Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Four

Anora and the Train Yard

Once we’re back in Thane’s car, he twists toward me in his seat.

“Samael said Lily is at the train yard. Are you up for investigating?”

“T-tonight?”

“Do you really think we have the luxury of time, Anora? Who’s to say Lily’s murderer won’t exchange another soul?”

Yeah, like his or mine.

I hesitate. If Mom discovers I snuck out, I’ll be grounded forever, but that’s far better than another murder. Also, there’s a better than good chance that Mom will be in her room for another few days.

“I’ll go.”

On the way to the train yard, I think about what Thane said—I need to learn to open the gates, to save souls, to rid the world of Influence. For such a heavy burden, I wonder why I was so alone in the discovery of my power. It had been just after I found Poppa dead and witnessed a plume of black explode from his body. Influence, I now know, but then, I’d been so afraid. So fearful. The thread had burst from me then and every time after that, responding to those same emotions. This can’t be how it’s meant to be, summoning the thread when I feel the most distress.

I know I need to learn to control it, and it would be best if I could summon the gates. Having a box of coins lying around is dangerous. Look at the chaos losing one caused. But how am I supposed to learn? How am I supposed to stay under the radar practicing?

The headlights of Thane’s Charger only provide a few feet of visibility against the night as we approach the train yard, protected by a locked gate and a tall fence. Thane stops, exits the car, and unlocks the padlock.

“What?” he asks when he returns to the driver’s seat.

“Where did you get that key?”

“My uncle owns this property,” he says, as if that explains everything.

I look at him suspiciously. “That’s…convenient.”

“Don’t overthink this, Anora. My uncle owns half the town.”

“So you stole his keys?”

“I borrowed them,” he corrects. “Don’t make everything I do sound like a crime.”

He inches the car forward until it’s inside the gate and then shuts the engine off. I follow him as he exits the car; the wind roars around me, picking my hair up, tangling it around my neck. It also carries the distinct smell of rot. It’s faint, still some distance away, but chills spider down my arms and back, making my skin feel like canvas stretched too tight. Thane doesn’t seem to notice as he walks, the crunch of loose gravel grating under his feet.

We make our way to the thick of the yard, moving over the outlines of tracks, overgrown with patches of grass. Streetlights spill blue-tinted light over parts of the property. Worn and broken locomotives sit abandoned to our left, and I swear the way the light hits them, they have faces, angry and disfigured. Metal silos and warehouses rise like guards, obscuring anything beyond the yard. It’s clear by the size of this place that it used to be the hub of town, now just a phantom, and Rayon has grown around it.

I pause, standing at the center of a set of tracks. Behind me, a train with an ugly face stares back at me, while the rails at my feet create a path straight to a grid of warehouses with vacant, black windows.

“Why would Lily come here?” I ask.

Thane doesn’t answer immediately. He stands ahead of me, staring into the dark, shoulders rigid, like he’s had wire shoved up his back and arms.

“We came here before…” He pauses, and I can finish that sentence: before his mother died, before he severed his relationship with everyone he knew. “It was just a place to escape.”

Thane starts off toward the locomotives, and at first, I want to follow, but the wind picks up, blowing my hair in my face again, and as I turn toward it, a light flickers in the distance. The only reason it draws my attention is because it’s coming from inside one of the warehouses. Has it been on since we got here? An uneasy feeling crawls up my back, like claws tiptoeing along my skin. Maybe Lily’s last moments were spent inside that building, but if that’s the case, what sort of clues remain? Among them, the killer?

Worse is the feeling that I need to move forward. Like I’m being reeled in—a creature at sea, caught on a line. I twist to look for Thane and tell him where I’m going, but he’s already disappeared behind the train cars. I take the bait, more curious than anything, and start toward the building. Each step makes my heart beat harder in my chest. A sheen of perspiration bubbles on my forehead, and I squeeze my fingers into a tight fist. I’ve gone into a lot of fights knowing I’m not defenseless, and yet that only makes me more afraid.

I stop before one of the warehouse buildings. Lights flicker from within, illuminating the dusty windows. Why would anyone need light in an abandoned building? Unless they were doing something illegal? Like selling drugs or…resurrecting people from the dead.

I wander to the side of the building and find a window I can easily climb through. I know I should find Thane and tell him to come with me, but the compulsion forward is too great. At first, I think the window’s open, but glass crunches beneath my feet, and I realize it’s been knocked out of the frame. This is beyond stupid and I know I shouldn’t venture in alone, but if there’s evidence inside that might tell me what happened to Lily, I want to find it, so I climb through, slicing my palm.

“Jesus!”

The word slips out, a harsh curse in this dark atmosphere. When I inhale, it’s sawdust I taste on my tongue. I close my fingers around the cut, feeling sticky blood pool in the crevices of my palm.

I stand for a moment to get my bearings as the lights flicker and fade. The warehouse is nothing spectacular, just a concrete floor scattered with broken pieces of wood and metal. Overhead, heavy beams create a pattern that holds up the metal roof, and windows are set high up to allow in as much light as possible during the day. Still, there’s something about this place that’s familiar. I can’t place it, but I feel it, like energy vibrating around me, raising the hair on my arms, pricking along my neck.

I pull my phone out to text Thane to meet me here, but before I can, the lights go out, and something crashes to the ground, startling me. I whirl, facing the sound just as the lights come back on, and find a large black bird flying toward me. I lift my hands to cover my face, but at the last minute, it turns upward and flies toward the rafters. It tilts its head, watching me. I can’t say whether it’s the same one I saw at Nacoma Knight my first day or one of the ones in the trees outside my house, but it’s definitely a raven.

The bird’s beady black eyes glint in the dark, and an involuntary shiver runs down my spine.

“Stupid bird,” I mumble under my breath before continuing to explore the warehouse under the watchful gaze of my unwanted companion. I text Thane, but it churns and ultimately bounces back as undeliverable. No bars inside this building. For now, I’m on my own.

I’ve inspected most of the warehouse when I hear it—movement from somewhere distant. There’s a door in the corner of the room. As I step toward it, a harsh caw erupts from the darkness, and that stupid bird swoops down in front of me. Startled, I drop my phone. I can’t shake the feeling that this thing wants to peck my eyes out. Instead, it perches on the windowsill closest to me.

As I bend to pick up my phone, I grab a piece of scrap wood to throw at the creature.

“Go away!”

The bird dodges and screams back at me, rising toward the rafters.

When I look at my phone, the screen is broken.

Great.Just something else for Mom to get upset about.

After the commotion, I wait in the silence at the door, thinking that whatever’s in the basement might move again, but I hear nothing.

If it’s another bird, I swear I’ll hit it with a board.

Gingerly, I turn the knob. It’s cold and gritty, and when I open the door, the air around me changes—thickens—and it’s tinged with the faintest chemical smell. I stand at the edge of the darkness, using my phone flashlight. For a long moment, I can’t move. I guess I’m waiting for something to creep out of the shadows.

But nothing happens.

And yet I get the sense that something’s happened here. Something dark. It sticks to my skin like dust, seeps into my pores, spreading unease. I should turn around and leave this place, but I can’t help thinking that this feeling is guiding me to my coin.

I take a deep breath and step into the dark, shutting the door behind me so that damned raven can’t follow.

As I come to the end of the steps, I find a light switch on the wall beside me. The buzz of electricity sounds overhead, but the lights don’t come on. Instead, I rely on the pocket of light my phone creates as I move forward. Columns run along each side of the room. Between each column are metal shelves and a collection of glass jars. It isn’t until I move closer that I see something inside them. Brushing a thick layer of dirt from the glass, a dead crow stares back at me. My breath catches in my throat, and I jump away from the shelves. Shining my light from this distance, I can tell the other jars are full of dead things too.

And then I hear a familiar laugh.

It rushes into my ears like water and suffocates my lungs.

I twist toward the sound—that glorious baritone—and smell him.

Pipe tobacco.

Life Savers.

Poppa.

And when I turn, he’s standing there at the center of this horrible basement amid all the dead things in his flannel shirt and high-waisted pants. He smiles at me, and his skin, thin like paper, crinkles.

This can’t be real. I close my eyes and open them. He’s still there.

“Poppa?”

He laughs again, then mimics taking off an invisible hat and bows before shuffling his feet along in an odd dance he used to do to cheer me up. He would reach for my hands, hold them lightly in his own, and then we’d take a turn around the room while he hummed a tune. The nearer he comes, the more details I notice: the bottom pearl snap of his shirt is undone, like always. The faded tattoo of an anchor on his inner arm, overgrown with wild hair. The patch of fuzz on his chin he never seems to scrape with his razor. He reaches for me but doesn’t grab me. He waits for me to take his hands.

My heart races, and my throat feels tight, and there’s pressure in my eyes that might make me go blind.

I want him to be real.

I reach for him, and when his hands clasp mine, they’re warm and the skin is rough.

“Poppa,” I say again, my voice a half whisper.

This time, Poppa smiles, but his lips pull back, revealing a set of jagged, sharp teeth.