The constellation ticket unfolds into a paper staircase. Quill holds it against the wall, and the folds become steps large enough to climb. At the top is a carriage with a glass roof and no visible connection to the train below. Stars drift just beyond the windows. Each has a small brass label hanging beneath it. You expect names from an atlas. Instead, you find The bakery she nearly opened. The apology he kept rewriting. The swimming lesson on Thursday. One star is the colour of your father's kitchen lamp. You recognise the day you almost telephoned him from a service station. It was raining. You had bought a terrible sandwich. You sat in the car until the phone stopped suggesting his name, then drove on. Here, inside the little star, you can see another version of the afternoon. You call. He answers. Neither of you says anything especially clever. There is a long conversation about a leaking gutter. You ask Quill whether the star can tell you what would have happened next. No. Only what might have begun. We are very careful about the distinction. Certainty attracts the wrong sort of passenger. You cannot decide whether this is disappointing or kind. At a desk beneath the glass, someone has been drawing the same sunrise over and over. Every page stops before the sun clears the horizon. A yellow sleeve is caught in the hinge of the next door, but when you turn, it slips free. Quill studies the abandoned drawings. His tail goes still. That is new. Usually the stars remain content with being possible. You fold the staircase back into your ticket. It is surprisingly easy once you stop trying to make every crease perfect. Downstairs, a child is singing the first half of a song, then beginning again.
A midnight train has lost its final minute. Follow a silver fox through impossible stations, and find your own way to morning.
Listen closely. Choose carefully. Carry the consequences.
Every path leaves a different story.