Train To Nowhere

She reached the nearest door just as it began to close. The gap narrowed to the width of her hand. Mara thrust her suitcase through, caught the rail, and dragged herself aboard. The door slammed behind her with enough force to rattle her teeth.

For a moment she stood bent over, gripping the handle of her suitcase.

The carriage was warm and dim. Brass lamps glowed above rows of red seats. Rain tapped the windows, though she could no longer see the platform clearly through the glass.

Mara straightened and tried the door.

The handle did not move.

She pulled harder. The latch gave a dry click, but the door remained sealed.

“Let me out.”

A woman seated nearby lifted her eyes from a folded newspaper. She was old enough to have silver in her eyebrows, though her face was otherwise smooth and watchful.

“You should not have boarded,” she said.

“I was trying to get home.”

“That is not the same thing.”

Mara turned the handle again. It stayed fixed beneath her palm, cold as a coin left in snow.

The train lurched. Her suitcase toppled against the wall. Somewhere beneath the carriage, metal groaned and the wheels began to turn.

“No.” Mara braced herself against the door. “Stop the train.”

The old woman folded her newspaper with deliberate care. “It does not stop for passengers who change their minds.”

“I have not changed my mind.”

“Then you are in worse trouble.”

Mara looked through the window. The station slid past in fragments: the blank timetable, the open door, the clock without hands. At the end of the platform stood a narrow post painted white. For the first time, she saw words carved into it.

NOT ON ANY LINE.

The train gathered speed. The post vanished behind a veil of rain.

Mara struck the emergency handle with the heel of her hand. A red metal cover cracked beneath the blow. She lifted it and pulled.

Nothing happened.

The old woman watched her without surprise.

“Where is the conductor?” Mara demanded.

“Somewhere ahead.”

“Then I will find him.”

She dragged her suitcase into the aisle. The carriage swayed as the train entered the open country. Seats creaked. A man near the front held a sleeping child against his shoulder. Two empty seats faced him, their cushions damp as if someone had just risen from them. At the end of the carriage, a connecting door stood open onto the next coach.

Mara stepped forward.

“Miss Venn.”

She stopped.

The old woman had not moved, but she now held a ticket between two fingers.

Mara stared at it. “How do you know my name?”

“I do not.” The woman extended the ticket. “The train does.”

Mara took it.

The paper was thick and gray, its edges darkened as though singed. Her name was printed across the center in narrow black letters.

MARA VENN.

Beneath it, a line of smaller type read:

ONE PASSAGE - NO RETURN AT ORIGIN.

Her fingers tightened around the paper.

“What is this?”

“Your fare.”

“I did not buy a ticket.”

“No,” the woman said. “You were given one.”

“By whom?”

The old woman glanced toward the ceiling, where the lamps trembled with the motion of the train. “That is the question that keeps most of us awake.”

Mara looked again at the ticket. A destination line ran along the bottom, but the ink there had blurred into a dark stain.

“I need to get off.”

“You needed to find a route home before the train left.”

Mara’s gaze snapped up.

The woman’s expression remained flat, but something in her eyes had sharpened.

“How did you hear that?”

“I heard you running.”

“That is not what I said.”

“No,” the woman replied. “It is what you meant.”

The carriage rocked hard. Mara caught the edge of a seat. Her suitcase slid down the aisle and struck the connecting door. The door swung wider, revealing another carriage lit by a single blue lamp.

From somewhere farther ahead came the sharp clang of a bell.

Mara retrieved her suitcase.

“Who is driving this train?”

“Not a driver.”

“Then who?”

“Find the conductor if you want answers.”

The old woman returned to her newspaper.

Mara moved through the connecting door.

The next carriage was empty except for a row of hat hooks and a child’s red scarf hanging from one of them. The scarf swayed although there was no draft. The windows showed only darkness now, broken occasionally by the pale flash of trees.

Mara kept one hand on her suitcase and the other against the wall. The wood was polished smooth, warm beneath her palm. Somewhere inside it, a faint vibration traveled with the train, like a pulse.

At the far end, another door waited.

She opened it.

A man stood in the narrow vestibule between carriages. He wore a long black coat buttoned to the throat and a conductor’s cap pulled low over his brow. His face was lean, his skin the color of old paper. In one hand he held a lantern, though the carriage lamps were bright enough.

He looked at Mara’s suitcase, then at her ticket.

“You are not on the ledger,” he said.

“I have not seen a ledger.”

“You were not meant to.”

“Open the door.”

“No.”

“I boarded by mistake.”

“That happens.”

“I need to go back.”

“That does not.”

Mara stepped closer. The train swayed beneath them, wheels shrieking as it took a curve. “There was no destination on the station. No sign. No route. I was stranded there.”

The conductor’s eyes rested on her face. “Were you?”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you arrived.”

“I arrived because my car broke down on the county road.”

“There is no county road near that station.”

Mara felt the ticket soften in her damp hand. “I saw the road.”

“You saw what brought you there.”

“That is not an answer.”

“It is the only one you are getting in this carriage.”

He reached for the ticket.

Mara pulled it back. “Tell me where this train is going.”

The conductor’s mouth tightened. “Nowhere listed.”

“That is not a place.”

“Not on any map.”

The words struck with a strange familiarity. She thought of the white post at the end of the platform and the carved warning beneath the rain.

“What station was that?”

He looked past her, toward the carriage she had left. “The last one you can return to.”

“Then return me.”

“I cannot.”

“Cannot, or will not?”

The conductor lifted his lantern. Its flame burned blue behind the glass.

“Once the train leaves a station, its doors remain shut.”

Mara glanced at the vestibule door behind him. A narrow window showed the tracks racing beneath them, silver lines twisting into black.

“Until when?”

“Until the train reaches its destination.”

“And where is that?”

The conductor’s gaze dropped to the ticket again.

“You will know when it is time.”

Mara shoved past him.

He caught her wrist. His grip was not painful, but it was absolute.

“Do not open a door between stations.”

“Let go.”

“Miss Venn.”

“I said let go.”

For the first time, anger moved across his face. Not anger at her. Fear.

The train plunged into a tunnel.

Every lamp went dark.

Mara heard the conductor curse. The child’s red scarf whipped from its hook and vanished into the black. Somewhere behind her, a passenger cried out. The train jolted so violently that Mara struck the wall with her shoulder.

A bell began ringing.

Not the station bell. This one sounded inside the carriage, close and frantic, as if someone were shaking it beside her ear.

The conductor released her wrist and raised the lantern. Its blue flame had gone out.

“Stay where you are,” he said.

Mara could barely see him. The tunnel pressed against the windows, a solid darkness. Cold air poured through the seams around the doors, carrying the smell of wet iron.

A shape moved at the far end of the carriage.

Mara’s hand found the emergency handle again. Her fingers closed around it.

“Do not,” the conductor said.

“What is happening?”

“The line is changing.”

“That makes no sense.”

“Neither does this train.”

The bell rang harder. One of the doors ahead shuddered in its frame. Beyond it, something struck the metal from the other side.

Once.

Twice.

Mara pulled the emergency handle.

This time it came free.

A red lever dropped beneath her hand. The carriage lights flashed on. The sudden brightness revealed the conductor standing three paces away, his face drained of color.

The train screamed.

Brakes seized beneath the floor. Mara was thrown forward, but the conductor caught her by the coat and slammed her against the wall. Behind him, the connecting door burst open.

A rush of blackness poured through the gap.

It was not smoke. It moved with purpose, folding around the seats, climbing the walls in thin, crawling ribbons. The old woman’s voice rose from the next carriage.

“Close it!”

The conductor thrust the lantern into Mara’s hands.

“Hold this up.”

“What?”

“Hold it up!”

She lifted the lantern. Blue fire flared inside the glass.

The blackness recoiled.

The conductor seized the connecting door and dragged it shut. The thing on the other side struck once before the latch caught. The impact traveled through the carriage and into Mara’s bones.

Then the train surged forward.

The lamps steadied. The bell stopped.

For several seconds, no one spoke.

Mara stared at the lantern in her hands. Its metal casing was warm, and a smear of soot marked her palm.

The conductor took it back.

“You pulled the emergency brake,” he said.

“It stopped whatever was coming through.”

“It delayed it.”

“Then tell me what it was.”

He looked toward the sealed door.

“Not yet.”

Mara laughed once, without humor. “You keep saying that.”

“Because you keep asking questions before you understand the cost of the answers.”

She pulled the ticket from her pocket. The blurred destination line had changed.

Ink slowly gathered beneath her name, drawing letters one by one.

Mara watched them form.

The conductor saw them too.

His expression emptied.

“What does it say?” she asked.

He did not answer.

She held the ticket closer to the lamp.

The destination was printed in crisp black type:

THE PLACE WHERE MARA VENN WAS NEVER BORN.

The wheels hammered the rails. Outside, the darkness opened into a vast, starless country.

Mara looked at the conductor. “That place does not exist.”

He turned the lock on the connecting door and slid the bolt into place.

“No,” he said. “It does not.”

The train pulled away from the unmapped station, carrying her deeper into the night.

End of chapter one. 14 more chapters and about 33,609 words in the full book.