by Lev Grossman
Shivering uncontrollably, Kate forced her numb fingers to grip the door handle and braced herself for what she was about to do.
But before she could open the door, the train dropped and settled even farther. It was sinking into the mud! Only now did Kate’s mind go completely blank with panic. If there was anything worse than being frozen and drowned, it was being smothered in freezing mud, too. Buried alive. She scrabbled furiously at the window, but she couldn’t feel her fingers anymore—
Then a very weird thing happened: They fell.
She felt the train break through the mud and drop through air, and for a second Kate was weightless, and her stomach flipped. Then, with a crash like a thousand pianos being dropped from a million-story building, the Silver Arrow landed on something solid.
Nobody moved. Gradually Kate became aware that water wasn’t coming in anymore. In fact it was draining out.
“W-what is this?” Tom said. “What h-h-happened?”
“N-no idea.”
Cautiously, very cautiously, she wondered if it was possible that they weren’t going to die. She slowly opened the window and looked outside.
They weren’t underwater or buried in mud. They were in an enormous underground room. It was completely round and lit by orange light from a giant roaring fireplace. The air was warm.
“Heat!” Tom pushed past Kate and out of the cab.
A silver fish from the lake was still flopping around on the floor of the cab. The porcupine looked at it thoughtfully, and then he ate it.
Animals, Kate thought.
Outside a man was standing with his back to the fire, watching them. His face was in shadow, but Kate had a pretty good idea who he was.
“Come on,” Uncle Herbert said. “Come get warm. You must be freezing.”
Tom was already by the fire, and Uncle Herbert bundled a blanket around his shoulders. Kate climbed down and took a blanket, too. Then she climbed back up, wrapped the blanket around the shivering porcupine, and carried him down to get warm. Only then did Kate accept a blanket for herself and take her place by the fire.
She could feel that they were deep underground.
“I know that was a terrible scare,” Uncle Herbert said. “And I’m sorry. But you’ve done well, Kate. I’m proud of you.”
She stared dully into the fire, still shaking. She wasn’t proud of herself. She was just relieved and tired and sorry.
“I lost the train,” she said. “All the cars. Everything. And I let the fire go out.”
“You did your job. Your job wasn’t to bring the train home, it was to try your hardest and never give up, and you did it. That’s all that matters.”
“Adults always say that.”
“Every once in a while we say something that’s true. We say a lot of things that aren’t, so it’s hard to tell which are which, but that one is true. It is literally all that matters. There are always more train cars. It’s a lot harder to find good conductors.”
“But the fire went out.” She felt hot tears of shame on her face again. “I wasn’t supposed to let it go out!”
“It’s going to be all right, Kate. Look.”
He turned her around to look at the Silver Arrow. A crowd of workers had appeared from somewhere, and they were climbing all over it. They were spraying off the mud and muck with hoses and wiping its windows and its brass bell and its great black boiler with cloths and sponges and towels. There was even a pit underneath the train where workers were cleaning its undercarriage.
“Will it be okay?”
“It’ll be good as new.”
She supposed she would take his word for it.
“Where are we?”
“This is the Roundhouse.” He gestured grandly at the circular room. “This is where trains come to get fixed up when something goes wrong.”
She saw now that the fireplace wasn’t just a fireplace, it was actually a huge forge, like a blacksmith would have.
“We’re going to take care of you, too.” He put one arm around Kate and the other around Tom. “If you go through there”—he indicated a door with his chin—“there’s a hot shower and fresh clothes and something to eat. Off you go. We’ll talk when you’re feeling better.”
26
The Beginning
IN A KIND OF PRIVATE UNDERGROUND LOCKER ROOM, Kate took the longest and hottest shower of her life. She steamed herself for what felt like hours, till the last frozen cell in her body was thawed out and pink and she was completely warm to the core again. Then she dried herself off and got dressed.
She didn’t even know what time it was anymore, but somebody had laid out a big breakfast of pancakes and French toast with maple syrup and melted butter on the side, and it was the most comforting thing she could imagine. She ate till she was stuffed.
Then she took another hot shower just to make sure she was all the way warm. Plus she was pretty sticky from all that syrup.
When she and Tom came back into the Roundhouse, the workers were just polishing the last of the Silver Arrow’s brass fittings and changing the huge bulb in its big front headlight. The train looked as good as new. They’d even restocked the tender with coal and water.
“Do you want to do the honors?” Uncle Herbert said.
He offered her a fancy foot-long wooden match. Kate knew what he meant.
The makings of a great big bonfire had been laid in the Silver Arrow’s firebox: loose paper, then dry sticks for kindling, then thick branches on top of that. Kate lit the match and touched it to the corner of a crumpled newspaper and watched the flames lick and spread. When the fire was good and steady, she and Tom shoveled coal from the tender on top of the wood. She watched the steam pressure rise in the pressure gauge.
It all felt comfortingly familiar; she’d done it so many times. But she was still waiting for something.…
Click-bing.
HI
Kate smiled through her tears.
“Hi.”
There was not really any part of the Silver Arrow that she could hug, but she wished she could.
I’M BACK
“Are you okay?”
I FEEL GOOD
“I’m glad.”
WAIT
WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!
She explained about Uncle Herbert and the Roundhouse as well as she could, but the whole time she was thinking, It’s really back. It’s really all right. Kate felt like she’d come back to life, too. She felt fresh and strong and restored.
When the train was all steamed up and white wisps of vapor were floating out of its smokestacks and pistons, the door to the cab opened and Uncle Herbert climbed in. He looked around, and his face had a melancholy expression for a moment. Like he was remembering something.
He turned to Kate and Tom.
“I wonder,” he said, “if you could give me a ride to my car.”
With a great rumbling, the whole train started turning in place. Looking out Kate saw that it was resting on an enormous turntable, almost like a record player, that could spin and point the train in whatever direction it needed to go.
When the turntable stopped, the Silver Arrow was pointed at the arched entrance to a dark tunnel.
Tom switched on the headlight and released the brakes. Kate put the reverser all the way forward and slowly opened up the throttle. She couldn’t help showing off a little. The train started to move.
“Do you mind if I—?” Uncle Herbert said shyly.
He reached one hand up toward the ceiling.
“Go for it.”
With a grin, Uncle Herbert pulled the handle and blew the whistle.
FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!
They steamed down the dark tunnel for a few minutes—then they rolled unexpectedly out into an enormous train station full of soft gray diffuse light, with a lofty ceiling of glass and wrought iron. A big clickety sign showed the names of many distant places.
They passed another train, waiting at a platform—not a full train, just an engine and a tend
er. A boy a little older than Kate sat in the cab, and when he saw her he waved shyly and rang his bell.
Kate did the same.
“So—we’re not the only ones?” she asked Uncle Herbert.
“There are others. Not many, not yet. But you’re not alone.”
A minute later the train burst out into the open air, and they were running fast through a twilight landscape. Trees and cars and lighted houses streamed past. It was a long time since she’d seen them—she and Tom had spent a lot of time in some very remote places. Now they were coming back to civilization.
Tom took the controls and brought the Silver Arrow chuffing and chugging up to full speed. Kate was feeling recovered enough to start thinking about everything that had happened to her and about what was coming next.
Apparently, Uncle Herbert was thinking about the same things.
“You’ve had to do some hard things on this trip,” he said. “Both of you. You worked hard. You learned new things. You made mistakes and you owned up to them. You were uncomfortable and disappointed and discouraged and scared, but you never felt sorry for yourself and you never gave up. Those are some of the hardest things a person can ever do.”
“I guess.” Kate felt embarrassed at all the praise. “I mean, they’re not harder than, I don’t know, winning a marathon or writing a symphony or whatever.”
“But that’s how people get to do all that stuff, Kate. Anybody who’s ever done something really important got there by doing the things you’ve learned to do. And if you just keep doing them, you’ll accomplish amazing things too. Things you never would’ve dreamed you could do.”
“Hey, how do you know all this?” Tom said. “Mom says you’re the laziest man she’s ever met.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t know what I’m talking about,” Uncle Herbert said, and that melancholy look crossed his face again. “Just more the theory than the practice. I was a conductor once, too. I just wasn’t a very good one.”
He took off his hat and showed it to them. In little letters stitched on the brim it said The Twilight Star.
“So that was your train,” Kate said softly. “We found it. It’s still there.”
Uncle Herbert nodded.
“Your mother and I were both conductors, a long time ago. But we weren’t like you, we couldn’t keep going. When things got tough, we gave up.” Uncle Herbert looked down at his feet. “She doesn’t really remember—it’s like a dream to her. But I think that’s why she finds it hard to be around me. And you may have noticed she’s not too fond of trains, either.
“I couldn’t forget, though. I never stopped wanting to be a part of it. So now I help out with some of the magic. But I leave the driving to the experts.”
A half hour later they chugged back up the scary hill they’d swooped down so long ago and back through the old woods, and then Tom was slowing the Silver Arrow down in their own backyard. He stopped it on the exact same spot where they’d started, though now it was facing in the opposite direction.
There was something new in the backyard: a lighted railway clock on a lamppost, like the ones they’d seen at so many of the stations they’d passed.
“Now listen,” Uncle Herbert said. “The way this works, only a few minutes have gone by since you left. If you guys can sneak back into the house without your mom and dad hearing, they’ll never know any of this happened.”
“Really?” Kate said. “But—that’s very weird. Wait, did it all happen? It already feels kind of like a dream.”
“I promise you it happened. Here.” Uncle Herbert handed her the case with Grace Hopper’s glasses. Solemnly he gave Foxy Jones back to Tom. “It’s the realest thing that ever happened to you.”
Just to be doubly sure, Kate felt her elbow where she’d banged it right before they’d sunk through the ice. Yes: The bruise was still there.
They climbed down out of the cab. If what Uncle Herbert had said was true, then technically it was still her birthday, she thought. Not her worst birthday after all, but her best. And definitely the longest.
Kate knelt down next to the porcupine.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “We never took you anywhere. Where do you need to go?”
The porcupine looked around critically.
“I suppose here is fine. Those woods we passed look promising. I’m not picky, you know.”
“You absolutely are picky,” Kate said. “You’re one of the pickiest creatures I’ve ever met!” The porcupine thought about that. “Yes, I suppose I am. I’m definitely picky about my friends.” He promised to visit soon, then ambled off into the night.
“I just can’t believe it’s all over,” Kate said.
Uncle Herbert gave her a funny look. “What do you mean, all over?”
“You know—the trip. The adventure. It’s all finished.”
“Kate, the adventure’s never over! Listen to me.” He put his hands on her shoulders and looked her right in the eyes. “Even when you’re home, even when you’re standing still, going nowhere, you’re still traveling in time. For every second that goes by you’re traveling one second into the future. Every second of every day you’re going somewhere you’ve never been before. The adventure never ends!”
Kate thought she understood. “Thanks, Uncle Herbert. I feel a little better.”
“Good.” He straightened up. “But also the adventure is literally not over. You’re leaving on the Silver Arrow again in three weeks.”
“We—we are?”
“Now that you’ve completed your first journey,” Uncle Herbert said, “you are both formally officers of the Great Secret Intercontinental Railway.”
He took two thick, very official-looking pieces of paper out of the inside pocket of his banana-yellow blazer and handed one to Kate and one to Tom. They were covered in important-looking stamps and seals and signatures.
“These are your letters of commission. And here are your pins.”
He pinned a little silver train onto each of their chests.
“And here’s your schedule.” More papers. “You’re going to be busy. As I said, the world needs good conductors, now more than ever, and there aren’t many of you.”
His yellow Tesla was waiting in the driveway. He shook their hands solemnly, climbed in, and rolled down the window.
“Get some rest,” he called. “Tom’s birthday is coming up, and I’m thinking of getting him a submarine.”
His taillights blazed red in the twilight as he drove away.
When he was gone Kate and Tom crept inside their warm, quiet house, full of all the old familiar sounds and smells. Kate slipped back into her own room. All her old stuff was still there, just the way she’d left it. Adventures were a good thing, a great thing, but it turned out that coming home wasn’t all bad either.
Standing in the middle of her room, she took a deep, shaky breath. She could barely think with all the excitement that was blooming inside her. There was so much good that needed doing in the world, and she was going to do every bit of it that she could. She knew it wouldn’t be easy, or simple, but she couldn’t wait to get started.
She was just changing out of her conductor’s uniform and into regular clothes when she heard footsteps in the hall.
It was her mother. Probably she was coming to tell Kate to stop sulking, which was fair, and that it was time for her birthday dinner. Kate snuck a look out the window at the great dark shape of the Silver Arrow in the moonlight, patiently waiting to take her somewhere new and amazing.
It was like the heron said: The old balance was gone—but it wasn’t too late to find a new one.
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers began publishing books in 1926.
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About the Author
LEV GROSSMAN is the author of five novels
, including the #1 New York Times bestselling Magicians Trilogy, which has been published in thirty countries and adapted for television. Grossman is also an award-winning journalist who spent fifteen years as the book critic and lead technology writer at Time magazine. He lives in New York City with his wife and three children.