The rain throws itself like clumps of sand against the waiting room’s windows. It comes in waves, as if there’s a giant the other side thrumming their fingers on the glass.

The girl squeaks open the door and squeezes through. Her pink hair’s pasted by the rain onto her forehead and neck, like melted cotton candy.

I nod to welcome her.

She puffs out a breath of steam. “Hey.”

She sits two benches away from me. There’s no one else here tonight. She shivers. Tries not to, to hide her feelings, but it’s cold in here and she’s soaking.

I’m not a gentleman, or even close, but I remove my jacket and throw it next to her. “It makes a good towel.” If there was anything better in the bag at my feet, I’d give it to her.

“No thanks,” she says.

Stubborn. Defiant. “Suit yourself.”

”When’s the next train due?” she asks. She mustn’t have seen the overgrowth strangling the station, the twisted-spines of the railway track. It is dark, the moon and stars swallowed by clouds — easy to miss the dilapidation. She wouldn’t have asked if she had seen any of it.

And yet, a train will come.

”Not until the morning.”

She shivers again.

“Use it,” I say. “You won’t owe me anything for it. I’m not your stepfather.“

She looks at me, wide eyed, two twitchy turquoise pools. Doesn’t say anything though — it could just be a lucky guess on my part, after all. She takes my cotton jacket and dries her hair, looks like a bird who has shaken itself after a bath. She covers a yawn.

“It’ll be a long night yet,” I say. “You might want a little rest. I always think clearer after a good night’s rest. Everything looks better the next morning, don’t you think?”

“Why are you here if there’s no train until tomorrow?”

”In case anyone comes here.“

She frowns. ”So… You work here?”

“No.”

”Then why are you—”

She sees the blood on the cotton jacket. Looks at me, searching for a wound, hoping to find one. Then, when she fails, she reaches up and touches her own head.

”What the hell? What the hell?”

Now it’s fear causing her to shiver.

“You wanted to know why I’m here. It’s because I don’t believe anyone should be alone before their journey,” I say.

Her hand is covered in blood. Her pool of memories, leaked empty for a time, are refilling.

”He will be punished, if that’s of any comfort. I promise you that. And I will make sure he does not get to ride this train.”

She gasps at her thoughts. At the violence she’s recalling.

She is fifteen. She will never be older.

“You knew,” she whispers. “What are you?”

”A friend. And you are safe in my home.”

She looks around. The rain taps taps taps.

Only the sound of rain for a long while.

”You live here?”

”You should rest,” I say. “The bleeding has stopped. The rain made it run, that’s all. You’re safe now.”

”Am I…”

”Yes.”

”Oh.”

She says nothing else. Doesn’t cry. Just thinks.

Yawns, eventually.

When she finally sleeps, jacket balled beneath her head, I walk over to her with my bag. It is not the same teddy bear her real father had given her, that she lost when she was nine, but it looks the same. If I could leave this room, I would find the original for her. As it is, this is the best I can manage.

I tuck it into the nook of her elbow.

One is never too old for such comfort.

I return to my seat and wait for the storm to pass, for the pale light of the morning train that will take her to the place beyond.

And I will wait, as always, for the next lost soul.