“Careful,” Vernon said. “The cord on that thing heats up as much as the filaments.”
They turned at the sound of shuffling. George came through the doorway, rubbing his eyes.
“You guys think you’re being quiet, but you’re not,” George said.
Ricky laughed.
“Is Amber up?” Ricky asked.
“Up and out,” Mary said. “She went to gas up before your trip.”
“I have to take a shower,” George said.
“Make it quick,” Ricky said. “We’re on the road soon.”
George turned around and went back down the hall.
“Are you staying here today, Mom?” Ricky asked.
She shook her head. “I need all my stuff back at home. I’ll work there and be back before sundown.”
Ricky nodded and gestured towards Tucker.
“Of course. The old slob can stay with me today.”
“How long is this little vacation going to last, anyway?” Vernon asked Ricky.
Ricky could only shrug. “I’m hoping we get things taken care of, but I’m afraid we don’t know exactly how long it’s going to…”
“Fine,” Vernon said, throwing up his hands. “I get it. Just remember, you can’t turn a frog into a squirrel just by throwing it into a tree.”
“I…” Ricky said, shaking his head. “I don’t have any idea what that…”
“He’s just making up nonsense,” his mother said, cutting him off. “Don’t pay any attention to your father. He’s getting worse every year.”
“Better,” Vernon said. “You mispronounced better.”
“But speaking of time limits, you should tell Amber to get rid of that rental car already. That must be costing her a fortune. We can find a car for her somewhere, can’t we?”
“Don’t look at me,” Vernon said. “If I knew where there was a decent car, I would be using it myself.”
“I think she likes to be independent,” Ricky said.
“Fine,” Mary said. “Good money after bad.”
# # #
“Finally,” Ricky said, climbing into the passenger’s seat. “Let’s get this done.”
“Wait,” George said from the back. “One stop first.”
Ricky rolled his eyes and threw up his hands.
“No,” Amber said, “he’s got a good point. We talked about it.”
She pulled out of the driveway heading the wrong way. The road was a dead end in the direction they were going.
“We’re keeping secrets now?” Ricky asked.
“It’s a very small secret.”
Ricky looked through the window at the passing field and remembered the night before. The sun was still low on the horizon. The shadows were deep.
Over the crest of a small hill, he saw the house where Amber’s neighbor had once lived. It looked like it hadn’t been inhabited in years. It always amazed him the way that places decayed. In other countries, it seemed like they had historic sites that went back thousands of years. In Maine, you couldn’t let a house sit vacant for six months without risking serious damage. The windows were knocked out, a shed door hung at an angle, and police tape fluttered from one of the doorways. The doors to the cellar were wide open.
Amber pulled up in front of those open doors.
George got out.
“I’ll be back in two seconds.”
Ricky sprang from the car. “You’re not going alone.”
“It’s fine. Trust me for once.”
The morning light hadn’t penetrated the cellar yet. George slowed halfway down the steps and swung his light around to make sure his footing was good. Ricky was glad that his brother was at least taking some amount of care. Amber stayed up top, waiting.
“Here,” George said, handing him a mirror.
“We came for these?”
“Yeah. They worked once.”
“Weren’t there mirrors at Amber’s place?”
“Only one old one. These are all old. Silver, you know?”
Ricky shook his head. George gathered two other mirrors and came back to the stairs. It was easier to breathe when they were back outside. The cellar had a weight to it that Ricky was glad to be free from. They packed the mirrors in the trunk next to Amber’s other supplies. In a few minutes, they were back on course, passing by the house just as Mary was loading Tucker into her car, getting ready to leave.
Twenty-Six: Amber
Amber waved at Mary and they drove north.
The bickering didn’t begin until they were well underway. George wanted to turn off on one of the side roads because he thought he knew a faster way. Amber ignored him. She had her GPS loaded in with a spot she had marked on her last trip. Every time the little voice gave her a command, she followed it.
“I’ve done this trip a thousand times in the past week, George,” she said. “I’m not taking any chances on your side roads.”
“Algorithms don’t understand how to get around up here,” George said. He could affect a decent Downeast accent when he tried.
“Please don’t start with that again,” Ricky said, turning in his seat to give his brother a stern look.
“Start with what?” Amber asked.
Ricky sighed and flopped back into his seat.
“This is a boring trip and it’s early in the morning,” Amber said. “The driver says that one of you needs to start talking.”
George leaned forward so he was almost between their seats.
“Ricky hates when I talk about it, but I’m working on a theory that knowledge is conditional. At first, I thought this mechanism worked everywhere, but I’m revising that down to just this local area until I can prove that it has a broader application.”
“Knowledge is conditional,” Amber said.
“Yes,” George said.
“It’s not worth the effort to listen to,” Ricky said in a low voice. They ignored him.
“Not facts or wisdom, mind you, just knowledge.”
“Isn’t knowledge made up of facts?” Amber asked.
Ricky groaned.
“Great question,” George said. “You’re close. There are facts in the world. Knowledge is what happens when someone takes facts and collects them inside their experience. As you grow and learn, you build a body of knowledge.”
“So it’s facts.”
“You might think so, but I believe you would be wrong.”
Ricky slumped, letting his head rest against his window.
“Knowledge is a fact that’s ingested and interpreted and then it becomes completely relative to the host. It’s an evolving organism, conditional to the host. Your GPS has a list of facts about our position, the destination, and the road network
