by Obert Skye
Sigi, Ozzy, and Clark looked at each other in disbelief. One minute they’d been driving down the highway being chased by cops and now they were on the back of a train car being whisked away. Ozzy couldn’t speak. His body was in shock and his brain was stunned.
“I saw my battery life flash before my eyes,” Clark tweeted.
“What just happened?” Ozzy finally spoke.
“We caught a ride,” Rin said. The wizard didn’t seem the least bit surprised by what had just happened. “Is the food in the back okay?”
“That’s impossible,” Sigi said with a shaky voice. “What just happened is impossible.”
“Impossible?” Rin asked. “That’s such a weird word. Can’t you see what happened? I mean, you were all there.”
“I still don’t believe it.”
The train raced across the countryside with them parked on it.
“Humans,” Rin said with a laugh. “That’s why we wizards so seldom use magic. You refuse to believe.”
“I— I— I—” Sigi tried to say.
“Don’t tell your mom,” he reminded her.
Rin casually reached back and grabbed a bag. He pulled it into the front and began to unwrap his second sandwich, acting as if it was just another night in the life of a wizard.
All three cop cars slammed on their brakes and barely came to a stop before hitting the train or each other. The long freight train continued racing across the highway, clanking noisily and creating a moving wall that they couldn’t get through.
Sheriff Wills and his officers got out of their cars.
“What happened?!” Sheriff Wills yelled.
The noise of the passing train was thunderous; the weight of the fast-moving machine shook the ground.
“I have no idea!” Officer Greg yelled back.
The three police cars had been tailing Rin’s car for miles. Following protocol, they had stayed back a safe distance to make sure that they didn’t cause any unneeded accidents or harm to other cars or themselves. They had contacted the officers in Bell’s Ferry and a roadblock was in place. But as the cars had come around the corner, they had seen the crossing lights flashing and it looked as if the wizard’s car popped and then just disappeared.
Sheriff Wills was stumped. “Did they get through?”
“They must have.” Officer Greg wasn’t confident about his answer. “I’m just not sure how someone drives right through a train!”
“Are you sure they didn’t go off the road?” the third officer asked.
Sheriff Wills yelled back. “I’m not sure of anything!”
The three policemen walked along the sides of the highway looking for evidence that the car might have run into the trees while the unending train continued to block their passage. It was too dark to see much and, in their minds, the wizard had somehow made it across the track before the train.
“Unbelievable,” Sheriff Wills said to his officers as they huddled together by the side of the road. “Earlier, Brian tamed a bird that busted up light bulbs and now he drove through a moving train. Maybe he is a wizard.”
They all laughed uncomfortably.
More vehicles stopped behind the three police cars and joined the wait. There was still no sign of the end of the train.
“Bell’s Ferry will stop them,” the sheriff said. “They won’t get far.”
The locomotive rumbled as the railroad crossing signs flashed and dinged.
It was another five minutes before the train finished crossing the highway. The flashing lights turned off and police held traffic a moment longer as they looked for signs of Rin’s car on the other side of the track.
There were none.
Sheriff Wills got back into his car and raced to Bell’s Ferry.
What happened with the police chase was something Ozzy and Clark and Sigi would never forget. Rin? Well, he acted like taking a dirt jump off the road and twisting upside down in a car before landing on a speeding railroad car was nothing out of the ordinary.
The train car in front of them had a large metal container on it, and the car behind them did, too. Somehow they’d landed unscathed on the empty one in between. Their small car shook and rattled as the locomotive rumbled along.
Rin put on the emergency brake for safety.
“You don’t think that was unbelievable?” Ozzy asked for the tenth time.
“I guess once you’ve lived in Quarfelt you’re not easily impressed. And besides, I told you previously that many spirits use the railroads for traveling through this dimension.”
“Do they use it like that?”
“They use it however they see fit.”
“I wish I had my phone so I could send out a snapchat of this,” Sigi said. “No one’s going to believe it.”
“I personally think it’s weird,” Clark chirped. “Rin said we would get away and we did. That’s weird, right? I mean there was a wall of train in front of us and a pack of cops behind us, and yet . . . here we are.”
“It’s almost impossible to believe,” Sigi said.
“Sadly, you have more of your mother in you than you should.”
“Do you think we’re heading in the right direction?” Ozzy asked.
“We are,” Rin replied. “This might actually save us time and gas money.”
“And how do we get off whenever we stop?” Ozzy questioned. “What if when we stop, the sheriff’s there?”
“What’s the point of worrying about those things?” Rin said. “When the time comes, the answer will present itself.”
Rin took a big bite of his fried egg sandwich.
“You don’t think this is mind-blowing?” Ozzy asked.
“I do,” Sigi said from the back seat.
“Look, you two, I know it appears as if we have unwittingly found ourselves on a great adventure, but it’s important to know that this adventure started years ago. We are just now playing out the plot. Little things that were said, little things that were done—all those things, both granular and grand, shaped the choices and consequences that have led to right here. We are sitting in my ex-wife’s car with my daughter traveling through the dark, hitching a ride on a train. That’s not a surprise, because it was mapped out by actions that began long ago. The exhilarating part is that the little things we do . . . you treating Clark kindly, him causing me to lose control of the car, me finishing this sandwich . . . they are all starting points for new journeys that will propel us into the future.”
Rin took another bite. After chewing a moment, he continued.
“You look at me and see a wizard. I look at everything and see magic.”
“You have mayonnaise in your beard,” Clark said.
Rin smiled and wiped off the mayonnaise with the end of his robe sleeve.
“Perfect example,” Rin said. “We should all be excited to see how that very small thing, me wiping my face, might affect us in the future.”
“I know it’ll make it easier to look at you,” Clark stated.
Sigi laughed.
Ozzy looked at Rin. He couldn’t decide if he was wise or full of it.
The wizard finished his last bite of sandwich and then dusted off his hands.
“Now,” he said. “You were wondering when I’d sleep, and it seems as if magically I now have some time to do so. This train is long and going fast, which means it must be traveling pretty far down the line. Sleep seems like a good way to spend my time.”
Rin leaned the driver’s seat back and closed his eyes. “I suggest you do the same,” he said without opening them. “No one should be tired, because who knows what tomorrow may bring. Oh . . . wait, I do.”
Rin shut his eyes and was out.
Ozzy leaned his seat back a little, but not so much that Sigi didn’t have room in the back, and Clark got comfortable on Ozzy’s stomach. Ozzy
plugged the phone in to the car charger and held the glowing screen next to the bird’s silver streak. Sigi leaned forward from the back.
“This is not how I saw my night going.”
“Really?” Ozzy asked. “Riding the rails wasn’t in your plans? I would think this was normal, since Rin’s your dad.”
“Actually, I hardly ever see him. He’s not always been around during my life.”
“Quarfelt?”
“Something like that. Your father must be amazing. I bet you’re the only person in the world with a sentient raven. That’s not normal.”
“To be honest,” Ozzy said. “I’m not really sure what is. The hidden house I live in, my parents’ mysterious disappearance, me hanging out with a wizard and a talking metal bird. You being in the same car as me. Is all this normal?”
“Who’s to say?” Clark whispered. “Remember that sign we saw next to Volts in Otter Rock? The one with the horse holding a TV, saying, ‘All your nay-boors will be jealous’? Well, if a horse can talk, then anything is normal.”
“I don’t think horses can really talk,” Ozzy said.
“Sure. Then how’d they get that picture?”
“I know the world has plenty of crazy things in it.” Ozzy shifted onto his side to see Sigi better. “I’ve read books. I just wonder if what I’m going through now is extraordinary or commonplace.”
“It seems to be commonplace for you.”
Ozzy reached up and slid open the cover of the car’s moon roof. He could see the stars and felt the click-clack of the track beneath him.
“Are you regretting the fact that you were nice to me at school?” Ozzy asked. “If you’d been mean, I probably would’ve just stayed hidden in the woods.”
“I don’t regret it at all. It’s not always been easy feeling a little different than everybody else here. It was nice to find someone who was different in their own way.”
“You mean different because your dad’s a wizard? Because that’s magical.”
Sigi nudged Ozzy.
“No, different because of the color of my skin.”
“Well, that’s magical too.”
Sigi smiled. She leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. As if in chorus, the bird shut down, and the wizard was out as well.
Ozzy stared at the stars. The somewhat normal high school life he had enjoyed for a couple of weeks seemed like a past as distant as his parents. Still, somehow here he was with Sigi, and that reality helped him believe almost anything.
The train traveled at full speed through most of the night. As daylight began to break, Ozzy woke up and put Clark on the dashboard so that he could catch some of the sun’s first rays. He tried not to stare too much at Sigi as she slept in the backseat, but she was a firework he couldn’t easily look away from.
Rin yawned like it was the most important thing a wizard could do. He adjusted his chair and sat up straight. His hat was still on, but his beard looked like it could use a wash and a good combing.
The terrain they were traveling through was hilly and treeless. The earthen banks on both sides of the tracks were high and wide.
It took a couple tries before Ozzy could get a phone signal to see just where they were.
“We’re in California,” he announced. “Does that seem right?”
“We may have gone farther than I wanted to,” Rin admitted. “We should probably find a way off this train as soon as possible.”
“Right,” Ozzy said. “I figure when the train finally stops we’ll have to get out and leave the car. I mean how can we . . .”
Rin started the vehicle and switched on the heat.
Ozzy looked relieved. “Oh, for a second, I thought . . .”
The wizard took the emergency brake off and turned the wheel to the right.
“Wait! What are you doing?”
Rin smiled and then pressed hard down on the gas. The car flew off the moving railroad car with Ozzy screaming. It landed hard against the raised ground at the side of the railroad tracks. The small white car then bounced and rolled down an incline towards a dusty road.
“You’re insane!” Ozzy screamed.
The car fishtailed and rocked over the dirt, coming to a skidding stop on the hard soil of the small road.
The train just kept on going.
Rin put the car into park. Amazingly, Sigi was still sleeping in the backseat.
“I don’t believe you!” Ozzy yelled.
“It’s not necessary that you do.”
“We could have died!”
“I see no proof of that. Besides, I couldn’t just leave Patti’s car on the train.”
“He’s crazy, right?” Ozzy asked Clark who had just now come to life.
“I don’t know—what happened?”
“Well, do you see where we are?”
Clark bobbed his small head.
“And do you see that moving train over there?”
More bobbing.
“How do you think we got off it?”
“Does it matter?” the bird asked sincerely.
“What an intelligent answer, Clark,” Rin said. “I’m very impressed by how wise you are.”
The wizard put the car back into drive and began speeding down the dirt road.
“You realize that’s something a maniac would do?” Ozzy argued, not willing to drop the conversation yet. “A maniac would drive his car off of a moving train with his own daughter sleeping in the back seat.”
“Well, then,” Rin said, “maybe I’ve misjudged maniacs all these years.”
“It’s just that I really want to live to see my parents again.”
“Good for you. You should write that down. A goal written on the air is subject to the will of the wind.”
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Ozzy said.
Rin turned down a bigger dirt road and headed east.
“Where now?” Clark asked.
“We’ll find a gas station and then find a road that takes us in the direction of Albuquerque.”
Five miles later they turned onto an actual paved road and a few miles past that they saw the first signs of civilization. There were some old houses and a gas station at the crossroad where the road they were on met the highway they needed to take.
Rin stopped at the gas station. Before filling the tank, he announced that he needed to go into the store.
“I need to see a wizard about a griffin.”
Ozzy sat in the car with Clark and a still-sleeping Sigi.
“I’m not sure we’re doing the right thing,” Ozzy said.
“It’s the wizard, right?”
“Yeah. We almost died twice in the last twelve hours.”
“If he was here he’d probably say something like, ‘Most everyone dies every second of the day.’”
“Right. Or, ‘If you almost died, that means you probably didn’t.’”
“Good one. What about, ‘Robes are cool and I wear a hat.’”
“Not great.”
Clark hopped up onto the headrest of the driver’s seat and fluttered his tin tail.
“I wouldn’t worry about Rin. On that tape, your mother told you to talk to this Charles guy and Wizardy is helping you get there. How many people have a wizard on their side?”
Rin was back out of the gas station.
“We’ll need some money to pay for gas,” he said. “I’d pay, but since this is a business trip I want to keep things on the up-and-up.”
Ozzy handed Rin some money and he went back in.
“You’re lucky your parents had money.”
“I’d feel luckier if I had my parents instead.”
“Soon you might have both.”
Rin walked back out and began to fill up the car.
“I’d better use the bathroo
m myself.”
“I’ll never understand what you humans do in there.”
“Well, that’s a real upside to being a mechanical bird, I’d guess.”
Ozzy woke up Sigi and explained to her where they were and how they had arrived at that point. She was madder about having slept through it than angry about what happened.
“You have a lot of your dad in you,” Clark observed.
After using the restrooms, Ozzy and Sigi walked the aisles of the small gas station and purchased a few sodas, chips, and boxes of cookies.
When they returned to the car, Rin was done pumping gas and was putting the nozzle back on the pump.
“Wow,” Ozzy said. “I didn’t look at it when we got out, but the car has really been beat up.”
“It does have an awful lot of character now,” Rin said. “Patti never liked the color, so maybe she’ll see this as a great opportunity to get it repainted.”
“It needs more than just new paint, Dad.”
The poor vehicle had been driven offroad by Ozzy and had jumped onto and off a moving train thanks to Rin. It was scratched and dented, the front wheels were out of line, and the back of the car looked closer to the ground than it had before—but miraculously, it still ran.
Rin opened his door and got in. Ozzy and Sigi walked around the car and did the same thing but on the other side.
“I got some snacks,” the boy reported as he put on his seat belt.
“Excellent, then the journey can continue,” Rin said. “If we drive all day and make as few stops as possible, we can probably make it to Gallup, New Mexico, by late night. From there it’s only another three or so hours.”
They drove for a while and then entered the state of Nevada. Through most of Nevada, they listened to an audiobook that Rin had downloaded. The book was called Margret’s Weeping and it was nearly as bad as its title. When it was finished, all four spent a long time discussing it.
“Why do you even have that on your phone?” Ozzy asked.
“It’s on loan from the public library. I heard it was good.”
“Now you’ve heard it was bad,” Clark said.