Page 85 of The Forest of Lost Souls

Not many years earlier,minionswas a serious word; now, like a lot of other words, it’s cartoonish. Wendy has thought a great deal about what is happening to her world. She believes the evolutionofminions—and the degradation of language in general—is less because it is associated with characters in an animated-film franchise and more because most of the people in the leadership roles of every profession in this society are simpleminded and sound like cartoon characters every time they use the language—or as though they have stepped out of a bizarre world in a dystopian graphic novel. As a consequence, these cartoonish people are busy shaping a future world as unreal as Batman’s Gotham or Mickey Mouse’s hometown, a world that is therefore sure to fail.

With the windows draped against the prying eyes of minions, Wendy settles in the kitchen to plan and prepare a five-course dinner. She looks forward to a candlelit meal at a table set with beautiful linens and fine china and an array of silverware ranging from butter knives to coffee spoons. Although she appears to be as informal as a character in a TV sitcom about young moderns, she is at heart more suited to life atDownton Abbey, a traditionalist who places great value on order.

She expects visitors no later than three o’clock. At twenty minutes past two o’clock, a softbing-bongissues from the through-house speakers of the music system, indicating that the gate to the backyard has opened. She is not surprised that they have entered her property from the alleyway rather than the street, because of course they will wish to be discreet.

She opens the door and steps onto the porch as they approach along the walkway that’s flanked on both sides by red begonias. The one in the lead wears a gray suit, white shirt, and black tie; he’s about five feet eight, so fresh-faced that he might be a Mormon youth come to share the promise of his church, except for a smile that curls into a smirk at the right corner of his mouth. Whatever knife he carries, it’s sure to be sharp enough to gut a crocodile.The second guy is very tall, as solid as a vault door, with a broad face as blank as that of a golem whose skull is full of mud.

Before the smaller of the two can announce himself or state his purpose, Wendy says, “You look like Galen Vector sent you,” as if she is unaware that Vector is most likely dead along with the others in the hunting party that went after Vida.

“Who sent me doesn’t matter,” the suit replies. “What matters is the message I’ve been instructed to convey and the seriousness with which you receive it.”

“So you’re an attorney. Come in, and bring your notary public.”

“He’s not a notary,” says the lawyer.

Wendy smiles. “I didn’t think he was.”

She decides not to offer them either a beverage or cookies.

They sit at the kitchen table. Wendy doesn’t expect to need a firearm, but she occupies the chair that has a pistol fitted in a spring clamp under the seat.

“I know that you love your half brothers,” the attorney says. “You want the best for them, as do the people for whom they work.”

“The Bead family,” she says.

The smirk, which has seemed like a permanent feature of his face, vanishes in a solemn downturn of the lips. “I don’t know who that is,” he lies.

“If you say so. Now what have you been sent to tell me?”

“For their own good, your brothers need to evaporate.”

“Evaporate?”

“Not just vanish but cease to exist, live under new names, in a place far from here, never to return, never to have contact with you or anyone they knew here.”

Unspilled, tears fill Wendy’s eyes, wrung from her less by the fate of her brothers than by her failure to guide them out of their degenerate existence. Life passes like a shadow, and it’s necessary to do something useful with your years. “What have those boys done now? What on earth have they done that makes it necessary for them to evaporate?”

“If I revealed that, I’d be putting them at risk. And you’re better off not knowing.”

Whether the golem has the power to speak remains unrevealed when he only belches as if to confirm what the attorney says.

“If you want to be sure your brothers remain safe in their new lives,” the lawyer continues, “you must cover for them when anyone asks where they’ve gone.”

“What am I to say?”

“You say they went to start new lives in South America.”

“Where in South America?”

“Peru, Brazil, Argentina, wherever. It doesn’t matter. They aren’t in South America. You have to sell it. Can you sell it?”

“Well, I don’t know. I guess I can try.”

“You have to do better than try. If by your behavior you create suspicion about what’s happened to your brothers or if, God forbid, you report them missing ...”

Wendy looks puzzled, as if she is not quick-minded enough to read the mortal truth that underlies the story he’s telling. “What if?”

The lawyer looks sad, and the golem leans over the table to deliver a far different expression from that of his associate. The latter belches again, and the former says, “Then for your safety, you’llhave to be given a new identity and moved to South America with your brothers.”

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