Peneloper Auttsley eventually found sleep though visions of Crispen crept into her unconsciousness. In her dreams she had laid underneath the night sky, her father beside her. After a few minutes of star gazing, Crispen crested the hill and came into plain view. Her father seemed to know of Mr. Heavensley and introduced him. Peneloper had felt silly, having already met Crispen and told her father so. Her father had smiled- he seemed to have been in the know already- and told her something strange. Though now, as she peeled open her eyes, her beloved alarm clock refusing to sound, she couldn't remember what those words had been.

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"How's the Captain, Nep?" Carmichelle asked cheerily from her seat at the breakfast table stuffing her face with a fat piece of mapled ham. I had my own as well as two eggs over easy, two pieces of jammed wheat toast, a heapful of fried hash browns, and a mug of orange juice. I squeezed a helping of ketchup onto my plate that extended the whole of the ham. My mother sat at the table's head, a place for four taken up by three, sipping at her morning coffee. Weekends always meant the better breakfasts. Carmichelle's heels clicked at the linoleum floor.

"Nep! Hello?" she said, throwing down her fork to punctuate her growing annoyance.

"Hello," I responded, not bothering to take note of her sarcasm. My mind was elsewhere, as it often was, though this morning, it still remained in reality. The coin was in my pocket and it warmed me gently. I found myself drifting back to Crispen- I know, how abysmal- but I couldn't help it. Would I see him today? Would he show me more of the layers? I looked to our sliding glass doors that lead to a poorly maintained lawn of crab grass and weed beds. Miss Laddie would grimace at our sad attempt at coercing nature.

It was sunny. The first of its kind since Crispen took up residence in Potter Oaks. What kind of creature herded the sunlight to us? Was there even such a job? I'm sure there was. A soft, wet, thud hit my cheek. My sister, her anger boiling over, had flung one of her potatoes at me. I looked at the poor thing- well spiced and expertly fried- and made room for in my stomach. Our house was vigorously cleaned, and I felt no shame picking the potato off the table and plopping it into my mouth. My sister grimaced. Obviously not the reaction she had hoped for.

"Mom!" Ah, motherly intervention- one of the few defenses a sister had against her own kind. My mother took another sip of her coffee- black and bitter- and placed in down reluctantly on the tabletop.

"Peneloper, quit eating the hash browns your sister throws at you. If you want more, there's extra on the stove top."

"Mom! That's not the point-" my sister chided and in this moment she was more adult that either of us. My mother's lax nature in the morning- her not being a person of early birds and catching worms- was refreshing. I could get away with a lot more if I chose. But I let her have her quiet Saturday mornings, full of coffee and reading, rather than insisting on becoming more my age. My sister slumped back in her chair, defeated by my mother's attitude and unwillingness to be of the correct help, and turned to her phone for consolation; prickly words about us were surely being exchanged among her friends Emma, Jesse, and Claire. I took my mother's advice, and moved to get a few more seasoned hash browns off the stove top.

The cast iron was still warm, the tiny golden potatoes swimming in butter. I took of heap of them to my plate, a few to my mouth, and as I sought to return to the table, a flicker of light caught my eye. It came from outside though I'd hardly consider it an act of nature. As I stared out the tiny window over the sink, I saw it again. Only this time the flicker stayed and broke open. A sliver of something appeared- mechanical as opposed to the natural, housed in the slit that appeared floating in our backyard. I spoke no excuse as I made my way through the sliding doors and to the slit of something. Carmichelle didn't care about me right then and my mother found my actions, for the most part, relatively harmless.

The slit was seven steps off the stone slab we considered our back porch, floating a few inches above the unruly crabgrass. It was my length but only a few inches wide. I didn't feel alarm emanating from it, and so with curious eyes I peered in. There, and this may sound absurd, I saw the lights of a train- full blown steam engine locomotive, not the transit we have now. It sat docked at a station, an old and otherworldly feel about it. Oil lamps floated freely in the air, green illuminating the boarding platform. It was dusty there- like the entire world hadn't had a good cleaning in centuries- and the sky looked of burnt Auburn. There were moons- yes moons- in the sky, waxing and waning their way through the moon's cycle all at once.

On the platform were people of many designs, some of which didn't appear to be people at all. Others were quite normal, with one or two distinctions separating them from normal. These beings had to be magical and I wondered if a portal to another world had opened up on my lawn. I saw a conductor- it was evident in his jacket, hat, gloves, and manner- yelling for people to board. He herded the creatures into the locomotive, a smile revealing rows of sharp yellowed teeth. A family of six-eyed, six-limbed, waist high creatures boarded the train through the smaller set of doors that stood next to the regular sized ones. Other petite darlings followed suit, most of which carried animal traits; snouts and ears on each of their round, tiny faces. Once the platform was clear, the conductor lingered, as if he was ushering something unseen into the train cars as well and when finally satisfied, boarded the train himself.

Three toots of the train's horn sounded and then the locomotive lurched forward, it's wheels creaking, billows of dark green smoke being let into the atmosphere. It looked as if the train would ride right into my world; and for a moment I found this promising. But it just hurried out of view, to a place I may never get to experience, the empty platform still in the slit's frame. I wanted to touch this portal that had just appeared. But a voice spoke up from my liver and commanded me to stop. It told me my thinking was foolish and dangerous and so I refrained, my palms remaining at my sides. The slit disappeared and my yard was returned to normalcy.

"Peneloper," my mom shouted from the porch. "You have a visitor."

I knew just who. And I was excited and terrified at the same time.

Inside, I found Crispen sitting at our table, filling the fourth seat, a plate of meat, eggs and potatoes thrust before him. My mother held some grandmother in her veins when guests visited and she made certain they would leave fat and content. She had taken out our cow-shaped creamer, and Crispen gazed at it lovingly, running long thin fingertips over its smooth porcelain curves. My sister watched him with a heart that had already been captured. She resumed her texting, the subject matter changing to one of Mr. Heavensley. As soon as I sat down, he studied me. It made me self conscious. What was he staring at?

I looked the same on the weekend as I did on weekdays. I never made any attempt to distinguish myself at school and boys were of no consequence. This morning I had put on the jeans I wore yesterday that had laid crumpled on the floor. I found their wrinkles endearing; they meant the fabric was worn, used and held within them their own story. I had slipped a white t-shirt over nude colored underthings and had chosen to wear my pink and blue whale socks. I'd slipped into my favorite pair of slippers- black and white pandas, their giant bulbous heads bouncing in unison with each step as I had bounded down the steps.

"Morning," he said, the creases in the corner of his eyes holding the same endearing quality as my jean's wrinkles.

"Odd choice of breakfast joint," I said, glazing my ham in a thick coat of spiced red. He didn't break his gaze on me as he slide a spoonful of potatoes into his mouth. I could almost see Carmichelle swoon as he did so; his gaze piercing, his fingers elegant, his lips wet and full as the potatoes made their way to his gut. She was so easily impressed.

"Mrs. Auttsley," he said, addressing my mother who had been staring at us in the most uncomfortable way. Once again, I could sense her thoughts, and not caring for their vulgarity, I let them go over my head. "This is delicious." He took another heap of potatoes to his mouth.

"You're welcome. Crispen, was it?" As she spoke, she looked at me, her gaze searching for secrets I didn't have.

"Yes, ma'am." Crispen replied, ignoring the accusatory gaze my mother held on me. I was alone in her sea of suspicion, trying to stay afloat. If only Crispen could have called beforehand, I could of told him to tread lightly. But for him to do something so calculated and planned seemed contrary to his being.

"So how do you know my daughter?" my mother asked. Her line of questioning the absolute worst, the implications down right tawdry. I squirmed in my chair unable to do anything. If I was an unstoppable torrent of a river, my mother was the dark waters of the deepest ocean trenches filled with dangers that would gobble you up without a minute's notice.

"We're school mates." He turned to me, that glimmer in his eyes. "How many classes would you say we share?" he asked, bringing me into the conversation without need; it was purely for his amusement.

"Too many," I spat, his hold on me broken by annoyance. My appetite gone, I moved to the sink to deposit my half eaten slab of ham, and second round of potatoes I hadn't even touched. A pity to waste such delicious hard work. I looked outside again, hoping to see the slit reappear, the train making a special detour just for me, allowing me freedom from this situation. Having a boy over other than Chantham was a new experience for me made awkward by my mother's line of questioning and made uncomfortable by Crispen's comfortable attitude with the whole ordeal. Maybe he thrived on my misery.

"How's Mire hill?" my mother continued, her paper shoved off to the side, her coffee half drank and getting cold. Crispen seemed to have the same effect on all the Auttsley women.

"Comfortable. The crows there are most agreeable."

My mother snorted.

"Are they disagreeable elsewhere?"

"They're just like the rest of us. Environment affecting their behaviors. Some crows are more pleasant than others. You've observed this in people, no?"

I could see my mother's eyebrows crease and nostrils flare. I could read the long list of people she found disagreeable, written in her eyes. Crispen's name had been there, under 'potential threats' but it had been written with disappearing ink and Heavensley's presence had been the light needed to get his name faded from my mother's list. I sighed. She laughed. My sister typed. And Crispen took a sip of his water, thoughts of all of us calling out to him. I wonder which ones he found most amusing?

And just like that, he turned to gaze at me, a smile that held the answer to my thought on his face. If you don't want me to be so much an owl, stop indulging me, I thought. He chuckled. Perhaps I had been the first and only to chide him with their thoughts.

"So what brings you here?" My mother had finished remembering all those she found unlikeable- a list that read many names- and returned to the interrogation game.

"I hoped to invite Miss Peneloper here on a walk through town."

How very formal and gentlemanly, Heavensley. Your words would make other mothers swoon, but not my mother. A seventeen year old with such a good head on his broad shoulders, spake to my mother of untold dangers. And Laura Auttsley was a protective sort, a lioness that would make carcasses of the threats thrown at her cubs; a feast of the enraptured, the curious, and the ill-prepared.

Contrary to what I supposed would happen, my mother got up, dumped her coffee out and responded to Crispen, an amicable tone to her voice, "Peneloper is old enough to do as she sees fit. You best ask her, Mr. Heavensley."

I was shocked. My sister whose fingers hadn't stopped moving, stopped here, her look mimicking my own. Words I never thought I'd here my mother speak, had come from her mouth. Where was the venom? The teeth and claws? She had not made a feast of Crispen Heavensley. Instead, he had received her approval.

"Well, Peneloper, care for a walk?"

He smiled. He knew my answer before I knew my answer. Of course I would go with him. I had seen a train and platform appear in my backyard. He was the only one I could talk with freely about such matters.

"Sure," I said, trying to sound too enthused.