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While Annie sketched out more versions of Penn Station Man, trying to put the unsettling conversation with Daniel out of her

mind, Charlie worked on perfecting his model train village. The loop of track remained static, but what he placed within it

changed. He would reposition the buildings on his main street, stand back and look at them like a sculptor, folding his arms

and placing one hand to his chin, assessing his creation from afar. Charlie would find some flaw that only he could see, go

back, and make some minor adjustment.

Annie watched all this with interest, and without comment. Let him do his thing, she thought.

At one point, he approached her, wanting to borrow a marker and a strip of the masking tape she used to secure her paper to

the table. She slid a blank sheet of paper over her work-in-progress.

“What’s the tape for?” Annie asked.

“I have to make signs,” he said.

With scissors, he cut the tape into short, neat strips and then labeled them. flower shop. diner. fire department . (On that one, the strip of tape he’d cut was too short and the letters in the last half of department had to be squished together.) He made up several more labels and affixed them to the front of his buildings.

Annie had only one suggestion: “You should have a train store.”

Charlie perked his head up. He’d run out of tape, and there was one building left that did not have a sign.

“May I make it for you?” Annie asked.

Charlie’s tongue rested on his upper lip while he considered. “Okay.”

She cut off a two-inch long strip of tape, stuck it to the table so that she could work on it, took from her coffee can of

drawing implements a fine-point marker, and, in a calligraphic style, penned choo- choo’s trains , adding shading to give the letters a three-dimensional look. Once done, she peeled the tape from the table and attached

one end to the tip of her finger, then walked it over to where he sat on the floor.

“How about this?” she said as he delicately took it from her finger.

“That’s way better than mine,” he said admiringly as he placed the tape above the front display window of his last unlabeled

structure.

“Hey, I do this for a living,” she said, smiling.

“It’s no wonder you picked that name.”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s where they all come from.”

Annie still didn’t understand, so Charlie uncoupled the caboose from the rest of the train, brought it over, and turned it

upside down so his mother could see the sticker affixed to the underside.

It read: “Choo-Choo’s Trains 122 Main Street Lucknow, Vermont.” A zip code and a phone number with an 802 area code followed.

“It’s on the bottom of all the trains,” Charlie said. “You must have peeked.”

“I guess I must have seen that and forgotten,” Annie said.

Although she couldn’t remember when.

It was a little after one in the morning when Annie heard something.

She sat up in bed, expecting to once again hear a phantom train whistle, but that wasn’t it. What she had thought she’d heard, in the seconds before she woke up, was a door opening. And not an upstairs door, like the one to Charlie’s room, or the bathroom a few steps away.

This had the sound of a heavier door, if that made any sense. One that creaked on its hinges when you opened it.

In New York, she was always hearing something in the night. Ambulances and police cars and fire engines. In the wee hours

of the morning, garbage trucks emptying huge Dumpsters. Sometimes even gunshots.

But even in New York— especially in New York—if you heard a door open, you might want to investigate. Because that meant someone was coming into your house . The world outside could go to shit, but once someone crossed the threshold into your domain, that was cause for fucking

alarm.

Annie threw back the covers, reached out to turn on the bedside light, then stopped herself. If there was an intruder, did

she want to let them know she was awake? Would she lose the element of surprise? Or was that what she should do? Let whoever

had come into the house know she was up and that they better get the hell out.

Charlie.

Whatever plan she might settle on, the priority was to make sure Charlie was safe.

She slipped on her housecoat and crept out of her room and into the second-floor hallway.

There was no one there. No lights on.

She passed the open door to the studio. It was dark in there, save for some moonlight coming through the skylights. For a

second she thought she saw a pinprick of light, no larger than the top of a pen, but when she blinked it was gone.

From the top of the stairs, she could see down to the entryway.

The front door was wide open.

Jesus Christ, someone is in the house.

A chill ran the length of Annie’s spine. She was certain she’d locked the front door before she and Charlie went to bed. Yes,

she was in the country now and security wasn’t as big a concern, but old habits die hard. So how did someone get in?

Then it hit her.

Wasn’t it possible, even after all these years, that Dolores had a key to the house? She’d cleaned for whoever had lived here

years ago.

Crazy Dolores is here.

Okay, that was a bit harsh, Annie knew. The woman was suffering from some form of dementia that she couldn’t help. But that

didn’t mean Annie felt any better about having her in the house.

She went to Charlie’s room, found the door already open. The moonlight that was coming through the skylight was filtering

through other windows, so rather than flip on a switch and startle him, Annie went right to his bed to wake him.

The covers were turned back. The bed was empty.

Annie tamped down an overwhelming sense of panic. Time for a change of strategy. No more pussyfooting about. She ran from

the room, flipped on the hallway lights, and shouted: “Charlie! Charlie! ”

No answer.

That didn’t have to mean he wasn’t in the house. She thought back to the sleepwalking episodes after John had died, how a

brass band wouldn’t have brought Charlie back to the real world. She’d already poked her head into the studio and found it

empty, so she checked the bathroom, and when he wasn’t there she ran down the stairs, flipping every light on along the way.

That open door did not bode well, and with Charlie missing, several possibilities presented themselves. Charlie had opened it and left on his own, either awake or in a dream state. A stranger had entered the house and Charlie was in hiding. Or someone had entered the house... and left with Charlie.

Annie ran through the open doorway and onto the porch, where the light was already on. There, at the foot of the porch steps,

was Charlie’s bicycle. The thought had crossed her mind that if he could sleepwalk, he might also be able to sleep-cycle.

But seeing the bike didn’t do much to put her mind at ease.

Again, she shouted: “Charlie!”

Nothing.

She ran inside, checking the kitchen, the basement, calling out her son’s name every few seconds. She turned on the outdoor

lights that illuminated the backyard and went out there, the cold, dewy grass tickling the soles of her feet. She ran to the

shed where Charlie had found the box of trains, opened the door and looked inside, squinted, struggling to see in the dark.

Charlie was not there.

The outdoor lights only illuminated to the edge of the woods. She looked into the dark, foreboding trees and felt a sense

of despair wash over her.

I have to call the police.

She ran back into the house and up to her room, where her phone was charging on the bedside table. She grabbed it, hit 911.

The moment a dispatcher answered, she said:

“My name is Annie Blunt and I’m at 11318 Scoutland Road and my son is missing!”

The dispatcher wanted details. Annie put the phone on speaker and tossed it onto the bed, trying her best to answer the dispatcher’s

questions while she got into her jeans, pulled a sweater on over her head, and slipped her feet into a pair of running shoes,

not bothering with socks.

She grabbed the phone again and headed for the stairs.

“Where are you going?” the dispatcher asked.

“Looking for him, what do you think?”

“Ma’am, stay at the house until the police—”

But Annie had ended the call.

She grabbed her keys from a decorative bowl on the front hall table and was out the door and in her car in seconds. All she

could think to do was drive. Maybe Charlie was sleepwalking along the road, and if he was, she needed to find him before some

driver coming home after too much to drink wandered onto the shoulder and—

“Shut up!” she said to herself. “ Shut up shut up shut up! ”

She hit the start engine button on the center console, put the high beams on, and guided the car down the drive to the road. When she reached it,

she had a decision to make.

Left or right.

Right would take her in the direction of Fenelon. Left would take her to that railway crossing, maybe half a mile up.

Annie turned left.

She drove slowly, window down, shouting out her son’s name every ten yards or so. She scanned the road from shoulder to shoulder.

The high beams caught something. Up ahead, on the opposite shoulder. Where the road rose slightly to meet the railroad crossing.

Something small and blue and moving.

Charlie, in his pajamas, his back to the headlights. He was walking slowly, had almost reached the crossing. Annie didn’t

hit the gas, didn’t want the sound of a racing engine to startle him. Once she was alongside, she stopped the car in the middle

of the road, headlights still on and flashers activated, and jumped out.

“Charlie,” she said, walking briskly to catch up to him. He was no more than thirty feet ahead of her. “Charlie, honey, it’s

Mommy.”

Charlie had reached the crossing and gone left a few feet, standing between the rails, rusty just as Daniel had said. The ties underfoot were broad, rotted slabs of weathered, rotting wood.

Annie caught Charlie by the arm and knelt before him. She took both his small hands in hers and spoke softly to him.

“Charlie? Charlie? It’s me. It’s Mommy. You need to wake up.”

Charlie, eyes open, seemed to look right through her.

“Come on, sport. You need to wake up and we need to get you home.” She gave his hands a squeeze. “You really scared the crap

out of me, you know that?”

Charlie said, “It’s coming.”

“What’s coming, sweetheart?”

Still looking vacantly beyond her, he said, “It’s coming.”

Charlie raised an arm and pointed over his mother’s shoulder.

Before Annie turned to look, she could feel a vibration in the ground beneath her. A truck, she thought, heading for the crossing.

Her car was still in the middle of the road, but she’d left the lights and emergency flashers on. It was impossible to miss.

But Annie didn’t see a truck, or a car, approaching from either direction. She looked back at Charlie and asked, “What’s coming,

Char—”

And then his face lit up, as though he were on a darkened stage and suddenly hit with a thousand-watt spotlight.

A deafening, primal, earthshaking roar followed, causing Annie’s heart rate to skyrocket.

Annie whipped her head around to see what was bearing down on them.

It was a train.

The engine’s headlight was so bright, so all-consuming, that it was impossible to see the rest of train it was attached to.

Annie wanted to scream, but there was no time for that. She figured she had no more than a second, maybe two, to grab Charlie and throw them out of the train’s path.

She pulled him in tight and in the moment before she jumped, the light was gone.

The vibrations ended.

The deafening roar ceased.

Slowly, Annie looked over her shoulder again. Save for a few stars in the sky, and the lights from her car, there was only

blackness.

Charlie stirred in her arms.

“Mommy?” he said, looking at her as though he really did see her, his voice full of innocence and wonderment. “Where am I?”