Karia told me, about his father. It seems we have some things in common, where I thought it was all only her.
“She’s sleeping. Not that you deserve to know.”
“Good.” He takes a sip of his drink and ignores my last sentence. “You need to leave her alone now.” The innuendo is there, but I ignore it because he is not wrong. For once.
It doesn’t make me like him any more. I pass him as I cut through the kitchen and grab a glass from the cupboard. Then I fill it from the tap. Hydrating myself without surveillance or fear of the same is so strange.
But this is my house now, isn’t it, unless I’ve fully resigned myself to death? Because the only option for this final stand is Stein’s demise.
I practically fucking own this house, in that case.
And my girl is sleeping right upstairs.
I let myself believe it.
“Where is Sanford?” I ask after I drain the water.
“Where I’ve been keeping him, locked away. There are too many backwards knobs in this house.” I force myself not to react. “He can’t get to her.” He must know that is the only thing I care about.
He takes another drink. I am glad Karia is not here to join him.
“Why are you sitting on the floor?” Doesn’t seem very performance-artist-trying-to-fuck-your-girl of him.
Our eyes meet. His green ones are dim. Not as vibrant as they usually appear. Circles mar his skin, just beneath his lower lash line.
“Do you care?”
“No. But for her safety, we need to talk.” For Karia, I have to do more than run.
He snorts, then sets down his glass, on the floor. “What do you know about Burbank Gates?”
“I was at the Emporium, too.”
He glances at me. “Are we talking or are we going to start swinging?”
I bristle, but don’t snap back at him. The reality is that everything I know about thePrinciples of Poetic SéanceandThe Scientistcomes from experience. I was the subject. The experiment. The receiver of all that torture Gates espoused. I held on so tightly to Maude’s words at the Emporium because I wanted a reason for the abuse.
Turns out, having awhydoesn’t make thewhatany more palatable.
“I know more than most.” It is half a life, half a truth. I know the gist, the texts, the madman from the 1800s. But the fact is I don’twantto know anymore about a dead man who made my family what is is: Fractured.
Cosmo frowns, and I know he sees the past in my eyes, but he doesn’t press.
“What does this have to do with Sanford?”
Cosmo shifts his gaze beyond me, to the window pane above the sink. “Karia said he was amildfollower of Burbank Gates.” It’s a whisper, those words, and I grimace, thinking of them whispering together in the dark. But she didn’t tell him the full truth, it seems.
Sanford told Karia and I that he wasfascinatedwith Burbank Gates. But he said he never gave into the practical applications of the dead man’s pseudo-religion.
Regardless, I do not speak. I won’t tell Cosmo precisely what my grandfather told me. I want to hear this version of events.
After a moment, Cosmo continues. “Whatever he told you, the reality is he was obsessed. He readThe Scientistbefore Stein existed. Says he read it over and over and became a worshiper. He never moved to the experimentation phase.” Cosmo looks at me. “He claims. But he had visions hewasGates, and started speaking as if he were god.”
Aside from the last part, that all tracks with what Sanford told us, but I remain silent.
“Stein watched his descent into madness, and his father’s obsession with a dead author. Sanford loved those texts more than he ever loved his own son.” Cosmo stares at me. “Stein wanted it.Worship,”he says softly.
The word sounds poisonous, yet I feel it, for Karia. I suppose it is different, in varying doses.
