4. Yaphank

The afternoon heat was still on when we set out, the orange ball of the sun westering but still beating down. Beside me Elizabeth had lost of a bit of her enthusiasm and I could see perspiration dampening her mood. We didn't have much but that was okay. Anna's jewelry box wasn't a burden.

The station attendant had eyed us as we departed, Elizabeth walking alongside me across the lot and onto what passed for a 'street' out here, little more than an overbilled cattle track. Up ahead it passed through a few questionable buildings.

Yaphank.

Yak yank, I kept thinking to myself as we trod opposite sides of the dirt road, wondering if it were Pequot or Iroquois or some other language. It certainly wasn't Sioux. As we walked, Elizabeth skimmed the tall grass alongside the road with the palm of her hand, drawing a stare from a woman sweeping her porch at one of those nearby farmhouses. When I returned the compliment, luggage awkward over my shoulder, she turned and went inside.

Stopping amid that clutch of homes, I sighed. "How far?"

Elizabeth turned to me from where she's been inspecting the grass, wiping her brow with back of hand against the blazing sun. She looked north and squinted. "I don't know. I only feel it up that way."

"You realize that 'up that way' could be miles, don't you? How did you like walking Columbia?"

"It wasn't pleasant." She answered, negotiating the rutted dirt road with boots and skirt held up at her sides. I'd never understood how women survived in such clothes even under more domestic conditions.

Faced with little choice we continued onward, passed occasionally by an auto that covered us in dust until from behind a wagon came rumbling, the driver reining his twin draft horses with a pull of leather. "Good afternoon, Lady and Gentleman. Mind me asking what ye be walking Yaphank Avenue in the heat of the day? I could not help but see you've been passed by a few of those infernal automobiles...might get hit by one and that wouldn't be good fer ya."

Surveying his conveyance I saw it to be a grey painted Swab wagon, back filled with two rolls of freshly bailed hay. The driver himself he was middle aged, perhaps older than me or at least more sunned, for white his skin had assumed a leather like propensity. Atop his lean, clean-shaven face he wore a wicker hat, green eyes below it taking us in. A slender spire of yellow grass protruded from the corner of his mouth.

"Thank you kindly for your concern." I replied, hefting the bags anew. Beside me Elizabeth was rubbing the top shin of her black leather boot. "You wouldn't know where we might obtain room and board, would you?"

"Well, up in town you might, just a quarter mile ahead or so." Amid the three of us silence ensued, punctuated by the song of crickets and rustle of grass and leaves. "Would you be favoring a ride?" He finally asked.

Elizabeth grinned, and as she clambered on board the open back gate I chuckled. "Thank you. You are a life saver. Might I ask your name?" I set my bags in the back of his wagon and reached out my hand to the man. "Booker DeWitt. And this is my...daughter, Elizabeth."

Taking his reins in the other, he offered me his. "Daniel Topper, Sir. Please, climb aboard."

To the man's credit it was only five minutes before we rolled into town proper. At first I'd thought the place only farmhouses until ahead the road became a dam, a long glimmering lake to its west and discharge running away in the hollow to our east. On the northern side a rather large sawmill commanded the road. "That's the Gerard Mill, there," Daniel said, glancing toward the shingled structure. "And this the Connecticut River. It runs from here to the Atlantic a few miles south, and this here pond is our "Lower Lake." North of the dam we came then to a juncture with an east-west road prominently marked "Main Street."

Elizabeth was preoccupied with a pretty white-washed Victorian as we turned left, two stories and square with a cupola at its top, nestled in the western crook of the turn. "That's the Hawkins' House, Miss." Daniel illuminated, and I wondered if it were its resemblance to Columbia's architecture that had piqued her interest. The bulk of the hamlet lay before us along this thoroughfare, like the lake shrouded by overhanging broadleaf trees.

In their shade Elizabeth and I found welcome relief from that unrelenting sun, and with its quaint cottages I decided Yaphank more civilized than I'd given it credit for. As we clattered through downtown the long lake followed just south of the houses, among which I found a blacksmith, dressmaker and a general store. Presently Daniel pulled to a halt before a three-way juncture where the road broke west and north. On the west side another mill stood prominently at the head of a smaller dammed pond that trailed off north, while just across from it upon the opposite side of the road a two-story brick boarding house overlooked all. "Well, here we are. Yaphank Common." He wrapped his reins and dismounted, coming about the wagon to offer Elizabeth his services. She glanced to me and I nodded. He helped her down, and as he did so I decided that I was not the only man who fancied her. With ruddy cheeks he thumbed over his shoulder, eyes not bothering to meet mine. "This here is Willow Lake Inn. You can get a hot bath and supper for an honest price."

I slipped to the dirt beside them, feet aching, reaching back to grab our meager possessions. About us a few villagers were walking, a trio of boys near the mill also taking in the girl beside me. "Thank you, Mr. Topper." I said and took Elizabeth by the arm. "Could I offer you a few cents for the ride in?"

He smiled and turned to climb back into the driver's seat. "The offer is enough, Mr. DeWitt. I were headed this way anyhow. Enjoy your stay in Yaphank."

The pond was catching the blue of the arching sky as he drove off to the west. With a tired look to one another we mounted the steps to the Willow's overhanging porch, the house a well-made construction with four sets of brown shutters. Down the street a horse neighed, and I could see the boys still watching, backs against the mill's wooden wall. A pair of cars sat in the yard, almost out to place in the rustic tranquility. Inside the screen door a rather severe woman in blouse and skirt was setting a table. She turned to look with a look of surprise. "Oh, goodness...guests!"

Elizabeth remained at my side and let me do the talking. "Yes...sorry, I should have knocked. We're uh, travelling, and were hoping to retain a room for the night. Would you happen to have one available, Ma'am?"

After some consideration and obvious counting she set for her China hutch and drew out two more place settings. "I believe I do." With a glance she gestured toward an end table at the door. "They will be seventy-five cents each. If you wouldn't mind signing, we keep a guest book. You are lucky that we have two rooms available, one upon the south side and another overlooking the lake. Does the lady have a preference?"

"Lakeside." Elizabeth answered with an eager smile. I grinned and scratched our names in the ledger.

The woman, a thirty something with brown hair that matched Elizabeth's, turned away and fetched a key from her cupboard. "Well, you have a discerning eye, young Miss." She handed me another key.

"We'll be staying together." I said, drawing the woman's raised eyebrow. "She's my daughter."

After even more consideration and a careful look to the both of us, she took it back. "Very well." She glanced at the guestbook. "Archibald and Evelyn Montgomery? Might I ask from where you hail?"

"New York City." Elizabeth answered, eyeing me afterward. "We're travelling."

The lady looked at our bags. "Rather lightly I would say." I'm Nora Swezey. My husband Elmont is the proprietor but he's off in Riverhead at the moment. In fact..." She glanced out the door and down the street. "He's due back any time." Again she glanced us over. "I'll show you to your room. Dinner is at 7 P.M. sharp, and tonight we're having beef brisket. I hope that meets your tastes."

From my pouch I produced a Silver Eagle and fished around for the required change, thinking that 'beef brisket' suited my tastes just fine. "I hope this will cover the costs."

Swezey looked queerly at the coins. "I don't rightly think I've seen currency such as these. Are they tender from?"

"Out west in Missouri. Columbia Mint." I pointed to the mark on the coin that said prominently "Columbia". "I assure you, they're fine silver. Government issue."

Her eyes turned to me then my girl, who after a moment of concern approved of my turn of truth with little smirk. "Very well. There is running water in the bath across the hall. Would..." She paused, glancing to our sad, sweat stained persons. "Would you like your clothes washed? It might be a little late to have them fully dry, but we have a bit of sun left."

Looking down upon her dust and hay covered skirt, Elizabeth's nose flared. "That would be nice."

#

Elizabeth had chosen our accommodations well, for the room had an expansive view of the little lake and mill across the street, the one the boarding house apparently took its name after. The sun was clipping the trees that way when she emerged from the bath, fresh in her dressing gown, drying her hair with a plush green towel and prancing across the hallway to our room. Hair down and obviously feeling spry, she walked to our bags. After a fish in the luggage, she found her hairbrush and proceeded to untangle her brown mess. "Did Mrs. Swezey say how long it would take to dry them?" She asked. Even in the long straight white of her gown she cut an appealing figure. I closed my eyes, sighed and stepped across to the bath.

"No. Just get another change of clothes and we'll deal with them in the morning." I closed the door. Not having a great deal of time after Elizabeth's dawdle, I ran the water and shed my garments. From the weeks before my wounds were healing, some better than others. The hand came to mind. As I sat in the tub I felt I could do with never seeing another bullet or gun in my life again. Columbia, I thought, had been a nightmare...even worse than the Philippines, if that was possible. And nothing had been as bad as the P.I.

"So, we're lost." I said through the door. Thin as it was, I figured it would carry.

"No." Elizabeth answered from our chambers, a strain in her voice suggesting a battle. "Just...uhhng...just not quite there yet."

"Well, I have what I want." I said and slipped back into the hot water.

"And what is that?" She asked. I heard a thump and wooden crash.

"Are you all right?" I said slightly louder.

"It's just...my hair. It has positively a mind of its own. What did you want?"

I sighed. "To be safe with you. If that took leaving New York to do it, so be it. This place is so out in the sticks that neither the Morello clan nor anyone else could ever find it." Nor him, I thought.

"Who else would want to find us?" Came across the hall. I probably paused too long.

"No one. It's just a figure of speech."

"It didn't sound like a figure of speech. Is there something you're not telling me, Booker?"

I was quiet for a moment, deciding after too many worries in solitude that she needed to know. "There was a man, Elizabeth."

"A man?"

I remembered back to McSorley's and the back alley, the mist against the lights and dead Irishmen. "I should have told you this before, I mean I did but…" My thoughts stewed, hazy memories of another alleyway years before…decades. Memories of her…Anna…and a fingertip severed…a child lost. A conversation on a zeppelin on the way up from my massacre at Battleship Bay. "It wasn't the Morellos I was bringing you to."

Now it was her turn at silence. When her voice came, it was with apprehension. "If it wasn't them, then whom?"

"A man." I closed my eyes, taking soap to chest and hair and face. "I thought I told you before, but I doubt you were in any frame of mind to remember. I know you won't believe me, but…but I'd begun to think it was just some crazy dream. I mean, I know it wasn't but…"

"Who?" Her one-word question punctuated the swash of water in the tub.

"He called himself Laslowe." I answered, remembering out walk down Bowery. "Said he worked for a powerful man who wanted to see you. It was him who paid my way to Columbia." The memory rang in my head. "After the Prophet and your ensuing strangeness, I'd…I'd thought he was just a trick my mind was playing on me. I thought…" For a moment I stopped talking. "When you stepped out the other day and I panicked, I went to my bookkeeper to try and make things right. When I got there, well, let's say things were a bit tense, which is why we're here. The thing is…"

"What?" Elizabeth finally said.

"He looked like the fellow who took you as a child."

#

I made a concerted effort to clean up which, considering I was a guy, went considerably faster than Elizabeth's campaign. Fresh and clean, I donned my underwear and shirt and emerged. By then Elizabeth was freshly coiffed and drawing a familiar blue skirt on with blue and similarly memorable gold trimmed white blouse. Upon her neck she wore the diving bird pendant. It was an outfit I'd not seen since Columbia...when we first met. "Where did you get that?" I asked, trying not to dwell.

She turned to me and pulled her sleeves down. My revelation had obviously preyed upon the girl for her earlier zeal was absent. "I told you that I didn't very much like the stuffy clothes everyone wears here. Columbia was so much more comfortable, at least in style. I found a few dollars and had the Dowling sisters down the street make it."

"You found a few dollars?" I said incredulously. "And they approved of...this?" I took to my own bag, drawing a pair of trousers and sundries. As I began to dress, she turned away. "They thought it was fetching, thank yo. I doubt Mrs. Swezey will see it your way, but if that's your wish..."

"It's all I have." She said. The matter, I supposed, was moot. She was quiet again, worry upon her brow before coming to my side. "Booker, how…how is that even possible? This…this Laslowe sending you to Columbia?" She turned to me with earnest but worried eyes. "Columbia…doesn't exist."

I finished tying my neckerchief. "That's what bothers me."

#

"That was rather smart of you using the Montgomery's names in the ledger. I hope we can keep up the pretense." Elizabeth said as I closed the door. "What...what do you think happened to them, Booker?"

Unlike Laslowe, I knew what had happened to them. The Old Man had told me but she didn't need to know. "I don't know. I suppose they just had to run like everyone else. I'm sure they're fine."

With my lie we headed downstairs together at five 'til seven, and as we alighted upon the polished brown floorboards three guests sat at the table, two placements beside them empty. A man and woman, obviously a couple, were chatting to one another discretely while a young gentleman perhaps a little older than Elizabeth was carrying on with Mrs. Swezey about how much he enjoyed brisket.

As we entered the dining room, the four of them looked our way. Mrs. Swezey spoke. "Mr. and Mrs. Whateley, Mr. Ryan, might I introduce Mr. Archibald Montgomery and his daughter Evelyn. Mister and Miss Montgomery, Mr. Evan Whateley, his wife Gertrude and Mr. Peter Ryan."

"Pleasure to meet you." I said as I attended the table. To my right I drew Elizabeth's chair for her. She slipped in before it, smiled at me over her shoulder, which was all the reward I needed in the world. As she sat, I slid it quietly beneath her before taking my own.

"Lovely evening, isn't it?" Ryan said as I scooted my chair in. Dark haired and young, he had a thin but strong face that seemed to dwell upon Elizabeth. To his left Whateley and his wife were not so blessed, the both being overweight with pudgy noses and round visages. It was true, I thought, that over time couples came to resemble one another.

Whateley nodded in agreement. "Indeed. Gertrude and I were just a few minutes ago taking in the evening on the porch. A splendid swing you have out there, Mrs. Swezey. I think we could have spent the entire evening upon it."

As our hostess brought a platter of piping hot biscuits to the table, Ryan continued. "Yes. It's rather peaceful out here. So much different than the city that never sleeps."

"You should hear it during the week." Swezey chuckled. "Elmont's cousin owns the mill across the way. Or perhaps you heard it earlier in the day? It's rather loud and goes for long hours. We only truly get a respite on the weekend."

"Well…" Ryan continued. "One cannot choose from where one's livelihood comes from all the time, can they? I was visiting there earlier with the manager. It seems he has some interest in my company's wares."

"And what concern do you represent, Mr. Ryan?"

"My own in the Bronx, Mr. Whateley. We service all manner of industrial concerns here and parts east with measuring equipment and electrical components. I'd called upon Mr. Swezey earlier this afternoon on my circuit through Suffolk County."

"Any luck?" Mrs. Swezey answered, eyeing her guests as she ported a steaming tray of caramelized beef to the center of the table. All eyes fell upon that main course as she laid it out. Having not eaten for the day, Elizabeth and I were famished, and it smelled divine.

"Thankfully, yes." Ryan said with a pointed glance her way. "Now I've three mouths to feed, and to your cousin's misfortune he was in need of some new machination." By then I'd listened enough to the man to discern a faint twist in his pronunciation, a turn of the tongue that had perhaps a Slavic origin. Whatever it was, it was faint. I doubted Elizabeth had even noticed.

"You've a child then, Mr. Ryan?" Elizabeth asked, giving the man an excuse to turn his gaze her way. Though I was from the frontier, even I knew the game. It was inappropriate for a man to gaze overly long upon a young lady unless called for, particularly for a married man. Seeming well-mannered, well attired and having referred to a child, I could only assume Ryan so.

"Yes, a bouncing baby boy back on Washington Street. Just turned a year old but a week ago." He glanced to the couple. "We've great hopes for him. And yourselves?"

"I'm afraid we've no children." Whateley said. We're here visiting friends for the weekend…not nearly so interesting as business."

The chair at the head of the table was vacant, and upon completing her setting Mrs. Swezey stepped behind the one to its right. As she did Mr. Whateley stood, drawing the woman's chair out for her. Looking to her guests and the vacant head of the table, she produced a somewhat grim smile. "Shall we say Grace?" Together we bowed our heads, though I noticed on Ryan's part a faint reticence.

"Our Father who art in Heaven, thanks we give for this meal and the company in which we receive it. Upon these travelers bestow your grace and grant good fortune in business. Thank you for this food, and for your blessed son, Jesus, whose blood was shed for our redemption. Amen."

"Amen." We echoed, a low mumble. At the conclusion Mrs. Swezey began to slice the brisket. One by one we began to pass the other dishes to our right. Potatoes, turnip greens, rolls with butter. As we did so our hostess doled out the meat in thin, savory slice and soon we were eating. For a time we were busy at it, though as appetites became satiated the two men began to talk more. Business was discussed and politics avoided…mostly.

"Have you been keeping up much with the events in Europe?" Ryan asked after a bite and a turn of phrase took the conversation that way. "Beastly thing. It preys upon my mind so what is transpiring there. Cannot people be allowed to decide matters for themselves free of compulsion?"

Whatelely glanced up from his pudding, a dollop in spoon before his lips. "Sorry. I cannot say I have, good Sir. Seems so far away. I mean, after all, there is an ocean between us and what does that have to do with the goings on here on Long Island? Is it that Eisner you refer to?"

Elizabeth and I had been eating in silence, listening to but not particularly engaging in the banter which up until then had concerned Mrs. Swezey, her husband's business dealings in Riverhead and the mundane happenings in Yaphank. For Elizabeth it must have been from strange conversation to stranger. Until late all she'd ever known had been Columbia and very little of that. And all I'd known was the bottle. "For the moment, I suppose…" Ryan responded. "Him and others, but I sense a darker hand at work both in Germany and Hungary…surely a Russian hand."

"My apologies, friend, but I don't seem to know what you refer to." Whateley answered. Elizabeth's eyes had by then become intent, as if she had either a question or something to say. I gave her a look which she promptly ignored.

"The Bolsheviks?" Her voice rang across the dinner table and Ryan's eyebrow cocked, turning his gaze again toward us. I'd just finished my own pudding, wiping my lips with napkin. I sighed loudly and placed it upon the now silent table. The message could not have been lost upon her.

"Yes." Ryan answered, smiling with the opportunity to turn his eyes to her. "You know of politics, young lady?"

"Only what I read in the papers." She demurred, reacting to my veiled displeasure.

"You're name again was Evelyn?" To me she smiled as if all was forgiven and resumed our mutual deception. The girl would not be reined in by me or anyone else. "A lovely appellation, my Dear. As to your question, I feel it can be no coincidence that the Czar and family are overthrown and murdered by Lenin and Trotsky's ilk, and now the east of Europe is in foment, falling like dominoes under their sway. First Garbai and now Eisner…whose is the hidden hand?"

Elizabeth glanced at me and I sat there dumb. There was a reason I avoided the discussion of politics in polite company…least of all because I didn't know it. War, however, was a different matter, particularly when ignorance such as Whateley's threatened our undoing. Even in New York I'd heard the whispers, rabble rousers in McSorley's and down on the docks rumbling of "organization." "Reds," they called themselves...bound to even the unfairness of the world by chopping the bourgeoisie down to size. Marx's boys.

Fitzroy's boys.

"I suppose you have an idea?" Elizabeth asked, catching the feeling that the man enjoyed hearing his own voice. "If the hand leads back to…"

"Russia." He answered. "The hidden hand must be of that gangster Stalin himself, that and this Party he's 'inherited.' It is no great secret who was responsible for his comrades' demise, for he is a murderer without compare and has his sights set upon the whole world."

"To what end?" Whateley asked.

"Why, to drown it in flame and remake it anew in their so-called 'egalitarian' image. With himself as supreme, of course. And they seem to be succeeding now, what with France on edge and Germany tearing itself apart. Bismarck would roll in his grave…a perfect dagger applied to open old agonies between the Protestant north and the Catholic states."

"I worry sometimes that with his Progressivism Roosevelt leans toward those Reds." Mrs. Swezey opined. Dabbing her lips with similar green napkin to mine, she lay it upon the table. I trust you have all enjoyed Dinner?" Her polite change of the subject did not go unnoticed.

"Oh, yes, very much so." Mrs. Whateley said…some of the few words I'd heard from her the evening. "The brisket was lovely as could be." Shortly her husband and Ryan concurred. "If you don't mind now…" Whateley's wife continued. "I would like Evan to indulge us in an evening walk."

Her husband turned to her with a nod and pleasant acquiescence. "Why, that is a splendid idea." I couldn't help but suspect if he, like his wife, were nonplussed by the gravity of subject.

"You should enjoy it." Mrs. Swezey approved. "It's well enough after dusk that the mosquitoes ought not to be such a bother. And do look for the lights. They've been particularly brilliant that last few nights."

"The Lights?" Elizabeth said with girlish curiosity, crystallizing the puzzlement I'd felt at the woman's cryptic remark.

For a moment Swezey seemed to take pause, glancing toward her husband's empty chair before attending our question. "Yes. If you look to the north from the mill at lakeside you shall be treated to the most marvelous show. I do wish Elmont were here, for in his travels up north he has become quite familiar with them. Even from here though they are most brilliant, like heat lightning, though pressed into shimmering sashes of red and blue that shoot up into the sky like painted strokes."

"Shoot up into the sky?" I heard myself ask, the image striking itself into my head, somehow uncannily familiar. "And you say to the north?"

Swezey nodded. "Yes. We've taken to calling them the Wardenclyffe Lights."

A handful of locals had gathered in the street by the Common as Elizabeth and I descended the Willow's wooden steps, walking hand in hand between a Ford Model V and a Standard Mountaineer, across the corner that served as a car park and over toward the mill. It was perhaps an hour after sunset and the sky had grown dark, any traces of cloud from the afternoon long since vanished. At the lake the trees were far away and there was no moon, leaving an infinitely black swath of sky to look upon, speckled by brilliant sparks of white diamond. Thankfully our hostess had been correct about the bugs. With the sundown and having had no rain for days, the evening was dry and cool.

"Booker…" Elizabeth whispered as we came to a stop. Beyond the murmur of stargazers I heard a chorus of frogs down waterside, along with the ubiquitous crickets. Before she could continue a wave of awe washed her face and a murmur rose from the dozen or so looking out over the lake's star-twinkled waters. Following her gaze, I looked up to see a streak of emerald shimmering ephemerally across the sky, like a rainbow but monotone. Then a red and what I thought to be a blue. For a moment they seemed to entwine before fading silently away.

"Ohhhh!" Elizabeth said, palm rising to cover her mouth. She turned and beamed at me, draping her arms about mine. "They're lovely." The stars had been bright, but her eyes gleamed brighter.

Dammit, I'd seen this before. "Is that what we're looking for?"

She glanced to her deformity and held it up, a frown troubling her face as the thimble's silver caught the light from the mill's porch. "No, I…I don't think so." She said. "I don't even feel my finger anymore. Don't you think they're like the Northern Lights? I used to see them all the time from my tower. I could look at them for hours."

"If those aren't the tear you felt, then what use are they?" Even as I spoke my words rang hollow. This meant something.

Her smile had returned briefly only to fade. "Don't you ever feel romantic, Booker DeWitt? I've waited my whole life for a moment like this. It's so peaceful and quiet here…so beautiful." She put her head upon my chest. "And we're together and I l..." She stopped before saying it. "Please don't spoil it."

After a moment I softened. She was looking up at me and me down at her, the pair of us for once in silent rapport. I smiled softly and brushed a lock of hair from her eyes.

"Quite a show, eh?" I heard a voice beside us say. Though it was 'downtown,' the streetlights in Yaphank were dim, making it difficult to see the personage speaking to us. After a moment he approached, and I could barely make out Peter Ryan.

"Yes, they're splendid." Elizabeth repeated before pulling away. Then her face lit up anew. "Oh!" She exclaimed, clasping her hands in glee before pointing. "There goes another one!"

Ryan watched her intently, much as he'd done in the parlor when given the opportunity. "Mr. Ryan, is it?" I said.

"Mr. Montgomery." He touched the tip of his Bowler hat. "Miss Evelyn. You look enchanting tonight. And such a fetching dress." Elizabeth smiled at him demurely and for a moment I didn't like it.

"Say, any idea of what these 'Wardenclyffe Lights are?' I managed, looking north along the split and receding tree line to either side of the road from which they seemed to rise. By now Elizabeth had turned back. I remembered when I'd thought I'd lost her until I'd found her alive in Comstock's laboratory. I wanted to tell her how I felt then...show her how I felt. A fatherly hug sufficed.

"Well, yes, I suppose. I've been plying this circuit for a few years and the 'Lights' have always been a part of that. Been going on for a couple of years at least."

"That doesn't exactly tell me what they are. They're not ghosts, are they?"

"Ghosts?" Ryan chuckled, eyes hanging upon Elizabeth. "You must be superstitious to believe that."

"I don't."

At my retort he composed himself. "Well, I am reasonably certain that as their name implies, they originate from Wardenclyffe."

"Wardenclyffe?" I repeated. Between us Elizabeth looked to me then to him.

"The town. A small seaside resort started by a banker, I believe from Ohio, a dozen or more years ago, though now it is more known as Shoreham. I visit there upon occasion selling my wares. In fact, I'm going there tomorrow before heading on to Setauket."

"Are you?" Elizabeth asked, eyes catching mine in that devilish way she had when her intellect was firing on all six cylinders. "You sell to the town?"

"The town, no." He smirked.

"If not the town, then to whom?"

"Well, to Wardenclyffe, the laboratory, that is. Which is where I assume these ghostly shows originate."

"Laboratory?" Elizabeth and I said together. For a moment her eyes caught mine anew and she grinned. "There's a laboratory there?"

"Of course." He said. "Perhaps it isn't common knowledge here in the sticks, but up there everyone knows about it. It belongs to Nikola Tesla."

"Tesla? You say you're driving up there tomorrow?" Elizabeth asked.

Ryan cocked an eyebrow in curiosity, eyes casting back toward the Standard across the dirt road. "I am."

With a glance toward me Elizabeth grinned. "You wouldn't have room for two passengers, would you?"

#

Neither of us spoke much afterward, though Ryan went on about his dealings with this laboratory and the rumors of mischief there. The lightshow continued for another good hour before trailing off, and alongside the villagers we retired to our room. As we mounted the stairs Elizabeth kept looking at me, obviously picking up on my mood.

"I told you so." She announced as we entered our room, pulling back in self-satisfaction and presenting her silver tipped digit. "Kiss the thimble."

"We're not going with him." I dismissed.

She turned back to me hurt, cradling her appendage. "Booker."

"Look, I can't help but worry. What good does it do us to chase this? We're happy. The Morellos aren't here. Laslowe isn't here. We should keep it that way."

"Booker…" She said, turning to me, glancing at her finger. "If you'd been able to see red your whole life and then suddenly, without warning, apples were all gray. How would you feel? Or...or what if you could never see the sun the same way again, or see the color of the sky at sunset? Or what…" She turned and walked to the screen at the window. "What if you had run through fields your whole life and suddenly, without warning, you were in a wheelchair? And then, somehow, someone showed you that you might be able to walk again? Or see apples again?"

There was such longing on her face, but I could only worry that one should be careful what they wished for. "I had to do it, Elizabeth. I had to, to save us. Would you have it any other way?"

She walked and sat upon the side of the bed, hands upon her lap and mired in introspection. "No. Of course not." She looked up to me. "But…if you saw a flash of red, got to stand again even for a moment…wouldn't you be even a bit curious? Something is going on and we need to understand it."

"No, we don't." I sighed, taking off my vest and shirt. "Let's go to bed."