“Come on!” my sister called to Cora. “Your turn!”
As the wind whipped the dead birch leaves into a whirl, Cora hesitated. I could tell she felt nervous about jumping, even if it was just three measly steps. But then she surprised me by letting out a cowgirl’s “Yeeehaaaw!” and leaping off the step. She didn’t soar nearly as high as my sister, and she made a crash landing, stumbling as leaves spun around her feet. But she managed to regain her balance and danced around the lawn, cackling.
Once they released the Hulk and hitched her to a tree, Rose and Cora climbed into the car. The engine started, and I noticed that one of the headlights was out. Isn’t that a game for some people? I wondered. When you see a car with one missing, you punch the person you’re with. Or maybe you kiss them, I was never sure of the rules. Either way, I realized they’d forgotten to leave water for the dog. I went to the kitchen and filled a bowl. Before taking it outside, I opened the freezer and dug out a bone behind my father’s glass tumbler that I saw every time I reached for a Popsicle. My mother had frozen that bone to make stock for her beef barley soup.
When I put both the bowl and the bone by her paws, the Hulk didn’t growl or bark. She didn’t drink or bother with the bone either. She just sniffed my toes and slobbered on my flip-flops before rolling on her back in an invitation to scratch her belly.
“You’re real fierce, aren’t you, girl?” I said, kneeling and rubbing her velvety fur.
It was early enough that we had hours ahead. I stared off into the woods, thinking of Albert Lynch in a holding cell not twenty miles away, because of the answer I’d given Rummel that day in the hospital. And then I thought of what I heard those boys talking about while I’d been tucked in a study carrel at the school library days before.
“What would it take?”
“You’ve seen the dude’s picture.”
“It’s not like I’ve jerked off to it. I didn’t memorize what the hell he looks like.”
“I guess we need a skullcap to look bald. We definitely need his weird ’stache. I could grow one. But you might need help, pansy. Use burned cork. Plus there’s those glasses. Little round things that make him look like a bug. Then all we need is a weapon.”
“A weapon?”
“Not a real one, moron. But you know, like a rubber hatchet.”
“Dude, a hatchet isn’t what he used to do it.”
“Okay, so now you’re the expert. How the hell did he do it?”
“He blew their—”
Shhhh . . .
That day in the library, I pressed my hand over my good ear and shut out their voices. Now, just as I’d done then, I pushed the thought away. I quit petting the dog and stood to go inside, which was when I glimpsed the brake lights down the street. Cora and my sister had come to a halt by one of those cement foundations. As the car idled, the moon shone down, making it possible to see their pointy-hatted silhouettes. Funny how I’d been thinking about that game with the missing headlight and what you were supposed to do when you see one, because this is what I witnessed: two witches who had just completed their first successful broom flights of the night and were stopping a moment.
They were stopping to kiss.
Chapter 6
Thunder, Lightning, Rain
Ocala, Florida—of all places, that turned out to be the first we visited with our parents. They were scheduled to give a lecture at the city’s conference center. The event was going to draw their biggest crowd to date—more than three hundred tickets sold, my father informed us, reading from a fax that came as we were stuffing our suitcases. Even though the auditorium only held two hundred, the coordinators were setting up a spillover room where people could watch on a monitor. My father was thrilled, though my mother never cared one way or another about those sorts of details. She was too busy making sure Rose and I packed our toothbrushes and plenty of underwear.