CHAPTER 6:
This was the high life, all right. Mae hadn't even known you could make donuts at home.
"Is that me?" asked Gregg. "I think that's a picture of me!"
It was. It was done in green jelly—not normal jelly, but that stuff that used to come with oatmeal when she was a little kid. The kind of jelly they probably had in heaven. It was clearly Gregg's face, so while Mae wanted to tuck into that sweet green apple smell, this donut was definitely for him. She searched through the warm, fresh-baked pile, knowing there had to be at least one there with her face on it.
"How are you kids enjoying your lunch?" asked the cheerful hostess.
Mae smiled hugely, genuinely enjoying the search. "It's amazing, Mrs. Santello! How do you even make donuts at home?"
"I have a presser," Mrs. Santello explained. "You feed in the batter and it presses it out into neat little donuts! And then I decorate them with squeeze tubes."
"Pretty coo', pretty coo'," said Gregg. Hey! Mae remembered when he used to drop the 'l' from his 'cool's. Was he back to doing that now?
"I can eat two at once," said Bea, opening her mouth wide.
"That's nonsense," said Gregg. "That's slander."
"Nope! I can do it." Bea laid two soft, perfectly shaped discs into her mouth, one almost on top of the other. Both were decked with blue jelly in the shapes of things she liked. What did she like? Mae couldn't quite make the pictures out before Bea's teeth closed down, squashing the donuts down as easily as mud squeezes through your fingers when you try to make sand castles from it.
"Wow," said Gregg.
"That was pretty cool," admitted Mae, still sifting through the donuts. "Mrs. Santello, are there any with my picture on them here? I feel like there should be some for me."
"There certainly should be!" piped their hostess, chipper as always. "Yours should have strawberry jelly."
"I can smell it," said Mae. She really could. And she saw a hint of red, but by the time she realized she'd seen it, she'd accidentally put another donut on top of it, and now she couldn't find it again. "Guys, help me out. Are there any donuts for me here?"
Sunlight was dappling hard through the sun door, cut by tall blades of grass in the yard and the pinwheels and the birdhouse. That's right—Bea's dad had made a birdhouse, hadn't he? Mae wondered why she'd forgotten that. She tried to scoot her stool closer but her feet couldn't reach the tiled floor.
"All done," said Bea, swallowing the last of her two-donut mash.
Gregg applauded enthusiastically, head bobbing, mouth open. "You're an ace, Bea. You could be on Donuts with the Stars."
Bea giggled. Why did that sound so rare, so fresh? "They'd never let me on. I'm not grown up yet!"
"Dude, you don't have to be grown up to be on Donuts with the Stars! It's an all-ages show! You just have to be all ages."
"I'm not all ages," said Bea. "Someday I will be though."
Mae turned over a donut—it had a picture of the Donut Wolf on it, in purple. She wanted to eat it, but the purple ones belonged to Mr. Santello. "How can you be all ages at once?"
"I dunno," laughed Bea. "You have to go to school for it, I think."
Mae realized what was on Bea's donuts—they were pictures from school. Books, flags, pencils, desks, bells. They were really pretty and smelled like blueberries. "You should go to school," Mae said.
"I will," said Bea.
"You should," agreed Gregg.
"I will!"
Mae was looking frantically now through the donuts. She could see glimpses of strawberry jelly, but every time she stopped to look, she'd accidentally put it aside or covered it with another donut. The red was there, but she just couldn't get her hands on it. She was being a spaz again. She took a deep breath. She focused on seeing what was on the donut currently on top of the stack.
It smelled like oranges. It was an orange picture of Casey.
"Mrs. Santello?" asked Mae, suddenly queasy. "Did you invite Casey?"
"I did invite your friend Casey, yes! I hope he shows up."
Mae looked around at all the windows and doors. They were all open—she hadn't noticed that before. There was wind blowing gently in through all of them. How could the wind blow from every direction at once? Wasn't it supposed to just blow whatever way the weathervane was facing?
"I think he's coming," Mae said. "Or he's trying to come."
"The door is open," chirped Bea's mom. "He can come whenever he likes."
"I bet I can eat three donuts at once," said Gregg.
"Gregg, shush!" said Mae. She had a feeling that wasn't important right now.
Mae walked through the living room into the entrance hall, her feet bare on the wood floor. Hungry. She was hungry. She'd been sitting there half an hour and hadn't had any donuts! She could smell the strawberry jelly ones, but couldn't find them. The sight of three children, laughing and searching for DNA evidence, flashed through her mind. Wind was blowing through the door. She remembered what Casey looked like, as if he were standing there in the doorway, but he wasn't. Three vagrants were standing by the Food Donkey fence. Crusties, falling from trains. The paper mobile Bea's family had hung by the front door was swaying around. Bruce was snoring under a pile of leaves somewhere. Germ was staring, surprised at something. Mr. Penderson staggered and fell off a curb. The wind was blowing so steadily and strong she could see it. Mae was at the door, and she could see nothing but wind.
Bea's mother shrieked. Mae tried to turn around, but couldn't.
"Mom!"
"Oh my God," said Gregg's voice. "Mrs. Santello!"
"Oh God," said Bea's mom. "Bea? I'm sorry. I know you wanted to go to school, but you can't. You won't be able. I'm sorry."
"Mom, what happened?!"
"I'm sorry, Bea."
Their voices faded and were overtaken by a squeaky, wretched voice from outside the house, both too far away and too nearby. "Blue fire in the north!" it said. "I have discovered your secret name!"
Oh god. That was from Grandpa's story. It was the Huncher. And there she was—visible through every little shape of the decorative window in the door, which was somehow there even though the door was open. A dozen Hunchers of different sizes, at different angles, all turned to face Mae.
"I'm not the blue fire of the north," Mae said.
"I wasn't talking to you, girl," said the Huncher. "But now I am. You're not much of a dreamer, are you?"
Mae looked around. "What do you mean?"
"You can't bring your friend back, even in a dream! He's precious to you, but you didn't keep him close, did you? You went away."
Mae felt a tremendous guilt explode in the bottom of her gut. "Is this a dream?"
"Only now coming up to speed? Oh, girl, you're in it so much deeper than you know. There's only one way out from here."
"What?" Did she mean death?
"No, I don't mean death—not yours, anyway. That way goes without saying. Someone else's! Anyone's would do, really," said the Huncher.
Mae understood suddenly that the faces and figures she'd seen—those had been suggestions. She was so hungry, but the hunger wasn't hers. She knew now that the hunger wasn't hers.
"It sent you, didn't it?" she yelled. "You're from Black Goat."
"How do you know Black Goat's not from me?" challenged the huge, hunched woman. "I'm realer than most folks I know."
"Why would I sacrifice anyone? I can't do that." Mae glanced around for her bat, but then remembered—she'd set it down in the kitchen, when Mrs. Santello had asked her to. She was so dumb.
"You can, girl. You're capable of more than you know. You may not think anyone's expendable now. But you'll figure out who is soon enough."
No. "I just want to set it free. Tell Black Goat I just want to set it free!"
"There's no running from hunger, girl. You can't escape it. And there's no such thing as a free lunch, either!"
"I'm not the one who wants lunch," said Mae, although her stomach growled, reminding her that she did—she really, really did.
"And that's why you're the one who's due payment," said the Huncher. "Check the mail!"
Mae looked at the mailslot. It was filled with a sludgy drench of papers, all blended together. She sifted her hands through it but couldn't grasp any of the envelopes—they just fell everywhere.
Footsteps sounded. Bea ran in from the other room. She was so little. She was wearing a bow—Bea never wore bows anymore.
"Mae, it's all gone wrong!" she cried. The Huncher's body stretched out in blurry stripes at the cry, then snapped together again.
"What happened?" asked Mae, though she knew the answer.
"I can't go to school," wailed Bea. "Not ever again!"
The Huncher flew apart into stripes that dissipated in the wind. Mae wasn't able to fight the wind; she was blown across the floor, away from the door. She could smell Casey.
"Black Goat!" she screamed. She looked around for her bat, but couldn't find it anywhere. She couldn't find the kitchen, or a donut with her picture on it, or the mail. She couldn't find anything. "I just want you to go back where you came!"
The wall that was the sky flashed purple and immense before her eyes: unbreakable, untearable. A huge zero slashed with a line flashed empty against it. Hunger wracked Mae's body. All the faces passed again before her eyes. She saw Germ falling, his eyes widening. He didn't know what was coming.
Mae reached out and found herself clutching Bea. Since she had nothing else, she squeezed her tight. The wind blew the house away.
Nothing was left was but blackness, and a few scattered notes of a piano.
I won't do it, thought Mae in the darkness. What you're missing is that there's nothing in the world that would make me kill someone. Killing isn't cool. But more than that, there's just nothing I want that much. Not the bombshell. Not the blacksmith on the farm in the woods. Not even to be healthy, and free of all this nonsense. You can't bribe me because there's nothing I want that much.
She dared to open her eyes. It had been long enough she thought it was safe. She hoped she was in her bed. It had better be her bed. Good. It was. She was warm in her blankets, cozy in her bed. The attic was just an attic and nothing had blown away.
God. That had been wonderful and then terrible. She'd forgotten how much she'd liked Mrs. Santello. It hadn't even occurred to Mae to grieve. Was it her right to grieve for someone else's mom?
Mae stumbled into her clothes and down the stairs. She decided to skip breakfast. She didn't want to sit down, and besides, something was driving her to check the mail. Just to get it out of the way. Just so she could get on with her day without that to worry about.
Junk mail. Just junk mail, literally nothing else. Goo—
One piece of junk mail stood out, though. Mae froze in the doorway, staring at the Donut Wolf logo. "CRUNCH TIME WITH DONUT WOLF!" it said.
On any other day, Mae would have thrown away a flier like this without a second thought. But she'd dreamed of donuts. She turned over the flier and there they were—five donuts with pictures of a book, a flag, a pencil, a desk, and a bell. All in blue. The same exact donuts that had belonged to Bea in her dream.
Shit. This is real, this is real, this is real.
"…Donut Wolf—proudly making all-nighters easier since 1971."
"…an attempt to appeal to students everywhere…"
"…open to ages 14-20…"
"…a video describing what Donut Wolf means to you. Be creative! Catch our attention. We want to know what…"
"3rd prize—100 winners: A Donut Wolf T-shirt.
2nd prize—25 winners: A $100 Donut Wolf gift certificate!"
Mae closed her eyes and took a deep breath before reading the last line.
"1st prize—Our grand prize winner will receive a $75,000 scholarship to the college of their choice! Their video will also be used in a nationwide…"
She winced. God damn it.
Mae stood there breathing hard, unable to open her eyes.
If Bea entered, she would win. She knew it. If Bea entered this dumb contest, she would win. But only if Mae brought Black Goat a sacrifice. Any sacrifice. Any living person at all.
Somehow, it had realized there was something she wanted that much. Mae hated herself for the fact that she was actually thinking it over.
BONUS SONG:
Fort Lucenne Mall
To "Red Rubber Ball" by Paul Simon
I should have known
it all would fall apart
The shockwaves when you died
were like a bullet through my heart
I never grasped how stultifying hardware stores could be
If I never use a tool again, it's all the same to me
How did it all go so wrong?
I can barely see the light
My life is slowly crumbling like the Fort Lucenne Mall.
First went the house
and then went our respect
All my hard work earns me
is emotional neglect
Now I drive to college towns just to get out of the pen
I'm gasping for that tiny taste of what I could have been
How did it all go so wrong?
I can barely see the light
My life is slowly crumbling like the Fort Lucenne Mall.
I never dreamed
I'd stay in Possum Springs
You made me think something great
was waiting in the wings
I was dumb enough to think that things would be okay
But I think my childhood hopes are finally stocked and packed away
How did it all go so wrong?
I can barely see the light
My life has no more future than the Fort Lucenne Mall.
A/N: Dream sequences are fun. When did you realize it was a dream?
I'm bumping up the estimated number of chapters to 'who knows' again, because stories do that sometimes.