Sugar Castle, chapter 9
Colin was watching youtube on Nicky’s computer, a video by one of his favorite gamers. The gamers who made videos all talked fast for some reason. This one had a British accent and he was playing his way through the early parts of Hungry Ghosts. Even though Colin had passed these, he liked to match his moves against theirs. Nicky had had several windows open and he’d left them undisturbed. Nicky had been looking at Facebook, and in another window, two women were making cookies on repeat.
He liked being at his grandma’s house, even now that she wasn’t there. It had the same feel, as if time was slower somehow, and the same smell, cinnamon and sugar and coffee. The house was in town, and when they stayed with her, she had taken them for walks on the town streets. It was easier to walk in town than it was at home, where there were no sidewalks. No one did this now. Nicky didn’t go for walks in town. She and Shane went hiking in the national forest.
His mother and Nicky were still in the TV room. They had been quiet for a long time, and he worried that maybe his mother was crying. She didn’t like to cry in front of them. None of them cried in front of each other. But a few minutes ago, he’d heard Nicky laugh, and that meant that maybe she was cheering her up.
Sophie came down the stairs, jumping on each one with a final bounce on the last step. “Look what I found,” she said.
“Wait until I get to the end of this.”
“Why do you like him? He has stupid hair.”
Colin ignored this. He wanted to hear what Eugenarex had to say about the mausoleum. But at the end of the video, he said that he’d get to that in the next installment.
“Don’t click on that,” Sophie said. “Look.” She pushed her hand in front of his face.
“What is it?”
“It’s a sugar cube, dopey. It’s from the castle.”
“It could just be a random sugar cube.”
“Why would a random sugar cube be up in the attic, huh?”
“Why would this one piece be up there and not the whole thing?”
Sophie sat down next to him on the chair, pushing with her hip until he moved over. “I don’t know. But it’s a clue.”
“A clue to what?”
“You’re annoying me.”
“You should ask Nicky about it. Maybe she knows.”
Sophie sighed. “Are they still in there?”
Colin didn’t answer, since it was clear that they were.
Sophie clicked on the cookie video and for a minute they watched the two women squeezing cookies out of a tube. Colin grabbed the mouse and clicked on Nicky’s Facebook, scrolling down. Pictures of dogs in little hats, crying children, a woman with a bird on her shoulder, pictures of boats, some people dancing outside on the grass, a prayer in fancy letters, an old woman in front of a church.
“Stop,” Sophie said. “What’s that?”
“What?”
Sophie grabbed the mouse. “That guy, did you see?”
“What guy?”
Sophie overshot, going all the way to the top, and then started down again. “It was right after the rainbow pencil cup, I think.” She inched down, and finally stopped. It was a photo of a man that someone had reposted with a comment: “Get this dude.”
“Is it someone you know?”
“No,” Sophie said. She had clicked on See More and read to the end of the post. “Don’t touch it.” She got up and ran into the kitchen.
Colin looked after her and then back at Facebook. The picture was of a man with brown hair. He was wearing a black t-shirt which he’d pulled down with one hand. There was something on his neck, a mark, that he was pointing to and he was smiling in a weird way. He looked like he hadn’t combed his hair.
Sophie came back, dragging Gindy with her. “Look,” she said.
Gindy had the impatient look she often had now around him and Sophie, as if she couldn’t stand their childishness for one more minute, but when she looked at the post, that look slid off her face. “OMG,” she said.
“Who is that?” When neither of them said anything, Colin started reading the post.
This is what happens to people minding their own business in this time and age or even trying to do something nice. Like when people don’t know the right way to behave. Even kids because they don’t have the upbringing. Theres signs everywhere if your eyes are open of these crazy times. If you try to be a good neighbor what happens now is that you get hit in the face with it. I have one wish is that anyone that knows me and my family knows we come down on the right side even though stuff is said against us we’re standing up to it. So all you out there get it through your heads once and for all and watch your asses. In the long run I’m the luckiest craziest country boy there is and I will get even, which is all that matters and is not negotiable. It’s so funny but I’m not laughing. And keep me and my family in your prayers. Like they say there’s 10 comandments but aint’ no one taking my rights.
Colin read it again and then looked at his sisters. Sophie looked mad and Gindy like she was scared. “Is this about what happened yesterday?”
“Why do you have to be so smart,” Gindy said.
The door of the TV room opened and their mother and Nicky came out. They had their arms around each other. He could tell that his mother had been crying but she was smiling now.
“I want to know,” Colin said, “or I’m telling right now.”
“Come on, kids. Let’s see your creative decorating,” their mom said.
The back door opened and Shane came in. “Did I hear ‘cookies?’”
“We have a shit load of them,” Nicky said.
Colin opened his mouth and Sophie pinched him. He shoved her.
“I’ll tell you later,” Gindy said. “I promise.” She leaned over him and tapped on the keyboard, sending it back to Facebook home.
“These cookies aren’t going to eat themselves,” Nicky sang out. She came out with a trayful and set it on the coffee table. “Come on you rug rats. Gather in.”
Their mother and Shane sat on the couch and the kids on the floor. Nicky stood, a cookie in each hand. “I know we’ve had some troubles,” Nicky said. “People have left and people have died. There’s this stupid virus and the world is full of hate. But we’re still here and we have to put up with it no matter how bad things get.”
“Are you trying to cheer them up?” Shane said. “Because you’re not doing the best job.”
Nicky shrugged. “It doesn’t do any good to sugar coat stuff. You kids lost your dad and that was awful, but life is still going on.”
“Nicky,” their mother said.
“We can’t just not talk about it, Meg. Isn’t it better to get it out in the open?”
Colin wasn’t sure that it was better, but he didn’t say anything.
“We didn’t lose him,” Gindy said.
They all looked at her.
“It’s not like it’s something we did. Or that he’s just out somewhere looking to find a map or something. Or like we could find him. He’s not lost.”
Colin could hear the words she didn’t say. He’s dead. He’s not lost, he’s dead.
“Forgive me for trying to be nice,” Nicky said. “Everything’s going to shit all around us and we’ve got to be here for each other. That’s all I’m trying to do, is to be here for you all.”
Shane put his arm around Nicky and their mother got up and kissed Nicky’s head. “We know that,” she said. “Don’t we, kids?”
Colin and Sophie nodded. Gindy didn’t. She stood there for a minute, and then went outside. They heard the side door slam. Colin saw her out of the window, running down the edge of the garden toward the woods behind the chicken house.
“I just don’t know when to shut up,” Nicky said. Their mother took Nicky’s hand and swung it back and forth. “You really don’t,” she said.
“If mom was still here, she’d know what to say.” Nicky rubbed her eyes. “I know you kids miss her.”
“Are we going to zoom with her on Sunday?” Sophie asked.
“I guess we will,” Nicky said. She looked at their mother. “Next time I get going like that, just tell me to shut up, OK.”
Their mother said she would, but Colin didn’t think it would help. When Nicky got going, nothing would stop her.
Shane got out Trans America and he and Sophie and Colin played two games, waiting for Gindy to come back. When she did, her shoes were muddy and her pants wet up to the knees, but their mother didn’t say anything about it. Nicki packed up half the cookies for them. Sophie and Colin sat in the wayback. Sophie’s legs were jiggling with nervousness or excitement, he couldn’t tell which. When she had kicked the back of Gindy’s seat half a dozen times, Gindy tuned around. “Stop it,” she said coldly. She looked at Colin and said in a whisper, “After dinner.”
For a minute Colin wished that he hadn’t seen them leaving yesterday. That he hadn’t pestered Gindy to tell him anything. That he’d minimized the windows Nicki had up on her computer. That the only thing he was going to do after dinner was go back to Jory and the mausoleum. But it was too late for that, he guessed.
That night after dinner they held a secret meeting in the basement, attended by the three of them and Dawn the cat, who had sat outside the sliding glass door mewing until Sophie let her in. They sat on the couch cushions from the couch that used to be upstairs and now lived, disembodied, in the basement, each on their own, like ice floes, Colin said, like living in the Arctic. Dawn prowled around the corners, exploring, according to Sophie. Gindy said she was looking for mice, but Sophie said that there were no mice, and that Dawn was probably looking for a secret room or a hidden panel.
“There is no secret room,” Gindy said.
“That you know of.”
“Stop talking about hidden panels,” Colin said. “It’s scary. Like something could jump out. And you’re supposed to be telling me stuff.”
“OK,” Sophie said. “this is what happened. I wanted to get my art project from school and Gindy said she would come and we went and got it.”
“How did you get in?”
“That’s not the point,” Gindy said.
“Did you get caught? Did you get caught by that guy?”
“No one caught us,” Sophie said.
“So who was he?”
Sophie and Gindy looked at each other. We should have talked about how much to tell Colin, Gindy thought. There should be a way to tell it without scaring him.
“He gave us a ride,” Sophie said. “He said that he knew Dad, but I guess he didn’t.”
“But some woman brought you home,” Colin said. Dawn had come to where they were sitting and hopped from one cushion to the next until she was on Sophie’s.
“He was awful,” Sophie said. “We had to get away from him.”
“What do you mean? What did he do?”
“Shut up, Sophie,” Gindy said. “You’re telling it all wrong. He said he knew Dad, and Sophie believed him, and got in his car, like the stupidhead she is. He said he was going to take us home, but then he drove past the road. We had to get out, and we were by the old church up 56. And we went up to the woman’s house next door. And she brought us home.”
“You’re the one who’s telling it wrong,” Sophie said. “We had to fight him. Gindy had to choke him and I hit him with a bottle.”
Gindy groaned. Colin was looking from one of them to the other, his eyes big. “It wasn’t that much of a deal.”
“That woman’s name was Gloria,” Sophie said. “She writes comic books. Like for her job. She said my art project sounded interesting.”
“Where is it?”
“What?”
“Your art project.”
“I left it at her house,” Sophie said.
“After all that, you left it there?” Gindy hadn’t realized until now. She’d forgotten all about it, to be honest. “Making me go with you—“
“I asked you to go, I didn’t make you.”
“And then you had to get into that guy’s car—“
“I thought it was OK.”
“You didn’t think it was OK, you just didn’t care. You never think.”
“I thought he knew Dad.”
“He could have taken us someplace and locked us up, you know that, right? You know what happens when some guy picks girls up in his car. He didn’t even have to offer you any candy, did he?”
Sophie had started to cry, but Gindy couldn’t stop. “He could have killed us, because you had to get your stupid project.”
Upstairs, she heard their mother’s footsteps cross the kitchen and pass the door to the basement. She held her breath while Sophie hid her face in one of the pillows, her shoulders shaking. Dawn jumped away from her onto the denuded couch, making herself small in the crumb-infested corner.
“We could be dead—“
“Don’t say that,” Colin said. “Don’t say that word.”
Gindy and Colin looked at each other while Sophie sobbed.
“Say you’re sorry,” Colin said.
“I’m not sorry,” Gindy said. She didn’t know if she way, anyway.
“Just say it.”
“Why should I say I’m sorry if I’m not? It was all true, what I said.”
Sophie cried louder, big gasping sobs.
Gindy hated it when Sophie cried. It made her angry and sad, but at the same time more determined not to give in, not to do what Sophie wanted, not to say she was sorry. Sophie’s crying was a weapon she’d used since she was little. Their mother said about them that Sophie was the cryer and Colin the whiner. Gindy didn’t know what it meant that there was no third thing for her. Was that a good thing or not?
“You have to stop crying,” she said to Sophie. “Mom is going to hear and then she’ll want to know what’s wrong. If she thinks we’re fighting, she’ll be upset.” It was their strongest pact, not to upset their mother. Since last winter, since their father had died. They didn’t talk about what it had been like then, but they all remembered. Their mother’s blank stare. The whiteness of her face. How she had pushed the food around on her plate, hiding that nothing had been eaten. For a while, Gindy knew, she had drunk whiskey before bed, as if she couldn’t go to sleep without it. She and Sophie had been afraid that she would turn into an alcoholic, like Sandra X’s grandfather or the man who used to live across the road. She didn’t do that now. She ate her dinner, although she was still thin. She smiled sometimes. They, none of them, wanted to send her back to those times.
As if she were thinking the same thing, Sophie’s sobs got smaller, and then stopped. She wiped her face on her t-shirt and sat up. “Either you say you’re sorry for being so mean,” she said, “or you have to give me your geode.”
The geode was one that Gindy had bought on a years ago family vacation. It looked like a smoothish oval rock, almost like an egg, but according to the owner of the rock shop on Kelleys Island, it would have a crystal heart when it was broken open. Gindy had resisted that opening. She liked to think of its secret inside, which would be less wonderful when it was out in the world. Sophie, she knew, would get out the hammer immediately. “Fine,” she said. “You can have it.”
“Swear.”
“I so swear,” Gindy said with a sigh.