Page 54 of The Circle

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

“The… Orient Express?Are you being serious?” I ask the guy.

“Yes, indeed, ma’am. Quite serious. The Venice-Simplon Orient Express, owned and operated by Belmond Limited and utilizing vintage Pullman carriages as well as vintage sleeping and dining cars from the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lit—all lovingly restored to their former glory—is the first and last name in five-star leisure travel. And, for the next seventeen hours on your trip to Vienna, it is entirely yours.”

“Say again?” I blurt out, almost like a reflex. “Whaddayou mean ‘ours?’”

“There are no other passengers on this journey,” he says. “The only other persons aboard will be myself and one butler to ensure your needs are being met. We felt this was the minimum number of bodies necessary to see to your comfort.”

“Our comfort?” Danny says with more than a little edge.

“Butler?” I add.

“Yes, sir. Yes, ma’am. Anticipating the client’s every want, need, and desire is the hallmark of our service.”

We stare at this guy as he stands in front of us, smiling, the idling anachronism chug-chug-chugging in place behind him. Eliza is the first one to break away.

“Yeah, all right,” she says as she walks past him and steps up and onto the train.

The conductor dude avoids her courteously and once more steps to the side of us, extending his hand out in an invitation to board as well.

Danny looks at me, I look back at him, I look at Alec, he looks at both of us, and then he boards also, without a word.

I close my eyes again, almost without thinking.

Castle.

Lars.

A man with a scar.

Talk of… what? Of…

Killing someone.

“Hey.” Danny’s voice, pulling me out. As ever.

I open my eyes and see him standing on the steps leading into the car. He has his hand outstretched for me. And for the briefest of flashes we’re not ourselves. We’re other people, in another time. I’m not wearing my leather jacket and boots. Danny’s not wearing his. He’s in a fancy-looking double-breasted suit, hair slicked back, blue eyes gleaming in the soft light of the station’s boarding platform.

I’m in some kind of pretty dress. Taffeta or jacquard or something. It complements Danny’s suit. I have on a hat. It sits jauntily on my head and my hair is silky and beautiful and styled perfectly in elegant waves that peek out from under the hat across my forehead and blend into the long waterfall of brown cascading down my back.

Then Danny says, “Keene, come on,” and I’m back here and now. Even though I’m not sure where that is or what it means any more than I do the fantasy I just indulged myself in.

The conductor’s smile widens even further as he waits patiently for me to step on. I have a terrible, terrible, fearful feeling. I’m scared. Scared of what’s to come, scared to know what I did the last time I was wherever we’re going.

But looking at Danny’s hand, reaching for me, there to help me up and into this uncertain future, I feel just slightly less scared. Not much. But enough.

So I step forward, place my hand in his, and commit to the unknown.

This train is nice. Like, really fucking nice. Since we’ve known Alec, we’ve been some fancy places and done some fancy things, but this… This is like nothing I’ve ever experienced. Nothing. It’s insane.

The conductor who Danny keeps calling Nigel and who has yet to correct him, so he may actually be named Nigel, showed us around before we started off. It has that weird thing going on when stuff feels old and new simultaneously. According to Nigel, everything on the train is original—which means it’s all at least a hundred years old—but it feels brand new. I know it’s possible to refurbish shit, but whatever they did to bring all this into the state it’s in now must have required more than a little elbow grease. They must have had a magician on staff too or something, because it sparkles and shines and even smells new. New leather. Newly oiled wood. A hint of some kind of almost imperceptible but totally calming and barely-there perfume being pumped throughout.

And the sleeping cars. I mean…

Since we’re the only ones here, we were given our choice of where we wanted to sleep, as we’re going to be here through the night and late into tomorrow. We were offered our selection of cabins, suites, and then what Nigel called a “Grand Suite.”

“Grand” is an understatement.