Sarah Zettel: Dust girl

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.