His skeletal grin broke wider still as she stared into his eyes.
“No!” Caden screamed. “He’s reeling you in! Ashlyn, for God’s sake, look at your hand!”
“Take the ticket, little girl,” the conductor hissed at her. “All aboard the train.”
Ashlyn looked down. Mere inches of material separated her hand from the conductor’s. Jesus! She dropped the scarf and flung herself backward, away from the train. Gravity did the rest. She rolled and tumbled down the slope toward the river, falling out of control. She was going straight into the water, if she didn’t hit a boulder or a tree and kill herself first. Then Caden’s arms were there, catching her. Arresting her fall, dragging her to her feet, wrapping protectively around her as though he’d never let her go.
“Are you okay?” He loosened his grip enough to run his hands over her body, as though seeking reassurance that she was still intact.
“I’m all right. I’m not injured,” she said, even though both elbows stung like a bitch and her left knee throbbed. All in all, she was damned lucky to be standing here, feeling these small hurts. She’d been so close…. A hard tremble shivered through her.
He pulled her tight again. “Dammit, girl, you scared the hell out of me.”
“Why?” Rachel’s voice was a broken sob. “Why didn’t you just let me go?”
Ashlyn twisted in Caden’s arms, and he reluctantly released her. She turned to face Rachel, who was also trembling visibly. And dear God, her neck! Between the light of the moon and the eerie light from the windows of the train above them, the bruises on her friend’s throat were clearly visible.
“Oh, Rachel….”
The train’s whistle shrilled loudly, demanding their attention. The engine throttled up again, a belching, growling monster. With a screech of a laugh to the moon, the conductor stepped back inside the engine.
Slowly, the train began to move again, and Ashlyn watched helplessly as soul-laden car after car slipped past, the faces of the damned pressed forlornly against the windows. Ashlyn tried to see all of them individually, tried to memorize their faces, but when it came to the last car, one soul in particular drew her attention. Unlike the others, this young man moved the length of the passenger car, as though to keep the three on the riverbank in his sight as long as possible. When that final car cleared the bridge and chugged away, the man was standing at the back window, his right palm pressed to the glass, his face set in lines of sorrow, his mouth hanging open in an agonizing scream.
Tears leapt to Ashlyn’s eyes. Beside her, Rachel sniffled and Caden murmured, “God, have mercy.”
As they stood there watching the train’s retreat, each mired in their own emotions, Rachel’s orange scarf floated down to land at Ashlyn’s feet.
Chapter 7
ASHLYN’S KNEE TWINGED WITH every step she took, but she did her best to minimize the limping. What she really needed was an ice pack and some Ibuprofen. And possibly one of those sleeping pills she’d seen in her grandmother’s medicine cabinet. What she was getting instead was an extra thirty minutes tagged on to the walk home. But she didn’t begrudge one step of it. They had to make sure Rachel got home safely.
When the sound of the train had finally faded, Rachel had herself under control again.
“Told you it was impressive,” she’d said, as though the events of the past few minutes had never happened.
When Ashlyn and Caden had just gaped at her, she’d lifted a shoulder in that negligent shrug of hers and said, “Well, see you on Monday, I guess,” and turned to leave.
“Oh no you don’t, Rachel Riley!” Ashlyn had grabbed Rachel’s arm. “You are not going to walk away just like that. Dammit, girl, you tried to get on that train! If I hadn’t caught your scarf … if Caden hadn’t—”
“What?” Rachel had rounded on her, suddenly angrier than Ashlyn had ever seen her. “Do you want me to thank you? Is that it?”
Ashlyn had stepped back. “Jesus, Rachel—”
“If you think I’m going to talk about it right now — any of it — you can think again. I’m going home.”
“But—”
Caden had stepped in, laying a soothing hand — or maybe that was a warning hand — on Ashlyn’s arm as he turned to Rachel. “Good plan, Rach. We’ll walk you.”
Of course, Rachel protested, but Caden wasn’t taking no for an answer. “You don’t want to talk about what happened yet, that’s fine. We probably all need some time to process it. But there’s no way you’re going home to a hostile reception. Not after tonight. If there’s any doubt about that, we’re not leaving you there alone.”
Finally realizing the futility of resistance, she’d given in. So here they were, trudging toward Rachel’s house, which was in the opposite direction from Ashlyn’s. Thankfully, they could cross over the tracks at the station and follow the road. It was the shortest route, Rachel assured. And of course, no one on it. All of superstitious Prescott Junction was home in their beds.
There was very little talking as they walked, each of them lost in their own thoughts. Or maybe they were just shell-shocked.
“Ashlyn, you’re limping!” This from Caden, about ten minutes into the journey. Somehow, he made it sound like an accusation.
“My knee feels kinda loose is all,” she said. “It’s nothing. I’m just babying it a little.”
He pulled her to a stop. “Let me see.”
See it? She looked down are her skinny legged jeans. No way were they going up over her calves and swollen knee. “Caden, I am not peeling down in the middle of the road, even if it is deserted. The knee’s fine.”
“Okay, let me rephrase that. Let me feel it.” He dropped to one knee to run his hands over the joint, probing and testing.
“Ow!”
“Damn, Ashlyn. Why didn’t you tell me you hurt yourself? It might be sprained. Or worse.”
“It’s not sprained. Believe me, I’d know. I sprained my knee once, goofing around trying to do an air-flare. This isn’t anything like that. It’s just a little wobbly and loose.”
“An air-flare?” Caden tipped his head up to look at her. “What, you a B-girl or something?”
“Nah. Just a girl who doesn’t know how to turn down a dare.” Then, because he still crouched beside her with his warm hands on her knee and she was growing more flustered by the minute, she said, “So, are you gonna get up, Caden, or were you thinking of proposing?”
“Ya, right.” He stood. “Damn, I wish I’d brought my dad’s car.”
“It’s okay,” Ashlyn insisted. “It’s really not that bad.”
“Maybe you should wait here. We can get you settled somewhere by the side of the road and I’ll come back and pick you up.”
Wait by the side of the road, completely alone, in the middle of the night? In a world that she now knew included evil radios that wouldn’t shut up and ghost trains staffed by demented, soul-stealing conductors and packed with the trapped, tortured souls of the departed?
“No freakin’ way. I’m coming with you. My knee’s fine.”
“It’s okay, guys,” Rachel interjected. “I can make my way home from here. We’re almost there anyway.”
“Whether or not you can get home by yourself is not the issue,” Caden reminded her. “Whether you should, is.”
“Exactly. So what are we standing around for?” Ashlyn started off again.
Caden came up behind her and slid an arm around her on the bad side. “Put your arm around me and let me help you.”
“Caden Williams, that’s the best offer I’ve had all night.” She put her arm around him and let him accept some of her weight. Immediately, her knee felt better. So did the rest of her. After all that had happened, feeling his warm, lean strength against her was exactly what she needed. Maybe he needed it too.
It struck her then. If she needed the comfort of human warmth this badly, how must Rachel be feeling? If she faced abuse at home, who did she turn to for support or a reassuring touch? Comfort?
No one, she realized. The witch, the caustic-tongued outsider, had no one.
“Hey, Rach, how you feeling? Any injuries from the tumble?”
“Nah, I’m good.”
“Then could you come over here and support me on the other side? I could really use the help.”
Rachel was there in a second, curling an arm around Ashlyn. “Like this?”
Ashlyn looped her arm around the other girl, transferring a little of her weight to make the ploy believable. “Perfect.”
Arms wrapped around each other, the three walked on.
After a few moments with no sound but the chirping and buzzing of insects and the muffled shuffling and scraping of their footfalls on the asphalt, Rachel said, “So Ash, are you sorry I dragged you out tonight? Would you be happier not knowing for sure, like everyone else? Not seeing it for yourself?”
The question surprised Ashlyn. “I thought we weren’t going to talk about it?”
“You’re right,” Rachel said quickly. “Forget it.”
But how could she forget it?
Would she rather be home right now, with the covers pulled up to her chin? She had to admit that a huge part of her screamed YES! She flashed back to the conductor, how easily he’d reeled her in with the scarf without her even noticing, and her heart started that panicked hammering again. What she’d seen tonight … it was going to give her nightmares, maybe for the rest of her life. Still….
She sighed. “No, I guess I’m not sorry. I mean, I don’t ever want to get so up close and personal with it again, but knowing is always better than not knowing, right?”
There was a moment of silence, but all Ashlyn heard was the echo of her own words. Was it always better to know? For instance, did she want to know what horrors walked her mother’s nightmares? Just what tormented her enough to make her try to turn her car into a freakin’ firebomb? What could possibly be so horrible as to send her into the oblivion of heavy-duty sedatives rather than back to her daughter and their home?
Rachel’s voice dragged her out of her dark thoughts when she put the same question to Caden. “What about you, Caden? Do you wish you’d stayed at home tonight? Or do you welcome the knowledge?”
“Welcome it?” He laughed, and Ashlyn absorbed the rumble. “I guess. Sort of in the same way I welcome knowing about HIV or Chlamydia. I might wish I didn’t have to know about it, but ignorance won’t shield me.”
Rachel laughed. “Omigod, an STD analogy?”
“And just about as pleasant,” Ashlyn said. “Hey, is that a light up ahead?”
She felt Rachel tense slightly.
“Yep, that’s Casa Riley. They always leave that porch light burning, every night, all night. God knows why. I mean, it’s not like we’re going to have any callers. Who goes out after dark?”
“Maybe they leave it on for you,” Caden suggested.
Rachel snorted. “Yeah. Let’s go with that.”
Ashlyn chewed her lip as they covered the stretch to Rachel’s driveway. The house, a sizeable story and a half with white painted siding and black trim, looked like most of the other houses in Podunk. It could have been 40 years old or 140, for all Ashlyn could tell. But where other houses had something of a mown lawn (or yard, as they called them), the grass around Rachel’s house looked more like a hay field, complete with clumps of brush. Or so it appeared in the moonlight. The overgrown vegetation made the otherwise ordinary looking house seem ominous. Or maybe it was just the memory of those bruises on Rachel’s throat.
“Rachel, are you going to be all right?” she asked anxiously.
“Absolutely.”
“I could go in,” Caden offered.
“Oh, God, no,” Rachel said. “That would not make my life any easier. But as it happens, I don’t need a knight in shining amour — or a pair of them — tonight. My dad’s car’s gone.”
Ashlyn blinked. “I thought no one went out at night?”
“He went out after supper. Darkness must have caught up with him. He’ll stay wherever he is, which I imagine is the local bootlegger’s.”
“What about your mother? Is she home?” Ashlyn asked. “Will she hear you go in? Be upset?”
Rachel laughed again, but this time it had an ugly edge.
“What’s so funny?” Caden asked.
“My mother hasn’t left the house in years.”
Instantly, a What’s-Eating-Gilbert-Grape picture blossomed in Ashlyn’s mind, a vivid image of a woman too morbidly obese to get out of bed. “Is she … disabled?”
“Agoraphobia.”
The Gilbert Grape picture evaporated, replaced by an image of a teacher Rachel had had in middle school. She’d had to leave her job because of agoraphobia. Ashlyn had Googled the word, then wished she hadn’t. She hated to think about Miss McCullers suffering such extreme anxiety. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to feel as though your life was careening out of control the minute you stepped outside your home. To start off to work or the grocery store or the mall, only to have to turn back to ward off a panic attack. It had seemed like the worst kind of house arrest.
“Bummer,” she murmured, but her mind was racing. If Rachel’s mother was home all the time, she couldn’t help but know about the abuse Rachel was suffering. Could her anxiety disorder prevent her from helping her daughter? Was it keeping her locked not just in her house but also in dependency? Or was her mother the abuser?
“Thanks.” Rachel pulled away. “I’m going in now. Safe trip back, and see you on Monday, ’kay?”
“We’ll just wait until you’re inside.” Caden said, his eyes scanning the house. “Can you signal us from a window?”
“It’s okay, guys. Really.”
“Then it’ll only take you a minute to get in and give us a signal.”
“Stubborn,” Rachel muttered, but her tone lacked any real heat. “Okay, keep your eyes fixed on that gable window in front. That’s my bedroom. I’ll turn on the light and give you a wave.”
“Perfect.”
A minute later, the light went on as promised. But instead of giving them a wave, Rachel stood in front of the window, put her thumbs to her head and waggled her outstretched fingers.
Ashlyn snorted. “Did she just give us moose antlers?”
Caden grinned. “She did.”
Rachel stepped back from the window and the light went out again.
“Guess that’s our exit cue.” Caden looked down at Ashlyn. “How’s the knee?”
“Same. Maybe a little stiffer, but not bad.”
“You didn’t really need Rachel’s help, did you?” he asked as they moved out the driveway, his arm again firmly around her.
“Not really.”
“You’re a good person, Ashlyn Caverhill.”
Ashlyn could think of a lot of kids back home who’d dispute that. Not that she was one of the mean girls. No amount of peer pressure would jam her into that particular mold. But she’d cultivated a certain reputation, mainly to persuade those gossiping, backbiting, manipulative trolls to look elsewhere for a vulnerable target. It had worked, too. Maybe too well.
“I don’t know about that. She just seemed like she needed a hug, even if it had to be of the stealth variety.”
“I’m worried about her,” Caden said. They’d started back down the road again. “Cutting is one thing — a deeply disturbing thing — but those bruises….”
“Wait a minute.” Ashlyn’s steps slowed. “You knew? About the self-harm, I mean?”
“Seemed like the most likely explanation. That or frequently being at the receiving end of someone else’s violence. But if it were the latter, it generally takes more than long sleeves to hide that kind of abuse.”
“But obviously she’s getting some of that, too.”
“Yeah. The bruise on her face earlier in the week, and now this….”
Ashlyn chewed her lip. “We should call the cops.”
“I don’t know,” Caden said. “If there’s one thing I’ve lea
rned since moving here, Prescott Junction isn’t the same as the rest of the world.”
“You mean like a country versus city thing?”
“Yeah, but it’s more than that. The secrets here….” Caden’s arm tightened around her. “They don’t give them up easily. They don’t like outsiders poking around. I’m thinking the Sheriff’s Office wouldn’t look too fondly on allegations made by the two newest residents. And with me being a professor's son and home schooled, and you being—”
“A crazy Caverhill?”
“—Canadian. After all, you’re next door to being a Commie, aren’t you, with all that socialized healthcare up there? But hey, if the shoe fits….”
She dug him in the ribs with an elbow and he half grunted, half laughed.
“Sorry. Couldn’t resist.”
They walked in silence a moment. “Maybe I could get Maudette to do it? She likes Rachel.”
“Here’s an idea. Maybe we should work on Rachel, get her to file a complaint herself. It’s going to come down to her testimony in the end anyway, right?”
Ashlyn frowned. “Yeah, but how likely is that? She won’t even talk about it with us, let alone go to the police to make a formal complaint. And even if she did go to the cops, or if we did, what would life be like for her? Obviously her mother doesn’t work. If her dad goes to jail, who pays the bills?”
“You think she prefers dodging her father’s fists to welfare?” Caden suggested.
“Or maybe she’s putting her mother’s welfare over her own.”
“Well, one thing’s clear,” he said. “We have to get her to talk about it. What happened tonight….”
“I know.” Ashlyn grimaced. “I mean, I felt the power of the conductor’s appeal too, but it wasn’t so strong that I felt like I absolutely had to obey it. But if I try to put myself in her shoes, when I imagine the despair she must struggle with constantly. If I were in that frame of mind, that little tug I felt might have been a helluva lot stronger.”
“Exactly.”
“Did you feel it?”
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