Welcome to Bordertown Read Free Page A

look for a longer-term squat or rental on the message board at the Poop (in front of Café Cubana). The bulletin board in the back hall of The Dancing Ferret (the famous music club on Carnival Street) is another good source of housing information, as well as up-to-the-minute info on Soho nightlife and the Border Arts scene. While you’re at The Ferret, be sure to tell the owner, Farrel Din, that you’re new in town. The first beer is, by tradition, on the house.
    THE WEEKLY ADVISORY
    As you know if you got here recently, the Way between the World and Bordertown was impossible to find for a while and only recently reopened. From the World’s point of view, the Borderlands vanished entirely for thirteen years—but here on the Border, those thirteen years have been only thirteen
days.
A support group has been formed for people whose lives have been affected by the thirteen-year Gap (details available at Elsewhere Books).
    All the usual gang treaties are in force this week. Ho, Carnival, and Carmine Streets are Neutral Territory, strictly enforced. All gang areas are restricted to their traditional boundaries (get a map at the Poop if you don’t know what these are), except for the alleysrunning from Chrystoble Street to the Carnival Place mews, currently under dispute by the Rune Lords and the Pack. Avoid them.
    Lankin activity has been reported on the east end of Birch Street, pickpockets at Tumbledown Park, and the Rowan Gentleman was (supposedly) spotted in Riverside and Whisthound Square. There have been four monster sightings this week (three unconfirmed, one confirmed but harmless), and the gargoyle at the top of the Mock Avenue Bell Tower has mysteriously vanished.
    Ho Street will be closed to traffic on Saturday for the annual Jou’vert parade; Green Lady Lane will be closed on Sunday for the Dogtown Benefit Blues Bash (cash donations or dog chow required for entry); and Onion Street has been closed for the last three weeks for no apparent reason. The Mock Avenue street association would like to apologize to everyone for fixing the church tower clock last week, which caused widespread confusion. It has now been restored to its usual wrong time.
    Border Magic fluctuations have been brisk in the last ten days, with a predicted drop by Sunday. The cloudy weather continues, with sunny patches in the week ahead and Border storms to follow. Watch out for Mad River flooding, lightning strikes in the Nevernever, and windblown spells.
    Welcome to Bordertown, boys and girls and Gentle Folk. We hope you enjoy your stay.
    1. The original Diggers were a radical Protestant group in seventeenth-century England who practiced a communal, agrarian lifestyle and did not believe in private property. The name was revived by communal groups in the United States and Canada in the 1960s, and then in Bordertown some decades later. The Bordertown Digger community is a multifaith, multiracial group dedicated to helping runaway kids, homeless folks, recovering addicts, and others in need of friendship, food, and a place to sleep.

W ELCOME TO B ORDERTOWN
     

BY E LLEN K USHNER AND T ERRI W INDLING
     
    Milltown, in the present day …
    T he postcard came three days ago. On one side is a picture of some building and the words “Welcome to Bordertown”; on the other side is a message from my sister, writing to tell us that she’s safe and doing fine. The date on the card is thirteen years old—but the postmark says it was mailed in Boston last week. Mom practically fainted when she found it in our mailbox, and now she won’t talk about it at all.
    The rest of the family is talking, though. Uncle Bud thinks the card is a practical joke from some sicko who’d heard about Trish’s disappearance, maybe read it in the papers thirteen years back. Uncle Harry’s theory is that Trish
did
write it, before Whatever Happened to Her happened, and then the card got lost in the mail for thirteen years. Uncle Al thinks that Trish must have been in