04.

She could recall the last things she heard in that strange dream she had, as she was slowly waking up from her slumber.

It was dark but not frightening. It was probably just night, at home this time.

Someone dear telling her a story.

A - On the 14th of July, in 1889, that so beautiful ship left Istanbul and began to sail toward Japan...

M - Did you see it?

A - Oh heavens no. I wasn’t even born yet when the ship came to England. And that was still long before that last trip...

M - What happened?

The last question made her shiver, and she woke up in that slight jolt.

The voices couldn’t be heard around her anymore.

~

Mary-Esther coughed up. Some dust stuck on her clothes and in her hair began to fall. She oddly had a lot stuck to her now she noticed at last.

She slowly limped out of her pretty room, and saw first a morning glow rising over the horizon outside.

The windows were clean and bright, and the lights from the corridor already off.

In that contrasted light, she could see the morning landscape passing beside while the train continued its journey.

The train had never stopped. Always rolling, trembling softly.

It had been soft and constant enough to allow her to sleep rather well on her bed this previous night, but it was still and ever going. The train might never stop rolling she thought.

For this time though for quite as long as she could remember or nearly, she was truly gazing outside.

Outside...

Her hands against the windows, looking at the prairies, woods and meadows passing by. The clouds in the sky. The colours of dawn changing by and the contrasted sights. She felt unable to think about anything for this while.

The clouds and fields were always similar yet never truly the same.

An infinite landscape was revealing itself with the mixtures of greens and oranges from the morning glow.

So little things truly were passing by outside to pin that changing landscape. So few shapes, colours and shadings to paint them all. But their symphony all made that world outside so wide...

These fresh and vivid colours were such a contrast with the inside of the train and its earthly umber tones. She almost felt like she was in a colourless environment seeing what shone outside.

Even though just a moment before she could clearly look at her surrounding in her room feeling like it looked normal, it was now as if everything around her got cruelly darker starting with this corridor. A cave... Maybe it was solely because the lights were off, as if a show was about to begin in that strange theatre...

A heart-warming show was indeed presented offered to her with these bright morning sights.

Her eyes were filling her with all the light they could gather from the outside. In contrast it made everything around her appear a little darker eventually...

But it was a worthy sight.

She could tell she had longed for seeing that.

~

The tinted light from the outside was reaching a point where it was hurting her eyes, and yet she couldn’t resolve yet herself to look away or move.

She had an awful feeling, that it might be the last time she would have a chance to see the sun for real.

The rising sun wasn’t visible yet, but a strong light already was blinding her.

Closing her eyes for a moment, she still enjoyed for a short while the warmth of the light reaching her.

She had to convince herself that the sky would not disappear away, in order to mutter the strength to move again.

The train wouldn’t roll underground never to escape away.

She left the morning lights and began venturing into the contrasted shades of this place.

She was again lonely and afraid, although somewhat excited too somehow. Something puzzling to her was budding.

Mary-Esther was a little more confident now that she had a good share of sunlight to encourage her...

It really felt as if it was too rare for her to be free under the light of day.

The corridor itself had darker colours, giving a very different kind of warmth to her, even with the light reaching in. She could see the crimson shadings below the windows.

She proceeded slowly, counting her steps on that carpet covering the floor and muffling her steps. It seemed to make all lights and sounds go quieter...

She entered the bathroom, unable to notice anything unusual. She locked the door behind her, shutting herself within for a while. She had realised she needed to wash her clothes as much as herself. Luckily, there was everything she could need. There even was a wardrobe there oddly. It held dresses and clothing for various ages and sizes, free to borrow apparently.

She could hear the work of a water heater somewhere behind a wall, and there was quite warm water coming from the faucets.

First she began washing her clothes meticulously. Doing her laundry was something nice for the first time. It could put her soul a little more at ease for a while, somehow refreshing her mind as well a little.

Almost naked, she was soon wringing her clothes, leaving a greyish water to flow and drip out.

There had been so much dirt accumulated, Mary-Esther didn’t understand how it could be this dirty.

She had no clue as to where that much filth really came from.

So she took the time to wash properly everything she had on her, discovering even more dirt or soot that she could have swear she had been crawling in some caves or chimney conduits. Her shoes were covered with that soot too. It probably came from the train station without her noticing.

When her laundry was finally hung to dry, she went herself to shower.

~

The hot water was flowing over her head. She loved the warmth of water there, but somehow she always felt dizzy after a while. A time she found too short every time.

She knew it was time to stop the shower when she felt a vertigo, as if the ground was shaking below her feet.

She was feeling a kind of sea sickness rising, making her feel as if she was on a boat over an agitated sea.

She went out of the shower before inevitably falling. She caught her breath back after that last vertigo.

When she stayed too long in a bath or under a shower, Mary-Esther also often had the strange impression that the smells were changing. The air, the water, all the smells around were getting rapidly different flavours after spending time in hot water.

She then found the perfume of fresh and clean towels to remind her of many mushrooms. As if they were rotting but couldn’t see it.

Hopefully, as she experienced it again, the unpleasant smells were disappearing rapidly once out and drying herself along.

She could hide her face in one of the towels there, without smelling anything unusual any longer. The towel smelled good, almost perfumed.

Mary-Esther dried herself now that she was proper and clean. The dizziness was also vanishing rapidly.

She picked a green dress roughly her size in the wardrobe. A dark green colour, evocating of autumnal meadows. Something close to favourite possibly.

Leaving behind her former clothes to dry, she dressed to be ready investigating again.

She unlocked the door and went back to the strange world she had been able to forget for a while.

It was quietly humming, still waiting for her.

~

On her short way back to the restaurant, she stumbled across another copy of the same painting as before, hanging over a wall. There hanged a picture of a boat at sea she was convinced seeing before.

She surely had, not long ago, but again couldn’t quite remember where.

It felt to her a little as looking through a garden window she would have known for ages. Something might have changed recently, but she couldn’t tell precisely what might have.

This painting was probably another copy from a series made by students in arts for this vessel’s furniture. Nonetheless the odd feeling she had then looking at it was the same. If it made some sense for her to build trains as luxurious as transatlantic ships for the upper classes, she still was puzzled about these choices of art.

She continued walking toward the airlock door, and soon forgot about that picture too. It was only an insignificant blend of colours depicting mostly waters in the end.

~

As she opened the airlock door, a cold wind welcomed her in that noisy interstitial area.

She made her way back to the messy restaurant, where she didn’t find anyone else yet. She had expected one of the girls at least to be there, waiting for her for some reason.

She imagined how Scarlett would be waiting. She pictured her standing alone, in the middle of those warm and deep red colours. Very well behaved, but with a clear unhappiness peering through her polite manners.

In the midst of these crimson tones, her natural red hair would somehow be the warmest of them all, from floor to ceiling. It would give her an incandescent aura if she was angry. But as she would remain calm, her anger cool, she would be like a very calm flame.

Mary-Esther’s gaze would not be able to escape Scarlett then if that were to happen.

But there was no one else at this time. How could that be the strangest thing for her at the moment?

Mary-Esther began looking through the leftovers and various discarded junk around the place, searching for anything worthy of interest.

She found pieces of a yellowish paper, and other shreds of it, that looked familiar. Some small printed characters were on most of them. They had been torn and shred away from a book apparently.

On a nearby half of a page left behind another table, she was able to read something that again reminded her of something known to her.

M - Once upon a time, there was a...

A part was missing, so she guessed.

M - A fair and gentle princess?

Scarlett spooked Mary-Esther, appearing almost at the same moment, without a sound that could have warned her.

S - Far from it. She never were. Neither a princess nor gentle actually... Just like you are...

Scarlett showed another sad smile for a moment. She glanced at the pieces of paper Esther was holding.

S - So you enjoy reading such childish stories my dear?

M - Yes... I do.

S - Poor thing... Nothing has changed since last time, right? Then perhaps there is something you might want to do. Something that could benefit all of us.

~

S - I still own two mementos dear to me around this place. One that I keep in my room, the second that went missing recently. If you bring me back the later one in one piece, I might lend you the former one, as a token of gratitude. It is a storybook I keep. And you would like to read it after all, am I correct?

Mary-Esther was surprised, but only nodded.

S - Good. Then to get to the point. I’ve lost my egg. A painted egg shell. It’s important to me and it was somehow taken away recently. I don’t think it was Elise, and I don’t think it was you... It’s probably not far, but you will have to look for it as well. This will give you a chance to visit the other wagons for a while also.

M - Someone stole your egg?

S - Yes... No... I’m not sure it was stolen. Things tend to move around at night you know... Though usually they don’t get too far away. I cannot explain everything yet, but there is probably no culprit really this time. Though it reminds me that I should warn you again. You must be back here before the night. If you’re late, you will be facing troubles you do not want to meet. Believe me...

Was that a threat? Mary-Esther heard more of a threat than a warning in Scarlett’s voice.

But the red girl concluded their conversation on that, clearly looking annoyed by many a thing.

Their deal was settled, no matter how abstract it might still be.

She would share her book, should Mary-Esther bring back the precious egg.

Mary-Esther wasn’t really confident about it, but as she felt somewhat uneasy around the cold fire girl, she left as if she had agreed sincerely.

The considerations and thoughts were tickling parts of her inside, but all remained abstract.

~

Leaving the messy restaurant behind, not feeling as if she truly had a choice, she discovered the next wagon.

It was mostly a rather immense and four stories high staircase.

Stairways were linking together the four floors of the train to each other as they would a wide imperial building. It left a lot of hollow space there however the way it was built.

The kind of emptiness that came with fear of heights was all over.

She swallowed with some difficulties her saliva, already nervous. She could also see there was only the minimum wood and metal required to build the stairs and suspended corridors there. The handrails to act as barriers to prevent from falling were as thin as threads to her eyes. They looked unreliable.

She held on tight on one, testing it slightly before moving. She carefully looked below. There were indeed four floors in each wagon... But she had no clue yet as to how many wagons were there before the engine.

She could recall how endless it had briefly looked in the night before she went aboard. This staircase was only the third wagon from the end, out of many...

Mary-Esther heard the thin floor below her feet creaking ominously when she made a few steps forward.

She was too afraid to cross that suspended bridge that was this open platform above the void to reach the other end directly.

The door was in plain sight, not that far away, but she couldn’t move in that direction. She was too scared now that this false bridge would collapse with her on it.

Since there wasn’t any other choice left, she went to the stairways leading down, following the walls. A step at a time she told herself, trembling alongside the handrail and even the train itself.

She tried to keep her mind focused on something else in order to move forward. She thought about that mysterious egg. A precious memento from somewhere else...

A sculpture maybe. As her imagination began running its normal course about it, she wondered why it was so important to Scarlett.

Maybe it was a gift from someone she loved, or something that kept her sane?

Perhaps it felt to her as if it was the only thing left to mean something meaningful for her.

Mary-Esther wondered, dreaming of why and how an item as random could be so important. Thinking about that task, and the implied responsibility of finding it.

She found some strength to do it. It gave her some meaning herself to move forward and venture through this strange place.

At least now she was looking for something and trying to help someone else.

After her previous shocks, this was by itself something helping her moving her legs across the place.

Below her was another floor, not that far away.

She walked slowly, step by step, measuring them carefully.

Compared to the usual background noise of the train, Mary-Esther’s walk was completely silent. It was almost as if she wasn’t there at all for the ruckus and movement of the train. Feeling insignificant had unpleasant though abstract remembrances as well.

It took her a long time to make it to the floor below. The staircase brought her close to the door heading toward the fourth wagon, and more fear of the heights behind. She moved forward and inside the airlock.

She caught her breath back away from this void before moving further.

She opened the door to a place rather dark. Entering it, she couldn’t see anything accurately.

Mary-Esther kept the door behind her open for a longer time before letting go of it, stepping fully inside the darkness while the door shut itself behind.

After a moment of doubt, she managed to see a faint glow above the door on the other end. Looking back, she noticed another one there then lit up. So there was something to guide her walk both ways through that odd place.

The soft yellow glow seemed more fragile than any other lamp though.

Mary-Esther began walking, unable to see anything else but the glow ahead.

She began to wonder about what she feared the most in this place. Was it the stairways she left, the two girls she met or perhaps this darkness there?

Or perhaps something that could be hidden in these shades? There was probably nothing hidden around her she thought, trying to rein in her imagination about them.

Before she could name her answer, she had safely reached the other end.

The only thing that appeared real in that darkness, was a little of her own imagination.

She went further without looking back.

~

She arrived in a large dim lit kitchen. Perhaps it was meant for the restaurant initially, but there was still no clue of anyone working here either.

A large fireplace took half the available place in the middle of the kitchen. On the sides, the ovens were almost gigantic, some being even bigger than she was. It was obviously piercing the other levels of that wagon with its chimney like a large pillar.

It was a little dark around there, with fewer windows than in the first and second wagons. It couldn’t be compared to the previous one still.

Mary-Esther did not find anything appealing or suspicious to her. The place was rather clean and quite lifeless. It was oddly oversized in many aspects, but nothing to feel uneasy about.

She didn’t try looking into every drawer and cupboard, after finding mostly normal kitchenware around.

She walked past narrow service stairs leading to the other levels, which from a glance around the corners seemed to be kitchens too.

For now she chose to go further rather than using them, trying to push forward a little more.

However trying to open the door at the end of the kitchen proved impossible. The handle could move but the door stood perfectly shut.

When looking through the small window on that heavy metallic door, she could see that the next wagon didn’t have any door at all on this level, but what looked like a wall.

Since it was pointless trying to go through that airlock, she took the small service stairways heading down. Looking at the floor she left rising behind with each step she took, she had a weird sensation of sinking through the floor.

Digging down...

But soon a ceiling appeared, and she was then slowly falling to that new ground where the steps led. The sensation of heading underground to a basement vanished as quickly as it came.

It was the first floor and it looked like a similar kitchen.

There were cold storage rooms, some of which were flawed or had leaks. The air was cold and even some mist was lingering around her feet. Mary-Esther did not dare opening any of them, and only moved toward the door and crossed the airlock swiftly.

The first floor of that sixth wagon surprisingly was a greenhouse.

She gawked around her in surprise, under bright light and sights. She gazed upward to see the glass ceiling far higher than expected. It was high enough to welcome trees, between those glass walls with steel frames.

It was like night and day between the kitchen and there.

The air was warmer, and there was far more sunlight getting caught in this place. She discovered strange plants and other flora she had never seen before. This place was overflowing with green colours, sweeter than the ones of clothing or usual forests.

It was a warm and reassuring place somehow.

A small fountain near the middle of the garden was offering some water. It was a little unexpected but also soothing to see and hear.

She drank some water and stood in the greenhouse charming her a few longer minutes as she wandered around it.

She wasn’t entirely sure as to why she should hurry herself to move on now.

Her wandering took its leisurely time, but she still headed toward the other end of the wagon nonetheless. She looked a last time at the luxuriant place and went forward.

She left a radiant garden for a new set of crimson corridors.

~

Dark precious woods and carpets set around luxuriously to give an impression of peaceful comfort.

How many of these rich furniture could be found in that train? Was there even an end to this surreal place?

She moved in the dark corridor, barely lit by a few lamps hanging from the ceiling.

It was a central corridor, without any window therefore.

From where she stood, she could only see the corridor ahead ending, splitting into two perpendicular ways. Left and right against a wall. She couldn’t see where they went, albeit probably not far.

The doors on each side lead to offices, as well built and void of inhabitants as everywhere else before.

She opened them one after another, looking into each room without bothering stepping in any.

The corridor split after the middle of the wagon, circling the stairway going up that could be seen from the next end door. She looked into the last offices without noticing anything special and reached that door and stairs.

She pondered about where to go first, and whether she should already search more carefully in every room, rather than just judging with a single glance.

The stairs were going up through all the other floors, with small entrances on each level, the side of a door on each side. There seemed to be some light from the outside reaching the wall she could see on top. She could see flickering shadows.

Mary-Esther climbed the stairs up to the last floor, to find herself facing the door to the rear airlock of that wagon.

She turned around and went toward a side of the train, were windows could be seen. This was a windowed corridor similar to the ones of the first wagon. They ran along the walls like before, except this time there was not a single cabin room to see. There were some lamps but that was all.

Just long corridors linking both ends of the wagon, and circling around an unusual large room.

Mary-Esther found the only way in when facing the front airlock.

It was a double door, that touched her curiosity.

Opening them, this led to a very long and large office, only lit through too few and weak hanging lamps. It was dim inside, as if to keep the place in eternal twilight time.

She could still see the furniture and other items left there. She passed collections of objects in display cases she wasn’t interested in, and went straight toward the familiar looking desk and its reading desk lamp. This source of light seemed alone on it for someone working at night.

Mary-Esther went around to sit impolitely in the comfortable armchair and sighed.

There was a childhood dream come true in throning by such a desk in such a chair, but it now felt somewhat hollow to do so. The fact she had not encountered any adult all this time made things such as this desire of standing weirdly immature.

What happened to her and the lack of understanding made her already tired from this day already.

She didn’t exactly want to see Scarlett or Elise again, that much was clear.

Her heart ached when thinking about the memories of them. The egg though... Thinking about it, she felt again as if she was about to remember something important. But the clarified memory never came.

Without really focusing on what she was doing, she mechanically opened the drawers one after another, looking inside for anything that would catch her attention.

She only saw shreds of papers, dust crayons, ripped pieces of cloth and other junk.

Even though it was a rich and tidy office, there was nothing worthy of interest there. And everything was oddly random and meaningless behind the cabinet doors and inside the drawers.

She was feeling disappointed in a few accumulating ways.

The collections on display were of no interest to her. If she had been looking up to places like this, she found how she truly had no shared interest nor perspective with the usual owner of this office.

Actually she had difficulties imagining someone else being there in that seat before her. Someone working there. Someone living there, caring in silence for collections and paperwork no one would ever see.

Someone as alone as she now was?

This place had been built and set comfortably enough, albeit lacking proper lighting. It was really kept in dim light.

She was sitting there and daydreaming about that place, trying to imagine what could have been. What might have thought the people coming there before her. The people designing this place. The people building it, assembling each plank, varnishing the place, moving furniture in. And finally the people utilizing the place.

What could it have meant for them.

Dreaming about all that could have been, she let herself softly falling asleep while resting in that wide chair.

~