“I’m sure everything will be fine,” Linus said, taking a step back. “And if it’s not, I assure you I’ll speak my mind. I don’t have the time nor the patience for any rudeness.” He felt strangely untethered, as if he were floating outside his own body. He wondered if this would all seem like a dream tomorrow. “Time for bed, I think. The morning will be here before we know it.”
He turned, sure his face was bright red. He was almost to the door when Arthur said his name.
He stopped, but didn’t turn around.
“I meant what I said.” Arthur’s voice was hushed.
“About?”
“Liking you the way you are. I don’t know that I’ve ever thought that more about anyone I’ve ever met.”
Linus gripped the door knob. “That’s … thank you. That’s very kind of you to say. Good night, Arthur.”
Arthur chuckled. “Good night, Linus.”
And with that, Linus fled the bedroom.
* * *
He didn’t sleep the rest of the night.
Once he’d pushed his bed back to its rightful place in the guest house bedroom, he’d collapsed on top of it, sure he’d pass out after the night he’d had.
He didn’t.
Instead, he lay awake, thinking of the way Arthur’s hand had felt in his, the way they’d fit together. It was foolish, and most likely dangerous, but in the quiet darkness, there was no one who could take it away from him.
FOURTEEN
Merle stood on the ferry, gaping.
Linus leaned out the open window from the front passenger seat. “Are you going to lower the gate?”
Merle didn’t move.
“Useless man,” Linus muttered. “I don’t know why we’re supposed to trust him in charge of a large boat. I’m surprised he hasn’t killed anyone yet.”
“Are we going to crash and sink in the ocean and maybe die?” Chauncey asked. “That would be neat.”
Linus sighed. He really needed to learn to censor himself better. He turned around to look in the back of the van. Six children stared at him with varying degrees of interest at the idea of sinking in the ocean and dying, Lucy and Chauncey more so than the others.
Zoe, sitting in the third row, arched an eyebrow at him, indicating without so much as a single word that this was his mess and he might as well own up to it.
He hoped he wouldn’t live to regret this.
Chances were pretty high he would.
“We’re not going to sink into the ocean and die,” Linus said, as patiently as possible. “It’s merely an expression used by adults, and therefore, children such as yourselves shouldn’t say anything like it.”
Arthur snorted from the driver’s seat, but Linus ignored him. He was on very strange ground with Arthur since the night in his bedroom. Where once he’d had no problem in speaking his mind to the master of the house, he now found himself blushing and sputtering as if he were a school boy. It was ridiculous.
“Do adults think about death a lot?” Lucy asked. He cocked his head at an odd angle. “That must mean I’m an adult too, because I think about it all the time. I like dead things. I would still like you if you were dead, Mr. Baker. Maybe even more.”
Zoe smothered a laugh with the back of her hand and turned to look out the window.
Useless. Her and Arthur both.
“Adults don’t think about death a lot,” Linus said sternly. “In fact, they barely think about it at all. Why, it doesn’t even cross my mind.”
“Then why are so many books written by adults about mortality?” Phee asked.
“I don’t—it’s because—that’s neither here nor there! What I’m trying to say is that there is to be no more talk about death or dying!”
Talia nodded sagely as she stroked her beard. “Exactly. Because it’s better not to know if we’re about to die. That way, we don’t start screaming right now. It’ll be a surprise. We can always scream then.”
Theodore chirped worriedly, hiding his head under his wing as he sat on Sal’s lap. Sal reached down and stroked his back.
“I can tell you when you’re going to die,” Lucy said. He leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling of the van. “I think I could see the future if I tried hard enough. Mr. Baker? Do you want me to see when you’re going to die? Ooh, yes, it’s coming to me now. I can see it! You’re going to perish in a terrible—”
“I don’t,” Linus snapped. “And I will tell you again, while we’re in the village, you can’t go around offering to tell people about what fate awaits them!”
Lucy sighed. “How am I supposed to make new friends if I can’t tell them about how they’ll die? What’s the point?”
“Ice cream and records,” Arthur said.
“Oh. Okay!”
This was a very bad idea.
“Do you think I look good?” Chauncey asked for what had to be the hundredth time. “I don’t know if I got my outfit quite right.”
He wore a tiny trench coat, and a top hat was set between his eyes. He said it was his disguise, but it did little. It’d been his idea, and Linus hadn’t felt like arguing, especially when Chauncey had exclaimed quite loudly that he couldn’t go to the village nude, even though that was how he spent most of his time on the island. Linus had never thought about it that way. And now he couldn’t not.
“You look fine,” Linus said. “Dashing, even.”
“Like a spy hidden in the shadows about to reveal a big secret,” Sal told him.
“Or like he’s going to open his coat and flash us,” Talia muttered.
“Hey! I wouldn’t do that! Only if you asked!”
Zoe was no longer trying to hide her laughter.
Linus turned back around in the seat, staring out the windshield. Merle was still gaping at them.
“Second thoughts?” Arthur asked. Linus didn’t have to look at him to know he was smiling.
“No,” Linus said. “Of course not. This is going to be fine. This is going to— Good God, man! Lower the damn gate!”
“Ooooh,” the children said.
“Mr. Baker cursed,” Talia whispered in awe.
It was going to be fine.
* * *
“We’ll be back later this afternoon,” Arthur said to Merle as they exited the ferry. “I do hope that won’t be a problem. I’ll make sure there’s something a little extra in it for you.”
Merle nodded, still slack-jawed. “That’s … that’s fine, Mr. Parnassus.”
“I assumed it would be. It’s good to see you again.”
Merle fled back to the ferry.
“Odd fellow, isn’t he?” Arthur asked. He drove toward the village.
As it was toward the end of September and therefore the beginning of the off-season, the village of Marsyas wasn’t as bustling as it normally was. Even when Linus had arrived three weeks prior, there were still crowds on the sidewalks, peering into the shops, or children in swimsuits, following their parents who wore flip-flops on their pasty feet, carrying umbrellas and towels and coolers as they headed toward the beach.