Free L'America by Martha McPhee

Sylvia, lugging backpacks, smoking, looking older than their age but tired like the children that they were. Beth, feeling guilty about Chas, tried to make Sylvia comfortable. "Are you sorry we left?" she kept asking, and Sylvia would smile her winning smile. The thing about Sylvia was that once she made a decision she didn't regret and she rarely held a grudge. Sylvia was already flipping through the guidebook, ready to start with her plans. But Beth knew that she had been bossy and demanding and she had forbidden her friend a chance. She got up and opened all the compartments to see if they were actually filled, which they were, overflowing with entire families—children, uncles, grandparents, many of them snoring. Walking down the narrow corridors as the train bumped along, she had to be careful not to step on sprawling limbs, fingers, and toes. So many travelers had made themselves comfortable just as if they were in the privacy of their own rooms, mouths agape. She didn't want people looking at her while she slept. She slid open another door, poked her head in, and saw a group of six nuns who were eating rice from tins and drinking water from metal cups, the cheap kind that leave a metallic taste on your tongue. They spoke quietly in some unfamiliar language that Beth imagined was Euskera. She studied them for a moment and they her, then she shut the door and turned back to Sylvia, who was squatting in the corridor. The car swayed, catching Beth off balance, and she stumbled against her friend.
    "We can sleep here," Sylvia said. "An adventure." And she opened her eyes wide and invitingly. She began to unfold her sleeping bag and Beth helped her. "I'll keep watch," Beth said. One of the nuns slid open the door to her compartment and looked at the two girls. The old lady's mouth puckered and her lips trembled involuntarily. It seemed a long time passed, as if she (in her habit and her veil) were studying them, as if she herself might be Lachesis. Then indeed with her hand she beckoned the girls in.
    The nuns welcomed the girls into their compartment. They helped them stow their backpacks on the racks overhead; they made space for the girls to sit; they fed the girls rice and water, murmuring to one another in their unfamiliar tongue. One of them opened the window a crack for air, letting in as well the whistle and cries of the train. Cradled against the soft laps of the nuns, the girls fell asleep, rocked gently as the train hummed and swayed through the moonless night.
    In the morning the nuns were gone. Sylvia was stretched out on one side of the compartment and Beth on the other, all the seats to themselves, their sweaters wrapped neatly around their shoulders.
    "Was that a dream?" Sylvia asked. The only sounds belonged to the rhythms of the train.
    "Where were we yesterday?" Beth said. Light pushed around the edges of the curtains. Sylvia pulled them open. Sun alone filled the crowded corridor of the night before.
    "Yesterday's gone," Sylvia Summerhaze said.
    "I suppose," Beth replied, as if that fact were debatable.
    "Is Madrid on the ocean?" Sylvia asked, standing at the window.
    "It's definitely not on the ocean," Beth said, still lying down, not paying much attention. She loved being rocked by the train. She could have lain there forever.
    "Is there a lake in Madrid?" Sylvia persisted.
    "There's no lake in Madrid," Beth said, getting up to see. But she had only a vague memory of Spain's geography. The train was traveling parallel to a huge body of water.
    "Where are the nuns?" Sylvia asked abruptly, as if their disappearance was somehow linked to the appearance of water outside. Beth looked under the seats, pretending to hunt for the nuns. Sylvia laughed.
    "Do you have your money belt?" Sylvia asked, clutching at her waist.
    "They were nuns," Beth said.
    "They could have been gypsies," Sylvia said. "In disguise." But everything was where it should be except that body of water, the Mediterranean, vast and