Malorie(40)

“I have a feeling you have more than an idea or two,” Malorie says.

This is good, talking like she used to, back when every word wasn’t tethered to survival.

“I admit it,” Dean says. “I do. But for me, and I’m not just saying this to placate you, for me the absolute key is safety. There’s simply no way around that. A train, today, has to be much safer than it was seventeen years ago. It simply has to be, or there’d be no reason for it to exist. It’s ironic, no? That in a world with no litigation, we’ve become even more careful?”

“Thank you, Dean,” Malorie says. Because that’s enough for now. That’s enough loosening up.

Dean’s eyes are open. Dean could see something. It feels like she’s standing near a bomb. Something could go wrong. Everything could explode. Any second. Other people have their eyes open on this train. She has so many questions. Has a creature ever made it on board? Into one of the rooms?

“You’re welcome,” Dean says. “And so you know, this car is already stocked with cans and water. It’s all in the cupboard beside the mirror. The windows are indeed blacked out. In fact, there is technically no window at all in this car, as all the glass on the sides of the train has been replaced with sheet metal, painted black. I’ve never seen this train from the outside, for reasons you can easily guess. But I assume it’s a bit like Frankenstein. Pieces, brought together, brought to life. I’m so glad you guys made it.”

“Thank you,” Malorie says again. There is a finality in her tone. But she’s not the last one to speak to Dean.

“Thank you,” Olympia says. “This is all…overwhelming.”

“It’s so great,” Tom says.

Malorie wonders if Dean is judging her. Does he look from her blindfolded teens to her, covered in cloth? Does a sympathetic expression adorn his face? Does he think he knows what’s right and what isn’t? Even for her?

She sets her bag down. It doesn’t matter. That’s enough loosening up for one day. For one lifetime.

“The trip to Mackinaw City is about two days, barring any delays,” Dean says. “To some that sounds like nothing, to others an eternity. If you need me for any reason, I’m usually in the dining car. And while that sounds like I’m living it up, it really means David and I are working on new ideas or talking to Tanya, checking on Michael. But,” he pauses, “at least there’s some music.” Then, “I hope to see you in there, Jill.”

Malorie breathes in, holds it, breathes out.

“You won’t,” she says.

Is it Dean who sighs? Or Tom?

“Okay,” Dean says. “Please, enjoy.”

He steps into the hall, and Malorie slides the door closed behind him.

Then, for the first time since making the train, she allows the swaying to take her. As if she’s on a singular wave, traversing the entire distance between herself and her parents.

Mom and Dad might be at the end of this line. They might be anywhere in the world. They might also be buried. She imagines stepping off the train, crossing a bridge, searching St. Ignace for Sam and Mary Walsh.

It feels good, necessary, to let herself be taken. For someone else to be in charge of the events to follow. It’s a feeling she hasn’t experienced in seventeen years.

She’s so briefly relieved to be alone in this room, the door closed behind her, that it doesn’t quite bother her when Tom speaks. When he says, “I like him, Mom. I like that man.”





FOURTEEN


They spend the night in their private car. The hours pass, and with each one Malorie feels closer. Safer. The reality of this experience becomes palatable, a thing she wouldn’t have dreamed possible in Camp Yadin. When she visited Ron Handy, the idea of a train felt more akin to a giant spider, something that could leap at her, attack her, kill her. But now the details of the train are filling in. The sounds and the smells. The feel of the cushions beneath the bench she sits on. The sense of being taken. And within this new reality (they’re on a train), she finds her own strength, her own rules to live by, a way to convince herself she has not put her teens in danger. They could leap. They could fight. They could stay in this car until the train stops.

But Malorie knows that isn’t how this is going to go. She hasn’t fully admitted it, but the tendrils of acquiescence have arrived. And they only get stronger as the hours pass.

Yes, she is going to visit that dining car. She is going to talk with Dean Watts about his train. If she’s honest with herself, she’ll admit it’s not only because the teens have a safe place to stay. It’s not only because an old-world mode of travel that she believed long dead has risen. Yes, she is awed by the machine that carries her. Yes, the romanticized past is present in this way.

But none of that is why she wants to speak with Dean.

The reason is, she likes him.

It’s a feeling she hasn’t felt in years. A decade or more. A thing she also thought long buried, yet now, opening its eyes.

“Sleep,” she tells her teens. But they already do. She hears them both breathing heavy, the light snoring of two young people who deserve rest after the few days they’ve had.

Malorie deserves rest, too.

And so she allows herself some. She closes her eyes, behind the blindfold. She allows the train to take her north, closer to the place where her parents were listed as having survived. How long ago was that list made? Right now it doesn’t matter. Right now she needs sleep. And for the hours to move. So that two days pass as quickly as they can. As the machine that takes them cuts through an entire world she is no longer allowed to look at. Where creatures no doubt outnumber the people. Where the reason for all these precautions, all this fear, roams freer than the people who have survived them.