Her older brother, his eyes narrowed and his mouth twisted into a frown from anger, exertion and frustration, stomped after her. He wore an older boy’s brown pea-jacket that was too big, and striped hand-knit mittens and a matching toboggan cap. “I’m going to get that stupid doll and kill her too,” he hollered at his six-year-old sister.

“No, Ronnie, no,” she begged, her chest jumping and her eyes and nose flowing. Her galoshes didn’t fit right and she couldn’t feel her toes any longer. Her stockings were torn and bloody at both knees. They were just outside of town, and ahead was the Thurmond, West Virginia post office, closed this Sunday morning. Across from the ash-colored vertical siding of the post office building were two matching track beds of the C&O Railroad. And on the other side of the rails and ties lay the banks of the New River.

“Pearl, stop now and I’ll go easy on you,” Ronnie called, leaning over with his palms on his thighs as he coughed for a moment.

She halted, spun around, her legs shaking. She was a couple of yards from the tracks. “Don’t come any nearer, or I’ll scream,” she cried in a broken, high-pitched voice. She wrapped both her arms around Maisy, and hugged her, wiping her cheeks on the doll’s yellow molded head and golden mohair braids. As Pearl’s body trembled, Maisy’s blue eyes rolled up and down.

Ronnie straightened. “Aw, you know no one can hear you if you do. There’s hardly anyone left in this two-bit hick coal town. And Momma is working in the boarding house over yonder,” he swept his arm vaguely to the north. “She don’t care what we do, anymore. No one cares about you, Pearl.”

“Daddy cares about me, Daddy can hear me,” Pearl answered, gulping in air, her words slurred as her teeth were chattering.

“Daddy’s in the Philippines with General MacArthur, fighting the Japs.”

“Daddy sent me Maisy and made me promise to take care of her.”

“You and your stupid dolls,” Ronnie said and spat on the dirty snow. “I killed your Jeannie Walker first. Weren’t too far from here, either,” he said with a smile. “Once it was over, there weren’t nothing left of that baby but a pile of dust.” He took a step towards her and crouched as if getting ready to start a race.

The scream shot out of her mouth without her willing it to, a loud, shrill animal-like noise. She tried to back away from Ronnie’s sudden leap in her direction, but in her panic and despair and because of the coldness that stiffened her muscles, she fell to the rear, heavily.

She felt nothing. Ronnie was on top of her in an instant, yanking at Maisy, pulling off the small white shoes with the pink lacings, tearing the socks off the compact composite feet, ripping the diminutive lace and tulle smock. Pearl held on with all the strength she had left, and the brother and sister flailed in the slush and freezing muck with the doll between them.

Ronnie had his legs on top of Pearl’s shins and he pinned her left wrist to the ground with his right hand while he tugged Maisy’s legs with his left. He suddenly let go of the doll, and reared back, his knuckles closing tightly as he raised his arm high in the air. Pearl tried to avert her face, heaving, desperately attempting to escape, but Ronnie brought the fist down into the side of her head.

He leaped off of his sister, standing in triumph, waving the doll by one sculptured, jointed arm. “Got ‘er, got ‘er,” he cackled. He whooped and jumped up and down in place.

She felt a burning, stinging pain as she lolled her sight to the left and right, her arms akimbo, her legs refusing to move. She heard the distant sound of the train whistle — like the braying of a great beast trailing off to the edges of perception. She pushed herself, rolled onto her stomach. She tasted blood, and couldn’t see out of one eye. “Maisy, Maisy,” she cried. “Please, Ronnie, please don’t hurt her,” she pleaded.

Ronnie was dancing close to the tracks now. With exaggerated movements he knelt, and placed the doll so that her head lay on the rail closest to them, her rose-bud mouth facing the overcast sky, her sleep-eyes closed. One small arm was rotated upward, almost as if pointing at Ronnie. “The Allegheny is coming, it’s the biggest, heaviest steam engine in history,” he bellowed at his battered sister, laughing as he saw the look of horror on what was left of her face.

Pearl raised herself on her arms, tried to drag herself forward. “My dolly, my Maisy,” she whispered.

Ronnie stamped one of his heavy shoes, the pants cuff above it unfolding. “Don’t you come any closer or I’ll kick your teeth in,” he yelled. He wiped one of his muddy coat sleeves across his forehead, smearing more dirt there. He removed his mittens and tossed them on a mound of snow as they were sodden and refreezing into filthy stiffness. The ground was beginning to vibrate. Another blast from the train whistle seized their attention. It was close now, and loud.

Pearl stopped moving. She lay flat, her chin in the snow, her dark eyes staring ahead, her red mittens outstretched in front of her, beseeching her brother, Maisy, the scene in front of her, to change, to dissolve. The sounds of the clicking and clacking and metal-on-metal squealing and the creaking and moaning of the cars and the pressured ties underneath huge wheels, overwhelmed her mind.

Ronnie raised his bare fingers, splayed them in triumph high over his head as he stood in the middle of the tracks and watched the massive Alleghany engine bear down towards him from around a bend. He gathered himself like a coil, ready to leap away in seconds….

Pearl gasped; Ronnie’s feet flew out from under him. His shocked eyes locked on hers as he landed across the rails, his jaw cracking and then jerking back as it collided with cold metal. His ear was right next to Maisy’s, he on his belly, the doll on its back. He dug at the snow-slick gravel with the toe of one shoe, trying to give himself traction.

The Allegheny’s whistle howled now, so close that it was deafening. The ground shook. Pearl heard a horrible squeaking — the locomotive was attempting to brake. “Ronnie, Maisy….” she wailed, and then threw her face into the snow in front of her and covered her head with both her arms. She felt a hot wind, stinging sparks, as the engine surged by, unable to stop the momentum. The piercing, metallic shriek was endless.

The engineer, the brakeman, and the fireman jumped to the frosty ground beside the enormous wheels, rods, axles, and pistons, amidst billows of steam; the coal train’s engine had come to a stop several hundred feet south, almost reaching the Thurmond depot. An acrid odor permeated the crisp air. “I soaked ‘er, I soaked ‘er as best I could,” the engineer said as the men began to run, one after the other, up the tracks, their heavy shoes making thudding, sloshing sounds.

They saw the little girl lying face down in the snow. They bounded to her, halted, surrounded her. The engineer, an older man with a gray mustache, knelt on one knee and gingerly touched the child’s shoulder, “Sweetheart, are you okay?” he asked. He glanced to the tracks, noticed that trickles of rust-red were meandering towards them from the embankment, and scattered near the rails directly ahead of them were pieces of something throbbing and jelly-like that oozed yellowish pink.

The brakeman and fireman saw where the older man was looking. The brakeman took a few steps closer, paused, and rubbed his grizzled chin. “I think we hit one of ‘em,” he said calmly, his breath a haze in front of his face. “Who’s the law in these parts?”

“This is Fayette County, West Virginia … we need to get the county sheriff,” the engineer answered, returning his attention to the figure lying so still in front of him. “Sweetie,” he said again, “little girl, what’s your name? Where’s your mommy? Can you tell us who was on the tracks?”

She stirred; they heard a groan. The brakeman squatted down on the other side of the prone child and both he and the engineer carefully supported her and partially lifted her so they could see her face. The fireman, still standing, who was a younger man with young children of his own, let out a whistle when he got a glimpse of the little girl’s features. “What a beautiful child,” he said. “I hope she’s okay

The three men watched her, staring at her perfect rose-bud mouth and round, rosy cheeks, as her eyelids twitched, opened fully, and revealed brilliant blue eyes framed by a thick fringe of blonde lashes. “Honey,” the engineer said, “are you all right? Can you tell us what happened?”

The engineer and brakeman helped the little girl to a sitting position, and she looked up at the three men, one at a time, in turn. She brushed aside her long, golden braids, breathed deeply.

“Honey, what’s your name?” the engineer asked again, cupping her head with one of his hands.

She made a motion with both hands as if straightening her skirt and brushing it off at once, her legs stretched out straight in front of her. “My name is Maisy,” she said. “What’s yours?”

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What I could never figure was the whole, whaddayacallit, overarching theme. Sure – run around, cut a bunch of heads off, do your thing. Nail a dwarf and get a necklace. Hang from a tree on a Friday night. Whatever turns you on.

But this Loki guy. What. An. Asshole.

I get it, he was pissed off at the rest of the Gods (he was actually, like, a giant or something, if I remember. He wasn’t an actual God. I don’t know. It’s all a bit fuzzy to me now. I’ve had some punches in the head over the years and not everything’s in the same place it was, knowledge-wise. I don’t go fighting any more. You see these guys sometimes, they’re talking to you, one eye’s looking over your right shoulder, the other one’s staring at your wristwatch. It ain’t pretty, and sometimes they don’t talk so good), because, I don’t know. Some reason. He was so pissed that he turned up at one of their big shindigs and just started ratting everybody out and calling them on all the shit they did over the years – which, if you’re a god, can sometimes be a lot of shit. It’s like if someone turned up to one of those big Hollywood parties and just started yelling out who’d screwed who and who’d snorted what and who was gay or straight or bi and who was a Martian in disguise… that kind of deal.

My point is, people don’t mention that stuff for a reason. Because they don’t want it mentioned.

Anyway, Loki was pissing everyone off and eventually Thor turned up and kicked his ass and the rest of the Gods rounded Loki up, chased him down, then tied him up in this cave somewhere. And, get this – they turned one of his sons into a wolf, got the wolf to rip out the guts of his other son, and then used the guts to tie Loki to a rock while they hung a snake up over his eyes so it would drip poison into his eyes forever. He couldn’t get away, because, you know, he was all tied up in guts.

Pretty gruesome, huh? That’s some vendetta shit, right there.

Eventually, Loki busts out, gets a whole bunch of the bad guys riled up, and they start off Ragnarok, ’cause they want to kill all the Gods and turn the whole world to ice and snow or something.

So, I understand that he’s pissed off (I mean, I don’t have kids, but I can imagine I’d be upset if one of them got turned into a wolf), but… who wants to turn the whole world to ice and snow? Being cold sucks. I’m out here in it, and I am not enjoying it one bit.I got splinters in my hands from dragging lumber, even through my gloves, my back is killing me, and I’m all wet from the knees down.Could you imagine if it was like this forever? All over the whole world? Just snow and cold and clouds and shit? People in Russia get that shit a lot of the time, I know, but they can at least know that it ain’t like that everywhere. This whole Ragnarok plan, the idea was that everywhere, even the beaches? Snow.

Like I said.

Loki. Asshole.

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My mother used to tell me stories about the trains. She used to warn me. There were goblins on the trains that would weave their glamour and beguile young girls. The goblin king himself would ride the trains, looking for some young girl to charm, and then he’d tear out her heart and eat it. Fairy tales, I used to think, but now I walk the tracks and I can see the bodies, cold and heartless.

Footstep after painful footstep I follow the tracks, hoping that it’s not too late. Hoping that she’s still alive. It’s been so long, it’s taken me years to get here. Gone are the days when one could simply drive to the airport and fly across the sea on a plane. No, I had to walk, the long way round. I have crossed a world to find her, but I made her a promise, and so, finally, I’m almost there.

The cold bites at my bones, my skin is cracked and my joints ache with fatigue and age, but I cannot give in. I keep following the tracks, they led me to her once before, they’ll lead me to her again. And then I see him.

Standing in the middle of the tracks up ahead, sword in his hand, and a wicked grin on his scarred face. The goblin king.

Now is not the time to be broken and old, and so all the years melt away from me. My back straightens and I stand tall, as I reach into my coat and find cold, hard steel. I draw my sword and begin to run towards him.

He simply stands there, waiting, that grin fixed on his face, but as our swords meet, I see a flicker of doubt flash in his eyes. Our battle is a dance along the railway tracks, the outcome is never in doubt. As my sword plunges deep within his chest, his life leaves him. He sinks to his knees, black bile spilling from what a man would call his heart, but this creature has no heart.

I leave him there, and set off once again along the tracks. I must find her, I know she’s waiting for me.

We still have so much life to live, and there is so much we have yet to see.

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Two hours later I’m washed and dressed, wrapped up against the cold. I almost don’t know what to wear, it seems so unusual for it to snow these days. So I’m all boots and thick tights and hats and scarves and the like. This is kind of fun. I remember to pack my camera. Who knows when this might happen again?

I photograph snow laden trees and a crow, stark black against white ground. Blackheath is beautiful, and treacherous. The heath is carpeted white as far as I can see, and the footpaths are obscured by snow. It’s a little tricky. I want to rush but I can’t. The pavement is an ice-rink and I will have to slide – walk down Lewisham hill in a vain attempt not to land on my face. Or arse. Older kids have been busy despite the early hour. I pass a fully formed snowman on the heath, and there are school children at bus stops pegging snowballs at passers by. Everything goes on as normal here, snow does not stop London.

“The wrong kind of snow on the tracks”… I think that was the announcement. Lewisham train station had ground to a halt. Now the queues for the bus were impossible. Commuters, manic and driven, willing to sell their own mothers for the opportunity to stand face to armpit for 40mins to an hour just to get anywhere close to the centre of town. It’s times like these that I was glad that my boss had reasonable sense of a work/life ratio. I phoned the office and was advised not to rush in, they wouldn’t need me till the afternoon.

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Back then, Gladys’ favorite game was the one where she’d pretend to be the damsel-in-distress in a silent movie and Michael the villain. She’d lie across the tracks and he’d pretend to tie her down. Their facial expressions and hand gestures were exaggerated to make up for the lack of sound. They were twelve and Michael didn’t have a mustache yet, but he’d twirl his imaginary one with glee. He also played the hero that would swoop in and cut the ropes with his sword just before the train’s arrival. He had to because a third was never invited. They were outcasts that preferred the company of each other.

The moment she walked through the door with dried leaves in her brown curls and dirt on her jeans, Gladys’ mother knew she’d been at the tracks with Michael.

“You’re asking for trouble, miss. You shouldn’t be alone with a boy in the woods. Bad things can happen. People will talk. But you don’t listen. A hard head makes a soft ass.”

Lauren didn’t listen either. She was hard-headed like her mother. No matter how many times Gladys told her to call if she were going to be late, Lauren wouldn’t. Gladys had warned about taking dangerous short-cuts home from school as it was believed Lauren had done the day she went missing. As one hour late turned into four, Gladys waited for a call that never came before making a call of her own. The community rallied and posters were made. Two days later, Lauren was found a few feet away from the spot where Gladys and Michael used to play.

Gladys never understood why people made memorials at the sites of accidents. She’d drive and shake her head in confusion at wooden crosses, flowers and stuffed animals left at the side of the road where people had lost those they loved. A guard rail, large tree, or steep ditch did not represent their lives, she thought. Why give that place meaning? Why mourn there? Yet, a year after losing her daughter, Gladys found herself visiting the tracks more and more – more than she visited the cemetery.  She didn’t bring flowers or teddy bears, but sometimes she’d bring one of Lauren’s favorite books and read aloud for hours.

When she read, she thought of her time there with Michael less. It was as if the sound of her voice kept the memories at bay. But if she paused too long, and allowed herself to get lost in thought, she’d inevitably end up back in time when she was only one year older than Lauren was when she died. She didn’t have to think about her daughter’s pain and fear. She didn’t have to think about Lauren’s body lying in the snow for two days. Instead, she was with her first love and they were racing along the tracks.

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“Maya, Maya….” someone said from behind her. Someone … was it her sister? … touched her arm. “Maya, leave it alone, go sit down,” the voice said impatiently. “I’ll get you something to drink.”

Maya turned unsteadily, the anger rising despite the effects of the Klonopin. “I don’t want to sit there any longer,” she hissed at her younger sibling Julie, vaguely aware of the happiness she felt when she was as far away from her family as possible.

Julie straightened. Her dark bangs and short straight bob made her sour expression look prankish and silly. She stuck her fists on her hips, her skinny elbows splayed under the loose sleeves of her black silk blouse. “You have to sit down,” she said. “As the wife….”

Maya turned her back to Julie, looking at the reflection of her sister’s pinched and reddening face. “You go do the Jewish thing, I don’t care,” she said, trying to make her lips work.

“Jeff was a devout Jew, you have to sit Shiva for him,” Julie said, raising her voice.

Maya shrugged, and gazed at herself in the mirror. She looked like the picture of an old-world widow, her black suit jacket torn over her heart, her golden hair frizzing around her face like a nimbus, her blue eyes nearly obscured by the puffiness and bruising caused by constant crying. She wasn’t crying any more. The Klonopin was working wonders. But the world seemed to be sliding back and forth, in and out of frame.

Julie was calling “Mom, Mom,” now as she spun around and then disappeared into the living room. “I’m going to tell mommy on you,” Maya said to herself in a mocking, high-pitched voice, and then emitted a “hmph.” She leaned forward, peering at her face. “Did I put on any makeup? Oh wait, I’m not supposed to wear any for seven fucking days. Nice one, Jeff. You weren’t supposed to leave the stage at the age of forty-two, you bastard.” Progressing nicely to the anger stage, she said to herself.

Behind her she heard a commotion coming from the large and lofty living room where low stools and benches were arranged in a semi-circle for the immediate family. She dimly listened to the doorbell; more visitors, bringing more food for the bereaved. She thought she heard loud, wafting exclamations, “Rabbi, we’re so happy you’re here….”

“Crap,” Maya said to her reflection. All these Jewish rites and rules were meant to comfort the mourner, to bring a family together in mutual support, except she had never gotten along with any member of her family. Her best friend, her soul mate, her husband who loved her and made her understand she was good, beautiful, and special, he was Jeff Adler and he was dead.

She straightened and took a step in the direction of the French doors that led to the kitchen, but wobbled and grasped the back of a chair for support. “Wow, benzos kick ass,” she said. She studied the polished oak-parquet floor under her black stocking-clad feet. She beheld the fine workmanship of the massive dining table they had found in Italy. The chair she held on to was one of a matching set of eight, commissioned by Jeff, hand-made and upholstered to his specifications.

“Crap,” she said again, and half turned back towards the credenza, reaching for one of the wine glasses that glimmered like a rainbow in the sheen of the antique brass chandelier overhead.

She barely brushed the stem with her fingers when the entire glass seemed to fly out and away from her. She watched as if paralyzed as it hung in the air, spinning slowly.

Maya, Maya, she heard … it sounded like a male voice, but was melodious, sibilant, and sweet.

She slid her eyes to the right, abruptly unable to move any other part of her body. She saw, standing between the large window at the back of the dining room and the wine glass still in the air, the figure of a tall beautiful man dressed in a white three-piece suit, a white fedora at an angle on his head. The sunshine coming in behind him seemed to illuminate him, as if he were translucent, and a glow collected around the outline of his form.

The wine glass hovered slightly, the cup upended as if caught in the middle of a rotation, then it began to float downward.

Ma ‘inyanim, Maya, you should not drink alcohol while taking your medication.

The wine glass was now on its side, drifting like a soap bubble. Maya shifted her eyes back to the visitor. “Who are you? What do you want?” she tried to say; her mouth didn’t move but she could hear her own voice.

He looked directly at her from under his hat brim; his eyes were colorless and crackling with electrical fire. He lifted both his hands, palms out. Be at peace, I will not take you today. There are times when I stop to talk with the sons and daughters of Adam. I offer you my condolences. Your husband was a remarkable human being.

“And you are?” she was certain she said, tracking the wine glass as it was poised about a foot above the parquet tiles.

I am the Ma’lak Hamavet, the one and there is only one.

The wine glass soundlessly appeared to contact the floor, the cup was suddenly crisscrossed with a myriad jagged lines.

“You’re the ‘Angel of Death?’ And you want to chat with me? When you’re not killing people, don’t you usually spend your spare time with Moses or King Solomon or famous scholars and rabbis? Why me?”  She felt giddy, certain she was hallucinating. She tried to smile, and the man or angel before her seemed to flare.

Because the Talmud doesn’t record my conversations with women of great mind and spirit, doesn’t mean I haven’t paused to converse with them.

Maya considered herself more of a teacher than a scholar. She taught ancient Middle Eastern and Biblical history at a private Pennsylvania college. She had studied hundreds of different texts, in the course of her research. To her any religion was something to be deconstructed and analyzed, an expression of the human unconscious filed under the heading of mythology. Religious practice in her view was nothing more than ritualistic behavior married to habitual doctrine.

Her guest beamed, a white-yellow shell of brightness shimmering all around him. Yet your husband was devout, and attended Sabbath evening and morning services faithfully. You kept the laws of kashrut for him.

“My Jeff never imposed his views on me, and I didn’t force mine on him. We got along fine. I kept kosher out of respect for him, not because he made me do it.” Maya rolled her gaze downward. The fracture lines of the glass were widening, the cup had taken on a convex, ovoid shape in front of her visitor’s white gleaming shoes. Tiny broken edges were beginning to lift, glinting with pinpoints of light. She still couldn’t move anything except her eyes, which she slipped upward again, staring into what was now a pulsating glare around the angel’s face and shoulders. “Did you also stop and shoot the breeze with any of the people chosen to live at Auschwitz while their loved ones went up the chimney in smoke?” She mentally flinched as the figure in front of the window brightened further.

Yes, I have.

“My husband just had a heart attack, did you cause that?” Maya reflexively noted the wine glass had ceased to exist. In its place was a cylindrical section of stem and a spray of glittering glass chips and sharp pieces frozen in the air just above the lustrous oak floor.

There are many paths that bring me to your door. I obey my orders.

“You are only following orders…?”  She felt contempt and anger and a pinch of fear.

The shards and scintillating spots of glass billowed upward and outward, suspended in luminescence like flecks of mica in granite.

Your husband came to me a happy and successful man. You live in a fine home, in a peaceful town, in a time when you will be afforded all the rights of property and ownership, and will be accorded respect.

“So I should be humble and grateful at my good fortune? I should feel guilty for being angry and saying you and your Boss can kiss my ass?”

Is that a question?

The spray of bits and slivers of glass spread more fully and hung in front of her hands, arms, and breasts like twinkling stars. The brilliance of the human form in front of her was so overpowering it was hard to keep focused on it; she slipped her eyes to either side as she attempted to confront this presence. “What is it that you actually do, anyway? If a man waits in an alley and decides to rob and kill someone walking by — where do you fit in all of that, exactly?”

I am his arm, I am his knife, I am his murderous thoughts.

The radiance seemed to grow more dim. Maya fastened her sight on the man in the white suit once again; his face became fluid, with eyes, nose, and mouth indistinct and in motion. The enormity of the concept impacted her and she felt a sudden surge of sorrow. “So, for the entire history of humankind, you’ve been every death, every thought of death, every instrument of death, from a flint ax to a copper-jacketed bullet to a bomb or crystal of Zyklon-B?”

I am the mind and matter of death. I am myself as well. For eternity.

He was melting now, flowing into the sunlight streaming through the window. Glass was all around her like a cloud, with the chunk of stem already resting on the floor. She felt pity for him, sympathy. “I’m sorry,” she tried to say. But he appeared to understand. “Is that why you visit with people, then? You have to, to preserve your essence, to define yourself. To remind yourself there is a God.”

There was a clicking in her ears, a static fuzz. Her eyes began to blink, her fingers twitched. The figure in front of her swirled into a small white cyclone.

I will see you again in forty years, he said inside her head, and then there was an explosive crashing, clinking, tinkling that startled her and made her jump. Grains and larger fragments of glass pricked her skin, spattered her black skirt and studded her stockings. Behind her excited voices were calling to her, telling her not to move. Julie bounded to her side.

“We’ll clean it up, Maya, don’t worry about it,” her sister said.

Maya shuddered and breathed, in and out, deeply. She tilted her head, giving a quizzical look at her mother-in-law, her husband’s brother, and two of his cousins who were all over her whisking off glass, putting Kleenex and handkerchiefs to bleeding cuts, leading her away.

She tried to twist all the way around, to look back at the window. Nothing was there but her fancy made-to-order drapes over a Belgian-lace panel.

Her own mother arrived, haughty and bossy as always, giving orders for someone to “Call the doctor.”

Maya smiled to herself as she was lead to the stairs leading to her bedroom on the second floor. “That wasn’t the Klonopin,” she said out loud. She still didn’t like the people around her very much, and she didn’t feel any closer to them. But she knew she had forty more years. She began calculating how quickly she could sell this house, and the rest of her belongings. Life was waiting.

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