Acceptance: A Novel (The Southern Reach Trilogy) by Jeff VanderMeer Page B

“One day they’ll be gone. Little freaks. Freak Brigade.” Testing out words for the fun of it, perhaps because they’d both had some beers already.
    “Maybe, but in the meantime they’re giving me the creeps.”
    “Could be they’re undercover agents from forestry or environmental protection?”
    “Sure, because I’m dumping chemicals all night long.”
    Charlie was joking, but the forgotten coast had suffered from a decade or two of lax regulations in what was an “unincorporated area.” The wilderness hid its share of rotting barrels, some of them hidden on old abandoned farmsteads, half sunk into the pine loam.
    They took up the conversation later, at Charlie’s two-room cottage just down the street. A couple of photographs of his family, some books, not much in the fridge. Nothing Charlie couldn’t toss in a knapsack if he ever decided to take off, or move in with someone.
    “Are you sure they’re not escapees from an insane asylum?”
    Which made Saul laugh, because just the summer before two sanitarium residents had escaped from outside of Hedley and made their way down to the forgotten coast, managing to remain free for almost three weeks before being caught by the police.
    “If you took away the insane people, no one would be left.”
    “Except me,” Charlie said. “Except me and, maybe, you.”
    “Except the birds and the deer and the otters.”
    “Except the hills and the lakes.”
    “Except the snakes and the ladders.”
    “What?”
    Except by then they had so lit each other up under the sheets that they could have been saying anything, and were.
    *   *   *
    It was Gloria who changed his mind about seeing a doctor. The next day, with Henry and Suzanne back up in the lighthouse, him down below, she appeared in the early afternoon to shadow him. He was so used to her that if she’d not shown up, he would’ve thought something was wrong.
    “You’re different,” Gloria said, and he chewed on that for a bit.
    This time she was leaning against the shed, watching him as he resodded part of the lawn. Volunteer Brad had promised to come in and help, but hadn’t shown up. The sun above was a huge gob of runny yellow. The waves were a rushing vibration in his awareness, but muffled. One of his ears had been blocked since he’d woken up, no doubt because he’d slept on it funny. Maybe he was getting too old for this kind of work after all. Maybe there was a reason why lighthouse keepers had to retire at fifty.
    “I’m a day older and wiser,” he replied. “Shouldn’t you be in school? Then you’d be wiser, too.”
    “Teacher work day.”
    “Lighthouse-keeper work day here,” he said, grunting as he broke the soil with a shovel. His skin felt elastic, formless, and a tic under his left eye kept pulsing in and out.
    “Then show me how to do your work and I’ll help.”
    At that he stopped and, leaning on the shovel, took a good long look at her. If she kept growing, she might make a decent linebacker someday.
    “You want to become a lighthouse keeper?”
    “No, I want to use a shovel.”
    “The shovel is bigger than you.”
    “Get another one from the shed.”
    Yes. The mighty shed, which held all things … except when it did not. He took a glance up at the lighthouse tower where the Light Brigade was no doubt doing unimaginable things to his beacon.
    “Okay,” he said, and he got her a small shovel, more of a glorified spade.
    Shaking off his attempt at shovel instruction, she stood beside him and awkwardly scuffed bits of dirt around, while he was careful to keep well away. He’d once been smacked in the head by a shovel handle wielded by a too-close, overenthusiastic helper.
    “Why are you different?” she asked, direct as ever.
    “I told you, I’m not different.” A little grumpier than he’d meant to be.
    “But you are,” she said, ignoring his tone.
    “It’s because of the splinter,” he said, finally, to keep it simple.
    “Splinters hurt but they just