Chapter Fourteen
“It’s a wizard!”
Josie joined Amos at the living room window—the now completely yellow living room—and stared out into the snow.
“Yup. Our St. Patrick’s Day blizzard, right on time,” she responded.
One fun fact about that holiday in upstate New York. It either snowed or it was a hundred degrees out. No in between. Not up here.
“We hafta stay home?”
“Even more yup. Today is a snow day. Mommy doesn’t have to go to work, and you don’t go to pre-K.”
Amos’s eyes widened. “You don’t hafta go at work? This is the best day ever, Mom!”
Josie picked him up and twirled him around fast in the hopes the air would dry the tears standing in her eyes.
Were there worlds where a woman didn’t have to choose between earning a living and spending a few more hours a week parenting? Josie wished Number Five could drop her and Amos off there for a few years.
“Amos?” she asked as they settled themselves in the kitchen for chocolate chip pancakes and hot cocoa. “If Momma could do magic, what kind of magic would you want me to do?”
She’d left the meeting with Maddy, Raphe, and Naliti after agreeing nothing would be said to Amos about the true nature of the building.
She and Amos had walked over to the science museum on Sunday afternoon after church and treated themselves to pizza afterward.
Josie hadn’t seen any of the residents since the “big reveal.”
Last night, Josie had tossed and turned in her bed, trying to figure out what she believed about Number Five and the people, or beings, in it.
If Number Five was sentient, did that mean it—she—was aware of what Josie and Amos always did?
Had Number Five been the one to decorate Amos’s room?
Was that creepy or cool, and why had the line between those two become so blurred since they moved in?
“If you were magic, you could make it always Christmas,” Amos offered.
Josie considered this as she tossed a few marshmallows in their cocoa. “If it were always Christmas, it would never be summer and never be your birthday, and we couldn’t go to the beach.”
“Hmmmmm.” Amos sat at the kitchen table and swung his feet back and forth furiously. “You could make tofu taste like pizza.”
Now that was worth considering.
“That’s all you can think of, buddy?” she asked. “Nothing else you wish you had that Momma can’t give you?”
“Nope,” he said, then licked the syrup from his plate. “I can watch Dinosaur Train because it’s a wizard day?”
“Sure, bud.”
Josie stayed at the kitchen table. She rolled her pancake into a tube and dipped the end of it in her cocoa, relieved. If she was utterly failing as a mom, Amos would have asked for her to do something about it with magic, right?
Saturday night, when Gloria had brought Amos home, she’d looked even more disgruntled than usual.
“Why is Amos not taking violin?” she’d asked before Josie could get out a greeting.
The buttons of Gloria’s blue Talbots wool coat shone dully; her peach-pink lipstick greenish in the odd light.
Josie had wanted to get Amos upstairs in bed as soon as possible, both because it was late and because the gargoyle in the left alcove was in a different position than it had been yesterday.
Was it alive?
Was it dangerous?
Pax would have warned her if the gargoyles ate people. Right?
“Well, we can certainly talk about that in the morning if you’d like,” Josie lied, picking Amos up and giving him a squeeze.
“Josephine,” Gloria had snapped. “Al and I have serious concerns about where Amos is developmentally. At his age, Dan played piano, tennis, and went to chess camp. Most of my friends have grandchildren in multiple activities.”
Gloria waited a beat.
“And it shows,” she said.
Did those same friends talk about their grandkids in front of them as if they didn’t exist or couldn’t understand when their abilities were questioned? The criticism pinched though and sat like a sharp stone in Josie’s belly.
She’d kissed Amos’s ears loudly so he wouldn’t hear Gloria’s words. “I don’t know about violin,” Josie had said, a forced smile squeezing her words too thin, “but I agree we need some music in our lives. How about after Christmas we sign this kid up for Orff?”
“Is that like yoga?” Gloria had asked.
Turning Amos upside down so he giggled some more, Josie had then righted him and set him on the ground, keeping her expression hidden, relying on her masterful powers of placation to make this end without conflict.
“It’s a famous German music education technique,” Josie assured her. “I was going to enroll him in the free class at the church—”
“I’ll look to see if they are offered privately,” Gloria snapped.
Right. God forbid Amos mingle with the masses.
“Great. Thanks again for spending time with Amos, I know he appreciates you two.” Josie widened her fake smile and hustled Amos toward the staircase.
Gloria’s insinuation had skittered through Josie’s brain yesterday and in last night’s crappy sleep.
Taking another pancake, Josie placed a line of whipped cream down the center, rolled it up, and dipped it into syrup while she brooded.
Despite being a pretty shitty human being, Gloria had managed to raise a good man.
Dan had been smart and funny and genuinely warm with a big heart.
If the secret to growing up into a decent person despite a parent’s flaws was taking piano and tennis at age four, maybe Josie should look more into those sorts of classes.
What did she know about raising a kid?
What if, despite her attempt to escape her family, Josie was destined to repeat their mistakes?
The light over the kitchen sink dimmed and the whipped cream thickened and yellowed.
Holy hell.
Had Josie done that?
Was that Number Five reacting to Josie’s anxiety, or was it a message telling Josie to relax, or was it a coincidence and the residents of Number Five had succeeded in their mad plan to drive her insane?
“Mom? I can watch Arfer?” Amos called from the living room.
“No more TV,” Josie called back. Whatever had happened had unnerved her. Josie needed out of the building right now.
“It’s a snow day, Amos,” she called. “Let’s get the last bit of use out of your snowsuit until it snows again at Easter.”
· · ·
“I can’t look. It’s too awful.”
Pax, Bert, and Joey stared at Maddy, who had one hand over her eyes, dramatically twisting away from the lobby window. The four of them had been watching Amos and Josie making shapes in the snow on the front lawn.
Joey turned his attention back to the humans. “She isn’t hurting him. It looks like they’re making some sort of primitive art.”
“They are making a mess of what was a perfect surface,” Maddy complained. “It was a beautiful field of virgin snow this morning…”
Bert and Joey giggled when Maddy said “virgin.”
“…and is now a churning mass of soiled carnage,” she finished.
Pax followed Joey’s gaze to where Josie and Amos stood next to a rounded figure and pressed twigs into its sides, either to represent arms or as some sort of pretend torture.
Having no memories of playing in the snow from his time at the orphanage, Pax could only guess at what the little family was doing. Whatever it was, they laughed a great deal.
“I cannot let this go any further. They will put everything back the way it was, right now.” With that Maddy put on her enormous sunglasses and stormed out of the lobby.
“Oh dear,” said Joey. “I’ve been watching DVDs from Miss Nekesa’s family-friendly section, and my research leads me to believe the LaChiusas are cavorting in a winter wonderland.”
“What does that mean?” rasped Bert.
The boy turned away from the window, his nose stuck to the side of his face from pressing against the glass. “It is something humans do when it first snows. They cavort and afterward drink hot beverages and sometimes sing songs about kissing.”
“Huh,” said Bert, his sausage-size eyebrows drawn together in confusion, whether over the definition of “cavort” or puzzlement over why humans would choose to perform such an activity in the snow.
“Hmmm,” said Pax, echoing Bert’s puzzlement until a thought struck him. “So, if cavorting is what normal humans do in the snow, it would be abnormal for someone to insist they…”
Sure enough, Maddy stood out on the neatly shoveled walkway dressed in white with elegant white boots, long fur-trimmed white coat, and towering fur hat with a silken scarf tied beneath her chin.
She gestured to the snow with her white fur-lined gloves, to the air, then back at the misshapen creature Josie and Amos had crafted.
He couldn’t hear anything they were saying, but Josie’s expression went from amusement to surprise to consternation quickly. Damn.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, although he doubted anyone was listening since Joey was trying to push his nose straight and grossing Bert out in the process.
“…the whole effect is chaotic.”
Maddy’s voice slipped down the back of Pax’s neck and left shivers in its wake.
Not good.
She’d been in a shitty mood ever since Josie found out about Number Five. No matter how many ways he asked her, however, Maddy refused to admit it. She kept telling him she was fine, even though her hair was so volatile she could barely keep her hat on.
“Oh. Hello, Ms. LaChiusa,” he said loudly, waving like a fool. “Hello, Mr. Amos.”
Amos waved back. “We is messing up Miss Maddy’s snow,” he announced.
“I’m sure that’s not true,” Pax said with false cheer.
He came to stand next to Maddy while appreciating how the cold turned Josie’s cheeks a pretty shade of pink.
Her blue hat sat askew on her head, and a poorly knitted scarf was clumsily tied around her neck.
Amos wore a yellow-and-green snowsuit, pink knitted hat, and a Spider-Man scarf to complement his Spider-Man boots.
“Oh, it’s true,” hissed Maddy.
“You see,” Pax said over her words, “having watched Miss Nekesa’s family-friendly holiday DVDs, I know it’s perfectly normal for families to play with snow.” He laid heavy emphasis on those last few words.