Chapter 20: The Tree of Knowledge
"You stood me up, Button."
Charles Charles did not look at his daughter as he spoke, staring out of the grimy window instead. Chuck hated it when he did that – chiding her while refusing to meet her eyes – though she only remembered him acting like this once in her childhood. That was the first and last time she broke her curfew. But it wasn't her fault. Ned had found a pigeon with a broken wing and the park was closer to his house than hers and they had to take it to his mother right away or else it would never fly again and –
He had he cut her off, staring out the window overlooking their yard as he told her that he was not mad, just disappointed. As if that was supposed to make her feel better. Perhaps it was supposed to make her feel worse…
"I'm sorry," Chuck mumbled, walking over to sit with him on the windowsill.
"I waited here for hours."
She grimaced as she took in their surroundings. The dismal little inn made her Turtle Shell lodgings look like the Palace of Versailles. She would find him a better place as soon as she figured out how to make some money…
"Dad, you cannot make me feel any worse than I already d-"
"Do you know how hard it was work up the courage for this?" he asked, immediately demonstrating that he could in fact make her feel her worse. "I haven't seen those girls in twenty years. I've been practicing what I wanted to say to them since the day I came back."
"And you'll get a chance to say it!" Chuck insisted. "Just…not yet. I don't want anything discombobulating them before the Darling Mermaid Darlings Tour–"
"So I'm supposed to wait for them to travel the world before I can say hi?"
"No," Chuck said, although she had yet to figure out what a 'good time' to tell them might be. "But seeing you right this moment would derail all their progress. And I know you wouldn't want that."
"I want a second chance with my family. I deserve it after what Ned–" He saw the look on her face and quickly course-corrected. "After what happened to me. Look…I know I was an objectively terrible partner. But I was a good father. And I think Lily will be a good mother now that she can actually be your mother. And Vivian…well, Viv may never forgive me but we are still family. I want to try and piece us back together while we still have time."
"We have so much time," she said, her voice weighty with the incomprehensible idea of immortality. Chuck, Charles Charles and Dwight Dixon were the only humans still holding onto life after death. Ned had conducted experiments over the years to try and determine the true extent of his power, but test subjects were limited to vegetation and his canine companion. However long they lived, he did not know for sure that they would never die. 'Immortality' might just mean aging very slowly. It might mean dying only when the Pie Maker did…
Chuck did not like to think about it too much. Obsessing over death was bad for her health.
"You're assuming we're impervious to violence," Charles Charles remarked, unhelpfully.
"And I'll keep assuming until somebody tries to shoot me again."
"Again?"
Chuck bit back a smile, seeing her chance to change the subject. "I'll tell you all about it. But first: I bought dinner. It's from this great little place called the Soul Kitchen." She got up to drag a dusty wooden table out of the corner. Wiping its surface with paper napkins, she added: "Bring those chairs over so we can sit and eat."
"Not until you tell me who tried to shoot you the first time," he said, standing but staying by the window.
"Dwight," she sighed, like the whole thing was too boring to recall. "He held my best friend at gunpoint too. And while we're on the subject, I have some questions about your old buddy."
She could almost make out the disgusted twist of his expression through the bandages, and even that cheered her somehow.
As they tackled their bags of takeout, Chuck decided, with a quiet jolt of joy, that they would make this work. They would piece together a family, free of secrets, safe from harm…
But beyond the confines of the inn, forces were at work, planning something else entirely…
XXX
Ned was in desperate need of a distraction. Not so long ago he would have sought out – or at least been sought out by – Emerson Cod to work a case. But even if the Pie Maker had not put his powers on hold, his partner in crime investigation was no longer a full-time member of 'Team PI Hole' (as Olive had tried and failed to christen it).
The news that Emerson was planning to leave Papen County in search of Penny filled Ned with a bittersweet blend of emotions. He wanted his friend to be with family, but he was all too aware that it would mean losing another member of his own. And he wished – deep down in the damp, abandoned basement of his subconscious – that his own father would have cared enough to reach out to him when he was younger…
Eddie strolled ahead, tugged along by Digby, who was leading them up the pedestrian path that wound through the park.
"Pick up the pace, junior."
Ned felt his shoulders hunch up to the vicinity of his ears as he shoved his hands deep into his pockets. "Don't call me that."
"Well, you're a junior, aren't you?" Eddie asked with mock bewilderment.
"Yeah," Ned muttered. "You and Charles Charles really phoned it in when it came to the naming your children thing."
Eddie snorted. "He was gonna name her Charles if she'd been a boy…"
They walked in silence for a while, wind whipping back their coats and flinging red-gold leaves at their faces.
Ned would have happily carried on without speaking, but curiosity had been tugging at his brain since his father first appeared. There was so much he did not know, about who and what he was. So many questions that had been filed away like cold cases, until now…
"Did you know Charles cheated on Vivian with Lily? That Chuck was their daughter?"
Eddie let Digby lead him off the path, towards a pile of fallen leaves, and Ned followed.
"I knew," he said plainly. "I agreed to keep it to myself."
"And he agreed to keep your secrets to himself?" Ned scoffed, continuing before Eddie could respond: "I guess infidelity is another thing you had in common."
The man offered no response, adjusting his hat with one hand while holding onto Digby with the other. His silence only served to aggravate Ned more…
"I think he wants off the leash," Eddie remarked, reaching for the latch.
"Don't," Ned snapped, then – as Eddie raised an eyebrow – he adjusted his tone to something less aggressive. "I don't want him…running out into the road. He wouldn't, I don't think, but you've got him a little overexcited." His father looked like he wanted to say something here but the Pie Maker pressed on: "What about Dwight? Were you friends with him?"
"…yes. We weren't as close but yes. Working together for so long tends to force a sort of friendship."
"And Clancy Treadwell?" Ned was feeling increasingly judgmental with each inquiry, but Eddie seemed unfazed. Perhaps he had been prepared for these questions; perhaps he spent years preparing for them…
"Oh, we were the opposite of friends. Treadwater was the sorriest son of a bitch I ever met. Obsessed with death; offended by it almost. He only became a doctor so he could find ways to fight it."
"He told you that?"
"He didn't have to. Most doctors have a god complex; he just took it to extremes. Treadwater thought he could cure mortality."
"And what gave him that idea?"
For the first time since the start of this interrogation, Eddie did not meet his eye as he answered… "I did."
The rush of recognition, the confirmation of a long-held suspicion, made Ned's heart jolt. It was like looking at his reflection in a funhouse mirror, distorted but familiar…
"Dad, did you…are you like me?"
Eddie reached down to scratch behind Digby's ears, smirking at the dog as if sharing some inside joke. But by the time he turned to look at Ned, the humor had drained from his face.
"Let's just say my name isn't the only thing I passed down to you…"
XXX
Emerson set up camp by the phone, occupying himself with reading and then cross-stitching as he waited for it to ring. Olive had taken his mystery map away, and while he was glad to see the back of it he could not deny that it had been a welcome distraction; almost fun, in a perverse way. His first priority had always been to protect his friends, but the stakes had never seemed as high for him as they were right now…
Emerson was rifling through his knitting kit when the radio crackled in the background, catching his attention as the evening news began.
"And now for the latest headlines…woman killed by falling toilet seat, thought to have broken off from a deorbiting space station…" Emerson uttered a sound somewhere between scoff and laugh."Man claims that god spoke to him through a Hummel figurine, ordering him to…" Emerson rolled his eyes, returning his attention to the half-embroidered throw pillow… "And cult leader Terry Marlowe has been laid to rest by next of kin, leaving just one member of the Poppy Temple People unclaimed…"
The PI sighed and sat back for a moment. It struck him that even Terry Marlowe had someone who knew all about him but still cared enough to arrange a proper burial. Emerson might have looked into whether or not that stray body was Gloria Gillard; perhaps tried to find out why Clancy Treadwell chose to pose as her parent. But without the Pie Maker's power there would be no talking to her. Which was fine by him. Somebody else could solve the mystery for once…
At that moment, a slight skittering caught his ear, almost inaudible under the radio waves. Emerson looked towards the door, and sat staring for a long while before he got up and walked over...
The last time someone slid an envelope his way it did not end well. Seeing another one – from someone who sought out his home – gave the PI an uneasy sense of déjà vu. It was more out of compulsion than curiosity that he opened the thing…
Inside was a note, unsigned, typed neatly on cream-colored paper.
There are others. It's not over. Tread carefully.
Emerson did not know how many times he read the words before the phone rang, snapping him out of it. Mere minutes ago he had been ready to pounce, knowing it would be his ex-brother-in-law calling. Now he hesitated, standing stock-still as the phone rang, and rang, and finally fell silent.