Chapter 1 (Griff)

Previous: The Cosmic Apologies

Next: Chapter 2

For Griff, the Year of Cosmic Apologies began with the strangest dreams, the first of which began like any other boring dream people have. He was flying. And at first he was just a person flying but he stopped paying attention, just for a second, and then he was a bird.

But let’s get this clear: really, really a bird, not just a bird-shaped human. There’s a difference. It’s like the cold felt different—still felt cold, but it didn’t feel wrong. And nothing was high or low anymore; there was just here or there. And everything looked like—well it looked like memories from when you were a kid, where everything is just shaky-cam blurs of color and noises fading in and out. And every once in a while you see something up close, really clearly before it fades back into the sound and sense. And it feels right to have this buzzing in your chest and a different feeling for every kind of wind and every place between your feathers. And the cold feels different because it feels good to be cold, the way being warm felt good being a human. That’s what being a bird is like. Everything feels different but nothing feels strange.

And then there were hundreds of other birds around him, and soon he forgot what a bird was. He only knew that he was himself and they were themselves together, and they weren’t flying anymore, they were just being.

He was screaming before he was even fully awake and when he opened his eyes there was Mom clutching his hand and Gary shaking him.

“Griff,” said Gary, “Griff, it’s alright. It’s just a dream.”

“Come back, Griffin,” said Mom, “it’s okay.”

“A nightmare,” said Gary. “Just a nightmare.” Griff touched his face. It was weirdly soft and flat and unprotected. He was long and heavy and the cold felt different, and his fingers were freaking him out. For a moment he thought he was a spider before he remembered he was a human. He squawked out some awful noise and Mom flinched. Gary smiled and held his hand. “Just a nightmare, buddy,” he said.

Griff shook his head, but couldn’t really speak. Couldn’t explain that the nightmare wasn’t the dream. It was the waking up.

Needless to say, he hadn’t been eager to go to sleep lately, so he was only pretending to be asleep when his mom marched into his room one summer night and flicked on the lights.

“Ah, woah, who are you?” He squinted at her and faked a yawn. It became a real yawn. His mom didn’t react, which was the first weird sign. Normally she would have launched into a judgy tirade about proper amounts of sleep and mental performance, but she just looked at him, her eyes a little unfocused. “Oh no!” said Griff, “Where am I? When am I?” Still nothing. “So disoriented, just woke up...” he said, weakly.

“Where’s your phone, Griff?” said his mother. She gestured at the wall where it was supposed to be plugged in.

“Aw man,” he said, “probably someone stole it.” She took a step forward and in the same motion flipped the sheets off his bed. His phone was there, still open to WarCast, but she didn’t wait for a terrible explanation or try to lecture him. She just picked it up and plugged it into the wall.

“Find a shirt,” she said, walking back across the room. “Put it on.”

“But it’s...late,” he said. It was past one in the morning.

“Where’s your suit?” she muttered, more to herself than to him. She started sifting through his closet.

“Wait,” said Griff, “what’s going on? You know if you’re a cop you have to tell me.’’ She didn’t laugh. She didn’t even sigh. She wouldn’t look at him. That’s when he knew it was bad. Really bad.

“Shirt,” she said, “on.” Not angry, just tired. He reached down to the floor. ‘Clean shirt,’ she said without turning around. Griff gulped and nodded. He’d only seen his mom like this two times before. Once when he got locked in the library overnight and had to explain his disappearance. The other time was when Gary fell off a ladder and went to the hospital.

Oh no. Gary. His heart nearly stopped.

“Where’s Gary?” said Griff, so quickly it didn’t come out of his mouth all the way. There was, what felt like an infinite pause, and then a gentle rap on the door frame. He looked up. It was Gary.

“I’m here, little man,” he said. Griff let out a tense breath.

“Oh.” said Griff. “Hey, man.” A chilly breeze came in from the window and he shivered. He grabbed a blanket and wrapped himself up until he was a little batman-patterned pyramid. Gary sat down next to him and helped him pat down the sides so he was snug.

“Mom’s freaking me out,” said Griff. “Mom, you are freaking me out,” he said a little louder. Gary put an arm around him and then looked at Mom, now on her tip toes knocking empty shoe boxes off the top shelf, just a little bit violently.

“Isa?” said Gary. She stopped her movement and looked over her shoulder at him. Her eyes were reddish. She nodded, or, it was more like she trembled in an affirmative way and then went back to fidgeting with the mess. Gary adjusted himself on the bed and then opened his mouth.

“Can I guess?” Griff interrupted.

“I don’t think it’s really the right time for that game,” said Gary.

“Surprise vacation,” said Griff. “Saskatchewan. Why did I say that? I don’t want to go to Saskatchewan. Where’s Saskatchewan?” Gary looked like he wanted to tell him, but he stopped himself. “The house is infested...with snakes.” said Griff. Gary shook his head and tried to get a word in. “You’re spies,” said Griff, “you and Mom are spies on the run. Former spies. You’re being hunted like animals. Spies aren’t allowed to have children so I’m—”

Gary gently face-palmed him. Not in a mean way, just in a “sh- sh- shhh” way. It worked. He retracted his hand and took a deep breath.

“You’re going to visit your Dad,” he said. Griff stuck an arm out of his pyramid and poked Gary in the shoulder.

“Found ’im,” he said.

“That’s really sweet, Griff, but you know what I mean.” Gary’s shoulders twitched uncomfortably. “You’re going to visit your birth dad.”

“This is unexpected,” said Griff.

“Yeah,” said Gary, “do you need a minute? To let it sink in?” Griff rolled his eyes.

“Just go on.”

“Okay,” said Gary. He rubbed his neck. “Just you and Mom are going. Uh, obviously. Look, it’s kind of hard to explain, but your father, I guess...I mean, what do you know about your dad, really? What is fatherhood? What’s a family, really? Isa?” He turned to his wife, who was dusting off a very wrinkled dress shirt, “Isa? I’m kind of unclear on what I should be saying right now.”

“Why now?” said Griff. “Why does he want to meet me now? After all this time. Isn’t he super busy or something?” Gary looked like he was about to cry.

“Bud…” he said.

“I’m not even sad, Gary. Dude, stop. I’m just confused, okay? I just want someone to give me a straight answer.”

“See?” said Mom, “Griff is a tough kid. Just tell him.”

“I’m a tough kid, Gary, you heard the lady.”

“Fine,” said Gary, “your father didn’t invite you. Your mom wants you to see him because there’s a good chance—there’s maybe a chance you won’t be able to see him again. Ever.”

“Because he’s going on a long trip,” said Griff.

“You could say that,” said Gary.

“A long trip six feet under,” muttered Mom.

“Like under water?” said Griff.

“No,” said Gary, “not that I know of.”

“Like under the sun? Like anywhere under the sun?”

“Griff, you know that doesn’t make sense.”

“Like dead,” said Mom.

“Isa…” said Gary.

“It is what it is,” said Mom.

“He’s a kid,” said Gary.

It should be noted that Gary didn’t say ‘just a kid.’ That wasn’t Gary’s way. Griff appreciated it. But still.

“I’m not an idiot,” said Griff. He shook himself and fought back a lurching feeling in his throat. “I’m a kid but I’m not an idiot.” He wasn’t. If he was honest with himself, he’d known the truth from the moment Mom said “suit.”

See, there was this little voice in Griff’s head—more than a voice. It was like a whole sock puppet that popped up in the back of his mind and yelled out suggestions for the worst thing that could happen in any situation. Crossing the street? Sock puppet screams, “SMALL AIRPLANE LANDS ON YOU” But from the back of the room. So it was more like a faraway yell:

“SMALL AIRPLANE LANDS ON YOU”

Sock puppet was there for Griff on every occasion. Getting on the bus? “BUS EXPLODES” Late to school? “FAILS CLASS. NEVER GETS JOB.” Sitting on a couch? “COUCH IS AN ALIEN DISGUISED AS A COUCH. EATS YOU.”

Griff didn’t think about his biological father very often. At least not until recently. When the dreams started. Even then, it wasn’t like he felt like his life was incomplete. He didn’t dream about the day he’d meet his father. No. That was for babies. Still, it was weird that there was this whole other half to his DNA that he barely knew anything about—a whole person, a whole family. And then the sock puppet would say,

“YOU NEVER SPEAK TO HIM. HE DIES.”

It was usually easy enough to ignore good ol’ sock puppet, but every once in a while, a suggestion at the back of his head became an actual thought, and that thought became a fear, and that fear set up camp and lived there in his head. So he’d imagined his father dying a thousand times in excruciating detail. He’d tried to imagine every possible situation in which he could receive the news. Maybe he thought it would prepare him? Maybe he thought if he imagined it, it couldn’t happen. Right? Because when do things happen exactly the way you imagine them?

“Griff,” whispered Mom. She was standing in front of him now, carrying his wrinkly grey suit on a misshapen wire hanger. She put her free hand cautiously on his arm. “Griff. I’m sorry,” she said. They made eye contact for a moment and then she looked away, just like Griff had imagined she might.

“It’s okay, Mom,” he said, though he didn’t know what he meant by that. What was he supposed to say? What was he even supposed to feel? He couldn’t miss someone he’d never met. He couldn’t regret something he had no control over. Could he? His eyes locked onto the mirror by the dresser, leaning with its face against the wall. Griff shuddered.

“It’s not for sure,” said Gary.

“Right,” said Mom, “he’s very sick, but he might make it.”

“He’ll live, I’m sure,” said Gary, patting him on the back.

But of course, he didn’t.

'''

Mom didn’t like Dad. Actually, she hated him. And when Griff’s mother hated someone, she did it like she did everything else: she really went for it. There was no trace of his father in their house. Not a shred. No box of memories, no phone number or email. Mother threw out whole photo albums. She got out of whatever business they were in together and took a boring mid-level executive job at a generic corporation in the middle of nowhere. Oh, and she married a school teacher which, apparently, was a big middle finger to his father as well, though Griff didn’t really get it.

So seeing his mother cry about this man was odd to say the least. At first, it was just sniffling and the occasional wiping at the corner of her eye. This was right after they’d gotten the call on the way to the airport. The one telling them he “didn’t make it,” like he’d missed the bus or something.

On the plane she stared out the window the whole time so Griff couldn’t see, but her face was splotchy when they landed. A taxi took them to their hotel.

“Funeral in the morning,” said Mom as they unpacked. “At his mansion.”

“Already?” said Griff.

“I guess he was well prepared,” she said.

“I don’t get it,” said Griff, “what did him in? Sorry. How did he die? Is that okay to ask?”

“Of course. He’s your father. Was.” She dropped her bottle of sleeping pills on the ground and they spilled out everywhere. She swore. Then apologized. Griff helped her pick the pills up. They made satisfying little clinking sounds as he dropped them back in.

“It’s fine,” said Griff, “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” He wasn’t sure if he wanted to talk about it actually.

“Injury,” said his mother, “Some kind of work related hazard. He was travelling. I don’t know the details. Do you want one of these?” She stuck a pill in front of his face. “It could help.”

“I sleep fine,” said Griff.

“No. You don’t. You look awful. Just take one, Griff. You can’t stay awake forever.”

“Maybe I can,” said Griff, “maybe it’s another terrifying ability I inherited from my deceased father.” His mother retracted her hand. She put the pill back in its bottle and screwed the cap on.

“I’m sorry, Griff. I know this is hard. All of it. I hadn’t even thought about…about your…the things. The dreams. I get it.” She massaged her forehead. “And the timing is so bad, too. God. Your father really knew how to fuck up when it came to timing.”

“Mom. Are you really blaming him now? For dying?!”

“Calm down, Griff.” She was hiding her face again. “Please. I can’t do this right now. Just go to bed.”

She got up and finished unpacking, wordlessly. Then she shut herself in the bathroom and turned the bath water on. He could hear her crying, though, and he listened from the other side of the door.

Griff, on the other hand, did not cry at all. There was a cabinet stocked with candy and he ate so many wild berry skittles that he could barely taste the sweet anymore. He took a sleeping pill. It didn’t work. He just lay in bed thinking about what his father might have known. About him. About anything.

Griff tried not to think about the dreams very much, but he couldn’t forget the feeling of them. It was like there was someone he really was somewhere—a life that was really his. And the Griff in this body, in this hotel room, or airplane, or bedroom, or sticky disaster of a school cafeteria was the one that was asleep and the dream—that was the real him.

It wasn’t just the bird dream. That was just the first one. There were others that had happened every once in a while, since January and then more and more after his fourteenth birthday. In each one, he was someone else. Or something else. Something beautiful and perfect and strong and free—everything he wasn’t. Not here. He was a cat. Or a giant. Or some kind of tree-person who could grow his limbs back. Or an orca or a dragon or just another boy that wasn’t him. And every time he woke up it was like he’d been abducted from somewhere safe without any warning. Like he was half of this mozz stick being pulled away from the other and there were tiny little oozing strings of him still attached to the night, still trying not to let go.

“That’s a weird metaphor,” said Remy, “but I get what you’re saying. I think.” It was April. A few months before the funeral. Griff looked lethargically at the now empty space between the two halves of his cheese stick. “Are you going to eat that, though?”  Griff sighed and stuck both halves in his mouth at once. “Okay, thought you were going to give a half to me, but guess not. It’s fine. I didn’t want it anyway. Look, Griff, maybe it’s just hormones, right? Maybe since your brain is full of weird metaphors, it’s just making up more weird metaphors for puberty. But like unconsciously.” Griff chewed thoughtfully. “Like in your dreams,” said Remy. Griff rolled his eyes.

“Mm.” He held up a finger. He swallowed. “No. No. Good thought. But nah. That’s not what’s happening here. The dreams are too real and they happen too often. And wouldn’t puberty dreams have more…you know body horror involved? Or sexy times?”

“No one says sexy times, Griff.”

“Point stands.”

“Maybe they’re your past lives,” said Remy.

“Maybe they’re my past lives!” said Griff, but with zero percent of Remy’s sincerity. “No, Remy. Science. Science explanations.” He smacked the back of one hand into the palm of the other for emphasis.

“You don’t even like science,” said Remy.

“Yeah but I need it,” said Griff. “There’s got to be a way this is all totally normal and explainable.”

“Could be one or the other. Could be it’s just explainable and totally not normal,” said Remy.

“Could be I fire you from best-friendship,” said Griff. Remy looked wounded. “Oh…dude, I’m sorry, Kidding. I wouldn’t do that.”

“Okay,” said Remy. He looked down and stuck his fork into some powdery jello. It disintegrated. “I’m not good at this, Griff. I don’t really get it. They’re just dreams.” Griff opened his mouth but Remy anticipated him. “I know, I know,” he said. “It’s not that simple. So maybe you should talk to a grown up. Or…I don’t know, Karthik? He’s always good at—”

“No,” said Griff, “I’m not talking to Karthik.”

“Okay,” said Remy. He poked at the jello. “Okay,” he said again.

Remy was right about one thing: Griff didn’t like science. But he did like the library. And there were science books at the library. So he snuck out of school through the gymnasium doors and walked down the street, off to the only place in town that he genuinely loved.

The library was a neoclassical building with red-brick walls and white columns. And it was old. Very old. So old the red brick was nearly black and the white paint on the columns was mostly chipped off. Griff liked it that way because he like old places. He liked the way the shelves were all huddled close together and the stairways to the different levels were tiny and narrow. He liked that in some places you could touch the wooden roof beams and even pull yourself up and read on top of them if no one caught you. He liked that some of the door saddles were built ever so slightly above floor level so you tripped if you weren’t paying attention and he liked the yellow glow of the lights and the boring carpet and the furniture from the 70s. And he liked the way old books smelled.

Also, you could hide here. No one from school came here, or anyone else for that matter. It was this big, almost empty building with just a couple of librarians and a thousand nooks and crevices. Griff gathered some books and holed up in one of his favorite reading spots: behind a shelf of encyclopedias on the third floor. The shelf was pushed up against a wall, but there was a window with a spacious ledge on that wall and if Griff moved volumes VIII through XIV he could just crawl through and bask in the warm, early summer light.

He started with The Science of Dreams. Boring. Then went on to The Mystery of Dreams. Unhelpful. He tried some more science books but didn’t really understand them. So he moved on to history and folklore, which was much more familiar territory. Famous Dreams, Dreams in Folklore (though that one was a little sketch), The Dreamwalkers…he skimmed some more and dove into a few. He learned about prophetic dreams and shamans, changelings and skinchangers, but none of it seemed familiar. In desperation he also cracked open, Am I going Crazy? but it ended up being about infedelity.

So he went home. Mom and Gary still weren’t there so he deleted the messages on the answering machine from school. They’d find out eventually from his report card how many classes he’d missed this semester. He’d deal with it then.

Griff went to his room and shut the door. He started googling “turning into animals during dreams,” for the five hundredth time but stopped before he finished the sentence and searched “cats wearing battle gear” instead. He wasn’t disappointed.

He lay back on his bed. Paused. Debated in his brain very briefly and then sat back up, logged into Karthik’s cloud drive, and clicked on the video folder.

Maybe one day Karthik would think of changing the one password he had for everything, but today was evidently not that day and Griff could still invade his privacy, no matter how much he hated himself for it.

Whatever. It’s not like Karthik was thinking about him anyway. He had other more important things to do, like… recording his new friends breaking into someone’s backyard pool. Or recording his new friends doing some mediocre skateboard trick. Or taping himself singing and playing the guitar for some girl. Doing a backflip. Okay that was pretty cool. Here was a video of Karthik telling a dirty joke. Everyone in the room laughed before he could finish because it was clear he didn’t remember how it went. Griff stifled a grin.

It felt like hundreds of these videos—at least one per day—of Karthik and company being photogenic and dangerous and goofy. That was a gift, of course. Looking, feeling in real life like you do on the camera. Griff could barely recognize himself in videos, but you could probably roll the cameras 24/7 on these kids and make a fairly standard teenage reality show. Maybe this was a conscious decision. Maybe they all knew what part they were playing and they could just be those people when they were together. Maybe it was easy for them. It looked like it was easy for them.

He’d stopped imagining he was one of them a long time ago, if he ever had. What would be the point? Of course he was jealous, but jealousy didn’t give you the capability to turn into someone new. He wasn’t the kind of person that could just snap his fingers and switch lives. That was the giant irony of his dreams—that they never happened voluntarily and they always, always hurt in the end. Meanwhile Karthik upgraded himself into Cool Karthik in a day without breaking a sweat. One day he was sitting with Griff and Remy, goofing off and telling bad jokes. The next day he was sitting at another table. No warning. No words. He just left. They’d been friends since the third grade.

It wasn’t as if he'd completely changed, either. Sure, he joined the volleyball team, wore different clothes, and walked the halls like he was a pop star, but everything Griff and Remy liked about Karthik stayed the same. He was still charming and uplifting and drenched his fries in ketchup. But now it was these other kids who got to hear him explain movie plots backwards. It was these other kids who he played WarCast with after school. It was like he realized one day that he could do better and then decided to go for it.

Good for him. No, really. Griff was oddly happy for his friend, watching him nerf-gun war on a roof somewhere with other flawless looking fourteen year olds. He felt lucky to watch it all happen, lucky to have known one of them, even if he felt sick at the same time.

Fine, maybe he did imagine himself there with them sometimes, on a roof somewhere, the sun setting. All the nerf gun pellets have been lost and everyone is catching their breath. They lie on their backs in a row, to watch the non-existent stars. Karthik is next to him. It gets cold so they all snuggle up together. There’s laughing and some obligatory innuendoes. Karthik tries to tickle him but Griff is faster and knows Karthik’s weak spots—jabs him in the stomach. Karthik grabs the hand by his belly and intercepts the other on its way to his neck. Their fingers interlock. Their arms extend. Pause. This is where Griff stays. In this moment, they could be skydiving. The gravel beneath them could disappear and the wind could rush up from below. They could hold on and spin out like helicopter blades.

Griff slammed his laptop shut. He felt stupid and embarrassed for thinking any of that. His face and neck were hot and itchy. He scratched. Of course Karthik wouldn’t want to be friends with him. Because he always got weird like that. He always made it weird. He could never just be chill and let things be. He scratched harder at his neck. What was he doing creeping on someone’s videos anyway? What a dumb, creepy, pathetic thing to do. Griff scratched harder until he was scraping at his skin. What was this? Why was he so itchy? His whole body was starting to feel it, too.

A prickly pain shot up his sides, burning and itching like the rest, but sharp and concentrated, like it was going up a vein, forking out in little sharp bursts, like frost. It went up his neck and burst up around his chin. And then Griff could taste it. It was bitter and metallic and—Griff didn’t wait to find out what else. He spit and coughed till his face was purple. He clawed at his skin. He rolled off his bed and thudded onto the floor.

Then it stopped. All that was left was his breathing.

Griff stared at the ceiling. The room was dark now. Just the last light of the day slipping in through closed blinds. He waited for something more to happen. Something worse. And when nothing did. He got to his feet, slowly.

“Ow,” said Griff. He’d tripped on something on his way to the door. It was something stupid, too. An old toy truck he’d kept around for sentimental reasons. He kicked it away and looked up. Froze.

There was the mirror Mom had gotten him for his door weeks ago. He hadn’t put it up yet. It was leaning against the wall beside the dresser, partially covered by a shirt he’d thrown in that direction. Was it the dark and the shirt covering part of his face? Or was something odd about his reflection? He waved his hand and the reflection waved back. It’s not like he ever really recognized himself in the mirror, either, so maybe it was nothing. It was nothing. Griff walked towards the mirror and pushed the shirt away. Karthik’s face looked back at him.

Griff looked out the window of the black Lexus. The trees along this road were thin and perfectly straight, densely packed and so close on either side that Griff thought he could touch them if he stuck his finger out. He could also see the vague outline of his reflection. Stupid, messy hair. Stupid weird face. If he didn’t know better he would wish he could change it all, to be something else. But he couldn’t think like that. Mom had made it very clear after that day. So he focused on the trees again. He watched their branches through the skylight, forming a roof above, dipping down in the wind and, he imagined, coming through the roof to tap his head.

The Lexus had picked them up early for the funeral. Very early. Griff took advantage of the complimentary coffee in the hotel but that just made him feel jittery and still tired.

They drove for a bit through the forest, and after ten minutes, joined up with a cavalcade of two dozen more black Lexuses, all forming a somber line. After some waiting, they turned onto a perfectly paved one lane road and picked up speed again.

Griff felt a pressure on his hand and noticed that his mother was squeezing it, that she’d been holding it the whole car ride. Not tightly, as if she needed him. Not warmly, as if he needed her. Their hands were just... together, like they’d always been like that, like they didn’t know anything different.

“Mom?” said Griff.

“Hm?”

“Is there gonna be food?”

“Oh. I don’t know. Yes.”

“Is it I don’t know or yes?”

“Yes,” she said absently. Her phone vibrated. Then Griff’s a second later. He looked at it.

“Gary wants to know if you’re okay,” said Griff. Mom’s eyes flitted down to her purse and then back up. She looked out the window. “Can you please just respond to him?” he said. She didn’t budge. He let go of her hand. “Seriously, Mom?”

“What is it?” She tipped her head back into the headrest.

“Is it really that hard to just pick up the phone and text him back?”

“He’ll be fine,” she said.

“But he wants to know if you’re fine.”

“Tell him I’m fine,” she said. Griff almost rolled his eyes but stopped. The woods fell away from them in an instant, and his eyes fixed on a shape in the distance.

“Holy mother of babies,” he said. “That’s not a house. That’s a—house for whales.” He swore and blinked. “That’s a big house.”

“They do call it ‘The Big House,’” said Mom. She’d sat up, too, looking, sounding more like her normal self. They watched the house rising out of the hills, still far in the distance, growing ever larger. She put her hand up to the window, just barely, and put it down again, like she was a kid at a zoo, remembering not to tap the glass.

This was a palace. This was the kind of place he didn’t think existed in America. At least eight stories high and sprawling across the top of the tallest hill; all white and sandstone and glinting bronze roofs. There were stone ramps and landings running all around and up the hill it was built on as well as some smaller structures on the way up, like the house itself wasn’t enough. This was the kind of place kings lived. Emperors. It was the kind of place they were buried too.

As they approached, Griff could make out more than the general shape. It was hectic with windows, towers, and colonnades, like it was a whole village fused into a single complex. But it was all unified somehow; a chorus of shapes and designs all coming together to look both foreign and familiar. It had a central structure and two wings curving around into the back, forming what must have been a football-field of a courtyard between them. And in the center of it all was a grand, octagonal tower covered in a spiral of gleaming white carvings; horses, and chariots, and trees, and people…lots of people. Perched on each other and climbing over each other up the walls of the tower. Griff couldn’t quite make it all out, but there was more. A lot more.

“What exactly did Dad do for a living, again?”

“Shipping,” said Mom. He looked at her. She laughed. “What? It’s true. He made his fortune in shipping.” Griff still didn’t quite believe her but decided to let it slide.

“Maybe I should go into shipping then,” he said, “seems like it worked out pretty well for him.” A strange look flickered across his mother’s face.

“No,” she said, “no you shouldn’t.” She hesitated. “I suppose you have the right to know.” She put her hand up. “No guessing, Griff.” He shut his mouth, but she still didn’t speak, not yet. The car slowed to a stop first. “Smuggling,” she said, finally. “Your father was in the smuggling business.”

“Hold on. Hold up. Hold up just one second,” said Griff. He shut the car door behind him as quickly as possible and tried to catch up to his mother. “He was a what?”

“You heard me,” she said. She was walking very quickly up some steps and onto a stone walkway, following a small crowd of smartly dressed strangers.

“Yeah, but—” Mom and a couple other people yelped as a big grey dog trounced by and into some bushes, Griff took advantage of the distraction and managed to get ahead of her without sprinting. “Yeah, but you said smuggling.” He swiveled around to block her path. “Like a pirate.”

“Shh!” said Mom, louder than Griff had been talking. “Are you a crazy person? That was obviously a secret.”

“Like a pirate!” Griff whispered.

“No,” said Mom, bending over slightly to look him in the face, “not like a pirate.” She turned her nose up like she smelled something bad. “At least there’s honor among pirates,” she mumbled. Back to Griff. “Yes, your father did very illegal things. No, it’s not as cool as it sounds. No, we’re not talking about this anymore. Done.” She put her hand on his shoulder with that last word, as one would hit the snooze button on an alarm, and then she stood up and kept walking. But Griff wasn’t having any of this “done,” silliness.

“But Mother,” he said, drawing out the “er” sound as long as he could.

“No.” He knew that tone, so he shut up for a moment and looked up. His father’s mansion loomed high above them, up sheer slopes. A pressing thought occurred to him.

“Wait a minute,” he said, “if you and Dad were in business together—” Mom clapped him on the back of his head.

“We are at a funeral,” she said, her mouth clenched. Griff looked around them. They were in a garden, on a landing about halfway up the hill. A little over fifty white folding chairs stood in neat rows on a lawn, surrounded by rose bushes, apple trees, and butterflies, all facing a dramatic view of the rolling green and golden hills, fields and groves. If you didn’t notice the unobtrusive closed casket hanging out behind the little black podium, it might have been a wedding they were attending. His mother was right, though. This was not the place and time to ask questions she normally didn’t want to answer anyway.

They took a seat in the very last row and watched the landing fill up with people who knew his father. None of them approached him or his mother or seemed to notice them, though it wasn’t a very large group. It was mostly older folk with streaks of grey in their hair, if not full on white. One old woman was mostly a cane with a woman hanging on for dear life. It followed that the younger people in attendance were easy to spot: a handful of business-looking people closer to his mom’s age, a row of indistinguishable men wearing sunglasses and slicked back hair, one very pregnant woman fanning herself with a program.

A couple of people caught Griff’s attention more than the rest, though. There was a delicate woman in the front with chestnut brown hair, sobbing daintily into a handkerchief. Every time someone came to murmur something to her, she got out of her chair and flung her arms around them, saying “Oh thank you! You don’t know how much this means to us!” in an identical dramatic tone every time. Griff turned to his mother.

“Is that my stepmom?” he asked. She nodded.

“And there’s your other one,” said his mother. She pointed to a tall, beautiful woman Griff had noticed before, mostly because her long, wavy hair was a deep, dark purple. It took him a moment to understand what his mother was saying.

“Are you saying I have a step mom and also an ex-stepmom?”

“Yes,” said his mother.

Griff looked back at his ex-stepmom. She had an elegant little hat on, complete with a veil. Her hat and jacket were black but her dress was a lighter purple that matched her hair. She sat with her legs crossed; the sunglasses guys on her right and a teenage boy on her left.

“Do I also have an ex-stepbrother?” said Griff.

“I don’t know,” said Mom. She was studying the back of the boy’s head, too. Then her brow furled and she turned to look at her son. “Oh God, Griff, I’m so sorry... I should have prepared you for all of this. I just—it all happened so quickly.”

“It’s okay, Mom,” he said, but there was something strange stirring inside him, beginning to bubble over. It wasn’t sadness or anger, or anything he’d felt before, it was more like something between panic and—just weirdness. He wanted to throw up mentally but not actually, and he felt grossed out by something but couldn’t put his finger on what, and his blood turned cold, like he had a fever. Griff slumped into his chair and tried to disappear from reality. The funeral happened but Griff wasn’t paying attention. A lady in black read a thing. A guy in black read a thing. Jack was this. Jack was that. Jack was so great. Amy, Griff’s small, light haired stepmom thanked them all for coming and then burst into tears. People came and hugged her. Was he supposed to care about these people? Were they his family? Was he supposed to go talk to them? Did they know he existed? Did they know what he could do? 

Griff looked down at his hand. It was shaking. And was it just his imagination or were his fingernails narrowing and blackening? All...talon-like. 

“We need to leave,” said Griff’s mother. Griff caught his breath and looked up. The funeral was over. People were getting up, shaking hands. There was some light hugging. The purple haired woman was glancing over in their direction.

“Now? Didn’t you say there was going to be food? I bet they have fancy food. Like snails.”

“Something doesn’t feel right, Griff,” she said.

“Of course it doesn’t feel right,” said Griff, “this is by far the weirdest situation I’ve ever been in.” Maybe. It was at least a contender.

“Coming here was a bad idea,” said Mom, “really bad.” She unlatched her purse and started rummaging for her phone. “I got carried away. Sentimental.”

“We’re already here, we might as well…” Griff started the sentence as a general counterpoint to Mom, but midway the casket in front caught his attention and a little sock puppet in the back of his head went:

“YOU LEAVE. YOU NEVER SEE HIS FACE.”

Come on, sock puppet, Griff thought. Like that makes any difference. He’s dead. And he’s just another person to you. You have a dad. You have a family. Things are good. You don’t need a dead person’s face to make things better.

“We’ve paid our respects. Time to go,” said his mother.

“...we might as well say a proper goodbye,” said Griff. Mom took a deep breath and turned to look at him. She scratched his head. “Isn’t that something people say at these things?” said Griff.

“Griff,” she said, in the nicest possible Mom way, but nice wasn’t really her strong suit. “That doesn’t mean anything,” she said, “There’s no such thing as a proper goodbye.” Something came over Griff then. Something cold and warm at the same time, like being scared and being calm. Griff stood up and started walking towards the casket. His mother grabbed his arm. “What are you doing?” she snapped.

“I have to do something,” said Griff, “anything. I can’t just come here and then leave. I—my Dad died or something.”

“So what?” said Mom, her face flushed pink, “You never met him. Are you going to go hug Amy over there, who you’ve also never met? If you need to hug someone you can hug me.”

“Not with that attitude,” said Griff. Mom’s grip tightened.

“Griff, your dad associated with bad people. These are bad people, Griff.”

“You don’t know that. Maybe they’ve changed. Maybe they were never that bad and you just hate people and ignore them when they’re worried about you.”

“That is a separate issue,” said Mom, she was fuming now. “I hate these people because I know them. They may fool you with all this pretty stuff, but they didn’t get it by being decent.”

“Well if you hate them so much maybe you should divorce all of them.”

“I’m not joking around, Griff!”

“Ow!” He twisted his arm away from her and rubbed at the spot her fingers had been. Some of the people in the garden noticed the commotion and were sending discreet little glances their way. Isa tried to regain her composure, but dropped her head instead. When she looked up, she didn’t look angry anymore, just tired.

“I left your father to protect you from him,” she said, so quietly he could barely hear her. “And all this.” She motioned around at the garden and up to the mansion. “I kept you away because I knew he would suck you into his world somehow like he did with me and he’d ruin you like he ruins everyone who loves him.”

Griff learned two things from that sentence. One: his Mom still loved his father. Not in a romantic way, no. But she loved him nonetheless. Despite all her hatred for him, you could hear it in her voice so clearly when she said it. It didn’t make complete sense to Griff, that someone could love someone and hate someone so much at the same time, but his mom never did make sense, nor did Griff even to himself. And here was a moment where it was so clear that he was her son: the rage and the pain stuck to the roof of her mouth. The helplessness and confusion in her eyes. He would have hugged her if it weren’t for the second thing he learned from that sentence: it wasn’t his father who never wanted to see him. It was mother who never let him.

“You kept me from him?” said Griff.

“Yes,” she said, “if you knew how dangerous—”

“Did he ever try to find me?”

“I don’t know. I never opened any of his letters.” Griff just stared at her. “He was a criminal,” she said.

“Mom, I don’t even know what he looks like. You threw out all his photos.”

“We can talk about this on the way home.”

“No,” said Griff, “I’m not leaving.”

“Please. Trust me,” she said, just a little desperately. But he was already on his way to the casket and there was nothing she could do about it.

Next: Chapter 2