Freistaat Roost

Fritz and Ada were rich. But the word stayed clipped and colorless until Con, rushing in to wash for dinner, found wrapped boxes jumbled like big shiny blocks on her bed. One box on Lordie’s bed, too. She raced down to Cherry, on the second floor.

“What’s all that stuff?”

“What stuff?” Cherry yelled back. She was in the shower.

“Is it for me?”

“I don’t have the foggiest what you’re yakking about, Cutie—can’t it wait?” The water surged. Con climbed upstairs again, half-expecting the boxes to be gone.

Lordie crouched in torn paper like a bug in a flower. “Spy dis, Con! I got new sneakers. And a big-guy shirt.”

“Sneakers? They fit?” Reaching for a box of her own. The paper spangled with silver stars. Stars were angels, so Sparrow believed … “Ooh, Lordie. Spy. A fest dress.” She swirled it high. Palest blue, with satin ribbons for shoulder straps. Lordie wrinkled his nose.

“And fest shoes.” Creamy white, like shells. “And underwear—”

“Underwear?” mocked Lordie, but Con didn’t mind. She fingered the pants, sniffed their newness. Her old ones were grey with no elastic left.

“Wow, helf, disun weighs a ton.” She knelt, tearing with both hands. “Hey Lordie, books—”

“Stories?”

“Let’s see … ‘Die Bru-der Grimm.’ Aws, deutsch stuff. Only spy, color pictures! And something, Gramma … Grammatik. I can’t read this stuff.”

Lordie pounced, rifled pages. Con ripped open the rest: two more dresses, bright tee-shirts, a matching brush and comb set. She touched her matted hair, which hadn’t been combed in days.

“You made a mess,” accused Lordie.

True. She stamped the paper flat, shovelled it into empty boxes.

“How come you get more?” he asked. “Sag, Con, why?”

The dresses lay spun over her quilt like pinwheels. She didn’t know why. She thought suddenly, when I’m big I’ll get us rich. I’ll hol you everything. But that when was far away. All she could share now were the books, heavy and mysterious and rubbed with dust. Fairies and trolls and princesses illustrating stories she couldn’t read.

Tall clustered candles jumped at Con when she walked in, feeling nearly naked in her filmy blue dress. She wished she had Glor, that she wasn’t too old to take him to dinner. She held Lordie’s hand.

“Closer. Closer. Is she pretty?” Ada sounded anxious.

“Dazzling,” said Fritz. “A Rhine maiden. A mountain nymph—”

Con looked down at her white shoes. The room seemed hotter than usual. Her face burned.

Cherry said, “Okay, Cutie. That’s enough posing, God knows we’re impressed.”

Flanking her, they scraped their chairs into position. Piano music drifted like thin rain. Con eyed the chink in the linen closet door, wondering whether a black-haired maid watched from inside. She had never felt so watched.

A sudden bang made her flinch. “Huzzah!” cried Fritz, waving a volcanic bottle. White foam sizzled over his wrist as he filled Con’s glass. “Happy birthday, dear girl!” Ada and Cherry and even Lordie repeated in chorus. Bewildered, Con drank. The bitter foam exploded inside her mouth.

“It’s not my birthday,” she whispered to Cherry.

“When in Rome,” Cherry whispered back. “You tell ’em. December fifth November fifth—who cares?”

“Ahem.” Standing, Fritz raised his glass. His upward gesture drew Con to her feet, as if he were the director and she the actress in his play. “A toast, hm? To the fair Konstanza, about to enter her, ah—”

“She’s ten,” interrupted Cherry. “I’m sure of that.”

“Ten,” repeated Con.

“Oh my … the pivotal year. Double digits. Ten. Now the great adventure begins, eh? Self-awareness, self-discovery, ratio! I sometimes think all the years that follow are merely repetition, variations on whatever personal theme—” He paused. Piano notes fell through the silence. “Do I hear Schumann?” He turned to Ada, whose eyes were damp again.

“Debussy.”

“Ach ja. Well now! To her … happiness, then?”

Glasses clashed dangerously around the table. Con swallowed more fizz.

“You don’t drink to yourself,” warned Cherry, tugging her skirt.

As they sat down Ada passed shallow bowls of soup.

“Ad lib. Ad hoc,” said Fritz apologetically. “I wish I had my father’s knack for toasts. I’ve gone rusty, here.”

“One doesn’t celebrate,” murmured Ada, “alone.”

“Oh, modest. You were terrific.” Cherry tipped back her drink.

Con slowly stirred the soup. It smelled like forest earth. Pale chips floated in the grainy liquid.

“Pilzsuppe. Mushrooms,” Ada explained.

Con leaned shyly to Fritz. “Our father liked mushrooms,” she said. “A lot. I think.” It was a question. Why didn’t Fritz, if he was the friend, talk about her parents? Was it bad behavior, to mention someone dead?

“Mushrooms … Laurence did? Your father?”

“The child remembers, Liebster,” said Ada. “I remember.” She touched her eyes with her napkin.

Con suddenly glimpsed two more guests at the table: a tall splendid couple confident of welcome. Mommy and Daddy.

“Well natch. That,” Cherry burst in, “was the whole awful irony! At least, the story I got in Munich was—” She paused, glancing at the children.

Fritz waved as if erasing air, while staring at his wife. “In the mountains, Charity, so much is never totally clear.”

“Well. But they were hunting mushrooms. And apparently—to each his own—munching them right there on the spot. Raw. So I mean you can’t help speculating … What’s that kind called where you have wild hallucinations?”

“Psilocybin?” answered Fritz. “In the Alps? Unthinkable.”

“But something like,” insisted Cherry. “To make them high.”

Ada, a fast though inconspicuous eater, had pushed her bowl away. “I only wish …” She stopped, and gave her own cheeks a light slap. “This is terrible, now. On the Geburtstag!”

“Hey. What are you talking about?” Lordie looked different, with the white shirt collar high and stiff under his fingerlicked still-damp hair. Con wondered if he too noticed the glimmering pair of guests, so stubbornly out of focus. For once he wasn’t eating.

“Nothing of import,” Fritz said firmly. “But you: you’re a lucky boy. Your father was a man to be proud of. Extraordinarily gifted. And hardworking. Generous. He never held a grudge—” Fritz’s voice rolled up deep and strong, the same voice that had made the speech to Con. She felt a queer thrill.

“Handsome,” Ada put in, smiling again. “Like the young James Cagney, we used to tease him. That Appelbaum charisma.”

Fritz shrugged. “At first Laurence and I sniped from opposite sides of the same question—the nature of behavior, from my point of view, the behavior of nature, from his … But then Laurence befriended us. He took us—strangers!—into his home, his parents’ home. In Chicago, such a refuge! There was wine. Argument! Books, and music, and politics. Oh, Charity. Granted you were merely a child—but surely you remember how I mourned. As if your parents were my own.”

“For Christ’s sake.” Now that Cherry was used to the Palace, she’d begun to sound more like herself. “How did we get going on all this old stuff?” The green eyes, lowlidded, swept Con. “I told you kids, right? Kind of romantic, really, I can say that now. You were just a baby. I babysat you, for a buck an hour! About my mom dying of cancer and Dad going only a few months later. Honest to God, a broken heart.”

Con nodded sharply. It wasn’t the story she needed to hear.

“Such closeness,” Ada mused, “often leaves little space for children.”

Fritz said, “It was Caroline who managed everything. She was … pregnant. She was magnificent, no?”

Ada made a humming noise. Cherry chewed her lip. The name ‘Caroline’ pealed echoing in Con’s head, over and over. Her head was a bell.

“Death—” Fritz stared around, defiant, “breaks down barriers. Things occur which otherwise … The four of us drew even closer together. Brothers and sisters.”

“Liebster,” said Ada. “Bitte nicht.”

Fritz pressed a hand over his forehead. He spoke to the tablecloth. “You know. I’m convinced that his dissertation, once completed, would have changed the course of—”

“For heaven’s sake.” Cherry wriggled irritably. “We’re talking about my brother. Not Einstein. Not to speak ill, but he was only twenty-five.”

“So. I was seven years older. But I looked up to him.”

“Please.” Ada’s twisting hands made the large blue ring flash. “How I wish—oh I know it’s senseless, to blame one’s self after so many—”

“Blame for what?” asked Cherry.

“Our sending them there, you see—”

“Don’t” boomed Fritz.

“We sent them,” Ada spoke to Cherry, in a rush. “I planned the—itinerary. Fritz paid for their tickets. How could they have afforded that? Even then I knew—I told them—it was really our plan, our trip, since we wanted so much to go back, but … We weren’t ready. A favor to us, I said. Take pictures! I even said, you shouldn’t die before you’ve seen those mountains, that sky, those frozen ripples of snow out to the horizon—” She clapped her napkin to her mouth.

A black-haired maid began to shake meat on their plates with a giant silver fork. When she came to Con she hesitated. “No hunger, Missy?”

Con shook her head, pressing back into her chair. The cooled soup smelled sweetish, decayed. No matter how she turned she could feel the live warmth from Fritz’s body, from his legs sprawled under the table.

“Frankly,” Cherry told Ada, “You’re way too hard on yourself.”

“Hey,” said Lordie. “Somebody look. Con’s not feeling good.”

“Du armes Kind!” Unspilled tears sparkled in Ada’s lashes. “No cake? But you found my books, at least! You like them? Charity tells us you’re an excellent little reader! Tomorrow you’ll read to me, yes?”

“I don’t feel—” desperate, Con pushed back her chair.

Cherry’s dry hand on her forehead released a shudder. “You may be excused.”

At dawn, under the grudging eye of a maid scrubbing ovens, Con and Lordie breakfasted on the last thick slice of Ada’s hazelnut cake.

“Today you got to lees to her,” Lordie reminded.

“Naws. Aget das.” She took a loaf of bread and two apples from the refrigerator. The maid scowled. “Coom, Lordie. You got alles?”

He held up his canvas bag. Con shouldered hers. “Okay.”

Some days the mist was dark as smoke. This morning it shone from inside as though the sun had crawled underneath the earth. Con and Lordie felt their way from shrub to shrub.

“Bin blind. Like Ada, yah?” Lordie chuckled.

“Mebdid.” Con was heading toward the Library, to get the compass.

Lordie coughed and coughed. Con tensed. Sometimes Herr Morito tracked them by Lordie’s cough. “Hey Con?”

“Yah?”

“How come Cherry’s anders?”

“Oh. Because—” She stopped, unsure. Cherry was changed. Not as nervous as on the first days but still pretending … Pretending what?

“Anders is alles. Anders.” Lordie hopped on one leg, humming, coughing.

The dark wall ahead was the Library. Con flipped over stones, searching for the key. Centipedes ran under her fingers. No luck.

“Con—” Lordie gripped her arm. They heard a spring creak, then gravel scattering. The mist shredded as someone rushed away.

“Ghost,” he whispered.

“Naws … Ghosts don’t need doors.”

Lordie cupped both hands to his mouth, stifling another cough. From inside the Library a voice boomed, “Charity? Who’s there? Hello?”

They tripped each other, backing into dripping rhododendrons, then whirling to face the silvery lemon grove. Flying. Leaping from rubble heap to rubble heap, skirting Fritz’s unfinished lake. Legs and arms pumping. When Con pulled up, alone, fog from eucalyptus trees rained down her neck. She gave the bluejay call.

Lordie cawed back. His white tee shirt, then glinting damp hair swam toward her in the mist. His solemn grey eyes. “Loss my bag, Con.”

“Wit Bett?”

“Yah.”

“Sad …”

They walked on, stumbling over rocks and roots, in a strange part of the garden. Con had her map but without a landmark it was useless. Sadness made Lordie hungry. She fished a chocolate bar from her bag and broke it in half.

Ahead, the trees were thinning. Con moved faster. Lordie cried, “Ward for me, Con—”

“Spy!”

They stood on the edge of a clearing. Here the mist was dissolving, streaming upward like steam from a pot. Beneath, a tiny house appeared—a slant-roofed shack, encircled by a rickety fence that caged vigorous weeds.

“Nobody home,” said Lordie.

Rusty wire covered the high windows. The door fell open at Con’s touch. She saw ropy cobwebs, a plank floor, and everywhere clumsy streaks of white paint. The air smelled stale. Spicy.

“Naws,” said Con. “Nobody ever cooms here.” Even Fritz and Herr Morito, caring only for cultivation, wouldn’t stray this far into the wilderness.

A bench was nailed around three walls. Wide enough to lie on, high enough to ward off rats. With a branch ripped from a sapling outside Con began to sweep the floor. Within minutes her clothes and bare limbs were coated with grey powder. She ordered Lordie outside, to escape the dust.

“Alles junk out here!” he called.

“Spy for a bucket!” Because what did they need? Blankets and food could be smuggled from the Palace, but most precious to settlers was water.

After a while Lordie returned, bumping a steel tub up the shack’s single step. “Ooh neat, Lordie …” Although scaly with rust the bottom looked sound. “Nights, it can fill up wit rain …”

Lordie hiked himself up on the bench. He sneezed, happily. “We gonna bleib here?”

“For noo. For escapes. Yah.” Con looked around at her work, the settling dust. Her heart was beating fast.

“Just ours. Let’s bleib for immer, Con.”

“Naws …” she laughed, tempted. “You got to go to schule again, Lordie. Me too.”

“You can lees fine already. And you lern me better than schule guys. Lots. I’m gonna pay attention Con, I speeg you—”

“We’ll bleib for just aday. Else Cherry’s gonna miss us.”

“Hey. Cherry’s got frents now. For good.”

“Mebdid. Mebdid naws. We got to stick by.”

Lordie drew his knees tight under his chin and glared at her. “You denk too much on Cherry. Not right, Con. She don’t denk on you.”

“She does, too!” Con kicked the door, to let in sun. How could Lordie know what was true? He was still little, living in fairy tales …

“I wish we could spiel a Play,” said Lordie mournfully. “A Marriage Play. Or a Conquest Play. But I loss Bett.”

“We’ll get her,” Con promised. “But we got one Am. Glor.” Unzipping her bag she brought the bear to light. He had left his crown and cape of Wisdom behind, in Chicago. But he was still King.

After the Battle of Bernstein, Am’s brave forces retreat to their caves. King Glor, separated from his troops, wanders alone in thick fog way out on the borders of Empire. This is the region Am’s mapmakers paint full of seamonsters and dragons, not knowing what really lives there. Glor prowls on, circling, crossing his own tracks, without sun, moon, or stars. The mist cools his wounds. He’s not afraid. But Glor is lonely, especially for his true mate, Queen Bett. He wishes the mist would burn off so he can make discoveries, bring home some news. Maybe this land will turn out to be warm and rich, perfect for a colony. The Ams have lived a hard life, lately.

But what if the land’s dangerous: nothing but rocks lining a bottomless cliff? What if Bett, who fearlessly led her own red-caped troops into battle, is also wandering alone, near by? He calls her name and ‘Bett, Bett’ echoes back. Glor wonders: if he finds her, can they settle in this silent place—though he likes silence, after battle—far from the challenge of ruling a Kingdom?

Night is Glor’s worst time. He claws his way through sharp leaves, strange birds laugh at him. They laugh at his great plans: to build an Am University. A hospital. A museum.

He’s tired of Wars.

And tired of hunger, sickness and freezing winters. The Ams need him—or do they? What is Glor’s power? Ams bow to him but really worship the other Gods, Girl and Boy—who are also Glor’s Gods. Maybe those Gods make everything happen—maybe they’re pushing him along this steep dusty trail, right now. Or maybe not. Maybe they don’t even keep count of the battles and sacrifices, the pairings and births—maybe they’re too busy in their own world. And maybe they have Gods over them, who can’t even look into Am. And maybe those Gods have their own Gods, who might or might not think Am mattered—

“That’s horb,” objected Lordie. “Not a Play.”

“It is,” said Con.

“Nothing happens. But we can’t lass him noo …”

Con frowned. Glor’s ruby eye gleamed through a veil of dust. “Glor gets home anyway,” she decided. “By himself.”

Her throat scratched from Play talk. She brushed Glor and poured KoolAid from the thermos in her bag. Lordie’s KoolAid moustache shone like red cellophane. “Con? If we hol’ all Ams back, then can we bleib?”

“Lordie—”

“When we’re bigger?”

“Hoer noo. When we’re bigger …” Con sighed. Last night she had lain awake, restless and queasy, thinking hard. She couldn’t not tell him. “I got to hol me a job. For when there’s no big guys left around. An then we can go places, any places. Spy, guys don’t immer bleib—”

“Naws, Con!”

Lordie tackled her, knocking over the thermos. “Hey, cut it out—” But he was straddling her, hauling her up by the shoulders then shoving her down into suffocating dust. Con strained, jackknifing, but couldn’t topple him. Her head banged on the planks. “You’re hurting, Lordie, quit—”

He sat heavy on her. “Don’t geh places, Con. Don’t lass. Speeg das.”

“Lordie—I’ll always spy you. And take care of you—”

“Naws.” He rose up, panting, pinning her wrists. “Bin spooked Con. All days. You got to stay wit.”

Con pretended to relax, then shot her knee high into Lordie’s belly. He grunted but didn’t budge, not even when Con jerked her head up, snapping. She grazed his arm but Lordie was quicker, letting loose for only a second and then only to clamp her harder against the ground. The spicy dust burned her lips and nose. “I hate you, Lordie—”

“Naws! Speeg, Con! I bin hurting, too—”

She bucked and heaved, rocking higher. Then, scissoring one of Lordie’s legs she twisted sideways, full strength. He fell with a cry.

But Con wasn’t free. They had only changed places. Now it was she who sat astride, wrestling him down. Splinters bored into her knees. “You promise—no more crazy hurting—”

“Naws, Con—lass me geh, I hass you—”

“But I got no choice …” Con hung her head. Her arms were steadily trembling the way Cherry’s hands sometimes did. She thought of Glor, circling in the Forest: this might never end.

When she opened her eyes again tears were creeping across his dirt-smeared cheeks on crooked paths. Unable to let go, Con began crying too. The drops spread into Lordie’s shirt.

Then he coughed. His chest sucked in as though from a blow. The cough, lying deep, was turning his face dark. He tried to move.

Slowly, Con loosened her aching fingers. She scrambled away. Lordie half sat up but then, coughing and sobbing, curled over on his side.

“My my my. What have we here? Hansel and Gretel? Babes in the woods! Are you both all right?”

Wakened by the voice, Con rubbed dust in her eyes. She tried to see across the shack to Lordie—who was either still asleep, or faking.

Fritz said, “You should have come home last night, Konstanza.”

“I’ll get Lordie up—”

“Wait. Oh dear. You’re shivering.” His hand approached like a question. The narrow hand was covered with silky dark hairs, and wherever it stroked Con it made her warm.

Fritz had chocolate. They ate as they walked, Lordie scuffling behind. Fritz was telling Con the story of a Roman emperor who had made an experiment of keeping small children in a huge cage with food but no adults allowed, to see if they’d make up language on their own. I suppose you and your brother reminded me, Fritz said. Then what? Con was about to ask, but when the Palace came into view, framed by tall black cypresses, she stopped.

“You’re not frightened?” asked Fritz.

Lordie’s sticky hand gripped hers. She squeezed back, hard.

“A dormant household,” said Fritz. “No need to rouse them yet.” As though giving in to pleas, though in fact they’d said nothing. It occurred to Con that Fritz heard everything, better than a normal person, this morning. Maybe he had a new battery for his device.

He led them down fresh-raked pebbles—toward the Library, where they rested outside under the timbered eaves, on a granite slab. “My oasis.” Fritz leaned against a rounded corner post. “On occasion,” he tilted his head, “I even spend the night in there … So. Everyone runs away sometimes, hm?” Con pictured him stretched on the slippery leather sofa behind his desk. Who would choose to sleep on sofas?

A scuffling from inside made them turn. “Dratted raccoons?” asked Lordie. Con saw a shadow sway left, then right.

“Only Herr Morito,” smiled Fritz. “Flicking away my traces.”

“The Library’s already clean,” said Con. “Not like—” The place had no name. “What’s that place for?”

“Where I found you?”

“Yes.” Con stiffened. With his own black pocket comb, Fritz had begun to work through the snarls in her hair. His left hand cupped her nape so she barely felt the tugs.

“That was once the chicken coop. Until we came. I can’t abide ground fowl—nattering, pestridden—”

“No it’s a house,” Lordie objected. “Way too big for chickens.”

“But you both saw the droppings? The proverbial chicken shit?”

Mortified, Con tried to brush off the grey dust clinging to her legs. Fritz laughed. “Even birds can live on a grand scale.”

“It’s big enough for kids,” Lordie insisted.

“Well, for you two … I suppose! Would you like to have it, then? For your own?”

Con gasped. She felt a greedy pang, sharper than hunger, felt suddenly more mistrustful of herself than Fritz.

“Sorry. Warn me if I pull too hard.”

Against his palm Con shook her head.

“Almost finished … Of course, you’ll want a deed. To make your claim official. Of course the coop’s on my land but that needn’t be a problem … We’ll declare it a Freistaat! You know about the Freistaaten, Konstanza? Ancient city-states, enclaves of free commerce and culture … tolerance. Oh, all that was good. Shall we?” He grinned. “Freistaat Chicken Coop?”

“That’s yuck.” Lordie frowned.

Con imagined chickens roosting, wing to wing. It was wrong to ignore where a thing came from, how it started. “Freistaat Roost?”

“Superb.” He called to Morito. A brown hand reached paper and pen through the door. Fritz smoothed the paper on the stone step and began to write:

I the undersigned, Friederich Freiherr von Bernstein, do hereby assign all rights and title to …

Lordie shoved against Con for a clearer view. She saw the names emerge letter by letter: Constance and Laurence Appelbaum. Her heart jumped; she could have done cartwheels, somersaults through the lemon trees—

“There. Now we’ll just have it witnessed.” Fritz stood up abruptly and disappeared inside. Clay chimes strung along the roof tinkled and Con’s cleansed, loose hair lifted in the breeze. Was he changing his mind? Lordie’s eyes, black pools, held hers.

“Done!” Fritz crouched between them, grinning. The skin above his beard glowed red. He folded the paper twice. “You’re children of property, now … Who takes charge of this?”

“I do! I do!” Lordie snatched the deed and ran off, reeling, into the lemon grove.

“Only you be careful!” called Con, just before Fritz lifted her into his lap, holding her by the hollows of her knees. Then he kissed her, cheek and brow, chicken dust and all.

Two sentries, one redhaired, one silver, waited on the marble steps. Ada reached out with hands splayed like starfish but it was Cherry’s glassy stare and crumpled working mouth that drew them, slowly. “Babies.” Kneeling on the hem of her dress she hugged Con and Lordie so tight to her ribs and heartbeat that no one else could hear. “Upstairs. Understand? Until I get there. How could you do this me?”

Late in the day, when Fritz cornered Con on the second floor landing, she kept her arms hidden behind her back. The pressure of his thumb on her chin made her look up.

“I only wonder …” Fritz began. “Oh. I hope everything’s all right?”

Con nodded. She knew he was wondering about the Deed. “I didn’t tell.”

“Ah.” He studied her. “It’s just as well. Best so.”

When he was safely gone she stared at her wrists again, thinking about what to wear, to cover them. Raw scrapes, not really bruises … Handcuff marks, Lordie had judged: she’s hag agin. But Cherry had been so scared, and shamed, she said—she couldn’t stop herself. Her weeping had made Con cry too. This time at least Con was protecting Cherry, not shaming her.

The next morning Cherry gave them each an orange—though there were oranges everywhere—to show she had forgiven. That whole day and the ones that followed had a new rhythm, as if time was coming back.

Cherry read magazines about Health. She drank water constantly, napped, and practiced ballet exercises barefoot on the lawn. While Fritz worked supervising his Lake she lay sunbathing on a chair in the rubble, near him. She didn’t tan, but her skin took on a fevery blush.

Herr Morito found Bett, snagged in a rhododendron. He turned friends with Lordie, showing him how to sprout new roots from a twig. He cooked a eucalyptus syrup for Lordie to drink at night, against the cough.

And Con spent hours each day with Ada, in the waxed front parlor, learning a soft graceful German unlike the one she’d known. Con wore the sashed dresses; her hair was combed. Ada said she had a gift: a musical ear. Soon Con spoke German when asked—though afraid at first of Cherry’s reaction. But Cherry didn’t take offense, at all.

Using rainwater from the tub, Con and Lordie scrubbed every corner of the Freistaat Roost.

They rolled the Deed into the hollow belly of a porcelain bird, but when one of the maids found it and left it open on the dresser, on purpose, Con was alarmed. She hid the Deed deep in her travelling bag, with Glor.

“Bald wird es Weihnachten,” Ada sang. “Was wuenschest du, zu Weihnachten?”

Christmas … soon? Here, where lemons and roses grew? Christmas meant a cold cloistered day which despite decorations and candy and the three careful piles of presents left Cherry bitterly morose. “Ich wuensche mir …”

“Ja ja?” Ada blinked encouragement. She never surrendered words and never lost her patience, either. But this time it wasn’t a word Con missed: only the wish itself. This, she thought suddenly. Us staying here. The thought made her anxious, as if some invisible beast had just crept in. The heavy furniture looked blurry; the parlor was turning dark.

“Was brauchst du, eigentlich?” What do you actually need?

At dinner Cherry, reaching for the salt shaker, knocked it over. Ada pinched into the spill then tossed the grains over her shoulder like someone flicking a flea.

“Jesus,” Cherry muttered.

Ada said, “Surely you don’t object to my asking? Regarding your plans?”

“Plans. Well yeah.” Cherry snowed salt over her plate. “Well. Maybe I should run for President? Want to back me? I mean Cousin Lyndon’s dead, right? The graffitti’s on the wall.” She flashed her grin up at Fritz. He watched her intently, as if no matter how loud she spoke he had to read her lips. “Or—” Cherry’s nails tapdanced on her glass, “I could always go back to Chi-town. The Great Society racket. Or—unless space is at a premium?” Her grin faded. In a low voice she said, “I could stay here.”

Con looked down at the snowy hills of her napkin. She gripped her knees, hard.

“Fritz?” Cherry asked. “Hey. Don’t everybody leap in at once!”

“This is hardly—” Fritz coughed. “Charity. The children.”

“But we should talk. Later,” Ada said.

“Sposed to geh.” Lordie tugged. Con jerked loose from habit, though her wrist was no longer sore.

“Ward,” she whispered. “I got to hoer.”

They stood with their backs pressed against the wall, outside the double dining room doors. She didn’t need the spyhole of the linen closet to hear the voices. There was no music, tonight.

“Agreements,” Ada was saying. “We would need firm arrangements. Some legal assurance. It’s not as if they …” Con strained to catch her words.

Cherry answered something she couldn’t understand.

“Of course we want to help you!” Fritz said. “Charity. Forgive me. At first I had no idea how distressing the situation …”

“They are really—how do you say?” Ada sighed sharply. “Utterly verwaist. Gone to nothing. Neglected. It isn’t a matter of money! I can’t imagine … How you choose to conduct yourself is of course absolutely your own—”

“God damn it!” cried Cherry. “What is this? The kids? They’re all you care about? Me, you’d just as soon see fall through the slats?”

Silence. All Con heard was Lordie’s hoarse breath.

“I have to say—” Ada began.

“No you don’t. Fritz, you say something. You know me, right? What they mean to me? What I’ve sacrificed? I can’t believe you think—I swear, if anyone ever …”

“Does he know you? I do, Charity. Although I still don’t understand. Perhaps I prefer not to? For you, ‘falling through the slats’ is a matter of choice. You see, I am trying very hard to be reasonable, to control my—to control my—”

“Charity. I realize you’re feeling … angry. But surely not at her? Listen to her! It’s time we faced reality. For their sakes.”

Con felt sick. Sick-afraid. Sick for Cherry, too, who was inside, alone with the others, being shamed. She turned to Lordie, to say she couldn’t listen any more, but he was gone.

When she fell on the bed he unbuckled her sandals and pulled the quilt edge over her legs. Then she heard Lordie padding around the room.

“Troubles, Con? I brang you Bett too …”

She almost smiled into the spikey grey fur. Lordie, trying to take care of her.

From the tower they could hear the grownups’ voices ebb and flow, rising through their open window. Twice they heard a wail, shrill as an anguished cat. Heavy-eyed, they blinked at each other. Though the highest voice was Ada’s they were remembering old nights, alone with Cherry.

When they were finally asleep, nervously dreaming, she burst into their room. The light flared.

“Wake up!” Cherry ordered. “You kids. Come on.”

Con pretended to sleep. Cherry jerked away the lavender quilt. “You heard me. So sit up. Don’t you pull that crap on me.”

“What’s wrong?”

“We’re leaving. Right this minute. Now.”

Con stumbled out of bed. Lordie was awake, too, he sat hunched on his pillow, staring, with his quilt up tight around his neck.

“Why?”

“Cutie for Christ’s sake—” Cherry was sweeping their clothes into the canvas bags, mixing everything up. Con jumped to help her. She pushed in Ada’s books. The bag wouldn’t close.

“Lordie, hey. It’s your stuff too.”

“You want to know what they’re really scandalized about?” asked Cherry through clenched teeth. “The goddamned stupid rent. Believe me. All I asked for was a little support—I mean Christ, what happens to you kids if I end up in the clink? What you don’t understand is—the rich.” She spat the words. “They just love to see us crawl—” She dropped Lordie’s bag to whirl on Con. “You don’t actually think it’s just the rent, do you? Well think again. No woman’s that blind. Poor little feeble her, just waiting. Hey—if you ask me she asked for it, she even wanted it, take the heat off. Juiceless bitch. Holier than thou. Unfit mother, she called me. So who the hell’s a mother? So what’s she know? Lilith, he called me. Sweet-talk. A sweet-talking man … Who the hell’s Lilith?” She laughed fiercely. Talking to herself. Examining the porcelain bird before stuffing it in her coat. Throwing shirts, shorts, socks at Con and Lordie. “Get dressed.”

“We’re not going.” Con sucked in a deep breath. “We don’t have to.”

The slap made her ears ring. She felt the sickness rushing back.

“Oh God,” whispered Cherry. “Oh Cutie, oh hell—I didn’t mean to. You’re my everything, all I’ve got …” Her face looked crumpled, like a messed up puzzle. Con tried to whisper back: I know. Then there was a white flash, and Lordie yelling, “Hag! Hag—”

“Cherry don’t—just let him alone!”

“Okay. Okay. Then you tell him, Cutie. Tell him. We’re out of here.”

Rain was falling in the garden. Con pictured their tub by the shack, the midnight drops pattering in, the water level rising. Some day the tub would overflow.

The main gate wasn’t locked after all—not from the inside. There was an eye in the wall, Cherry explained, that controlled the lock: letting people out though not back in again. And that’s what happened. Con saw the round red eye wink, as she passed through.