The night train stopped at four stations: Evening Meadow, Cloud Bridge, Star Orchard, and Home. Lina knew the names by heart. She liked saying them as each sign appeared outside her window.
Tonight, between Cloud Bridge and Star Orchard, she noticed a fifth sign. It was half covered by ivy. Behind it stood a tiny platform with one unlit lamp.
‘What is that place?’ she asked the conductor.
He looked out. ‘Old Lantern Halt. We used to stop there when the orchard keeper lived nearby.’
‘Does anybody live there now?’
‘I don’t know.’
Lina watched the platform slip behind them. At Star Orchard, the conductor sent a message to the stationmaster. Before the return journey, he came to Lina’s seat.
‘A new keeper has moved in. She has been walking all the way here.’
‘Could we stop closer?’
‘The platform needs checking first.’
For the next few nights, workers inspected its boards and repaired the lamp. Lina saw them from the train window. The conductor explained that noticing a station was the beginning; making it safe took longer.
On Friday, the timetable had a new line.
The train slowed beside the once-dark platform. A fox in a green coat stood beneath the lit lamp. She carried a basket of apples and looked delighted.
‘First passenger at Old Lantern Halt,’ said the conductor.
The fox sat opposite Lina and offered her an apple.
‘You saved me a very long walk.’
‘The workers fixed everything,’ Lina said.
‘And someone noticed,’ said the fox.
Outside, the station lamp grew small behind them. Lina took out her notebook. Evening Meadow, Cloud Bridge, Old Lantern Halt, Star Orchard, Home. Five names now.
The next evening she made a map. She drew the stations as little circles, then connected them with a line. Old Lantern Halt was very close to Cloud Bridge on her page. She thought about the keeper walking between them night after night with baskets to carry. A small distance on a map could be a long distance on tired feet.
At supper, Lina showed the map to her grandfather.
‘I used that platform when I was young,’ he said. ‘My brother waited there with me. There was a bench under the ivy.’
Lina added a bench to her drawing, but she did not know whether it still existed. On the next journey she looked carefully. Beside the repaired lamp were two workers fitting fresh wooden slats onto an old iron frame.
She showed the conductor her map. ‘Grandfather remembered the bench.’
‘The keeper remembered it too,’ he said. ‘She asked whether we could repair it while the tools were here.’
A week later, Lina and Grandfather took the night train together. They stepped down at Old Lantern Halt, where the fox was waiting with warm apple buns wrapped in a cloth.
Grandfather touched the back of the bench. ‘Same shape,’ he said. ‘A little steadier now.’
They sat until the train was ready to continue. Lina listened as Grandfather and the keeper compared the orchard paths they knew. Some had changed. Some were still lined with the same old trees.
Before they boarded, the fox pinned Lina’s map inside the shelter. The keeper had asked permission first, and Lina had made a clean copy showing the repaired bench and the correct path to the orchard.
‘For anyone who hasn’t been here before,’ the fox said.
On the way home, Grandfather leaned back against the carriage cushion. Lina watched the platform lamp through the window until it became one dot among the stars.
Her map had begun with five names. Now each circle held someone: the stationmaster checking messages, workers carrying tools, the keeper with her apples, Grandfather remembering a bench.
She closed her notebook. The train followed its familiar track, carrying them toward Home.
There were five stations to say, and many people to remember.
