Falling under the thrall of the Snake and becoming part of his mission had done nothing to alleviate her sadness, anxiety, and lack of self-worth. If anything, her anxiety increased, for the Snake’s greatest talent was instilling fear of many things in others. Being pregnant had not been a source of joy, had not given her a sense of purpose. However, as her contractions grew more violent and as she felt the baby’s head emerge from the birth canal, she realized something she had known but repressed: Of the children born to the “brides,” all were girls, as was Wendy’s baby. And this was no accident. The Snake claimed to know the future—what it should be, what it would be—and the future he meant to create for himself included a harem without regard for the crime of incest. Horror gripped her as she gave birth to Cricket Moon and saw that sweet innocent face, for she suddenly understood that she would be responsible for delivering her daughter into a life worse than the one she had fled at the age of fourteen. If she ever hoped to value herself, she must value her child; they were each other’s salvation.
Three months after giving birth, Wendy began to worry that she had slimmed down enough to be attractive to the Snake. She wouldn’t risk being mother to a second child of his, nor would she let him have partial custody of—or even visitation rights with—their firstborn. None of his “brides” ever spent the night with him; each was dismissed once used, and he slept alone. At two o’clock in the morning of the day when she began to become herself at last and find dignity, Wendy swaddled Cricket in a blanket, settled the infant in a large basket, carried her to the garage, and left her, basketed and sleeping, on the floor in front of the passenger seat of a Mercedes sedan, one of fourteen vehicles owned by the mission.
From the adjacent mechanic’s shop, she fetched a three-gallon bucket and a length of flexible siphon with which she half filled the container with gasoline from a Lexus SUV. She went to the Snake’s private quarters and cautiously opened the door. He snored softly in the low lamplight, for he was unable to fall asleep in darkness. She threw the gasoline on him—and then the bucket. He scrambled awake, gasping for breath in the fumes. She struck a flame with a butane lighter and told him that she’d spare him this time as long as he stayed on the reeking bed and listened to her. “But if you ever try to find me or my child, I’ll know. For the rest of my life, I’ll carry a knife, two knives. I’ll know if you’re trying to find us, and I’ll find you first, find you when you least expect to be found, and disembowel you.”
Then she threw the lighter on the bed. He screamed, but of course the flame went out the moment she was no longer depressing the gas lever, and he was not immolated. She left him sobbing with terror even as he continued gasping for clean air.
She drove into Los Angeles that night, abandoned the Mercedes, and boarded a bus to San Diego. For a while then, she and Cricket Moon lived in a home for unwed mothers, growing into a recognition of the wonder of the world together.
Her promise to the Snake that she would know if he tried to find her, that she would find him first, made sense only if she had a supernatural power like clairvoyance, which she didn’t. But she’d meant it when she’d said it with such conviction. Evidently he had believed her, for neither he nor any of his acolytes had come after her in all these years. His real name was Xanthus Toller, and his resources were significant; if he’d wanted to find her, he could have done so long ago.
Now Cricket was seven and, during Wendy’s working hours, the girl was being cared for and homeschooled by Bertha Jean Mockton, a retired schoolteacher, who lived just three blocks from the building in which Wendy had an apartment.
At 3:15 p.m. on that Thursday, after she finished waitressing the lunch shift at Geppeto’s Little Italy, she picked up Cricket at Bertha’s house and drove to their favorite park, one with a bay view. At a snack shop, they bought Cokes and two chocolate-chip cookies the size of saucers, and they sat on a bench together. There were little white clouds and lots of sunshine and a pleasant breeze and palm trees swaying and great swards of green grass. Beyond the grass, blue water sparkled. People walked, jogged, rode bikes, swept past on skateboards: women and men, all ages, all races. Many dogs pranced by at the end of leashes, to be admired and coveted.
“Was there good business today?” Cricket asked.
“Pretty good business.”
“Did you get a doorknob?”
“Two doorknobs and the hinges. Maybe even a whole door.”