Soulmates

Ivy shrugged. 'I don't know how to answer that question anymore-and when I do, no one believes me anyway.'

'She's okay,' Will said, laying his hand on Beth's shoulder, reassuring her. Oddly enough, his confident tone reassured Ivy too.

She gathered her books, and the three of them headed out to the parking lot. Beth walked between Ivy and Will, keeping the conversation going.

But a few minutes later, when Beth drove off, Ivy and Will fell into an uncomfortable silence. Ivy climbed into his silver Honda and kept her eyes straight ahead. As they headed toward her house the only thing he asked was whether she wanted the windows up.

Since the party Will had been avoiding Ivy at school. She figured he was probably embarrassed about their strange conversation on the dance floor.

And she was grateful to him for swallowing his pride enough to get her out of a jam with Gregory and Suzanne.

'Thanks again,' Ivy said.

'No problem,' Will replied, adjusting the sun visor.

Ivy wondered why he didn't ask for an explanation of what she had been doing up on the diving board.

Maybe he just assumed it was what crazy people did. As he drove he kept his eyes on the traffic. When they stopped at an intersection, Will seemed unusually attentive to the people crossing in front of the car.

Then he stole a sidelong glance at her.

'That was a joke, wasn't it?' Ivy blurted out. 'When you told Gregory that you'd take care of me-or Tristan would-you were just making a joke.'

The light changed, and Will drove a block before answering. 'Gregory didn't laugh,' he observed.

'Were you making a joke?' Ivy persisted, twisting around in her seat.

'What do you think?'

'What does it matter what I think?' Ivy exploded. 'I'm the crazy girl who tried to kill herself.'

Will turned the wheel suddenly and pulled over to the side of the road.

'I don't believe that,' he said quietly.

'Well, everyone else does.'

He kept the motor running and rested his arms on the wheel. Ivy studied the flecks of paint on his hands.

'Some people may have bought the rumors,' he said, 'but I'm surprised you would.'

She didn't say anything.

'It seems to me'-his voice was calm and reasonable-'that_ reallyp crazy people don't think they're crazy. Why would you?'

'Well, there is that little story about my showing up at a train station,' Ivy replied, unable to stop the sarcasm in her voice, 'just before the late-night express rushed through.'

He turned to her, his dark eyes challenging her. 'Do you remember driving yourself there? Do you remember planning to jump in front of the train?'

Ivy shook her head. 'No. None of that. I only remember the light afterward. The shimmering.'

'Which is what you saw up on the diving board.'

She nodded.

'I wonder why you see him and I hear him,' Will said.

'You hear him?' Ivy reached over and switched off the motor. 'You hear him?'

'So does Beth.'

Ivy's mouth dropped open.

'She writes stories with messages that aren't hers. I draw angels I don't mean to draw.' He drew an invisible image on the windshield. 'We both thought we were losing it.'

Ivy remembered the day at the electronics store, when Beth had typed on a computer: 'Be careful, Ivy.

It's dangerous, Ivy. Don't stay alone. Love you. Tristan.' Ivy had run from the shop, furious at Beth for playing that trick. But she should have listened. Days later, she had been attacked at the house.

'He's warning you,' Will continued, 'Beth thinks it's something bigger than any of us can handle on our own, and she's scared to death.'

Ivy felt the skin prickle on the back of her neck. Since the evening before, all she had thought about was reaching out toward the light that she believed was Tristan. She'd avoided the frightening question about why an angelic Tristan might be trying to reach her.

'You have to remember what happened,' Will went on. 'That's what Tristan was trying to tell you the night of the party, when we were dancing.'

'He was with you then?' In her mind Ivy began to run through all the strange events of the past summer.

'So the angels you drew, and that picture of an angel who looked like Tristan-' 'I was as amazed as you,' Will said. 'I tried to tell you, I'd never do something like that to hurt you. But I didn't know how to explain what happened. He got inside me. It was as if all I could do was draw those angels. My hands hardly felt like my own.'

She reached over and laid her hand on his.

'I think he meant to comfort you,' Will added.

Ivy nodded and blinked back tears. 'I'm sorry I didn't understand then.

I'm sorry I got so angry at you.' She took a deep breath. 'I have to remember. I have to go back to that night. Will, would you take me to the train station?'

He started the car immediately. When they arrived, several people had just gotten off a commuter train from New York City. Will parked the car as the station emptied out. Then he walked with Ivy as far as the steps to the southbound platform. 'I'm not going to say anything more,' he said. 'It's probably best if you poke around on your own and see what comes to you. But I'll be right here if you need me.'

Ivy nodded, then climbed the steps. From the police report she knew which pillar Philip had found her leaning against-propped up against, she corrected herself: the one labeled D. But she had forgotten how close the metal pillars were to the edge of the platform and how close the platform was to the track.

When she saw it, her stomach lurched.

She knew she should stand with her back against the pillar and try to remember how it had been that night, but she couldn't do it, not yet. She hurried along the platform to the steps that led to the bridge over the tracks. Then she crossed the bridge to the other side. From the northbound platform, Ivy looked back at Will, who was sitting on a bench, waiting patiently for her.

She began to pace around. Who could have been there that night? If Philip's story was true, someone had dressed up like Tristan. Almost anyone could have gotten their hands on a school jacket and baseball cap.

And wearing them half in the shadows, anyone could have looked like Tristan-including Gregory.

She backed away quickly from that thought. She was getting paranoid, suspecting Gregory. But maybe it wasn't so paranoid to imagine Eric doing it. She remembered the night he had drawn Will onto the railroad bridge just before a train came. Eric got his kicks out of dangerous games. And Eric definitely had access to drugs.

A long, shrill sound broke in on Ivy's thoughts, a whistle from a train headed south, echoing against the steep wall of the ridge. She looked back over her shoulder at the rocky hillside. It seemed impossible that Philip could have made it down safely, but maybe if angels were real, if Tristan was there…

The whistle sounded again. Ivy started to run. She took the steps two at a time, then raced across the bridge and down the other side. She could hear the rumbling of the train before she saw its headlight, a pale, blind eye in the daytime. It was one of the big Amtraks that would rush straight through.

She ran to the pillar and stood with her back to it, close to the edge, transfixed by the train's white eye.

Her heart beat faster and faster as the train sped toward her. She remembered Philip's old story about a train climbing up the hill-a train that was seeking her. It thundered toward her now, its lines sparking, the platform beneath her vibrating.

She felt as if her shaking body would fly apart.

Then the train blew by her in one long blur.