Chapter 7

"My father left me these keys in his will," said Sir Topham, re-buttoning the top of his shirt and straightening his tie. "Due to their importance, I've always felt the safest place for them was around my neck."

Jeanie watched Sir Topham Hatt use one of the keys to unlock and open a large trunk that she'd noticed was tucked away in a corner of the study, and after clearing some space on his desk, Sir Topham then called Mr. Percival over to him and, together, the two men lifted out a brown, wooden chest that was about twice the size of a shoe-box, and carefully place it on the cleared space. It looked quite old and battered. It's just like what you see in a pirates film, she thought. She could only see the back of it and what looked like two hinges near the top. Sir Topham then used the second key to unlock and open it, revealing to the light what his father had put away for him many years ago.

Mr. Percival, she'd been told, was the manager of one of the quarries on Sodor, a quarry with its own magical engines that ran on narrow-gauge tracks. The two other strangers she'd see when she'd arrived unexpectedly at Hatt Hall were apparently two of those engines. She wondered why they were shorter than normal-sized men, only coming up to the quarry manager's shoulders in height, then, realising that she'd missed hearing what her new employer was saying, she shook her head to refocus her self and listened to the rest of his words.

"He never told me what was in this smaller trunk because he didn't know himself. This key had been left to him by his father, my grandfather, and the only thing he'd said about it was that the bearer of the keys would know when they were to be used. Obviously, Lady somehow knew about this box as she'd instructed Burnett to tell me that I had to open it."

Burnett, Jeanie already knew, was Lady's engineer and driver at Shining Time, a small town somewhere in America where Lady lived and worked. He'd come all the way to Sodor by means of a magic railway that linked Shining Time with Sodor by using a magic whistle, the same whistle that had brought her to Hatt Hall when she'd touched Sir Topham as he was using it. That...that's...fantastic! she thought, remembering the brief demonstration that Sir Topham and Mr. Percival had given her when they'd disappeared together from right in front of her. She had no idea of where they'd vanished to until a hand suddenly tapped her shoulder, causing her to scream in fright as she spun round to see two grinning men that had reappeared behind her, finally making her accept that the whistle was indeed 'magical'. Her musing was interrupted by Sir Topham saying, "Let's see what we've got in here... "

Inside the box were a pile of folders containing various sheets of paper, a couple of reels of ancient 35mm cine film, some equally old photographs bound together by a ribbon, and a small leather pouch. At the bottom of the box was another bulky, sealed envelope that Sir Topham placed to one side, breaking the seal and withdraw what looked to be an old scroll and another, smaller envelope. He unrolled the scroll and scanned his eyes down its contents. Frowning, he opened the smaller envelope and took out a letter. Remaining silent as he read it, shaking his head slowly from side to side, Jeanie and Mr. Percival looked on, wondering what was so serious that caused him to react like that.

Sir Topham then looked over to his audience and said, "First, though, I'll get Collins to bring some more tea for us and to get my father's old projector out from storage."

Whilst they were waiting for the tea and projector, Sir Topham checked through the photographs and pulled some of them out, putting them by the front edge of his desk. "Take a look at these, you two," he said,placing the remaining photos beside the wooden trunk "They're some old photographs of the steam engines they had in the olden days." Mr. Percival picked them up and stared scanning through them, occasionally making a comment on how he'd seen one or two of the old engines during his time on the railways. The ones he'd looked at he passed on to Jeanie, telling her the odd fact or two regarding their history as he did so. Jeanie thought some of them looked quite primitive compared to the trains she was used to seeing, and that was including the steam engines she'd seen working on Sodor. Whilst they were occupied with the photographs, Sir Topham spent the next ten minutes skimming through some of the notes in the folders.

"Briefly," he said, putting down the folder he was holding, "when steam engines were being built in the early days of the railways," he said, his voice reminding Jeanie of a college lecturer giving a lesson, "a ritual was found by a group of scientists, and they used it to give the engines a form of sentience that they'd discovered by means of this ritual, a life of their own, you could say. In later years, once it was shown to be stable and not destructive to the engines, it was used for the coaches and wagons as well, and obviously being used nowadays with the diesels and new rolling stock.

"Anyway, many years ago and for an unknown reason, it was decided to 'secure' this 'magic' into certain engines. They would then 'hold' that magic to keep or to 'bind' it all together. The engine that was responsible for the magic on Sodor, as we on Sodor later found out a few years ago, was located in a town named Shining Time, in America. That engine was Lady. We found a very old set of buffers at the end of a branch line that turned out to be a portal that led to Shining Time and, to cut a long story short, one of our engines, Thomas, ended up saving her from Diesel Ten when he tried to destroy her, intending for her magic to fail and destroy the steam engines. If it wasn't for Thomas' bravery, he'd have succeeded. The engine that was after her ended up falling off a weak bridge and being carried away on a rubbish barge to the mainland.

"He returned some time after that and I only allowed him to stay on Sodor if he promised to behave himself. I don't think he's responsible for our current problem, though, as to my knowledge, he hasn't left the island, and all he's actually done since he returned is to occasionally annoy the steam engines with his bad attitude. Anyway, I don't know why Lady has fallen ill this time, but whatever it is, according to Burnett, it's made her give off a foul, black smoke that not only knocked out everyone in Shining Time, but actually killed Mr. Conductor, the controller of Shining Time Station.

"This smoke somehow followed Burnett to Sodor and then affected our trains. It also appears to have dispersed away into the atmosphere as, according to the people I've spoken with on the mainland, the sentient trains there are unaffected and are running as normal. It could be because the magic here on Sodor was so concentrated that this smoke was somehow weakened by it, or it was only intended for the Sodor engines. Maybe it was dispersed by the weather, I just don't know, but for now, thankfully, though that's a poor choice of word, it's only the trains here on the island that have been affected."

"Could it affect people, this smoke?" Jeanie asked him.

"The engines I've spoken to this morning all say that they were coughing during the night it happened, and that their eyes were sore and itching when they woke up. Being part of the magic of the railway, that's probably why my wife and I both had that happen to us as well. What about you, Peregrine? Did you also have a bad night?"

"Now you mention it, Sir Topham, I did wake up a couple of times with a need to cough. My eyes felt okay as I sleep with a mask over them as my wife likes to read in bed for an hour or so with the light on before she gets tired."

"I'll have to ask the other railway staff about it," Sir Topham said, more to himself than to either Jeanie or Peregrine. "So far, though," he continued, "we haven't felt anything else wrong with us. I think that it only knocked out the people in Shining Time because it was so concentrated there. What about you, Jeanie? Do you remember coughing or having itchy eyes last night?"

"No," she replied. "I slept just fine. Maybe it's because I didn't have anything to do with the railways until today. What's it like at this Shining Time place right now?"

"I don't know for sure," said Sir Topham. "They're several hours behind us, being in America, so it's too dark there just now and look around, and anyway, I just haven't had the spare time yet. I'll have to go myself as I can't risk sending anyone else there. I'll give it a couple of hours more and then I'll go to the magic buffers and use the whistle to go to Muffle Mountain and check on Lady."

"Will you be safe, Sir Topham?" asked Peregrine.

"Yes, I'll borrow some safety clothes and breathing apparatus from the fire station in Knapford. I'll check on Lady and see if I can find a clue as to what's affected her. There's still enough sparkle left for a few trips, thankfully. It'll take me all day to sort out this problem with the trains on my own, though, which is why I would really appreciate your help, Jeanie."

"Of course, Sir Topham," she replied, finding herself pleased that she could be helpful in some way in Sir Topham's hour of need. Why am I so eager, all of a sudden, she asked herself. It wasn't so long ago all I wanted was to get out of here!

"When you meet the other former trains," Sir Topham then said to her, "especially some of the older steamies, you'll find that they've got quite, how can I put it, yes, quite defining temperaments."

Jeanie frowned, thinking that she was about to ask or say something important, but the thought had suddenly slipped her mind.

"Sir Topham, you said you've still got an engine on the mainland?" Peregrine asked, bringing Jeanie's attention back to the present.

"Yes, Edward."

"Do you think it'll be safe for him to come onto Sodor?"

"That's a very good question, Peregrine. I'll see what happens when the traffic office at Barrow phone me to say he's arrived there. Jeanie, Burnett will be having his arm operated on right about now. I hope he'll be okay, but maybe you could check with the hospital afterwards to find out for me?"

"Certainly, Sir Topham, but, um, there is one thing I want to ask you. This, er, this talking to the trains thing, will I be able to talk to trains as well now I'm part of the railways?"

"Er, I don't quite know how to answer that, Jeanie. I would think so, but if Lady is as bad as Burnett says she is, I'm not sure that she'll be able to, er, put you in the loop, as they say, just yet. Maybe if I can get Edward safely onto the island and back to Knapford, then you can have a go at talking to him when he finally gets home."

Jeanie thought about what she'd gone through since stopping her car to help Burnett Stone that morning. First, there were the mad ravings of Toby about having changed from being a train engine into a human being, then there was Sir Topham and the whistle that had transported both him and her to where she was now, in his stately home. The fact that she'd travelled from one place on the island to another just like magic was still hard for her to accept, despite seeing the demonstration Sir Topham and Mr. Percival had given her. Although it had occurred right in front of her eyes, the cynical part of her mind still asked if it was possible that she'd been secretly drugged and that she had been hallucinating. Sir Topham Hatt, one of the most important and respected people on the island, was talking about magical talking trains as though it was an everyday thing, and she'd yet to see any of that evidence. The folders and photographs could be a very elaborate way to convince her that what she was experiencing was actually true, and who actually offers a job to someone they only met in a hospital corridor?

She looked around the room, still trying to see if there were any hidden cameras about. No, that would probably happen when she actually tried talking to the engine they called Edward, she thought, and the entire nation would then see Jeanie Watkins making a right tit of herself. It must be costing the TV people an absolute fortune for this prank, she thought to herself. She'd been aware of her growing acceptance of the idea of magical engines all afternoon and, at the same time, feeling her suspension of disbelief grow to accept the absurdity of it all. Her apparent willingness to serve Sir Topham could be some sort of Derren Brown trick like she'd seen him do on one of his shows on the telly, but she couldn't think of any way that they could have hypnotised her, unless they actually did drug her when she fainted earlier. Shit! If they actually dared to do that to her, she told herself, after they make a mistake and their plan to fool me falls to pieces, I'll sue their arses off them!

The study door opening and Sir Topham's butler wheeling in a tall, wooden stand with a very old-looking projector on it brought her out of her doubting thoughts. Looking at the stand, she also saw a rolled up screen fixed to a hook at the top of it, and a length of ribbon wrapped around the bottom to stop it bumping into things as it was wheeled about. She turned her attention back to Sir Topham, as she saw that he was about to speak again.

"Thank you, Collins," Sir Topham said to his butler. "Peregrine, would you set up the screen and projector for me, please?"

"Certainly, Sir Topham," said, Mr. Percival, getting up from his chair.

"The tea will be here in five minutes, Sir Topham," his butler said before leaving and pulling the study doors closed behind him.

He returned whilst Peregrine was setting up the projector and Jeanie offered to pour the tea for herself and the others, only interrupting Sir Topham's reading to ask him and Mr. Percival how much sugar they took. As she sat down afterwards, she gazed around the room whilst sipping her tea. Mr. Percival was in his seat, idly looking around the room like she was. Sir Topham was still quietly studying the notes in the old folders. She'd noticed the painting Sir Topham's father above the fireplace earlier but hadn't pay it much attention. Looking at the man's face now, though, she could see facial features that vaguely reminded her of the man she'd seen during her tour of the Hall, and like that one, this one also showed him standing in front of a steam engine, and so she studied the rather proud-looking face of the engine that seemed to be looking straight back at her. What? She blinked, not believing what she was seeing, but then the face was replaced by the usual engine front that she would normally expect to see on a steam engine. Am I hallucinating again? she asked herself.

No, you're not hallucinating, Jeanie. Do not doubt the truth you already know.

"What?" Jeanie asked, looking around the room for the speaker. "Who said that just now?"

"I beg your pardon?" said Sir Topham, looking up from his reading.

"Just now," Jeanie told him. "A woman said I wasn't hallucinating and...and not to d-doubt the truth."

"I didn't hear any-...ah! I think I know who," Sir Topham replied. "Jeanie, close your eyes and just try not to think of anything for a few moments."

Jeanie immediately thought that they'd used a hidden loud speaker to fool her or that it had come from a speaker on the projector, but then she began to think about what she'd heard, and it definitely had not been with her ears. Thinking more about it, it reminded her of the times when she'd gone to bed at night and, as she tried to settle down to sleep, she'd think that she'd heard a phone ringing or someone knocking her front door, but knowing at the same time that there was NO-ONE knocking the door and that the phone had definitely NOT rang. Sometimes, she'd even been convinced that her mother or father was calling her name, but they lived miles away from her.

"Please, Jeanie," Sir Topham urged her. "Just for a minute or so."

What was really puzzling Jeanie was how on earth could someone have known what she was thinking. Shaking her head, she let out a breath of resignation and closed her eyes.

Thank you, Jeanie. Please trust me. My name is Lady. I'm using the last of my strength just for this. What you and Sir Topham are doing is vital if you want to save me, but to do that, you have to be true to yourself. Do you know what I look like?

"No," Jeanie answered out loud, totally enamoured by the gentle tone of the mysterious voice.

I look like this...

Jeanie was trying to do as Sir Topham had asked and not think of anything but the image of a small purple and gold-coloured steam engine popped onto her mindscreen. Thinking that it was just her imagination, she trying to clear it away by thinking of just blackness, but it kept forcing itself into her thoughts, and then she was shocked to hear the voice say, Please, Jeanie, don't fight me. I'm much too weak for that. I want to help you, Jeanie, but that's all I can do for you. One day, Jeanie, I hope to see what YOU look like. Please, tell Sir Topham exactly what you have just seen, and that I've been holding on to the very last of my magic to fight this thing, but now, I'm too tired and I can't fight it anymore, and I'm scared for what'll happen to me when I let go of my magic and it goes dark in my mind. I ha...I have to now, Jeanie. G-g-goodbye. The image faded and Jeanie opened her eyes, looking straight away for Sir Topham.

He raised one eyebrow as if to ask what had occurred and she opened her mouth, pausing to think how to put it across without getting caught in some trick.

"It...it was Lady," Jeanie said quietly, wiping at a tear that had found its way out from her right didn't know how, but she had actually felt Lady's fear of dying when she'd been talking inside her head, and it was something that she'd never ever imagined in her young life. The hopelessness that Lady was feeling had been like a sponge, soaking up all of Jeanie's emotions and leaving just a shell that contained only the feeling of loss and grief; the expectation of losing EVERYTHING except just a grain of hope that one's friends might be able to help. "She...she told me to tell you that she's too tired to fight whatever it is that's affecting her. She's very weak and...and she has to let go of her magic."

"That poor, poor little engine," said Sir Topham, shaking his head and looking quite miserable with what Jeanie had just told him. "Did...did she say anything else? Anything that might help us in some way to save her?"

"No...no, Sir Topham, except that she was scared of dying." Jeanie thought of the little engine that she had imagined? No. Been shown, and she stifled a little sob. The idea of some sort of mind hidden away inside it, a mind just like a child that feared its demise saddened her so much that she wished she'd never become involved with the Sodor railways, and she felt like giving up herself.

"I...I saw something," she said. "I want to tell you what I saw, but...something inside me is holding back."

"I think," said Sir Topham, "that you don't trust what you saw, or me. Here, write it down on this and then tell me what you saw, then we'll take it from there," he concluded, handing her a sheet of note paper and a biro.

Thinking that he might see what she was writing by the way the pen moved, she said, "Excuse me a moment," and got up from her seat and walked over to a corner of the study to write on the paper, standing with her back to the room. She quickly glanced over her shoulder halfway through, but neither Sir Topham nor Mr. Percival had moved from where they were when she got up from her seat. Finishing what she was writing, she folded the sheet of paper twice and turned to face the room.

"Okay," she said, carefully watching Sir Topham. "The voice I heard told me that what I was seeing was Lady."

Sir Topham, nodding his head, then got up from behind the desk and went over to a shelf next to the window on his right, and withdrew a thick blue file from amongst several others. He opened it and turned over several pages of what Jeanie assumed was a photo album, judging by what she could see of it. Stopping at one page in particular, he carried the open album over to where she was standing and said, "Is this what you saw?"

Jeanie gasped. She was looking at a picture of two steam engines photograph side by side on parallel railway tracks, well, not quite side by side, as the small blue engine was slightly further back than the other one. The small engine in front was the one that had caused her to react in the way she did, as it was exactly like the one she had seen in her mind. It was a small purple and gold steam engine that the voice had said was what Lady looked like, but there was no face on it. It was just a normal steam engine, normal in every way except that she'd just had an image of it pushed into her mind by that very same engine from thousands of miles away.

"Yes, that's it," she confirmed, pointing her finger at the purple and gold engine in the picture.

"Did the one you see have a face?"

"No, Sir Topham, it didn't."

"Hmm. I can't show you any pictures of the engines' faces as cameras don't always see what we can," said Sir Topham, "not unless they've been...conditioned, yes, conditioned would be an appropriate word to use, but I have no idea how that's done. May I ask what you put on the sheet of paper?"

Jeanie slowly unfolded the note paper and held it up for Sir Topham to see what she'd written.

He looked over to Mr. Percival and said, "It says 'Purple and gold steam engine."

Mr. Percival nodded and, despite the sombre air after Lady's sad message, he smiled at Jeanie. "I don't know whether to be envious of not, but she didn't do THAT for me when I started to work here. No, I had to wait for Diesel Ten to try and kill her!" he said, in mock bitterness.

Jeanie smiled in gentle humour and walked silently back to her chair to sit down to think about what had just happened. There was NO way she had given Sir Topham any clue AT ALL as to what she'd seen, only the name, and he actually had a photograph of what she had seen in her mind! The thought that all this could actually be true suddenly hit her like a thunderbolt from the sky. It...it was earth-shattering in its implications. Real, talking trains! She thought to herself, I've just been speaking with one of them that might be dying and I'll be able to talk to the others, no, one of them if he can come back to Sodor, as well! Oh, my God!

"You look like you need another cup of tea, Jeanie," said Sir Topham, putting the album back on the shelf and turning to the tea trolley, "though it might not be as hot as the first one!"

As she re-composed herself, she saw Sir Topham pick up one of the old film reels and threaded the film onto the projector's rollers.

"Right," he said. "I've checked carefully and there are only three reels, though they're marked 'two', 'three', and 'four', there's no number one, so let's see what's on the number two reel first, then. Percival, would you close the curtains, please?"

Once the room was darkened, Sir Topham flicked a switch on the projector and it started up, its soft whirring the only sound in the room as the three of them looked at the white, canvas screen in eager anticipation.

There was no soundtrack, only several seconds of black, marked only with the usual streaks they'd all seen before on an old film, then the jerky motions of the people that had been filmed as they walked about in front of and alongside one of the primitive-looking steam engine that Jeanie had seen in the photographs earlier. The position of the camera was such that it gave a three-quarter profile view of the engine, and as she watched the old recording, she briefly wondered what it would be like if people actually moved about like that back then. It had obviously been made during the early days of cinematography, she decided, looking at the style of clothing on some of the men as they pointed at various things on the small engine and generally fussed about. She assumed them to be officials of the railway company or something, and she glanced across at Sir Topham and Mr. Percival, but they were too engrossed in what they were seeing to make any comment about them.

Two engineers in overalls were chalking strange, meaningless symbols on the left-hand side of the engine's cab and boiler, symbols that she couldn't read or recognise, but they reminded her of something she'd once seen in a film about witchcraft on late-night TV when she was younger. Whilst the engine was being marked, another engineer walked in front of the camera and held up a small white rock or something, but when the cameraman re-focused the lens, it was clearly seen to be a rather large gemstone of some sort. "Well, well," said Sir Topham. "Facets!"

"Sir Topham?" asked Mr. Percival, in need of an explanation.

"Facets," Sir Topham repeated. "There are two facets in all the talking engines on Sodor. They are what keep the engines alive, if you will. One tucked away inside the firebox, and one inside the smokebox. When that engine, Burton, died in that head-on crash back in '65, it was because the facet inside his smokebox got destroyed in the collision. I remember it was a very sad time for the visiting engine, as he thought that he was to blame, but it was a points failure that put Burton onto his line and there was no way to signal or contact him."

"I see," said Mr. Percival.

"Incidentally," continued Sir Topham, "there's also a very small facet lodged inside this projector. I've got no idea why it's there, though. Maybe something on one of these reels of film will show me."

They saw this new engineer walk over to the engine and then climb up to open the smokebox access door on the front of its boiler and place the gemstone somewhere high up inside. He then closed the smokebox door and jumped down before walking off-camera to somewhere unknown.

"That was the first one being put into place," said Sir Topham, for the benefit of both Peregrine and Jeanie.

The camera, when the film had been made, must have been mounted on a wheeled stand or trolley, if the sudden jerkiness and un-focusing and re-focusing was anything to go by as the camera panned along the length of the engine to capture all that was being done to it. before being pulled back several yards in front of the engine to show two engineers doing the same on the other side. While that was still going on, The camera was then dragged or pushed to show a side-on view of the whole engine, but centred on its cab and un-manned footplate. The same engineer returned into shot, holding a second gemstone which he again showed the cameraman. He then climbed up onto the empty footplate and bent down to open the engine's firebox door, reach into it and seemingly affix the gemstone inside. He then closed the firebox door and climbed back down to the ground and walked off-screen again just before the film suddenly came to an end.

"And that was the second one being put in," said Peregrine Percival, nodding as he looked at Sir Topham.

"So far," said Sir Topham, "it's been very educational, though mysterious, what with those strange markings they were putting all over the engine."

Sir Topham asked for the study's room-lights to be switched on and Jeanie allowed Peregrine to do the honours, believing him to be more familiar with where the light-switch was. Sir Topham removed the film reel and replaced it with one that had the number '3' marked on it. "This is the third one in the sequence," he said, before nodding to Peregrine.

The room now dark again, they watched as the third reel commenced, starting from the same camera position as when the number two reel finished and showing the left-hand side of the same engine. From what they'd seen earlier as the camera was being moved about, it looked as though it had been filmed inside an engine factory. "What do you think those markings are for, Peregrine?" Sir Topham asked.

"I've no idea, Sir," he replied. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say it was some sort of black magic we're looking at!"

Then, as they continued to watch, they saw five men wearing long robes walk into view before positioning themselves equidistant around the engine. They were all carrying an opened book and, at a signal from a sixth man, also in robes, they appeared to be reading out loud from the books they were holding, judging by the look of the one man whose face they could see, but, the film being made during the silent days of cinematography, neither of the three people in Sir Topham's study had any idea of what was being said. This went on for a few minutes until the men all suddenly took several quick steps backwards and several plumes of smoke and steam started to vent itself from the engine. The engine then seemed to burst into flames that were immediately sucked up into the steamy cloud that began to swirl around the length of the engine. Faster and faster the smoke or whatever it was twisted and spun around the engine, gaining speed until it looked like a mini-whirlwind and continuing like that for a minute or so before veering up above the engine and suddenly shrinking in size, wrapping itself tightly around the engine, giving the impression that it was being vacuum-wrapped in polythene, then the engine started to lightly glow and the camera was quickly pulled to the left, stopping when it again had a three-quarter profile shot of the engine.

Next thing, and through the grey cloud or whatever it was that had covered the engine, they saw what appeared to be a brighter glow forming around the engine's smokebox. Brighter and brighter it got until it suddenly flared, too bright to be captured correctly by the primitive film, then the glow around the engine completely faded and whatever it was that had wrapped itself around the engine was suddenly sucked up and disappeared into its narrow funnel. The film continued running, showing only the stationary engine with whatever it was that had been daubed over it for a couple of minutes as the five robed men took up their original positions, continuing with their recitation of whatever it was that they were reading from their books. What happened next caused all three of the study's occupants to gasp in shock and surprise. "Oh...my...God!" Jeanie exclaimed, as she saw the metal front of the engine's smokebox begin to slowly morph into the shape of a human face.

The camera pulled back a few more feet, capturing the first tentative movements of the newly created sentient engine as it rolled slowly forward for a couple of feet before pausing as though to rest for a moment, then repeating this action several times before the reel came to a sudden end.

"Phew," whistled Sir Topham. "I've never seen anything like in my life!" he gasped, shaking his head with astonishment as he stared at the white screen, totally oblivious to the projector's take-up reel as it continued to spin.

"That...that was truly wondrous," said Peregrine. "It...it was miraculous!"

Pulling himself together with a rapid shake of his head, Sir Topham went to replace the empty feed reel with the one marked '3', fumbling it two times in his haste before he realised that the room was still in darkness and asked Peregrine to put the light back on for him.

Once he'd re-loaded the projector, they watched the third piece of footage with bated breath as the face, now recognisable as a man's, contorted as though in great pain, it's eyes rolling in every direction as it's mouth moved soundlessly in front of the camera, trying to vocalise what seemed to be distress after an agonising birth pain. Engineers scrambled up the side of the engine, hastily re-drawing the strange symbols as though their lives, or that of the engine, depended on it, and the engineer that had installed the gemstones walked over to stand in front of the newly formed face. He, too, had an opened book and he started reciting something, though the trio watching the film soon realised that he was, in fact, loudly chanting something to the engine. This went on for quite a while, during which the engineer seemed to be repeating himself, as he hadn't once turned over any pages of the book he was holding. Finally, after several minutes of watching the engine's painful but soundless suffering, the face settled down into a blank, neutral state, neither pained nor joyful, neither happy nor sad, only with a look of patient and calm acceptance on it as it stared at the engineer standing in front of it.

Now that the newly-sentient engine had calmed down after its distress, the engineer in front it could be seen turning the book's pages, as though searching for something in particular. Then, finding what he was looking for, he looked up at the face on the front of the engine and started to speak again, his head moving slightly as though he was explaining something to the engine. Sir Topham was really disappointed that there was no soundtrack with the film, as he'd have given almost anything to know what was being said there. As he continued to watch what was happening, the mouth of the engine's face suddenly moved as though it was replying to something the engineer had said to it. The conversation between man and engine went on for a short while it ended with the man stepping up close to the engine and tapping its left front buffer affectionately. A cloud of steam burst forth from amidst its wheels and, once the engineer had stepped away from in front of the engine, it slowly moved forwards out of shot, revealing a crowd of engineers and suited men that had been standing on the other side of it, looking very excited and shaking each others hands before the film suddenly went blank and a quickening of the projector's take-up reel told Sir Topham that he could now switch off the projector. "Wow," exclaimed a somewhat shaken Peregrine before walking over and switching the study's lights back on again.

Jeanie looked over to Sir Topham and saw tears running down his face. By the open-mouthed grin he had on his face, she assumed they were tears of joy. She was correct.

"We...we've just seen something so...so magnificent," he stammered. "I-I'm humbled!"

As a young boy, whenever he'd asked his father how the engines had been made and why were they able to talk, he had never been given a proper explanation. Now, though, he had viewed part of the process involved in creating the sentient engines, but it was only part. He had no idea how the facets had been made or what had been done to them in order for them to be the crucial element in the engines' sentience. The obscure markings that had been daubed all over the engine were an equal mystery, although the actions carried out by the five, no, six men with their books, whatever they contained, strongly suggested something arcane. The disorientation experienced by the engine after its face had formed made him think of a baby being born to the world, and the engineer chanting to it was reminiscent of a midwife smacking the new-born's bottom to induce it to cry, but in this case, the 'smack' was to stop it crying, then the fact that the camera they used to record the 'birth' for prosperity had actually filmed the engine's face struck him. That was supposed to be impossible, he'd always thought. The face had been caught on film and shown via the projector!

Wait a moment, he then thought. That facet inside it. I wonder if that's got something to do with it? The ones in the engines obviously ensure the railway magic lives through the engines, I wonder if the facet inside the projector allows the magic, their faces, that is, to be seen? There must have been a facet inside the camera as well! My father KNEW the facet was in the projector, I wonder if he knew that that was what it was for? I'll have to study these notes more fully sometime to see just what is actually in them, and that fire-burst, that looked like it came from something that we couldn't see! I'll have to wind that film back tonight and have a closer look at it.

Peregrine Percival was feeling overawed by what he'd just seen and learnt. There was so much more to the sentient engines and their creation than he'd ever imagined possible. He'd called it 'Black Magic', but there wasn't anything he saw by the end of the film footage that warranted that particular description any more, rather, it was the most beautiful thing he'd seen since watching his own children being born many years ago. He replayed the scene of the engine's face emerging from its smokebox and just smiled with joy.

The sadness that Jeanie had been feeling over Lady's possible death had been lightened considerably by what she'd just witnessed. The prime reason for that was that she'd now actually seen what the engines' faces would look like, and the fact that Lady had spoken to her in her mind was making her wonder if that was how all the engines spoke. Was it telepathy or something like that? I'll have to ask Sir Topham. In fact, that was only one of many questions that were forcing themselves to the forefront of her mind, but when she'd opted to ask about how she would hear Edward when she eventually got to speak to him, she saw that he'd gone over to his drinks cabinet and was pouring out three glasses of sherry. He handed a glass each to Peregrine and herself and, picking up his own, said, "I propose a toast. I think that it's right that after seeing those old recordings, we should pay homage to those pioneers of the magic railways, would you both agree?"

"Yes, Sir Topham," said Peregrine. "I most certainly agree."

"Yes, so do I, Sir Topham," said Jeanie. "I didn't think when I was driving to my sister's this morning that I would end up being involved with such a...an unbelievable thing as a magic railway. I've been having doubts all day about how I should be feeling, what with being whisked away from the hospital like that, and seeing the two of you disappear from right in front of my eyes. Lady sending me a picture of what she looks like and speaking to me, I just can't imagine what else there is to discover about all this."

"Only time can tell you that, Jeanie," Sir Topham replied, smiling at her. "If we manage to save Lady and return the engines to their former states, you could have a life time in which to find out, and if we fail, it could either be all over for all of us; the railways AND the former engines. All we have at the moment is hope!"

Sir Topham then raised his glass high into the air, and said, "To the magic railways...long may they survive!"

Peregrine raised his glass as well, and looked over to Jeanie and she imitated the two men as they clinked their glasses together and called out, "TO THE MAGIC RAILWAYS!"

ooOOoo