Arthur deflated, his anger returning to a low simmer. It was getting harder to control, and that worried him. “I—”
A sausage bounced off his forehead, landing on the table in front of him. Arthur was about to remind Lucy that they didn’t play with their food, but his words lodged in his throat when he saw it wasn’t Lucy.
It was Sal. “Stop it,” he said as Theodore bobbed his head in agreement next to him. “Stop trying to act like you’re doing this alone. You’re not. You have us. You have Linus. You have Zoe and Helen and almost everyone in the village. You taught us to own up to our mistakes, and we do.”
Arthur deflated, head pounding.
“But you also taught us not to take on the mistakes of others as if they’re our own,” Sal continued. “You said that there are too many people out there who want us to apologize for everything, even existing. So why are you giving them the satisfaction when it wasn’t your mistake?”
“It’s not like they can hear me,” Arthur said, feeling strangely defensive.
“But we can,” Sal said. “And what does that look like to us? I’ll tell you. It looks like you’re scared of them. It looks like you’re letting them off the hook.”
“Sal,” Linus said. “We appreciate your thoughts on the matter, but this is more complicated than just that.”
“Sal’s right,” Arthur said, and Linus looked at him with a sad smile. Not pity, just understanding. “All of you are. I think…” He shook his head. “I don’t know what to think, to be honest. I’m feeling a tad frazzled as of late, but that’s no excuse. I shouldn’t have snapped when I did. For that, I will apologize.”
“I didn’t mean to make things hard,” David muttered, hands in his lap. “I can … go, if it’d be easier.” He sniffled, ice forming in the corners of his eyes.
“You didn’t,” Arthur said. “And that sounded suspiciously like an almost-apology, something I’ve recently learned isn’t always necessary. David, you have done nothing wrong. Nothing. You are smart and curious, and I highly doubt I’ll ever meet someone with the stage presence you have. Your offer to leave has been received, considered, and denied. No, you will stay here because this is where you belong.” He looked at each of his children in turn. “This is where all of you belong. And you’re absolutely correct: Miss Marblemaw owes David an apology for her actions yesterday. I will see to it first thing this morning.”
“Ooh,” Talia whispered into a pancake. “That gave me the good shivers. Can I be your backup muscle? I’ll bring three different kinds of shovels so she knows we’re being serious.”
Theodore asked if she was going to hit Miss Marblemaw upside the head with the shovels.
“Nah,” David said, only Linus and Arthur realizing he’d understood Theodore without his translation text. “Everyone knows that you have to kneecap someone. Hitting them in the head might kill them. Hit ’em in the knees, and they can’t run after you, tickety-boo.”
“Wow,” Lucy breathed. “I like the way you think.”
“Why don’t we see how Arthur’s talk with Miss Marblemaw goes before we choose violence?” Linus said. “And Talia, I seem to remember you saying I owed you two hours of weed pulling this morning, so why don’t we let Arthur handle our guest, and we can see to that.”
“Well played, Baker,” Talia said. “I don’t feel manipulated in the slightest. You’re getting better.”
“Thank … you?”
“Last one to eat all their syrup gets sent to the edge of the universe!” Lucy bellowed, and what followed shan’t be described here. Suffice to say it ended with Theodore hanging from the ceiling, Chauncey trying to lick other people’s syrup, Talia pouring syrup directly into her mouth from the bottle, Phee wielding four sausages as weapons, Sal getting a pancake to the face, David standing on his chair and announcing that this was the best breakfast ever, Lucy accusing Linus of cheating (which Linus firmly denied, even though his napkin was suspiciously coated with syrup), and Arthur watching, watching with a light in his soul (and droplets of orange juice in his eyebrows, courtesy of a garden gnome) that burned brighter than any star.
After washing up, Arthur dressed in black slacks and a dress shirt buttoned up to the top. His socks were canary yellow, adorned with little trees. After all, when one prepares for battle, one must look the part.
He left the house behind, smiling as he heard Talia supervising in her garden, telling Linus to put his back into it because the weeds weren’t going to pull themselves. Linus’s answering grumble was too quiet for Arthur to hear clearly, but he could guess at what was said.
It didn’t look as if anyone was home in the guesthouse. The door was shut, blinds drawn across the front windows. He hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Miss Marblemaw since she’d trudged up the road after Merle ferried her back to the island. Part of him—a small, foolish part—hoped that after yesterday’s events, Miss Marblemaw had packed up her meager belongings and departed for greener pastures. But he knew that even if she had, it wouldn’t be the last they’d hear from her.
Arthur Parnassus could be described as many things, but stupid wasn’t one of them. He knew deep down no matter what he said, chances weren’t in his favor that Miss Marblemaw would respond with anything resembling an apology. He had to keep his anger in check should that prove to be the case. It was what she wanted, same as Rowder during the hearing: to make him lose control, to have evidence that no child should be left in his care for fear of him erupting in fire, laying waste to anything and everything around him.
“Stab her with kindness,” he murmured to himself as he approached the house.
Plastering a bland smile on his face, Arthur knocked on the door, and waited.
No response.
He knocked again, a little harder this time.
Nothing.
He tried the doorknob. Locked. To be expected. The set of spare keys was back in the house, but if push came to shove, a measly lock wouldn’t stop him. Privacy was important, but Miss Marblemaw had made such courtesy a nonstarter. He knocked again, and when no one answered, stepped off the porch. Considering calling for Zoe to see if she could locate Miss Marblemaw on the island, Arthur first moved around the side of the house. Windows closed, blinds shut here too. The back of the house was set against a small bluff, a rocky trail leading down it into the woods and toward a small beach on the northwest side of the island. They rarely used this beach, seeing as how it was more black rocks than white sand, but it had its charms, otherworldly though they might be. Making a decision, Arthur slid down the trail deftly, leaving a cloud of dirt behind him. At the bottom, he bent over, brushing the dust from his shoes and socks.
It took ten minutes to reach the beach through the trail in the woods. Birds called, insects buzzed, and the warm morning promised an even hotter afternoon. Sunlight dappled the forest floor through the thick canopy, and as Arthur rounded the last bend before the beach, he froze briefly when he heard a voice that should not have been on the island.
“—it’s not as if it’s difficult, Harriet,” Jeanine Rowder said as Arthur moved behind the thick trunk of a palm tree, peering around it out to the beach. “That you’re unable to do what I’ve asked is not only troublesome, it reflects poorly upon you. Perhaps I was wrong to place my faith in you.”
Miss Marblemaw was alone on the beach, standing in front of a large gray boulder. On the rock, the metal briefcase she’d brought to the island, but it didn’t look as it had before. The interior lining of the lid was pulled down, revealing a screen with a green sheen to it, Rowder’s face almost the same color as Chauncey’s. Atop the screen, a tiny satellite dish spun in a slow circle, beeping every few seconds.
“I’m trying,” Miss Marblemaw replied, sounding more than a little pathetic. “You don’t know what it’s like here. It’s nothing like I was told it would be. These children are—”
“Trying,” Rowder repeated, the screen rolling with wavy lines. “You’re trying. I didn’t send you there to try, Harriet. I sent you there to do what others before you could not. You assured me you were up to the challenge, and yet here you are with evidence to the contrary. You’ve been there for four days. Time is running short. You’re sure you weren’t followed?”
Miss Marblemaw turned her head from side to side, Arthur pulling back behind the tree. “No,” she said finally. “I wasn’t. I don’t know why I couldn’t do this in the house.”
“You know why,” Rowder said. “For all we know, the phoenix has taken a tip from us and bugged the hell out of that house. It’s what I would’ve done. And I wouldn’t have gotten caught.”
Miss Marblemaw’s expression grew pinched. “How was I to know they’d check the lightbulb? You were the one who told me to put it there in the first place!”
“You should have,” Rowder said coldly. “I told you not to underestimate them. Regardless of what else the phoenix is, he’s clever, which makes him dangerous. And having the weapons at his disposal means it’s up to us to stop him.”
“The children,” Miss Marblemaw said.
“Yes,” Rowder said. “I don’t care what else you have to do in order to have the Antichrist removed, but you will do it. I will have him if it’s the last thing I do.”
