“It’s a great opportunity for artists to make a name for themselves,” the tent told you. “And tents as well.”
You wrote down those quotes. “And where do you see the Marginalia Festival in, say, five years?” you said.
The tent’s brow furrowed. “I’d like people to look forward to Marginalia the same way they do—”
Just then you saw the flash of a warskirt between a row of toilets. You immediately closed your notebook, spun around, and started walking.
“Hello?” said the tent.
You brisked away from her and bolded across Pulaski Park and back toward Main Street.
“Miss!” shouted the tent.
You looked for a place to hide: JavaNet? The Haymarket?
It was too late: Diane landed in front of you. Before she even had a chance to speak, though, you stuck your finger in her face. “Leave me alone,” you spat, and you stormed past her. “I don’t want anything to do with you.”
Diane flew over you and landed inches from your face. “Just wait a second,” she said.
“No,” you said. You changed direction and stormed the other way.
“Stop right there,” boomed Diane. “I am a recognized Mother of—”
“But you’re not my mother,” you said over your shoulder. “You’re not anyone to me—”
“I’ve been looking for you for years,” Diane said, her voice breaking. “Will you at least listen to what I have to say?”
You stopped and turned around.
“Absolutely not,” said the Reader. “I have a good life here. A full life. I’m somebody. I have a boyfriend. A good job. I never had any of that in Appleseed. I didn’t even have thoughts of my own! All I was to 
was just words on a—”
“ is dead,” said Diane. “Those sentences he imagined—”
“Bookworms he called them,” said the Reader. “Fucking figments.”
“—rotted out the whole town. And then one of them killed him.”
“He killed himself, you mean,” the Reader said.
All the air left Diane’s body.
“Because you weren’t there to save him,” said the Reader.
“OK,” Diane said.
“Everyone abandoned him,” the Reader said.
“All right — we could have”—her voice shook—“been there more. You’re right. OK?” Diane held out her hands. “But we can still save him. You — you can still save him.”
“Me save him? You save him.”
“I can’t on my own. You have to come back. Appleseed needs a Reader.”
“I never had any sentences of my own,” you said. “Now I finally do and you want me to leave them all behind?”
“For a few days — just to help us finish the story,” Diane said.
You crossed your arms.
“Please,” said Diane. “Please.”
“And then what?”
“What do you mean?”
“If I go back to Appleshit,” said the Reader. “What happens when I finish reading?” said the Reader. “Am I stuck in—”
“No — of course not. The book will end.”
The Reader crossed her arms. “And I can leave.”
“Sure.”
“And I can come back here?”
“Of course,” my Mom said. “When you’re finished reading Appleseed, you can read anything you want.”
“Even if I do go with you, there’s nothing I can do to help.”
“Just try,” said the Mother.
“Shit,” said the Reader. She looked around — at the festival behind her, and then at the slow traffic on Main Street. “If I’m going, I have to make a pitstop first.”
“Absolutely not,” the Mother said. “There’s no time for that.”
“Forget it, then — find yourself another reader,” said the Reader.
The mother threw her hands. “Every second that passes—”
“Trust me, OK?” the Reader said. “It’s important.”
“Even with my son in the ground?”
“Yes,” said the Reader. “Yes.”
Diane stepped forward and put her arm around the Reader. “Grab on to my waist.”
The Reader wrapped her arms around Diane.
“Hold on tight,” Diane said. Then she pushed with her feet and lifted the Reader off the page. They rose over Northampton; the Reader hooted as she saw the words get smaller beneath her. When they reached skimming height, Diane shouted “Where’m I going?”
The Reader pointed toward Route Nine. “Over the bridge and into Amherst.”
“East?”
The Reader nodded. “We’re looking for a place called Atkin’s.”
They flew over green rolling hadleypages of farms and houses and then into stories of Amherst: pages covered with cows, silos, and wide-open spaces. The Reader pointed to the corner up ahead. “There it is,” she hollered. Diane saw a large farmstand, a half-filled parking lot, and rolling pages of green to the right. When she looked past the farmstand, she understood: the adjacent fields were covered with trees—apple trees, their branches shouting in green and red. The grove stretched back to the edge of the page, spilled off it, and continued on.
Diane dropped into the grove and set the Reader down onto the page. “Didn’t I tell you?” the Reader said.
Diane spit. “Get what you need and let’s go.”
The Reader approached a tree, grabbed an apple, and pulled it off the branch. “These are apple trees,” she said.
“I know they are,” Diane said.
“And it’s pick-your-own!” the Reader said. She took a bite of the apple and then held it out to Diane. “Don’t you want one?”
“Not right now I don’t,” said Diane. She took the bitten-into apple and put it in a drawer in her skirt. “ needs us. Now point me to the closest bookwormhole.”
The Reader nodded toward Route 116. “Belchertown — a few miles that way,” she said.
Diane lifted them up. High over the page, the Reader looked down and shouted, “You have to admit — that grove is a beautiful sight, isn’t it?”
But Diane didn’t answer her; she tightened her grip on the Reader and skimmed forward, faster and faster, as fast as any Mother ever had.
GRENADIER
The Reader and the Mother volted through the bookwormhole. As they did, light flooded the town, painting the buildings and the fields, swarming the Amphitheatre and the hospital and drenching Appleseed Mountain.
Diane didn’t stop; she carried the Reader high up over the buildings and trees and then banked left and bulleted forward. “Welcome home!” Diane shouted.
The Reader tried to get her bearings. Were they on Guerry Street? No — that was Jonquil, just past the Green, not far from Colton’s deadgroves.
Something was happening on the ground below. Up and down the street, people were stepping out of their houses. Fifty feet away to their right, a woman wearing a bathrobe stood in the middle of the road, stretching out her arms. When she looked up at you, you saw that she had a hole in her face. “Halleluiah!” she shouted at you.