Gray's Domain: Purgatorium Series, Book Two (24 page)

“I’m sorry about the fire.”

“Yeah.”

“Were you scared?”

“Yeah.”

She took his hand, and he didn’t resist. “Listen, there’s something I have to tell you.”

He waited for her to continue.

“I went through therapy on this island,” she said.

“You?”

She nodded. “And, at the end, the doctor shaved my head. That’s why my hair is so short.”

“Oh.”

“At first I was mad about losing my hair. I liked my hair.”

“So did
I. So did my good friend Judge William Clark.”

“But, in a strange way, it helped me overcome some of my problems.” Had it? She couldn’t decide whether or not she was lying to her brother. On the one hand, she was telling him this because she wanted him to accept what was about to happen to their mother; on the other hand, the
Limuw ritual
had
helped her. It really
had
.

“That’s good. Is the doctor going to shave my head, too?”

“Do you want her to?”

He shrugged.

“Well, she’s going to shave Mom’s.”

“Oh.”

“But Mom doesn’t know yet, and she probably won’t like it.”

He seemed to consider this.

Daphne continued. “And then we will splash buckets of water on Mom, to punish her for hurting us.”

“Has she hurt you?”

“She’s hurt my feelings,” Daphne said. “Has she ever hurt your feelings?”

The jeep reached the clearing and Brock parked, but Daphne didn’t move to climb out. She waited for her brother’s answer.

He nodded.

“When?”

“After grandpa died.”

“What did she say?”

“She said I killed him, which was true. The CIA…no, not the CIA…I’m confused.”

“It was an accident, Joey. Mom didn’t mean that. She was in shock. She wasn’t thinking properly.”

“That’s what the doctor’s say about me, but what I want to know is, what is
thinking
properly
? What’s the actual definition? That’s a tricky question, isn’t it?”

Daphne smiled and nodded. Then she climbed from the jeep and came around to Joey’s side. “Come on. You’re coming with me to get cleaned up. Then we’re going to go back to sleep. Okay?”

He walked beside her. Brock and Vince followed behind.

“What about Mom and Dad?” Joey asked.

“They’re getting ready for Mom’s head-shaving. It’s called the Limuw ritual. It’s based on an island legend. You might find it interesting.”

As they continued to her unit—all except Vince, who went to Joey’s room to get him a change of clothes—she told Joey the story of
Limuw.

“Hmm.
That sounds metaphorical,” Joey said. “My good friend Judge William Clark doesn’t believe in literal resurrection.”

While Joey showered, Brock stayed with Daphne, reassuring her.

“Am I doing the right thing?” she asked him as she made three sandwiches in the kitchenette. “Putting my mother through this?”

“Did it help you?” He poured them each a glass of water.

“Yes. I’m sure it did.”

“Then you’re doing the right thing.”

“It’s going to be hard to watch. But I want to watch. Ugh! Such mixed feelings. It’s so confusing!”

“It felt good to throw the bucket of water on me. Admit it.”

She smiled up at him. “Yeah. It did.” Then she asked. “What about you? Did it feel good when you got to splash me?”

It was his turn to smile. “Yes.”

She frowned.

“What?” he asked, circling his arms around her
waist. “You really hurt me when you started blocking me out.”

“I know. And I’m sorry. I just don’t know how I feel about Dr. Gray and her methods. I feel like a hypocrite right now, going along, just like the
Calibans.”

“What
Calibans?” Joey asked from the bedroom.

Brock stepped away and grabbed a glass of water. “Want something to drink?”

Joey took the offered glass. “What Calibans?”

“Oh, never mind,” Daphne said. “Are you hungry?”

“I hate it when people do that to me,” Joey said. “People are always doing that to me, as if I’m too stupid to understand. Well, I read
The Tempest
, and I’m well aware of who Caliban is. Now tell me what Calibans you are talking about.”

It was funny how she could forget about the cameras and then suddenly remember she was being watched.

“Let’s go sit down and I’ll explain,” Daphne said. “Want a sandwich?”

“No, thanks.”

She and Brock took their sandwiches and sat on the striped chairs. Joey sat across from them on the edge of the bed.

“It’s what I call Dr. Gray’s helpers,” Daphne explained.

“So you think they’re her slaves?” Joey asked.

“Yes.”

“Are they evil?”

“No,” Daphne said. “And I’m not sure that
Caliban would have been, either, if Prospero had treated him better.”

“Prospero taught him language,” Joey said. “
Caliban was the one who tried to rape Miranda.”

“I don’t think he knew better,” Daphne said. “He was like a wild animal, orphaned and alone, trying to make due. Prospero should have been more understanding.”

Daphne ate her sandwich.

“Why don’t you get some rest?” Brock said to Joey. “You take the bed. Daphne and I will sleep on the floor.”

“Shouldn’t I sleep in my own room?”

“We want to stay together,” Daphne said.

Joey climbed to his feet. “But we’ll see each other in the morning.”

“I know, but I just got to see you.” Daphne stood to embrace him again, and he tolerated it. “I’m not ready for you to leave me again.”

“Will you be comfortable on the floor? I could sleep on the floor.”

“We’ll be fine,” Daphne insisted.

“This rug is pretty plush,” Brock said. “Can we have the comforter from the bed?”

Daphne finished her sandwich while the two boys arranged the bedding. Brock moved the coffee table to the side and spread the comforter across the rug. He left half of the comforter to cover up with. Joey had a sheet and throw on the bed.

Brock wedged one of the striped chairs against the doorknob.

“Why are you doing that?” Joey asked in a sleepy voice.

“It’s just a precaution,” Brock said. “We don’t trust everyone around here.”

Joey laughed.

“What’s so funny?” Daphne asked.

“
I’m
the one who’s supposed to be paranoid.”

They all three laughed.

Daphne left on the light in the bathroom and then cracked the bathroom door so they wouldn’t be enveloped in complete darkness. She wanted to see anything that might come their way, doubting she would sleep as she worried about her parents. She hoped and prayed that Stan had told her the truth about his plans for them.

Chapter Twenty: Limuw

After breakfast, Daphne, Brock, and Joey headed to the amphitheater with the rest of the crowd. Unlike the others, however, they followed Cam backstage, where they changed into white hooded cloaks and waited for the ceremony to begin.

“Have you seen my parents yet?” she asked Cam. “Are they here?”

“Not yet.” He winked. “Any minute now.”

Daphne wished she hadn’t eaten. Her stomach was in knots. She sat on a bench between Joey and Brock, unable to think and hoping to God her mother would forgive her.

After a few more minutes had passed, someone else in a cloak and hood hobbled onto the backstage with Cam’s help. It was her father. Daphne jumped to her feet.

“Are you okay?” she asked him.

He nodded. “You?”

“Yes!” She hugged his neck. “How’s mom?”

“She’s still under the morphine. They’re getting ready to start the ceremony.”

She grabbed his hands. “Are we doing the right thing?”

“Did it help you?”

She nodded.

“Then you have your answer.”

She hoped he was right.

When the music started, they took their seats on the long bench backstage and waited. They could hear Larry’s voice ring out:

I cannot stand to see

How I’ve hurt those close to me;

Ribbons of despair run from their eyes, their eyes.

And ribbons of despair run from my eyes, my eyes.

Don’t look at me

Those of you once close to me;

The fire inside you slowly dies, and dies.

And the fire inside me slowly dies, and dies.

When the song ended, Larry said, “Bring
Limuw forward.”

Daphne then saw her mother being carried in on a stretcher across the back of the stage to the altar. She appeared to be sleeping. Daphne’s heart raged.

More music played, and another voice sang out in the Chumash language. Then Larry told the story of Limuw.

“
Hutash has given us a ritual to bring Limuw back,” he said at the end of it.

Now the cloaked figures on stage took scissors to her mother’s hair. Tears fell down Daphne’s cheek as she recalled her own horror when she awakened to find her hair gone. Cam had said, “It’s just hair. It’ll grow back.” And he had been right. But the horror of losing it was still real.

An electric razor was taken to her mother’s scalp, arms, and legs as Larry sang another song. Pete came backstage and brought Daphne a bucket filled with water. He handed buckets to Joey, Brock, and her father, too.

“It’s almost
time,” Pete whispered. “Are you all ready? Don’t chicken out on me, okay? Throw it like you mean it.”

They all nodded. Daphne wanted to puke as she watched the cloaked performers on stage lay the oil-soaked cloth across her mother’s body. The scent of the oil seemed to bring her mother to.

“What?” Sharon sat up and stared with horror at the crowd.

Daphne could see the side of her mother’s horror-stricken face.

Brock squeezed Daphne’s good hand. “It’s going to be okay.”

Her father patted her knee. “Here we go.”

Her mother was carried by stretcher and forced onto a bench of rock, where the performers—Vince, Dave, Cam, and Bridget, cuffed her arms on either side of her to the rock wall. Only a white sheet covered her trembling body. Daphne was shocked by the site of her mother’s bald head and red-rimmed eyes. She looked like an old newborn baby.

Unlike Daphne, who had protested every step of the way during her
Limuw ceremony, Sharon took everything in silent shock. She couldn’t see Daphne and the others on the bench adjacent to her, but she was bound to know what was coming after having been on the other side of the fence. This reminder—that her mother had done it to her—gave Daphne the courage she needed to cover her face with the hood and follow Pete’s instructions.

Daphne was the first to approach her mother’s trembling, half-naked body. She lifted her hood and said through tears. “Mother, you shouldn’t have blamed me for Kara’s death.” Then she took her bucket of water and splashed it on her mother’s face.

Her mother nodded and sputtered through the water and her own tears, “You’re right, sweet girl. You’re absolutely right!”

That made Daphne feel
like a worm. She walked away to avoid crumbling at her mother’s feet.

Joey approached their mother next. Daphne watched from a distance. “You shouldn’t have blamed me for Grandpa’s death.”

Joey had a hard time splashing their mother. He emptied the bucket on the floor by her feet. Pete gave him another full bucket and instructed him to “let her have it.”

Joey did his best. Then he joined Daphne on the side of the action and watched as Brock and their father had their turns. Brock stood before Sharon’s frail, limp body and threw the water at her, holding nothing back.

“You hurt Daphne,” he said. “And you hurt me because of it.”

Sharon closed her eyes and nodded, trembling and soaked.

Then it was Joe’s turn.

“I didn’t always listen to you,” he said gently. “But you didn’t always tell me things, either.” His lips started quivering as he said, “You have to talk to me, Sharon. You have to include me in things. You have to tell me when you notice something’s wrong. I might have done something. I might have saved our girl.”

Sharon turned paler than snow. “You blame me for Kara’s death?”

“I blame both of us,” he said as he poured the water on her lap and turned away.

After they had finished, and while others took turns splashing Sharon, they were led to separate benches to await their turns to be splashed.