Dust girl

26

Dangling from the porter’s grip, Morgan raised his gun and pointed it at the man’s broad face. The porter just looked disgusted and wrenched the revolver out of the railroad bull’s gray fingers, tossing it away into the steam clouds.

“Last call!” cried a voice from deep inside the train. “All aboard!”

The giant of a porter looked down at me and Jack. “You two coming?”

Weakness washed over me, mixing with the pain in my head and the feel of the flames at my back. But Jack pulled me to my feet and shoved me in front of him up the steps of that black Pullman car, climbing in behind.

You know how people talk about the weight of the world slipping off their shoulders? That was what I felt as soon as I reached the top of those stairs. All at once, I wasn’t tired anymore. I felt fine. Nothing hurt, and I could see perfectly well. I could stand. I could walk. I wasn’t even hungry.

The porter came up the steps behind us, carrying Bull Morgan at arm’s length as easy as he’d carry a rotten apple by its stem.

“Okay, Mr. Jones!” he called toward the engine. “We got ’em.”

There was a narrow pass-through behind me. I could see the sooty confines of the engine, and the engineer in his dusty overalls. The firebox was open, and the burly fireman shoveled in a load of coal from the big pile next to him. The engineer mounted the cab. The whistle sounded, and the train pulled smoothly forward.

“These two are my prisoners!”

Bull Morgan straightened himself up. He wasn’t swollen, damp, and gray anymore. He was the living man as I’d first seen him in Constantinople. As if to prove it, he yanked his club out of its holster and waved it at the porter. “You got no right, you…”

But the porter just clamped two huge fingers around the club and pulled it out of the bull’s hand. He closed his fist around it. There was a loud, short crunch, and sawdust trickled down to the carpet.

“I am the porter in charge of this train, Samuel Morgan. You will sit yourself down and mind your p’s and q’s until you get where you’re going.”

He put his hand on Morgan’s shoulder again and pushed him into the nearest seat. He snapped his fingers, and Bull Morgan’s head dropped back. His mouth opened, and for a second I thought he was dead, until I heard the long, rumbling snore.

Apparently satisfied, the porter turned to smile all the long way down to me and Jack, and touched the brim of his hat. “Pleased to have you on board, Jacob, Calliope.”

“We can’t ride this train,” Jack whispered. “We don’t have tickets.”

The porter chuckled. “Oh, everybody on my train’s prepaid, don’t you worry. You just be comfortable. We’ll be at the station shortly.” He pulled a gold turnip watch out of his pocket and checked it. “Yes, indeed. Right on time.” He tucked the watch away and touched the brim of his hat again. “You need anything, you just pull the cord and ask for Daddy Joe, porter in charge. Now, if you and Calliope will excuse me, there’s some folks in the back I’ve got to see to.” He walked briskly down the aisle. The train rattled and bumped over the tracks, but Daddy Joe didn’t so much as sway as he strode toward the rear of the car.

I turned to Jack, my mouth open, and I swallowed my words.

If I’d gotten better, Jack had gotten worse. He was sick and gray again as he stared around the dim car at all the passengers.

“Shema yisroel, adonoi eloheinu, adonoi echod,” he croaked. “Boruch shem k’vod malchuso l’olam vo’ed.”

“Jack!” I shook his shoulder. “Jack, what is it?”

“Don’t you see, Callie?”

I looked around. I saw a Pullman Palace Car stuffed full of people, all kinds and all ages of people. There were women with babies in their arms, and all sizes of kids, both with their parents and on their own. There were old people tricked out in their Sunday best, sitting up straight and calm. Some were smiling like they were on the way to a vacation they’d been saving for forever; others looked sad; some looked even more scared than Bull Morgan had when he saw Daddy Joe the porter reach down for him.

“What do you see?” I asked Jack.

“They’re dead, Callie. That one… that one’s been shot, and that one’s got her head on her lap, like she needs a hatbox. That one’s got the scarlet fever, and that one…” He shuddered and closed his eyes. “What do you see?”

“They all look fine to me. They look… they look like they’re on a train trip. Nothing special, except…” Then I realized what was special, what I’d missed before. “Except black and white and brown, they’re all sitting together. Nobody’s split them up.”

Then I looked at them harder. “Can you see their eyes?” I asked Jack.

“Yeah.”

“I can’t. They’ve got no eyes.” They didn’t. Where their eyes should have been in all those calm, slightly curious faces were nothing but black holes.

“Which of us do you think is seeing true?” asked Jack.

“I think we both are.” I paused, and slowly touched the place on my head where I’d been hit by… something. My skin and skull didn’t feel smooth like they should. They felt ragged and loose. “Jack… Jack, what do you see looking at me?”

He swallowed, and he struggled. “You’re… you’re shot, Callie. Your head.”

Which was really all I needed to know about that. “Okay.”

“Does it hurt?” he asked softly.

“No. I don’t feel anything at all.” I didn’t even feel afraid. It was like I was cut off from all that. Jack, clearly, wasn’t having any such luck.

“Maybe we should sit down,” I suggested.

“Yeah.”

We found a couple of seats right at the front, where Jack could stare at the wall and not have to see the other passengers. I took the window seat. The shade was down, but I hooked one finger around the edge and pulled it back, just far enough to see.

White clouds billowed all around us. Not steam clouds. Clouds. Overhead stretched the sparkling white river of the Milky Way. Down below, the earth spread out like a carpet, all green and brown in the sunrise.

I let the shade drop into place and fell back against the plush seat.

“What did you see?” asked Jack, but I just shook my head. He did not want to know.

“Can you wish us outta here, Callie?”

I swallowed, and I stretched out my senses, but there was no feeling. No, that wasn’t right. There was plenty of feeling, but it was beyond me. It was like trying to wrap my hand around the wind. These people were past my touching, past anybody’s touching. Or maybe it was because I couldn’t feel my own self anymore. Maybe if I could have still gotten to my pain or my fear, I would have found my magic, but that was all gone.

I shook my head again. No wish was going to get us off this train. I reached for Jack’s hand. It was cold. But then, so was mine.

I don’t know how long that ride took. Maybe it took no time at all. But it didn’t feel like the timelessness of Fairyland. There was nothing frenetic about this, nothing hidden under any veil. The train held a calm like earth and stone.

At last, Daddy Joe the porter came up the aisle. “Union Station!” he called. “Union Station, last stop! All out at Union Station! All connecting trains at Union Station!”

The rocking and rattling slowed. The brakes shrieked and the steam whooshed out. Light streamed in around the shades. People got to their feet. No one reached for any luggage. They just moved into the aisles and climbed down the stairs.

I looked at Jack. Jack looked at me. “I guess we gotta,” he whispered. I nodded.

We joined the queue of passengers waiting to exit the car. I tried to be afraid for Jack’s sake, and for my own, because if I was afraid, maybe I wasn’t like… like the others.

We stepped out of the car into the biggest, grandest station I’d ever seen, even in the movies. It was built with a hundred different shades of marble, white and black and green and pink, all laid out in fine and fancy patterns. Everything was edged with gold, and the arched dome ceiling was aquamarine and filled with stars. Except for the tunnel the train had come through, there were only two exits, one marked NORTHBOUND TRAINS and the other SOUTHBOUND TRAINS.

The platform was crowded with people. Like the train passengers, they were all ages and all colors. They waved and shouted to the disembarking passengers. Couples embraced and kissed. Parents hugged their children and hoisted little ones up on their shoulders. Friends clasped hands and cried joyful tears. But there were cops too, in clean blue uniforms, who, all silent and solemn, linked arms with some of the passengers and walked them toward the stairs marked SOUTHBOUND.

Jack and I stared around. I had no idea what to do or where to go. Then I turned to see Daddy Joe coming down the stairs, with Morgan tucked under one arm. Morgan kicked and waved his fists, but this didn’t seem to bother the porter at all.

“I… uh… Mr. Joe, what do we do?” I asked.

“Sorry. Not for me to say. I got to see this one delivered.” Daddy Joe shook Morgan until his teeth rattled. “Besides, this young man’s got somebody waiting on him.”

“Jacob!”

She came pushing through the crowd. I recognized her right off. She had Jack’s blue eyes and the same brown hair, although hers was long and all in curls.

“Hannah!” Jack cried. “Hannah!”

The little girl leapt into Jack’s arms, and he caught her and whirled her around so easily I knew they’d done it a thousand times before.

I grinned up at Daddy Joe. He touched his hat brim.

“Please,” whispered Morgan from under the porter’s arm. “Please, help me.”

“You remember you said that,” rumbled Daddy Joe. “Maybe next time it’ll go better. ’Scuse me, Calliope.”

Daddy Joe slung Morgan over his shoulder and marched away down the southbound stairs.

Jack hadn’t noticed any of this, of course. He was on his knees in front of his little sister. “I’m sorry, Hannah. I’m so sorry. It was all my fault. Can you forgive me?”

But she leaned forward and rubbed her nose against his. “Silly!” she cried. “It wasn’t your fault. Not ever. And I’m okay now.”

“Are you really?”

She nodded. “Truly. And I do forgive you for not playing dolls with me.”

Jack barked out a laugh, and the two of them hugged for a long time.

“I’ve been awful worried about you, though,” said Hannah solemnly when she was finally able to pull away from her brother. “You wouldn’t let go of me, and they were using it to hurt you.” She laid her hand over his heart. “You won’t let them do that anymore, will you, Jacob? Please.”

“I won’t, Hannah. I promise. But…”

“But what?”

“I’m… I’m dead, aren’t I?”

She laughed. “Not yet, Jacob. Not you.”

They both turned to look at me. That huge, bustling station suddenly felt very small and very still. I reached my hand to the loose spot on my scalp and let it fall down again.

“Callie?” Jack whispered.

“That’s up to her,” said Hannah.

“What do you mean?” The words crawled awkwardly out of me.

Jack’s little sister didn’t have eyes in her face, but she didn’t have empty holes either. Her eyes were like Baya’s, filled with night and stars, and she was studying me, not hard, but kindly, like she just wanted to know me better. “Sometimes people who make it this far have to make a decision.”

I looked from the northbound stairs to the southbound, and Hannah Hollander laughed hard.

“Not that kind of decision! That’s made way before any of us get here. No. You’ve got to decide whether to go back or not.”

The train was still behind me. I could hear the clink of cooling metal. The crowd had cleared out. The Hollands-Hollanders-and I stood alone on the platform.

“What about my grandparents, my mother’s parents?”

“They weren’t sure you’d want to see them, but they’re waiting for you that way.” Hannah waved toward the northbound stairs.

“My folks aren’t here, are they?”

“Nope. They’re still in the lands of the living.”

“And Jack?”

Hannah’s smile drooped slowly, and Jack took her hand. “Whatever you do, Callie, Jacob’s got a long way to go yet.”

But I didn’t have to go so far. Not if I didn’t want to.

I looked at Hannah and saw how she shone all happy. I felt a kind of peace settling around me. I thought about the way the faces of the people lit up as they climbed the stairs with their friends and family. I thought about seeing Grandma and Grandpa again, about being able to forgive and just be family, real family, without any schemes or tricks or traps.

But my parents weren’t here. Mama and, yes, Papa were out in the wide, living worlds somewhere. Grandma and Grandpa couldn’t help them. The king and queen of the Midnight Throne wouldn’t help them. If I went up those stairs, the throne would go to Uncle Lorcan, and it would be like Mama and Papa didn’t exist.

I had a choice to make, and I made it.

“I’m going back.”

Hannah nodded solemnly. “It’s going to be hard,” she said. “That prophecy? It’s still there. Both sides are going to want you for their own, and they are not going to give up easy.”

“Neither am I,” I said.

Hannah Hollander nodded, her brown curls bobbing. “You’d better take Jacob with you, then. You’re gonna need him.”

“Maybe…,” I began, but Jack shook his head.

“Oh, no. I’m seeing this through. How else am I gonna know how the story ends?”

There was a lot under those words. I’d go digging for it later.

Jack turned to his sister, his face creasing to hold back tears and get ready for good-bye. Little Hannah just went up on her tiptoes, wrapped her arms around him, and hugged him tight.

“It’s okay, Jacob. I can come meet the train anytime.”

“Thanks, Hannah.”

“You take care of yourself, all right?” She looked him in the eyes with her midnight and stars.

“I will, I promise.” He kissed her forehead, and she rubbed his nose. Then she spun around and ran up the northbound stairs. At the first landing, she turned and waved, and we both waved back.

Hannah whisked out of sight, and Jack lowered his hand. If the weight of the world had slipped from me when we boarded the train, I could see it rolled off Jack now. He’d been forgiven by his little sister, and I could see he’d forgiven himself too. Here, on the edge of all the worlds there were, something tight and hard had vanished from behind Jack Holland’s eyes, and I was pretty sure it was gone for good.

He turned to me and took both my hands. “I got a wish, Callie. I wish you were better. I wish we were back in Kansas City.”

We linked elbows and strolled away. I made the world key turn with a wave of my hand. It had never been this easy before, and I was sure it never would be again. But that was later.

Right now, a door opened in front of us, and we went through, walking easy and free all the way back to Kansas City.