She’s not really looking at me, Emmie tells herself, though she knows it isn’t the truth. She was just looking around the train, that’s all. And then Emmie tries to make a counting game from the pattern printed on the back of the seat in front of her, the upholstery pattern that reminds her somewhat of a piece of hard candy or Sadie’s rugs from Argentina. Broad bands of maroon on either side, then a riot of vertical stripes straight down the center, narrow and even narrower bands of purple and greenish blue, gray-blue, and rusty orange. She counts nineteen or twenty bands, though it’s hard to be certain exactly how many there are, since some of the colors grade together, bleeding imperceptibly from one to the next. The blues and purples make up the outermost bands, with the orangey browns located at the center. But the whole time Emmie’s really thinking about the brown-eyed woman, not the upholstery pattern, and, after only five minutes or so, she steals another quick glance in her direction. The woman is still watching and smiles a second time.
Emmie turns quickly away, not exactly frightened, not yet, because there are always the stewards and lots of other people crowded onto the train, but the woman’s definitely making her nervous now. Stop, she thinks. Don’t look at me again, pretending her mind can reach out all the way to the woman’s seat, can reach inside her head and make her want to do anything but stare at people she doesn’t know and has no business spying on. Then the train slows down and shudders once or twice, rolling up to the station platform at New London; some people get off and others get on, and Emmie sits with her fingers crossed, hoping that the brown-eyed woman is going only this far, or, at the very least, that someone boarding will take the empty seat next to her. She watches the busy platform and waits, but no one sits down beside her, and when the train is moving again, she risks another peek and sees that the woman is still sitting right there, so maybe she intends to ride all the way down to Manhattan. Emmie hauls her backpack up into the empty seat and tries to concentrate on the world rushing by outside the windows—beds of granite and slate carved to make way for the railroad; the twisted, arthritic fingers of bare limbs against the sky; brick buildings boarded up and scarred with graffiti; abandoned warehouses and gas stations; a tiny, neglected graveyard sheltered by enormous evergreens. At the crossings, automobiles wait impatiently for the train to pass so that they can go on about their business. Everything is just exactly as it ought to be, all the familiar sights and sounds of the trip, but she remembers her cell phone in the front pocket of the pack and thinks about taking it out and calling Deacon to tell him about the woman. And then she thinks about calling just to hear the sound of his voice.
“Would you mind if I sat here?” someone asks her, and “No, I don’t mind,” Emmie says eagerly before she even looks to see who it is, too relieved that the seat won’t be empty anymore to care. But then she turns her head, turns to move her backpack from the seat, and she sees that it’s the hazel-eyed woman. She’s much taller than Emmie expected her to be, and there’s a tattoo on the back of her left hand—two intersecting triangles, one red, one black, forming a six-pointed star, and there’s something that looks like a T at the very center. For a moment Emmie doesn’t move, trying desperately to figure out a way to tell the woman that she’s changed her mind, that she wants to be alone, or the seat’s taken, and her father will be back from the restroom in just a minute or two. But the woman’s smiling, and her eyes are so bright that they almost make Emmie squint, and she moves the pack from the seat to her lap.
“Are you going to New York?” the woman asks, sliding easily into the seat. Her voice sounds a little hoarse, like maybe she’s been crying or sick or she’s only half-awake. “That’s where I’m headed, and I’ve always hated not having anyone to talk to on the train.” The woman holds out her right hand, the one without the tattoo, for Emmie to shake. “My name’s Saben,” she says. “Saben White. And you’re…?”
“You have a tattoo,” Emmie says, not shaking the woman’s hand.
“Oh, yeah. That,” Saben White replies and looks down at the design worked into her skin. “I’ve had that for a long time. I forget about it.”
“What’s it supposed to be?” Emmie asks, hugging her backpack closer and wondering where Deacon is now, and if he’s thinking about her, if he’s worrying about her.
“Well,” the woman says, frowning thoughtfully, examining her tattoo like maybe she’s never looked at it closely before. “That’s what’s called the Seal of Solomon. It’s called other things, too, but—”
“Who’s Solomon?” Emmie asks, interrupting and not caring if it’s rude, because it’s also rude to stare at people you don’t know and then sit down where you’re not wanted.
“He was a king, the Israelite king who built a great temple in Jerusalem where the Ark of the Covenant would be safe. To the Hebrews, he’s known as chacham mi’kol ha’adam—the wisest of all men.”
“Are you Jewish?” Emmie asks.
“Not at all,” Saben White replies.
“Then why do you have that tattoo on your hand?”
“Like I said, it’s called other things, too. It means other things to other people besides the Jews. And it keeps me safe.”
“From what?” Emmie asks, squinting skeptically at the woman.
“Oh, lots of stuff. All the things someone like me needs protecting from. You’re a very curious little girl; you know that?”
“My father said I shouldn’t talk to you.”
“Did he? That’s odd. I don’t think your father even knows me. I mean, I don’t know him.”
“That’s the point,” Emmie replies, beginning to get annoyed at the way the woman seems to be talking in circles, the way she’s only acting like she doesn’t know what Emmie’s trying to say. “I don’t know you. He doesn’t know you, either.”
“Oh, yeah,” the woman says and taps at her forehead with the ring finger of her right hand. “It’s that old ‘don’t talk to strangers’ routine. Okay—”
“So I think you should go back to your seat,” Emmie says.
“Is that what I should do?”
Emmie sighs and looks out the window again. The train is crossing a bridge, but she isn’t sure which one it is or which river it’s ferrying them over. The woman distracted her, and now she’s lost track of bridges and rivers and just about everything else. This one’s wide enough to be the Connecticut River, but that would mean that they’re almost to Old Saybrook, and she’s not sure they could have gone that far already. It would also mean she’s somehow missed crossing the Niantic, and she never misses the rivers, one of the ways she’s learned to measure the train’s progress so she knows how much farther until New York and Sadie, how much distance has accumulated between her and Deacon. She does the math in her head—it’s fifteen minutes from Kingston to Westerly, ten minutes from Westerly to Mystic, then fourteen minutes from Mystic to—
“You’re right,” the woman says, and Emmie gets confused and stops counting stations. “I don’t know your dad, not personally, and he doesn’t know me, but I do know who he is. He owns the old bookshop on Thayer Street, right? I’ve been in there a couple of times.”
“Yeah, but lots of people know he owns the shop. That doesn’t mean you’re not a stranger. Kids who talk to strangers go missing. It happens all the time, every day.”
“His name is Deacon Silvey,” the woman continues, “and right now you’re on your way to New York to visit your stepmom, Sadie Jasper. I’ve read all her books, by the way. So, see, you might not know me, but I’m really not such a stranger, either.”
Emmie stares silently at the woman for a moment, wishing she could be sure which river is underneath her, feeling lost and sorry that she didn’t lie and tell Deacon that she was feeling sick. He’d have taken her back home if she had, and she’d be safe in her own bed by now, and none of this would be happening.
“You know my name, don’t you?” she asks the woman, who nods her head yes and picks a bit of fuzz off her gray sweater.
“
I do,” she admits. “And there’s a good reason for that, but I probably shouldn’t tell you what it is. Not just yet, anyway. I shouldn’t tell you too much all at once. I don’t want to frighten you.”
“Too late,” Emmie says, and now she’s sure that it’s the Connecticut River out there, and they’ll be stopping at the Old Saybrook station in just a few more minutes. “You already have.”
“I knew that I might, and I’m sorry about that. I promise, I didn’t want to upset you or your father.”
“What do you want?” Emmie asks, keeping her eyes on the window now, the bridge ending as the river gives way to land again.
“Just to talk to you, that’s all. I swear. I’m not going to hurt you. I won’t even touch you. You mean a lot to me, Emmie.”
“Why is that, Saben? You don’t even know me, so how could I mean a lot to you? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Jesus,” the woman says, “but you’re a precocious one, aren’t you?”
“I know what that means,” Emmie says, because she does, and knows that sometimes adults pick words that they think kids won’t understand.
“Of course you do. You’re a smart little girl, Emmie. I know all about that, too, about the school and all.” And now Saben White’s voice is starting to sound hoarser than when she first sat down, and Emmie almost asks her what’s wrong, if she’s sick, then remembers that she has no business talking to the woman in the first place.
“I don’t talk to strangers,” she insists.
“Kids go missing every day,” the woman says and nods her head again. “You shouldn’t talk to strangers. Especially not to strangers on trains. They’re probably the worst kind of all.”
“Deacon never told me that,” Emmie says, glancing back to the hazel-eyed woman.
“I expect there’s all sorts of things he hasn’t told you. And things he never will.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Emmie asks.
“It means that I need to remember why I have this thing,” she says and points at the Seal of Solomon tattooed on her hand. “Do you know what the sacred number is, Emmie? Has anyone ever told you?” Emmie shakes her head; she’s noticed that a man sitting across the aisle from them, an old Asian man wearing bifocals and a yellow scarf, is listening to what Saben White is saying.
I could ask him to help, she thinks. I could tell him to make her leave me alone.
“See these two triangles?” the woman asks her. “The one pointing up, the black one, stands for fire and masculine energy. Like your father. And the red one, that’s for water and for feminine energy, like your mother. Or Sadie. Water and fire, so that’s two of the elements, and if you look at the way the base of each triangle bisects the other just beneath its apex—that’s what you call the top of a triangle—”
“I know that,” Emmie says, still watching the old man, wishing that he’d say something, anything at all. It’s rude to stare, and he should tell her to stop doing it.
“Okay,” Saben White says hoarsely, “when you look at how the base of each triangle bisects the other just beneath its apex, you find the symbols for earth and air, which gives you all four of the elements—fire, water, earth, and air. And a triangle has three sides—”
“That’s why it’s called a ‘triangle,’” Emmie replies, and the old man in the yellow scarf blinks at her.
“Right, Emmie. Now, what do you get when you add three to four?”
“You get seven.”
“And seven is the sacred number,” the woman says, and her eyes are shining like she’s about to start crying. “So, this star here really has seven points.”
Emmie looks from the useless old man back to the tattoo, counting off the points one by one. “No,” she tells Saben White. “There are only six.”
“Only six that you can see,” the woman explains, and now the train has reached Old Saybrook, and people are beginning to move about. The man with the yellow scarf has started reading a newspaper, and Emmie gives up on him. “But there are still seven points there. Three and four, but the seventh, it’s invisible.”
“I don’t think I believe in invisible things,” Emmie says. “I don’t think invisible things are real.”
“You’ll learn otherwise. Sooner or later you’ll learn that invisible things can be a lot more real than the things you see. And sometimes that’s why they’re invisible.”
“That’s stupid,” Emmie mutters, and turns to the window again, gazing out at Old Saybrook Station. “Now you’re not even making any sense.”
“I think I’d better get off here,” the woman says. “I think it’d be best if I got off here.”
“Yeah,” Emmie agrees, relieved because the woman wasn’t a kidnapper or a sex pervert after all, just some crazy person who can’t count and doesn’t know how to mind her own business. “It’s probably best. I have a book in here I want to read.” And she pats her backpack.
“You be careful, Emmie,” the woman says. “And listen, I know this isn’t going to make much sense, either, but you need to stay away from horses.”
“What?”
“Just while you’re in New York City this time, stay away from horses, okay? I think it’s very important.”
I think you’re a nut job, Emmie almost says, never mind if it’s mean to talk to crazy people that way, and she opens her mouth to say something else, but Saben White is already up and moving, pushing her way between the other passengers. In only a moment, Emmie’s completely lost sight of her, so she turns back to the window and waits for the woman to appear on the platform, but she never does. A few minutes more and the train pulls out, rolling on towards New Haven and Bridgeport and Penn Station. Emmie forgets all about the book in her backpack, and the cell phone, too, and just watches the world through the train window as the morning turns quickly to afternoon, trying to remember everything the woman said about the Seal of Solomon, about four and three making the sacred number, in case she decides to tell Sadie or Deacon about it later. She might, and she might not. Sometimes she has no idea what the right thing to do is, and maybe it would only make them worry.
There are no clouds in the sky, but Emmie wishes it would snow, just the same.
Three years ago, not long before Sadie and Deacon finally stopped fighting, and Sadie left Providence and didn’t come back, Emmie woke late one night to find her stepmother sitting alone at the foot of her bed. Emmie lay very still and quiet, unsure whether Sadie had realized she was awake, afraid that this was something important, something terrible, and as soon as Sadie knew she wasn’t asleep any longer she’d begin talking, which would be the start of the terrible, important thing. Sadie was sitting with her back to the night-light, so Emmie couldn’t see her face, even though she could see better in the dark than most people. Sadie’s face was only a shadow, framed by her thick black hair, and Emmie tried hard to pretend that she’d come in to make sure everything was all right or because she’d forgotten to kiss Emmie good night (though she hadn’t). Maybe she’d heard a noise outside, a cat rummaging about in the garbage cans or the wind brushing around the eaves of the old house, and thought that Emmie must have heard it too and might be frightened. Maybe that was all it was. She waited impatiently to find out, listening to one of her favorite Patty Duke songs set on repeat in her CD player—“The World Is Watching Us”—one of the songs she most liked to sleep to, turned down low enough so it wouldn’t annoy Deacon, who hated Patty Duke just as much as Doris Day.
“Hey there, pumpkin,” Sadie said very softly, and Emmie thought that she could almost see her stepmother’s words, like wisps of red velvet in the darkness. “I’m sorry I woke you up.”
“That’s okay,” Emmie replied. “It wasn’t a very interesting dream.”
“I hate those.”
“This one wasn’t even interesting enough to hate.”
“Well, those are even worse,” Sadie said, and then she didn’t say anything else for a while, and Emmie lay there and waited, because she didn’t k
now what else to do. Finally Sadie turned towards her, and Emmie could see her face illuminated in the glow of the night-light. Sadie’s eyes sparkled like wet blue jewels. Emmie often wanted eyes the same color as Sadie’s eyes; no one thought girls with yellow eyes were pretty.
“I need to ask you something, Emmie. I know that I can, because you’re a very smart kid. Hell, I’ve never met a kid as smart as you.”
And so it was something important and terrible. Emmie shut her eyes again, shut them tight, pretending this was just another part of the very uninteresting dream that Sadie had interrupted. Sometimes she’d rather she weren’t so smart, or that Deacon and Sadie had never learned she was anything but a normal kid who couldn’t be told the things that only grown-ups were supposed to know. Just another normal, unremarkable girl with Sadie’s pale blue eyes.
“I might be leaving soon,” Sadie said. “I might be better off living in New York. It might be better for my writing.”
Emmie opened her eyes again. The Patty Duke song ended and immediately started over.
“What about Deacon?” she asked.
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