“They’re threads of thought,” Lily said.
“Threads of what?”
“Every thought that passes through your mind is connected to something else. Memories. Lies. Truths. They’re all woven together. No idea or daydream stands alone. It’s the fabric this train and everything you see around you is made of. Including the door that leads out of this boarding car.”
Raya’s insides twisted as the threads did. As strange as the sight was, it was the first thing that felt truly familiar since she had found herself on the Elsewhere Express. Her thoughts were just as tangled, binding her to the night she lost the very reason she was born. Three memories twisted around one another to form a noose: a stolen tube of lipstick, a song, and frantic knocking on her childhood bedroom’s door. It tightened around her neck each time she dared to dream of a life other than the one stuffed inside her upcycled bag. “I still don’t see a door.”
“It’s difficult to see through the clearest glass when the window is shaking as much as this frame is. Allow me.” Lily took the frame from Raya.
Raya shoved her trembling hands as deep as they would go into her pockets, remembering how just a few hours ago, she had gripped a scalpel and pressed it into a cadaver’s flesh without the slightest quiver. She was used to living her life from a distance, watching herself from the back row as she mouthed someone else’s lines on a stage. Acting brave was easy as a stand-in, but much less so without the costume of someone else’s dream.
“The frames you’ll find around the Elsewhere Express serve the same purpose as they do on a gallery’s walls. They give the person who looks through them perspective.” Lily lifted the frame an inch higher and left it to hover in the air. “And focus.”
Raya looked through the frame. A short distance from the oak, a circular patch of wildflowers cast a silver-blue light. “All I see are some very strange flowers.”
“Congratulations. You’ve found the exit.” Lily beamed likesomeone whose puppy had just learned a new trick. “The doors on the Elsewhere Express look a bit different from the doors that you’re familiar with.”
“A bit different?”
Lily laughed. “All right. Maybe a lot. The train’s doors can look like anything, really, and tend to move around when they get bored.”
Raya quirked a brow. “Sorry?”
“Have you ever had a thought that stayed perfectly still, Ms. Sia? Thoughts are as alive as the people who created them. On this train, we can shape thoughts into the most amazing things, but we cannot change their nature. Any thought, big or small, short or long, pretty or monstrous, can lead you anywhere. You don’t have to be a passenger on the Elsewhere Express to know that a song can be a rabbit hole to your childhood, a heartbreak, or your first love. The thoughts curling up from a cup of hot cocoa can be a tunnel to the day you learned that Santa wasn’t real. The picture frames reveal the doors hiding in plain sight.”
“But you saw the door without using one.” Raya stared at the glowing wildflowers, unable to look away.
“I didn’t,” Lily said. “I heard it. The doors are scattered around the train. They sing to each other to keep themselves from feeling lonely. Most passengers can’t hear them. That’s why the Elsewhere Express has a team whose sole task is to make sure that there are frames available in every train car for those who need it. Not everyone has an ear for music.”
A heaviness poured into Raya’s chest like plaster, molding itself in the cavity left by a withered lullaby.
“Ms. Sia? Is everything all right?”
Raya avoided Lily’s eyes. “I…was just wondering how a wildflower door worked.”
“It works the same way all doors do.” Lily smiled. “We go through it.”
“Is alcohol allowed on the train?”
Frequently Asked Questions
The Elsewhere Express
Passenger Handbook
Raya
Raya blinked.
And wished she hadn’t. Had her eyes been open, she might have been able to explain how she had fallen through a patch of wildflowers and was now lying on her back, staring up at two luminescent whale sharks swimming across a purple sky. She tried to stand. Her limbs refused. Every bone and muscle in her body felt as though they had just been pulled, stretched, squeezed, and then poured out.
Lily stood over her, offering a hand. “Passing through the train’s doors can make you dizzy.”
Raya clutched Lily’s hand, a part of her hoping that her fingers would pass through Lily like smoke. But Lily’s palm was solid and warm, leaving no doubt that she was made of flesh, blood, and bone.
“You look disappointed.” Lily helped Raya to her feet. “Were you still hoping to prove that I was some kind of hallucination?”
A wave of nausea washed over Raya. She leaned against a round table for two and closed her eyes. She drew slow breaths and waited for the room to stop spinning. She peeked through her lashes. Towering white petals grazed the purple sky, framing a kaleidoscope ofiridescent fish swimming through cotton-candy-pink clouds. The whales circled the school and swam away. A rainbow-colored jellyfish, larger than both whales combined, took their place. It floated over Raya, a wishing star just beyond her reach.
