Orphan Train

confused than I was before.”
    Molly pulls out a list of questions. “Let’s just get started and see what happens.”
    They are sitting in the red wingback chairs in the living room in the waning light
     of late afternoon. Their work for the day is finished, and Terry has gone home. It
     was pouring earlier, great sheets of rain, and now the clouds outside the window are
     crystal tipped, like mountain peaks in the sky, rays emanating downward like an illustration
     in a children’s bible.
    Molly pushes the button on the tiny digital tape recorder she signed out from the
     school library and checks to see that it’s working. Then she takes a deep breath and
     runs a finger under the chain around her neck. “My dad gave me these charms, and each
     one represents something different. The raven protects against black magic. The bear
     inspires courage. The fish signifies a refusal to recognize other people’s magic.”
    “I never knew those charms had meaning.” Absently, Vivian reaches up and touches her
     own necklace.
    Looking closely at the pewter pendant for the first time, Molly asks, “Is your necklace—significant?”
    “Well, it is to me. But it doesn’t have any magical qualities.” She smiles.
    “Maybe it does,” Molly says. “I think of these qualities as metaphorical, you know?
     So black magic is whatever leads people to the dark side—their own greed or insecurity
     that makes them do destructive things. And the warrior spirit of the bear protects
     us not only from others who might hurt us but our own internal demons. And I think
     other people’s magic is what we’re vulnerable to—how we’re led astray. So . . . my
     first question for you is kind of a weird one. I guess you could think of it as metaphorical,
     too.” She glances at the tape recorder once more and takes a deep breath. “Okay, here
     goes. Do you believe in spirits? Or ghosts?”
    “My, that is quite a question.” Clasping her frail, veined hands in her lap, Vivian
     gazes out the window. For a moment Molly thinks she isn’t going to answer. And then,
     so quietly that she has to lean forward in her chair to hear, Vivian says, “Yes, I
     do. I believe in ghosts.”
    “Do you think they’re . . . present in our lives?”
    Vivian fixes her hazel eyes on Molly and nods. “They’re the ones who haunt us,” she
     says. “The ones who have left us behind.”

Hemingford County, Minnesota, 1930
    There’s hardly any food in the house. Mr. Grote has returned from the woods empty-handed for the past three days, and we’re subsisting on eggs and potatoes.
     It gets so desperate he decides to kill one of the chickens and starts eyeing the
     goat. He is quiet these days when he comes in. Doesn’t speak to the kids, who clamor
     for him, holding on to his legs. He bats them off like they’re flies on honey.
    On the evening of the third day, I can feel him looking at me. He has a funny expression
     on his face, like he’s doing math in his head. Finally he says, “So what’s that thing
     you got around your neck?” and it’s clear what he’s up to.
    “There’s no value in it,” I say.
    “Looks like silver,” he says, peering at it. “Tarnished.”
    My heart thumps in my ears. “It’s tin.”
    “Lemme see.”
    Mr. Grote comes closer, then touches the raised heart, the clasped hands, with his
     dirty finger. “What is that, some kind of pagan symbol?”
    I don’t know what pagan is, but it sounds wicked. “Probably.”
    “Who gave it to you?”
    “My gram.” It’s the first time I’ve mentioned my family to him, and I don’t like the
     feeling. I wish I could take it back. “It was worthless to her. She was throwing it
     away.”
    He frowns. “Sure is strange looking. Doubt I could sell it if I tried.”
    Mr. Grote talks to me all the time—when I’m pulling feathers off the chicken, frying
     potatoes on the woodstove, sitting by the fire in the living room with a child in
     my lap. He tells me about his family—how there was some kind of dispute, and his brother
     killed his father when Mr. Grote was sixteen and he ran away from home and never went
     back. He met Mrs. Grote around that time, and Harold was born when they were eighteen.
     They never actually tied the knot until they had a houseful of kids. All he wants
     to do is hunt and fish, he says, but he has to feed and clothe all these babies. God’s
     honest truth, he didn’t want a single one of ’em. God’s honest