I'll Let You Go (20 page)

He heard Lucy's and Edward's treasure-hunt voices some floors above—and shot past, for Edward's progress was slow, and, besides, the cousins were distracted by the eerie stillness of each new floor. The structure was vast, even larger, if that were possible, than it seemed from outside. With unexpected verve, Tull bolted to the remaining level.

Ralph once told him about fire beetles—insects drawn to forest fires that flew through flames to lay eggs in charred tree bark—and though its door was shut and told nothing of what it hid, that is how Tull flew to the boudoir. He could smell his mother there, her shock and her sorrow, addictions and adorations. When he entered, he saw them for a moment entwined—then all he could see was her alone, blissful, awakening, yawning her newlywed breath, stretching, womb-starred, squatting on the toilet, then standing on tiptoes to spy from one of the mosaic porticoes, scanning for her beloved somewhere in the landscape below. He saw her put on slippers and say his father's name … then descend, calling out at each floor, mixing in lyrics of a sweetly improvised song as she floated down corkscrew stairs until finding herself at the front door, already
flung open,
he
had flung it open, staring out at the rolling hills, smile stuck to radiantly doomed face—when Lucy suddenly appeared, exalted and fairly wheezing, already sucking the thin air of bestsellerdom. Tull blocked her way as she tried to come in.

“No!” he said. “You can't!
No
one can!”

She thought at first it was a joke, but Tull was shaking and crying and she backed off.

“It's
not
for your stupid book, so get out!
Get out
—”

She put her hands up to calm him. At that moment Edward arrived, with entourage.

“What's happening?” he asked from Sling Blade's arms. The caretaker looked like a ventriloquist. He set the boy down.

“I said no one goes in there!” Tull slammed the door in their faces. Pullman barked from below.

“We won't,” called Edward respectfully. “Don't worry …”

“This was a
mistake
,” shouted Tull. “We shouldn't have come here!”

“Then,” said Edward, “we'll just turn around and go.”

Lucy had never seen her brother so calm and collected, so gracious. Like one of those crisis negotiators.

“If anyone comes in here,” said Tull dramatically, “I'll kill them!”

Sling Blade swept the boy up and the party retreated.

Tull of course stayed behind, heart pounding madly. It was only when their steps left the echoing cylinder at ground level and he heard circumspect voices outside La Colonne that he allowed himself to breathe again. His body, rigid since spitting its words, relaxed and his mouth began to jigger uncontrollably, tears scalding as he emerged from the wedding suite and walked down.

He thought of leaving by the old, secret way—through hedge of privet andromeda—but then thought better, to make certain the others had gone. So he raced ahead with Pullman and stood across the road until the Mauck edged from the drive.

Lucy stared at him through the window of the MSV as it swept past, her face riven by pain. Tull was ashamed and confused. He didn't want his cousins—especially Edward, who'd been so excited about the castle—to be traumatized on his account. Lucy had been trying so hard to help … and Edward—he would not want to injure his fragile, mystic friend. He'd call them later to make things right. For now, all he wanted was the gate of La Colonne Détruite to clang shut, its padlock restored.

The Mauck turned the corner and vanished. Mr. Greenjeans unraveled the chain and sealed everything up, then he too receded. All that was left was a nip of wind to sting Tull's eyes.

A station wagon of tourists cruised slowly down and stopped.

“Excuse me, but do you know where Nic Cage lives?” asked the driver, a sunny man in short sleeves.

“He moved,” said Tull.

The man turned to his wife and said, “Apparently, he moved.” The wife turned to the kids and said, “He moved.”

“Where?” asked an older boy. “Yeah, where!” said the girl. “I don't know,” said the mother, glancing down at her
Maps to Stars Homes
. She turned back to her husband. He was about to ask again, but the boy and his steadfast friend had already begun the lonesome trudge to Saint-Cloud.

W
hen we left Amaryllis last, it was dawn. Gilles Mott had invited her into his East Edgeware bakery, which she entered like a prisoner led to gallows.

Instead of wooden steps and rope, she was greeted by metal trays heaped with tarts, even day-olds she recognized as items Topsy had shared during underbridge idylls. She pecked at the almond-and-pomegranate treats and remembered bringing them home to the babies—thinking of them suddenly, alone in the void, pierced her heart so that she swooned; Gilles, already on the phone to his wife, said a few words, then hung up, coming to comfort as best he could.

Lani Mott, being a trained, sworn-in volunteer advocate, was required by law to call the child-abuse hotline, and thus set in motion a series of events we will roughly sketch. On this day, the dependency system worked with unusual efficiency. The police arrived at Frenchie's within the hour (Mrs. Mott had preceded them) and Amaryllis was taken to Rampart Detectives—the very precinct she and Topsy circumvented an eternity ago. Lani followed in her Saab.

In transit, the crying girl huddled against the shoulder of the policewoman in back of the squad car. The officer tried to engage her—she had a daughter of her own—to no avail. At the station, Lani and little Jane Doe were taken to a snug room next to the homicide suites. There, a utility table sported neatly arranged rows of stuffed animals, books and crayons, and a near–life size plastic gorilla. An aged TV was fixed high on the wall. The policewoman turned on cartoons before making a last, futile effort to learn her name, where she lived and how her parents might
be reached. When the lady left, Amaryllis sheepishly asked if this was the place where her babies had been brought. She clammed up when Lani dug deeper.

In time, the presence of a county social worker was announced; a pale, bespectacled child-woman appeared not twenty minutes later. She seemed to Lani more a rookie kindergarten teacher than a person who potentially held the life of a child in her hands. Lani explained about her husband finding the girl and how fortuitous it was that she, Lani Mott, “just happened to be a court-appointed special advocate for children.” At first, the clueless social worker assumed Lani had somehow—in whatever capacity—already been assigned the case. It was obvious she was just another overworked CSW who had never even
heard
of the illustrious advocacy program to which the baker's wife belonged; most social workers hadn't, even though volunteers like Lani made their lives so much easier. Who could blame them? County caseloads were so heavy that they barely remembered their own names.

When the paperwork was done, the CSW and her ward—who had by now officially declared herself Edith Stein—traveled to a DCFS building on 6th Street. Lani and Amaryllis found themselves in yet another room with utility tables and disorderly rows of stuffed animals. This one had peppy sky-blue walls, beanbag chairs and a real live boy, who had the slack, glazed look of an airport toddler studying strangers while they alit. During a lunch of take-out McDonald's, Amaryllis made further inquiries about her brother and sister, but the CSW, who for some reason now referred to herself as a “clients'-rights manager,” could find no record of the “Stein” siblings in the computer. (“It's really unusual to find Jews in the system,” she said offhandedly, and Lani thought that inappropriate.) The orphan, in a great war with herself, nearly exposed the babies as Kornfelds to expedite their discovery; but in the end, reasoned that might put them in danger.

At the end of the afternoon, having advocated and managed all manner of prickly clients' rights, the CSW announced that a “suitable placement” had been found. Mrs. Mott gave aka Edith a hug and the girl followed her to the hall like a stray when she left. For Lani, that was the worst part.

They crawled through downtown traffic, onto the Harbor Freeway. Amaryllis wondered what was meant by “placement”—and a suitable one at that—but was afraid to ask. A placement was not quite a
place;
that meant she was going to a not-quite someplace. Or maybe it was even
more
than a place … She angrily gritted her teeth at the thought of Topsy dropping her off like a package, shooing her toward the stranger in the silly cook's hat, cruelly sealing her fate. Then, seeing his hairy face and kind, cookie-size eyes float before her like a genie's, remembering how all those weeks he had fed her and soothed her then run with her in the night; watching herself turn traitorously on her only friend in the world, she wept with shame. Seeing her tears, the woman reached for a teddy—the backseat was chock-full of the furry placebos, shoveled in by the truckload.

If the Department of Children and Family Services could be counted on for anything, it was stuffed animals. A child might collect dozens even as his soul was being killed; suchwise, the Department would not fail. It was a child's inviolable right to bear arms and bear legs and bear tummies, to have and to hold and to clutch and to sob against a sad, soft donated thing staring back with synthetic, understanding eyes that could do no harm. (In protecting the rights of bears and child-bearing, the Department inarguably stood in the vanguard.) She handed a cub to Amaryllis, who instantly drew it to aching, purulent breast. Caressing the bereft girl's head, the CSW hassled her with kindness, tongue clicks and gentle shooshing
I know
s (as if she really did), coos and moans and
It'll be all right
s (as if it really would).

Wide-open spaces now. She asked where they were going and the woman said Tunga Canyon. A canyon!—another place to get lost in … another place not to find her precious babies. She may as well have said Alaska.

They arrived in darkness at the house on Chimney Smoke Road, greeted porch-side by the folksily winning Mrs. Woolery, sixtyish and straight out of a Knott's Berry Farm parade. “It's
Earlymae
—none uh Mrs. Woolery for
my
kids. Call me Earlymae!” she said, squatting eye to eye with Amaryllis. “
Grown-ups
the ones call me Mrs.
Woolery
.” Crystel Hallohan, a brunette the same size and age as the newcomer, attached herself to Amaryllis like a barnacle. An anarchic, gleeful boy in decal'd bike helmet and flannel PJs ran from the house jubilantly screaming. As Mrs. Woolery led them to the front door—drying Amaryllis's tears with a sleeve as they went—a bruised green-brown Wagoneer pulled up, disgorging a smiling Latino in ill-fitting sport coat, tie and teeth. He carried a mess of grocery bags, paper-in-plastic. Mrs. Woolery introduced him
as Jilbo, then laughingly told him to “hup to.” Grinning, he made a mock dash to the front door while the helmeted boy dervished after, spinning and shrieking and scrimmaging.

It was close and cluttered inside. There were so many nooks, knickknacks and promise of rooms that Amaryllis felt she'd entered a honeycomb hive. Mrs. Woolery entreated Crystel to please finish cleaning for their guest—she said the place was in a bit of a shambles, which it wasn't—but first the girl walked Amaryllis over to the flowery couch and set her down like a fragile, favorite doll.

The professionals immediately set about finalizing documents. The boy whirled about in his test-pilot helmet, taking all the dips, turns and tangents of a rubber band wind-up plane; Mrs. Woolery told him for heaven's sake to come in for a landing, while occasionally calling to the kitchen to goad Jilbo into “hupping it with dinner” unless he wanted them all to starve. After one such encouragement, she winked at the CSW, remarking how Jilbo was “short for Gilberto. I give
everyone
a name. Now our Jilbo is what they call a slow mover—not like our
friend
,” she said, indicating the fly-boy with a hitchhiker's jab of her painted thumb. She had a smoker's pulmonary laugh, even though she'd quit years back. “That's
Dennis
—I call him Dennis the Phantom Menace!” Laughing again, one heard the gritty gear-teeth of bronchi engage, her thick white Maidenform corseting a bosomy round-the-clock excavation of wheezing water, quartz and steam.

The benumbed Amaryllis watched MUTE flash on the big-screen television over QVC faces. After a brief absence, Crystel reappeared and dutifully presented her with a bouquet of Barbies. Mrs. Woolery peered benevolently from half-glasses and told Crissie Fits—“We call her
Crissie Fits
'cause she always
fittin'
. But she's a good ol' girl”—not to bother the “newbie,” but the CSW said it was sweet and encouraged Edith to say thank you. (“We
think
that's her name,” said the social worker.)

Amaryllis demurred, limply taking a doll by its thin, hard, dirty nude leg. Dennis flew to the rear of the house and screamed so shrilly that dogs outside began to bark. Mrs. Woolery rolled her eyes and shouted for Jilbo to “Hup the food now, 'fore Dennis the Menace blows a gasket!
Vamanos caballero!
”

When they finished signing the aforesaid papers, the CSW knelt and told Amaryllis she probably wouldn't be seeing her again very soon. Which meant never. Her job was to help children find nice homes
during times of emergency and now, she said, another person would be coming “for follow-up.” Amaryllis almost asked right then about the babies, but didn't have it in her. Mrs. Woolery palmed the orphan's forehead and said with some concern, “You're warm as a toaster.” She told Crystel to get some Bayer's and start a cool tub. Jilbo came from the kitchen grinning like a square dancer to see the social worker off.