American Elsewhere - By Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,261

a wave of irrational rage, for they did this to her, they or their kind, but she swallows it to ask, “What do you want?”

“To ask something of you,” says Mrs. Benjamin.

“What the hell do you mean?”

“We have discussed it in detail,” says Parson, “and we have decided that, though there are many things to endear us to this way of life”—he exchanges a glance with Mrs. Benjamin, who nods—“it would be best for us to go home.”

“Home? You mean to—”

“To the other side, yes,” says Mrs. Benjamin.

“You can do that?”

“There is no one now to say that we cannot,” says Parson. “And with the lens, we have concluded it is perfectly possible. It should be just a short step away. I do not know what state it’s in—Mother’s machinations likely left our home quite in ruins. But that does not mean it cannot be rebuilt. With Her gone, perhaps there is some hope.”

“What about the rest of you?”

“I believe most of them perished in the fire,” says Mrs. Benjamin. “They, or their vessels, or their physical forms. They are no longer bound to this world. They are, most likely, on the other side already, in some fashion or another. Lost, drifting, helpless… it would simply be a matter of reuniting them, and giving them a little leadership.”

“Then you could do all this again,” says Gracie. “You could come back, and try all over again…”

“No,” says Mrs. Benjamin. “For one, Mother is no longer with us, so I doubt if we would have any motivation to return. And for another, we will not have the lens.”

“Why not?” asks Mona.

“Because we want you to close it after us,” says Parson.

“Close it, and lock it,” says Mrs. Benjamin.

“Why?” asks Mona.

“What was done here was foolish, and vain, and proud,” says Parson. “I wish to forget it ever happened.”

“Or, failing that, at least to learn from it,” says Mrs. Benjamin.

Mona turns away.

“Will you help us with this?” Parson asks. “Will you help us close the door?”

“We have asked much of you, we know,” says Mrs. Benjamin. “But there must be someone behind to close it. Just one more thing, Miss Bright. Just this one thing.”

Mona looks at Gracie. She sighs—for there is no place she’d more prefer to avoid than the innards of Coburn—but says, “Wait here for me. This should only take a little while.”

They wend their way back, through the empty, whispering hallways. But the halls do not feel quite as frightening to Mona as they did before. Now they are hollow, broken. She asks, “Will this be dangerous for you?”

“Oh, yes,” says Parson. “I expect so. Our world is in quite a bit of turmoil. Mother meant it to frighten us into leaving. Her threats were rarely hollow.”

“Then why would you choose to leave?”

“You’d want us here? The people who did all this to you?”

“Well… they’re all gone. And that wasn’t you, really.”

Parson thinks on it. “You talked to Mother, didn’t you?”

“What?”

“When you were struck with lightning. I know her devices. She spoke to you, didn’t she?”

“Yeah. She did.”

“And did she offer you something?”

“How did you know that?”

“Mother always offers something, Miss Bright,” says Mrs. Benjamin.

“Well, yeah. She did,” says Mona.

“And you turned it down,” says Parson.

“Yes.”

“Why did you do that?”

“I don’t know. What she offered me just wouldn’t feel… honest. It would have been as made up as the rest of the things in Wink.”

He nods. “That was a very wise choice, then. We make the same choice now—we have the option of living there as we are, as we really are, with all its misfortunes and difficulties, or living here as we are not—without pain, without hardship, and without value.” They arrive at the lens chamber again, which has lost none of its unearthly quality. “What lies on the other side of the lens may be dangerous. But I would rather have it than the alternative.” He looks back to Mrs. Benjamin, extends a hand, and helps her over the threshold to the chamber.

“You know, Miss Bright,” says Mrs. Benjamin, “you could come with us.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Well, you are one of us, to a certain extent. Where we are going is, I guess you could say, our ancestral home. I do not know if you have ever felt at home in this place… but perhaps you may have better luck with us. Though it would leave the door open, since there would be no one to close it.” Parson gives Mrs. Benjamin a disapproving look. “I