have hit him first or sealed the sides of her skull to close her ears—she was ready this time. But she did neither of those things, or anything that approached an act of self-preservation. She simply stepped forward and hugged him.

Initially, it seemed like a terrible mistake. Her fever flared again at the contact, and his seemed to as well. But after a few teetering seconds, she felt the tension ebb out of him, receding almost as quickly as her own.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked as Mr. DeBell’s arms came up to return her embrace.

“Tell you what?”

“About you and ... my mother.”

He stiffened all over again, but only for a moment. “Because I’m a coward, Neva. A proud, stupid coward.”

“But it’s true? You are ...?”

“Your father, yes. And Augie’s.”

She shuddered against his chest at the mention of her brother. Yet she said nothing as he gently stroked her hair and pulled away. That news could wait.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Mr. DeBell said, sitting heavily on the drunk tank’s bench. “Shouldn’t have been able to get in and shouldn’t be here.”

“Neither should you. Let’s go.”

He shook his head. “I don’t understand what’s happening to me, but I belong in here, or wherever else they want to put me. You don’t. You should go.”

“But it’s not your fault!” Neva used one hand to tap the rash on the other. “It’s the insects’ bite. It maddens your blood, makes you do things that ...” She trailed off as Mr. DeBell clasped his own hands, drawing her eyes to their pale skin.

Dirt crusted his knuckles and darkened the undersides of his fingernails. Otherwise, his hands were unblemished.

“Where are ... Where are your rashes?” she stammered. “Were you not bitten?”

He squeezed his hands tighter. “I belong in here,” he repeated. “You should go.”

But even if she’d been willing to leave, she wouldn’t have been able to: the door to the room burst open, revealing Copeland, the wiry guard, and two revolvers—one in each of the men’s right hands, and both pointed at Mr. DeBell.

Chapter Twenty-Four

THE PINKERTON AND THE Columbian Guard weren’t dressed with the dignity their roles required. A wrap swaddled the wiry guard’s head, crossing over his ears several times. Copeland wore earmuffs whose thick fur looked comically out of season.

Neither man seemed amused, however. The guard sported a snarl that would have made a hyena proud, and Copeland’s gaze was frosted steel. But they hesitated at the sight