“Can I ax a question?”
“Uh HUH. Clever. But go ahead.” She was closely studying the act happening in front of us which didn’t interest him — me. Wrong body type. I wondered why. Gay? But maybe she’s just studying the girl’s moves for some kind of future reference. I popped it.
“Why?”
“Why?” she said back. I knew she knew what I meant. And she knew I knew. So I let the question stand as is. I thought of Dr. Why coming out of left field in Fern’s hospital scene to join Who, What and Idontknow in a makeshift team of physicians that didn’t care about answers in the end. Maybe Lizzy doesn’t care either. She decided to extend an olive branch.
“Let’s go back to Oklahoma and not Texas to see how much you remember. Sepisexton — Olive to Oklahoma. The Abstraction, 7 to 6. Gaeta, the 7th (continent), suddenly went dark. That affected everything that runs Our Second Lyfe behind the scenes. A change was made. The Flesh Pit was exposed for what it is, mystery no more. There’s even a bit of it poking through the supposedly vacant lot behind Aisle of Palms now, threatening its very existence if you didn’t know about that already.”
“I’ve already determined I’m going to give that up,” I said through Edward, handy in the moment.
“You have no *choice* now, though. If you’d taken that 4096 when it came up for rent. Or just bought it — maybe all this could have been avoided.”
“Who?” Pause. “What?” More standalone questions. Our fields of energy were becoming one. She was changing back. But not yet — hold off.
“I am the Ten that can turn into One,” she answered the first. “Ten is more important that Gold here. Do you have to ask?”
“Lincoln.”
“Correct. Lincoln is an alchemist.”
Sunklands 