The Train of Lost Things

by Ammi-Joan Paquette

  “Huh?” said Dina.

  “My home,” said Star impatiently. She jumped up and slid her empty plate into a wide slot right under the Thought Machine. “I’ve come home, don’t you see? Anyway, that’s it for that. What you want to know is how to find your lost stuff, right? Basically, there are three ways for the missing things to get returned to their owners.”

  “Three ways?” said Marty.

  Star ignored him, moving with purpose toward the door. “Time’s passing, you know,” she said, as though she weren’t the one who had called this whole snack break to begin with. “Why don’t we get busy searching? I’ll tell you more as we go.”

  “About time,” muttered Dina. But she kept right to Star’s side.

  Young or not, this girl had answers. Marty didn’t plan to let her out of his sight for a single moment.

  * * *

  • • •

  They backtracked to the car where Marty and Dina had left off their searching. Outside the window, fat branches of fog tapped and pushed against the pane as though hoping to be let in, but inside, the train was snug and cozy. They settled on the same sides they’d taken before and began rummaging through the bins of stuff. Marty’s eyes and hands were in full-on searching mode, but his attention was on Star as she continued her story.

  “So. Here’s what you wanna know. The train stops once a night, right at midnight. If a kid has lost a heart’s possession and hears the horn—well, you both know what happens. I don’t know why only some kids hear the train and can follow and find it. Maybe they just . . . want it more? Are more open to magic? Believe? It’s pretty rare, honestly. One, maybe two kids get on every week or so. Some weeks, no one at all. But that’s one way you can get your lost object back, long as you find it in time.” She scanned the shelves and puffed out air.

  Marty cocked his head. “In time?”

  “Never mind that. We’re doing the three ways right now,” said Star, wagging a finger. She seemed to be enjoying this instruction thing a bit too much, Marty thought.

  “So what other ways, then?” asked Dina.

  “The train is supposed to have two people on board to run things: a driver and a conductor. The driver keeps the train going—heading the right way, passing all the right spots so the stuff can be picked up, and keeping the ride smooth.” She ground her teeth a little as she said this. Marty had an idea of how the train was doing at that. “The conductor is the one who organizes all the stuff that comes in. Keeps the train from getting overrun by the mess.”

  Dina flicked her gaze from side to side.

  “Yeah,” said Star. “The thing is, the conductor’s been gone for ages.”

  “Gone?” Dina breathed.

  “I don’t know for how long. But, I mean, you can see how the place is.”

  “So it did used to be organized.” Marty felt triumphant. If there was one thing he had an eye for, it was order and structure. A place for everything, and everything in its place, he thought, wincing.

  Star nodded. “The last driver taught me a bunch before she left. There used to be a whole system, but the driver couldn’t keep up both jobs without a conductor, so it’s a total jumble now. That’s why it’s so cluttered in here. The stuff’s not getting returned.”

  “Returned?” Marty said.

  “That’s the second way things go back to their owners. You’ve seen the Echo pops?”

  “Echo what?” said Dina blankly, but Marty perked right up.

  “You mean those little memory-movie-trailer thingies!”

  “Yup.” Star lowered her voice confidentially. “That’s not their real name, Echo pops. If they’ve got a proper name, I don’t know it. But I like naming stuff, and it works, right? It’s showing a picture-echo of what makes it a heart’s possession.”

  “And it pops you in the face, right. We get it.” Dina nodded encouragingly. “Keep going. What were you saying about them, then?”

  “Well, when you’re the conductor, you’re synced up with the train, like in your head or something? Some kind of magical Wi-Fi connection, I don’t know. Anyway, she—or he, I guess, if it was a dude—activates the Echo so it shows all the way through. But then she can focus her thoughts on the object’s owner, the one whose heart’s possession it is. And, poof! The thing is sucked back out of the train and returned.”

  Dina’s eyes were wide and bright. “Then your lost object turns up in some random spot, a place you know you looked before but suddenly, there it is!”

  “Brilliant,” Marty whispered. “But only a conductor can do that? The sending-back part, I mean.”

  Star nodded. “Unless kids make it directly onto the train. Like you two did. Then you do the searching and claim your own object yourself. Back to method one.” She paused. “Or—” Star cut off abruptly.

  “Or?” said Marty.

  “Spit it out already,” said Dina. “You said there’s a third way lost stuff can get sent back.”

  Star shook her head firmly. “Not yet. It’s gotta be done right . . . I can’t just . . .” She stomped away.

  * * *

  • • •

  Over the next half hour, Marty and Dina tried everything to tease out the information from Star, but she wouldn’t say another word. Finally, they gave up in frustration and kept working through the rest of their car. Glancing over at Dina, Marty noticed that her face was getting redder and redder. He wondered if his looked the same. They scoured every box and basket, giving extra care to any piles of clothing or mounds of tiny jewelry-type stuff. He didn’t want to miss anything, especially the locket, which was obviously super easily missable. But they reached the end of the car with nothing to show but disappointment. He’d actually found three separate lockets across the car, but while his excitement spiked each time, not one of them was Dina’s. They didn’t find a single jacket. (What, did no other kid have a jacket for a heart’s possession?)

  They left the car with Dina’s shoulders sagging.

  “Don’t worry,” Marty told her, trying to put a good face on things. “Remember how much stuff there is jumbled all across the whole train. We’ve got a bunch more cars to search. We’ll find it.”

  Dina sniffed. “Six cars left,” she said. “But you’re right. And we’ll find your jacket, too. They’re probably scrunched up together in, like, the last place we look or something.”

  “It always is in the last place you look, isn’t it?” quipped Star. “Funny how that works.”

  Not so very funny, given the circumstance. Still, Marty forced himself to keep hoping. To keep believing. The jacket had to be here. He had to find it. He had to!

  Dad was counting on him—even if he didn’t know it yet—and Marty would not let him down.

  15

  GLOWING EYES IN THE MIST

  While Marty and Dina kept searching the cars for their lost objects, Star was busy with some unknown activity of her own. After she’d finished her story she’d walked away from them, but had only gone as far as the window. She’d stayed there staring fixedly, totally zoned out. Now they were in the next car and she’d parked herself in front of the window again, with the same odd staring gaze. Outside, the dark night sky blew by, with occasional pinpricks of starlight breaking up the gloom.

  “Hey,” Marty whispered to Dina. “Should we, um, do something about Star? She looks kind of weird to me. Does she look weird to you?”

  As they watched, Star swayed from side to side. Well, the train swayed, but Star bobbed right along in time with it. She looked like she’d had a bad tangle with a cartoon hypnotist.

  “Weirder?” Dina quipped. But she shook her head. “Let’s just watch for a sec. I wonder what she’s . . .”

  What was she doing? Abruptly, Star snapped out of her trance. She took a couple steps forward, pushing past some rubble on the floor till she stood directly in front of the window. She lif
ted her hands and placed her flat palms against the glass.

  “Uhhh,” said Dina, but under her breath, so even Marty could barely hear her.

  “Star?” Marty tried.

  “C’mere,” Star called softly. Her mouth barely moved and her gaze stayed fixed on the window.

  Marty and Dina exchanged a glance. They inched toward Star.

  Outside the glass, heavy strands of fog curled up and around the sides of the train.

  “Did you notice earlier?” Marty muttered to Dina. “The fog was doing this same thing. Going all stringy, almost like it was knocking to get in or something?” If that sounded weird (which, honestly, how could it not?), Dina didn’t mention it. Moving together, they came to stand on either side of Star.

  The younger girl leaned in to the window, so close that her breath left a round frosty smudge on the glass in front of her. “Look,” she breathed, then beckoned them in closer.

  “What are we looking for?” Dina asked. Her tone zinged with excitement.

  Marty felt the same way. He leaned in till his nose bumped the window. Was something going on outside? Star seemed more in awe than afraid. Marty squinted at the darkness, trying to look past all the fog. He didn’t see a thing.

  Except . . .

  “The mist?” Marty said.

  “The mist!” Star said. “Look.”

  Marty looked. The outer wall of fog was thick and soupy outside the window. But what about those wispy tendrils he kept seeing on the edges of his sight, the ones that licked up the train’s side and then whirled away? He stared at the nearest one. And suddenly, it was like a filter flipped in his mind. From one eyeblink to the next, the lick of mist wasn’t mist at all. It had a face, arms, a body.

  It looked right at him—

  Marty shrieked and toppled backward. “What?!” he croaked.

  At his feet, he now saw, a red racecar was flashing like it was lit up from the inside (though it clearly wasn’t a light-up toy). On. Off. On. Off. This was far from the most unusual thing that had happened tonight—or even in the last five minutes—but Marty couldn’t break his gaze from the toy.

  “Give it here,” said Star, in the same soft voice.

  Marty jumped. “This? The car?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Staring at the car kept him from thinking about what he’d just seen outside the window. What had he just seen outside the window? Marty grabbed the car and stood up. He handed it to Star. He could tell by Dina’s bugged-out eyes that she’d seen the—the thing—in the fog outside the window now, too. Her chin wobbled slightly, but she didn’t move a muscle.

  Star held the racecar in both hands. She brought it right up till it nearly touched the window’s surface. Around Star’s neck, every visible strand on her orange scarf stood out stiff with electric energy. Marty forced himself to look back out through the glass.

  The second time, without the shock of a suddenly appearing face (or maybe he was getting better at seeing magical stuff?), the mist creature wasn’t nearly as scary. In fact, it was hardly scary at all. It was a little boy. Okay, a ghostly little boy, almost totally see-through. He didn’t seem to be more than five years old. He looked scared and unsure, and Marty could actually see fat spectral tears splashing down his cheeks.

  “Hey, you’re all right.” Marty didn’t realize he’d spoken out loud until the words were in the air. But the little guy was so upset!

  On the other side of the glass, the shimmery eyes turned to fix on Marty. A thrill went through him. The ghost-boy rubbed a fist across his eyes and gave a weak smile.

  “Here,” said Star, and the ghost turned back to her. She held up the car. “Looking for something?”

  Like a rainbow bursting through a cloud, the boy’s face flashed from misery to giddy joy. He shot forward and his chubby little hands punched right through the window. Inside the train, his hands looked as firm and real as Star’s own. She put the toy in them, closing his fingers tight around it. Then he yanked his hands back out, racer and all. He hugged it tight to his chest. He started to float up and away.

  “Safe travels,” Star whispered.

  Marty kept his eyes on the little ghost until he blew out of their line of sight.

  Star turned back to Dina and Marty. “And that,” she said, wiping her hands on her skirt with a satisfied smile, “is the third way lost stuff gets returned.”

  * * *

  • • •

  “Okay, now. Go again from the beginning,” said Dina. After the excitement had faded, the three of them had moved on to the next car and had renewed their search with fervor. Star was even helping them look. But Marty couldn’t stop thinking about what they’d just seen. “This third way of getting stuff back to people. It’s like the Lost and Found Department, ghost style?”

  Star shrugged. “I told you that kids can find the train, living kids like us. But like I said, it’s kind of rare. One or two kids at a time, maybe a couple of times a week. Ideally you’ve got the conductor managing some of the things and shuttling them back out to their owners. But . . . well. You see how much stuff there is. Heaps of it, mountains! Especially now, when there’s no conductor. I guess even when there is one, it piles up a bit. So when something doesn’t get returned, when someone dies with a heart’s possession still on the train, well . . .”

  “So that kid was legitimately dead?” Marty said, still a little stunned by the whole encounter. A magical flying train was one thing. But ghosts? Entirely another.

  “Yup. Just another stop on the way home. The Other Side. Whatever.”

  “Huh,” said Marty.

  Dina frowned at the nearest window. “So that fog. Is it all, er, made of . . . ?”

  “Nah,” said Star. “It’s not all ghosts. They just like to travel inside it.”

  “Camouflage,” said Marty, who knew a thing or two about hiding in plain sight.

  “Yup,” said Star. “They’re actually pretty shy, from what I’ve seen. Most of ’em, anyway. They like to hide in the mist. Usually you can’t see them until they want to be seen. Or till they’re super close or something. You can tell when there’s one around because an object starts flashing. Their object.”

  “Like the racecar!” said Dina.

  “Like the racecar. Then you’ve gotta find the right bit of fog where it’s hiding out, give it the ol’ stare-down till it pops into being visible. Well, you saw. They don’t usually come all the way inside the train.”

  “But they can get their lost stuff back,” said Marty. “That’s kind of awesome that you can do that for them.” Then something clicked in his brain. “You’ve been in the end cars tonight, haven’t you? Did you move a handmade kite earlier? And some other stuff piled up by the ladder?”

  Star’s tiny smile was answer enough.

  “I knew it!” said Marty. “I knew I’d put that down there.” It gave him a little boost, to be right about this small thing. Made him feel that somehow this whole adventure was a tiny bit more under control. So much of confidence was expectation, things doing what they were supposed to do when they were supposed to do them. He hadn’t had nearly enough of that in his life these days. He looked at Star’s face, and he could tell that she was going through the exact opposite range of emotions.

  “It’s just,” Star said, “I wish I could do more. It’s so hard for me to do even one of those returns. It’s weirdly tiring. Like right now, all I want is a huge nap.” She frowned. “And I hate naps. The conductor would be more on top of it all. But I’m not the conductor. Don’t you see?” Her brows were pinched and her mouth tight with frustration. “I’m here, but I can hardly do anything! I can barely help the train at all. Every day the piles get worse, there’s less spirits coming by to get stuff, and the train goes a little wilder. And . . . well. This might sound crazy to you guys.”

  Dina snorted. “Unlikely.”


  “Fair enough. Okay, so the train is a machine, obviously. But it’s almost like it’s got its own mind or something? From what I can tell, part of being the conductor—or the driver, I guess—is being able to tell the train what to do. Getting it to make the right stops, having the incoming lost stuff go to the right places, the return stuff going out properly, that kind of thing. Basically keeping the train doing what it’s supposed to do, making it behave. That’s the way it’s supposed to work: Tell it what to do and have it listen to you.”

  Marty remembered the thought he’d had earlier, wondering if the train might be more than a regular machine. He’d thought it was ridiculous at the time. Now? Not so much. “Like a horse and its rider,” he said.

  “Exactly!”

  “You said you’re not the conductor,” Dina said slowly. “Are you the driver, then?”

  Star gave the tiniest shake of her head.

  Marty frowned. “So the train is like a giant wild horse—or maybe like a dragon, a silvery ice dragon. It’s used to having a couple of riders in charge, telling it what to do and how to do it. But now it’s on its own. No conductor. No driver. And so it’s running amok.”

  As if in answer, the train lurched into a lopsided tailspin, corkscrewing through the air and tossing stuff every which way. Marty hunkered down and held on.

  Finally, Star shouted, “Enough! You need to behave!”

  At first, her outburst didn’t seem to have any effect; the barrel ride continued uninterrupted. But a few minutes later, the train let out a disdainful sort of hiss and leveled out. The ride went smoother after that.