“Don’t forget about Lichen’s 4 Stomach Tour,” I tried to ground Fern.
“Of course not. But back to immediate business. Black Wall.” Then she forgot. Again.
“Right, right.” I shook my head internally while nodding on the outside. Fern didn’t pick up on my doubts, which was a little disconcerting itself. Lack of recognition. Brilliant in so many other ways. But not irony — comedy in another form. I knew we were entering dangerous territory.
She drew more diagrams in the notebook before her, a gray Mead 5 star spiral with 22 holes and approx. 5×7 inch design. “Pre-1906,” she said, still looking down in a pause between scribbles. “Probably around 1893 or maybe even dating back to 1886, hmm. Anyway (she shook her head), we’ll see soon enough. So the Black, the White, the Green will all be in their proper place and not all mixed up during this period. She punctuated the page before her at the appropriate spots, apparently some kind of crude map as I understood now. “Auburn was still Slaughter with its Slaughterhouse Hotel, or close enough, before the scaredypants changed the name.” She scribbles some stuff on top of what I took now as Auburn on the map, near the old conjunction of the Green and White rivers as I knew from previous discussions. “Everything was right. We can even go there, you know — this Slaughterhouse.” She circles Auburn which she’s changed to Slaughter, with a little cartoon house with teeth drawn atop of it to reinforce the link. “Thanks to the magic of Our Second Lyfe. There we’ll meet Middle. Are you grasping this yet?”
“This… has already happened?” I guessed, thinking of the snake, the tail.
“The Wheel is the middle of the Tarot, or at least the end of it (The Wheel, not the Tarot). 10… you met Tin at another hotel which is perhaps the same hotel — motel — in Room 10. You have arrived.”
“*You* have arrived,” I said. “What happened next?”
“I… drew my gun and opened the door”
“Yes?”
“She turned.”
“Right.”
“Then… black out. Loss of power. But I recognized her. Tin for sure.”
“Ten,” I said. “The Wheel.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s where Lincoln starts his latest Brain Daze. Not 5 days ago. We’re looking right at it in the beginning. Sunset Motel in the Badlands again. Then he goes and hops on his motorcycle and heads back into town from whence he came, or at least the Rancho Coronado suburb. Leaves it at another service station there after walking around a while, finding stuff, interacting with people.” I end my quick review of the BD, wait for Fern to chip in. But she wasn’t there any longer. Where’d she go?
—–
“Are you Lincoln?” she said at the start, knowing it was truth.
“Yes? How’d–”
“You’re heading the wrong way. You need to go further into the desert.”
(to be continued)
Sunklands 