Chapter 97
Holding On
The train was bouncing over some kind of rough terrain. It did so with occasional shakes and jolts, one of which caused the carriage they were in to snap entirely in two, the larger part shooting back into darkness.
Agnes and the Dreamer remained, holding onto the brass rail.
A second later, Agnes’s hat fell off and she instinctively reached out for it just as her side of the brass rail became detached from the varnished wood panelling.
The train tilted at an almost forty-five-degree angle.
She fell towards the wildly swinging open door, but the dreaming Wilbur caught her, his hand grabbing her forearm as the train kept speeding and whistling forward on its jagged path.
‘I’ve got you!’ he said, as he held onto her with one hand and, with the other, a brass rail that was also starting to buckle.
‘You’ve got to let go!’ she shouted above the noise.
‘But—’
‘I’m fine! Remember. If you don’t let go, there is no chance for you. The train is trying to save you – it just wants you! It wants rid of me! It has no power for anything else.’
Her hand slowly slipped through his fingers. He heard the train buckling and breaking all around him.
‘Let go of me, Wilbur! I am safe! I will see you in eternity one day. But you have to live. Don’t let it all be for nothing. YOU MUST LIVE!’
She gave him an imploring look.
‘Good luck!’ he told her. ‘And goodbye!’
‘Au revoir, Young Bean.’
He let go of her hand and watched her fall back, then deliberately roll herself out of the door. He held on tight to the last brass rail at the top of the carriage as what remained of the train sped further and further, its whistle louder and louder.
‘Hold steady!’ he told himself, thinking of nothing but Maggie’s smile. ‘Hold steady!’
And, just at the moment one screw of the handrail flew away, causing the rail to loosen and twist wildly with his weight, the void began to lighten.
The sky beyond began to burn and shift with yellows and blues.
Brighter and brighter. He clenched his eyes shut against the glare.
And now, just as the light began to soften, he realised that he was entirely still, and lying on something soft.
He had a feeling of mild confusion. The confusion, it seemed, of waking up.