move. The train jumped and lurched underneath her, and when she opened her eyes, she saw she’d covered her paper with nonsense: Squiggles and what looked like leaping flames stretched away from the circle in the center of the page, radiating all the way out to its edges.
“I’ve ruined it,” Liesl said, and went to tear the picture in two.
“No,” Po said sharply. Liesl jumped. Po went on, more quietly, “It’s good. It’s very good.” Then it floated to the window again.
Liesl knew then that Po had been lying: The ghost did miss the Living Side. She understood then, too, that everyone drowns differently, and that for everyone—even ghosts—there is a different kind of air.
Train 128 steamed past the blurry gray countryside, past cracked and blackened fields.
Will pressed his nose to the window.
Liesl tucked her chin to her knees and slept.
Bundle watched over Liesl.
Po was a shadow on the wall, unmoving.
The old lady with the cane finished searching all the passenger cars, then berated the policeman for letting the crazy girl with the wooden box get away.
Mo, drinking hot chocolate and reading the paper, sat contentedly on an express train to Cloverstown, where he intended to intercept train 128.
Lefty licked dribbles of chocolate from Mo’s beard with a small pink tongue.
The alchemist and the Lady Premiere arrived at the gates of 31 Highland Avenue, where they had determined the magic had been taken by mistake.
A black-haired thief on his way to Gainsville stole two silver pieces from the grave of a dead man.
Time ticked forward. Stars collided. Planets were born and died. Everywhere and in every fold and bend of the universe, strange and miraculous things happened.
And so it was, just then.
Chapter Sixteen
JUST THEN, TOO, AUGUSTA HORTENSE VARICE- Morbower, second wife of the late Henry Morbower, and stepmother to Liesl Morbower, was rounding the corner of Highland Avenue in her carriage.
Her daughter, Vera, sat across from her, pale and sickly-looking despite the powder on her face and rouge on her cheeks, which she never went anywhere without, looking a little bit like a wriggly tadpole clothed in fur and lace.
“For the last time, stop your squirming!” Augusta barked at her daughter.
“Sorry, Mama,” Vera mumbled. She couldn’t help it. She squirmed when she was uncomfortable, and her mother’s temper made her distinctly uncomfortable.
She had been trying all morning to be as quiet and helpful as possible—since her mother had wrenched her out of her bed before dawn with the chilling words, “The little snot is gone! Fled! Disappeared!”
But as they rattled through the city, watching the dawn bleed pale gray light through the streets without shedding any light whatsoever on where Liesl had run off to, her mother’s mood only got fouler and fouler. Augusta screamed, and ranted, and pulled her hair, and swore. Everything was ruined, and terrible, and disastrous. Even the warm potatoes that the cook had prepared, and carefully wrapped in wax paper, were inedible, and Augusta had hurled her breakfast out of the carriage window in a rage after taking only a single bite.
Augusta could not have been more different from Vera: She was broad, and flat, and enormous, with a wide, coarse face and hands as thick as paddles. She, too, was dressed in fur and lace, but she gave the impression of a full-grown toad. It did not help that when she was angry, the two warts on her forehead seemed to swell in size, as though expressing indignation on her behalf.
And oh, was Augusta angry! She was furious. She was enraged. The warts looked frighteningly large. Even Vera shrank away from the sight of them.
Augusta feared that everything she had built—every single last shred of happiness and security, which she had had to wrestle and wrangle and tweak and pull and suck from life with all her strength—was on the verge of collapse. The big, lofty house at 31 Highland Avenue with all the
“I’ve ruined it,” Liesl said, and went to tear the picture in two.
“No,” Po said sharply. Liesl jumped. Po went on, more quietly, “It’s good. It’s very good.” Then it floated to the window again.
Liesl knew then that Po had been lying: The ghost did miss the Living Side. She understood then, too, that everyone drowns differently, and that for everyone—even ghosts—there is a different kind of air.
Train 128 steamed past the blurry gray countryside, past cracked and blackened fields.
Will pressed his nose to the window.
Liesl tucked her chin to her knees and slept.
Bundle watched over Liesl.
Po was a shadow on the wall, unmoving.
The old lady with the cane finished searching all the passenger cars, then berated the policeman for letting the crazy girl with the wooden box get away.
Mo, drinking hot chocolate and reading the paper, sat contentedly on an express train to Cloverstown, where he intended to intercept train 128.
Lefty licked dribbles of chocolate from Mo’s beard with a small pink tongue.
The alchemist and the Lady Premiere arrived at the gates of 31 Highland Avenue, where they had determined the magic had been taken by mistake.
A black-haired thief on his way to Gainsville stole two silver pieces from the grave of a dead man.
Time ticked forward. Stars collided. Planets were born and died. Everywhere and in every fold and bend of the universe, strange and miraculous things happened.
And so it was, just then.
Chapter Sixteen
JUST THEN, TOO, AUGUSTA HORTENSE VARICE- Morbower, second wife of the late Henry Morbower, and stepmother to Liesl Morbower, was rounding the corner of Highland Avenue in her carriage.
Her daughter, Vera, sat across from her, pale and sickly-looking despite the powder on her face and rouge on her cheeks, which she never went anywhere without, looking a little bit like a wriggly tadpole clothed in fur and lace.
“For the last time, stop your squirming!” Augusta barked at her daughter.
“Sorry, Mama,” Vera mumbled. She couldn’t help it. She squirmed when she was uncomfortable, and her mother’s temper made her distinctly uncomfortable.
She had been trying all morning to be as quiet and helpful as possible—since her mother had wrenched her out of her bed before dawn with the chilling words, “The little snot is gone! Fled! Disappeared!”
But as they rattled through the city, watching the dawn bleed pale gray light through the streets without shedding any light whatsoever on where Liesl had run off to, her mother’s mood only got fouler and fouler. Augusta screamed, and ranted, and pulled her hair, and swore. Everything was ruined, and terrible, and disastrous. Even the warm potatoes that the cook had prepared, and carefully wrapped in wax paper, were inedible, and Augusta had hurled her breakfast out of the carriage window in a rage after taking only a single bite.
Augusta could not have been more different from Vera: She was broad, and flat, and enormous, with a wide, coarse face and hands as thick as paddles. She, too, was dressed in fur and lace, but she gave the impression of a full-grown toad. It did not help that when she was angry, the two warts on her forehead seemed to swell in size, as though expressing indignation on her behalf.
And oh, was Augusta angry! She was furious. She was enraged. The warts looked frighteningly large. Even Vera shrank away from the sight of them.
Augusta feared that everything she had built—every single last shred of happiness and security, which she had had to wrestle and wrangle and tweak and pull and suck from life with all her strength—was on the verge of collapse. The big, lofty house at 31 Highland Avenue with all the
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