“Jesus,” Malcolm whispered.
After a moment’s hesitation, he rubbed again. A strip of skin peeled away, exposing spongy pink flesh beneath. The pink began to fade immediately, the color leaching out.
Elias’s eyes opened. “What are you doing, Mal?”
Malcolm shouted and scrambled backward, startled by the clarity of those eyes, and that voice. He stared as Elias shifted to a sitting position, leaning sideways against Maggie’s crate. When he spoke again, it was in a secretive whisper.
“Oh, Maggie,” Elias said, running his fingertips over the surface of the crate. “You should have told me.”
Malcolm levered himself to his feet. “What’s happening, Elias?”
Elias also stood. Despite how sick he had seemed, it looked effortless. “I’ll tell you all sorts of things you’d like to know.” He lowered his chin, his expression almost coy. “But first you answer one question of mine.”
He took a step toward Malcolm.
The chickens woke up in their cages, cackling as if with laughter.
“Are you fucking my wife, brother?”
18
Violet went first. Alfie followed, carrying a wooden tray laden with several covered plates. They had two freshly cooked steaks, cold leftover potatoes and vegetables, and half of a pineapple upside-down cake. It was a bit of a patchwork dinner, but the four of them would make do with what they had. Violet had warned the waiter—Wilbur—that they’d be back for coffee later, but by now, he seemed to have taken a shine to her, and promised he’d brew them a fresh pot.
The moment they stepped into the rearmost sleeper car, all thoughts of the meal they’d foraged left her. The little boy lingered in her mind, of course. He’d seemed aloof and yet somehow haunted. She would have pursued him immediately, except Wilbur had come out with the tray just then.
The cigarette smokers were still blocking the way. One of them had a fat cigar between his teeth and struck a match, trying to light it, swaying on his feet more from alcohol than the motion of the Imperial Limited, or so it seemed to Violet.
“Oh no!” cried the woman with them. She slipped down from the upper berth and snatched the cigar from his mouth. “You’re not smoking that thing in here.”
The man protested, laughing as he tried to retrieve his cigar. “Come on, now—that’s expensive.”
“I don’t care if it cost you a year’s wages. I’ll toss it out a window if you don’t promise not to smoke it here!”
The other man threw up his hands, his own cigarette pinchedbetween his fingers. “I’m on her side. Cigs are one thing, but it’s not fair to the other passengers if you set off that stink bomb in here.”
They finally noticed Violet and Alfie, and again flattened themselves to allow passage.
The cigar man glanced down at Violet. “What do you think, little lady?”
Violet felt sick. “Take your pleasures where you find them. You don’t know what’s coming next.”
He crowed. “There you go! Advice from a beautiful stranger! Give me my cigar!”
They kept arguing, but Violet no longer listened to the words. As she walked toward the door that would allow them to pass through into the second sleeper, she found her appetite had vanished. Her throat felt dry. The image of the little boy’s hand on the edge of that curtain forced itself back into her mind.
With her hand on the latch, she paused.
“Want me to go ahead of you?” Alfie asked.
She exhaled loudly, then yanked the door open and stepped through.
The sour twist in her gut frightened her. She thought she might throw up again, and she quickened her pace. The door rattled shut behind Alfie. She could smell the steak under the metal cover on the tray, but instead of making her hungry, it added to the bitter roiling in her belly. She held her breath as she hurried onward.
Unable to stop herself, she glanced down at the first lower berth. Nothing moved behind that curtain. No child’s fingers tugged the fabric. The tiniest glimmer of relief ignited in her. Maggie Wise had hinted at dark things so many times, joked about witchcraft and shadows and things that crawled and flew and seethed with malice. The man watching the house while she died had unnerved Violet, and she’d been terrified when he had attacked them. But only the little boy with his bloodshot eyes hadmade her truly consider how much the world’s ordinary people didn’t know.
Relief washed over her as she put that first berth behind her.
“You all right?” Alfie asked.
