by Anna Roberts
Jessica sighs. “Kate, really – in front of the baby?”
“Yeah,” says Kate, flushing. “Celestia – just so we’re clear, that is definitely not gonna happen to Aunty Alicia, okay? Nobody is going to cut off her head.” She turns back to Jessica. “Like you’re any help. You just sit there behind that laptop all the time.”
Jessica shrugs. “What am I gonna do? I’m on a deadline as it is.”
There’s an uncomfortable silence and Kate narrows her eyes. “Okay,” she says, eventually. “This right here? This is one of the reasons it all went south.”
The keys keep right on rattling.
“WILL YOU STOP?”
“What?”
“I may be a lazy stoner,” says Kate, scowling. “But sometime after Sex Queens of Boobulon Fourteen you totally lost the ability to have fun.”
Jessica raises a well-groomed eyebrow. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. All work and no play makes Jesús a dull boy.”
“Girl,” I say.
They stare at me. Even Celestia stares. There is a huge tubular snot hanging out of her nose and I hope someone who isn’t me notices it.
“Jessica is a girl,” I murmur.
Kate pinches the bridge of her nose. “Hanna, Jessica is a man. I’ve explained this to you. How fucking stupid are you?”
“Will you stop swearing in front of my daughter?” I realise at this point I should grab Celestia and whisk her out of the room, but the snot is dangling precariously and when I open the door to the hallway the psychic lady is being chased by an angry Christian lion who is roaring about false prophets. The penthouse has always been a very poorly written apartment but the rooms have never leaked this badly before. I try to reassure myself that it’s just Aslan – he always had a vicious fundamentalist streak – but deep down I know that the Oompa Loompas are probably already into the cocktail cabinet.
When I go to close the door there’s a foot in it. I recognise the foot. It’s a large, flattish man’s foot and I remember that it’s usually found at the end of one of my husband’s legs.
“Hanna,” he says. “We need to talk.”
I glance at Celestia and step out into the hallway. No more lions, thank God. “I have nothing to say to you,” I snap, irritably. “I saw what you were doing with Betty Lasagne in your office.”
He frowns down at me. “Hanna, she wants a breast reduction. I was just explaining to her how I’d reposition her nipples.”
I slap his face. “Go to her,” I snarl. “See if I care. You could have had this, Bennett, but you threw it all away for a wonky nippled trollop who doesn’t know east from west.”
Bennett’s frown only deepens. He’s really not that bright. “Hanna, it’s not a big deal. One day I’ll probably reposition your nipples...if you want me to, that is.”
A sob comes tearing out me. “Oh, twist the knife, why don’t you?”
“Porkchop, I’m talking about a cosmetic procedure. You do understand that, don’t you?”
It’s too much. My heart and mind cannot take any more. The pain is more than I can bear. Car chases, kidnaps and comas – oh my. And on top of this my husband is cheating on me with a slutty architect. There’s only one thing to do.
“I don’t need you any more, Bennett,” I say, drawing myself up to my full height. “We’ve outgrown each other. You comforted me when I was newly widowed, and I thank you for that, but I’m not the naive, winsome, gazelle-like girl you married. I’m a strong, independent career woman who effortlessly judges the responsibilities of motherhood and work...”
“SHITLORRRRRD!” wails Celestia, on the other side of the door. I’m guessing Kate has attempted to remove the snot.
Bennett takes hold of my shoulders. “Hanna,” he says. “You’re a terrible mother. I bought the publishing company to keep you from going stir crazy, but you’ve run it into the ground because - and I have no idea how you do this - but somehow reading books actually seems to make you dumber. What are you doing to do when your looks fade? They’re the only thing you’ve got. You need me, Hanna. Not now, but when you’re thirty-five, forty-five, fifty-five – who’s going to do your tricky first blepharoplasty and fill your labio-nasal folds?”
I slap him again. “I don’t need you, Bennett,” I say. “I don’t need any man. I can do anything I want to do and you can’t stop me.”
He stares down at me for a moment, but then his gaze shifts and I hear hooves behind me. And I smell a strange goaty smell. I glance behind me and there at my elbow is a faun, holding an umbrella and smiling hopefully.
“Do my eyes deceive me?” he says. “A daughter of Eve?”
“No,” I say. “My mother’s name is Teresa.”
“Do you mind?” says Bennett. “We’re very busy.”
“A son of Adam!” gasps the faun. “My goodness – perhaps you would care for some tea?”
“Tea,” I murmur. How long has it been since I had a nice cup of Twinings English Breakfast, briefly shown a cup of hot water and then thrown wastefully away? There’s a coffee shop around the corner.
“Hanna, for goodness sake...”
“...hot buttered toast and fresh boiled eggs,” the faun mutters, seductively. “Sardines and poached salmon and no ulterior motives, I promise...”
“Look,” says Bennett. “Just fuck off, Tumnus. She’s not interested.”
The faun clops off disconsolately, and I'm left scowling up at my errant husband.
"I have nothing more to say to you," I say. "I'm going out for brunch."
"Brunch?" he says, like it's a dirty word.
"Yes. Just me and the girls. Like in Sex and the City. We're going to have tea and mimosas and talk loudly about our sex lives, because we can."
"You can't," says Bennett. "It's four o'clock in the morning. Besides, it's dangerous out there. If they've kidnapped poor Alicia they might come after another member of our family."
"Don't be absurd, Bennett. Why would they do that?"
"Because we're rich? And because I would actually pay money to get you back."
I blink up at him. Does he mean it? Perhaps he does. Perhaps in his own strange, buttplug obsessed way he does sort of love me, even though he must know that my heart is still at the bottom of Puget Sound with whatever bits of Crispian that didn't make their way into baggies marked EVIDENCE.
But no, I must be strong. I must remember that not five minutes ago he looked me brazenly in the eye while talking about repositioning another woman's nipples. I flip back my hair and sigh. "Bennett," I say. "Don't be so fucking ridiculous."
I grab my purse from the hall table, step over an unconscious detective (he looks like he's been mauled by a lion) and punt a passing Oompa Loompa into the hall closet. Unfortunately the hall closet opens on a wormhole, which can only mean there's a Stargate in there now as well as in the housekeeper's ensuite. Musing vaguely on the physics of this phenomenon, I reapply my lipstick and summon the elevator.
"Hanna, no!" cries Bennett. He's so melodramatic.
The elevator doors open on a barren, surrealist landscape - a desert dotted with blue rocks and strange, twisted trees. The sky is a boiling mix of pinks, greens and blacks. There is no sign of the elevator and when I look down there's a sheer drop down to the sand. I see something moving in the distance.
"Close the door!" yells Bennett, jabbing frantically at the elevator button.
A huge sandworm rears up out of the ground. The earth groans as it tears to make way for the creature's massive, serpentine body. Its mouth is as big as a world - a monstrous, foul smelling world with a hundred rows of jagged, unflossed teeth. A sticky, obscene forked tongue swirls towards me, close enough to brush my cheek. I scream forever, my eyes and throat on fire.
Then there's a ding and the elevator door closes.
Bennett exhales.
"I guess I'll take the stairs," I hear myself say.
I get maybe five yards out of the building before Kate comes charging after me. "Hanna
- wait!"
I keep walking. I expect he sent her down to talk to me. Typical Bennett - he never had any spine. He never grabbed what he wanted with both hands, not in the way Crispian did. Regardless of morals, ownership or copyright law, Crispian could always be relied upon to get what he wanted.
"It won't make any difference," I say. "You won't change my mind."
She jogs to catch up with me, almost giving herself black eyes in the process. "Change your mind about what?" she says.
"Divorcing him. Defying him."
Kate steps in front of me. "Hanna," she says. "What the fuck are you burbling about now?"
I shake my head. "I can't be around him, Kate. Not after I caught him with...that woman."
"Sure. So you just abandon your only daughter to get kidnapped by the White Witch or eaten by sandworms? I don't know if you noticed, but it’s all gone a bit Beetlejuice in the private elevator."
"Jessica can keep an eye on her," I say. "I'm sure she won't mind."
"Jessica hasn't looked up from a fucking laptop screen since 2012. It's not safe back there, Hanna. You saw what happened to Aslan - he's gone wrong. He's turned into some kind of crazy zealot. He mauled one of the private detectives for saying that Noah's Ark was a fairytale. And you know what Aslan can do on his home turf - next time you stumble into Narnia there'll be like cavemen riding around on velociraptors and burning effigies of Charles Darwin and shit."
I blink at her. I haven't missed these gibberish interludes. I carry on walking. It's a good thing the author forgot that I was supposed to clumsy sometime back in book one or I'd be really struggling with these four inch heels. Kate wheezes alongside; unluckily for her the author hasn't forgotten that Kate is best friends with a beer bong and that her lungs are not all they should be.
"I just want to get some brunch," I explain. "And clear my head. It's impossible to think in that madhouse."
"It's like four thirty in the morning, idiot," says Kate. "And Bennett's right - if someone out there kidnapped Alicia, who's to say you might be next? They might even get money for you."
"That's impossible," I murmur. "Why would anyone want to put a ransom on my head?"
"Um, I dunno," says Kate, sarcastically. "Maybe because - for reasons too weird and wrong to contemplate at this hour of the morning - your husband still kind of likes you?"
I stop and turn on my heel. "Kate, he looked me in the eye and told me straight that he was thinking about repositioning Betty Lasagne's nipples."
She frowns. "Yeah? Isn't that kind of a standard thing with a reduction?"
"I have no idea."
"No, it is," says Kate. "They like go under the breast, then straight up and then around the nipples..." As she speaks she draws imaginary lines on her boobs with her fingertips. I don't know what she thinks she looks like, standing under a street-light, waving her hands at her breasts. "And then they kind of take the excess skin here and snip and when the excess tissue is dissected out you get an instant uplift because the weight's gone and then they tighten it all up round here..."
I groan. "Why can't I have normal friends?"
At that moment a large white van comes screeching round the corner. A man in an Anonymous mask leaps out, throws a sack over Kate's head and bundles her into the back of the van.
"HELP!" screams Kate. "RAPE! FIRE! NERDS!"
I am left standing on the street corner, my mouth wide open, until a moment later the van comes back around and the next thing I know I'm in the back of the van with Kate. There are two men in the back with us, and both of them are wearing Anonymous masks.
"I said get the brunette," says one, leaning heavily on my back as he fastens my wrists with cable ties. "Can you not tell a blonde from a brunette?"
"I like blondes," says the other. "Besides, I think she's about a size twelve..."
"Oh fuck no, Buffalo Bill," says Kate, spitting out her inexpertly tied gag. "I'm a fucking ten. Max. And you're no beautiful butterfly."
"I'm a four," I say. Ten? Really? Wow. She piled on some chunk after school.
"No talking!" says the first Guy Fawkes, shoving me down next to Kate. For once she doesn't say anything and I follow her example. Oh my God, what's happening? Is this something to do with Bob? I know they ran him over, but what do they want with me?
The van stops and the Anonymous men get out. Kate looks at me. "Did you seriously just brag to a kidnapper about how skinny you are?" she says.
"A kidnapper?"
Kate rolls her eyes. "Yes. Hanna - do I need to draw you a fucking picture? We've been kidnapped."
"What?" I stare at her. Oh, this is ridiculous.
"What do you mean, 'what'?" she says. "Unless there's an exciting new viral sensation where people leap out of vans and throw sacks over young women's heads, I'd say we'd been kidnapped."
"Oh my God."
Another Anonymous mask peers into the van, ghoulish in the early morning light. "Get out," it says. "And don't try and run."
"I'm in heels," I say. "And her tits are too big."
"Thanks, Hanna," mutters Kate, as we scramble down from the van. "Just have them earmark me as a potential rape victim, why don't you?"
We're at the shore. I can hear seagulls calling in the dawn. Two of the masked men lead us down a launch to a speedboat where another Guy is waiting. Cheetopia steams and stinks in the distance. "They're going to rape us?" I whisper.
"Probably," says Kate. "Although I don't know if they're going to do that before or after they kill us."
"What?"
"Hanna - we're not blindfolded. The odds are we're boned."
"So do something!"
"I'm thinking."
"About what? HELP! HELP! I'M BEING KIDNAPPED! HELP ME! I'M RICH AND I'M PRETTY AND I'M BEING KIDNAPPED!"
The man behind me shoves me roughly and I stumble on the launch. One of my $3000 Manolos falls into the water. In my outrage I forget my fear. "YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME! DO YOU KNOW WHO MY HUSBAND IS?"
I land gracelessly in the bottom of the speedboat. The man in the boat laughs. "I sure do, Toots," he says, and raises his mask.
"Holy shit," gasps Kate.
I gaze up in horror at the face of my lost love - Crispian Neigh.
"Section break," I murmur, and slide into merciful unconsciousness.
Chapter Fourteen
Cheetopia
I wake in a dripping, fish-scented darkness. My head throbs in time with my pulse. "Where am I?" I moan, slowly opening my eyes. It looks like some kind of shipping container.
"Atlantis." Kate's voice drifts from the other side of the room. She's standing on a barrel marked HAZARDOUS and peering out through a slot at the top of the corrugated metal wall. Sickly light pierces the fathomless, salty gloom.
"Atlantis?" I murmur, rubbing my head. I must have hit it when I passed out. What a strange dream.
"No. Fatlantis," says Kate, hopping down off the barrel. "Cheetopia. You know - the environmental disaster area currently stinking up the Sound. I should have known your dead ex-husband would be behind a thing like this. It has all of his hallmarks - dumb, grabby and poorly thought through."
Oh my God. It wasn't a dream? "You mean..." I whisper.
"Yep," says Kate, looking way too cheerful. "Congratulations - you're a bigamist."
"Shut up - I'm a size four," I mutter, getting to my feet. Foot. Oh shit - only one shoe. And they were four inch heels. The last time this happened I went round in circles so much I dreamed that I was a puppy.
That would account for the puddles on the rug.
My Inner Goddess snickers and settles back with a large container of popcorn. It figures she'd be back - she loves misery.
No I don't. I love your misery. There's a difference.
- So that's your entire purpose in life, is it? Hanging around in my head at the worst moments of my life, pointing, laughing and cackling like a drunken hen that's sat on a cactus?
Pretty much, yeah.
Kate is roaming around the co
rners of the container like a caged zoo animal, pausing only to occasionally knock on one of the clanging, rusted metal walls.
I rub my head. "Kate, stop doing that. You're making me nervous."
She doesn't. "Dude, you should be nervous. If we get out of here you're definitely going to prison."
"What are you talking about? I can't go to prison. I'm rich. Besides, I didn't do anything - I've had the kleptomania under control for years now."
Kate looks me up and down. "True. I have to give you credit for that much. It kind of gave way to alcoholism and delusions of grandeur, but that's the fun of your personality disorders. Kind of like Whack-A-Mole."
I shake my head. The damp in this place is doing terrible things to my weave. "Where's Crispian?" I demand. "He wouldn't do this to me."
"What? Fake his own death, found an offshore anarcho-libertarian collective and imprison you in a shipping container?"
With an awful creak, the door opens. Cold, grey light floods into the container and I squint. I can make out two large figures at the mouth of the shipping container. Beyond is some kind of deck. I hear the screech of gulls and anxiously remove my earrings.
"Firstly," says right hand figure, in a nasal voice. "We are not a collective. Collectivism is for communists, and we are not communists."
"Right," says Kate. "Let me guess - you're temporarily embarrassed captains of industry?"
The first man stumps forward. They are both wearing Anonymous masks. "How do you know?" he says.
Kate shrugs. "Lucky guess. That and I watched enough news to know this place was the brainchild of that rare and unusual section of the population who can read the collected works of Ayn Rand without throwing up or bleeding into their brains. So, how's Crispian these days?"
Anonymous #2 pipes up. "We have orders to bring you to him. If you'd like to follow us, ladies."
Huh. Ladies. "They're a lot politer than I thought they'd be," I whisper to Kate, as they lead us out.
"Hanna, when your low water mark for good manners is throwing sacks over people's heads and dragging them into vans, then no shit they're polite."