American Elsewhere - By Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,180

to you, personally, I mean—common to your kind.”

Gracie is now a bright pink. Mona begins to feel very uncomfortable with the direction this is taking. She lowers the rifle. “Which is what?”

Parson licks his lips, and cringes as he says, “Romance.”

“Romance? You mean… wait.” Mona almost drops the gun. She looks back and forth between Gracie, who is nervously rubbing her elbow and staring at the ground, and Parson, who appears to now be grimly waiting out this subject.

“Are you fucking serious?” asks Mona. “She’s his girlfriend?”

Parson reacts as if he has never heard the term. He thinks, bug-eyed, and says, “I… suppose that would be a fair approximation.”

Mona incredulously looks to Gracie for corroboration. The young girl says, “It’s… complicated.”

“I’ll fucking bet! He doesn’t even look like a, a… person. Right?”

“He looks like many things,” says Gracie. “If he wants to. And he keeps me safe.” Again: “It’s complicated. We have arrangements here.”

“Everyone does,” says Parson. “My kin have arrangements with the natives of Wink, just as my kin in the town have arrangements with those in the wilderness. It is quite complicated, being civilized. There are so many rules and restrictions involved in living”—he pauses condescendingly—“a good life.”

Mona shakes her head. “Okay, whatever,” she says. “I am learning way too much tonight. Just… take us to wherever you need to take us.”

“I can take you,” says Gracie. “But not him.”

Mona and Parson exchange a glance.

“Just me?” says Mona.

Gracie nods again. “Sorry.”

“Did you know about this?” Mona asks Parson.

Parson, frowning, shakes his head.

“Why not him?” Mona asks Gracie.

“I don’t know why,” she says. “He just said only you would be coming.”

“He being this brother of Parson’s,” says Mona. “First.”

“Mr. First,” says Gracie.

“Oh, he’s big on propriety, then?”

“Titles and hierarchies,” says Parson, “are quite important. So am I to just stay here, and wait?”

“I guess you can,” says Gracie. “But I think maybe not. He said something about you going somewhere else. That’s all.” She smiles unhappily. “You know how he is.”

“That I do,” says Parson. He sighs. “Well. Fine. I shall sit and wait here, I suppose.” He groans and begins to sit down.

“You can’t be serious,” says Mona.

“Why not?”

“You’re going to let me walk in there alone?”

“There are rules.”

“Oh my God,” says Mona. “You people and your fucking rules.”

“You will not be in any danger,” says Parson. “I trust him.”

Mona looks back down the little canyon. The light within it, she notes, is not pink, as it is everywhere else, but silver-white. Everything in there shines, and it shines more and more the farther it goes…

“Is it a different place, in there?” she asks.

He nods. “It is his place.”

“What’s it like in there?”

“I do not know. I have never been inside.”

“Jesus.” Mona looks to Gracie. “Do you know?”

“For me, there’s only him in there,” says Gracie. “But then, he’s much more unguarded with me.”

There is a soft, fond tone in her voice that makes Mona feel repulsed. What has this thing been doing to this poor girl in there? Do these things desire sex? Do they understand attraction at all?

Shadows ripple at the back of the canyon. She imagines something is coming, and she wonders—Can it see me? Then she realizes, no—a cloud is simply passing over the moon. Or is that what this thing, this First, wants her to see?

“Has it hurt anyone before?” asks Mona.

“Oh, yes,” says Parson mildly.

Again, she looks to Gracie. “You?”

“Me? No,” says Gracie. “He has never hurt me. I don’t think he’s ever hurt a native.”

“Which is what they call humans, I take it? Christ,” says Mona. She wipes sweat from her cheeks and takes a deep breath.

“Do not be concerned,” says Parson. “You are no concern to him.”

“How do you mean?” asks Mona.

“Understand,” says Parson, “that to him you are merely a spot of light on a wall, reflected by a bit of metal on the ground. You are the twist of a leaf being blown in a slight wind. You are not even a drop of water to him—you are one ephemeral, fleeting curl of a dribbling stream as it tries to flow downhill. You do not concern him enough to warrant harm. He does not care what you want or need. He does not care what you do, or if you live or die. You should not worry, for he is utterly beyond you. He does not notice. He does not care.”

Mona takes two steps forward, then sets the rifle down butt-first and leans on it as if it