WHO: Greta (narrative) WHEN: 26th - 30th WHAT: Movement
The drive was going to be a little over twenty hours and Greta resolved to do it more slowly than she had her first cross-country driving experience when she'd moved to New York. She'd pushed herself then and driven too long and it had been too stressful. This time she planned to avoid stress.
She drove for six hours on the first day, leaving New York and heading out onto the road with podcasts and music for company. The first night she got a cheap hotel room in Pennsylvania, and went running in the nearest park, half expecting a wolf at her shoulder with every turn. But there were no wolves here, just a few men who called out of a car at her.
(She didn't admit to herself that she ached to hear the snap of powerful jaws behind her.)
The next morning before she got going again she picked up a postcard from the closest post office - a generic and garish thing with a collage of photos and WASHINGTON, PA! written in yellow across the top. After addressing it her father and uncle she wrote, A stop off on a longer journey. I promise I'm safe and I know what I'm doing. I'll see you both again soon xx Greta
The second night she skipped a hotel and slept in the car, and on the third night she did the same, eating McDonalds in an empty carpark and curling up under her blankets in the backseat.
On the forth evening, as dusk was coming in from the east and the sky was littered with purple and pink clouds, Greta pulled onto the grass next a dusty country road and looked across to the tiny park and its little brick monument.
It was quiet as she stepped out of the car, the loudest thing around being the sound of her door slamming behind her. Greta could hear no birds but she didn't know if she was making that out to be more than it was. She didn't know yet what she was supposed to be feeling here.
Her boots on the loose gravel sounded too heavy as well, the crunch underfoot feeling like it was drawing too much attention. But there was no one around in sight to even see her, but she kept looking around herself as she approached to read the plaque on the bricks.
The GEOGRAPHIC CENTER of the UNITED STATES LAT. 39°50' LONG. -98°35' NE 1/4 - SE 1/4 - S32 - T2S - R11W
"I've been there before," the man had said to his friend in the Diogenes Club. "It scared the shit out of me. Suddenly I had nothing. I couldn't make the axe appear, couldn't make things grow and I was weak - as weak as any human. You've got no idea, don't go there."
Greta hadn't meant to listen in, but how could she not? A god was talking about a place where he was no longer a god, where the magic that existed didn't apply. And Greta couldn't help but think about the things her own father had given her, the urges and desires and the trouble in her blood that had led her into terrible places. Would that also leave?
Now standing here in the very place those men had been talking about, Greta didn't know if she felt different or not, nor could she think of a way to test that out. But she was tired.
(And her wolves if they came here, would they become normal men? Or normal wolves? Or were they so strange a mix of both that they would simply disappear into nothing for a time?)
She drove back into the town of Lebanon just down the road and found the only thing open, a small bar with just few patrons inside. Greta ordered herself a drink and when the guy behind the bar handed it over, Greta asked, "is a hotel in town at all?"
He shook his head. "Nah, nothin' in town. Used to be one out by the center but didn't get enough customers. But there's a place twenty minutes back east down the road."
Greta shook her head with a little smile. "No, that's okay, it needed to be in town."
He frowned. "You meetin' someone here?"
Again Greta shook her head and said. "This is just where I need to be right now."
He let it go then, going back to whatever it was he'd been doing before the strange blonde girl sat down. Greta drank her bottle of beer and watched the football game on the TV.
When the bar closed, Greta drove her car back out to the monument and saw the abandoned hotel that had been mentioned. She pulled her car up behind it close to the big gates reading NO ENTRY and got back into the back with her blankets again. The night was alive with the sound of crickets and night birds and the stars above were brighter than she'd seen in years.