Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

MAR

R ose grabbed my wrist with a grip so crushing I thought she may be trying to juice me. The pain was instantaneous and intense. She led me across the train station lobby in quick strides. I had no choice but to follow or get dragged across the tile.

As we entered the bathroom, Rose released me and bent down to check for feet under the stall doors. There was a startled look in her chestnut eyes. I didn’t know if it was caused by shock over Nie’s continued existence, Nie’s blink, or over something Andrew had told her over the phone. If I were to guess, I’d say her sudden fretting was due to a combination of factors, though she hadn’t confirmed anything through words.

I was certainly curious why Andrew had called, but Rose still seemed to be on the phone with him as she scoured the bathroom, so I likely wouldn’t have to wait long to hear about it.

I lifted the sleeve of my coat and stared at the white marks lingering on my skin where Rose’s fingers had been. It would most definitely bruise. Rose likely didn’t realize her own strength.

“All clear,” she said. Then she hurried back over and locked the bathroom door.

I set my bag gently on the counter next to the sinks and carefully lowered the sides of the canvas in such a way that there was no chance I’d accidentally touch Nie during the process.

Rose set her phone down on the counter beside Nie and said, “Okay, Andrew, you’re on speaker.”

“Marnie, please tell me you have not yet absorbed the head.” Andrew’s voice was taught with tension.

His tone made me tense.

“I haven’t. Nie is here,” I told him.

A nerve twitched on the side of Nie’s face, pulling her right cheek and eye.

My breath caught in my throat as I absorbed the reality of the situation. I hadn’t imagined it before—outside by the ticket booth, Nie really had blinked. Elation left me lightheaded and lighthearted.

The twitches continued, animating a wrinkle of Nie’s nose, then a lift of her left brow. Nie’s eyes blinked out of unison and with such force it seemed like she was attempting to suffocate dust mites between her lids.

Wendy’s lych magic had actually worked, like a time-release capsule.

“The head is winking,” Rose told Andrew. “It’s…unsettling.”

As a general rule, winking could never be anything but unsettling.

“Wendy’s reanimation succeeded?” Andrew let out a breath. “Nie, can you hear me?”

The entire left side of Nie’s face contracted then released.

“Either she’s trying to tell us something wordlessly, or her nervous system is going haywire,” Rose said.

“Hmm,” Andrew said, unhelpfully.

“I can’t say for sure if what Wendy did helped or not.” Rose shot me an apologetic look.

I wasn’t offended or saddened by her words. She was right. We had no way of knowing if more time would allow Nie to speak, or if winks and spasms were the extent of Nie’s return from the dead.

My hope was tempered with a heavy dose of realism. But that glimmer of hope still remained.

“No matter its state, it’s fortunate you still have the head,” Andrew said. “Rose, I need you to open the blacklight app on your phone.”

“Kay, just a sec.” She picked up the phone and tapped on the screen.

“Tell me what you see,” Andrew told her.

The back of Rose’s phone lit up. She shined it on Nie. I flicked off the overhead bathroom lights.

It was unclear what exactly we were supposed to be looking for. Nie’s eyes showed stark white against her bluish-purple skin, exactly as they should. I glanced over at Rose, seeing a similar but diluted effect on her own face.

“What exactly are we—” Rose’s sentence ended in a gasp.

I snapped my attention back to Nie. Intricate swirls appeared on her skin, twisted and sharp like thorny vines. The swirls grew brighter by the second.

“Thick, spirally lines,” Rose said.

“How did you know the lines would be there?” I asked Andrew. “What do they mean?”

“I found a nearly imperceptible vibration in the ear wax,” Andrew said.

Seriously?

I repeated, “Vibrating ear wax.”

“It suggests the residual echoes of a cursed whisper,” Andrew said.

First, curses were real? Second, all that it took to deliver one was a whisper into someone’s ear? This revelation was another thorn in an already prickly situation.

I reminded myself that any information was helpful at this stage.

“So…a bad witch did this?” Rose asked.

“Unclear,” Andrew said. “Curses can be learned.”

Learned magic instead of innate was like Andrew’s alchemy. It didn’t have to be a witch who had cursed Nie.

Rose sighed. “So it could have been anyone.”

“What did the curse do to Nie?” I asked.

“A spiral shape suggests a curse of thorns, such as Anchorbriar Chains,” Andrew said. “There are others, but they all essentially do the same thing—bind the cursed to a physical location.”

Bound her…here, to Piccadilly? And then she got on the train.

“Did the curse kill her?” I asked.

“Unclear,” Andrew said. “It certainly didn’t remove her head from her body.”

“Will the labs tell us for sure how Nie died?” Rose asked.

“I can’t make any promises,” Andrew said.

Great. The curse was interesting, sure, but if anyone could have cast it, it didn’t bring us any closer to answers.

“For now, I’d suggest not absorbing the head until the rest of the lab results are complete,” Andrew said.

I didn’t plan on touching Nie anyway, not when she was slowly waking back up. It would kill her. There was also the fact that if she was undead instead of dead, I didn’t even know if I could absorb her if I wanted to.

“Thanks, Andrew,” Rose said.

I pulled out my phone and snapped a couple of pictures of the markings in case we needed them for later.

“I appreciate your efforts,” I told Andrew.

“I’m happy to help,” Andrew said. “I need to go. I’ll check back in if I find anything else.”

With that, Rose and Andrew exchanged sappy goodbyes that made me side-eye Rose as I turned the bathroom light back on. I’d never understand the unguarded divulgence of feelings.

When Rose was done, she turned to me and twisted her lips. “Bernadette’s name is on the passenger list, right?”

“Yes.”

“She could have cursed Nie.”

I nodded. She or anyone else in Piccadilly, Nevermore, or on the train in between. Plus, even if Nie had safely arrived in Nevermore, we had no idea where she’d gone from there.

Rose said, “Then I think you should take Imogen with you for the next part of your investigation, since she’s the only one who has any power over the reaper.”

That implied Rose didn’t intend on coming.

“You made the ticket guy do whatever you wanted with only a word,” I said. “You have super strength. You’re far more useful than Imogen.”

“I can only influence humans.”

It was interesting that Imogen described her own ability the same way. Yet while Rose was unable to influence Bernadette, Imogen had been able to bodysnatch the reaper.

“Plus, I don’t think Bernadette will sit still and let me punch her,” Rose said. “I’ll offer to take over and help Wendy at the shelter so Imogen can go with you to Nevermore.”

I sighed. I needed this resolved as soon as possible, and Imogen was the slowest person I’d ever met. But Rose was right, with the reaper as the prime suspect, I needed some kind of defense against her.

“I’m not waiting around for Imogen to show up,” I said. “She can meet me in Nevermore.”

“What if Bernadette’s waiting for you when you get there?”

“If the reaper wanted to kill me, she could have done that any time. I’ll be fine.”

Or I wouldn’t. But I couldn’t stand around and do nothing. I had to move.

Rose twisted her lips, suggesting she didn’t like it, but also there was nothing she could do to stop me aside from physical restraint.

“Promise you’ll wait for Imogen before going after Bernadette,” she said.

Her jaw was set, the expression intense. Maybe she would physically hold me here if I didn’t agree.

I didn’t love the idea of waiting. But I could check things out in Nevermore, see if I could find out where Nie had gone after she arrived.

“Fine,” I said. “I won’t confront the reaper without Imogen.”

“All right. Be safe.” She squeezed my arm, with a normal amount of pressure this time, then offered a palmful of glass objects. “And take these.”

The objects were shaped like diamonds and filled with green liquid.

“What are they?” I asked.

“Petrification potions.” Rose twisted her lips. “Well, they’re more like petrification juniors. You’re not going to take out a whole room with them, which is way safer for someone who has never used them before, trust me. Just make sure to stay as far away from the green smoke as possible or you’ll end up petrified, too.”

Great. Sounded like a good way to accidentally get myself killed. I accepted her gift and carefully tucked the potions into one of the zipper pockets of my messenger bag.

Just as I was about to pull my bag back up around Nie, an idea struck.

“Do you mind moving Nie for a minute?” I asked Rose.

“Of course not,” she said.

She gingerly reached around to Nie’s ears and moved her a few inches from the bag.

I retrieved my pocket knife from one of the bag’s compartments.

“What exactly are you doing?” Rose asked, her voice rising with every word.

“Cutting holes.”

The look on Rose’s face was beyond apprehension.

“In my bag,” I said. What did she think I was going to do? Harm Nie after I’d gone to such lengths to ensure her safety? I tried not to be offended.

“For what?” Rose still looked concerned, though her voice was back to its regular pitch.

I answered as I worked. “Nie blinked when I opened my bag. It’s possible she was doing that in there the entire time, but it’s equally possible that was the first time. If stimulation helps in her recovery, I can’t keep her in the dark.”

“That makes sense.” A tight smile crossed Rose’s face. “And also if she can see your surroundings, she’s more likely to be able to indicate where she has and hasn’t been. Maybe she could even identify the killer…with a series of winks?”

I was hoping speech would come soon, but I would gladly take any form of communication.

“Another valid point,” I said.

Rose gave me a thumbs up. “Let’s get you that train ticket.”

Before Rose left, I thanked her, again . I’d said more thank yous in one day than I had over the last year. It was exhausting owing so many people so much. It left me itchy.

The next train to Nevermore was supposed to depart within the hour. Unfortunately, it was canceled. I considered returning home to collect a bag for my trip, but I’d lent Rose my car, and as I watched the arrival times change for not just my train, but others as well, I decided it wasn’t worth the risk of leaving and possibly missing it.

At the mercy of the locomotive powers that be, I ate an overpriced, under-flavored sandwich from the concession counter, watched out for cloaked figures, and waited for nearly four hours before my train finally arrived.

I’d still seen no sign of, and heard no word from, Imogen.

Given the extensive manifest for the train Nie had taken, my own ride was surprisingly sparse. I only saw two other passengers, neither of whom appeared particularly suspicious, and both kept to themselves.

One employee patrolled what was beginning to feel like a ghost train. He looked to be barely out of diapers. He had a lanky build and carried himself with the insecurity of someone who was so new at their occupation they felt like an imposter.

Still, he somehow had the deadest eyes I’d ever seen, which was saying something, given the company I kept.

I expected him to ask for my ticket as he passed. He did not.

Since I did not see the cloaked figure who’d followed Nie to the ticket booth in the security footage, I wondered if he’d known no one on the ride would check if he in fact had a ticket. If so, that meant he may have taken this train before.

After the flooding had been dealt with at the shelter, perhaps Rose could take another crack at Ticket Guy for me to secure footage leading up to the twenty-third. The chances of the same person walking around cloaked in the same fashion seemed unlikely, though.

As the crew member was about to pass by me for the second time, I said, “Hey.”

He startled, as if not having realized I was there. “Yes?”

“Have you seen this face before?” I asked, pointing to myself.

“Umm…” He looked left and right, like the answer was anywhere but right in front of him.

“Yes or no?”

“I don’t think so? I don’t know. Don’t you know if you’ve taken the train before?”

“No. Did you witness any violent assaults during travel around a week ago?”

He gave me a strange look and stumbled a few steps away before turning and practically running back the way he came to the next train car.

With that unhelpful interaction at a close, I was left in solitude for the rest of the two-hour ride.

After the morning I’d had, time to myself was a pleasant reprieve.

Still, the investigation hung over my head. It hung over Nie’s head, too. I swear, the puns wrote themselves.

I kept my hand protectively over my bag as I watched land turn to sea out the window.

It appeared Nevermore was an island.

When we arrived at our destination, I exited from the train and stepped into a station not unlike the one in Piccadilly. Though this time instead of yellow, all of the cement was painted charcoal gray. Possibly it had been black before being subjected to the elements.

Fortunately, the station appeared to be smack up against the rest of the town, so not having a car would not be a problem.

Before venturing out, I took my time hunting down every employee I could find. Most conversations were identical to the one I’d had on the train—they had no idea if they had seen me before, they were confused as to why I would ask, and no one mentioned any attacks.

Everyone appeared to be telling the truth, so that could mean that Nie had walked safely off the train and away from the station without harm.

I wished Rose was here to procure security footage from this end of the station. When I asked politely for it at the ticket booth, I was denied.

Aside from gleaning the location of the town’s only hotel, I found it to be an all-around unhelpful experience.

As I ventured from the station, I found a palette that matched that of the station. The tall, narrow buildings all appeared to be built of dark stone in a style that had been stuck frozen in time since the Victorian era. The cool autumn air I’d left behind was replaced by a frosty atmosphere that carried saltwater through every molecule.

Against the bleak backdrop stood equally bleak decoration—faux spiderwebs, foam tombstones, and plastic bats. Due to the vibe of the town, the decorations felt as real as the cobblestones beneath my boots.

I could get lost in the blacks and grays, never to be bothered by anyone ever again. It was glorious. If I’d known about Nevermore’s existence, I would have wanted to travel here sooner, especially for Halloween. Nie would have, too.

“What do you think, Nie?” I gently angled my bag for Nie to get a better look around. “See anything familiar?”

She didn’t respond in any way that I could tell.

But then I saw something familiar—a man who starkly contrasted against the gloomy setting with his golden hair and white attire. The man was unquestionably Mr. Eyes, the wallet thief from the midnight market.

He was sharp angles and self-assurance.

He was also the cause of the viscous pool of dread growing in my stomach.