Wishing Cross Station

Chapter Seven

A group of young schoolgirls giggled and pointed at me as I walked past.

It was the first real stir I'd caused since I arrived in town. I looked forward to disappearing into the woodwork as I tried to figure out what to do with the book in my backpack, which felt heavier by the second.

I thought again about how it had stopped humming about the time that the Aurelia Belle disappeared into thin air on the train platform. At the moment it happened, I'd been too distracted to notice.

I also realized only now that the train had made no sound as it disappeared. There were no plumes of smoke, no chugging of the engine as it generated fire from coal and power from water. Nothing like the departure from 'my end' of the journey.

I wondered if it had to do with my presence here, if I were throwing off business as usual in this small town just by existing in it.

I thought about Seymour's warning that I couldn't miss the train when it came back. This was an era with little indoor plumbing and no access to the internet...why on Earth he thought I might want to stay, I had no idea. I couldn't wait for the month to be up, so I could just get the hell out of this place.

I wondered, too, about the passage of time on the other end of the hole. Would it go along as usual, as Seymour had indicated, and when I got back I'd have no job and find an eviction notice on my door? Lila would worry that I'd vanished just like that locomotive did. I didn't tell her, or anyone else, where I'd gone or what I planned to attempt.

God, who would feed my poor goldfish?

I calmed a little when I remembered the landlady had a key to the apartment. The rent for next month had been paid already, but she would likely go snooping around if I were missing for more than a few days.

I hoped, maybe, she'd feed little Arthur.

What was I thinking? I was stranded in a city off the map—entirely out of my timeline—with no sure way of ever getting back home, and my greatest concern was my goldfish?

I guessed, with Grandfather gone, Arthur was really all I cared about. Sure, I cared about Lila, but I knew she'd get along okay without me if I didn't make it back. Unlike me, she did have other friends and a steady girlfriend, too.

I was always the odd man out, the only one without a group to hang with. I cared little for 'hanging', anyway. I was perfectly fine with my own company. In fact, be it a fault or not, I actually preferred it to the company of anyone else.

I'm an introvert or a reclusive jerk, I guess. Probably a combination of both.

Introversion notwithstanding, I wasn't always such a curmudgeon. Back when things were right with my parents, especially my Dad. I missed our talks; they were almost as good as talks with Grandfather. In some ways, they were better. In some ways worse, because it seemed even despite his age, Grandfather better remembered what it was actually like to be young.

I found myself staring at the "Open" sign on the door of Wilson's General Store, and I paused. I looked in the window at the display. It held shaving soap and brushes and razors. God, I'd need some of those items if I were going to get rid of the light brown scruff that would certainly make me seem more and more out of place here. I didn't plan to grow a mustache or any of the other wild facial hair configurations popular in the day; no, I'd just stick with a clean-shaven face and hope for the best. It would be just one change, of many.

A large strand of sleigh bells on the door jingled merrily as I opened it. It was the most welcoming part of my reception there.

"Help you?" A stout, short man with a red face and an angry expression asked, glaring at me. It was apparent he recognized that I didn't belong right away.