American Elsewhere - By Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,179

put this… he has the air of a man filling out his will.”

“Ouch,” says Mona. “Why doesn’t he just stay in hiding?”

“Well,” says Parson, and he stops in his tracks, “I do not believe he is hiding. I believe he is waiting. For you.”

Mona looks up. They are at the mouth of a small, treeless canyon. Mona realizes how far they’ve come, for the western side of the mesa surges up just ahead of them. Somewhere in the rock, she thinks, is that mirror, the little glinting hole in everything that started all of this…

Mona stares down the canyon. It is gray and barren and winding. The wind makes a soft moan as it drags its invisible bulk over the canyon’s lips. She cannot imagine walking down it. She has never seen anything lonelier in her life.

“I have told you,” Parson says softly, “that my brother is… not like me.”

“Yeah. I got that.”

“But you must know that… I do not know how he will choose to present himself. He has never been… orthodox.”

“That’s if we get in to see him,” says Mona, who now finds herself extremely reluctant to proceed down the canyon.

“Oh, that I feel we can do for certain,” says Parson. “Mostly because he told me we would.”

“He what?”

“He told me I would come here,” says Parson. “And he told me I would bring a guest. This was just before your arrival. I had no idea what he meant at the time.”

“Well how the fuck did he know that?”

“Did I not tell you that time does not work right in Wink?”

“You kind of glossed over it, yeah.”

“For many of my kind, who intrude into many other dimensions besides this one, time performs differently. But for him, it performs very, very differently. He has… perception. That is the best way to put it. In his hands, time is but a little dog, eager to perform tricks. He does not see time as linear—he sees many branches of it, the things that have happened, the ones that will happen, and even the things that might have or could have happened, if things had gone otherwise.”

Mona rotates the rifle so it’s back in her hands. “You can understand,” she says as she tugs the strap, “that that makes me really fucking nervous.”

“I suppose I do,” he says, indifferent.

“Because I don’t like the idea of someone knowing what I’m going to do before I do. It would be really easy for them to hurt me, or you.”

Parson stops walking. He looks down the canyon, and cocks his head.

Mona looks as well. There is someone standing there, waiting for them, revealed by the bursts of lightning just above them.

In an instant the rifle is at her shoulder. But in almost the same space of time, she realizes it’s unnecessary. Because this person, who is so skinny-shouldered and frail and anxious, is someone Mona’s pretty sure she’s met before in this town.

“I do not think,” says Parson, “that that is the case.”

Gracie nervously raises one hand, waves to them, and says, “Hey.”

There are few situations more awkward than when one person has unnecessarily just pulled a gun on another. Mona’s rifle, which was originally pointed directly at Gracie’s face, now gently wanders south to circle her midsection as Mona considers exactly what the hell to do.

Gracie coughs politely. Mona taps the stock with her fingers, wondering what to say.

She finally decides on, “You’re the… girl from the diner, right? Gracie?”

Gracie nods.

“Okay,” says Mona. “Well. What the hell are you doing out here, girl?”

“Um. I was waiting,” says Gracie. “On you. I’m… supposed to take you inside.” She points back down the canyon.

Mona does not lower the gun. She peers at Gracie’s eyes, looking for that flutter…

Parson clears his throat. “There is no worry about that. She is quite as human and normal as… you.” Though there is something in his tone Mona doesn’t like.

Gracie nods, concerned.

Mona does not fully lower the rifle. “Okay, then, again—what the hell is she doing out here?”

“She attends to my brother,” says Parson.

“What does that mean?”

“I’m his…” She trails off.

“What? Like, his secretary or handler or something?”

Gracie blushes magnificently.

“What did I say?” asks Mona.

Gracie opens her mouth to speak, rethinks, closes it, then opens it again before wincing and shutting it again. “It’s personal.”

“What does that mean?”

“I told you my brother was unorthodox,” says Parson, “and this is true. His interests are eccentric even for us. And… one of those interests is a common pursuit of yours. Not common