Free Death Train to Boston by Dianne Day Page A

they're young, they change, he thought. The thing was, though: Meiling had changed so much, and in ways that Michael did not understand. Ways that would have been mysterious to most Chinese, and were incomprehensible to him. Her grandmother's magic, she'd said, had changed her.
    Meiling had gone to Stanford with the goal of studying geology, or, as she herself had called it, "the science of the earth." But after receiving the gift of her grandmother's chest, her eyes had been opened to much, much more. Meiling now claimed to understand more about the earth than science alone could teach. She talked of chi, the life force that runs through all living things, and through the earth and sky as well. She talked of maintaining a healthful balance, of the ways good energy moves, and of things that block the movement of energy. Her wind chimes and the colored banners outside the tiny house in Palo Alto had something to do with all this. So did the colors that accented her clothing, and so many other things it made Michael's head spin.
    Also in that chest, Meiling's grandmother had left a very old book, full of secret teachings and recipes for magic, a kind of Chinese grimoire. Bells, incense, combs and mirrors, silk ribbons and satin ropes, bones and beads and shells—all that and more came from the chest. With the book and her recollection of lessons from childhood, Meiling was teaching herself to be a Chinese magician.
    This would have been fine with Michael if not for two things. First, she had abandoned her studies at Stanford in order to follow this questionable pursuit; and second, Meiling had begun to talk of demons and malevolent spirits. Michael did not believe in demons and malevolent spirits, he believed that man was evil enough already and did not require any help from the spirit world.
    From away in the darkness the train's locomotive gave its haunting whistle. Michael stopped pacing to stand near the edge of the platform and look down the tracks. He could see the lamps on either side of the engine glowing like eyes in the dark. His imagination, fired by thoughts of Meiling and her magic, could easily turn the train into a dragon belching steam.
    Dragons are good luck to the Chinese, he thought, forcing the corners of his mouth into a grim smile. And Meiling and I will need all the good luck we can gather for the time ahead.

6
    WHEN I LET my legs take most of my weight, something both quite remarkable and perfectly awful happened: My body simply would not support me. With a painful protest, it gave way all at once. Being woefully without medical knowledge, I could not have said whether it was the musculature of the legs that would not perform, whether the bones beneath those muscles were fractured, whether my blood had simply grown too thin, or what. Add to that the shortness of breath that had me gasping once I'd collapsed back into the chair, and altogether it made for a genuinely bad experience. As I have seldom been sick in my life, I did not know what to think of this—other than to try not to let it make me feel too much worse than I already did.
    I was thinking how much I should like the doctor to come back and see me again, now that I was in my right mind and could question him, when Tabitha returned with her sister Sarah. Once again I did not hear them approach—it was Tabitha's light knock followed by the opening of the latch that alerted me to their imminent appearance.
    "Come in, please," I called out, very glad of the distraction.
    "I'm back," Tabitha announced excitedly and unnecessarily. "Here's Sarah too, and we've brought some of our things to show you!"
    The sisters did indeed look much alike, though seeing them side by side I thought Sarah seemed more than just the three years older that Tabitha had mentioned. Sarah's dress was blue-gray rather than brown, and her collar and cuffs bore delicate cutwork instead of lace. There were other differences as well: Sarah lacked her younger sister's