Golgotha

Totem

Something must be wrong, but Roman was adamant: under no circumstances should they call or text while they were at Landry's apartment. They didn't know anything about how smartphones worked, how they might be tracked, or what the police would do with whatever was on their phones. They needed to wait until they were back together before they talked about anything.

Now that it had been so long, more than five hours already, William felt like he could at least send an unobtrusive text to Grace: how are you doin? how's your morning been? you feeling alright today? That should work; there wouldn't be anything suspicious about that. He wanted to talk to Noah about it, but talking to him would probably make things worse.

"This is better for Esther," said Maya right before they left, after Noah told them, for what must have been the third or fourth time, they should talk to the police first. "If something happened to Landry, Esther needs to know the truth, but the police don't understand their gifts. They're never going to find out what really happened."

It wasn't until they left that Noah told William how he really felt. Roman and Grace will probably end up in jail.... This could ruin their lives.... It's gonna ruin the reputation of the church.

While they were deciding whether or not to go, William wasn't against talking to the police, until Grace, who hadn't been saying much, told Noah, "They're gonna treat my daughter like a criminal. They would lock her up in an institution." After hearing that, William didn't care about what happened to him, the other adults, the church's reputation. He was going to do whatever was necessary to protect Amelia.

About an hour or so after the Ferrars and Grace left for the apartment, the other kids woke up. Noah was polite; he talked to Matty for a little bit, but then he left to go to the bathroom and was gone for a while. When he came back, he didn't do anything but sit around and stare at his phone. While they were eating breakfast, Matty again tried speaking to him. Noah answered respectfully, but he didn't do anything to keep the conversation going. When Matty finally gave up, Noah was right back on his phone, sitting there at the dinner table for maybe a couple of minutes, before he got up and walked out. 

William couldn't believe it. Noah should be doing everything he could to give those kids as much attention as possible. Especially Matty, who seemed to be more comfortable talking to Noah and William than anyone else. Matty was quiet and reserved, but around them, it felt like he could hardly wait to tell them whatever was on his mind.

William did his best with Matty, but shortly after breakfast, their conversation waned. Matty wanted to keep talking, William could see that, but they just didn't have much in common. It wasn't that Noah really had anything in common with Matty either, but there was a natural camaraderie between the two of them.

William was the polar opposite of Matty. Thinking about high school and the kids like him, William never had a problem with them. There was none of that jock vs. emo thing. He always did his best to be nice to kids like Matty, but they lived in completely different worlds. 

Matty had a bit of a crooked slant to his mouth, kind of like a permanent scowl, even when he was perfectly happy. His long hair, with its half-clean, oily shine, came close to drooping over his right eye. He could inhale the same amount of sugar and fat as any other gamer kid, but for some reason, he was all skin and bones. William didn't get it; how could some kids, and really most kids from Matty's gamer world, look the part of their unhealthy habits, while others carried hardly an ounce of fat on them? Was it because Matty lucked out and had incredible genes? Or maybe kids like him were the hardest of hardcore gamers, playing so obsessively that they often forgot to eat.

William heard one of the kids laughing; it sounded like Esther. The three of them were waiting for him to finish up in the kitchen. Amelia wanted to watch a movie, which was an unusual thing to do so early in the day, but the other kids were all for it. When they talked about what to watch, everything they suggested was something they already had seen, so William said it'd be fun to watch something from his childhood. Amelia was pretty excited about that, but one movie after another, they had seen everything William came up with. Amelia and Matty hadn't seen Back to the Future, but Esther had, so William did his best to come up with more movies (The Never-ending Story, The Karate Kid, Labyrinth, Akira). They had seen them all. After he ran out of ideas, Esther said she hardly remembered Back to the Future. Matty asked what it was about, and after William described it, they were excited to watch it.