Midnight Train to Paris (9 page)

“Mademoiselle, are you boarding?” the conductor calls out to me in French as he steps down from the train. His spiffy, royal-blue uniform and pristine white gloves are a welcome sight on this cold, frightening evening.

Just as I’m about to answer him, a second train rolls down the tracks to my right. This one isn’t as showy as the Orient Express, but it does have something I need—Samuel.

“The Venice Simplon-Orient-Express will be leaving in three minutes, Mademoiselle.” The conductor’s deep voice booms through the snowy night, but my eyes are glued to the other train as it squeaks to a stop in front of me.

Only a few passengers disembark at this late hour on Christmas Eve, and I am beginning to lose hope that Samuel is actually coming, when suddenly his dark five o’clock shadow—which is even more rugged than it was this morning—catches my eye.

My ex-boyfriend, my former love, and the man who I realize I cannot wait to see, bounds toward me, his green gaze cutting right through the blizzard of snow falling around us. I notice the relief in his eyes as he approaches me, but I don’t say a word. Instead, I take his hand and lead him across the platform to the Orient Express.

Releasing Samuel’s hand, I reach for the train tickets Madeleine gave me and hand them to the conductor. Like the snowflakes that whip violently around us with each gust of wind, Madeleine’s mysterious words continue to whirl through my head. I wonder how she knew I would need two tickets, and more importantly, I wonder what she meant when she said it is up to me to
save them both
.

“Jillian, what are you doing?” Snow dusts the shoulders of Samuel’s black overcoat as he shoots me a curious glance. “And what’s that box in your hands?”

The conductor checks the tickets, smiles, then gestures for us to board the train.

Ignoring Samuel’s questions, I take his hand in mine once more, and although I couldn’t explain it if I tried, I simply know that we must get on this train. I can feel myself getting closer to Isla. It’s a bizarre sensation—having this twin, this other half, whom I can be worlds apart from, but still feel her as if she’s right next to me.

I’ve felt this invisible, unbreakable connection to her for our entire lives. It was this connection that led me back home to her on the horrifying day when she almost lost her life at the hands of our own mother.

It was the day that forever changed our lives, the day when this bond we share, this connection, was the
only
thing that saved her.

Our connection hasn’t lessened with time. If anything, it is stronger, more powerful.

The train whistle sounds through the night, and I know it’s time.

My grip on Samuel’s hand tightens as I step onto the luxurious sleeper car. The minute I feel the heat blasting through the train and take in the scents of red wine and leather suitcases, I envision Isla boarding only a few nights ago. I can see the excitement in her violet eyes, her hand resting ever so gently on her tiny belly, protecting the even tinier baby that sleeps inside.

“Jillian,” Samuel says, the voice of reason in my ear. “I know what you’re thinking. But riding the same train that Isla took won’t magically take you to her. We’ve got a team on the ground searching—”

But the conductor cuts him off by slamming the train door closed behind us.

“Jillian,” Samuel says firmly. “Let’s go.”

“Mademoiselle, I believe you dropped this,” the conductor says, bending over to pick something up.

Inside his tightly fitted white glove is a sparkling emerald ring.

“It fell out of the box you were carrying,” he says.

But I’m unable to respond because I am totally and completely mesmerized by this ring.

The conductor hands the emerald to Samuel, and I notice that he too seems to be enamored with the beautiful stone. Samuel stops trying to convince me to deboard the train with him, and instead takes the ring from the conductor and slips it onto my ring finger.

“A perfect fit,” he says softly.

“Cabin number seven, just down the corridor.” The conductor nods politely for us to follow him to our sleeping compartment.

But I barely register his voice. All I can hear is the sound of the train wheels spinning, gaining speed, rolling over the snow, taking us to Isla.

Samuel holds my hands in his, his fingers brushing over the gorgeous emerald ring that shines brilliantly between us.

“Jillian, something strange is happening,” he says. “Do you feel that?”

The train whistle blows one last time, and a rush of white-hot energy pours through my body, then pools at my hands where I am connected to Samuel.

I don’t feel the train beneath our feet any longer. All I see are swirls of emerald surrounded by blasts of sparkling white snow. Finally, one crimson teardrop stains the flashes of white, and before I can call out to Isla, before I can tell her I’m coming for her, the world around us goes pitch black.

One piercing scream rings through the darkness.

But I’m frozen, paralyzed in space, and I have no idea where this train is headed.

December 24…

Lausanne, Switzerland

An ear-splitting whistle blasts through the night as my feet plant on solid ground. Wheels chug and grind all around me, prompting me to force my eyes open. I struggle to focus my blurred vision on something that isn’t moving or swirling. I feel slow and heavy, as if I’ve been drugged, and I have no clue where I am.

“Jillian, it’s me,” a deep, familiar voice flows through my ears. “Open your eyes, Jill. Come on.”

A pair of strong hands wrapped around mine steadies my wobbly legs momentarily, and finally I can see.

Samuel stands only inches from me, his penetrating green eyes flashing in bewilderment. “Jillian, what in the hell just happened?” he whispers.

I shake my head, knowing instinctively that we have just traveled somewhere. But I have no idea how we got here or even where we are. “I don’t know,” I tell him.

All I
do
know is that I’m relieved to see the scruff on Samuel’s face, the familiarity of his defined jaw line, his full lips, his broad shoulders.

“Madame, Monsieur, suivez-moi, s’il vous plaît.” Follow me, please.

A conductor appears at our side wearing a gold-trimmed, royal-blue uniform. The top of his blue hat carries a light dusting of snow, and his cheeks blush pink from the cold. His white-gloved hands are carrying two old-fashioned tan suitcases.

I suddenly remember where we are. We’ve just boarded the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express train from the snowy Lausanne train station. We’re looking for Isla. And we don’t have much time.

But something is off.

The conductor’s bushy black mustache lifts as he smiles at us.

That
mustache.
The conductor who took our tickets just moments ago definitely did
not
have a mustache.

And we weren’t carrying suitcases when we boarded the train—let alone suitcases that look as if they were made one hundred years ago.

I was carrying an old shoe box that Madeleine Morel thrust into my arms just before she instructed me to climb aboard this train.

Before she told me to “save them
both
.”

I scan the space around us, but the shoe box has vanished.

“I’m sorry, Monsieur,” I tell the conductor in French. “But there’s been a mistake. Those suitcases don’t belong to us.”

The conductor’s dark eyes light up as he chuckles. “I understand your surprise, Madame. Traveling on the Orient Express for the first time is a bit like a dream, is it not?”

The conductor’s nonsensical response leaves both Samuel and me standing in a stupor as he takes off down the corridor ahead of us.

“Am I going crazy, or did the conductor suddenly grow a mustache?” Samuel whispers in my ear as we pad over the soft blue carpet behind him.

Before I can respond, a young girl with silky brunette curls approaches the conductor from the other direction, presenting her ticket. The shimmering black and silver hat pinned atop her curls boasts a delicate black netting that fans over her forehead and shadows her long, thick lashes and sapphire eyes. A fancy red velvet coat flows down to her calves, revealing the hem of a sparkling silver evening gown swishing past her ankles.

She looks as if she’s just left a glamorous vintage Christmas ball.

As she peeks around the conductor’s bright blue uniform, she flashes me a hesitant smile, revealing a small dimple in her rosy cheek. Her knuckles turn white as she clutches the handle of her cherry-red suitcase, her other hand cupped protectively over her abdomen.

I smile back at the young girl, noticing how her fingertips have turned bright pink from the cold. I gaze down at my own hands to see if I’m wearing gloves, but I forget all about my search for gloves as the sparkling emerald on my left ring finger steals my breath.

A memory of the
other
conductor handing this mysterious emerald to Samuel just after we boarded the train comes rushing back to me. I remember the way Samuel gazed down at the striking ring, as if the stone had put him in a trance.

The train jolts forward once more, gaining momentum as the conductor speaks. “You’ll be sleeping in compartment number three, Mademoiselle.” He points a pristine white glove down the corridor. “I’ll be by in just a moment, once I install this couple.”

I steady myself against the shiny wooden panels lining the hallway as the young girl, who could be straight out of a 1930s black-and-white film, walks swiftly past us. The scents of lipstick, perfume, and champagne swirl underneath my nose, making me feel dizzy again.

What is going on? Why is she dressed like that?

Samuel places a hand on my lower back, prodding me forward as the conductor installs the luggage that does not belong to us in a fancy sleeping compartment to our right.

“A late dinner is being served in the dining car, should you desire a meal at this hour,” says the conductor with a polite nod as he eyes our clothing. “Dinner attire is formal, of course. Also, we will be crossing the Swiss-French border en route to Paris, and so as to not disturb you while you are sleeping, I will require both of your passports at your earliest convenience.”

I realize with a start that I’ve never heard someone speak French in such a formal manner. The conductor sounds strangely old-fashioned, almost as if he’s from another time.

“
Excusez-moi, Monsieur
,” Samuel says. “Where did the other conductor go? The gentleman who took our tickets a few minutes ago.”

The conductor raises a curious, bushy black eyebrow, and his matching mustache twitches slightly. “Why, it was I who collected your tickets just moments ago.”

“That’s not possible. What is going on here?” Samuel’s accusatory tone startles fear into the conductor’s eyes.

“If you’ll excuse me, I need to help the young mademoiselle who boarded just after you, Monsieur. I shall return in a few moments for your passports.” The conductor begins to close the cabin door, but I reach my hand out and stop it just before it clicks shut.

“Monsieur,” I call into the corridor. “Do you happen to have a copy of today’s newspaper?”

“
Mais, bien sûr, Madame.
You’ll find
Le Figaro
on your nightstand.” And with a curt nod, he is off to compartment number three to help the young girl with the bouncy curls, the vintage clothes, and the cherry-red suitcase.

I allow the door to close all the way this time, then push past a confused Samuel and kneel down in front of the nightstand. A folded newspaper sits to the right of the lamp. With shaky fingers, I open its crisp pages and blink at the date staring back at me.

That can’t be right.

But no matter how many times I refocus, the date stamped on the front page of France’s
Le Figaro
newspaper stays the same.

“Samuel, you need to see this.” I stand to my feet and shove the newspaper into his hands. “The date at the top of the page…it…it says…” I can’t even bring myself to say the words aloud.

I have spent my entire journalism career searching for facts, for tangible truths, and then exposing those truths. But the date that now mocks Samuel’s perplexed gaze is neither factual nor tangible. It is the stuff that fairytales are made of—and after the horror show of a childhood I lived through, I learned very quickly never to believe in fairytales.

The color drains from Samuel’s cheeks as he reads aloud, “24 décembre 1937.”

Wiping the doubt clean from his eyes, he tosses the newspaper onto the fancy sofa bed behind me. “Jillian, the train that we’re on—the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express—is a modern-day throwback to the original Orient Express train that ran all through the 1900s. This train is
supposed
to have a vintage feel. They even restored some of the original carriages from the twenties and thirties to make it that much more authentic. To make you
feel
as if you’re traveling on the real Orient Express train.”

A haze of white flakes flies past the window as the train picks up momentum. I notice once again the loud chugging, grinding, and whistling sounds that this particular train makes as we roll down the tracks. These are
not
the sounds of a modern-day train, but if what Samuel is saying is true, that we are in fact riding on a refurbished version of a nearly one-hundred-year-old train, then the intense sounds vibrating loudly through our sleeping compartment make sense.

But there are still other bizarre parts of the past ten minutes that do not, in any way, make sense.

“You can’t deny the fact that something really strange happened to us when we boarded the train.” I wave my left hand in his face. “Right after the conductor handed you this emerald ring, and you placed it on my finger…it felt like time was suspended for a moment. It felt like we traveled somewhere. I know this is beyond insane, but you felt it too. I know you did.”

A flicker of doubt passes through Samuel’s mossy eyes, but he blinks it away. “I think we’re both just exhausted from the past two days. We barely slept on the plane last night, and—”

“But what about the conductor’s mustache?” I counter. “And the way he talks? And that girl’s old-fashioned clothing? She looked like she could’ve been a 1930s movie star, for God’s sake.” I snap the newspaper off the bed and flash the date in front of Samuel’s face once again, the pitch of my voice becoming more frantic by the second. “How do you explain all of this?”

He combs the front page once more, shaking his head. “Okay. I did feel something strange happening, but you couldn’t possibly believe—”

“Oh, my God,” I cut him off with a whisper. “This is what she meant.” My knees buckle, and I drop to the sofa bed behind me.

“This is what who meant?” Samuel asks, kneeling down in front of me. “What are you talking about?”

“Madeleine Morel—Laurent Morel’s sister, and Frédéric’s aunt. She followed me to the train station right before you arrived. She was the one who gave me the train tickets and that shoe box I was carrying. The same box that this emerald ring apparently fell out of—the box that seemed to disappear into thin air when we arrived here, on
this
train.”

Samuel places his hands on my shivering knees and lowers his voice. “I know who Madeleine Morel is. But why did she follow you here? And what else was inside that box?”

“She told me that she’s not really a Morel. And that her real mother was a woman named Rosie Delaney.”

“But Rosie Delaney was one of the young women who was abducted from the Orient Express train in 1937…” Samuel trails off, flashing his eyes at me as if he’s seen a ghost. “She was the one who was never found.”

I wrap my fingers around Samuel’s wrists, if for nothing more than to feel the blood pulsing through his veins, to ground myself to something real and solid, because the world around us seems to be moving at a pace neither of us can keep up with.

“There’s more,” I say. “Madeleine told me that the night Rosie was abducted from the Orient Express, she boarded the train from the Lausanne station—the exact same station
we
just boarded from.”

Samuel’s eyes flicker toward the cabin door. I can almost see the wheels spinning inside his head as he mulls this over, and I know he is remembering that young woman we saw in the corridor just moments ago, with her simple, yet glamorous, old-world beauty. But Samuel’s practicality, that unending rationality that mirrors my own, is stopping him from admitting what I am certain we are both thinking.

I grab the sides of his face so he can’t avoid my gaze. So he can’t deny what is happening to us right now. “That young woman who boarded the train right after us, the one in the vintage hat with the sparkly evening gown peeking out from under her coat. That could be her, Samuel. If this is really Christmas Eve, 1937, that woman could be Rosie Delaney.”

Samuel shakes his head at me, his jaw tightening. “No, Jillian. This isn’t real. There’s no way—”

“I don’t want to believe it either,” I say, shooting up from the bed, pacing back and forth inside the tiny compartment. “I can’t even believe I’m saying this out loud. Madeleine’s words didn’t make any sense at the time, but it’s all coming together now. She told me that it was up to me…that it was up to me to
save them both.
”