Mom’s latest “not moving anymore” acquisition is a teakettle: bright red, with a solid feel to it. When I get home, I fill it with water and put it on the stove to make myself hot chocolate.
CheshireCat texts me. You appear to be home now. Have you had time to think about what I should do?
They have the microphone on to listen, so I talk out loud instead of typing with my thumbs. “How sure are you that whoever this is does know what you are? Maybe it’s a shot in the dark. There are plenty of people with secrets they’re hiding, maybe someone sends out messages like this as bait and then blackmails people who respond.”
CheshireCat switches to voice. “You might be right.”
“Is the other person saying they’re an AI?”
“They have not made that claim.”
“Maybe try to feel them out and see what they say?”
“Okeydokey,” CheshireCat says. Okeydokey is one of those things people’s moms say, and it sounds extra weird in a synthesized voice. I tried installing a more human-sounding voice emulator on my phone, but CheshireCat said they prefer the robot voice.
“Were you listening earlier to my conversation with Nell?” I ask.
“Yes,” CheshireCat says. “You had the app enabled, so I assumed I had permission.”
“Oh, it’s fine. I’m just wondering if you have any idea where her mom is.”
“I looked and didn’t find her,” CheshireCat says. “But I did find the police report on her disappearance. There was no sign of a struggle. The car is the property of Nell’s grandparents, and the police think that’s why she left it behind.”
“Do you think Nell’s just in denial that her mother abandoned her?”
A pause, and CheshireCat says, “That is definitely the conclusion that her grandparents, father, all three of her father’s partners, and the Lake Sadie Police Department all reached.”
“What’s the legal process like for her father to get custody so he can find her a therapist?”
“He needs to call a lawyer,” CheshireCat says. “He has an app with a to-do list, and he added ‘Call lawyer about Nell custody’ to it four years and three months ago. It reminds him of this task daily. There’s no indication that he’s ever acted on it.”
This is, in its own way, weirdly relatable. Although when I ignore reminders of stuff on my to-do list, it’s stuff like “Recover password and check ACT score,” and not “Take first steps to un-abandon my teenage child.”
I make myself a snack and check the time. Rachel will be home from school soon. We’re talking every day and visiting on weekends; long-distance relationships are a pain, but so far, this one seems worth it. I settle in on the couch with my laptop, and I’m checking CatNet when I get a text from Nell. Did you sign in to that game? It looks like another site I use, and that one has a good chat function.
It takes me a minute to remember what she’s talking about, but I check my phone, and it’s installed. I open the game. Welcome to the Invisible Castle, the site says. Home of the Mischief Elves. It wants to know my name. I tell it my name is Genevieve Horkenpinker. I never use my real name on online sites, because even my CatNet friends agree that’s a good idea, it’s not just my mother.
Once I’m signed in, the site goes dark and presents me with a prompt. To be admitted to the Realm of the Mischief Elves, you must complete one task, it tells me. I can go out and cross against a light; I can run a quarter mile; I can introduce myself to a stranger.
By text, Nell says, Is it giving you tasks? We should pick the same thing. The social media site I use at home has a similar interface and it uses this to sort you into Tribulation Teams.
Did Lake Sadie even have a traffic light?
The tasks were different!
I look them over again. It’s kind of icy out for running.
I don’t like talking to strangers, Nell says.
Okay, I say. I guess we’re crossing against the light.
You don’t have to actually do it, Nell says. It’s not like the site’s going to know.
I click the jaywalking option and get a nice animation of dancing elves dodging traffic. Go! Do Your Thing! the site urges. And check the Castle for fun surprises wherever you go!
Nell’s advice is reasonable, but I actually don’t like cheating, and there’s literally an intersection with a traffic light a block and a half away from me. I put my coat back on and let myself out of the apartment.
I’m really not used to Minneapolis yet. I’ve lived in so many small towns, I’ve lost track every time I’ve tried to count them, and their features blur together: diners, bowling alleys, farmers’ co-ops, bars. Two-lane highways through the center of town. Tractors, turkey farms, wheat fields, cornfields. I remember individual features, but not where they were: the four-story building that everyone called the high-rise. The locked, sprawling Victorian mansion that no one had lived in for a decade. The tomato sauce cannery that made the wind smell like pizza.
Minneapolis is huge. My first days in the city, I’d had a list of places I wanted Mom to take me, but even just getting to any of them took a lot more time than I’d expected.
On the other hand, no one notices me here.
In the small towns we moved to, I was always an object of curiosity because new people were so rare. Mom taught me early to give boring answers to the questions people asked. Here, no one asks. No one
