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“It’s Duke. He… oh god, he doesn’t know.”
He’d heard bits and pieces of a rumor passed between museum workers and guests. That was all it had seemed to him: rumor. Nothing but a load of tish-tosh engines told the younger ones to spook them that had somehow made it to people’s ears. How could it have been anything else? Really, did these people have any brains at all? Did they have any idea how nearly impossible it would have been to commit such a deed? The very idea was preposterous! And now the Earl of Sodor himself had been made so afraid by this ridiculous rumor that he’d gone so far as to harbor engines at his castle for protection? It was hilarious.
“Know what?! Youngsters? Are you there? What’s he crying about?”
He hadn’t believed it for a moment.
“P-Peter Sam and… Sir Handel are…”
“Are what?! Where are they?! Where are my boys, Skarloey?!”
He couldn’t believe it.
“Peter S-Sam is… he’s dead, Duke. M-murdered in the night. Sir Handel is gone. The engine-napper t-took him.”
The words repeated over and over in his smokebox. Peter Sam, sweet, gentle, naïve Peter Sam, he was…
“Grandpuff! They bought us both! We’re staying together!” The words stung Duke in his firebox, but the unfiltered joy in Stuart’s voice made the slightest smile creep onto his quivering lips.
“That’s… wonderful, Stuart. You and Falcon… you’ll both be happy together, I’m certain of it.” Try as he might, he couldn’t hide the note of sorrow that laced his voice. Not from him. Stuart’s smile instantly dropped, the joy lighting his eyes fading ever so slightly.
“Grandpuff? What’s wrong?” They didn’t need further words between them; Stuart saw everything so clearly in the old engine’s misty eyes. “N-no… they can’t… you’re still Really Useful! They can’t leave you here!”
He gritted his teeth and steadied his voice. “I’ll be alright, youngster. No doubt you’ll meet more engines on your new- ”
“No! I don’t want replacements! Falcon and I, we… we love you, Grandpuff.”
It took everything Duke had to hold back his tears at these tender words.
“If you’re staying, then I’m not leaving either!”
“Don’t be daft, Stuart. You and Falcon still have so much life in you. Go and live it together.”
“But w-who…” Stuart let out a weak chuckle as a tear trickled down his cheek. “Who will keep us in line without you, Grandpuff?”
“Now, now, boy, don’t cry. These tears would never suit His Grace.”
Stuart sniffled and let out a sad little moan. “It won’t be home without you, Grandpuff. Falcon and I won’t know what to do with ourselves. We… we’ll…”
“Shh. Stuart, listen to me. You and Falcon have grown into fine young engines and I’m mighty proud of you both. You will be fine, I know you will.”
He went to sleep that night not fearing his uncertain future. He wept for the two young engines he would surely never see again as the door of his shed locked for the final time, but he was content. They both still had work. They were together. They were alive. Assuring those things made his seemingly endless imprisonment well worth it.
Two decades of ceaseless loneliness now bore down on his mind all at once. He’d endured all of it and stayed sane due to the promise that his boys were safe. But now? Here in this dull, empty museum at night, all Duke had were his thoughts once more, and all that occupied them now was the truth that his dear Stuart was dead and he hadn’t even had the chance to say goodbye this time. And Falcon… oh god, Falcon…
“Can’t you just understand that I’m trying to protect you, Falcon!? Do you know what they do to human men who behave the way you two do?! They lock them away in madhouses! Sometimes, they are even killed! And that’s what will happen to both of you if management finds out! You’ll be killed! Reduced to scrap! Is that what you want?!” He himself had never fallen in love thus, he didn’t know what that kind of love felt like. He’d seen their failed attempts to touch and kiss one another as mere childish frivolity that could be easily corrected. He’d done everything he could to stamp out their attraction to one another before it blossomed into love. Now, he saw that it hadn’t been enough. The love the two young engines held for one another was clear in their eyes. Duke had never known that kind of love, but even so, he wasn’t blind. Anyone could see it, and dread suffocated Duke knowing that it was only a matter of time until Manager saw it too.
“If living means being without Stuart by my side, then I don’t want to live anyway.”
Secretly, Duke felt pride swell within him at these words. Falcon had to be one of the most arrogant, self-important engines he’d ever met and yet, here he was truly loving another even at the cost of his own life. He wanted to tell him just that, to praise him for learning selflessness and devoting himself to another. But he was so afraid. Selfishly, he scorned their love and tried to take away their happiness. Anything just to be sure his boys lived.
One of the first things Sir Handel had gleefully told Duke on the day they were reunited was that he and Peter Sam still loved one another. He remembered the first call Sir Handel had made to him when Duke was first placed in that miserable museum.
“The Thin Controller is very good to us. He doesn’t mind when Peter Sam calls me his husband, and he even allowed us to have a little wedding ceremony just recently! The other engines and our crews were there, and everyone was so happy for us, and… oh, it’s nothing like it was, Grandpuff.”
Peter Sam had stayed by his side for over ninety years, and here they’d been free to love one another without hiding. They could be truly happy. But now, Sir Handel was all alone. He… he was…
“I have to get out of here…”
His eyes flipped madly from side to side as they scanned the empty hall. No one was there with him but plaques and old mementos in glass cases. He tried with all his might to push forward. No fire burned within his firebox nor was there anyone there to light it.
In the distance, far down the darkened hallway, he thought he heard a voice. It wasn’t the tired voice of the nightguard as he’d been expecting. No, this was a voice Duke had not heard in many, many years and it terrified him.
“R-right, Dukie? Tell them. T-tell them it wasn’t my fault, Dukie! I’m built wrong! I just need some adjustments and then I’ll be Really Useful! Tell them, Dukie!”
He stared back at Duke again, sad and hopeless as he had been that day. He’d warned him, he’d tried to make excuses for him in the past, he’d even hidden all the times he’d helped him back onto the rails himself from the manager. It had never been enough. Duke couldn’t help him then and he couldn’t help him now. He’d failed him.
“I… I have to get out of here!”
He looked at the flimsy ropes that gated him in this spot. It would take nothing to crush them beneath his wheels. Freedom was so close and yet… no… even if he somehow did escape, where could he run? His stretch of rail was only as long as it needed to be for him to sit still upon it.
“Please come back… please… don’t just ignore me!”
All the poor, forsaken engine wanted was someone to acknowledge he was still alive. Duke couldn’t even meet his eye. He was too ashamed, too cowardly to face the truth that he had damned an engine to a fate worse than scrap.
He hadn’t done enough to save anyone.
“HELP! SOMEONE HELP ME! I HAVE TO GET OUT!”
He was back in that shed, that miserable lonely shed, nothing around him but oppressive darkness and sticky webs, the spiders that owned them skittering maddeningly all over him despite the tarpaulin that covered him. The sweet dreams of an impossible future where he worked alongside Stuart and Falcon’s smiling faces had been stamped out by nightmares of their hollow corpses. The darkness twisted his vision, fooling him into believing someone or something sat with him in his prison. But that was impossible; he hadn’t heard a voice that wasn’t his own in… god, how long had it been? Surely the years of neglect should have killed him by now? Perhaps that was just it. Perhaps he’d long ago left his rusted-out shell sitting abandoned in what remained of a shed and now he was trapped in an engine’s version of Hell.
But this time he didn’t have the comfort of knowing that with his suffering his boys were safe. There was no sweet shield holding his sanity intact. Peter Sam was dead, and Sir Handel was alone and afraid and he needed him his boy needed him he had to get out but he was trapped.
“HELP ME! HELP! I HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE!” He tugged and tugged but stayed motionless despite how hard he willed himself to move.
Footsteps and shouting echoed down the hall, though he couldn’t hear what was being said. A blurry, humanoid shape appeared in his peripheral as a set of hands fell onto his tank. “What’s wrong, old boy?!” a male voice called out in a horrified tone. He recognized it as the nightguard. The nervous man moved in front of Duke’s face and put his hands on either side of his smokebox. His lip trembled, and the poor thing looked like he had no idea how to handle the situation. “What are you shouting about?! Come on, talk to me! What’s wrong?!”
Duke took in two quick, ragged breaths before he struggled to speak. “My… hah… m-my boy! He needs me! I need… hah… to get out of here! I have to… hah… to help him! I… I…” His voice was stolen as he fell into a violent coughing fit.
“I-I’ll call Sir Robert!” the nightguard said, reaching desperately into his pocket. “Y-yeah! He’ll know what to do!” After fumbling nervously with his phone for what felt like minutes, he shakily put it to his ear. After a moment of silence he said in a somehow even more jittery voice, “S-sir! It’s Jeremy! I’m on duty tonight and… and there’s something wrong with old Duke! He’s screaming and shaking, and I don’t know what to do! A-alright, sir! Thank you!” He swiftly hung up and caressed the top of Duke’s smokebox with a shaky hand. “Sir Robert will be here in just a moment, old boy! Hang on!”
When the Earl arrived, Duke was hyperventilating and shaking so hard the faux rails beneath him rattled. Sir Robert sent the nightguard away and struggled for nearly an hour to calm Duke down all on his own. Now, he stood before Duke rubbing circles into the side of his smokebox with his thumb, an exhausted but comforting smile on his lips.
“What happened, Duke?” he asked in an almost fatherly tone, the same he used with every engine he spoke to. “I’ve never seen you have such an awful attack before. Did a guest do something to upset you today?” The audacity of this man. How dare he pretend that he had no idea what had brought this up? Did he think Duke was a fool?
“You know,” Duke hissed between his teeth.
The Earl looked puzzled. “I’m sorry, I’m sure I don’t. But if you’ll only tell me, I promise I’ll do what I can to make it right. I assure you I do not tolerate bullying in my- ”
“Peter Sam is dead! How could you not tell me?!”
Shock and horror flooded the Earl’s features as the realization hit him. He’d still believed that Duke didn’t know. He’d thought he could hide it from him forever, hadn’t he? “Duke- ”
“He has a twin brother in Wales! Did you keep it from him as well?! Leave it for a railway worker to tell him after months without receiving his letters that his brother has been dead the whole time?!”
“Duke, please believe me. I promise I was going to tell you. I just thought that now wouldn’t be the time with all the disappear- ”
“And Sir Handel?!” Duke screamed. He wasn’t going to listen to any piss-poor excuse the Earl wanted to spit up. “That bastard took him! He’s trapped alone somewhere with nothing to think about but the fact that the engine he loves is dead, and what am I expected to do?! Just sit here and do nothing while he suffers alone?!”
“A team of engines has gone to find the place where the kidnapped engines are being held and save them,” the Earl said quickly.
“Let me go with them!” Duke demanded. “Let me bring him home!”
“Duke, that’s not possible! You’ve been stationary for years! It’s not safe to get you running without a proper inspection- ”
“I don’t give a damn if my boiler explodes on the way there!” Duke argued. “I have to try! Let me go now! That is not a request!”
“The engines have all already left, Duke! And even if they hadn’t, it is going to take quite some time to get you out of the museum! It’s just not possible!”
Duke let out a half groan, half sob. “So, I’m expected to just wait and hope these engines find him and he’s sane if he’s even still alive?”
“I wish things were simpler than what they are, Duke. I really do.”
Duke was silent for a long moment, peering down spitefully at the floor until its ugly patterns blended into a mush of dull color. “Tell me, sir, do you have children?” he muttered in a low voice.
The Earl seemed taken aback as he stumbled over his words. “Uh, um, well, yes! Yes, I do have children.”
“And grandchildren? Do you have any of those?”
“I do, and a great-granddaughter who just arrived this past summer!”
Duke glared at the man, whose face sported an uneasy smile. “Then you must understand. Promise me that you’ll have me out and running soon. When he comes home, I want to work alongside my grandson.”
The Earl’s smile dropped, and he sighed as he caressed Duke’s running board. “I promise you that, Duke. I will do everything I can to get you to the Steamworks as soon as possible.”
“We’ve finally identified all the bodies. Duke, I’m… god, I’m so sorry…”
He’d held onto hope with all he’d had. The fire had already come and gone by the time the Earl managed to get him out of the museum. He’d gone on to the Steamworks believing wholeheartedly that somehow Sir Handel had survived. The men had prioritized the injured surviving engines over him, and so he’d sat in the corner of the Steamworks for days now hoping and praying. It was all he could have done.
Now the words of Sir Handel’s driver were the only things clear in his swimming smokebox. One of his boys had been electrocuted to death, the other faced with the corpse of the engine he loved before being burned alive. And here Duke was, tortuously still living. It had been over a week since he’d been put in his corner and at last, he’d been inspected and the scale of his repairs decided. All that time he had remained still and silent and had not shed a single tear, not even when he’d been given the news of Sir Handel’s death.
“Good news, old boy,” the man who’d inspected him said. “You’re in fine shape. You could use a couple new parts and a bit of touching up here and there, but my boys should have you back on rails in no time!”
Now as he watched the man walk away to attend to another engine, Duke’s breathing hitched, and his eyes finally filled with the tears he had been forcing back. He whimpered and moaned miserably as they flowed down his cheeks and splashed onto his running board.
“Hm? Who’s that crying?”
Flicking his eyes to his right where the voice came from, Duke could just make out the outline of a very large engine through his swimming vision. He blinked away a gush of tears and his eyes landed on a frightful sight. The engine, or what had been an engine at one point, was a standard gauge and should have been a tender engine. His tender had been removed; Duke could see the battered and blackened thing sitting off to the side of him. His cab and buffer beams were made of wood, each charred and with large chunks missing, the completely burned bits clearly having been removed. His wheels had been removed, his sooty axels clearly telling Duke what had become of them. His boiler was bare metal, the patterns carved into it showing where the men had tried to scrape off all the blackened paint that had once been there.
“Hello?” he spoke again. “Are you alright?” He was so tall that had he been any closer to him Duke would have not been able to see his face. The sight of it made him sick in his boiler. The engine had many layers of gauze fastened to his face completely covering his eyes, what was left of his nose, and most of the right side. Only his left cheek and mouth were left uncovered, the right side of which drooped like the spent wax of a candle. How this engine could speak or was even still alive in this state, Duke couldn’t imagine.
“My… my boy…” Duke took a sharp breath in a vain attempt to steady his voice. “He perished in the fire. And my other boy, that… that monster electrocuted him to death. I’ve fought their entire lives to keep them living and yet… in the end, they died anyway…” He’d thought momentarily about lying to the big engine, but what good would that have done? It wouldn’t make the truth any less of a truth.
“Oh…” the big engine droned in a tired voice. “I’m very sorry… engine?”
“Duke,” he sputtered. “My name is Duke. And there’s nothing to be sorry for. They’re gone and I was powerless to save them.”
The big engine whimpered, and Duke could see tears begin to soak the bandages over his eyes. “There was another engine here a week or so ago whose children died. It’s… so selfish of me to say, but… it comforts me a bit knowing I’m not the only engine who’s lost children.”
Duke looked up at the engine, puzzled. “Y-your children?”
The big engine whimpered again. “They were twins. He made one of them watch him cut his brother up while he was still alive.”
Duke’s firebox felt as if it were filled with hot lead at these words. “I’m to be put back in service soon, but what does it matter if I can’t work alongside my boys? I can’t imagine a future without them. And look at you. You’re even worse off than I am and yet…” He sobbed miserably. “How do you keep living?”
“My Lady, is that who I think it is?! Duke!”
Before the big engine could answer him, another voice called out from across the Steamworks. Looking ahead, Duke could see a little red saddle tank chuffing his way, a huge, welcoming smile lighting his old face.
“Skarloey,” Duke said in a quiet but enthusiastic voice. “What are you doing here? You look to be in fine condition.”
“Oh, well, if I am to be completely honest,” Skarloey chuckled, “the Thin Controller has been alluding to bringing in some new fleet members. I delivered a train to Ulfstead Castle and… overheard the Earl speaking on the phone with him, something about ‘the progress of his repairs.’ I knew it was rather nosey of me to do so, but my work was done for the day and I wanted to see how the recovering engines are doing anyway so I decided to come here and see what he was talking about.” His eyes drifted to look at the big engine. A disturbed look crossed his features for a moment before he quickly looked back at Duke. “I never imagined you would be the engine they spoke of! I will be delighted to welcome you back to our railway, Duke!”
Duke looked away shamefully. “After our recent conversation I would have thought I was the last engine you’d like to work alongside. I’m truly sorry for my behavior that day, Skarloey. None of that situation was your fault, I know that now.”
Skarloey sighed. “Oh, I don’t blame you for any of that, Duke. You were overwhelmed. You were not yourself.” His eyes narrowed, he made a sorrowful sound deep in his throat, and for a moment it seemed that he might cry. “Rheneas is not himself either. He is taking our loss hard, harder even than I imagined he would. If I’m to be honest, I… I’m scared, Duke. He’s not Rheneas anymore. I… I don’t want to lose my brother too.”
Something clicked in Duke’s mind then. Skarloey’s eyes were closed now. Even so, the tears he tried desperately to hold back trickled down his face. Duke looked back up at the big engine, the image of him warped by a new flood of tears. This engine was blind, disfigured, and surely in incredible pain. But none of that was the worst of it. These two engines were both fathers of dead engines. Just like Duke. Just like…
“He loved them as well, didn’t he, Skarloey?”
“Mm hm,” Skarloey whimpered. “He blames himself, Duke. He won’t listen to anything I say that tells him otherwise. From the moment he met the others in our fleet, he made it his duty to keep them safe, but now…”
“Now they’re gone, and he’s still alive.”
Duke and Skarloey both looked up at the big engine, surprised that he had spoken.
“I went over it a hundred times in my smokebox,” the big engine went on. “I told myself everything. ‘I should have known something was wrong. I should have gone along when he took them. I should have just let the fire kill me.’” He paused in thought. “My memory’s not too good, but I remember a little engine named Rheneas coming to our island. I remember that he wanted to find a Christmas tree to surprise his family to make them happy. I remember how nice it made me feel seeing how much he loved his family. It reminded me of me and the twins.” He paused again, a little tear managing to slip under his bandages. “I don’t know why I chose to hang on, but it feels a lot better knowing I have a reason now. Tell Rheneas he isn’t alone. I know what it’s like being alone, and it’s the worst feeling you could ever think of.”
There was a moment of silence between the three engines. And then Duke spoke.
“He’s right. Peter Sam and Sir Handel are gone, but there is a reason I’m alive.” For the first time in far too many years, a smile graced the old engine’s lips.
“Now, the engines of the Skarloey Railway.”
Duke could practically feel Rheneas tense as the Thin Controller spoke these words. He looked to the red tank engine and smiled warmly at him. When Rheneas’ eyes met Duke’s, he looked visibly distressed, but leg go the breath he’d been holding and gave a nervous smile of his own.
“Now, I cheated a bit with this one,” the Thin Controller said with a smile. “First of all, my number three and four were not one without the other, as some of you may remember, so I thought it right to have them shown together. Second, the Skarloey Railway is not the only home Sir Handel and Peter Sam knew. I thought it would be best to show the first photos of the two of them in both of their homes.”
Duke and Rheneas both gasped in surprise and utter delight at the same time as two photos appeared on the projected screen: one a gritty black and white photo of Duke between a smiling Falcon and Stuart, and one a faded autochrome of Sir Handel and Peter Sam in a shed beside Skarloey and Rheneas.
“That was taken the day I returned from my overhaul,” Rheneas said with nostalgic awe. “I’d been nervous leaving Skarloey with two unfamiliar engines. Knowing how younger ones are, I was afraid they’d bully him. But then, when I truly got to meet them myself… oh, it was like something inside me knew what an important piece these engines would be in my life. I adored them almost instantly.” He gave a little chuckle as a tear slid down his cheek. “The photo doesn’t show the whole picture. Duncan and Rusty were in the next shed over as well. I arrived back home to a full shed. It was like coming home to a big family. I love them all… so much.”
“Rheneas…”
Rheneas looked at Duke with worry in his eyes, seemingly brought on by Duke’s sudden seriousness. Duke gave him the warmest smile he could muster.
There was so much he wanted to tell him, so much he wanted to thank him for. For caring for his boys just as Duke himself would all that time Duke had been lost, all that time he’d been kept in the museum. For helping them grow into fine engines even His Grace could be proud of. For not only doing everything he could to keep his boys safe, but loving them.
But, not ready to risk making them both start crying again, he simply said, “Guardian, mentor, father- whatever it is they’re calling it, you’re a grand one, Rheneas.”
As these words were said, Rheneas gave a joyous smile of his own. “You as well, Duke.”
And, for the first time in far too long, as Duke’s smile deepened and his old eyes drifted back up to look at his boys’ giddy faces, the old engine felt truly happy.