Q
Rice paddies climbed up the side of a mountain range and shimmered in the light of bamboo torches like a glass stairway. Q surveyed the train car from the topmost terrace. “This place is huge. How are we supposed to set a trap here?”
“We’re not.” Rasmus walked over to a bamboo bench. “This isn’t the train car where the balloon burst. It’s the supply closet. We need to get the things you’ll need to make the trap.”
“The thingsIneed?”
Rasmus pulled off his boots and arranged them next to the bench. “You’re the painter.”
“What exactly do you expect me to do, Rasmus? Drown the stowaway in a ten-liter can of cerulean blue? Build a cage out of easels?”
Rasmus rolled up his pants to his knees. “Did you know that most of the train’s painting crew had never painted anything before boarding the Elsewhere Express? None of them were selected for their talent. They were chosen because out of all the train’s passengers, they were the most content.”
“What does that have to do with making a trap for the stowaway?” Q said.
“A person that’s happy to be on this train can be trusted to color within the lines and follow the approved templates for clouds and constellations.” Rasmus looked at Q. “Unlike you.”
“If you don’t trust me, then you should have just left me tied up with Raya.”
Rasmus pushed up his sleeves. “That’s not what I meant. What I’m trying to say is that to stop the stowaway, we need someone who knows how to break the rules. Someone who isn’t afraid to paint with darker shades of gray.”
“How do you know what I’m capable of?” Q folded his arms over his chest. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know enough. I’ve seen the updated passenger manifest and it contains more than just your name and food restrictions. The Elsewhere Express likes to know its passengers. And so do I.”
Q set his boots next to Rasmus’s. He rolled up his sleeves and pants and stepped into a shallow rice paddy. Mud swallowed his feet past his ankles, squishing as he trudged between rice stalks. “For the record, I think this is ridiculous.”
“Your objections have been noted.” Rasmus followed him into the paddy. “Now, can we get the job done? Choose a stalk, picture what you need, and pluck it. Remember what I told you. The stalk can be whatever you want it to be. If you require a paintbrush, imagine one. If you need a palette, harvest it.”
Q rolled his eyes and yanked a stalk out. Water dripped from its roots and slithered down Q’s arm. “This isn’t going to work.”
“Try again.”
Q tossed the stalk aside. He pulled out a second stalk and hurled it off the mountain. Q groaned. “We don’t have time for this, Rasmus.”
“If you don’t succeed, we won’t have anything at all. You expected to find nothing and so that’s exactly what you found. There is no room on this train for an ounce of doubt. The Elsewhere Expressexists because every single passenger believes with every fiber in their body that it does.”
Q raked his hair off his face. “Look, Rasmus, if you’re asking me to paint some kind of trap, I will. I’ve painted a star in the air and a trapdoor over water so who am I to say that I can’t? But turning rice stalks into paintbrushes and tubes of paint is a completely different story.”
“You think you can paint a trap for the stowaway just because you’ve painted a star and a hole? Any painter here can do that with their eyes closed. You’re not painting a piece for your latest collection, Q. You’re stopping a monster that will destroy every life that’s been rebuilt here.”
“I understand that,” Q said.
“I don’t think you do. If you did, then you would be able to do this.” Rasmus pulled out a stalk and opened his fingers. A tube of yellow paint sat in his palm. “And this, and this, and this,” he said, harvesting an assortment of brushes and paints. “The supply room isn’t built like this for the sake of being odd. It’s meant to make you look at all the laws that used to govern your life and tell them to get the hell off this train.”
“I’m sorry.” Q shook his head. “I can’t. Find someone else.”
“I wouldn’t have asked you to do this if you hadn’t already done this very thing a hundred times before.” Rasmus looked directly at him. “Everything your hands have ever created was born in your mind first. All I’m asking is for you to do it again.” The torches set the blue sea in his good eye on fire. “And to be clear, I’m not talking about the faces your clients commissioned you to paint.”
“You’re talking about the anger I painted on walls.” Q’s voice turned as cold and gray as the mud he stood in.
“I want you to find whatever rage has been simmering inside you and paint a void so dark and deep that no monster can ever climb out of it.”
“But what if the stowaway isn’t a monster? What if Raya was right? What if the stowaway really is her brother? How sure are you that the dead don’t board this train? Raya seemed to be very convinced that—”
“So was Lily,” Rasmus said. “We almost died because she refused to see the truth.”
“But you survived. And so did the train. How?”
