Woody had been untied. He could not say what kind of knots they had been, whether psychological or physical, or both. He could not say how they had been untied, except that the means by which he and Kipp opened each to the other—the Wire—served not merely two purposes but as well a third; it wasn’t just a means of communication and swift education, but also a mysterious instrument of change. He intuited that Kipp understood the third purpose and how the Wire functioned to fulfill it. He wanted the golden retriever to explain it to him, how the Gordian knots of autism had been untied, but this was not the right time for that.
At the moment, in addition to himself, the house contained four people—his mom, Ben Hawkins, Rosa Leon, and Carson Conroy—three of whom had been total strangers an hour earlier, plus a dog who was no longer a stranger and as well-known to Woody as Woody was known to himself. Furthermore, there were deputies everywhere outside: two in a patrol car in front of the house, on Greenbriar Road; two in an all-wheel-drive SUV at the end of the backyard, near the forest; two more in another SUV that was parked at the foot of the back porch steps.
After what had happened earlier with the Shacket thing, all of this activity and all of these people would once have spooked Woody, so that he would have gone away to Castle Wyvern. He didn’t want to go away now. He thought maybe he would never want to go away again.
All of these people, minus the deputies, were gathered in the living room, where the draperies were closed over the windows. No one had been offered coffee yet or Mrs. Brickit’s excellent muffins, because everyone had something urgent to say, especially Mr. Conroy, who told them about Shacket’s escape and archaea and ninety-two dead in Springville, Utah. Ms. Leon told them about Dorothy and Kipp and the Mysterium, about the enormous inheritance and her legal custody of Kipp. It was all very exciting, like something in an adventure story, but also scary. Sitting on a sofa with Kipp’s head in his lap, Woody expected to embarrass himself when they asked him about the Dark Web and the site called Tragedy, but it all came rushing out of him without hesitation, everything he’d discovered over the past sixty weeks, the satisfaction he took in seeking justice for his dad. He was amazed by himself. He wondered . . . if his vegetables and potato and meat were all served on the same plate the next time he had dinner, would seeing the different foods in contact with one another sicken him as before, or would he be able to eat like a normal person?
When everyone had said what most urgently needed to be said, an uncomfortable silence settled over them, as though they had become autistic, though it was most likely amazement that left them briefly speechless, for they had fallen down a rabbit hole for sure. Then everyone but Woody started talking at once. They were in agreement about the situation in which they found themselves. Woody had kicked a hornet’s nest, and he was in deep shit. If Woody was in deep shit, so was his mom. Kipp wasn’t going to be separated from Woody, the only human being who could use the Wire, so Kipp was in deep shit. Because Rosa Leon was legally and morally responsible for Kipp, she, too, was in deep shit. And because Lee Shacket, in the hospital, told Mr. Conroy about the true nature of the Springville experiments, the medical examiner was in deep shit. All of them were now enemies of Dorian Purcell, who had a zero tolerance policy when it came to people he believed were a serious threat to him.
The only person in the room who wasn’t in deep shit, who could walk away and get on with his life, was Ben Hawkins. But he said that he had been in deep shit many times before, had gotten out of it, and in retrospect had enjoyed the experience and always learned something from it. They were forming a mutual-defense society here, or maybe an extended family, and Ben insisted on having a role in it because, he said, he wanted to be part of the magic that was Kipp. The magic-of-Kipp part was surely true, but the way he looked at Woody’s mom was how Woody