Ashlyn's Radio by Heather Doherty & Norah Wilson

Author:Heather Doherty & Norah Wilson [Doherty, Heather & Wilson, Norah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Norah Wilson
Published: 2011-06-17T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

PRESCOTT JUNCTION WAS EERILY quiet. Eerily dark and stone-still as Caden and Ashlyn tore through the streets. It was as if every curtain had pulled tightly closed and every door had slammed completely shut when the train whistle had sounded.

“They’re all in their beds,” Caden said, as if echoing Ashlyn’s thoughts. Both his hands were tight on the wheel at ten and two, and he stared straight ahead as he sped through the village.

“Let’s just hope they all stay in their beds. Including Rachel. Especially Rachel.” Ashlyn pulled a tight breath. “She promised.”

“Yeah, she did. But you heard the radio.” Caden’s dark eyes met hers just long enough for her to see the depth of his worry. “The conductor’s coming to meet her. He’s hell bent on meeting her. He wants her, Ash. And you saw that look on her face the other night. That….”

“Pull,” Ashlyn finished for him. “That beautiful lure. Maybe she can’t help but run to the tracks when the whistle sounds.” Ashlyn bit down hard on the fear. She’d felt that seductive dark comfort too. Apparently not as strong as Rachel, but she’d felt it. “And that song, Caden. It’s not if she comes. It’s when she comes.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Ashlyn slammed a hand to the SUV’s dash as Caden squealed around the corner, but she had no complaints about Caden’s heavy foot. Less than thirty seconds later, he took another sharp turn, this time taking them off the road.

Small rocks spun up and pinged off the underside of the SUV as Caden streaked across the rough, gravel-covered parking lot behind the train station. Ashlyn could almost feel him cringing — Papa Williams wouldn’t be pleased. Caden drove up to the platform, bringing the car to a stop as close to the tracks as possible.

The old train station? “Why are we stopping here?”

“Because I imagine Rachel always watches — always waits — for the train at the same spot. The one where we met her the other night.” Caden unbuckled his seatbelt and reached for the door handle. “Didn’t she say it was the best place for viewing?”

Of course Rachel would watch from that outcropping of land by the river. While the other night, Ashlyn and Caden had arrived there via the woods path, Rachel had taken her own short cut to get there. Ashlyn unbuckled her seatbelt and stepped into the night with Caden. Into the darkness of it, in quiet Prescott Junction.

Caden offered his hand. She took it, stepped down, then over one barely-visible silver railing to walk on the ties.

Walking home by the tracks after school under the afternoon sun was one thing, but trekking along them now on this dark, cloud-covered night, was another thing entirely. The dark closed in around them, and the cold held tight to their skin. As they walked further away from the station, down toward the train bridge they would have to cross, even the lone yellow light of the station twinkled out behind them. No crickets sounded from the brush that lined both sides of the track.

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