by P. T. Hylton
Frank had followed, fuming. He was still stomping toward Zed when a man ran up to both of them.
“Have you heard?” he asked.
“Heard what?” Frank replied.
The man explained. And Frank felt terror creep into his heart. My God, he thought. Not again.
It was a different kind of apocalypse than the one he’d experienced in Rook Mountain. Without the presence of the Unfeathered, the town wasn’t in any immediate physical danger. They were just cut off. People were scared, of course. But they were also polite and helpful for the most part. Many in town had already seen plenty of strangeness, Frank reminded himself.
They also had the story of Rook Mountain to console them. Like the rest of the world, many in King’s Crossing had closely followed the news coverage of what had happened in Frank’s hometown. So they at least knew of the concept of a town cut off from the rest of the world. Some of them, Frank suspected, harbored dreams of being famous when this was all over. He was willing to bet that more than a few of them practiced what they’d say on 20/20.
The Mississippi still moved, flowing out of and into the fog. But any boat that tried to sail it ended up stranded in the river, pushed forward by the current and backward by the fog. It was a source of frustration in the town. They took most things in stride, but the idea that the water could escape town and they couldn’t made them insane. There were a million theories on how to leave, and nine-hundred-thousand of them involved some variation on using the river to escape.
Thankfully, the power, like the water, still flowed into town. Most of the town’s electricity came from a power station in Alma, an hour up the river. The question of why electricity could travel between Alma and King’s Crossing but the people of King’s Crossing couldn’t was a popular subject of speculation at the suddenly crowded watering holes downtown.
Still, there were certain realities to face. In some ways, this was worse than Rook Mountain. Here they couldn’t venture out to the surrounding towns for food and supplies. All they had was all they had. Thankfully, the fog didn’t exactly follow the town line. The edge of the fog was jagged, and it left them with six farms, one of which raised cattle. At least dairy wouldn’t be a problem.
Communications technology, including cell phone and Internet, didn’t work anymore. It was as if someone was purposefully trying to cut them off from the outside world
“If it’s any consolation, we’ve got enough cheeseheads to last us the next seventy years,” Sophie said while they were inventorying the shops in town, poking a finger at one of the yellow cheese-shaped hats.
She was teamed with Joe at the moment. Joe rolled his eyes. “Don’t remind me. NFL season starts in three months. If this thing isn’t solved by then, we’re going to have lots of angry Packer fans.”
“Like you?”
“Hell, no. I’m a Bears fan.”
Zed, for his part, was sullen. He retreated into his home and didn’t show his face for the first three days. It was Frank who finally went to ask for his help.
Zed reacted to the town’s offer with incredulity. “I don’t understand. You want me to help run the town?”
Frank frowned. “Don’t get any ideas. We’re not drawing up Regulations here. But you are the only one with real logistical experience with something like this. Would you be willing to help out? Not lead, mind you, but help?”
Zed hesitated. “I’ll help. But just as a man. I don’t have any special powers that would come in handy here. Even my compass is basically worthless. It points to things, but nothing beyond the edge of the fog.” He looked Frank in the eye. “We haven’t been taken out of time. We’ve been taken out of place. It’s like we’re out of phase with the rest of the world. And I don’t know what to do about it.”
Frank paused for a moment. “What if you had the book? What if we find it? Could you use that to get us out of here?”
Zed thought a moment before answering. “Maybe.”
So, Zed agreed to help out with logistics.
Mason took a job on a farm. Sophie helped Joe at the library. And Frank worked with the group in charge of resource distribution. It was boring and tedious for all of them, but they were able to eek out an existence.
Six months in, Frank gave Zed the book.
2.
Somewhere in Montana
2016
Alice swung the ax, bringing it down on the log with all the might her ten-year-old body could muster. The wood split with a satisfying crack. She set the pieces in the wheelbarrow and grabbed another log, feeling the pleasant ache in her back and shoulders as she did so.
Once, she’d used her sword to split wood. She’d found if she pressed the broken mountain symbol as she swung it, not only did it cut clean through the wood, but all the other wood waiting in the pile was split by her single swing as well. Wilm hadn’t been happy. She wanted Alice to learn the value of hard work, not the benefit of using Tools for shortcuts. Alice had a hard time understanding that. Wasn’t that the whole point? For her to learn to use the Tools? So she could help them find the towns or whatever?
She’d been here over a year. Wilm had made Alice use the scissors to cut them out of the Away and back into time. At first, Alice had been worried about what Wilm would do when they arrived. After all, she had promised Rayd she’d seek vengeance. But instead, she’d just brought Alice to this remote cabin outside town.
Wilm had disappeared for a few hours that first night—to free her fellow Exiles from the Away as Alice later learned—but after that things had quickly settled into a mundane routine. Alice’s education had begun.
After ten minutes of chopping, Alice threw the last of the split logs and her ax into the wheelbarrow, and took a long, slow breath of the pine-scented mountain air. Maybe Wilm did have a point about this hard work thing after all. She grabbed the wheelbarrow handles and guided it back toward the house.
It had been a strange year. And not an easy one. She’d spent the first few weeks in nearly constant tears. She’d wanted to go home. It had taken her quite some time to accept that there was no such thing as home left to go to. Wilm had shown her on map after map that King’s Crossing, Wisconsin, no longer existed. Indeed, it never had. There was no record of it. But seeing a blank space on a map wasn’t enough, so Wilm took her to Wisconsin, showed her the empty fields and woods where the town should have been.
Finally, she’d accepted it. She was an orphan. There was no going home. This was her home now, and she might as well make the best of it.
The even more difficult thing to accept was that she was the one who’d caused this. She’d held the scissors in her hand and clipped her hometown out of existence. She’d destroyed thousands of lives.
It was almost too big to think about. Every time she did, she felt like she was losing control, going crazy. Wilm told her to put it out of her mind. That if she didn’t think about it, the hurt would go away. And most of the time, it worked. It still made her a little sick to her stomach every time she saw those scissors, though.
The wheelbarrow hit a root and bounced wildly, causing Alice to lose control. It toppled over on its side and the split wood tumbled to the ground.
Alice bit the inside of her cheek and slowly counted to ten before doing anything. In the old days, she would have Pulled Back, caused the whole thing not to happen, and gone around the root. The urge to do that was still strong. But Wilm wouldn’t like it. Pulling Back was only allowed in very specific circumstances, and fixing a minor accident like this wasn’t one of them. Wilm was like Rayd; she knew when Alice Pulled Back, so there was no use trying to sneak one past her. Unauthorized use of her power would result in losing privileges, added chores, and maybe being grounded to her room.
After the wood was once again in the wheelbarrow, Alice carefully guided it to the house. She neatly stacked it on top of the wood pile, then put the wheelbarrow and the ax away in the shed. A fine sheen of sweat covered her skin by the time she was done. She wanted nothing more t
han to drink a glass of Wilm’s lemonade and relax. Maybe she’d let Alice spend the afternoon reading. The house had a small library, and Alice had read most of the books already. There was no TV and no Internet up here, so she had limited entertainment choices. Still, there were a few old Agatha Christie novels she hadn’t read. She liked mysteries, trying to figure out how it was all going to end.
She walked inside and paused as she heard a familiar cackling laugh. A slight chill went through her. San was here.
Normally it was just Wilm and Alice in the cabin. Things weren’t perfect, but they were comfortable. They made a strange little surrogate family. But sometimes the others spent time here. Vee was okay—if a little creepy, even after she’d gotten used to the fact that he had no arms. He just ignored her most of the time, unless Wilm made him interact with her. San was different. She was tall and beautiful and she definitely didn’t ignore Alice. It wasn’t that she was mean, exactly—Wilm wouldn’t have put up with that—it was just that she clearly thought she was better than Alice. She talked down to her in such a condescending way. And it wasn’t the usual adult-to-kid condescending. It was something else. She clearly looked down on all of humanity, and Alice was just the representation of what she disliked about life on planet Earth.
Alice carefully eased the door shut behind her. Maybe she could sneak up to her room and do some reading while Wilm and San were talking.
“Alice, is that you?”
No such luck. Wilm had the ears of a much younger woman.
“Yes,” Alice answered reluctantly.
“Come in here. We need to talk to you.”
Alice stifled a grumble and shuffled into the living room. Wilm and San sat side-by-side on the couch, conspiratorial smiles on their faces.
“Have a seat,” Wilm said.
Alice did so. She waited silently. It was better to speak only when asked a question, especially when San was here.
“San and I have been talking,” Wilm said, “and we’ve come to a decision. We think you’re ready to perform your first job for us.”
Alice felt her pulse quicken. “Really?”
Wilm nodded. “Nothing major. It’s just delivering a message to someone in Cleveland. But it is an important message. Think you can handle it?”
Alice had been waiting for this, for a real opportunity to prove herself to Wilm. “Yes. I know I can.”
Wilm smiled. “Good. Then let’s talk about your cover story.”
3.
King’s Crossing
2017
Sophie pushed the cart to her least favorite section and began shelving the books. The travel section. Sometimes it felt like she spent half her life there.
The King’s Crossing library usage had exploded since what the locals called “Isolation Day.” With no TV or Internet, entertainment options were more limited. It seemed the majority of King’s Crossing had finally discovered their love of the written word. By far the most popular books were those in the travel book section. The good old 910s in the Dewey Decimal System.
They were in their third calendar year of the isolation now, and people were becoming more and more nostalgic for the places they could no longer visit. Not just the exotic places, either. Sure, the books on the Bahamas and Fiji were popular, but other surprise hits included places that had once been much closer but now were just as far out of reach: Chicago, St. Louis, Minneapolis/St. Paul. There was a book on the Mall of America whose cover they’d had to repair three times due to overuse.
Come to think of it, the entire travel section could use a good rebinding.
She silently shelved the last book on the cart, a guidebook about visiting San Francisco on $50 a day—Sophie was actually curious how the author pulled that off—and she glanced at her watch. Good. It was time.
She stowed the cart and headed upstairs. She smiled to herself, remembering how she’d been so hesitant the first time she’d gone up these stairs, like she was breaking a rule or something. Now she climbed them ten times a day, easy.
She made her way through the hallway and to the glass doors. She glanced at the sign—The Rough-Shod Readers, All Welcome, This week’s book: Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb. They mostly posted the book as a joke now. It was no longer a secret that they weren’t actually a book club. Once, this meeting had been used to speculate on Zed and his followers’ strange activities in the town. Now it was where some of the most crucial decisions about the town’s future were made.
She slipped in quietly, all too aware she was the last to arrive. She took her usual seat at the foot of the table.
Joe gave her a pointed look. “Now that we’re all here, perhaps we can get started?”
Once, she would have had a snarky remark to shoot right back at him. Over the past couple of years, she’d mellowed a bit. She even kind of looked forward to these meetings. Of course, that may have had something to do with Frank.
He gave her a wink across the table, and she smirked back at him.
They didn’t see each other as much as they used to. Though they lived in the same apartment complex, their work hours didn’t always coincide. And even when they did…Frank spent a lot of time with Matt and Mason. Sophie had her small group of friends from the library. They went out on weekends and had a surprisingly good time. Turned out it was true what they said about librarians. They were all wild at heart.
Sophie also spent a fair amount of time hanging out with Helen. But Matt and Helen were going through a bit of a rough patch, so she rarely ran into Frank at the Campbell’s.
Part of the problem was Frank’s guilt. She knew he felt responsible for everything that had happened. He felt it was his fault they were trapped in this town. He felt it was his fault Alice was gone. Sometimes, she wanted to shake him and tell him to stop taking responsibility for everything, that people had their own free will and made their own choices. The world didn’t spin on the whims of Frank Hinkle.
She did miss him though. And she was pretty sure he missed her. Though his guilt and his pride would never allow him to say so.
Joe led the meeting, as always. He didn’t technically hold any political position, but he’d always run the Rough-Shod Readers, so when it morphed into this strange shadow town council, he somehow fell into a leadership role.
The meeting went much like it always did. Very little changed when you were cutoff from the rest of the world. Harlan gave his crop report. Frank gave the state of the town supplies. Ellen talked about the state of commerce—after much debate the town had decided to keep the standard US dollar as their currency. Brandon gave an update on the victory garden program that grew food in people’s yards and public parks.
Then there was the final report. The evacuation report.
“Nothing new from me.” Zed looked sullen as he spoke, his eyes distant. He too had changed over the past three years. He’d gone inward as if unable to contend with the fact that he’d been beaten. He had done a few things here and there to help out the community. But that spark that had once made him such a powerful and terrifying presence had all but burnt out. He had the book, but he couldn’t figure out how to make it do anything. He said he couldn’t read it. Not even a little.
Sophie saw the disgust on Frank’s face. She knew he didn’t like seeing his old enemy giving up like this.
The meeting came to a close and the Rough-Shod Readers began to file out of the room. She grabbed Frank’s arm as he filed past.
“Hey, hold up.”
He stopped and looked at her, but his eyes were distant. “How you been?”
She shrugged. “Books, you know?”
He looked at her like he did not, in fact, know.
“You seen Mason lately? How’s he doing?”
Frank shrugged. “Yeah, he’s doing well.”
He was only half listening. It made Sophie angry. He liked her. She knew he did. But he was too preoccupied with his perceived responsibilities to do anything about it.
She didn’t know wh
at she was going to say until she opened her mouth and the words came out. “You want to go to dinner tonight?”
That caught his attention. “Tonight? Oh, yeah, sure. That should work.”
There was an awkward pause. She was tired of awkward pauses. “Just to be clear, so there’s no misunderstanding, I’m asking you on a date.”
His eyes grew wide. “A date-date?”
She groaned. “Yes. An actual, adult date. Like where two people hang out together in order to gauge their compatibility and their mutual interest in pursuing a relationship. You up for that?”
He smiled, suddenly back in the moment, and he looked at her as if he really saw her. “Yes. I’m very much up for that.”
4.
King’s Crossing
2018
Sophie laughed hysterically when Frank came down the stairs in his ill-fitting brown shirt. He took the criticism well enough. He let her have her laugh, then showed her the dress she was meant to wear. That took the smile off her face quickly enough.
They were going to the opening night of a local production of The Music Man. Hell, why call it a local production? Why not a world premiere? As far as Frank knew, The Music Man had never been performed in this strange new reality. Local productions had become quite the rage in King’s Crossing, and Frank and Sophie had been lucky enough to score some tickets. The only catch was the Rough-Shod Readers had decided it would be a nice gesture if they were to wear some clothes by one of the less experienced tailors in town.
Clothes had been in short supply for years, but with a combination of the stock at the various stores, three truly talented seamstresses, and Frank’s careful resource management, they’d been able to keep the town dressed. Time was pushing the limits on that now. Demands greatly outweighed supply. They’d had an apprenticeship program in place for a while, but even that wasn’t keeping up. So Frank and Sophie were nominated to demonstrate the trend of wearing clothes that were less traditionally…good.
“At least it’ll be dark in the theater,” Sophie said.
