herself in the head and it would fly out the window.”
Eleanor looked into the compartment. “Good theory! The other woman would have to be pretty stupid to leave herself as the only suspect.”
The man in the deerstalker hat raised his head and looked at Rosemary. She drew her arms around herself and quaked.
“What’s going on?” Peter whispered to Puck. “She couldn’t figure out the Mystery Man, but she’s solved every mystery she’s looked at. How does she know all this?”
Puck grinned. “It’s a mystery!”
“Yes, I said there was a mystery in every compartment,” said the Mystery Man. “Even yours. Rosemary is that mystery.”
“Rosemary, what’s wrong?” said Nicholas. “You’re as white as a sheet!”
“Have you thought about taking up sleuthing?” asked Eleanor. “Assuming the Mystery Man considers you old enough for bodies, of course.”
“Stop it!” Rosemary burst into tears. “Don’t you care about these people? Don’t you have any idea how they suffered?”
Peter frowned. “Rosemary, they’re just characters!”
“There is nothing ‘just’ about being a character!” Rosemary yelled. “Characters are born, they grow old, they fall in love, and they die! We are born, we grow old, we fall in love, and we die! What’s the difference?”
“B-but Rosemary,” said Peter, “they’re not people!”
“To me they are! I can feel them!”
Puck took Rosemary’s hand gently and pulled her away from the compartment. “I have always wondered why Rosemary could not finish most of her books,” he said. “And now I know. Sage Rosemary, how did you forgive me for turning Bottom’s head into that of an ass?”
Rosemary smiled wanly. “He was an ass,” she said. “And I knew that it wasn’t going to be permanent.”
“No one gets hurt in A Midsummer’s Night Dream,” said Peter. “In a couple of years we’ll have Romeo and Juliet. I think that’s going to be a problem. But I don’t understand; if Rosemary hates to see these characters suffer, why are they attacking her?”
“Just get me out of here,” Rosemary muttered. “Please?”
The Mystery Man nodded, his transparent hat brim shimmering the air. “She can’t stay on this train. It would be too much for her.”
“Come on,” said Peter, taking her by the shoulders and leading her back to their compartment. There, he slid open the door.
Rosemary stepped inside, looked up, and screamed.
A girl’s body dangled from the ceiling. “Oh, my God!” Peter pulled Rosemary out into the corridor. “Puck! There’s a body in our compartment!”
Nicholas and Eleanor perked up. “A body in their compartment?” They glanced at each other and broke into grins. “There’s a body in their compartment!” They rushed forward, but stopped short at the compartment door. They looked up and went pale.
Nicholas fainted. Gagging, Eleanor ran for the bathroom, holding her mouth closed.
Peter and Puck stared up at a girl very like Rosemary, her head lolling above a noose. She swung gently in time to the clickity-clack of the wheels over the rails.
Rosemary covered her eyes. She leaned against the opposite wall.
The Mystery Man stepped inside the compartment, looking up at the body. “This isn’t supposed to be here.”
“Look!” Peter inched past the dangling feet and peered out the window.
Puck followed him in. “Peter, what do you see?”
Peter was glued to the window. “That Zeppelin is back.”
Behind their backs, the hanging corpse raised its head and glared at Rosemary through its horn-rimmed glasses.
“You’re next,” the dead girl mouthed.
Puck pointed. “Wait. That shadow, by our own; that does not belong to the skyship.”
Peter craned his neck up. “There’s another Zeppelin.”
The window shattered inward. Peter scrambled back. A grapple slid into the compartment, grabbing at the air like a three-fingered claw.
The train shook. The door slid closed.
The man in the deerstalker hat leapt into the passageway and grabbed Rosemary from behind.
The hanging girl grabbed the noose, loosened it, and jumped on Peter, knocking him to the compartment floor.
Rosemary struggled, yelling, but her attacker wrestled her down and pressed his forearm to her throat. His clothes were wet and heavy. She choked. Her eyes widened as he pulled a double-hypodermic needle from his pocket, a murder weapon whose mark had masqueraded as a snakebite. The twin tips dripped with poison.
“Let her go!” Eleanor ran back from the bathroom and jumped on the man’s back. He struggled and elbowed the girl, hard. Rosemary punched desperately. Her right arm, still blackened from its dip in the Sea of Ink, landed solidly in the man’s stomach. He grunted. His grip slacked.
Nicholas, staggering up, tried to shove open the compartment door.
Inside, Puck and the Mystery Man pulled the flailing girl off of Peter.
The man in the deerstalker hat knocked Eleanor off him and dragged Rosemary to her feet. He held her from behind and pressed the hypodermic to her throat as Puck, Peter, and the Mystery Man poured out of the compartment.
“Do not move!” he shouted, his voice rich and British. “We are taking her! We shall have our revenge!”
The girl with the horn-rimmed glasses stepped to the door of the compartment. “Now!”
The man in the deerstalker hat shoved Rosemary into a window. It caved in. Rosemary screamed as a grapple caught her blackened arm in its metal teeth.
Peter and Puck rushed forward, grabbing at the metal jaws, but they held fast. The man in the deerstalker hat moved to stop them, but the Mystery Man surged forward and blocked him like a wave of water. “Get off my train!” he shouted. They fought. The Mystery Man swept him back into the compartment.
The hook pulled back, dragging Rosemary towards the broken window.
“No!” Rosemary yelled. She flailed. The grapple holding her arm hit the wall and sprang open. She fell away and lay on the floor, moaning. Peter grabbed her arm to check for injuries. She wasn’t even bleeding.
The Mystery Man emerged from the compartment, locking its door.
“How fast are these Zeppelins?” Peter gasped.
“As fast as the story requires,” said the Mystery Man.
The grapple made another swing, but checked itself. The train pulled ahead. Peter could see the bulk of the Zeppelin above them edging into view. “Why are they hanging back?”
“We’ve entered a range of mountains and there’s a tunnel ahead,” said the Mystery Man.
“Tunnel?” said Peter. He peered out the hole in the side of the train as Puck helped Rosemary to her feet.
“Puck, I’ve got an idea!”
“I hope it’s a good idea,” said Eleanor. She held the door shut against the shouting and fists of the girl with the horn-rimmed glasses.
“We’ve got to get off this train,” said Peter. “If we don’t, the Zeppelins will keep following us and pick us off.”
“But if you stop the train, we’ll be sitting ducks,” said Nicholas.
“Not