“It’s one of the quirks of being on a train that loops around time.” Rasmus tapped the gold knot embroidered on the collar of his jacket. “The Elsewhere Express is a wonder, but it’s not perfect. Sometimes, it picks up the same passenger when the tracks twist and double back. I believe there are three versions of me now. Or is it four?” He scratched his beard. “We also have quite a few versions of our pharmacist, Mr. Goh, which is wonderful. The pharmacy never has to close.”
Raya’s neck and shoulders tightened. She had enough trouble looking at her own face in the mirror. Another version of herself would know all the thoughts she kept locked away. The hardest words to hear weren’t those uttered by other people. They were the words you refused to say out loud.
“Anyway, even if you had met the otherRasmi,” Rasmus said with a smirk, “you wouldn’t have been able to tell that we were the same person. It isn’t just the conductor who changes faces. Some of the passengers do too. It helps pass the time when you’re traveling across eternity, trying to get as far as possible from who you used to be.”
“What’s in the stew?”
Frequently Asked Questions
The Elsewhere Express
Passenger Handbook
Raya
Raya had seen the look on Lily’s face before. It was the face a person wore when they knew the words to apologize, but not quite the right ones to set things right. Children learned it when they knocked over glass vases or lost their new lunch box at school. Some people grew up and perfected it after years in medical school, donning it when they walked into waiting rooms and told parents that their dreams were shattered beyond all hope of repair. Whatever Lily was about to say was not going to be good.
“Red hair.” Rasmus took a seat at the rosewood table. “I thought you were never going to do that again.”
“It was unavoidable.” Lily set her teacup down and looked at Raya and Q. “I’m glad that both of you were able to find your way here so quickly. I trust that your trip through the emergency exit wasn’t too terrible?”
“What’s this about, Lily?” Raya sat stiffly. “Why are we here?”
“Believe me, Ms. Sia, this isn’t something I wanted to do.” She glanced at Raya’s hand. “I know that locating your compartment should be top priority but finding it won’t matter if we don’t”—hereyes darted around the dining area—“address the train’s current predicament.” She lowered her voice.
“Raya and I just boarded,” Q said. “How does this have anything to do with us?”
“It’s best if we continue this conversation in the Stew, Mr. Philips. I’ve asked the kitchen to prepare it. It should be ready by now.”
“What’s the Stew?” Raya said. “Is it a meeting room or something?”
“Or something.” Rasmus stood up and made his way to the dining car’s kitchen.
Q
A slightly built chef with a half-moon-shaped birthmark on his pointed chin silently tended to the stew gently bubbling in a corner of the Dragonfly’s large kitchen. It was a task that Q was quite familiar with even if the only kitchen appliances he ever used were his microwave and refrigerator. His talent for painting was rivaled only by his skill at keeping his anger from boiling over.
His mother thought it was one of his best traits and told him that he was a lot like his father that way. While other children threw embarrassing tantrums, Q was content to sit quietly and simmer. He blended his more inconvenient feelings into the darkest pigments he could find, using them to paint singed moths in places where he shouldn’t. He ran a thumb under his collar, grazing the insect inked into his skin.
“The Stew is made up of unspoken thoughts. Rage. Love. Grief. The kitchen staff reduces it into a spicy dip for dumplings.” Lily bent over the stew and sniffed it. “Anything you say while you’re inside the Stew will never leave this room.” She straightened and patted the shoulder of the chef minding the stew. “Thank you, Olly. This is perfect.”
Olly kept his eyes on the pot.
“Excellent work.” Rasmus put his arm around Olly’s narrow,hunched shoulders, dwarfing him. He drew Olly away from the stove and walked him over to the kitchen’s main area. “Thank you.”
A gray-haired chef nodded at Rasmus and led Olly to one of the kitchen’s other stoves. He placed a cooking spoon in Olly’s hand and gently closed Olly’s fingers around it. Olly gripped the spoon’s handle and blinked, becoming aware of what he was supposed to do. He set the spoon inside a large soup pot, his eyes growing distant as he stirred.
“Is he all right?” Q’s fingers twitched the way they did when they ached to hold a brush. Olly had one of those faces he would have painted for free. Paying Olly for this privilege, however, was out of the question. Purchasing the truth turned it into a performance and Q had no interest in buying a ticket to see a show. The only thing he cared to capture was the story hiding behind the curtains of Olly’s eyes. If he squinted, he could almost make out its shape.
“Olly entered a locked door and got lost.” Lily fixed her gaze on the bubbling stew. “And it took us a very long time to find him.”
“How long?” Raya asked.
Rasmus exhaled heavily. “Too long.”
“We don’t use calendars or clocks here.” Lily looked up from the pot. “But my best guess was that he was gone for what would be called twenty years in the world outside the train.”
“Or a hundred,” Rasmus said, his voice swallowed by his beard. “There’s no way to know for sure.”
