Welcome to Night Vale

Chapter 26

When the phone rang, Diane flushed.

That morning she was at work, but she was not working. She was looking up information about King City on her computer. It seemed like a normal enough place. A highway. Some restaurants. Houses. Probably filled with people who have dreams and wishes and nightmares and crippling doubt and feel things similar to or exactly like love.

Diane was making broad assumptions based on the small amount of data that was her entire life. She was lost in her research, face close to the screen.

When the phone rang, she closed her browser and opened a spreadsheet, out of instinct. Her face felt warm as she pressed her office phone to her ear.

“Can you come in here, Diane?”

“Sure, Catharine.”

“Everything okay? You sound out of breath.”

“I’m fine.” Diane remembered to exhale.

Catharine’s door was open, but Diane knocked anyway. Catharine turned around in her desk chair and cut a line through the air with her upturned palm. “Sit, please,” her hand said.

Diane sat. The tarantula was perched in Catharine’s thick, wavy hair. It wasn’t moving much. A slight stretch of a front leg every so often. Catharine, from time to time, would scratch the side of her head with a letter opener. The tarantula would change position by an inch or so to avoid being hit.

Catharine had felt her scalp itch all morning. She thought about the qualities of various shampoos, whether she was using the correct brand. She thought about the dry air here in the southwest desert. She did not think about the tarantula hanging from her hair, because she did not know about the tarantula hanging from her hair. Had she known at all that there was a tarantula in her hair, Catharine might have behaved in a surprising and unsafe manner.

The tarantula had no idea where it was or what was happening. It felt movement from time to time, and it would, in turn, move carefully to accommodate for a possible predator or a possible prey. The tarantula knew about hunger and gravity.

“Diane, I’m troubled by something,” Catharine said. “Someone was in my office the other night. I’m not accusing you of snooping around in my office the other night after work, but what were you doing snooping around in my office the other night after work?”

She slapped the desk with her palm, and Diane jumped. The tarantula did not react visibly.

Diane regularly lectured Josh about trust, and now she had violated her boss’s trust in much the same way. Just be honest, she told herself. Be honest and accept the consequences.

“I might have looked in here, yes,” she said.

“You might have looked in here.”

“Yes.”

Catharine sighed and put her hands together. At that moment the tarantula put its front legs together, but the timing was coincidental.

“Why might you have looked in here, Diane?”

Diane started to talk about Evan McIntyre, but Catharine waved her words away.

“Entering my office without my permission was inappropriate behavior. We can agree on that, right?”

Diane hated this. She hated being talked to in the way she talked to Josh. Except she was right when she talked that way to Josh. And Catharine was right in what she was saying now. But still it was awful to receive. She understood how Josh felt being talked to like this, whether the reasons were good or not.

“Yes. I’m sorry, Catharine.”

“We can’t have people behaving inappropriately. The office is not a place for inappropriate behavior. This is a place for appropriate behavior, right?”

She was right, and Diane told her so.

“Diane, I need you to leave the office. You’re not fired or anything. We never fire anyone here. Let’s call it a ‘permanent unpaid leave’ while I consult the relevant agencies.”

Diane couldn’t make herself believe what was happening, even as she completely understood it. Her life was changing, here in front of her, so casually, and in a few simple words.

“You know there are relevant agencies, yes?” said Catharine.

“Yes.”

“There are always relevant agencies.”

“I’m sorry. I just got carried away.”

“You can go now.”

Catharine scratched at her hair again. The tarantula moved again.

Diane stood up, still staring down.

“I’m sorry, Catharine.”

“Close the door on the way out.”

Diane did. As the door shut, she could see Catharine scratching her head vigorously with the letter opener, her teeth gritting and neck wrinkling with tendons and veins. The tarantula—having apparently had enough—dropped down to the desk behind her.

Diane gathered up her belongings as unnoticeably as she could. She wanted to look like she was just leaving for lunch, which in one sense was all she was doing. She just was never going to come back.

It wasn’t until she was outside that the gulf of what had happened opened up inside her. She didn’t even like this job, but she didn’t dislike it. It was a large part of her life, and now that part of her life was over. She felt adrift, but also, she felt hungry. The hunger was unrelated, but it became tied up in all her other feelings.

After a quick stop to use the ATM at the Last Bank of Night Vale, Diane walked toward the Missing Frog Salad Bar. She wasn’t sure if she wanted salad or not, but they also served richer fare, like bowls of capers and orangemilk. She just needed to clear her mind, and if that meant eating something a bit heavier, so be it.

It took her a moment, but she realized that the man down the block from her was Troy, wearing a dark suit. He had a shoulder bag and a burgundy-and-silver tie, and was absently looking at his phone as he came toward her.

It made her furious, her life coming apart around her, let go from a job where she had always been quiet and responsible and respected, and her son at a distance that had never existed between them before, and here was Troy, in yet another guise, walking down the streets of her city like he belonged here. Like he had just as much right to be here as she did.

She walked faster, not sure what she was going to do next.

Just a few feet away, Troy glanced up. She could not tell if he saw her or not. His upward glance turned quickly to his watch. He stopped, and, in one complete gesture, like a short modern dance, he looked from his watch to the street signs while pivoting his body in the opposite direction, a complete movement phrase that told the story of a man who was late and accidentally walking down the wrong road.

She followed him, thinking about what she would like to do to him, and also about what she was actually going to do to him. When she had difficulty catching up to him (how fast was he walking? She was practically running now), she called out, “Troy!”

As she said this, a car revved nearby, the driver grinding the wheels over the concrete, a great screech, a tiny puff of smoke, and burning rubber stench that hid her shout.

Diane looked at the car and the dark black marks and the thin white puffs of smoke. The driver was Jackie Fierro. Of course, Jackie would be lurking, always watching. Jackie was swearing, and looking past Diane down the street.

When Diane looked back to where Jackie was looking, Troy was already lost in the lunch crowd.

And it was at that moment that she knew there was only one other possible option. She needed information, and she couldn’t use the resources at work anymore (there was that shame shuddering through her again).

It was time to go to the library. The library would have records on Troy Walsh.

Diane had survived librarians before. She and Josh had gone on many quests to the Night Vale Public Library, as well as the less treacherous, but still life-threatening, libraries at Josh’s schools.

She drove home and grabbed the things she would need to check out a book: strong rope and a grappling hook, a compass, a flare gun, matches and a can of hair spray, a sharpened wooden spear, and, of course, her library card. She couldn’t remember exactly, but she made a silent prayer that she had no outstanding fines.

She put on all blue clothing. (It was widely known that librarians could not see the color blue. This was probably just an urban legend, but Diane was willing to do anything to put the odds more in her favor.)

On her bed she spread out four different maps of the library. She noted the inconsistencies in each map, trying to determine which paths were truth and which were certain death. All four maps indicated that the European history section was located on the second floor, northeast corner, but Diane knew this to be untrue, as there has only ever been one book of European history ever written, and it was a pamphlet about the small country of Svitz and it had been lost to a fire during last year’s Book Cleansing Day festivities. The pamphlet was not meant to be burned, but it had a picture of a giraffe on the cover (the national tall mammal of Svitz), and the Book Cleansers mistook the giraffe for a handgun. A giraffe can look a lot like a lot of things to someone wearing a hazardous materials uniform and a welder’s mask, so the mistake was understandable.

Without that book, there couldn’t possibly be a European history section anymore. She threw the maps out as obvious forgeries. Realizing she wouldn’t know what to do with them even if they were needed, she tossed the pile of supplies and makeshift weapons as well.

She would have to go off memory and instinct. Mothers of teenagers are good in libraries. They are wise and attentive from their years of experience, and they are unrelenting and fearless because of their focus on a good education for their kids.

Before getting in her car, Diane stopped by Josh’s room. That day he was a desk lamp.

“Josh, I love you. I just wanted to tell you.”

“What? Where is that coming from?” He was a vase full of sunflowers now.

“Nothing. Just saying that I love you.”

“I love you too,” he said, his petals cocked to the side in wary confusion.

“Everything’ll be fine,” she added, not knowing at all if everything would be fine.