Penult Read Online Free Page B

terse,
unsentimental and devoid of detail. She sounded pretty down on
life, but I could tell that she still cared for me. She would
remind me to eat well and warn me not to pick fights with the other
prisoners.
    She kept begging me to come see her in
the Liminality. And I did on occasion during my first few months in
jail, but once I reached the mid-point of my sentence my
visitations ceased.
    Once I began counting down the days, I
got too pumped knowing I’d be getting out soon and completely lost
the ability to transition. If she had stopped writing me that might
have cooled my jets enough to drag me back under, but I never told
her that. Those letters fueled my hopes.
    I kept telling her not to worry about
seeing me in the Liminality. She should be looking forward to our
imminent reunion in ‘real’ life. Surely, our future together in the
living world would be better. How could it not be?
    Once we were together she would see
the light. It was probably hard for her to imagine ever being
together again when we had been apart for so long.
    A skinny guy in a muscle shirt was
leaning in a doorway looking at me funny. Never mind that I was
probably funny looking. I remembered Karla’s warning and picked up
my pace.
    Losing a tail in Rome seemed easy with
the crowds and narrow, twining alleyways, meeting and diverging at
odd angles. By the time I reached the Spanish Steps I felt pretty
sure I was alone. Then it was simply a matter of making my way
towards the river and across to the Vatican.
    ***
    Early on in my jail term, lying in my
cell, still coming to grips with my incarceration, frustrated over
my inability to just get up and go for a walk any time I wanted,
the roots came hunting for me. Later on, as my release date
approached, these visitations would cease, but a few weeks into my
internment, they still came and took me to the Liminality with some
regularity. At that point, I was still able to wallow deep in the
pit of self-pity.
    My mood shifted the instant I sensed
the sun-warmed and resinous breeze that wafted off the scrubby
foothills embracing my favorite hollow. Karla and I had a standing
agreement that this would be our meeting place. But I had to see
her since entering prison. My expectations were high.
    The shore of the pond had receded
greatly since the rains had stopped, exposing again the mud flats
and meadows. My old sword stood gleaming and undisturbed right
where I had stuck it in the mud several visitations past. With
peace at hand, I hadn’t needed to touch it.
    The waterfall that spilled from the
hanging valley had dwindled to a tiny fraction of the torrent it
had been during the peak of the rains, but remained strong enough
to create a cloud of mist that refracted fleeting fragments of
rainbow.
    My willow remained a willow tree
swaying in the wind just like the real thing. It had even grown a
bit. I would have expected for it to have long ago degenerated back
to the roots it was created from.
    After what must have been hours of
dawdling, it became clear that I would not be seeing Karla this
time around. I decided to head out to the settlements on the pitted
plains to visit with whatever friends I could conjure. It would
have been a shame to fade back to my prison cell without seeing
anyone.
    I considered bringing my sword, but
why would I need it? I left it stuck in the mud like some
battlefield grave marker for a fallen warrior.
    Peace had come to the Liminality. The
Frelsians no longer patrolled the plains with their modified
Reapers. They pretty much kept to their massif now that the Dusters
have bolstered their numbers with the influx of new immigrants from
the Deeps.
    This rebalancing of power is what kept
things peaceful. It also helped that Luther had somehow managed to
make friends on both sides. He was a regular diplomat, arranging
joint meetings between with Zhang, the new leader of Frelsi, and
Yaqob, the closest thing to chieftain of the more anarchic and
free-spirited Dusters. Luther