If only, if only, if only . . .
Will took two leaping steps forward and swung out wildly with his arm, and found his fingers closing around a door handle. He pulled, and his feet dragged, and then skimmed, and then lifted. And then he was on train 128, and looking back from the door in the very last car at the small, receding shape of the guard, who was standing on platform 22, frantically waving a small piece of fabric—which looked, from a distance, very much like a hat.
Chapter Fourteen
IT WAS ALL FINE AND WELL TO PRETEND TO BE invisible for one minute, or two. But Liesl was not invisible, unlike her ghostly friends, and as soon as she sat down in a comfortable seat in one of the very first cars, resting the heavy wooden box beside her, people began to give her strange looks. She was young to be traveling on her own, they thought. It was unusual. It was Not Right.
It did not help when Liesl began murmuring to herself (or so it seemed to them; for when they saw a flicker or flash or shimmer of light, they thought, Trick of the eyes instead of Ghost or Magic). She said, “I know, I know,” when Po whispered, “People are staring.”
She said, “Well, what do you want me to do about it?” when Po suggested she try being less conspicuous.
The other people in the train car—older people with pinched faces and bad tempers—saw a young child all alone, who talked to herself and kept stroking a plain wooden box as though it contained a very powerful magic (which, of course, it did, though even Liesl didn’t know it).
Finally an old woman carrying a cane leaned over and said to Liesl, “Where are your mommy and daddy, little one?”
“They are both dead,” Liesl answered truthfully. “My father is here.” She tapped the wooden box. “I am taking him back to the willow tree, so he can rest.”
This was an honest answer; unfortunately, it did not do anything but convince the old woman that the little girl was quite out of her mind. And if there was one thing the old woman with the cane disapproved of, it was people who were Not Right in the head.
“Yes, yes,” the old woman murmured soothingly, while drawing back a few inches and wondering whether there was a policeman onboard. “I see. That box must be heavy. You look very tired.”
“I am,” Liesl said. “Very tired. We had to walk a long way.”
“We?”
“Me and Po.” Liesl pointed to the empty air beside her. “And Bundle, too. Though they don’t get tired. Not like I do, anyway. Ghosts don’t, I suppose.”
“Ghosts, right,”
the woman said faintly. “No, no, I wouldn’t imagine they do get tired.” She forced her lips into a tight smile, thin as a strip of lemon rind. “I’m going to go get you a muffin, dearie, from the man with the snack cart. Would you like that? A nice potato muffin?”
Liesl had not realized just how hungry she was until that moment, when she imagined a steaming hot potato muffin. “Oh.” She could barely swallow, her mouth was suddenly watering so much. “Oh, yes. I’d like that very much.”
“Now you just wait here.” The old woman stood up. “Sit tight. Don’t twitch a muscle. I’ll be back in a flash.”
“Thank you,” Liesl said, truly grateful.
As soon as the woman had swished down the aisle to the next train car, Po said, “I don’t trust her.”
“What are you talking about?” Liesl was tired, and starving, and irritated by Po’s know-it-all attitude. “She’s going to get me a muffin.” She added, pettily, “You’re just jealous you can’t taste things anymore.”
Po did not respond to this. “Wait here,” the ghost said. It folded itself away and was gone. As soon as Po left, she was sorry she had said the thing about taste. That brief, empty pocket of air had reminded her of how alone she was without Po—so very, very alone. She had nobody at all, really.
Then she felt a shivery velvet sensation. Bundle was nuzzling her lap, inasmuch as ghosts could nuzzle. She felt a little better.
Po was back almost instantaneously. “Quickly,” the ghost said. “She has gone to find a policeman. They are coming this way.” Po added, because it thought the fact was relevant, “The man is big, and has badness in his Essence.”
Liesl didn’t know anything about Essence, but she did know about large police officers, and shiny handcuffs, and jail cells, and the fact that it was a crime to be riding a train without having paid to do so. She went very pale; almost as pale as the ghosts in books (books that don’t know how ghosts really look).
“What should I do?” she asked. She was already picturing a tiny stone cell buried underground, which would be worse, so much worse, than the attic. And what would become of her father’s ashes then? She picked up the wooden box and clutched it protectively to her chest. Next to her heart, through the wood, magic shimmered and swirled, though she could not feel it. Her heart was beating too loudly.