The compartment was dim. Its only source of light emanated from a small compact lamp on a foldaway table beneath the window. There was scarcely room for two people to stand without bumping into each other; otherwise, it was well-appointed: voluptuously polished wood paneling, a hidden washbasin with a gilded vanity mirror, a spray of lacy orchids thrust into a tiny vase. Two built-in berths had been lowered and outfitted with crisp white sheets and embroidered coverlets; a pull-down ladder led to the upper bed.
Behind me in the corridor, a young English attendant with ginger hair popped his head into our compartment. His cheeks were so ruddy, they made him look as if he’d been racing up and down the train. “Good evening. My name is Rex. I’ll be your attendant,” he informed us breathlessly. “You’re Miss Fox and Mr. Gallagher?”
“Last time I checked,” Huck said.
Rex smiled. “Anything you need, no matter the hour, just ring the call bell and a light will appear outside your door. Either myself or the conductor will appear promptly.”
He then informed us that hot water was available in the brass samovars at the front of each sleeper and that the public lavatories contained full-size washbasins... and some other details that I couldn’t focus on properly because I was acutely aware of the compartment’s lack of personal space. “Is there anything at all you desire at the moment?” he finally asked.
“To sleep in my own compartment,” I mumbled under my breath.
“Anything you need, just ring for me,” Rex said.
I raised my hand. “I’ll take every newspaper you have onboard.”
“Still addicted to crosswords?” Huck said, sounding amused.
I slanted a glance at him. “Still picking locks for fun?”
“She’s joking, brother,” he quickly told the attendant.
“Um,” Rex said, looking back and forth between us. “Newspapers will be on the dining car tomorrow morning.”
“I’m sure she can live without it tonight,” Huck assured him.
The attendant bade us a good night and bowed before closing the compartment door, muffling the intenseclack-clackof the wheels gliding over the track. I took off my black beret and smoothed my wavy hair to cover my ears. Without the door open, the compact space shrank from tight to little more than a sardine can.
“Cozy,” Huck remarked, touching the compartment’s ceiling with his fingertips as if he were Atlas, holding up the world. “Remember being on that ship in the North Sea during that storm a few years ago? The berths were made for dolls, not people, and the walls were paper thin. We could all hear each other getting sick, like some kind of nightmarish echo chamber.”
“Ugh,” I complained, hanging my coat and camera case on a hook near the berths. “Don’t bring it up. Just the thought of that night makes me queasy.”
“Hey, at least this compartment is slightly bigger, and we aren’t on choppy waters.Andwe weren’t followed. We’re on a winning streak, banshee.”
I’d hardly describe today as anything remotely close to winning, but I could tell he was trying to put a sunny face on it, and maybe we both needed that right now. An unemotional truce between two old friends. Otherwise we’d both go bonkers. Or murder each other. Tomato, tomahto.
“Tell me more about those men who broke into my room,” I said, proud that I could sound so professional and adult. See? I could do this.
“What do you want to know?” he asked.
“We have all night. Might as well spill it all,” I said. “Start from the beginning.”
5
ALL RIGHT,” HUCK AGREED. “BUTthere isn’t much to tell.”
He raised a silky, tasseled pull-shade on the window to peer outside, but in the darkness the only thing to see was his own reflection. I studied his face briefly while he squinted stubbornly. His impossibly thick brows had a certain way of knitting together into a single dark slash over his eyes when he was worried. Did he not think we were safe now? He caught me watching him in the glass, so I quickly averted my gaze.
“The last telegram I received from Father was a week ago,” I said, perching on the bottom berth. I set my travel satchel on the floor near my feet. “He said he was heading up the mountain.” He just failed to mention that he wasn’t climbing alone.
“Right, yes,” Huck said, now looking for his own place to sit. When he eyed the empty space next to me on the bottom berth, I gestured instead toward the floor, but to no avail; invading my space, he propped up a pillow and settled back against it so that he could lounge on the railway bed with his legs stretched out behind me. “Fox and I spent three days in Tokat, which is no Istanbul, let me just say. While you were having fun, taking photographs of phantasms and cursed buildings—”
I flashed him a rude salute with one hand.
“Well,thathasn’t changed,” he mumbled as if he were offended. Which was absurd, because he was the one who taught me the gesture when we were kids, a week after he moved into Foxwood. We practiced on everyone who drove to the front door to visit one afternoon, hanging out of my bedroom window and giggling like idiots until we heard a bear stomping up the staircase. Father wasfurious.
Huck exhaled heavily. “As I was saying, Fox and I were in Tokat, visiting some boring historic mansion and talking to clerics in a mosque. Then we hired a local guide to take us out of town and up a mountain to the spot Fox was intent on finding. It was supposed to be a gravesite, but it turned out to be just a bunch of dusty rubble in the back of the cavern. It took us most of an afternoon to uncover it and another day to dig into the floor. Rocky, backbreaking work it was. The workers building the Great Pyramid of Giza never labored this hard.”
He always exaggerated when he told me stories of where he and Father had been.Always. Once upon a time I had found it charming. “But you didn’t find Vlad the Impaler’s head?”
