She smiled and called out loudly again, this time as if addressing the group, “I guess you won’t get to see the gorgeous pegasus. What a shame!”
There was a loud rustle as Orion stepped from the shelter of the trees and spread his wings like a proud peacock. He acted as if he hadn’t noticed the group and gave a forced yawn as if he were bored with his display of prowess. Mr. Catlin gasped and Mrs. Catlin nearly fainted.
“I wouldn’t want to deprive these fine people, as I doubt they’ll ever see my equal,” he boasted upon approach.
It was all too much for Mrs. Catlin. She flopped to the ground with an alarming thud. Mr. Catlin rushed to her side, too preoccupied with his wife’s condition to pay attention to Orion.
“Are you okay, Deb? Say something!” Mr. Catlin pleaded, fanning his wife with a large maple leaf. She replied with a disoriented moan and fluttered her eyelids open, looking spent and tipsy.
“What happened?” she mumbled, still rolling her eyes as if in search of her bearings.
“The pegasus,” he replied with haste. “You saw the pegasus and you fainted.”
“Oh, the pegasus,” Mrs. Catlin repeated nonchalantly, and, realizing what she said, screeched, “THE WHAT?” She pulled herself into an upright position knocking Mr. Catlin, who had been hovering over her like a mother hen, onto the ground.
Orion took this as his cue to re-enter the scene and traipsed back out of the forest, shaking his pearly mane. Mrs. Catlin got one good look at him, jumped to her feet and hid behind the tree she had originally fainted under.
“Jim, what is that?” Mrs. Catlin nearly shouted in horror, her nails disappearing into the bark as she clenched the tree tightly.
“Well honey,” Mr. Catlin called out reassuringly, “I think it’s a pegasus, just like Cora said.” He reached out, covering her trembling hand with his own and made a futile attempt to pry it from the tree. Mrs. Catlin snapped her arm back like a tightly wound screen door and left her husband to gaze at the magnificent beast alone.
“Did I hear you talking?” Mr. Catlin asked in disbelief.
“Why, yes, certainly I can talk. You might as well ask me if I can walk!” Orion teased, still putting on a bit of a show for his new admirer. Mr. Catlin chuckled.
“Did I mention he speaks only in rhyme?” Cora said, enjoying her father’s reaction and imagining that her own had probably been similar. “So…do you believe me now?”
“Oh yeah,” Mr. Catlin gushed, reaching out to Orion’s muzzle and stroking it tentatively.
“And you?” Cora asked, turning to the mortified Mrs. Catlin.
A very timid, “Mmmm-hmmm,” came from behind the tree just before Mrs. Catlin darted out from her hiding place. “I’ll meet you in the car,” she shouted over her shoulder as she raced toward the Explorer.
Mr. Catlin wasn’t nearly as eager to leave Orion behind and it took some cajoling before Cora could get him to return to the car. He’d struck up a rapport with the shimmering stallion and hung on to each and every bit of poetic prose that dripped from Orion’s lips.
“Come on, Dad. Please!” Cora begged for the umpteenth time. “We need you to drive us to Patrick’s mom’s house.”
After a few lingering looks, Mr. Catlin pulled himself away from Orion. “No problem,” he finally responded. “It was so nice to meet you, Orion,” he said with sincerity.
“Indeed, I think I must agree. The same is true of you for me,” the pegasus replied with an equally respectful tone and accompanying bow.
All the way to Charlene’s house, Mr. Catlin jabbered on about the fascinating adventures Orion had gone on. Meanwhile, Mrs. Catlin’s mood had shifted from frightened to annoyed.
“Just where exactly are we going?” She huffed.
“Vader,” Mr. Catlin replied. “It’s two towns over.” He was too caught up in his giddy, childlike mood to acknowledge his wife’s sour attitude.
“I know where Vader is,” she muttered, as aggravated with his cheery response as she was with his stories.
Cora watched the back of her father’s head bob in an overly animated manner as he started again, precisely where he’d left off. “And then, just when Orion thought all was lost––”
Cora too had become weary of hearing about the imaginary crusades of an adolescent pegasus and shifted her attention to Patrick, who was staring gloomily out at the passing fields.
“What’s wrong?” Cora whispered.
“Oh, nothing,” Patrick lied, directing his attention outside. Cora reached out to his hand, which lay motionless on the seat between them. She cupped it in her own and closed her eyes. She could feel his thoughts running through her mind and becoming her own. She suddenly felt apprehensive and fraught with worry. Will she like me? What if she’s mean? What if I’m a disappointment to her?
Cora opened her eyes to the sight of Patrick staring back at her. “Don’t worry,” she said soothingly. “She’s going to love you.”
He smiled and placed his other hand on top of hers. “Thanks,” he replied.
It was midafternoon by the time they arrived in Vader. Cora had never been to the town before and was unimpressed from the onset. The signs welcoming them to the city were decrepit and in need of repair. The R in VADER had partially fallen off and was precariously dangling from the handle of the E. There were miniature makeshift billboards on either side of the welcome sign that listed the ten churches and eleven bars that the city had to offer.
As it turned out, there wasn’t much else in Vader. There were a handful of mom-and-pop stores but most were closed, many permanently. There was a grocery store at the center of the town, but from the roofline Cora surmised that it had once been a barn and she couldn’t imagine wanting to purchase anything edible from a building that had once housed live farm animals. They drove the length of the town in less than a minute and were soon back to wide-open spaces filled with trailers and livestock.
“What’s the street name?” Mr. Catlin asked, glancing back at Cora.
Patrick withdrew a crumpled scrap of paper from his shirt pocket and unfolded it. “Umm…Goerig? Number 278 Goerig.”
The houses seemed to become increasingly rundown as they drove along, and by the time they’d reached the road sign marking Goerig, the shacks that lined the street bordered on condemnable. Mr. Catlin appeared very aware of the surroundings and decreased his speed, as if he could somehow prevent them from arriving at what he feared would be the dump of all dumps.
They all braced themselves for just about anything as they pulled into the driveway at 278 Goerig, and still, they were mortified. The house was an ancient singlewide trailer up on cinder blocks. It had tin siding that showed bits of its original dingy-white color amid a blanket of rust, mottled with mud. The roof was caved in at one end, and what remained visible of the rolled composite was blanketed with moss so thick that the gray of the shingles was all but nonexistent.
From the car, Cora could see mounds of dead flies and other crusted-over insects lining the sills inside each of the filth-hazed windows. A rusted screen door, half off its hinges, creaked against the force of the wind and made a metal-on-metal clanging noise as it knocked against the outside of the trailer. Cora found herself afraid to get out of the car. She turned to Patrick, who was staring at the trailer with a look of horror, and inhaled deeply before moving to open the door. “Well? Let’s go,” she chimed, as lightheartedly as she could.
“No. We shouldn’t go in.” Patrick couldn’t tear his bulging eyes away from the trailer.
“But we’ve come all this way,” Cora pleaded, trying to show him the strength that she felt he needed from her.
“Yeah, let’s just go in,” Mr. Catlin encouraged from the front seat. “It looks okay, right?” he added, nudging Mrs. Catlin in hopes of a supportive word. She sat as stiffly and silently as Patrick, staring out at the trailer in disgust.
A thin, bleached-blonde woman, still in her bathrobe, appeared on the trailer’s matchstick porch just then, scr
atching her mangled hair. When she caught sight of the SUV, she gave them a suspicious glare. She ambled down the steps and stood on the concrete slab at their base, trying all the while to keep her dingy pink slippers on.
Mr. Catlin promptly exited the car and called, “Hello there!” before giving her a tentative wave.
“Waddaya want?” the woman spat.
“Well, um…” Mr. Catlin stalled, turning to see if Patrick had emerged from the car.
“We’re looking for Charlene!” Patrick shouted just as he surfaced from the bowels of the Explorer. The woman’s eyes reduced themselves to slivers and zeroed in on him.
“What for?”
“We need to talk to her.”
“Oh, yeah? Why?”
Patrick was quiet, lines of confusion sprouting like fast-growing weeds all over his forehead. He walked away from the car and toward the trailer house, stepping carefully over bits of trash and disembodied yard gnomes that littered the lawn. Only chunks of snow-white beards and bits of pointy red hats remained of the ill-fated yard ornaments.
As Patrick got closer, the robed woman retreated. She shuffled backward, scuffing her slipper bottoms against the concrete. Her bare heels inched closer to the porch’s bottom step and finally impacted with it, leaving her nowhere to go.
“Whatchya want, kid?” she finally barked.
Patrick was close enough now to address the woman without elevating the volume of his voice yet he inched slightly closer and responded at a near whisper. “Charlene…she’s um…she’s my mom.”
The woman’s reaction was as confusing as their discourse so far. Her face first contorted into a look of surprise and then dipped to a sorrowful expression of woe. Finally she replied, “Charlene ain’t got no son!”
Cora braved the minefield of gnome parts to stand by Patrick’s side. When she was close enough, she noted that the blonde woman was even more unpleasant close up and reeked of alcohol. Empowered by her presence, Patrick regained his confident demeanor and returned his attention to the woman.
“This is Charlene Treinbaulm’s house. Isn’t it?” he politely inquired.
“Treinbaulm?” the woman said with a sharp breath. “I haven’t gone by that name since…since…”
“So you are Charlene!”
The woman nodded, looking to the ground as if she were ashamed of herself. She climbed back up the porch steps, swung aside the dilapidated screen door and ushered them toward her.
“You should come inside,” she encouraged.
The Catlins waved at Cora and Patrick from the safety of the car but made no move to follow.
Inside, the trailer was dark and hung heavy with cigarette smoke. Sacks of garbage lay piled near the front door, and the odor they gave off was the only scent more overpowering than smoky tar residue.
“Nice place you’ve got,” Patrick lied, trying his best to smile at Charlene.
“No, it’s not,” she replied, collapsing into a button-back orange-and-tan sofa with a hideous daisy print.
Patrick and Cora followed Charlene and sat side by side on a dirty pink loveseat that faced the sofa. Cora immediately regretted her choice as the strong odor of cat urine drifted up from its cushions and watered her eyes.
“So, you’re Patrick,” Charlene said with a husky chuckle, withdrawing a long, skinny cigarette from a pink case. She lit the stick, took a long deep drag, and exhaled with satisfaction. She didn’t even look in the direction of her son.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Silence. Charlene took a few more lengthy drags off her cigarette before replying, “So? What is it that ya want?”
“Well, to meet you, I guess. To know you.”
“Well, here I am,” Charlene announced sarcastically, opening her arms wide in a mocking display.
“And, to ask you some questions,” Patrick added, still obviously piecing together his thoughts as Charlene interrupted.
Charlene curled her upper lip into an ugly sneer. “There’s always a catch, isn’t there?”
Patrick recoiled, as if hesitant to proceed with any of the thousand questions swimming in his brain. Despite her hateful responses, Charlene seemed to understand what he was feeling. “Go ahead,” she finally urged. “I suppose I owe ya that much.”
Patrick took a moment to organize his thoughts into speech. “I know why you sent me away,” he started, “I read it in Dad’s journal. But I don’t understand why you didn’t go looking for me when you came to The Backworlds.”
Charlene’s weathered features softened slightly, and her tone turned gentler as she replied; “It was too late by then.”
“Too late?”
“Yeah, just really too late. I didn’t want to ruin things for ya,” Charlene somberly admitted. She paused briefly and then started again, still not looking up at them. “I came to see you once, when I first came here. It was in April, I think, and you were with your adopted parents, playing in the park. You looked really happy, kid. I knew right then that I would just ruin you.”
Patrick’s nature was pleading in response, as if he’d missed out on something and was trying desperately to get it back. “But why would you ruin me?”
“I’m just not the woman I used to be. May not think it to look at me now, but I was somethin’ once. Guess that’s why your dad came after me in the first place. But after years with Barnibus, well, all that just sort of washed away. All his hate got in me too, I guess. And just look what I’ve become.”
Cora thought for a moment that she could still see some beauty inside of Charlene, buried beneath years of misery and hatred. She didn’t even realize she was speaking aloud as she mused, “I think I can still see it. The beauty, I mean.”
Charlene lit and turned her focus toward Cora. “Why, thank you, hon,” she gushed. “But I can’t say as anyone around here agrees with ya.”
“This is Cora. Cora Finnegan,” Patrick interjected.
“Finnegan?” Charlene exclaimed, jumping to her feet in fury. Her entire manner suddenly took on an aggressive stance.
Cora backed away, making her way rapidly toward the exit and nearly tripped over the horde of cats that lay between the sofa and the door. “What? What’s wrong?” she sputtered as Charlene raged right behind her. Patrick stepped between the two, his hands on Charlene’s shoulders as he held her back. Cora could hear her own heart racing, thudding loudly in her ears.
“Out of my house, Finnegan! Evil temptress!” Charlene exclaimed. “You ruined my life!”
“How could I ruin your life? I don’t even know you!” Cora was trying to right herself enough to make it through the maze of felines that blocked her escape route.
“You took my husband and my son, you nasty girl! You and that whore mother of yours!” Charlene raved, her eyes ripe with hatred. She was still fighting Patrick’s grip and appeared to be winning the battle.
Patrick was rapidly being overtaken. He shouted after Cora, “Go, get out of here! I can’t hold her!”
Cora barely escaped but made it outside, through the gnome graveyard, and into the car without looking back. Mr. and Mrs. Catlin were startled by her hurried approach.
“How’d it go?” Mr. Catlin asked.
“Umm…it went okay,” Cora fibbed, still out of breath.
“And you were running because…?” Mrs. Catlin asked, finally speaking.
Cora didn’t answer but instead watched as Patrick raced from the trailer and vaulted over the gnomes. He’d just made it inside the car as Charlene stopped outside the trailer’s front door and shot them a glare.
“I think we’d better go,” Patrick said, his eyes locked on Charlene. But Charlene did not return his focus, instead glaring directly at Cora with a look of utter contempt. Her arms were folded across her chest in a defiant stance. She seethed with a rage so deep that Cora could see her upper lip quivering.
“Yeah, let’s go,” Cora agreed as Mr. Catlin backed out of the driveway and left Charlene Treinbaulm in the dust.
Eighteen: T
he Parent Trap
Whether their silence stemmed from a loss for words or a desire to remain oblivious, the Catlins didn’t ask about Charlene’s behavior. They all listened to the hum of the car’s engine as it carried them farther and farther from Vader. The longer the cabin sat quiet, the more Cora’s curiosity swelled. Why did Charlene seem to loathe her so? And why did she show so much hatred for Serene?
Patrick’s mind seemed to dwell elsewhere as he stared out the window. Cora felt suddenly aware of the fact that she’d neglected to ask him how he was doing.
“Are you okay?” she whispered.
“Yeah, sure.” He sniffed. Was he crying?
Cora laid her hand atop Patrick’s, wanting desperately to know his emotions without divulging them to the Catlins. When she took his hand in hers, she felt the sensation of a deep and woeful sadness. It was as if a floodgate holding back years of disappointment and neglect had been released. She felt her eyes glistening with the threat of tears and resisted the urge to retract her hand from his and save herself from his sorrow.
“She didn’t even care,” Patrick mumbled, turning to Cora, but avoiding her eyes.
Unsure of how to respond, Cora rubbed his shoulder and scooted a little closer to him. They spent the remainder of the trip back to Harborville intertwined but without a word spoken.
When they arrived back at the North Woods, Cora hurriedly exited the car and called out to Orion. She scanned the trees, searching for that sliver of white to appear between them, but saw only brown. “Orion! Where are you?”
Silence. Not even the sound of twigs snapping or a bluebird’s song filled the void. The forest was unusually quiet and everyone’s concern began to grow. Cora started down the forest path, followed closely behind by Patrick, and Mr. Catlin, who dragged Mrs. Catlin along with him.
Motley led the pack, sniffing the air in search of Orion’s scent. Meanwhile, Cora was intently studying the outer rim of foliage that lined the path, searching for any hint of where the pegasus might have gone. Fixated on a hoof-like impression in the mud, she nearly tumbled over Motley, who had stopped suddenly, and was pointing toward a newly formed trail that cut through the brush.
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