She invited them into her trailer for more talk but there was nowhere to sit and they had to just stand and watch her accomplish her stretching exercises, saying she had to do them every half hour on the button (her archaic expression) or else her ancient body would simply start to freeze up. “A bit chained to the trailer, then,” she said. “I was just joking about the being away part before, lassie,” she spoke directly to Sarah. “I just don’t have a dot to be a presence.” Sarah checked the in-world map again in her head. Two green dots together apparently representing her and Al beside her in the sim of Coyote Canyon here. But no third. Mid-Hazel was right. What *were* they dealing with here?
“Beautiful, wasn’t I?” she said, apparently indicating the portrait of a young woman beside her, one of the few objects in the trailer besides the exercise stand and some random decorations. “Toast of Ghosttown, high in the sky it was. But not a skybox. A plateau.” She switched to about the 5th or 6th stretching position. “Almost done,” she excused the necessity. “But I may have to start again if you’re here long enough. Are you staying for dinner?” Mid-Hazel resisted the urge to joke that, “they’re it.” Plenty of time for macabre later on. Henry’s mouth outside was already salivating at the sight of the boy’s featured body. The girl he will leave to Junior (also salivating).
Sunklands 