Hal, it’s about robots.

Unfortunately, not every engine who glimpses such happenings gets to move on so merrily. It may be nothing most of the time, but sometimes, it is something. But the Veil is not a harsh thing. To ascribe it a will is a rather uncertain exercise. Here - as we've gleaned from a few of our beloved railfolk - is the closest we suspect we shall get to a document of the Veil's workings. At least, those that concern the railfolk.

- Mr. and Mrs. Calne

Firstly: "Thinning Out"

Notes courtesy of conversation with Edward, Henry, and Rusty

Think of the Veil like a piece of thick fabric. Ordinarily, no light passes through. If the sun is especially bright, you may see a cloudy light on the other side. Sometimes, though, the Veil "thins out".

It might thin in a place, around a person, or - far more fascinatingly - in the eyes of a fellow.

In a place, there is a fixedness to the effect. A uniform common axis along which "thinness" scales. In some places, the fabric thins out like a bedsheet - you can see light filtering through, maybe even silhouettes on the other side if they are sufficiently backlit. The fabric remains intact, but the light is there and you can just glimpse the fabric.

Too much thinner, though, and you start getting holes. They are quite rare, but they do happen. The holes aren't big - no bigger than a pinhead or maybe a five pence, conceptually - but they are there, and you can see clean through.

Author's Note: Edward sent us a note of clarification after our conversation. We have added it here:

"I described all this as three sorts of thing, but as I was mulling it over, it's only two. The second was just the first all over again. We seldom think of a person as a place, but as a far as the Veil is concerned, I think a person can be a location of sorts. The Veil might thin around a person in the same way it thins in parts of Henry's Forest, or the old line Mr. Bailey tends. It's a strange sort of thing, they might not be aware - I wasn't for a long time. Now that I know, though, it's rather painfully obvious. It's like someone is holding on to you, but through a thick winter glove."

So much for the notion of "thinning" itself, at least as regards a locus. It is in the eyes of a person - all railfolk, in these cases - that the subject becomes quite fantastic and incredulous.

Examples present courtesy of Edward and Henry

Golden Sight

One's individual perception can thin too. Such perception varies in degree, but the whole gamut is colloquially (and quietly) called the "golden sight".

The degree is a number of "layers" stripped from the entire fabric. Unlike matters of place, though, the Veil itself is not thinned - only the one soul's perception of it.

The short rule of thumb is: "How far you can see comes from how far you have seen." It's a touch counterintuitive, but apparently such sight usually occurs when something else invites it.

Degree 1: Stage Curtains

The most common gold-sight is a light thinning of the fabric - a heightened intuition, a keener sense for when something is a bit to the left of normal. Hearing shuffling behind the stage curtains, so to speak - barely audible, but there.

Rarely, some are born this way. Most cases acquire it, often after stumbling upon a location where the Veil is already thin.

NB: The rule of thumb - if a person has glimpsed light on the other side of the sheet, enough to know that there is a sheet (even subconsciously), that awareness is now relatively permanent. They will be aware when that sheet rustles, and they will notice when the light peeks through the weave.

This sight may range from entirely subconscious to entirely conscious.

Dear Edward has acquired the conscious variety. In his estimation, he is "entirely, uncomfortably aware that there is a sheet. [Edward] has witnessed some exceptionally thin parts of that sheet. [Edward] wishes he could go back to ignoring the sheet, but the sheet continues to make sheet noises every time he's almost managed to put it out of mind."

Other examples: Skarloey, Rheneas, Donald and Douglas

Degree 2: The Pinhole

Another degree forward grants the first proper extension of sight: when there is a true hole in the fabric, and someone - even just for a second - looks through.

Once glimpsed, they will forever catch snatches and glimmers of the other side, even through the tiniest of gaps in the weave. Every imperceptible hole to us is now just big enough that when the light hits it right, they might catch a glimpse through it and see something else.

Here lies the highest variance of "stripped layers". Someone might only get a light sheering out where the sheet remains fairly thick, and only in places where it's already thin do they find holes. On the other end, the entire fabric might grow so thin that the light becomes blinding, so bright that it becomes hard to tell what's on which side of it.

Henry places himself "somewhere in the lower middle" of this spectrum. He "keeps catching little pinprick rays of sunlight from the other side of the sheet, showing him things he doesn't expect to see." It began after his crash with the Flying Kipper. The severity of his description seems greater than "lower middle", but perhaps it has faded over time, or reduced as he was repaired?

"The fabric slowly became a weave, and the weave a hundred little holes, and I could see through all of them. I woke up a long time after, I think."

Author's Note: Henry is a rather unusual case, it seems. He termed his experience as a "momentary death", not "near death" as we had heard elsewhere. We did not question it at the time, but his choice of words certainly puzzles us.

Most variations of golden sight appear to be extensions of this sliding scale.

At a minimum, you might have a peculiar awareness of holes, and an accidental propensity to keep glancing through those holes. At maximum, giant swaths of fabric thin out to a threadbare mesh - more holes than fabric - and so wide you could reach through.

"Reality becomes difficult to anchor - it becomes maddening and disorienting and terrifying, to feel like you are in a dream and cannot wake up." - Quoted by Splatter; spoken by someone else?

Other examples: Duncan, Rusty

Author's Note: This is where our notes end. I doubt we shall acquire anything further at this time, unless we hear back from Splatter again. He and his brother seemed to have more to say, but we haven't seen them in some time.

A small signature of hastily bound pages is paperclipped to the last entry. A note is taped in the front of the signature.

We didn't have much chance to make these neat. I'm not sure what's happening. This should be in someone else's hands before anything else happens. Boss hasn't been himself lately (worse than usual, something's up). Keep these private for now, yeah? - [name illegible. Initial "D" clear]

The contents of the signature is a rapidly scrawled transcript of some kind.

Degree 3: The Scalpel

It's messy, but it'll need to do. These are all from the Boss himself. Had to paraphrase some of them, most are verbatim. It's pretty heady, but this whole thing is too absurd for anything else. Kinda broken too, but so is Boss.

"The utmost extreme? More than mere thin fabric. No longer are you simply seeing through holes, but cutting your own."

"Eyes become like awls. A pair of scissors. My own have dulled. They'll break someday and leave me with half-stitched tatters and rough-cut cloth."

"The gentlest, softest lapse from pinhole to pin is a fine awl. It pries through holes and pushes them open. The harshest? A razor that simply cuts. The veil loses meaning. It falls away wherever you look. If you can't control when the razor cuts - and you can't - reality ceases to be concrete. Waking in dreaming, dreaming in waking, there is no difference that you can grasp. [. . .] You could be on either side of the tattered curtain."

[Break]

"Maybe it only stops being solid in ways we can understand? Perhaps it gets more real, more concrete. [. . .] solidifying in strata of crushing sediment to cage you alive and fossilize you in a single frame of time to watch time immemorial."

[Break]

"The surgeon's scalpel is precise. It cuts when the surgeon decides. But no one is lucky enough to be a surgeon here. [. . .] You may have the scalpel, but never the precision, never the restraint to keep the Veil from sheering away like steam off a hot pan. Close your eyes and pray someone takes the blade."

"Having seen too far [. . .] you are changed. Who gets hurt most when you can't tell which side of the sheet you're on, I wonder?"

[Break]

"The world may become more colorful, bursting and overflowing with strange and wonderful things which no one else can seem to see. But you cannot tell what others can and cannot see anymore. You cannot tell what the most fundamental, dullest layer of the world is any longer. There is too much. Too beautiful, too vast, too alive, too glorious for your mind to wrap around. It's enough to break your head open.

"And it will.

"The world may become horrifying, haunted with histories and not-yet-stories and shadows of was and will-be and are and are-not. It may be stained with flowering blood and foaming with tears joyful and despairing. You cannot tell what is and what is not, what will be and what only might be, what could be from what shall be. There is too much. Too horrible, too mysterious, too deep, too dark, too terrible for your mind to wrap around. It's enough to break your head open.

"And it will."

[And it did.]

There is a folded sheet of paper in the very back of the notebook, tucked tightly behind the added signature. It seems more recent than anything else in the notebook. Even so, repeated folds crease the page, and the paper is soft and tattered from wear. The writing is rough, erased several times, and brief.

The margins and rest of the page are filled with strange, child-like sketches - sunflowers, trees, watery swirls, and other odd things. Where words couldn't, it seems pictures had to do, scribbled in dark pencil and smudged by someone's palm. Or, perhaps, they are nothing in particular.

A Different Tilt: Waking in Dreaming

We don't know what happened to us. It's not what '10 has. But it's different from the others too. We see things, sometimes feel things. But most of the time everything is normal. Percy has dreams so often now. Bad dreams. (Strange dreams.) Sometimes he can't seem to wake up. (Sometimes I can't move.) Sometimes he wakes up screaming. Sometimes I do too. I don't dream as much, but it happens. I don't see whatever he's seeing though. (I don't know what I'm seeing either.) Whatever happened in October, it's something changed? I don't know what happened to '10 afterwards. We haven't seen him. (Haven't seen Splatter and Dodge either.) I don't know if that's good or bad. (Those two were nice. I hope they're ok.) It's like someone left fingerprints on the very edge of our minds. (All over the back of my eyes. Sometimes her lines tickle.) (Sometimes my arms feel heavy like gold. Sometimes I think I have three eyes, pointy like golden pins. Sometimes the back of my mind warms like a gilded tree and the waves blink at me.)