Read Online Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink - Free Book Online Page A

not tell you some of what I know. Or I am lying to you about it. And I want you to forgive me.”
    â€œWe all want things,” said Jackie.
    Josie nodded sadly. She stood, which involved a complex rearrangement of flesh and joints and muscles.
    â€œWalk with me,” she said. And Jackie did. They walked into the kitchen. Josie did not acknowledge the bundle on the table, and so neither did Jackie. If Josie wasn’t going to express concern about something, then Jackie sure as hell wasn’t going to either.
    Josie produced a glass of water, through practiced manipulation of cupboards and valves and municipal plumbing. Neither she nor Jackie was impressed with the human miracle represented by how easily the glass of water was produced.
    â€œDrink this,” she said, extending it to Jackie. “It’ll help with your migraines.”
    â€œI don’t get migraines. I’ve got something much worse.” She started to hold up her left hand.
    â€œDrink.”
    Jackie did.
    â€œI don’t get migraines, though,” she said after.
    â€œJackie, I’m sorry that this has happened to you when you are so young. For all those decades you have run the pawnshop, you have been so young and unaware of the cruelty of life outside of the equally but differently cruel bubble of youth.”
    â€œHow many decades?” Jackie asked, mostly to herself.
    â€œI know what you are looking for. I know what has happened. And it’s going to be very dangerous. You may not live through it. And if you do, the you that lived through it will not be the same you that lived before it. In that sense, you will definitely not exist after, and I’m sorry.”
    The bundle started to float off the table. Josie rolled up a Cave and Cavern Decor and Accessories Catalog, the kind that clogged up so many Night Vale mailboxes, and slapped at the bundle. It plopped back on the table.
    â€œDamn ungrateful,” she said.
    â€œWhat is?” said Jackie.
    â€œNothing. Nothing is. The man in the tan jacket is from a dangerous place. A place that no one can go to and return from. That’s what we think.”
    Josie held out her left hand. In it was a slip of paper. It said the name of a place.
    â€œYou too?”
    â€œThere are many of us. We’re not sure what’s happening. We need to know more.” Josie tossed the paper on the counter and sat down at a kitchen stool, the slip of paper already back in her hand.
    â€œWhere do we start?” said Jackie.
    Josie told her. Jackie swore at her, and then apologized for swearing.
    â€œThe library, though.” Jackie considered. “No. That’s. That’s.” She indicated with her hands what it was.
    â€œThe search for truth takes us to dangerous places,” said Old Woman Josie. “Often it takes us to that most dangerous place: the library. You know who said that? No? George Washington did. Minutes before librarians ate him.”
    Jackie opened the front door. The pain in her gut subsided for a moment, or perhaps only faded under the anxiety of thinking about the library.
    The yard outside seemed so bright and so distant from the dim interior. The Erikas carried on with their yard work. There was a hole dug into the backyard that one of them was starting to fill. They stood motionless, muttering at the hole, and a bright black light enveloped the displaced dirt, nudging it back into its place.
    There were hands wrapping around her. Josie was hugging her, but the angle was wrong, and there was a significant height difference. They both stood in the unnatural hug for a moment, neither wanting to acknowledge the misalignment of the physical affection.
    When Jackie thought about where she had to go, she did not feel fear. But she felt an awareness of how tenuous it was, the collection of thoughts and habits that was Jackie Fierro. Howeasily those could all be taken away and rearranged into some other form of