Page 90 of A Better World

He took her hands, kissed both cheeks, then her lips. Whiskey-breathed, he held her too tight, too long. “Have you lost your mind?” he whispered.

“You didn’t see them?” Linda asked, her cheek pressed against his fancy new suit. “Gal’s kids?”

“I didn’t see any kids. There’s no kids here.”

She pushed on him until he loosened his hold. Gawkers had followed them out. The soccer parents Amir and Farah, of course. And Ruth Epstein. Jack Lust, too. It felt surreal. These people were ghosts. Everyone was a ghost, shadows of the people they’d once been. They’d lived too long in fairyland, and now they could never go home.

“I saw,” she said. But what, exactly, had she seen?

His face was smeared. Everything smeared. “Did you have the wine? It’s laced with psilocybin,” he said.

Things swam. Russell was holding her again, too tight. “Help me find them,” she said, crying now. “Why do you keep lying to me? Why won’t you help me?”

“Where? How? Do you even know what they look like?”

Everything spun. Linda stopped fighting. She leaned into Russell. The air was bending, becoming dense. She was swallowing too much. “Jack’s asked us to leave. I need to get Hip. Stay here,” he said, then thought better, and took her by the hand as they crossed back to the pool and collected their son. The party was quiet now. Between straggling balloons with curlicued pig tails, eyes watched.

They were back in the mansion. The goat wasn’t tied to the banister anymore. It lay vacant and heavy, its body too large for the altar, its head and neck sloping down on the one side, its raggedy hind weighing down the other end. Everything melted, colors all around. The goat dissolved into the floor, and blood sprayed out across the party like sprinkler water, caking them all in death.

“Do you see? Do you see the goat?” she asked, meek now.

“Affirmative,” Russell whispered, squeezing her too hard. “Quiet down.”

“They killed the goat. They’re murderers.”

“No. It’s a prop, like on Samhain. It’s not real,” he said as hereached out his finger to the red, turned it in the light where it glistened. “It’s corn syrup.” She snatched that finger, tasted its confusing sweetness.

“My God, what is this place?” she begged.

The BetterWorld and ActHollow boards of directors were by the altar. Jack’s expression stayed flat, his eyes dead as coal, but there was something in his upturned lips that seemed like amusement. Lloyd appeared horrified, his mouth gaping in shock. Daniella and Anouk followed her with their eyes. They lookedthroughher, and it felt to Linda like a thousand small knives.

She followed Russell, pushing through to the front door and out. Lights strung across the porch smeared into lines, burned holes through the dark revealing the awful beneath.

“What happened? Is Mom okay?” Hip asked from far away. She was between her son and her husband, each of them holding an upper arm as they all headed for the car. Hip’s voice was scared. For the first time she understood that a war was happening inside him. The Farmer-Bowens were all fighting private, lonely wars.

“Too much wine,” Russell said.

A flicker, like a light switch. Hip’s compassion died. His fear won. “But everyone said to be careful with the wine. She should have been careful.”

They were in the car somehow, Russell driving.

“I saw them. I know it,” Linda said.

Russell’s jaw locked in anger. “You did a lot of damage.”

“What did she do?” Hip asked.

“Insulted our hosts,” Russell said.

“You ruined everything!” Hip cried.

She turned to Hip in the back seat. Everything was bleeding and running. The car was melting and underneath it was the Great White Caladrius from the history book, from the shelter that first day she’d toured. It had been waiting all this time. They were in its belly.

In Linda’s mind, everything went red. The belly became teeth. She kept her eyes on Hip, but she couldn’t see him. Not clearly. He was smeared. They were all bloody smears.

In the morning, everything hurt. But that didn’t stop her. She left the house before any of them were awake. She went to Gal’s house, opened the back screen, then the aluminum door, both unlocked.

Change had happened. The kitchen was scrubbed clean, the appliances all new, some still Omnium wrapped. The living room furniture was gone. In its place, two overstuffed suitcases.

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