Howard looked at it again. "There's still a train in our living room."

Hugh shrugged without taking his eyes off the steam engine. "Rail accident?"

Howard looked down to where the train entered their home. "There's no rail near here." He could see two things at once in the same space: Their living room wall, intact and artfully decorated, and at least ten train cars trailing into the distance, at a concrete platform that occupied the same space as their teak floor. Or occupied different space, just the same distance away from them, and in the same direction.

"Is it... going to leave?" Hugh still stared.

"I mean, probably? It has a schedule to keep." Pause. "I kind of want to see what's on it."

"I.... It's a ghost train, or something, you can't just get on. You'll go to Hell, or... or somewhere else we don't believe in!"

"Or steam-powered Narnia."

"I absolutely forbid it." Hugh had pulled his eyes from the train for the first time and was staring at Howard.

"Forbid it?" Howard smiled a challenge at Hugh.

"Prohibit, veto, deny, countermand, negatively edict, I don't know, yes! Don't get on that train!"

Howard looked at the car ahead of him and over to where the engine belched steam in and not in their kitchen. He could almost hear a distant whistle.

"This doesn't just happen to people, Hughie," he said. "If this train leaves and I never know why, I will hate myself every day for not getting on."

"I would hate you every day for leaving."

"Then you're just gonna have to come with me." Howard hopped onto the metal lattice steps up into the train car and held a hand back to Hugh.

Hugh looked him deep in the eyes, fear plain on his face. "Dammit, if this doesn't take us to a magical adventure where neither of us gets hurt, I am going to be very angry."

"That's fair," Howard said. The train pulled away, and they waved goodbye to both the platform and their house, which had somehow—and briefly—occupied the same space.