by Patrick Ness
His dad closed his eyes and started to pray, loudly. “Oh, Lord, please help my son. Please help him on his misguided path–”
“Then we did it a second time. Even better than the first, because it was like this new kind of closeness–”
“I rebuke this sin in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ–”
But Adam didn’t feel rebuked. He felt powerful. He felt the thrill of burning down his own house. It wouldn’t last, he knew that even then, but the moment had come for him to be dangerous, and finally, this once, he was going to take it.
“I had him inside me, Dad, so you can’t even pretend it’s a phase.”
“I pray for you to cast the devil from this place–”
“Quite a lot of things with our mouths, too.”
“Jesus, please, I beseech you–”
“He’s really hairy down there, which you wouldn’t think on such a clean-shaven guy–”
“ADAM!” his father shouted, in a voice Adam could remember him using only once or twice in his life. He tensed, realizing he was waiting to be struck. His father had risen, his arms were out from his bullish body, one meaty hand braced for a slap at the very least–
But it never came. Adam would forever wonder how much fight had gone on inside Big Brian Thorn not to land it.
“You will never speak to me like that again,” his dad said to him.
“You’re the one who begged me to be honest with you. Not my fault if you can’t take it.”
“You’re going home. You’re going straight home and you’re not leaving the house for anything except church and whatever Christian school we’re going to find for you.”
“It’s my senior year. I’m not changing schools.”
“I’m not interested in your opinion on the matter.”
“And I’m not interested in yours.”
“Adam,” his dad said, all warning now.
“And I’m going from here to meet Angela. And I’m going to the party with her. And I’m not going to stop seeing my boyfriend.”
“Yes, you are.”
And here, Adam did something he couldn’t ever remember doing. He stepped towards his father, as a physical challenge, a show of the bravery his anger was making him feel but which he knew would run out fast.
His father, astonished, stepped back.
“Do you know why I’m going to do all those things?” Adam said. “Because they’re my family. They love me. They are who I go to when things are hard. That hasn’t been you for years, Dad, and do you really never wonder whose fault that is?”
“I am your father–”
“A father with conditions. I have to be a certain way to be your son.”
“Through prayer, everything is possible–”
“I don’t know, I’ve prayed for years to change your heart. Nothing’s happened so far.”
“Adam–”
“I’m going.”
“You are not.”
Adam waited to see if his dad would stop him. There was no contest if it came to bodily restraint. Adam had edged up taller, but his dad outweighed him by at least a hundred pounds.
But his dad didn’t move.
“Do you even love me?” Adam asked.
“More than my own life,” his dad said, immediately.
“But you don’t want to have to do anything with that love. You don’t want it to have to work.”
“You have no idea how much I work to love you.”
And there it was, the blow after all. Even Big Brian Thorn seemed to realize it because he didn’t try to stop Adam as he left The House Upon The Rock, got into his car and drove off to find Angela.
Drove off to find his family.
She has killed them all, and they have welcomed it. They have seen the Queen that the faun sees, and she has judged them and found them wanting, a sentence they have accepted with a relief so palpable he could almost see it being expelled in the air.
One by one, they drop to the floor of their cells as she passes. He hurries to restore life to them, knowing even as he brings them back to simple unconsciousness that they will curse him in dreams for their revivification.
This is what the Queen does. This is why she must remain away, hidden from those who cannot see her truly. This is why the agreements were made in the first place. But they will fail if he cannot get her out of here.
It will not matter to him. He will be the first that she kills. But he values his world, values his own life, values his Queen’s above all else. They will not end if he can help it.
And so he brings breath back into the lungs of the dead men, one by one, as she kills them, one by one, steadily making her way to the end of the corridor.
The man she wants is in the last cell.
They are nearing an ending, the faun knows. He wishes he knew what it will be.
She reaches the man’s cell. She turns to him. The Queen and the girl, Katie, turn to him, and they are now so interleaved that neither is entirely sure which of them speaks.
“Hello, Tony,” they say. “My murderer.”
THE GET-TOGETHER
“Oh, Adam,” Angela said, as she set the last of tonight’s pizzas on the conveyor belt that would take them under the flames.
“I know.”
“Jesus.”
“I know.”
“Do you think they’ll come here? It’s not like they don’t know where I work. Emery does all those big orders for your church teen group.”
Adam’s phone was a billboard of unanswered texts, most of which were variations on Come home right now. But they were only texts. No one had actually called him. Except, oddly, Marty. Over and over again from Marty. Who finally texted, too. Please tell me you’re okay, bro.
“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.
Adam paid Emery for thirty-six pizzas, which even with Angela’s staff discount came to nearly three hundred dollars.
“You don’t have that much money,” Angela said, as he refused to take any of hers.
“I said I’d get them.” Adam picked up the first stack to take to his car. “The Garcias will pay me back.”
“You aren’t sure of that.”
“I remain optimistic.”
“Despite everything else that’s happened today?”
“Because of it. How much worse can it get?”
“Oh, dude,” Angela said, panicking, looking frantically around the back room at Pizza Frome Heaven to find some actual authentic wood to knock on. He took the pizzas out to his car; they were taking his rather than Angela’s as it could hold more. His phone buzzed again as he put them in the back.
Marty. Again.
“For God’s sake.” Adam took a deep breath. “Hello?”
“Oh, praise God.”
“Just ‘hello’ is fine, Marty.”
“They’ve been worried sick.”
“About what, I wonder?”
“That you’d do something to yourself.”
“Do you really think this family is worth killing myself over?” Angela came out with the second stack of pizzas rising nearly to the level of her eyeballs. He helped her one-handedly put them next to the others.
“Adam–”
“What do you want, Marty?”
“You know what they want. For you to come home.”
“No, not what they want. You. What do you want, Marty?”
He didn’t answer at first, and Adam was ready to hang up, but then he said, “I want to feel safe.”
“What?” Adam said, sounding so surprised, Angela looked up.
“Everything’s…” Marty started. “Just sort of falling apart, isn’t it?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Angela whispered to him, “Is everything okay?”
“I think Marty’s lost his mind,” he whispered back.
“Well,” she said, “would that really be a surprise?”
“Are you there?” his brother asked.
“Yeah. What are you talking about, things falling apart?”
“Well, Dad’s crying and Mom’s really mad–”
“Neither of those things surprise me.”
“And they’re both talking about quitting the ministry.”
This stopped Adam. But not for long. “That’s an empty threat.”
“I know–”
“They’re trying to manipulate both of us.”
“I know, Adam, I’ve lived with them longer than you have. I’m just saying, they’re really upset.”
“Upset isn’t the same as the world falling apart.”
“You haven’t seen Dad’s face.”
Adam took a deep breath. “Yes, I did, Marty. I saw it when he suggested it was my own fault my boss touched me. I saw it when he tried to cast the devil out of me. When he told me all the conditions I needed to meet before I could be his son–”
“I don’t believe he said that–”
“He didn’t say anything like that when you told him about Felice?”
Marty was quiet.
“Marty, he told me that he had to work to love me.” Adam took another breath. “And maybe he’s right on that one.”
“The fuck he is,” Angela said, louder now.
“Angela’s there?” Marty asked him.
“Marty, I’m going to go now. I’m not responsible for your life feeling safe. I might have been, once, if anyone there had cared–”
“It’s because I care–”
“On your terms. No one else’s.”
“There are only God’s terms.”
“Goodbye, Marty–”
“Adam!” He said it loud enough to stop Adam, who just breathed into the phone, waiting for what his brother had to say. And what his brother ended up having to say was: “I love you, bro.”
Adam’s throat gripped, but he was angry that it did. “Do you, bro?”
“Without condition.”
“I wish I could believe you, Marty.”
“I know that they don’t.”
“What?”
“I know they don’t. I see it with my own two eyes. Do you think I’m blind to how quickly they forgive me and how slow they are to forgive you? Today most of all.”
“Why do either of us need to be forgiven so often?”
“It’s … it’s not Christian, what they’re doing. How they’re acting.” Adam heard a car go by on the other end of the line. His brother must have gone outside to make the call. Wanted to make it away from their parents. “That’s what I meant about things not feeling safe, Adam. They screamed about me and Felice but then they just… Opened their arms after your news. I was supposed to be on the same team as them. Against you.”
“Marty–”
“I’ve committed my life to this. I’m not perfect, bro, far from it, but I know that love can be perfect. I just… I want you to know that I know I’ve been doing what they’ve been doing. For too long. I’ve put conditions on you. I’ve looked at you with pity.”
“I know. It’s been a carnival of delights.”
&nb
sp; “And I’m sorry for it, Adam. I can’t say sorry enough. But my world isn’t safe if I can’t love my own brother. That’s what it really felt like today. And that’s not a world I can live in. So I love you, Adam. And whatever help you need from me to fix all this with Mom and Dad… Well, you got it.”
Adam was silent again.
“You still there, bro?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe don’t come home just now. Maybe let me talk to them. Maybe go to your party.”
“It’s just a get-together.”
“Let me see what I can do. If anything.”
“I’m not asking you to, Marty.”
“You shouldn’t have to. It should be what a brother does anyway. I should be protecting you. As much as I can.”
“I’m not changing. I can’t.”
“As of today, bro, I’m no longer asking you to. Look, that’s Mom coming out the front door. I’m assuming you don’t want to talk to her?”
Adam heard “Is that him?” in the background of Marty’s call.
“I really don’t,” he said.
“Take care of yourself, Adam,” Marty said. “And remember I love you. I’m going to act a lot more like it from now on.”
Marty hung up. Adam stared at his phone, like he’d just hung up on a call from outer space.
“What happened?” Angela asked.
“I don’t even know.”
“Are you going home?”
“No. Not yet.”
“You choose your family, you know,” she said. This was something she often said. Almost her mantra, especially as she came from the best-chosen family he’d ever met. “I chose you ages ago, Adam Thorn. Your family is here.”
“I know it is,” Adam said. “But maybe it just got one person bigger.”
“How can it be you?” the man asks. He has urinated himself – the faun can smell it – and he seems to be trying to fold himself into the back corner of the cell in an effort to get away from her. “This is a nightmare. Something the screws are doing–”
“I will silence you again.”
The man voluntarily closes his mouth, but the faun can still hear him whimpering.
“I have come…” the Queen starts to say, but then she stops. The faun waits, long enough that he can move around to see his Queen’s face. With an astonishment that will accompany him through the rest of whatever brief eternity is to follow, he sees confusion there.
