“I don’t understand. I drank Mr. Goh’s serum. Why do I still remember him?”
“Some memories are harder to erase than others. Especially fresher ones. Some need a second dose.”
Lily wrung her hands. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I can do this. Not while I can see his face.”
“You can and you will.” Rasmus steadied her shoulders. “Unless you want to set another train car on fire, you need to pull yourself together.” He drew a knife and sake bottle from his satchel. “Abbie will trap the stowaway and you and I are going to throw the stowaway out the back door if it’s the last thing we do.” He handed the knife to Lily.
The song clung to Lily, refusing to abandon her.
They were too late. A swarm of moths gathered in the passenger compartment before Abbie could spin her web. The moths formed a man’s shape and flung Abbie against a wall. The spider dropped to the grass carpet, silent and still.
“No!” Lily ran to it.
Rasmus lunged at the stowaway with a roar. It grabbed Rasmus and hurled him across the room, slamming his spine on the floor. The sake bottle containing the back door shattered next to him. Rasmus groaned weakly. The stowaway exploded into a swarm of moths and surged toward him. The swarm re-formed into a man with a frenzy of moths for a face. It pinned Rasmus down on his back. Rotting tendrils burst out of it and coiled around Rasmus’s neck. Rasmus choked and wheezed.
“Rasmus!” Lily scrambled to him, the song flying by her side. Lily raised the knife over the stowaway as it strangled Rasmus and plunged the blade into its back. The stowaway’s body broke apart into moths. The blade went through the swarm and struck Rasmus’s right eye. Lily screamed and stumbled backward, leaving the knife wedged in Rasmus’s bloody socket.
The song dove through the moths toward the wound. It was not a love song like the healing songs that lavender summoned. It was a sad song that had only ever fixed a leaky pipe in a lake. Still, it had to try. Moths knocked it around. The socket was close. But before the song could reach it, it found something more damaged than a blinded eye. The song glowed brighter, embracing the stowaway in light. And a wish.
Live. Breathe. Be.
A bandaged man lay on a hospital bed where there had once been a swarm of moths.
Lily knelt on the floor beside the bed, cradling Rasmus’s head.
“Lily?” Rasmus peeked through his remaining eye. “What happened? Where’s the stowaway?”
“The song…” Lily said, breathing hard. “I think it tried to heal the stowaway.”
“What? Why?”
“Maybe because sadness is a wound too,” Lily said quietly. “And the song felt that it needed to fix it.”
Rasmus tried to sit up but fell back into Lily’s arms.
“Don’t move,” Lily said.
Abbie scuttled over and weaved a makeshift patch over Rasmus’s socket with her web.
Rasmus coughed. “But why does it look like that? Who is that man?”
“I…I think it’s the person whom the song is about.”
“What?”
“Songs remain true to their nature when they fix things on the train, right?” Lily said. “I’ve seen the maintenance crew use songs about new beginnings to turn withered leaves into healthy, vibrant ones. I’ve watched a sweet song about a mother’s love soothe a chef’s blistered hand like a balm.” She cast her eyes on the bandagedman. “This song…it was filled with sorrow and grief—which is great for sealing leaks—”
“—but not for healing,” Rasmus said. “We got very lucky.”
“Lucky?”
“The stowaway’s trapped. Once we repair the back door, we can throw—”
“This song saved us, Rasmus. It saved the train. And now you want to throw it out like garbage?”
“A conductor’s duty is to keep the train and its passengers safe. That song isn’t a passenger.”
“Maybe not. But everyone on this train is alive because of it. We owe it, Rasmus.”
