No towns. At least, not until they got a whole lot lower, and then there was a little bit of a town that looked like it had a main street and maybe four cross streets and that was it. Finally she heard a hum and a thump that must have been the landing gear descending. There still wasn’t much outside the windows but miles of Empty.
The plane touched down so softly Spirit didn’t even feel it at first, she only saw that there was tarmac on either side. Then the engines reversed, throwing them both forward against their seat belts, and the plane was rolling in a big circle, and coming to a stop, and now there was something outside the windows. A line of hangars, and in the distance the tiny town she’d glimpsed from the air. Loch said that this was only a little county airport. Spirit couldn’t make up her mind whether to be glad that he was answering her questions before she asked them, or cross that he knew she didn’t know these things.
Waiting as the plane rolled to a stop was a huge chocolate-colored SUV and another driver in a uniform. The SUV had the same gold-leafed coat of arms on it that the limousine had and the words Oakhurst Academy on the side.
The pilot walked back out of the cockpit. Spirit realized in surprise that they hadn’t heard the woman say anything during the entire flight. The woman walked back to the hatch and opened it, then lowered the stairs for them, still without saying anything. As Spirit walked carefully down the steps—this was actually the first time she’d been up and down a flight of steps since the accident—she saw that a man in green coveralls was already taking their baggage out of the luggage compartment of the jet and stowing it in the back of the SUV. It was chillier in Montana in September than it was in Indiana, and Spirit wished she had a sweater on.
“Master Spears,” said the driver of the SUV, nodding to Loch. “Miss White. Do you need any assistance getting in?”
From here the SUV looked so big it ought to have its own zip code, but Loch was already jumping in, so Spirit shook her head and hauled herself up into it. Inside it was just as plush as the limousine had been, and in the same colors.
She’d thought they’d just be driving to the school, but apparently not. They drove for about half an hour while Spirit looked out the window and tried not to feel like an extra in a Western, until they reached the outskirts of the little town. There was a normal, modern-looking train platform and ticket office on one side of the wide set of tracks—there must have been four sets of them laid side by side—but the SUV drove across the tracks to the other side, where there was a little Victorian-looking platform. The wooden sign hanging over it said “Terry,” and Spirit wondered if all the train stations here had girl’s names.
“We’re taking the train,” Loch said in delight.
“Yes, Master Spears,” the driver said without turning around. “It will be here in just a few moments.”
“Oakdale was originally a private house,” Loch said, seeing Spirit’s look of bafflement. “It belonged to an old-time railroad tycoon named Arthur Tyniger, and he had a private railway line built that went right to his door. This is Terry—as in town of Terry—where you can get the school’s private car hooked onto a regular train.”
“I can’t imagine why I’d want to do that,” Spirit said. The words came out more sarcastically than she’d really intended, and Loch looked hurt.
“Winters here get pretty . . . wintery,” Loch said. “I guess it’s a lot easier to take the train than it is to fight your way through snow for hours.”
Less than five minutes later, their train pulled up. Despite what the train station looked like, the engine and single car that eased into the station were Amtrak-modern.
The driver of the SUV had waited on the platform with them, and as soon as the car’s doors opened, he gestured to them to step inside. Spirit thought it was just creepy to have adults waiting on her like she was some kind of princess or something, but Loch didn’t seem to think it was all that weird. She could see that somebody had stepped out of the door at the far end of the car and was