Light as a Feather, Silent as the Grave

Chapter 17

When I next opened my eyes, it was 1:25 PM.

It took a few minutes for the fog of sleep to roll out of my head. Outside the window of the train over Trey’s shoulder, suburbia whipped past in a blur. Rooftops and swing sets peeked up over fences and tree branches whizzed by. I checked the train schedule to get an idea of approximately where we were, and it was reasonable to assume that we were already close to Springfield, the capital of the state we were in. My seat was cozy and the sound of Trey lightly snoring next to me made the idea of drifting back off very tempting, but two things occurred to me that made me instead sit upright at full attention.

The first was that Esther had demanded that we call her promptly at one. I’d slept right through the deadline and even worse, it hadn’t even crossed my mind to set my phone’s alarm clock before I nodded off. I wasn’t just a few minutes late; I was really late in calling. Late enough to make her suspect the trick that Laura had played on her; late enough that maybe she’d already revoked the glamour spell on me and I already looked like my plain old self again. The second was that there was a text message waiting for me from Henry when I pulled my phone out of my bag.

TODAY 10:12 AM

HENRY

Where are you? Are you safe?

Even just the sight of words that Henry had typed into his phone made me feel more secure, like everything was going to be okay. I wondered if he’d sent the message before boarding his return flight to France or if there was a possibility he’d remained in Wisconsin, but I’d have to wait until I dealt with Esther. Using my camera phone as a mirror, I checked my reflection and was startled but relieved to see that I still looked like an Olivia-esque version of myself. Since I didn’t have Esther’s phone number, I reached across Trey and fumbled around until I felt Laura’s purse tucked underneath his elbow. He stirred when I yanked it out from underneath him, but he was so soundly asleep that he settled back into position right away. His eyelids fluttered with activity; he must have been having a pretty vivid dream.

Laura was really some kind of organizational genius, because she’d disabled the passcode on her iPhone before casting a spell on herself and Trey to make this trip possible. As much as I was surprised to find Laura’s phone unlocked, I was more surprised to find that she had a text message from Henry’s cell phone number. He must have texted her immediately after texting me.

TODAY 10:14 AM

920-555-1801

Hey, what’s up? I’m going to be in town longer than planned. Let’s hang out.

For a stunned second, my eyes narrowed with suspicion. Henry was supposed to be on my side, so why was he trying to meet up with Laura? But my fury passed as quickly as it appeared: I’d given him ample reason to think that I was in danger because of Laura with the text I’d sent him. He was most likely conducting a highly sensitive investigation out of concern for me.

“Hello?” I’d found Esther’s name in the Contacts list of Laura’s phone, but even after I heard someone answer on the other end, no one spoke. “Hello?” I asked again, hoping that Esther wasn’t using some kind of baffling para-psychology to somehow see me and Trey on the train.

“You’re late,” a cold voice finally replied.

“I’m sorry. We fell asleep,” I stammered, wondering if there would be some kind of punishment. This woman was powerful enough to make me look completely unrecognizable, even to myself. If she could do that then surely she could probably cause me to spontaneously have a heart attack with the snap of her fingers, or ignite a fire somewhere on the train sure to attract attention to me and Trey.