“Yes.”
Once more he showed both sides, arm steady, wrist arcing the wand up and down. She watched attentively. “Now…” With the wand pointed at her waist he swept his other hand over the wand, hovering over it by inches. As the trailing end of his hand cleared the wand, sapphires now gleamed into view one at a time. Six deep blue sapphires in place of the rubies.
Her eyes widened. “Do it again.”
“As you wish.” He cupped the wand out of view, opened it once again, showing both sides to be rubies. A swift fly-over by his left hand (she focused to see if the hand touched the wand and it did not) now revealed six sapphires. Then, as if to throw her into a greater state of bedazzlement, he showed her that both sides of the wand were now sapphire.
“No way. May I see it?”
He handed it to her. Eagerly she flipped it over: rubies. She flipped it again: sapphires. She inspected the item for a switch or button or doohickey that might change the precious stones at will. He watched amusedly as she found nothing to aid in the magic trick.
“How do you do it, Breuer? You said you can’t do magic.”
“I can’t perform magic. I don’t lie, precious Maeve. As for the wand—just as your problem with your folks, just as any problem in the world—the solution to the problem at hand isn’t best solved with magic.” He stole the wand from her, pointed it at her waist in the same fashion as before. “Solutions are best solved with the mind, Minnow. The mind.” He performed the trick again only much, much slower. “Watch carefully.” He arced the wand up, then down. Up, then down.
“You’re twisting the wand as you’re raising it!” she exclaimed, this time with the good sense to mind her volume.
“Exactly. You’re seeing the same side at both angles. You can’t see me flipping the wand over unless I do it slowly.”
“So you do the same thing after you turn it over to the blue side. That’s so cool! And so simple! One side is permanently blue, one side red. Can I try?” She took it from him, and without delay mimicked his movements. It wasn’t long before she executed the trick flawlessly. She smiled from ear to ear, hopped up and down. “Can I keep it?”
“You bet.”
The shack door opened. Four adults plus two additional—the two who claimed stake to Maeve’s hide—walked out. “Get in the car,” her mom barked; it might have been one syllable. Maeve nodded and scurried along in front of the adults to the wagon. She listened to them talking about grown-up stuff that she’d never understand. She figured it was probably best that way, anyhow. They laughed over something and began their goodbyes.
Maeve was in the backseat of the wagon, head resting against the window. The thrill of the trick was well behind her; anticipation of her punishment replaced it.
Breuer sat beside her, shaking his head. “Don’t waste your tears on them. They don’t deserve it.”
“I can’t help it,” she said in no more than a breath.
He patted her knee reassuringly. “Do you know what they were up to in that decrepitude of a house out here in the middle of nowhere?”
She shook her head against the window as she stared morosely at a lone daisy not ten feet away. Was it a love-me? Probably a love-me-not.
“Religious zealots. All of them. Nut jobs. Whackos. They think the world will end soon. There are enough cans of food in there to feed all of Ethiopia for a month. Or your mom, once.”
He didn’t get so much as a smile out of her on that one.
Both front doors opened at once and the weight of two adults—the passenger side weight much more encumbering than the driver’s—rocked the wagon before the doors closed shut. The only sound in the quiet cabin of the vehicle was her mother’s labored breathing. Maeve kept her eyes closed, refused to see her parents’ expressions. In her mind’s eye she could see them, an ugliness so powerful that not even the blind could escape it.
“Yeah, you’d better cry,” her mother scorned. “Just wait till we get home, missy.” She looked closer at Maeve’s clothes and the dirt mottling them. “Your clothes! They’re filthy!”
“Good,” said Luke. “She can wear them just like that to school tomorrow.”
“Mmm, no. I don’t think so. I don’t think your daughter will be going to school tomorrow. I think she’s coming down with the flu again.”
A tear rolled down the windowpane. Her lower lip quivered.
“It’s like I’m talking to myself over here,” Breuer said, to himself. “Did you not hear me when I said you’d be fine? Golly gee, Mae-Vee. If you and I are going to work out, you’re going to have to start having at least a smidgeon of faith in me. The size of a mustard seed is all I ask, and I don’t even get that much from you.”
“I can’t help it,” Maeve replied. “This is all your fault. I hate you.”
“What the hell did you just say?” Mother turned to face her. “Pull the car over, Luke.”
“No! I’m sorry, that wasn’t to you! I didn’t say that to you! Or to dad!”
“Then whom? If not us, then whom?” In a uncharacteristically calm voice, she said, “Maeve, be honest with me. Are you imagining Jasper again?”
“No. I swear I’m not.”
“Is there a new one? What did I say about imaginary friends?”
“That they’re for retards and psychics,” Maeve replied and hiccupped.
“Psychos, not psychics. If you weren’t talking to Jasper, you were talking to me. You said you hate me. Didn’t you?”
Maeve shook her head. Another hiccup, only it wasn’t a hiccup but a sob.
“Luke, I said pull the damned car over. This is getting fixed right now.”
“No,” Maeve begged, “please don’t. Please.”
“Babe, I don’t think that’s a good idea right now,” Luke said cautiously. “Hal is behind us. He’ll stop and ask if something’s the matter.”
“You bet your daughter’s damned soul something’s the matter!” She sharpened her dark eyes, eyes like a raven’s, on Maeve and said, “Maybe Hal would like a turn at disciplining this little heathen.”
“It’s going to have to wait,” Luke said firmly. “We can’t have the Parker’s see this. It’s embarrassing. Especially when their kids are so well behaved.”
“Ain’t that the truth.” She faced Luke. “How’d they get so lucky? We really got screwed, you know? She gets it from you, not me.” She huffed and faced forward, folded her arms below her sizeable breasts. “I don’t know how I’ll make it an hour without punishing her, but I guess I’ll try.”
“Pray. It works for me sometimes.”
Chapter 6
They had been driving for some time (too long; it wouldn’t be long before they got home). Maeve watched the stalks of corn wiz by under the bronze late-afternoon sky. Her stomach rumbled. The half bowl of Cheerios was spent hours ago. No lunch had been a no brainer. Would there be dinner? No way, Jose. She took a quick mental inventory of her food stashes in her room and remembered she’d stowed away some grapes. When was that? A week ago? Two? Would they still be edible? Maybe. She wondered what her parents may have snacked on inside the shack. Something. Surely something. People don’t get to be upwards of three hundred pounds by skipping meals.
Life sucks, she thought. Anyone who says otherwise is lying. At least the crying stopped. There’s that. Like it mattered. Soon she’d be crying all over again so why stop now?
“Mae-Vee, Mae-Vee, how’s it going over there, princess?”
“Don’t talk to me,” she whispered.
“I know you’re upset with me. That’s understandable. But you’re going to need to put that behind you for a moment. Can you do that for me?” She shrugged. “I’ll take that as a yes. Now do as I say. First, you need to unbuckle and hop in back.”
“You’re crazy.” Even with the radio playing moldy-oldies and the cabin noise being what it was, she somehow knew that Breuer could hear her quietest voice. Heck, he could probably hear her if she just thought the words. “They’ll pull ove
r and hit me.”
“They can’t. There’s no shoulder for them to pull off to. You’re fine. Remember the mustard seed? I need you to have more than that right now. We don’t have forever, so hurry up and get in the back.”
“Why? How’s that going to help the price of tea in Tennessee?”
“Thank God you have nothing in common with your mother other than your stubbornness. Just do it. I haven’t said one thing that should give you cause to doubt me. Besides, you’re going to take a beating one way or another, be it in the car or at home. The best warriors are those with nothing left to lose, and sweetheart you’ve got nothing left to lose. Hop in back.”
She stared at him undecidedly.
“Please?” He exaggerated a frown. “I’ll tell you what: if you do it, I’ll get you a brand new kitty tomorrow. Deal?”
Yeah right, she thought. Like they’d let me have another pet after what I did to Brewer.
“I got news for you, sweet-tits. You didn’t leave the gate open for Brewer to get out and get himself squished flat. That was Luke’s doing. And it wasn’t an accident, mind you. He hated that dog ever since the day he stepped in its shit. So he did what he did and blamed you for it. And like Jesus, you paid for Luke’s sins in the flesh. In black and blue flesh. Red flesh?” He scrutinized her. “Yep, it was Red Trouble.”
Maeve was speechless.
“What, like that should surprise you? They probably would’ve been happier if it had been you who got hit by the car. You’re quite a pain in the ass to them, you know?”
You’re so mean! You’d better get me a kitten, and you better cross your heart and hope to die that nothing bad happens to my kitty. Because if it ends up like Brewer, I’m going to be crossing all kinds of streets that day.
“Just what is that supposed to mean?”
Oh? Mister Breuer doesn’t know everything after all?
“I never claimed to know everything. And I think I do know what you mean. You’re going to get yourself hit by a car? Is that it?”
She glared at him, then went back to the window.
“My God, woman! Ten years old and already contemplating suicide?” He shook his chubby little head and said, “I guess that’s to be expected, having June and Ward Cleaver over here as your parents.” He crossed his heart and said, “Nothing bad will happen to your kitty. I promise.”
She nodded, took a deep breath and unlatched her seat belt, clambered over the vinyl bench seat and sat in the back. Now what?
“I’ll get to that,” Breuer assured.
“Maeve! You little sh—brat! Get your rear-end back to your seat! What the hell is wrong with you today?”
“It’s show time,” Breuer said. He jumped in back and gave her specific instructions.
“I can’t say that,” Maeve said.
“What did you just say?” Mother said in an octave reserved for her fiercest of reproaches.
A brief pause. “I wasn’t talking to you, fatty,” Maeve repeated, word for word. “I was talking to Jasper. Jasper says you’re going to heck.” She amended, “Hell. You’re going to hell.”
Her mother faced forward, placed a hand on her chest and began hyperventilating. “Luke, pull over this second. I’m going to kill your daughter. I swear it, I’m going to kill her.”
“Uh… there’s nowhere to pull over, dear.”
“Just stop the car. I’m going to die this second if I can’t”—she glowered back at Maeve and snarled—“whip the holy-hell out of that rotten little shit!” She gasped and covered her mouth. Oops-a-daisy.
“Ooo, you said shit!” Maeve cried triumphantly. “Shit! You said shit! Oh, you’re so going to hell now!”
For a moment her mother was calm. Maybe she never thought in a million years she’d ever hear her daughter utter those words, or maybe it was just the calm before the storm, but when it ended, it ended with atomic fury. She clawed at her seatbelt while spitting threats of bodily injury over her shoulder. In her hysteria she couldn’t get the seatbelt off. It took every bit of her concentration to unlatch it. It freed. She bellowed insults and promises to Maeve as she moved to climb over the first of two bench seats.
“Babe, don’t do that,” Luke warned. “You’ll hurt yourself or get stuck. Here, I’ll pull over as soon as I see a place to, okay?”
She didn’t hear a word of it. She heard belts cracking, fists pummeling, cries for mercy, but she didn’t hear a fucking word. But she saw. Hell yes she saw. She saw red.
But she would have done well to heed Luke’s advice, because he was right in his concern. Like trying to stuff a ham through a mail slot, or a Twinkie under the bathroom door, she wedged. Wedged between the bench and ceiling. Her boobs somehow made it over and hung over the seat like two gigantic water balloons in a cloth sack. She was pinned at the gut.
Being wedged, in itself, wasn’t what cranked up the rheostat of her rage to murderous levels just then. She was unable to punish a certain little heathen shit and that was just too much to endure. “Come here you little bastard! Come here this second or you’re dead! You hear me? Dead! You get your filthy mouth up here this fucking second!”
Breuer continued to coach Maeve.
“You’re not my mom!” Maeve snipped. “You’re just some disturbed bitch who can’t please her husband. That’s why he has to go buy prostitutes and lie to your fat ass by saying he’s working late.”
Nagasaki and Hiroshima, together they detonated in the heart of the beast, incinerating whatever fray of sanity, if any, had remained.
Thus far Luke had been content with waiting until they were home to dole out a licking with old blacky. But that was then and this was now. With that little remark she didn’t just cross the line, she dashed across it while flipping the bird and spitting on him. He looked back with the caliber of rage more characteristic of his wife: maniacal, unfettered, unyielding. He spat altered versions of his wife’s threats, and vowed that Maeve would get what she deserved.
“He’s right,” Breuer said to Maeve. “You’ll get what you deserve. Now lie down flat and close your eyes, precious.”
She did as Breuer instructed. In addition, she prayed to God. Prayed that she wasn’t going to be murdered by her mom and dad, and that seemed like it required nothing less than a full-blown miracle just then. She felt the body of Breuer straddle and lay down on top of her. She prayed as fast and hard as she could.
Maeve didn’t hear the dub-dub-dub-dub of the tires rolling over the reflective warning-globes. The wagon had veered partially into the opposing lane. She wasn’t cognizant of the frantic horn of the eighteen-wheeler barreling toward them. When the rig clipped the driver’s-side of the wagon head on, Maeve went to sleep. It was a nice long sleep. She’d awaken to a new beginning. A rebirth into a new world.
Chapter 7
Maeve woke up confused in an unfamiliar environment with bright white light from overhead fluorescents. There were charts on white walls, pale green tile floors, machines doing God knows what. It was the hospital, she decided. A chubby face with a shock of charcoal hair was smiling at her from a nearby seat. Breuer waved his fingers at her.
“Where’s my kitten,” she asked hoarsely.
“It’ll have to wait until we get out of here. But I never have and never will lie to you. You’ll have your kitten, Maeve Minnow.”
“What happened?”
“You know what happened. You suspected what was going to happen all along, didn’t you?”
She frowned, reflected back. Then it hit her. Hit her like an eighteen-wheeler. An accident. That’s how Breuer would see to it that she would never be punished again. She began weeping.
“Now-now, I’m not big on tears.” He stood up. “For Pete’s sake! There’s nothing to be sad about! All your troubles are going to be buried sometime early next week! Closed casket, my guess.”
Her crying worsened.
“Geez Louise! I do you a favor and all you do is cry? Some gratitude!”
“It’s not that,”
she said, eyes too blurry to see more than a dwarven smudge giving her the what-for. “Thank you, Breuer. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
A nurse checked in, then went for the doctor.
Chapter 8
Two doctors, a uniformed police officer, and a man in a suit entered the hospital room in a procession. They all wore the same somber expression hidden behind a measured grin. The doctor with more gray in his hair caressed her hand. “Hello, dear.”
“Hi.”
“How do you feel?”
“Sore.” She moved her head: a bolt of pain like a charged live-wire surged the length of her neck. She hissed.
“Honey, don’t do that. If all you are is sore, that’s nothing short of a miracle. We’ve taken some fancy x-rays of you last night and you are going to be just fine.”
“I could’ve told you that,” Breuer remarked haughtily.
“Are you feeling up to answering a couple questions from a nice man?” the doctor asked. “It’s rather important.”
“Kay.”
“I’ll be outside the room momentarily.” He patted her hand and left the little room. The other doctor and the uniformed officer followed him out. The man in a suit approached the bed, hands folded together loosely at his lap. “My name is Lieutenant Hornsby.” He rolled his eyes at his words. “Let me try that again. Hi, I’m Bob. It’s a delight to meet you, and I’m so very sorry for your accident. And even more sorry for what I’m about to say.”
“Don’t be,” Maeve said. “I already know. They’re dead. Right?”
A solemn nod. “May I ask you something personal?” She shrugged and consequently winced. “How does that make you feel? That they perished in the accident?”
What should I tell him? Maeve thought.
“The truth,” Breuer replied. “Why the hell not, huh?”
“How I feel… how I feel about them being dead? I’m supposed to feel bad. I know that much. Bob, I don’t. I don’t feel bad. I feel good about it. Does that make me wicked? It does, doesn’t it?”