TUBE

Author's Note

Dear Reader,

What you're about to read is an unusual ghost story.

It began with a train.

In 2014 I won the Amtrak Residency Program. There were twenty-four of us winners. Twenty-four writers selected from over 16,000 applicants. As our prize, we got to ride the train and to write whatever we wanted.

In my application, I foolishly promised that if I won, I'd write a novel about a train. True to my word, I did exactly that. What I didn't know was that it'd take me five years, ten drafts, and over a million discarded words before it came to this: a short, spartan, and outright skeletal ghost story about a ghost toy train engine—TUBE—and a Russian ballerina caught up in its wake.

Not all is what it seems.

I went through periods of hating this story so much that I wanted to give up. I wanted to scrap the whole thing. I wanted to shelve it. It was only some quiet inner voice that kept me going. The voice of my personal toy ghost. You know what I mean. We all have those, from the dark corners of our childhood.

But most of all, this is a story of betrayal set in the cold Soviet winter of 1989, on the train from Moscow to Simferopol and in the Black Sea resort town Alupka. The places that hold memories. Ghosts of memories. Ghosts of . . .

Well, you'll see.

Get your ticket ready. And beware. This is a ride not for the faint-hearted. If the dark, forgotten alleys of your mind scare you—if you're afraid to turn the key to them and step inside—best close this book now and read something else. Something happy. Something sunny. This is not a sweet bedtime story. It's not even a proper ghost story.

As I said, it's an unusual ghost story in that it's not a ghost story at all. It's real, but only as much as you'll allow it to be. Like those passing shapes behind the window of the moving train. What are they?

Do you really want to know?

Ksenia Anske

Seattle, Washington

September 2019

PS: The subject matter is very hard to talk about. I struggled with it. I struggled with putting it into words that would make it easy for you to digest—digest this bitter pill—until it was too late. You'll see that the writing is very much matter-of-fact. Over the five years of rewriting it, and rewriting it, and rewriting it yet again, I removed all meat and fat and left only bones. And even those I have polished to the point of being almost transparent. Immaterial. Ghostlike. I hope you enjoy this style. It's designed to let you finish this book in one reading. It is my hope you have no dreams after this. I'd worry that if you had any, you'd wake up screaming.