He moves her hand to another spot on his rib cage. She whacks him playfully.
—Just pet yourself, if you’re gonna tell me how to do it.
—please. love.
—OK, OK.
—nice touch.
—I’m glad for magic. If I couldn’t talk to magic animals, I’d be so lonely.
—he no listen to you, too?
—I guess Dunk does, but everyone else here hates me. They shut me in that room for hours. I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t shown me how to unlock the door. It was so terrible. I wanted to kick and scream. But then they would throw me out.
—in garbage?
—Yes.
Hooligan licks his lips hungrily.
—mmm, garbage.
—I know. I like garbage too. I miss it.
Abby starts to cry.
—Maybe it would be better if they threw me out. I’m so homesick. I like nature. I like the squish of trash bags under my feet. I like being able to roam. But I love Dunk.
She contemplates miserably.
—And even if they throw me out, they might not take me back to the Island. They might just leave me here, loose in the city. With no home.
—lost.
—Yes, lost.
—lost. lost. sad.
—But I’m sad here too. I wish you could understand how I feel.
Hooligan kisses her face in one wet slurp.
—salty.
Abby smiles.
—stay, abby. stay.
—I guess it wouldn’t be so bad, as long as we stick together.
—yes. stay.
Abby’s fingers furrow through Hooligan’s fur, shaping winding paths, meditative and aimless. His tongue lolls out of his mouth; he seems almost asleep when, all of a sudden, he rolls over on his stomach and looks up at her eagerly.
—walk?
—Right now? But it’s the middle of the night.
—walk walk walk walk.
His tail thumps the mattress. Abby sighs.
—OK, OK.
Hooligan hops down from the bed, bounds on all fours to the door.
—This one is locked too.
—open it. like i taught you. by feel.
Hesitantly, Abby touches the panel beside the door. It reminds her of the toaster, coils humming with energy, but she feels no heat. No, something inside this device is alive; she feels the currents flowing through it, like blood inside an unsmashed fish. What are you doing in there? she wonders. No response. And yet…it waits, ever so patiently anticipates, a signal from—what was that? a particular button? She touches the keypad, reaching for the source of the device’s yearning, but as soon as she presses one button, the yearning shifts to a second, then to a third. In the calming simplicity of this exchange, Abby forgets about the door, the People Machines, Dunk, all her worries. Then, after the fourth button, the door pops loose and the currents retreat from the coils.
—easy, see? walk now.
Hooligan nudges the door open with his snout. A thick wedge of light falls onto the carpet. Abby picks up Ripple’s sweatshirt from the floor and slips it on, then follows.
Late at night like this, the mansion spooks her less. The humans are the ones who awaken its wicked sorcery to bend it toward their ends. When they sleep, no one is here to turn off the lights by snapping, or to conjure a voice from nowhere that tells of distant events and weather yet to come. Padding down the hall with Hooligan, Abby can almost pretend they are exploring the living world, though she’s never walked so long without a sky above her. But the apehound destroys the illusion when he stops in the middle of the hall to press the button for the Surprise Room.
—Let’s not go in there.
—go. go.
—But every time the doors open, I’m somewhere new and scary.
—no scared.
Hooligan balances on his hind legs and takes her hand. They step across the threshold together. He presses one of the numbers on the wall, and it lights up.
—Where are we going?
—no scared.
Abby feels a funny lurch in her guts, as if she’s falling. Then, with a “ping,” the doors to the Surprise Room open again. Hand in hand, she and Hooligan walk down another hallway and through glass doors into the Land of Plants.
The lights are off in the Land of Plants, and the leaves rustle as they pass, but Abby isn’t afraid, because in here she can see the stars. They are framed in the panes above their heads, squared away into neat little boxes like everything else in this place, but they are still familiar, and their presence comforts her. She gazes up as Hooligan leads her over a little bridge and to the base of a towering palm. He takes a spade from its hiding place beneath some groundcover and digs into the dirt. He uncovers a shallow grave. In it lies the corpse of a sparrow.
—magic bird. my friend.
Abby kneels. She touches the delicate wings, the beak as small as a single tooth.
—tried to play but too small. got hurt. you fix.
—I don’t think I can fix him, Hooli.
—he need help, but dunk no listen. you listen. you fix.
Abby listens to the bones. There is an echo in their hollowness, faint and distant. A small musical voice she has to strain to hear, something between a lament and a wish: —fly away, away, away.
12
COMMITTED
“A marriage is a series of compromises between a husband and a wife,” Pippi once said. “A wedding is a series of compromises between a young lady and her mother.”
During contract negotiations, Pippi did not even grant the Ripples consultation on the wedding preparations. Every aspect of the ceremony, cocktail hour, and reception is the result of a series of arguments she had with Swanny, the vast majority of which Pippi won. The ceremony is to take place in the greenhouse, beneath a trellis of climbing snapdragons; Champagne afterward in the Hall of Ancestors; dinner and dancing to follow in the ballroom. Everything has been planned for months.
“Darling, if I have to touch up your eyeliner one more time,” Pippi scolds, sotto voce, though it would be impossible for the Ripples to hear them out here in the hall. “You’re beginning to look like one of those raccoons we poisoned under the veranda.”