Supervision

“The train,” Mr. Black said when the blast had ended.

“I came into town on that train,” I said.

Tom said, “Me too.” And then he began to run.

“Stop him!” Mr. Black said. He leapt from the headstone, the bottle crashing to the ground and breaking. Mr. Black didn’t even glance at it. “Go after him!”

But Tom was gone, halfway past the house already.

“What’s the matter with you?” I said. “Where’s he going?”

Mr. Black bounded through the weeds and extended his hand to me. Without even thinking, I took it and we ran down the hill, past the house, over the driveway and across the road. It was the first time I had run with a ghost. We didn’t fly, not exactly, but we seemed to reach the train station in the time it took me to blink, to breathe in and out. I think my feet touched the ground only twice, like a send-off, a moon-bounce. I felt Mr. Black’s hand, hard and strong, in my own. His black scarf flapped in the wind. Then we were on the platform outside the train station, Mr. Black resting with his arm against the wall; running with me appeared to have exhausted him.

“Where’s Tom?” I asked.

Mr. Black just pointed at the tracks. He seemed breathless, though he had no breath.

I crept to the edge of the platform, and saw Tom down below, stepping over the rails. Silver flashed in his hands. It was a wrench. “Tom, what are you doing?” I said.

He looked up at me briefly, then bent back to his work. He was twisting at something, trying to turn a lever on the ground. He didn’t seem to see me. No, he didn’t seem to know me.

A light sped toward the tracks, blinding even in daytime. The train, the Keystone. The Keystone was coming. I glanced back at Mr. Black, then hopped down from the platform. I landed on my feet, shaky but standing. “Tom, what are you doing?” I repeated. I reached him and tried to touch him, grabbing for the wrench, but he yanked it back.

“Stopping the train.” His hands kept moving. “Changing its path. I have to do this.”

“Why? Is there someone on the train? Tom, it’s a real train. There are people on it. Innocent living people.”

He looked at me. His face had more color. It was dirty, I realized, and through the dirt snaked pale, silvery tears. Tom was crying. “Living people matter more than me?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t know.”

The train blasted its horn. The conductor couldn’t have seen us; no one saw us. It was just what the train did automatically when it approached a station. But the sound was so close, I felt it in my chest, felt it coming through the ground: the deep resonate bass of the engine. The train cleared the curve right before the station.

“Tom,” I said.

“Well, ho there.” Walking to us, picking his way across the tracks, swinging a lantern, was a man.

I felt arms. I felt myself being lifted. I felt weightless, my body pulled up and away from the tracks, the headlight, the roaring engine. I saw the man who had spoken was an old man.