I glanced at the digital dial of my clock. It was 2 a.m. Still, I needed to think about something else, at least for a few minutes. I didn’t want to go back into the nightmare. I picked up a paperback mystery novel I was reading about a detective whose leading characteristic was kindness. Unusual. I opened it, and must have fallen asleep again almost immediately. The next thing I knew it was morning.
Chat Room of Video Game “Revenge”
Wednesday, 3 a.m.
Moloch111: where are you, man? p**** f***** mouthbreathers here totally getting to me talking about protesting hate can you f***** believe it???
Demon196: Stay white fella. Can you do that crap? Fat jelly roll it is. Don’t you hump it bro. It’s mo crap. Its time alright?
Moloch111: got it
Chapter 7
You shall not give any of your children to sacrifice them to Moloch, and so profane the name of your God: I am the LORD.
—Leviticus 18:21
Wednesday
“Where’s Giles? We want Bori, not that stuff.” I could hear the two, whining voices all the way up at the top of the stairs.
I hurried down and into the kitchen. A tired, and uncharacteristically harassed-looking Carol turned from the counter with two bowls in her hands.
“Hey, guys. That’s no way to talk to Carol,” I said sternly.
“Sorry, Carol,” they said in unison. “But where’s Giles?” Mike continued, undeterred. “We don’t like that cereal.”
“He had to leave early,” Carol said quietly, putting down the two bowls of what looked like her homemade granola on the table.
Privately, I agreed with the boys, at least about the granola. Carol’s homemade granola tasted like sawdust with some gravel thrown in for variety.
“Mom, can’t you make us some Bori?” Sam wheedled.
“You boys know I can’t make Bori. Remember what happened last time?”
They both frowned, and I saw they recalled some of what had occurred. I had tried making Bori and it came out so thick it could have been used to fill the numerous potholes on the Chicago streets.
“Oh, yeah,” Mike said.
“Let’s get the maple syrup Carol’s Dad sent instead and put some on the cereal,” I countered. I turned to Carol. “Do you know where we put that, Carol?” I asked her.
She turned, looked at me, and I was startled to see she was holding back tears. Was it the boys rejecting her granola, or something else? Something to do with Giles leaving early?
“Never mind, Carol. I’ll find it. And I had planned to walk the boys to school today, if that’s okay. You go ahead and get going.”
“Thanks,” she said quietly and left the room.
I hunted around for the maple syrup, while the boys watched me in silence. I found it in the pantry. But then I thought I remembered we had a package of frozen waffles in the back of the freezer, hidden from both Carol and Giles. I opened the freezer door and rummaged around. Ah, there it was. I pulled it out of the frost and dusted the package in the sink.
“How about some waffles to go with that syrup?” I asked.
“Yeah. Way!” they chirped.
There were four waffles in the package. I put them in our four-slot toaster and then forked three out on to plates when they popped up. I took Molly’s bowl and gave her the last one. She’d had a tough night too, though I had to hold it back from her until it cooled.
With butter and the marvelous syrup, they were pretty good.
I told the boys to go get their backpacks. While they were gone, I rinsed all the dishes, ground up the granola in the disposal and hid the empty waffle package in my own backpack to drop in a recycling can on the way to campus. Best not to leave any evidence. I hadn’t been a Chicago police detective all that long, but I knew that.
✳ ✳ ✳
We only lived three blocks from their school and made it in plenty of time, though avoiding the puddles from last night’s rain slowed us down some. Well, it slowed me down as I kept my hands on two backpacks, guiding the boys around the puddles instead of straight through as they loved to do. We got to the school with relatively dry shoes. Sam gave me a fist bump and his cheeky smile, then he ran up the stairs and disappeared inside. Mike looked around, probably to be sure none of his friends were there, and then he leaned in to me for a second for a real hug. Then he broke it off and also ran up the stairs. I still felt awful about scaring him. I just stood there for a minute, contemplating the door of the school.
“Kristin!”
I started out of my reverie and turned around. Jane was hustling across the greenspace that bisected the campus toward me. I waited for her.
“I’m so glad to catch you like this!” she said a little breathlessly. “I was going to call you this morning.” She paused, aware that parents and kids were milling around us in front of the school.
“Can we walk together some? I assume you’re heading for your office.”
“Yes, certainly, Jane.” I moved on down the sidewalk with her.
“Thanks for that information you gave me from Rev. Dunn,” I said. “We’re following up on it through campus police contacts.” I decided not to mention my own excursion into that hideous world and my nightmare.
She was silent and I glanced over at her. She looked very tired.
“Jane, how are you? I can only imagine how this turmoil on campus has been difficult for you.”
“Oh, I’m okay.” She hugged her arms over her raincoat. “I try not to own all the problems myself, but give people support to solve them together.”
That sounded good and certainly I had to try to learn to do that, I thought, but I could see from her self-supporting posture that she hadn’t been entirely successful in letting others carry their own burdens. Her body, at least, reflected the weight of this past week. And then I thought, “It’s only Wednesday.”
Jane turned and gave me a wry smile. I realized I’d said “It’s only Wednesday” aloud.
“Anyway, Kristin, what I wanted to talk to you about is that a coalition of student groups has gotten permission from the administration to hold a big demonstration this Sunday on campus. They’re calling it a ‘Rally Against Hate’ because of that awful noose, the hateful leaflets, and the horrible social media exchanges people are having because of all that. There is very bad feeling among the students and even some staff and faculty.”
I wasn’t surprised the campus was in an uproar. I’d seen that myself, but I was surprised the coalition had the okay to go ahead.
“The administration gave permission for a rally? This is the first I’ve heard of it. It’s not like them. Usually they try to minimize any conflict on campus and shove it out of sight.” I knew what I was talking about from bitter experience. In fact, I heard my bitterness in my own voice.
Jane put a thin hand on my arm for a second. She knew.
“There’s just too many groups going together on this for them to blow it off completely, and it is being well organized, I think.” She stopped, and I faced her. She continued, her voice very firm.
“I told the President that we’d have an even bigger mess on our hands if we didn’t let the students demonstrate peacefully.” So it was Jane who had made the case for the rally. Jane was a very determined person despite her quiet manner. No wonder the President had agreed. The face she was making right now would have fit in on Mount Rushmore.