Page 125 of A Better World

They kept on with their hissing and their spite.

Linda felt a presence. She turned, and down the aisle at the other end of the room, like a groom, was a man in all-reflective black, wearing a crown of bones.

“And the three must go, with five minutes’ head start,” Jack bellowed.

Linda faced Keith Parson. This was not a joke. This was really happening. Her whole family was about to be slaughtered by the Beltane King. Even as she knew this, even as her body felt the truth of it all through to her marrow, she thought:impossible.

“We have to go through there?” she asked, looking at the stone door, her voice loud to be heard over the hissing.

“Into the Labyrinth to meet your fate, for the glory of us all,” Anouk said.

“But we don’t want to.”

“Too late for that,” someone muttered.

“He’ll kill them right here, at this rate,” someone else said.

Linda’s knees wobbled, her joints gone soft. Everything shook with adrenaline, but she had no place to funnel it.

“Mom. We go!” Josie cried. And then, Hip, too. They pulled either side of her. “Mom!”

The three of them were through the door, and into the Labyrinth. From behind, Russell chimed in at last. “It’s a joke, right? You’re kidding? Even so, it’s unacceptable. We surrender our deposit. This is over. We’re leaving now.”

In his shining black, Keith seemed to float down the aisle, his chest puffed as if this were his promenade.

“Absolutely not,” Russell said, once he noticed Keith.

“Get out of the way,” Heinrich said. “There’s room for you here. Enjoy the party.”

“But it’s not serious. It’s a game,” Russell said, as a kind of question, even as the crowd continued theirSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

“It’s a game,” Lloyd answered, only all his charm was gone, his expression slack, his eyes drugged and glossy.

“Can I go instead? Let me be the one. Take me instead,” Russell said. And then, to Keith in his shining skin suit, who had closed in, “Back up, okay? Can you back up?”

“Too late to switch,” Jack bellowed. The sound was unlike his soft speaking voice. It was that of a megachurch preacher. The girl nuzzled his wrinkled neck. “This is the law! This is the way of Hollow. Too late to switch!”

“Back up!” Russell barked as Keith approached. He blocked Keith’s entrance to the Labyrinth with his body.

Linda and the twins watched through the aperture. Everything in the Labyrinth was dark, everything in the belly of the shelter bright. It was like watching a screenie in a theater, all their attention focused on Russell and the crowned, bulky man in fluid black.

In stories, this part was where the reluctant hero comes to Jesus. He figures out that he was blocked by something outside the story, a Byzantine force, and something within, too. In a story, Russell would have connected his childhood to this moment. He’d have recognized some haunting, buried trauma that had made him the type of person who buried unpleasant things. The type of person who froze at a raised voice or a paradox. He’d have seen how this past had rippled through to his present, compromising his ability to connect to his children, because when they most wanted to talk, to tell him about their badday or a feeling inside them, he least wanted to listen. He’d allowed only his wife through this complex network of defenses. In his quest for peace, he’d sometimes lied to keep her there. Often, he hadn’t even known he was lying.

The hero would have had a great, life-changing epiphany, not a glimpse that unwound itself into nothing after every second guess. His love for his family would have been the fulcrum of change. It would have given him near-superhuman strength. He’d have killed Keith Parson, made a speech, and left town with Linda, Josie, and Hip. Gathered evidence and taken it to the courts, offering himself as a whistleblower. The Farmer-Bowens would have driven off into the sunset of the unknown.

Real life is very different from screenies. He came to Jesus. He had all these epiphanies, and it was too late.

They watched this scene, framed by the door, and it didn’t seemlessreal. With the hissing and the thrumming, it seemed like something that was happening not just outside, but inside their bodies, too.

Keith bumped his chest against slender Russell, who staggered back. “What is this?” he asked, his voice muddy from the drink.

“Just stand back,” said Heinrich.

SSSSSSSSSS!

For a moment, it appeared as if Russell would retreat by necessity, to save his own life. But then, he glimpsed his family through the door, in the dark. His eyes washed over them like a flashlight, settling on Linda. Much was exchanged in that look: fear, regret, pain, disbelief.

There was too much between them, too much to possibly ever say, and then again, there was just one thing: love.

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