Sunny suddenly awoke in the middle of the night, and glanced around her in confusion. "Urgh. I hate it when this happens." She glanced to her clock and saw it had just gone four. She had no clue how this kept happening, the random waking up in the night business.
She pulled herself out of bed and sighed. "Oh well. I'll just get some water than try to sleep again."
But as she took one step forward, the house began to shake. "What?"
"I'm here..." said a creepy, distorted voice.
"Who's there?" Sunny asked. "Show yourself!"
"I'm always here, Sunny," said the voic again. "What makes you rebuke the one who has the most in common with you? Who understands your struggles? Who knows the contents of your heart better than anybody else?"
"You've done an ultrasound of my heart?" Sunny asked, confused.
"Not what I meant. But I'm here."
The light flared up outside, and the door burst open. With blinding speed Opaline flew across the room and slammed into Sunny, crashing through the window with her whilst grabbing Sunny by her neck.
"I'M ALWAYS HERE!"
Sunny yelled out as she fell towards the harsh concrete sidewalk below, and shut her eyes before the inevitable impact. She flew closer, and closer, and came into contact-
With carpet.
Sunny looked about in surprise. "Huh? What just happened?" She quickly pinched herself to establish whether she was dreaming or not. The weird thing was she had woken up in her dream. Was it possible to be dreaming on multiple levels within a dream?
She groaned and pushed herself up before rolling over. "That did a number on me."
Moments later, the door opened, and Argyle and Goldie appeared. "Is everything OK?" Argyle asked, extending his hand to help Sunny up.
"Yeah," Sunny said, smiling weakly. "Just fell out of bed. Nothing major."
"What was the yelling about, though?" Goldie asked, confused. "You weren't having another nightmare, were you?"
Sunny thought for a moment. "I guess I was. But it was over so suddenly I hadn't really much time to process the imagery in it. I think I'll be fine, though."
"Is there anything you'd like?"
Sunny nodded. "Some water, please. My throat's really dry."
Both parents set off to the kitchen area to prepare some water, with Goldie shutting both sets of doors between them and Sunny. She then turned to Argyle, who had started filling a glass with water. "Albert, we need to talk."
Argyle looked over in surprise. "It must be serious if you're using my real name. What's on your mind, dear?"
Goldie sighed. "That's the second nightmare she's had in less than 12 hours. It's probably nothing, but I can't help but feel something is wrong. There's something happening in her mind and I can't figure out how to help!"
"She has been through a lot recently," Argyle admitted. "Being mind controlled can hardly be fun. But I noticed she had quite an adverse reaction to that ghost story."
Goldie froze. There was something relating to that story she wasn't telling her husband, but she hardly figured at the moment it was relevant. "Maybe we should look up those figures? If nothing else it'll help to put my mind at rest."
Argyle nodded. "That sounds like a good idea. Now I'll drop off this glass of water and then we'd probably best get some more sleep. Tomorrow's gonna be pretty busy."
The next morning arrived, and all seemd to have cleared up. Sunny and Valentina were booked out on the first passenger train of the day, and this left Strasburg on time at 9 in the morning. The train was packed. Passengers occupied every seat, and some even got up to leave their seats and began wandering around the passenger cars and standing on the balcony.
"Is this nornal levels of business?" Sunny asked.
"Sure is!" Valentina replied. "The trains are always really busy. We get a lot of repeat visitors, and we're well placed for picking up tourists! The railroad is a good way to take a break from the other attractions around here."
Sunny checked behind her and saw a group of people near the first level crossing. "OK then, how does this go?" she asked. She reached up and pulled the whistle chord to alert the others of the approaching train.
"You need to do another long, a short, then another long!" Valentina called.
"OK!" Sunny replied, and immediately completed the rest of the sequence. "I'm sorta new to some of this! I usually drive a diesel engine."
"We have a few here, if that's what you're interested in," Valentina replied.
"And leave you guys one steam loco down? Nope!" Sunny replied.
The train continued to roll along through the beautiful Dutch countryside, with fields of corn reaching into the skies as far as you could see. It was a truly beautiful sight to behold, and the landscape seemed to flow away like a watercolour painting.
Partway through the run, the train came to a stop in a loop, as the signal was red. Sunny noticed all these guests standing at the lineside and looking in wonder at the train. "You wouldn't get this reaction back in Britain, that's for sure," she said.
"Where's Britain?" Valentina asked.
"It's the island across the pond where I'm from," Sunny replied.
"Oh! England!" Valentina said. "But you have an American accent!"
"True," Sunny admitted. "But my parents are both Americans who are UK citizens. Also, England and Britain are separate things. England is one of three countries that makes up Great Britain; the other two are Wales and Scotland. Add Northern Ireland into the mix and you've got the United Kingdom."
"Thanks for the history lesson!" Valentina said, as there was a familair rumbling down the line. Sure enough, Denver rattled in with a goods train from the mainline.
"If it seems confusing, think of each bit rather like a US state," Sunny replied, and looked over. "Hey Hitch!"
"Morning Sunny!" Hitch called, as the big tender engine rolled by. "There's a lot of animal feed in these hoppers!"
"I bet the farmers will like that!" Valentina added.
"They sure will," Denver smiled as he pulled up to the signal.
The other signal changed, and Valentina moved off on the train to Paradise.
Meanwhile, Goldie had finished her remote work for now, and had switched to history mode for research. Argyle was looking through books he had pulled out of the library. "I think I've found something!" Goldie said.
Argyle walked round. "Yes?"
Goldie highlighted the entry. "See this? I've found a reference to a historical Joe Bush. It seems that he's a ghost who haunts an old dredge somewhere in Oregon. So what would he be doing down here?"
"Ghosts can move around a lot," Argyle said. "I've seen references to some British ghosts in several different settlements. At least five different Derbyshire towns claim to be the home of Emily Alton, for example. So perhaps the legend somehow got transplanted to Pennsylvania by people from Oregon?"
Goldie rubbed her temples, feeling a headache coming on. "This is confusing. Perhaps we should ask the others for some suggestions? Preferably outdoors- I've done quite enough staring at screens for one morning."
"Sounds good," Argyle said. "I'll get them on the phone."
Goldie nodded. "I'll slip into something more comfortable whilst you do that. It'd be a bit weird to be wearing this to a casual coffee meeting."
She exited the room and closed the door, opening the wardrobe as she did so. The mirror in the wardrobe reflected her look of worry back at her. "Sunny," she whispered. "Why won't you tell me what's going on in there?"
Back at Strasburg, things hadn't gone so well. The passenger cars for the next departure had jumped backwards from the impact.
"You shouldn't have brought her in so fast!" shouted the conductor.
"Sorry!" Pipp said. "Jennifer's a lot more powerful than what I'm used to!"
"Clearly," Jennifer said. "But at least the cars are on the rails."
Luckily, their journey to the other end of the line proceeded without incident, apart from a small earthquake near the loop.
"That's weird," Sunny had noted. "We aren't on any fault lines."
Eventually, Sunny and Valentina arrived back at Strasburg with their passengers. But things were not well. Sherman and Mastodon were arguing.
"What were you doing?" Mastodon shouted.
"I don't know!" Sherman said. "I must have misjudged the stopping distance with this crane!"
"Well, you nearly had my smokebox off! Be more careful!"
Sunny hopped down to get Valentina run round, pulling the lever out that disconnected the couplers and brake pipes. "Ready to pull!"
"...Power..." said a ghostly voice. "...Must acquire power..."
Sunny looked around in confusion. "Hello? Is somebody there?" But nobody was. She shrugged her shoulders. "It was probably nothing." She hopped back into Valentina's cab and prepared to run her around the train, ready for the next run.
Unbeknownst to her, a figure was watching them with a sinister smile on his face. "Soon it shall all be mine," he said, rubbing his hands together with glee.