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Tulip jerked awake. She could hear what sounded like someone sawing wood. Loudly. Has Mom taken up a new hobby? she wondered. Trying her best to ignore the horrible noise, she snuggled farther into her bed—why was it so hard? And why did her sheets feel funny?
Finally, her brain reminded her that she wasn’t at home; she was in Arizona with her dad. And her new sister, Lake. Who was asleep in the bed next to her.
Although the sun hadn’t quite risen yet, there was enough light to see everything in the room well enough. Peering over to the bed, she saw a silver foot dangling off it. Peeking out from the black and white plaid pajama pants was the mirror that Tulip had given Lake so that she could leave the Chrome Car.
The sound was definitely coming from her sister. Propping herself up out of her sleeping bag so she could get a better view of Lake, she saw her sprawled out on the bed, arms and legs akimbo, with her blanket twisted around various body parts. Her mouth was wide open and she was snoring so loud that Tulip expected her dad to come bursting through the door at any moment.
Is… that drool? Tulip asked herself, then decided she didn’t want to know. It was too early to be up, and she was going to force herself to try and get back to sleep, even though there was no way it was going to happen with the racket that Lake was making. She just had to resign herself to being super slee—
***
For the second time that day, Tulip jerked awake. This time it was to some very loud retro music coming from somewhere near her head. Tulip started searching for the source of the noise as the lyrics “Train to nowhere / at least you’re there” kept blasting. It didn’t take her long to realize that the source was Lake’s phone. From the lock screen, it seemed that Jesse was making good on his promise to call her bright and early. (It wasn’t even 8am yet, what kind of monster calls before then?)
“Lake!” she shouted. How could anyone sleep through something that loud?
No response.
“LAKE!” she tried, louder this time.
Still nothing.
She chucked her pillow at Lake, hitting her in the face. “Lake, I swear if you do not get up and answer that phone right now I am going to… something! And it won’t be pleasant!”
Lake groaned. “C’mon, Jesse, give me five more minutes.”
Exasperated, Tulip answered the video call herself.
“Hey, Lake!” Jesse said, grinning so wide Tulip wished she could reach through the phone and slap him. “Tulip? Don’t tell me; Lake won’t wake up.”
Tulip scowled. “At this point I think Lake’s the only one in a two-block radius who wasn’t woken up by you calling. She had her ringtone set so loud that it could wake the dead. But not her, apparently.”
“Put me right up against her ear,” Jesse told her.
Tulip did so and heard Jesse say something—she couldn’t hear what—and suddenly Lake bolted out of bed and grabbed the phone. “I’m up! I’m up! But, Jesse, if you make good on that threat, then I’ll—” she looked at Tulip and then back at Jesse, “well, let’s just say that your mom will have to add a new rule regarding family warfare.”
Jesse laughed and Tulip could see him putting his hands up in surrender (he must have propped his phone up on something). Not really wanting to intrude on whatever bizarre morning ritual the two had going, Tulip busied herself with rolling up her sleeping bag and putting it off into a corner so it would be out of the way during the day.
Her attention was piqued, however, when she heard him ask, “Sooooooo, whatcha doing today? Anything fun?”
“Well…” Lake trailed off, looking at Tulip as if she was trying to figure out what the other girl was thinking.
Tulip nervously ran her fingers up her neck and through her hair before saying, “I was… uhm… well I was thinking that we could have a sister bonding day.”
There was a slight pause, and then Jesse said in an artificially cheery voice, “Right! That makes sense. Gotta get all the sister time now before Tulip has to go back to Minnesota and all that. Well, you girls have fun, then. I’ll see if Nate has something he wants to do.”
Lake bit her lip and gave the phone a worried look. “You’re cool with that?”
“Absolutely!” he said, although Tulip was pretty sure he was just trying to be nice. “But you’d better call me tonight! It’s just not the same if I have to brush my teeth alone.”
Lake laughed at that. “You’re such a dork. Of course I’ll call you.”
After the two had hung up, Tulip said, “Dad should be getting up soon, so why don’t we go down to the kitchen and figure out what to do for breakfast?”
“Sounds good,” Lake said with a yawn.
***
After some deliberation, the girls decided that today was a cereal day and were happily munching on their breakfast when Andy walked into the kitchen, fully dressed and looking mostly awake.
“Morning, Dad,” Tulip said automatically.
“Morning,” he responded, fishing some frozen waffles out of the fridge and popping them into the already unpacked toaster.
Tulip glanced over to Lake and saw that she was eyeing him warily. Her dad hadn’t acknowledged Lake, but from his demeanor Tulip was pretty sure it wasn’t deliberate but rather him just not being used to her yet. At least she hoped that was the case.
Once his waffles were done, he sat down with them at the table and started eating in silence.
“So,” Tulip began, trying to break the awkward silence, “Lake and I are going to have a sister bonding day today, although we can help with the unpacking if you want.”
It took a second for Andy to focus on what Tulip had said, but he glanced at Lake before responding. “I’ve got a of lot errands I have to run, so I’ll be out most of the day. You girls can entertain yourselves.”
“Is it alright if I order some stuff for Lake?” Tulip asked, trying to remain unfazed by how her dad was acting. “She needs a laptop and some other school supplies and her room is super boring, so it would be nice if we could get a few things to personalize it. But the school stuff will be kind of expensive, so I understand if that sort of thing isn’t in the budget.”
Andy shrugged. “Get anything you like. Part of the government’s deal was what they called a ‘reintegration package’, so there’s money specifically set aside for… Lake.”
Standing abruptly, he put his now-empty dish in the sink and then turned to Tulip. “Anyway, Bud, I’m going to get going now. I probably won’t be back until dinner, so fix yourself a sandwich or whatever for lunch. If you need anything, give me a call or text.”
“Uh… sure.” This time Tulip was taken aback by his rude behavior. Sure, her dad could sometimes be insensitive, but he usually made an effort to be polite. I get that he’s going through a lot of stuff over this sudden change, but it’s not like it’s Lake’s fault this happened.
With that, Andy walked out of the room and right afterwards Tulip heard the front door open and close.
The sound of sniffling caught her attention, and she looked over at Lake. During the strained conversation, the girl had been clearly tense but now that their dad was gone… Lake’s hands were balled into fists and tears were leaking from her eyes.
“He couldn’t even talk to me,” she said angrily.
Tulip reached out to take Lake’s hand in hers. The other girl started at the contact, but quickly relaxed and opened her fist. “I’m sorry. Dad’s being a jerk. You know how he can get sometimes.”
“Yeah,” Lake said, “but this is bad, even for him. He hates me.”
Tulip shook her head vigorously. “He doesn’t hate you! Honestly, I think it’s that he hates the situation and because you’re technically the cause of it, he’s putting the blame on you. It’s not fair, and he’ll eventually realize that. It sometimes takes time, but Dad always comes around in the end.”
“I hope so,” Lake said in a small voice. Then she took a deep breath, scrubbed her tears away, and took her mostly-eaten cereal to the sink. While she was washing her dish, she said, “Anyway, today is supposed to be about us, so let’s put all that drama away for now and have some sisterly fun. Whatever that means.”
“I don’t know either, but I’m excited to find out!”
***
As soon as they got back to Lake’s room, Tulip pulled out her laptop and loaded up the pages she had bookmarked with the laptop models she thought would be good for Lake.
Setting the computer down on the floor so Lake could see the screen, she said, “Okay, so obviously I pre-researched some potential options for you, since we want to make sure you have a good machine.”
Before Lake could open her mouth to protest (like she had with the phones), Tulip added, “Computers are one of the most important things to get right, even if you aren’t a nerd like me.”
“Fine, fine,” Lake said, rolling her eyes. “Move over so I can check out the specs.”
The active tab was a run-of-the-mill laptop which had good specs and was decently priced, although it came with some garbageware that Lake would have to uninstall herself, since the computer wouldn’t arrive until after Tulip was gone.
“This one’s not bad, but I remember this company loading up your old computer with a bunch of useless and annoying programs,” Lake said, echoing Tulip’s thoughts.
Tulip beamed. “Knowing you absorbed some of the geek knowledge from me makes me feel better about your ability to fend for yourself technology-wise.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Lake replied drolly.
The next tab had a tablet-style laptop whose ratings were just as good as more traditional laptops. Tulip had never tried one herself, since they tended to focus more on portability and therefore had weaker CPUs. You could game on them, but not very well.
Lake looked over that one without comment, and then switched to the final tab which was the newest model of Tulip’s computer. Since it was pretty much the same thing, but with the newest hardware, she could say with confidence that it would serve Lake well if she chose it.
Tulip watched as Lake switched between the two tabs, clearly comparing the specs. Understandably, it was a tough choice since both machines had various pros and cons.
At length, Lake said, “I’m torn between the portability of the tablet and the computing power of the laptop. If all I’m going to do is school stuff and internet surfing, then the tablet makes the most sense. But for anything more than that it would probably chug pretty hard.”
“What do you think you’d be doing with it? Gaming?” Tulip asked.
“Maybe,” Lake replied. “And/or video editing, drawing, or whatever. The problem is that I’ve never been able to do what I want on a computer, so I don’t know what I like!”
Seeing Lake growing frustrated, Tulip gently took her laptop and set it on the floor. A bit away from Lake. There was prooobably nothing to worry about, but best keep the precious machine out of harm’s way so as to avoid any accidents.
“Well, you’re pretty strong, right?” Tulip said, thinking about the kind of strength someone would need in order to fight off the flecks. “So, lugging around a few extra pounds probably wouldn’t phase you that much.”
Lake thought for a moment and then nodded. “Good point. And it’s not like there’s a huge price difference, so it’s probably safer to go with more power over less since I’m going to be stuck with this machine for the next few years at least.”
“Good thinking,” Tulip said, picking up the computer and loading up her (open source, of course) password manager. “So, let me log in and we can get it on order. It should arrive just before school starts.”
After choosing the specs and what options Lake wanted, Tulip pressed the order button. Her dad had let her put his credit card on Tulip’s various accounts after he got tired of always having to log in and enter it manually any time she wanted to make a purchase. In turn, Tulip agreed to always clear any purchase that went beyond her weekly allowance with him first (they signed a contract and everything).
With that taken care of, it was time to move onto fixing the sorry state of Lake’s room. “Alright, so where should we start? Decorating your room, I mean. Posters?”
Lake shrugged. “I guess a Chicken Choice Judy poster would be nice. Assuming one exists.”
“A… what?”
Apparently Chicken Choice Judy was the name of some retro band Lake and Jesse had discovered via some old CDs lying around in the Cosays’ house. It was the song that Lake had set to Jesse’s ring tone. Tulip supposed it was kind of catchy.
“Okay, let’s see what we can find,” Tulip said, searching an online store that had a wide variety of stuff on it.
Amazingly, there was, in fact, a poster for them. Although with the advent of print on demand, there was probably a poster for just about anything. At Lake’s request, Tulip put in an order for one poster and two t-shirts (the second one was for Jesse).
The rest of the morning was spent trying to figure out what furniture the room needed—desk and chair, dresser, nightstand, and light—and then also purchasing some extras that Tulip insisted Lake would need, like better sheets (the plain white stuff that had been provided simply wouldn’t do), a laundry basket, and a trash can.
“Alright already,” Lake grumbled when Tulip pulled up desk accessories. “We can’t buy random crap for a desk that I don’t even have yet. I promise I’ll buy all those fripperies as soon as I figure out what I need.”
Tulip laughed and rubbed her neck. “Too much?”
“Just a bit,” Lake replied, rolling her eyes.
“Why don’t we make some sandwiches for lunch?” Tulip asked after glancing at her phone and realizing that it was afternoon already.
“Sounds good to me,” Lake replied, heading out the door without waiting for Tulip to follow her.
Tulip hadn’t known Lake long enough to get a full sense of what kind of person she was, but that had been so Lake-like that she couldn’t help laughing to herself as she followed the other girl into the kitchen.
***
After their quick lunch, the girls were heading back to Lake’s room to just hang out when Tulip grabbed an onion and started eating it.
“Ugh, I somehow managed to forget just how gross that is,” Lake complained, making exaggerated gagging motions.
Tulip rolled her eyes. “Hey, we all have our quirks. Onions for me, snoring loud enough to wake the dead for you.”
“Hmph!” Lake crossed her arms over her chest and glared at Tulip. “I get that from you! You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to fall asleep with all the racket you make.”
“I don’t snore!”
“Do too!”
“Do not!”
Unable to help it, Tulip started laughing at the absurd situation. Wiping the tears from her eyes, she said, “I guess this is what it means to have a sister.”
“I guess so,” Lake said.
Happy is a good look on her, Tulip thought.
Lake plopped herself on the floor with her back against the bed and Tulip sat down close by (but not too close, lest she get teased for having onion breath). They stayed like that for a few minutes in companionable silence, each thinking their own thoughts while Tulip munched quietly on her onion.
At length, Lake said, “Sooooo…”
“Mmm,” Tulip replied, taking the last bite of her onion. “What should we do?”
“Just as long as you don’t say something like ‘braid each other’s’ hair’ or something equally obnoxious, I’m good with anything,” Lake said.
Tulip laughed. “It’s not like you have any hair to braid, anyway. Hmm… Oh! Why don’t you finish the story of when you were on the train?”
“Oh, right,” Lake said. “I think we left off with me meeting Alan Dracula and Jesse?”
“Yup.”
Lake was quiet for a minute, obviously formulating what to say. “Hmm, well, Jesse showed up just when I was starting to get used to the idea of it being just me and ‘the deer’. From my perspective, he was harassing the deer. He put sunglasses on him! Sunglasses!”
Tulip snort-laughed. “That sounds kind of cute, actually.”
“It’s not cute, it’s a crime against deer-kind!” Lake retorted, crossing her arms over her chest.
Tulip just laughed in response.
“Well, anyway, Jesse was being Jesse and acting as if everything was cool, but I was just so angry that he had come and messed everything up. It didn’t help that he claimed that the deer was ‘his’ deer.”
Tulip nodded. “That must have stung, given how you had been forced by mirror law to live as ‘my’ reflection instead of being able to be who you are.”
“Oh,” Lake said. “I hadn’t really thought of it that way, but yeah. I also got super mad at him for ‘deciding people’s names without asking’ when he came up with Alan Dracula and then called me ‘chrome girl’. It felt… it felt like it had when I was trapped in the mirror world. So, yeah, that makes a lot of sense.”
“Call it twin intuition?” Tulip beamed and held her fist out for a fist bump.
Lake eyed it suspiciously for a second before bumping fists.
The contact was a lot more solid than Tulip had thought it would be (although, in retrospect, Lake’s fist was made out of metal, so what had she expected?) and so she had to shake out her hand.
Looking unrepentant, Lake continued her story. “So, um, obviously I got into a fight with Jesse. He was so… so… oblivious! He was acting like everything was no big deal, but it was. Honestly, at that moment I couldn’t imagine a worse person to have to be stuck travelling with. But, looking back on it, I am pretty sure that Alan Dracula knew he and I would be good for each other. He was definitely the glue that held us together in the beginning.”
Lake explained about what she called “the Family Tree Car”, where Alan Dracula had manipulated them into going after him. The tree itself reacted to emotions, which forced her to start getting to know Jesse and therefore made it harder for her to see him as just a super-temporary annoyance.
“After we found Alan Dracula—who had definitely been trolling us by falling down that tree—I told Jesse that, since we were both friends with the deer, the only fair solution was for us all to travel together until he got his exit. Only to get him off the train, though, not because I liked him or anything!”
“Uh-huh,” Tulip replied with a smirk. “He definitely hadn’t started growing on you or anything.”
“Uuugh!” Lake scowled at her. “First, that was a terrible pun. Second, stop it with the twin intuition thing!”
Tulip laughed. “Well, pun was not intended, but yeah it was kind of terrible. And you’ll probably be much better at me at the twin intuition thing, so I gotta get my wins in where I can!”
“Sure, whatever,” Lake replied, rolling her eyes. She then took a deep breath in and continued, “I hadn’t told Jesse about me being on the run from the flecks. Mostly because I felt like it wasn’t his business, but, if I’m being honest, part of me was afraid that if he knew that he’d see me like they did. Not as my own person, but just… a reflection of someone else.”
Reaching, out Tulip put her hand on Lake’s shoulder. “Even when you were stuck reflecting me, you were never just a reflection. Just because your society treated you like you weren’t a person in your own right doesn’t make it true. You know that, right?”
“I…”
Tulip could see the tears leaking out of Lake’s eyes. Obviously, she hadn’t known that. Or, at least, she hadn’t known that anyone else saw it that way. Tulip wished that she had been able to know sooner about Lake; she would have done anything to save her twin from having to endure that kind of pain for all those years.
She noticed Lake was looking at her, and wondered how much of her thoughts the other girl could read from her face.
Wordlessly, Lake reached up and squeezed Tulip’s hand. “Thank you. It means so much for someone to say that to me.”
Wiping her eyes, Lake continued telling Tulip about the various cars the three of them went through and how her misguided attempt to get Jesse’s number down eventually morphed into a friendship.
When Lake got to the part about a carnival where they were competing to win the exit, her fist suddenly clenched. “Jesse and I were playing the same games, but he was getting more points than I did—even when I won!”
Tulip was angry for Lake. “What? That’s not fair!”
“The water dude said passengers got ‘preferential treatment’ because of their ‘greater need’,” Lake told her.
Tulip’s eyes widened. On the one hand, most denizens wouldn’t care much about the exit so even if they competed for it, getting fewer points might not bother them. On the other hand, it was a slap in the face to Lake. A reminder that she was seen as ‘less than’ humans.
“That must have felt awful.”
“Yeah, well,” Lake said, looking away, “one good thing did come of it. That’s when Jesse told me that he wanted us—me—to leave with him when he got his exit.”
“Oh,” Tulip replied, starting to understand why Jesse was so important that Lake wouldn’t move out to Minnesota to live with her.
When Lake went on to talk about the Apex, Tulip privately thought that the train had been putting Lake through the same thing that it did passengers. Forcing her to confront her fears again and again, hopefully coming away stronger from the experience.
“…and when that horrible girl brought down the flecks on me, Jesse was there for me. He wasn’t thinking about the train, or getting his number down, or anything—all he wanted was to get me somewhere safe. That’s when his number hit 0. ‘We’re getting out of here,’ he said, and I believed him. He believed him.”
That didn’t sound good. “But?”
“But you can’t take an exit that isn’t yours,” Lake said. “And once you go in the door, you can’t come out again. He held onto my hand, even though I couldn’t go through the door and he couldn’t come back. I… I felt his hand just… dissolve in mine.”
Lake was flexing her hand, as if she was reliving that moment.
Tulip brought her in for a hug. “After we parted ways, Amelia—she had taken the train from One-One—well, she turned Atticus into a ghom. I couldn’t do anything to save him. I tell myself that it’s okay, because I was able to turn him back to normal. But I still have nightmares about it.”
Giving Tulip a squeeze before wiggling out of the hug, Lake said, “Even when it turns out okay, a part of you is never okay.”
“Yeah.”
Lake pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged them tight to her chest. “But what came next was almost worse than that moment.”
She hadn’t even been allowed her grief, because the flecks were still trying to kill her. One of them—Mace—got so close as to cuff her, only to be sliced in half by an incoming car.
Despite Lake’s unemotional retelling of that part, Tulip found it pretty horrific. The idea of having to lug around a dying man who wanted to see you dead made everything Tulip had gone through seem like a walk in the part. Poor Lake.
“He kept taunting me. Even when we were surrounded by ghoms in the wasteland, all he wanted to do was rub it in that I wasn’t good enough. Not good enough to be a ‘proper’ reflection, not good enough to be a passenger, and not good enough to live in the Prime world. It was absurd, really, the idea that I could live a parallel life to my Prime, doing normal stuff like high school and whatever.”
Tulip burst out laughing. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I know it’s serious and not funny, but the thought of you doing exactly what that jerk tried to convince you was ridiculous is the best kind of poetic justice I can think of. I hope he’s rolling over in his grave with his own personal hell being that he has to know that not only did he fail in his mission, but that you’re living the life you deserve.”
“I guess I did show him,” Lake said with a bitter smile. “But… maybe he was right about one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“The Chrome Car. The train made it, right? And the cars are there to help passengers. So… w-what if it was made just so I could help you learn? What if I was created just to help you learn? To help Jesse learn?”
There was a certain logic to that, but it felt wrong. “But the mirror world exists outside of the train, right?”
“Yes, of course,” Lake said.
“So that makes no sense,” Tulip replied, confident in her assessment. “I mean, sure, maybe the Chrome Car was created to help passengers like me, ah, reflect on our behavior. But it didn’t make you, and it had nothing to do with the fact that you wanted your own life. It was a just a portal, really. One that you were able to take advantage of to cross over to the Prime world.”
Lake frowned and took a minute to presumably think about what Tulip had said.
“I guess,” she said. “I didn’t want to listen to him. I’m a person and I’m real. I have to be. But…”
“But it gets in your head, and you can’t help but wonder, ‘Was he right? Am I the one who’s in denial?’ Even though you’re not.”
Nodding, Lake scooched over to Tulip to rest her head on the other girl’s shoulder. “Exactly. At least he had one good piece of advice, though. Passengers have numbers; that’s how you get an exit. So, in order to get an exit to escape the train and find Jesse, I needed a number.
“In order to find a pod, though, I needed to be back on the train. But when I was trying to get back on it, Mace tried to kill me. It was me or him; he made that clear. So… I did what I had to do.”
“Oh, Lake,” Tulip said, squeezing her sister’s hand. “That must have been so awful.”
Lake tensed up, but didn’t move her hand away. “Yeah, well, it was. But whatever. I can’t… I won’t… I did the right thing. I did.”
“Yes, you did,” Tulip said.
Obviously not wanting to dwell on the issue, Lake launched back into her story. “And I made it to where passengers are processed—the tape thing is super creepy, by the way—and I went to get my number. Except… numbers are personalized. You can’t take the number of someone else, and only One-One can make the train give someone a number.”
“Well, that couldn’t have gone well,” Tulip said, shaking her head. “I love One-One, but he’s not exactly the best at logic.”
“He thought I was ‘exactly where I’m supposed to be’,” Lake growled. “Numbers are for passengers and I couldn’t get one because I had to stay and keep helping, like a good little denizen.”
Tulip shook her head. “See? That’s exactly what I was saying. It’s illogical to treat you like a denizen because he didn’t create you or the world you come from. They don’t want to get off the train, because the train’s their home. But it’s not your home. You belong here, in the Prime world, and not in that alternate universe, pocket dimension, whatever it is.”
“That… makes me feel a lot better, actually.” Lake let out a small laugh. “I wish I had thought to use that line of reasoning on him. I wonder if it would have worked. But, in the end, I guess it didn’t matter because Jesse came back for me.”
She went on to explain about the endless loop caused by Jesse’s problem (the train fixes problems, but his problem was that Lake had to leave with him, but she was a denizen who couldn’t get a number, so the problem couldn’t be fixed… rinse and repeat), how Sieve—the other fleck—had shown up and resumed trying to kill her, and the ingenious way she had come up to get a number and therefore an exit.
Tulip thought about all that for a second and said, “I wonder why the train let him back on. Honestly, it seems like it was more for you than him.”
“I guess.” Lake shrugged, obviously uninterested in following that line of thought. “All I care about is that I’m off the train and I’m with Jesse, just like he promised.”
Knowing how much the two of them had fought to be together made Tulip finally understand why they hated to be separated, even if it was just a few blocks.
“I get it now,” Tulip said. “Why you have to stay here instead of living with us in Minnesota.”
“Huh?”
Tulip reached over with her left hand to ruffle Lake’s prickly (but surprisingly softer than expected) needle-like fuzz. “After hearing your story, it makes sense. I mean, of course I want you to live with us. It sucks having to leave you just when I got you back. But we’ll have video chats and visits and everything. The bond we share can survive and thrive off of that. But your bond with Jesse is different, and I get that now.”
“Oh.”
Tulip rested her head on Lake’s head (which was still on her shoulder), content to just enjoy the moment they were sharing.
“I love you, sis,” Lake said after a while.
“I love you too,” Tulip replied.
It was a funny feeling, having a sister to love. Having grown up an only child, Tulip had sometimes wondered what it would be like, but she never could have imagined it would be like this. And now that she had the rest of her life to experience all the good and bad of having a sibling, she couldn’t be happier.