The Schoolboy/The Witch
The reading was to give him a head-start on the next year's term. It had been handed to him by his father, without much of any word about it other than an unspoken expectation that he was intended to read it. The book was dry, but he had gallantly been forcing his way through it, trying to put to memory the pieces that seemed most important, even if he suspected that the best that he could hope for was a mild familiarity with the material which might make the classes easier.
The focus which he'd been able to grant to the material seemed to have faded with the train stopping. It was the typical nature of any young boy to be curious, and he had not had curiosity trained out of him by an expectation that you stay quiet and allow the adults to handle things. If anything, as he crept nearer to adulthood, the curiosity seemed to become more persistent.
In this particular instance it had been satisfied in such a way as to only offer a further deeper curiosity that was under-girded with nervousness and a little anxiety. He had seen nothing himself, despite having been in the sitting car, because he had been reading, but a disappearance having happened in the sitting car had made him wonder if he should return to his compartment. Of course if people were disappearing, no one would notice him gone if he were alone. He tapped his finger on the pages of the book, and chewed on his bottom lip, glancing out the window, only to be reminded they weren't moving and that it was very dark outside, and then he turned back to the car.
It was the motion of her turning the crystal that caught his eye first, and he looked over, staring. He didn't see many young women at school only those in the next school over, and only then when they were on weekend excursions into town. And certainly none of those that he knew from that school looked even a bit like this one. Oliver didn't know if there was any significance to the crystal or not, but the motion seemed to suggest a bit of anxiety shared.
For a moment he hesitated, staring at the book working up the nerve to say something, while simultaneously wondering if he should. Perhaps she wouldn't want to talk to him. Nothing about her had indicated such.
Fuck it. And he simultaneously chided himself for the language as soon as he uttered in his head, before he forced himself to say something. "You can sit with me, if you want? You may not want to, but um, if you would like. I'm not…" he shrugged, clearly nervous at having asked, as if maybe he'd only revealed that he did not wish to be alone, and she was fine. She was probably fine. "I'm Oliver," he added as if a name might make a difference to her answer.