Page 42 of City of Liars

I tried to quash my disappointment as we combed through the rest of the records. The St. Jerome’s box yielded only what we already knew: a young girl had shown up on the steps of St. Jerome’s the day that Ella disappeared, then died of frostbite shortly after. It wasn’t Ella; when Charles had identified the body, he’d said as much. But if Lily had vanished on that same day, it could well be her.

Mystery Girl had shown up at Divine Grace on Thursday. Ella had disappeared on Monday. If I was right, the girl who’d died of frostbite was Lily, and James or someone else had hung on to Ella for four days, then let her go without collecting the ransom, counting on Divine Grace to take her in. If Theo was right, Mystery Girl was Lily, and Ella had either died years ago or had slipped under the radar and was out there somewhere…lost.

Head aching, I rubbed my temples just as my phone buzzed. My breath caught.

It was Maisie MacEwan’s granddaughter, Diane Hayes, returning my call.

26

The Gift of the Wind - 1928

It had been almost a year since the ghost girl had come to live with Daniel and Esther Darling. She knew this because Daniel said it all the time, in his loud voice that made the china in the cabinet tremble, the way the ghost girl did inside.

“It’s been nearly twelve months, Esther, and still the girl barely speaks. The roast you made last night is better company. It’s eerie, the way she looks right through you. It gives me the heebie-jeebies, if you want to know the truth.”

The ghost girl wanted to please Daniel, for fear he would send her away, back to the place with the Ghost People and the food that was never enough. At least here, she knew where she belonged: across from Esther Darling at the dining room table (napkin in your lap, Lucinda); in their pew at church on Sundays, wearing her blue hat with the ribbon.

Esther Darling had told the ghost girl to call her “mama,” and so on the rare occasions the girl spoke aloud, she did. But in her mind-talk, she could not bring herself to do the same. The name of “Mama” belonged to someone else, with the soft arms and the sour-sweet smell and the picture book. Esther Darling was kind and pretty, but she was not Mama. The ghost girl might not remember much, but she knew that.

And names were powerful things. If only the ghost girl could remember her own, surely she could see Mama again. But her real, true name was sunk deep in her belly, silent and stubborn as a seed that refused to bloom.

The ghost girl knew all about seeds. In the spring, when the green shoots had started to push through the soil of this strange new place Daniel had told her was called Chicago, Esther Darling had taken her to a meadow where the grass rolled on and on, like the waters of Lake Michigan. Before they left, the ghost girl had put on her specially-made yellow-and-orange dress, with blue, black-dotted circles above its hem and gauzy black wings stitched to its back. She had buckled her shiny new Mary Janes and pulled her white socks up as high as they would go, loving the way the buckles gnawed at the tops of her feet and the socks leaned into her skin. You are here, these things said. You press into the world, and it presses back.

They had ridden in Daniel’s Packard to Lincoln Park. Then Esther Darling had taken the girl by the hand and led her to a puzzling place, where the people were dressed like plants. Some of the other children wore great big headdresses made of bright yellow petals and green leafy skirts. Others boasted crinkly red-and-orange dresses like autumn leaves and petal-hats to match. A spurt of jealousy filled the ghost girl. She wanted to be a flower, too.

But Esther Darling had leaned in close, whispering into her ear that she was something more, something better. She was a butterfly, and butterflies helped the flowers grow.

Standing in the middle of the park, surrounded by strangers, the ghost girl didn’t know whether to believe. But then the wind tickled the grass at her feet, bending the blades around her shiny Mary Janes. It stirred at her back, catching the edges of her wings, whispering shhh-shhhh-shhhh, and she understood.

After months of waiting, of praying every night the way she’d been taught, Esther Darling had brought the girl here to send her home. She would fly, the wind that had followed her all the way from New York City bearing her on its back.

Esther Darling had given her a great gift.

She had also taught the girl good manners. There was only one thing to say, and so she forced the words to sprout from the sullen seed in her stomach.

“Thank you,” the ghost girl said in her faraway, creaky voice, and watched the tears fill Esther Darling’s eyes. The girl understood this: it was hard to say goodbye.

Pressing Esther Darling’s hand in her small one, the girl stepped away. And then she began to spin. Faster and faster she went, until the world blurred and the wind tore at her wings, buffeting her this way and that. It smelled of the lake, like the wind from home had smelled of the river. It would lift her up, take her away. She would fly over the buildings of Chicago, the sparkling water of Lake Michigan and the spine of the train that had brought her here, snaking its way back along the path she’d come.

The wind had been with her all this time, her one true friend. She had only needed wings. Together they would fly, and as they soared over the world, the wind would whisper her name, and she would be a ghost no more.

The girl spun and spun, her dress belling out and her eyes shut, waiting for her feet to leave the ground. But no matter how fast she twirled, it didn’t happen. Instead she tripped over a root and went sprawling into the dirt, landing on top of her wings and crushing them. And when she opened her eyes, she lay in the grass of Lincoln Park, with Esther Darling scolding her and all the sunflower-children giggling, their hands pressed to their mouths.

She knew the truth, then: she was never going home. The wind had followed her, but not to offer comfort. It was a tease, a taunt. It was the boy who shoved her as the Ghost People watched, it was the sunflower-children laughing behind their hands. It was the cold inside her heart when the snow came down and the space in her throat where her voice should be.

That was the day the ghost girl stopped listening to the wind.

27

Theo

“So, we’re going to meet Diane tomorrow afternoon. We’re making progress, at least.” I leaned back in my chair at Bryant Park Grill, tossing back my espresso like it was a shot of Patrón. After last night’s shitshow of a dream, not to mention the ghostly piano recital, I was exhausted.

Liv sat opposite me, picking at the remains of a muffin. “Yes, at three,” she said. “Diane sounded a little wary, but not enough to blow us off. I guess she likes Ethan Polk.”

“There’s no accounting for taste,” I said, shrugging. Liv had ordered hot chocolate to go with her muffin, and as I glanced across the table at her, I had to smile. She’d gotten whipped cream on her nose, and it might’ve been the cutest thing I’d ever seen.

“Why are you looking at me that way?” she said, raising her eyebrows.