a mind to take her foot and tear it off at the ankle. But she sighs, grunts, and forces herself to her feet.
“Where are we going?” she asks wearily.
“To a motel,” says the woman.
Mrs. Benjamin is not at all surprised to see the motel is Parson’s deserted Ponderosa Acres: it is not like there are many motels in Wink. The walk there is not half as torturous as the walk down the wooden staircase in the back, which was hidden behind a small, secret door. The existence of the door is news to Mrs. Benjamin: she would wonder why Parson hid it from her, and how this stranger managed to discover it, if she weren’t wearied and pained beyond articulation.
At the bottom is a wide, large basement with a concrete floor. There is no light in the basement, and if the two of them saw the world with just their eyes, they would be blind; but as this is not the case, Mrs. Benjamin peers out and sees there is a large block of metal sitting in the center of the floor.
And there is something both intangibly heavy, and also familiar, about that object…
The stranger prods Mrs. Benjamin down the stairs. “Go on.”
“Is that what I’m here to collect?”
“It is.”
“What is it?”
A queer smile. “You will know it when you touch it.”
Mrs. Benjamin descends to approach the block while the strange woman stands on the bottommost landing of the staircase, watching. With each step toward the object, which seems bigger and heavier the closer she gets to it, the more Mrs. Benjamin remembers…
(broken worlds)
(a shattered moon)
(a figure standing)
(over)
(a dying city)
Mrs. Benjamin stops. “Mother,” she says softly. “It’s… this is Mother, isn’t it?”
“In a way,” says the woman from behind her.
Mrs. Benjamin holds her hands out to the cube: the air around it is nothing short of frigid. She screws up her mouth, squats, and puts her hands on it, preparing to lift it….
There is a hiss, and her hands scream with pain. She grunts and snaps them back.
“I can’t touch it!” she says, and she turns back to the woman on the staircase.
“No,” she says. “Only our kin can touch Her. And your hands do not truly belong to our family. But you will simply have to bear the pain. You can do that, can’t you? Are you not my mighty big sister?”
If Mrs. Benjamin paid much attention to the woman, she would feel insulted; but her attention is not directed to the woman standing on the staircase landing, but to the person hiding just below it: a small boy of about ten, wearing rabbit pajamas and ugly glasses far too large for him. He appears to have been waiting for her to notice him, for the moment she does he raises a finger to his lips. Then he holds something out to her: a slim bag. With slow, obvious movements, he slips the bag onto one of the stairs below the woman standing on the landing, so she cannot see it. Then he stands perfectly still.
“Well?” says the woman. “Are you so intimidated? Hurry up.”
Mrs. Benjamin looks at him for one moment longer: there is something irritatingly familiar about the boy…
She says, “Fine,” then turns back to the block, grasps it on either side, and lifts it.
Her hands howl with pain again, as does the rest of her body: not only does its very touch harm her, but the block must weigh tons, as if its metal is impossibly dense. Yet Mrs. Benjamin does not scream or cry as she carries the block to the stairs; nor does she grunt or whimper when she dips down just a little with one free hand feeling along the stairs for the bag; and she definitely does not hiss when the cube brushes up against her cheek during the juggling act to tuck the bag within her dress, unbeknownst to the strange woman, who is already walking back up the stairs.
For all Mrs. Benjamin can think throughout the beginning of this painful ordeal is, What is that old bastard up to?
They walk.
They walk for what feels like hours or days; Mrs. Benjamin, trapped in her leaking, broken body, staggers along with the enormous weight of the metal cube in her arms; and though her true nature has no small effect on the physical world, it fades as her body grows weaker and weaker.
They walk south, straight south, to the side of Wink opposite the mesa. No one witnesses them. It is still