Spirits in the Park by Scott Mebus Page A

from! It finally came to me. You look like one of Two’s Boys! You sailed with me into the mists a few times, including that last voyage to Fletcher’s Island. Don’t you remember? It was about seventy-five years ago.”
    â€œHe’s a mortal, Giovanni,” Alfred said from inside the train. “He never sailed with you anywhere.”
    â€œWhat are you talking about?” Rory asked, feeling bombarded. Giovanni squinted at him, sticking his head farther out the window as he peered at Rory intently.
    â€œMaybe you’re not him,” he admitted. “You look like him, especially around the cheeks and chin, but you don’t have his eyes. Two’s Boys all have those eyes that never smile. You can’t mistake it. Strange. That man could have been your brother.”
    A shock ran through Rory.
    â€œOr my father?” he asked softly. Giovanni nodded thoughtfully.
    â€œDefinitely,” Giovanni agreed. “Was your father a sailor?”
    A memory popped up in Rory’s head, of a man who looked just like his father on the deck of the ghost ship Half Moon. He’d doubted he really saw it. But could it be true . . . ?
    â€œOh well,” Giovanni said, pulling back into the train. “We’ve got a schedule to keep.”
    â€œWait!” Rory called, running up to the train. “What are Two’s Boys? Did you know him? When did you see him last? Was his name Peter Hennessy?”
    â€œPeter who?” Giovanni replied. “Never heard of him. Grace, forward! Schedules must be met or everything falls apart!”
    Alfred shrugged apologetically from inside the train as the subway car began to move. It picked up speed as it headed out of the station, disappearing into the darkness of the tunnel. And all Rory could do was watch, unanswered questions racing through his brain in endless circles.
    Who were these Two’s Boys? If his father was one of them, then had he really been sailing on ghost ships, voyaging out into these mists Giovanni spoke of? Is that where he’d been all this time? Was he really that old?
    Just who was Peter Hennessy, anyway?

4
    HOME AGAIN
    D own on the southern tip of the island, not far from the South Street Seaport, stood the oldest fine dining restaurant in the United States. Its rounded entrance looked out proudly onto the corner of Beaver and South William streets, guarded by a pair of stone pillars imported from the doomed city of Pompeii by the two brothers who had opened the establishment back in 1837. The sign above the door still boasted their famous last name, which had come to be synonomous with culinary greatness: DELMONICO’S.
    Little besides the name connected the Delmonico’s that occupied the building in the present to its famous namesake. The restaurant had passed out of the family’s control during Prohibition, when the inability to cook with wine or serve spirits of any kind doomed the New York institution to closure. But the pillars from Pompeii remained, as did the name above the door; more importantly, the memory of the great restaurant that had so dominated nineteenth-century New York endured. And upstairs, unreachable by any mortal, a very different Delmonico’s from the pale imitation below lived on. Delmonico’s the way it was in its heyday a century before. Delmonico’s the way it was always meant to be.
    Gods and spirits occupied almost all the tables in the large, candlelit room, drinking the memories of wine and diving into fond recollections of Delmonico’s renowned steak. Lorenzo Delmonico himself, the famous nephew of the founders whose sure hand had catapulted the establishment into the annals of history, manned the host station, seating the otherworldly guests as they arrived. Now the God of Fine Dining, Lorenzo prided himself on his attention to his diners’ every need. He had stopped by Diamond Jim Brady’s table at least ten times already in his vain