Swedes like to pretend the ghost train lives in Kymlinge, but you can see it anywhere: at Eureka, at Haxo, rushing past Bull and Bush and its moldering stacks of secrets. Its name is Silverpilen, and it’s both easy and impossible to catch. You just can’t board if you know what it is.

Aldous, unromantically, had her face in a paper when she embarked. She’s not sure how long she’s been riding it now; her watch dial spins, and she never hungers. She’d ask the conductor, but if it’s his voice on the intercom, she doesn’t want to see his mouth.