Sometimes, she remembers a memory and a false memory simultaneously, like when Uncle Marv taught her to ride her bike and when her mom taught her to ride her bike, on the same day, at the same time. And she feels a pressure in her head, like a mild headache, until Marvin’s face dissolves away.
Kennedy can’t tell how much time passes, but eventually the frenzy of recollections slows down. She feels more in control of her mind again, and when she opens her eyes, the stars appear clear and still and far away. An owl cries out, somewhere in the darkness of the oak woodland beside her.
When she sits up, she notices her mom and her brother lying on the ground, her mom’s arm wrapped around him. With her heart beating fast, Kennedy crawls over to them.
“Mom,” she says, her voice quivering. She places a hand on her mother’s arm. “Mom.”
After way too many seconds, her mom’s eyes slowly open. “I’m all right, sweetie,” she says. A line of tears sparkle down her mother’s face.
“Marvin was tricking us,” Kennedy says.
“I know, sweetie.”
Kennedy turns her attention to Tomas now, and he stares back at her with wide eyes.
The three of them stand now. Her mom says, “Let’s get back to the car. We’re going to freeze out here.”
“Can’t we take their bodies?” Kennedy says. “Maybe they’re poisonous or something. Maybe we should bury them somewhere. Please, Mom.”
Her mother sighs and says, “Okay.”
So, her mother wraps the two small bodies in a handkerchief from her bag, and Kennedy searches for Fantastico near the ancient oak tree. Kennedy remembers now the warning Fantastico gave her in the school bathroom. He wanted her to kill him. He wanted to save her.
She can’t see Fantastico’s body, but maybe she’s remembering the wrong tree? She kneels down and moves a few leaves so that she can see underneath.
Tomas said that Marvin sent him a message and said that they should kill the helpers, but that doesn’t make any sense. Why would Marvin set them free after all his work to trick them in the first place? Kennedy remembers then another conversation inside of Uncle Marvin’s . . . inside of the guest room. It was right after Fantastico tried to warn her, and Marvin said something like, “When you talked with Ken, you said you should talk to her mom. Did you mess with Imani’s brain at all?” And Fantastico said, “I don’t know. If I did, I made myself forget about it.”
So maybe, that time in the bathroom, when Fantastico was free from Marvin, he did mess with a brain. He messed with Tomas’s. He sent a little message into his mind to give them all a chance to escape.
“Leave him, sweetie,” her mother says, behind her. “We need to go.”
“No!” Tears burn at Kennedy’s eyes and she wipes them away frantically so that she can keep looking. Where is his body? Suddenly, another false memory pops in her mind. She remembers now that when her mother wrestled Fantastico away, she didn’t throw her helper against the tree. Instead, her mom collapsed on the ground, unconscious. And her brother fell on the ground too.
“Mom!” Kennedy said, rushing forward.
Fantastico stepped out from her mother’s hand and straightened his leather jacket. “She’ll be fine,” he said, looking up at the girl. “I was going to let her squish me, but . . . well. I didn’t want you to hate her forever for that. So, I conked her out, but like I said, she’ll be fine.”
“Why did Marvin say we need to kill you guys?” Kennedy said, picking him up.
“Well, that was me,” he said. “Now that I’m free of Marvin, I can remember tinkering with Tomas a bit.” He sighed. “I know none of this makes any sense to you at this point, but I don’t have time to explain it right now. When your mom killed those guys, Marvin didn’t have time to disconnect from them. Mentally, I mean. So, all that death funneled into Marvin and he passed out. He could wake up at any second, though, so I need to get out of range of you guys as soon as possible. Could you, you know, put me in your brother’s car? I need to hurry.”
Kennedy didn’t understand much of what Fantastico said at that point, but she wanted him to get away. She set him carefully in the small car and placed the remote control on his lap.
“I guess I need to rewrite all this for now,” Fantastico said. “So that your mom doesn’t come after me. But you’ll remember what I’m saying eventually, once I get out of range of you guys. I promise.”
He stared up at her for a few more seconds and then pushed the throttle on the remote control. But he stopped almost immediately and turned to face her again. “I just . . . well . . . Thanks for everything, Ken. You’re a special kid. And don’t worry about me too much, okay? I’ll try to get out of Marvin’s maximum range before he regains consciousness. Right now, I have a little of my own power inside me, so maybe I’m not just a glorified antenna. I don’t know what I’ll become out there without him, but I’ll try to be something, you know, good.” Fantastico waved at her a little then, and she lost consciousness.
Once she recollects all of this, Kennedy turns away from the oak tree and returns to her family.
“I didn’t throw yours at the tree,” her mother says, fear tugging at her face. “He could still be here.”
“He left, Mom,” Kennedy says. “He’s the one who warned Tomas with that message. I talked to him.”
“We’d better go.”
The three of them walk back then, the way they came, and her mother holds her hand, squeezing too tight. Kennedy wishes that her mother would make a pun or two, but she never does. She only asks, over and over, if the two of them are all right.
During the walk, Kennedy realizes that now she can explain to Alejandra why she missed her birthday. Marvin probably didn’t want anyone to leave the house until he finished creating his antennae. Alejandra probably won’t believe a word she says, but she’s eager to tell the story anyway.
In the car, her mom makes a call on her cell phone over and over, but no one seems to be answering. Tomas sniffles in his seat.
“We’ll be all right now,” Kennedy says, and her brother nods. But he still won’t stop sniffling.
Eventually, their mom sets down her phone and pulls out of the parking space. As they drive past the shadowy chaparral, Kennedy waves. She knows that Fantastico was made from Marvin. But maybe Fantastico was made from the best part. Maybe her friend will change the trajectory of his existence and do some good out there.
Kennedy can tell, from the direction they’re driving, that they’re not heading home. She knows her mother must have a plan. And a part of Kennedy wants to ask her mom a hundred questions, but at the same time, she feels exhausted. She closes her eyes, with her brother leaning against her arm, and she dreams that she’s one of a dozen witches, flying through a sea of churning stars and planets. She doesn’t know exactly where she’s headed, but she feels safer knowing that she’s not alone facing the horrors of the galaxy. In the end, those horrors don’t stand a chance.
Keep reading for an excerpt from
THE ATROCITIES
by Jeremy C. Shipp
Turn left at the screaming woman with a collapsing face. Turn right at the kneeling man with bleeding sores the size of teacups. If you come across a big-breasted bear with a child’s head in her jaws, you’re going the wrong way.
These instructions are written in gold letters, in elegant uncials. I can see the silhouettes of my fingers through the thin parchment paper.
Turn right at the woman sliced into twelve pieces. Please don’t touch the statues. Please don’t litter.
I weave my way through the hedge maze, dragging my faux-leather luggage trolley through the fresh-cut grass. After a while, I remove my oxford pumps so I can feel the greenery between my toes. A mellow breeze cools my face. The air smells like lavender.
I pass a little girl with stone flames bursting from her eyes and mouth. She screams a silent scream, like all the others.
Finally, I reach the bottom of the parchment paper. The instructions say: W
alk forward. They say: Please don’t pick the flowers.
The path opens wide, and the hedges glare at me on either side, clipped into massive faces with wide open eyes and wide open mouths.
A little voice tells me to turn back, but a little voice always tells me to turn back.
I walk forward. I don’t pick the flowers.
Before me, Stockton House scratches at the gray sky with two pyramid spires. Dozens of headless figures populate the yellowing, weatherworn facade. These sculpted figures reach to the heavens, their fingers curled. The wind picks up, dragging the heavy blanket of cloud across the firmament.
While double-knotting the laces of my pumps, I spot a brown billfold crushing a patch of pale flowers. Inside the wallet there’s a photograph of a small girl and a hundred-dollar bill. The girl looks a little like my son, with the big brown eyes and impish smile. A crown of lavender flowers sits askew on her dark curls. The girl reaches out for me, or for whoever took this photograph.
I approach two towering doors of black wood. An elongated woman balances on the trumeau. She’s faceless, hairless. Her long, skeletal fingers press together in prayer.
A small section of the enormous door swings open, and an elderly woman bursts from the house. She’s wearing a simple blue dress and a muslin apron embroidered with black feathers. Her tight gray hair pulls at the sagging skin of her face.
“Hello, miss,” she says, taking hold of my luggage trolley. “Glad to see you found your way through the hedge. We had to send out a search party for the last one who came. Didn’t know her left from her right, that one. I’ll ask you, how can a teacher not know her left from her right? Mr. and Mrs. Evers will be glad to know you didn’t have any trouble in the hedge.”
The old woman turns around and disappears into Stockton House. I follow her through a brightly lit foyer with a red-and-white tessellated floor. Here and there, the tiles form geometric faces with wide-open eyes and wide-open mouths. For no good reason, I avoid stepping on these heads.
“You’ll like it here,” the old woman says. “Mr. Evers had eighty-four-inch, high-definition televisions installed in all the living quarters. I’ll ask you, miss, have you ever seen your favorite program on an eighty-four-inch television? Mr. Evers is no skinflint when it comes to creature comforts. Safe to say you will like it here, miss.”
The woman speeds forward as if she’s walking on a moving sidewalk at the airport. I have to jog for a few seconds so that I don’t lose her.
“My name’s Antonia, but no one calls me that anymore, miss. My mother would call me Antonia if she were still alive, but she died from extrahepatic bile duct cancer twelve years ago. The name I go by is Robin. You might find this difficult to believe, but I can’t remember who gave me the name or why. Robin’s a pleasant enough name, so the history’s of little consequence.”
Robin leads me to a sitting room full of red velvet armchairs with carved mahogany frames. Most of the chairs face an eighty-four-inch, high-definition television mounted on the wall. A woman, probably Mrs. Evers, kneels in front of a marble fireplace. She’s dressed in a chiffon evening gown with a ruched bodice. And she’s using a bare hand to scoop dirt or ash into a brown paper bag.
“We had a little accident,” Mr. Evers says, dressed in a gray checked suit with a wide lapel. He’s standing next to the fireplace, grinning at the mound of ash on the floor.
“Let me do that for you, Mrs. Evers,” Robin says, racing forward.
“No, no,” Mrs. Evers says, waving away the old woman. “I’ll do it. I don’t think Grandfather would appreciate being swept into a dustpan.” She continues scooping handful after handful of what must be her grandfather’s ashes into the paper bag. On the mantle above Mrs. Evers’s head rest a number of large white urns. Human faces protrude from the front of the urns, their eyes closed and their mouths downturned.
Mr. Evers approaches and takes my hand. He squeezes tight. “What did you think of the Atrocities?”
“Atrocities?” I say.
“The statues in the hedge maze. Job, Lot’s wife, the Levite’s concubine, etcetera, etcetera.”
The back of my hand itches, but I don’t move. “They’re . . . interesting.”
“They’re dreadful, aren’t they?” Mrs. Evers says, standing. She holds her ash-coated hand as far away from the rest of her body as possible. “I would have ground the things into gravel years ago, except Hubert has a soft spot for tourists.” Robin hands Mrs. Evers a towel the same color red as the armchairs surrounding us. “Once a year, we open the hedge to the public. People come from all over the world. It’s really quite strange, the number of them willing to fly thousands of miles to see hideous statues.”
Mr. Evers clears his throat. “What Mrs. Evers fails to grasp is that the Atrocities are more than mere grotesqueries. They exude historical and spiritual significance. Back when Stockton House was a church, the entire congregation would travel the maze together, hand in hand in hand. The parishioners would stop and reflect on every Atrocity. And what would they see? Not a hideous statue. They would look beyond the violence and suffering to the metaphysical core of the image. They would see a manifestation of God’s power.” Mr. Evers clears his throat again. “Forgive me for droning on. You must be exhausted after your flight.”
“Oh,” I say. I pull the wallet from my pocket. “I found this outside. There isn’t any ID, so I’m not sure—”
“Didn’t I tell you she would return it?” Mrs. Evers says, pulling the wallet from my hand. “Her references are more than impressive.”
I let out a huff of air before I can stop myself. They purposefully left the wallet outside for me to find?
“You’ll have to forgive the unorthodoxy of our little test.” Mr. Evers sits on one of the velvet armchairs, and motions for me to do the same. “You see, Ms. Valdez, we require a governess with very specific qualifications. And this goes beyond a mastery of math and science and linguistics. As we mentioned in our letter, our daughter is having a difficult time coping with her present . . . circumstances. She is, for lack of a better word, degenerating.”
“Isabella’s frightened, and she’s acting out,” Mrs. Evers says. She bites at a fingernail on the hand she used to scoop up the ashes.
“Yes.” Mr. Evers polishes his glasses with a handkerchief the same red as the armchairs. “Isabella is a troubled child, and we require someone with integrity enough to strengthen her moral faculties. Is this you, Ms. Valdez?”
The back of my hand won’t stop itching, but I won’t let myself move. Somehow I feel that to remain motionless is to give myself an air of professionalism. “As you already know, I’ve worked with special children for over ten years. I’ve found that whatever a child’s weaknesses, these shortcomings are often accompanied by equally powerful strengths. I have full confidence that I can help Isabella identify and develop these strengths.”
“That sounds wonderful,” Mrs. Evers says, gazing at her hand. “I think you could be the one we’ve been searching for. Don’t you think so, Hubert?”
“I am more than satisfied.” Mr. Evers stands, grinning. “You can begin tomorrow, but for now let’s get you settled in.”
Mrs. Evers glides over and takes my hand, coating my palm with her grandfather’s ashes. I will myself not to look down. “Thank you for coming,” she says. Her long, cool fingers bring to mind the faceless woman balancing on the trumeau.
“Come with me, miss,” Robin says. She disappears into the hallway, and I follow her soon after.
On my way out, I hear the couple whispering. The only words that reach me are virtues and fiend.
Robin leads me down a dim hallway decorated with illuminated paintings. Each canvas houses an emaciated figure draped in tattered strips of gossamer. Wings made of human fingers spread out from their backs, and their ashen skin stretches tight over their bones like shrink-wrap. None of their faces have eyebrows or teeth or lips. The lights in the hallway flicker, all at once.
Robin is far ahe
ad of me when she speaks, but she sounds close. Her voice carries in a way that reminds me of my mother’s. “I can tell that whole wallet business ruffled your feathers, but don’t let it bother you, miss. Mr. Evers is what some might call an eccentric, but he’s a good man and a good employer. Have you ever had a boss who would lend you five hundred dollars so that you could help your son? Can’t remember why my son needed the money, but it was important, I can tell you that much, miss. Don’t give that wallet another thought.”
By the time Robin finishes speaking, we’re in a chamber saturated with prismatic color and the smell of bleach. A stained-glass window the length of my Hyundai dominates the west wall. The window depicts dozens of headless figures trekking through a stark landscape.
“Told you, didn’t I?” Robin says, motioning to another eighty-four-inch, high-definition television on the opposite wall.
“It’s a lovely room,” I say.
“Oh yes. It’s one of my favorites. In here, you almost feel yourself in a dream.” Robin releases my luggage trolley. Then she opens and closes her hand again and again. “If you need anything, miss, just give me a ring. My cell number is right there on the table. As for dinner, you’re welcome to join Raul and me in the servants’ hall. Servants’ hall sounds so dreary, but I assure you, miss, it’s quite well furnished and impeccably decorated. Of course, after such a long journey, I suspect you’re not in the mood for much socializing. I can bring you your dinner, if you’d prefer.”
“Thank you.” I sit on the edge of my bed. “Maybe I will eat in here tonight. I’ll join you for breakfast tomorrow.”
“Very good, miss. I’ll bring you your dinner as soon as possible.”
Robin heads for the door, even faster now without the luggage trolley to slow her down.
“Robin,” I say, “before you go, can you tell me anything about Isabella?”
Bedfellow Page 15