We struck off down the tracks. The mural I’d seen from far away depicted a grotesque-looking pilgrim festival—the artist had painted terrible proportions, people with giant lips and skewed faces, like they’d been made of clay and squished between fingers. Like someone’s horrible dream of what people might look like. I decided I didn’t need that particular brand of nightmare fuel, and looked away. We crossed around the side of the station and almost walked straight into a train.
The tracks split as we rounded the corner. They diverged into three separate tracks, all with loading platforms beside them. One of the tracks was empty, and stretched off into the distance. The other two housed trains. A pair of locomotives stared us down with their yellowed eyes, dead and unused. Their slatted iron cowcatchers, just like out of an old cartoon—or a nightmare—gave the impression of toothy, frowning faces.
The number on the first locomotive was “0315-96.” The number on the second was “1128-95.”
I knew the first one right away. But I didn’t even get to share what I considered to be a startling revelation before Zack snorted derisively.
“That’s my birthday,” Zack said, pointing to the second one. “Holy shit.”
Morgan walked up to the front of her train—the first one—and put her hand on the wide iron bars of the cowcatcher. She ran her hand down one and whistled. When she turned back toward me, her face looked almost serene.
“Mine too. What is this?” she asked, her voice sort of…zonked out. Dreamy, almost.
Zack shook his head. He stood on the tracks in front of his train, his feet wide, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans. I wished, in that moment, I’d had a camera, or an easel and a talent for painting. I’d tack that shot up on my wall and call it
Puck shook his head and walked up the steps to the platform next to Zack’s train. He waved a hand at all of us. We followed him, even Morgan, though she showed a marked reluctance as we went away from her train. I grabbed her wrist and led her up the steps to the platform.
Zack’s train wasn’t long—just two passenger cars bookended by engines. The coaches were the same old- west style as the engine. Yellow painted slats along the outside, a long black roof with black trim. Wide windows with narrow openings. I could make out the darkened shapes of the benches inside through the windows. A small step folded out from between each of the passenger cars, with a little hand rail.
We stared at it for a long while. Zack wrapped his hand around the rail of the fold-out steps. I watched him look up at the train, and I wondered what he could possibly be thinking. The smooth lines of his face gave nothing away, and he examined the train with the same single-minded concentration he used to peruse news articles in the library. He slid his hand across the railing and rapped it with his knuckles. The railing gave out a hollow, metallic
“This is real,” Zack said. “This is me?”
Puck shook his head, and when Morgan spoke, I knew it was her, not Puck, talking.
“It’s not real,” Morgan said. “But yeah, that’s you all right.”
I turned to Morgan, to try to decipher this sudden burst of insight, but she still wore that slack, dreamy mask.
“How do you know that?”
Morgan looked me in the face and smiled. Her bright green eyes glittered like emeralds, unnaturally bright. Behind her, Puck fiddled with his scarf in a very un-Puck-like way—nervous, almost. I didn’t know where the two oddities fit together, and part of me didn’t want to. It left a hole in me that was filling with dread.
“I just know,” she said. “It looks like him.”
She walked to the edge of the platform and looked down at the gap between her and the train. She unfolded her hand toward the train and slapped it lightly with a wide-open palm. It reminded me of third grade, when we’d gone to the San Diego Zoo. Little eight-year-old Morgan in pig tails, staring up at Mogo the Elephant as he passed by. She had held her hand up, palm out, just like that. Like the world’s most bewildered crossing guard.
“Are you okay, Morg?” Zack asked, turning to look at her.
Morgan shook her head. “I doubt it.”
I laughed, despite the eerie scene. Morgan looked over her shoulder and grinned.
“I think it’s time to go,” I said. Her smile faded slightly, but she nodded.
“How do we...go?” Zack asked. He was looking down at the first step onto the train like it was covered with writhing cobras.
Puck pumped his arm in the
“That’s it?” Zack asked. “I go inside and what…wake up in my body?”
“That’s it,” Morgan said. It still wasn’t Puck’s voice. I had become used to her being Puck’s mouthpiece—even if it was creepy. But Morgan providing all the answers herself freaked me out even more.
Zack stepped off the platform and turned around. He looked straight at me, and I clenched my fists. He flashed me that crooked smile.
“I’ll see you soon, Luce,” he said. I felt my stomach spasm in terror.
“I—” I said, and stopped. My heart danced like a jackhammer in my chest.
“Hmm?” Zack said, his eyebrow raised.
My skin tingled across my whole body, and I felt my cheeks flush despite the chill in the air. Looking Zack in the eye, I knew I could take on the world and yet have trouble tying my shoes. The contradictory sensation gave me vertigo.
“I think I l-love you,” I said. I couldn’t stop myself. This didn’t feel like an “I’ll-see-you-soon” moment. It felt like the part of the movie where the guy says, “I’ll be right back” and then dies in some tragic but undoubtedly noble way.
“I know,” Zack said, and winked. He stepped backward onto the train and turned to go inside.
I ran to the edge of the platform and slapped the side of the train with my hand. Zack turned, just before opening the door to the coach.
His lips turn into a crooked grin, his eyes on fire with mischievous light. Looking into mine, the playful light dimmed, becoming something simple and earnest and beautiful.
“I love you,” Zack said.
Just like that. My face stretched without my control into what had to be the goofiest smile ever recorded. Behind me, Morgan let out a long disgusted groan. I flipped her the bird over my shoulder.
“That’s my lady,” Zack said. “I’ll see you in a few seconds, okay?”
“Promise?”
“Promise,” Zack said, and walked into the train. He closed the door behind him. My smile disappeared, and along with it the brief bubble of ecstasy. That familiar old feeling of despair took its place.
I watched the train with my hands clenched together, tucked tight against my belt.
I don’t know what I had been expecting—a flash of light, a sudden explosion, the
Nothing.
When the seconds stretched into an entire minute, I turned to Morgan. She shook her head, her brow knitted together. I glanced over to Puck. He sported a similar look of bewilderment.
Finally, the coach door opened again, and Zack leaned out. He blew out a long sigh.
“Yeah, so, we have a problem.”
A minute later, Zack was helping us board the train.
“Get ready for some weird,” he said.
The train car wasn’t as dark as I imagined it would be—the car glowed with a warm amber gleam. It reminded me of being home in a dream. Every bench and table looked brand new, polished, well kept, clean. But the strangely modern decor wasn’t what drew my eyes, not at first, anyway. The first things I really saw were the windows, and what was beyond them.
Cool florescent light streamed through the train windows, revealing blue/green stark walls and the giant, worried-looking faces of people I didn’t recognize. A hospital room, by the look of it, but super-sized. At first I recoiled, and from the sharp gasp behind me I guessed Morgan did the same. The giants, and their distant room, surrounded the train on all sides, at every window.
I looked at Zack, but he wore only an amused smirk.
