Lux Aeterna

“Quick! Hide!”

Mr Grey scrabbled free from the table in the middle of the train cabin and squeezed himself underneath the seat while Aurelia took a photo of the cards on the table then rearranged them into a game of solitaire.

Footsteps outside the cabin door grew louder, and then a figure – distorted by the frosted glass – appeared on the other side.

A knock, followed by: “Tickets, please.”

Aurelia grabbed her bag and pulled out her ticket: a piece of paper reading ONE TICKET (CHILD): EXETER TO GLASGOW OVERNIGHT. It had several perfectly circular holes in it, dotted around the edges of the paper so as not to erase any of the text.

Aurelia stood and slid the cabin door open.

Standing just outside was a man wearing a green uniform with gold buttons on the collar and down the front. His trousers were pinstriped and hung just over brightly polished black shoes. He had a sturdy hat on his head of the same colour scheme, with a golden strap stretching under his chin. Hung over his shoulder was a large, cumbersome machine: it looked like a typewriter without keys, only hammers with sharp edges.

The man frowned as he looked own at Aurelia.

“Are you on your own?” he asked. He looked over Aurelia’s head and craned his neck to take in as much of the cabin as he possibly could.

Mr Grey squashed himself further under the seat.

“Yes,” Aurelia answered, and she held out her ticket to the man.

The man narrowed his eyes at Aurelia and took her ticket. He inspected the text. Hummed. Dipped the corner of the ticket into the top of his machine and pressed a button: the hammers crunched down on the ticket and the man returned it to Aurelia, one hole richer.

“You keep this door locked overnight,” he warned. “Is the driver aware you’re travelling without a guardian?”

“Mm-hm!” Aurelia nodded. She moved the door to the cabin an inch closer to being shut.

“Alright, then.” The man tipped his hat to Aurelia and stepped back from the door. “Enjoy your journey.”

Then he turned and walked away and Aurelia shut the door. She twisted the lock until it gave a satisfying clunky click.

Mr Grey crawled out from underneath the seat and sat himself back down. His wide girth spread out across the entire backwards-facing bench. As Aurelia checked the photo on her phone and began rearranging the cards, Mr Grey took off his dark top hat and brushed the dust and fluff off the top.

“Thank you,” he said as Aurelia returned his hand to him; he took it back as he replaced his hat atop his round and wrinkled head. “I do believe you have an advantage, though.”

Aurelia spread out her hand in front of her, holding her cards close. “Oh?”

Mr Grey gestured to his cards. “You know what I hold.”

Aurelia shifted. “I’m going easy on you.”

Mr Grey threw his head back and laughed: a loud and guttural sound that made his flabby belly shake violently, knocking the table and disturbing the cards sitting atop it.

Aurelia clicked her tongue as she got to work putting them back where they had been, but there was a smile playing on her lips.

It took Mr Grey a few seconds to calm down; he wiped at his eye with the forefinger of his free hand, careful not to poke himself in the eye with his half-inch long, jagged fingernail.

“Perhaps we should play something else after this round,” he suggested. “Is it my turn?”

Aurelia nodded, her attention returned to her own hand. “Such as what?”

Mr Grey played a card. “Hiding under things?”

Aurelia looked over the top of her hand at Mr Grey. “You would have a natural advantage.”

“But you are smaller than I,” Mr Grey countered.

“But you have more experience,” Aurelia said, playing a card.

“But I have proved unsuccessful in the past.”

Aurelia frowned. She lowered her cards to the table. Mr Grey caught her expression over the top of his own cards, and his eyes went wide.

“I… I’m sorry,” he mumbled. He closed the fan of his hand and placed the cards face-down on the table. “I-I didn’t mean-”

Aurelia dipped her head and closed her eyes. She took a deep breath.

“We’ll be safe once we get to Scotland.”

Mr Grey nodded. “Monsters are more accepted beyond Hadrian’s Wall.”

Aurelia raised her head, but her gaze was on the cards on the table. “Hmm. It’s your turn.”

They didn’t play another round, but neither did they take Mr Grey’s suggestion. Aurelia cleared the cards away and Mr Grey asked for his book – Aurelia retrieved it from her bag. While Mr Grey read, Aurelia looked out of the window.

They had long left the familiar sights of industrialised towns and were now surging through countryside. Aurelia had never seen so much green in her life, obscured as it was by the steam from the train’s chimney.

As Mr Grey was reaching the end of his book, there was a rattling sound from the corridor outside.

Aurelia and Mr Grey met each other’s eyes. Mr Grey saved his place with a bookmark and handed his book over to Aurelia, who stashed it back in her bag as he once again slid underneath the seat.

Another figure appeared on the other side of the door. Aurelia unlocked it and slid it open.

It was a lady this time: wearing a white hat and a white dress and a white apron and pushing a trolley covered with black plastic trays domed with clear plastic.

“Aurelia Livingston?” the lady asked, and Aurelia nodded. The lady grabbed one of the trays and handed it over to her. “Chicken, chips, and ketchup.”

“Thank you.” Aurelia took the tray and placed it on the table. She reached into her pocket and produced a pound coin. “For you.”

“Oh!” The lady took the coin and dropped it into the wide front pocket of her apron. “Thank you, miss.”

Aurelia gave her a small smile and closed the door, locking it again.

The contents of the plastic package were obscured by the steam from the food within it, and when Aurelia lifted the lid she had to lean back and away from it to avoid a face-full of the stuff.

Mr Grey, having now extracted himself from underneath the seat again, leaned forward and stared down at the dinner.

Aurelia glanced up at him as she took the plastic cutlery tucked into the side of the clear plastic dome.

“Want some?”

Mr Grey wrinkled his button nose and sat back in his seat. “Oh, no. I don’t eat things like that.”

Aurelia stabbed one of the chips with her fork and held it up to Mr Grey. “Just a little taste?”

Mr Grey pursed his lips together and pressed himself back into the seat as far as he could, shaking his head.

Aurelia chuckled and shoved the chip in her mouth. Mr Grey relaxed.

“You should have some vegetables with that,” he said.

Aurelia rolled her eyes. “Next time.”

Mr Grey sat in silence watching Aurelia eat. Aurelia said nothing until she had finished her dinner and disposed of all the plastic in the small bin near the door, built into the bench.

By this time, night had fallen outside the train. Aurelia pulled a little string cord hanging from the ceiling near the cabin door, and a light hanging from the ceiling flickered on and bathed them with warm gaslight.

Mr Grey squinted and shrank further back in the seat.

“Oh, sorry,” Aurelia said, her hand still wrapped around the cord. “Did you want me to leave the light off?”

Mr Grey shook his head. “Oh, no. Don’t mind me.” He took his battered top hat off his head and stuck his face in it.

Aurelia frowned and took her seat again. She waited for a few moments. Mr Grey didn’t move.

“Are you okay?”

Mr Grey nodded, moving the hat up and down with his head. Slowly, he lowered the article and put it on the table. His eyes were closed.

“I’m perfectly fine. It just takes some getting used to.”

Aurelia sat back in her seat, looking at Mr Grey’s face: at the wrinkles and the scars and the birth marks and the moles. He was completely bald save for two wispy ginger hairs protruding from seemingly random points on the top of his head. His ears were pointy and crusty.

“Was it easier before we harnessed light?”

Mr Grey frowned, his closed eyes dipping at the corners.

“You’ll have to be more specific.”

“When we learned how to light entire buildings in the dark. Not just sit around a little campfire.”

Mr Grey pursed his lips. “It was. And it wasn’t. It isn’t the light that pains us, just the refraction through the glass. Your artificial lights are so… concentrated. Unnatural.”

Aurelia shifted in her seat. “That’s what we say about you.”

“It’s what your parents say about me. I suppose… who are we to determine what is natural? Who is anyone?”

Aurelia turned to the window; she could only see her own reflection looking back at her in the glass.

“Will things really be better in Scotland?”

Mr Grey hummed. “Light doesn’t touch the north in quite the same way. The sun there is… different.”

“And that’s better?”

“It shapes perceptions. Prejudices. It is not perfect. But, yes – it is better.”

Aurelia nodded. She looked down at her bag beside her. She pulled out her ticket.

“We’re supposed to arrive in the morning. First thing, or near enough.”

“You should get some sleep.”

Aurelia said nothing, looking down at the small ticket held with both her hands, the punctured edges pressed between her fingers and her thumbs.

“I suppose so.”

Stuffing the ticket in the front pocket of her jeans, Aurelia snatched the Do Not Disturb sign from the door handle. She opened the door just wide enough to fit her arm through and hooked the sign on the outside.

Then, she pulled the curtains shut over the windows: thick, burgundy hanging fabrics on a pulley controlled by plaited golden tiebacks.

She folded down the table so it slotted back into the wall. Then, she pulled the bed down over the seat. A button on the side of the bed caused a ladder to extend from the underside to the floor. Aurelia climbed up into the bed, taking her bag with her.

The bed was little more than a cantilevered ledge with a thin mattress covered with a sheet, two thin pillows, and a thin blanket. The metal frame creaked and groaned as Aurelia positioned herself comfortably but was quiet once she was still.

“Are you sure you don’t want to sleep in the other bed?” Aurelia asked, poking her head over the edge of her bed.

Mr Grey, his eyes still closed, shook his head. “I sleep under beds, not in them.”

Aurelia lay back, running her hand along the wall for the other light switch. A creak and a groan sounded from below, and Aurelia turned her head to see Mr Grey reaching for the string cord, scrabbling blindly.

Then, they were plunged into darkness.

There was another creak from Mr Grey’s direction.

Aurelia stared at the cabin ceiling for a moment, getting used to the rumble of the wheels beneath her back.

She pulled her phone from her bag, squinting at the light shining in her face in the darkness. The device had made no sound since she and Mr Grey had left, but the home screen was flashing with notifications of missed text messages and calls.

Her parents asking where she was.

Her parents asking if she was okay.

Her parents apologising for threatening Mr Grey.

Aurelia turned her phone screen off and stuffed the device in her bag. She lay back on the bed.

“Goodnight, monster.”

“Goodnight, little one.”

And Aurelia closed her eyes.