“No, she’s been gone for years, but… I never knew she was proud of me.” With another nod, she cut off the call. I hadn’t done anything magical, but the end of the call left me feeling oddly drained. Maybe it was just emotionally.
“Peter?” Drew asked. “Are you still here?”
He appeared beside me. “Of course.”
“You said this train doesn’t stop?” Drew was going somewhere with this, but I had no idea where.
“No,” Peter said. “We can make it slow down, but it will not completely stop.”
“Could you get us to Shipton Harbor?” he asked. “We could jump off.”
That was a disaster waiting to happen. But hey, it was a risk I was willing to take to get home.
We rushed up to the front of the train to talk to Captain. It was the first time I’d seen him, and I realized that the ghosts could control which supernatural person could see them. That was interesting.
Captain was still in his army uniform and by the looks of it, if I remembered my history lesson correctly, he’d died during the Civil War. He looked at all of us and gave a short nod. “What can I help you with?”
“We were wondering if you could take us to Shipton Harbor, Maine,” I asked and Olivia nodded.
Then Olivia said, “Wait. Shipton doesn’t have a train station.”
Captain smirked and winked at her, not that she could see him. “I don’t need a station. But you are aware you’ll have to jump.”
“Yeah, we’re aware.” I wasn’t happy about it, but what other option did we have?
“All right, then. Next stop...well, next slowdown will be Shipton Harbor.”
Chapter Eighteen
We pulled up to a train station. Or at least I thought it was a station. Captain said he didn’t need a station, but maybe he’d meant not a real one. He made his own? Squinting, I tried to make out the sign, but we passed it too fast.
“Okay,” Captain said. “We’ll work together to slow this thing down, but we can’t stop it. You need to get ready to jump.”
“Question.” Drew held up one finger. “Will jumping off the train take us off this ghostly plane?”
Captain arched an eyebrow. “No idea. Come now, we’re getting close.”
“This way.” Peter ushered us toward the back of the car, where a door waited. I was sure that door had not been there moments ago. He opened it. “Now, I’m going to help them slow the train down. You guys get ready to jump when Captain yells.”
He disappeared. “Bye,” I called. “It was nice to meet you, Peter.”
Peter reappeared for a split second. “Nice to meet you, too, Ava. I hope we meet again someday.”
“How do they slow down the train?” Olivia whispered.
We didn’t have time to ask, though, because suddenly the car shook and slowed enough that it nearly took us off our feet.
“Steady, men!” Captain yelled, steering the train closer to the station. I began to recognize Main Street in Shipton, but there’d never been a train station in town for as long as I’d lived there.
“We have a train station?” Drew asked, looking bewildered.
“This whole trip is nuts,” Olivia muttered, then broke out into a huge grin. “I love it!”
I laughed. She would. I swore the only reason she liked me so much was because my life was crazy.
Drew chuckled. “At least Luci didn’t zap us anywhere.” He shuddered. “That was the worst.”
“Get ready,” Captain called. “Almost time.”
The train slowed even more. We grabbed our bags. “Throw your luggage,” Captain said.
Drew threw them one at a time onto the wooden walkway lining the train station.
“Now!” Captain yelled. “We can’t hold it much longer!”
Holding out his hand, Drew turned toward me. But it turned out the ghosts had done a great job of slowing the train down. I was able to just hop off and skip forward a little bit before stopping. I turned to find Olivia and Sam already off and Drew stepped foot on the walkway just in time for the train to take off like a shot.
It blurred as it went by, but I spotted Peter waving from a window as it rocketed off into the darkness.
“Well,” Olivia said. “We’re still on a ghostly plane.”
As soon as the train was out of sight, the train station disappeared. We landed on the concrete sidewalk of Shipton with a thump, right in front of Imaginary Homes Bookstore, where Owen and I worked part-time.
“We gotta find out if that train station was ever actually there,” Olivia said as she looked around.
“The sun’s almost up.” Drew looked down Main Street. “But you’re right. We didn’t come out of the ghostly plane.”
He was right. Everything was still dull and almost greyed out. I extended my magic to see what I could figure out, but it didn’t feel a hundred percent right. “Yeah, we’re still ghostly.”
We turned in a circle, looking around at each other and the town. “Can anyone see us?” I asked.
Whistling along the sidewalk, the owner of Peachy Sweets, our local—and delicious—bakery where Olivia got her sweets every morning, walked around the building, jingling her keys.
“Hey,” Olivia said. “Kelly!”
But Kelly didn’t hear her. On light feet, Olivia crossed the road and stood directly in Kelly’s path.
And Kelly walked through her.
“Ahh!” Olivia screeched. “That tickled!” She hurried back over and tucked herself in Sam’s arms. “Not in a good way. I don’t want to be dead anymore.”
“You’re not dead.” I giggled. “None of us are. We’re just in an alternate reality, I think.”
“Now what?” Drew asked. “How do we get out of this reality and back to our own?”
“Let’s get back to the house.” I started down Main Street in the direction of Winston. “Owen will be able to see us. He can call the coven and we’ll figure out how to come through.”
With a sigh, Olivia followed. “I can’t see what else we can do.” She sniffled. “This was fun at first, but now I’m kind of freaked out. What if I never see Sammie again?”
I looped my arm through hers. “You will. Don’t worry.”
We started walking with the guys following, and then I spotted Clint exiting his car. “Oh, I forgot. He’s doing inventory this week and coming in several hours early.”
An evil thought crossed my mind. We could have a little fun while no one could see us. “Want to lift your spirits?” I asked, nudging Olivia.
Olivia looked at me with narrowed eyes, suspicious. “What are you thinking?”
Stepping forward, first I tested to make sure Clint couldn’t see me. When none of my silly faces I made got a response from him, I giggled. Then, I followed him into the store.
Olivia was stuck outside, though, because he shut the door before she could slip through. As he walked toward the back of the stacks, I focused on trying to unlock the door, but couldn’t because my hand slipped right through it. “Oh.” I laughed. “Just walk through.”