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All together now… or are we?
Edmund
Well, this is awkward. A bunch of random people suddenly barge into my (yes, it’s mine now) engine room and look at me like I killed their grandma, childhood pet, and maybe their first love. Ok, maybe only like half of them were looking at me like that. My point is, I was getting a lot of glares. Nobody moved first. This made sense as I was mid-crawl, drawing a tenth triangle in my magical circle, and I’ll admit it was looking pretty shoddy right now. I only had pieces of coal, so I don’t think it’s necessarily my fault for it looking like the scribbles of a demon-possessed three-year-old.
“Ah, you are?” I got up, tossing the coal chunk behind me, missing the basket horribly, before wiping down my coal-covered button-up with my coal-covered hands. This accomplished nothing. I snapped my fingers and had Nerple fetch me my mirror and comb. When you have nothing to do but talk to rats, you teach them many things.
“Did you bring us all here?” The pretty lady in front spoke first. She was wearing a painting apron, I was unsure of what its proper name was, and what looked to be a noble attire under it. Obviously, she was the leader. She spoke first, she was in front, and when she spoke, her entourage waited on her every word.
“And who is this ‘us’ you speak of?” I flipped open my mirror and started to comb my hair. The 1st rule of the gentleman’s handbook that I read when I was about 14 was that looks maketh man. Currently, I was not very maketh.
“Why, I and the other passengers, of course.” At this, she motioned to the group behind her: Two kids, one looking like he (she? I couldn’t tell) wanted to be an undertaker, while the other held some sort of metal talisman with strange illustrations and looked at nothing in particular. A hulking ogre of a man stood behind them, unnaturally tall and quite hairy. I would have mistook him for a bear if his hair weren’t an assaulting shade of orangish red. Next to the bear was a malnourished ghoul with a hunched back, oh no, my eyes deceive once more apparently, it was just a malnourished looking woman with a hunched back. On the other side of the noble was—
“Crazy goose woman?!” I blurted out before I could stop myself, but there she was. That weird potion seller who owned that goose with rabies. All eyes in the room turned to the woman who just a moment ago had been absentmindedly looking outside the window.
“Me?” She pointed to herself and looked around as if there was some other deranged goose rancher.
“Oh no, I was talking to the other potion peddler who has an evil, vile, unkind, quite rude, and overall brutish goose. Yes, you.” I threw my mirror and comb backwards for dramatic effect. I made sure Nerple gathered them back up.
“Nettle isn’t any of those things you just accused her of being! Also, who are you? I’ve never seen you in the village!” She took a step forward. I didn’t miss that she was glossing over the potion seller part, but I owed her a favor for giving me the opportunity to harvest as much mana as I wanted from this train, so I let it slide.
“I recently moved in! We met at the tavern.” I made a very subtle wink, hoping she would pick up what I was putting down. She, being a crazy goose witch whose only friend was Satan’s right-hand goose, did not have the social skills to understand the meaning behind my subtle wink.
“I would know if there was a witch in town!” She motioned to my coal monster of a ritual. Man I was really embarrassed about those triangles.
“I prefer ritualist, and pray tell, why would you know if there was a witch in town?” I gave her a challenging glare as if to say, go on, say it, say you’re a witch and you’ve been hiding that from them.
“Let’s calm down, you wanted us to introduce ourselves, correct? I’m Isabella.” The noble lady interjected. Annoying. I was winning that fight.
“I am Edmund, you’re dazzled I’m sure. It’s okay on the introductions front. I’ve already concluded most of you aren’t worth getting to know.”
“Then why did you bring us here?” Ghoul woman asked, but it wasn’t a question, it was a trap. She was trying to make it be that I had brought them here, but why? Why would she want that to be the case? Was she just such a strange creature that she threw off my social radars?
“I didn’t bring you all here and if I did do you think I’d stick myself in the engine room? I know just as much as you do—well, that’s a lie I possess much more knowledge than all of you—but in this situation specifically we’re in the same boat.” I’d been so very tempted to make a ‘same train’ joke but that was not in character for the Edmund I was crafting for them. Also was this my fault? No way, just my summoning circle getting smudged doesn’t mean I summoned the train, even if I blacked out before seeing what actually happened because of my summoning circle. Even if I then woke up on this train. It was definitely the crazy goose witch’s fault.
Eva
Once we had gathered everyone into the engine room, everyone stood in silence for a while. I, personally, was reviewing my chemistry notes through my head because this minor inconvenience can’t be the reason I got an A- on my chemistry test. In stoichiometry, 6.022 × 10^23 representative particles are in one mole, so everything must eventually be converted through moles into other units. The balanced equation only works through mole ratios. Someone started talking. I didn’t notice. So the process is always any unit to moles, moles to moles, then moles to the desired unit. Mass uses molar mass, particles use Avogadro’s number, and gas volume uses molar volume when needed.
Ya-ong
I turned off my phone to save the battery (and because I’ve run out of comics to read), so I’m just staring at my hands and questioning the meaning of life. I have decided that I’m dreaming.
What must have caused this dream? Did I eat weird things yesterday? Is this the result of stress coming from the high standards I hold myself to? Maybe I should lie down and do nothing after I’m done with exams. The stores near the beach 30 minutes away all seem interesting enough, maybe I can go there and spend the birthday money I’ve been saving for years.
From what I’ve heard from them, there are two witches here. Or, at least, they claim to be witches, but I think everyone goes through a phase of wanting special magic powers or something, so I’m chalking their claims up to that. Miracles and magic don’t exist in the real world no matter how hard people wish; I would certainly know. Maybe I shouldn’t talk about how magic doesn’t exist in my dreams when, in theory, I can just dream about magic instead, but this dream seems like it’ll be boring if I suddenly gain magic powers. I don’t know what to say to everyone else, so I’ll just sit and wait until someone talks to me.
Maybe I should ask them how they’ve found such nice clothing so I can finally nail down what I want to look like without spending too much money. Going to wander around the clothing street and buying whatever I can afford that I like doesn’t seem like it’ll help me more than it already has. (And all the clothing is the same size, so I need to spend money at the tailor’s store in another market making it fit, and I don’t even wear it often because I don’t have the time to wander around town being handsome. What do people with cool clothes even do when they wear their cool clothing?)
I’m tired.
Maybe they’ll ask me how we met. I will simply say that I got on some space train to go to a faraway planet that’s found a cure for mortality, come back home, sell the cure as my own, and get out of having to do exams for the rest of my life. Sure, my academic records are lacking, but being a genius and doing genius things and making a ton of money makes it so I don’t have to do any exams. Nobody will question it because I’m dreaming and dreams have absolutely no logic whatsoever. Other than the dreams where I cure the disease that is war, of course. Yeah. I’ll be able to do that.
Olivia
By this point, I had been standing in the engine room long enough that I was sweating from the oven full of coal. I wasn’t sure exactly how it was powering the train, or if it even was, considering I wouldn’t have been on this train without magic. Even the air all around us was thrumming with it. Maybe this “engine” was just for show, and mana was powering the whole thing. Speaking of mana, it was growing hard to make eye contact with the man we found in here when the rats on his shoulders were full to bursting with it. Everything alive has a little, even if they can’t tell, but Edmund must have been fattening the rats with magic so they could store emergency mana for him. It was a process I could have gone through with Nettle, if I had cast enough spells to benefit from the practice. Maybe that was what was wrong with her. A lack of magic in her diet. It could explain why she wasn’t eating much before she stopped moving…
I had to stop thinking about magic. At some point I was certain someone would be able to tell. I carefully avoided looking at the ritual circles Edmund had drawn all over the ground in coal. I hoped nobody stepped on them—when circles are broken, interesting things could happen, and things were already more than interesting enough as they were. I had no idea what they were actually supposed to do. Grandma’s attempts to teach me the shapes of them had gone about as well as when she had tried getting me into calligraphy. That was to say, it hurt my fingers and her patience. I didn’t fully understand why my mother had left, but Grandma’s teaching style had almost certainly been a part of it.
It was too hot to think properly. I longed to take off my cloak. For some reason Edmund was glaring at me and I worried that at any second he would tell everyone else this was all my fault. Maybe it even was. No, no, he was the one with the rats and the ritual circles. If anyone here had caused this it must have been him. He didn’t seem nearly powerful enough to cast any spell that could theoretically do this, but what did I know? Maybe he had tied a million tiny ritual circles together, spells upon spells, becoming more than the sum of their parts. It wasn’t like I was powerful enough to do this on accident, which I would have had to have done, because I certainly never would have purposely trapped myself on a train with these people.
Well, Isabella seemed alright. Edmund was awful, and Cedar had the nervous affect of someone who had just accidentally sold their soul. Besides, from the little I could make out of the symbols on their cloak, they were a dragon worshipper, which usually wasn’t the kind of career that suggested good decision-making skills. I wasn’t sure what to think of Waltinsya yet. Eva and Ya-ong both seemed to be students, though I didn’t know how old they were or what they were studying. Maybe that was a coincidence or maybe it said something about the magic that brought us here. I didn’t know. If it really was my fault we were here, did that make me a kidnapper? Did I mention it was too hot to think straight?
Isabella
We all stood there in the sweltering room that held the train’s engine, Edmund on one side, arms crossed, the rest of us on the other. None of us spoke. The silence was as heavy as a raincloud hanging over the city, and not at all comfortable.
My hair was plastered to the back of my neck, my dress hot, constricting, far too thick. I shifted from one foot to the other, taking a step away from the furnace of coals, wondering once more how we had all ended up here. All of us were so . . . different. Different clothing, different dictions, different worlds, and yet the train had brought us all together. The train, this vehicle that I hadn’t known existed until today.
Today. It was odd to think it had only been a day.
My fingers closed around my trusty paintbrush, which had inadvertently come on such an adventure. It was nice to know that I still had something of home.
Cedar
I glanced around the train, hugging my arms close to my chest.
“Well?” I asked. “What do you all think happened? How are we here? We need to figure this out.”
I shook my head. If this was Min punishing me, then would I have to confess my crimes to these people? What would their reactions be if they knew this was all my fault? And why were there other people in the first place?
What if this isn’t my fault? I thought hopefully. What if this has nothing to do with the prism I stole?
“Oh, if this is my fault, Scoutmaster Niall is going to kill me,” I thought. My heart sank when I realized I had spoken out loud. Isabella’s eyes glinted with curiosity, but to my relief, she didn’t question me any further.
“I was painting when I came here.” Isabella’s brow furrowed as she recalled the details. “I was on the riverbank, working on a painting of the scene, when this train showed up on my canvas and pulled me inside it. And now I’m here, I guess.”
Realization shocked a memory into place.
“Oh, so that was you. You were the one painting when I looked into the prism—” I cut myself off, realizing that I had spoken my thoughts out loud again. “Never mind,” I muttered, feeling my face growing hot.
Why must you say EVERYTHING you’re thinking out loud? I chided myself.
“Well, anyway, maybe this train is a sort of magical vessel,” Isabella continued. “It appeared for all of us, and brought us here, so maybe the things we were working on when it appeared for us are all connected somehow—if you were all working on things, that is. Are there any other painters here?”
I shook my head, relieved that Isabella had turned the attention away from me.
“Well, whatever brought us here, we have to find a way back,” Isabella was saying.
I felt like the prism’s energy was burning a hole through my satchel, sizzling the fabric with its rainbow beams.
No! I thought. It was all because of that prism that I’d ended up on a train speeding through Darkness Land or whatever strange world was outside. I hardly wanted to know what else it was capable of.
It’s because Min is punishing you, of course, Scoutmaster Niall’s voice muttered in my ear. This is why it all happened. The way to get out of this is to beg for forgiveness.
“So, any ideas on how to get back?” Eva’s voice split through my thoughts. “Because I kind of have a history essay I gotta do…”
“Well, maybe there’s a certain object that could get us back. Like…a prism?” I wondered out loud. Edmund gave me a vicious eyebrow raise. Waltinysa frowned. Even Isabella seemed a bit confused about my thought process.
“Well, I was just thinking, I have this uh, family heirloom, that’s a prism…” I winced at the expressions of the rest of the group, which ranged from doubtful to disapproving to confused.
Scoutmaster Niall’s voice lashed into my ear. Beg for forgiveness! This is the doing of Min!
“Well, how do you think it would help us get off the train?” someone asked. Their voice felt hazy to my ears. I felt like I was falling back out the window, into darkness… Beg for forgiveness, Cedar! This is all your fault! All of this is your fault! I put a hand to my forehead, which was starting to ache sharply. The heat of the engine room was making me dizzy.
“What if this train connects all of our worlds?” I blurted out. “What if there’s also this, uh, object that can help us transport us back to our worlds. Or at least we can look through our worlds in this object? Alsowhatifthisobjectwashypotheticallystolenthat’stotallyokayright?” I finished quickly, out of breath from my long sentence.
“Look, whatever you’re talking about, it makes no sense, but if it will help us get off this train, then please share it,” Eva said earnestly.
“It seems like you’re keeping something from us, but you can say it since I’m sure it’s not going to be the oddest I’ve heard today,” Isabella added. Her hands fidgeted together, as if she was trying to work out what I was trying to say.
“Well, I might have stolen something from the Sacred Dragon Min…” I confessed to the group, avoiding their eyes.
This is it, I thought with a sick feeling in my stomach. They’re all going to despise me and this is all my fault and—
“The Sacred Dragon what?” someone asked. I summoned the bravery to glance up at all of their faces, all of which were bewildered.
“The Sacred Dragon Min, of course, the Great Being that we all must dedicate our lives to!” I said. Did they really not know who the Sacred Dragon Min was? I received blank stares in return.
“Yeah…it’s no big deal,” I finished awkwardly.
Olivia
People were still saying things about theories, but the heat made it so their words sounded more like meaningless noise than actual possibilities. I took off my cloak and spread it over part of the ground that wasn’t covered in coal scribbles before sitting down on it. It felt sort of like sitting on a picnic blanket. Picnics. I was supposed to have gone on a picnic today. A nice picnic by a cool lake. Instead I was here, listening to people argue over whether or not a prism could connect worlds.
“What about you?” asked Isabella.
“What do you mean?” my throat felt parched.
I wondered if Edmund knew how to draw the circle to summon water. If he did, he probably would have done it already.
“Everyone else gave a theory, what about you? We aren’t all painters, and I don’t think we’re all just getting dreamed up by Ya-ong on her way to school. What do you think is going on? Is it magic? Could the heirloom have done it?”
Edmund and his many rodents’ eyes bore into me.
I stood up, “Look, what you have to understand is, the amount of magic necessary to do all of this is just… I mean, even over a long period of time using a bunch of different spells, it’s impossible.”
“I thought you weren’t an expert in magic?” Her voice wasn’t accusing, just intrigued.
“No, but I talk to people who are. I’m an herbalist. Herbs are in the woods. Fairies are in the woods. I learned a little.”
Edmund quirked his eyebrows. I kept talking before he could point out how rare it was to see fairies without actively jumping up and down inside rings of mushrooms.
“A real witch, someone with a lot of power, can just wave their hand and want water hard enough and make it appear. No ritual circles, no potions, nothing. Even someone like that couldn’t do something like this. It would take wishing and wishing is just not something any one person can do.”
“What about with a magic artifact?” asked Cedar, eyes darting around the room.
“No, not even with that. Supposing your prism connects worlds, that still wouldn’t be enough to cast the spell all by itself. Objects can’t cast spells.”
Cedar breathed out for a little too long to be normal. There was no way that prism had actually belonged to their family if they knew so little about it, but I wasn’t going to dig into anyone else’s secrets so long as they didn’t dig into mine.
“What about multiple witches working together?” asked Isabella.
Edmund rolled his eyes, “Thankfully, for all the stories talking about covens, witches are solitary creatures. If there’s a way to combine magic for more power, nobody has figured it out yet. I shudder at the thought. Wishing is more of a theoretical concept than anything else. The ritual circle for wishes just gives vague advice, and that’s when they work properly. If they don’t, you die.”
“Right. What he said.”
Eva raised her hand.
“This isn’t a school, if you want to speak, speak.”
I decided I hated Edmund.
“Why do you hate magic so much?”
“Who said I hate magic?”
“Well, nobody I guess. In English class though they talk a lot about subtext, and your subtext is screaming that you hate magic.”
“Well, my opinion is none of your business.”
“Okay,” Isabella put her hands in the air and moved them slowly downward, “I think we’re getting a bit off track. We’re supposed to be figuring out how we got here.”
“And how to get out,” chimed Edmund.
“Yeah,” said Ya-ong, “I really should have taught myself how to wake up on command. If I’m absent because I was dreaming about being stuck on a train, my teacher will probably give me a long lecture.”
“Oh. Right. Well, I had another question. Ms. Herbalist?”
“You can call me Olivia.” Maybe Edmund was right, it was odd to be treated like a teacher.
“What happens if someone who is only a little good at magic waves their hand and tries to summon water? Is it dangerous like with the circles? If I practiced for long enough, could I become a witch? Could we all just do that until we know how to teleport?”
“No and no. It’s not dangerous, it’s just that nothing happens. Magic can be practiced, but if you don’t have power, you don’t have the power.”
“Besides, children are notoriously terrible at it, so you would be useless anyway,” Edmund crossed his arms. “Trust me, you do not want to get involved with magic?”
“So you do hate it?”
“Can somebody pinch me? Maybe then I’ll wake up and avoid a lecture.”
“Uggh… if I ever get off this train Scoutmaster Niall is going to lecture me until one of us dies of old age,” they gestured dramatically with their hand.
That probably would have been fine, except one of Edmund’s rats took it as an opportunity to jump from its master’s shoulder to Cedar’s arm. To Cedar’s credit, they didn’t scream, but they did lose their grip on the prism which came plummeting down to the floor.
Living with a giant goose who still thought she was a gosling had gotten me used to experiencing this exact situation, except with glass bottles full of potions that I had worked on for three hours straight. It barely took any effort for me to snatch it out of the air.
Everyone stared at me.
“Thanks,” muttered Cedar.
“It’s fi—”
Looking down at the glass in my hand I saw her. Nettle was sitting in her stable. Her facial expression was as inscrutable as always, but something in the way her neck bent made it clear she was lonely. I closed my eyes and reached down to stroke her plumage, “I’m sorry girl. I never should have left you like—”
Someone gasped loudly.
Annoyed, I opened my eyes to find my arm had been swallowed by the glass up to my shoulder. Right. There had been glass there. Somehow I had forgotten. Slowly, I drew myself up out of the prism. It didn’t feel like anything at all. I handed Cedar’s artifact back to them.
“I guess you were right. That’s one powerful artifact.”
They tried to reach through the glass, but the prism stayed solid.
“How did you do it?”
“Maybe try closing your eyes?”
They did. Nothing new happened. Everyone else was staring at us, unless you counted Edmund, who was glaring.
“Maybe it’s because it’s showing my home?”
Flapping her wings like she hadn’t been nearly comatose a minute earlier, Nettle burst up, out of the prism. She landed on the floor of the train, causing Edmund’s rats to scatter.
“I don’t think it’s the artifact that’s powerful,” muttered Cedar.
I looked from Nettle to my hands and back again.
“Did I do that?”
“Obviously!” shouted Edmund, who was in the process of gathering his rats, “This! This sort of nonsense! Is a solid five percent of why I hate magic! You are quite possibly the most annoying witch I have ever met! There is no way this isn’t your fault!”
“I told you I’m not a real witch! I’m not even very powerful! I have been weak at magic since I was a child!”
“I told you, children are all terrible at magic! My congratulations to you and my condolences to the rest of the world, you got more powerful!”
By this point Nettle started honking loudly and the rats fled all over again. I loved my goose more than words could express.
Ya-ong cleared their throat, “I think you should all take a few deep breaths. Remember, magic isn’t real.”
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