From the Dust Returned
All over upper Illinois storm clouds gathered and began to rain, and they rained souls and they rained departed wings and they rained tears from people who had to give up traveling and return to the Homecoming and were sad instead of glad.
All over the skies of Europe and the skies of America what had been a happy occasion was now melancholy, driven back by clouds of oppression and prejudice and disbelief. The inhabitants of the Homecoming returned to the threshold of the House and slid in through the windows, the garrets, the cellars, and hid away fast to astound the Family who wondered, how come? A second Homecoming? Was the world coming to an end? And yes, it was, their world, anyway. This rain of souls, this storm of lost people, clustered on the roof, brimmed the basement among the wine kegs, and waited for some sort of revelation, which then caused the members of the Family to decide to meet in council and welcome one by one those people who needed to be hidden from the world.
And the first of these strange lost souls was in a train traveling north through Europe, traveling north toward fogs and mists and to fine and nourishing rains …
CHAPTER 12
On the Orient North
It was on the Orient Express heading away from Venice to Paris to Calais that the old woman noticed the ghastly passenger.
He was a traveler obviously dying of some dread disease.
He occupied compartment 22 on the third car back and had his meals sent in, and only at twilight did he rouse to come sit in the dining car surrounded by the false electric lights and the sound of tinkling crystal and women’s laughter.
He arrived this night, moving with a terrible slowness, to sit across the aisle from this woman of some years, her bosom like a fortress, her brow serene, her eyes filled with a kindness that had mellowed with time.
There was a black medical bag at her side, and a thermometer tucked in her mannish lapel pocket.
The ghastly man’s paleness caused her left hand to crawl up along her lapel to touch the thermometer.
“Oh, dear,” whispered Miss Minerva Halliday.
The maître d’ was passing. She touched his elbow and nodded across the aisle.
“Pardon, but where is that poor man going?”
“Calais and London, madam. If God is willing.”
And he hurried off.
Minerva Halliday, her appetite gone, stared across at that skeleton made of snow.
The man and the cutlery laid before him seemed one. The knives, forks, and spoons jingled with a silvery cold sound. He listened, fascinated, as if to the voice of his inner soul as the cutlery crept, touched, chimed; a tintinnabulation from another sphere. His hands lay in his lap like lonely pets, and when the train swerved around a long curve his body, mindless, swayed now this way, now that, toppling.
At which moment the train took a greater curve and knocked the silverware chittering. A woman at a far table, laughing, cried out: “I don’t believe it!”
To which a man with a louder laugh shouted:
“Nor do I!”
This coincidence caused, in the ghastly passenger, a terrible melting. The doubting laughter had pierced his ears.
He visibly shrank. His eyes hollowed and one could almost imagine a cold vapor gasped from his mouth.
Miss Minerva Halliday, shocked, leaned forward and put out one hand. She heard herself whisper:
“I believe!”
The effect was instantaneous.
The ghastly passenger sat up. Color returned to his white cheeks. His eyes glowed with a rebirth of fire. His head swiveled and he stared across the aisle at this miraculous woman with words that cured.
Blushing furiously, the old nurse with the great warm bosom flinched, rose, and hurried off.
Not five minutes later, Miss Minerva Halliday heard the maître d’ hurrying along the corridor, tapping on doors, whispering. As he passed her open door, he glanced at her.
“Could it be that you are—”