“I need to take a walk,” Castaneda said.
He stood, picked up the cactus from the table, and walked away without offering an explanation.
Missy remained where she was, watching him disappear into the adjoining carriage.
The cactus had been sitting between them only moments before. Without it, the table looked strangely empty.
An absence could alter an entire room.
It made her think of Miss Understood.
Missy had never met her. Just before Missy appeared aboard the Train, Miss Understood had vanished.
Bob later told her what had happened in the moments before the wall opened. Over time, Missy had come to remember the story almost as though she had been there.
Nobody used the word vanished, of course.
Vanished invited follow-up questions, and follow-up questions aboard the Train to Elsewhere had an unfortunate habit of receiving answers.
So the passengers said:
“Has anyone seen Miss Understood?”
“She may have changed compartments.”
“Perhaps she needed some air.”
This was generally accepted, despite the fact that opening a window at the Train’s present speed would have removed both the air and the person requiring it.
Her compartment remained untouched.
Her teacup sat on the table. A book lay open facedown beside it. Her coat still hung from its hook.
Everyone was concerned.
Nobody was concerned loudly.
Bob knew something was wrong.
He had recently returned from the Eldorado Rehabilitation Center, where, according to Bob, he had undergone “an entirely unnecessary period of supervised reflection.”
Nobody asked what he had been rehabilitated from.
Bob did not look rehabilitated.
He looked thinner, considerably more irritated, and wore the expression of someone who had discovered that personal growth involved paperwork.
The Train departed as usual.
This was perhaps the most disturbing thing.
The whistle sounded.
The wheels caught the rails.
Breakfast appeared.
The clocks disagreed about the hour.
Then the door at the far end of the carriage opened.
A woman walked in.
Or attempted to, while the Train attempted to throw her back out.
Her suitcase struck the doorframe. Something fell from her pocket. She considered retrieving it.
The Train lurched.
She decided against it.
Her dark hair had been cut into a short bob with bangs, although cut suggested a degree of cooperation between hair and scissors that was no longer evident.
It curled around her face in several independent opinions.
Her shirt was rumpled. An apricot scarf hung around her neck as though it had become attached during an earlier emergency.
She wore tight trousers tucked into tall black lace-up boots.
One lace was undone.
There was ink on her wrist.
Or chocolate.
Possibly machinery.
Her old suitcase was covered with stickers:
PARIS.
TIFLIS.
THE MOON, TEMPORARILY.
RETURN TO SENDER IF FOUND IN THE WRONG CENTURY.
She had no hat.
This was suspicious.
Everyone on the Train eventually had a hat.
She stopped.
The passengers immediately became fascinated by unrelated objects.
A newspaper rose.
Someone inspected a teaspoon.
Bob watched her.
She turned toward the wall she had entered through.
It was gone.
There was only polished mahogany.
“Hm.”
That was all.
No scream.
No demand for an explanation.
Not even a respectable existential crisis.
Just:
“Hm.”
Then the Train swayed.
Her suitcase opened.
Three pencils, a notebook, one stocking, two apricots, and a teaspoon scattered across the carpet.
She looked at the passengers.
“Excellent. We’ve all seen my organizational system.”
For the first time since Miss Understood disappeared, the fear in the carriage loosened.
One apricot rolled beneath Bob’s seat.
“Would you mind?”
Bob put a paw on it.
“Yes.”
She stared at him.
“You talk.”
“You arrived through a wall.”
“Fair.”
She left him the apricot.
Then she stood, pushed her unruly hair unsuccessfully behind her ears, and asked:
“Could someone tell me where this train is going?”
“Elsewhere,” Bob said.
“As opposed to?”
“Here.”
Outside the window, the world became a golden blur.
Moments flickered past.
A child running through a field.
Eleven candles on a cake.
A letter never sent.
Someone beneath a streetlamp.
A hand letting go of another hand.
“What are those?”
“Moments.”
“Memories?”
“No.”
“What’s the difference?”
Bob watched the world disappear behind them.
“Memories have already been edited.”
Somewhere behind them, the station had ceased to exist.
Inside the carriage stood a strange woman with crooked buttons, an untied boot, an apricot scarf, no ticket, and no hat.
“My name,” she said, “is Missy.”
The Train swayed, and the memory released her.
Missy found herself once again in the observation car.
Castaneda was gone.
So was the cactus.
Miss Understood was still missing.
Missy looked toward the doorway through which Castaneda had disappeared.
Until that moment, she had always thought of her arrival as a beginning.
Now she wondered whether she had arrived in the middle of something.
Continue the journey
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