Lexicon

love me?” she would ask. She would smile, so he’d know she was teasing.
    “Maybe,” he would say. Or nothing. Sometimes the look he gave her was like:
Of course, why ask?
and other times it was more like:
Stop it, I’m running late
.
    He did love her. She was sure of it. All evidence pointed to yes. So why not say it? This was the part that nagged at her. Yes, okay, in Harry’s world, you didn’t need to say something to make it real. But come on.
    She had said it. She had said it a lot, starting three weeks ago and increasing in frequency since, with the exception of a four-day drought the week before, which she had hoped might trigger something but didn’t. And it was driving her crazy because she could force him. She didn’t have a lot of words, but she did have tricks, and had figured out his segment, and there was no doubt in her mind that she could compel Harry Wilson to say whatever she wanted. But if she did that, it wouldn’t be real. It wouldn’t be him. It would be her, speaking to herself, through him. It was very frustrating.
    • • •
    “That car has been all over town,” said the woman who was making Emily a sandwich. Emily turned. Across the street sat a dark sedan, windows tinted, engine running against the heat. A skirt of dust betrayed some serious long-haul driving. “You see it?”
    “Yes,” she said.
    “Not from around here.”
    “No.” She looked at the sandwich that the woman, Cheryl, was making. She had visited this shop nearly every weekday lunchtime for the past four years. She had practically married Cheryl’s sandwiches.
    “It’s been to the mines.” Cheryl gestured with the knife. “Look at the tires.”
    She looked. The tires were caked in red earth.
    “Someone from the city, I suppose. Government.” Cheryl flipped the bread. “Salt and pepper, love?”
    “No, thanks.”
    “I keep thinking you might change your mind,” said Cheryl, sawing bread. “I can’t imagine how you eat it so plain.”
    “I like plain,” she said. She carried the sandwich out of the shop, although she no longer felt like eating it. The car crouched in her peripheral vision but she did not look at it. When it pulled out, she crossed into the pedestrian mall, where it could not follow, and walked the roundabout route to Tangled Threads. She locked the door and sat behind the counter. She didn’t know how to feel. Two years ago, maybe even one, she would have chased that car down the road. She would have beaten her hands against its side and begged it to stop. But now things were different.
    A young man in an airy gray suit appeared at the door. He pulled the handle, pushed it, then put his hand to the glass and peered inside. When he saw her, he pointed at the handle and mouthed:
Open?
    She unlocked. He was young; a boy, really. She could tell from his skin that he had come from nowhere near here. “Thanks,” he said. He came inside. He brushed aside his hair, which was a style she didn’t know and dangled in his eyes. “Whoo. Hot.”
    “What can I help you with today?” she said.
    He smiled, as if he appreciated the pretense. “It’s good news. You can come home.”
    She said nothing.
    He glanced out the window. “That was a genuinely long drive. They told me it was long, but . . . it’s really something. Or nothing, rather.” He looked at her. “Nothing and nothing, for as far as you go. Did you get used to it?” She didn’t answer. “It seems to me it would be hard to get used to.”
    “You can get used to anything.”
    “Of course,” he said. “We can leave right away.”
    “Today?”
    “Is that a problem?” His eyes were gray, like his suit.
    She shook her head. She did not want problems. “Give me your phone number. I’ll call you in a couple hours.”
    “I wouldn’t bother packing. There’s nothing here you’ll need again.”
    “If I don’t tell people I’m leaving, they’ll look for me. I’ll be reported missing. It will get messy.”
    He was silent. He was going to tell her the organization could handle a missing persons report. But then he shrugged. “As you like.” He dug in his pockets. Had this boy attended the school? He might have been one of the kids, a skinny cavorting stick boy too small to register. But she wasn’t sure. It all seemed so long ago. “You really made yourself a part of this place, huh?”
    “It’s small,” she said. “There’s no other way.”
    He smiled like he didn’t believe her and extended her a