Page 27 of In Her Memory

Emma took a sip of lukewarm water, savoring each drop. Her stomach growled, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten for a while. She had a half-sandwich wrapped in plastic at the bottom of her bag. But she wouldn’t eat it, not yet. Food was a luxury to be rationed.

“The train is slowing,” Loyalynne observed, her head tilting slightly toward the door. “This is our stop.”

Emma frowned, crawling closer to the opening to peer out at the landscape rushing by. The train had indeed decreased its speed, but they weren’t approaching anything that looked like a station. Just fields and scattered trees, with a distant line of hills smudged against the horizon.

“There’s nothing out there,” she said. “Where exactly are we going?”

Loyalynne’s glass eyes reflected no emotion. “Away from them. That’s all that matters.”

The phantoms. Emma shivered, not from the chill in the freight car but from anxiety. She felt their presence— shadows that haunted her, trying to drag her back into thinking she was Piper. Sometimes they wore human faces and even had names. They seemed friendly, even loving. Some had even convinced her that they were family or friends. Sometimes they were just a feeling, a pressure against her skull that warned of danger.

“But I’m exhausted, Loyalynne,” Emma said, pressing her palms against her tired eyes. “I can’t keep—“

“If we don’t keep moving, they’ll catch up. You know what happens then.”

I’ll be Piper again, Emma thought. Part of her wondered whether that would be such a bad thing. Being Emma was none too easy.

“They might figure out that you took the train,” the doll said. “That’s why we’re getting off here, where no one would expect it. We’ll double back on foot, confuse the trail.”

“Fine,” Emma conceded. “But I need to know where we’re heading. Some kind of plan beyond just running.”

“I don’t need to tell you any plans,” Loyalynne says.

Emma bristled. She remembered pushing back against Loyalynne earlier—refusing to panhandle when the doll said she should do so to pick up money. It had been her own idea to do yard work, not Loyalynne’s.

“I don’t need to do everything you tell me to do,” Emma answered.

“What other choice do you have? Right now, I mean?”

Emma could think of no answer to that.

The train lurched, metal screeching as it continued to slow. Outside, the landscape crawled by now, giving Emma a better view of their surroundings. A dirt road ran parallel to the tracks about fifty yards away. Beyond that, fields stretched toward a distant tree line. No houses were visible, no signs of human presence except for the road itself.

“Get ready,” Loyalynne said, ignoring Emma’s question. “When I say jump, you jump. Roll when you hit the ground. Keep your head tucked.”

Emma’s heart rate quickened. She’d hopped trains before—sometimes to escape, sometimes just to move on—but jumping from one still in motion was different. Dangerous. She gathered her few possessions, stuffing the blanket into her backpack and zipping it shut. Her hands trembled slightly as she pulled the straps over her shoulders, securing it tightly against her back.

Emma felt a wave of dizziness as she stood, her body reminding her of its limitations. Her legs ached from last night’s frantic pedaling, her back stiff from the time spent curled on the hard floor of the freight car. She steadied herself against the wall, taking deep breaths.

The train’s pace had slackened to perhaps fifteen miles per hour. Fast enough to kill her if she fell wrong, but slow enough to survive with proper technique. She’d seen others do this—learned from watching, from whispered advice shared around campfires by other drifters. Keep your body loose. Roll with the momentum. Protect your head.

“Why are they after me?” Emma asked, the question that haunted her spilling out. “Why do they want me to think I’m Piper? What do they want?”

Loyalynne turned to face her, the doll’s expression unchanged yet somehow more intense. “They want what they’ve always wanted. To use you. To break you. To take what makes you special.”

“But I’m not special,” Emma protested, the familiar argument resurfacing. “I’m nobody. Just Emma Kirby.”

For a moment, something flickered across Loyalynne’s painted features—a shadow of doubt, perhaps, or some knowledge held back. But then it was gone, and the doll’s voice came clear and certain.

“You see me when no one else can. You feel the echoes of violence before it happens. You are far from nobody, Emma Kirby.”

Emma had no response to that. It was true that she experienced things others didn’t, sensed danger like electricity in the air before it struck. But these weren’t gifts; they were burdens that had driven her to the edges of sanity more than once.

The train slowed further, the rhythm of its wheels becoming distinct thuds rather than a continuous roll.

“Now,” Loyalynne commanded. “Jump!”

Emma hesitated for only a second before pushing herself out of the door. The ground rushed up to meet her, a blur of brown and green. She tucked her body, hit the ground with her shoulder, and rolled as momentum carried her forward. Pain exploded across her side as stones and sticks dug into her flesh through her thin clothes. She continued to tumble, unable to stop until physics released her from its grip.