American Elsewhere - By Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,250

right ways at the right times, and Mona has become intimately aware that the rules in Wink are, at best, whimsical. But it’s this, or they all just sit here and wait.

“Parson,” she says, “you’re going to take my… the baby.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you. And Gracie… I think you’d be a lot better with these than I am.” She holds out the two hand lenses to her. Parson has to poke Gracie to make her notice. She looks at the mirrors, then takes one in each hand. Immediately they gain a shimmering, pearly sheen.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” says Mona. She stands, and looks at her daughter, who is watching the giant approach with marvelously alert eyes.

It hurts to look at her, just to see her. A tiny, independent creature, sitting up straight in the crook of Mona’s arm and toying with her left ear. It is so astounding to see thought in those eyes.

If I were to die today, thinks Mona, I would die so happy. Because any world with you in it is a good one.

But she’s not going to die today.

“I’m gonna give you away for a bit,” whispers Mona to her daughter, “but don’t worry. I’ll be back. It’ll just be a minute.” She holds her out to Parson. The child starts protesting almost immediately.

“What are you planning to do?” asks Parson as he takes her.

Mona tells him.

“Oh,” says Parson. “Oh, my goodness.”

“No shit. You hotfoot to the town square, okay? And you,” she says to Gracie, “you head to the mesa. Can you do that qui—”

Gracie smiles at Mona, her dark eyes shining, and then it’s as if she steps behind an invisible wall, and she’s gone.

The two of them stare at the empty space where she was.

“It appears she can do that quite quickly,” says Parson.

Mona looks to the mesa as if expecting to see Gracie standing on the top. “I hope she’s in place.”

“We must assume so. Are you sure you wish to do this?”

“I can’t think of a better idea. But you listen—if things don’t go to plan, you grab that little girl and you run. I don’t care about any of this ‘can’t leave Wink’ shit, you figure out something. And don’t you come back for me. Just get her out of here. You understand?”

Parson nods.

“Good,” says Mona. “Then get moving.” And she turns and sprints across the street.

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

Mona has to break in to enter the store of her choice—a picture frame shop—and she heads straight to the back. With each boom the pictures rattle on the walls and resettle at new angles. She knows she should feel terrified, but after giving up her daughter, everything’s on mute.

She grabs a mirror off the wall as well as a thin drape, one that’s see-through. She takes the stairs in the back to the roof, and though she stays low she can see the hulking form of the giant kicking its way through Wink. Pipes and bricks and streetlamps fly around its feet like shrapnel.

“Fuck,” says Mona. It will be here even sooner than she imagined.

She can see Parson standing in the park in the center of town, and in his arms… “Oh, Jesus,” says Mona. Her daughter is hysterical, screaming at the top of her lungs. It’ll just be a little bit, baby. Just a little bit. Just hold on.

She takes the mirror and wraps the drape around it so it will not cause any noticeable glare, though she can still see its reflection. Then she props it up against an air-conditioning unit on the eastern side of the building, so the mirror faces the town square, where the courthouse and the park are.

Once she has it situated, she lies down perpendicular to the edge of the building, hidden from the street behind a short wall about two feet high. If she looks straight down along her body she can see the mirror, and in its reflection what is just over the wall behind her: right now there is nothing but more shop fronts, trees, and the pink water tower that just says WINK.

Good. This works. Now she sits up to see if the rest of this stupid idea of hers is going to.

Parson and her daughter are still standing in the park. Her daughter’s face is flaming red, just utterly beet-red.

The earth shakes. The giant is eight blocks away now.

It is huge. Tremendous. So big Mona cannot even understand what she’s seeing. With another step, it’s six blocks away.

The streets below