Set This House in Order (40 page)

My father was gazing into the mist very intently now. “He said his last name was Reyes?”

“Yes…I think so.”

“That's interesting,” my father said. “We knew a man named
Oscar
Reyes back in Michigan, when we were little. He ran a pest-control service in Seven Lakes.”

“Pest control…you mean he was an exterminator?”

My father nodded. “He'd come out to the house once a year to fumigate the kitchen. Also one time, our mother was having trouble with rabbits attacking her vegetable garden…” He trailed off, which was just as well; I didn't think I wanted to hear about the rabbits.

“What about the other soul?” I asked. “The one who wouldn't give his name. Could it be Gideon?”

“Gideon's stuck on Coventry.”

“I know he's supposed to be,” I said, “but…” But if there were souls running loose in the geography that my father didn't even know about, all bets were off.

“Yes, but…” My father sighed. “I suppose we'd better go check on him.”

“We?” I said.

“This is your responsibility too. Come on.”

We descended the path to the boat dock. Captain Marco waited there, keeping an eye on the ferryboat that was—or was supposed to be—the only means of passage to or from Coventry. Of course I knew even then that that wasn't really true. The lake may appear to be a formidable obstacle, but what really kept Gideon confined was my father's dominance of the geography; if that had slipped, a soul as willful as Gideon would have little trouble engineering an escape.

The ferry, a flat-bottomed skiff, steadied itself in the water as we stepped aboard. My father rode up front, I sat in the middle, and Captain Marco stood in the stern, holding a long pole. The crossing was brief: Captain Marco pushed us away from the dock, which vanished almost instantly into the fog, and dipped the pole in the lake three times; then
there was a shift, and the prow of the ferry bumped up against Coventry's gray shore.

Coventry Island, if it were real, would measure just an eighth of a mile from end to end, with a surface area of about ten acres. Within these small confines, my father had granted Gideon a modicum of autonomy, allowing him to build his own house. And so he did, continually: the last time my father had visited the island, Gideon's home had been a wooden fishing lodge; the time before that, a lighthouse; and the time before that, a medieval keep. I'd only been to Coventry once before, myself, shortly after I was born, and on that occasion Gideon had gone all out, covering the whole island with a sprawling prison complex; after my father and I had patiently threaded our way through the maze of walls and security gates, he'd refused to speak with us, other than to call us both names.

“What do you think it'll be this time?” I asked, as we stepped out of the boat.

My father wasn't in a mood to guess. “We'll see soon enough,” he said. We set off uphill towards the center of the island, where Gideon was most likely to be found.

Here on the island the fog had thinned to mist again. It got thinner still with every step we took, until something amazing happened: the mist parted completely, revealing a tiny patch of blue sky—the only clear sky in the entire geography, as far as I could tell.

From the open sky a soft light shone down on a meticulously crafted scene of ruin. Burned and broken stones were scattered in a ring around a circular foundation, as though a round tower had exploded from inside; I was reminded of my dream, in which Coventry had appeared as a bull's-eye. At the center of the wreckage, seemingly unscathed by whatever force had destroyed the tower, a lone soul sat at a table, playing a game of checkers solitaire. The light glinted theatrically in his hair.

“Gideon,” my father called, picking his way through the rubble ring. About halfway across he stopped, bent down, and pulled something from among the jumbled stones: a barred metal grille, like the kind you find in a jail cell window. The symbolism wasn't hard to decipher. “Gideon!”

Gideon bent forward over the checkerboard, and made a series of jumps—
bang, bang, bang, bang, BANG!
—that captured every remaining enemy piece. Grinning, he removed the opposition from the board, and kinged his own man.

“Gideon.”

“Good
morning,
” Gideon said, with a glance at the sky. “Something I can help you with?” As he turned to face us, I couldn't help but stare; the resemblance between Gideon's soul and Andy Gage's body is so striking it's scary. It's no wonder, really, that he thinks he deserves to be in charge.

Gideon's grin widened when he noticed my reaction. “Well,” he said to my father, “I see you brought the little figment with you.”

In response, my father tossed the metal grille on the table. It landed in the middle of the checkerboard, scattering Gideon's pieces and decapitating his new king. Gideon started to laugh, but then my father snapped his fingers and the grille sprouted foot-long spikes in all directions, punching holes in the tabletop. Gideon cursed and jerked back, falling out of his chair.

“Now that I've got your attention…” my father said. The spikes retracted; the grille disappeared.

Gideon stood up slowly; he held his left hand in his right, rubbing at a sore spot just above the ball of his thumb. “Get out,” he seethed. “I don't have anything to say to either of you.”

My father made no move to leave. “Long sleeves,” he said, noting the billowy shirt that Gideon's soul was clothed in. “That's unusual.”

“Get out,” Gideon repeated. “This is my island.”

“It's yours if you stay on it,” my father said. “I gave you a choice two years ago: this, or the pumpkin field. If you've changed your mind, I want to know now.”

I shifted uncomfortably at this ugly threat. Gideon's eyes flicked briefly in my direction, and the corner of his mouth twitched. But then my father said, “Well?” and Gideon's attention switched back where it belonged.

“I haven't changed my mind about anything,” he said. “I know you're having problems running your little playhouse, but that's got nothing to do with me.”

“It had better not. What do you know about a soul named Xavier?”

“Who?”

“Gideon…”

“You're the one in charge of the census. If you don't know who he is, how am I supposed to?”

“Gideon, I swear to you—”

“I don't know any soul named Xavier.”

He
did
know who Xavier was; it was written all over his face. I was pretty sure too that he had been off the island, in the body, and that if he were to roll up his left sleeve we would see the wounds from the barbed wire. But my father didn't force the issue. “All right,” he said. “But there had better
not be any more trouble with Xavier…or with any other
nameless
souls.” He gave this warning a moment to sink in, then turned to go.

“Has it occurred to you,” Gideon said, “that this may be a problem with honesty?”

My father stopped.

“I mean,” said Gideon, “a house built on a foundation of lies can't be all that stable, can it?” He looked at me and smiled. “Aaron never has told you, has he?”

“Told me what?”

My father turned back around. “Gideon,” he warned.

“Told me what?” I said.

“Oh, come on,” Gideon chided my father. “You wouldn't try to punish me for telling the
truth,
would you?”

“What truth?” I said. “What's he talking about?”

“I'm talking about the big master plan,” Gideon said. “The one Aaron here cooked up with old Greyface. You still think you were a part of it, don't you? But you weren't.”

“I don't understand…‘Greyface'? You mean Dr. Grey?”

“The one who just
died.
She and Aaron had it all worked out: tame the multitudes, put up the house, create a new front man—except that last bit wasn't part of the original plan.”

I shook my head, still not following.

“
He
was supposed to run the body,” Gideon said, pointing at my father. “
That
was the plan.”

“No.” I shook my head again. “No, that was supposed to be my job. My father was tired—”

“We were all
tired.
But Aaron wanted to be in charge. And hey!”—Gideon held up his scarred left hand—“he proved he was tougher than I was…or at least more ruthless. But he was supposed to take charge of
everything
…only at the last minute, he decided he wasn't really up to it. So he improvised, and called out a little helper…”

I turned to my father. “Is that—that's not true, is it?” My father didn't answer; but from the way he looked at Gideon, and from the fact that Gideon did not spontaneously shrivel up and die, I realized that it might be true. “Father?”

“Let's go back to the house,” my father said.

“Wait. Does that mean it
is
true?”

“We're not going to discuss this in front of
him,
” my father said. “Let's go back to the house.” And he turned and walked off into the mist.

“That's right,” said Gideon, “go back to your playhouse!” Then, seeing that I was still there, he decided to sow one more seed of mischief. “Speaking of the house,” he said, “there's something you can help me with. Do you happen to remember how many doors there are on the first floor?”

“What?”

“The first floor of Aaron's playhouse. How many doors does it have?”

“Three,” I said. “Front door and back door.”

Gideon nodded. “Front door and back door…and that makes three, does it?”

“Andrew!” my father called.

“I…I've got to go,” I said, and started backing away. Gideon smirked at me.

“That's right, little figment,” he said, “you go on back to the playhouse with your father. But we'll see each other again soon maybe, huh?” All at once he lunged forward, stamping his foot and throwing his arms wide as if to grab me. I fled, Gideon's mocking laughter chasing me all the way back down to the shore.

I rejoined my father aboard the ferryboat, and Captain Marco pushed off again. This time he didn't take us straight across. Instead, sensing that my father and I had private matters to discuss, he took us out on the water, out of sight and earshot of both Coventry and the mainland, and stopped poling. We drifted in the fog.

“It's true, isn't it?” I said.

“It's not
all
true,” my father replied.

“Not all…then what part is true?”

“Let's start with the part that's false,” my father said. “I didn't ‘improvise.' I didn't call you out on the spur of the moment.”

“Then what—”

“There was more than one plan. Always. In therapy, Dr. Grey and I discussed a number of options for the final disposition. One plan, the one I personally favored, is the one you know about: I would run things inside, and create someone new—you—to run the body.”

“The plan
you
favored,” I said. “But Dr. Grey didn't?”

“Dr. Grey felt…given the problems I'd had with Gideon trying to take over, she thought it would be better if I didn't share authority with anyone. She wanted me to at least try running the body on my own. She always stressed that it was ultimately my decision, but that was what she recommended. And it is true,” he added, “that at the last session we ever had
together, I did agree to try her plan. But then after she had her stroke, I rethought it, and changed my mind again.”

“Did Dr. Eddington agree with you about changing your mind?”

“No,” my father admitted. “He thought I was making a mistake.”

Which would technically make my whole existence a mistake—but I didn't care to dwell on the implications of that. Instead I asked: “How come you never told me this before?”

“I didn't think you needed to know it.”

“Was there anything else I didn't need to know?”

No answer. I took that as a yes.

“Gideon asked me a funny question right before we left,” I said, a few moments later.

“What question?”

“He wanted to know how many doors there are on the ground floor of the house.”

“Three,” my father said. “Front door and back door.”

“Yes, that's what I told him. Only…that doesn't really add up, does it?”

My father looked at me curiously. I had to count it out, holding up fingers: “Front door is one…back door is two…”

“Right.”

“Right, but then what's three?”

“Three is the front—…no. No, three is…it's…”

“I don't know either,” I said. “I know there
are
three, but—”

“Wait,” my father said. “Wait. Three is…the door under the stairs! Right, that's it!”

“The door under the stairs.” I struggled to picture it, and finally it came to me: a small wooden door, in the shadows beneath the staircase that ran up from the common room to the second-floor gallery. “Right, OK…and where does that door lead to, again?”

“Where…? It leads…it leads to…” He blinked, and fell silent.

“By any chance,” I asked next, “does the house have a basement?”

Andrew said that while he was inside, it would look like he was sleeping, but to Mouse it seems more like he's comatose: his breathing is so slow it's almost undetectable, and he doesn't move at all. When Mouse tiptoes up to the side of the bed to take a closer look at him, she notices that beneath their closed lids, even his eyeballs are still, with none of the rapid motion that signals a dream in progress.

As she waits for Andrew to come back from where he's gone, she becomes increasingly fidgety. She tries sitting in the chair but can't get comfortable. She stands up, goes to the window, and looks out at the parking lot for a while; gets bored with that, wanders over to the door, and does a Xavier impersonation, using the handle of the letter opener to whap out a rhythm against the side of the doorframe; gets bored with that, and goes back to the window. Except for the one check to make sure Andrew is really still breathing, she stays clear of the bed.

Time passes. Mouse thinks it's been at least half an hour, but when she checks the clock on the nightstand, only ten minutes have gone by. Mouse decides she needs to pee.

She goes into the bathroom. She leaves the door open a crack, enough to hear through but not enough to see in or out. She sits.

While she goes about her business, she reflects on what will happen after Andrew wakes up. He has said nothing about his intentions—whether he means to return to Washington, or continue on to Michigan, or do some other thing. Probably he doesn't know himself yet what he wants to do.

Mouse tells herself that she would like to go home, but as she continues to think about it, she finds that she isn't so sure. For one thing, Maledicta's behavior in the bar on Tuesday night has left her with a mess to take care of, if and when she returns. Mouse supposes that Julie may understand and not
fire her for Maledicta's rudeness, but if Mouse intends to keep working in Autumn Creek, she is also going to have to make restitution for the stolen vodka bottle, and she doubts that the vampire bartender will be as forgiving.

Even if she didn't have that hanging over her head, it's no secret that Mouse doesn't particularly like her life in Seattle. So maybe she shouldn't go back to it: maybe, after Andrew has been safely delivered to wherever it is he decides to go, she should just keep driving, to…well, she can just keep driving, and see where she ends up.

No.

No, that's a ridiculous idea; of course she has to go back. She doesn't have the money to just uproot herself and run away. And besides, Dr. Eddington—Mouse's flagging spirits rally at the thought of him—has promised to help her. She can't disappoint him. She—

From the other room, she hears the sound of the television being turned on.

“Andrew?” Mouse starts to call out, but then she remembers that she is sitting on a toilet with her pants down. She pulls a wad of paper from the roll and quickly wipes herself. She gets up. She doesn't flush, but steps quietly to the door, and opens it just wide enough to look out.

Andrew is sitting up on the bed, punching buttons on the TV remote control. He has a frustrated look on his face.

“Andrew?” Mouse calls softly.

Either he doesn't hear her or he ignores her. He goes on punching buttons until suddenly his frustration turns to satisfaction. “Ah!” he exclaims, and the television switches to a new channel.

Mouse opens the door a little wider. “Andrew?”

“Sorry,” he says. He looks at her, a smirk playing on his lips, and Mouse thinks:
him!
But then he says: “Don't worry, I'm not Gideon. He's with Aaron and Andrew right now, playing King of the Mountain…but since they're all busy, I thought it'd be a waste to leave a perfectly good body just lying around. By the way”—he glances around the room—“is there a minibar in here by any chance?”

“Minibar?…No!” says Mouse. “You can't get drunk again!”

He arches an eyebrow, as if to say
Oh yeah?
, but fortunately the point is moot; there is no minibar in the room. “Well, that sucks,” he says. Then he shrugs and turns his attention back to the TV.

Mouse looks at the TV too—and is appalled. The scene on the screen is a motel room, not all that different from this one…except that there are naked women on the bed.

“The Indian whacking off in the background is Hyapatia Lee,” he informs her helpfully. “And the two actually getting it on, that one is Summer Knight, and the little one is Flame.” He leans forward, as if noticing something. “You know,” he says, “she kind of looks like you…if you had red hair, I mean.” He grins. “And were really flexible.”

“I can be flexible,” says Loins, stepping forward past Mouse's horror. “I don't look that good in cowboy boots, though.” The scene on the screen shifts, showing a fourth woman, who for some reason is not taking part in the action on the bed. “Wow,” says Loins. “I wish I looked like
her.
”

“Mmm, Christy Canyon,” he says. “I bet a lot of people wish they looked like—” He stops. “Wait a minute,” he says, turning to look her in the eye.

He's not smirking anymore; all at once he's wary. Loins kind of likes that. She goes and sits beside him on the bed, giggling as he shies away. “What's the matter?” Loins purrs. “Don't tell me you only like to watch.” She puts her hand on his thigh; he gasps, tenses up…and just as quickly relaxes.

He pats the back of her hand, affectionately but with no passion. “The thing is, dear,” he says, his voice gone feminine, “you're just not my type.” He plucks Loins's hand off his leg, and deposits it in her own lap. “Now that we've got that straight, would you happen to have a cigarette?”

“No,” says Maledicta. “That cocksucker Duncan wouldn't stop to get any last night. You sure you still don't have some? You were smoking Winstons yesterday.”

“Winstons.” He—she—makes a face. “Not my favorite brand.” She frisks herself anyway, but comes up empty. “Well, if I did have them, I don't know what I did with them.”

“Could be you dropped them in that fucking ditch. You want to go get some more?”

“Yes, that would be lovely.” Offering a hand: “I'm Samantha, by the way. Sam to my friends.”

“Maledicta,” Maledicta says. “I don't have friends.” But then she grins and shakes hands. “All right, Sam, let's go get some fucking smokes before the grown-ups come back.”

They go outside. As they cross the parking lot, Sam spins around, taking in the view. “What a beautiful landscape,” she says.

“You're fucking joking, right?” Maledicta says. “Desolate fucking dinosaur country…”

“I don't mind desolate,” Sam tells her. “I've always wanted to live in a desert. If I had a choice, I'd go to New Mexico, and open an art gallery in Taos or Santa Fe.”

“Yeah? So what, the others voted you down on that?”

Sam laughs. “No vote. We're not a democracy. Aaron and Andrew make all the important decisions; the rest of us just try to fit in.” A sigh. “I
do
understand why it has to be that way, but still, sometimes I wish…well…”

“Hmmph,” says Maledicta, troubled. “Mouse had better not start expecting
me
to just fucking fit in.” She shakes her head for emphasis. “Fuck that.”

They find a cigarette machine outside the motel office. Maledicta goes first, feeding in dollar bills and pulling the selection knob for Winstons. There's a click, but no cigarettes come out. “What the fuck…?” Maledicta says. She pulls the Winstons knob a second time, then tries the one for Camels. Nothing happens. She kicks the machine; still nothing.

“Wait,” says Sam. “Try Kools.”

The machine isn't dispensing menthol cigarettes either. Maledicta looks for a knob or button that will give her her money back, but instead finds a handwritten note taped above the bill slot:
THIS MACHINE DOES NOT GIVE CHANGE; ABSOLUTELY NO REFUNDS.—MGMT.

“Fucker.”
Maledicta starts towards the office door with blood in her eye, but Sam catches her by the arm. “Wait,” Sam says. “Don't make trouble.”

“Get the fuck off me!” Maledicta says. “I'm not going to let this fucker rip me off!”

“Please,” says Sam, hanging on. “If there's trouble I might not be able to stay outside. And if Andrew comes back, he's not going to want to smoke with you.”

Maledicta hesitates, still fuming.

“Please, dear,” Sam says. “Can't we just drive to a convenience store? I'll pay for your cigarettes, I promise.”

“Yeah?” says Maledicta. “With whose money?”

“Don't worry about that. I'll just…borrow the money from Andrew, and settle with him later.”

“If he even notices, you mean…All right,” Maledicta relents, “we'll go to a fucking convenience store. But when we get back, I
am
going to kick somebody's ass.”

They get into the car, where the smell of vodka, faded but still potent, brings Malefica forward for a moment. She checks the glove compartment to see if a new flask has by any chance materialized there, but none has.

“Motherfucking Duncan,” Maledicta complains. “Hey Sam, as long as we're going for smokes, what do you say we hit a fucking liquor store, too?”

“I don't think that would be very wise,” Sam says. “Considering.”

“Fuck wisdom. We could get ripped, and make a run for New Mexico.”

“
Where
are we now?”

“Brontosaur Cock, South Dakota. It's a long fucking drive from Santa Fe, but…”

Sam laughs. “We'd never make it,” she says, her eyes shining with the possibility.

“No, but we could fucking try.”

But Sam shakes her head. “It's tempting, dear, but I think I'd better content myself with simpler pleasures. Just a cigarette, maybe two if there's time.” She pauses, concentrating. “We're going to have to hurry, though—they'll be back soon.”

“No fucking problem,” Maledicta says, and gets the car moving.

Now of course she wasn't being serious, offering to light out for New Mexico; Maledicta knows they can't
really
do that, although it would be fun to see Mouse's reaction when she woke up in Georgia O'Keeffe country. But the part about getting shitfaced—that was for real. Maledicta could use a drink; Malefica could definitely use a drink; and as for Sam, Maledicta kind of likes her—underneath the “please”s and the “dear”s, she senses a kindred spirit—but thinks she could stand to loosen up a little.

There's a mom-and-pop convenience store just up the road, but right next to it is a bar called The Pink Mammoth.
Stupid fucking name,
Maledicta thinks; on the other hand, it does appear to be open for business. She drives into the Mammoth's parking lot. Sam frowns but doesn't otherwise object.

“Come on,” Maledicta coaxes her. “One fucking drink. What do you say?”

“Do you think they serve tea?”

“The Long Island kind, maybe.”

They go inside. The Mammoth turns out to be a complete dive: Wild West decor, fucking
sawdust
on the floor, and an underscent of petrified vomit, like a pack of saber-toothed tigers threw up in here back before the last ice age and it was allowed to just fossilize. On the plus side, the bar's cigarette machine works, and despite the early hour, booze is being served. Sam and Maledicta have the place almost entirely to themselves: the only other customer is an old drunk watching cartoons on the TV above the bar.

They buy cigarettes. While Sam lights up, Maledicta orders a couple of beers. “Not for me, dear,” Sam says, but Maledicta says, “Ah, come on,” and repeats the order. The bartender draws them two Budweisers. Maledicta gives one to Sam, who accepts it but won't drink, even when Maledicta proposes a toast. Maledicta starts to get pissed, but cools down again when
Sam, without being asked, takes out Andrew's wallet and pays for both beers.

Maledicta jerks her thumb towards a pool table at the other end of the barroom. “Feel like a game?”

Sam smiles. “That would be lovely.”

They go over to the table and Maledicta grabs a rack off the wall. “You any fucking good at this?” she asks.

“I used to be. My old sweetheart taught me to play, years ago. He said I had a knack for it.” Her smile falters. “Of course he said a lot of things, but I think that one was true.”

“Sweetheart, huh? This was before Andrew got put in charge?”

“Long before. We were still in Seven Lakes then, in the house where we grew up.”

The rack's full. Maledicta slides it back and forth a couple times to get the balls grouped tightly. “Can I ask you a fucking personal question, Sam?”

“All right.”

“Do you have a cock, or a cunt?”

Sam rears her head back, like she's really put out, but she recovers quickly. “A cunt,” she says primly, “if you must know.”

“I fucking thought so.” Maledicta hangs the rack back on the wall and grabs a cue stick for herself. “You can't really tell, you know, when Andrew or Aaron are in the fucking driver's seat, but with you in the body, it's just fucking obvious. You sure you shouldn't be running the show instead of them?”

Sam shakes her head. “I might dream about it, but I'm not strong enough to cope with reality full-time. I proved that.”

“Yeah? You seem strong enough to me. Not that I'm the world's best fucking judge of character…OK if I break?”

Sam nods her assent. Then, as Maledicta is chalking her cue, Sam says: “I tried to kill myself. Twice.”

“Yeah? What for?”

“Jimmy Cahill—my sweetheart—joined the army. We were supposed to run away together, but he decided to run away on his own. He sent me a Dear John letter from basic training camp…so I tried to kill myself. Pills, the first time. I swallowed a bottle of prescription sleeping pills, and a pint of scotch—”