As she droned on and on, Arthur wondered what she’d think if he lit her on fire right then and there. Would she scream? Would she plead for her life? Would she beg and beg and beg until her vocal cords melted and smoke streamed from her mouth?
It’s not as if I’d have issues hiding the body, he thought wildly. She’d be nothing but ashes.
“Mr. Parnassus.”
The haze parted and he saw Miss Marblemaw glaring at him, obviously having said his name more than once. They were in his office. He couldn’t remember coming here.
He forced a smile, hoping it would be enough. “What was that?”
“Are you even listening?” she spat. “I expect you to take this seriously, Mr. Parnassus.”
“Oh, I am,” he assured her. “You want Zoe. All you have to do is ask. I’m sure she’d be delighted to speak with you.”
“As she should be,” Miss Marblemaw said with a sniff. “Now, on to other matters. I’ve noticed that Sal and Theodore are—”
He stood from his chair. “Excuse me, Miss Marblemaw. Something requires my attention. I must see to it immediately.”
He walked around the desk, the buzzing sound absolute, his brain a hive of crawling wasps with poison-slick stingers. He had almost made it to the door when Miss Marblemaw grabbed his wrist, her grip firm. “We are in the middle of a discussion,” she told him. “Please take a seat until we’ve finished.”
He looked down at her hand on his arm. David, trying to pull away, whimpering as she yelled in his face.
Have you ever hit a kid?
No.
Slapped them?
No.
Put their fingers in a drawer and closed the drawer so hard, it … it …
He lifted his head and let the phoenix rise behind his eyes. He didn’t know what she saw, but instead of being afraid, she looked merely curious, as if a great firebird appeared before her on a daily basis. As he leaned toward her, Arthur could see himself reflected in her eyes. He looked furious. “Remove your hand,” he said in a low voice. “And if I ever see you touch anyone on this island without their permission again, there is nowhere on this earth you could run that I wouldn’t find you.”
She pulled her hand back slowly. “Another threat, Mr. Parnassus?”
“It is,” he said. “And I mean every word.”
She didn’t speak again.
No matter what he did, he couldn’t stop the fury from growing. It latched on to him, a black shroud wrapped snugly around his shoulders. Sticky. Understanding. Knowing. Come into the darkness where it’s safer, it whispered. They think you a monster. Why not give them what they ask for?
How long? How long had this been part of him? How long had it been building? Since Miss Marblemaw’s arrival? No, it was before that. The hearing? The bug in the hotel room? Agreeing to appear in the first place?
Or was it further back than that? Did it start with Linus? After all, he had been one of them. Yes, he’d seen the error of his ways, but it’d taken him years. Seventeen, to be exact. Years of child after child, of orphanages with masters who understood their jobs, with masters who did not. Why hadn’t he done more? Why hadn’t he acted sooner?
But then, of course, there were the children. Each of them with their history, their trauma, their stories of abuse and survival as if any child should have intimate knowledge of such things. And he took it from them as best he could, shouldering the weight of it, letting them heal, letting them grow, letting them live.
And what of the others? What of all those he helped over the years, all those he couldn’t get to in time? Was it their fault? Or was it the masters who took him in after testifying? The masters who were scared of him, the masters who thought ignoring him would be beneficial for all?
Was it when he was a scared and lonely child forced to relive each and every terrible day during questioning? Perhaps it was when he was pulled out of the cellar into the sunlight for the first time in six months, blinking against the brightness that had nothing to do with his fire. Or maybe it was the cellar itself, the tick marks on the walls. Maybe it was the first time the master had slapped him across the face for speaking out of turn. Or when he was taken by strangers after his parents died, each of them telling him he had nothing to fear, that he would be cared for by people who understood him. Maybe it was the death of his parents—first his father, then his mother—catastrophic events that ruined him in ways he couldn’t expect. Could it have started then?
He thought that might very well be the case.
A lifetime, then. It’d been with him for a lifetime.
He didn’t know what that meant. He didn’t know what to do. Supper, though he barely touched his food. The children talking, talking. Zoe sitting to his right, her knee bumping against his. Across the table, Linus, quiet, forehead lined, glancing at Arthur every now and then with increasing frequency. Arthur smiled. Linus did not.
After, in the sitting room, David performed his one-yeti play, PI Dirk Dasher on the hunt for the Beast. Costume changes. Linus taking Jason’s role. Gasps. Laughter. Applause when David bowed, looking stunned at the cheers being lobbed at him. His wrist seemed fine now, and didn’t that just beat all? Either David didn’t feel it anymore—though that memory was undoubtedly seared into his mind, wasn’t it?—or he was trying to push through it. Regardless, Arthur burned.
Sleep. Each of the children in their beds, warm and safe, Chauncey with toothpaste on the corner of his mouth, wiped clean with Arthur’s thumb. “Oh, come on! I was saving that for later!” A gentle kiss on his head between his eye stalks, and as Arthur turned to leave, Chauncey said, “Arthur?”
He stopped. Everything stopped. For a moment, he was himself again, free of the fires of rage. “Yes, Chauncey?” he asked without turning around, knowing he was in the eye of the storm.
“Are you all right? You’ve been quiet today.”
He did the one thing he promised he’d never do: he lied to one of his children. “I’m fine. Just thinking my thoughts.”
“Good thoughts or bad thoughts?”
Perceptive, but then they all were. “Thoughts,” he said, unable to lie again. “Sleep, Chauncey. Tomorrow is another day.”
And it was, wasn’t it? Another day. And then another and then another, where the screws were being tightened, where the shadow of the government stretched long, and he wanted to go to Lucy. Wanted to open the door to his room—a closet? A closet? Might as well have been a cellar; a master by any other name (Dad Dad Dad) was still a master, after all—and say, “You were right. We can’t win. Do what you have to. Don’t hurt anyone, but take their fear away. Take their anger. Take their hatred, their bigotry, and remake the world as it should be.”
It was close—far closer than it should’ve been. His hand was on the doorknob, hearing the low, sweet tones of dead-people music just inside, Buddy Holly singing that you say you’re gonna leave, you know it’s a lie, ’cause that’ll be the day when I die.
“Arthur?”
He whirled around, the buzzing sound like a great, lumbering machine destroying everything in its wake. Linus stood there, just in the doorway, looking concerned. Unsure. Worried, so worried that Arthur almost laughed.
