Foreverland Is Dead

out food tomorrow, once I get it sorted.”
    “What you mean is pick out the best food and give us the rest,” Roc says.
    Miranda pulls at the strings dangling from the hood.
    “I thought you were scared?” Cyn says.
    “Not so bad.”
    “Find any phones?”
    “No.”
    “You checked all the rooms?”
    “Yes.”
    “Even the one with the dead body?” Roc adds.
    Miranda’s lips twitch. She flicks a dark glance at Roc. “If there was a phone, don’t you think I’d call someone?”
    “So you haven’t checked them all?” Roc says.
    Miranda holds her glare, turns to Cyn. “I can wash the clothes and dry them when you need it.”
    “There’s a washer and drier?” Cyn asks.
    “It’s like a regular house. Looks like six or seven people lived here.”
    “W hat for?” Cyn asks.
    Miranda shakes her head.
    “Isn’t it obvious?” Roc says. “What else do rich people have to do with their money besides build a house in the middle of nowhere? Huh?”
    Roc leans on the bamboo stick.
    “Probably too noisy in the city to hear Mozart. And all those poor people get in the way, too. That’s why we’re out here, right, Shiny? We’re here to chop wood and weed the damn garden. We’re in the servant quarters getting the horses ready and serving up meals. We’re slaves, Cyn.”
    Roc elbows her in the ribs.
    “They got a shower in there?” Roc pokes the ground with the stick. “Hot water? You got that, too? I know you do because that hair is shining under that hood, girl.”
    Miranda dips her head.
    “ Probably have a toilet to tinkle in, too. You tinkle, right? We piss, you tinkle. And you sure as hell don’t fart. You fart, Cyn?”
    “Why are you doing this?” Cyn says.
    “How are you goi ng to wash those clothes for us? I mean, if we can’t get in there to do it, how are you going to figure it out, Shiny? While you’re sitting in the hot tub, filing your nails—”
    “I gave you clothes!” Miranda shouts. “I’ll give you food! Can’t you have an ounce of appreciation?”
    Miranda shook her fingers as if she were pinching a walnut. Just an ounce.
    “ It’s not my fault you’re out there and I’m in here. Why are you blaming me?”
    The bamboo squeaks in Roc’s twisting hands. “Because tonight, when I go to bed hungry and dirty and cold, I’ll know you’re in there curled up on the couch with vanilla-scented candles. And I can’t take that.”
    “You wanted me in here.”
    “Now I want you out.”
    “I didn’t have to share anything, you know. I could stay in here until you’re all cold and dead, when you’ve all cheated each other out of food and clothing.”
    Roc shifts her weight. Her hands grip the end of the stick like a bat. Miranda is too close to the fence. Roc turns as if she’s going to walk away, fed up with the injustice, disgusted with looking at a clean and comfortable young girl who is providing them with clothes and food.
    The stick settles on her shoulder, both hands still firmly grasping the end. She plants her right foot, the bamboo levels out and begins to arch — Cyn strikes out with rigid fingers, catching the tendon in Roc’s elbow.
    Roc’s left hand opens. The bamboo cane falters in her right hand. She loses momentum, accidentally strikes Cyn across the back instead of cracking Miranda on the side of the head.
    Roc is stunned.
    It all happened so fast. It would’ve been easy to knock Shiny out, drag her across the fence line. Her lips thin out. The bamboo cane lands softly in the grass. She grabs two fistfuls of Cyn’s poncho.
    “T ouch me again, I’ll throw you into the fence.”
    Rain spits off her lips, spatters Cyn’s face.
    “This time you’ll never wake up, bitch.”
    Roc throws her close to the fence. Cyn feels it in her neck.
    “And if I even see you again,” she says, pointing at Miranda, “I’ll throw a rock through every window. You’d better hope that fence stays up.”
    Roc walks off. Her form blends into the rain and gray dusk. She goes inside the dinner house through the kitchen door. Cyn will have to correct the inventory in the morning.
    “Thank you, Miranda.” She zips up the bag.
    Miranda nods. She goes inside, closes the door behind her.
    Cyn lugs the bag through the rain, the strap cutting into weeping blisters.

15

    Miranda presses against the door, mouthing the lyrics to Carl Orff’s O Fortuna . The words are Latin, but she knows them. The poem of fate and tragedy. The string instruments draw her out of her