The Big Dark Sky (19)

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.”

They were in the habit of translating Wendy’s tips into pieces of the house they hoped to buy one day.

“That doesn’t suck for a Thursday lunch,” Cricket said.

“It sucketh not,” Wendy agreed.

“We don’t need a mansion like Mr. Toad has.” Although just in second grade, Cricket read at a fifth-grade level and was currently breezing through The Wind in the Willows at Bertha’s house and also in the evenings with her mother. “All we need is a nice little place with a big dog. We gotta name the dog something. Mr. Toad is called Toad ’cause that’s what he is, you know?”

“Makes sense. But Mr. Dog isn’t good enough for our dog.”

“Bertha says her mom named her Bertha ’cause it’s like this old German word that means someone who shines. She asked why my name is Cricket Moon Sharp, and I don’t know. So why is it my name?”

Wendy had expected this question for some time. “Sharp is my maiden name. Your father chose the others. He liked unusual names.”

“He was a really bad man, wasn’t he?”

“Very.”

“Like Dracula or something.”

“Better you don’t know his name. Trust me about that.”

“I trust you about everything. So do you like my names?”

“Do you?”

“I kind of do. Anyway, it’s who I’ve always been.”

“I like them, too,” Wendy said. “A cricket is sprightly and quick, and so are you. Crickets sing, and you’re always singing.”

“I sing better than crickets.”

“You do indeed.”

“Crickets know one song. I know like a hundred. Why Moon?”

“Why not? The moon is beautiful, and so are you.”

“So did you ever think about changing my names?”

“At first. And then I thought, just because someone names you doesn’t mean they own you. Nobody owns you, Cricket.”

The girl thought about that, nibbling her cookie, and then said, “We have to name our dog. So then won’t we own him?”

“No one owns a dog, sweetie. We adopt them. They’re family.”

“I think I’d like a sister. A dog sister, I mean.”

They had been sitting on the bench for fifteen minutes when Wendy noticed that the number of people in the park had declined dramatically. By the time she and Cricket finished their Cokes and cookies, and discussed possible dog names at length, the joggers and cyclists and skaters all but disappeared. Wendy became aware of men and women in dark suits and sunglasses, who were sitting on distant benches and loitering along the pathways, like morticians who had left their funeral homes in search of business prospects among the melanoma-courting sun worshippers and head-injury-prone skaters who refused to wear helmets.

She said, “I think they’ve closed the park.”

“Who did? They can’t close a park. There’s no doors on a park.”

Although Wendy didn’t believe the Snake would come looking for them after all this time, though operatives in black suits were not how those true believers in his cult chose to style themselves, she was nonetheless disconcerted. “We better go,” she said.

“But we just got here, Mom.”

As Wendy rose from the bench, a man behind her said, “We mean you no harm, Ms. Sharp.”

She pivoted, suppressing a small cry of alarm. She never let anyone know that anything frightened her. Bad people thrived on your fear, saw it as a weakness, and moved in fast on you.

The guy was tall and slim and handsome, dressed in white from head to foot, with a fresh red carnation pinned in the buttonhole of his suit coat. Nature had given him a kind face and a sweet smile—but it was wise to remember that oleander bushes produced beautiful flowers so poisonous they were as lethal as a bullet in the head.