"End of the line!"
I startled as the voice called again, though I could find no person to go with it; not at first. "Wishing Cross Station! All passengers must disembark!"
The conductor opened the door and poked his head into the car. "This is your stop, son."
"Yeah...I guess it is." I quickly stuffed the book into my backpack, not taking time to wrap it up first. "Thank you, sir."
He seemed to take no note of how strange my clothing was compared to his: jeans and a black turtleneck, brown bomber jacket, and beat up boots to match.
"Did you bring any bags?" the conductor asked.
"Just what I'm carrying."
"Very good." He watched as I slowly descended the stairs to the platform.
My eyes widened as I saw the station, just as I had imagined it might really be back in 1880.
"Welcome to Wishing Cross," he added, saluting me casually. "Nowhere else out there quite like it. I hope you enjoy your stay."
"Thank you." I wandered away from him, casting a glance back at the Aurelia Belle. Steam rose in tendrils from the engine yet, and it still smelled like heaven to me.
Snow was falling fast, flying in all directions at once upon a fierce wind. I zipped up my jacket and stuck my hands in my pockets to try to fight the cold.
There were people moving about the station, but no one seemed to take much notice of me. Their clothing seemed to be historically accurate, at least if Professor Mann's lectures on the era from last semester's American History class were to be believed. Women wore elaborate walking suits with bustles and skirts to the ground; children were attired for everyday as if they were dressed up for Easter Sunday back home.
Back home, I thought. How far away was home, and would I ever get back now if I really had just traveled through time?
I looked around, searching for something to help me wrap my mind around the place I seemed to be in, but I couldn't find it. Finally I spied a slate board nearby. I blinked several times to be certain I was reading it right. It indicated the date was December 1, 1880.
This can't be...
"Marigold!" A voice called from the distance, as a woman raised the curtain on the window of the ticket booth and began pounding on the glass. She leaned down and stuck her mouth up to the small opening in the bottom, shouting louder. "Marigold!"
A young woman, rushing past with a large basket in her hands, paused upon hearing the voice. "Yes, Helen?"
"Hurry up with the Christmas decorations. Once they're all out of storage, I promised Jeremiah and Joseph they could help decorate the big tree."
"I'm almost done, one more trip," the girl said, and as I approached the booth to try to see if there were any way to 'purchase' a ticket to get back, she turned and headed straight at me.
We were about to collide when I held out my arms and just barely touched hers, just enough to stop her from plowing into me with what looked like an extremely fragile basket of ornaments and tree trimmings.
"Oh, I'm so sorry," she said, not looking up at me right away. "Clumsy, stupid of me, as usual. My apologies, sir."
"It's all right, no harm done," I assured her, and something in my tone caused her to look up at me now from beneath the brim of her simple, charming hat.
My stomach flipped. My heart seized. She looked like a portrait you'd see in a museum, or like she should be a statue; she was that beautiful. She laughed softly, apparently amused by the expression on my face. She shook her head a little in confusion as the woman, Helen, beat on the window of the ticket booth once more.
"Hurry up, Marigold!"
"Sorry, I have to go," she said, then paused. "You seem to be new around here. I hope you'll find everything you need."
"I don't plan on staying long, but thank you."
"Oh, you have to stay awhile," she said, furrowing her brow. "You just came in on the special, didn't you?"
"I guess I did," I said, worried that giving her information could somehow change the timeline.
In addition to Seymour's warnings bouncing around in my head, I'd also watched way too much science fiction to run around in what appeared to be another era without worrying about my every action.
"Then you'll be here at least until New Year's Eve," she said. "That's when she's most likely to come back. Of course, that is, if she runs on time. Sometimes she's early, but more often late. Real, real late."
She hurried off with her basket in hand now, and I watched her go as I tried to assimilate what she'd just said.
I must have hit my head harder in old man Donahue's attic than I originally imagined. I took a moment to duck around a quiet corner and pulled out my phone. Of course I expected no signal, but I didn't think about what going through a wormhole would likely do to it. Sure enough, it was dead. No good to me at all.
It was then the reality of my situation hit me.
The train I arrived on wasn't going to come back for thirty days.
What the hell was I going to do for thirty days in 1880?
There had to be another way back. A different train, perhaps, a connection with another to eventually take me home...
I approached the formidable-looking woman in the ticket booth, and she scowled. Helen was a tall, imposing figure, with a straight, long nose and even longer face. Her hair was pulled into a bun so severe it seemed to drag the edges of her eyes toward the back of her head. She appeared to be in her early thirties, and she was also very obviously pregnant.
"Can I help you?" she snarled at me, not looking up from the pile of coins she was counting and putting into her wooden cash drawer.
"I'm looking for a ticket back home," I said, choosing my words carefully. "I just got here on the Aurelia Belle, and I didn't realize how far it would take me."
I scanned the slate board behind her, marked with train names, numbers, times, and schedules, and nowhere upon it did I even see the Belle mentioned.
"That train is the special," she replied emotionlessly. "We are never advised in advance exactly when she's coming in, she just pulls into the station, only on the first track. Only train to ever use the first. Then she goes on her way." She stopped, and looked at me with curiosity. "I don't remember ever seeing a passenger disembark before."
"Well can you give me an estimate as to when it might be back? Any idea at all? " I asked, deciding to double check the information I'd been given.
"We never know for sure, but she tends to run on a thirty day schedule," she advised me, just as the girl called Marigold had. "With any luck you'll be able to catch her on December thirty-first. She's usually the last train of the day, after sunset."
"So I'm stuck here. For a month."
"Would appear so." She seemed no happier about the idea than I did. "Unless you'd like to take another rail to a different town nearby. Though I warn you, they're mostly the same as this one."
I thought about the book and doubted that very much.
I wondered if taking it out and putting it near the track would do anything, if hidden workings inside of it might somehow summon the wormhole again, and I could be on my way home a lot faster. But it had ceased its humming entirely, so I doubted it. I thought better of showing it off in public to make an attempt.
"Well...thank you. Is there anywhere nearby I can find some sort of accommodations? I...I'm willing to work for them." I wasn't certain I had anything of value on me I could trade for currency in this time, and one thing was for sure, if I were going to survive here for a month, I'd need it.
Then something occurred to me, but I tucked it into the back of my mind for now. I didn't want to part with the thing I was thinking of parting with, but if I had to, I had to...
"There's no work available at the station. We run it."
"We?"
"The Stationmaster's family," she said. "I'm his wife, and his children and I handle all of the work around here. They might be hiring over at Wilson's General Store, or at the jewelers if you have any watchmaking skills. Otherwise, the only work in Wishing Cross is farm work. We're a small town, and we don't have a lot of fancy goings on." She sniffed, looking me over. "Or a lot of fancy people."
"I'll try to be on my best, non-fancy behavior," I mumbled.
"What did you say?" She leaned closer to the glass.
"Nothing. Thank you very much. If...if you hear of any sooner sightings of the Aurelia Belle—"
She appeared to bristle as I used the train's name again. "There won't be," she interrupted. "Better get used to it, young man. You're stuck here for a fair while."
I nodded, then turned away. "Thanks again."
I discovered when I looked up that Aurelia Belle was no longer on her platform, and I hadn't heard her leave. She had just vanished into thin air.
I understood now that all of this was going to be a lot more complicated than just finding a local citizen, handing them the book, and getting back on the train to go home.
I was stranded without money, without a job, without a place to stay.
I had to come up with a plan, and then figure out exactly who the book belonged to in this time. I didn't want to give it to the wrong person.
I recalled some of the things Seymour had said to me:
The book acts like a doorstop. Having it on this side prevents the wormhole from closing permanently. The wormhole is semi-stable on this side, always opening beneath the roundhouse, and it always goes to the same location on the other side, at least according to what I was told. But you can't force it to open or control what time you land in going forward. Time is the variable, not location. Even though time passes at a normal rate in Wishing Cross, the same there and here, minutes, hours, days, all tick forward, never back. Wishing Cross is behind us, and the distance between times seems to grow with each cycle of the wormhole. By now, they've got to be more than a hundred years back.
The book must be returned or destroyed there, to keep anyone like Fox from finding it in this time and causing more trouble than you could possibly fathom.
I sighed. What does a nineteen-year-old college student do when he's a hundred and thirty-five years out of his proper time?
Well, if he's me, the first thing he looks to do is to secure a place to sleep before night falls, because it's bloody cold outside.