Just up the hill as it turned out. Former site of a little place called Collagesity.
—–
“What do you think it is?” said Franklin, apparently to the tall, hiding pampas grass in front of her but actually to fellow greenie mate Apples even more hidden within. The teleport invite placed her right in the center (good one!).
“I can’t see,” logically answered Apples, because of the grass and all. High it was, but not her. They hadn’t partaken in a week. This was all on the straight and narrow.
“Right right,” replied Franklin, still gazing upward instead of inward.
“Describe it to me.”
“I will.” And Franklin counted off the stories for Apples, 7 in number, summarizing that it looked like some kind of prison with its bleak outer facade, a tower prison. She was starting to get nervous, butterflies in her stomach if not upon it. Assumed to be assimilated Franklin had somehow escaped, thanks to this type of Central Park location, a hiding spot that, as I said, is the most-least obvious place to look for her. Little did she know. We, of course, let her go, let her be independent from Shelley once more, but at a price. Checking the downstairs works sometime after she arrived, she saw she didn’t have a Gang of Willard any longer. Roberts would not be pleased — if she could ever reunite with her again. Maybe *Roberts* has it, Franklin thought last night in her loneliness. She had the dog, she continued to rationalize. She has a history of buying unusual magical objects. Maybe this is something like, I don’t know, a *Christmas* present, red returned to what was now thought to be only purest green. Sins paid for by another.
“Any signs of life? Any signs of the light?” Apples broke Franklin’s reverie.
Still backwards guitar holding Franklin studied the faces, the windows. Nothing but plain surfaces, outer masking inner as well. “No.”
“We’ll wait it out until dark here. Then stealthily make our way back to Campground Central and Unch. He might have some ideas on this as well.
“He’ll probably just start blathering on about how Collagesity is bound to return, and that a Linden owns the prime part of the land now and that the buyer she’s specifically selling it to for one of her kind’s dollars hasn’t reciprocated yet.” It will come back on the marketplace, the sentient tree predicted with its rustling leaves, emphasized this time by a couple of falling limbs even. Unch was confusing offworld marketplace purchases with inworld land purchases, but they didn’t bother to correct him.
“Hmm. Maybe we should be quiet for a while,” Apples said within. And so they were.
Sunklands 