Ivy nodded, then climbed the steps. From the police report she knew which pillar Philip had found her leaning against-propped up against, she corrected herself: the one labeled D. But she had forgotten how close the metal pillars were to the edge of the platform and how close the platform was to the track.
When she saw it, her stomach lurched.
She knew she should stand with her back against the pillar and try to remember how it had been that night, but she couldn't do it, not yet. She hurried along the platform to the steps that led to the bridge over the tracks. Then she crossed the bridge to the other side. From the northbound platform, Ivy looked back at Will, who was sitting on a bench, waiting patiently for her.
She began to pace around. Who could have been there that night? If Philip's story was true, someone had dressed up like Tristan. Almost anyone could have gotten their hands on a school jacket and baseball cap.
And wearing them half in the shadows, anyone could have looked like Tristan-including Gregory.
She backed away quickly from that thought. She was getting paranoid, suspecting Gregory. But maybe it wasn't so paranoid to imagine Eric doing it. She remembered the night he had drawn Will onto the railroad bridge just before a train came. Eric got his kicks out of dangerous games. And Eric definitely had access to drugs.
A long, shrill sound broke in on Ivy's thoughts, a whistle from a train headed south, echoing against the steep wall of the ridge. She looked back over her shoulder at the rocky hillside. It seemed impossible that Philip could have made it down safely, but maybe if angels were real, if Tristan was there…
The whistle sounded again. Ivy started to run. She took the steps two at a time, then raced across the bridge and down the other side. She could hear the rumbling of the train before she saw its headlight, a pale, blind eye in the daytime. It was one of the big Amtraks that would rush straight through.
She ran to the pillar and stood with her back to it, close to the edge, transfixed by the train's white eye.
Her heart beat faster and faster as the train sped toward her. She remembered Philip's old story about a train climbing up the hill-a train that was seeking her. It thundered toward her now, its lines sparking, the platform beneath her vibrating.
She felt as if her shaking body would fly apart.
Then the train blew by her in one long blur.
Ivy didn't know how long he had been standing there, close behind her, letting her knot her fingers in his.
She turned her head sideways, looking at Will over her shoulder.
"I'm glad you didn't jump," he said with a half smile. "We both would have gone."
Ivy loosened her fingers and turned to face him.
"Do you remember now?" Will asked.
She shook her head wearily. "No."
Will lifted his arm as if he might touch her cheek. She looked up at him, and he pulled his hand back quickly, digging it into his pocket. "Let's get out of here," he said.
Ivy followed him to the car, continually glancing back at the tracks.
What if Gregory and Eric had worked together? she thought. But she still couldn't believe that anybody, least of all Gregory, would want to hurt her. He cared about her-she'd thought he cared deeply.
They drove out of the parking lot silently, Will apparently as deep in thought as she. Then Ivy sat up quickly and pointed. About fifty yards past the exit, a red Harley was parked on the side of the road. "It looks like Eric's," she said.
"It is."
A long drainage ditch with high grass and shrubs bordered the road. Eric was searching the ditch and was so intent on his task that he didn't notice the car pulling over on the road's shoulder.
When Will opened the door, Eric's head bobbed up. "Lose something?" Will asked, stepping out. "Need some help looking?"
Eric screened his eyes against the slant of the sun. "No, thanks, Will," he called back. "I'm just trying to find an old bungee cord I use to tie things down." Then he noticed Ivy in the car. He seemed startled, glancing from her to Will and back again. He waved them on. "I'm giving up in a minute," he said.
Will nodded and got back into the car.
"He was looking awfully hard for an old bungee cord," Ivy remarked as they drove away.
"Ivy," Will said, "is there any reason why somebody would want to scare you or hurt you?"
"What do you mean?"
"Is anyone holding a grudge against you?"
"No," she replied slowly. There isn't anyone now, she thought. The past winter had been a different story: Gregory hadn't been at all happy about his father's marriage to Maggie. But his resentment and anger had disappeared months ago, she reminded herself quickly. Gregory had been wonderful to her since Tristan died, comforting her, even rescuing her the day of the break-in. It was Gregory who had gotten there first, scaring off the intruder, pulling the bag off her head just when Will arrived.
Or had he? Maybe he had been there all along.
His excuse for returning home that day had been an odd one. Suddenly Ivy felt cold all over. What if Gregory himself had attacked her, then changed plans when Will showed up?
The thought ran through her like an icy river, and her scalp and the skin on the back of her neck crawled.
Ivy twisted her hands. Without realizing it, she bent a pen she had picked up from the car seat, cracking its plastic shell.
"Here," Will said, taking the pen away from her and offering her his hand. "I'll need my fingers back when we get to your house," he said, smiling, "but for now you won't get ink all over you."
Ivy gripped his hand. She held on tightly to Will and turned her head to watch bright patches of green flickering past them, the end of summer spliced with sharp shadows of fall.
"I've always been there for you. I love you." The words floated back to her. "Will, when we were dancing and Tristan was inside you, and you said-" She hesitated.
"And I said…?"
"'I've always been there for you. I love you.'" She saw Will swallow hard. "It was Tristan speaking, right?"
Ivy said. "It was just Tristan saying that, and I misunderstood. Right?"
Will watched a wishbone of geese flying across the sky. "Right," he said at last.
Neither of them spoke the rest of the way home.
Ivy stood next to Philip in his room, surveying a bookcase full of treasures: the angel statues she had given him after Tristan died, a stand-up paper doll of Don Mattingly, fossils from Andrew, and a rusty railroad spike.
Philip and Maggie had arrived home that afternoon just as Will was dropping off Ivy. After Ivy and Philip shared a snack, she'd scooped up his school-books while he carefully carried his newest treasure, a moldy bird's nest, up to his room. Ivy watched him install the nest in a place of honor, then she ran her hand down the line of angel statues. She touched one that wasn't her own, an angel in a baseball uniform with wings.
"That's the statue Tristan's friend brought me," Philip told her. "I mean the girl angel. I've seen her a couple of times."
"You've seen another angel? Are you sure?" Ivy asked, surprised.
Philip nodded. "She came to our big party."
"How can you tell her apart from Tristan?" Ivy wondered.
Philip thought for a moment. "Her colors are more purplish."
"How do you know she's a girl?"
"She's shaped like one," he said.
"Oh."
"Like a girl your age," he added. From beneath a stack of comic books, Philip dug out a photograph with a strange pale blur in it. Ivy recognized the picture: it was the first photo that Will had taken of them at the arts festival.