by Alison Stine
I don’t know what I expected to see. Maybe Tom. Maybe my grandmother getting into the car with her big bag of tricks. But what I found at the station, what I saw on the tracks in front of the stopped, heaving train, as I leaned over the platform, wasn’t Tom. Or the Stationmaster.
It was another body.
“Ez, get out of here.” Tom stepped out of the shadows of the roof overhang, holding a wrench.
“You can’t tell me what to do,” I said. “You’re staying out my life, remember?”
He clutched the wrench. “This is my fight, my death. It doesn’t concern you.”
I looked down at the tracks, at the ghost lying still. I couldn’t turn away. The face of the ghost was turned down. I could see a skinny form, long legs in jeans, long pale arms in a T-shirt—the arms just tossed over the tracks, tangled and contorted in a way no living body would be, in a way that made me sick. “Tom, who is that?”
“You need to leave.”
I blinked back the tears that burned my eyes. Queasiness rose up in my stomach, but I looked harder at the tracks. “He’s wearing sneakers.” And the lettering on the back of his T-shirt read … Wellstone High.
I leaned over the edge. “Tom, I know that kid. I’ve seen him before. His picture was in the yearbook. This year’s yearbook. It was dedicated to him. That boy died just this year.”
Tom took my arm. “You need to get out of here now.” But then he went limp. He lost the wrench, dropping it onto the platform with a resounding clang. It was as if all the energy went out of him, as if someone had cut a string and released him.
Something was moving toward us, a light that bobbed. A lantern.
The Stationmaster was coming.
“Tom,” I whispered, but his eyes were frozen on the lantern in the distance. I couldn’t watch him die again. I grabbed Tom’s shirt and pulled him back into the shadows of the stationhouse overhang. We were close, closer than we’d ever been, closer even than when he’d kissed me.
“Shut up,” I said to him, although he was not talking.
The Stationmaster came into view. He strode to the front of the train and bent down before it, studying the boy. The redheaded boy. The dead boy.
Then with a jerking sound, a sickening, almost mechanical cracking of bones straightening into place, and muscles remembering their form, the boy stood. The dead boy made a sound, not a breath—a long rattling sigh. He was taller than the Stationmaster, but skinny, so skinny. He looked very surprised.
“What’s going on?” I whispered to Tom.
“I don’t know,” he said.
The Stationmaster didn’t seem shocked to see the boy stand, and he didn’t take long to react. He reared his arm back and swung, bringing the lantern down with a crack. I flinched.
The lantern didn’t hit the boy, but it scared him. He cried out and fell. Then he got back up again.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “That boy died. The yearbook said.”
“He’s a ghost,” Tom said. “He’s reliving his death.”
“Your death. That’s your death out there. He’s reliving what happened to you, isn’t he, how you died? Unless …” I faltered, watching the boy rise and fall, rise and fall. “Unless …”
The Stationmaster turned. He searched the shadows where we stood, the whites of his eyes flashing almost yellow. “Tom Griffin? Is that you, boy?”
“Ez, go.”
Before I could protest, Tom had jumped onto the tracks. Now there were two boys, circling the Stationmaster, but it didn’t seem to slow him down at all. He swung the lantern as if it were a club, first at one boy, then at the other. The lantern sizzled as it struck. Tom was hit on the shoulder and flung backward.
I gasped, and the Stationmaster turned. “Who else is there?”
I waited, holding my breath, in the dark.
“Clara, honey, is that you?”
“Leave her alone!” Tom said.
The Stationmaster reared back to hit him. He would kill him. He would kill Tom just as he did every night. And then he would come for me. And kill me too.
The old man’s back was turned, raising the lantern. The other boy was down. I saw my chance, and I dashed from the shadows, my finger posed on the red trigger of the small black vial, the bottle from my sister. It didn’t hurt, and I knew it wouldn’t last: it hadn’t happened to him in life. I was pretty sure they didn’t even have it in his lifetime.
But the pepper spray surprised the Stationmaster. He set down his lantern to wipe at his eyes, giving me enough time to run. I ran for the hill. I ran for the house. I ran without looking back, knowing behind me Tom was going to die again.
“That’s ridiculous,” Mr. Black said.
“I know it,” I said. “I know it’s true. The Stationmaster killed Tom, and he killed that redheaded boy. And I wouldn’t be surprised if he killed Louise, too.”
“Who’s Louisa again?”
“Louise. I told you. A girl from school. Another ghost.”
“Well, I’m glad you figured all that out.” Mr. Black was sitting on the porch railing on the second story of my grandmother’s house—a little close to the edge for my comfort, but as he pointed out, what was he going to do, die? He had a licorice root he had found somewhere clamped in his mouth, further garbling his already mumbled speech. I knew he couldn’t taste it. “Nice story,” Mr. Black said. “Very imaginative. Extra points for creativity. But the dead can’t kill the living. Believe me. I’ve tried.”
“What does that mean?”
“Never mind. The most a ghost could do to anyone—except apparently you—is scare them.”
“So the Stationmaster scared that boy to death. He gave him a heart attack, or he caused him to fall and hit his head. He lured the boy to his death. I know he did the same to Louise.”
Mr. Black looked away from me, toward the road. “Wait a moment,” he said. “Just wait.”
I hugged my knees to my chest. I changed the subject. “Can I ask you something? Do you think Tom is a good person? Trustworthy?”
Mr. Black gave a shrug. “He’s dead. Trustworthy enough.”
“Clara told me something about him.”
“Ha,” Mr. Black said. “Well, there’s your issue. No good comes from that girl. She told Martha lies about me, you know. Poisoned her against me.”
“Really? What did she say?”
“Said I was a drunk.”
“You are a drunk.”
“Well,” Mr. Black chewed on the licorice. “She didn’t have to tell her.”
I looked at the floor of the balcony, at the empty bottles, dusty blue and black, that were collecting there. “Why did you drink that night, the night you died? What happened?”
“It wasn’t drinking that killed me,” Mr. Black said. “It was drinking and swimming.” He bit the licorice in half, looked down at the pieces, then threw the stick over the railing. “It was a bad time. The Builder had a terrible accident—everyone saw—and then Martha …”
“What happened to Martha?”
He shook his head. “She was sad, very sad. She made a mistake. She got her feelings mixed up.” He pointed his finger at me. “Don’t you go getting your feelings mixed up. Don’t you go falling for the wrong lad, one that doesn’t deserve you.”
“What do you mean? Do you mean Tom?”
But Mr. Black had seen something on the road. He slid off the railing and stood. “Battle stations,” he said.
I scrambled to my feet. “What are we doing here again?”
“Once a month,” Mr. Black reached into the pocket of his black jacket, and pulled out a fistful of pebbles, which he passed over to me, “the town sends a dogcatcher out.”
“Dogcatcher?”
“Technically, a catcatcher. He tries to round up the Manxes, and take them to the pound. Certain death. Cats being killed! We can’t have that, can we?”
“Because the cats can see you? See ghosts?” I asked. I held the pebbles with both hands, as Mr. Black reach
ed into his coat and pulled out more. I didn’t stop to wonder why he had rocks in his pockets. Some slipped through my fingers, tumbling onto the balcony and rolling through the railing slats.
“No,” Mr. Black said. “Because they’re adorable. Here he comes.” He fell silent, and I heard it: the car on the hill. “He barely makes it up the driveway. Bloody fool. Once or twice a year in the winter, he gets stuck.”
The motor cut out. Soon I heard someone walking.
“Get ready,” Mr. Black said. He motioned to me, and I came to stand behind him at the railing. I looked down but didn’t see anything, only the yard, the cracked path leading to the house. Then I heard whistling. My stomach clenched. Whistling.
What was the matter with me? It was only the stupid dogcatcher.
Catcatcher.
“Wait till you see the shiny moon of his bald head,” Mr. Black whispered.
“Here, kitty, kitty,” I heard a voice say.
“Now!” Mr. Black said. He let loose his pebbles, flinging them over the rail. More and more seemed to appear from his pockets, an endless stream. He kept reaching in and dredging up more.
The man looked up, right where we stood, and I felt panic, panic at being caught—an old familiar feeling. I was caught in the subway tunnel. I was caught at school when I hadn’t done my homework or had skipped class or just wasn’t good enough. I was never good enough. Acid and I would sneak out to the boiler room, or the bodega down the street. He was never caught.
But I was. I was always in trouble. I was always seen.
This man couldn’t see me, not now, not anymore—I knew this; I was starting to truly believe it. He saw the moldy roof, the crumbling railing of the balcony, the overgrown oaks and birches, and nothing more. He couldn’t see me. Maybe this was all I got: invisibility.
And maybe I could do what I wanted.
I flung the stones over the rail. I threw them hard. Rocks rained down on the man, and he held up his arms to shield himself.
“Pick on someone your own size!” Mr. Black said.
The dogcatcher put his net over his head, trying to protect himself, the pebbles bouncing off his bald spot. He staggered back to his van, muttering, “That house should be condemned!”
“Great,” I said, watching the man pull the door shut and start the engine. “Now he’ll have the police out.”
“No,” Mr. Black said. “Too afraid. And no one would believe him. He comes every month and every month is the same. We chase him off. He comes back. Gives us a bit of fun. That’s all we need, fun. Someone to react.”
I thought of Clara dropping encyclopedias in the library, of Louise conjuring blood. Ghosts wanted people to notice them, to listen. I watched the van backed up and nearly hit the barn.
“The redheaded boy,” I said. “He’s not a ghost anymore. He’s not hanging around here. And I think I know why. He got what he wanted. If you get what you want, if you do what you’re meant to do, the last task you have left or whatever, you can go. Go … wherever you go after death. You can move on. You don’t have to be a ghost anymore. And the redheaded boy did it. He wanted me to see his death. He wanted me to know—for someone to know—the Stationmaster was responsible. And he wanted me to stop it from happening to anyone else.”
Mr. Black said nothing. He tipped the last pebble out of his pocket and flung it over the rail. It landed with a soft pinging sound on the driveway.
“Where did you get so many rocks?” I asked. “How did they fit in your pockets?”
He shrugged. “Old habit. I used them once before. Rocks make very good weights.”
CHAPTER 12:
Door to Nowhere
The books on ghosts and hauntings were hard to find. They were all hidden: squashed in the corners, shelved behind other books, slipped behind the bookcases, and sheeted in dust. It was as if my grandmother didn’t want anyone to know she had those books, that she read those kinds of things, even though she had lived alone for over a decade.
She was still keeping who she was a secret.
I fished a book out from behind the piano, a heavy one. I was brushing the dust off, and noticing the cobweb shawl dangling from my arm when Tom appeared.
“Ez, you’re wasting your time,” he said. “Mr. Black told me your idea, and it doesn’t make any sense. A ghost killing the living? Luring them to their deaths?”
I looked at him. “I’m standing in my grandmother’s sitting room, my grandmother who’s a medium; I’m invisible—and I’m talking to a ghost. What about that doesn’t make sense?” I shook off the cobweb. “Have you seen the redheaded ghost since that night?”
“No. But he could be anywhere, at the high school, at his home. Ghosts don’t have to hang around this house, you know.”
“They sure seem to like to. Maybe it’s my grandma. Maybe she’s a ghost magnet.”
Tom was silent.
“All those kids,” I said. “All those kids in this town that go missing, all the time. I think the Stationmaster killed some of them. I think he made them die.”
“They’re runaways, Ez. They left town, that’s all. If what you say is true, there would be dozens and dozens of ghosts.”
I set the book on the piano bench. “Not everyone is a ghost, Tom. Even I know that. Some of the dead want other things, easier things, and get them, and go.”
His face creased. “What does that mean?”
I flipped through the heavy book, even though the dust flying up made me gag, even though I knew already there was nothing worthwhile in its pages; I had to keep my hands busy. “Clara told me the reason you kissed me.”
“Which is why?”
“She said you’re just using me to get what you want.”
There was a pause. I stopped flipping pages to listen. I could hear the cats mewing somewhere, Martha humming as she scrubbed the stairs.
“What do I want?” Tom asked.
I couldn’t answer.
“Clara doesn’t know me. Clara’s been my sister for a century, and she still doesn’t understand anything about me. And she’s jealous of you.”
I brought my head up. “Why?”
“Because I like you.”
He said what I believed, what I thought I knew.
But I had stopped trusting what I knew, years ago, after my parents had died and we were sent to a grandmother we didn’t know. We went away from her—and then my sister sent me back; I was always being passed along. Nothing was solid; nothing would stay. How could I trust anything? How could I believe Tom?
“Do you want to know what I want?” Tom said. “Esmé Wong, you know so much about ghosts. Do you know what I want? I want revenge. I want to stop the Stationmaster. I want him to leave. I want him to die. I want him to stay dead. Meeting you—I didn’t plan on it. I didn’t look for it, and it’s not going to do anything for me except make me happy.”
“Ghosts can be happy?”
“I hope so.”
“Tom, I don’t think the Stationmaster will stop. If he’s killed before, if he’s killed dozens of times, for years … He’s watched people die as a living person, and as a ghost. He’s not going to just stop. We have to make him. We need to figure out how to kill him for good, how to kill the dead.”
“Simple,” Tom said. “Give him what he wants.”
The Stationmaster wouldn’t come in the house, Mr. Black said. I had never even seen him on the platform of the train station, only on the tracks. Ghosts haunted different places, Tom said—sometimes the places where they had died, sometimes places that held deep memories for them. I wondered if my grandmother knew these things. I wondered if she could have just told me.
I asked Tom, “How long did you live with the Stationmaster before …”
“We died?” Clara said. “You think you could speak aloud it by now. Died. We died. It’s not like it should be a surprise. It’s not like it’s catching.”
“Five years for me,” Tom said, ignoring Clara. “I was twelve when I was adopted. Sevente
en when I died. And three years for Clara. She was adopted at ten.”
Clara put a hand over her eyes dramatically. “And now I’ll be thirteen forever.”
“That explains some things about you,” I said. “Ten and twelve, that’s kind of old to be adopted. Is that why the Stationmaster took you? Because everyone else wanted babies?”
“There weren’t too many babies on the train,” Tom said, “even though they called them that, the baby trains. But there were much younger children and healthier-looking children and children that …” he faltered, “showed better.”
“What do you mean?”
“They put us on stages. At each station, they set up a stage, the Children’s Aid Society workers, and they told us to behave and look nice and be special.”
“Be special?”
“Some kids sang to get attention or danced.”
“Show-offs,” Clara muttered.
“I didn’t,” Tom said. “I was sad. I missed my father. I couldn’t smile.”
“I was angry,” Clara said. “A woman tried to carry me off in her arms. Carry me! At ten. I screamed and bit her hand. After that, it was hard to get adopted.”
“You had a father?” I asked Tom. “A real one?”
“We weren’t all orphans.”
We were sitting on the front porch, waiting for sunset, for the darkness and moonrise that would bring the Stationmaster. Tom fell silent. Clara caught one of the cats. When she tried to curl its long pointed ear around a twig, the cat swatted her, hissing, and I stood. “I’m going to get dinner.”
Clara tossed the twig away. “Oh, the living. Always having to stop and eat.”
“Clara, do you want anything?” I said. “Some candy maybe?”
She made a face and let the cat escape. Tom grinned at me. In the kitchen, I took a package of instant noodles from the pantry, and opened it over a bowl. I added water and stirred the goopy mixture. I wished someone had taught me how to cook before I became invisible. I put the bowl in the microwave and pushed the buttons. I heard the microwave whirl and turn on.
