August Prather Is Not Dead Yet

Chapter 2

2When it finally happened, it happened like this.

The three boys went up the hill to the house.

Snow had fallen the night before and the crusty mud from their boots stained the powder that their feet crushed. Their silhouettes in the last red light from the dying sun were black wraiths against the flat silver banks that were lying untouched beside them.

Ivan stood in front of a window, the glow from the warmth inside bled onto his face. In the glass he saw the reflection of his dark eyes and his sly smile. He stepped closer, pressed his hand to the glass, and watched his reflection fade into the scene beyond.

“Can you see her?” one of the boys began.

“No.”

“So . . . she isn’t real?” the other boy concluded.

“She could just be in a different room.”

“Maybe they keep her locked in a tower. If she is as beautiful as they say, then . . .”

“There aren’t any towers on this house. Do you see any towers?”

“What about a cellar . . .”

“Shut up,” Ivan silenced them.

The two boys started to move closer, but Ivan thrust a palm backward to halt their progress.

“Do you see her now?”

“What do you see?”

Ivan stood in front of the window, watching. His eyes grew still, flickering with light, etching visions of what was happening inside the room, inside the moment. What is perceived through eyes and glass is always taken as flawlessly real, the distortion of the expectation is never considered. His were only human eyes.

“What do you see?”

“A maid’s pouring water into a tub.”

“Is Maria going to take a bath? I want to see!”

“i***t, we’re going to get more than a glimpse of her in a minute, if everything works out.”

The night made their breath visible, clouds of white seeping out their nostrils and gaping mouths like smoke, past Ivan’s grinning lips.

“She’s in there now.”

“She’s in the tub?”

“She’s in the room.”

“What does she look like?”

“I told you what she looks like, she has long blonde . . .”

“The maid just left the room.”

“Is she naked?”

“Is she pretty?”

Ivan opened the window.

He went through.

And in seconds the boys were running down the hillside, the slight figure in white draped over Ivan’s shoulder was struggling to be set down, kicking and punching. Eventually they came to an abandoned cottage on the base of the hill.

Ivan set her down in the middle of the room. Someone lit a lamp so they could see her. The three boys formed a circle around her and charred black bars of the spindly chairs cast a shadow over her face. She was looking down now, hugging her knees, on the floor. But just another moment and she glanced up and flashed the most beautiful blue eyes. Her pink lips frowned and her slender form shook beneath the light gown. It was transparent. They could see all the curves of her body; all the pink skin beneath.

Ivan was the one to make the move. He pulled the gown from her body, a petal off the stamen of a flower. Only when he pulled it, it went right over her head, and all she did was lift her arms. Her gold hair lifted off her back and then fell gently back down, touching her skin. And still she clung to her knees.

They let her sit there. Naked and shaking in the cold room on the rough wooden floor. They let her sit there as long as they could trying to imagine everything in glory before it actually happened. Then Ivan barked an order to hold her down because he was going first and the two boys grabbed her, one her arms, one her legs and they forced her legs apart and she was lying on her back and Ivan looked down.

“What the f**k?” he spat.

Both of the others realized it too.

They let go of Maria and they stepped back, their hands out in front of them.

“Oh, gross . . . we just . . . sick . . .”

“What’s this? You’re supposed to be a girl!” Ivan grabbed the offending appendage, roughly squeezing it in his palm. Maria howled, covering mouth and eyes in shameful fear. “No t**s, either . . . should have been my first clue . . .”

“Maria’s a man?” one friend said to the other, still in shock.

“You little slut, what kind of joke is this?” He pulled more and Maria sobbed.

“Stop it . . .” his voice rang out through the cabin. It was a deeper voice than Ivan wanted. It only infuriated him more.

“I wanted to take you so bad, and now I can’t stop . . . I’m just going to do it anyway. You dress up like a woman then you’re asking to get f****d like one . . .” Ivan was messing with his pants, Maria was crying harder, thrashing on the floor.

“Ivan . . . you can’t do it to a boy,” one friend spoke up. “That’s really twisted.”

“It’s sinful . . .”

Ivan never listened to his friends. But this time he did.

“Fine.”

He let the boy go and stood up.

“What are we going to do now?”

“Just leave him here to die?”

“We can beat the s**t out of him.”

“No,” Ivan said shortly.

“No?” the other boys answered.

“No.” Ivan sat down next to the young man’s huddled form, he had curled into a ball on his side, protecting his injured parts. Ivan lifted the long hair from the boy’s back revealing lash marks. Some fresh, some long-healed. He smiled that same smile he had when he was looking through that window.

He curled around the small body a moment, whispering into the boy’s ear.

“I’m coming back for you, slut. You’re not going anywhere.”

Ivan and the two other boys grabbed Maria and dragged him into the beaten, old bed. They piled several heavy quilts over him, tied his wrists to the headboard and his ankles to the footboard.

The three boys left shortly after that.

HARMLESSSomewhere along the way, Lyosha had fallen asleep and slumped down against Garnet’s shoulder. Soon afterward, Garnet fell asleep. Mitya looked back, seeing the two of them, Garnet still holding the manuscript open, and Lyosha flushed and peaceful with sleep. Mitya watched the sun go down and the sky grow dark. Small pinpricks of light grew on the horizon. They were near a city.

He wanted to know what city, but he never found out. He fell asleep, his head against the window.

The car came to a screeching halt.

All three passengers shot forward. Garnet clutched the manuscript with her life, Lyosha hit the headrest with the orange stuff on it, and Mitya clutched Lyosha’s leg behind him.

The car spun around. Then it started going in reverse.

“August,” Mitya began, his voice higher than usual. He had a steel grip on Lyosha’s knee. “August . . . what are you doing?”

August was grinning feverishly, leaning over the wheel.

“Oh. I got tired of having this land yacht ride my ass.” She put the car back in drive. The land yacht had stopped in front of them. For a moment, headlights stared unblinking. Then August hit the gas and the Prius shot forward.

“August, you’re crazy!” Lyosha screamed.

The land yacht got closer, closer, and closer and August started laughing.

“August, Kate’s . . .” Mitya started but never finished. They all closed their eyes. The land yacht flung itself out of the way into the other lane and drove past.

August stopped the car.

She drew an audible breath and then turned the car around.

“I’m hungry.” She pulled off the highway down a feeder road to a large, glowing restaurant. Her passengers were stricken and shaking.

That is how they ended up at Denny’s.

For a moment they all sat in the booth staring at August while she turned the menu right side up, upside down, and finally asked the waitress if there were actually veggie burgers available. The waitress said yes. August ordered pancakes and a veggie burger.

Before the food got there, Mitya asked how the exorcism went and Lyosha told the story. By the end, Garnet had chimed in and they were all talking together.

“Do I look like a nun or something?” Garnet laughed, taking a sip of Coke.

“No. But apparently, I don’t look like a priest.” Lyosha nudged the man beside him. “Mitya, she said I don’t look like a priest.”

“You don’t look like a priest.” Mitya half-smiled at Garnet.

“Hey! Well, what about Mitya?”

“Mitya looks like a priest,” Garnet laughed.

“Okay, okay. Well, what is it that makes him look like a priest and not me?”

“He looks more serious.” August took Mitya’s glasses off his face and put them over her own eyes. “Don’t you think, Kate?”

“What about August?” Mitya pinched her and snatched his glasses back.

“Hey.” August pinched Mitya back and then posed. “What about me?”

“Yeah, Kate, what’s your impression of August?” Lyosha asked.

Garnet turned to face her.

“Um . . . well . . .” Garnet narrowed her eyebrows. “August is different.”

“Does she look like a writer?”

“She looks like a writer. But writers can be lots of things. Everyone looks like a writer,” Garnet responded. “She looks like a rock star.”

August’s eyes seemed to focus for a moment, a veil coming loose.

“Ooo . . . you like her, don’t you?” Lyosha chided.

“What?” Garnet rolled her eyes. “Oh, God no. I hate rock stars.”

“Nobody hates rock stars. They’re just jealous of them.” Mitya sipped his tea.

Lyosha snorted.

“Jealous?”

“Well, that would make sense, seeing as Kate snuck into August’s car to read her new book,” Lyosha served.

“I am not jealous.”

“She’s totally jealous,” Lyosha said to Mitya.

“I am not jealous,” she laughed though.

“She isn’t jealous,” August said sharply. “She just wants to be me.”

Lyosha spit his water back into his glass.

Mitya made a face at him.

Garnet struggled for something to say. Then her phone rang. “Shit.”

She looked at the number.

“Sorry, I have to take this.” She stepped outside, into the dry, cold air.

“Kate?”

“Yeah?” Garnet was standing on the curb. A car went by, headlights blazed over her and then continued onward into the night.

“Kate, where have you been?”

“What do you mean?”

“You were supposed to meet me tonight to discuss this new book . . .”

“Oh.” Garnet looked at her watch. “Sorry, Tim, guess I forgot.”

“Well, where are you right now? We can still meet up.”

“I’m not quite sure.”

“What?”

“Well, I . . .” Garnet stood on her toes and tried to see street signs off the highway flyer nearby. No dice. “Yeah, I really don’t know, but I’m in a desert.”

“Kate, how the hell did you . . .”

“It’s a long story, Tim.”

“You didn’t . . . go get mixed up with August Prather did you?”

“Maybe . . . Why do you ask?”

“She’s missing. Apparently, she didn’t show for her meetings today either. You didn’t . . . steal that manuscript and take off with her tailing you?”

“No. Not exactly.”

“What did you do?”

“You really wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

She told him.

“You what?”

“I just . . .”

“No, I heard you . . . so now you’re on a road trip with these people?”

“Yeah, August and the two priests.”

“I don’t want to ask why. Have you asked yourself why? What are you thinking?”

“I want to read the rest of the book.”

“Bullshit. Wait for the paperback. Get your ass back to Berkeley or you’re finding a new agent.”

“Then I guess I’m finding a new agent.”

“Hey, wait . . . don’t hang up . . . wait, just . . . you’re my best client, Kate . . .”

“Uh-huh.”

“And I really just have your best interest at heart.”

“Sure, sure.”

“Come back and write a book. You can go on a fun road trip another day . . .”

“No. That’s what you don’t understand. This is exactly what I need. I need chaos.”

“Well, it would be comforting for you to have submitted something to me before going off on a mid-life crisis road adventure. And the fact that you are calling me from an unknown location with strangers does not sit well with me one little bit. Has it ever occurred to you that your fanciful little journey of existential whimsy could end with you being found in several ditches outside of Reno?”

“Are you kidding, Tim? August is harmless. Weird as hell, but harmless.” Garnet tried not to think about the stunt driving incident earlier.

“But . . . what should I tell the publisher?”

“Tell them I’m on hiatus to do some research.”

“That’ll go over well.”

“Then just tell them I ran away.”

“Kate, I have three kids. I have a mortgage. I have bills to pay. What do you have? That old house you own, but it can just sit there. I’d offer to house-sit but there’s probably nothing in it that needs sitting. Do you even have a plant, Kate?”

“No.” She shivered. Suddenly the night was cold. “What are you getting at?”

“I envy you, that’s all. You don’t have any ties to anyone. And yet you’re still here, alive, floating around. I don’t think I could live like that. I want to, but I don’t think I would like it. Not really.”

“Thanks, Tim,” she mired. “Have a great night.”

Then she hung up the phone.

BOOKSGarnet was sitting on the cement balcony of their motel in a plastic lawn chair. She had gone out there to read. The manuscript was in her lap, but when Lyosha saw the smoke from her cigarette, he came out to beg one off her.

“I’m really glad you’re not as petty and judgmental as I thought you were.” He was wearing plaid pajama pants and a black tank top. His long hair was pinned up on the top of his head.

“As much as you pettily judged me to be?” She passed him a lighter.

“Well, yeah, there’s that.” He lit the cigarette he was twirling between his fingers and took a drag.

“No. I’m not that judgmental.” She flicked the ashes off the end of her cigarette and put it back in her mouth. “Though with all the weird s**t going on, you can’t blame me.”

“Hey, you were some weird s**t today too, lady.” He blew smoke up into the sky. “I mean, who gets accidentally kidnapped?”

“Desperate writers, apparently.”

“Was it worth it?”

“It was. The book is good. I’m hoping to steal it and publish it in my name.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Mmm . . .”she breathed out a long stream of smoke. “I am such a f*****g sellout.”

“What?”

“Really, I am, I just . . . I try too hard.”

“Your work is good.”

“But . . . it’s not that good. I was just . . . afraid. Like you said before. And it’s getting to be too late for me now. Too late, too fast.” She stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray on the small plastic table in between them.

“Why did you become a writer?”

“Why did you become a priest?”

“Oh, here we go . . .” he sucked down.

“I didn’t really become a writer. It just sort of happened. I started writing one day and . . . in order to make a living I had to follow the trends and it developed into this cycle. People can only read what you write for them, but the only thing to write for them is what they want to read. And all they want to read is what they have been reading. I think it’s like that with a lot of things. It’s hard to change. Most writers just use the cycle. Even August, to some extent.”

“f*****g August.”

“So . . . do you know where we’re going?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing.” He put out his cigarette. “She told me it had something to do with you.”

“Really? I guess I thought . . . well, I assumed it had to do with you and Mitya, since we had to go get you guys.”

“Nope. I have no idea.” Lyosha stood up.

“You leaving?”

“Yeah, Mitya’s going to get pissed at me, smoking out here. I’ve got to get the smell off and stuff.”

“Okay. Well, I’ll be out here for a while, reading, so don’t wait up.”

“Good night, Kate.”

“Good night.”