Panic

MONDAY, AUGUST 22

heather

IN THE DAYS FOLLOWING THE TIGERS’ ESCAPE, HEATHER was so anxious she couldn’t sleep. She kept expecting Krista to show up with some court order, demanding that Lily return home. Or, even worse, for the cops or the ASPCA to show up and haul Anne off to jail. What would she do then?

But as more days passed, she relaxed. Maybe Krista realized she was happier with her daughters out of the house. That she wasn’t meant to be a mother. All the things Heather had heard her say a million times. And although the cops floated in and out, still trying to locate the second tiger, still patrolling Anne’s property, and the ASPCA showed up to verify the conditions of the other animals and make sure they were all legal, Anne wasn’t clapped in handcuffs and dragged away, as Heather had feared.

Heather knew, deep down, that her situation at Anne’s was temporary. She couldn’t stay here forever. In the fall, Lily had to go back to school. Anne was floating them, paying for them, but how long would that last? Heather had to get a job, pay Anne back, do something. She just kept clinging to the hope that Panic would fix it: that with the money she earned, even if she had to split it with Dodge, she could rent a room from Anne or get her own space with Lily.

The longer she stayed away from Fresh Pines, the more certain she became: she would never, ever go back there. She belonged here, or somewhere like it—somewhere with space, where no neighbors were crawling up your butt all the time and there was no shouting, no sounds of bottles breaking and people blasting music all night. Somewhere with animals and big trees and that fresh smell of hay and poop that somehow wasn’t unpleasant. It was amazing how much she loved making the rounds, cleaning out the chicken coop and brushing the horses down and even sweeping the stalls.

It was amazing, too, how good it felt to be wanted somewhere. Because Heather believed, now, what Anne had said to her. Anne cared. Maybe even loved her, a little bit.

Which changed everything.

Three days until the final challenge. Now that Heather knew how it would go down—that she would only be called on to lose in the first round of Joust, to Dodge—she felt incredibly relieved. First thing she was going to do with the money was buy Lily a new bike, which she’d been eyeing when they took a trip to Target the other day.

No. First she would give Anne some money, and then she would buy a bike.

And then maybe a nice sundress for herself, and some strappy leather sandals. Something pretty to wear when she finally worked up the courage to talk to Bishop—if she did.

She fell asleep and dreamed of him. He was standing with her on the edge of the water tower, telling her to jump, jump. Beneath her—far beneath her—was a swollen rush of water, interspersed with bright white lights, like unblinking eyes pasted in the middle of all that black water. He kept telling her not to be afraid, and she didn’t want to tell him she was terrified, so weak she couldn’t move.

Then Dodge was there. “How are you going to win if you’re scared of the jump?” he was saying.

Suddenly Bishop was gone, and the ledge under her feet wasn’t metal, but a kind of wood, half-rotten, unstable. Boom. Dodge was swinging at it with a baseball bat, whittling away the wood, sending showers of splinters down toward the water. Boom. “Jump, Heather.” Boom. “Heather.”

“Heather.”

Heather woke up to doubleness—Lily whispering her name urgently, standing in the space between their beds; and also, like an echo, a voice from outside.

“Heather Lynn!” the voice cried. Boom. The sound of a fist on the front door. “Get down here! Get down here so I can talk to you.”

“Mom,” Lily said, just as Heather placed the voice. Lily’s eyes were wide.

“Get in bed, Lily,” Heather said. She was awake in an instant. She checked her phone. 1:13 a.m. In the hall, a small fissure of light was showing underneath Anne’s bedroom door. Heather heard sheets rustling. So she’d been woken too.

The banging was still going, and the muffled cries of “Heather! I know you’re in there. You gonna ignore your own mother?” Even before reaching the door, Heather knew her mom was drunk.

The porch light was on. When she opened the door, her mom was standing with one hand to her eyes, like she was shielding them from the sun. She was a mess. Hair frizzy; shirt so low Heather could see all the wrinkles of her cleavage and the white half-moons where her bikini had prevented a tan; jeans with stains; enormous wedge heels. She was having trouble standing in one place and kept taking miniature steps for balance.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“What am I doing here?” she slurred. “What are you doing here?”

“Leave.” Heather took a step onto the porch, hugging herself. “You have no right to be here. You have no right to come barging—”

“Right? Right? I got every right.” Her mom took an unsteady step forward, trying to move past her. Heather blocked her, grateful, for the first time, that she was so big. Krista started shouting, “Lily! Lily Anne! Where are you, baby?”

“Stop it.” Heather tried to grab Krista by the shoulders, but her mom reeled away from her, swatting her hand.

“What’s going on?” Anne had appeared behind them, blinking, wearing an old bathrobe. “Heather? Is everything okay?”

“You.” Krista took two steps forward before Heather could stop her. “You stole my babies.” She was weaving, swaying on her shoes. “You goddamn bitch, I should—”

“Mom, stop!” Heather hugged herself tight, trying to keep her insides together, trying to keep everything from spilling out.

And Anne was saying, “Okay, let’s calm down, let’s everyone calm down.” Hands up, like she was trying to keep Krista at bay.

“I don’t need to calm down—”

“Mom, stop it!”

“Get out of my way—”

“Hold on, just hold on.”

And then a voice from the darkness beyond the porch: “What’s the trouble?” A flashlight clicked on, just as the porch light went off. It swept over all of them in turn, like a pointed finger. Someone emerged from the dark, came heavily up the stairs, as the porch light, in response to his movement, clicked on again. The rest of them were momentarily frozen. Heather had forgotten there was a patrol car parked in the woods. The cop was blinking rapidly, like he’d been sleeping.

“The problem,” Krista said, “is that this woman has my babies. She stole them.”

The cop’s jaw was moving rhythmically, like he was chewing gum. His eyes moved from Krista, to Heather, to Anne, then back again. His jaw hinged left, right. Heather held her breath.

“That your car, ma’am?” he said finally, jerking his head over his shoulder, where Krista’s car was parked.

Krista looked at it. Looked back at him. Something flickered in her eyes. “Yeah, so?”

He kept chewing, watching her. “Legal limit’s .08.”

“I’m not drunk.” Krista’s voice was rising. “I’m as sober as you are.”

“You mind stepping over here for a minute?”

Heather found herself ready to throw her arms around his neck and say thank you. She wanted to explain, but her breath was lodged in her throat.

“I do mind.” Krista sidestepped the cop as he took a step toward her. She nearly stumbled over one of the flowerpots. He reached out and grabbed her elbow. She tried to shake him off.

“Ma’am, please. If you could just walk this way . . .”

“Let go of me.”

Heather watched it in slow motion. There was a swell of noise. Shouting. And Krista was swinging her arm, bringing her fist to the officer’s face. The punch seemed amplified by a thousand: a ringing, hollow noise.

And then time sped forward again and the cop was twisting Krista’s arms behind her as she bucked and writhed like an animal. “You are under arrest for assaulting a police officer—”

“Let go.”

“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”

She was handcuffed. Heather didn’t know whether to feel relieved or terrified. Maybe both. Krista was still shouting as the cop led her off the porch, toward the squad car—calling up to Lily, screaming about her rights. Then she was in the car and the door closed and there was silence, except for the engine gunning on, the spit of gravel as the cop turned a circle. A sweep of headlights. Then darkness. The porch light had gone off again.

Heather was shaking. When she could finally speak, the only thing she could say was: “I hate her.” Then again: “I hate her.”

“Come on, sweetie.” Anne put her arm around Heather’s shoulders. “Let’s go inside.”

Heather exhaled. She let the anger go with it. They stepped into the house together, into the coolness of the hall, the patterns of shadow and moonlight that already looked familiar. She thought of Krista, raging away in the back of a cop car. Her stomach started to unknot. Now everyone would know the truth: how Krista was, and what Heather and Lily were escaping.

Anne gave Heather a squeeze. “It’s going to be okay,” she said. “You’re going to be okay.”

Heather looked at her. She managed a smile. “I know,” she said.

The end of August was the saddest time of the year in Carp. Maybe the saddest time everywhere.

Every year, no matter what the weather, the public pools were suddenly clogged with people, the parks carpeted in picnic blankets and beach towels, the road packed bumper-to-bumper with weekenders descending on Copake Lake. A shimmering veil of exhaust hung over the trees, intermingling with the smell of charcoal and smoke from a hundred fire pits. It was the final, explosive demonstration of summer, the line in the sand, a desperate attempt to hold fall forever at bay.

But autumn nibbled the blue sky with its teeth, tore off chunks of the sun, smudged out that heavy veil of meat-smelling smoke. It was coming. It would not be held off much longer.

It would bring rain, and cold, and change.

But before that: the final challenge. The deadliest challenge.

Joust.