In thirty minutes, Meadow, the Prime Nabob, my mom, and most of Arampom’s Friend population would attend the grand opening of the bakery. It would be filmed for Blanche because she couldn’t be here in person for fear of infecting her “last bastion of independent perspective.” Though I wasn’t one of the Friends, they treated me like royalty. I was Blanche’s grandson. The opening of my bakery in honor of her was a momentous occasion for them.
I was expected to explain my menu choices and how the ingredients related to Blanche. If I didn’t, Meadow would flay me. If I was insincere, Meadow would flay me.
Kaliah and I had baked snickerdoodles along with chocolate and vanilla sheet cakes—hardly the desserts for a burgeoning God. I hadn’t prepared any remarks either. I didn’t need to. In thirty minutes, when most of the Friends had gathered around to look at my underwhelming creations, a bomb would explode at the Monastery. The mummers would flee to the east, drawing the Zaditorian guards while Zelda led Em, Bruce, and Pam to the western border, where Rhonaya was waiting with her squad of specially trained Zaditorian fighters. The resistance Hugo had been cultivating over the last several weeks would attack the Friends at the bakery, allowing Kaliah and me to meet everyone on the western border of the valley, where Kaliah would topple the Wall of Blanche. By the time the Zaditorians realized the mummers were a distraction, we would be gone, and if we weren’t, Rhonaya and her special soldiers would be waiting to hold the Zaditorians off. After escaping, we would find Naomi and give her Bruce and Pam in exchange for the sourdough-starter totem, and I would enter the whorl, free Craig, and ride the Ghost out, killing thousands in the process, but saving trillions across all seven stomachs.
The trout test DVD playing, I submerged my hand in the bowl of ice water I’d set on the sink. I only had time for one more attempt before people started showing up, but I was confident I would finally pass. Zelda and Kaliah had been coaching me, and the last time I’d played the tape I’d felt something new, something they’d called grace after I’d described it to them.
I focused on the pain, explored it, opened myself to it, and it became more. It was cackle, spreading cackle, potentiality. It shimmered, shivered, rumbled, and fractured. It was a new type of perception. I filtered my senses through it, let it react to the inputs, and I read its reactions. I closed my eyes and listened to the trout jumping and splashing in the riffle, and the sounds took shape in the pain. I’d felt this during the last test, and it had thrown me. This time, though, I kept my focus. The whispering shapes gained detail and distinction. I counted the distinctions, and when the video was over, I opened my eyes. The world was more vibrant but less fixed, full of oscillating energy that blurred and clarified the edges of things, blurred and clarified, blurred and clarified . . . . I was in a state of grace, mobiak grace.
I didn’t have to ask Kaliah if my count was correct. I knew exactly how many cutthroat and rainbow trout there were in the video with a certainty that was intoxicating. The state only lasted a few moments, and after it was gone, I felt loss, but I was also jubilant. I’d passed. Finally. And just in time. I had hope now, hope that I could face the cheese danish.
When I left the bathroom, Kaliah was leaning against the work table, half a twisted paper napkin in her hands, the other half in tiny shredded pieces around her feet. She looked at me and smiled and relaxed her shoulders. She knew I’d succeeded without asking. “Good,” she said.
I walked over and leaned against the table next to her, and we stared ahead at the oven, clicking as it cooled. Baldy and Beardo watched us from the dining area. The cakes and cookies sat on the table behind us. The bakery was ready for the grand opening, the bare minimum of work complete. I had two rekulak spells prepared, and I’d passed the trout test. There was nothing left to do but wait.
Anxiety quickly overcame jubilation. We were about to be in a fight for our lives and the lives of everyone in the world. I thought about taking up Kaliah’s habit of tearing napkins to calm down. Instead, I consciously slowed my breathing.
“Here,” Kaliah said, and handed me a small tincture bottle full of a dark liquid.
“More bloom?” I said.
“My blood.”
“I thought—”
“I don’t. But if Brad reasserts control, you’ll have to. But only then. Promise me.”
“I promise. But why not let me do it now and get rid of him forever? We still have time.”
“Because he’s been there for years. Because he’s the devil I know.”
“And I’m the devil you don’t?” I said.
“No, I am.” After a pause, she looked up at me with a mischievous and seductive smile. “But don’t get me wrong, you’re a devil too. The worst kind.” She stared into my eyes with a challenge in hers. Her bold, open expression was beautiful. She wanted me to kiss her? Or maybe I wanted to kiss her. But I was a coward, and too slow besides. The door opened and the moment collapsed.
Chapter 29
THE FIRST PATRONS FILED into the dining area, among them, Meadow, the Prime Nabob, and my mother, who smiled and waved at me, bobbing her head like a parent in the audience of a school play. Who was this woman? I remembered how intense she’d been in the kitchen of my childhood. Now she was being
