Wispy tentacles wrapped themselves around Roland’s legs and torso and tightened about his chest, blocking him from simply replacing the soul in its original receptacle. So, desperately, he stuffed the heart into his mouth and swallowed it whole. His skin turned grey and he clutched at his throat, choking.
He doubled over in pain.
Sasha ran through the scattering foam to her brother.
Then he straightened. Roland was no longer himself but an adult, tall and handsome, self-possessed and imperially lean. He shook his head, marveling. “Oh, Sister Sasha, were you ever that young? You always seemed so much older in my eyes. Older, and wiser too. How strange to meet you like this.”
Sasha was a little afraid of this man, kindly though he sounded. “Are you really my brother Roland?”
“Well… yes and no,” the man said. “But explanations can wait. Right now we have bigger matters in the kettle.” Roland-the-Adult planted his feet solidly on the ground and began walking down the hall, holding Sasha by the hand, so that she trailed behind him like a balloon. He seemed to be in no particular hurry.
“Shouldn’t we be running?” Sasha asked timidly.
“That’s just what Lord Snow wants us to do — run as fast as ever we can and strive forever to outdo ourselves. No, the time for that is over. Instead, we shall linger,” her adult brother said. “Linger just as hard as we can.”
In a leisurely and yet ultimately efficient manner, they passed through the labyrinthine passages of Tesseract House, coming at last to its front entrance and throwing the doors open upon the dark, star-dusted darkness. “Deep breath,” Roland said. “I’ll meet you on the other side.”
Then he flung her into the void.
Sasha’s second flight through the frigid vacuum was painful, difficult, and not much different from her first. She tumbled and tumbled, struggling to hold her breath and keep her courage for what seemed far too long a time… and then she landed with a light bounce on a familiar platform. She was back at the Terminus.
Her brother was nowhere to be seen.
Pressing herself against the wall, out of the way of foot traffic, Sasha watched the train workers going about their jobs. She thought about what Roland had said: They did look a bit like they were made of tin. Conductors and redcaps bustled about. Engineers and brakemen strode past purposively. In the booths, Plasticine vendors sold magazines, cigarettes, hot dogs, coffee, and even tiny souvenir Tesseract Houses in snow globes. Over a tremendous desk marked Information there was a train schedule that read:
ALGOL Track Seven BETELGEUSE Track Fourteen DENEB-VEGA-ALTAIR Track Ten FOMALHAUT Track Three MIZAR Track Twelve PROCYON Track Thirty-Four VINDEMIATRIX Track Six
Then all the letters spun around, making a clacking noise, and when they finished spinning there was a new entry at the very bottom of the list:
HOME Track One
She was about to go to the information desk to ask where she could find Track One when a redcap brushed past her. Though his uniform was different from that of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Workers, his face was very similar to that of Mr. Big Bill. Not pausing, he nodded meaningfully at Sasha, and in his wake there was piece of paper in her hand.
Sasha turned her back on the crowd before looking. It was a page torn from a comic book, folded in four. Carefully, she opened it up, hoping it would be from one of the Mr. Chesterton books, simply because it would be so very good to see his face again.
But it wasn’t. It was from the comic about Yaa Asantewaa Warrior Queen. In the first panel, she was slogging through a jungle swamp, trees hanging down ropes of moss and vines. She wore huge golden earrings and had a band of gold around her forehead. You could see by her expression that she was very tired, and in the gloom above her hung the image of the Ejisuhene, the rightful ruler of Ejisu, whom she had sworn to free from exile and return to his throne. In the next panel, a tremendous crocodile lurked. In the third, its enormous jaws opened directly in front of Yaa Asantewaa. She drew her sword and thrust downward, into its skull, with a resounding SKLUNNK! The enormous creature thrashed in its death-throes, and Yaa Asantewaa grabbed a trailing vine to pull herself up and over the dying croc. But wait! The innocent-looking vine turned out to be a mammoth python! Yaa Asantewaa struggled as the huge snake wrapped itself around her. She distracted it by biting its tail! It fought ferociously, but at last she strangled it. The swamp was quiet now, and she was alone. The final panel was a close-up drawing of her face, full of lines and sagging flesh. She was an old woman, Sasha saw with surprise, worn and wrinkled. She looked exhausted, but she also looked defiant. Ranged about her were three thought balloons.
The first read: “I Must Go On.”
The second: “I Can’t Go On.”
And the third: “I’ll Go On.”
Abruptly, Sasha felt a chill, as if a cold draft had hit the back of her neck. She looked around, half-expecting to see a python. On the far side of the station was Lord Snow! Without looking down, Sasha refolded the comic book page and, since girls’ dresses didn’t have pockets, slid it into her sleeve.
There was a cart full of luggage nearby. Sasha slipped behind it. Then, slowly and cautiously, she peeked around the side. Lord Snow was busying himself with a large steamer trunk, snapping the latches to make sure they were fastened. The trunk had a mesh inset on its side, which meant, Sasha reasoned, that whatever was in it was alive.
Lord Snow gestured imperiously to a man in a grey and red uniform. “Redcap!”
The man hurried to him. “Yessir, Lord Snow?”
“Put this case in my private car immediately. Track One.” He gave the redcap a dime.
“Yessir!” the porter said briskly, touching his hat.
“Waste of shelf space is what I call it,” Lord Snow grumbled to no one in particular. “I don’t know why I don’t simply have him put down.”
Sasha watched as the redcap dollied the trunk to the train at the end of the platform and hoisted it up into a private car. Sasha ducked into a nearby passenger car and waited, cautious, but steeled by the thought of Yaa Asantewaa, until the man left. Then she slid open the door at the end of the car, darted across the coupling that joined the two cars, opened the other door, and stepped into Lord Snow’s domain.
It was a very fancy car, all white inside, with studded white leather paneling on the walls and a matching club chair by the entrance. An alabaster ashtray stood sentry by the chair on a slender brass column. There was a polarbear-skin rug atop an oriental carpet woven from threads the colors of ivory and eggshell and beach sand, forming patterns so pale and intricate that they swam in her vision. At the far end of the car was a sort of baggage cage, to keep luggage from moving around if the train stopped abruptly. In it was the trunk that Sasha had seen outside.
The door to the cage was unlocked.
Taking a deep breath, Sasha slipped within the cage. She rapped her knuckles on the trunk, and something moved inside. “Roland?” she asked. There was silence and then a small sneeze. The darkness inside shifted sadly, and Mr. Chesterton’s snout pressed up against the screen.
“Oh, Mr. Chesterton, I’m so glad to see you!” Sasha whispered. But he didn’t say a word. He just looked at her through red-rimmed eyes. One by one Sasha undid the buckles and unsnapped the latches. She saw that his jacket and trousers were gone, and that he now wore a white leather collar. He emerged walking on all fours.