Lightbringers and Rainmakers - Felix Gilman [2]
Pardon the cursing, May. And Sasha was the horse, if you have forgotten.
In my pockets I had my last three business cards, and some bits of wire and some notes for the Process, and a little over three dollars. I had two crisp green bills backed by the Bank of Melville, and one crumpled red Tri-City bill, which aren’t worth much out here. Carver never carries money.
“Stick with me, I said, I’ll make you rich.” I made myself smile, like I am making myself smile now. “I never said it would happen any time soon. But it will happen.”
Maybe.
May, I knew that once the shock wore off I would start feeling just awful about the people of that town, and how I can’t even remember their names or even the name of the town, and here it comes. I’m still not Religious, but if you still are I wouldn’t object if you prayed for them & for all those who suffer in this stupid War. Anyway, that’s enough for now.
Your brother,
“Professor” Harry Ransom, Lightbringer, &c.
II. The World’s Edge
Dear Sue,
I guess if you get this letter it means May will have got the other one, because I have mailed neither of them yet and will mail them together if I ever get a chance to mail them at all. Ask her to share her letter and share this one with her. I know you will anyway. Hope you all are well. Your kid brother Harry is not doing too badly. Keep smiling, that’s what they say, isn’t it?
How is he writing to us, you’ll be thinking, if he is up in the hills with nothing in the world but three dollars in his pockets and mud on his shoes and the few tools and scraps of wire Carver wears all the time? You’re right. I like to think I’m smart, but I know you are the shrewd one, really. I got to somewhere. I am writing these letters from a room in the World’s Edge Hotel in a town called Disorder. It’s about four days south or maybe north, but in either case not west or east from the town of Wherever-It-Was. I have told you already how directions get confused out on the rim of the world, or maybe I told May. You would hate it. In any case I do not plan to tell you about what it was like to walk here in the heat with nothing except to say that when I am finally rich and famous I will have earned it fair and square.
I have entered into a business arrangement with the owner. He will give me room and board free for two weeks while I work. There is a great deal your brother can do in two weeks. I am not out of the game yet, and tomorrow is a new morning with new Light. Good night.
Yours,
Harry
Okay Jess. I know Sue and May will share the other letters with you. Do not share this with them. I ask as your brother. You know how Sue can be judgmental and May is Religious, or at least she was when I left town, anyway, and anyway I do not want to tell them the situation, but I must tell someone because I am both guilty and pleased with myself and cannot sleep and not only because Carver is snoring in the next room so loudly it is bothersome, like an Engine. Remember you always covered for me when I was in trouble when we were kids, Jess. Anyway this is the situation.
I am staying in the World’s Edge Hotel. It is big, and empty, and full of shadows and dust and heaps of furniture, and up on the walls are some ugly dead animals and a few trophies stolen from the Hill Folk, mostly stone spears and some flat rocks carved with spirals and triangles and the like. It probably all meant something very important to the Hill Folk, but when you put it here it is just Stuff. The place is maybe ten years old but looks much older, almost like a Ruin. Conditions out here take their toll. When I walked in the door, the owner—I guessed he was the owner and guessed right—the owner was down on all floors