The Night Train to the Stars

At the end of Sam's street there was a lamppost, and under the lamppost there was nothing at all — until the night everything changed.

Sam had trouble switching off. Even with the lights out and the house quiet, thoughts kept whirring like a windup toy that wouldn't wind down. On this particular night, Sam padded to the window for one last look outside, and there, impossibly, sat a train.

It was a small, round-nosed train the color of deep blue midnight, and it glowed faintly, as if it had swallowed a handful of stars. A conductor leaned out of the door. She wore a cap with a crescent moon on it, and she smiled as though she'd been expecting exactly one passenger.

“The Night Train only stops for people who can't quite sleep,” she said. “Would you like a ride? We always bring our passengers home.”

Sam should have been frightened, but the train felt as safe as a warm bath, so aboard Sam went. Inside, the seats were deep and soft, and other sleepy children dozed against the windows, wrapped in blankets that seemed to hum.

With a gentle hiss, the train began to climb — not along the ground, but up, curving into the sky on a track made of moonlight. The rooftops shrank below. The whole town became a scatter of little golden lights, like a spilled jar of honey.

“Where are we going?” Sam asked. “Nowhere in a hurry,” said the conductor. “That's the whole point. Watch out the window. Let it be slow.”

And it was slow. The train drifted past the moon, close enough to see its quiet gray seas. It slid between the stars, which turned out not to be sharp and cold at all, but soft and warm, like glowing dandelion seeds. One floated right through the open window, hovered above Sam's palm for a moment, and left a small, calm warmth behind.

The longer the train traveled, the heavier Sam's eyelids grew. The whirring thoughts, the ones that wouldn't wind down, slowed and slowed until they were just the gentle clackety-clack of the wheels on the moonlight track.

“Last stop coming up,” the conductor said softly. “Home.”

The train curved back down through the dark, past the honey-jar town, and settled without a bump at the end of Sam's street. “Thank you,” Sam whispered. “Will it be here tomorrow?” The conductor tipped her crescent-moon cap. “It's here every night for anyone who needs it. But my guess is, tonight, you won't.”

Sam climbed back through the window, into the warm bed, and pulled up the blanket. Somewhere far away, a train whistle sounded once, soft and low, like the last note of a lullaby.

And Sam, at long last, was fast asleep.

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