The Nighthouse Keeper by Lora Senf

Author:Lora Senf
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Published: 2023-10-17T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

I didn’t know how long I’d slept, but it was long enough for drool to dry on the side of my face. I woke up to see Lark sitting next to me, her arms wrapped around her thin knees. She was staring intently at something and didn’t turn away when she said, “Von Rathe, you might want to look at this.”

I sat up and rubbed my eyes. Then I rubbed them again, because what I saw didn’t make any sense.

At the far end of the empty boxcar, a doorway had appeared where there hadn’t been a doorway before. It was regular-sized and rounded at the top. Through a window in that door, I could see more train cars and more doors. They went on and on until I couldn’t see them anymore, disappearing somewhere back at the end of that very long train. If it even had an end.

That would have been weird enough, but from what I could tell, the other cars weren’t boxcars. Instead they looked suspiciously like old-fashioned passenger cars, complete with dark wood railings and padded seats and carpet along the aisle. What they did have in common with the boxcars was the fact that they were completely empty—not a soul aboard aside from me and Lark (and Bird and Clyde, of course).

“I heard it when it showed up,” Lark said, meaning the door. “It made kind of a grinding sound, like an invisible saw was cutting it out. Too fast for me to see it happen, though.”

“When?” I asked.

“A while now. But nothing’s come out, so I figured I’d let you sleep a while longer.”

“I don’t like it,” I said. “Doors from nowhere are never good.” Bird, perched on my shoulder, seemed to agree. He wasn’t red-hot with warning, but he was definitely getting warm.

“Might be,” said Lark, but I could tell she wasn’t as sure as I was. “Or might be interesting. At the very least, might be more comfortable over there than in this box.”

She had a point—the wooden floor was not exactly first-class travel accommodations.

“I say,” Lark continued, “we take a look and see what there is to see.” Clyde, who had bravely made his way up to Lark’s shoulder, retreated back down to her pocket.

“I don’t know. It doesn’t—it doesn’t feel right.” That was true. Between Bird warming up and the rapidly growing rock in my stomach, I had a bad feeling about the whole doorway thing.

Lark sighed. “Listen, we’re on the train like you said we should be. Even if we go poke around a bit, we’ll still be on the train. We’ll still be going in the right direction.”

I didn’t know how to argue with that. I’d sound either like I was being stubborn or like I was afraid. I didn’t want Lark to think either of those things. I didn’t want this girl who’d been brave for a hundred years to think I was scared of an empty train (which was easily the least scary thing we’d encountered all day).

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