Fever sweat trickled down the back and sides of his neck and beaded on his forehead.
The people flowed around him. Malcolm nearly tripped over a small child, or was that a dog on a lead? His eyes blurred and he wiped sweat away, only to find the tide of travelers had swept him right up to the tall doors he’d been aiming for.
The doors opened. The constant patter of rain surrounded him. He kept his feet moving, shook his head to clear it, and started to look for the baggage car of his train, where Violet and Alfie waited.
He glanced back into the terminal through the still-open doors and saw his brother, Elias, following him.
The sight brought Malcolm to a halt. People shoved past or flowed around him. The doors into the station began to swing closed, interrupting his line of sight, and for a few moments, he told himself he must have been mistaken. Then a fresh wave of travelers emerged, and through the open doorway, they locked eyes. Elias wore a tired smile as he lifted his hand to offer a sheepish sort of wave. The sound had dropped out of the world—the shock of seeing his brother deafening him—but now it rushed back in, the footfalls, the steaming shush of the idling train, the voices merged into one urgent murmur.
Elias looked as rumpled as ever. Hair tousled and tie askew, he wore a wrinkled suit that hung loosely on his frame. Still young, he didn’t look it. Years of too little sleep and too much drink had caught up to him, and yet he still had the aura of the gambler. Always on the hustle. As Elias hurried through the doors onto the platform, he held out a hand like he was running for office.
“Malcolm,” he said, blinking away raindrops. “I’m so glad I caught you in time.”
The brothers gripped hands. Malcolm knew his smile had an edge, but he hoped Elias wouldn’t notice.
“You’re quite a surprise. What are you doing here?”
A flicker of hurt crossed his brother’s face. “I got your message. By the time I telephoned, you’d already gone, but I managed to reach Pax Keates, and he told me about this wild assignment Maggie’s given you.”
Malcolm wanted to relax. This was his older brother, his first childhood friend and protector. They’d fought as often as they’d played together, always comrades, but when childhood faded, so had that bond. This man with his yellowed complexion and dark stubble, with the odor of whiskey permeating his skin—Malcolm didn’t know him anymore. It helped, a little, to come face-to-face with the brother whose wife he’d fallen in love with and not feel connected to him.
“Violet’s with me,” he said. “On the train.”
Elias wouldn’t meet his gaze. “So I’d heard. She’s doing okay?”
Your wife, Malcolm thought.You talk about her like she’s the neighbor lady down the street.
“She loved Maggie, too,” he said. “They were close, the two women of the house. But she’ll be fine.”
The flow of people around them had become a trickle. The train huffed like a sleeping dragon, startling Malcolm into dropping the stack of newspapers he’d tucked under one arm. They fell to the platform, soaking up wetness as a breeze riffled the pages on top. Elias bent quickly to help pick them up, and as he did, the wretched feeling of despair washed over Malcolm again. He went to one knee, nearly collapsed completely, but forced himself to gather up the newspapers.
“Just trying to see if anyone’s going to be chasing us,” he said. “There was kind of a dustup when we were leaving home. Maggie saw it coming.”
“What do you mean, she saw it coming?”
The conductor began to call for people to board. Malcolm forced himself to stand, breathing through his nose. Darkness encroached at the edges of his vision, and the urge to curl up on the ground felt like its own gravity, driving him down. This wasn’t just grief, he knew, for he’d grieved before. His stomach churned.
Elias had three of the newspapers in his arms. He turned to pick up the small valise he’d been carrying.
Malcolm had the fourth newspaper, soaked through. “Let’s go,” he said, turning his back on his brother. “There’s someone you need to meet.”
If Elias was going to be part of this, Malcolm would have to explain the events leading up to now without his brother thinking he’d lost his marbles. Having Violet there to bear witness would help, but he thought Alfie Hannigan would be even more convincing. Their mother had hired the Hannigan brothers, and Alfie had been involved in the fight that ended with the death ofthe raven. They were in this together. So strange that Elias felt like an outsider now, and Alfie was on the inside with Malcolm and Violet.
As they hurried toward the train, a hard knot formed in Malcolm’s chest. Elias and Violet had been living separate lives for more than a year, long enough for her to finally begin to feel free. Malcolm wished he could warn her before she spotted Elias. He hated springing this on her now.
“I didn’t know Maggie was so close to the end,” Elias said as Malcolm guided him up alongside the train.
A small cluster of people had bottlenecked trying to board the last passenger car before the baggage car. As the brothers snaked around them, a businessman backed up abruptly and nearly knocked Malcolm down. Turned aside by this small collision, Malcolm glanced back the way they’d come. At the entrance to the previous car, a boy of no more than ten or eleven aided a tall, stooped figure in a long wool greatcoat and a black hat with a gray band. In the rain, Malcolm couldn’t make out the elderly man’s face, but the boy had a grim set to his jaw.
As the boy and the rickety old man approached the few people waiting their turn to board, a woman stumbled ahead of them. Instead of stepping aboard, she leaned against the side of the train, buried her face in her hands, and began to sob as only the truly heartbroken ever did. She shook with the wrenching strength of her emotions. Two other passengers politely ignored her, one man looking pale and listless as if he were drunk or ill. The little boy and stooped old spider of a man came abreast of the weeping woman.
“Hush,” the boy said, the word a sharp hiss, just loud enough to carry along the platform.
The woman hushed, but her shoulders trembled, and she buried her face. Malcolm wondered what kind of parents raised a child to be so callous.
Then he and Elias broke through the cluster of passengers, and he lost sight of the strange drama unfolding behind them.Now only the baggage car was ahead, and they had a clear view of the one person remaining on the platform there.
Violet.
