The Children(80)

Unfair! She slapped the window. Her bike had a flat Llewellyn kept saying he’d fix tomorrow, which meant sometime between next week and never. When she heard the back door close, she ran to the kitchen.

“Where were you?”

Ennis was facing away from her, emptying his backpack onto the counter. “Groceries.”

Her hands were on her hips. She let them drop. “Dad gave you money?”

“I took his credit card.”

Guinevere considered this. Her brother had gotten pretty tall. “Did you get me Rolos?”

He turned, frowning. “No. You need real food. What’d you eat today?”

“None of your business.”

“Fine,” he said darkly. “Get scurvy and die if you want to so bad.”

The injustice made her stand up straight. “You get scurvy and die! Then fix my bike! I waited around for you all day!”

“Just,” he pressed his fingers to his temple. “Eat an apple. Okay?”

She made a rude sound. “Whatever, En. You’re not my dad.”

For half a breath he was still. Then he exploded. Chucked a can of green beans at the wall and shouted, “Then who is, Guin? Who fuckin’ is?”

His eyes were so bright they were hyacinth colored. She swallowed and said nothing as he shoved past her.

“And take a shower,” he spat. “You stink.”

When he was gone, she crept over to his open backpack. The floor felt wrong beneath her, wobbly and soft as cork. The apples he’d bought were cidery, wrinkled from long storage. She ate one anyway, looking from window to floor, vision blinking with afterimage.

Beside the sink was an abandoned whiskey glass filled with two fingers of watery gold. It tasted of comb honey and freezer burn. Comforting. It was the flavor of empty sleep.

Except it wasn’t. Guinevere climbed into bed early, and the dream she’d carried in her chest all day unlocked. As she turned in its grip the house’s creaking quieted. Even its windows ceased their rattling. It didn’t want to wake her.

And when she opened her eyes, she believed for a moment that she was still sleeping. Edith was there, stroking her hair.

Dawn came late to the Farmhouse. She couldn’t see her mother’s face. From the dark place where her mouth should be Edith said, “What were you dreaming of?”

Guinevere answered drowsily. “Doors.”

Edith’s hand in her hair softened her like butter. She pictured a pat of it, skidding and hissing in a pan, as the dream slid out of her. A rope from dark water.

She spoke of walking the halls of the Farmhouse and discovering they were infinite. Lined with countless doors, each opening onto another wonder. Fairylands and sci-fi cities, green canals strung with bridges under which dragon boats were punted. In one room the houses grew like trees and moved like animals and could die like them, too.

The rooms were her stories. All the tales she’d written in her notebooks, even the ones she’d forgotten about. She was right, the house had been watching her all this time, looking over her shoulder. Bright girl!

Edith cradled her head as Guinevere emptied it. “I think . . .” She turned, hair sliding against her mother’s belly. “It’s the house. I’m dreaming the house’s dreams.”

Her mother said shhh, shhh, and sounded exactly like the woods. In the daytime Edith smelled of cigarette smoke and peppery perfume, Dreft and coffee breath. The mother who cradled Guinevere in the night and hushed her softly had no scent. Her hair fell long down her back.

Guinevere spoke until she slipped again into dreaming. The second time she woke, to another pallid morning, Guinevere recalled pieces of the dream. But she had no memory of her visitor. Only the phantom feeling of fingers in her hair.





Forty-Three

Two days until Mother




Guin scraped her plate into the trash. She did the dishes and poked around the apartment, hoping Hank would hear her and come out. Finally she tested the bedroom door. Unlocked.

He lay with his back to her, sheets pulled up so all she could see was his hair. It was summer long, black in the half-light. She watched him for a few seconds, then went into the bathroom.

By the time her face was clean and her sleep shirt on, he’d turned. Not all the way, enough so she could see him glaring at the ceiling. He was opening the door a crack. Inviting her to say or do the right thing.

She slid into bed and kept sliding until she was flush against him. He hesitated, then eased an arm under and around her, pulling her close.

Guin blew out slowly, so he wouldn’t hear her relief. It was almost painful making herself breathe evenly, as if she were falling asleep. If she stayed awake too long, he might try to talk to her.

There. His head made a little preparatory turn on the pillow. Before he could speak, she rolled over and onto him, grinding down and pressing her mouth to his. He gripped her by the upper arms and sent her back onto the bed.

“No.” His voice was shocking in the quiet. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

He rolled away again, tightly curled, back radiating wakefulness. Guin stared at the ceiling with a thudding heart, hands folded over her stomach. It wasn’t possible to sleep next to someone so angry, so intensely awake. She must have managed it somehow, and found herself blinking back to consciousness in a faintly altered room. The dark deeper and Hank breathing easily.