Release(43)
“I think they’re waiting for me,” he said. “I’ve got to choose to come home. That’s what the Prodigal Son always does.”
“It’s a stupid story,” Angela said. “The good brother gets nothing for being good. The bad brother gets all the fun and just has to say sorry once.”
“Yeah, but then he’s home. For good. But that doesn’t matter.” He kept his eyes firmly on the greasy, greasy floor. “I am home.”
“Oh, quit talking like a Pixar movie, dummy,” she said, but she sat down next to him like she had that morning. He hadn’t stopped shaking yet. “I could have picked a better day to tell you I was going away,” she said.
“Nah, best to have it all at once.”
“Is that true?”
“Probably not.”
“You still want to go to the party?”
“I don’t think I’m ready to go to my house yet.”
“We could go to mine. You know my mom would totally be on your side.”
“Can she send me to the Netherlands, too?”
“That would be awesome.”
“But impossible.”
They watched the cheese melt on the pizzas on the conveyor belt.
“So what is going to happen?” Angela asked, seriously. “You’ll eventually have to go to them.”
“I know. Will you come with me?”
“Absolutely. They like me. I’ll be your human shield.”
“But after that… I don’t know. Christian school maybe.”
“Your chances of getting laid would skyrocket.”
“I don’t know what else they’ll do.”
“Not gay cure therapy.”
“I’ll turn them in for child abuse if they try.”
“Someone’s feisty.”
“It’s been a rough day. And that’s the thing, isn’t it? They can be who they are and I can live with that and let them get on with it. But in return, I’m not going to put up with anything less.”
“Damn straight, bubba.” Then, more quietly, “Wouldn’t it be amazing if that could happen?”
His phone buzzed again with another text from Marty. Come home. Please.
“At least they’re distracted from the being-grandparents thing,” Adam said.
“Big day for the Thorn family.” Angela put her hand on his back. “Seriously, Adam. Are you safe there? They wouldn’t hurt you. Not really. Would they?”
“I thought he was going to hit me today. In fact, I think I was hoping he would. It would have made him unambiguously the bad guy.”
“He’s not far off already.”
“That’s… Well, he’s got his religion and it’s important to him.”
“And the moment it becomes more important than his kids, he’s the bad guy.”
“It’s more complicated than that, Ange.”
“No, it isn’t.” She stood, facing him again. “They’re your parents. They’re meant to love you because. Never in spite.”
“That’s your mom talking.”
“My mom is a very wise woman.” She went to the oven and put the last two finished pizzas in boxes. “If you’re sure, I’ll change clothes and we can get going.”
“I’m sure.”
She glanced at him. “I’m glad.”
“What am I going to do without you, Angela?”
“Be okay.” She shrugged. “That’s a prediction and a demand.” She couldn’t conceal a grin. “And just think of all I’ll be able to teach you when I get back.”
“My murderer,” the Queen says again.
The faun moves behind her. The man has pressed himself against the back wall, as far from the cell door as he can make himself go.
“Katie?” the man says. “Oh, God.”
“You only see the one face?” the Queen asks.
“How can it be you? How can this be happening?”
“Silence,” the Queen says, and the man is struck dumb, though his mouth still gulps air trying to form words.
But then, “Speak,” she says, and the faun can hear the surprise in her voice.
“This is…” the man says. “This is some trick–”
“I have come to judge you,” the Queen says.
And then she says, as if in contradiction of herself, “I have come to speak with you.
“I have come to kill you,” she says.
“I have come to find out why,” she says.
The faun is troubled, even more troubled than before. The two voices speak over each other, demanding different things. Have the worlds already begun to erupt over their borders?
“My Queen?” he asks again.
But she holds up the hand to silence him once more. “I will see this through,” she says.
“But the world, my Queen.”
“I will see this through.”
She reaches forward, bending the bars of the cell as if they were so many reeds in the lake. The man gasps, but there is, of course, nowhere for him to run as the Queen steps into his presence.