Young Writers Society

Meanwhile, inside his box, Evian decided to do something impossibly stupid. When he heard the woman—the heiress, the strange … creature with the cold voice—drag Lira off, he pushed the candles off him and beat at the top of the box. It had been nailed shut, with tiny holes bored into the sides. The smell of scented candles was sickening. 

He stuck his nails into the sides of the lid, trying to lift it up. It didn’t work; his nails got lodged into the slit and broke. He cried out in pain, his heart wringing itself out with anxiety for the girl. He did not know her. But he did. He did not know her. But he did. He repeated the sentiment in his mind over and over, like a mantra, pushing harder at the lid. Blood trickled down his fingers, welling up in his palms.

‘Come on,’ he whispered. He tried to straighten up in the box, slide a hand into his trouser pocket to reach for his penknife; he had managed to nick one from Warren’s rather conspicuous collection, placed neatly along one of his many shelves. Evian worked fast, ignoring the cuts he received from stabbing the sharp object into the lid. It was a messy job. His elbows hurt. But he thought of Lira and how much he reminded him of Eleanor; he remembered the vampires and the image they had stilled in his mind. If this girl had really saved his life—or even if one of her relatives whom she bore a close resemblance to, he thought hastily, had saved his life—he felt like he owed her.

But more than that: she was a child. She ought not to be a slave in the first place. She ought not to be going through all she had experienced. She deserved a family; she deserved to go back to Rek, the country she had come from. She should not be here, he thought angrily.

And with a last, hard shove, he lifted the lid up and poked his head out of the box.

This all happened within minutes. 

When he stuck his head out of the box, Evian gaped. The station was both bright and dim—shafts of sunlight peeked through the bough-ceiling, smoke swirled on the platform, so that figures appeared clear suddenly, then dim. Everyone was busy, heading towards own compartments on the Steeple, and in the middle of the crowd stood Lira, staring down at her hands in surprise. She was alone. The woman, whatever she had looked like, appeared to have disappeared.

But Evian had not heard her leaving. He had not heard much, except for Lira’s sudden shriek, and that could have been mistaken for the trainmaster’s whistle by most.

Evian opened his mouth to call her name, then realised what a stupid thing this would be for a wanted criminal to do. There was a poster on the pillar in front of him, in fact, that reminded him of this as if it had been put up there by cruel coincidence. A smiling photograph of him from five years ago looked his way; it was oddly disconcerting, seeing his orange hair tamed down, his eyes crinkled up and happy…. He dragged his eyes away from it.

Cursing rationale, Evian stepped out of the box and towards Lira. He put a hand on her shoulder and she jumped, spinning around, her large, doe-like eyes filled with fear.

‘Are you OK?’ he asked her gently.

She nodded.

‘She left?’

Another nod.

‘Good.’ Evian paused. ‘The train hasn’t left yet. If you want, I could help you load the boxes, then hide, and you could come with me.’

Lira looked at her feet. She shuffled slightly. ‘But Master Warren—’

‘I’ll deal with Warren,’ Evian said firmly. ‘Come with me.’

Lira rubbed her arm with a gloved hand, staring at the red imprint the woman’s grip had left on her wrist. She looked up at Evian and smiled. It was a small smile, but it showed the barest strip of teeth, and Evian’s heart swelled to see it there.

They didn’t bother to collect the candles that had fallen to the floor, instead slamming the lid on the box and running towards compartment number 17—Warren’s compartment. As Evian heaved the last box in and made to shut the door, the trainmaster walked up. It was obvious who he was from the bright purple coat he wore and the Royal coat of arms that was printed on his hat. He twirled his large handlebar moustache as he walked, and Evian made to move to the back of the compartment upon seeing him, but Lira clutched tightly at his sleeve and shook her head.

Stupidly, Evian stayed. The cold air pricked at his face and a cloud passed from overhead, so the compartment was much darker than before. The trainmaster stopped in front of them, looking at his clipboard and fingering the whistle that hung from a string around his collar. He glanced up at the pair; when his eyes landed on Evian, his bored expression changed to an odd mix of excitement and surprise. ‘Why—Thresh—’ he began, but Lira stuck her palm in front of his eyes and he stiffened. His grip on the clipboard tightened, his mouth gaping open, eyes glassy as he stared at Lira’s palm. It was as if he was fascinated by the lines running across her palm and could not look away.

Lira snapped her fingers and the trainmaster froze. Shaking his head, he smiled widely at Evian as though nothing had happened. ‘Lovely morning to you, too, sir,’ he said cheerily, grabbing Evian’s hand and pumping it up and down energetically. He ticked at a space on his clipboard, then scribbled something down. ‘And it’s just Mister Warren’s nephew, Wen, and lovely little Pauline today, yes? Lovely.’ He finished writing and tugged at his moustache, smiling widely even as Evian tried not to gape at him. ‘The train departs in two minutes, I do hope you have a pleasant journey.’

He strolled away, his gleaming toe-tops tapping rhythmically on the platform.

Evian blinked, heaved in a deep breath, and turned to look at Lira. The girl slid the compartment door shut and locked it with a deft flick of her wrist. She turned around, inhaling deeply, and plopped down on the floor.

‘What—what was that?’ Evian choked out, eventually, looking at Lira in awe. ‘He recognised me—I saw…. What did you do?’

Lira shifted uncomfortably, her pale face flushed. ‘Nothing,’ she lied, fingers reaching up to play with her coppery braids. ‘I just—maybe Master Warren sent him false names?’ Her voice was high and scared; when she spoke, it was with hesitance, as if she had to choke each word out. ‘He is thorough about these things, Master Warren. Even though I’ve been there for a week, he is … thorough.’ Her voice was thick now, and she gulped, tears threatening to spill from her eyes.

‘Lira…’ Evian sat down, too, across from the girl. ‘He recognised me. I’m not an idiot—please, please don’t lie.’

At the word ‘lie’, she burst into tears.

Evian hesitated slightly. How did one placate a crying child? It had been ages since he had had to deal with anything the like of this—no, in fact, the only person he had comforted recently was Edith, ever since Eleanor had been taken away from him….

He placed a hand on Lira’s knee and just as quickly removed it, afraid he would scare her. She rubbed at her nose with the sleeve of her black dress, leaving a trail of mucus along the cloth.

‘Warren didn’t treat you well, did he?’ he asked. She hiccoughed and shook her head.

‘You were there for how long?’

‘A week,’ she said, the words playing on her lips as if they were something venomous—a vile snake that she had bitten down for too long. ‘I stayed there for a week and it was the worst week of my entire life. Or—or maybe—maybe that’s an exagger—geration.’ She laughed a bitter, short laugh, tugging at her braids again. She didn’t meet Evian’s eyes. ‘I cannot talk very well yet,’ she said slowly. ‘I speak the language of Rek—in your tongue, we have for it no name.’

‘You don’t have to talk about it,’ Evian said, gently, ‘but it might help if you talked about yourself—when you’re ready, that is. Or, er, you could talk to Edith. My wife,’ he added, when Lira looked up at him questioningly. ‘She has a way with people. But you might … you know…’ He waved his hand in the air as if his pointless rambling might explain itself—it aggravated him, how he was able to battle his wits against an Inspektor when required, but when he found himself trying to comfort a little girl, he was the most incoherent dolt alive. Was this how it had been with Eleanor?

Evian found he could not remember.

Lira was still looking at him curiously, waiting for him to continue. Evian cleared his throat.

‘Look—I didn’t have an easy childhood, either, so I can … understand where you’re coming from. Though admittedly, I wasn’t smuggled into a country. And I told you—Warren won’t find you where you’re going’—he sounded more self-assured than he actually was over the matter—‘and we’ll keep you safe. Got it?’ He was pleased when she nodded furiously; her scarf, pulled halfway over her forehead, slipped over her eyes and she tugged it back.

‘Good,’ Evian said, smiling at her. She smiled back. ‘So, what happened with that woman? Do you want to talk about that?’

Lira shook her head again.

‘Well—maybe you could tell me—’

‘My mother, my mother taught me how to do that, like I did to the trainmaster,’ Lira said quickly, before Evian could finish asking. She made a gesture as if to zip her lips. ‘I will say no more. Next question.’ And she looked at Evian with a much brighter face than before. So he did not press her for details.

‘Do you know where we’re meant to be going?’ he asked instead.

Another shake of the head. Evian wondered if all the shaking and nodding Warren had put her through was going to cause her head to fall off one day. He hastily erased the disturbing image from his mind and got to his feet, sitting on the nearest box instead of squatting on the carpeted floor.

‘We’re going to a tiny town that lies between where two rivers meet—it’s my home, and I’m worried for my wife, you see. The town isn’t on any maps either, because we call it a town when it is not.’ He grinned. ‘Clever, right?’

‘Its name?’ Lira asked, hugging her knees close to her chest.

Evian’s eyes shifted their focus elsewhere; his smile was languid, his laugh bright and merry as the name slipped from his tongue with all the ease of a fish that glides along the riverbed.

‘Arrowroad.’

A whistle blew. The train began to move down the track. Excitement welled up in Evian’s chest. Nothing could go wrong now, he thought, his smile unfurling wider across his face. Not when he was headed home.

His smile slipped slightly as he remembered why he was headed home in the first place. Lira looked at him curiously as he got to his feet and paced the windowless compartment, then sat down on a box, crossing and uncrossing his feet.

‘Are you all right?’ Lira asked him meekly.

Closing his eyes, Evian heaved a deep breath. ‘I’m … fine,’ he said, with more conviction than he felt. 

He only hoped that Edith was, too.