Molly
Lampart's 12th birthday was much like every other day, only more
boring: first tea with the governess and a posed photograph with her
parents, then a procession of girls who giggled and brought china
dolls wrapped in pink paper, despite the fact that Molly hated pink
and that most of her dolls ended up dissected for medical research
purposes. There was no sneaking out the door to climb trees in the
narrow, well-tended backyard, or hanging out her window hollering at
the trains steaming into the station two blocks away, or helping
Tabby chase rats from the cellar.
It was a day to be quickly
forgotten, except for one thing:
On
Molly's 12th birthday, just as evening was starting to turn the sky
the exact color pink Molly particularly despised, the emerald train
arrived, seemingly out of nowhere.
It
started with a rumble, a roar, a whistle, and the earth shook with
the effort of keeping the train on its surface. The train was
radiant in the dying sun, spraying colors off the emerald sides
so that Molly had to shield her eyes just to watch. But the best
part, the absolutely most wonderfully breath-taking part of the
whole thing, was the fact that it was braking.
The
emerald train was stopping in front of Molly's house.
Excitement
building, she ran from the window, leaped down the grand staircase,
passed
butlers and maids and other people who did not notice the girl flying
out the door
of
the four-story mansion. Rushing across the gravel walkway, Molly
skidded on her
heels,
nearly toppling into the stone fountain.
She
felt her jaw drop as her eyes rose to the emerald train stopped
in her garden. It was immense, looming, giant, and yet, it
was beautiful. For the first time all day, for the first time
she could ever remember, Molly felt rather small.
Molly
stretched onto her toes, straining to make out the words on the side
of the train. She could just make out the words “WALNUT’S
WONDROUS” in thin gold lettering, reaching toward the sky, when
the train door burst open and. BAM.
Molly
jumped. To her delight, she saw a flood of brightly
colored acrobats pouring from the train cars. Music danced in
the air, pounding an infectious rhythm through Molly's bones. She was
so transfixed she did not immediately notice the large, dark man who
came after them. But soon she felt someone staring at her, and she
turned.
There
was something wrong with his eyes. One eye looked as dark as the
London night, but the other… the other was not real. It was a
walnut, carved to resemble an eye. His mouth quirked up at the edges
as Molly stared back in fascination, and although she couldn't hear
him over the music, she knew what he said when he opened his mouth.
He
said, “Welcome”.
Emboldened
by his hospitality, her own curiosity, Molly stepped forward, inching
closer and closer, until she felt his breath tickling her forehead.
She stared up at him, transfixed by that walnut eye, that strange
wooden presence that seemed to be pulsing with life, with magic. On a
dizzying, maddening impulse, she reached up and gently traced its
swirling groves.
“Pull
it out,” he said calmly, as if suggesting the most natural thing in
the world. Molly stared at him in wonder, and her heart began
thumping crazily in her chest. Her palms now slick with sweat, she
looked at him for reassurance. He nodded.
She
curled her fingers around the edges of the rough bark and gave it a
good yank. She felt a sudden blast of wind. And now the man was not a
man, but something else: the socket expanded into a gaping black
hole. From the blackness emerged a swirling force, like a live coil,
like a whirlpool, as rippling and colorful as the acrobats, and it
suck her in and down, down, down, making her stomach clench and then
expand in a sickening flutter. After an endless fall, she heard
a splash, and felt a fierce, wet coldness turn her bones to ice.
