“He’s cheating,” one of the helpers says, still wrestling on the ottoman. “You’re not supposed to lift your elbow.”
“I’m not,” the other helper says.
Turning to her father, Kennedy says, “Dad, you want to go? Me and Tomas and Mom are going. Maybe we’ll see that ghost woman with the veil this time.”
“Sorry, sweetie,” her father says. “Marvin needs me here.”
Kennedy tries to give him an imploring look, because she knows her mom needs help right now. But he never looks away from the screen. A small smile quivers at the edge of his lips and then disappears.
On the drive to the trail, Kennedy tries to tell Fantastico everything she learned about the trials, but he only responds with frail hmms and yeahs. It’s obvious he doesn’t want to talk, so she gives up after a couple minutes. In the silence that follows, Fantastico stands in the cupholder, staring sometimes straight ahead and sometimes at his bandaged hands. Uncle Marv and the helpers never do reveal much of what they’re feeling on their faces, but Kennedy can perceive a sense of melancholy in her helper’s behavior. Fantastico usually jumps at a chance to talk with her. He usually watches her from wherever he’s positioned. Of course, Kennedy wonders what a celestial being might feel sad or worried about, but for now, she lets her curiosity die. She’s too concerned about her mom, and she can’t handle any more problems right now.
Kennedy decides that she’ll talk with Fantastico later, when she’s feeling stronger. For now, though, she turns to the window and watches the world pass by in silhouette.
Imani
Ever since Dino Dinner ended, Imani felt an almost physically painful urge to leave the house. She even caught herself screaming in her head a few times, the way she used to as a child after one of her mother’s tirades. Back then, she sometimes worried that her mother could read her mind, but her mother never mentioned the screams.
Imani’s feeling much better now, strolling the flat yet labyrinthine trail through a woodland of ancient oaks and arroyo willow trees and bracken ferns. A flurry of pale, ghostly moths frolic around the old-fashioned lanterns that hang from posts along the way. Tomas walks ahead of her, trying to keep pace with his remote-control car. Ordinarily, her son will attempt to pop a wheelie or loop around posts, but tonight, with his helper riding in the vehicle, he keeps his acrobatic driving to a minimum.
As for Kennedy, she climbs the small boulders that appear at the edge of the trail every few yards. And then she surprises Imani by walking over and holding her hand. It’s a ridiculous thought, she knows, but the mother worries that if she says anything, she might startle her daughter away. So, for a while, they walk together in silence.
“Mom,” Kennedy says, finally. “You know how I told you about that guy who got like psychic visions from insects?”
“Yeah,” Imani says.
“I looked into it more, and he pretty much admitted to making the whole thing up. I thought you should know.”
“Well, thanks, sweetie.”
In a few minutes, they reach the wooden dock that floats over the pond. Imani and her children peek over the edge, and even though they never see the giant catfish at night, they still search the dark waters for him. Kennedy holds her helper over the rail so that he can look as well.
“Don’t drop him,” Imani says.
“I won’t, Mom.”
Once they turn away from the water, Tomas’s helper says, “Hey, could you carry me for a while? I’m getting carsick in that thing and I don’t want to vomit all my innards out.”
So, Tomas deposits the helper into his jacket and places an army man in the driver’s seat instead.
On nights like tonight, when Imani’s feeling overly anxious about her marriage or her life, she likes to walk to the very end of the lighted path. She doesn’t actually believe that there’s any magic to the ritual, but she tells herself that as soon as she reaches the end of the path, she’ll feel stronger. Strong enough to face tomorrow, at least.
Placing her palm on that final lantern post tonight, she feels like that scared, superstitious girl she used to be. But she doesn’t mind that much. She stands still for a while, gazing into the darkness, and she imagines that her mother is out there with the veiled woman and the winged coyote and all the other ghosts who supposedly haunt this place. Imani takes a deep breath, feeling grateful that she doesn’t have to continue on until the light fades away. She can turn back and go back home.
“Mom,” Tomas says, touching her arm.
Imani forgets her mother’s ghost and turns to her son. He’s sniffling and trembling. Tears sparkle in his eyes.
“What is it, sweetie?” Imani says.
“Uncle Marv,” Tomas says. “Uncle Marv gave me a message. He said you have to kill the helpers right now, or me and Kennedy will die. He said to hurry. He said you can’t wait even a second.”
Without thinking, Imani reaches into her coat pocket and wraps her fingers around her helper. Her mind races. Her body tilts with vertigo. On one side of her consciousness, she feels the weight of all Marv’s lectures over the years, instructing her that her family needs the helpers more than anything and anyone. And on the other side blares this new, nebulous warning that her children could die. Imani doesn’t know if Tomas is telling the truth. What if killing the helpers would ruin everything, the way Marv has always implied? The two conflicting Marvins shout simultaneously inside her, telling her to kill the helpers and telling her not to. She doesn’t know which voice to believe, so ultimately, she decides to trust in her own.
Tomas
Every so often, Tomas likes to take a break from the wheelies and the 360-degree spins so that he can search the darkened chaparral for gleaming coquelicot eyes. Kennedy always says there aren’t any real ghosts in this forest, but Tomas hopes to befriend the winged coyote who soars from branch to branch. He imagines himself fusing with the coyote, like the boy and the wolf in Uncle Marv’s campfire story. Tomas imagines himself leaping from tree to tree, his eyes burning white like little full moons.
Tomas doesn’t believe he would actually like fusing with a ghost in real life, but he wouldn’t mind seeing the coyote for a moment. As for the veiled woman, he doesn’t want to see her at all. Whenever he thinks about her too much during the hike, he has to move closer to his mom.
Once they reach the end of the illuminated section, his mom puts her hand on the last post, like she always does. Tomas knows that she’s going to take some time to stare at the shadowy trail ahead, so he uses this opportunity to glance around for the coyote again.
As he studies the zigzag branches of an oak tree, a faint, almost imperceptible memory taps him in the back of his consciousness. Something happened here once, years ago. Didn’t it? Ordinarily, Tomas can look back on any event and perceive almost every detail, instantly. But the memory of this tree appears covered with a thick, white fog. This disturbs him a little, and so he closes his eyes and pushes himself deeper through the meandering haze.
Finally, he comes to the memory, and everything he remembers moves quickly through him, like a movie on fast-forward. He remembers years ago, standing right where is now, seeing the oak tree covered with neon-orange sticky notes. When he stepped forward to get a closer look, he recognized his mother’s handwriting on the Post-its. Each one of the notes said, Walk forward. And so he did. He walked off the trail, into the thick of the chaparral, where all the ghosts and the red-winged blackbirds lived. The willow tree ahead of him was covered with neon-green sticky notes that told him to keep walking. And so he climbed over glaucous gray boulders. He ducked under burnt-umber branches. And he was never once afraid, because this was where his mother wanted him to go. In the end, he came to a small clearing filled with wildflowers of every color Tomas could imagine. He recognized auburn, tangerine, chartreuse, citron, emerald, ube, lilac, imperial purple.
Standing in the middle of the clearing was Uncle Marvin. He tapped at his chin and said, “Hey, kid. I know you’re, you know, perce
iving this as a memory, but this is actually a very important message I’m sending you using my special powers. Now, right after I stop talking, I need you to go to your mom and tell her that I gave you a message. Tell her that she needs to kill the helpers right now, or you and your sister will die. And she needs to hurry, all right? She can’t even wait a second. She just needs to kill them. I don’t mean to scare you, kid, but if you don’t tell your mom, then this is going to be you and Ken.” And for a moment, Tomas saw his sister and himself standing on either side of Uncle Marv, their skin crumbling off their bones, their eyes rotted away.
The corpses disappeared then, and Uncle Marv said, “Promise me you’ll tell her.”
“I promise,” Tomas said.
The memory dissipates, and Tomas turns to his mother. Usually, when he can feel his tears escaping, he likes to hide and wait. But his dad isn’t here to make fun of him, so the boy rushes to his mother. He gives her the messages, and for a moment she only stands there, staring straight ahead, but then she reaches into his jacket pocket. Tomas hears his helper shriek and then go silent.
His mom tosses his helper onto the trail, along with her own, and their mangled, crumpled bodies twitch a little in the lantern light. Tomas’s helper stares blankly at the stars with only half a face still attached to his neck.
“Give him to me,” Tomas’s mom says, turning to Kennedy now.
But Kennedy presses her helper close to her chest and runs toward the dark part of the trail.
“Kennedy!” their mom says.
And Tomas doesn’t see what happens next, because darkness fills his vision and he can feel himself falling. In the final seconds before losing consciousness, he worries that maybe he didn’t give his mom the message soon enough, and maybe he’s going to become that eyeless corpse after all.
Hendrick
After he falls asleep, Hendrick finds himself crawling on all fours in a dim, cinereous basement. He knows he’s looking for a specific object, but he can’t quite remember what. The dryer vibrating in the corner wheezes in a way that sounds more human than machine-like. Hendrick creeps away from the dryer, toward the opposite corner of the room, and for the first time, he notices cloudy water spewing through the cracks in the stone walls. The water rushes toward him from every direction. The wheezing of the dryer intensifies. When Hendrick tries to stand, he realizes that the bones of his arms and legs are fused in this position.
The water rises, slowly, and he notices granola-bar wrappers and teeth floating on top. He can hear Imani sloshing through the basement behind him, but when he shifts his body to face her, he sees that this isn’t his wife at all. Her long, wavy hair wraps tight around her neck, and he can see a dark emerald eye staring at him between her barely open lips. She grabs her laundry from the dryer and then ascends toward the door. Hendrick knows he should tell her that he’s getting too old to stand up, that he needs help with the stairs. But he hesitates for much too long. The water level rises, and by the time he opens his mouth, the murky liquid tumbles down his throat. He can feel the floating teeth lacerating his esophagus and then his stomach from the inside.
When Hendrick opens his eyes, he finds himself sitting on the leather couch, with his feet on the ottoman. “How long was I asleep?” he says.
But Marvin doesn’t answer him. Marvin paces the living room, grinding his teeth, tapping hurriedly at each side of his forehead. He moves faster than Hendrick can ever remember seeing him. At one point, he stumbles but manages to catch himself before falling onto his face.
Hendrick must still be half-asleep, because everything in the room appears hazy and chimerical. He shakes his head, trying to revive himself, but nothing changes.
Suddenly, Marvin freezes in place and his head swivels to the side. “Well, they’re gone. Forever, I mean. I really don’t think they’re stupid enough to come back here.” His shoulders slump a little, and he rubs at his chin. “I should have observed them more vigilantly, you know? I should have been more careful, but I . . . I let myself get lazy. Relaxed. I guess I’m only good at handling mindless acolytes, but I just . . . I wanted things to be different this time around. I wanted . . . Well, no use crying about it now.” He sighs. “I know you don’t get what the fuck I’m saying, but it helps to talk sometimes, you know? Even to a boring asshole like you.”
Of course, Hendrick doesn’t appreciate being called boring but he decides to keep his mouth shut. He’s better off not picking a fight with the one man in the world who can give him everything. A moment later, Hendrick can’t even remember what Marvin said to upset him anymore. The whole situation feels even more dreamlike than before, and Hendrick’s having a hard time forming a coherent thought.
Marvin joins him on the couch and absent-mindedly presses buttons on the remote control, even though the TV is off. “I could keep you around, I guess,” he says. “But, if I’m being honest with myself, I can’t fucking stand you. You think of yourself as some Walter White anti-hero, with your embezzling and your secret apartment, but really, you’re just a piece of shit. I mean, the best part of you was Imani and those kids, and you fantasized all the fucking time about what it would be like to throw them away.” For a few moments, Marvin wraps his hand tight around the remote control. Then he sighs and lets go. “Well, I guess you have served me okay and all, and you are one of my people. So, I’ll try to make this easy on you.”
Marvin closes his eyes, and a current of pain cascades down Hendrick’s body like a waterfall. His body spasms and then there’s only darkness.
When Hendrick opens his eyes again, he finds himself in a room full of salmon-colored fire. The flames cover everything, from the TV screen to the stuffed animal on the floor to the photos on the wall. In the middle of the inferno stands Hendrick’s god.
“Well, time to transcend,” his god says.
And Hendrick stands, his chest swimming with anticipation. He’s been waiting for this day for as long as he can remember. He keeps his arms to his sides, the way he was instructed.
“I’ll give you this,” the celestial being says. “You do have a pretty decent Blu-ray collection.”
“Thank you, my lord.”
For a moment, the deity shimmers, and then Hendrick is given one final gift. He gets to see his god’s true form. The deity steps forward and coils his sinuous arms around him. The two of them fall sideways now, onto the hardwood floor, but Hendrick hardly registers the pain of the fall. Hendrick stares deep into his god’s tiny, sparkling eyes. Over the years, Hendrick would sometimes doubt himself. He would worry that he could never reach the apex of his spiritual development. But now, fully embraced by his god, there’s no denying that he has what it takes.
Nearby, one of the small demigods says, “Can we have some?”
“Shush,” the deity says. “You’re spoiling the mood.”
And then the god holds Hendrick even tighter while opening his wide, lipless mouth. The fire fills Hendrick’s vision now, and he can feel his own body squirming, but he’s not sure why. All his dreams are about to come true.
Kennedy
Kennedy doesn’t want to, but she keeps seeing that moment when her mother wrestled away Fantastico and then threw him against the shadowy tree trunk. And she sees Fantastico sprawled on the dirt, his chest cavity popped open like an enormous pimple.
When her mother reaches out to hug her or take her hand, Kennedy backs away and says, “Stay away from me.”
While her mother speaks close to her brother’s ear, Kennedy sits by herself on one of the boulders. Ever since the helpers died, Kennedy felt a little lightheaded. Now the giddiness amplifies, and after a few moments, she can’t seem to stay upright. So, she shifts herself off the boulder and lies flat on the ground, like Fantastico.
Tears sting her eyes again. She can feel her back pressed flat against the dirt, but at the same time, she feels the sensation of rushing forward, toward the blurry galaxy in front of her. She feels as if the whole planet is increasing speed, pushing her d
eeper and deeper toward some great unknown or another. The stars swirl in a great swarm of bleeding light. Kennedy knows that she should feel frightened of whatever’s happening to her, but the relief she feels overpowers any anxieties that try to form. She feels as if someone’s untied her, or pulled the needles from her skin.
The galaxy in front of her waltzes for a few more moments, and then rests at last. The planet pushing at her back finally slows down. Her journey into space feels over, but her inner lightness, the sparkle in her chest, doesn’t diminish.
Then Kennedy experiences a little spark of realization, as if waking from a dream that Marv was her uncle. She remembers now that Marvin is only a family friend, an old college buddy of her dad’s. And then there’s another spark, and she remembers that Marvin was someone her dad worked with. These versions of Marvin continue to burst inside her, until she recalls hiding in the bathroom because a stranger broke into her house. Is that truly who he is? A stranger?
Kennedy worries that maybe she’s dying, because in the next few moments, her life flashes before her eyes. She always thought this experience would be like watching a movie on fast-forward, but instead, her mind hops back and forth through time, frenetically and out of her control. She remembers her brother crying uncontrollably on a plane, and her father says, “Shut up. Can you shut him up.” Her mother says, “Let me talk to him.”
And then Kennedy remembers pressing her foot into wet cement while her father writes her name using a chopstick. She remembers walking around the fake oak tree in Thomas’s Bar & Grill. “Somebody took the ugly pineapple man,” Tomas yells. “No, he’s right there,” their mother says, pointing. In another memory, she’s lying in bed with the chicken pox, covered with stuffed penguins. This was years ago, back when her father paid more attention to her. In this memory, her father sits beside her and tells her a story about a chicken who also has chicken pox. He even uses silly voices to speak as the chicken and his badger friend. Kennedy remembers Tomas cutting his leg on the haunted trail, and her mom using her own shirt to put pressure on the wound. And she remembers sitting on her bed, playing Drawing Battle. When Tomas leans over to get a good look at her two-headed dragon, he sneezes all over the page.
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