And Malorie knows they are. Her son’s voice is nearly inaudible among the roar of the big engine. She imagines Tom sucked up into a new world, where industry reigns once again, where jobs are wanted, workers needed, professions opening onto infinite paths, journeys her teens might’ve taken two decades ago.

“Stay close,” Malorie calls.

She can’t be sure where Tom and Olympia are. How far ahead? Olympia’s voice emerges from the noise, a semblance of assurance, but only near for long as a bat might have been, flying low over the blindfolded woman attempting to run this last bit of road.

Will Malorie and her teens be protected, safe from whoever else is on board? Is there food? Water? Bathrooms? Beds?

And what does it cost to ride?

“Guys!” Malorie calls. A hand is at her elbow, then gone.

The whistle shrieks again.

They’re so close.

“Tom!” she yells. “Olympia!”

But it’s the voice of a man that answers.

“You’ve got seconds,” the man says. “You better hurry!”

It feels, momentarily, horribly, like the man means she has seconds to live. And maybe that is what he means. And maybe she does.

But she rushes, arms up. Hands take her own, smaller hands, Olympia.

The sound of the train changes, and Malorie knows it’s starting to move. The deep exhale of machinery waking up.

“Oh, no,” she says, breathless.

“It’s still here,” Tom says.

Tom! Tom is here, too.

But the train is moving. Malorie is sure of this now.

And other people are yelling, calling out, something about clearing the way, clearing the tracks.

The engine roars. The whistle blows.

Steam. A train. So close.

But it’s moving.

“Come on!” Olympia says.

“It’s leaving!” Tom yells.

But they do not stop. They move. Upon creaking boards now. The platform? The station? Malorie cracks shoulders with someone else, someone who shouts out at her to be careful. The old-world phrase sounds like a harbinger of things to come.

“We gotta leap onto the back,” Olympia says. Malorie imagines her daughter read that in a book. Characters, train hoppers, hoboes. She can’t believe she’s agreeing to this. There’s no way she can justify this idea. It’s not the mother she’s been for sixteen years.

“Mom!” Olympia calls.

Malorie reaches for her, doesn’t find her. The train sounds like it’s moving faster, too fast, the engine no longer exhaling but breathing, steady, rising to face the north.

“We can’t do it,” Malorie says. She sees Ron Handy in his service station, a dirty glass of old whiskey in hand. She sees him crying, now, grappling with the horror of choosing not to go to his sister.