by Dani Lamia
I wonder what would have happened if one of us had actually lost. Would we have been taken out by a sniper bullet from upstairs?
“The Game Master is in the building,” I tell Mel and Ed. “On the top floor. Waiting for us. They want us to know they’re there.”
“Then we’ve got them.” Mel’s eyes dart to the top window, then scan the area around the house. “We’ll cover all the exits and wait for the cops to take them out.”
“Somehow I don’t think it will be that easy,” I say with a sigh.
“They’re trapped,” says Alistair. “There are people everywhere here now.”
It’s true. Neighbors are coming out of their houses up and down the street to see what is going on. We can hear police sirens on the way, surely brought here by reports of gunfire.
Our game phones all begin ringing again. Gabriella, Alistair, and I press our heads and shoulders together in a huddle and hold up our phones to see what comes next.
It is more video feed. The Game Master is wearing a Sea Farmers mask. He or she looks just like the iconic trident-wielding Atlantean on the game box. They are holding what appears to be a detonator: a big box with a plunger, right out of a cartoon.
As we watch, a taxi pulls up and my two little girls and Ben get out. I snap my fingers at the security guards and they run over to shield them.
“Keep them back,” I yell to Ed and Mel. Then to Ben, Olivia, and Jane, who should be safely tucked away in an Airbnb in Nantucket, I call, “Why are you here?”
“Mom,” shouts Olivia. “You texted us and told us to meet you here. You said it was an emergency. We flew here on the afternoon plane. What’s going on?”
I didn’t text them. But someone did.
“Everyone’s here then,” comes the Game Master’s modulated voice, blaring tinnily from the three game phones. “Fantastic. That means we can begin. As you might have figured out by now, this entire building is wired to explode and I am holding the detonator. If anybody tries to leave, I will blow the whole place up. Since it is now down to three of you, we can move on to the final challenge. It’s an easy one. The three of you just have to come inside, alone, and come upstairs, where one of you will find your destiny and the others will not. Come unarmed or I will blow everything up. Come right now or I will blow everything up. If anyone tries to leave, I will blow everything up.”
The Game Master is obviously bluffing.
But what choice do we have? We have to end this thing. We have a chance to meet this person in the flesh. To be in the same room with them. To rip the mask off their face and get justice.
I look at my brother and sister. They see the fire in my eyes. My resolve.
“I don’t want to go in,” says Gabriella.
“You have to come,” I say. “We all have to go.” Alistair nods his agreement.
Gabriella chews her lip as her face turns red. She takes a few pills from her purse, shakily shoves them in her mouth, and swallows them dry, then nods vigorously.
“If you’re going,” she says, “then I’ll go, too.”
The security guards don’t want to let us reenter the house at first. But they aren’t cops. They can’t actually stop us. In fact, they work for us. They must do what we tell them, so in the end they get out of the way.
I walk back up the steps and go inside first. I am purposeful, determined. I don’t care about this contest. I am going to find the Game Master and tear them apart with my bare hands.
I hear Alistair and Gabriella creeping into the house behind me. I immediately look over into the White Room again. I half expect to see it covered in blood. To see our mother’s corpse spread out on the floor. But the room is empty.
“I think we’re supposed to go upstairs,” whispers Alistair. I nod.
We make our way up the stairs one after the other, me, then Alistair, then Gabriella, none of us wanting to admit that we are afraid. I know Alistair well enough to know that we are both in silent accord: we are going to get revenge for what has happened to our family. We are going to get revenge against whatever butcher has cut the Nylos down, even if it means that the entire Nylo family is extinguished from the Earth forever.
At the top of the stairs, we walk down a long hallway to a door with light coming from underneath. This used to be our parents’ room. We push open the door.
The Game Master is sitting at a card table. Where did they come from? How did the cops and our security team miss them? On top of the card table, Sea Farmers is set up and ready to be played, a bottle of bourbon and three crystal glasses full of ice sitting alongside it. Three empty folding chairs await us.
“Sit,” says the Game Master in his or her strange, digitally altered register. “Please, sit down.”
We do as we are told. I look to the window and realize that the way we are positioned around the table will prevent anyone outside from getting a clear shot at the Game Master. We are being held hostage quite effectively.
The Game Master gestures to the bourbon and glasses. “You may drink if you like. It might help for what comes next.”
“What comes next?” I ask, my voice steady despite my raw nerves. As if I don’t know.
“You will play,” says the Game Master. “And one of you will win.”
That’s when I notice the revolver in the Game Master’s lap beside the detonator. They are cradling it gently, like an infant.
“Caitlyn, you are the current CEO, and Alistair, you are the brains behind developing Nylo’s most successful games and diversions. But only one of you is leaving this room alive. Gabriella, you have just as much of a shot as your elder siblings. But only one of you will walk down those stairs as the inheritor of twenty billion dollars and control of the Nylo empire. If you don’t play, I will blow everyone up. If you try to kill me, I will obviously blow everyone up. It will be best for you if you each see the logic of what must happen as quickly as possible and begin the game.”
“This is insane,” I say. “We aren’t going to play Sea Farmers while you’re holding a gun on us.”
The Game Master is implacable. They sit silently behind their mask, watching us.
“It should be you,” Alistair blurts out, turning to face me. “You know what you’re doing. I would never be able to run the company without you. There is no Nylo without you. I can be replaced. There are members of my own team who are better than me at this stuff. Designers like me are only good when they’re young, anyway.”
“Oh, shut the hell up,” I say. “Don’t give this psycho the satisfaction of taking this game seriously.”
“It should be you,” Alistair says again. “Can’t I just give up without having to die?”
“Yeah,” says Gabriella, hope shining in her eyes. “Can’t we all just walk away and let Caitlyn win?”
The Sea Farmers King shakes their head.
“Alistair, you know you are the only real genius in the family,” I say. “You inherited all of Dad’s creativity and smarts, and you are the reason this company has been successful for the last decade. You’re the only hope for the company being successful for ten more decades. Trust me: you can learn to do what I do. And if you don’t want to bother, you can hire someone just as capable to do my job.”
The Game Master crosses and then uncrosses their legs, cocking their big foam Sea Farmers head to the side.
“Enough table talk. Play,” they goad. “Play the game.”
The Game Master is right: there isn’t anything else to do here. Playing the game seems like it might buy us some time to think. To make a silent plan. Plus, there is nothing more natural for the three of us than playing this board game.
And so we begin.
The first thing we notice is that although it’s the normal Sea Farmers game board, the rules have been modified. This game includes the Kraken from the expansion pack, but not deployed in the same rando
m way as in the expansion. In this version, the Kraken can be lured by sacrificing hatchling workers. It can then be used against your opponents in a way that directly harms them.
“An interesting modification,” Alistair says after we play a few rounds. “It actually seems very intuitive.”
“It was always this way,” says the Game Master. “These are the original rules, before they were neutered.”
What the Game Master says has the ring of truth to it. It feels very natural that this would be the first incarnation of Sea Farmers. I can also see why it was jettisoned. Our father’s gaming philosophy was always one of non-hostility—of safe and gentle family fun. I can’t help but wonder if Sea Farmers would have been as successful if it had such an aggressive mechanic from the very beginning.
As we play, Alistair and I keep making eye contact and looking at the gun the Game Master is holding. If we could manage to distract them, possibly one of us could make a grab at it and try to overpower them. But the problem is that we can’t tell where exactly the Game Master is looking, because of the mask. Surely their peripheral vision must be significantly weakened, but it is still too risky.
Just as we are both coming to the conclusion that we will have to charge the Game Master at the same time—detonator be damned!—they stand up and move to one of the room’s far corners, covering me from behind.
“Play,” they say. “Don’t mind me.”
“There’s not really a bomb, is there?” I say, looking over my shoulder. The gun is leveled at me and it does not shake. I turn back around and consider the board. I roll the dice and then choose to cultivate my kelp field.
Neither Alistair nor I have the heart to put much strategy into the game. We both find ourselves sending the Kraken at each other, letting Gabriella off the hook, which means that she quickly takes the lead. There is something instinctual about this. She is the baby and we are the older siblings. Neither of us wants to be the one who kills her. We both find ourselves subtly striving for second place. This means that Gabriella is able to play the best game of Sea Farmers of her life.
It almost isn’t enough to put her over the top. As the game begins to wind down to its ultimate conclusion, Alistair and I are doing the math in our heads, counting who has the most cultivated fields, who has the most hatchling workers in seasonal rotation, who has the most stories on their Coral Castle. It will be tight between all three of us: Gabriella isn’t selling enough kelp to buy pearls. She never did understand this game very deeply.
Finally, I can’t stand it. The next time her turn rolls around, I point to the Oyster Bed and lock eyes with her. She gets my meaning. All she has to do is sell her remaining stock of kelp, turning it into enough pearls to hire all the dormant hatchling workers. If she uses her remaining action points to finish digging her last trench, she will beat me by forty points. If she doesn’t, Alistair will lay his last trench and they might actually tie.
I don’t mind losing to Gabriella, but I don’t want to be the one who clearly loses to both of them. I trade her kelp cards for pearl jewels from the box and then lay her trench for her. She squints at me, frowning. Alistair sees what I’m doing but doesn’t stop me.
“Okay, that’s it then,” says Gabriella, trusting that I know what I’m doing. “Everybody count up your score.”
We go through the motions and it slowly dawns on Gabriella that she has won. Has she ever won a game of Sea Farmers? I can’t ever remember her beating us. She seems perplexed.
The Game Master walks slowly back to the table, looking at the board.
“That’s 180 for me, 140 for Caitlyn, and 130 for Alistair,” says Gabriella. “I guess that means I win.”
Now is our chance to rush the Game Master. Alistair and I both tense up.
Gabriella pushes back her chair and stands up. She grins. She crosses her arms.
“I won,” she says, turning to the Game Master. “Just like you said I would.”
What the hell? I flick my eyes at Alistair.
“What are you talking about?” Alistair demands. She grins at him and opens her mouth to speak.
That’s when the gun goes off. Gabriella flies backward against the wall with a giant bullet wound in the center of her chest. The hydrostatic shock bursts blood vessels in her eyes and she chokes on the blood that pours out of her mouth as her body slides down the wall.
I am frozen in place. Alistair takes a step toward Gabriella’s gasping frame and the Game Master shoots him next, firing twice, hitting him in the side under his arm and then in the neck. He falls across the card table, sending pieces flying. The bottle of bourbon crashes to the floor and shatters.
I whirl around just as someone new runs into the room. It’s Angelo Marino, coming from the bathroom across the hall. Has he been in there the whole time? My ears are ringing and I don’t know which way to turn. I feel so vulnerable. So porous. So shootable.
Angelo Marino runs to Gabriella, shouting at the Game Master. “What are you doing? Why did you shoot her?”
He skids to a halt on his knees beside my baby sister and wraps his arms around her, glaring at the Sea Farmers King with furious eyes. The Game Master doesn’t respond. They lower the gun, but only for a second, and then raise it back up again, firing three bullets into Angelo Marino’s back. At least one of them travels through his spine and hits Gabriella in the torso, knocking her head back one final time. She stops breathing.
I am covered in blood and bourbon and glass fragments. I am paralyzed, standing between the three dead bodies and the person who filled them with bullets. The Game Master fishes in their pocket for more, then snaps open the revolver and reloads the gun.
They walk over to Angelo Marino and roll him over. Finally, the Game Master takes off the mask, shaking out a smooth mane of hair. It’s blond like mine, cut at the shoulder. The woman spits in Angelo Marino’s face and then turns around.
Somehow I know even before I see her sparkling green eyes, her familiar jaw. It is my mother, Misty Lynn Nylo. Her makeup is immaculate. She looks good. She looks healthy. Definitely not dead.
“Hello, Caitlyn,” she says.
36
“That was the hard part,” she continues. “Now that we are done with all of that, we can get to the easy part—the sorting everything out, darling.”
“M-mother?” I stammer. I want to scream. I want to weep. I want to throw my arms around her and hug her until my shoulders go numb. I want to smash her face in with my bare hands until all the bones in my fingers and wrists are broken.
I take a step toward her and she raises the gun again.
“Why don’t we both sit down?” she says in a calm, listen-to-your-mother kind of way. “I can only assume you are just full of emotions. We can have a little chat. You look ragged. You aren’t getting enough sleep, huh? I suppose that is probably all my fault. Sit down, Caitlyn. Stay a while.”
I don’t feel like sitting. I don’t feel like doing what I’m told. But she sits down first and I feel awkward standing there with my fists balled while she points a gun at me. I pick up one of the fallen chairs and right it, then lower myself slowly, feeling nauseous and confused.
“You killed Alistair,” I say. “You shot Gabriella.”
“Yes, I suppose I did,” she says. “I have a little secret to tell you: she was only your half-sister. She was Angelo’s daughter, and that’s why he helped me with my little game here. That’s why I had to shoot him, too. You know, I didn’t expect you to let her win like that. I suppose you are just a better person than I am. But I guess that’s what this is all about. You have so many admirable qualities, darling. I guess I had to put my thumb on the scale there at the end, but I think I made the right decision.”
“You killed Dad,” I blurt, a fuller realization of the big picture settling in. “You killed all of them.”
She stares at me, almost smiling. It is really h
er. Not some actor or a hologram. I feel warm and tranquil, narcotized somehow. I hate her so much that I feel floaty. And I also realize just how much I have missed her.
“You are a monster,” I say. “You are a fucking psychopath.”
“Yes, I suppose I am,” she says, smiling slightly. “You have every right to feel that way. I have indeed killed them all, just as you say, one by one. Everyone who stands in your way. It’s not something you asked me to do. The truth is, I had planned to do it a long time ago. It would have been harder back then, back when you were all children. I suppose I am a bit of a coward. I always hoped my feelings would cool. That my hatred would settle down. But it never did, darling. And when Angelo came to me and told me about your father’s will, well, I knew I had to finally do something.”
“You were working together,” I say. “You and him.”
I gesture to Angelo Marino, who is bleeding out on the floor.
“Yes, well, we have a long history of using each other,” she says. “He helped me disappear all those years ago, back when you were all children. He relied on his connections with the police and mafia to help me fake my own death and start a new life in China, and he made sure that I never wanted for money. The walls of this house have secret doors that lead to secret tunnels. Angelo built them in the off-season and I used them to escape. He found some other corpse with my features, my proportions. In return, I let him love me in his way, even promising to help his daughter ascend to the top of the Nylo empire. It was a lie to be sure, but he didn’t have to suffer long with the—what did he always call it—the sting of my betrayal. Oh well. Can’t be helped.”
“But why?” I ask. “Why did you do it? How could you kill all of us? How could you kill your own children?”
She smiles at me knowingly. “Not all of you. You have always been my favorite, sweetheart.”
I think of Olivia and Jane and my mostly ambivalent feelings toward them. I’m not exactly the epitome of maternal and I don’t think I’ve ever had a favorite, although I’m sure there have been moments when I’ve liked one more than the other. But as I think about my mother’s actions, I am overcome by a feeling of darkness, recalling all the times when I have hated them or wished I hadn’t been so naive or stupid as to think they would make my life easier or change me for the better as a person.
