Spirit (7 page)

I
nside the first ruined train car, Tobias was trying to find his seat. He sidestepped Sattler, who was helping several people out. Tobias raised his voice. “Those of you in here, listen. If you're able-bodied”—he looked doubtfully at old Gil—“then help other people to get out. There may be a risk of fire now. We have one simple mission: survive until help comes. We can do that, can't we?”

Sattler was helping Annette. “Get my satchel over there,” he told her. “We might need those things.”

Sattler's concern for his bag caused Tobias to worry for his own beloved cello. As soon as the passengers were cleared out, he'd have to search for the instrument cases amid all the tossed-about baggage.

In the meantime, Tobias ran his hand along the jagged metal and shards of glass that were stuck in his seat, all of which had narrowly missed him. It looked as if something had shielded him from the blows, and the debris had rained off in all directions around him. Remarkable, he thought. So it wasn't Tess alone that had been helped to survive. But
why
? His mind stayed on this puzzle, until he finally realized the need around him, jostled by
Michael and Ned, who were assisting people off the train.

Both had dazed expressions seeming to ask for guidance. “We need more help,” Tobias said. “Is there telephone service somewhere out here? Blackthorne boasts how modern it is; it seems possible…”

Gil looked at Sattler. “Didn't a doctor move back in the woods near here? He wanted them to bring the telephone lines along to his house, didn't he?”

“I'm not sure. I've been away at Harvard,” said Sattler. “I don't know the area well…”

“We should start asking people,” said Tobias.

“I'll see to that.”

Gil stopped Sattler. “We should also start some fires for warmth. Have all these boys go and help whoever they can, get blankets, and so on.”

 

Bruised and battered, the college boys strode toward other passengers on the snowfield. They passed Tess, who was moving away from the unconscious man, as a train conductor stumbled around a car.

“Go,” he said, and Tess realized he had a leg injury. “Go, get to the engine car. They may have an emergency box, medicines…”

Urged on by him, Tess went toward the engine, a black mass against the ivory landscape. It was a long walk, and the sounds of pain filled the air behind her.

An engineer lay up ahead, apparently dead, thrown from the engine cabin. She approached and could see the engineer's body
had leaked blood into the snow, a pool of it now slowly being sucked back into his body.

She stopped, staring, unsure this had actually happened.

“Oh God…help me…” Her words escaped in a whisper, and she looked back for help. Instead she discovered the legless man behind her had vanished from the snow, and only the crush of ice where he lay remained as evidence he'd ever been there. People were too busy to take note, or to see her at all. The only one to look over was the conductor who'd sent her forward, now collapsed and in pain. He yelled impatiently, “We've got no way to signal anyone, we need supplies—is there anything in there?”

Trembling, Tess moved closer to the locomotive, confused, hating every step she had to take. Inside the engine cab, a trainworker lay dead, his eyes open and fishlike. There was a strange mist about him, possibly steam, and Tess fumbled around to find anything useful when she was suddenly startled.

The dead man had moved.

She saw his reflection in a brass fitting in the engine cabin. His bloated, watery eyes had fixed upon her.

She kept herself very still.

“Tess…,” the worker hissed out of unmoving lips.

For an instant, she tried to ignore it, forcing herself to recognize the sound as being from her imagination, but the hiss came again, quieter. “Tess…”

She turned in horror—stifling a scream—but the body was still. She stared at it, shaking, wondering if she'd conceived it out of true distress. But she knew she hadn't.

Bodies could do things they weren't supposed to do. She and
Tobias had heard of at least half a dozen places on Earth where a body could move after death, sometimes long after death, if the elements were right. She had read of it many times, but to see it happen with her own eyes was more disturbing than she could have imagined.

She emerged from the engine, terrified, and empty-handed. She needed Tobias, just for a moment, to settle her mind.

Up ahead, helping passengers out of a car, Tobias yelled to her, “Did you see something? Was anything in there?”

She couldn't answer. He could see her fear, but he couldn't come to her.

Trying to control her mind, she walked back down the tracks toward him, her boots crunching through the snow. Sattler and the other young men walked the snowfield to her left, assisting the injured. Two other gentlemen, strong men who looked to be in their forties, pulled open a banged-up train door.

Tess saw the first man signal Sattler. “A lot of these people are in a state of shock and immobility. They're the first-order cases,” he told him.

“Where do we get blankets?” said Sattler.

“Believe they've got 'em in the last car.”

Sattler, Michael, and Ned headed for the intact caboose, still on the rails.

Tess continued toward Tobias, who was helping the dour, thin woman with the dolls get out of the train car.

“My dolls…,” she said. “You have to get them.”

Tobias stared at her demurely. “We have more important concerns right now. Like you.”

The thin woman stepped awkwardly, and Tobias's hand slipped from her back to below her waist. “Be careful with me,” she snapped. “You will not touch me in my…unmentionables.”

“Madam, everything about you is unmentionable,” Tobias muttered under his breath. “Come, come, move along.”

Trying to help, he nearly lifted her off the ground. Tess saw the thin woman's surprise, but she knew that despite his lean frame, Tobias had a fullness in his arms. Tess had need of that strength now, but as she tried to get his attention, he moved on and began helping another female traveler from the car.

The lady looked at him, dazed. “I heard…There were voices in my head…Such cruel voices…”

Tobias was intrigued, but nearby in the snow, the thin woman motioned angrily for him to steady her. “I'm not well. This is revolting.”

Annoyed at the distraction, Tobias said, “Very useful observation.” The gaunt woman glared at him. His hands full with the dazed passenger, he added, “Honestly, can you not see that people are upset? Why don't you help this person?”

He quickly handed off to the doll seller the lady he was assisting.

“Tobias,” Tess said, keeping her voice measured. “There's something very wrong…”

“Most of the trainworkers are dead, aren't they?” Tobias guessed. “We need to get more help right away.”

“It's blood. The blood…”

“Tess, you're in shock—”

“No, listen to me—I felt something—”

“Try to find a blanket. Keep yourself warm,” Tobias told her, his attention drawn to something between the railcars, a piece of the puzzle that had formed in his mind. He went off to have a look, making quick tracks in the snow.

“Tobias, if you could just wait…” She couldn't make her voice
hold
him; somehow, she couldn't sound firm. He had moved away, not far, but just out of reach in every way.

T
ess just stood there, feeling abandoned, the first time she'd ever felt that emotion with him. They were too close for this to happen.

Tobias, however, was relying on that closeness. Knowing she was with him, he wasted no time on sentiment, instead pondering what lay before him.

Between the cars he could see the rails had bent strangely, pushed out and disconnected from the ties, especially up by the engine. He turned over in his mind the possibility that the elk herd had dislodged the weak rails. But it seemed this was deliberate work, and it occurred to him the approaching elk would have supplied a substantial diversion, so no one aboard would have even noted the problem with the tracks. At the same time, the train would have been accelerating to avoid collision, worsening the effects of the crash.

Behind him, at the caboose, Sattler shouted, “WE'VE FOUND BLANKETS BACK HERE—”

Ned added, “There's a medical supply kit as well. Help us get these things loose from here.”

Tobias reluctantly headed over to help them.

Tess reached for his arm. “I need to speak to you.”

Tobias didn't look back, and her hand fell against nothing. “I know that, I know, just wait—Go ask where the doctor's house is,” he said. “We need to get help quickly.”

Tess stood there, stunned.

 

At the caboose, Ned and Michael were pulling out blankets, as Annette and Sattler opened a medical box. Michael kept shooting glances at Annette, wanting some recognition, but she seemed to avoid his gaze.

Sattler ran his hand through his hair and looked over the supplies without much hope. “I don't think anyone's opened this for years. I guess the morphine would be all right…”

Annette glanced at him sharply. “Well, you're the medical student, can't you do something with it?”

Tobias heard him reply quietly, “Don't tell anyone that. I'm afraid I might do more damage than good.” Tobias pretended not to hear, and helped unload blankets.

 

Standing in the snow, Tess wondered how Tobias could not have felt what she had. How had he failed to detect the presences here, the weight of spirit all around them? The wounded conductor came up alongside her, limping, and she fumbled to find words. “Sir, do you know where the doctor's house is? Is it near?”

The conductor was in a daze. He mumbled to her, “I think…the old house. Mordecai place.”

“I don't understand…”

“The house is but five-minutes' walk, if that. Straight up the tree line.”

Tess moved toward the woods, prepared to go it alone. She hadn't gone far before a sense of something silent and evil in the forest caught her, and she stared ahead, unable to go farther. There was a deeper darkness in the trees ahead, a pool of emptiness.

She shouted back to Tobias, but he looked irritated. “Go on—you can do this thing, Tess.”

Resolved and angry, she yelled back at him, “Tobias Goodraven. You got me out here, you
will
go with me.”

Reluctant, he looked at the injured travelers, but moved toward her.

Crossing the snow quickly to meet him, Tess told him everything in a rush, thankful to get it all out. “Listen to me. I'm not in hysterics. Something is out here. There was a wounded man, his blood vanished
inside
him and what I saw…Oh God, I don't know what I saw, Tobias…”

“Spirits,” said Tobias. “A person rejects their own death, they distort the world around them. You know this, Tess—these were untimely deaths. We can expect to see more of it….”

“This isn't like the literature. This isn't a séance with sliding objects on a table or whispers in a dark room.” She protested angrily. “This is enormous power. I'm not sure even a witch could master this.”

“Let's have no talk of witchery until we are certain what is truly unfolding,” argued Tobias, though his low voice wavered in tone. “Don't frighten yourself needlessly. We are educated in this regard, and our knowledge will see us through.”

But the sense is so much stronger than before.
Perhaps he was covering his feelings to avoid upsetting her. She wasn't mad; it wasn't mere suggestion that had caused her to see things. It wasn't likely that encounters with the dead could suddenly
cause
madness, was it? Was this part of the curse upon this land?
Those who seek the truth in the blood of Salem dead will know nothing but torment in their head….

Forget those words,
she thought.
It's impossible.

Tobias seemed more concerned with her than anything in the woods. “You know how things have been shaking you lately. I've put you through too much, I'm sorry,” he said, in a rare apology. “Let us deal with one matter at a time. It's quiet for now.”

He kissed her on the forehead, surprising her, and his warmth against her even for a second was pleasing. But he continued forward.

This was, for her, one of those moments that quietly illuminated everything; she understood for the first time how it was that he got her into these situations. It was always “going to be fine” it was endlessly “going to work itself out.” He had a ready supply of calming words he used, and because things did always work out, he got away with talking her into dangerous places, and convinced himself that she liked them as much as he did. But what if it was not going to work out this time?

“Tobias, you feel different about this place. Why won't you just admit it?”

“I don't know what's happening,” he said. “I can't protect you from this—you don't want me to say what I'm thinking.”

The two strode into the forest without speaking. Tess tried to
relinquish her worries; the people back there needed her.

She was deeply thankful that they hadn't gone far into the woods before coming upon a large house, old and defiant in the wilderness. A smaller, partly restored home clung beside it. There was nothing welcoming about either building; rather, the warped old windows seemed to absorb the pale light, leaving an impression of blackness in the structures. Snowflakes seemed to drift away from it at the last instant, and the rooftops gave off a strange aura of steam. The smell of wet spruce and fir had disappeared. An unseemly desolation enclosed Tess; she felt nearly devoid of sensation.

Reaching the smaller building she rapped on the door hurriedly. The little home was so quiet she could hear the distant shouts of the survivors behind her. Why couldn't the owner hear the terror that was happening outside?

Tobias went on to take a look at the larger house, and Tess was left alone.

Moving around the building, she saw no signs of life.

Driven by the desperate sounds behind her, she tried the door and found it unlocked.

She went in.