For my aunt Virginia, who knows (as do I) that ghosts are real
There was no one at the station when I arrived. I’d slept for most of the three-hour ride, while the train had barreled its way through a blizzard. When it stopped at Hudson, I stepped down from the car and sank into snow that was already shin-deep. I’d barely reached the platform and set down my suitcase before the train sped off again, leaving me all alone with the darkness.
The lights were out at the station house, and when I hurried to the door, I found it locked. We’d pulled away from Penn Station over two hours late. Looking around at the buried town, I could tell it was a miracle we’d reached Hudson at all. I left my bag by the door and stepped out into the night. There was little to see but the swirling snow. I’d never known a world so quiet or so dark.
The warmth of the train car slipped away, and the cold crept through my buttonholes and under the collar of my coat. There were no lights in the buildings and no cars on the road. I was alone in a town I’d never visited, and I was convinced that I’d been forgotten. Fear coiled around me, squeezing the air from my lungs. The courage that had driven me north had vanished. I knew I shouldn’t have come—and now I had nowhere to go.
Then the glare of headlights appeared in the distance, blinding me as a car approached. A taxi pulled up within feet of me and stopped. Then I heard the mechanical hum of a window lowering, followed by a man’s gruff voice.
“Howland?”
The name threw me at first, and panic tightened its grip on my chest.
“Howland?” He shouted it the second time, impatient for an answer. Then I remembered I’d be using my mother’s maiden name.
I wiped away the tears that had welled in my eyes and hoped he hadn’t seen them. “That’s me,” I called back.
The driver’s door opened, and something that looked like a bear emerged. As it waded through the snow and into the headlights’ beams, I saw it was a giant man in a brown fur coat. He passed by with a grunt.
“Get in,” he ordered. “I’ll grab the bag.”
I reluctantly climbed into the backseat of the cab, which was blistering hot and smelled like whatever beast the man must have murdered to make his coat. As he returned to the car with my suitcase, I was able to get a good look at him. He seemed old, though exactly how old was hard to say. A bramble of gray whiskers sprouted from his nostrils and covered his face from the nose down. He opened the door on my left and tossed my enormous suitcase onto the seat beside me. Whatever his age, he was clearly very strong. I didn’t want to be alone in a car with him. If there had been any alternative, I would have jumped at it. I pulled my backpack closer on my lap. Hidden inside were the weapons I’d ordered online for protection—a box cutter and a can of bear repellent.
“That your only suitcase?” the man asked.
“Yes,” I said. He slammed the door in response and opened his own.
I waited until he’d wedged his massive body into the driver’s seat before I asked, “Do you know where I’m going?”
“That I know,” the man said. “Whether we’ll get there is anyone’s guess. Plows haven’t been able to keep up with the snow.” He turned and glared at me over his shoulder. His eyes were so narrow that he seemed to be squinting. “You couldn’t have waited till morning?”
“I didn’t know it would get this bad,” I said. Though even if I had, I wouldn’t have waited. Staying in Manhattan was no longer an option.
“Storm’s gonna get worse before it’s all over,” he informed me. “I’d strap on my safety belt if I was you.”
I noticed his own seat belt still dangling from its hook as he backed the car out of the station. The dashboard warning bell chimed a few times before giving up. We picked up speed, snow hurling itself at the windshield, trying to push us back where we’d come from. There was no road ahead, just a seamless expanse of white.
“How long will it take to get there?” I asked nervously.
“No telling,” the driver said. “Gotta get over the river and up the hill. Outside of town, the roads are bound to be brutal.” He clearly considered it just short of a suicide mission.
“Maybe I should stay in Hudson.”
“I was told your uncle wants you at the manor tonight,” he said. “I suppose he has his reasons.”
“So you know James.” That made me feel better. Not a lot, but a little.
“I live in Louth.” The man peered at me in the rearview mirror, and something in his look gave me the feeling he didn’t care much for my uncle. “Everyone knows everyone in Louth.”
The backseat windows had fogged up. I wiped a circle clear with my coat sleeve and rested my forehead against the glass. No light broke through the darkness around us, and I assumed we’d left civilization behind, until we passed a car idling on the side of the road. I saw its owner shoveling it free from a snowbank, and I realized we were still in town.
“The electric’s out,” I noted. Seventeen years in Manhattan, and I’d only lived through a single blackout.
“Happens,” the man said. “It’s out on the other side of the river, too. You’d better hope they have a fire waiting for you up there at the manor. You’re gonna freeze to death in that place if they don’t.”
“There are worse ways to go,” I muttered.
“What did you say?” he demanded. In the rearview mirror, his eyes were wide open, and I could see they were blue.
“Nothing,” I said, holding his gaze. I knew he’d heard me. And he’d understood.
We didn’t speak much after that.
* * *
—
I don’t know how long the trip took. As soon as I was convinced that death wasn’t imminent, my mind returned to the life I’d just left. But at some point, I heard the car’s engine begin to strain as we started up an incline. I’d only been to my uncle’s house once, right after he moved in, but I’d never forgotten the sight of it sitting on top of its hill. The first time I’d laid eyes on it, I’d thought it looked lonely. There was no better place to hide from the world.
The steeper the climb got, the more our progress slowed, until eventually the car crawled to a stop. Within seconds the wipers were overcome and the windshield was covered with snow.
The driver got out to investigate, and I pushed open my door and followed him.
“What happened?” I asked, wrapping my arms around myself in the sudden cold.