Chapter 2

Pocket Lane was not a lane in the ordinary sense. It had no houses, no drains, no people leaning over gates to discuss other people leaning over gates. It was a narrow path stitched through darkness, with hedges made of coat linings and streetlamps shaped like thimbles. Every few steps, a pocket hung from a branch like a little cloth house.

The brown dog stood at the platform edge and inspected Clodagh as if she were a parcel with insufficient postage.

'Name,' he barked.

'Clodagh Kelleher.'

Barnaby Brassbutton made a strangled sound. 'Not the full name at a first station!'

Clodagh clapped both hands over her mouth, nearly dropping the chipped cup. 'You didn't say!'

'I said never trade your name.'

'I didn't trade it. I answered a dog.'

The dog wagged once. 'Answer accepted.'

'Give it back,' Barnaby snapped.

'Wasn't keeping it,' said the dog. 'I'm a guard, not a thief.'

Clodagh lowered her hands slowly. 'Are you the small dog with large opinions?'

'I am Branigan, Keeper of Pocket Lane, Sniffer of False Buttons, Defender of Loose Change, and yes.'

'Yes what?'

'Yes, my opinions are appropriately sized.'

The green teacup carriage muttered something rude in a clink of china.

Barnaby hopped down from the engine. 'We are here for a mother-of-pearl delivery.'

Branigan sniffed. 'Everyone is here for something.'

'We are also on a bedtime deadline.'

'Everyone is on a deadline. Some are simply louder about it.'

Clodagh decided Branigan and Barnaby were either old friends or old enemies, which were sometimes the same thing with better stories.

She stepped onto the platform. The ground felt soft, like the inside of a pocket after a sweet had melted there years before. The red scarf Mum had tied around her shoulders fluttered though there was no wind. The green ribbon on her wrist tugged gently back the way she had come.

'Does the ribbon mean Granny can find me?' she asked.

Branigan sniffed it. 'It means someone wants to.'

That was not the same thing. Clodagh stored the difference carefully.

The pale mother-of-pearl button lifted from the chipped cup and hovered in front of her nose. Its surface shone with pink and white and blue, like the inside of a shell. Around one edge were tiny teeth marks.

'Who bit a button?' Clodagh asked.

Branigan looked offended. 'Not me.'

Barnaby coughed. 'Possibly a toddler. Possibly a memory. Hard to say. Follow the tug.'

'What tug?'

The button shot forward, trailing a thread of light. Clodagh ran after it down Pocket Lane, with Branigan trotting beside her and Barnaby puffing behind, complaining about modern passengers and their untrained knees.

The pockets in the hedges whispered as she passed. Some were velvet, some denim, some woolly and full of crumbs. One pocket called, 'Spare mint?' Another asked if anyone had seen a bus ticket from 1998. A tiny shirt pocket sneezed out a paperclip.

Clodagh kept her eyes on the button. It led her to a large blue coat pocket hanging low from a branch. The pocket was patched twice, clean but worn, and embroidered with a small school badge from Ferry Road School. Clodagh knew that badge. She wore one on Mondays when she remembered.

The mother-of-pearl button trembled in front of the pocket.

'Is it my pocket?' Clodagh asked.

Branigan sat. 'Not everything with your school on it belongs to you.'

Inside the pocket was a folded note. Clodagh did not want to take it. She wanted button delivery to involve putting buttons in holes and going home. But the button hovered, waiting, and the pocket seemed to hold its breath.

She unfolded the note. The writing was Granny's, but younger, rounder, as if the letters had not yet learned worry.

Dear Train, it read. I borrowed one courage button for Mara's red coat. I will return it before supper. Promise. Nuala Breac, aged nine and a half.

Clodagh read it twice. 'Granny borrowed a courage button?'

Barnaby brushed soot from his waistcoat. 'Many children borrow courage. Most return it by telling the truth.'

'Did Granny not?'

Branigan gave her a look. 'Would the coats be flying if everyone had done their paperwork?'

Clodagh did not appreciate sarcasm from a dog, even a waistcoated one. 'Maybe she forgot.'

'Forgetting is what people call hiding when they want sympathy.'

That felt too sharp. 'You don't know my granny.'

'I know pockets. Pockets hear everything.'

The button clicked against the blue pocket. A small slit opened where the buttonhole should have been. Clodagh took the needle from Cillian's repair tin, threaded it with pale thread that appeared when she needed it, and sewed the mother-of-pearl button into place. She was not brilliant at sewing. Her stitches wandered like sheep. But she kept going until the button held.

As soon as she knotted the thread, the pocket sighed. The school badge brightened. Far away, something heavy dropped safely onto a hook.

Barnaby checked his button-watch. 'One delivered. Six remain.'

Clodagh touched the note. 'What happens to this?'

'Evidence travels,' Barnaby said. 'Guilt lingers.'

'Can I bring it?'

Branigan cocked his head. 'Children ask better questions than adults. Adults ask, Will this make trouble? Children ask, Should someone know?'

'That is not an answer either.'

'Good. You are learning.'

The note folded itself into a tiny square and slipped into the chipped cup. The gold crack flashed once.

The platform bell rang: one clear ding that made the Pocket Lane hedges shiver.

'Back to the train,' Barnaby ordered. 'Second stop may unlock if the mother admits what she knows.'

Clodagh's stomach tightened. 'Mum isn't here.'

'Not physically.'

'That sounds like a trick.'

'It is more of a structural inconvenience.'

They hurried back. The teacup train steamed impatiently, sugar lumps glowing in the tender. As Clodagh climbed into the carriage, the old black phone buzzed from her pocket. She had not put it there. Magic, she was learning, had appalling manners.

The cracked screen lit green: CALL FROM HOME CROSSING.

Clodagh answered. 'Hello?'

Mara's voice came through, thin and crackly. 'Clodagh? Can you hear me?'

'Mum!'

The train gave a delighted toot. Barnaby shouted, 'No shouting across crossings! It disturbs the hinges!'

'Where are you?' Mara asked.

'Pocket Lane. There was a dog. I sewed a button. Granny borrowed courage when she was nine.'

Silence hummed on the line.

'Mum?'

'I found the button box,' Mara said.

Her voice sounded different. Not angry now. Not even frightened. It sounded like someone holding an old bruise and deciding whether to press.

'Where?' Clodagh asked.

'In the pantry wall. Behind the flour tin. Your granny told me where to look after you left.'

'Was she sad?'

'Yes.' A pause. 'So was I.'

The train rolled forward before Clodagh had closed the carriage door. Pocket Lane slipped away, and the tunnel opened into a wide dark place where tracks crossed over one another like shoelaces. Above them hung lamps, each one burning inside a different button: brass, shell, wood, horn, blue plastic, red glass. A sign read HOME CROSSING. Underneath, in smaller letters: TRUTHS SPOKEN HERE MAY ALTER ROUTES.

Barnaby removed his cap. Branigan, who had somehow boarded the guard's van, sat very straight.

'I don't like this station,' Clodagh whispered.

'Sensible,' said Branigan.

The phone crackled. Mara breathed once. Twice. Then she said, 'When I was little, I thought the button box was a game.'

The train slowed.

Clodagh pressed the phone to her ear. 'What kind of game?'

'Your granny kept buttons from people who needed remembering. A fisherman's brass button after a rescue. A baby's blue button after North Quay Clinic stayed open all night. A black coat button from a funeral where no one was supposed to cry. She said every button had a story, and every story helped the town hold together.'

The rails beneath the train began to glow.

'That sounds nice,' Clodagh said carefully.

'It was. Until it wasn't.'

Barnaby's whiskers drooped. Branigan put his chin on his paws.

Mara continued. 'One winter, a family on Ferry Road needed coats. Proper ones, not hand-me-downs with tired elbows. The charity money was meant for them, but the ledger went missing. People argued. Your granny said she could fix it if everyone gave a button and a promise. I was seven. I took one button from the box because I wanted my red coat to look special for the school concert.'

Clodagh looked at the red scarf around her shoulders. 'Was it from your coat?'

'Yes.'

The scarf warmed.

'I didn't return it,' Mara said. 'Then the argument got worse. People stopped talking about the missing money and started talking about who deserved help. Your granny hid the box. I kept quiet because I thought if I admitted taking the button, everyone would know I had broken the magic.'

Clodagh gripped the cup. 'Did you?'

Mara's laugh was small and sad. 'No. I was a child. Children do not break towns by wanting to look special. Adults break towns by letting shame do the talking.'

At Home Crossing, one lamp turned green.

Barnaby whispered, 'Platform token earned.'

The phone screen flashed: MARA KELLEHER MAY BOARD AT THIRD STOP IF SUMMONED.

Clodagh wanted to cheer, but Mara was still speaking.

'I should have told you about the box when you started asking about the dresser. I didn't because I was cross with Granny and embarrassed with myself and tired of old stories sitting in new kitchens. That was wrong.'

Clodagh swallowed. Apologies from adults were strange things. They made the world steadier and wobblier at the same time.

'I was scared,' Mara said. 'Not of buttons. Of you thinking the people you love only tell the truth when magic corners them.'

Clodagh thought about that. 'Do they?'

Another silence. Then Mara said, 'Sometimes. But we can do better before bedtime.'

The crossing gate lifted.

Barnaby blew his whistle. 'Route altered! Second stop open!'

The train shot forward so suddenly Clodagh nearly dropped the phone. The chipped cup rang in her lap. From inside it, a red glass button rose, bright as a sweet. Around its edge were words: FOR THE COAT THAT WAITED OUTSIDE.

'What coat?' Clodagh asked.

Branigan's ears flattened. 'The one no one invited in.'

The tunnel changed. Wallpaper roses gave way to brick, then salt-stained stone. The air smelled of harbour rope and cold chips. The train burst from darkness onto a narrow track running above Emerald Harbour itself, but not the harbour as Clodagh knew it. This harbour was moonlit even though it was not yet night above. Coats floated over the water like boats without people. Sleeves trailed in the tide. Hoods turned their empty faces towards the train.

Clodagh's skin prickled. 'Are those the coats from town?'

'Not yet,' Barnaby said. 'Those are the coats that left before anyone noticed.'

One small red coat drifted nearest. It had a missing button at the throat and a patch shaped like a star on one elbow. The red glass button in the cup trembled so hard it chimed.

Mara's voice crackled from the phone. 'Clodagh, what do you see?'

Clodagh did not want to answer. She understood suddenly that seeing was another kind of choosing. 'A red coat.'

The line went quiet.

'Mum?'

When Mara answered, her voice was barely there. 'That was mine.'

The train slowed beside a platform made of old pier planks. A sign swung in the salt wind: OUTSIDE STOP. Under it stood a girl in a red coat, seven years old, with Mara's dark eyes and Clodagh's stubborn chin.

Clodagh knew at once that the girl was not a ghost. Ghosts belonged to sad stories. This girl was a waiting piece of a story that had never been allowed to finish.

The red-coated girl looked at Clodagh and held out her hand.

Barnaby opened the carriage door. 'Second delivery.'

Clodagh lifted the red glass button. It was warm from the cup and pulsed like a tiny warning light.

'Do I have to talk to her?'

Branigan nudged her knee with his nose. 'Only if you want the button to know where to sit.'

Clodagh stepped onto Outside Stop. The boards creaked under her shoes. The harbour-coats drifted closer, silent and listening. She wished fiercely for Mum, for Granny, for the ordinary hall with its egg sandwiches and arguing adults. But the red-coated girl was looking at her as if Clodagh had brought something more important than a button.

'Hello,' Clodagh said.

The girl did not speak. She touched the missing place at her collar.

Clodagh held up the red glass button. 'I think this is yours.'

The girl shook her head and pointed to the phone.

Clodagh lifted it. 'Mum?'

Mara inhaled sharply. 'Yes.'

'She wants you.'

The phone screen flashed: SUMMON? YES / NO.

Barnaby's face grew very serious. 'A child may summon one adult at a story station. After that, the route becomes harder.'

'Harder how?'

'More honest.'

Clodagh nearly laughed, because adults acted as if honesty were simple, but magic knew better. She looked at the red-coated girl, then at the floating coats, then at the button waiting in her palm.

'Mum said clever doesn't mean alone,' she said.

Branigan wagged once. 'Good mother, that.'

Clodagh pressed YES.

The platform lamp burst gold. The air folded like cloth. Mara appeared on the pier planks in her hall shoes and cardigan, eyes wide, hair slipping from its clip. Behind her, for one flicker, Clodagh saw Granny's bedroom and Cillian holding the dresser steady with both hands.

Mara looked at Clodagh first, touched her shoulders, her hair, her cheek, checking she was whole. Then she saw the red-coated girl.

All the colour left her face.

'Oh,' Mara said. 'There you are.'

The red-coated girl watched her.

Mara knelt slowly. 'I left you outside a long time, didn't I?'

The girl nodded.

Clodagh's throat tightened. She had expected magic to be rushing and whistles and strange dogs. She had not expected it to make her mother look seven years old around the eyes.

Mara held out her hand. 'I am sorry. You wanted one pretty button, and I made you carry a town's shame for it.'

The red-coated girl stepped closer. She opened her coat. Inside the lining was a small torn pocket, the exact shape of the red glass button.

Clodagh understood. This was still her delivery. Mum could say the truth, but Clodagh had to do the work in front of it.

She threaded the needle with red thread. Her hands shook. Mara steadied the coat but did not take over. That mattered. Clodagh stitched the red glass button into place, careful this time, in and out, in and out, until the button sat firm at the throat.

The red-coated girl smiled. Then she stepped into Mara, or Mara stepped into her; Clodagh could not tell which. For one heartbeat they were both there, child and mother, red coat and cardigan, hurt and grown-up, unfinished and returned. Then Mara gasped and pressed a hand over her heart.

Across the harbour, dozens of floating coats settled lower, as if remembering gravity.

Barnaby wiped his eyes with a ticket. 'Dust,' he said loudly.

Branigan did not tease him.

The phone buzzed again: TWO DELIVERED. FIVE REMAIN. THIRD STOP: LEDGER GATE. RISK: SOMEONE HAS BEEN COUNTING WRONG ON PURPOSE.

Mara looked at Clodagh. The red scarf around Clodagh's shoulders had changed. One end was now stitched with a tiny red glass button that had not been there before.

'You did beautifully,' Mara said.

'You told the truth,' Clodagh said.

Mara nodded. 'Late. But yes.'

The train whistled, urgent now. Behind them, Outside Stop began to fade plank by plank.

Barnaby jumped aboard. 'All passengers! Ledger Gate waits for no one and forgives fewer.'

Mara took Clodagh's hand. 'I'm coming.'

'Ticket law allows it,' Barnaby said, 'though I reserve the right to complain.'

'You have that right in every room, apparently,' Mara replied.

The conductor looked pleased. 'She learns.'

Clodagh climbed back into the teacup carriage with her mother beside her, Branigan in the guard's van, and the chipped cup glowing brighter than before. Two buttons were delivered. Five remained. The coats of Emerald Harbour had lowered, but not landed.

As the train pulled away from Outside Stop, Clodagh saw something on the pier where the red-coated girl had stood: a brass key, small and dark with salt, lying beside a scrap of ledger paper.

She grabbed it just as the platform vanished.

For a moment after the key landed in her palm, nobody spoke. Even the teacup train seemed to soften its clatter, as if rails themselves had manners around dangerous names. Clodagh knew Tadhg Mercer only as the man from the Harbour Records Office who wore shiny shoes and said 'procedure' the way other people said 'please'. He had once given her a boiled sweet from a glass jar on his desk and told her good girls kept receipts. Clodagh had not known what to do with that advice, so she had kept the wrapper for three days and then lost it in the wash.

Mara took the scrap of ledger paper but not the key. She read the four words again. Tadhg Mercer kept count. Her mouth tightened into the shape it made when she wanted to protect Clodagh from a thing and fight it at the same time.

'What does it mean?' Clodagh asked.

'It means,' Mara said slowly, 'that the missing ledger may not have gone missing at all.'

Barnaby leaned from the engine. 'Passengers may discuss revelations while seated. Falling dramatically between carriages is strongly discouraged.'

Mara guided Clodagh back onto the napkin seat. Her hand stayed wrapped around Clodagh's for one extra second, and Clodagh let it. There were some moments when being eight was inconvenient, and others when it gave everyone permission to hold on.

The key was cold in her palm. On the scrap of paper, written in a careful adult hand, were four words that made Mara go still beside her.

Tadhg Mercer kept count.