Chapter 7

“The boiler is humming in B-flat today,” Gus remarked, stepping off the locomotive with a grease-smudged rag draped over his shoulder. He didn’t look at the passengers but instead focused on the rhythmic clack-shush of the pistons settling into a standby hiss. He had spent three winters in a basement workshop tinkering with the pressure valves, treating the machine less like a vehicle and more like a temperamental houseguest who required constant coaxing.

Lena stepped out from the booth; the tickets now a fluttering heap of confetti around her ankles. She caught Marcus’s eye and gave a small, knowing nod toward the dense thicket of ferns where the tracks curved into the valley. The train wasn’t just a tourist attraction for the families on the dock; it was a lifeline to a part of the woods that the hiking vests and map-readers weren’t meant to find. For years, they had operated on a handshake and a shared secret, keeping the engine running just enough to maintain the path to the old conservatory.

“If you drop that crate, you’re paying for the lures,” Marcus called out, though he was grinning. He was standing knee-deep in the shallows, directing a flat-bottomed barge that groaned under the weight of fiberglass canoes and rolled stacks of neoprene life vests. The train continued its rhythmic loop around the campground, a clockwork heart pumping tourists through the greenery, but the real infrastructure of the season was arriving by water. Along with the boats came the heavy-duty fishing rods and galvanized buckets of live bait, delivered in a flurry of splashing and shouted inventories.