“Brittney’s soul is in heaven,” Tanner said. “But you are here. And you will resist the demon.”
“I’m talking to an echo of my own mind,” Brittney said, not to Tanner, to herself. She knelt and put her hand on the wet, tousled head. “Bless you, poor boy.”
She stood up. Faced the town. She would go there. She knew the demon would go there too.
Mary worked on the next week’s schedule in her cramped little office. John stood in the doorway.
In the plaza they were starting to cook food. Mary smelled it, even through the omnipresent stink of pee and poop and finger paint and paste and filth.
Charred, crisping meat. She would need to gag some of it down and do it publicly. Or everyone would look at her and point and whisper “anorexic.”
Crazy. Unstable.
Mary’s losing it.
No longer Mother Mary. Crazy Mary. Off-her-meds Mary. Or on-too-many-meds Mary. Everyone knew now, thanks to Astrid. They all knew. They all could picture it in their heads, Mary searching for Prozac and Zoloft like Gollum chasing the ring. Mary sticking her finger down her throat to vomit up food even while normal people were reduced to eating bugs.
And now they thought she’d been tricked by some fraud. Made a fool of by Orsay.
They thought she was suicidal. Or worse.
“Mary,” John said. “Are you ready?”
He was so sweet, her little brother. Her lying little brother, so sweet and so concerned. Of course he was. He didn’t want to get stuck taking care of all these kids alone.
“That food smells good, huh?” John asked.
It smelled like rancid grease. It smelled sickening.
“Yes,” Mary said.
“Mary.”
“What?” Mary snapped. “What do you want from me?”
“I’m…Look, I’m sorry I lied. About Orsay.”
“The Prophetess, you mean.”
“I don’t think she’s a prophet,” John said, head hung down.
“Why, because she doesn’t agree with Astrid? Because she doesn’t think we just have to be trapped here?”
John moved closer. He put his hand on Mary’s arm. She shook him off.
“You promised me, Mary,” John pleaded.
“And you lied to me,” Mary shot back.
There were tears in her brother’s eyes. “Your birthday, Mary. In an hour. You shouldn’t be wasting time on the schedule, you should be getting ready. You have to promise me you won’t leave me or these kids.”
“I already promised you,” Mary said. “Are you calling me a liar?”
“Mary…,” John pleaded, having run out of words.
“Get the kids ready to go outside,” Mary said. “There’s food being cooked. We have to get our share for the littles.”
THIRTY-SIX