“What’s this story?” asks Tatum, his mouth full of apple.
I explain and go on. “Then this pineapple plant attacks.” Meer takes hold of my arm and writesI am the sister of Meer Sugawaradown its length. Still telling the story, I take back the Sharpie and writeI am the brother of Matilda Kleinon his collarbone.
Brock puts his hand out for the marker and comes to sit at my feet. He draws on my ankle. “Does this look like the piranha plant?” heasks.
“Ish,” I say. “In the game it has spiky teeth.”
He writesPiranha Plantnext to it, with a big arrow.
“Oh good,” I tell him. “Now no one will be confused and think it’s a dick.”
“It doesnotlook like a dick,” he says, mock offended.
“Mm. Kinda does.”
“It doesn’t. Does it, Tatum?”
“I want to hear more about the pineapple plant,” says Tatum, sitting up to look at my ankle. “Oh wait. That looks like a dick.”
“Ugh,” says Brock. “I can only draw spirals. Fix it. Okay? I’m sure Matilda doesn’t want a dick on her ankle.”
“That’s fine,” I say. “It’ll wash off.” I don’t want Tatum drawingon me. But he’s holding the Sharpie already and adjusting his position to get a good angle.
“What happens with the pineapples?” he asks.
“You dodge them,” I say. “It’s not that hard. And then pretty soon you get one of my favorite weapons in the whole game, which is like a…” I stop because Tatum is resting his left hand, still cold from the ocean, on my calf in order to stabilize it.
He’s put the pen cap in his mouth and is building Brock’s dicklike piranha plant into a big, twisted plant monster with angry branches, much more like what I described. The pen inches down the curve of my calf, past my ankle, and down onto the front of my foot.
Tatum stops and brushes the sand off my skin.
“Go on,” says Meer. “The weapon.”
“Oh, it’s a circular chain saw with a spinning wheel.”
“Love it,” says Brock.
Somehow I manage to talk them through the whole level and answer Meer’s questions about weapons, but I really have no idea what’s coming out of my mouth. All I know is the feel of Tatum’s hand on my leg and the light pressure of the pen on my body.
33
The way theythink, Kingsley doesn’t owe anyone anything.
Not his time, not his attention, not his money.
Certainly not information about his plans. He lives at Hidden Beach because he loves the people, and the land, and the castle, buthe is not obligated to be here. His life is free of constrictions, and that means he is liberated in a way most people are not.
June explains it to me on what is probably the tenth day of my visit: “Just because Kingsley wanted to be here last week does not mean that he wants to be herethisweek. It’s no reflection on me. Or Meer. Or Tatum, or Brock, or Hidden Beach, or Martha’s Vineyard. We all have value, irrespective of his current interest in us.”
She and I are sitting in the kitchen before she goes up to her studio with her tray of food. Her hands are busy with a small loom she has set up on the table. She has a basket filled with balls of different wools, which she threads through the loom.
Tatum stands at the counter, shaking the powder from one of the little packets into a blender full of fresh wineberries from the bushes over by the groundskeeper’s cottage. He’s up early this morning, for work.
“Kingsley will come when he is hungry for us and what we offer,” continues June. “And we are free to go, at any time.” She ties off a piece of yarn. “Tatum and Meer have always been free to go, even when they were very young. Right, Tatum?”
“That’s right,” he says, softly.
“And they’re free to go now, if they choose. They just have reasons, at present, that they like to stay.”
