Panic

TUESDAY, AUGUST 16

heather

HEATHER HAD SUCCESSFULLY MANAGED TO AVOID talking to Anne for a whole day. After her fight with Bishop, she had walked two miles to the gully and spent the afternoon cursing and throwing rocks at random things (street signs, when there were any; fences; and abandoned cars).

His words played on endless repeat in her head. You want everything to be shitty . . . so you’ll have an excuse to fail.

Unfair, she wanted to scream.

But a second, smaller voice in her head said, True. Those two words—unfair and true—pinged back and forth in her head, like her mind was a giant Ping-Pong table.

By the time she returned from the gully it was evening, and both Anne and Lily were gone. She was seized with a sudden and irrational fear that Anne had taken Lily back to Fresh Pines. Then she saw a note on the kitchen table.

Grocery store, it said simply.

It was only seven thirty, but Heather curled up in bed, under the covers, despite the stifling heat, and waited for sleep to put a stop to the Ping-Pong game in her mind.

But when she woke up—early, when the sun was still making its first, tentative entry into the room, poking like an exploratory animal through the blinds—she knew there was no avoiding it anymore. Overnight, the Ping-Pong game had been resolved. And the word true had emerged victorious.

What Bishop had said was true. She felt even worse than she had the day before, which she had not believed was possible.

Already, she could hear Anne noises from downstairs: the clink-clink-clink of dishes coming out of the dishwasher, the squeak of the old wooden floorboards. When waking up in Fresh Pines to the usual explosion of sounds—cars backfiring, people yelling, doors banging and dogs barking and loud music—she had dreamed of just this kind of home, where mornings were quiet and mothers did dishes and got up early and then yelled at you to get up.

Funny how in such a short time, Anne’s house had become more like home than Fresh Pines had ever been.

And she had ruined it. Another truth.

By the time she came downstairs, Anne was on the porch. She called Heather out to her immediately, and Heather knew: this was it.

Heather was shocked to see a squad car parked a little ways down the drive, half pulled off into the underbrush. The cop was outside, leaning his butt against the hood of the car, drinking a coffee and smoking.

“What’s he doing here?” Heather said, forgetting for a moment to be scared.

Anne was sitting on the porch swing without swinging. Her knuckles around her mug of tea were very white. “They think the other one might come back.” She looked down. “The ASPCA would at least use a stun gun.…”

“The other one?” Heather said.

“You didn’t hear?” Anne said. And she told her: about Kirk Finnegan and his dog and the gunshots, twelve in total. By the time she was done, Heather’s mouth was as dry as sand. She wanted to hug Anne, but she was paralyzed, unable to move.

Anne shook her head. She kept her eyes on the mug of tea; she hadn’t yet taken a sip. “I know it was irresponsible, keeping them here.” When she finally looked up, Heather saw she was trying not to cry. “I just wanted to help. It was Larry’s dream, you know. Those poor cats. Did you know there are only thirty-two hundred tigers left in the wild? And I don’t even know which one was killed.”

“Anne.” Heather finally found her voice. Even though she was standing, she felt like she was shrinking from the inside out until she was little-kid-sized. “I’m so, so, so sorry.”

Anne shook her head. “You shouldn’t be playing Panic,” she said, and her voice momentarily held an edge. “I’ve heard too much about that game. People have died. But I don’t blame you,” she added. Her voice softened again. “You’re not very happy, are you?”

Heather shook her head. She wanted to tell Anne everything: about how she’d been dumped by Matt just when she was ready to say I love you; about how she realized now she hadn’t really loved him at all, because she had always been in love with Bishop; about her fears that she would never get out of Carp and it would eat her up, swallow her as it had her mom, turn her into one of those brittle, bitter women who is old and drug-eaten and done at twenty-nine. But she couldn’t speak. There was a thick knot in her throat.

“Come here.” Anne patted the swing next to her. And then, when Heather sat down, she was shocked: Anne put her arms around her. And all of a sudden Heather was crying into her shoulder, saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

“Heather.” Anne pulled away but kept one hand on Heather’s shoulder. With her other hand, she brushed the hair back from Heather’s face, where it was sticking to her skin. Heather was too upset to be embarrassed. “Listen to me. I’m not sure what this means for you and Lily. What I did—keeping the tigers here—was illegal. If your mom wants to make a big deal out of it, if the county wants to—the police might force you to go home. I’ll do everything I can to keep you here for as long as you and Lily want to stay, but—”

Heather nearly choked. “You—you’re not kicking me out?”

Anne stared at her. “Of course not.”

“But . . .” Heather couldn’t believe it. She must have misheard. “I was the one who let the tigers out. It’s all my fault.”

Anne rubbed her eyes and sighed. Heather never thought of Anne as old, but in that moment, she truly looked it. Her fingers were brittle and sun-spotted, her hair a dull and uniform gray. Someday she would die. Heather’s throat was still thick from crying, and she swallowed against the feeling.

“You know, Heather, I was with my husband for thirty years. Since we were kids, really. When we first got together, we had nothing. We spent our honeymoon hitchhiking in California, camping out. We couldn’t afford anything else. And some years were very hard. He could be moody.…” She made a restless motion with her hands. “My point is, when you love someone, when you care for someone, you have to do it through the good and the bad. Not just when you’re happy and it’s easy. Do you understand?”

Heather nodded. She felt as though there was a glass ball in her chest—something delicate and beautiful that might shatter if she said the wrong word, if she disturbed the balance in any way.

“So . . . you’re not mad at me?” she asked.

Anne half laughed. “Of course I’m mad at you,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want you to stay. That doesn’t mean I’ve stopped caring.”

Heather looked down at her hands. Once again, she was too overwhelmed to speak. She felt as though, just for a second, she had understood something vastly important, had had a glimpse of it: love, pure and simple and undemanding.

“What’s going to happen?” she said, after a minute.

“I don’t know.” Anne reached over and took one of Heather’s hands. She squeezed. “It’s okay to be scared, Heather,” she said, in a low voice, like she was telling her a secret.

Heather thought of Bishop, and the fight she’d had with Nat. She thought about everything that had happened over the summer, all of the changes and tension and weird shifts, as though the air was blowing from somewhere totally unfamiliar. “I’m scared all the time,” she whispered.

“You’d be an idiot if you weren’t,” Anne said. “And you wouldn’t be brave, either.” She stood up. “Come on. I’m going to put the kettle on. This tea is ice-cold.”

Bishop had, for the most part, come clean to the police. He’d been questioned for the better part of three hours and had at last been released back home to his father, pending official charges.

But he’d lied about one thing. The game wasn’t over. There were still three players left.

It was time for the final challenge.

It was time for Joust.