24.

Under no circumstances would Eli have left his mother’s side—he knew all about candy and strangers, smiling, clean-shaven men who might even say they were friends of his mommy or daddy.

But while mommy was busy talking through the police radio, Eli was sure he had heard his father’s voice shouting for him from down the hall. The sound of his daddy yelling his name had made him feel so good, so safe, that he hadn’t thought twice about leaving his mother behind with the radio and running out into the corridor. Once he found his daddy, they could go back and get his mom again. His daddy would know what to do. His daddy always knew.

But now he was in a new hallway, without even the train’s light to guide him, and his father was nowhere to be heard. He’d run so far that he was worried he could have passed his daddy in the dark. Worse, looking back, he didn’t know which direction he’d come from, because he couldn’t see.

“Daddy?” he whispered. And louder: “Daddy?” The gravity of his error settled over him and he felt scared tears climbing in his throat, making it feel sore and tight. “Daddy…?”

In the long darkness that stretched out in front of him, Eli heard something beginning to stir. It was alive and making itself larger.

He ran blindly, without thought or destination, the same breath locked in his lungs that had been there for the last ten seconds. The only sound he made was a soft, high-pitched keening, an ultrasonic dog-whistle that escaped through his nose as his feet slapped the floor, rocketing him forward.

He hit a sharp object and bounced back, pain spiking his forehead and startling him back to clarity. Where was he? On the floor, still unable to see anything.

Reaching out, he felt a flat rectangular thing in front of him, the edge of an open door. Eli felt the cold crooked piece of metal that was the doorknob. Through the ringing in his ears, he could still hear movement behind him in the dark.

Crying, sobbing, too scared to think, he crawled through the opening, drew his knees up to his chin, wrapped his arms around his legs. There was a low shelf behind him with things stacked on it. Straightening his arms out, Eli gripped the end of the door and pulled it shut in front of him, and closed his eyes.

When he opened them again he was on the Island of Sodor.

It was a world he recognized instantly. All around him, a picture-postcard landscape of rolling hills and trees shone like emeralds in the mild sunlight. The sky was a generous swath of blue that seemed to go on forever. Gazing up the railway tracks, he saw the darker blue paint of Thomas the Tank Engine smiling as he came over the hill, great cheerful clouds of white cotton puffing from his funnel. His whistle peep-peeped brightly as he hissed to a stop next to Eli, dumping off steam. Then his smile faded.