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The story ends… or does it?
Olivia
“Let’s slow down a moment,” said Isabella. “Olivia, you told me you don’t know much about magic. Now you pulled a goose out of a rock and Edmund keeps calling you a witch. Please explain.”
Everyone stared at me except the rats. They were too busy trying to climb up Nettle, who was being incredibly patient with them.
“I may have exaggerated how little I knew about magic. I do make potions sometimes but… nothing like this. I genuinely didn’t think I did any of this was my fault, I just thought that you would think that. I mean, I did make a wish, but—”
“Aha!” Edmund rudely pointed at me. “See? See?! It’s all her fault.”
“You aren’t supposed to interrupt people while they’re speaking,” muttered Eva.
Isabella wasn’t smirking anymore, she stared at me with an expression of disappointment in her eyes. It was ridiculous, expecting a stranger she met on a magic vehicle to be honest with her, but I still felt bad.
I continued, “I didn’t wish for a train or a stone or an incredibly impolite man who can’t even control his own rats. Nettle, that’s my goose, seemed sick. She wasn’t moving and I didn’t know why. I just wished for her to be better. That’s all.”
Edmund gestured over to where Nettle was preening, “It seems like that part of your wish worked out just fine to me.”
I rolled my eyes.
“You know as well as I do wishes don’t usually accomplish much of anything, let alone their intended purpose and more. Watch this,” I flung my hands up in the air. “I wish with all my might to be home!”
Nothing happened.
“See? It wasn’t even like I had a wish circle to do the spell with. I know most of you don’t know much about magic, but I promise you even if I am a lot better at it than I once was, I can’t just wish for whatever I want.”
Edmund coughed, “Well… what if I told you there were some ritual circles near you, just drawn by someone other than you?” He didn’t meet my eyes, just stared at one of the rats he had snatched away from Nettle.
“I would tell you that’s impossible because nobody else near the village does magic. I live in the middle of nowhere.”
“Well, yes, most of the locals seem quite mundane. What I meant was, I was there and I made ritual circles for a wish outside the village.”
“What? Why would you vis— Actually, no, I have a more important question. I never said exactly where I live, how would you know you were there? I never saw you!”
“That’s because you pay zero attention to your surroundings and spend most of your time bent over a cauldron. I was actually on a hill not far from your house because I could sense extreme magical output and had to investigate. I tried breaking in once, but your stupid goose bit me.”
Nobody was staring at me anymore because they were all too busy staring at Edmund with varying expressions of surprise, disgust, and fascination. I had the vague idea I should feel angry, especially considering Edmund had been blaming me for the wish this whole time when it was clearly at least 60% his fault. I actually had much bigger concerns, though. I slowly walked toward Nettle and put my hand on her neck.
“Oh girl… you weren’t ever sick, were you? You just refused to move because you had to guard the house from him, didn’t you?”
“So, you both come from the same world?” asked Waltinsya.
I was surprised to hear him speak. Despite his size, he blended into the background and he had spent this whole time standing quietly. I hadn’t even been sure he was paying attention.
“Yes, and we’re technically in the same country, too, though she lives about as far away from the capital as it’s possible to get. Why do you even do that?”
“It’s where I grew up, besides, the less people you live around the longer you go before someone tries to break into your house.” I glared at him.
“Odd. Some of you are my daughter’s age, but none of you are dressed anything like what she would wear. Some of you don’t know what trains are. I assumed when Cedar said that their heirloom connected worlds, it meant none of us came from the same place. If I asked you what time period it is, what would you say?”
“That’s not a bad point,” Isabella broke in. “I live in a time of new art, whereas your uniform looks like it was made by someone who hated colors. My time is being called the Renaissance.”
“You’re definitely from a different world than me, then,” said Cedar. “I’m from The Time of Sharpening Claws.” They put their hands in front of their face and curled their fingers.
Ya-ong shrugged, “I didn’t pay nearly enough attention in class to know what my time period is called. It’s definitely not either of those time periods, though.”
Eva cleared her throat. “Uh, I think we’re getting off topic again. Edmund says Olivia used his ritual circles to cast her spell but he also said it’s not possible to work together on a spell.”
“Well, clearly it has become possible, even if nobody was trying to do it.” Edmund put his head in his hands. “This had been a complete, unmitigated disaster.”
One of the rats licked his cheek and he went back to petting it. I almost felt bad for him.
Cedar cleared their throat. “I think that’s probably where the prism comes in. Maybe it was connecting your magic somehow?”
“How?” I asked.
Edmund nodded and opened his mouth as if to add onto the question, then glanced over at me and promptly shut it again, glaring. I marvelled at the fact that, despite the room containing actual juveniles not to mention literal animals, he was the least emotionally mature one here.
“Well, I don’t know!” Cedar replied. “Olivia said magic objects aren’t supposed to do anything on their own without anyone interfering! I’m not some kind of expert here. I just stole it from Sacred Dragon Min’s hoard.”
Edmund dropped his head into his hands.
I sighed, “Cedar… I don’t know who Sacred Dragon Whoever is, but stealing something is a way of interfering with it.”
“Oh. I tried to return it, but that didn’t really work. I just ended up here.”
Edmund looked up, “Olivia, I don’t like you and you don’t like me. However, I propose a temporary truce so that we and Cedar can work on fixing this mess.”
I considered that, “Okay, but if you ever try to break into my house again, goosebites will be the least of your worries.”
Cedar
Olivia and Edmund turned to glance at me at the same time, as if they expected me to do something useful and to somehow be able to solve the problem. I wasn’t so sure. A part of me still suspected the Sacred Dragon Min was punishing us. But whatever the case was, there were people who needed to get home, and if I was disrespecting Min by using her sacred prism to help people, that was too bad for her.
I took a deep breath. “Well, I barely know anything about magic,” I began. “Since I’m a scout apprentice. But when I s-stole this prism, I could see different worlds inside of it. I—I saw someone painting, and I realized that was you.” I nodded at Isabella. “And I could see someone talking to their friend, which was you, wasn’t it?” I gestured to Walt, who blinked, as if surprised to be involved in the narrative.
“I was talking to Dominik earlier?” he said, though it sounded more like a question.
“And I also saw a bunch of people looking at a rectangular screen, which now that I think about it, seems like a larger version of that strange mechanism you’re holding.”
“That was probably a TV,” Eva explained to me. “Wait! In history we watched a slideshow presentation of my teacher’s trip to Portugal! The cats were so cute…” she said to no one in particular, a blissful look in her eyes. Her shoulders slumped. “…I miss Oliver.”
“I don’t know who Oliver is, and I don’t particularly care,” Edmund interjected. “We were discussing the prism.” He glared at me begrudgingly, which I took as a sign to continue.
“Well, uh, and then Olivia used her magic to summon her goose from her world. So if she can summon stuff from her world, maybe she can teleport them back too! And that means that everyone can go home!” I glanced at Edmund, then I glanced at Olivia. “You’re both from the same world, right? That means that your magic is probably the same, which means that…what if you combine your magic, and it makes it stronger?” My face reddened when I realized I had spoken my thoughts out loud again. But to my surprise, Olivia was nodding slowly, and Edmund—after a hrmmph and a brief roll of his eyes—nodded as well.
“It’s worth a try,” Edmund grumbled.
An awkward silence hung in the air.
“I have no idea how your magic system works,” I told Edmund and Olivia. “In my world we have Dragon Summoners that summon and harness the spirit of Min in order to do their magic, so…”
“This witch probably doesn’t even understand the magic herself,” Edmund growled. “She can’t control it, evidently.”
“Would it kill you to say something nice or at least impartial once in a while?” Olivia snapped back. “Or does everything you say have to be insulting?”
“Arguing isn’t going to help anything—” Isabella began, but to my surprise, Waltinysa spoke over her.
“What if you guys just joined hands?” he suggested modestly. “I mean, it’s worth a try, right?”
“Joining hands?” Edmund scoffed. “This is magic, not a children’s circle! You obviously have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I don’t,” Waltinysa affirmed. “But it’s a suggestion.”
“Yeah, at least he’s getting us somewhere!” Eva agreed. “And anyways, it always works in fantasy books.”
“I mean, it’ll probably work if I will it to,” Ya-ong added. “Whenever I want something to happen in my dream, it usually happens. I suppose that means I’m a lucid dreamer.”
“Fantasy books? Lucid dreams?” Edmund snarled. “This is ridiculous!”
“Seriously Edmund, let’s just try it!” Olivia said, and I nodded timidly. “Alright, all of us join hands on three, two—”
“Why are you counting down?” Edmund asked doubtfully.
“—one!”
I took Olivia and Edmund’s hands in each of mine. Olivia had a solid grip, which was good, because I’d never had the strongest handshake. Edmund seemed like he wanted to squeeze the life out of my fingers.
For a second, nothing happened. Yet just as Edmund opened his mouth to flaunt how right he had been about the whole idea, four blinding lights shot out of the prism. I shut my eyes tight but still held onto Olivia and Edmund’s hands.
“It’s working!” someone yelled triumphantly.
“Of course it is,” Edmund snapped. “You’re obviously very ignorant of the ways of magic.”
When I opened my eyes, the prism was floating in the middle of our circle, projecting four shining portals in different directions. Rainbows danced around the car, making it glow like a colorful sun surrounded by darkness.
“So…which one’s which?” Eva asked. “Wait! There’s Oliver!” She pointed to one of the four portals, although I couldn’t see anything.
“I do not see ‘Oliver,’ whoever he is,” Edmund remarked. “But perhaps it is an apparition meant only for you. Just step into the portal already, and good riddance!”
“This was so cool.” Eva grinned at all of us. “It’s the most interesting thing that’s happened to me all day. I gotta study, though, so see you!” She waved to all of us. I waved back, as did all the others besides Edmund. As soon as Eva had ventured into the portal, she and the portal itself both disappeared.
Eva
I woke up feeling refreshed. The sun was shining through the curtains. I stretched, appreciating the warmth of my bed one last time before going to school, where I had two tests and a large history essay due.
“Hi Oliver!” I greeted Oliver, as always, as he headbutted my feet. He’s a tuxedo cat and is super sweet and has no problems in his life.
Suddenly, the reality of yesterday washed over me. A magical train. Victorian velvet chairs. A group of outcasts that I was a part of. I sat down to quickly replay what happened on the train yesterday.
“What?” I unintentionally said aloud while trying to comprehend the crazy dream-like experiences I had yesterday. Even crazier, in my head, Oliver replied Yes, it did all happen, in SUCH a cute little baby boy voice, the one I always had imagined he’d have if he could speak. I had to lie down because of the now increased load of things to process.
“Excuse me!???” I turned to Oliver since my brain could not get over the fact that he could talk with me. Yes? he said so nonchalantly in my head. “WHAT!???” Eva, your parents are going to come if you keep screaming.
Right after arriving at school, still trying to understand yesterday and the Oliver-is-somehow-speaking-to-me-in-his-head thing, I finally realized what actually happened and how I got out.
Cedar
Walt stopped waving suddenly and stood blinking at one of the portals. “I see my daughter. This is my portal, I think.” He nodded to us all. “I’m glad to go home again, but it was good getting to know you all.” He vanished into his portal, and they both disappeared like Eva’s had.
“Oh, I think this is mine.” Ya-ong gazed at one of the two remaining portals. “This was a nice dream. I almost don’t want to wake up now, but I think it’s time.” They brushed their hair back from their face and waved farewell to us all.
“They still think this is a dream?” Edmund asked, raising his eyebrows.
“Maybe it is a dream.” I wanted to defend Ya-ong, though I wasn’t sure why. “Maybe this is all a dream. Maybe life is a dream…wow. I didn’t think I was capable of reaching this philosophical depth.”
“Well, I suppose this means the last remaining portal is mine.” Isabella gazed at it for a moment, marveling at the rainbow colors. “I wish I had oil paints this vivid,” she reflected. “Ah, well, I should be getting back now. Thank you all!” She gave us all her charming smirk, which formed a small dimple in one cheek.
“We should be thanking you,” I said earnestly. “For bringing everyone together.”
“We just did the easy part,” Olivia agreed. “You actually organized everything and got everyone to the engine room.”
“You exhibit strong leadership qualities.” Edmund bowed his head in a very gentlemanly manner which I hadn’t known he was capable of.
With one last wave, Isabella disappeared into the portal.
“So,” Olivia began. “If those were their portals, where are ours?”
Waltinsya
I have returned home, but to a brighter universe. My child is back, she has no idea where she was gone, but she knows that there was sometime when she was. Everybody loves a happy ending, especially Dominik. He celebrated her return from her ‘education’. Jumping and yelling, and drinking and hugging, all done very loudly and obnoxiously, but we did not care at all. I love my family. More than anything I appreciate the expansion of it over the week after my daughter’s return.
Olivia
Edmund paced back and forth, back and forth. Nettle’s neck bumped into me when she swiveled it to watch his progressless sojourn. I would’ve been annoyed, but I knew she was just trying to protect me from the trespasser. He angrily muttered things that I couldn’t hear over the sounds of the engine. Cedar stared into the prism, still trying to make it turn to their or my and Edmund’s world. No matter what spells we tried, all it showed was the train around us. I yawned. The heat of the engine room didn’t feel quite so oppressive now that I was more used to it, but it was exhausting.
“Well, I think I’m going to the last compartment to take a nap on one of those great overstuffed chairs.”
“What?!” Edmund turned to face me. “No you are not.”
“Why do you care? You don’t even like me, and believe me, the feeling is mutual.”
“Can you two please stop fighting?” asked Cedar.
Neither of us bothered to respond.
“My personal feelings about your presence have nothing to do with this. I need you here because you are a witch. You were able to pull your stupid animal out of that stupid rock even before we figured out how to get the others home. I am actually just fine with Junior, Roxxane, Nerple, Boris, and I staying here, but I would prefer you and Cedar to be gone. My goals are impeded by your presence.”
I wondered if Junior was junior to another rat or if Edmund had seriously named it after himself. Roxxane was a great name though, even if I would never admit it to Edmund.
“Well, this actually sounds like it has a lot to do with your personal feelings about us, but regardless, I have no clue how to get out of here. If there is a way, I’ll have a better chance of figuring it out after I get some sleep. You can keep working on it if you want.”
“Maybe there isn’t a way out,” Cedar stared at the patterns at their feet. “The prism belonged to Sacred Dragon Min. Maybe she’s mad that I took it and won’t let me go through. I don’t know why she would be mad at you two, though.”
“That is not true. I refuse to believe it,” Edmund scooped up a rat that was getting too close to the engine for comfort. “Do you know how long a human can last without food? Not very long. Don’t get me started on water. We have no idea when or even if this train is going to stop. You have to get out of here.”
“Uh, you do magic, right? Can’t you get food and water magically? If you couldn’t you probably wouldn’t be fine with staying here, right?” Cedar cocked their head nervously.
“Maybe. The witch probably can, anyway. Still, do you want to be trapped on a train for the rest of your life?”
“You kind of remind me of Scoutmaster Niall. He was always making me wake up really early, and he got mad really easily. I wanted to ask him how that didn’t make him exhausted all the time, but I figured that would probably also make him mad at me. How are you not tired?”
“Why aren’t you concerned that I will be angry at you?”
“You’re too busy being angry at Olivia.”
“Well, I am tired. Tired of magical nonsense! Life would be so much better without it.”
Cedar glanced over at me. I supposed they must have expected me to argue, but I couldn’t have said whether Edmund was right or wrong. Until today I had thought my only talent lay in potion making. My grandmother had been good to me, and she was a witch. My mother had had magic in her blood, and she had abandoned both of us. Fairies were magic, and they were vicious. Nettle was magic, and despite how hard it could be to understand her at times, she was deeply loyal. I didn’t have any moral attachment to magic or any enmity to it. It was just a concept of reality like any other. Ya-ong hadn’t thought it was real, and maybe in their world that had been true. As it was, my throat was dried out from the heat, and I was sick of yelling at Edmund.
“I don’t want us to be stuck here together any more than you do, but it could be worse. We’re inside a very pretty…. I think vehicle, and it will probably stop eventually. Until then, we’re fine. I live a lifestyle isolated enough that nobody is going to worry about me. One village will go without potions. They’ll survive. Maybe I’ll end up somewhere interesting.”
Ya-ong
I have returned home. By what means, I do not know, for the author doesn’t know how the story logically ended. Due to this lack of knowledge, they will simply skip forward in time to whenever I get to class.
I am sitting at my desk and staring out the window. I normally pretend to pay enough attention to get enough information to figure out what to look up, but I’ve given up on that today. Sneaking into school late went surprisingly well (at least, I doubt anyone noticed) and I believe that I can simply act like things are normal. The windows are open because it’s humid, and you can see the ocean in the distance from where I sit. Maybe this is special and I’ll look back at my joyful days of youth far in the future, envying—
Who am I fooling? If I stay in Busan, from nearly any apartment, I will continue to be able to see the ocean. I can’t understand standard Korean well anyway, and it’s so inconvenient that I could die if I bothered trying to speak the standard dialect, so I may as well stay.
Olivia
Cedar ran a hand through their greasy hair, “Maybe we’ve been chosen.”
“Chosen?” asked Edmund. “By what? And for what?”
“Well, Scoutmaster Niall said sometimes Sacred Dragon Min chooses heroes to do a great mission, and they don’t always know what it is right away. I have the prism and you two can do magic, so it makes sense we’d be the heroes instead of any of the others.”
Edmund rolled his eyes, “That’s ridiculous, maybe Olivia isn’t the only sleep-deprived one. You stole that thing and then lied about it. There is nothing heroic about witches, especially not ones who then lie about being witches. I am a busy person with no desire to do tasks for dragons.”
His face still looked annoyed, but his voice actually sounded pretty relaxed. Maybe for Edmund, annoyed was his baseline. I was just glad he wasn’t panicking about being in the presence of other people anymore because somehow panicking Edmund was worse than regular Edmund.
“You broke into my house and still haven’t told me why. You aren’t exactly hero material yourself.”
“Well, us being unlikely heroes is probably why we had to get trapped on a train, so we couldn’t just opt out. Anyway, maybe it wasn’t Sacred Dragon Min who chose us. Maybe it’s whoever made the train,” Cedar gestured to the space all around us.
“What is a train? I know we’re on one, but I’ve never seen one before?” I sprawled out on the floor again, staring into the engine.
“Do you two live in a world without them?” asked Cedar.
Edmund sighed, “No, she just lives so far away from the capital trainlines don’t run. Apparently she never bothered to educate herself about them.”
For some reason inscrutable to humankind, Nettle decided this was the perfect moment to flop down on top of me. I really should have made more of an effort to train that out of her, it knocked the wind out of me everytime, and this one was no exception.
It took me a few tries to regain my breath, “Well, I guess I’m not sleeping on one of those chairs just yet.”
Cedar tried to bite back a laugh, but ultimately failed. Edmund didn’t even bother to try.
“I take back every bad thing I ever said about that animal.”
The rat he was holding immediately bit into his shoulder.
Cedar
I stared through the light of the prism. If I squinted, I could just see the grassy clearing of Min’s hoard. Min’s statue was still as majestic as ever, but somehow…I didn’t feel as intimidated by it. Somehow by being on this train, the icy glares of Min and Scoutmaster Niall had begun to melt, and it was pretty sure it wasn’t just because of the heat of the engine room. Perhaps it was that Walt, Eva, and Ya-ong seemed to survive just fine in worlds without magic. Perhaps it was the fact that Isabella seemed to find her own magic in her painting. Perhaps it was that Olivia’s world had its own entirely different system of magic, or maybe it was just that Edmund made Scoutmaster Niall seem like a sweet, gentle fairy godmother.
“So…are we going to get out of here or not?” Edmund growled, but his annoyed pushy air seemed forced for once.
“Well, I don’t think I’m going anywhere anytime soon.” Olivia’s voice was muffled as she struggled to get herself out from under Nettle.
“Wait! I’m not dead!” I realized suddenly. “I’m not dead!”
“What?” Olivia and Edmund said at the same time.
“I didn’t complete Min’s ritual by the next high sun, but I’m not dead!” I couldn’t stop smiling, so much so that it was starting to hurt. Joy rushed through me. “I’m not dead!”
“Oh god, why did I ever end up with these people,” muttered Edmund, but his face was neutral. I decided that this must be the Edmund version of a smile.
“This serpent has to stop eventually, right?” Olivia asked. She had finally managed to free herself from Nettle, and was covered in white feathers. “It would have to stop to eat sometime.”
“That is not how trains work!” Edmund and Olivia began their bickering again.
I glanced outside the window at the rushing darkness, and somehow it seemed to appear just a little brighter.
Ya-ong
In the notebook in front of me, I have drawn a benevolent golden witch surrounded by characters one would see in a cheaply-produced and illegally-printed manga from the 90s that still floats through someone’s memories.
I am not sure if the golden witch existed. I had this strange daydream when I wandered to school today, in which I went on some adventure or another with people who were like characters one would see in a cheaply-produced [The author has decided to spare you Yaongi’s description, for you already know who these characters are]. However, maybe it wasn’t necessarily a daydream; I often think about outlandish situations, but I rarely remember them when I sit down at my desk. Even when I remember them, I never remember the look in the foreign student’s eyes and the lack of disgusted looks at the rainbow flag sticker on my phone. I wish I had talked to the other student more; though, in this judgemental society, nothing would ever have taken off.
I won’t bother thinking about if it was real or not. The best dreams are those that you don’t realize you’ve woken from, the ones that just wait to be forgotten while squeezing your shoulder painfully.
And now, the teacher is asking me a question I cannot understand. This seems like a good place to stop.
Goodnight, my beloved witch ISABELLA.
Isabella
When I awoke, the sun shone above me, and I’d never been more grateful to see the sky. I was lying on damp grass, my paintbrush still in my hand, the rainbow colors of Cedar’s prism seeming to shine in the air above me like spots after gazing too long at the sun.
Wait, no, they were actually shining in the air above me. My face broke into a smile as I sat up, gazing at the vibrant rainbow above. I need to paint this!
Brushing grass off of my dress, I hurried to my easel, and I couldn’t hold back another smile as I took in the canvas. In place of the river I had originally painted were the train and its tracks, now unmoving in the foreground, rendered in the painterly style of the trees and sky around them. And looking out from each train car was a familiar figure.
Olivia, with her goose beside her.
Eva, her cat-plastered device in hand.
Edmund, glaring out from the engine room.
Cedar, holding the prism up to the light.
I took a seat and dipped my brush into the red paint, then orange, soon my trusty emerald green, until finally I reached the violet of Olivia’s cloak. Seven rainbow fingers reaching out to touch the air.
Prism image by Alexa. Train photo by Noel Jose and altered by Prof. Suki.