More time passed—again, he had no idea how much—but sometime during his meditation, the thought came to him: Pull the lever. Stop the train. Abruptly, he opened his eyes, stood up from the chair, and approached the train’s control console. Before, he had been afraid to touch the brass lever that he guessed was the throttle. Now, he grasped it confidently with both hands and in a slow, smooth motion he pulled it backward, toward himself. The all-consuming hum of the engine lowered in pitch with each inch the lever moved, and Raph kept pulling until the brass shaft was perfectly vertical. It clicked into place, and the massive locomotive gave one final lurch and stopped.
The sound of the train’s engine had disappeared, leaving in its wake a silence that was even more eerie than the drone of the engine had been. As he stared out the window, he thought for one disorienting moment that he was still moving—the fog remained outside, just as it had been since he’d first awakened on the train. But a second later, he realized that the billows and wisps were no longer moving. They stood in heavy, static sheets, like an infinite series of gray curtains that slowly drifted closed or opened, revealing more gray curtains behind them.
Despite his desolate surroundings, he felt a shock of excitement at the prospect of getting off the train and exploring, and he hurried to the door of the cab and opened it. Clambering down a metal ladder, he sighed in relief as his sneakers hit the hard-packed earth.
He looked around. A warm breeze hummed softly around him, stirring the fog, but that was the only sound or movement he could detect. Off to his right, he could see railroad tracks stretching away until the haze and mist swallowed them up.
The train looked just as he remembered it from the glimpse he’d gotten back in Middleburg. The engine was huge, probably over thirty feet tall and a hundred feet long—and black, as if the whole thing was made of cast iron. Here and there, the black was accented with another metal he couldn’t identify. This strange, greenish alloy formed the stairs, the seams around the engine’s massive, barrel-like boiler, and the menacing triangle of the cowcatcher. The engine’s single headlight, too, gave off a strange, vaguely greenish glow.
Attached to the engine was a series of boxcars, as huge and black as the engine. They were all identical, just big, black rectangles, and Raphael counted nine of them before their lineup disappeared into the fog.
I wonder what’s inside them, he thought. What kind of cargo would a supernatural train speeding into oblivion carry?
He hesitated for a second and then decided to find out. In a few strides, he made his way to the nearest boxcar. There were a few steps of greenish metal leading up to a massive, square doorway, and when he mounted them and grabbed the door handle, he got a closer look at the material the car was made of. Leaning closer, he ran a hand over it. Sure enough—it wasn’t made of metal at all. It had been carved of some black, granite-like stone. It reminded Raphael of a slab that would cover a grave, and he quickly pulled his hand away.
That’s when he heard a sound from inside the car.
Footsteps.
“Hello?” he said, leaning closer to the door, but the only answer was the wind, whispering across the flat, empty land.
Taking a slow, steadying breath, he reached up and gripped the greenish metal handle. He expected that the huge, stone door would be too heavy for him to pull aside, but it seemed to be perfectly weighted, and as he pulled the handle, the latch released, and the big granite slab slid to his right.
The sun or moon—or whatever indistinct light source it was that illuminated this world—shone into the black interior of the train car as Raphael peered inside.
At first, he could see nothing but formless shadows, then came the sound of quick footsteps approaching. It was a man with a heavy paunch at his beltline, a balding head, and dim, squinty eyes. Raphael thought for a second that he recognized him, but before he could figure out how he knew him, the guy charged at him.
“Close the door!” the man said. The desperation in his voice was frightening, and he had a wild look in his eyes. Something about him—the urgency of his tone, the glazed intensity of his expression, or maybe the way he appeared from the recesses of the shadows so suddenly made Raphael think of an insane ghost.
“Close it! Close it! Close it!” the man said, charging Raphael with rising fury.
Raph heaved on the heavy door with all his might, and the last thing he saw before it slammed shut was the man’s eyes staring at him, electrified with madness, and his grease-stained hands, groping toward Raphael through the fast-closing gap of the door. When it shut with a bang, Raphael jumped down from the ladder and the sudden overwhelming fear he felt sent him running away from the train.
Wisps of fog clung to him like spiderwebs, slipping around him as he ran and his heart beat fast, pounding in his chest. After a moment, the fear of getting lost overcame the fear of the man in the boxcar and he slowed to a jog, and then to a walk. When he turned around he could no longer see the train.
This can’t be good, he thought, and ran back in the direction he’d come. He ran toward the train for as long as he had run away from it, then twice as long, but it was gone. There was no sign of train or tracks. There was nothing but the fog, endless and listless, enshrouding him.
“Hello?” Raphael yelled, his fear coalescing into a wave of frustration. “Hello!” he shouted with all his might, but no one answered his call. There wasn’t even an echo.
With a groan, he fell to his knees and buried his face in his hands. He’d been lost before, when he was a kid exploring the woods around Middleburg with Zhai. That was scary, but it was nothing compared to this. This time, he hadn’t just lost his way, he had lost his world. And this time, there was no friend to keep him company.
“Hello.”
The voice seemed to come out of the mist, and as it swirled away, Raphael saw a familiar figure standing before him: black fingernails, long black hair, dark eyes. Only his outfit was different. Now, he wore a robe the color of fresh, spring green.
“Magician,” Raphael said. “Why am I not surprised?”
The Magician’s cunning eyes narrowed as he laughed. “Ah, asking me questions now, are you?” he said.
“Just tell me where I am and how I get back to Middleburg,” Raphael said. Then, on second thought, he added, “Please.”
“Very well,” the Dark Teacher said. “You are in the borderland of the Dark Territory.”
“Dark Territory . . .” Raphael said. “I thought that was just a railroad term.”
“It is,” the Magician said. “The Dark Territory is the destination of the train you have been riding. Middleburg is its second-to-last stop.”
Raphael thought of the man in the boxcar. Suddenly, he remembered where he’d seen him before: he was a gas-station attendant from Middleburg. He remembered the guy’s name, too. It was stitched on the front of the uniform he always wore: Don. But the last time he’d seen him wasn’t behind the counter of the gas station; it was in Middleburg’s newspaper. There had been a photo of him next to an article. Raphael remembered the headline, too: local man hit by truck and killed.
Raphael balled his trembling hands into fists and addressed the Magician again. “There was a man on the train, in one of the boxcars. I know him.”
The Magician nodded.
“Where is the train taking him?”
The Magician scowled. “I will not repeat myself,” he said and turned to disappear back into the fog.
“Wait!” Raphael called after him, his mind racing. “Why is the train taking Don to the Dark Territory?” he asked again, desperate to know.
When the Magician turned back to Raphael this time, he was smiling. “You know why.”
The breeze that had been warm and calming a moment before seemed, to Raphael, to drop a few degrees. He shivered.
“Because . . . he’s dead,” R
aphael said. The Magician didn’t respond. He didn’t have to. Raphael already knew it was true.
If what the Magician was saying was right, Raphael had just been on a train full of ghosts, speeding toward . . . what?
“What will happen to him in the Dark Territory?” Raphael asked warily.
The Magician gazed at Raphael. “That information is usually withheld from the living,” he replied sternly.
His answer made Raphael feel a little better: it meant he was still alive. For a second, he had been afraid he was a ghost, just like Don. But another thought followed closely behind the first: if the Dark Territory was where people went when they died, maybe his father was there, too. And maybe that meant Raphael could see him again. The idea filled him with a dizzying feeling that was half elation and half terror.
“If I get back on the train and go there—to look for my dad—will I be able to get out again?”
The Magician’s grin faded. “You can get back on the train, but know this: those who enter the Dark Territory are rarely the same when they come out.”
Raphael frowned. “What does that mean?”
“They are re-formed,” the Magician said.
Raphael wasn’t sure if he meant reformed or re-formed, but either way it sounded a bit ominous. Getting back on the train also sounded like a bad idea—besides, he didn’t even know where it was anymore.
“Okay, so if I don’t want to get back on the train, where should I go?” Raphael asked.
The Magician pointed to his right. “This direction is time.” He pointed the opposite way. “This direction is space.”
Raphael looked in both directions through the featureless haze.
“And which way to Middleburg?” he asked.
The Magician pointed in a third direction, which was also obscured by fog.
“That is the way. But beware, Raphael Kain. Those who inhabit the borderland are restless souls, rebels who have rejected their re-formation. If you attempt to cross the wasteland, you will have to fight them every step of the way.”
Raphael nodded. Phantom trains, parallel worlds, and creepy magicians all frightened and mystified him—but fighting was one thing he understood.
“Thanks,” he said to the Magician. He started off in the direction the Dark Teacher had indicated, then paused and turned back.
“You said something about time,” Raphael said. “Does that mean if I go in that direction, I can get to anywhere in time from the borderlands?”
“Of course,” the Magician said.
Considering the Magician’s words, Raphael stared off into the distance, in the direction the Magician had identified as time. He had so many regrets; he had inflicted so many wounds in the past, and those he loved had suffered so much. If only he could go back and change things. He could make it so that Aimee never met Orias, Emory and his family never got evicted, or his mom never started dating that bastard Jack Banfield.
But there was one thing, more than anything else in the world, that he wanted to go back and change. The first time he’d heard of the Wheel he’d secretly thought of it, and with every mention of time travel since then, it had lingered in his mind, a dark and forbidden hope that he longed for with every thread of his being. . . .
He wanted to ask another question, but when he turned back to look for him, the Magician was gone.
“Disappeared again. Typical,” Raphael muttered.
No, he decided firmly. It was too risky to go charging through time or to try to take the phantom train to visit his father in the Dark Territory. The safest bet was to go back to Middleburg now and make sure his mom and Aimee and the Flatliners were all okay. Once he did that, maybe he could find his way back and explore the borderlands.
“Middleburg, here I come,” he said. He was about to start walking when he remembered the Magician’s warning. Enemies would confront him at every step, he’d said. Well, Raphael thought, bring ’em on.
He started walking and before long a figure appeared in the fog. The man was short, probably only four feet tall. He was naked and looked like he was more monkey than man, with his long face and hairy, apelike limbs. He shouted a shrill, inhuman battle cry at Raphael, and with both arms flailing, he attacked. Raphael managed to block his fists and sweep his front leg, causing his opponent to do the splits. As the monkeyman fought to keep his balance, Raphael caught him in the face with an elbow and he tumbled backward and disappeared into the mist.
Raphael started moving forward again, but he’d gone no more than two paces when a stone-tipped spear appeared through the fog and jabbed at his face. It almost stabbed him in the left eye before he managed to block it with a Pak Sau. The man wielding the weapon looked something like a Neanderthal, just as the first one had, only he was a bit taller and wore a furry loincloth. Raphael grabbed the shaft of the spear he was holding and used an arm-break technique to snap it. In a flurry of swift motion, he spun close to his opponent and impaled him with his own broken-off spearhead, and then he charged onward.
When he looked up, he saw more figures coming toward him out of the fog, and he felt his optimism flagging. The Magician was right. If this was the path back to Middleburg, he would literally be fighting every step of the way.
* * *
Aimee watched as her father stood at the end of their beautifully decorated dining room table. He gave Savana Kain a flash of his charming smile, then raised his crystal champagne flute and saluted her. Aimee was there with Orias, Cheung and Lotus Shao sat at the far end of the table, and Maggie was sitting next to Rick. Aimee wondered what Maggie looked so anxious about.
Aimee already had an idea what was coming; her father had hinted at it before their guests arrived, probably to make sure that she didn’t get upset by the news and ruin his little announcement. She wasn’t sure if Rick knew or not. Certainly, he was too oblivious to notice the huge diamond that sparkled on the ring finger of Savana’s left hand. Aimee watched her brother now, wondering how he would react to what their father was about to say.
“First, I want to thank you all for being here,” Jack continued. “Some of you are family. Some of you are almost as close as family, and all of you hold a special place in my heart. That’s why it’s such a pleasure for me to share this great news with all of you. As I’m sure many of you know, Savana and I have been seeing each other for quite a while now, and as you can see, we’re about to welcome a new little life into the world. So, we’re getting married,” he finished. “On Saturday, at city hall. And you’re all invited.”
There was a pause before Lotus and Cheung broke the silence with their applause.
“Congratulations,” Orias said smoothly, smiling, and Aimee thought he was sincere. Rick scowled, pushed his chair back from the table, and stalked out of the room.
Aimee sat perfectly still for a moment, unsure of her feelings. It was like that moment of uncertainty where she knew she felt queasy, but didn’t know if she was going to throw up or not. She couldn’t tell if she was happy or devastated, furious or apathetic, and she wondered how her father could replace her mother so soon, so casually. Finally, with everyone looking at her, she reacted, and it was so spontaneous she couldn’t stop herself. She laughed, then she laughed again, and after a moment she was laughing so hard that tears of helpless mirth were rolling down her face. It wasn’t until Orias squeezed her hand under the table that her laughter finally subsided.
“Sorry, I thought of something funny,” she said. She had thought of what her mother would say when she returned and discovered what had happened while she was gone. The chaos Aimee imagined taking place on that day in the future was as hysterical as it was heartbreaking.
She was sure that her outburst would make her dad angry, but he was distracted. Savana was leaning close to him.
“Wait, Jack,” Savana protested. “Saturday? That’s too soon. We
need time to plan. I need a dress. We have things . . . things to discuss.”
Jack brushed a stray hair from her face and soothed her with a whisper: “Plenty of time for discussion later. We’re getting married before the baby is born. You know how I feel about that.”
“But city hall? I told you I wanted it at Middleburg United.”
“The church is booked this weekend, and my buddy in the mayor’s office got us in downtown—opening city hall as a favor to me, even though it’s Saturday. Don’t worry. It will be fantastic. I got you set up at Lotus’s flower shop—get anything you want. I don’t care about the cost. The lady at Middleburg Couture will make your dress—you have a fitting tomorrow. It will all work out. The main thing is that we’re together, like we talked about—right, baby? Right?”
Jack spoke gently, but the customary firmness never left his voice. It was as if he were negotiating with a child, Aimee thought—he spoke quietly, humoring Savana a bit, but there was no question that he was going to get his way. He finished his little speech by smiling at Orias and Cheung, like a stage actor pausing in his scene to ham it up for the crowd.
Savana started to protest again, then seemed to remember that everybody was looking at her. She added her smile to Jack’s. “Of course,” she agreed.
“I’m sure it will be a beautiful wedding,” Lotus said. “Let me know if you’d like any help with planning—especially with the flowers.”
“Nine A.M. at city hall,” Jack said. “I hope to see you all there.”
A loud crash reverberated from the other room. Probably Rick breaking something, Aimee thought. Across the table, she saw Maggie go pale, but her father went on as if nothing had happened.
“Well, let’s have some dessert and celebrate, shall we?” he said and called toward the kitchen. “Lily Rose, would you bring in the cake, please?”
* * *
After Orias, Maggie, and the Shaos departed, Jack directed Aimee to sit on the couch in the living room with Rick.
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