“Maybe it’s because my hand just passed right through you?” Raya said.
“Fair enough. But I promise you, I am Olly. And so is the Olly that you met at the Dragonfly. We know each other rather well.”
“You can’t both be Olly,” Q said, his neck and jaw stiff.
The man turned his back to them, returning his gaze to the whirlpool. “Isn’t it funny how the stiller your body is, the farther yourmind wanders? Olly used to spend his days gazing at the swirls, but he wasn’t really here. He liked to reminisce about his time in maintenance. He thought about his friends on the crew a lot too. In the early days, those memories made him smile. As time passed, his old life grew farther and farther away, almost as if it belonged to someone else. One day, it did.” He looked at Raya and Q. “That was the day I was born. I’m the Olly that—”
“—Olly lost.” Raya’s eyes grew large. “You’re Olly’s thoughts.”
“There aren’t other piles of thoughts that are like me around here and so I don’t really have a place to go. I spend most of my time here.” Olly glanced back at the whirlpool. “I like to stand at the exact spot Olly used to stay for hours without moving, just looking over the edge. That’s when I feel closest to him, when I feel whole.”
“That must be why Olly stirs and stares into pots. It reminds him of this place.” Q locked eyes on Olly. “And you.”
“How did you get left behind?” Raya asked. “Don’t the thoughts in the Missed and Misplaced Department come from people outside the train?”
“Most do,” Olly said. “Except for those that circle the drain.”
“Drain?” A chill spread through the tether. Raya shivered. “What drain?”
“That drain.” Olly chuckled, casting his gaze to the whirlpool. “Last I checked, it was the only thing here that swirled and carried things away.”
Raya, Olly, and Q sat on piano stools by the collection of abandoned instruments. “I’m happy that I learned how to do this.” Olly patted the stool. “When I first arrived, I fell through everything. I wasn’t like any of the thoughts here. They bounced, rolled, and tumbled to whichever mound they belonged to as soon as they landed. But not all of us can be lucky enough to be pens or watches. I imagine that it’s quite peaceful when you can’t think or worry about who you are or where you belong.”
Olly cracked a small smile. “Do you know what I used to do before I got lost? I worked in maintenance as a plumber. I had just unclogged the pharmacy’s drain when a leak was reported in the gallery’s fountain. The leak turned out to be a simple fix. Since I finished early, I decided to see the exhibit while I was there. That’s when I…panicked.”
“Because you saw your secrets on display,” Raya said quietly.
“My secrets?” Olly shook his head. “I don’t have any worth putting in an exhibit. The secrets I saw belonged to the conductor.”
“What?”Q jolted. “Which conductor?”
“The only conductor the train has. I don’t recall their name. It was so long ago. What I do remember is being so terrified of their secrets that I bolted through a locked door and found out firsthand why we’re told not to open them.”
“So we don’t get lost,” Q said.
“They like to say that, don’t they?” His eyes dimmed, making him resemble the Olly that stirred pots even more. “The truth is, they tell us to stay away from locked doors to keep us from seeing things they don’t want us to see.”
Raya’s shoulders stiffened. “Like what?”
Olly set his eyes on the whirlpool. “Like drains.”
“Should I be afraid of the Echoes?”
Frequently Asked Questions
The Elsewhere Express
Passenger Handbook
Rasmus
Rasmus had not expected to be blinded by a flare nor to slip on the gallery car’s roof. If he had caught a glimpse of the train car the flare had illuminated, he could no longer remember it.
The Echoes swarming him consumed his newer memories first. After erasing whatever location the flare had burned into his eye, they moved on to his afternoon tea and biscuits. They swallowed the memory of a steaming cup in one gulp without getting scalded or tasting it. Pleasure required knowing pain, both of which were beyond an Echo’s grasp. Some Echoes moved on to ripping off pieces of the hours Rasmus had spent tinkering with his miniature trains. Others devoured the plans that he was drafting for a portable gilded frame passengers could carry in their pockets. Rasmus lay still and silent, resigned to his fate. Soon, he would know nothing about who he was, other than being the first and last course of a frenzied feast.
“Where do the Echoes go?”
Frequently Asked Questions
