Lily closed the satchel. “If you change your mind, just let me know. Mr. Goh, the train’s pharmacist, makes sure that I always carry a kit of his concoctions. But I’ll be honest. Most of them taste horrible. His seasickness syrup, however, is surprisingly delicious. The latest version tastes like a liquid lemon drop. When I boarded the train, it tasted worse than vomit.” She stepped up to the bow and looked out at the silver railway. “But drinking it was worth it, to enjoy this view.”
Q’s gray coat flapped in the wind. “Where do the tracks go?”
Lily’s gaze settled on the point where the railway met the two skies. “Nowhere.”
Raya scowled. “What’s the point of any of this then? Why are we even here?”
“Does a journey require a destination to be worthwhile, Ms. Sia?”
“You can’t call something a journey if you’re just running around in circles,” Q said.
“I wasn’t aware there was such a rule.” Lily folded her arms, hiding a smirk behind a cough. “What would you rather call it, Mr. Philips? I’m open to suggestions.”
“A complete waste of time.” Raya raised her voice over the wind.
“You can’t waste something that doesn’t exist, Ms. Sia. As Mr. Philips accurately pointed out, the Elsewhere Express travels in circles. But also in squares, triangles, and every shape you can imagine. It goes forward, backward, up, down, around, and through. It’s not uncommon for it to loop through some days twice.”
Q bent down to whisper in Raya’s ear. “Did any of that make sense to you or am I just slow?”
“This is your dream.” Raya caught a whiff of his scent. Springtime and soap. And the faintest suede. “You tell me.”
“Given what it’s built from, the Elsewhere Express doesn’t really care about breaking time’s rules,” Lily said.
“Here we go.” Raya looked at Q. “Brace yourself.”
“As I explained to Ms. Sia earlier, the Elsewhere Express is made from spools of daydreams, plans, ideas, memories, poems, and songs.”
A crease dug between Q’s eyes as though he were trying to grip something slippery between them. “Er, could you say that again?”
“I told you to brace yourself,” Raya said.
“The Elsewhere Express is made up of thoughts. Waking thoughts, to be precise,” Lily said. “The thoughts people dream of while they sleep are theirs to keep.” She knocked on the side of a mast. “This bamboo is created from a list a woman made of all the reasons why she’s divorcing her husband.” Lily lifted her eyes to the sail. “And the sails are woven from an extremely detailed vacation itinerary an accountant was planning. They’re impossible to tear and have absolutely no holes.”
Q squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Let’s pretend I understood that. I still don’t see how being made from thoughts exempts the Elsewhere Express from time’s rules.”
“Have you ever reminisced about your childhood, Mr. Philips? Or revisited a particular day in your head?”
A cold hospital room’s door creaked open in the darkest corner of Raya’s mind. She shook her head, slamming it shut.
“Of course,” Q said. “Who hasn’t?”
“We can relive decades in the span of a train ride home and pluck a second from a day and freeze it, rewind it, speed it up, and turn it inside out. Time has no power over thoughts. When you have eternity as your railway, having a destination sounds rather trite, don’t you think?” A wave crashed into the ship, knocking Lily off her feet. Her cap flew off. A cascade of red hair escaped from under it and fell over her shoulders.
Raya stumbled against Q. He fell backward, hitting his elbow on the deck. He groaned and clutched his arm. Raya crawled over to him. “I’m sorry,” she said, trying to remember her pre-college EMT training on how to make a sling. “Are you all right?”
Q pulled his lips into a shape between a wince and a smile. “I’m fine.”
“Do you still think this is a dream?” Raya stood up and helped Q to his feet.
“I apologize about the Echoes.” Lily slipped her cap back on and looked over the side of the ship beneath the night sky. “Thankfully, they appear to be calming down. But keep your vests on. You never know when they’ll act up. They get restless when they sense passengers are on the deck.”
“What are Echoes?” Raya leaned over the side of the ship. The moon’s reflection broke apart over dark waves. “All I see is the moon.”
Lily’s eyes followed the ripples of pale light. “That’s not the moon, Ms. Sia.”
“How much baggage am I allowed to bring?”
Frequently Asked Questions
