Chapter 19 #2
“My cousin sometimes…” Curran hesitated.
“He said there was a weird vibe at the spot where the boy must have stood right before he stepped onto the tracks. He doesn’t mention stuff like that in his reports, but he says sometimes he hears a train whistle when a train shouldn’t be on a line.
He never sees the train, but he hears the whistle and gets a feeling when it passes through the town where he lives. ”
The day your cousin sees that train…Not something Charles would say to Officer Curran unless her cousin disappeared one day.
“We’ll confirm which precinct handles the area of the town where the parents live, and I’ll send you the name of the detective who should receive whatever personal effects were found.”
“Thank you, sir.” Curran started to turn away from the table, then stopped. “I heard Detective Fahey is living across the river now. How’s she doing?”
“She’s doing all right. Settling into her job as a Destiny Park security officer.”
After Castelletti escorted Curran out, Charles looked at the paper. The last bullyboy was finally accounted for, and the parents would have some kind of closure.
And yet…Where was the body?
5
“Mommy! Mommy! That man is all bloody and has bones sticking out!”
“There’s no one there. That seat is empty.”
“But…Mommy!”
Acid didn’t look at the child. He was seen by some but not by many. And the seat that was his prison and his grave was a cold spot no one dared breach.
He wasn’t sure how long it had taken for him to become aware that his attempt to end his existence had failed. That he was a kind of ghost—a haunting—trapped in a passenger car on this train, doomed to ride it until…
Bargains made with the Arcana are never broken.
A teenage boy swaggered down the aisle toward the restroom. Chains and leather. Badass attitude. He bared his teeth in a snarling smile as he knocked a book out of an old woman’s hands.
Look at me. I’m the big bad here.
Acid turned his head.
The teen, catching movement from a seat that was empty, looked—and froze as the color drained from his face.
“Be care…ful,” Acid whispered. “Be care…ful, or you’ll…end up…like me.”
The teen backed away, backed away, scrambled to reach his own seat at the front of the car.
Maybe it would make a difference. Maybe this moment of seeing where he might end up would encourage the teen to make different choices. To change his fate.
A sign appeared near the front of the car, a sign Acid was sure no one else could see.
Years left on your ride: 99
The number changed to 98.
Acid understood. For every person he tried to warn away from the things he had done that had led him to becoming a trapped ghost, the Arcana would deduct one year from the years he’d been condemned to ride the ghost train. He’d thought he’d escaped by leaving the ghost train. He’d escaped nothing.
“I’m sorry.”
Would the words ever find their way to his parents? He hoped so.
As the living world rolled by outside the train’s windows, Acid wondered if his life would have been different—if he would have been different—if he had received a ghostly warning before he’d become one of Dare’s Doggs.
6
Standing at the land end of the dock, Lucas Frost watched the ferry take the day’s last visitors across the river.
“What happens when the ferry stops running next month?” Beth asked as she joined him.
“The seasonal workers who live across the river will assist in bringing in supplies for the hotel for a couple more weeks,” he replied. “But not on the ferry. It will disappear sometime between Halloween and All Soul’s Day.”
“And it winters where?”
Beth Fahey was tough, and she was inquisitive—and she was becoming more Arcana every day.
“I don’t know,” Lucas said. “The vessel is part of the Ferryman’s domain, and his domain is separate from mine. A couple of days after the spring equinox, the ferry will be at the dock.”
“I guess the winter months are quiet.”
“Quieter, not quiet. Different kinds of visitors take advantage of the lack of humans.”
Beth eyed him. “Does that mean I’m going to get another binder of beings to study, along with morning quizzes?”
Lucas laughed. “Probably. Park security needs to be prepared for the park’s visitors.” His amusement faded. “It might also be an opportunity for you to take a bus ride and learn how to travel around Wyrd.”
“Traveling with Jack?”
“He is your trainer. However, a short bus ride of no more than one or two stops could be done with someone else who is pure Arcana. Or even with a group. Katherine Rose goes out on a ride or two during our fallow time in order to refresh her talent—and shop.”
“A group outing sounds like fun.”
“And you’re hoping that if there are more people, Jack won’t have you in the crosshairs every moment?”
“That too.” She shifted her weight, her body moving away from him, then back. “The other Sorcerer King. Is he still holding you and Jack accountable for my well-being?”
“Not as much as before. It’s nothing for you to worry about.”
Beth let out a slow breath. “I’ll do another circuit around the main trails and call it a day.”
“Will you be joining us for the evening meal?”
“I will.”
Lucas watched her walk back to the pavilion, then returned his gaze to the river.
The ferry would disappear at the end of October, and the ghostly ice cutter, with its skeletal crew, would arrive sometime in November.
The Fate River would freeze on both sides over the winter, but the center would remain clear, and the water would be a barrier to anyone who tried to reach the island.
A quieter time. After the past few months, he would welcome that quieter time.
7
The fish who sometimes remembered he had not always been a fish swam in the Fate River. He hunted. And he waited, sensing that change would happen soon.
8
Beth studied the contents of her refrigerator. She could be good and have yogurt for breakfast, or she could go to the hotel and have pancakes.
She closed the refrigerator door. It was a pancakes kind of day. Definitely. Besides, the hotel’s coffee was better than anything she could make at home.
She went through the routine of checking the cottage, making sure everything was tidy and that the heat was turned down, the stove was turned off—even if she hadn’t used the oven or any of the stovetop burners—and the fire she’d lit in the fireplace last night was nothing more than cold ashes.
Then she gathered her personal items, wrapped a scarf around her neck, shrugged into her fall coat, and left her cottage.
The air still held some warmth in the middle of the day, but the mornings were autumn crisp with the first hint of winter.
She’d survived her first summer on the Isle of Wyrd, working with Jack, working for Lucas, and becoming part of a community—or straddling the line between two communities.
The Arcana were friendly enough with the pure human and mostly human individuals who lived in the cottages and worked on the island year-round, but they weren’t going to invite those humans to their private part of the island for dinner.
But Lucas expected her to join the Arcana for dinner a couple of nights each week.
She wasn’t sure why he insisted. It was easy enough for him and Jack—and Ethan—to keep track of her during working hours and see that she wasn’t in any distress, so that wasn’t the reason.
No, Lucas wanted her to feel comfortable around them, wanted her to feel like she was one of them—and that was something he didn’t do with any of the other cottage residents, even the ones who had been living on Wyrd for years.
Then again, the Frost brothers had been right when they’d said that some of the visitors who came to the pavilion were…different, and those visitors somehow knew that they didn’t have to hide what they were with her.
She’d dealt with the different. She’d also gone on a couple of bus trips that stopped at static neighborhoods as well as a roaming neighborhood that had disappeared after the autumn equinox.
She’d been glad to have Jack riding with her when the bus had stopped there.
Not that the residents weren’t friendly, but the lure of the uncanny in that place might have led her to a different fate if Jack hadn’t been there as an anchor.
It had been another valuable lesson.
As soon as Beth stepped inside the hotel’s restaurant, Chase, one of the Arcana who worked in the restaurant during daylight hours, approached her. Since the coffeepot he held was empty, she figured he’d detoured to cross her path on his way to the kitchen.
“It’s pancake day,” Beth said.
Chase smiled and waited.
“I’m having pancakes for breakfast.”
He waited.
“And coffee. And some kind of protein so that Jack won’t have a hissy fit.”
His smile widened. Then the smile faded. “Katherine Rose has been waiting for you. I’ll bring your coffee over as soon as the fresh pot is ready.”
Katherine Rose was nibbling on a piece of toast. Since she’d clearly already eaten, Beth figured the toast was a delaying tactic.
After laying her coat on an empty chair, Beth settled in the chair opposite Katherine Rose. “Why is Jack still obsessed with what I eat?”
“You’re physically fit, and you’re skilled with weapons, so he can’t pester you about those things,” Katherine Rose replied. “Your food choices are personal but not private, not…serious, so he feels he can interact with you about them.”
“If he thinks food choices aren’t serious, he’s never talked to a human woman who has been put on a diet. If he had, he’d know how serious food can be.”
“He wouldn’t care about a human woman unless she had made a bargain with the Arcana.” Katherine Rose sipped her tea as Chase approached their table with a mug and a pot of coffee. He poured, gave the empty spot on the table in front of Beth a pointed look, then left.
Beth added cream and a little sugar to her coffee, then stirred—and stirred some more.
“Is there something I should know?” she asked quietly.