Last Stop

The Evening:

I watched out the window as the coastline turned into soft grass, then rough hillside. The colors became duller, the grasses lower, until we saw yellower terrain along low foothills and sparse, gray-green shrubs. After Moorpark Station, the train cut in through the mountains. And, the expanse of the San Fernando Valley became a wave of stars in the extending dusk as we went down from Chatsworth. Terrance stopped us from getting off as soon as we heard Los Angeles, it took another forty-five minutes to get through the length of the city to Union Station.

I had found myself impressed by the two platforms back in San Luis Obispo. Here, our raised platform sat in a line of a dozen. The last of the Great American Railway Stations was a relic from the ‘30s. It was built in the image of the old Spanish missions, with a white exterior and red, pointed roofs. We quickly learned this wouldn’t be our last station. When we asked to buy a room on the train to DC, Terrance’s original plan, we learned that the train to the East wasn’t going to DC. It went to Chicago, and we could get another train from Chicago to the Capitol. Our room cost seven hundred dollars, but it also covered our food. Pippa privately asked Terrance if he was a counterfeiter after we paid.

Bruno took more of Terrance’s money and walked into a little convenience store that doubled as a souvenir shop within the station. I followed him, and I was shocked to see all the kinds of clothes they had. While a store in Maple had clothes for the few fairies who lived there, this crossroads had more in a day than I’d seen sold in years. Bruno found fitting shirts for all of us with a matching slogan Chicago or Bust. Pippa, as of yet, couldn’t wear hers, still lingering as a cat. We asked that she go into the restroom and change back before she got on another train and risked getting us all caught. Begrudgingly, she finally did. Pippa made sure to remind us constantly about how awful we all were to make her transform again.

Bruno also purchased more silver pills for himself, they were sold over the counter, but were quite expensive. And, he bought a bottle of Tylenol pills and a Swiss Army knife. He cut the narrow corner off a pill and handed it to me. I sighed, “Even Terrance’s money isn’t bottomless. We’ll need enough for the train out of Chicago.”

“It was three dollars and fifty cents,” Bruno pushed the pill into my hands, “I can take your shirt back to make up the price, if you need.” I clenched the shirt, holding it tightly against my chest with my arm. It was a silly novelty, and I didn’t know if I’d ever wear it. I didn’t even know if I’d be able to ever bring it home. I hoped I could. I’d hang it up, and I’d always remember it. It was like the picture Bruno kept, the one of both of us.

“Train Four- The Southwest Chief! All aboard!” Crackled through the station loudspeaker. It wasn’t leaving until nine, but we rushed over, anyway. It was only half past eight.

We showed the ticket for our room to one of the attendants as we were getting on. She looked over all of us, “You’re all headed to Chicago?”

“Chosen One business,” Terrance winked at her.

She adjusted her blue hat and laughed slightly, “Oh… Alright?” She didn’t seem quite sure how to respond to him.

“He says silly things to make himself smile. It’s hard right now. His grandmother is sick, you know…” Bruno wrapped his wing around Terrance’s shoulder, “She’s such a sweet old woman. Dear to all of us. Our parents are letting us go with him.”

“Oh, that’s terrible!” The woman’s face softened, “Right this way. I hope she gets better soon.”

Terrance whispered to Bruno, “Dude, my grandmother passed away years ago.”

Mina nodded, “Right, but that’s what she’ll believe.” The large rooms, like we’d purchased, were generally meant for four people, but we all fit easily. Mina and I took up less space than most, and we could easily share one of the four beds. This was considered a First Class accommodation, so the same attendant regularly visited us. For now, our beds were folded down into comfortable sofas facing each other like a wide meeting room. She asked if we wanted them repositioned as beds so that we could sleep the night. We declined, even though it was already dark out to only see city lights, we wanted to watch the Los Angeles lights disappear out the train window.

I perched on the windowsill, resting my head against the glass. It was cool against my cheek, pleasant even with the medicine kicking in. The window bounced and rocked as we heard the rumble of the train’s wheels slowly chugging to life. Terrance opened his deck of cards on our little table. He flicked on the overhead light to see them clearer and started shuffling them. First, he tried a bridge shuffle, only to watch the cards go everywhere. Then, he just pushed them around in a pile and restacked them. He passed the deck over to Bruno, “Cut.”

Bruno awkwardly sifted through the deck with his feathers until he narrowly lifted half of it. He pushed it aside, then put the other half on top, “There.” Terrance burned a card, then dealt two cards to each of us.

“Small blind is twenty bucks,” he smirked.

“You’re the one with all the money,” I rolled my eyes.

“Oh, so I win?” He laughed, “Come on, flip over your cards.”

I struggled to lift the card up over my head, using my whole body to balance it up. I looked at it, a seven of hearts, “The other one’s a two, I know it,” I laughed at myself, “I’m out.”

Bruno’s cards kept hanging downward slightly too low as he tried to balance them in his wings. Pippa leaned sideways to try and peek at what Terrance had. Mina lifted hers up one at a time like I had, but elected to keep playing. Terrance pulled his dark sunglasses out of his pocket halfway into the game and slid them onto his face. I could see his cards reflected in them.

In three hours, the Train went around the outskirts of the city and through the San Gabriel Mountains. They were the threshold of the Mojave, but I could hardly see it in the darkness. It wasn’t until we stopped for fifteen minutes in the town of Barstow that I could see the arid sands in the extending city lights. The conductor announced that we’d be paused here for a quarter hour for anybody who needed to stretch their legs or smoke, and I took the chance to fly outside. The brick station front in the moonlight looked like the backdrop for a western. I landed in the sand and let my bare toes sink a tiny bit into the desert. I flew back onto the train when they gave the five minute warning.

We stayed awake for one more stop, talking amongst ourselves. Mina suggested trying to go to sleep, but there was nothing to rest for in the morning. It’d be at least another forty hours until we reached Chicago. It was like a sleepover, the lights were out, and we were meant to be asleep already, but we kept laughing about little things. Inside jokes or even mundane comments became funnier as the night went on. The long stretch of desert between Barstow and Needles seemed endless, and as we stopped at Needles, I realized something. We were only miles from the Arizona border. I looked out the window as we crossed it, “I’ve never left California before.” I faced everyone.

October 6
The Morning:

I woke up just before 9AM to a call across the train. This was the last stop for Arizona in a city called Winslow. We got off during another short break at this station, and Bruno purchased a newspaper. We took it into the dining car and unfolded it as we ate our breakfast.

The Final Presidential Debate screamed the headline. The subtitle: Dreammaker blunders in front of Alamo. The article continued, In last night’s debate, President Sally Dreammaker commented on magic use. Former Arcana Party ally and opposition, Governor Joe “Texas Jack” Alamo questioned her on a group of students fleeing Ledoric’s Institute (a magical school funded by the DOO). He accused her policy of magical containment of emboldening this attempt. Dreammaker appeared to slip in response, referring to the missing representative, Lady Sparrowbane: Arcana- California, in a growing rant. We will see how this affects polls in the coming days.

“We made the news!” Pippa pointed at it, “Haha!”

Bruno shushed her, “Everyone’s reading this.”

Mina ran her finger along it, “This means Mom might still be alive.”

“She is. Dad is,” I promised. I couldn’t stomach the thought of this all being for nothing. Yet, I was starting to finally think I could bare if it was. The ocean and the forest were their own Hells, but the trains and the stations had instead been nice. I looked out the window where the Petrified Forest passed by us.

Long ago this desert was as lush as where we’d come from. The broken trees were as old as dinosaurs. They had long since turned to fossils of themselves. Each was vibrant red, orange, and even amethyst purple in places. Crystalline mosaics of what they once were. I held my breath as I studied them in the distance. Would Maple look like this someday in millions of years? I’d never seen a more beautiful graveyard.

Bruno quietly flipped over another page in the paper. Pippa snatched it from him and turned to the crossword. “One across!” She called out, “Seven letters, all of a bird’s feathers.”

He grabbed the paper back from her. He folded it up in his wings, then shoved it in his pocket. The paper crinkled as it barely fit, “Plumage.”

Pippa reached feebly across the table, her fingers trying to grab at a paper that wasn’t there anymore. She pouted, “There were like fifteen more…”

“We can do them back in our room, Pippa,” He chirped, “without yelling the whole crossword across the dining car.”

“Yeah, other people are reading the paper too,” Terrance nodded, “we shouldn’t spoil it for them.”

“It’s better to just not bother them,” Mina went on. I sighed, still staring silently out the window.

“Look at this,” I said softly. I pointed at one of the fossils, “you can do the crossword anytime.”

“Can’t we come back here sometime, too?” Pippa’s tail flicked back and forth under her.

“We can ride this exact train at the same time of day,” I nodded, “but we’ll never be here again. Do you think, so long ago, these trees were scared to die?”

“They’re just trees.” Pippa pressed her face to the glass, her ears folding back as she did. She fell silent, “Wow…”

“Someday, I want to go everywhere,” Terrance muttered. “To see everything for the first time.”

Mina blinked, “It’s only been three days since we left,” she took a deep breath, “I never even really thought of leaving before. What’s in five days? In ten?”

“You’ll love the Capitol,” Bruno held his wings behind his head. He leaned back in the chair. “Aren’t you a Vice President?”

“Yeah, on student council,” Mina laughed at herself.

“Dreammaker went to Ledoric’s,” he said, “what if you were the president someday?”

“Someday.”

Finally, we went back to our room. The Petrified Forest disappeared behind us as Maple had, then Los Angeles, and the state of California. Now Arizona turned into New Mexico, dragging us along to Albuquerque before nightfall. Pippa quoted Bugs Bunny when she heard the name of the city, and we all laughed.

We cut northeast through Colorado as the sun disappeared ago. It became dark just as the yellow desert became gray and green. There were trees here. Although it would have been a detour that would have taken far longer, I was almost disappointed we bypassed the Mile High City. I was asleep again before we passed into Kansas.

October 7
The Morning:

We were partway through Missouri when I woke up. I wondered what was going on in school, today. It was only a little past five in the morning, I laughed at myself. It wasn’t even five in California, it was only three, and school wouldn’t be starting for another five hours. It didn’t even feel like seven in the morning to me. I didn’t know what seven was supposed to feel like anymore. Even the sun wasn’t still.

Everyone else was still sleeping. I laid back down. I couldn’t think of anything else to do until they were all up. But, I couldn’t fall back asleep. My stomach rumbled. I considered waking my friends up, but when I saw them, I decided to just let them sleep. I quietly slipped out of our room and flew down to the dining car.

At this hour, the dining car had only just opened for breakfast. The sunlight barely hung across the sky. It most mostly black, a bare hint of blue to be seen. Before, my friends and I had tables to ourselves. But with the limited space in the dining car, and tables made for groups of four, I was seated with two other passengers I’d never met. There was a middle-aged human man and his son, who must have been about my age.

I introduced myself as I perched in one corner of the table, almost bowing to them, “Good morning,” I glanced out the window.

“You’re traveling alone?” The father asked me.

“My friends are all still asleep,” I explained. He nodded.

The son smiled at me, “I don’t know many fairies,” he said. His father loosely grabbed his shoulder. He whispered something.

“I’ve heard there aren’t any in some towns,” I admitted. Mostly, fairies lived in the big cities. Even in Maple, there were only about fifty. But, across the country, roughly one in hundred Americans was a fairy.

The father smiled, “There used to be one who went to his school. We think she moved away or something. Her uncle still lives not far from us.”

I knew she wasn’t magical. If she had been, she’d have gone to Ledoric’s instead, “It’s more likely she didn’t move away. But, she won’t go to school anymore, or other places,” I said grimly.

The father sucked his lips in. He knew already that she was most certainly dead. I was surprised he hadn’t told his son, “Well… I wouldn’t harp on it,” he nodded slowly, “what kind of school do you go to?”

“It’s a specialized school,” I said, “it’s not all that it’s hyped up to be. Northern California. Where are you guys from?”

“Chicago,” the son smiled, “we went to Colorado for a bit, so now we’re going home!”

“Your summer break is only ending now?” I asked.

“No-no,” the father shook his head, “we had a family emergency near there, so we decided to enjoy what we could. And, you’re going away from California?”

“My friend’s grandmother is ill.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Northern California?” The boy mumbled, “And, you’re a fairy. Do you go to that Leda- Leto- Magic School?”

“Ledoric’s,” I corrected him, “do you know how many schools there are in Northern California? I’ve met some people from there before, though.”

The father smiled inwardly, “Some of the rumors about that place are crazy. The kids aren’t allowed to leave? I don’t believe it.”

“We’re not,” I said coldly. I stopped myself, realizing I’d said something wrong, “Well, my friends and I- well, we got permission… We’re not… We’re not doing anything wrong.”

“You do magic, then?” The boy leaned toward me. I flicked my fingers and a little ball of light appeared between them. It wasn’t even as wide as my pinky, but it was brighter than the dawn's sky. I snuffed it out as soon as I made it, watching the boy gasp.

“It’s a secret, okay?” I whispered, “I’m not supposed to tell people that I go there.”

The boy’s father blinked. He shifted, scooting slightly closer to his son, “Did you see that newspaper article? A bunch of kids from there ran away?”

“I wouldn’t believe it,” I shook my head, “it’s almost impossible for anyone to get out without permission. There’s military bases along the road.” Even going around them was a chore, as I’d been unlucky enough to find out.

“Where are you headed?” He asked, “Just Chicago?”

“We have to take a bus from there,” I improvised, “our friend’s grandmother lives about an hour east of the city.”

The boy went on, looking up at his father, “Dad, I heard the president went there. And, they have crazy classes. My friend told me the students die sometimes. Dad, can I go?”

“You have to be born with magic,” the father said softly, “and, I bet kids don’t really die there. It’s just a school.”

“I did once,” I laughed, “you know, I got better. It was awful, but in hindsight, it wasn’t as scary as I like to make myself think it was. And, maybe you don’t need to be born with magic. There might be a way to get magic, and I’m trying to find that out. It’s a big secret, or something, and going after it has been a nightmare.” A plate of vegetables and a tiny glass of orange juice were set beside me by the waiter. I just glanced up at him. I sighed, and I wrapped my hand around the glass of orange juice, “I’m exhausted. I’m just exhausted.” Somehow, in front of these people I’d never met, everything just came out. I spoke low enough that the passing servers couldn’t hear me. I let them know that I could get in big trouble, and they could be in danger, if they told people what I told them. Saying it all just felt nice.

The father quietly nodded, “That just sounds like life.”

“It sounds fun!” The boy smiled. His father laughed nervously. I hadn’t said anything to sound fun. He didn’t want his son to offend me, but he didn’t at all. The son was right, somewhere, even just in the corners of subconsciousness, I was having fun. I didn’t deserve to be. It couldn’t be deserved or undeserved. I didn’t think I should be, I’d been on the brink of death. But, I was.

“I hope you see that girl again, someday,” I said to the son. I knew he wouldn’t. I knew she was gone in a way that hadn’t just seen her moving to another town. Someday, he would forget her name, if he remembered it at all. I didn’t know if that was merciful. It was something that didn’t even cross my mind when I died, if I would be remembered or not.

“You said you died once,” the father held his breath.

“Only people with magic can be revived,” I said sadly, “I want to change that. Or else, I want to make sure everyone has magic. Someday, there might be a way. Don’t count on me.” For the first time, I realized how close we were to DC. We could be there in less than two more days, and yet, we had no idea what to do once we were. I guessed we’d just thought we would wander into my mother’s office, confront something, and walk away unscathed. We hadn’t even gotten twenty miles from Maple unscathed, and now, I wondered if we were just pacing in a circle around the River Styx. I broke out laughing as I thought about it. The father and son watched me. The son poked at me, asking what was so funny, like he was meant to be let in on a joke. But the father, he just watched me sadly. I grabbed my opposite wrists, rocking back and forth on my bottom. I barely stopped my laughter from becoming tears.

“You’ll do it,” the father took a deep breath, “great things take people who are willing to bleed and cry. It takes people who aren’t scared of death.”

“Right,” I whispered, “right, that’s right…” Even if I died when I got there. What did it matter? I’d come back again. That’s how I’d been handling this whole journey, but for a second, I wondered if I was really scared to die. That was secondary. So long as I could save Mom and Dad, or at least, if I could know for sure if they were alive. I could die a thousand times, and I’d only be afraid of whatever pain came with it.

The Evening:

Our train stopped in Chicago at half past seven. We only had an hour before the next train, this one, the last. We purchased a room, just as we had in Los Angeles, and we embarked quietly. This train wouldn’t take two days, and we expected to reach the Capitol in another evening. Our dinner on this new train was quieter than we’d been for the past two nights. Terrance shuffled in his seat, nobody said anything. The shaking of the wheels on the tracks were more vibrant. The passing city lights flashed brighter, and the distant stars felt closer. It was hard to swallow.

It took us three days from Maple to Los Angeles. In two more, we faced the last day across the country. We didn’t stay awake past midnight chattering like we had on our way out of California. Pippa stared blankly out the window. Terrance shuffled his cards aimlessly. Bruno lay flat across his bed, looking up at the blank ceiling. Mina sat in the windowsill beside me, and she put her wing around my back. I thought about how quiet we were now, and I knew we’d be twice as silent come the morning. I liked when it was bright out better than dark, and now, I dreaded the sunrise like a shadow.

I flicked my fingers into the motion of a little gun, and I pressed it against my temple. My memory magic flooded through my mind, and overtook my vision. I fell asleep to familiar sensations, not noticing the train rocking below me anymore.

October 8
The Evening:

The day had been all but silent. We barely spent time in the dining car to eat, and we had only small portions. The rest, we spent sitting in our room. We made short comments when we needed to. Aside from that, we kept our private room like it was a cell. These were our First Class accommodations.

The train hissed to a halt. For all we’d done to get here, we were the last people off the train. The Potomac River rippled in the soft light of the sunset. The yellow light lowered in the sky back in the way we’d came. I watched it one last time as it flashed over the river once more before it completely disappeared. And then, it was night.

The lights of the city drowned out the stars. Terrance curtly suggested we wait for a taxi outside the train station. We turned him down. Mina and I flew after everyone else as we walked down the sidewalks. A regular black car passed us as we walked. We thought nothing of it until another pair of headlights washed over us from behind a few minutes later. As I turned my head, I saw it was the same car.

“We’re being followed,” I said just as the car slowed to a stop beside us. Its front window lowered.

Inside was a familiar looking woman. Agent Spirit gave us a little smile, “I was starting to think you all didn’t make it. Come on, get in.” She beeped the horn twice, joking like she was offering us a ride. Her other hand wasn’t on the steering wheel, and I could barely see her fingertips over the window. They wrapped around the handle of a firearm.