I'm hoping to have the following story finished by Christmas 2009, but I am posting the first part now so I will have a backup of it on line. Feel free to review suggest plot lines and speculate at my motives.
Lyda Mae (RavenDove) Dameron
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The Polar Express:
Second Chance to Ride
by Lyda Mae (RavenDove) Dameron
Chapter One
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I know that many of you good children have heard the tale of The Polar Express. The little boy who asked for one of the bells from Santa's sleigh made sure to tell every child he ever met. I never expected him to keep believing so long but he believed all his life. He was one of the lucky ones, but I'm here to tell you the story of someone who was even more lucky than he was. I'm going to tell you the story of the only person ever to get a second chance to ride that most special of trains.
Not every child has a chance to ride the Polar Express and those who do usually get their only chance at a point in life when they need to learn something special to help them through their lives. I have seen some of those who ride the train become world leaders. I have seen them become doctors who served mankind by caring for the poor. I have seen them become the small town leaders of movements to bring about freedom and equality.
I have seen a great many things, but none that touched me as much as that one little girl in tears who could not get on the train. "I don't want to celebrate Christmas this year, because Daddy moved away." That was all she said as she ran back into the trailer where she lived. I thought that would be the end of it, but it haunted me for many years. She didn't get her second chance until she was much older than anyone else who was ever allowed to ride. She got her second chance to ride when she was old enough to be a grandmother...
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Kathryn had just gotten ready to climb into bed. The calender on the wall clearly showed it was Christmas Eve, but the only decoration was a very small tree sitting on a table. It's lights did not twinkle to invite the holiday. There were two old family photos on the nightstand one that showed two little girls with smiling parents that was very old and another that showed a slightly younger Kathryn in the arms of a man that was clearly her husband. Kathryn had never manged to have children. She would have liked to have them, but it had just not been meant to be. She had met Charlie too late in life and she had missed him so much since he had passed away this last spring.
She picked up the picture of herself with Charlie. "I miss you old man. I haven't felt this sad at Christmas since I was a little girl." She brushed her fingers across her lips and touched the side of the picture from which Charlie's smile gleamed.
Then there was a light in the window that should not have been there and a clatter that shook the old house. Kathryn climbed from the bed and put on her robe then reached for her cane and hobbled out to the front door where she saw something she didn't believe.
She stepped down from the porch and made her way to a giant train. There were no tracks for miles from where she lived. The trains she had heard in the night as a child no longer ran, now replaced by trucks that could travel without the need for rails to carry them. Yet here this gleaming train stood inviting her.
There at the steps of the train stood The Conductor and a memory stirred in her old mind. "I know you." she said.
"We have indeed met before Madam." The Conductor said. "Though I never thought we would meet again."
"How is it that you are still as I remember, when I have grown so old?"
"That Madam is part of the magic and I can't explain it, without destroying it." The Conductor reached into his pocket. "I have been charged with delivering something that was not received many years ago."
Kathryn hesitated to take the small box in his hand. "What is it?"
"The gift you were meant to have all those Christmases ago..."
Kathryn took the box and in the same moment dropped her cane, but that didn't matter. Once the box was opened she was overcome by a strange feeling and suddenly The Conductor was taller. She was the little girl in yellow flannel pajamas with blue flowers once more. Katy pulled out the one item that was in the box. It was the ticket she had refused all those years ago. She began to cry, and The Conductor pulled a handkerchief from his pocket to dry her tears.
"No one has ever been given a second chance to ride this train. Please don't waste it young lady." he said
Little Katy reached for the rail and put her foot on the stool the conductor had laid out when the train had stopped. "My dear Charlie taught me to take every opportunity when the moment came, because tomorrow would be nothing without a full today." She looked back at The Conductor. "I wish I'd known that the last time we met."
"I wish you had too." The Conductor said as he picked up the stool and signaled the engine that it was time to move on.
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The Polar Express:
Second Chance to Ride
by Lyda Mae (RavenDove) Dameron
Chapter Two
Katy was amazed by the condition of the train she sat on. The leather of the old seats was still like new. The wood panel of the walls unaged by time. No doubt the same magic that applied to The Conductor affected the train.
The children who rode were a different story. The images on the pajamas and nightgowns were clearly from a more recent age. Her own blue flowers on yellow flannel were not out of place. However most the other children wore images from video games or Saturday morning cartoons she had seen advertised this morning on TV.