The Cabin at the End of the World(22)

Eric says, “Okay, hold on a second. We get that you guys are part of some group and it sounds like you want to”—his pause becomes a stammer—“er, what, fix things? Help?”

Andrew says, “Eric, you don’t have to—”

“No, I’m okay, a little scrambled, but I want to say this.” He takes two deep breaths and prays a silent please-God-get-us-out-of-this-safely complete with an Amen. “If you’re trying to recruit us, I mean, why else bother introducing yourselves to us, right?” Eric lets out a groan. He’s frustrated with himself because he didn’t intend to say the last part, to say exactly what he was thinking instead of sculpting his words into a pointed, purposeful statement. “If you’re trying to recruit us, or what, change us, make us different?” He’s again verbalizing what’s in his head and not curating something a bit more politic. Eric is supposed to be the great communicator, builder of compromise and consensus. He can do this; he just needs to concentrate harder. “This, all this, isn’t the way—”

Eric is cut off by the vengeful return of the sun. Its rays burn through the cabin and his head and fill the rotten world with hateful, damning light.





Wen


Wen has seen this episode of Steven Universe before. Steven is called away from his favorite TV show by Peridot’s distress call. Steven and the Crystal Gems rush to the dangerous communications hub to take apart what Peridot had rebuilt without their knowing. Two of the gems, Pearl and Garnet, merge together (Amethyst is sad and feels left out) and form Sardonyx, a magician who also carries a war hammer, a long thin pole with two giant cube-shaped fists at the end. Steven and Sardonyx break the hub apart. But the hub is restored the next day and the day after and they keep having to return to tear the hub down. Pearl eventually admits she is the one who keeps rebuilding the hub because she loves how it feels to merge with Garnet and become the powerful Sardonyx.

Eric’s voice is soft and high pitched. “Can someone put the curtain back up? The big blue one. Over the slider.”

Wen watches the show, but isn’t really watching. She can both watch and not-watch at the same time. She’s good at it because she secretly has two brains. One brain dreams of becoming Sardonyx and sweeping the four strangers into the garbage with her war hammer. With her other brain, she ignores the television and watches what’s happening and listens to what is being said in the cabin. She pays close attention, and despite how dangerous everything feels, she can hide and stay safe inside this other brain, while scheming, plotting, waiting for a signal or message from either one of her dads to do whatever it is they’ll need her to do.

Everyone is talking over one another.

“What’s wrong with Eric?”

“When you have a concussion, you’re extremely sensitive to light.”

“There’s nothing we can do about that now.”

“He’s only going to get better if he rests in a dark room or if we make it dark in here.”

“I don’t think we should move him until after we make our, um—”

“Our proposal?”

“Right.”

“Yeah. Let’s make a deal. Door number three, man, it’s always door number three.”

“You can’t joke about this.”

“I can and I have to.”

“Because you’re an asshole?”

“Because I’m scared shitless just like everyone else.”

“He might need to be in a darkened room for days, not just a few hours.”

Eric stirs as much as his tied-down body allows. Wen lifts her head away from his legs. He says, “You’re not separating me from Wen and Andrew. I’ll be fine.”

He doesn’t sound fine. Wen doesn’t want to look at him because of how not-fine he sounds.

Andrew says, “Come on, just untie him. He’s not going anywhere.”

“I’ll see what I can do with the curtain,” Redmond says and walks into the kitchen and the slider door’s frame.

Adriane says, “If you knock out that screen—”

“Yeah, I know, I get it. Do your intro thing so we can get this over with.”

Andrew starts to say something, but Adriane interrupts and says, “We’ll answer all of your questions real soon. Just let me get through this. I’ll be quick.” She moves differently than the others, a weird combination of hyper and slow.

There was one day during this past February school vacation week Daddy Eric worked from home. He spent most of the day on the phone, doodling on a cube of yellow sticky notes. Each doodle was a stick figure he penned in the lower right corner of a sheet. Its head had long stringy J’s on each side, which was supposed to represent Wen’s hair. He spent hours drawing the same figure over and over again, one per individual sticky note. He was finished drawing at the same time he proclaimed his workday completed. She asked him what it was and he said he made a cartoon. He showed her how to flip the notes, bending the pad and using his thumb to let the individual sheets tick by. The stick figure waved, did some deep knee bends, three jumping jacks with her arms blurring over the stick-figure head, and then she jumped in the air and flew back and forth across the yellow pages like a superhero.

The herky-jerky way the minimovie stick-figure Wen moved is how Adriane moves. It makes Wen want to watch her closely.