Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

MAR

B y the time I stepped out onto the tiny porch, the dark clouds had thinned. The air remained as cold as it had been in the middle of the night, but it had a fresh punch of dampness to really make that chill hit down to the bone.

Rose greeted me with a warm, yet slightly concerned smile. She was sitting on my swing, scratching Imogen’s sheep namesake behind his ear.

She was wearing a knit hat that she hadn’t worn earlier. It was green with white bolts sticking out of the sides, giving it Frankenstein vibes. I wondered if it was a seasonal choice for Halloween, a play on her having risen from near death, or both.

“My daughter Heather knitted it for me.” Rose quirked her head slightly to the side. “Are we going somewhere?”

I blinked and refocused. “Nie purchased a train ticket. I need to know where she went.”

Rose stood and stretched, releasing a series of cracks and pops. “Let’s go.”

The drive to the train station was slightly awkward. Rose and I had never spent time alone together. I was content to sit in silence. Given her squirms and glances, I assumed Rose was not.

“I have this habit of imagining unrealistic scenarios when my mind isn’t occupied,” she said.

“Maybe you should be a writer.”

She laughed. “No. They aren’t compelling imaginings. They’re just weird. I was thinking that if I was in your position, I’d have a bunch of wild ideas of what happened.”

Curious, I asked, “Like what?”

“Supernatural organized crime. A head in a box feels like a mafia type of message.”

Perhaps Rose had picked up useful knowledge of the magical world from Andrew. “Is there a supernatural mafia?”

“Not that I know of. There could be.”

She glanced at me. I could feel it, even with my attention on the road. Her need to fill silence reminded me of Imogen.

I said, “So you believe Wendy has crossed this supernatural mafia?”

“All of this is hypothetical.” Rose’s gaze lingered, turning into flat-out staring.

“Except it isn’t.” I glanced back at her and squeezed my fists on the steering wheel.

Rose twisted her lips.

“Any thoughts on the reaper theory?” I asked, not remembering her commenting on that part of the group conversation earlier.

“Like even though Bernadette could just kill all of us, she has instead chosen to only kill the one of us who can’t really die, the clone you can remake?”

I couldn’t remake Nie, not on purpose, at least. I’d only created a copy of myself twice, and neither time had been by choice. It had just happened.

I said, “Yes, that theory.”

“Time will tell. I think that’s only likely if the rest of us start dropping dead, too.”

Great. That made me feel so much better.

We parked at the train station. I grabbed my messenger bag from behind my seat, careful not to bump Nie into anything as I retrieved her, and headed toward the ticket booth.

A howling sound filled the air, like a ferocious monster hiding in the woods of a campy horror film. It appeared to be coming from Rose’s stomach.

She checked the time on her phone. I caught the number on the screen—ten twenty-seven.

With an urgent intensity, she rifled through her bag. “I nearly forgot about second breakfast.”

What was she, a hobbit?

Rose pulled out a baggie filled with nuts and berries and started chowing down on it. After eating half of the contents, she offered me some.

I declined.

We crossed the rest of the parking lot to the open-air station. Nearly every surface was made of cement, from the parmesan yellow pillars to the parmesan yellow station floor, which was cut to look like large tiles.

The ticket booth stood out against the yellow, a small enclosed space painted barn red. Inside, a man stood with his eyes half-closed. He appeared to be in his sixties, ninety-percent mustache, and well on his way to falling asleep and toppling over.

As Rose and I reached the booth, the man blinked and wiggled his mustache back and forth like a rocking horse.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hello. Are you ready to purchase a ticket?” Ticket Guy asked.

“No,” I said. “My sister stole my credit card and purchased a ticket on the twenty-third.”

“Family can be complicated.” He shook his head and frowned. “If I was you, I’d call the credit company and report the card as stolen. They can sometimes help with fraudulent charges.”

That would be helpful advice if my story was fact instead of fiction.

“Thanks,” I said. “I was hoping you could look up her destination. It’s not listed digitally on the charge.”

Ticket Guy hissed a breath between his teeth. “I wish I could help you, but I’m not authorized to share customer information.”

“I’m only asking for what was done with my card,” I said, “not anything about anyone else.”

He offered an apologetic twitch of his lips and a small shrug. “Sorry I can’t help.”

Well, that was disappointing.

I turned my attention up to the board affixed to the wall beside the counter. On it was a list of destinations and times, along with a haunted house sticker and several more of what appeared to be white balloons but were more likely intended to be ghosts.

Maybe if I put myself in Nie’s shoes and pretended it was my turn to leave Piccadilly to travel anywhere I wanted, I’d be able to figure out where she’d gone. Crescent City wasn’t listed as a destination, though it was possible she’d taken a train south and headed west from there.

Rose looked from side to side, conspicuously. She was definitely up to something. Curious, I watched to see what that something was.

She leaned her elbows on the counter and narrowed her eyes at Ticket Guy. Her expression, usually jovial, took on a predatory quality. “Give us the purchase information for Marnie Ab?—”

“Margaret,” I interjected.

“Margaret Abernathy,” Rose said to Ticket Guy. Then she snapped her attention back to me, and every ounce of intimidation instantly disappeared. “Margaret’s a pretty name.”

I’d never cared much for it.

Ticket Guy mooned over Rose, leaning forward with an eager look of desperate approval. The man had turned from competent attendant to lovesick puppy in an instant. Why?

“Of course,” he said.

I was missing something. Rose was charming, and I was not. But Ticket Guy had seemed set on following the rules. It wasn’t like she’d offered to flash him or anything.

I turned to Rose in disbelief. “I didn’t expect him to comply.”

“Revenant influence,” she said.

“Of course,” I said, having forgotten that part of her powers. Rose’s ridiculous superstrength wasn’t limited to the physical. She could break a person’s will as easily as their neck. “Is there anything you can’t do?”

“Lie like you did,” she answered without hesitation. “The my-sister-stole-your-credit-card bit was really convincing.”

I almost chuckled at that. Even if I’d delivered a plausible lie, I hadn’t swayed Ticket Guy an inch.

I told Rose, “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Me, too.” She cracked a warm and genuine smile.

This wasn’t like me, sharing feelings.

I blamed Nie.

Ticket Guy poked his screen. “There it is. Margaret Abernathy. Three thirty p.m. October twenty-third from Piccadilly, Pennsylvania to Nevermore, New Jersey.”

Nevermore? I’d never heard of it. Nothing against the Garden State, but with an entire world to explore, why would Nie choose New Jersey?

“What else do you want from this guy?” Rose asked me. “Are we done with him?”

“Is there security footage?” I asked.

Ticket Guy stared blankly at Rose.

“Answer her,” Rose said.

“Yes,” he said.

“Show us,” Rose commanded.

Ticket Guy clacked away at his keyboard, then turned his monitor around for us. The screen was split into four. People mulled about in each frame, approaching the ticket stand, heading across the lobby, to and from train platforms.

“There.” Rose pointed a finger at the screen at the exact moment I spotted Nie in the upper left corner of the screen.

Nie walked up to the counter to purchase a ticket. Then she left the frame. She picked up in the next walking toward an empty bench.

Minutes passed.

Knowing these were some of Nie’s final moments made my heart beat harder and faster in my chest. Something on this footage had to be a clue.

Nie rose from her seat and entered one of the trains.

Moments later, a figure in a long, dark cloak entered after her.

My attention lingered on the screen after the figure had entered the train. There was nothing else to see, as Nie was gone. The person in the cloak wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary that I could pinpoint, but something about him made me wary.

Maybe it was the fact that I couldn’t see his face, or even his hair beneath the hood. Maybe it was because of the way he held his shoulders that I couldn’t tell how tall he was. Or maybe it was his slow, deliberate gait.

Whatever the reason, a faint chill carried down my spine.

“Can you back the footage up to when Nie first appeared?” I asked.

“Do it,” Rose said.

I watched again, and this time watching not for Nie specifically, but for Cloak Guy.

He followed her into the station, at a distance. He hung back while she purchased her ticket, and never went to the ticket booth himself after. He disappeared from view.

Then, as soon as Nie stood from the bench and embarked onto the train, Cloak Guy walked across the frame and entered the train, too.

It certainly seemed like he was intentionally following her. Who was Cloak Guy? And why was he following Nie? Had he already purchased his ticket some time before she arrived?

“At least we know now that Nie got on the train,” Rose said.

I hadn’t considered that she may not have. Nie could have bought the ticket and then been killed before even getting on the train. Without Rose’s help, I wouldn’t have known.

I also wouldn’t have known that Nie was likely being stalked.

I tried to think back to any conversations I’d had with Nie leading up to her arrival at the station, any clue that she knew someone was following her. I came up blank.

“I want a list of everyone on that train,” I said. “Contact information. Names and addresses.”

Rose held out her hand, gesturing for Ticket Guy to deliver.

Ticket Guy typed, clicked, and navigated menus until the printer on the counter beside him spit out pages of text. He handed them to Rose, who handed them to me.

There were three pages of names, addresses, and phone numbers typed in a small font, each a lead. Knowing the chance of recognizing any of the names was minimal, I still sifted through the document with a hopeful spark in my chest.

And, what do you know, I found a name I recognized. A soft murmur of disbelief escaped my lips.

Bernadette Graves.

I pointed and showed Rose to make sure I wasn’t mistaken.

The chances of an entirely different Bernadette Graves being on that exact train at that exact time, was too low to be a real possibility.

Rose gasped. “That’s the reaper’s name. And her home address is in Nevermore. Do you think that’s why Nie took this train?”

To visit the reaper? “I don’t know why she would want to.”

Rose nodded. “Me either. I’d rather not ever see Bernadette again. Anything else you want me to make this guy do?”

“See how well he remembers the steps to the macarena? We could always make him pick his nose just because we can. That would be amusing.”

Rose cracked a grin. “Tempting. But I try to use my powers for good.”

A pity, truly.

“Anything you want him to do to help you find Nie?” Rose asked.

We now knew that Nie had gotten onto the train. But had she safely arrived in Nevermore? I wouldn’t take any piece of this mystery for granted again. That meant following where she had gone, step-by-step.

“Two tickets to Nevermore,” I told Rose, “if you’re up for a trip.”

Rose nodded and opened her mouth like she was going to respond, but then before uttering a word, she frowned and pulled out her phone. It vibrated in her hand.

“It’s Andrew,” she told me before answering the call. “Hey.”

I couldn’t hear what he said to her, but her frown deepened.

“Yes, it’s too late. I think? Let me ask.” Then she put her hand over the bottom of her phone. “You absorbed Nie’s head, right? I should have asked what information you’d gleaned on the car ride instead of going on and on about my imagination.”

I hadn’t minded the conversation. If anything, I was grateful she hadn’t asked about what I had or hadn’t done with the head in my bag.

Rose looked at me expectantly.

I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. “I didn’t touch her. She’s….”

Slowly, reluctantly, I opened the messenger bag for Rose to see.

Nie’s dead eyes stared up at the sky, and as I stared into the cloudy gray, a pang of some unnamed, unpleasant emotion swirled in my stomach. I didn’t want to name it, or feel it.

A second later, something impossible happened. It happened so fast, I wasn’t sure if it was real or if I’d imagined it.

Nie blinked.