Welcome to Night Vale

Chapter 30

Diane and Jackie quietly read the clippings on the wall, displayed around a large, well-used hatchet. It was one of many hatchets Leann Hart kept as part of her business. It was a failing business, but Leann kept it alive.

The clippings showcased some of Night Vale Daily Journal’s most famous headlines:

Glow Cloud Threatens Farms:

Dead Animals Falling from Sky

City Council Approves Humming:

Private Residences Only, Max 50 Decibels

Everything Is Fine

Totally Fine

Carry On

Feral Dogs Actually Just Plastic Bags, Says Mayor

Scientists Announce “Relax. Sun Is Not Real.”

WORMS!

All Hail the Glow Cloud!

Wheat-Free Night Vale

Wheat and Its By-Products Turn into Snakes, Cause Deaths

Street-Cleaning Day: Run for Your Lives. Run! Run!

As editor of the Night Vale Daily Journal for the past three decades, Leann had been present for the steady popularity and then sudden decline of print news.

Many of her ideas were cost-effective (cutting back to four issues a week). Some seemed like good ideas but failed for unexpected reasons (replacing newspapers in street kiosks with 2 percent milk, which apparently spoils quickly in sunlight). And some were hugely successful (attacking independent news bloggers with hatchets).

The last was a controversial decision, as attacking a person with a hatchet (with anything really) is technically a crime. But Leann made it work by engaging in semiotic arguments with law enforcement about what is assault and what is a business plan. One of her degrees is an MBA, she often told law enforcement officers. Few officers have an MBA, so they rarely argued with her.

Leann’s office featured an entire wall of hatchets, held up at angles by screws drilled into the faux wood paneling. Most of them were new and shiny. There were five in the center that were old, with curved gray wood handles. Their heads were smaller than those of the other hatchets. They were flinty, dull, with inscriptions depicting each of the five Ws of Journalism (What? What! What!? What. Why?).

On another wall were her college diplomas, both of which were handwritten in Cyrillic. Neither could have been her MBA, as, since the early 1960s, all MBA degrees have been issued via subdermal microchip.

Having read everything on the wall twice over, Jackie broke the silence. “Let me do the talking, okay?”

“That’s fine,” Diane said.

“I mean, you can if you want to.”

“No, really, you do it.”

“You obviously want—”

“Hello.”

This last was from Leann, who had entered the room with her hatchet. Her voice sounded distant, like she was still in the other room even as she sat on a couch underneath the wall of hatchets and gestured for the two of them to sit across from her in the smooth, white chairs. (Were those ivory? Unlikely, especially since ivory had been outlawed, and even living elephants had had their tusks confiscated by strict regulators.) The chairs were tall and rigid with thin seat pads but were surprisingly comfortable. Diane and Jackie did their best not to move around much in them. (Definitely not ivory. Perhaps some kind of bone? The knots where the legs met seemed almost like joints.)

“Well?” said Leann. Her voice sounded even farther away, like she was shouting from down a long corridor.

Diane looked at Jackie, who was looking at Diane.

“Go ahead,” Diane said, and Jackie laid out the two news articles about King City.

“Hi, Leann. I’m Jackie, and this is Diane C——”

Leann snatched the articles from the table and held them to the light.

“Where did you get these?”

“The library.”

Leann widened her eyes and mouthed “Library.” It was not clear whether she was impressed or skeptical.

“King City, huh?” she said. “Quiet town. Suburban without the urban. Not much to say about it.”

She set the articles down on the coffee table. Jackie opened her mouth, but Diane spoke first.

“But what about this other article? Which article is telling the truth?”

Jackie closed her mouth and looked at Diane.

“A good journalist doesn’t have to discuss the truth,” said Leann, waving toward her diplomas. “Some details are secret or off the record.”

“What—” said Jackie

“So what stuck out to you about this mayor?” Diane asked. “You don’t mention his name in either article. You just say ‘Good mayor.’ You wrote that here as an entire paragraph: ‘Good mayor.’”

“Well, they have a good mayor,” said Leann.

“But—” said Jackie.

“Hang on, Jackie,” Diane said. “Leann, we need any information you have. This is important.”

“And why is it so important?” said Leann, testing the edge of the hatchet against her finger. It drew a dot of blood and she smiled.

“I don’t know who I am and I don’t understand the progression of time as it relates to me,” said Jackie.

Leann nodded. “We’ve all been there.”

“I lost my job,” said Diane. “I’ve distanced myself from my son. I’m teetering. I feel like the breath before a scream.”

“Listen to me, young ladies.” (“Young ladies,” Diane mouthed but did not interrupt.) “Good reporting is not wasting words or space. I can’t afford the column inches to describe every insignificant detail about a story or all the information that might be pertinent.”

“But what about—” said Jackie, but Diane spoke over her.

“We’ll make this simple. Which of those two stories is true? Which one can we trust?”

Leann thought about this.

“I don’t know. Or I don’t remember. Or a journalist never reveals her secrets.”

“That’s a magician,” Jackie said. “A magician never reveals her secrets.”

“Isn’t a journalist a type of magician?” said Leann, lifting one eyebrow. The effect was very irritating.

“No,” said Jackie. “Definitely not, no.”

“I think what Jackie’s trying to say, Leann, is that—”

“I’m trying to say this,” said Jackie, standing.

She reached over Leann’s shoulder, grabbed a hatchet (the one inscribed with “What!?”). Jackie hefted the hatchet over her head and put her hand down on the table between all of them. Before either of the other women could do anything in response, she swung the hatchet down and chopped the slip of paper in her hand in two. Then up again, this time a series of quick, light hacks, like a chef cutting up a chiffonade. Once the slip was shredded, she swept all the paper off the table, scattering it into the air and onto the thick carpet.

“Look,” Jackie said. She held up the intact piece of paper that said “KING CITY.”

“Now, I need to know everything you know about this place,” she said, waving the paper.

“How did you do that?” Leann said.

“A magician never reveals.”

Diane had of course noticed the piece of paper in Jackie’s hand, but this was confounding. She found she had nothing to ask, or she had many things to ask but no way to voice them.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” was all Diane could say.

“There’s a lot of us with these papers,” said Jackie. “Diane, I saw you had one, but I don’t know what you did with it.”

“He wanted me to give it to my son. But I didn’t. I threw it away. Or no, I—I don’t remember what I did with it.”

“Lucky.” Jackie dismissed Diane. “I keep mine in my hand, because it won’t leave. Now, Leann, which of these stories is true? Do you have any idea?”

“I imagine they both are,” said Leann. “I’m imagining that because I don’t have any idea.”

She narrowed her eyes to better assess Jackie. Definitely impressed this time.

“You’ve obviously been there,” said Jackie. “You wrote two articles about the place. Can you put us in touch with anyone there?”

“Oh no, I never actually went there or talked to anyone there. I’m a reporter, not a snoop.”