Three

TESS WAS GOING to Montreal. Yes, it was only a stopover, but that was where her train journey would end. In the city of a hundred bell towers, as Mark Twain had called it. That’s how she’d always pictured it: a metropolis of soaring towers and sonorous bells.

Billy leaned over as they waited for the train. “You look as if you’d travel the whole way with your nose out the window, like our dog heading to the beach.”

She grinned. “I would, but I don’t think the train windows open.”

He gave her a brief, fierce hug. “I won’t say I’ll miss you or this will become a very sappy goodbye. But I’m going to give you this.” He pressed a ten-dollar bill into her hand.

“I don’t need—”

“I know. You have almost $140 from the matron and another $200 from your savings. You could buy an old car with that. That $10 is to be used for one purpose: phoning me. Yes, we agreed mail was cheaper, and I’ll still expect letters, but I want calls too, and if I’ve given you money for that, you’ll feel honor-bound to use it.”

“Letters would be fine,” she said. “The postmistress will see them, and you know what a gossip she is. As long as I’m writing, she’ll tell everyone we’re still together.”

He gave her a stern look. “That’s the last thing on my mind, Tess. I want you to call because I want to talk to you. You’ll want to talk too, but you hate spending money.”

“All right.” She folded the bill and put it in a special compartment in her donated purse. “I’ll phone every third day.”

“Starting at the train station in Montreal.”

She smiled. “Yes, sir.”

“Hold on.” He walked back to his parents’ Ford Fairlane. When he returned, he was pulling a bright-purple suitcase.

“It was Suze’s. She outgrew purple.” He set the suitcase on its side and opened it. Inside was some carefully packed clothing. “She outgrew all this too, so Mom told me to give it to you. It’s not exactly the height of fashion…”

“It’s perfect.” She threw her arms around his neck and whispered, “Thank you.”

When she pulled back, he was blushing. The other people on the station platform smiled at them. The train whistle sounded, and when she squinted against the sun, she could see the train rumbling down the tracks.

“There’s one more thing,” Billy said. “Your birthday present. I hope I’ll see you again before that, but you can use them now.”

He dug to the bottom of the case and pulled out a pair of boots. They were black vinyl, knee high, with low heels and a zipper up the back. Tess let out a shriek.

Billy laughed. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you do that. Good choice?”

“The best. Oh my god.” She caught a couple of less-indulgent looks from adults nearby and amended it to, “Oh my gosh.”

“I picked them up in Toronto last month. I hope they fit.”

Tess was already out of her Oxfords and pulling the boots on. They did fit. Well enough anyway. She gave him another hug as the train pulled into the station.

“You’ll call,” he said.

“And write.”

“And come back,” he said. “Not to stay.” He met her gaze. “I don’t ever expect you to stay, Tess. But I wouldn’t want to think I won’t see you again.”

“You will. Promise.” One last hug, with a peck on the cheek, and he helped her stuff the few belongings she needed into her new suitcase. Then he took the donated bag with the donated clothing and whispered a promise to make it disappear. One last hug, and she was off, climbing the steps onto the train, purple suitcase in tow, trying hard not to stumble in her new boots.

It was a relatively short trip to Toronto, or so other people on the train said. Short for experienced travelers. Long for those who’d never been more than twenty minutes out of town. Endless for a girl straining for her first sight of a big city.

Perhaps it wasn’t actually her first sight. She might have been this way before, as a toddler on her way to Hope. Maybe she’d spent time in Montreal. She might have even lived there.

Exciting thoughts. Confusing thoughts. She was used to them, though, that disconcerting feeling that came with knowing you’d lived another life, one you couldn’t remember. Almost like being reincarnated. I used to be someone else. Live somewhere else. Answer to a different name.

She wouldn’t think of that right now. She’d think of Toronto. Of two hours to venture from the train station and see the city before making her connection to Montreal. Billy had said the station was right downtown, near lots of things to see and do. He’d suggested she might want to shop, but he’d been joking. She was frugal enough to restrict herself to window-shopping…at least, until she reached Montreal.

When the train finally arrived in Toronto, there was a moment, standing in the cavernous station, when a cowardly little part of her whispered that maybe she should just find the departure gate and wait. She squelched the voice with one squeak of her new boots, turning sharply and marching to the front doors, walking out into…

She would say she walked out into sunshine, and she did, but what she saw first were the buildings. Soaring buildings everywhere. They should have blocked the sun, but somehow it still shone, warming the endless pavement.

She’d never seen so much pavement. That’s all there was, no matter which direction she looked. Pavement rolling out like gray grass. Buildings so high she had to crane her neck to see them. And the smells. That was, perhaps, the most shocking part of all. The city stunk—of exhaust fumes and baking asphalt and the faintest whiff of smoked meat. Perfume too. So much perfume, bathing her in a cloud of it each time the train-station doors opened and travelers poured out. Tess supposed the smell of it all should make her stomach churn. Instead, it set her pulse racing.

As she turned, she caught sight of one person who didn’t fit the scene. He was dressed oddly, in an old-fashioned vest, and his shirtsleeves rolled up, with a red bandanna around his neck and a flat, shapeless hat on his head. More jarring than his outfit was the fact that he walked in the middle of the road with cars whipping past him, his head bent, as oblivious to the vehicles as they were to him.

A ghost. No, please. Not here. Not now.

“Can I help you, miss?”

Tess spun. A man in a porter’s uniform stood behind her, holding the door for an elderly woman.

“You look lost, miss,” he said. “Can I help?”

Tess didn’t glance back at the man in the road. Not today. There would be none of that today.

She looked at the porter and said, “Do you know where I could get lunch, sir? Before my next train?”

“You shouldn’t go far, miss. If you want something simple, there’s a deli just down the road. If you want fancy…” He motioned across the road, to a grand hotel that sprawled down the whole block. It was the tallest building around, with a beautiful glassed-in roof garden. He lowered his voice. “The tearoom has sandwiches. It’s a proper place for a young lady. Very safe.”

She thanked him and considered her options. Most days, she’d go with simple and inexpensive. Today though…Tess clutched her luggage handle and started across the road.

Today was special. Nothing—not even the sight of the ghostly man—would ruin it.

Tess ate too much for lunch. She’d expected to have only a sandwich and a glass of water, but when the waitress sat her at a table alone, an elderly couple insisted she join them. When they discovered it was her first time in Toronto, they declared she must have tea. She wanted to protest that she was rather hungry and would prefer an actual meal, but she recalled enough of Mrs. Hazelton’s teachings to know she ought not to contradict the elderly. That’s when she discovered that “tea” here was the kind she’d read about in novels, with tiny sandwiches and scones and cakes. As she ate, she made a mental note to tell Billy that there were clearly opportunities for bakers in Toronto.

Half of the three-tiered tray was enough to make her stomach bulge. She also drank an entire pot of tea, which was rich and dark and spicy, not like her usual tea at all. Her hosts insisted she pack the rest of the meal for her train trip, which meant she got a dinner as well. In return, they got a story. Some might call it a lie; Tess preferred story.

She knew better than to tell them where she was really going and why—if they didn’t want her eating alone, her plans would have scandalized them. So she crafted a pleasant tale of a girl from Hope off to see her auntie in Montreal. There were many embellishments. What good was a story if it did not entertain? They seemed entertained, and that, Tess decided, was a proper exchange for the meal. They even insisted on walking her back to the train station and helping her find her gate. She took their address, promised them a postcard from Montreal and said a sincere thank-you and farewell. Then she was off on the next leg of her journey.

The problem with the large meal was that it made her sleepy. The problem with the pot of tea was that it made her jittery. After about two hours the exhaustion took over. Tess fell asleep.

Perhaps it was the rich food. Perhaps it was lingering jitters from the tea. Whatever the cause, she tumbled headlong into nightmares. Dark dreams of dark places. Nightmares of being trapped in rooms so tiny she could touch all four walls without moving, and she kicked and screamed and banged and knew it wouldn’t help, that no one would come.

It’s for your own good.

That’s what the voice said in the dream. It’s what it always said. She’d had this dream for as long as she could remember, and it never changed. Trapped in a room too small to even turn around in. Screaming and pounding to no avail, a voice calmly telling her to stop, that she was only hurting herself, that this was for the best, that it was the only way.

Then the room flipped onto its side, and she thumped down, flat on her back. She kicked and screamed harder, clawing wood, slivers digging under her nails, hot blood trickling down her hands and dripping onto her face. She screamed until she was hoarse, and still she kept screaming.

I’ll be good. I’m fixed. I swear I am. Please, please, please…

That was when she heard something hitting the top of the imprisoning box. Something raining down, lightly at first, then harder, thumping against the wood.

Dirt. Shovelfuls of dirt.

She’d had the dream so often that she should have known this was coming. Should have known from the start where she was. Not in a room. Not in a box. Not an ordinary one anyway.

Yet to her sleeping self, it always felt like the first time, fresh in its horror. The confusion of the tiny room. The panic as it tipped over. Terror filling her. Then the dirt. And with the dirt, understanding. The sudden truth of where she was and what was happening.

In a coffin.

Being buried alive.