The coffee table!
There it was, tightly packed in a plastic bag like a brick of cocaine, what constituted contraband in a gluten-free town. I could use all I wanted now that I knew there was no way a new sourdough starter would be ready in time to stop Blanche. But I made some starter anyway just in case.
I worked with focus for forty-five minutes. When Zelda came back from her scouting expedition, the biscuits and gravy were done and cooling, and I was fishing french fries out of oil and dropping them on paper towels.
I found a way in, Zelda said.
“Good,” I said. “Is there a way to get her out?”
There’s always a way. I just need a little time to find it.
“Did you see Bruce and Pam?”
I did. Zelda sat on the carpet outside the kitchen, sphinx-like, watching me load fresh biscuits into a Tupperware container.
“What?”
Nothing, she said, and quickly changed the subject to my meetings with Meadow and Hugo. She wanted to hear about what was said in greater detail, and I obliged her while I finished packing Em’s food. I even found a tiny container for ketchup. Em loved ketchup. I put all the food in a paper sack, then grabbed the second coat hanging in the front closet, folded it up tight, and stuffed it into a plastic bag, realizing as I did that Zelda would have to make two trips. I wrote a note telling Em I was close, I loved her, and would rescue her soon, but in the meantime trust the fox.
While you’re at it, Zelda said, write me a letter of introduction to my grandnephew.
“Hugo?”
And tell him to provide me with pen and paper. I’ll need his help planning our escape.
“I’ll just translate for you.”
No, you need to focus on one thing, and that’s preparing yourself to ride the Ghost in Blanche’s whorl. I stole you a trout test DVD. It’s on the coffee table. Watch it at the bakery so the Friends think you’re doing what they ask. And don’t stop watching it until you pass the test.
“I need to help Em and Kaliah. I don’t need to be watching trout all day.”
Let me and Hugo worry about Em and Kaliah. We’ll get you the totems, and we’ll get all of us out of here, but there’s no point in us escaping if you can’t undo what you did, and you can’t undo what you did if you can’t even pass a simple trout test.
“I’ve tried already. I can’t do it.”
Yes, you can. You have to. Pain can be used to deny the truth, or it can be used to see the truth. Use the pain from the ice water to see the truth. Sometimes all it takes to achieve grace is another perspective. Remember that. Zelda snatched the coat bag in her jaws and trotted out. I’ll come back for the letter and the other package. You better not be here when I do.
She was right, I had to admit. Escaping would be pointless if I couldn’t bring myself to eat my way past that cheese danish in Blanche’s sourdough whorl.
After finishing the letter to Hugo, I grabbed the trout DVD, put on my coat, and walked through town, back over the river to the little shopping center not far from the monastery. The sky was overcast, but the light reflecting off the new snow was bright and squint-inducing.
My bakery was between a coffee shop and a nail salon. Both were open. The workers and patrons inside stared at me through large windows as I walked up. I didn’t bother to wave. The door to the bakery was unlocked. Inside wasn’t much warmer than outside, but the lights worked. The dining area was cramped, with barely enough space for three small tables. There were a register and a modest display case. A narrow counter folded up, opening a path to the kitchen, which had a commercial Hobart mixer, a deep stainless steel sink, and a wood table with a pastry rolling machine on one end. I didn’t see a TV or DVD player anywhere. As I turned to go back and grab the ones from the house, two Zaditorians—the originals, Baldy and Beardo—walked through the door, followed by my mother. I froze.
She held up her hands. “Hear me out and I’ll give you back your shanika’s personal totems—a paintbrush, a handsaw, an agate, and an old beer bottle if I’m not mistaken.”
Chapter 24
SHE PULLED THE TOTEMS out of her coat pocket one by one, followed by what looked like a bottle of bloom, and set them on the counter between the register and display case, while I watched from the kitchen. I couldn’t meet her eyes. They were full of sympathy, but also imploring, like she wanted sympathy from me. I couldn’t. She didn’t have the right to ask. If she started crying, I wouldn’t be able to stand there and listen, or so I thought.
When her shoulders began bouncing to the beat of her sobs, I didn’t leave. I stood there. And despite what I knew, what I’d seen, I empathized. Being raised by someone like Blanche could not have been easy. Maybe Mom was a victim too. But she had manipulated me, her own son, from an early age, baked in my neurosis, stood by while her daughter and granddaughter were murdered. Her childhood, no matter how bad, could not excuse that. But how bad had it been, her childhood?
I stifled the urge to comfort her, struggled to appear impassive. This could be just another manipulation after all. How had she taken those totems from Brad? Why was she giving them to me? Did she know I needed them? Had she been listening? If the Friends were fascist enough to make a whole town gluten-free, they were certainly capable of bugging
