Chapter 41
It is less a sleep than an ego death, an exhausting trance of nonbeing. Hours later, Rebecca stirs in the same position she fell onto the bed—flat on her stomach, face mashed half on the pillow. Her mouth is dry, sour with sleep.
It is still pouring out, rain drumming the roof, thunder roaring like a revved engine, the world tearing itself apart in its ancient dance.
Maddy is passed out beside her, but Mark is not there on his side of the bed.
He stands facing the door, muscles tensed, on high alert.
Rebecca shoves herself up. “What?” she whispers hoarsely.
Mark holds two fingers out to his side, turns slowly. “Hear that?” he whispers back.
A faint sound comes audible over the storm.
Clink clink. Clink clink.
It originates from somewhere down the hall.
Somewhere near the nursery.
She finds her feet, pulls on a sweatshirt, takes her place at Mark’s side.
Clink clink. Clink clink.
They look back at Maddy, a final check before leaving the safety of the bedroom.
The sound comes even louder off the hard surfaces of the hall.
Clink clink. Clink clink.
They inch down the corridor, eyes on the nursery door.
It is open.
Did they leave it open? She cannot remember.
Clink clink. Clink clink.
The noise is oddly even, perfectly spaced like Mr. Man’s fingers and toes.
They draw closer, the sound of their progress muted by the hammering of rain on the shingles.
It is like being inside a kettledrum. Lightning flashes, throwing the framed photographs on the wall into sudden bright relief—coconut drinks on their Kauai honeymoon, Maddy’s kindergarten portrait, a selfie of them crammed three across on that bunny slope ski lift at Big Bear.
Clink clink. Clink clink.
The nursery is now just a few strides away.
But Mark halts by the laundry-room cubby. The door is closed.
When he opens it, the clink clink grows louder yet.
Bleach sits atop the washing machine. Laundry thumps inside the dryer. Who is washing anything at this hour?
Mark’s knee cracks as he squats before the dryer. He reaches for the handle. Hesitates. Tugs it open.
A tumble of clothes inside.
A T-shirt from Costco. A pair of Mark’s 501s.
Clink clink. Clink clink.
Like something left in a pocket of the jeans has come loose.
As the dryer slows, the thing inside rattles loudly to a stop.
Rebecca splits her focus between the dryer, the nursery door just ahead, and the dark hall beyond.
Mark reaches inside. His hand disappears to the wrist in fabric, roots around.
It emerges.
His shoulders ripple as they tighten. He gives something like a gasp.
Rebecca’s heart is thundering to match the storm. She jerks her gaze to check the hall once more and then leans to peer over his shoulder.
A silver key, the head bulging tumorlike to the right.
But that isn’t what snares her breath in her throat. It’s the leather fob the key is attached to, sporting a metal crest with the Porsche insignia.
Mark sets down the key on top of the dryer. He stands slowly.
The rise and fall of his chest beneath his T-shirt, a match for the one in the dryer, is pronounced.
They brace themselves. Ease forward to the nursery.
Shadows from the fallen tree limbs wag jerkily against baby blue walls.
The room and prism are empty.
Rebecca’s lungs burn with anticipation. She remembers to exhale.
Back into the hall.
A creak issues from the kitchen.
Mark moves more swiftly now, and she skips once to keep pace. She does not want to be out of his reach.
They come through the brief foyer and into the kitchen, and there Mr. Man is, standing before the open bunny cage, holding not-Bao-Bao in his arms.
The fallen fork of the tree twists outside the bay windows, a tentacle heaved up from the deep. A strobe of lightning flickers across Mr. Man’s bland-featured mask, patterning the wall behind him with fans of needles.
Rebecca’s words come as a hot hiss: “What did you do?”
Mr. Man strokes the rabbit. “Nothing you did not want me to take care of.”
“That’s not true,” Mark says. “That’s not true at all.”
“You have not consulted yourselves,” Mr. Man says, “deeply enough.”
His hand tightens on the rabbit’s scruff, tugging it upward. Rebecca braces herself for a snap or a crunch, but none comes.
“I want this to end,” Rebecca says. “We want this to end.”
“Listen,” Mark says, trying for calm and steady, “we don’t want this to turn violent. Let’s just get you back in the prism.”
Mr. Man stares at them with that blank face, those dead eyes.
Beyond the bay windows, the branches of the fallen tree shudder in the breeze, a procession of the dead.
Lightning shocks the night again, throwing his shadow gothically across the cornflower blue of the Pottery Barn couch and the rest of the ridiculous furnishings.
The stainless steel facade of the microwave flashes, as does the titanium business card on the desk, the card that started this all.
His mouth shapes a crescent. It is a smile, though it does not look like a smile. The mouth says, “But our work is not done. I have not taken care of your mother yet.”
Ice water moves through Rebecca’s veins. She tries to take a breath but cannot. What else is on Mr. Man’s checklist? On her checklist?
“Mommy? Daddy?”
“Go back to your room, Maddy,” Mark says. “Right now.”
But Maddy does not listen. Holding Mr. Fox by the ears, she stands and observes Mr. Man.
“You killed Bao-Bao,” she says.
Mr. Man’s head cocks as he regards her. “Yes. I did.”
“You didn’t understand what to do.”
“No. I did not.”
“You don’t understand a lot,” Maddy says. “That’s okay. I sometimes don’t either.”
“We are trying,” Mark says through clenched teeth, “to get Mr. Man back into his prism.”
“He’s not safe right now, honey,” Rebecca says. “He’s not safe anymore.”
Maddy’s calm gaze moves from them across to Mr. Man and then back to them again. She gives her one-shouldered shrug.
She walks over to the desk.
She picks up the titanium business card.
She brings it back to Rebecca and Mark.
It is shiny in her small hand.
It glints up at them.
It says: You’re in charge.
At the sight of it, Rebecca’s and Mark’s last requests play like echoes in Rebecca’s mind.
Maybe you should go back in.
I think we’d do well to take a break. Wouldn’t you like to take a break too?
We’d like you to get back into the prism.
We don’t want this to turn violent. Let’s just get you back in the prism.
Everything phrased indirectly, elliptically, with equivocation.
Rebecca takes the hard-edged card. Stares down at the words. Feels something rising within her, something young and buried and firm of purpose.
Her eyes lift to laser into Mr. Man, and her voice takes on the timbre of a foreman on a job that allows no overtime. “Go to the nursery,” she says. “Now.”
Mr. Man remains still for a second too long.
And then he is walking toward them.
Rebecca braces, but Mr. Man walks right past her and Mark, heading toward the foyer.
They follow him up the hall to the nursery. Rebecca enters after him, Mark behind, holding Maddy’s hand.
“Get in,” Rebecca says.
Mr. Man approaches the bulky prism. Above the laser-etched N0RM LLC, the sensor light glows green. The lid is propped up.
He rests his hands on the rim. Then turns to look back at her over his shoulder. His face is expressionless, but there is something about it that seems to be pleading.
Rebecca says it again: “Get. In.”
Mr. Man climbs in.
“Close the lid.”
Mr. Man blinks and then blinks again. His smooth hand reaches for an internal control and pulses, and then the lid lowers down slowly, slowly, wiping him from view.
His dark pupils are the last thing Rebecca sees before the prism seals.
“Do not come out of here,” she tells the closed casket, “ever again.”
She takes a step back and then another, until she is standing beside Mark and Maddy.
And then Mark walks over to the 240-volt charging point and rips the fat cord out of the wall.
The green sensor light flickers once and dies.