The Orient Express

Part 1

[This story was originally posted at silverwolf.substack.com]

The train jostled and Samantha opened her eye. Squall gray and keen, it scanned the compartment quickly. Its match had been equally striking, but it was more than ten years gone; plucked out by an ancient monster in an orchard on the Isle of Wight when she was a child.

Her elder brother, Simon, sat next to the window smoking a cigarette. He gazed out the window and watched the moonlit trees go by.

Samantha sat up, breaking Simon’s concentration.

“What time is it?” she asked.

“Just after midnight.”

“So that puts us in Transylvania,” she stated.

“I suppose so. We’re in the mountains at least. I can’t speak to the precise location. You should go back to sleep.”

“I’ll never be able to get back to sleep with the track winding so.”

“If that’s the case, I recommend the dining car. I’ve just come from there. A few night owls remain, and the atmosphere is sedate.”

“Sounds delightful,” she said without a hint of enthusiasm. Samantha stood up. She took her dressing gown from where it hung next to the fold-away bed and put it on over her long, simple, white night gown. “Will you be joining me?”

“I think not,” Simon said. “I intend to get back to admiring the full moon and this fine brandy. Then I’ll turn in.”

“The dining car hasn’t moved since dinner, I trust?” Samantha asked, opening the door to the compartment.

“At least a hundred miles, but it’s still two cars back.”

Samantha forced a smile.

“Oh, and Sam, would you mind taking care of my bill? I do hate to be hassled by the staff in the morning.”

Samantha sighed and slid the door shut.

—

The dining car was nearly empty. The lighting was low to accommodate the late hour, and there was a chill in the air. Samantha took a seat at the table near the center of the car. A waiter in an impossibly crisp tuxedo arrived and took Samantha’s order of chamomile tea.

Samantha opened the book she had brought with her—a slender monograph on ancient Greek curses that she had picked up at the book bazaar in Constantinople—and pretended to read it while she surveyed the other occupants of the car.

Apart from the waiter, there were four other passengers in the car. Two Germans argued about something pertaining to grain prices on the continent, and across the aisle from them a Turk worked on his third cup of strong coffee. The fourth passenger sat at the far end of the car. He was young, mid-twenties, and was dressed in the style of an English academic. His forehead was plastered over by dark sweat-soaked hair. The table he occupied, meant to accommodate a party of four, was littered with papers and books. He had a small box in his hands, which he studied intently. Samantha had seen that look before, and it almost always meant trouble.

The waiter arrived with the tea.

“Who is that young gentleman at the end of the car?” asked Samantha. “The Englishman. Is he a professor?”

The waiter paused, apparently caught off guard by the question.

“Yes, I believe he is a professor. Regrettably, I don’t know the gentleman’s name. Shall I inquire?”

“No, no. That won’t be necessary. Just an idle curiosity.”

“Very good, miss. Can I get you anything else?”

“No, that will be all. Thank you.”

The waiter left, and Samantha took a sip of her tea. She continued to observe the young professor. The box he held gingerly in his hands must have been covered in writing, as he frequently paused his inspection to make notes in a small journal and to consult the books on his table. He handled the box with care, leading Samantha to believe that either it or its contents must be dear. The man muttered to himself, as if committing something to memory. It was worse than Samantha had thought.

Samantha sighed. She set down her cup and saucer, stood up, and walked to the professor.

“Good evening,” she said as she pulled out a chair across from the man and sat down.

“Erm, good evening,” he said, confused. His glasses lay on the table and he held the box he had been inspecting closely. “I’m terribly sorry, but I have a great amount of work to do and I don’t have time for a social visit.” He put his glasses on and gave Samantha a good look. He appeared to instantly regret his haste to dismiss her. She was quite an attractive young woman, despite her prominent defect, which was covered with a plain black eyepatch tonight. Her chestnut hair, while normally worn in a bun atop her head, was down in loose curls framing her angular face.

“Good,” Samantha said, “because I have no desire to be social. I only want to determine the magnitude of the mistake you’re about to make and the difficulty of dissuading you from your planned course of action.”

The man blinked nervously and swallowed hard.

“I have no idea what you are talking about. I’m simply conducting perfectly normal research of purely, erm, academic value. I don’t know what possibly could have given a girl such as you cause to think otherwise and to approach me at such an hour, so attired, in such a manner.”

“Indeed?” queried Samantha. “Well, I shall tell you what has raised this girl’s suspicions. Firstly, you are working, at night, on a train. Secondly, your reference materials,” Samantha motioned to the stacks of books, “are treatises on the folk magics of the Semitic peoples. Thirdly, the artifact that you have been studying so assiduously is covered with text,” Samantha snatched the container from his hands, “ah yes, in an Arabian script.”

“Give that back!” the professor shouted, drawing the attention of the other men on the car. He nervously looked around holding up his hands in surrender and spoke in a normal if forceful tone. “Please,” he stressed, “give that back to me. It is quite old and the contents are very delicate.”

Samantha extended her wrist, handing the box back to the professor. He took it back quickly yet carefully.

“I fail to see how any of that is suspicious. I happen to do my best work at night, and these are the tools of my trade, as it were.”

“Fair enough, but if nothing is out of the ordinary, why are you perspiring like Judas at the Last Supper? Please be honest with me. I am never wrong about such things. So, what are we dealing with, Professor? A curse, a magical amulet, an enchanted item?”

“Who are you?” he asked in his puzzlement.

“My name is Samantha Greel. I may be young and uncredentialed, but I am an expert in those inexplicable and powerful phenomena which cause children to fear the dark, women to shun an evil look, and men to travel to Constantinople and stay up all night deciphering what they obtained there. So,” she slowed to emphasize each word of her question, “what’s in the box?”

The professor sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“My name is Jonathan Riverwood. I am a doctoral candidate, so I have not yet obtained my degree. My field of interest includes the folk beliefs of the Jews of the Austrian Empire—I am conducting my research primarily in Prague—and I became particularly interested in the legends of the golem. Are you familiar with golems?”

“I haven’t had the pleasure.”

“Well, to be brief, a golem is a creature made from earth—but most commonly clay—that can be brought to life during a crisis and imbued with a purpose dictated by its creator.”

“What kind of purpose?”

“According to legend, when Jews have suffered from persecution—pogroms and the like—they have created these golems to contend with their oppressors.”

“Contend?”

“Physically. Violently, really.”

“And how is a golem brought to life?”

“Simply put, a rabbi, or anyone else with requisite knowledge recites a series of incantations and places a slip of paper with a magical word written on it into the golem’s mouth.”

“Does that box contain the magical word? Are you trying to create a golem?”

“This?” asked Mr. Riverwood, raising the box in his hands. “Goodness no.”

Samantha sighed with relief. At least she wasn’t too late this time.

“No, this box contains a jinni.”

“A jinni,” she exclaimed, “as in, a genie?”

“Correct, that is the Anglicized term.”

“What does a jinni have to do with golems?”

“You see,” he said sheepishly, “it’s the only thing I can think of that can destroy the golem I already made.”

[Read Part 2 here]