Dom had combed the beach and found two white-and-gray seagull feathers. They weren’t the same size but good enough. He’d cut a hole on each side of the soft gray brimmed hat he’d found in his grandfather’s closet. The feather ends fit perfectly—one on each side of Dom’s head.
As he tramped through the woods, he saw the webs thick as Halloween decorations in the crooks and bends of branches. The moths were dead. Now their eggs sat, waiting for spring. He waved away clouds of no-see-ums shuddering in the still and wet August heat, trying not to smudge the makeup he’d spread over his face—a tube of mercury-colored lipstick Maddie had worn one Halloween when she went as the Tin Man. Sweat beaded over the greasy cream and his hair was already soaked under the too-big hat. But he told himself to man up—he bet Hermes hadn’t ever complained about any of his missions.
By the time Dom reached the Castle, his T-shirt was stuck to his sweating back and he could already feel the itch of the mosquito bites swelling up and down his legs. His left foot stung where Maddie’s sandals, a size too big, had rubbed. He’d used silver model-plane paint to transform the sandals into a sterling Arcadian pair fit for the god of trickery. It was magical sandals that had saved Hermes from Apollo’s wrath over the stolen herd, Dom remembered, hiding Hermes’s footprints, and his identity.
Maddie’s journal mentioned two codes to get through the maze, and Dom had memorized both, but now he couldn’t remember which code went to the center and which to the cottage. He stepped into the maze—the scent of fresh-cut wood reminding him of the first day he met Jules and how gently the man had wiped Dom’s clay-covered face.
He was lost after only a few turns. Was it left, left, right, left? He tried to circle back to the entrance. Start over. After two rights, a left, and another right, he was still lost.
More turns and he found the hedge-walled room at the center. He imagined he could see the impression in the grass where Maddie and Brooks had lain.
It seemed a hundred lefts and rights later he was still trapped. He fell against the leafy wall and hugged his knees to his chest. He’d have to yell for help. Hope that Brooks found him. If it came to that, he’d abort his mission and go back home. Dig out the bottle of vodka he’d hidden behind the Drāno and crap-caked toilet plunger in the bathroom upstairs and drink it all. Maybe chase the vodka with the Drāno.
His father was right. And those scumbags at school, MJ and Victor, all of them had been right when they called him names, told him just go ahead and kill yourself, why don’tcha? He was blubbering like a goddamn baby now and the greasy lip paint came off on his fingers, got in his eyes and stung, made the tears come faster. He knew what the Colonel would say. Shape up or ship out. Don’t be soft. That was the problem with the world today. The world in peacetime. People got comfortable, started feeling safe, and instead of worrying about life and death, they worried about how much everyone liked them, and whether they were pretty, and what if they weren’t special.
He stood. He’d give himself one more try and surrender if he failed, shout for help like a child lost in a supermarket. Mommy! Mommy! He held his breath and listened. The jingling call of a dark-eyed junco overhead. Or was it a pine warbler? He never could tell the difference. Something scampered in the woods. A crow cawed. He blew snot from his nose and it landed in a glob on the trampled grass. Then he heard the long rip of what sounded like packing tape. Like a sign, it lured him forward. Showed him the way. Left, right—no, that wasn’t it—the sound of the tape ripping, cardboard scraping told him so. Left, right, left, and the sounds grew louder and he knew he was moving in the right direction. He was Hermes again, returned to his mission. He saw the light of the cottage burning through the last hedged wall, heard the music playing, picked out the saxophone wail, the hum of the upright bass.
He was the god of games and omens, of diplomacy and guard dogs. He was the protector of homes. He remembered what the Colonel had said: Sometimes, you’re the mouth. Sometimes, you’re the meal. Dom didn’t want to be the meal—never again.
48.
Maddie
She was in the cottage packing the rest of her things. Once Brooks had finished boxing up his family’s stuff at the Castle and was back in the city with his mother and Eva, she would go to him.
Sun trickled through the tree canopy outside. Some of the leaves had grown back.
A crack sounded through the woods. Then two more. She heard the airy flapping of startled birds.
She was out the door, running toward the Castle. Running without seeing, without her bare feet touching the muddy path, without feeling the bramble thorns tearing at her naked legs.
Brooks was on his stomach, his face pressed into the overgrown lawn. Like he’d felt tired and laid down, the lush grass a pillow. A box had tumbled onto its side next to him. Eva’s brightly colored plastic blocks scattered.
She rolled him over. A yellow buttercup stuck to his cheek. His face fell back into the grass, and she whispered, Oh I’m sorry, although she knew he was gone, gone, gone. She stood, slipped on the blood-smeared grass and fell back, the air knocked from her lungs. He needs to be fixed, she thought as she crawled back to him, through the warm pool of his blood. He is broken. And needs to be fixed. Just like Penny was fixed.
She was screaming Fix him! Fix him! Fix him! when the shots came from White Eagle.
49.
Veronica
She had considered blaming Bob.
Finally, she had taken responsibility for the mess herself.
She sat next to her husband of more than fifty years. He was splayed out on the sofa, the back of his shattered skull tipped back like a broken marionette, blood and brain staining the serene pastoral print.
Her ears rang from the two shots she’d fired into his head. Her shoulder ached from the gun’s recoil.
He released his last breath and she smelled feces and burnt things. Like when her father branded a new cow back in Palmyra.
She had found her grandson in White Eagle’s back garden near Ginny’s childhood playhouse with the pink shutters and thatched roof. The boy was on his knees in the grass. Staring out to sea. His costume and his hands splattered with blood. Champ at his side, tail thumping happily as the dog licked her grandson’s round boyish face. She’d given the boy orders: hide your clothes in the woods. Burn them tomorrow. Shower quickly. Scrub your wrists and fingers and arms and chest and face. If anyone asked, tell them you’d practiced shooting with the Colonel that morning. Never, ever tell the truth. Never tell Maddie. The greatest gift he could give his sister, Veronica had said, shaking the shocked boy so his greasy black bangs whipped his cheeks, was ignorance.