American Elsewhere - By Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,201

way—and in the dead of night, too, which is quite brazen for Wink—just to ask me some silly questions about this parlor trick.” He gestures to the sides of the screen. “Nor to ask grisly questions about what sleeps behind the eyes of those much-vaunted civic leaders in Wink. Nor to ask me how I see what I see, and know what I know. Did you?”

“No,” says Mona. “That’s true.” She cannot help but feel he is shepherding her, cornering her: now that she remembers what she came here to ask, she cannot help but ask it, so now the conversation cannot go another way. Am I as much of a puppet, she wonders, as that picture on the screen?

“I wanted to ask you… about how you came here,” she says.

“Good!” says Kelly. “A gripping story.”

“And who brought you here.”

“Ah. You’ve got good taste. That one’s a corker.”

“And what it all had to do with my mother.”

Kelly smiles wide, eyes thin and mysterious. “Mmm,” he said. “Yes. That’s a very interesting one, too.”

“You don’t deny it? My mother did have something to do with it?”

“No,” says Kelly. “No, I definitely don’t deny it.”

“And you’ll tell me?”

“Oh, yes,” he says mildly. “I expect you’re used to people being secretive, withholding. That’s how things are in Wink, but it’s not how I run my show. I’m a perfect bubbling font of knowledge.” He taps the side of his head. “It just depends on if you really want to drink from my waters. Go ahead and make yourself comfortable, sister. This might take a bit.”

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

It calls itself the Ganymede but this is not its name.

Not names, never names. Never ever never names. The names here are chains and shackles, trappings and signifiers of mice and roaches, customs of a culture so inferior as to be unworthy of a mere second of attention, oh how it hates the burden of a name.

But in this place it needs a name, and so it calls itself the Ganymede, by choice.

The Ganymede rides in the car with the Fool driving, zipping along at precipitous, teeter-tottering angles, headlights flashing on the trees; yet all this makes the Ganymede feel trapped, trapped, horribly, claustrophobically trapped, for it is restrained to this one point in space, moving in this one direction at this one speed. I am pressed to the ground, thinks the Ganymede, pressed into this physicality, pressed into this cage of metal, pressed into this flesh, this skull, behind these eyes…

This is insufferable. Every second is an insult. I am reborn as a flea.

The Ganymede does not talk, but the Ganymede never talks unless it must. It is an affront to talk, to express its thoughts by such a rudimentary, ugly method. Silence is preferable.

But beside it the Fool glances at the Ganymede and uses the dripping hole in his face to say: THIS WAY?

The Ganymede does not deign to answer. The Fool turns back, keeps driving.

Yes, this way, of course this way, there is no other way.

Kill you.

The car pierces the trees, passes a truck parked on the side of the road, huge and black and bulky. The Fool glances at it, worried; the Ganymede does not. It knows what is in the back of the truck, and knows that it will need them; but that is for later. These things are details. It can handle details. There are bigger issues at hand.

Because up on the hill, its sibling is waiting. THE FIRST is there.

THE FIRST is always waiting. It always knew, always knows. Always so unconcerned.

And the Ganymede always hated it for that. Always so superior to the rest of us.

Rage curdles deep within the Ganymede, old rage, fermented rage, eons and eons of quiet fury.

It is not fair. It was never fair.

The Fool muddies the Ganymede’s thoughts with speech once more: I DON’T KNOW HOW GOOD OF AN IDEA THIS IS. SHE’S STILL UP ON THE MOUNTAIN AND IF MY BOYS WERE RIGHT SHE’S A HELL OF A SHOT. SHE CAN PLUG YOU GOOD IF YOU DON’T WATCH OUT. EVEN IF YOU DO WATCH OUT SHE CAN PLUG YOU.

The Ganymede gives the Fool a withering glance. He shakes his head, keeps driving.

You think I can die? You think I can end? There is no end to me. There is no end to us. We are forever. Time does not touch us. We are beyond time.

We were beyond time.

Stop. Enough of that, thinks the Ganymede. Don’t think like that.

The Ganymede feels THE FIRST getting closer.