Abbie shifted around the layers of the miniature Archive, her eight legs blurring at the speed she manipulated them. The Archive’s concentric spheres followed the movements of the model, aligning themselves to form a tunnel. A scroll fell through the tunnel and landed on the jade floor. Rasmus unrolled it.
“Good news?” Raya chewed on her thumb.
“No.” Rasmus rolled the scroll up. “Very good news.” He grinned. “We have the instructions to build what we need.”
“A barometer?” Q said.
“A special kind.” Rasmus tucked the scroll under his arm. “Remember how the air was heavier and harder to breathe when the stowaway was near? The storm absorbed the stowaway’s sorrow. A regular barometer wouldn’t be able to predict it. We need one that measures sadness instead.”
“Brilliant,” Q said. “How can we help?”
“Leave this to me. You and Raya should rest while you can. You’ll need all your strength to catch the stowaway.”
“Are you sure?” Raya said. “Maybe we can build it faster if we work together.”
“Let me worry about the time.” Rasmus strode over to the bookcase by his cot. “People are born at the mercy of the passing hours, but there’s one place where our roles are reversed.”
Rasmus plucked the thickest book from the bookcase’s top shelf. “Within the pages of a book, time serves us. It can move faster or slower at the author’s whim. Well-chosen words can even bend it. Finding the hours we need to build the barometer is a simple matter of choosing the right book and stepping inside it.” He cracked the book open. “I’ll work on our little project in here. It reads slower than molasses in winter. It should give me more than enough time to fabricate our device. It’s also a great place to take a midday nap. But just like stories, seconds are on a constant march forward. We can control their tempo, but we can’t make them stop. Stories will always come to an end. You’re welcome to join me in this book or you can choose another one to wait in while I work. I’ll come and get you when I’m done.”
Q browsed the shelf. “Any book?”
Rasmus nodded. “Short. Long. Fiction. Nonfiction. Poetry. Prose. Good. Bad. All that matters is that it’s bound between two covers and has words you don’t mind spending some time with. Did you have anything particular in mind? If I don’t have it here, it might be in one of the Archive’s storerooms.”
“There’s a purple notebook I’d love to spend some time in.” Q looked at Raya. “If its owner agrees.”
“Can the Elsewhere Express slow down?”
Frequently Asked Questions
The Elsewhere Express
Passenger Handbook
Q
Q and Raya were ribbons of ink, traveling through the twists and turns of Raya’s handwriting. They looped through a hopeful lyric and, at the end of the chorus, disappeared into a verse. Q had thought that he knew what it was like to get lost in the pages of a book, but nothing he had ever read had taken him into the heart of a song. He crossed its bridge and bobbed over an ocean inside a glowing sphere. Glittering snowflakes fell around him, dancing to the rhythm of the music that filled the globe.
“This has to be a mistake.” Raya looked out at the ocean, her palms pressed against the sphere’s curved crystal. Identical luminous orbs floated by, riding the waves. In the distance, she caught sight of the small crescent-shaped island where they had met Dev. The shining orbs washed ashore, making its pinkish sand shimmer. “This can’t be my notebook. This is the maintenance department.”
“But this is your song, isn’t it?” Q said. “I remember it from the gallery.”
“It is. And so are the others outside.”
“Then it makes perfect sense we’re here. This is where songsboard the Elsewhere Express. Your songs must have come here after you wrote them.”
“All these years”—Raya swallowed tears—“I had imagined this notebook as their coffin, and inside it, they had all turned to dust.”
“When was the last time you opened this notebook?”
“Do you have to ask? You saw my whole life on display at the exhibit.” Raya sat down and held out her palm to catch snow. The golden knot on her skin barely moved as snowflakes melted over it. “I couldn’t bear to look at any of my songs after Jace died. And yes, I’m very aware of the irony of lugging around something I can’t stand everywhere I go. Pathetic, I know.”
“Not pathetic. Human.” Q sat next to her. “The hardest things to let go of are the things that hurt us the most. Believe me, I know.”
“Touché.”
“But—”
Raya wiped the melted snow on her jeans. “But what?”
