Sugar Castle, chapter 6
The kitchen looked like a normal kitchen, but the family room that opened out from it was less normal. It had pictures painted right on the wall in bright colors. There was a sort of high slanted table by the back windows and boxes, some half open. A tangle of shiny beads hung from the hanging light. A little boy sat in the middle of the rug, scrabbling in a nest of crumpled paper. She has a kid, Sophie thought, so she must be all right. Probably bad people had kids, too. But she decided to go with her first thought.
The woman had gotten out a carton of milk. “I only have almond milk,” she said. “I hope that’s OK.”
“It’s fine,” Gindy said, as if she had almond milk all the time, the faker.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” Sophie said, because she might as well.
“There’s one just up there.”
Sophie gave Gindy a significant look and went up the stairs the woman had pointed out.
The bathroom window looked out at the long back yard and the pole barn. Sophie didn’t really have to go, but she did anyway, since you never know. She didn’t flush, but went out into the hall. It was carpeted and her feet made no noise as she crept toward the front of the house. She went into the bedroom on the left and made for the window. When she pushed the curtains aside, she realized she’d been holding her breath. She couldn’t see all the road, but she knew where the SUV had been, and it was gone. The tires had left a mark in the mud and gravel of the verge. She looked at the road, at the churchyard, at the houses a little down the road. It was gone. He must be gone.
She turned around to look at the room. The bed was enormous and unmade, which Sophie considered sensible. Why fix it up when it was going to be slept in again so soon? There were several dolls sitting on doll-sized chairs and a spiderman figure hanging from the mirror. She went silent-footed across the rug, trying to take everything in. She’d have liked to look in the closet, but she was afraid that the door would make a noise. Instead, she opened one of the drawers of the low dresser, expecting underwear. Instead, it was full of scraps of cloth, lace, and yarn, and a handful of photos. She moved a piece of ribbon from the top one. It was black and white, and showed a little girl and a little boy sitting on a box. Neither of them were looking at the camera.
Out in the hall, she stood at the top of the stairs. Gindy was talking, although she couldn’t tell what she was saying. Sophie went back to the bathroom and flushed the toilet, then virtuously washed her hands. One of her palms was scraped and there was a scratch on her wrist, little beads of blood almost like a bracelet. She couldn’t remember how that happened.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket and she took it out. For a minute she was afraid that somehow it was the man, that he knew her number. But it was Colin, face-timing her. She shut the bathroom door.
“I saw you leave,” Colin said. “Where are you? What is that room you’re in?”
“I can’t talk,” Sophie aid.
“Mom is going to be coming down pretty soon to make dinner.” He was sitting at his computer, with the game paused on the screen. Jory had died in the mausoleum again.
“Right,” Sophie said. It seemed so strange to think of her mother doing this normal thing as if it was a normal day. “Tell her we went for a walk.”
“Are you at someone’s house?”
“Just tell her something.”
“When are you coming home?”
“Soon,” Sophie said, although she didn’t know if that was true, or how they’d get there.
Before she went downstairs, she looked into the other three bedrooms. One had a crib – the baby’s room. The next was full of boxes and there was a machine of some kind with paper stacked on top of it. The last had a single bed, also unmade, and a desk and bookcase. There was a soccer ball on top of the desk and some pictures of superheroes taped on the walls.
When she got downstairs, Gindy was sitting on a stool at the kitchen island, drinking a glass of pop. Another glass was waiting for Sophie. The woman had brought the baby over and put him in a high chair. He had a sippy cup which he was bashing on the tray.
“I took a look at your artwork,” the woman said. “I hope you don’t mind.”
Sophie had forgotten about the sculpture. It was propped against the wall in the family room. She looked at it, really looked at it for the first time since she’d left it in the art room weeks ago. She felt embarrassed by it somehow. It was something she’d made and that she’d loved, but now it seemed outsize, too brightly colored. She could see all the mistakes she’d made. It had been part of her, part of her body almost, and now it was separate from her, out in the world for anyone to see and say things about. “It’s pretty stupid,” she said.
“I wouldn’t say that,” the woman said. “I like it. But we should talk about what you need. A ride? Your sister told me what happened.”
Sophie looked quickly at Gindy, who shook her head, a tiny movement. Gindy had a bruise on her forehead, just visible under her bangs.
“And we’ve introduced ourselves,” the woman went on gaily. She had set out a bowl of goldfish crackers and she took several and put them on the highchair tray. The little boy put one in his mouth and another down the front of his shirt. “This is Olivier. But we call him Owl usually.”
Owl looked up at the sound of his name and said something in baby talk.
“Right,” his mother said seriously. “And I’m Gloria Apex. I’d be happy to drive you home if you can wait a bit. Owl’s brother is coming home soon and I don’t want to leave before he gets here.”
“That’s perfectly all right,” Gindy said, still with her good-girl voice. “We wouldn’t want to put you out.”
Sophie picked up her glass, which held yellow-green pop. She didn’t like the color so much, but they never had pop at home, so she drank some and then before she could stop herself, spit it out.
Gindy gave her a look, but the woman, Mrs. Apex, laughed. “Oops,” she said, “I guess you don’t like celery.”
“Celery pop?” Sophie felt a little outraged. Who would make pop out of celery?
“It’s one of my husband’s favorites. Your sister said it would be fine, but I guess she shouldn’t have spoken for you.”
“She really shouldn’t have,” Sophie said.
Colin considered whether he should call Sophie again, or text her. Gindy’s phone was turned off. Their mother was walking around upstairs, which meant she’d finished her work and was putting things away or reorganizing stuff. She’d be down in a minute. It was times like these he most wished he didn’t have to use his sticks to walk. They meant he couldn’t do a quick getaway. Plus they were noisy on the wood floors.
Maybe she wouldn’t notice that Gindy and Sophie were gone. Maybe they’d be back soon enough that she wouldn’t ask, if they snuck in. He looked at the computer screen, where Jory was once again lying on the floor of the mausoleum while the ghouls jumped up and down. They were taunting him and Jory both. You didn’t make it, you’re dead again, ha ha.
He could pretend that he had been so into the game that he hadn’t seen where they went. Which was believable. His mother was always giving him a hard time about how he didn’t listen when he was in a game. She didn’t believe that he didn’t hear her, which he really didn’t, at least some of the time. “It’s called concentration, Mom,” he’d said to her once, and she’d said back, “It’s called common courtesy.” But you couldn’t make yourself hear things. His ears turned off because he needed his brain for other things. It just made sense to him.
Now his mother was in the upstairs hall, and now she was in the bathroom. He heard the water running in the pipes. He restarted the game and he and Jory were back in the café where his friend worked, the start of this part of the game. Jory walked with a stiff-legged walk that Colin liked, because it reminded him of his own walk, He changed Jory’s clothes while he listened to what his mother was doing upstairs, clicking on a black jacket and orange pants. Now he stood out better from the background, which might make a tactical difference. There were some ghouls following him, but Colin knew that they wouldn’t do anything. It was the waiter that you had to watch out for here.
His mother came out of the bathroom, but instead of coming downstairs, she went back into her office. And then, finally, he saw a car pulling up on the road, one he didn’t recognize, and Gindy and Sophie got out. They ran across the lawn and around the back. Which was smart, Colin thought. They were coming in the back, at the basement level, so it could be like they’d been down there all the time.
He sent Sophie a text: “what will u give me if I dont tell”
After a minute she sent him a devil emoji, and then texted, “A big hug & a kiss”
He sent a string of various unhappy faces, and then his mother was coming down the stairs, so he put his phone down, thumbing off the ringer.
She came over and kissed him on the top of his head. “Did you finish all your schoolwork?”
“Like three hours ago,” he said.