“I don’t like it,” Malcolm added, “but it’s the smartest move.”
“Shut up about it, then,” Violet said. “Hurry. You’re wasting time.”
They were startled by the door opening. All three of them turned to see the conductor enter, hooded beneath a dark raincoat. The man had a comically thick mustache, but his reaction to the sight of the broken window was anything but amused. He jerked to a halt and stared at the window, then gave them all a mystified look.
“What in the hell happened here?”
Violet almost told the truth.
Malcolm saved her. “Window blew in. I spotted some kids. I think they were throwing rocks.”
The conductor’s eyes narrowed. “Any sign of the rock?”
Alfie shrugged, looking around for the mythical stone. The conductor didn’t look like he believed them, but he grumbled and went to the loading door.
“I get you folks a broom, maybe you could sweep up the glass.”
They all muttered assent, but he hadn’t waited for them to agree. The conductor rolled open the door and waved to the two porters who waited on the rainy platform with trunks and crates to load into the car.
Violet leaped down from the baggage car and stood aside, enjoying the burn of cigarette smoke in her chest. She took another puff and let it plume from her nostrils. Malcolm jumped down to land beside her. The rain had weakened, but the wind remained.
“Go do what you need to do,” she said, gesturing toward the station with the burning tip of her cigarette. “I’ll be right here.”
The porters started their work, loading and unloading. Malcolm took her hand, studied her eyes as if searching for some revelation, and then kissed her with enough heat to make her forget the train, the cigarette, and the November rain. She felt herself flush, and when he walked off toward the station, she went uncharacteristically silent. Kissing her in public like that had crossed an invisible line, shattered it, and Violet’s heart felt full.
Hurry, she thought, more eager than ever for them to lay Maggie to rest. To start again. To be the kind of wife she longed to be, with the kind of husband she’d wished for on every first evening star since the age of twelve.
They were in real danger. She could taste the fear of it on her tongue. But she believed in Malcolm, and she believed in herself—they would get through this. No matter who tried to stop them.
Malcolm moved fast, weaving through traveling families and men with briefcases commuting for work. His heart kept time with his stride, and he swiveled his head as he rushed across the puddled platform and through grand double doors into the vast, echoing hallway of Buffalo Central Terminal. The art deco style of the place made him feel as if the future and past had merged. All these people, the smoke of cigars and pipes and cigarettes, the cacophony of voices, the bustle of umbrellas closing and opening, combined to make him feel safe for the first time that day. He indulged himself in a moment of wonder about what life would be like if he kept going and never climbed back aboard the Imperial Limited. He wouldn’t do it, because he’d made a promise to Maggie, and because he loved Violet.
Goddamn him, but he loved her.
The board showing arrivals and departures rattled, numbers and station names flipping inside the mechanism. Malcolm spotted a flower seller, and beyond that, an overstuffed newsstand. Hecrossed toward the newsstand, looking over his shoulder to see if he’d been followed. Not yet, but soon, he thought. At the newsstand, he grabbed a package of Wint-O-Green Life Savers and began scouring the papers for news about what happened in Elkhart.
“Not a library, pal,” said the clerk, scratching at a red patch of skin on his neck. “You want to read, buy it first.”
“Yeah, of course.” Malcolm piled up newspapers from Chicago and Cleveland and even New York, though he doubted any news would have piqued the interest of those Big Apple papers. He hadn’t expected to findThe Wakarusa TribuneorThe Goshen News—they were local to Elkhart and the most likely to have run a story about any shocking incidents there—but he did manage to find a copy ofThe South Bend Tribune.
When he stacked the four newspapers, the clerk frowned as if he disapproved of anyone acquiring quite so much knowledge at one time. If he also objected to the Life Savers, he gave no sign. The clerk handed over his change, but as Malcolm reached for it, a wave of nausea seized him. Coins slipped from his palm and clattered to the floor.
“Jesus,” Malcolm whispered, turning away from the newsstand with the stack of papers clutched to his chest. He breathed through his teeth to avoid the little cloud of putrid stench that seemed to envelop him.
If not for the column beside the newsstand, he might have gone to his knees. Fighting the urge to vomit, he glanced around, trying to make sense of this abrupt sickness. Nobody seemed to have noticed him, and he saw no one having a similar episode. Malcolm drew his forearm across his nose and mouth, blocking out as much of the smell as possible as he sailed away from the column, headed back the way he’d come. Yet this was more than a smell and a sickness. A dreadful melancholy seized him, something beyond grief or worry. It seeped into him like something hot he’d swallowed, spreading its cold through him as a cup of coffee might spread its warmth.
This was a black sorrow that filled his chest and clogged his throat.
Malcolm collided with a businessman with a white goatee. He met the older man’s gaze but couldn’t muster an apology.
“Watch your step!” the man chided him. “Drunken fool.”
Did he seem drunk? How much time had passed? Did he still have the newspapers clutched to his chest? He had to look down to confirm that indeed he did. The memory of kissing Violet on the train platform floated into his mind, and he clutched at it as if it were a life preserver and could keep him from drowning. He had to reach Violet. And his mother… Maggie had told him not to leave her body until she was buried in her hometown. Had she cast some kind of hex on him to force him to keep that promise?
Don’t be stupid.
Maggie Wise will take your eyes.That was what the kids used to chant as they hurried past on the sidewalk, thinking themselves brave just to be near the house. The whole town had thought Maggie was a witch, and Malcolm had never really questioned it. Of course his mother was a witch. But had she been the kind of witch with actual power or simply a woman of uncommon knowledge and wisdom? Had she been the kind of witch who could—who would—put a spell on her own son to make him violently ill if he broke a promise?
That was ridiculous.
