“Yeah, sustainable. We’re driving to Boise for a sit-in on the fifteenth. You could come, Seymour. People are starting to pay attention.” She smiles a lopsided smile and her blue-black eyes are on him but she has no power over him anymore.

• SEEMORE6: i made 2 from the instructions u sent
• MATHILDA: 2 pies
• SEEMORE6: ha yeah 2 pies
• MATHILDA: these pies how do they get cooked
• SEEMORE6: prepaid phones, pie cooks on the fifth ring just like on the PDF
• MATHILDA: 2 different numbers? one for each?
• SEEMORE6: 2 pies 2 phones 2 different numbers like the instructions
• SEEMORE6: though as soon as first pie gets cooked the other will also
• MATHILDA: when?
• SEEMORE6: soon
• SEEMORE6: maybe thursday, storm in forecast, was thinking less people would be out
• MATHILDA: …
• SEEMORE6: u still there?
• MATHILDA: message me the 2 numbers

On Wednesday he comes home from school to find Bunny packing boxes in the living room by flashlight. She looks up at him, tipsy, nervous.

“Sold. We sold it.”

Seymour thinks of the cookers, packed with Composition B, under the bench in the toolshed and eels go swimming through his guts.

“Did they—?”

“Bought it after seeing pictures online. All cash, as is. Gonna tear down the house. They just want the lot. Imagine having enough money to buy a house on your computer.”

She drops her flashlight and he picks it up and hands it back and he wonders what truths are imparted unspoken between a mother and son and what truths are not.

“Can I use the car tomorrow, Mom? I’ll drive you to work in the morning.”

“Sure, Seymour, that’ll be fine.” She shines the light into a box. “Twenty-twenty,” she calls as he heads down the hall. “Gonna be our year.”

• SEEMORE6: after pies r cooked how will I know where 2 go
• MATHILDA: head north
• MATHILDA: call number we gave
• SEEMORE6: north
• MATHILDA: yes
• SEEMORE6: canada?
• MATHILDA: drive north we will give instructions after
• SEEMORE6: but border?
• MATHILDA: u will be tremendous so brave a warrior
• SEEMORE6: what if theres trouble
• MATHILDA: there won’t be
• SEEMORE6: but in case
• MATHILDA: call the number
• SEEMORE6: and someone will come
• MATHILDA: every1 here
• SEEMORE6: nervous
• MATHILDA: will be proud
• MATHILDA: overjoyed

TWENTY

THE GARDEN OF THE GODDESS

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Antonius Diogenes, Folio Y

… I sipped from the river of wine, once for valor, twice for pluck, and flapped toward the palace at the center of the city. Its towers pierced the Zodiac, and ·[inside?]· clear ·[bright?]· streams ran through fragrant orchards.

… stood the goddess, one thousand feet tall, tending the gardens in ·[her kaleidoscope dress]·, picking up whole plots of trees and setting them down again. Her head was circled by flocks of owls, and more owls roosted on her arms and her shoulders, and they studied their reflections in the glimmering shield strapped across her back.