Devine Intervention by Martha Brockenbrough

problem.”
    â€œDon’t you like Paris? We could see the museums and sniff croissants and sit by the river —” She touched my field jacket.
    I held up my hand to stop her right there. Not the touching part. That, I did not mind. The Paris part. Somewhere not all that far from us, a train whistle blew.
    â€œWe can go anywhere I know how to get to. Someplace I’ve been before so I can imagine it. Like camping or Six Flags or something.”
    I closed my eyes for a second and wished she’d chooseSix Flags because the popcorn there makes for great sniffing, and when I opened them, Howard was standing right behind her. He reached for her.
    â€œDon’t even think about it,” I said.
    Before he could lay one of his grubby fingers on her, I grabbed her wrist and we shooped like nobody’s business in the direction of the passing train. I probably should’ve warned her, because she looked like someone who’d just stepped off the Kingda Ka coaster, which has a really sick four-hundred-and-eighteen-foot drop.
    â€œWe’re on a train,” she said, when the world stopped its sliding. “We’re on a train.”
    I looked around to make sure Howard hadn’t followed us.
    â€œLet’s just find somewhere to sit, okay?” I didn’t want to tell her that Howard had just tried to make a grab for her. Hopefully, he hadn’t heard the train whistle and gotten the same idea I did.
    We found an empty table in the dining car and sat across from each other. The train was moving at a good clip, all shimmying and rumbling, and the sound and movement started to take the edge off.
    â€œYou said, ‘Don’t even think about it.’ What am I not supposed to think about?”
    â€œWatch,” I said. I slipped my hands through the salt and pepper shakers really fast. “Magic!”
    That would’ve worked a lot better on the four-year-old Heidi. She put a hand on my wrist so I couldn’t do any more tricks.
    â€œWhere are we going? What are we doing?” Her eyes had the saddest tilt to them, and it seemed like as good a time as any to explain about the soul rehab program and Gabe and Xavier. For the longest time after I finished, she was quiet, sitting there by the window while the world streaked right by her head.
    â€œAm I going to Hell, then? Is that it?”
    For the first time all day, I cracked up. But I stopped when I saw the look on her face. “You? What’d you ever do bad? Creator knows I’ve seen everything. No, you’re not going to Hell. I did think you’d already be in Heaven by now. I must’ve screwed things up bad at the pond.”
    Heidi leaned back against the bench just as we went through a bunch of trees that made the world look darker than ever. The only light that came through every once in a while shined from the porch lights people had left on at farmhouses. Otherwise, we were in the dark and I had no clue where we were even going.
    â€œThis is really happening, isn’t it?” she said. “I keep thinking I am going to wake up and have it all be a dream, that tomorrow, I’ll have another chance.”
    Her voice went that bendy way it goes before you cry, and she stopped talking and bit her lower lip until it turned whitish. I hoped that’d keep her from springing an eye leak, but I came around to her side of the table anyway, in case she wanted to do it on my shoulder. I could always lift her head off of me in case she started leaking snot on the canvas.
    The tracks sloped uphill and the train lurched. Sheturned toward the window so our shoulders didn’t even touch. There was a tunnel ahead, a hole cut into a mountain.
    â€œWhat about you?” she said. “How long did it take you to get over being dead, and knowing you’d never get to do any of the stuff you wanted to do?”
    â€œNo point in talking about that.”
    â€œCome on. What else are we going to