The Prince of Earth by Mike Robinson

Chapter One

2008

It had come back. It had come back and it was stronger too.

It’s been twenty years. Not again. Not now.

Not anytime.

There’d been nothing unusual about the morning drive, but it had terrified her nonetheless, filled her with portentous visions. The width of everything, the open-walled world a malicious desert that shimmered with so many possibilities. It desired either nothing or everything from her and Quincy Redding couldn’t stand, let alone face, either notion.

She returned home and texted in sick. It was a bad time to do so. The holidays loomed and Camelot Games had two major titles to ship, but it might prove even more detrimental to have her there in her present condition. The producer wasn’t supposed to exhibit stress.

You would break them, being there.

The apartment was empty, though its air still buzzed with that morning’s stirrings. Quincy went to the bedroom and shut the curtains, reducing the autumn-white California sun to pale slits in the cloth. She checked her phone. There was a text reply from Nathan but she was too embarrassed to read it. Just so long as they knew she wouldn’t be there today.

She debated with herself whether or not to turn off her phone. They hadn’t installed a landline, and she wanted no interruptions and no chain to the outside world but the guilt of writing everyone off, even if it was only for that day, prodded her to leave it on. For absolute emergencies.

Absolute emergencies.

She set the phone on the nightstand and, without removing more than her shoes and her pants, threw back the bedsheets, crawled in and settled. For six hours she remained there, sleeping only fitfully during the morning.

Then sometime around eleven, Quincy slipped into a thin but steady rest.

* * * * *

"Quincy."

A voice—familiar and firm.

A sniffling child.

"Quincy wake up."

Her eyes snapped open, red and distant and absolved of worldly burden. All was haze, contours ill-defined, identity and memory capricious. Irrelevant.

"Quincy."

Wesley and Andy stood at her bedside, faces like stone encompassing the dark ponds of their eyes. From Andy’s flowed tears as Wesley ran a calming hand through his son’s mossy brown hair.

"What’s wrong?" Quincy asked.

Wesley laughed, a strained defense against what looked like a fleeting urge to strike her.

"You’re on the wrong end of that question, Quince," Wesley said. "What the hell’s going on? You were supposed to pick up Andy. The school said they called you several times before they called me. And I called you several times. I had to leave the restaurant in the middle of the lunch crowd."

"What?" Quincy had no firm recollection of that morning or the night prior.

 Wesley leaned forward and, with his free hand, clasped Quincy’s scalp and shook it as though in some agitated massage.

"Hello?" he said. "The circuits working in there? Anything getting through?"

Quincy batted his hand away, rolled over to the other side of the bed, and sat up.

"You were supposed to take him to daycare afterwards," Wesley said. "Remember we were going to take him all this week? For Christ’s sake, Quince, this was only his third day of kindergarten. He was terrified." Wesley glanced furtively about the nightstand and dresser. "And where’s your phone? How come you didn’t answer?"