The Rail Specter

by Vennessa Robertson

  Here I stood, a woman grown, able to do all sorts of things women did not do—I rode horses, shot guns, flew in airships, used wooden and fiber wings, I bottled lightning, and I fought demons. I am a powerful woman and, yet, all I wanted in that moment was to be held by my Papa and told everything will be right in the world. I wanted to return from adventure and have tea and cake by the fire, and share stories of my adventures with him, to have him stroke my hair and call me his brave, brave girl.

  And I want to return to my world of adventure, knowing that he would be right here where I left him, enjoying the world I provided, with orchids and birds and healthy tenants with rich bountiful harvests and sunlight and joy. And I wanted my husband to be unharmed.

  My breath came in gasps, my mouth was dry, my gown too tight around my shoulders. I longed to flex and stretch until the seams burst and I could strip it off the way Nate tore his human skin when his canithrope form burst from within his body. He was a man of raw adventure that flowed from him. Running an estate was smothering him.

  I understood, then, why he tore at his own flesh when transfiguring as though it suffocated him like a too-tight suit. There was a pain between my shoulders, a deep pain, a knife digging into my spine, tearing its way between the bones to burrow its way through me. I longed to tear it free and run screaming until my lungs burst and I bled.

  “Vivian?”

  A strong hand touched my back. The light returned and, with it, the sound and smells and a thousand other things I hadn’t realized I had been missing.

  Nate’s hand guided me though the chaos. “This will all be over soon,” he said quietly. “Your papa was a good man. Everyone just wants to pay their respects.”

  Of course. How did he bear it? Nate was so strong. I looked into his warm brown eyes, then at his scarred ear, and leaned against his arm. The pain between my shoulders receded, along with the crushing darkness though, for the first time, I could see the space the darkness had left behind, the light compressed into a single lantern with an oil wick. The lantern was being carried by an old man, his face barely illuminated as he shuffled along, swathed in gray robes, staff in hand.

  This specter, The Hermit did not look at me. He existed outside the room, beyond it, as though he was both a part of this world and, at the same time, not of this world. He was Tarot, and I could feel where the Tarot symbol existed beneath my skin, along my torso with the rest of the major arcana. He was The Hermit, the guardian of introspection. The symbol of soul-searching. The very personification of isolation.

  I needed some peace in this ocean of loss. I reached deep within myself and, with all the will I could muster, summoned a card. Within the Tarot, the Cups were, among other things, our emotions and our connections to others. I longed to feel the weight of a great, overflowing chalice, spilling healing waters over my hand, dripping down my arm, down my body, pooling around my feet. Aces symbolized newness, the beginning of a cycle, but the Ace of Cups was like a baptism, either by the church or the soul of earth itself, the promise that grief is not forever.

  It reminded me of the purifying waters that flowed in the river beyond the hooded figure of Death. Even as a child, when I was too young to understand that choosing The Death card didn’t mean an actual death, the card yet gave me a chill. The card meant change: all things must eventually change to make way for the new. I was drawn to it and what it could mean as the hooded reaper rode through the land, striking down kings and peasants alike: clearing the old away to make room for the new.

  There was finality in the air. I shut my eyes to the cards. It was a grief and loss I was not sure I could weather right now. I had learned to manipulate the Fates themselves with the cards but, I wondered, with the right application of fate, why couldn’t I buy Papa more time?

  Mr. Ward looked at Nate. He must have given an agreed-upon signal, for we then moved to the large room where Father Barbary would hold a prayer before Papa’s coffin was taken to the cemetery. I heard the hammers, muffled by wool batting, driving home the nails in the lid of the coffin. Mama flinched with every strike.

  Father Barbury intoned a prayer amid sniffles and coughs.

  “Almighty God, Father of all mercies and giver of all comfort: deal graciously, we pray, with those who mourn, that, casting all their care on you, they may know the consolation of your love, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.”

  Our guests echoed the “Amen”, whispered their words of comfort and left us to our grief. We accompanied Papa to his grave, where Father Barbury gave more prayers for the safekeeping of Papa’s soul before the rain came down to help the workers fill in the grave.

  Try as I might, I could not make myself pay attention to the funeral service. I swallowed hard. Papa was gone. Mama sat still and silent beside me, staring ahead like a woman struck mute and dumb. Tonight, for the first time in decades, she would go to bed alone.

  Chapter Four

  AS THE WEEKS passed, I became a wraith with mourning. The light and joy of our home washed away with the renewed rains. The land would tease us with moments of peace and sunshine, only to dash our hopes with returned bad weather and no news of hope from America about our precious investments.

  I could not remain on the estate doing nothing. I could not look at the walls where I had become a prisoner of pain and loss, as what had been a home of joy and peace became rooms of cold darkness warmed only by Lum Baxter’s children as they flitted about like tiny, lost butterflies moving through the meadow. We needed hope, and I needed change. But, more than that, I needed the quickening of my blood that came with adventure. I needed to know why our promising investments were performing so poorly. I needed to get away from being trapped where there was nothing to do but feel like ill luck was a great pack of wolves circling our doors.

  Though a part of me felt like I should stay with Mama and continue to mourn Papa, I could not remain any longer. We had a responsibility to the people who called our land home. And just as importantly, the president of the railroad, Mr. Cassatt, to whom we had entrusted a great deal of money, owed us an explanation about what exactly was happening with our money. We would be much more difficult to ignore if we, rather than our letters, were sitting upon his desk.

  Madame Theodora came to keep Mama company during her mourning, and the two of them sat in the conservatory, dressed in black. Mama stared into the fire, with a dark blanket over her lap to ward off the chill. She held one of Papa’s journals, where he detailed not only his personal life, but also the professional exploits of his apothecary business. She ran her fingers over them—touching them to reconnect with him.

  She wore the Three of Swords within her and around her. It was her cloak, her gown, her crown, and her soul. Three swords pierced her heart, their razor-sharp blades slicing into the core of her being, her life-blood dripping from her. She loved him deeply. Mama was a strong woman, she would weather this storm. In the Three of Swords, the sky is heavily clouded over and the rain pours down. It is truly a grim card, the heart is literally pierced, the world is awash with loss.

  “Mama?”

  She set Papa’s journal aside. “Vivian, are all your arrangements made?”

  “I should stay,” I said for the hundredth time this week.

  “There is only one of you, and Nate needs you more than I do,” Mama said.

  “I want to stay.” It was half true. I wanted to stay and go. I couldn’t remain here. I needed to get away and feel the land around me again.

  “But you also want to go,” Mama said. “You have an adventurer’s heart. Your soul is restless, like that of your husband.”

  “I don’t want to leave you.” I wished I could rip myself in half to remain with both her and Nate.

  “Now, that, I do believe,” Mama said. “But you cannot be both places. So, clear your mind and draw a card. Let it guide you. You trust me. You have come to trust them. If we both tell you, then you must go.”

  “I do not want to abandon you,” I said. “You would not leav
e me.”

  “I am the mother. You are the daughter,” Mama said. “Now, do as I say. Fetch your cards.”

  I brought her the cards that had once been hers, which had once been her mother’s cards. They were faded, the edges tattered, the corners dinged. They were smudged from being handled and shuffled. I no longer needed to carry them to know them. I didn’t need to touch them to manipulate them and to read them, but they were a familiar comfort in my hand.

  I let them fall between my fingers, loving their feel. One wanted to be drawn. No matter how many times I cut past it or shuffled by it, it kept leaping to hand. Finally, I turned it out on the table.

  The Five of Cups.

  Mama smiled at me. It was her first since Papa died. “Ahh. It is a good message.”

  On the card was a hooded figure, head bowed, overlooking a river. At his or her feet, three of five cups were overturned, literally spilling out all the emotions into the earth. Behind, two full cups waited.

  She took my hand. “When one struggles with grief, one must remember to look beyond the sorrow, the emptiness that is overwhelming. Look, there is goodness in the cups behind, and here, an entire river of goodness lies ahead. Grief is for now, but it will pass. I loved your Papa very much and I will forever miss him. But, I will be able to drink again. My life goes on, not as it did, for I will not be the same without him, but I will not lose sight of all the good we had for the sake of the sorrow now.”

  I could breathe for the first time since Papa died. He had shared his apothecary wisdom, wide and wonderful as it was, but Mama had another sort of wisdom. She had a courage that I never fully understood until I decided to break my engagement to Byron and become a wild adventuress with Nate.

  Mama handed the card back. “I am heartsick, my darling, but I am not broken. We are made of stronger stuff, and as stronger stuff we are tested. Now, you can sit here with me and mourn, or you can travel to the head of the Pennsylvania Railroad and demand to know how he is managing your investment before he harms the people you and Nate look after. You must go. That fellow of yours means well but he finds no end of trouble without you. He plays the part of a gentleman when he sets his mind to it, but he still possesses a temper and forgets what he is supposed to do when his ire is up.”

  I smiled. Nate was nothing if not impulsive. Papa healed men, Mama read them. It was the way of things.

  “I am a widow,” she said. “Mourning is an old woman’s chore. No one could accuse you of being a daughter who does not care for her father. If anything, Vivian, you care too much. If we still lived on Exeter and we still had Calvin to share the load, or you were wed to Mr. Goodwin, you could bury yourself in mourning and not think twice. But you have too much to think on now.” She took both my hands in hers. “How many children live under this roof?”

  I blinked hard.

  “Oh, dear heart, I know you and Nate are trying for a babe of your own. There was no barb in that, but how many children are you feeding under your own roof?” she said, kissing my cheek.

  “Three.”

  “And how many tenant families do you have on your land?”

  “Fifteen.”

  “Before your Papa died, Nate came to him asking for his advice. Nate wished to know how to spare a man and still make sure he knows it’s not charity, that it is kindness and mercy, not pity.” Mama paused. “Rowan was good that way. Nate is the same. Good and honorable. A good man. It is a rare thing, to have a good man. Nate is good but he is not practiced at being good and in a position to do good with it. He will stumble.” Mama swallowed and took a steadying breath. “And that is why he needs you. He is a kind man. He is a smart man. But he is not always a wise man. Smart and wise are not the same thing.”

  She was right, as always.

  “Wisdom will come with time. But, until then, he will make many mistakes. The dog within him is loyal, but dogs are not patient. He needs his mistress. He needs you with him to keep him from doing something foolish.”

  “I need you.” Saying it out loud reminded me how true it was, and I burst into tears. “I miss Papa!”

  We grabbed one another as we sat on the settee and held tight, sobbing. “I know, my heart!”

  I had learned so much from him: how to treat so many illnesses, how to treat people beyond the illnesses, how to keep a wound from becoming septic, how to love a family, how to love those whom society forgot. My nose was running. I gave an unladylike snort and blew my nose on my handkerchief. We were going to need quite a few more.

  How could I have not asked how to help him?

  Mama took out a handkerchief of her own. “There was nothing you could have done.” She always had a knack for reading my mind. She dabbed my eyes. “Everyone dies sometime. There is no helping it. Life does not stop when someone we love dies."

  I bent to kiss her. One day, if I am half as strong as she is, then I will have honored her well.

  She called to me as I reached the door to the suite. “Your Papa served the people, Vivian. Honor him by serving your tenants.”

  I left her bedroom both soothed and guilty. I had her blessing to go, but I hated that I needed to be free of mourning. She had needed Papa, and he had needed her. Nate and I needed each other in the same way. We also needed adventure.

  But where Mama and Papa had had our tiny household in London to care for, my responsibilities were much greater, and the investment with the railroad was failing. If we wished to safeguard the welfare of our household and our tenants, we needed income. If Nate believed the best way to do this was to speak to the president of the railroad, then we would head to Philadelphia in America. That meant traveling by airship. Again.

  Adventuring meant packing for an adventure, and since the household already knew we would be traveling, Jane had taken it upon herself to make sure I was suitably attired. She had laid out my entire wardrobe on every available surface so she could inspect it for suitability for travel.

  I pulled out my pack and set my adventuring attire out on the bed. Aside from all the proper clothing, namely sturdy trousers, shirts, a corset, and my heavy jacket, I was at a loss. America was billed as a wild frontier and a land of innovation, refinement, and class. One generally did not find the two descriptions together.

  Jane set another day dress upon the bed. This was her fourth attempt. She was doing her best to not be annoyed, but I’m sure, when she was hired, that she had expected a mistress that threw dinner parties and had her hair dressed and acted respectable: a proper lady, not one who enjoyed gallivanting off into the wilds. Jane. Poor lamb.

  Chapter Five

  OUR JOURNEY ACROSS the Atlantic by airship was short, only a few days, before Captain Remington’s Nomad landed in Buffalo, New York in the middle of the World’s Fair to expound the benefits of air travel to the masses. We were minor celebrities for all of three hours as brave explorers who traveled through the sky until we went on our way and retired to the train station to continue our journey to meet with Mr. Cassatt of the Pennsylvania Railroad.

  Train travel beats air travel, handily. We climbed aboard a green train car with black walnut, hardwood benches decorated with carved scrollwork and fine velvet-cushioned seats like fine couches. Above the glass windows, decorated mirrors hung in painted frames. This was what travel should look like. I was actually unhappy we would only be taking the train for the afternoon.

  The miles raced along steadily, and we made several stops along our route to allow passengers off and on. Though I knew rail travel was slower than air travel, the speed was still exhilarating as I watched the great locomotive engines run along their tracks. Surely, the trouble with the railroad was merely a mistake. The rail cars were full of happy travelers. There was no reason our investments should not be paying off. In fact, I was looking forward to speaking to Mr. Cassatt.

  When in our train stopped in Philadelphia, we were greeted with the most terrible news. President McKinley had been shot. He had been greeting people and shaking hands in the Temple of
Music when an anarchist by the name of Leon Czolgosz shot him. Czolgosz had lost his job as a result of labor disputes, the sort of disputes that arise when goods become cheaper with trade with other countries. The British Empire was familiar with these issues. America was dealing with the chaos for the very first time—the growing pains of a young nation as they learned this lesson, and President McKinley might very well pay the price.

  His doctors were doing what they could to save his life, but even as I stood there, the Eight of Swords consumed my thoughts. There were too many things beyond my control. It left me feeling helpless, which I hated with every piece of my soul.

  Not long ago, I was a woman like the one bound and hoodwinked in the Eight of Swords. She stands blind to her fate, surrounded by swords, paralyzed by fear, consumed by the inability to act. The loss of my papa, the babies that never were, the life of responsibility, it was all something I was not prepared for.

  Well, that ended now. Refusing to act was worse than the wrong action.

  I was grief-sick for my father, and the recent tragedy here reminded me of all that could go wrong in this beautiful land, but I needed to move forward. I said a silent prayer for President McKinley and turned my attention to our meeting with Mr. Cassatt.

  There were a great many hotels in Philadelphia, it being one of the oldest and most prosperous cities in America. Of course, that was not saying much as the city itself was just over two centuries old. But Americans are a canny bunch and the proud city where their great Declaration of Independence was signed before being delivered to the crown just over a century ago was a place of great importance to them, so much so that our London accents were viewed with everything from interest to mistrust.

  The Philadelphia station master directed us to a hotel not far from the Pennsylvania Railroad’s offices where we could store our belongings and freshen up before heading over to Mr. Cassatt’s office.