Spirits in the Park (15 page)

Rory awoke with a start. He'd been dreaming of the park again, only this time the barrier had been covered in snakes. He couldn't even see through to the other side. Finally, one of the snakes had lauched itself at him and he'd been forced to wake up.

He was lying abed in one of Washington Irving's spare rooms. Irving had refused to let him or Bridget leave the house, though Rory had wanted to sneak into the park to check on Soka. Unable to actually do anything productive, Rory had wandered up to this bedroom and fallen asleep. That was during the afternoon; the darkened windows told him that night had since fallen. He sat up, trying to shake the dream. As he took a few deep breaths to steady himself, he noticed the soft strains of music drifting through the door. What was going on?

He hopped out of bed and wandered downstairs. The music was coming from the parlor; Irving appeared to be entertaining some guests. Bridget sat at the base of the stairs, pouting.

“I should be at the Debutante Ball right now,” she complained as he sat down next to her. “I could have worn my steel-toe boots and everything. I'd have danced with any boy I wanted, because I'd look so awesome. Then I would have sat on the Debutante throne like a warrior princess, putting the silly girlie-girls in their place with one lift of my eyebrow. Fine, I can't raise my eyebrow right now, even though I practice, like, every day. But I bet at the ball it would come naturally. Instead I'm stuck here listening to Washington and his weirdo friends.”

“What's going on in there?” Rory wanted to know. The parlor door was shut, but soft piano drifted through.

“He's having some kind of jam session,” Bridget replied. “It's weird. While you were asleep, he tried on Olathe's necklace. And ever since he's been like a crazy person. He said he had a big idea. He called over his oddball friends and they disappeared into that room, to sit around and sing like a bunch of hippies. Some big idea. I should be at the ball!”

“Who's in there with him?” Rory asked, getting up to listen at the door.

“Some weirdo poet, a sad, singing lady, and a bouncy piano guy. I thought he'd bring together a posse, you know, with warriors and guys like that. What do I get? Show tunes!”

The door creaked open and Washington's face poked out.

“We can hear you, you know,” he said. “Come on in, children. Let me introduce you to my friends.”

Rory and Bridget stepped into the parlor. A merry fire burned in the hearth while three guests gathered around the piano. Washington introduced them.

“This dapper gentleman by the couch is Langston Hughes, God of Poetry. Very big during the Harlem Renaissance, as I'm sure you know. The fine figure of a woman next to him is the famous Billie Holiday, Goddess of the Blues.”

“They still play your songs on the radio,” Rory said, impressed. “My mom loves you.”

“Thank you, honey,” Billie said, smiling. “Your mamma has some fine taste.”

“And the fellow at the piano is none other than George Gershwin, God of Snappy Tunes.”

Gershwin tipped his cap. “An honor to meet ya, kid.”

“Why are you all here?” Rory asked.

“We're fightin' back against the tyranny of the men down at City Hall!” Hughes said with a flourish.

“How?” Bridget asked, skeptical. “Are you actually a crack ninja force? Maybe you're working on your theme song before you go on your killing spree. Every ninja force needs a theme song, I guess.”

“You don't always need a knife to stab at the heart, little one,” Irving told her. “When I wore that necklace, I was touched by Olathe's story. It needed to be told. The people of Mannahatta are afraid. They're only being fed one story: the tale of Munsee terror. We need to give them something else. A story about love. We need to tear away the frightening mask of the other and show them what lies behind: a beating heart, just like their own.”

“And you're going to do this with a piano?” Bridget asked, rolling her eyes.

“We're gonna try, doll,” Gershwin said, eyes twinkling. His fingers ran over the keys as fast and light as laughter.

“Oh, we're more than trying,” Hughes said confidently. “There won't be a dry eye on the island when we're done.”

“But there wasn't a whole story in the necklace,” Rory said. “There were only three memories.”

“That's enough,” Irving said. “We just need a kernel of truth, after all. The rest grows from there, filling out until we have ‘The Ballad of Olathe and Buck.' Why don't we show you what we have so far? George?”

Gershwin began to play, a slow but hopeful melody forming under his fingers. Billie Holiday held up the piece of paper given her by Langston Hughes and softly began to sing.

The story that unfolded told of two peoples at war. Billie sang of two lovers from opposite sides who discover that their worlds are not so different after all. The Munsees are accepting; it is Olathe's father who is the obstacle. But their love will not be denied, until Olathe's father turns away from his daughter rather than accept her choice. Buck learns of the Trap and runs to warn Olathe and her people, but the evil adviser has him killed right in front of Olathe. Devastated, she retreats to the woods, preferring to live alone away from the meaningless bickering between the Munsees and the gods. It all means so little compared to her lost love. She leaves her song behind so her father can one day learn the truth and see he was wrong all along about their love.

Through the beautiful music and the haunting words and Billie's deep, rich voice, Rory could feel the story. He felt the hope and the love and the anguish and the loss. He felt it as much as if he were wearing the necklace again. By the end, tears fell down his cheeks, and he realized that this song would do more for the Munsees than a hundred knives. People would see themselves in the Munsees, and in the romance of Olathe and Buck they would recognize their own dreams of love. It wouldn't magically make things better, of course. But a little candle in the dark was often all it took to make people wonder what else there is to see.

The next day, “The Ballad of Olathe and Buck” swept through Mannahatta, causing a sensation like few had ever seen. Billie Holiday sang it wherever she could, but soon she was no longer needed to keep the song alive. It sprang up in every tavern, every pub, every parlor and meeting hall across the spirit city within a day. Dutch spirits sang it and Irish spirits and Germans and Jews and African-Americans and Hispanics and Chinese and Koreans and Indians and on and on. That kernel of truth, that feeling of love gone but never truly lost, it slipped into the heart of every spirit who heard it and took up residence there. And soon that kernel of truth began to grow. The fear remained as the rumors ran rampant, but it wasn't the same kind of fear. Somehow, the Munsees didn't seem quite so alien anymore. After all, they'd been loved by one of their own.

One man in particular was striding along Broadway when he heard the song being sung by an old woman on the street corner. The man stopped to listen, and by the end he was fighting back tears. He ran down a side street, away from the music, from those memories of her. How did they know? He thought he'd buried the past. Pushing the pain down deep inside, he struggled to regain control of himself. First all those questions about Meester, now this. The past was refusing to stay past. He didn't think he would survive its revival. But could he find a way to stop it now?

Alexa cursed to herself as she adjusted her dress. She couldn't begin to express how much she hated the wretched thing: from the horrible ruffles to the ridiculously huge flower on her shoulder to the weight of the bustle. She looked like the result of an experiment to cross a human with a wedding cake. And the makeup! Oh, the torture that was her makeup! Layer upon layer of foundation and blush and eye shadow and mascara and whatever else girls lather on their faces in an effort to look as inhuman as possible. Alexa felt like she'd been hit in the face with a custard pie and hadn't been allowed to wash up. All in all, between the dress and the makeup, and the shoes (she wasn't going to even think about the twin pillars of pain that were her high heels), Alexa felt at her absolute worst. And that was just how the rest of the children of the gods always made her feel. And now she was about to subject herself to their catty judgments yet again. Wonderful.

Next to her, Simon stood dressed in a bright orange tuxedo with blue stripes. He looked excited and worried all at once, fumbling about in his pocket with one hand while he adjusted his sparkly bow tie with the other.

“Stop fidgeting,” Alexa muttered crossly.

“I'm not. I'm just a little on edge. I haven't been to one of these in years.”

“Isn't that because your aunt banned you from attending?”

“She's not my aunt!” Simon shot back, glaring. This was a sore subject. “Mrs. Astor is my father's mortal grandson's wife, which makes her absolutely nothing to me. I'm older than her, I'm more stylish than her, and I look way better in orange, believe me. But just because she's the Goddess of Society, she tries to lord it over me every time she sees me. She thinks she's better than me. All the other Astors do, the Colonel and William Waldorf and all of them, just because they're gods and I'm not. I'd be a god, too, if I had ever been mortal! It's not my fault my dad waited until after he was dead to have me!”

Alexa patted Simon's shoulder soothingly.

“Well, there's no reason to see her, Simon. We'll be in and out before she knows we're there.”

Simon nodded hesitantly, smoothing his tux with one hand.

“Ready?” she asked him. He nodded, taking a deep breath. “Then let's do this.”

Alexa hobbled across 34th Street on her death heels, Simon right behind. Above them loomed the Empire State Building in all its glory; Alexa admired the cool, sleek lines of the sky-scraper. But before the tallest building in Manhattan had been built, another famous structure had resided on this block. And it was to the memory of that great institution, accessed by a single door in the center of the Empire State Building's base, that Alexa and Simon were headed. They had just reached the door when they were blocked by a smartly dressed, insolent doorman.

“Are you here for the ball?” he asked, his tone suggesting that he believed it unlikely.

Alexa, already overtaken by nerves, was in no mood.

“Of course, you twit,” she replied peevishly. “Why else would I subject myself to these shoes?”

“Alexa van der Donck, escorted by Simon Astor,” Simon cut in, bowing slightly. The doorman started at the name, his manner changing completely.

“I am so sorry, Mr. Astor! Please let your dear aunt know that I meant no disrespect! Welcome to the Waldorf-Astoria!”

Simon inclined his head as the two of them swept by.

“She's not my aunt,” Simon muttered under his breath as he entered the shrine to the greatness of his last name.

Long considered the emperor of New York City hotels, the Waldorf-Astoria's history was fraught with family drama. In the late nineteenth century, William Waldorf Astor lived next to his aunt Mrs. Astor (who famously went by only her last name) and her son Colonel John Jacob Astor IV. The two branches hated each other with a passion. So William Waldorf had the Waldorf Hotel built on his property next to Mrs. Astor's town house in an effort to drive her crazy. Colonel Astor got him back by persuading his mother to move uptown and then building the Astoria right next to the Waldorf, the newer hotel besting the older one by four stories. The cousins never made up, but money always wins in the end, so the two hotels eventually were combined into one: the Waldorf-Astoria.

Eventually the old hotel was demolished and rebuilt uptown on Park Avenue, but the new Waldorf never quite matched the influence and grandeur of the original. Which was why Mrs. Astor hosted her coming-out balls for the children of the gods here, where it all began. Though she only set foot in the Astoria side of the hotel, as some feuds never die.