Marlow Runs the Starlit Line

The depot door rolled back and cold came in along the rails. Marlow the little engine was already humming. Three seed crates rode in his wagons, one wearing a sun, one a tall trellis, one a silver leaf. The gardeners would plant at sunrise, and Marlow wanted every seed there first. "Three stops before moonset," he said. "Ready on the rail."

Conductor Bea unfolded the route map. "Sunnybank first, for the sun crate. The trellis comes off at River Row. Then Shady Hollow, for the silver leaf." She folded the map away, and Marlow hummed it back. "Sun, trellis, leaf."

Bea checked the couplings and every crate label. The signal turned green. Steel wheels, soft hum, steady through the night.

The Starlit Line slid past the sleeping town, past drawn curtains and small gold pools of porch light. Marlow kept his headlamp low and his hum lower. Nobody woke, except one cat on a porch rail, who watched him all the way past.

The brakes took hold with a sigh. Marlow stood still at Sunnybank, where the fields ran open and flat. The gardener had raked a crumbly bed far from any shade, and Bea lifted down the sun crate, full of sunflower seeds.

The gardener held her lantern to the symbol on the crate, then to the sign beside her rows. Sun, and sun. Marlow watched how she did it. "Tall flowers come summer," she said, and waved them on down the line.

A mile on, a red signal shone beside the track. Bea brought Marlow to a stop before the white line. "Two more gardens," he hummed, but his wheels stayed still. A family of deer crossed at the woodland gate. Green at last, and Marlow rolled on.

The wait had left his motor fizzy. "Is it moonset yet?" he asked. "Not yet," said Bea from the cab. "One stop at a time." Marlow thought of the deer. One, two, three, the small spotted one in the middle, all safe across. The fizz went out of him mile by mile.

Water moved somewhere below the track, and poles came up out of the dark in pairs above a deep garden bed. "River Row," Marlow said. "The trellis goes here."

Another gardener was already tying string from pole to pole. "Beans climb," he said, "if you give them something kind to hold." The river hushed behind them while Bea set the crate between the poles.

Fog closed over the line as they climbed toward the last stop, and the rails went gray and then gone ahead of them. Bea slowed him and listened for the bell at the crossing. Steel wheels, soft hum, careful through the night.

Marlow wanted to hurry. "Is it moonset yet?" he whispered. "Can't see the moon," said Bea. "Can't see much track, either." She kept his pace slow. Out of the gray, little markers shone back at his lamp, and he counted them. One. Then another. Then another.

The bell rang, the crossing cleared, and a striped marker stood beside ferns shaped like his silver leaf. "Shady Hollow must be close," Marlow said. Through a gap in the fog, the moon was almost down.

At Shady Hollow, two garden gates stood close as twins in the gray. Bea turned toward the first. "Other gate," Marlow said. Bea looked again. On the far post was a little silver leaf. Leaf, and leaf. She gave Marlow's lamp a pat that meant good eyes.

Bea handed down the last crate, the woodland violet seeds. A gardener knelt under the trees and pressed a hand flat in the cool bed. "Damp, and dim under the leaves. That is all they ask for."

Three stops, and then the moon went down. On the homeward track, the three empty wagons rattled along behind him, light and loose, and on the porch rail the cat was fast asleep. "Three right places," Bea said, and his headlamp came up a shade brighter.

Back at the roundhouse, Marlow rolled onto his charging track, and Bea plugged him in. Steel wheels cool, hum gone, done until morning. His lamp dimmed to one warm dot. While three gardens slept, Marlow dreamed of roots pushing down through the dark.