Page 35 of Installment Immortality

Elsie glanced at the rearview mirror. “Do you know what food you want to eat?” she asked. The question had the vague air of a test.

Arthur apparently thought so too, because his gaze skittered from her over to me, anxious and afraid of giving the wrong answer. “Er…” he said.

“How about something fast and easy?” I suggested. “I think there’s a truck stop up ahead. We can probably find something there.”

I usually try to avoid truck stops. They’re road ghost territory, the protectorate of phantoms like Rose and other spirits of the highway. And the ghosts who hold and haunt them don’t always look kindly on intruders. Still, as Arthur looked at my reflection with grateful relief, I couldn’t regret anything about agreeing to stop there.

“Sure,” said Elsie, with a shrug. She hit the gas harder, and the car rewarded us with a sudden surge forward, pressing us all back into our seats. “Hold on to your butts,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Arthur, and I laughed, and everything was going to be all right, no matter how far we had to drive to get there.

I was right about the truck stop: we started passing signs for it in under a mile, and reached the exit in roughly three, pulling off via an offramp barely large enough to be worthy of the name, and from there onto a gravel frontage road that ran straight into the embrace of one of those ridiculously overbuilt and overblown fortresses of travel that only really seem to crop up on the American East Coast, where the threat of blizzard is even more pronounced than the need for greasy burgers and cheap coffee. Multiple gas stations and convenience stores warred for territory in the body of a single interconnected stop, along with an indoor food courtpacked with fast food franchises, a literal diner, and a small motel that promised hourly rentals and showers.

Add on the sheer amount of neon and chrome on display, and the place looked like an advertisement for the power of capitalism, or at least the power of the road itself. I leaned a little closer to Elsie as we drove, watching the stop grow closer, trying to decide whether I’d made the wrong call.

“What do you think, Arthur?” asked Elsie. “McDonald’s or the diner?”

“Diner,” said Arthur.

I mustered a sickly smile. This was on my head, no matter what came next. Whether I pissed off the Ocean Lady or got off scot-free, this was on my head.

Elsie pulled up outside the diner, and we all got out, heading inside as a group. The sign at the hostess stand said to seat ourselves, but when we moved to do precisely that, a waitress stopped, tray in hand, snapped her gum, and said loudly, “Wrong way, honey. Your table’s already waiting for you.”

I didn’t like that at all. From her expression, neither did Elsie. Arthur turned eagerly in the direction the waitress had indicated, bouncing onto his toes and waving. I turned more slowly, trying to put off the moment when I’d need to face whatever had decided to complicate our journey.

There, sitting in a corner booth, was a Japanese American teenager in an outdated white peasant blouse with apple blossoms stitched around the cuffs and apples embroidered at the neckline. She was sipping on a milkshake, and there were already three burgers waiting on the table, perfect and glistening with grease and melted cheese. They looked like the sort of burgers you’d see in a catalog advertising the ideal all-American diner, and they weren’t made more realistic by the piles of golden potatoes nearby.

The three of us walked toward her, Elsie warily, Arthur naïvely,and me with clear resignation. She gestured for us to sit, and we sat. Arthur wound up to her right, and as soon as she indicated his burger, he picked it up and tore into it, eating like he hadn’t seen a solid meal in years and was afraid he might never see one ever again. Elsie scooted in to her left, and I sat next to Elsie, at the outside of the booth, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“Whoareyou?” asked Elsie, still wary.

“I’m a lot of people,” said the girl. “I’m royalty. I’m a runaway. I’m one of the eternal children of the American road—I stopped getting older a long damn time ago, and I’m not going to start again until I decide it’s time for me to go, or someone better for my people comes along. My parents called me Tanaka Asuna, although that’s not how people know me now. Your friend knows who I am.” She shifted her focus to me, then blinked and frowned. “Mary? What happened to your eyes?”

“I died,” I said, with a small shrug. “Again, I mean. I got blown to ghost dust and the anima mundi pulled me back together. I’m assuming they’re the reason you’re here.”

“What, I can’t want to see an old friend?” she asked.

“You can, you just don’t,” I said. “I’m guessing this truck stop isn’t really here, either.”

“Too obvious? Or not obvious enough?” She craned her head to look out the window. “I considered putting a carnival in the west parking lot—thought it might make your traveling companions more comfortable—but then I couldn’t decide whether that would be overkill or just the right amount of kill. What do you think?”

“I think introductions are in order,” I said, mildly. “Elsie, this is Apple, current Queen of the North American Routewitches. Apple, this is Elsinore Harrington-Price, one of the kids I babysit for, and her brother, Arthur Harrington-Price. They’re both under my protection.”

“Did you think I managed this many decades as queen by messing with a caretaker’s charges?” Apple picked up her milkshake and took a pointed sip, never taking her eyes off of me. “Routewitches walk the border between the living and the dead, Mary. You know this. I’ve always known what you were, and I’ve never challenged your authority over the ones within your care. I would no more threaten one of your kids than I would set aside my crown.”

“Your predecessor did.”

“Threaten, or abdicate?”

“Abdicate.”

“Too bad for him, because I like the job more than he ever did, and I’m not following in his footsteps while I have any choice in the matter.” Apple shrugged, setting her milkshake off to the side and focusing on Elsie. “Is she always this suspicious?”

“When it’s about our safety, yeah,” said Elsie. She looked at the cheeseburger in front of her, and then to her brother, who was already halfway through his, barely pausing to breathe or chew. “Mary, I’m guessing from what you said about the truck stop that wherever we are isn’t really real. Is this like eating food in a fairy tale? Am I going to wind up sworn to the service of a weird teenager for seven years if I eat this burger?”

“Not if she knows what’s good for her,” I said, casting a sharp-eyed glance at Apple.

She laughed. Actually laughed, like the situation was genuinely hilarious. Leaning back in her seat, she said, “I am not the Queen of Faerie, and I wouldn’t mess with Mary’s kids if I were. You can eat. I’ll be more annoyed if the food goes to waste than I will be if you eat it.”

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