Jane looked around the carriage. A woman in the seat opposite, dressed in underclothes, gazed at a steel box she held in the palm of her hand. She pressed at it and smiled, fondled it and laughed warmly at it, as though it both entertained and comforted her. She seemed to treat the box like it were as dear to her as a child.
The box rang like a bell then; the woman scowled at it and lifted it to her ear. “I can’t talk now. I’m on the train,” she said, speaking into the box. Jane shook her head at the sight, bewildered. Who did the woman talk to? After a moment, the woman removed the box from her ear and resumed poking and fondling it.
At first Jane believed that the twenty-first-century humans ruled over these steel boxes. Now she was unsure. The man who had sold Jane the train ticket obeyed the box in his ticket booth. When Fred gave him the money, he spoke to the box with his hands and then the box presented him with money and a ticket, which he passed on to Fred. The more of these boxes Jane witnessed, the more she decided the humans did not enslave the boxes, but the reverse.
Jane felt so fascinated, she did not know which held more delights for her eyes, inside the carriage or out the window.
“You seem so delighted,” Fred said to Jane, leaning forward from the row of seats behind to speak to her. “It’s a train.”
“I am!” Jane replied. “We have invented such wonders. Do you not agree?”
He chuckled. “I agree. But I’ve never seen anyone so enamored with a battered old train.”
“What is the purpose of your appointment in London?” she asked.
“Professional engagement day. And yes, it’s as boring as it sounds.”
“Not at all. You have a profession? That does not sound boring to me.”
Fred laughed. “I have a profession. I’m a schoolteacher. I teach history and English.”
“How marvelous,” Jane replied. “You must have the patience of a saint,” she added. “I could never instruct children.”
He shrugged. “Some days are better than others.”
“Does your profession bring you joy, sir?”
“Joy?” he asked with a laugh. Then he seemed to think on it a little more. “Actually, it does.”
“How wonderful,” Jane replied, smiling. The awkwardness with Fred remained, and was now added to, with the mortification of receiving money from him and now being in his debt. But she had so many things at which to look and marvel that she found her first train journey to London only half as terrible as she expected. She looked out the window once more.
THE TRAIN ENDED its journey at Paddington, arriving at a gargantuan terminus hall. “Shall we?” Fred said, interrupting her reverie. Jane looked around. The other passengers had left; the carriage lay empty. The man sitting next to her must have shuffled past her to get out; she hadn’t even noticed. Jane’s brain still whirred at the sheer mathematics of the journey. The steel beast had raced over a hundred miles of country in little over an hour. Jane stepped from the green monster and joined Fred on the platform. A sign read Platform 8. Eight platforms! That meant at least eight of these gigantic serpents roamed the countryside. Jane looked skyward and her mouth dropped open. A vaulted steel-and-glass ceiling loomed above her. On either side, people rushed back and forth along the multiple stone platforms, and trains arrived and departed, lurching forward and grinding to a halt. Everything moved at a tremendous speed. Jane’s mouth grew dry from falling open for so long.
Fred guided her to the exit. They walked out of the station and onto Praed Street. She looked around, amazed at the changes, the new buildings of glass and steel, the people. “Right, I’m going that way,” Fred said. He pointed west. “You’ll be right from here?”
“Oh,” Jane said, caught off guard.
“Do you know where to go?” he said to her, seeing her look. “I can stay with you.”
Jane could think of no excuse to keep him there. It was unlikely he suspected she was secretly a time traveler from the year 1803 who might need assistance navigating a witch hunt through twenty-first-century London. “I know where to go,” she lied. She pushed her shoulders back, hoping the move would imbue her with confidence. “Do not trouble yourself,” she added. “You have your appointment. Please attend it. I will be well.”
“I’ll see you back here at one,” he said.
“One o’clock? In the afternoon?” Fred nodded. She hesitated then, feeling guilty. She hoped to arrive at Mrs. Sinclair’s house, find the way to reverse the spell and return to 1803. She had no intention of returning to Paddington. “Yes, fine. Good. One o’clock,” she lied again. She looked away. “Goodbye, Fred,” she said solemnly. This was likely the last time she’d see him.
“Bye,” Fred replied. He went. She put him from her mind. She had made it to London; now it was time to return home. She looked at the gray sky, attempting to find her bearings.
She had walked Praed Street once before, with Henry while visiting him in 1801. A few things had changed since then. Three red steel boxes the size of pantries stood to her left, serving what function she knew not. Two buildings taller than she could fathom emerged from the earth to her right. People rushed past her in waves, more humans than she had seen in one place in her life. More colors and brightness bombarded her eyes than they could take in. A cacophony of sounds she did not comprehend assaulted her ears: beeps and buzzes and whistles. She prided herself on her education and mind, but every object
