American Elsewhere - By Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,213

she had always been this way, always monstrous, always alien, always hollow, always gutted.

Kelly’s words feed a fear of Mona’s she has tried to ignore for so long: that she, in some sick, twisted way, was relieved to lose her child, because how could she, a cold, angry tomboy, whose own mother had been (as she once thought) suicidally schizophrenic, ever make a good mother in her own right? Was it not better that her child died, rather than living and being so thoroughly failed by her parent? She is a creature poorly made, half-made, a distorted, deformed thing created by distorted, deformed things. It is not too far a step to go from thinking of her mother as a maddened, sad schizophrenic to thinking of her as something very much… else.

“Then why am I here?” she asks softly.

“Here in what manner?” asks Kelly. “Here in existence? Or here in Wink?”

Mona doesn’t answer, not just because she finds the question stupid: she just can’t find the will to speak.

“Well, I think I know one answer for sure,” says Kelly. “Let me ask you something, Mona—how did your mother die?”

Mona has no desire to slip down the slope into this topic any further. But she says, “She killed herself.”

“I see,” says Kelly. “And I’m willing to bet that her death coincided with a certain date—the day my family arrived here. Didn’t it?”

Mona blinks slowly. She is too tired, too worn out to process this.

“Yes,” says Kelly. “Mother, of course, had to return back to our world when She deemed it time to get things started. And there’s really only a couple of ways to do that, the death of the medium being the easiest, I’d imagine.” He rubs his chin, thinking. “I remember… when She projected herself into this world—into Dr. Alvarez—it was as if She fell into a deep, deep sleep. It seemed like She slept forever, dead to the world as it fell apart around us. But then, one day, without warning, when I had almost given up all hope, She awoke. She did not explain anything—which was typical—but made us promise two things: one was to wait for Her there, in the place we were going, because She would be gone for a bit—just a bit. And the second was to always obey the next eldest, and never hurt one another. We, terrified, confused, quickly agreed, and then there was lightning in our skies…

“Well, of course, the next thing we knew, we were here. Yet She destroyed herself in the effort. I had never seen a member of my family die before—we are, in so many ways, beyond death—but then, none of our family had ever done what Mother did. But perhaps She knew something more… perhaps She knew that, if She were to perish, it would release enough destructive energy to bridge the gap between our worlds. Like punching a hole in a wall, I suppose. Perhaps we would have never gotten here, if She had not died.

“She was gone far more than ‘a bit.’ I thought She was gone. Truly gone. Yet not too long ago I heard of three events that seemed highly coincidental. First, Weringer died, which did get everyone in a fluffle, but to me it seemed much less impossible, after Mother and all. But then I began to see lights on the mesa again… as if the laboratory—the one with the mirror that had, in essence, brought us here—was up and running once more.

“And then, finally, you came, Mona. Doesn’t that all seem quite odd to you?”

“I’m just here because my father died, and I inherited a goddamn house here.”

“Yes, yes. But it’s almost like—what is that quaint expression—the stars aligned to bring you here. Isn’t it?”

What now? thinks Mona. What else could there possibly be?

“I don’t contest the idea that the death of your father brought you here,” says Kelly. “But I do wonder if his death—like the death of your own mother—coincides with something that happened in Wink. In this case, Weringer’s death.”

“Are you really telling me,” says Mona, “that someone from Wink traveled all the way to a shithole in Texas just to give my father a stroke, which would get me to inherit the house, which would get me to Wink?”

“No,” says Kelly. “But what I am suggesting is that the death of one of my family members seems to release a terrible amount of energy, causing ripples in existence. Mother might have even used Her own death