Raya followed her. The tether twisted around her heart, yanking her back. She grimaced, gripping her chest.
Q gasped. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize—” He hung his head, shaking it. “I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry. I just got so angry because—”
Raya clasped his hand. “It’s okay. You have every right to be mad. I know how much you wanted to believe in Rasmus and Lily.”
“What else are they lying about?” His eyes muddied into overlapping shades of rage, disenchantment, and despair. “Can we really find our place here or are we just worker ants that keep a lie running?”
“Look at me.” Raya gripped the sides of his arms. “So what if they’re lying? It doesn’t change the only truth that matters. You can see.”
“Maybe more than I want to.” He pulled away from Raya. “There are so many things about this train that I’ve been trying to push backinto the shadows, trying to overlook, just because I told myself that there was nothing more important than regaining my vision.”
“Like what?” Raya said.
“The train’s rules. The lies.” He balled his hands tightly. “For a place that’s supposed to be limitless, I can’t shake the feeling that we’re trapped. Is it really possible to find your purpose if you’re forced to follow a single track?”
Manon pulled the mirror open like a door. A black-and-white field of flowers stretched into the horizon beneath a starless sky. Not a leaf or petal rustled. Not even the wind made the slightest sound. If they were not looking at it through an opening in the salon’s wall, Raya might have believed she was watching an old silent film.
“People don’t speak when they replay their lives in their minds.” Manon reached through the hole and plucked a flower that resembled a large cabbage rose. “The flowers in the Silent Garden grow from these thoughts.” She handed the ebony bloom to Raya. “Smell this.”
Raya closed her eyes and breathed in the flower’s fragrance. A vision of two hands hanging a gold medal around her neck bloomed in her mind. She exhaled, scattering the scene.
Manon took the flower back. “What did you see?”
“A medal.”
“How did it make you feel?”
“Nothing. Was I supposed to feel happy? Or proud?”
“I would have been surprised if you did. A memory that belongs to someone else has no color or meaning to a stranger. It is simply one of the ingredients in a long list required to make a perfume. This is why I cannot leave my past behind.” Manon sniffed the black bloom. “Erasing it would be like stripping the taste buds from a chef’s tongue.”
Manon plucked a filigreed perfume bottle dangling from one of the jacaranda’s low-hanging branches. “Without a lifetime ofmemories, I could not possibly know that if I extracted a drop of exhilaration from a winning moment such as the one you just smelled, added it to the curiosity and excitement of cracking open a new book, and mixed in a splash of a memory of chocolate melting in one’s mouth, I would be able to make a fragrance that re-created the sweet, tingling heat of a first kiss.” Manon squeezed the bottle’s tasseled bulb. “Like this one.”
A petal-soft kiss drifted in the air and found Raya’s mouth. A current ran through the tether, jolting her heart. She gasped and touched her lips and looked Q’s way. His eyes fled to the floor. He kept them there, color spreading over his cheeks. The same blush washed over Raya’s.
“In the world outside the Elsewhere Express, perfume is one of life’s little joys,” Manon said. “But for my clients, my fragrances are more than just simple pleasures. They are essential. Like air. While some passengers amuse themselves by borrowing faces, perfumes allow my clients to borrow the one thing that this miracle of a train is unable to offer.”
The brass hummingbird flew into the salon and hovered by Manon’s ear as though whispering a secret.
“Thank you.” Manon smiled at the bird. “Please tell him that I’ll be there shortly.”
The bird disappeared through the corridor.
“I’m sorry, but a client just arrived. This shouldn’t take long. He’s here to pick up an order.” Manon turned to leave, her robe billowing behind her.
“Who do I call to have my towels replaced?”
Frequently Asked Questions
The Elsewhere Express
Passenger Handbook
Rasmus
A wet towel had not helped Olly. And it did not help Rasmus. But Rasmus understood why Lily dabbed it on his skin. He had patted it on Olly’s forehead for the same reason. To survive, hope needed things to do. It puttered, prayed, and paced, doing anything and everything to keep moving, even if it was just in circles. Rasmus stared up at the Archive office’s ceiling, wishing he could tell Lily that he could see and hear her, but had been stripped of the memory of too many words to say anything that didn’t sound like nonsense.
“Are there consequences for breaking the train’s rules?”
