“You know what?” says Christopher. “In my Cloud Cuckoo Land? Instead of rivers of wine, there’d be root beer. And all that fruit would be candy.”

“So much candy,” says Alex.

“Infinity Starburst,” says Christopher.

“Infinity Kit Kats.”

Natalie says, “In my Cloud Cuckoo Land? Animals would be treated the same as people.”

“Also no homework,” says Alex. “And no strep throat.”

“But,” says Christopher, “the Super Magical Extra Powerful Book of Everything in the garden at the center? That would still be in my Cloud Cuckoo Land. That way you could just read, like, one book for five minutes and know everything.”

Zeno leans over the mound of papers on the desk. “Have I told you kids what Aethon means?”

They shake their heads; he writes αἴθων across an entire sheet of paper. “Blazing,” he says. “Burning, fiery. Some say it can mean hungry too.”

Olivia sits down. Alex puts a fresh donut hole in his mouth.

“Maybe that’s it,” says Natalie. “Why he never gives up. Why he can’t settle down. He’s always burning inside.”

Rachel looks off over the table, her eyes faraway. “In my Cloud Cuckoo Land,” she says, “there’d be no droughts. Rain would fall every night. Green trees for as far as you could see. Big cold creeks.”

* * *

They spend a Tuesday in December at the thrift store hunting for costumes, a Thursday making a donkey head, a fish head, and a hoopoe head from papier-mâché. Marian orders black and gray feathers so they can construct wings; everybody cuts out clouds from cardboard. Natalie collects sound effects on her laptop; Zeno hires a carpenter to construct a plywood stage and wall, offsite and in pieces, so he can surprise them. Soon there are only two Thursdays left and there’s still so much to do, an ending to write, scripts to make, folding chairs to rent; he remembers how Athena the dog, when she sensed they were going down to the water, would vibrate with excitement: it was like lightning was ripping through her body. This is how it feels every night as he tries to sleep, his thoughts ranging across mountains and oceans, weaving through stars, his brain a lantern inside his skull, blazing.

* * *

At 6 a.m. on the twentieth of February, Zeno does his push-ups, pulls on two pairs of Utah Woolen Mills socks, ties his penguin tie, drinks a cup of coffee, and walks to Lakeport Drug, where he makes five photocopies of the latest version of the script and buys a case of root beer. He crosses Lake Street, scripts in one hand, soda in the other. A silver-blue sky is braced over the snow-mantled lake, and the high ridges are lost in clouds—storm coming.

Marian’s Subaru is already in the library parking lot and a single upstairs window is illuminated. Zeno climbs the five granite steps to the porch and stops to catch his breath. For a split second he’s six years old, shivering and lonely, and two librarians open the door.

Why, you don’t look warm at all.

Where is your mother?

The front door is unlocked. He climbs the stairs to the second floor and pauses outside the golden plywood wall. Stranger, whoever you are, open this to learn what will amaze you.

When he opens the little door, light spills through the arched doorway. Atop the stage, Marian stands on a step stool, touching a brush to the gold and silver towers of her backdrop. He watches her climb off the stool to examine her work, then climb back on, dip her brush, and add three more birds swinging around a tower. The smell of fresh paint is strong. Everything is quiet.

To be eighty-six years old and feel this.

Seymour

Just as the first snows stick to the ridges above town, Idaho Power shuts off the electricity to the double-wide. The propane tank in the front yard is still one-third full, so Bunny heats the house by turning on the oven and leaving its door open. Seymour charges his tablet at the ice rink, and gives his mother most of the money he makes.

MATHILDA: cold tonite been thinking of u

SEEMORE6: cold here 2

MATHILDA: when its dark like this I want to take off clothes run outside feel air on my skin

MATHILDA: then get back in bed all cozy

SEEMORE6: rly?

MATHILDA: u have 2 hurry have 2 get here i can hardly stand it

MATHILDA: have 2 come up with ur task

On Christmas morning Bunny sits him at the kitchen table. “I’m giving in, Possum. I’m going to sell. Find a place to rent. After next year, you’ll be off, and I don’t need a whole acre to myself.”

Behind her the gas whooshes blue inside the open oven.

“I know this place has been important to you, maybe more important than I realize. But it’s time now. They’re hiring a housekeeper at the Sachse Inn, a longer drive, I know, but it’s a job. If I’m lucky, between the job and the house sale, I can pay off all this debt and have enough left over to get my teeth fixed. Maybe even help with college.”

Out the sliding door the lights of the townhomes flicker behind an icy fog. A terrible sensitivity has been building inside Seymour: a hundred voices in the basement of his head speaking all at once. Eat this, wear this, you’re inadequate, you don’t belong, your pain will go away if you purchase this right now. See-More Stool-Guy, ha ha. Out there, in the ground beneath the toolshed, waits Pawpaw’s old Beretta and his crate of hand grenades, nestled in their five-by-five grids. If he holds his breath, he can hear the grenades rattling lightly in their places.

Bunny sets her palms flat on the table. “You’re going to do something special with your life, Seymour. I know it.”

* * *

He stands in the night in his windbreaker at the corner of Lake and Park. Christmas lights dot the gutters of the Eden’s Gate showroom at perfectly spaced intervals. Black cameras have been mounted under the eaves, and stickers shaped like badges gleam in the bottom corners of windows, and complicated-looking locks protect the front and rear gates.

Security systems. Alarms. Getting in there and leaving something behind without being noticed is not feasible. But the west side of the realty office and the east side of the library, he observes, are less than four feet apart. In the space between, there’s hardly room for a gas meter and a frozen stripe of snow. Smuggling an explosive into the realty office might be impossible. But the library?

SEEMORE6: I came up with a spot

MATHILDA: a target?

SEEMORE6: a task, my way 2 disrupt machine 2 help wake people up begin real change

MATHILDA: what have you

SEEMORE6: 2 earn my way 2 the camp

MATHILDA: come up with?

SEEMORE6: 2 u

The PDF Mathilda sends via Pryva-C is full of typos and klutzy diagrams. But the concept is plain: fuses, pressure cookers, prepaid phones, everything duplicated in case the first bomb fails. He buys one pressure cooker at Lakeport Drug and a second at Ridley’s and two padlock hasps at Bergesen Hardware and mounts these to the inside of his bedroom door and to the door of the toolshed.

Unscrewing the grenades is easier than he imagined. The explosive filler inside looks harmless, like little blond flakes of quartz. He uses an old letter scale of Pawpaw’s: twenty ounces into each cooker.