Express Train Plunges from Tracks; Multiple Dead, Many Injured.
I zoom in on a grainy black-and-white photograph of a wealthy-looking family standing shoulder to shoulder, and read the caption below.
The Vandenberg family, photographed earlier this year at their estate in Foggy Hollow, West Virginia. All but Mr. Isaiah Vandenberg perished in Thursday’s fatal derailment en route to New York City. Also among the deceased was Miss Helena Pisel, a young woman traveling in the family’s company. Sources close to the family confirm she had been engaged in a quiet courtship with Mr. Vandenberg, the family’s sole surviving heir.
Poor Isaiah.
I swipe to the bank robbery article. There’s no picture, but there is a list of the deceased, which includes Isaiah. He escaped death in 1890 only to meet an untimely demise forty years later, alongside his wife, and a young woman who was betrothed to their son, Enoch. Enoch survived, but lost his left eye.
Jude’s one-eyed uncle.
That’s how Enoch became one-eyed. He was injured in a bank robbery, which stole the life of his parents and his fiancé. Before him, his father lost everyone he loved in a train crash. And before them? Young Ruth Vandenberg was killed alongside her friend in a supposed animal attack.
“Yikes,” I whisper.
Downstairs, the front door opens.
A familiar voice calls from below.
“Selah? Your dad said I could come up.”
After a beat, footsteps sound on the stairs.
Twig peeks inside my room and smiles. “A queen on her throne.”
“A sickly queen,” I reply.
He holds up a thermos. “I come bearing gifts. Homemade soup from Mom. And schoolwork. Most of it’s on Google Classroom, but I brought you the new chem packet so you don’t flunk out while you’re recovering, and your copy ofThe Scarlett Letter. Mom had to bribe the custodian to let us inside your locker.” He sets his gifts next to my half-eaten toast. “You look fairly normal.”
“Not like a vampire, then?”
He asks to see my teeth.
I bare my fangs, then show him the articles Walt sent.
He scans them with interest, then lets out a low whistle. “That’s a lot of tragedy to befall one family.”
My mind turns to Jude and the sad, lonely way he stared at his father’s name. Both of his parents are dead. I make a mental note to do some sleuthing. How, exactly, did they die?
I can tell Twig wants to stay and discuss the findings further, but robotics is calling and he must go.
“Oh,” he says, stopping at the door. He reaches into the pocket of his jeans. “I almost forgot. I’m supposed to give you this.”
He hands me a slip of paper.
There’s a phone number on it—the handwriting neat and slanted.
“It’s from Jude,” he says. “He, uh, came and found me in the hallway after school.”
“What did he want?”
“To know where you’ve been. I told him you were sick, and he gave me his number to give to you.”
I look down at the slip. “He wants me to call him?”
“Looks like it.” Twig gives his fingers a snap, then claps the palm of his left hand over the fist of his right. “I’m glad you’re lucid, Selah. Try the soup. It’s really good.”
When he’s gone, I twist off the lid and take a sip, and of course, he’s right. Mrs. Calloway has always been a phenomenal cook. I rest against my throne of pillows, sipping the soup, twirling the slip of paper until Dad returns with another bottle of Gatorade. Happy with what he sees, he excuses himself to the great outdoors, determined to squeeze in as much work as possible before twilight chases the sun away.
