The Unquiet past

by Kelley Armstrong

  Today was special. Nothing—not even the sight of the ghostly man—would ruin it.

  Tess ate too much for lunch. She’d expected to have only a sandwich and a glass of water, but when the waitress sat her at a table alone, an elderly couple insisted she join them. When they discovered it was her first time in Toronto, they declared she must have tea. She wanted to protest that she was rather hungry and would prefer an actual meal, but she recalled enough of Mrs. Hazelton’s teachings to know she ought not to contradict the elderly. That’s when she discovered that “tea” here was the kind she’d read about in novels, with tiny sandwiches and scones and cakes. As she ate, she made a mental note to tell Billy that there were clearly opportunities for bakers in Toronto.

  Half of the three-tiered tray was enough to make her stomach bulge. She also drank an entire pot of tea, which was rich and dark and spicy, not like her usual tea at all. Her hosts insisted she pack the rest of the meal for her train trip, which meant she got a dinner as well. In return, they got a story. Some might call it a lie; Tess preferred story.

  She knew better than to tell them where she was really going and why—if they didn’t want her eating alone, her plans would have scandalized them. So she crafted a pleasant tale of a girl from Hope off to see her auntie in Montreal. There were many embellishments. What good was a story if it did not entertain? They seemed entertained, and that, Tess decided, was a proper exchange for the meal. They even insisted on walking her back to the train station and helping her find her gate. She took their address, promised them a postcard from Montreal and said a sincere thank-you and farewell. Then she was off on the next leg of her journey.

  The problem with the large meal was that it made her sleepy. The problem with the pot of tea was that it made her jittery. After about two hours the exhaustion took over. Tess fell asleep.

  Perhaps it was the rich food. Perhaps it was lingering jitters from the tea. Whatever the cause, she tumbled headlong into nightmares. Dark dreams of dark places. Nightmares of being trapped in rooms so tiny she could touch all four walls without moving, and she kicked and screamed and banged and knew it wouldn’t help, that no one would come.

  It’s for your own good.

  That’s what the voice said in the dream. It’s what it always said. She’d had this dream for as long as she could remember, and it never changed. Trapped in a room too small to even turn around in. Screaming and pounding to no avail, a voice calmly telling her to stop, that she was only hurting herself, that this was for the best, that it was the only way.

  Then the room flipped onto its side, and she thumped down, flat on her back. She kicked and screamed harder, clawing wood, slivers digging under her nails, hot blood trickling down her hands and dripping onto her face. She screamed until she was hoarse, and still she kept screaming.

  I’ll be good. I’m fixed. I swear I am. Please, please, please…

  That was when she heard something hitting the top of the imprisoning box. Something raining down, lightly at first, then harder, thumping against the wood.

  Dirt. Shovelfuls of dirt.

  She’d had the dream so often that she should have known this was coming. Should have known from the start where she was. Not in a room. Not in a box. Not an ordinary one anyway.

  Yet to her sleeping self, it always felt like the first time, fresh in its horror. The confusion of the tiny room. The panic as it tipped over. Terror filling her. Then the dirt. And with the dirt, understanding. The sudden truth of where she was and what was happening.

  In a coffin.

  Being buried alive.

  Four

  TESS AWOKE WITH a start, then had a second one as she realized she was leaning on the shoulder of her seatmate.

  “Oh, I’m sorry!” she said, scrambling upright.

  The man did not answer or even turn her way. He just continued talking to the woman seated across from her.

  Woman seated across from her?

  When Tess fell asleep, there had been no row facing hers.

  She took another look at the woman. And at the child sitting directly in front of Tess, swinging his legs against the seat. The woman wore a fancy dress, like something for a garden party. The boy was about five, dressed in a little suit coat with a bow tie and shorts. Not an outfit a child would wear. Not these days.

  Tess pressed her palms to her eyes. Go away. Just go away. When she opened them, the family was still there, the boy whining that the trip was taking so long.

  “You can’t see me, can you?” she said.

  “Mama!” he wailed. “Answer me!”

  “I’m talking to your father, dear. Now hush.”

  “I’ll answer you,” Tess said, but she knew he wouldn’t respond. They never did. Unlike the man in Toronto, these ones weren’t ghosts. She seemed like the phantom. In their world. In their time. Which wasn’t possible, but that was exactly what it was like, as if she’d passed through into another period and all she could do was watch until—

  They disappeared. Just like that. Quite literally, in the blink of an eye. They vanished, and Tess was back in her regular seat, with no one beside her, her hands clutching the armrests so tightly her fingers ached.

  What’s happening to me?

  It was a question so old she didn’t know why she bothered to ask it anymore. It wasn’t as if the skies would part and a voice would boom the answer. And if it did…

  You’re going crazy.

  Tess jumped as if she’d actually heard the voice. She hadn’t. It wasn’t that kind of crazy. The voice was her own, deep inside her, giving the only plausible explanation.

  Billy swore it was ghosts. The fact that she rarely saw ones like the man in Toronto—old-fashioned figures in her world—but mostly seemed to step into theirs didn’t matter to him.

  “It can still be ghosts,” he said. “Not just ghost people, but ghost houses and ghost cars.” And now ghost trains.

  Tess knew that wasn’t the answer. She could touch the people in other worlds, like the man whose shoulder she’d rested on. Yet she couldn’t communicate with them, and if they were really ghosts, wouldn’t that be the point of her seeing them? For them to speak to her? Convey an urgent message for the living?

  She thought of the man she’d seen outside the train station. The man she’d known, by his clothing, was one of her visions. He’d made no attempt to speak to her. He hadn’t even noticed her. So why did she see him?

  Tess and Billy had read every book they could find on ghosts, even a special one he’d ordered from Toronto. Nothing in them had supported his theory. That didn’t mean he’d give it up though. Tess wasn’t crazy. She was just special. Nothing would change his mind about that. And she loved him for it, even if she knew he was wrong.

  Billy was the only one who knew her secret. When she was nine, she’d made the mistake of getting caught talking to someone who wasn’t there. She could tell they were visions if their clothing was different enough, but other times it wasn’t so obvious. She’d been downstairs in the Home and seen a young woman when they were expecting a new music teacher. Tess went over to introduce herself. Another girl had been there. Nancy. Two years older than Tess and as mean as a snake. It didn’t help that Tess had gone after Nancy a few weeks before, when she caught her bullying one of the little girls. They’d both been punished—violence was never the solution, the matron said—but Nancy had still wanted revenge, which she’d gotten when she caught Tess talking to a woman who wasn’t there.

  It hadn’t been as bad as it could have been. Tess had denied that it happened, and most of the girls had believed her. She’d hated lying to save herself, but not as much as she hated the odd looks she got from some girls for months afterward. Even that, she supposed, wasn’t terrible. They were just looks. It wasn’t as if they called her crazy.

  It still felt like crazy. That was the thing. For as long as she could remember, she’d seen the phantom people and slipped into their world, yet even as a little girl she’d never told anyon
e, because she knew it was wrong and she knew she must never tell anyone. She knew that as well as she knew her name. More, even, because her name wasn’t necessarily her own.

  This was her secret. Her burden. Her crazy.

  Tess had plans for when the train arrived in Montreal. She would shop. Briefly, of course, but the train would arrive close to dinnertime, and she had no idea how long it would take to get to Sainte-Suzanne, only that the map said it was about fifty miles north of Montreal. She couldn’t make it there that day.

  Billy’s mother knew someone who had recommended a Montreal hotel near the train station—inexpensive but safe. That meant Tess would have time to shop. She would spend the princely sum of twenty dollars on new clothing. No more. No less either. This was her treat to herself.

  She’d even written a list on the train. It included underthings. Grown-up ones. Perhaps even with lace. Mrs. Hazelton would be scandalized by that even more than her new boots. The old woman seemed to think that buying fancy underthings meant you planned to show them to someone. Which was ridiculous. It didn’t matter if no one else saw them. Tess would, and they’d make her feel grown-up and pretty.

  Yes, there were better things to be than pretty, and Tess wanted all of them. Smart, talented, adventurous, witty…But adding pretty to the list was just fine as long as there was a list and it wasn’t at the top. And it wasn’t as if she aspired to be beautiful, which she knew was out of her reach—her nose and chin were too sharp, and her eyes too big. But pretty was a reasonable and attainable goal.

  So she’d had a shopping list. After seeing the family on the train, though, fashion was the last thing on her mind. She wandered out of the station and along the surrounding roads. There were shops, but none enticed her, and finally she forced herself to peruse the goods on the carts along the roadway.

  Still nothing caught her attention. It was mostly jewelry, and she was not particularly drawn to baubles. Then she saw some bright scarves fluttering in the breeze, and they were like butterflies on an overcast day, welcome flashes of color in the gloom. When she touched one, the young cart owner snapped at her, words coming like machine-gun bullets, too fast for Tess to decipher, but the meaning was clear enough. Don’t touch. Tess hesitated, feeling the gray cloud threaten again, but she pulled herself upright, murmured a polite “Excusez-moi” and settled for eyeing the scarves.

  She found the one she wanted quickly enough. It was blue and yellow, the dyes entwining and mingling like watercolors in the fabric, which she was certain was silk. She reached out, not touching it, and said, “Puis-je?” May I? The woman took in the cut of Tess’s clothes, then her boots and suitcase. It was the latter two that seemed to satisfy her, and she nodded curtly.

  It was indeed silk. Not cheap imitation goods for tourists, but a true dyed-silk scarf, the kind she’d dreamed of owning. The price? Seven dollars. Tess tried not to gasp. It was worth it—she knew that. Yet that had to be almost as much as Billy would have paid for her boots.

  She could bargain. One of the girls in the Home had been to Toronto and explained that with street carts, one was expected to dicker, as if it was an Arabian market.

  “Cinq dollars,” she said. Five dollars, which was perfectly reasonable as a starting point.

  The woman peered at her as if she were speaking Swahili. “Je ne comprends pas.” I do not understand.

  “Cinq dollars,” Tess repeated carefully.

  “Je ne comprends pas.”

  There was no way the woman could fail to understand two simple and easily pronounced words. It was a game, Tess realized, with a flash of annoyance.

  “Cinq dollars, cinquante cents.”

  “Je ne parle pas Anglais.” I do not speak English.

  “Je parle Français,” Tess replied. I speak French.

  The woman rolled her eyes in dispute and then launched into a volley of rapid-fire French, ending in a question that Tess couldn’t possibly answer, because she’d not understood a word the woman said. That, she realized, was the point. Mocking her. You do not really speak French, little girl.

  “Six dollars.” While the pronunciation was slightly different, it meant the same in either language, which should have simplified matters, but the woman still feigned noncomprehension.

  A hand reached over and snatched up the scarf. Tess staggered back a step to see a man there. He was old, at least sixty, with wild white hair and a cane. He didn’t even look her way, just said something in quick French to the woman. She nodded. Cash was exchanged. Six dollars cash.

  The man took the scarf. Then he turned to Tess. “Six dollars, c’est bien ça?”

  “Oui,” she said tentatively.

  She reached into her wallet and pulled out a five and a one. They exchanged money for the scarf. The man gave her a twist of a smile. “Welcome to Montreal, mademoiselle.”

  “Merci beaucoup.”

  A slight bow. “Je vous en prie.” You’re welcome.

  He nodded, then turned to the young woman and lit into her, his tone saying he was less than pleased with the welcome she’d given a young visitor to Montreal. Tess tucked the scarf deep into her cheap handbag and hurried off.

  Five

  TESS DECIDED TO leave Montreal that evening. She regretted it almost immediately, but even then she did not turn around. A foolish and impulsive decision. An uncharacteristic decision. When the dark mood descended, though, she would do almost anything to wriggle out from under it.

  At the Home, she could bury herself in schoolwork or books or sewing. If the darkness was particularly smothering, she’d grab a bicycle from the shed and ride as fast and as far as she could, until she’d left that cloud behind and could collapse, exhausted, in a patch of grass and stare up at the sky and dream of freedom.

  Here, there were no books or needles or bicycles. There was only the open road, her goal at its end. To go to the hotel would mean lying in an empty room, with nothing to do but wait for visions and nightmares. Foolish or not, she had hit the road, and she would stay on it, even if that meant tramping along at midnight.

  She’d taken an electric trolley bus across the city. That had been interesting enough to temporarily lighten her mood. The streetcars were gone from Montreal. She’d heard someone on the train talking about a subway, but that wasn’t due to open for a couple of years. So they had buses and yellow trolley buses running on endless wires. She’d taken one of them and then transferred to a regional bus, which the Montreal bus-terminal clerk said would take her near Sainte-Suzanne.

  To Tess near meant “within walking distance,” and she was generous with her interpretation of that because she had no aversion to walking. It was only seven in the evening when she got off the bus, with nearly three hours of light left.

  “Sainte-Suzanne?” The bus-depot clerk switched to English as soon as Tess unthinkingly greeted her with Good evening. “It is nearly fifteen miles, miss. They should have told you that in Montreal.”

  “Is there another bus?”

  The woman shook her head. “No, you will need to take a…” She searched for a word. “Hired car?”

  “Taxi?”

  The word was the same in French or English, and the woman laughed. “Yes, a taxi. There is one in town, but it is not operating tonight. You can stay at the inn until morning.” The woman gave directions. Tess thanked her and left.

  Tess took one look at the inn—a grand Victorian that made Tess envision herself standing at the desk, counting out twice as much money as she had paid for her scarf—and decided to push on.

  She would hitch a ride. It wasn’t the safest way to travel, but she’d read several magazine articles by people who’d crossed the entire country that way. From them, she’d learned simple rules. Smile. Keep walking—you’ll look lazy if you stand still with your thumb out. Target older vehicles—they’re more likely to stop. If you’re a young woman alone, look for women and families, and if it has to be a man, make sure he’s old.

  Before she left town, she called
Billy. She’d forgotten to do that in Montreal, too wrapped up in her gloom. Now she found a pay phone, put in her dime and added more for the long distance. They kept the call short—mostly just a check-in. She kept it light too, telling him about the gorgeous silk scarf and the elderly couple who had bought her tea and skipping the rest, including the part about the hitchhiking, because she knew he’d tell her to splurge on the inn and the taxi, and maybe he was right, but she just wanted to get where she was going.

  She used her new scarf to tie her hair in a ponytail. The bright splash of color would make it easier for drivers to see her. More than that, she could see the end draped over her shoulder, fluttering in the evening breeze, and it lifted her spirits.

  She was in Quebec. She was wearing new boots and a new scarf, and she was going to be a new girl. A new Tess. One with a past and answers. Yes, she knew it wasn’t going to be that easy. She wouldn’t walk up to this address and find loving parents who’d lost her in a marketplace fifteen years ago and had been searching for her ever since. Those were the dreams of orphans—that they were really only misplaced children. Which was never the case, but it was better than admitting their parents were dead or, worse, had abandoned them.

  Still, the answers would be at that house, buried, waiting for a determined girl to ferret them out. And Tess was nothing if not determined.

  The universe decided to reward her resolve, and the first car that came along stopped. It was a woman with two little ones. Tess sat in the back and amused the older child—a toddler who took great interest in her scarf. The woman spoke only French, but they managed enough of a conversation for Tess to understand that the woman could only drive her five miles before she needed to turn off. Her husband expected her home by eight, and they were already late. Tess took the ride with gratitude, and soon was walking on the road again, waiting for the next.