CHAPTER TEN
Emma Kirby jerked awake as the freight car shuddered beneath her, steel wheels grinding against the tracks. Darkness clung to the corners of the space, broken only by thin shafts of daylight that sliced through the partially open door.
Her muscles protested as she pushed herself upright, each movement a reminder of last night’s desperate bicycle ride from Trentville. The thin blanket she’d wrapped around herself had slipped away during her fitful sleep, leaving her exposed to the cool draft that whispered through the car.
“You’re awake. Good.”
The voice came from the shadows. Emma’s eyes adjusted to find Loyalynne sitting there, her porcelain face catching a streak of sunlight that made her glass eyes shine with unnatural clarity.
The doll’s gingham dress—once vibrant blue, now faded to a whisper of its former color—spread around her like a pool of still water.
It took a moment for Emma to understand what she was doing here.
Then she remembered how Loyalynne had directed her to run toward the slow-moving train and jump aboard a freight car after leaving Clarksboro.
She also remembered hearing a voice in her sleep right now—that voice she’d heard before in an earlier dream, a man calling for her, saying he was looking for her.
Your sister needs you. I need you. Please come home.
“How long was I asleep?” Emma asked, her voice raw from thirst. She reached for her backpack, searching for her water bottle.
“A while,” Loyalynne replied with the precision she always displayed. “We’ve passed one stop already.”
Emma took a sip of lukewarm water, savoring each drop. Her stomach growled, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten for a while. She had a half-sandwich wrapped in plastic at the bottom of her bag. But she wouldn’t eat it, not yet. Food was a luxury to be rationed.
“The train is slowing,” Loyalynne observed, her head tilting slightly toward the door. “This is our stop.”
Emma frowned, crawling closer to the opening to peer out at the landscape rushing by. The train had indeed decreased its speed, but they weren’t approaching anything that looked like a station. Just fields and scattered trees, with a distant line of hills smudged against the horizon.
“There’s nothing out there,” she said. “Where exactly are we going?”
Loyalynne’s glass eyes reflected no emotion. “Away from them. That’s all that matters.”
The phantoms. Emma shivered, not from the chill in the freight car but from anxiety.
She felt their presence— shadows that haunted her, trying to drag her back into thinking she was Piper.
Sometimes they wore human faces and even had names.
They seemed friendly, even loving. Some had even convinced her that they were family or friends.
Sometimes they were just a feeling, a pressure against her skull that warned of danger.
“But I’m exhausted, Loyalynne,” Emma said, pressing her palms against her tired eyes. “I can’t keep—“
“If we don’t keep moving, they’ll catch up. You know what happens then.”
I’ll be Piper again, Emma thought. Part of her wondered whether that would be such a bad thing. Being Emma was none too easy.
“They might figure out that you took the train,” the doll said. “That’s why we’re getting off here, where no one would expect it. We’ll double back on foot, confuse the trail.”
“Fine,” Emma conceded. “But I need to know where we’re heading. Some kind of plan beyond just running.”
“I don’t need to tell you any plans,” Loyalynne says.
Emma bristled. She remembered pushing back against Loyalynne earlier—refusing to panhandle when the doll said she should do so to pick up money. It had been her own idea to do yard work, not Loyalynne’s.
“I don’t need to do everything you tell me to do,” Emma answered.
“What other choice do you have? Right now, I mean?”
Emma could think of no answer to that.
The train lurched, metal screeching as it continued to slow.
Outside, the landscape crawled by now, giving Emma a better view of their surroundings.
A dirt road ran parallel to the tracks about fifty yards away.
Beyond that, fields stretched toward a distant tree line.
No houses were visible, no signs of human presence except for the road itself.
“Get ready,” Loyalynne said, ignoring Emma’s question. “When I say jump, you jump. Roll when you hit the ground. Keep your head tucked.”
Emma’s heart rate quickened. She’d hopped trains before—sometimes to escape, sometimes just to move on—but jumping from one still in motion was different.
Dangerous. She gathered her few possessions, stuffing the blanket into her backpack and zipping it shut.
Her hands trembled slightly as she pulled the straps over her shoulders, securing it tightly against her back.
Emma felt a wave of dizziness as she stood, her body reminding her of its limitations. Her legs ached from last night’s frantic pedaling, her back stiff from the time spent curled on the hard floor of the freight car. She steadied herself against the wall, taking deep breaths.
The train’s pace had slackened to perhaps fifteen miles per hour.
Fast enough to kill her if she fell wrong, but slow enough to survive with proper technique.
She’d seen others do this—learned from watching, from whispered advice shared around campfires by other drifters.
Keep your body loose. Roll with the momentum. Protect your head.
“Why are they after me?” Emma asked, the question that haunted her spilling out. “Why do they want me to think I’m Piper? What do they want?”
Loyalynne turned to face her, the doll’s expression unchanged yet somehow more intense. “They want what they’ve always wanted. To use you. To break you. To take what makes you special.”
“But I’m not special,” Emma protested, the familiar argument resurfacing. “I’m nobody. Just Emma Kirby.”
For a moment, something flickered across Loyalynne’s painted features—a shadow of doubt, perhaps, or some knowledge held back. But then it was gone, and the doll’s voice came clear and certain.
“You see me when no one else can. You feel the echoes of violence before it happens. You are far from nobody, Emma Kirby.”
Emma had no response to that. It was true that she experienced things others didn’t, sensed danger like electricity in the air before it struck. But these weren’t gifts; they were burdens that had driven her to the edges of sanity more than once.
The train slowed further, the rhythm of its wheels becoming distinct thuds rather than a continuous roll.
“Now,” Loyalynne commanded. “Jump!”
Emma hesitated for only a second before pushing herself out of the door.
The ground rushed up to meet her, a blur of brown and green.
She tucked her body, hit the ground with her shoulder, and rolled as momentum carried her forward.
Pain exploded across her side as stones and sticks dug into her flesh through her thin clothes.
She continued to tumble, unable to stop until physics released her from its grip.
Finally, she came to rest on her back, staring up at the clear blue sky, gasping for breath. Her body screamed with fresh pain, but a quick mental inventory told her nothing was broken. Just new bruises to add to her collection.
The train continued its slow journey down the tracks, unaware or uncaring of its departed passenger. Emma lay still for a moment, letting the world stop spinning around her. Then she pushed herself up onto her elbows, scanning the area for Loyalynne.
The doll stood a few feet away, unnaturally steady despite the rough terrain. Her glass eyes reflected no concern for Emma’s well-being, only calm certainty.
“We’ll walk three miles back the way we came,” Loyalynne said, as if continuing a conversation they’d been having. “We’ve got to keep changing directions, make ourselves impossible to follow.”
Emma let out a bitter laugh. “Of course we do,” she said, wincing as she got to her feet. Her right hip throbbed where she’d landed hardest, and her palms were scraped raw from trying to break her fall. She brushed dirt from her clothes, more out of habit than any hope of looking presentable.
She started walking toward the dirt road, her backpack feeling heavier with each step.
They reached the road, its surface hard-packed dirt rather than asphalt. No tire tracks marked its surface, suggesting it wasn’t frequently used. Good for avoiding detection, bad for the possibility of catching a ride.
Emma’s stomach cramped with hunger. She dug into her backpack and retrieved a half-sandwich, unwrapping it carefully to avoid losing a single crumb.
It had been given to her by the last woman she’d done lawn work for earlier.
Grilled cheese, slightly warm from hours in her pack, but still edible.
She ate slowly, making each bite last, washing it down with sips of water.
They walked in silence after that, following the dusty road back in the direction the train had come from. The landscape offered little variation: fields giving way to occasional clusters of trees, hills rising and falling in gentle waves. No houses, no people. Just empty land and open sky.
When they reached a fork in the road, Emma paused. The main path continued straight ahead, while a narrower track branched off to the right, disappearing into a stand of trees.
“The right fork,” Loyalynne said.
Emma hesitated, looking down both paths. “Where does it lead?”
“Eventually? To safety.”
“I’d settle for a shower and a real meal,” Emma muttered, but she turned right, following the smaller path into the shadows of the trees.
As they walked deeper into the wooded area, Emma couldn’t shake the feeling that this chase—this endless running—was leading her in a circle.
Not physically, perhaps, but spiritually.
As if she’d been here before, made these same choices, followed these same cryptic instructions from a doll that shouldn’t be able to speak.
“Loyalynne,” she said softly, “are you sure you’re leading me toward safety and not deeper into danger?”
The doll, walking several paces ahead now, didn’t turn around. “Those two things,” she said, her voice carrying clearly despite her small size, “are not always as different as you might think.”