The Fare Ledger

Every third Thursday at precisely seven o’clock, the woman in the periwinkle dress appeared onboard the old westbound line––the Asphodel, as it was referred to by those who knew it.

None of the train’s passengers ever saw the woman slip between its rusty, grinding doors; there was simply a jingling, tri-tone chime, and then she was there, seated squarely in the middle of its bustling central car.

She settled herself the same way each morning, tucking her blue silk dress beneath her stockinged legs, reaching up to smooth the elaborate coiffure sitting atop her head. Her face was that of a young woman, though her hair was a crisp, bright white, and her clothes, which smelled of fresh lilies, looked to be fashioned after a vaguely bygone era. Her dark eyes and snowflake lashes were unusually large and unblinking, watching those who milled about her with an inscrutable curiosity.

Bearing no coat and no bags, the strange, unaccompanied woman only ever carried two things on her person: a small, black cahier, and a sharp silver pen. Each morning she wet the writing instrument with a flick of her pink tongue, flipping the notebook open and crossing her legs neatly underneath it. Its blank pages always stared up at her, ever hopeful that she’d fill them in, but for some reason, she never did. From sunup to sundown, she sat with her hand hovering over the faded leather binding, pen held loosely in her long, slender fingers, never quite putting ink to paper. She seemed to be waiting for something, or someone; her searching eyes never left the train’s oft-changing crowds.

Her expression remained largely untroubled as she watched people come and go, although it would occasionally tighten at disruptive passengers, or soften at the rare child passing by. She once sat a bit straighter as an old doctor shuffled in with his worn black bag, but she turned away upon catching sight of his browbeat-looking wife.

Thus went most of the woman's days on the Asphodel, sitting in silent observation until the skies darkened and the train whistled its final stop, upon which she would snap her notebook shut, uncross her ankles, and vanish just as quickly and inexplicably as she’d come.

***

It was on a third Thursday much like any other, in the second week of March, when a particularly disheveled passenger entered the Asphodel’s central car. He stumbled inside, a bitter wind at his back slamming the door behind him. He glanced around and muttered his apologies for the noise he hadn’t made.

The man was ignored by most––only the woman watched as he limped along the aisles, searching for a place to rest. Though he was neither very young nor very old, life had undoubtedly aged him. She could hear the hunger rattling through his stinking body, feel the pain as it gnawed his aching bones. His grey face was a gaunt canyon, marked by deep, craterous lines, and his burly fingers, once deft and strong, had turned a raw, mottled purple in the final days of winter.

Such things the woman had seen before, and still she’d never been moved to make a mark within her book. She allowed herself a small sigh, and was just about ready to fix her attention elsewhere when the man did something unexpected. He found the last vacant seat, but instead of claiming it for himself, he held it open for another passenger––a woman so wrinkled and frail that the word ‘old’ didn’t do her justice. She was puttering around the far end of the car, fretting about not knowing where to go. The man called out and beckoned her forward, which earned him a round of suspicious looks from his fellow westward travelers.

The woman in blue gripped her pen just a bit tighter, so fascinated was she by the dirty, limping man. She’d never seen a passenger forfeit their place like that; the Asphodel ran at full capacity every day and seats were devilishly hard to come by.

Her dark eyes flashed as she watched the man lumber back across the train. He lowered himself unsteadily to the floor, taking refuge amidst some jostling baggage. She thought of the black cahier nestling in her lap, waiting to be written in.

But no, not yet. She hadn’t seen enough.

***

Hours slithered by as the woman observed the man, willfully neglecting her other charges in the process. He’d barely moved from his place amongst the cargo, still sitting with his back hunched against the Asphodel’s icy walls and his knees tucked up into his hollow, shivering chest. Lulled by the monotony of the train’s rhythmic drumming, the man’s drooping eyelids had just slid closed when a dull thud disturbed his fitful rest.

Something heavy had slipped from the pocket of a seated passenger and tumbled beside him. He stirred, blinking at the fat gold circle glinting up from the floor. It was a fare coin––he would need one like it at the end of this line.

Never mind how, but the woman knew the man did not possess a proper fare of his own, and thus it was with rapt attention that she watched him pluck that coin from the ground. She leaned forward, eyes trained on his thumbs as they rubbed the coin’s polished surface, running back and forth across its smooth, carved ridges. After a moment’s hesitation, the man closed his hand into a fist and hid the gold from sight.

The woman bowed her white head. Her tensed fingers went slack, letting her pen slip to where it was barely within their grasp. This day was nearly done, the sun bending in its final arc as it raced across the sky. She’d no time to find any others now, and thus her pages would remai–

The woman froze, seizing the end of her dangling silver stylo.

The man––he’d stood. He’d quietly tapped the other passenger’s shoulder and returned their missing fare. What’s more, he sank back down without a word, with no expectation of any reward.

The woman’s pale hands shook, scrambling for her cahier, rushing to flatten the page that had waited so long to be first. Her thoughts raced as she considered the man, her rosy mouth parting into a slight “o” as she wondered how best to go about her work. In all her time assigned to this train, she’d never had to plan for specifics.

Satisfaction tugged at her lips as an idea came to mind.

Yes, that will suit him. That, he will understand.

She raised her pen with a flourish, and carefully, tenderly, bled dark, delicate tendrils across the feather-soft page. She took only a brief, bittersweet moment to appreciate her creation, holding her breath before ripping it free from the book’s tightly stitched binding.

“Tell me, do you know where you are going once the Asphodel disembarks?”

The woman stood looming over the man, who glanced up at her, startled.

He shook his head.

“No, mistress.”

“And yet you boarded just the same,” she said, fixing him with a hard stare. “Why?”

The man smiled at her, his jaw a bit crooked.

“I suppose I knew I had to get on, whether I was ready to or not.”

The woman’s faultless face relaxed, her lingering doubts finally dispelled. She knelt before the man and placed a hand on his scarred cheek.

“Leave this train at the next stop,” she commanded. “Tell the conductor you wish to make a transfer to the Elys line.”

The man’s brow furrowed.

“I’ve no fare for such a line, mistress. It’s 20,000 coins.”

The woman held out her torn piece of paper.

“Here is your fare. Be sure not to lose it.”

As the page passed from her fingers to his, its inked symbols glowed white-hot, catching fire in the man’s outstretched hands. He neither flinched nor made a sound, he simply watched as the paper melted and bubbled, its faded yellow burnishing into a rich, molten gold. His eyes misted over as the liquid hardened into an ornate, crested medallion.

“But this, this is…”

“The mark of valor you never received,” the woman nodded, amused by the astonishment coloring the man’s face. “Consider it your 20,000.”

She pulled him to his feet as the Asphodel slowed to approach its penultimate stop.

“Here is where you depart,” she said. “Don’t look back once you’re on the platf–”

The woman’s voice cut short, her unusual eyes widening as she found herself wrapped in a tight embrace.

“Thank you. Thank you,” the man choked into her shoulder, wetting her silk with his cascading tears.

The woman gently freed herself from his grasp and gestured that he should step up to the sliding doors.

“Don’t look back,” she repeated. “Once you leave you mustn’t look back.”

Holding fast to his medallion, the man nodded and turned to face his reflection, standing taller than he had in an untold number of years. He gave a final salute as the train ground to a screeching halt, and, true to his word, looked only forward as he ascended the waiting platform. Bathed in the warmth of a setting sun, he began his long walk to the Elys line, his limp now but a distant memory, his old scars fading with each and every step.

As the Asphodel’s horn sounded and its wheels began to turn once more, the woman in the periwinkle dress settled back into her place at the middle of the central car. Her dark eyes were crinkled up at the corners, her heart awash with an unfamiliar sensation.

She shook her small, black cahier open and thumbed to its final page, where an empty ledger sat waiting to be filled. After pausing a moment to think, she dotted her pen on the tip of her tongue and scratched three bold initials across the first line of the leftmost column:

T.U.S.––PAID.