“All of this is to say that I am choosing to not tell you some of what I know. Or I am lying to you about it. And I want you to forgive me.”

“We all want things,” said Jackie.

Josie nodded sadly. She stood, which involved a complex rearrangement of flesh and joints and muscles.

“Walk 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.

“Drink this,” she said, extending it to Jackie. “It’ll help with your migraines.”

“I don’t get migraines. I’ve got something much worse.” She started to hold up her left hand.

“Drink.”

Jackie did.

“I don’t get migraines, though,” she said after.

“Jackie, 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.”

“How many decades?” Jackie asked, mostly to herself.

“I 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.

“Damn ungrateful,” she said.

“What is?” said Jackie.

“Nothing. 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.

“You too?”

“There 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.

“Where do we start?” said Jackie.

Josie told her. Jackie swore at her, and then apologized for swearing.

“The library, though.” Jackie considered. “No. That’s. That’s.” She indicated with her hands what it was.