“You must be tired,” Po said. It had only just occurred to the ghost that Liesl had barely slept at all.
Liesl nodded. “Very,” she said, and rested her chin on her knees.
The train rattled forward, and the ghost and the girl sat in silence for a few minutes. There was a single, high window above them. It let in a trickle of gray and murky light, and flashes of cloud-covered sky.
“How will we know when we are where we need to be?” Po asked.
Liesl thought. “I remember a city made of smoke and fire,” she said finally. “That’s where we must get off. From there, we take a long road out of the city. It goes west into the hills. Beyond the hills we’ll find the house, and the pond, and the willow tree.”
“A city of smoke and fire?” Po’s edges flickered. “That sounds like a place on the Other Side.”
Liesl tilted her head in Po’s direction. “Do you have cities on the Other Side?”
“Great cities. Bigger than any here. Cities of water and dust; and cities made from flame; and cold, dark cities at the very heart of the planets, built into old stone.”
Liesl considered this. “What is it like to be on the Other Side?”
Po thought about saying, It is like being everything all at once, and holding the universe inside of you and being held inside of the universe. But it did not think Liesl would understand, so the ghost said, “It is hard to explain. Perhaps one day you will know.”
Liesl chipped at the trunk in front of her knees with a fingernail. “Perhaps,” she said. She wasn’t sure if the idea excited or frightened her. “Do you miss being here, though? Do you miss the Living Side?”
She could tell immediately that she had offended Po. Its outlines became much clearer in the dark, temporarily surrounded by a sharp white glow.
“Of course not,” Po said. “It isn’t like that. It’s a different way of being, that’s all.”
“But one is alive,” Liesl pointed out gently. “And one is not alive.” She knew Po must be lying, at least a little. Po was the one who had told her that ghosts who were not attached to the Living Side—at least a very little—went Beyond.
Po swirled upward from where it had been sitting, and floated over to the window. “When you go swimming and you put your head under the water,” Po said, “and everything is strange and underwater-sounding, and strange and underwater-looking, you don’t miss the air, do you? You don’t miss the above-water sounds and the above-water look. It’s just different.”
“True.” Liesl was quiet for a moment. Then she added, “But I bet you’d miss it if you were drowning. I bet you’d really miss the air then.”
Po was silent for a bit. It flitted restlessly back and forth in the freight car: a flicker of dark here; a shadow on the ceiling there. Liesl was very sorry she had upset her friend and wished she could say something to make up for it, but her brain was fuzzy and sleep pressed at her eyelids and she couldn’t think.
Then Po was next to her again.
“Did you bring your drawing paper, as I asked you to?” Po asked.
Liesl nodded.
“Show me,” Po said. Its voice sounded strange to Liesl. Closer and also more alive, somehow, than it usually did. Feeling, Liesl thought. Po’s voice was full of feeling.
She reached into her canvas bag and removed her sketch pad, and pencils, and the two drawings she had made for Po.
Po was quiet for another few beats, staring down at the drawings and the blank page in Liesl’s lap.
“I want you to draw me the sun,” Po said at last.
“I can’t possibly,” Liesl said, stuttering. “I—I don’t remember what it looks like.”
“Just try,” Po said. “Try and remember.”
Liesl drew a circle, hesitantly. Then she erased it and drew a larger circle, floating in the center of the page. But still it didn’t seem right. It looked dull and stupid and empty sitting there, like an expressionless face. If only she could remember . . . It had been so long.
She closed her eyes and let her pencil hover over her sketch pad. She wound herself back and down the stairways of memory, and felt her hand begin to move. The train jumped and lurched underneath her, and when she opened her eyes, she saw she’d covered her paper with nonsense: Squiggles and what looked like leaping flames stretched away from the circle in the center of the page, radiating all the way out to its edges.
“I’ve ruined it,” Liesl said, and went to tear the picture in two.
“No,” Po said sharply. Liesl jumped. Po went on, more quietly, “It’s good. It’s very good.” Then it floated to the window again.
Liesl knew then that Po had been lying: The ghost did miss the Living Side. She understood then, too, that everyone drowns differently, and that for everyone—even ghosts—there is a different kind of air.
Train 128 steamed past the blurry gray countryside, past cracked and blackened fields.
Will pressed his nose to the window.
Liesl tucked her chin to her knees and slept.
Bundle watched over Liesl.