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“It’s a mistake,” I said quietly

“What’s it now?”

“A mistake I’m…I’m nobody I’m nobody I’m not supposed to be here”

I had made it and didn’t even audition Maria auditioned, with her whole heart I was supposed toI wasn’t supposed to suddenly have to function in Athens This was Maria’s place and she couldn’t even see it

“Wake up, Maria, wake up,” I sobbed “Wake up There’s unicorns, like you said, and ic, and…”

And she didn’t stir But her breathing was better, deep and even, and she had locked her arms around my waist

“Well, Nobody,” the driver said softly, “where to?”

I rubbedwith snot and tears “What about these people? Don’t they need to get…places? Go where they want to go We don’t care”

“Tourists,” he shrugged “They wait for the…ah…fuel stop, and go where the Trolley goes It’s exciting—they never knohat they ht see Besides, the old monster’s not too reliable as a method of mass transit The kids cooes, they aren’t as tough as they say But ic and part ht, so sometimes you’ll say: dinner at Cafe Cubana, hoss and it’ll take you pert as a duck to Elfhae on fines and forht up to the door at Cubana and no fuss Not its fault, you understand The o Worldward, and in a ht lines”

“Then why ask where we’re going?”

The driver looked down at ht, like crystals

“It don’t run without desire, kid Nothing does”

Well, what do you do when you don’t knohat to do? What you’ve been doing I wanted soain So in front of, sorail and just a little es in the backs of my books Just a little more room

I didn’t say it I didn’t say anything But the Unicorn Trolley veered off sharply into the shadows and light of the city, into the sound of it like a wall

And I looked over narled, thorny weeds of the road Soed in the wind and the night On a scrap of tin that ht have once been painted blue, I read: Starfire Station