Tulip tumbled to the ground, hands and knees landing on soft earth. The golden glow of her exit door dissipated in the blink of an eye, leaving her kneeling alone in the middle of the yard.

Her yard.

She really was home.

The front door was unlocked, but she hesitated before opening it. How would she explain to her parents? Would they even believe her if she told them the truth? How could she prove —

She shook her head, and swung the door wide open. She’d faced countless challenges far more intimidating than reuniting with her parents. She was ready for this.

They were both here, her mom and her dad, and they were sitting at the kitchen table.

“I think I’m gonna head out now,” her dad said. “Can you call me if they say it looks like the Michigan lead might actually… amount to something?”

“You know I will,” her mom replied as he stood up. “Be careful on the road. I heard there’s a thunderstorm coming in —”

Almost in perfect unison, their heads swiveled around to stare at Tulip as she entered the kitchen. They didn’t say anything.

Tulip froze. She wasn’t ready for this.

“I’m back from game design camp,” she said weakly, and gave an awkward wave.

As if her words had broken a spell of paralysis, her parents rushed towards her. Her dad got there first, and practically crushed her in a bear hug.

“Tulip, where have you been? We know it’s not game design camp, so — so don’t try and tell us — oh my god, I just can’t believe you’re okay.”

“You are okay, aren’t you? No one hurt you?” her mom asked, brushing a hand against Tulip’s cheek as she pulled her into another hug. “This scar — when did this happen? Who did this to you?”

“The police have been looking all over,” her dad explained. “We were afraid you were dead in the Wisconsin wilderness, or tied up in someone’s basement — where were you, Tulip?!”

“It’s good to see you guys too,” Tulip whispered, wiping her eyes. “But it’s — it’s kind of hard to explain. I don’t think I ever thought about how I would explain it, because getting home always felt so far away…”

She took a deep breath. “Okay, here goes. This is going to sound unbelievable, but… I was on this crazy magical train where every car was a different universe. And there were robots, and corgis, and evil robots too, and this number on my hand that I had to get to zero before I could leave —”

Her parents exchanged a concerned look.

“Don’t look at each other like that! It was all real —” Tulip gasped. “And I can prove it, too! I need something reflective!”

She rushed back to the hallway, and skidded to a stop in front of the large rectangular mirror that hung on the wall. “See? No reflection!”

Reflected in the mirror, she saw her mother’s jaw drop as her father raised his hands to cover his mouth. There was no sign of Tulip’s reflection.

To drive the point home, she pulled a pen out of her pocket and waved it around. The mirror showed it floating through thin air, even when Tulip held it behind her back.

“How…?”

“I pulled my reflection out of a mirror and let her wander the world on her own,” Tulip explained. “She’s pretty cool once you get to know her. I just wish I had a way to know how she and the others are doing now…”

***

Tulip was used to that strange sensation when you return home to sleep in your own bed for the first night after a long road trip, and all the perfectly normal fixtures of your house feel alien for the first few hours back. But that feeling was nothing compared to the wave of disbelief she felt when she finally made her way back into her bedroom.

Her shelves had been dusted and her fish had been feed, but almost everything was still right where she’d left it — from her coding books, to the pictures of Mikayla and her family, and even the ribbons pinned to her bulletin board and the medal hanging from the lamp on her desktop. Her room looked too clean to be lived in, yet still too cluttered to be out of use — just like how she felt she’d been away for both an eternity, and no time at all — and the more she thought about that contradiction, the more overwhelming it grew.

(Tulip felt a brief pang of guilt for forcing her mom to make the choice between cleaning up and leaving things as they were. How many days had she come in here to dust, forced to look at all the reminders of her missing child?)

She collapsed onto her bed and lay motionless for a few minutes, staring at the ceiling and tracing the path that the cracks in the tiles took, just like she used to do whenever she couldn’t fall asleep. The winding path led her eyes down to the shelf above her desk, decorated with extra Christmas tree lights that never ended up being needed — lights that she hadn’t yet turned on this evening, but were somehow still flickering before her eyes.

Tiny sparks danced in tiny bulbs, as if the current running through was coming not from the plug they were attached to, but rather induced by some other electromagnetic phenomenon nearby. A soft clatter rang in her ears — like a piece of plastic falling and landing on something hard — but went silent after just a fraction of a second, leaving Tulip to wonder if she’d imagined it.

She stood up, approaching her desk with a caution she’d learned early in her stay on the train. There was one new object on her shelf, in front of her bulletin board of notes and awards — and she couldn’t be sure, but she had a hunch it hadn’t been there for more than just a few moments.

It was a sleek, black, rectangular flash drive, and as she picked it up, she noticed there were two words written on one side in a familiar glowing green font.

Infinity Train.

She inserted it into her computer’s USB port — getting the alignment right on her first try, which was probably a stronger indication of supernatural involvement than anything — and opened the single folder it contained, labeled with the same title.

Inside was a long list of .mp4 files, so long that several seconds of scrolling with the mouse wheel seemed to hardly move the scroll bar at all. Tulip did, however, recognize several familiar file names:

Music_ in_Space_Car

Corgi_Car

Italy_Car

Chrome_Car

And so on, continuing seemingly ad infinitum. But more than any other, Tulip felt drawn to the first file, titled:

Engine.

She double-clicked to open it, and for a moment, static filled her brain. But then she blinked, and found herself staring down at her own hands — holographic and transparent, as if she was still physically sitting at her desk while her mind was projected into a distant location.

“Hello, Miss Tulip!” One-One chirped from his position in the center of the train’s control board. “My mom and I figured out a way to keep in touch!”