The Last Train from Faerie | Olivia Atwater
THE LAST TRAIN
FROM FAERIE
By
OLIVIA ATWATER
It was five minutes to midnight on the Whitland station platform. No reasonable human being ought to have been out and about at that hour – let alone the two people who currently waited there, peering down the tracks with anxious curiosity.
Isaac hefted the lantern in his right hand, casting its flickering light across the platform.
The lantern’s illumination revealed glimmers of gold in the highlights of his curly brown hair and settled dramatic shadows into the wrinkles of his coat.
He frowned uneasily, staring uselessly into the darkness.
“We could still turn back,” Isaac said, sighing heavily. “Really, you needn’t do this, Em. It was a foolish whim that got him into this mess. Let him suffer the consequences.”
Emma offered her brother a stern look of reproval. “I know you don’t mean that, Isaac,” she said. “You are worried about me – I understand that. But if it were my whim and my consequences, you would have sent him after me in a heartbeat.”
Isaac glanced away from her. His expression had grown progressively darker and gloomier with every minute closer to midnight. “Simon is a good friend,” he admitted. “I care for him very much. But you’re my sister, Em, and I care for you even more. You are family, and he… well, he isn’t.”
Emma forced a laugh. “You had better hope he’s family,” she replied, more nervously than she had intended.
“All of this might become terribly sticky, otherwise.” She pulled her dark green travelling cloak more tightly about herself, in order to ward off the evening chill.
“Now – one more time, Isaac. What are you to do with my hair?”
Isaac grimaced as though he’d bitten into a lemon – but his hand strayed subconsciously to the pocket of his coat, where he’d tucked away a small envelope containing a lock of Emma’s own curly brown hair.
“Lock it away in an iron-bound chest with an iron key,” he recited.
“I’m not to take it out for any reason whatsoever until you’ve safely returned. ”
Emma nodded at him. “And if I do return?” she prompted him. “What if I ask you to unlock the chest for me, Isaac?”
Her brother rubbed at his face with his free hand, already weary-looking. “I’m to hand you the key and ask you to unlock it for yourself,” he said. “An imposter will burn her hand, or refuse the key entirely.”
Emma smiled at him fondly. “You have been listening,” she said. “And here I thought you couldn’t stand all of this dangerous faerie nonsense.”
Isaac narrowed his eyes at her, faintly sulking. “I still consider it to be dangerous nonsense,” he told her. “Talking too much about the Folk just draws their attention. Life is complicated enough without inviting even more of their interest.”
“I’ll convey your lecture to Simon when I see him,” she said. “Perhaps he’ll even listen, this time.”
One minute to midnight. There came a shrill, high-pitched whistle on the air. All at once, a sleek, marvellous silver engine came into view. Somehow, the train still gleamed with reflected light, despite the veil of clouds that blocked out the sky overhead.
The wheels made no sound, as the silver train pulled into Whitland station. When it had come to a full stop, the door of the nearest passenger car creaked open.
No one stepped off of the train in order to invite new passengers aboard. No station clerks rushed out to set up stairs. The locomotive was a brief visitor to this world, Emma knew; it would not return to this station again.
Emma thought she’d steeled herself appropriately for this moment. All day, she had been fortifying her resolve. But now that the train was here, and it was time, she found herself briefly frozen, unable to take the last step of her journey.
She didn’t want to board this train. Not really. But Simon was somewhere aboard it, and she dearly wanted to see him.
Well… he was aboard the train, wasn’t he?
She had every reason to believe that he was.
But what if Simon were elsewhere? What if she’d followed the wrong clues all the way here?
What if she stepped aboard the train and vanished, indefinitely delayed by this excursion while the man for whom she was searching languished somewhere else entirely?
“We can turn back, Em,” Isaac said again softly. His voice held a note of horrible, aching sympathy.
Isaac wouldn’t judge her, she knew. Despite his complaints, he had spent five years beside her, trawling through poor Simon’s notes and questioning his colleagues at the College. He’d even gone to London with her, in order to speak with the professors there.
Emma could leave this platform right now, and Isaac would not say a word.
He would go back with her to their little house in Aberystwyth.
Isaac would take back up the family business, and Emma…
well, Isaac had promised her that she could go to the College if she really wanted to.
There were a few female students there now, and their family’s money was good for it.
But Simon would be gone, of course. Emma had coveted a place at the College long before his arrival; she still hoped to study there, despite his absence. But what an awful, wretched thing it would be to walk those halls without him, aware of all the empty spaces that should have contained him.
No, she decided. She could not turn away and leave this platform, knowing that he might be on that train.
“Goodbye, Isaac,” Emma said quietly. “I will see you at Oakley station – or else not at all.”
And then – before she could think better of it – she pulled the hood of her green cloak over her head and climbed her way through the open door of the passenger car.
The carriage in which she found herself was both stranger and more luxurious than any mortal conveyance could have claimed.
Two rows of hard silver benches glimmered in the darkness, as though touched by sourceless moonlight.
The floor was carpeted in fresh leaves, from which violet flowers grew to twine along the windows.
A heavy floral scent suffused the air – so sweet that it was nearly sickening.
A scattering of hooded figures sat on the benches, whispering to one another in hushed tones.
A long, lizard-like tail peeked out from beneath one cloak, curling across the open aisle.
As another of the seated creatures gestured emphatically, Emma caught sight of a pale, dead hand with rotten black fingernails.
Logically, she knew that she ought to move along. But the sheer unreality of the sight seemed to drain all courage from her body. Instead, she found herself staring blankly ahead, already terrified beyond belief.
Had Isaac been beside her then, suggesting that she ought to leave, she might very well have done so. But by the time she turned back for the carriage door, quietly panicked, it had already closed behind her.
The carriage floor hummed softly beneath her feet. Emma watched helplessly through a nearby window as the Whitland station platform fell away into an impenetrable silver fog.
“Your fare, madam?” a voice asked pleasantly.
Emma started and whirled about.
The creature that had spoken had not been in the carriage when she had first entered, she was certain.
It was a short figure – perhaps a full two feet shorter than she was – though its tall, pointed red hat reached nearly to her nose.
Its face was doll-like, and entirely vacant of expression.
In fact, it seemed to be made entirely of wax.
Its hand was currently outstretched and waiting.
“Your fare,” the voice requested again politely. This time, Emma saw that its waxen lips did not move as it spoke. “I will only ask three times, as is traditional.”
Emma focussed on it abruptly, with a fresh spark of panic. Suddenly, she realised that she could not afford to stay silent, as doing so might well invite the creature to ask for her ticket one last time. “And… what happens to those who have not brought their fare?” she asked warily.
“Passengers without fare shall be chopped up and added to our stew,” the voice informed her cheerfully. “We will be serving bowls in the parlour car, very shortly. I do hope you will try some.”
Emma’s eyes widened. “I am certain that I have my fare,” she stalled the figure swiftly, before it could speak again. “Could you, ah… remind me what it looks like? I journey to so many different places, you see, and I can’t always remember which fare is which.”
“Of course, of course,” the voice assured her, eminently agreeable. “It would be round and metal, with a noble countenance upon it.”
Oh, Emma thought. I never imagined that a faerie might ask for coinage. Only a moment later, she was stricken by the realisation that she had no coins of any kind upon her person. Who, indeed, would bring a pocket full of pence with them to Faerie?
“Your fare, madam?” the wax figure asked her. His tone was patient – but she knew very well that refusing to answer for a third time would go badly for her.
Emma reached into the pocket of her travelling-dress, searching vainly for something that might save her life. Her fingers closed upon something wildly unsuitable. She pulled it free with a terrified laugh, and placed it in the creature’s out stretched hand.
“Here,” she urged him. “My fare, sir.”
Silence pressed in around them both, broken only by the soft tick-tick-tick of the pocket watch in its palm.
“Is that… really your fare?” the voice asked dubiously.
“It is round and metal,” Emma told him quickly. “And you see – it has a very elegant face.” A moment later, she drew herself up haughtily and added: “It spends quite well where I am from, I assure you.”
“Hm.” The voice still sounded uncertain.
“I begin to feel insulted,” Emma continued desperately. “Perhaps we should speak with the conductor—”