Whyborne
The steam whistle sounded again, its distant scream drawing my nerves tight. The train was like a dagger, aimed right at the heart of Widdershins.
We couldn’t let it arrive. But Marian didn’t mean to make it easy on us.
How she’d discovered us, I couldn’t guess. Most likely, one of the corrupted townsfolk had noticed some clue as to where we’d gone.
I stared out the window at them. The setting sun lowered onto the horizon, painting their features in amber light. “I don’t see Kander,” Christine said, and though her tone was calm, I heard the fear beneath the words.
I put a hand to her shoulder. “There’s Miss Tate. Still wearing her dress from the community dance. I owe her an apology—it might have seen Fifth Avenue after all.”
“Can we talk to them?” Nella asked. “I know them—they’ll listen to me.”
I didn’t look at her. While we dressed after making love, Griffin had told me what she’d done. Between her letters, the blasted editor of the newspaper, and people like Mr. Tate, Benjamin’s life must have been hell. No wonder Marian wanted everyone dead.
“They’re under the influence of magic, Ma,” Griffin said. “You can’t reason with them.”
“No,” I said. “But we can use them.”
Christine glanced at me. “You have a plan?”
“The livery stable is down the street. I’ll delay them while you secure a cart.” I glanced at Creigh. “You said Marian can see through their eyes. So we make absolutely certain they see us leaving town in the cart. Especially Nella.”
Griffin frowned. “Whyborne...”
“The rest of us abandon the cart and circle back around, the first opportunity we have.” I turned to face Nella. “You keep driving, but not so fast as for them to lose your trail. Animals hate them, so they’ll have to go on foot after you. Pretend there’s a problem with one of the horses, the cart, I don’t care, but make sure they stay on your trail. Marian won’t pass up the opportunity to kill you. It will keep both us and the infected townspeople safe.”
“Some of them are armed!” Griffin exclaimed hotly. “You’re putting my mother in danger!”
Nella met my gaze. “I’ll do it,” she said to me. “If you promise not to let anything happen to my boy.”
“I don’t owe you anything.” I glared down at her. “What you did to Benjamin Walter was heinous. Griffin knows I would die for him, and that’s all that matters. I don’t give a damn for your opinion.”
“There’s no time for this,” Creigh snapped.
Nella didn’t look at all happy, but she nodded. “All right. I’ll do it.”
“Then let’s hurry,” Christine said.
“Indeed.” I went to the door. “Go out the back way. I’ll distract them.”
“Be careful, Ival,” Griffin called after me.
The eyes of the corrupted fixed on me the moment I stepped into the street. My charred shirt sleeve fluttered in the wind, and I set myself squarely in their path. Waiting.
Parson Norton was at the forefront. He’d refused to let Benjamin Walter be buried in the church yard, inflicting one more cruelty on Marian in the midst of her grief. Was the newspaper editor Carson among them as well? The one who’d run Vernon’s slander, naming Griffin a lunatic, insinuating there was something unnatural about Christine and Iskander’s marriage.
How many of these men and women would turn on us given half the chance?
God, I understood Marian’s rage, all too well. No wonder she wanted to see her fellow townsfolk brought low. If our positions were reversed, if I lost Griffin the way she lost Benjamin, I wouldn’t have left a single house in Fallow standing.
They were running now. Coming for me in a group, with enough numbers to overwhelm if I let them reach me. And maybe there was something of savage satisfaction in me, when I reached into the sky and called down the wind
It howled like an unleashed animal. The blast ripped down the street, tearing a sign loose from a storefront. The sign flew through the air, striking one of the men on the arm. He cried out, and several of the corrupted staggered under the force of the gale.
In the hands of the wind, the desiccated earth rose in a cloud of dust. Within moments, it transformed into a wall of brown, a sandstorm that blotted out all visibility only a few feet from me. I glimpsed the corrupted flinging up their arms, trying to protect their eyes and still stagger closer, but the stinging dust storm kept them back
I wanted to do more than keep them back. I wanted to hurt them.
But Griffin would only remind me some of them might be innocent of any wrongdoing. Miss Tate was among them, just as the Reynolds could have easily been, had we not warned them away from the community dance.
“Whyborne!” Griffin shouted from behind me.
I let the wind go. The dust hung in the air, a loose cloud that began to slowly settle to earth.
Nella drove a cart drawn by two horses into the street, Griffin, Creigh, and Christine all piled into the back. I ran to join them, and Griffin and Christine pulled me into the moving cart.
I glanced back, saw the corrupted regrouping. They were coated in dust, and many wiped at their eyes, but Marian clearly didn’t intend for us to get away so easily.
Griffin’s hand rested on my shoulder. “Well done, my dear.”
I put my hand over his as the cart raced out of town, down the unnaturally straight road. At least the utter flatness of the landscape would keep it in sight of the corrupted longer, once we abandoned it. With luck, they wouldn’t realize Nella was alone until we’d dealt with Marian.
“Thank you,” I said. “Now comes the difficult part. We have to kill Marian, but we also need to make certain the train doesn’t leave town.” I turned to Creigh. “Mrs. Creigh, I have a proposition for you.”
~ * ~
Night had fallen by the time we reached the grain elevators.
Our plan, such as it had been, seemed to have worked. After hiding in a barn while the group of corrupted followed Nella farther and farther out of Fallow, we’d slipped back into town as the sun slid below the horizon. Christine had sought out a vantage point from which to fire on Marian, assuming she was at the grain elevators with her minions. Griffin went with her, while Creigh and I made our way to the elevators and the train spur.
The glow of lanterns painted the scene in ruddy red, and the train’s headlight cast its beam down the spur toward the main line. The scents of hot iron and burning coal filled the air, mingled with dust and tons of corn. The whistle screamed again, making me jump.
Dozens of people milled around the train and elevators. Most of the town must have been involved in bringing in the final bits of harvest and then filling the boxcars. In addition, a large group of cinereous lurked along the track, clearly keeping watch.
Blast.
“We should set the grain elevators on fire,” Creigh suggested. The two of us crouched in the shadow of the freight office. “They’re probably full of grain dust right now. Apply the right spark, and they’ll go up as if they were filled with dynamite.”
“No,” I said. I could see smaller figures moving in the lantern light, though I couldn’t make out their faces at a distance. “There are children amongst the elevators. Innocents. If we set off a grain dust explosion, we’ll kill them along with the cinereous.” Not to mention Iskander. I hadn’t seen him yet, but he must be here somewhere.
Creigh let out an impatient hiss of disgust. “This is precisely why you’ll lose to the masters. You’re not willing to make the necessary sacrifices.”
We didn’t have time to argue. “I need to get to the front of the train,” I murmured. “If we can sabotage the engine, we can insure all the grain stays here in Fallow. Then we can worry about destroying it.”
A jumble of carts and wagons stood all around the elevators and train spur. Presumably they’d brought the last of the corrupted harvest to the elevators, then been abandoned. We slipped from shadow to shadow, careful to keep the wagons between us and the light. Trembling horses and mules stood between the traces of some, their eyes showing white. Other wagons appeared to have been dragged here using manpower alone.
The door on the final boxcar slammed shut. “All aboard!” Vernon called.
All but holding my breath, I crouched down and peered beneath the wagon we currently hid behind. The gravel of the rail bed crunched as Vernon made his way to the caboose. A bandage swathed his head, concealing the wound Creigh had dealt him in the field. “Next stop: Widdershins.”
“I can’t wait,” Marian said, stepping around from the far side of the train and into view.
My knees turned to water at the sight of her. Creigh’s spell must have somehow kept the corruption in check, because in less than a day it had transformed her utterly. But not into a gray-skinned horror, but something else. Something almost as beautiful as it was revolting.
The nubs on her forehead had sprouted, turning into fungal spikes reminiscent of the horns of a stag. Her skin had taken on a sickly white smoothness. A sort of lacy, veil-like growth fell delicately from her forehead, over her eyes, then fused again with her cheeks. Her clothing was replaced with layers of growth reminiscent of bracket mushrooms, encircling her as stiff as the skirts of half a century past. Clusters of growths like fat tentacles erupted from each shoulder in some parody of wings, their orange color shocking against the whiteness of her rubbery flesh.
There came the crack of a rifle, and Marian’s head burst apart.