Last Safe Place, The by Ninie Hammon

surface-of-the-moon terrain of strip mines. Still, the mountain they were about to tackle was another thing altogether.
    “Buckle up,” she said.
    “And make sure yo seats and tray tables is in they upright and locked position,” Theo said.
    The jeep lurched forward a little awkwardly and then they were off toward the cabin that Theo had launched a last-ditch argument against while he moved his uneaten tacos around on his plate at lunch.
    “Why we goin’ to a place Mr. Gestapo Wannabe might be able to connect to you? Don’t it make more sense to throw a dart at a map, pick somewhere you ain’t never been, rent a house and lock ourselves inside? How he gone find us if we done that?”
    Gabriella explained yet again that there was no possible way for Yesheb to connect her to the house in the mountains, but she had to grant that it certainly wasn’t as anonymous as picking a random house in some arbitrary city. What she was doing didn’t make as much logical sense as Theo’s suggestion, but for reasons she couldn’t explain she was certain that her family’s safety rested in something more than mere anonymity.
    They headed south out of Buena Vista on US 285. When they passed a collection of buildings encircled by a tall fence on the outskirts of town, Gabriella answered Theo’s unasked question.
    “Uh huh, that’s a prison. The Buena Vista Correctional Facility—houses about nine hundred medium security inmates.”
    She shouted because the crisp, fresh air that whipped through the topless vehicle on the open road carried her words away. She wasn’t sure Theo heard her.
    “The wind’s blowing your hair, Mom,” Ty didn’t quite have deadpan down but he was close to pulling it off. “Maybe you should roll up the window.”
    The freshly scrubbed breeze on her face and the laughter of her son in her ears vanished. That’s what Yesheb had said— exactly what Yesheb had said—that day when he appeared out of nowhere on a street corner in Orlando and leaned into her rented convertible while she sat helpless at a stop light.
    The remark had been the tipping point. The moment when she saw with chilling clarity that under the trappings of intelligence and good manners resided a being that was neither rational nor civil. That simple attempt at humor had exposed him.
    Because he couldn’t pull it off! It was so clearly a rehearsed behavior, like a windup toy. He couldn’t do humor because humor is the exclusive domain of human beings and Yesheb didn’t believe he was human. And maybe he was right.
    Gabriella is cold and uncomfortable, seated in a high-backed wooden chair with no cushion in a room that with only minor alterations could function as a meat locker. But Bernie is in charge and concern for Gabriella’s comfort never makes it to the higher centers of his brain. All his calculations are focused on the most efficient way to shuttle readers past Gabriella in a freight-train rush.
    “Just sign and move them through,” he tells her. “No small talk. It spoils the image and the image sells books. All your readers think you’re some kind of mythical creature—and a being from the Endless Black Beyond wouldn’t exchange recipes for bean dip with a fan. Keep your mouth shut and the line moving.”
    The signing is in a little store called Twice Told Tales on Atwood Street in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh. It’s a lovely bookstore, smells of old paper and stale pipe tobacco, a nurturing environment where patrons can browse, sit in overstuffed chairs, read poetry, discuss universal themes or existentialism or Stephen King’s latest best seller over a cup of Earl Grey that has tiny flakes of tea in the bottom.
    Gabriella is “in costume”—witch-black dress, long straight hair, pointed bangs, claw-like fingernails and cherry red lips on deathly pale skin. And the scar, of course, revealed in all its glory—no makeup. The combined effect of the author and the atmosphere is conducive to fantasy, so