Lucy looked around, the light fading from his eyes. “It’s the best. I like having my own room. Arthur says that it’s important to have independence.” He glanced at Linus before looking away, and Linus could have sworn he looked almost nervous. “Just as long as he doesn’t go too far away.” His eyes widened. “But I’m not a baby! I can be fine by myself! In fact, I’m by myself all the time!”
Linus arched an eyebrow. “All the time? Oh, no. No, no, no. That won’t do. I’ll need to have a word with Mr. Parnassus, if that’s the case. A child of your age should never be by himself all the time—”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Lucy cried. “What I meant was is that I’m never by myself! Ever! Everywhere I go, he’s there! He’s like a shadow. It’s so annoying.”
“Well, if you say so.”
Lucy nodded furiously. “I do. That’s exactly what I said. So, no need to talk to Arthur about it or put it in reports and say bad things about me.” His smile was positively angelic. “I swear I’m a good person.” The smile faded. “And you don’t need to worry about looking under my bed. And if you do, the bird skeleton under it isn’t mine, and I don’t know who put it there, but they should be punished because that’s wrong.” He smiled again.
Linus stared at him.
“Okay!” he said, stepping forward and grabbing Linus by the hand. “That’s it! That’s my room! No need to see anything else!” He pulled Linus toward the door and flung it open. “Arthur! He saw my room and said everything looks good and there’s nothing bad in it at all and that I’m a good person. And he likes the same music as me! Dead people music.”
Mr. Parnassus looked up from the book in his lap. “Is that right? Dead people music?”
Lucy lifted his head up to look at Linus, still holding his hand tightly. “We like dead things, don’t we, Mr. Baker?”
Linus sputtered.
Lucy let him go and collapsed on the floor at Mr. Parnassus’s feet where he’d been when Linus had arrived. He folded his hands on his stomach and stared up at the ceiling. “My brain is filled with spiders burrowing their eggs in the gray matter. Soon they’ll hatch and consume me.”
Linus had no idea what to do with that.
Thankfully, it appeared Mr. Parnassus did. He closed the book in his lap and set it on the small table next to the chairs. He tapped one of his wing tip shoes against Lucy’s shoulder. “How descriptive. We’ll discuss that more in detail in just a moment. First, Mr. Baker would like to observe. Would that be all right with you?”
Lucy glanced at Linus before looking back toward the ceiling. “That’s fine. He likes dead things almost as much as I do.”
That wasn’t even remotely true.
“Indeed,” Mr. Parnassus said, motioning for Linus to sit in the vacant chair. “How fortuitous. Where did we leave off before Mr. Baker arrived?”
Linus sat. He pulled his notepad out, along with his pencil. He didn’t know why his fingers were shaking.
“Categorical Imperative,” Lucy said. “Kant.”
“Ah, that’s right,” Mr. Parnassus said. “Thank you for reminding me.” Linus got the idea that he didn’t need to be reminded at all. “And what did Kant say about the Categorical Imperative?”
Lucy sighed. “That it’s the supreme principle of morality. It’s an objective. A rationally necessary and unconditional principle that we must always follow despite any natural desires or inclinations to the contrary.”
“And was Kant right?”
“That to be immoral is to be irrational?”
“Yes.”
Lucy scrunched up his face. “No?”
“And why not?”
“Because people aren’t black and white. No matter how hard you try, you can’t stay on one path without diversions. And that doesn’t mean you’re a bad person.”
Mr. Parnassus nodded. “Even if you have spiders in your brain?”
Lucy shrugged. “Maybe. But Kant was talking about normal people. I’m not normal.”
“Why is that?”
He tapped his stomach. “Because of where I came from.”
“Where did you come from?”
“A vagina after it was penetrated by a penis.”
“Lucy,” Mr. Parnassus admonished, as Linus choked.
Lucy rolled his eyes. He shifted as if he were uncomfortable. “I came from a place where things weren’t so good.”
“Are they better now?”
“Mostly.”
“Why do you think that is?”
Lucy squinted up at Linus before turning his head toward Mr. Parnassus. “Because I have my own room here. And my records. And you and the others, even though Theodore won’t let me see his hoard.”
“And the spiders?”
“Still there.”
“But?”
“But I can have spiders in my head as long as I don’t let them consume me and then destroy the world as we know it.”
Linus could barely breathe.
Mr. Parnassus didn’t seem to have that problem. He was smiling. “Exactly. To err is to be human, irrational or not. And while some mistakes are bigger than others, if we learn from them, we become better people. Even if we have spiders in our brains.”
“I’m unholy.”
“So some people say.”
Lucy’s face scrunched up as if he was thinking hard. “Arthur?”
“Yes?”
“Did you know your name is a mountain?”
Mr. Parnassus blinked, as if he’d been caught off guard. “I did. How did you know that?”
Lucy shrugged. “I know a lot of things, but I don’t always know how I know them. Does that make sense?”
“Sort of.”
“Mount Parnassus was sacred to Apollo.”
“I know.”
“And do you know Linus of Thrace?”
Mr. Parnassus shifted in his seat. “I … don’t think so.”
“Oh! Well, Apollo killed Linus with his arrows because of a musical contest. Are you going to kill Mr. Baker?” Lucy turned his head slowly to look at Linus. “If you do, can you make sure to use arrows? I don’t want him to be un-holey too.”
He began to cackle.
Mr. Parnassus sighed as Linus’s chest hitched. “Did you just tell that entire story to be able to make a joke?”
“Yes,” Lucy said, wiping his eyes. “Because you told me once that if we can’t laugh at ourselves, we’re doing it wrong.” He frowned. “Am I doing it wrong? Nobody seems to be laughing.”
“Humor is subjective, I’m afraid,” Mr. Parnassus said.
“That’s unfortunate,” Lucy said, staring back up at the ceiling. “Humanity is so weird. If we’re not laughing, we’re crying or running for our lives because monsters are trying to eat us. And they don’t even have to be real monsters. They could be the ones we make up in our heads. Don’t you think that’s weird?”
“I suppose. But I’d rather be that way than the alternative.”
“Which is?”