prelude on the tracks

Though it didn’t seem dangerous to us, Millicent wasn’t terribly keen on us being out after dark. We were sitting on our neighbors back steps as a locomotive rambled just behind her dilapidated fence, bathed by the dying dusk light. Lucy and I said nothing, simply took small spoonfuls of melted vanilla ice cream from the dregs left at the bottom of the carton. Lucy was a year younger than me, small and yet concerningly ferocious when the situation warranted it. Brown hair came down her shoulders in long pools, slightly tangled from our trip in the lake that afternoon, a color just adjacent to the light brown shade of her eyes. Tagging along with her was convenient— our houses are sandwiched just next to one another— but I never had the same curiosity and lack of forethought that got us into the adventures we found ourselves in. In the purest sense of the phrase, I often found myself simply along for the ride. I didn’t mind it though: not having to think. 

Lucy turned suddenly after the splitting sound of the train horn faded. She had that look about her. The one that screamed “I know something you don’t.” Even when I had a hunch as to the reason behind it, I did my best to keep quiet and allow her to abuse her favorite party trick. Drumming her fingertips against the red brick beneath us, building imaginary suspense, she posed her question. 

“You want to hear something odd?” 

I nodded despite myself. 

Lucy’s attention faltered slightly, gaze drifting to the thick foliage beyond the railroad tracks, visible overtop the short fence that separated the sight from Millicent's backyard. Her voice was conspiratorial, no more than a hushed whisper. 

“When I was at Marco’s Stop and fill the other day, I saw a young man pay for a stick of gum with nothing but a rock and a leaf. And the guy at the register— I’m not sure, I think it might have been Joe– just took it and put it in the lockbox like normal. Like nothing happened.” 

“At some point you’re going to have to learn that I’m not the girl to tell your pathological lies to.” 

Lucy sighed, as if my response was disappointing but nevertheless expected. Some people encouraged Lucy’s imagination. I, for one, didn’t see the point. We were new to town, Lucy entirely, myself once returned after years adrift. I understood the need for carving a place in the world, but whatever this was, extended fibbing I suppose, didn’t seem like the leading method. 

This town had a way of making rational people feel like pariahs. 

“You’d be a good author if you’d write any of this nonsense down. Sell it off. I’m sure someone would pay a dollar or two for it.” 

Lucy shoved me slightly, but there was no fight in it, no malice. I shifted the conversation as much as I was able, but ended up caught up on a familiar, beaten down, subject. 

“He came from across, I think.”

“Sure he did.”

“What do you suppose is on the other side then?” Lucy’s voice was slightly wistful, gaze once again ensnared on a distant vocal point I can’t make out. She always had a way of romanticizing what shouldn’t be. We weren’t new to town 

“Pretentious bastards who make more than they need for two lifetimes. People who are too afraid of the wood poor to come around these parts.” 

Lucy laughed but it sounded fabricated. There was no substance to it. I’m right, of this particular instance I’m sure, but true things aren’t nearly as interesting as fantasy, and my subtle digs at the clear answer of the other side, the line that divides the class fragments of Meadows, went disregarded. 

“You’re not at all curious to see what it’s like? To live like that.” 

“Of course I am, but if I say that I’m admitting interest in something that’s never going to be fulfilled. Do yourself a favor and forget it, yeah?” 

Three words, I didn’t say. Three words that would have crushed her spirit entirely. 

Not for us. That life isn’t and never will be for us.

“The boy with the leaves. He really was quite pretty.” 

I shook my head and pulled my leather backpack back onto my weary shoulders. The metal wind chimes were beginning to give me a headache. 

“You can stay the night if you’d like. We can discuss your new magical boyfriend.” 

“Can’t. I’ve got plans,” Luce replied with a wink. 

It would have been easy to argue against whatever foolish excursion she was bound to go on, but arguing with her was equal parts painful and impossible. It would be better to keep a watchful eye then make another attempt at explaining away her stupidity. 

Millicent said nothing of our conversation when she came to drive us home. Not when Lucy rolled her eyes at the woman’s preemptive behavior or when I slipped wordlessly from her passenger seat seconds later, kicking loose gravel with the toes of my worn sneakers and savoring the sound it made in time with the blooming sounds of the woods to our northern side. I took it all in with the familiar wonder and suspicion of a child: something I rarely did these days. 

I stole a glance to my right, expecting to see Lucy in the distance, unlocking her front door from the dimmed porch and share a nod with me, but was met with nothing. I was about to write it off entirely when a tall shadow caught in the side of my vision. In the length of time it took me to register what I was seeing, the figure had shifted from the side of Lucy’s house back into the woods, disappearing from sight just as quickly. 

There was a message on my mother’s voice machine that night, no details as to who had sent it. Just an ominous warning I knew immediately came from a few houses down.  

“I saw her the night before last, on the edge of those woods. All the way over the tracks, almost down the hill to the other side before I caught her and dragged her home. I heard you girls speaking. I care little if you think it’s a joke, but I will not have you encouraging Lucy. I don’t need anyone getting eaten up by coyotes around these parts.” 

I couldn’t sleep that night, mulling over Millicent’s warning and the odd buzzing head. I kept my window open as I watched the progression of the moon and its transparent light, waiting for some sign of Lucy’s return. No warm glow ever came from her bedroom across the way.

Morning came, disrupting the still, ambient quiet with thick humidity and birdsong. I had known from the moment my eyes bored into the window of Lucy’s still dormant bedroom that something was wrong. The house was still asleep when I left to locate her. The family dog barked aimlessly at the picket gate that separated my property from the neutral ground that separated both sides of town when I tentatively approached. 

I thought of the boy Lucy had seen, had exclaimed was so entrancingly beautiful and figured the most obvious outcome is that she had run amuck with him. I walked the length of the tracks, sharp stones and rail ties digging into my rubber soles. I searched for some sign of civilization  as I walked down the sloping earth on the other side of the tracks, but was only met with miles east and west of foliage, and accepted my position at the crossroads of this incident. It would be ideal to find her before the sun was fully overhead. Logistically speaking it might even be plausible to drag her back by her ear before her mother, or god forbid Millicent, ever had a clue. 

And yet quickly it became apparent that my hopes had been tainted with naivety. There were footpaths foraged from movement, but no streets, no lights, no mansions. Nothing but a smattering of useless clearings that seemed to be foraged simply to incite confusion. I shifted to my left, walked miles to my right, and found nothing of interest. The word had turned ten degrees warmer since I had left southern Meadows. Not the sort of warmth that came as an average day progressed but an uncomfortable, sudden and oppressive heat. Time was moving at a pace that made little sense to the understanding of the concept as my mind could comprehend it. 

The deeper I traversed into the woods the faster bile rose within my throat. The familiar smell of death that came in patches within the countryside mixed with something cloying. Like someone had taken a dead rodent and attempted to bury its smell with honey. I did my best to ignore it. How my arrogant sense of self and place were being violently uprooted. Still nothing. The evergreen trees started to shift to oak and finally to a variety I had never been privy to. It bore strange golden fruit that periodically fell to the forest floor, splitting open on impact and revealing mealy flesh that made my mouth water with unexpected temptation. 

I stepped over it, ignoring the lurch in my gut each time I did so: like I was walking over a grave, committing some strange sin by doing so. Walking became a mode of buying time. I was afraid of returning empty handed, and in the same breath the serenity that clashed with my disturbance left me suspended in an emotion I couldn’t place. 

I wasn’t happy. Peaceful wasn’t fitting either. Content, perhaps. The way one feels after a proper negotiation with another party. I was certain we had communicated, the forest and I. My hand moved on its own intuition as I reached for one of the golden fruits still hanging above my head. 

It was sticky as I held it to my lips, the way lumber sap might be. The thought of staying became attractive. No more headaches No more impossible asks to protect people I couldn’t. The fruit beckoned for me to allow it to slip down my throat. It would be so easy. My lips parted. 

And then a sudden wave of sickness had me dropping the fruit as quickly as I had procured it. I heaved and tried to keep myself from retching, but failed as leaned against an ancient trunk to steady myself, displacing ancient bark as I did so. As swiftly as the magic of the moment came, it dissipated and left a sense of dread behind I couldn’t shake. I would be of no use to Lucy deluded. That’s what it must have been, delusion. The scent of whatever had met their end there was making me ill. 

That sickness didn’t leave me. I spilled up the empty contents of my stomach upwards of ten times as I crawled my way back to the tracks. By the time I made it back to the southern side I was feverish. Two things became apparent to me through the desperate calls of my mother and Lucy’s terrified father. Firstly I had been gone for two hours and the sun was setting, not rising. Secondly, Millicent was on her back porch and seemed more put out than usual. She didn’t look at me, though, but at something behind me. Too near to be the woods, but too far to believe she wasn’t peering right through my person. 

* * *

My mother found herself in a strenuous battle between keeping me out of the way of those searching for Lucy and keeping me in her sight at all odd hours. We settled on something slightly in between. After making it my mission to be nothing but an irritation, I eventually convinced my mother to let me walk down to Marco’s by myself. She handed me a twenty and told me to buy her a package of cigarettes.

I tentatively placed a can of soda and a large bag of peppered chips into the red basket at my side. Beads of sweat clung relentlessly to the nape of my neck from the short journey as I attempted to ignore the continuous throbbing of my head. I couldn’t help but let my mind wander to the story Lucy had told me the night she disappeared. About the pretty boy, the stick of gum, and the leaves. I turned the corner, mind elsewhere, and inspected my two purchases. 

“Dollar fifty.” 

Marco’s gruff voice pulled me slightly from my stupor and I proceeded to stick myself in line behind a boy with black hair and a long black coat despite the heat. I expected him to pull out his wallet, to fork over the measly amount of change. His tall figure shielded me from seeing the transaction, he didn’t turn as my eyes began to stare daggers into his back, but I had no need for him to. The pit in my stomach that had been growing since my visit North of the tracks only seemed to be growing. I can’t describe how I knew, but I was certain. It was Lucy’s boy. 

I waited until it was my turn at the counter, waited to see Marco stick the leaves, the ones strangely akin to the ones on the trees with the golden fruit, back into the register and didn’t bother a moment longer with my items. I was poised to make a break for it, sure, fixed, like most things, that he would be quick to maintain his inconspicuousness. As a common theme of late, I was wrong. He walked so leisurely he almost appeared to be waiting. The question was blunt and not the least bit threatening as it slipped from my lips. 

“Bring her home.” 

We were stopped in the middle of the road. Dead July and not a single care was in sight. And as he finally turned to face me, I understood Lucy’s enchantment. He wasn’t “pretty.” He had the sort of splendor that was almost disturbing. High cheekbones and sharp ears, eyes like a cat. He looked to me my age but answered with a tone and diction that seemed centuries older. 

“You have the sight.” 

There were no pleasantries. No time to rationalize with the steady lies I had fed myself. We both knew what this sparring was about. 

“She doesn’t belong there-” 

“The new ones never have the sight.” 

“Bring her home or you’ll wish you did.” 

The creature brought a hand to his chest with a mock affront but simply shook his head. 

“You can join her if you wish. You seemed to enjoy your brief time with us well enough.” 

I tried with everything inside me not to recoil at his baiting, to allow the rage I felt to be something that had the mere idea of being threatening. I pressed my lips together, well aware of the futility of my situation. 

“What’s your name?” 

He laughed haughtily. 

“I don’t think so. I’ll make this brief since you seem so intent on mediation. Our folk have one of ours. We would simply like them returned.” 

Just because I didn’t believe what I read didn’t mean I was wholly ignorant. There were nuances. Even then I was well aware of my overstepping them. Then again Lucy had been taken away simply for existing. The faint need to remember respect faded. I seized the chance to walk away first, forcing myself to stare into his thinly pupilled eyes as I did so, never once allowing my back to face him. There would have to be another way. 

“I wish you luck with that.” 

That was meant to be the end of the exchange, and yet I watched him with faint curiosity as he walked alongside the edge of the tracks, popping a stick of peppermint gum into his mouth as he did so. When he caught me staring with a raised brow he simply shrugged and gave me a smug smile. 

“I’m fond of how it tastes.” 

I made sure my middle finger was apparent to him before I finally turned towards home, trying to hide the horrific suspicion I now held in regards to the cause of the lingering ache in my head. 

* * * 

Lucy didn’t come back. Four more girls went missing that summer. All in the span of seven days. It took that same week of fruitless nights at the window, and a proper understanding of this uneven exchange to have a grasp on their game. In the end it was an iron seam ripper from my mother’s sewing kit pressed against my skin that did it. The glamor covering my body came off in layers until my peculiar new form was all that was left. 

When the week came to a close I picked the lock my mother had placed on my lead laced window and looked out into the night. Meadows never was a summer town. Even then, autumn was coming in faster than it ordinarily did, as if the universe itself was receptive to the tragedy. It made sense in that regard. I suppose nature was not a particularly emotional force. But I couldn’t forget. No one here could.  They needed to come home. 

I gripped the iron blade in the pocket of my skirt as I made my way to the edge of the tracks, holding on no matter how badly it stung. There were no freights that evening. Just a looming shadow with a dreadful energy I could have sensed without viewing. 

I made the bargain with the faerie that stole away the Meadows girls in the first hour of August. All in the clear view of Millicent Seagail from the south and Lucy Moore from the north who said nothing of my newly pointed ears, or the sound the creature made when the iron blade came through his chest. 

People say walking the railway is a dangerous habit. Sound carries in such a way that there could come a time when an individual finds themselves inches from being struck and never hears a thing. Oblivious to obviousness. A back turned from a four hundred thousand pound force and being none the wiser. I often wonder if that’s how it felt to be on those tracks that night.