"Miss, can I see your ticket please?", Sebastian asked. The woman held out the requested small piece of paper, her face sour. Sebastian quickly ran his eyes over the small letters, stamped it and handed it back to her. She took it with clear suspicion of having retrieved something contageous back from him and tucked it firmly away. Sebastian proceeded to the next passengers.
"May I see your tickets please?"
Sebastian was a conductor on a well travelled line between London and Edinburgh. He loved his job, but hated the way some people treated him. He had a large birthmark all over his right cheek up to the hair, red, shiny and oily. Sometimes it stung so badly he had to sit down, otherwise he might collapse from the pain. People didn't understand. People didn't want to understand.
Sebastian sighed. He went through the rows of seats in the second class, stamping tickets. An elderly woman asked where the toilet was. That was it. Nothing more happened.
One station before their final stop, Sebastian was still patroulling. He yawned. It was 11.00 p.m. already and he wanted to go to bed. In the very last seat of the train sat a little girl. She had untidy, muddy brown hair and bruises all over her body. Her clothes were shabby and torn. She wore nothing except a shallow dress belted with a rope.
The girl sat very still at her place, looking out the window with a cloudy expression in her misty eyes. Sebastian looked around. No other person was in the wagon. No parent. No sibbling.
"Hey, little one", he said softly and sat down next to her. "What are you doing?" She slowly turned her head and looked at him with a kind, childish smile.
"Watching", she said. Her voice sounded like a whisper of wind.
"Where are your parents?", Sebastian asked, concerned.
"I do not have parents", the girl said. Sebastian looked at her.
"You know, you need to pay to ride this train", he said. "Do you have a ticket?"
"Yes" She pulled a torn and moldy piece of paper from her dress. She handed it to Sebastian. He smoothed it out and tried to decipher the old letters.
-London to Edinburgh, the 15th of august 1967-
The ticket looked several decades old. It was a real relic.
"How did you get this?", he asked in disbelief.
"My mother gave it to me", she said.
"When?"
"On the 14th of august 1967."
"How old are you?" His voice quivered.
"Seven."
Sebastian stood up and lifted the little girl up.
"Come on. I need to speak to someone with you, okay?" She nodded. Sebastian barely felt her weight, she was only skin and bones.
"What's your name, cutie?", he asked to fill the silence.
"Annie. Annie Mary Rose Caterbill."
"That's a pretty name. I'm Sebastian."
He walked. Sweat ran down his spine. Who was this girl? Was she a hallucination? Yet he could feel her. He was not hallucinating. He bit his tongue several times, to be sure.
Halfway through the train to the captain, Annie suddenly asked to be set onto the floor. Sebastian let her down and kneeled beside her.
"What is it?", he asked. She pointed towards a seat ahead.
"That man. I don't like him", she said, hiding her face. Sebastian looked at him. It was an old man, roughly 80 years old, and he laughed at a joke with his son, who was sitting next to him.
"Do you know him?", Sebastian asked. Annie nodded.
"Did he hurt you before?" Something had made him ask this question. Again, she nodded.
"I don't want to go to him", she said fearfully. "He is evil." Sebastian's doubts filled him. It was only an old man.
"What did he do to you?", he asked. Annie hid her face again and crouched into a small ball.
"He killed me", she whispered.