“This is weird,” he said.
“Eerie.”
They didn’t speak for a while. It was kind of hypnotic, staring into the misty depths.
“What kind of muffin is that?” she said.
“Banana chocolate.”
“Are there any more?”
“There were two, but I ate them both.”
She sighed. It was hard being philosophical about things all the time, but somehow she managed it.
Kate felt the train slow down and stop. Once again they weren’t at a station—that was never a good sign. She went forward to talk to the Silver Arrow.
“Where are we?” Kate said.
I DON’T KNOW
“Oh.” Kate considered that. “How about we keep going till we get to somewhere where we do know where we are?”
I DON’T THINK I CAN
I’M OUT OF COAL
Wait—really? Kate checked the tender again, and her insides went cold. Nothing but coal dust. A load was still burning in the firebox, but that would only last another few hours. Somehow she’d just assumed that they’d have enough to make it to the next station or fuel depot or whatever. These things always worked themselves out, right? Some part of her must still have thought, deep down, that somebody else would solve the problem.
But there was no one else, just her and Tom, and now they were stuck here alone in a strange forest who-knows-where, way off the main line, with no way to get home, and soon the Silver Arrow’s fire would go out. And that was its greatest fear.
Kate felt herself starting to panic. She wasn’t even sure this problem had a solution. In video games, however bad things got, you knew there was always a way through to the next level. But real life wasn’t like that. Sometimes there just was no way.
The trees outside were just ghostly shadows.
Trees. Wait a second.
“I don’t suppose,” Kate said slowly, “that you could burn wood, could you? Instead of coal?”
The train hesitated.
IT’S NOT MY FAVORITE
“But if you really had to?”
I GUESS
IF I REALLY HAD TO
“Well, all right, then! We’re in the middle of a forest! There’s bound to be loads of branches and things. Everything here is fuel!”
Though when she climbed down from the train, Kate suddenly felt nervous and exposed. It was very still and quiet in the forest. There was no wind. No birds sang. It seemed like anything could come out of that mist at any moment.
But she couldn’t think of any other plan. She wondered if this was what had happened to that other train, the one that never came back. Maybe they’d gotten stuck here, too, and been devoured by some hungry forest-dwelling mist monster. Something rustled behind her, and she spun around.
It wasn’t a mist monster. It was the others: Tom, the heron, the fishing cat, the snake, even the porcupine.
“We thought you might want some company,” the cat said.
“Especially since it’s kind of spooky out here,” the heron said.
“I just wanted a fresh gnawing stick,” the porcupine said.
Kate smiled. Adventures were great, but she was learning that sometimes you didn’t want to go on them alone.
16
Trees
SLOWLY AND CAUTIOUSLY THEY FANNED OUT INTO THE forest. The train disappeared behind them in the fog almost immediately. It was ridiculously thick, as if there were a smoke machine somewhere nearby that was stuck on maximum.
The trees were absolutely enormous, and they had no branches low down, so they looked like big stone columns in a cathedral. The biggest ones were as thick around as an elephant. It was so quiet it was almost like they were holding themselves still.
There was only one problem: There wasn’t any firewood. None. The forest floor was completely bare of branches.
“Where’s all the sticks?” Tom said.
“I don’t know.”
It was as if somebody had come through right before them and tidied up. Kate looked up, but even the lowest branches were lost in the fog. There had to be a way. Without wood they’d be stranded here forever.
“Maybe we could chop one down,” Tom said.
“Yeah. Except that we don’t have an ax, and even if we did it would be completely impossible because they’re like the size of buildings.”
“True.”
“Maybe the heron could fly up and get some branches.” Though Kate knew the delicate heron could never get as many as they needed.
It almost felt like the forest was waiting for something from them. Kate guessed it made sense—here she was, just showing up like this, expecting to collect armloads of wood for free. Maybe it wanted something back.
That was fair. But what? What would a forest want?
“All right,” she said quietly. “Hi, forest. We’re looking for firewood to make our train go. Want to trade? What can we give you?”
The fishing cat cocked her head. “Who are you talking to?”
“Nobody!” Kate blushed. She didn’t want to admit she was talking to a forest.
But she kept going in her head. We really don’t mind, she thought. We’re happy to pay. We’d be grateful.
And then it was the oddest thing, because a thought appeared in her head:
Are you sure?
It was a thought, but it wasn’t her thought. It came in a voice that felt old, and very gentle, and very strong. And not alone, but like many voices speaking in unison.
It was the forest. She knew it.
I’m sure, she thought.
And that was that. It started as soon as she thought it.
The bottoms of her feet tingled. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it gave her an uncontrollable urge to take off her shoes. And not just her shoes but her socks, too: Suddenly she was craving the feeling of prickly, loamy soil under her feet.
So she took them off. Tom was doing the same thing. The second her bare soles touched the ground, she curled her toes right into it. And the really weird thing was, her toes kept on going.
They were getting longer. They stretched and pushed down into the cold dirt, like when you bury your feet in the sand at the beach, but much, much more. She felt them going deeper and deeper into the dirt.
At the same time her legs were getting longer, and her arms. She was getting taller, growing so fast that the ground zoomed down away from her.
It should have been scary, but for some reason it just wasn’t. It actually felt kind of amazing. Kate threw her suddenly huge arms wide, and as she did they stiffened, and her fingers spread and multiplied and then burst gloriously into twigs and foliage. She grew up, up, up, and it was like she was stretching her back after a long sleep. She was turning into a tree.
She closed her eyes. She didn’t need them! There were so many other ways to sense and feel. Her toe-roots went down, down, down, winding and finding their way through layers of delicious cold black earth as if it were mile-deep chocolate and at the same time spreading outward around her in a huge underground web, threading between pebbles and rocks and other roots, rubbing elbows with friendly worms, drinking in delicious chilled clear water that flowed funnily up through her legs and all through her body to feed her finger-branches and her leaf-hair.