The Train to Impossible Places--A Cursed Delivery

by P. G. Bell

  “Bones,” Suzy whispered. There were lots of them, strewn here and there. They could have been from any sort of creature at all, if it weren’t for the skulls that protruded from the sand. She counted five altogether.

  She took a step back toward the tear in the hull, but then she saw the source of the light and stopped. It looked like a cloud—formless, and rippling through the water toward her, casting out light as it went.

  “What’s happening?” said Frederick. “I can’t see.”

  “It’s … it’s algae,” she said. “Yes. Bioluminescent algae. I saw a nature documentary about it once. That’s all it is.”

  “Then why do you sound so scared?” he asked.

  She planted her boots more squarely in the sand. “I’m not.”

  Yessssss, yoooouuuu aaaaaarrrre …

  The voice seemed to come from everywhere at once, making her jump. She was alone, but a second glowing cloud was seeping from the ground behind her, blocking her escape. She backed away from it and saw a third cloud materializing above one of the spilled chests. Two more descended through the solid wood of the deck above. Within seconds, she was surrounded.

  Doooon’t ruuuuun…, said the voice. It came as a whisper from the heart of the light. Weeeeeee haaaaave beeeeeen waaaaaiiiting …

  “Who are you?” she said, not bothering to shout this time.

  Loooook agaaaaaain …

  The clouds drew in on themselves, becoming denser and brighter, their edges receding and their cores twisting and folding in on themselves, forming elaborate patterns. They had edges now, and textures, and when the cloud right in front of her raised an arm she realized with astonishment what she was looking at—they were people. Five men, in fact, most of them bearded, wearing some sort of old-fashioned hat, frilled shirts, and long coats that fell to their … well, not to their feet, because they still didn’t have any; their legs just sort of petered out into wispy glowing strands, each trailing down into one of the empty skulls. Suzy watched as one figure, with its hand outstretched, revealed a small stack of sealed envelopes, as blue and transparent as the rest of it.

  Taaaaaake theeeeeeeem …

  She reached out to take the letters, but a voice of caution in the back of her mind made her pause.

  “What are they?” she said.

  Our laaaaaast missives hooooooooome…, said the figure, who was a head taller than the others and wore a larger, more impressive hat. Pleeeeease … Taaaaaake word to our faaaaaaamilies …

  “Why are you talking like that, Cap’n?” said one of the other figures. “You got a fish in your throat?”

  Taaaaaaake theeeeeeem…, the taller man said, a little more pointedly. He waggled the letters in Suzy’s direction. It is my dying wiiiiiiish …

  “Your dying wish was that the boat would stop sinking,” said a third figure. “I remember it. You got quite sweary.”

  “I wished to be rescued by a beautiful mermaid,” said another, who was round and broad shouldered. “And seriously, Captain, are you feeling all right? You sound a bit hoarse.”

  I’m fiiiiiine…, said the captain, scowling. I’m fiiii— “Oh, never mind. You’ve all ruined it now.” He let the arm drop to his side. “Honestly, you lot. Our first new guest in years. I just thought she deserved a little spectacle, that’s all.”

  “New guest?” The pirate—Suzy was sure by now that they were ghostly pirates—who had wished for a mermaid narrowed his eyes at Suzy and floated closer to her, the strand connecting his body to the skull stretching and bending like the string of a balloon as he did so. “Y’mean this isn’t wossisname? Li’l Wilmot?”

  “Of course not, Gavin,” said the captain. “Haven’t you been paying attention? The voice is all wrong. This is a young lady.”

  “Oooh!” The stooped and elderly figure of the fifth pirate grinned. “The Postmaster’s finally got himself a staff.”

  “Oh, terrific!” the captain beamed. “Congratulations. Wilmot’s always dreamed of having a postie or two to call his own. Oh, good for him.” He clapped his hands together in delight, which shouldn’t have been possible underwater, but Suzy supposed that ghosts could do whatever they liked.

  She shook herself. She should probably have been scared, she thought, or at least astonished to find herself face-to-face with a group of ghosts, but for some reason her anxiety was actually fading. Maybe it was because they seemed to think she was the oddity. “My name’s Suzy,” she said. “I’m here to collect something.” She pointed at the letters in the captain’s hand. “Is that it?”

  To her confusion, the pirates all started laughing.

  “What?” she said, annoyed. “What is it?”

  “Wilmot didn’t tell you, did he?” said the captain.

  “Tell me what?” said Suzy.

  “Oh, nothing to worry about. It’s just a bit of a tradition we have here. Isn’t that right, lads?”

  “Aye,” they all chorused, and gathered round. Whatever the captain was about to say, they were eager not to miss it.

  “You see, Miss Suzy, it’s a lonely existence, sleeping with the fishes, and we’ve been down here a long time. Sailing the Eight Oceans, we were, in search of treasure.”

  “So you are pirates,” said Suzy. “I knew it.” But to her surprise, the crew’s expressions all darkened.

  “Pirates?” spluttered the captain. “Young lady, do we look like common ruffians to you?”

  “Oh, no,” she said hurriedly. “It’s just, I thought, you know, with the hats? And the coats?”

  “These are uniforms,” the captain said, striking a noble pose. “For we are the Society of Adventure and Discovery.” The others all snapped to attention alongside him and put their hands on where their hearts would have been, if they’d still had them. “‘If no one’s ever been there, we’ll go there,’” they chorused. “‘And if someone’s already there, we’ll have discovered them, too.’”

  “I’m very sorry,” said Suzy. “I didn’t know.”

  “Consider yourself forgiven,” the captain said. “We all learn from our mistakes.”

  “Like you learned not to steer a ship through a coral reef in the dark,” said one of the crew.

  “Quiet, Neville.” The captain flicked an imaginary speck of dust from the sleeve of his coat. “As I was saying, we ventured west in search of treasure, and by golly we found it—the lost city of Condóro, where everything from the roof tiles to the gutters is made from solid gold.”

  Suzy bit her lip. She had heard stories similar to this in her history lessons. “Did you steal it?” she asked.

  “Good heavens no,” said the captain. “We all took jobs on a building site, hauling golden rubble away. The Condórons were happy for us to take it.”

  “Oh.” Suzy blushed, ashamed that she had assumed the worst of them.

  “We set sail with our hold full to bursting,” said the captain, and the crew all smiled with him. “We were so impatient to get back to port we decided to take a shortcut through the Narrows.”

  The others all made quite a performance of clearing their throats.

  “All right, I decided,” said the captain. “And it would have worked if it hadn’t been impossible. No moon to navigate by that night, y’see.”

  Suzy looked down, past the floating wisps of blue ectoplasm to the lonely skulls lying in the sand, and felt a rush of pity for them all. “So you sank,” she said. “That’s awful.”

  The captain shrugged. “You get used to it after a while. My only regret is that we never had the chance to report our success. The lost city of Condóro remains lost. We had the only map.”

  Suzy looked again at the papers in his hand. “Is that what you want me to deliver?”

  He didn’t laugh this time, but he did smile. “Take them and try,” he said, offering them to her. She reached out but, as she had already half suspected, her hand passed right through them.

  “The original dissolved years ago, along with our letters home. There’s nothing lef
t to deliver, and no recipients left to deliver them to.”

  “Then I don’t understand,” she said. “Why am I here?”

  “It’s just a little game we play. As the ship was sinking, I had time to scribble our coordinates on a scrap of parchment, along with a plea to come and salvage the map before it was too late. I sealed them in an old rum bottle, then cast the bottle into the sea, hoping that a fair current would carry it ashore. Rescue was hopeless, of course, but I couldn’t die knowing that our expedition was unfinished.” It was hard to tell, because they were underwater and he was translucent, but Suzy thought the captain’s eyes were shining with repressed tears. “Alas, nobody came. One of the disadvantages of being corporeally challenged is that we’re tied to our final resting place, you see, and we spent many years alone in here, waiting. Until, one day, a strange little figure appeared, wearing that very diving suit you’re in now. None of us knew what to make of it, until it held up the bottle I’d thrown into the sea all those years before and said, ‘Someone’s got a map to pick up?’”

  “Wilmot!” she said.

  “No,” said the captain with a smile. “His grandfather. He was just a young troll then, a postie, like yourself. And like you, he almost jumped out of his suit when he first set eyes on us.” He laughed. “Poor old Honks. We were so starved of company we talked him half to death. We thought it would be our last ever chance to socialize, you see. Once he realized there was no post to collect, he’d leave us there forever.”

  “But he didn’t, did he?” said Suzy. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be here now.”

  “Quite right. Once he’d figured out what was going on, I think he felt sorry for us. In any case, he returned the bottle and let us know that if it were ever to wash up on shore again, the Impossible Postal Service would be obliged to call on us. And that’s the way it’s been ever since. Every year or so, the bottle makes its way back to us and we get to catch up on what’s been happening in the Union. You’re the latest in a proud line.”

  With a shock, Suzy realized that all the ghostly faces were now turned toward her, smiling in expectation. “Oh,” she said. “What do you want to know, exactly?”

  The outburst of questions was instantaneous and loud.

  “What’s the price of fish in Landsdown Harbor these days?”

  “Read any good books lately?”

  “Did the Western Fenlands win the Impossible Places Song Contest again this year?”

  “Do you know any mermaids?”

  Suzy raised her hands, appealing for quiet. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know how to answer any of those questions. Except the mermaid one—I’ve never met a mermaid.”

  “Me neither,” said Gavin, hanging his head.

  “Wait a minute,” said Suzy as her brain caught up with her. “Did one of you ask about the Western Fenlands?”

  “Aye,” said Neville. “I reckoned we were in with a chance of winning this year, as long as Dalemark don’t beat us again.” The others all nodded in agreement.

  “Sssshhh!” Frederick hissed at Suzy, as quietly as he could manage. “What are you doing?”

  “Is that where you’re from?” she asked Neville.

  “Yes,” he said proudly. “We’re Fenlanders through and through.”

  “Tell me about it,” she said, brightening.

  “Why, it’s the greatest seafaring nation in the Union,” said the captain. “Lots of trade, lots of wealth, lots of history.”

  “Lots of cows,” said Neville.

  “What?” The captain floundered. “Well, yes, I suppose so, but—”

  “An inordinate number of cows, when you think about it.”

  “I’ll grant you, Neville, we do have a lot of cows, but that’s not what I—”

  “As a nation, we’re positively pecorous.”

  Every head turned to Neville in bewilderment.

  “Pecorous,” he said. “It means ‘full of cows.’ No?” He looked around for a sympathetic face, but found none. “It’s a terribly useful word, in the right circumstances,” he muttered.

  “But this is wonderful,” cut in Suzy. “You’re exactly the people I need!”

  “No!” Frederick hissed. “Stop it!”

  “Who said that?” said the captain. “Are there two of you in there?”

  “Yes,” she said. “You won’t have heard yet, but your kingdom’s in danger. A witch called the Lady Crepuscula is plotting to steal the throne, and I’m here with Prince Frederick, the real heir. He’s on the run.”

  “What have you done?” wailed Frederick.

  “It’s fine,” she said. “Don’t you see? They can’t leave the ship, so they can’t tell anyone about you. And they might be able to help us.” But when she looked at the circle of faces, she saw only pinched expressions. “What’s wrong?” she said.

  The captain cleared his throat, a little embarrassed. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken, m’dear. The Western Fenlands hasn’t had a king since the great revolution. We elect a premier now. It’s been that way for centuries.”

  “What?” she said. “But that’s impossible. He told me…” Realization dawned. Furious, she took hold of the nose sock, shaking it until the snow globe rolled out into the helmet. It lay against her cheek, and by straining her eyes and looking straight down, she could just make eye contact with Frederick inside it.

  “I can explain everything,” he said.

  11

  THE GREAT SPYGLASS

  Neoma snapped off a salute as she entered the curator’s office. “My lord, we’ve found the Express. It’s in the Topaz Narrows.”

  The old man looked up from a report he had been reading. “Good work, Captain. Is the girl still with them?”

  “We think so, sir, but part of the train has dived below the surface, and the spyglasses aren’t powerful enough to penetrate that deep. We need the Great Spyglass.”

  “Splendid,” said the old man, springing to his feet. “I’ve been looking for an excuse to dust it off.”

  Captain Neoma followed him out into the Observatory and the open space in the center of the floor where she had spoken to Maya earlier. The old man rapped the tip of his cane three times against the tiles. The noise echoed off the domed ceiling like a trio of gunshots, but the sounds had not died away before they were joined by a deep rumbling from somewhere beneath the floor. The rumbling grew steadily stronger, and they both retreated to the safety of the desks in anticipation of what came next.

  The tiles began to shift and fold themselves away, revealing empty darkness below. The opening continued to grow, widening like an iris until it claimed the whole space in the middle of the room. Then, with the soft whir of well-oiled gears, something rose up out of the darkness.

  It was a telescope, easily twenty times the size of its counterparts on the desks, but identical in every other respect; it stared blindly at the ceiling through a lens of black glass that was as tall as Neoma herself. It was mounted on a circular base that neatly filled the gap left by the tiles, and the old man hurried across it, easing himself into a reclining chair beneath the telescope’s eyepiece. Captain Neoma took up a position at his shoulder.

  “Sir, if I may make a suggestion,” she whispered, “we know exactly where the Express is, but we’ve not seen the Lady Crepuscula and her forces since they entered the tunnel system. We need to ascertain their whereabouts before we can take any action.”

  “Very true, Captain, very true.” The old man adjusted the eyepiece and peered through it. “There’s certainly no sign of her in the Topaz Narrows,” he said after a moment’s study. “If she knew where the Express was heading, she’d be there already.”

  “Excellent,” said Neoma, happy to get a little good news at last. “I’ll take a squad out there now and retrieve Frederick.”

  “Don’t be so hasty.” The old man tweaked the eyepiece again. “The Impossible Postal Express never stops for long. They’ll have moved on before you can reach them.”

  “But we ha
ve to do something before the Lady Crepuscula finds them, sir.”

  “I agree. But I’m not convinced she’s following them.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The old man sighed. “I’d never say it to her face, but Crepuscula is too clever to get lost. If she hasn’t followed the Express to the Topaz Narrows, then she has something else in mind, and that troubles me. Until we know what she’s up to, we need to be careful.” He pursed his lips in thought. “Put the guards on full alert, please, Captain. I want them ready for action at a moment’s notice.”

  “Yes, sir!” A thrill of anticipation ran through Neoma. At last, she thought. A little bit of action. But that feeling of unease was still whispering to her from the dark recesses of her mind, and she lingered a moment longer. “Sir,” she said, approaching the subject as carefully as she knew how. “We still don’t know what Crepuscula wants with Frederick, or why he’s under a curse, or even why he ran away in the first place.”

  “Those are very important questions,” said the old man. “Perhaps he can give us some answers once he’s safely back under our wing.” He smiled, and returned his attention to the spyglass.

  “All three things have to be related somehow,” Neoma continued, thinking aloud. “But how? He’s just an observer, the same as all the others. What could he possibly have that Crepuscula wants?” Her brow creased in thought. “Unless he saw something through his spyglass.”

  “It’s an observer’s job to see things, Captain,” the old man said absently.

  “I mean something important,” she replied. “Something … different.” She looked over at the empty desk again and steeled herself for her next question. “I know it’s classified information, sir, but what was he researching before he disappeared?”