For the first time in decades, maybe for the first time since the days with Rex in Camp Five, sitting knee-to-knee beside the fire in the kitchen shed, he feels fully awake, as though the curtains have been ripped off the windows of his mind: what he wants to do is here, right in front of him.
* * *
One Tuesday in October, all five fifth graders sit around his little library table. Christopher and Alex engulf donut holes from a carton that Marian has produced from somewhere; Rachel, rail-thin in her boots and jeans, leans over a legal pad, scribbling, erasing, scribbling again. By now Natalie, who barely spoke for the first three weeks, talks practically nonstop. “So after this whole journey,” she says, “Aethon answers the riddle, gets through the gates, drinks from the rivers of wine and cream, eats apples and peaches, even honeycakes, whatever those are, and the weather is always great, and no one is mean to him, and he’s still unhappy?”
Alex chews another donut hole. “Yeah, that sounds crazy.”
“You know what?” says Christopher. “In my Cloud Cuckoo Land? Instead of rivers of wine, there’d be root beer. And all that fruit would be candy.”
“So much candy,” says Alex.
“Infinity Starburst,” says Christopher.
“Infinity Kit Kats.”
Natalie says, “In my Cloud Cuckoo Land? Animals would be treated the same as people.”
“Also no homework,” says Alex. “And no strep throat.”
“But,” says Christopher, “the Super Magical Extra Powerful Book of Everything in the garden at the center? That would still be in my Cloud Cuckoo Land. That way you could just read, like, one book for five minutes and know everything.”
Zeno leans over the mound of papers on the desk. “Have I told you kids what Aethon means?”
They shake their heads; he writes α?θων across an entire sheet of paper. “Blazing,” he says. “Burning, fiery. Some say it can mean hungry too.”
Olivia sits down. Alex puts a fresh donut hole in his mouth.
“Maybe that’s it,” says Natalie. “Why he never gives up. Why he can’t settle down. He’s always burning inside.”
Rachel looks off over the table, her eyes faraway. “In my Cloud Cuckoo Land,” she says, “there’d be no droughts. Rain would fall every night. Green trees for as far as you could see. Big cold creeks.”
* * *
They spend a Tuesday in December at the thrift store hunting for costumes, a Thursday making a donkey head, a fish head, and a hoopoe head from papier-maché. Marian orders black and gray feathers so they can construct wings; everybody cuts out clouds from cardboard. Natalie collects sound effects on her laptop; Zeno hires a carpenter to construct a plywood stage and wall, offsite and in pieces, so he can surprise them. Soon there are only two Thursdays left and there’s still so much to do, an ending to write, scripts to make, folding chairs to rent; he remembers how Athena the dog, when she sensed they were going down to the water, would vibrate with excitement: it was like lightning was ripping through her body. This is how it feels every night as he tries to sleep, his thoughts ranging across mountains and oceans, weaving through stars, his brain a lantern inside his skull, blazing.
* * *
At 6 a.m. on the twentieth of February, Zeno does his push-ups, pulls on two pairs of Utah Woolen Mills socks, ties his penguin tie, drinks a cup of coffee, and walks to Lakeport Drug, where he makes five photocopies of the latest version of the script and buys a case of root beer. He crosses Lake Street, scripts in one hand, soda in the other. A silver-blue sky is braced over the snow-mantled lake, and the high ridges are lost in clouds—storm coming.
Marian’s Subaru is already in the library parking lot and a single upstairs window is illuminated. Zeno climbs the five granite steps to the porch and stops to catch his breath. For a split second he’s six years old, shivering and lonely, and two librarians open the door.
Why, you don’t look warm at all.
Where is your mother?
The front door is unlocked. He climbs the stairs to the second floor and pauses outside the golden plywood wall. Stranger, whoever you are, open this to learn what will amaze you.
When he opens the little door, light spills through the arched doorway. Atop the stage, Marian stands on a step stool, touching a brush to the gold and silver towers of her backdrop. He watches her climb off the stool to examine her work, then climb back on, dip her brush, and add three more birds swinging around a tower. The smell of fresh paint is strong. Everything is quiet.