So she ran, packing a small bag and hiding it in the woods. She took all her babysitting money and a fifty-dollar bill from Avon’s wallet. By this point Samson was already gone. He’d hitchhiked his way north, telling Avon he was going with his buddy Elvin to Tampa for a boys’ weekend. Bathsheba couldn’t forgive him for that, for leaving her behind, not just for the sense of abandonment, but for the rise in DEFCON alert that happened in her house in the months and years after.
“Don’t you run on me,” Avon used to tell her after dark, a pint of whiskey in his belly. He set trip wires on the stairway and hung bells on all the doors and windows. Radar Hunt sold Avon a pit bull bitch that hated other females, especially the human kind, and she would bark every time she saw Bathsheba, her lip curled and murder in her eye. Avon staked her under his daughter’s window at night. This is the sad truth of the life of Katie, born Bathsheba. She has been held captive before. In many ways it is the defining factor of her life. And you can say she should have known better, that she should have seen Mobley coming a mile away, but to say that is to betray your own ignorance. Look at your life, the relationships you keep getting into. Can’t you see the pattern? The wife who turned out to be just like your mother. The boyfriend who hit you just like your dad. You act like the world is filled with rational choices, that our brains are simple binary systems where if you push the red button and get a shock, you stop pushing the red button. But what if the red button pushes you? What if your father is a red button and he trains you to push him, rewards you for pushing him? What if he teaches you that pushing the red button is called love, a sharp electric shock that leaves behind a dull ache? Doesn’t it make sense that when you finally escape into the wild and you see a red button, you would push it, because who doesn’t want love?
And here she is, a mile above the earth, eating lobster, drinking champagne, and talking about philosophy, about Mondrian and Kandinsky. As far as she knows, her dream has come true. And this makes her happy, happy, happy.
“Wait till you see the stars,” Mobley tells her. “Down near Big Bend there’s no light pollution. It’s just you in the dark with the universe.”
Alone in the dark.
Katie smiles. She can’t wait. She takes a forkful of lobster, puts it in her mouth. The taste, sweet and sour, is unlike anything she’s ever experienced. She closes her eyes. Across from her Mobley looks at Astrid, who raises her glass once more and smiles.
You see, Katie, born Bathsheba, believes she is going to Texas to become an artist. But the truth is, she is going to be locked away in a tower like a princess, taking Mobley’s seed inside her until she becomes pregnant with his miracle child, and then she will be held there under those starry skies until she brings forth his child from her sacred womb. It came to him in a dream one night last year, this vision of fatherhood. An immaculate conception, sired through a surrogate. A vessel. One woman would bear him a son. Then she would vanish, and other women would raise the boy, none outshining his father, the biggest, reddest button of them all. The child would be cared for, pampered, but only Mobley would show him love. In this way would the child’s devotion be complete. In this way would he earn the right to be that most sacred of things—E. L. Mobley’s heir.
Hallelujah, thought Mobley. For I am the one true God.
Simon
Picture a cartoon snowman. He has an orange carrot for a nose.
He sings:
This will all make sense when I am older.
Someday I will see that this makes sense.
His name is Olaf. He lives in a Disney movie. Disney movies are movies for children in which everyone lives happily ever after.
One day, when I’m old and wise
I’ll think back and realize
That these were all completely normal events.
The movie is a cartoon, a fantasy. It’s set in what they used to call the land of make-believe. Olaf is childlike, filled with wonder. He has a child’s conviction that growing up will clarify all of life’s sordid mysteries.
You know, the way it did for you.
I’ll have all the answers when I’m older
Like why we’re in this dark enchanted wood.
The adult world, Olaf believes, is a place filled with answers, with certainty, with clarity. Simon Oliver knows better. He knows what all adolescents teetering between childhood and adulthood know: that the bread crumbs are all behind you, and there is a witch waiting in the dark ahead.
I know in a couple years
These will seem like childish fears
So I know this isn’t bad, it’s good
The world of children is the world that makes sense. Freeze tag and four square and I spy. If the floor is lava, it’s lava, and the tie always goes to the runner. Simon remembers that feeling, even though he has lost the ability to feel it. A time when everything made sense. When questions had simple answers, because you didn’t even know there were hard questions to ask.
Now, crouched in a midnight bush outside the Wizard’s compound, all Simon can think of is the complicated questions. Adult questions. Questions of degree. Like how do you get off the ride once it starts? Like what’s the difference between a revolutionary and a criminal? Like how did I get here, a child about to commit nine federal and local crimes with a group of disgruntled teenagers. There is a sluiceway at his feet, dug into the rock, and a wire grate just big enough for a child to fit through. Simon has pulled tin snips from his pocket, and he is clipping himself an entrance. At fifteen he can be tried as an adult—for murder, for assault or kidnapping or whatever else they choose to charge him with.
How’s that for grown-up?
Somewhere a coyote screams.
When I’m more mature
I’ll feel totally secure