Mr. Wilson sent me around the back to a storage shed where there was a large wheelbarrow to gather up the packages coming into the station from...well, from who knew where? I hadn't had time to study the schedule yet, and I was curious to know where their 'regular' trains came from, since the one I'd arrived on was so special.
"Just let me do the talking," he instructed. The wheelbarrow squeaked as if in weary anticipation of the burden to come as I pushed it along. "Samuel is a good man, but like I said, he doesn't take well to out of town visitors."
"May I ask why?"
"He has his reasons." Suddenly he shot me a grim expression. "We all have our reasons."
From the tone of his voice I knew better than to ask what those reasons might be.
Wishing Cross was pretty much deserted this time of the morning.
"The first freight pulls in about now. Then the passenger trains come later in the day."
"From where?" I asked.
"Oh, lots of places," he said with a dismissive wave. "Most folk are just passing through on their way to much bigger towns. If we're lucky, they stop in the store while they're here. That's about it. Most of our regular business comes from the people in town."
"And how many people live in town?"
"You ask an awful lot of questions, boy." He frowned, taking a cigar from his pocket and sticking it into his mouth, biting down. He didn't light it.
"Apologies," I said repentantly, lowering my eyes.
He grumbled something I didn't quite catch. His steps quickened as he saw a man of exceptionally tall stature standing in the distance, just outside the ticket booth.
"The Stationmaster," Mr. Wilson said. "Samuel Sutton. His wife, Helen, works in the ticket booth, among other duties. His oldest son, Samuel Junior, is almost twenty-one and carries a lot of responsibility at the station."
"Anyone else I should look out for?"
"The rest of the family, and it's a complicated one. Will take you awhile to keep them all straight. You see, Helen is the third Mrs. Sutton; the first two died very young, rest their souls."
"Sorry to hear," I said. That explained why the Stationmaster looked to be a man in his early fifties, while his wife was at least twenty years his junior.
"There's a daughter from his second wife. They weren't married very long. She died when their only daughter, Marigold, was still tiny. The girl's got to be eighteen by now. Sweet little thing, really." He softened for a moment, but then he was all business once again. "There are the twins, Joseph and Jeremiah. They do most of the small deliveries to the shop from the station and have been delivering the postal packages. Needless to say, even though Samuel has raised them with a strict hand, they're boys, and boys will be boys. That's why I'm hoping this arrangement between us works out, Mr. Wainwright, to get me through the busy holiday season. Then I can hire someone permanently at my leisure."
"Yes, sir."
"I guess we'd best waste no more time. Let's go talk to Mr. Sutton."
The closer we got to the man, the more amazed I was by the enormity of him. He was a giant; had to be at least six-foot-six in his boots, with shoulders so broad they obscured the light of the lamp in the window of the ticket booth.
Samuel Sutton, I thought. S.J. Sutton was the name on the front of the book... he was still Stationmaster?
"Samuel," Mr. Wilson called, "A word, if you please?"
The Stationmaster growled a sort of a greeting; what he said exactly, I couldn't tell. His graying beard was full, and his eyes were steel colored, menacing, judging me as he stared through me, daggers of ice.
"This is Mr. Wainwright. He's new in town and needs a job for about a month to earn some money to send him back on his way. He's boarding with the jeweler, and since he's young and strong, I decided to give him a try on deliveries. Until further notice, he's authorized by me to pick up postal items from the station and to deliver them where they need to go."
"Stationmaster," I held my hand out, but Sutton's never left his side. He withdrew a watch from the pocket in his vest and held it up to the light, casually checking the time. "It's a pleasure to meet you, sir. I hope I will be able to make both of your lives a little easier if I work hard enough."
Again, Sutton only grumbled.
"Still, send Jeremiah and Joseph by my store in the afternoons, Sutton," Mr. Wilson continued. "I may have purchases from the store they need to bring back here, or run around town for me."
"Very well," Sutton finally spoke intelligibly, as Wilson just chomped on his cigar between sentences. "Those two need something to keep them out of trouble, and work is the only thing for it."
He examined me again, and then finally, grudgingly, held out his hand to me. I shook firmly, and he seemed to approve of the gesture, as he returned it before releasing me. I had no doubt one of those powerful hands could crush my windpipe with absolutely no effort whatsoever if he desired.
"Who is going to show him the way around town? Acquaint him with the ins and outs of things?" Sutton asked.
"I was going to give him a map of the delivery route. He seems a smart enough boy, I think he can handle it."
"The boarding houses for women," Sutton barked. "They won't let a strange man anywhere near. He's going to need someone to introduce him around, until folks get to know him. You of all people should know how locals feel about strangers in this town."
He nearly spat the word strangers, and I got the message loud and clear: he didn't like me, he didn't want me here, and the sooner I left Wishing Cross, the better.
"What about Marigold?" Wilson suggested, withdrawing the fat, unlit smoke from his mouth and gesturing with it between two fingers. "She could introduce him around."
Sutton's frown deepened.
"Or... Sam could do it."
"Samuel Junior is far too busy for such nonsense work," Mr. Sutton concluded, waving a hand in the air. "Boy shoulders a lot of weight around here, as it should be. You're right, Wilson. Marigold is the best choice. But only for a day or two, mind. I need her at her usual work around the station during this busy season."
"If the boy can't figure it all out by then, believe me, he will no longer be in my employ," Wilson assured, speaking of me as if I were not present. I choked back my irritation and stood politely with my hands folded. This was not a time in which sarcasm, especially from the younger members of society, was well tolerated by their elders. I had no desire to get my ears boxed or some other, similar reaction from either man, especially not from the Stationmaster, who continued to project a dark, heavy cloud of anger and constant irritation.
"Marigold isn't awake yet, but I will wake her now. Then I'll be sure she's up and ready to meet Mr. Wainwright tomorrow morning."
"Very well. Thank you, Stationmaster."
Sutton nodded, then turned and strode away. His coat billowed behind him as he walked, and his fine boots made an ominous clacking sound against the platform. Even as he disappeared into the distance, he seemed no smaller than when he'd been standing right in front of me.
***
Wilson left me to wait for Marigold, the daughter of the most powerful man in town, and one the man himself didn't seem to have much kindness or softness for.
I doubted Samuel Sutton had a soft spot within him at all, for anyone.
A short time later, Marigold came rushing toward me, her hair askew as it fought to fall from the up-do she had twisted it into with obvious haste. Her eyes were red; it was clear she'd barely slept. The unsteadiness of her steps told me she'd had no time to eat before she was sent to work.
"I'm sorry, so sorry to have kept you waiting." It was nearly identical a greeting to the first she'd given me the day before when we'd nearly collided, which had been my fault. Now she was saying sorry for keeping me waiting, when it was I who should apologize that she was awakened so early because of me.
It seemed this girl made a habit of apologizing for things she had no control over, or should feel any blame for.
It reminded me of my own relationship with my mother. No matter what I did, I could never seem to please her, and I believed, deep down, I never would. Invariably, our conversations ended with me apologizing; I never really knew, though, what I had to be sorry for.
"Please, don't apologize. If anything, I should say sorry to you because they woke you at such an ungodly hour on my account."
"Think nothing of it...wait, we've met before, haven't we?" She suddenly seemed excited by the idea. She lowered her voice and whispered. "You came in on the special."
"Yes, I did."
"I didn't recognize you in your fine work clothes," she said, admiring my coat. "They must have cost a fortune."
"Had to pawn my Grandfather's watch to Mr. Best in order to afford them," I admitted, and she frowned.
"I'm sorry to hear that. But Mr. Best is a good, honest man. If you pay him on time, you're sure to get it back."
"I hope so. And I believe you about Mr. Best. He agreed to rent me a room, otherwise I'd have been sleeping who knows where last night."
"I'm glad. He'll be good company for you, too. Such a kind hearted man." She looked down at the ground. "Such a shame about his wife. She was a sweet, lovely person."
I noticed we were getting another glare from the Stationmaster as he paced the opposite end of the platform. "We had better get started. I think your father is uncertain about this arrangement."
"Well, he may be uncertain, but I am pleased. A break from my normal duties will be most welcome," she said, and then she extended her delicate, gloved hand toward me. "I don't believe we've been properly introduced. Your name, sir?"
My palms began to sweat, and my heart sped up as she reached out to me. Such a uniquely beautiful woman, like a porcelain doll in a toyshop's window, and she was trying to shake my hand.
I did the first thing I thought to do; instead of shaking, I drew her hand upward and bowed at the same time, placing a quick peck on the fabric covering it. "Keigan Wainwright, Miss. I am pleased to make your acquaintance."
She didn't withdraw her hand as I expected, she merely turned it to the side and gave my hand a shake in return for the kiss. "Marigold Sutton. But everybody pretty much calls me Mari. Well, except for Father and Helen, of course. They don't believe in the shortening of names, they're much more..." She raised her eyes up toward the sky, searching for the right word.
"Formal?" I offered. "Proper?"
"Exactly!" She nodded, and a warm smile spread across her full, pink mouth.
Such a beautiful mouth...
I internally cursed myself, and my hormones. Stop it, Keigan. Stop it right now. "Marigold is a lovely name."
She lowered her eyes a moment as if thanking me, then continued on with the business at hand. "To begin, we'll fetch the packages they unload from the first train of the day and then take them to Mr. Wilson for inspection. Then, we'll sort them by where they're supposed to go, or whether or not they're supposed to be picked up at the postal counter in the General Store. After that, if there are more than a few, we will go out and deliver them right away before heading back to meet the next train. If there is only one or two, they'll wait until we have more."
"You sound like you should be doing this job, not me," I said, as she led me down to the point where the last cars would stop when the train pulled into the station.
"If I were a boy, I would be doing it all the time," she confided. "I have done it a few times in the past, when my brothers were too young, sick, or unable. But the moment Joseph and Jeremiah could manage to pull a wagon with parcels behind them, the job was theirs. We had a man, Mr. Matthews, who made the official postal deliveries for many years, but he retired not long ago and is living on a farm at the very edge of town with his wife and a large flock of sheep."
I wondered if that explained the sheep and farm at the historical park, but I didn't have time to ponder that question for long. For one thing, my mind seemed to be involuntarily analyzing everything about the girl standing beside me, seeking information, wanting to catalogue each detail about her, even as I tried to pay attention to what I was supposed to do.
We heard the blast of a train whistle in the distance, and she nodded. "That's the number eight. It usually doesn't have as much mail as the seven, which comes in..." She took a small watch from her pocket and looked at it closely. "Precisely an hour and ten minutes from now. The eight carries mostly heavy freight, the seven people and mail."
I nodded. I couldn't stop staring at her, even as her eyes remained fixed on the faintly visible white smoke coming toward us from the distance.
***
We went through the process of gathering up the parcels and taking them to the General Store, just as she described; then we loaded the outgoing mail into my wheelbarrow. Soon, we were standing on the platform again, awaiting the number seven train. By this point, the sun was finally beginning to appear in the deepest folds of a sleepy, frozen sky. The first beams of morning light brightened her face, a sight I will never forget, no matter how old I live to be. Her cheeks and nose were rosy from the cold; snow gently sifted down like icing sugar from above. It glistened on her shoulders, dusting her in diamonds.
She glanced over at me, at the gathering snow on my eyelashes, hair, and coat, and reached up as if to brush it away. Then she stopped, and her cheeks turned even redder. "Sorry. I don't know what came over me."
I just smiled politely, saving her any embarrassment by changing the subject. Inside, though, my heart was pounding. "Sounds like the number seven is almost here."
The brakes squealed to announce the train's arrival, and our workday began in earnest. She surprised me with her physical strength, lifting crates and parcels I warned her against, but couldn't move fast enough to stop her from carrying.
"I work hard every day, Mr. Wainwright. Today will be no different." Her hat teetered on her head, and she took a moment to adjust the pins fastening it to her hair before she kept piling mail into my wheelbarrow. "We're going to need another, because Christmas is coming. I'll be right back."
She ran in a manner almost like skipping as she headed for a supply shed and returned with an empty one. I had no idea how she was going to haul it with a heavy mailbag inside, but again she surprised me, pushing it when it was full and nodding to me.
"That's enough for now. We will come back for the rest."
"They'll be safe here?"
She laughed. "You are strange, Mr. Wainwright. Who in the world would steal someone else's mail?"
She had absolutely no idea how different her time was from mine.
"Of course, how silly of me." I said, struggling to control my burden as I forced it through the snow, which was beginning to pile up.
I was grateful for the non-skid soles on my 'boots from the future' and had no idea how she was staying upright on her own dainty ones in these conditions.
"Be sure to wipe your feet before you go into the store," she warned.
I did as I was told, scraping my feet as hard as I could on the bristly mat on the doorstep.
Then she stopped. "Oh no, I almost forgot. We're supposed to go in the back door. I made that mistake once before, and the lecture Mr. Wilson gave my father resulted in a whipping when I got home."
My jaw clenched. "Whipping? Really?"
She eyed the narrow patch of snow-covered grass leading to the back. "We can't take the wheelbarrows over that. We'll have to carry the parcels in by hand."
"Then back out again."
She nodded.
"He can't come out here himself and do whatever he needs to do?"
"Heavens no! It's cold and besides..." She shrugged. "He has to log them in. His book would be ruined."
"All right." She definitely was used to a harder, and less efficient, workday than I was. I wondered what she'd think if she knew every book we had in my time had a code you just scanned in, and a computer immediately knew everything about it.
Well, almost every book.
"Miss Sutton, you must take a break from the cold. If you wipe your feet and then stand just inside the store, I will bring the packages up, and you can give them to Mr. Wilson so he can begin his log."
"Are you certain? I assure you, I am quite capable."
"I have no doubt," I answered, and it was true. As delicate as she looked, she had already proved that beneath all those layers of clothing was some real strength and muscle. Still, I wanted to spare her what hard work I could, for as long as I was able. "And if we do it that way, less water gets on Mr. Wilson's floors."
"That is a good point. All right. Agreed." She began to shuffle her feet on the mat, and then knocked upon the door so Wilson would unlock it.
"It's about time, I thought you two decided to wander off and hang the mail!"
"I apologize, Mr. Wilson. The snow made it difficult to push the wheelbarrows. We'll work faster on the next trip," I promised.
"You'd better," he grumbled, chomping again on his ever-present unlit cigar, and gestured for Marigold to set the parcels down just inside the doorway. "You know what to do."
"Yes, sir." She took off her coat, hung it on a rack by the door, and rolled up her sleeves, prepared to get to work.
As I shuttled packages back and forth from our shipment, I considered the book and the man it belonged to. Samuel J. Sutton, Stationmaster: the book was rightfully his. But how could I just hand it over to him casually, as if I'd found it on the ground at the station under a bench somewhere? Surely he knew it was missing, and may even know who originally took it. Besides, Seymour stressed that the book had to be returned to this time and if possible, destroyed here.
I could just toss it into the wood stove in my small room and this would all be over. If I did that, though, without knowing what was in it or if it controlled my fate and my ability to return home again, I could be in even greater trouble than I already was. I knew I had to wait.
I had to read the whole thing. I had to figure out what it all meant, how it fit into this place, and if it were, as Seymour claimed, a danger to the people who inhabited it.
***
Time seemed to fly by in Marigold's company, but once it was just me slogging packages back and forth in knee-deep snow with boots that only came to my ankles, it got old fast. Finally, in my finite wisdom, I thought to ask Mr. Wilson a question.
"Sir, do you have a shovel I can use? To clear the way? We'll move much faster if there's a trail."
"Waste of time, boy," he snarled. "Expecting it to snow all day. By the time you're back with the next batch, it'll be just as high. Keep working. You're on trial today, mind."
The yeah but, formed in my brain and almost made it to my tongue, but I clamped it down and kept on working. "Yes, sir."
Eventually it was time to go back for more mail, and Marigold reappeared in her hat and coat, ready for another run. I was glad she'd been able to warm up. I was freezing, wet, and cold to the bone. My lungs ached, and I wished I'd remembered to bring my inhaler. I hated the thought I might have to go back to my room for it, but knew I couldn't show it off publicly; it was technology over a hundred years out of its time.
"Are you all right?" she asked as we headed back to the station, and I feared I wasn't the only one who could hear my lungs wheezing with each breath.
"My lungs are weak. I have medicine for them back at my room," I confided, knowing I had to.
"Then we must stop and get it. The jeweler's is just across the street."
"We don't have time."
"If you need it we must make the time, Mr. Wainwright."
I needed it, and so we did. We hurried across the untouched snow in the street, and I went up the back stairs, trying not to track water in with me but finding it was of little use.
I hurried to take a couple of puffs from my inhaler and tucked it into my coat pocket. I didn't know where I'd find the privacy to use it around here if I needed to, except maybe in one of the outhouses, which definitely didn't thrill me. But if I couldn't breathe, well, nothing else really mattered.
When I came back downstairs I saw no sign of Marigold. It took me a few moments of searching to discover she was inside the shop, talking to Mr. Best.
I opened the door and only leaned in so as to keep the floor clean. "Better now, time to go."
Marigold nodded, first to Mr. Best and then to me. "It's been a pleasure, sir. I will look forward to you joining us, then."
"Thank you for the kind invitation," Mr. Best said. "Please express my anticipation and gratitude to your father, and to Helen."
"I will."
She pulled her gloves back on as she exited the store and picked up the handles of her wheelbarrow once more. "Helen, my step-mother, wanted me to invite Mr. Best over for Christmas dinner. He's known our family as long as I can remember, and Father didn't want him to be alone on the holiday."
"Very kind of him."
"He can be a very kind man," Marigold said, her eyes and voice becoming distant. "When he chooses."
"And your step-mother?"
"Yes," she continued, as we fought our way up the block. "Helen is Father's third wife. First was Grace; she was my big brother Sam's mother. Later, Helen, who is mother to Jeremiah and Joseph, who are thirteen. And of course there is the baby on the way."
"And your mother?" I looked at her apologetically as soon as I'd asked. Such a forward, personal question, especially during these times.
"She died when I was very young. I barely remember her. I have very little from her, only this necklace. And a few embroidered handkerchiefs. A pair of lace gloves." She catalogued the small treasure trove with wistful affection as she lifted the chain so I could see the pendant dangling from it. "She said someone had it made especially for her. I remember she was sweet, and very kind to me. I was so small when she died and afterward..."
I glanced at the necklace as she fiddled with it absentmindedly. The symbol was very unique, something I didn't recall ever having seen before anywhere. I felt like I should say something, but honestly I didn't know what.
"I'm sorry, Miss Sutton."
Her eyes focused upon the ground as she pushed onward.
I figured since I was in this deep, I may as well risk one more question before I changed the subject. "You didn't tell me what your mother's name was."
"Oh, it was as beautiful as she was." She smiled now. "Her name was Aurelia Belle."
The air rushed from my lungs; a silent exclamation of surprise. The voice of the Park tour guide echoed in my head: she'd said that Fox never explained who it was he'd named the Aurelia Belle after.
It couldn't be coincidence that the engine and Marigold's mother had the same name.
What the hell happened in this town, back in 1862?