The hiss of steam sounds over the shriek of the tin whistles and constant hubbub of tourists on the platform as the train pulled into the last stop on the line. This was Weams Bay railway station and to Carys, the young witch sticking her head out the window of her train compartment, it wasn’t just a spot where holiday makers transferred from the railway to the paddle steamers for a trip out to the islands, an in between place. It was the start of her next chapter.

She’d been packed up by her mother at Grand Central Station that morning. The capital of the Thrupenny Lands had worked rather hard to earn that “grand” moniker. Vaulted glass ceilings let the smoke rise up so the crowds didn’t choke, and the shops that lined the wide concourse boasted the latest and greatest in technical marvels, from pocket watches for the busy business travellers, down to the half penny sheets each printed exactly the same and cheap enough for a busy housewife to buy with her pin money. Carys had been rather overwhelmed by the bustle, she didn’t usually come into the centre of town with her parents, the grocer’s and tobacconist’s shops on the ground floor of their flat seemed to her as busy as shops should get.

There had lots of arguments between Mother and Father leading up to the trip. Mostly with Father not wanting her to go and instead get apprenticed in one of the new businesses in town. Lots of growth in printing he’d said, and they would be glad to have her since Mother had taught her to read and write even before she’d gone to school. Mother had insisted it was only right for the eldest daughter to go into witching and that Granny had been expecting her for years. Father had pointed out that Mother wasn’t a real witch but a nurse. That put Mother in a huff and Father had apologised after all his shirts shrunk in the wash and he couldn’t seem to make a dinner without his portion burning.

So her mother had insisted, and her father hadn’t argued any further, so that had been that. Once they received a reply to Mother’s telegram she had been off. Off to Granny to learn the craft with her suitcase, a sandwich in a paper bag for the train, and a new pointy hat her father had hidden the bill for with a wink and a “don’t tell your mother”.

The journey had been her first time on a train and she’d loved it every bit as much as she’d imagined. She could see the new tracks sound being built from her bedroom window and once they were done she loved to listen to the clickity-clack and the train whistles as she drifted of to sleep. When there were cargo trains, loaded heavy and going a bit to fast, the whole building would judder and she would laugh along with the baby, chortling as his bassinet juddered him like Father bouncing him on his knee. From inside the carriage that juddering didn’t stop for all the hours of the trip. At first she giggled like at home but without the baby or any of her other siblings there it grew old and she listened peacefully to the click clack click clack as they rolled along.

After what had felt like hours (it was actually 10 minutes into the trip) she had given into the temptation of her sandwich. It was entertaining for a few minutes but once the distraction was gone she looked around, deciding to commit every detail to memory so she could paint Granny a picture over dinner. Carys bet Granny had never been on a train before. She was old and old people didn’t do things like that. She had a 2nd class ticket so she was tucked comfortably into a corner of a long wooden bench, facing another bench down the other side of the carriage. The few other passengers taking this long route on a Sunday were all reading or talking to their travel companions. The normal passengers would have gone on the Friday so they could spend the whole weekend on their tours, and would be waiting for the return train home when they arrived. A man with a very smart blue uniform and pillbox hat came and stamped her ticket, which was very exciting. She got it back with a little hole in the corner and decided to tuck it into her hatband as a souvenir.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Through the window the countryside flashed by, faster than she’d ever seen before. She hadn’t paid attention while they were in the city, too wrapped up in the new experience, but now they were in the real countryside and it was incredible! There were all sorts of animals out of one side of the train, cows and sheep, and even one field with large Snurgles, which she had only seen once in a museum before. They were from one of the more remote kingdoms up north and Father had said it was cold there which is why they had such thick coats. 

On the other side of the train they were running parallel to the Great Ooze, the river that brought trade and ships to the heart of the kingdoms. Early in the journey it was hard to catch a glimpse of anything but the shipyards that lined its banks but as time went on Carys caught more and more glimpses of blue, until at last they passed Queensfree Rock and there were no more factories allowed. When she was young Mother had told her the story of a Queen who had been overthrown by her son and imprisoned in a castle on the rock. But the Queen learned that the island was filled with ancient tunnels of mysterious origin and had escaped into them. She eventually found a path through to the riverside. There she met a fisherman and, because she was so beloved by the commonfolk as a kind and generous queen, he had helped her escape. When the people living along the banks had seen her proudly on the deck of the ship sailing passed they cheered “The Queen is free!”. She was so touched by their support that she decreed that the land would forever be theirs for fishing and farming. So the rock got its name and the coast from here on out remained free of the factories. 

Carys wasn’t so sure about the story. She knew most of the Kingdoms in the Thrupenny Lands weren’t actually ruled by real kings and queens but by Dukes and Princes and Bishops and things. And none of them seemed nice enough that someone would risk their boat getting chased down by the navy. Father had said that it was a folk tale and that the newspapers had announced a new motorised carriage factory to be opened passed there next year anyway.

Before much longer Carys had been rocked gently to sleep by the swaying of the train, waking up occasionally when the train stopped and people got on and off. Slowly, the few people who had been sharing the carriage left her and she had been finally awoken by the friendly ticket inspector telling her to prepare for the last stop of the line.

That’s when she had stuck her head out the window to see it all. The station, not as big as Grand Central, but still awe inspiring in its own way. Just one platform but at its end was a round ticket office which swooped up all the way to the ceiling like a grand pillar holding up the glass dome. All around in a big circle were little shop fronts, like the hours on a clock with the platform as one hand, and the other hand a pier jutting out into the river with the paddle steamers unloading the floods of tourists who had travelled “down the water”.

Each of the shops catered heavily to the tourists but were not quite the same class that had graced the fancy marble and mahogany store fronts of Grand Central. There was a small pub, with a sign forbidding children, a bookshop that seemed to deal mostly with second hand castoffs of train passengers, a fish and chip shop which had the smell of vinegar and a warm light wafting through the door, a souvenir shop that had line out the door and a sign boasting of “hundreds of postcards for your perusal”, right next-door to that was an ice cream parlour which made the same claim about their flavours. Even the local branch of the hunters guild had a small shopfront here. 

There was just one shop that didn’t seem to have the big bold advertising. In fact it didn’t even have a name written above it. Instead, a wooden broom hung in front of a sandstone shop front, with just a small window of frosted glass, to murky to see through. Outside was an iron bench with flowers and plants in little pots all around. Carys noticed that it was the one bench that was devoid of tourists, instead having a black cat curled up in the middle. A next to that black cat…sat Granny.