Gravity Rises (S3)

SP: Part Five

"You're going to be okay," said Melody Ramirez, smiling gently at the women in front of her. These women — a mother and her adult daughter, the victims of a recent car crash — returned her gaze with hesitant, vaguely haunted looks.

Melody continued, "If anything starts to hurt more than bruises or scrapes, come find me, all right? I'll be at the Mystery Museum." She didn't think she'd be going back to her own home any day soon — unless she moved the injured Fiddleford there from the Museum, but he probably wasn't stable enough for that. She had no idea when he would be, either.

An elderly man — the father of the older woman, presumably — came forward and put a hand on Melody's shoulder. "Thank you," he said. To his daughter and granddaughter, he said, "Let's go back to the house."

The older woman looked up at him. "What about the car?" she asked. A solemn silence followed, and Melody looked to the car in question. It sat in the middle of the road, surrounded by frantic townspeople whose conversations reached high, panicked pitches. The hood of the car was crumpled in on itself, as if it had run into some kind of wall.

But there was no wall that it could have hit.

In fact, aside from the crowd that had since formed around it, the car was totally alone on the town's main road. Nearby stood the sign that welcomed visitors to Gravity Rises, but it appeared undamaged; and, anyway, it was too small and too far away from the car to be the cause of the accident. The entire situation was baffling, but Melody hadn't gotten the chance to ask about it. She'd been brought here by Robbie Corduroy to help the accident victims, and she made sure to do that before worrying about anything else.

Beside her, the younger woman let out a shuddering breath. "How are we going to get home?" she asked quietly.

Melody turned to her. "We have a car," she said. By 'we,' she meant Stanford Pines, but Melody would use his car whether he liked it or not, if it meant helping someone in need. "We can take you home."

In response to her offer, she got three blank stares. "What's wrong?" she said. The two women and the elderly man looked at her as if they didn't know whether or not she had just told a joke; and if she did, it wasn't a very funny one.

"Melody," said a nearby voice. Melody turned to see Gregory Corduroy standing nearby. He'd been with the accident victims when Melody had arrived, but he left when she came. Now he had returned, and the look on his face was sympathetic but grave.

"Did I say something wrong?" Melody looked between Greg and the family in utter confusion.

Greg shook his head and put up a hand, indicating for her to wait a moment. To the elderly man, he said, "I can help you push the car out of the road, if you'll put it in neutral." He added to Melody, "And we can show you why you can't drive them home."

The elderly man chose to take his daughter and granddaughter home first, so Greg and Melody were soon left alone. "I'll just show you, then," Greg said, and started heading for the car.

Melody followed him. "If we can't go to the hospital," she said, "and I can't drive them home, then. . . then can we not get out of town?" But that was ridiculous, wasn't it? They were near town boundaries, and she could see the road stretching into the forest beyond. There didn't appear to be anything that would stop someone from leaving.

But. . . the car crashed into something.

Greg led her to the edge of the crowd, and Melody noticed something strange about it. The crowd was congregated around the car, but not in a rough circle as one would expect. Instead, the crowd stretched behind and to the sides of the car. No one was in front of the car: If anyone wanted to look closer at the wreckage, they approached only from the side. Melody could also see people put their hands up in midair, as if they were touching something — although there was only air in front of them.