Once upon a summer night

TW: Explicit language, historical violence

Edith Burton loved trains. The soft clamor of wheels always calmed her down, sometimes she could feel that pristine tranquility when time seemed to freeze. She watched fields and estates flow by like in a hazy daydream. Her thoughts were left to wander through the palette of green while her hands were lying idly upon a forgotten opened book. If only life could stay that dreamy and simple forever!

“Mrs Burton, mrs Burton!” Edith blinked and glanced down. One of her pupils was tugging at her gray skirt. Harsh reality of a crowded station, crying and shouting of dozens of people kicked in.

“Mrs Burton! I need to go to the bathroom!” A high-pitched train whistle grated on her ears reminding of the ongoing evacuation of London children to the countryside. She smiled at the boy absent-mindedly as though unaware of German planes in the English skies. Her hands were still bearing that ghostly imprint of a book.

“I will take you,” said Thomas and winked at the boy, “Hurry up, the train`s leaving soon, we can`t leave you behind, can we?”

Thomas. Who could`ve thought that he`d manage to come see Edith and her little daughter Judith goodbye? On a hot summer day like that they were supposed to be out for an ice cream laughing and relaxing in the sun and yet there they were tired, vigilant and anxious. The war had been creeping slowly towards their country and jumped onto them like a beast clawing into their flesh and bones, tearing their lives apart and robbing them of their dreams. Charles Burton, the man Edith was married to, had enlisted in the very beginning, and Edith, a twenty five-year-old school teacher was left alone with Judith in London. She tried to do her best to keep their lives as normal as possible and soon she found her cheeks hurting from smiling to both her child and her pupils.

And then air raids began.

Her daughter now followed her everywhere. When their quiet neighborhood got burned to the ground, Edith decided to put Judith on one of the trains that were evacuating children to the countryside. Accompanied by her pupils and the other teachers the girl was meant to be safe.

That morning two last kisses were supposed to be distributed evenly – one to Judith, one to Thomas. That very Thomas who was gently poking at her shoulder.

“Wake up! They are starting to board.”

“Split in pairs and hold hands!” mrs Bolton`s voice got lost in another train whistle. “Children, eyes on me! Mrs Burton, hurry up!”

“You should go, “ Thomas in his uniform was towering over the sea of children`s faces like a lighthouse. She looked at him pleadingly and helplessly spread her arms.

“You will be fine, Judy will be fine,” he smiled at her. She nodded, biting her lip and trying not to cry. Judith caught her hand.

“Mommy, we`ll be late! Bye, Thomas!” she pulled her towards the carriage. Thomas nodded still smiling. That was the last time she saw him while standing on the metal steps of a train carriage; he was squinting in the summer sun flooding the platform though the train`s smoke.

Ten minutes later on the 9^th of June 1940 only a few children would be still breathing in the burning metal wreckage and for Edith and Thomas time would freeze forever with a series of terrifying explosions bringing death from the sky.

 ***

The train jolted and Margaret`s bag fell on top of her head. She startled awake, cussing and trying to regain balance. The week was a tough one and she didn`t need a broken neck on top of everything. She pushed the bag back into the compartment and returned to her seat. If only she got hit on the head earlier, it could provide a perfect reason for her recurring nightmares. Being sleep deprived is inconvenient for a waitress but luckily a few jokes would be the worst outcome for most times so shame never lingered on too long afterwards. She needed a vacation, possibly two, preferably fully paid for by someone else but for now she was all alone in the carriage facing another few months of work.

Outside the soft spring twilight was enveloping the countryside. Margaret yawned, nesting comfortably in her seat. Maybe she should go to Indonesia next time, it`s definitely warmer there than in the carriage. She zipped her jacket up to the chin and crossed her arms across her chest. It seemed to be getting colder in the carriage and the lights were getting dimmer.

“Wake up.”

Margaret sat straight and looked around. There was still no one else. “That freaking bag!” she thought going back to sleep.

“You are snoring,” a gust of cold air reached her neck and crept underneath her clothes. Margaret gasped, immediately straightening in her seat.

“Who`s there?!”

“Turn around,” quietly suggested a voice behind her back and suddenly the lights went off. Margaret could see her breath in the cold air. The carriage was gently swaying singing it`s wheels` lullaby.

“My bag is in the compartment above, take whatever,” whispered Margaret, terrified. Now she needed to see a doctor and the future in the virtual queue looked grim and depressing.

“I don`t need your bag, I know who you are and I need your help.”

The young woman shut her eyes, “No-no-no, go find someone else!”

She could swear she heard a sigh.

“You are the last person I thought to react so… disappointingly stupid.”

“I watch documentaries, I know how such things end! Leave me alone!”

“God almighty, the punishment never ceases to surprise…”

“The next stop is Bletchley,” mumbled the mechanical voice.

Something shifted around Margaret and things went quiet. She finally dared to open her eyes and look around but once she did, she screamed.

A human-shaped figure loosely draped in old stained burial sheets was quietly sitting next to her. Its face was hidden behind a mask molded like a frozen dead person`s face adorned with jewels and pieces of a broken mirror. The figure was glowing ever so slightly in the darkness of the carriage and cast no shadow in the street lights passing by outside the window. There was an old locket on a chain hanging from the figure`s neck. The strange figure was patiently waiting for Margaret to run out of breath, slouching in the seat next to her. The very moment Margaret stopped screaming, the figure said, “Please, stop this nonsense. You remind me of a bunch of unschooled children and it`s quite unsettling to see a young educated lady behaving exactly the same.”

“Unsettling seeing me?! I beg your pardon?!”

“Pardon granted. Now if you allow me, I`d love you to spare me more screaming. I need your help, young lady.”

Margaret`s eyes couldn`t decide whether to roll any further back or just bulge and leave the sockets altogether.

“Fuck it, I`m out,” she jumped to her feet, grabbed her bag and turned towards the exit face planting into the foggy ghost flesh.

“We will discuss your unwise choice of words later,” a shiny mask was looking straight into Margaret`s face. The woman took a step back, turned around trying to escape and once again faced the ghost.

“What the?..” her knees buckled and the carriage jolted once again sending Margaret to the floor.

“A long time ago I was killed on a train and haven`t been able to leave it since. My husband was on the platform and got killed as well. We`ve been bound to our places of death for decades and we need help to be set free.”

“I`m sick and dying,” whispered Margaret, digging her nails into her bag. “I`m hallucinating.”

“You are not,” the ghost sounded annoyed. “I need you to find something that belonged to me and to my husband. On the 9^th of June, the anniversary of our death, you have to burn our earthly possessions at the station where we saw each other last.” with these words a ghostly hand opened the locket. There were two photographs of a man and a woman no older than in their twenties. “You have a week, my dear, hurry up.”

“Who the hell are you?! Where were you killed?! How am I supposed to do this?!”

“Hurry up, dear, the clock is ticking.”

***

“Mom, am I a good person?” Margaret was warming up her palms against a cup of hot tea.

“Of course, my darling, why?”

Margaret was watching her mom fussing about in the kitchen.

“Well, I mean you always help everyone. Everybody adores you. And you`ve got everything: dad, a job, a house. And I`m like… I`m stuck in a limbo and have no idea who I want to be when I grow up.”

Her mom laughed.

“You`re very smart, dear, I have no idea why you`re doubting yourself and still waiting tables. You really do look like Edith, your great grandmother. She was a smart girl, I won`t be surprised if you took after her.”

“I don`t know much about her.”

“Nobody really does, just your granny from what her father had told her which wasn`t much. She died very young in the very beginning of the war and your granny Judith was only three then. Your great grandfather found Judith in an orphanage after the war. She survived but was badly burnt and no one really spoke about those days.”

“Why?” Margaret`s thoughts were far away.

Her mother sighed, “The pain of losing loved ones is unbearable. They say it vanishes with time but it doesn`t really. Charles, your great grandfather, was at war and Edith and Judith were on a train that got bombed. Edith died and Judith was injured. He didn`t know up until after the war.”

Died on a train?

“Are there any pictures left, mom? It`s important.”

“Why, yes, in the chest in the attic,” her mom lifted an eyebrow. “Are you alright?”

But Margaret was half way to the dusty attic.

“Holy shit,” she coughed and wiped her nose. In the pile of yellowed crinkled photos she found two that pushed her to the brink. The woman in the ghost`s locket was definitely Edith, her great grandmother who died in the bombed train on June 9^th 1940. But her great grandfather Charles looked nothing like the man in the locket.

“Shit. Shit, shit, shit! She said she lost her husband but Charles came back alive and found Judith – my grandmother – in the orphanage. Can ghosts have dementia? Can you summon a ghost? Hey, Edith, what the hell, who`s the other guy? Look, I`m just a waitress, I`m not big on history, could do with a hint!”

Quite obviously there was no answer. Margaret kept sitting on floor, franticly rummaging through the old photographs and letters hoping to find something. Someone, but to no avail.

She lacked the stamina needed for a proper research so she made sure her coffee was ¾ whiskey. At least she had one name and a date when she climbed onto her bed with a laptop and a photo. Sipping on her coffee flavoured whiskey, she typed Edith Burton 1940 into the search bar. A photo of Edith and oh my god, her heart skipped a bit. All that steaming wreckage, piles of bricks and dust and huge fires, burnt bodies lying on the ground. They said it was a tragedy, but she felt it went against the laws of nature. Living, breathing, wonderful human beings had turned into ash and smoke and those surviving had been poisoned and shattered forever. No wonder they had that look in their eyes as if they were trying to keep colour in their irises. Her own blood had been spilt somewhere in that pile of burning metal.

Margaret blinked and tears dropped onto the keyboard. She didn`t notice and kept scrolling through pictures and articles until she found a list of dead and injured. She googled every single name and yet she never found the guy that was Edith`s lover. She had to climb to the attic again and bring all the letters down. The night was going to last forever but the bottle was still full.

***

“Good morning,” a husky voice greeted a middle-aged woman behind a counter. She looked up and saw a pair of red swollen eyes.

“I need to know where I can find anything about Thomas Kelly who died on the 9^th of June in 1940 in Willowbrook Cove,” one eye blinked slowly.

“Are you alright, my darling?” the lady carefully stood up as if being in the presence of a wild animal. “Should I call someone?”

“I`m fine, I just… it`s a family thing, you know. I need to find that guy. Look,” she took a deep breath, “I made a promise to find him. I`ve spent the last ten hours reading old letters trying to match all the initials to the list of victims, solving this goddamn puzzle and I have no clue if I`m right or wrong! Please, if you know anything, help me.”

No wonder the ghost was annoyed. “It`s tough to be stuck while everyone else has moved on,” she thought sympathetically.

The lady pressed her lips into a thin line, “You are not the first one asking about Thomas. I thought… I hoped it was over.”

“What was over?”

“The property dispute, what else! For the love of God, leave us alone!”

“I`m after a photo of his, that`s all,” Margaret tried to smile. “Just a picture and I have no idea what property you are talking about. Cross my heart and all that shit.”

The lady was studying her for a few seconds.

“Fine,” she reluctantly flicked through photos on her phone. “This is Thomas, my great grandfather.”

“Wow,” Margaret held onto the counter. Shit. Her lovely granny hadn`t been having an affair, had she?

“Erm, do you mind one more tiny question? Who was he married to?”

“Saoirse Murphy. They had two children – Patrick and Sarah. If that be all, you should better be off. I guess some sleep would do you good,” she knapped and sat back down, returned to her catalogue.

“Thank you,” Margaret slowly walked outside, feeling the lady`s stare burning a hole in her back.

“If Charles and Edith had Judith, why didn`t Edith call Charles her husband? Charles had never remarried and raised Judith all by himself. Thomas had had two children before he died, but none of them was called Judith. Would it be a horrible insult to imagine Edith falling for Thomas and having his child? God, why didn`t they have Facebook back then!” she kept on mumbling, trying to concentrate. Her head was spinning.

Back at home she went through the chest again and selected two letters – one signed E.B. and the other one T.K.

“I so hope this`ll do and you didn`t know a bunch of T.K.`s back in the day,” she whispered and finally went to bed.

***

Margaret took a train to Bletchley and cycled all the way to the abandoned ruins of Willowbrook Cove. She tried not to shudder feeling like a complete idiot. This was supposed to be the most memorable Sunday in her life. Just as she was approaching the station, she punctured a tire and fell off the bike.

“Hey, you`ve killed one of us, that`s enough, for fuck`s sake!” she shook her fist at the sky and tried to get up. She had torn her jeans and had a deep scratch on her knee.

“Wonderful, lovely, just as I thought, oh Margaret, thank you for saving us after all these horrible years of listening to the stupid crowds on British trains!”

The limp was noticeable so Margaret was using her bike as a crotch.

“I don`t even look like you. You look posh and educated and you were wrong for I am not an educated lady, I`m just a waitress too stupid to do anything about it.”

Margaret found a place in the tall grass and did a little weeding, making a fireplace with broken bricks. She found a dock leaf, spat on it and stuck it to her bleeding knee. To think there still could be somebody`s blood or bones and those injuries had been fatal… She took a deep breath, holding herself tightly. As her alarm clock beeped midnight, she set fire to the letters with shaky hands. Old paper didn`t want to catch fire but once it did, Margaret felt cold. Scared, she turned around reluctantly and saw two trembling shadows whose masks and burial sheets were slowly melting like snow in spring. Margaret was watching Edith finally taking Thomas by the hand. They smiled at Margaret, staring at them in shock.

“Thank you.”

“Wait! Wait! I need answers!” but only an echo of a laughter lingered above the grass as the pair was turning into shreds of night fog. Thomas kissed Edith and waved at Margaret. They looked exactly like their pictures – young, beautiful and happy, looking forward to having a life.

“Really? After all I`ve done for you?!” she turned to the fire, fighting back angry tears. Once again someone else got their happy ending but she was left behind, cold and miserable. On top of that she had an early shift in the morning but for the first time in years crying and sobbing she was thinking of going to college. Maybe, just maybe, she could become a journalist.

“Mom, mom, sorry I`m calling so late. Why didn`t grandpa Charles marry again?”

“Well, honey, are you okay? Are you crying?”

“No, no, mom, I`m fine. Just tell me.”

Her mom kept a pause, “My grandpa was gay.”

Margaret laughed so hard that tears welled up in her eyes again. She needed to pay her new relatives a visit and ask about that property again. Nothing could be better than an extended family, could it?