Button Hill (10 page)

Cobb laughed. “Of all the secrets you could have learned,
that's
what you spend your question on? Do you have any idea what others have sacrificed to be in your situation? I've been to every corner of Nightside. Not many can boast that. I could have guided you through the city of the dead, or across the Wayward Bridge to the uncharted territories.” Cobb leaned closer and hissed, “I could have told you how to get your heart back.”

Dekker looked at Cobb. Every bone in his body felt so heavy, and the whispering in his ears had steadily increased as they approached the gorge. “Are you going to answer the question, or are you going to break our deal?”

Cobb gnashed his teeth. “Fine. You have to find a way off the train before it hits the gorge—which will be about a minute from now, by the way. No living passenger has ever survived the drop as far as I know. If you manage to escape the train, you walk back until you reach the fork in the tracks. Go to the left along the other track instead of returning to the station. That's the way home for the living—not that you are anymore.”

At that moment Riley burst through the door at the front of the car. “I found him!” she said.

The skeletal figure of the conductor swept in behind her. “Tickets, please,” he clacked. He stepped through the passengers toward Cobb, Dekker and Harper, and extended his bony hand.

Cobb began to smooth his hair and straighten his clothes. “Well, it's been delightful.” He flashed his sharp teeth. “Enjoy the gorge. It should be especially painful for those of you still living.”

Dekker looked at Cobb. “What about you?”

He laughed. “No way—no one to play with down there.”

“How are you going to get off?” asked Harper. “Didn't you say no passenger had ever escaped before?”

Cobb backed away from them as the conductor approached. “Ah, but I'm not a passenger. I never received a ticket. That makes me a stowaway.”

Dekker gripped Riley's hand. “And stowaways get tossed from the train,” Dekker said.

“Tickets.” The conductor's bony fingers extended into their midst. He clutched Harper's ticket and brought it to his eye socket, matching it to its other half.

Dekker and Riley looked at each other. “We don't have any, sir,” said Riley.

Cobb snorted. “Nice try. He can tell who's got a ticket and who hasn't.”

“But you took our tickets, Riley's and mine, when you took the walkie-talkie,” said Dekker.

Cobb grabbed it out of his pocket and turned it over. Two silver stubs were wedged into the battery casing. “No! These aren't mine. I don't want them! Take them back!”

The conductor leaned in toward Cobb, and his lantern light shone onto the tickets. “Those will do fine,” he clacked. Dekker thought the conductor's jawbone formed a smile just for a moment. Cobb's marble eyes spun furiously, and Dekker could still hear him stammering when the conductor hoisted Dekker and Riley up by their arms. He swung away from the seat and in two strides was standing out on the train's rear platform. The track suddenly fell away as the train flew over the edge, and they began to fall into the gorge.

Eleven

“Happy landings,” shouted the conductor, and with a mighty heave he threw them from the train. Dekker and Riley crashed hard onto the ground at the side of the track. They bounced a few times and rolled to a stop. Pebbles scudded past them and over the edge into nothing. Dekker lay on his back and looked up at the stars that hung frozen in the sky above him. After a while he said, “Riley, are you okay?”

“I think so,” she answered. “I landed on top of you.” They both sat up and looked at the track that disappeared at an impossible angle over the lip of the chasm.

Dekker crawled away from the edge. “I feel drawn to that place, almost like a magnet is pulling me down. But Cobb and the station agent both said we'd never make it back from there.”

Riley took his hand. “What's down there, do you think?”

“Harper said she lived there with her mom as a kid, in a city for the dead.”

Riley squeezed his hand. “Do you like Harper?”

He nodded, even though he wasn't exactly sure what he felt. “But there's no way I'm going down there if I can help it.”

“I thought you were dead already,” Riley said as she got to her feet.

“Help me up, will you? I thought I was too, but Captain Tom and Cobb both said I wasn't dead all the way. So maybe there's still a chance I can get back to Dayside.”

Riley bent over and picked something up from the ground near where they had fallen. “Oh my gosh, Dekker! Look at this!” She was holding Harper's music box. Its smooth white sides were battered but still intact.

Dekker's face lifted. “Where did you get that?”

“Maybe the conductor knocked it away when Cobb was arguing with him.” She offered it to her brother.

“Cobb put my heart in there.” Dekker lifted the lid. A skeleton girl in a lacy dress and a skeleton boy in a tuxedo popped up and began to twirl around inside the box. The tune was quick but sad, and it made Dekker want to move his feet.

“It's empty.” Riley's shoulders drooped.

“Cobb must have taken it out before he got on the train.”

“I'll keep it. You never know; it might be useful,” said Riley.

“We should get out of here,” said Dekker, and they turned away from the gorge.

Dekker felt heavier with each step he took. The whispering that had been growing since Cobb took Dekker's heart had settled down to a low buzz. The scrubby plants at the edge of the tracks plucked at him, rustling and twisting. Dekker thought he saw sets of eyes looking out at him several times, but he said nothing to Riley. The urge to turn around was overwhelming, but every time he wanted to stop, Riley clamped down on his hand and dragged him forward.
How long have we been climbing?
Dekker wondered.
Half an hour? Half the night?
He could no longer see the moon, but he didn't think that meant anything. This was Nightside, after all. It was always dark.

At last they emerged from the bushes and onto the flat section of track that led back toward the station.

Riley sighed. “I'm glad that's over. Dekker, your hands are like ice.”

“Really? I didn't notice.”

“That's not good,” said Riley.

Soon they arrived at the fork in the tracks. In the distance they could see Tilted Station. After a moment of rest, they turned away from the direction of the platform and started walking along the other tracks, as Cobb had told them to.

“So how will we know what to do to get home?” Riley asked.

“I'm not sure. I was hoping we would know it when we saw it.”

“Pfft. As if that's going to work. Can't you commune with the dead or something?”

Dekker glowered. “How should I know? I can barely walk.”

Riley stopped and grabbed Dekker's arm. “Do you hear that?”

He lifted his weary head. “It sounds like a squeaky wheel.” Someone, or something, was moving toward them along the rails. Not as quickly as the midnight train, but Dekker knew he could not outrun it, whatever it was. He looked around for somewhere to hide, but the ground was flat and covered with short dead grass in all directions. Dekker turned to his sister. “You run. I'll try to stall whoever's after us. Maybe you can still make it out.”

But Riley shook her head. “No way. I'm sticking with you.”

Squinting into the gloom, Dekker saw that a small handcar with a pump lever like a teeter-totter in the middle was approaching. The person working the pump was blowing like one of the huge workhorses they had seen at the summer farm expo. With a growing sense of dread, Dekker realized that the person was wearing a lavender housedress. A printed canvas shopping sack sat at her feet.

“Oh, no. What is
she
doing here?”

Aunt Primrose stopped pumping, and the rig slowed immediately. Riley ran over to the tracks. “Auntie, how did you get here? Are you dead, like Dekker?”

“
Nearly
dead,” added Dekker. “I mean, I'm still a bit alive. I think.”

The handcar groaned in relief as the old lady climbed awkwardly down. She smoothed the front of her dress. When she looked at Riley and Dekker, she smiled. Her eyes sparkled, for once. She strode forward and enveloped them both in a mighty hug. “Well, here you are. You both came through unharmed.”

“Unharmed? Cobb ripped out my
heart
, and I feel like I've been outside with no coat on for all of January.”

Aunt Primrose and Riley looked at each other and started to giggle.

“What are you two laughing at? Did I mention that I don't need to breathe anymore?”

“And, don't forget, you're starting to smell bad.” Riley chortled. Aunt Primrose covered her mouth with a large hand.

“I don't see what's so funny. You can go back, but I'm dead. I'll be stuck in Nightside forever.”

Aunt Primrose stopped laughing and moved closer to him. “Who's been filling your head with that utter nonsense? Surely you haven't been listening to that rag of a boy, Cobb, all this time.” Her stern demeanor returned somewhat. “Take off your shirt, and let's see how dead you really are.”

Dekker struggled out of his shirt, and Aunt Primrose leaned in close to inspect his wound. She poked and prodded with one sausage-like finger inside the hole where his heart had been.

“See? I told you,” Dekker said. “All I feel is a tiny tickle. I'm pretty well dead, aren't I?”

“You're quite saucy for someone in your condition. We should be glad of that, I suppose. It's probably what's kept you from dying completely.”

Riley tried to look into Dekker's chest cavity. “Auntie, aren't you sort of freaked out by all of this? You should be back at your house doing, well, doing your stuff, shouldn't you?”

She looked over her shoulder at Riley. “What
stuff
? Knitting and napping? I don't see why this should bother me any more than it does you.”

“But Auntie, you're so old.”

Aunt Primrose snorted. “That's right, I'm old. Older than you can imagine. And old people are tough. Do you know how I survived? By being tough.” She leaned down to look closely at Dekker's chest again. “Now tell me, does this hurt?” Aunt Primrose squeezed something inside the cavity, and fireworks exploded inside his brain.

“Owww!” he yelled as he tried to squirm away, but her strong arm held him. Gradually, the pain subsided. “What did you do that for?”

“Fortunately for you, you have a tiny bit of heart left, enough to keep your spirit at least partially tethered to your body. I had to make sure you could still feel it.”

Dekker rubbed his chest gingerly. “Well, I did.”

“There's still hope for you then. Come along, you two, up onto the jigger. Quickly now. We've spent enough time in the dark, especially you, Dekker. If we don't get you home soon, your mother is going to start asking questions you don't want to answer.”

“Won't she be asking questions anyway?” said Dekker.

“First things first, young man. Take the other end of the pump lever, Dekker. Moving will keep you from getting any stiffer.” Dekker put his shirt back on, and he and Riley climbed up onto the handcar with Aunt Primrose's help.

“Riley, you are to sit in the front and smell for flowers. You must tell us the instant you smell them, or we shall miss our stop.” Aunt Primrose resumed her position at one end of the pump lever, and Dekker took the other. Soon they were clipping along at a decent pace. Riley sat very straight at the front, legs crossed.

Dekker took a breath and lowered his voice. “What is this place, really?”

“You do deserve some sort of answer, I suppose. Think of it this way: just as a button holds two parts of a shirt together, Button Hill is one of the places that holds the world of the living firmly in place against the world of the dead. The borderland is thin here, so thin that some places appear in both Dayside and Nightside.”

“Like your house and the train station,” Dekker said.

“Indeed. My duty is to keep those two sides in balance and manage the passage of the dead from one side to the other.”

“Then why couldn't you help me before?”

“The Nightclock is one of the powers that be, an old power. It cannot be bargained with. Once it had marked you and Cobb, I could no longer interfere until your agreement had run its course. When you foolishly wound the skull, the old well passage between the sides must have opened briefly, long enough for Cobb to slip through and take your sister. Watery places are the most commutable, like the pond in the garden. Regardless, if it weren't for Captain Tom, I don't think you'd be in as fine shape as you are.”

“Oh,” said Dekker.

“I smell them!” shouted Riley. “It's just like your garden back home.”

“This is our stop,” announced Aunt Primrose. Dekker let go of the handle. “No, keep pumping,” she instructed.

“I thought you said to stop,” said Dekker, a look of confusion spread across his face.

“Watch and learn, young man.” She rummaged in her cloth bag and gently withdrew a clutch of small pink flowers, open in the shape of little cups. “Ah, here we are. The archway we are about to pass through will take you to the place your spirit is drawn to most strongly. If what you want is to go home, then home you shall be. But first you must avail yourselves of the
Oenothera
.” She gave each of them a handful of the pink blossoms.

“Huh?” Dekker said.

“Did they teach you nothing of importance at your city school?
Oenothera
is Latin for evening primrose. It is a powerful plant, beautiful but common, and has been used for centuries by those in need of crossing over.”

“I don't see any arch, Auntie.”

“Patience, child. Evening primrose is a pathway to sleep. It's essential for crossing back safely to Dayside. Unless you care to chance going back the way you arrived? I warn you, the return trip is somewhat less agreeable.”