Maeve Fly

After Kate leaves, Maeve goes to a bookstore. As she leaves, she spots the same girl from the mall outside near some vines in a fence. As Maeve moves toward her, the girl turns and “smiles a Pennywise smile” (174), then quickly walks away. Maeve looks in the vines and is horrified to find another doll—this one with two heads, the body of a monkey, and blood in its teeth. Maeve feels both vindicated and terrified that someone is in fact following her and planting the dolls for her. She chases after the girl but is unable to catch up to her. When she stops, blocks later, she gets a phone call from Gideon.

At Gideon’s house, Maeve and Gideon get drunk and have sex several times in the Halloween room. She is grateful that he allows her to forget everything and focus on physical pleasure, without the need to talk.

However, after, they lie together in the coffin bed. Maeve closes the lid, thinking about how the darkness allows her to be someone different with him. She presses her body to his and they lie together, the physical contact something Maeve is not used to but needs and likes with him.

Gideon asks about the tattoo of a fly on Maeve’s hip. He comments on how it reflects her—watching everybody. She then asks about his tattoo, eight tally marks, which he got in memory of Jared. Gideon tells her the story of Jared’s death, as he fell—or jumped—from a bridge. Gideon and Jared had gotten in a fight earlier that day because Gideon did not like the way that Jared and Kate both “changed” when they were together. In particular, Kate always “diminished herself” when she was with him. After Jared’s death, Gideon started playing hockey—which Jared always did—as a way to remember him.

Gideon then tells Maeve that she doesn’t have to be Jack o’ the Lantern. She asks him if she is just supposed to let herself go to hell, and Gideon replies that life is already hell. He then clarifies, saying that she does not have to damn herself to a life of wandering alone forever. The words make Maeve feel a new “ache” within herself, one that touches both the monkey and the wolf within her. She thinks of everything in her life that is “unravelling”—Kate, her grandmother, the dolls—and realizes that, for the first time, she believes that what he says is possible.

When Maeve wakes up the next morning, Gideon has gone to practice. She realizes that she is extremely hungover. She assumes it’s still early in the morning but is shocked when she checks her phone and realizes it is after 10. She was supposed to work at nine and missed giving her grandmother her morning medication. She has several missed calls and messages from both Liz and Kate.

Maeve rushes home. She finds her grandmother with elevated vitals, jaundiced skin, and fresh bedsores. She gives her grandmother her medication and then monitors her vitals, which slowly improve. She texts Liz to tell her she is too sick to work.

Maeve sits with her grandmother for the rest of the day. She thinks of how she deserves to be punished for neglecting her routines and allowing herself to be distracted by “an empty promise […] a foolish girl’s dream” (182). She then texts Kate and apologizes for missing work, promising to make it up to her. Then she texts Gideon and tells him that last night—and everything they’ve done—has been a “mistake.” She tells him not to call or text her, then shuts down her phone.

Maeve goes to work the next morning early so she can apologize to Liz. However, Liz comes into the locker room with Andre and tells Maeve that she is fired. Maeve tries to argue, but Liz pulls out her phone to show her a video of Maeve and Gideon having sex in the employee tunnels in the middle of the night. Andre tries to stop her, but Liz gloats and does not even try to hide her excitement at firing Maeve. Maeve is devastated. She tries to threaten that she will tell corporate about Liz and Andre’s relationship, but Liz insists that the relationship is fine because she and Andre are equals.

Kate comes into the locker room and realizes what is happening. Liz tells her that she will be fired next, as soon as she does something wrong, but Kate quits. She takes the donut that Andre is eating and smears it all over her costume, then rips it. As they yell at each other, all Maeve can think is how broken she is to lose the job that she loved so much.

Outside in the hall, Kate asks Maeve if she missed work because of Gideon. Maeve nods, then tells Kate that she broke it off with Gideon because “he’s too good for” her (189). Kate thinks for a few moments, then responds simply with “okay.” As they stand together in the hall, Maeve thinks of how this is their last time together in the park. She considers that it might be their last time together ever, as Kate moves on with her life. She tries to “take it all in, memorize everything” (189), but then Kate simply walks away.

Maeve goes home after being fired. It is the 28th of October. She sits in her grandmother’s room, distraught and crying. She thinks of how disappointed her grandmother would be if she saw her reacting this way, but she also feels utterly hopeless. She does something she has never done before and tries talking to her grandmother in her coma. She tells her that she “need[s] something [to] live this life” and that “this thing in [her], it’s too great. It’s too…” then she stops when she thinks her grandmother’s lips move (192). She sits beside her grandmother for a long time, waiting for some other movement, then decides that she is pathetic she is being for even thinking that her grandmother moved in the first place.

Maeve goes to her bedroom and begins angrily pulling books off the wall and throwing them behind her. She thinks of how stupid she was to think that books could guide her and how useless they all are now. However, she stops when she sees one book on the floor, illuminated by light coming through the curtains. The book is American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. She thinks of how “silly” she has been to try to be “the philosopher, the observer, the pretender” and to try to “do in shadow what men do in the light. What they have always done” (193-94). As she lifts the book up to the light, she feels herself changing, ready to “feed” both the monkey and the wolf.

As Maeve drives down the highway to the park for “one last time” (195), she thinks of the film An American Werewolf in London. She considers it the best and most “gruesome” transformation of all time, as for several minutes the main character changes—in agony—into a werewolf. The moon in the scene is full, just as it nearly is as Maeve drives.

Maeve goes to the park for the annual Halloween party. She steals Cinderella’s costume. She tracks Liz and Andre throughout the party, stalking them and watching as they hold hands and kiss. However, she gets distracted when she comes across Susan Parker. She is devastated to learn that Susan looks a little sad but is generally doing okay. She is still with her husband and all her children. Maeve thought that she had completely ruined her life, “thrust [her] into the dark insurmountable loneliness of despair,” but instead Susan moved here with her family for a “fresh start” (199-200). Susan’s children excitedly hug Maeve and tell her how much they love her character.

After Susan and her family leave, Maeve realizes that she has lost track of Andre and Liz. She decides to leave the park, looking back on it once last time. She feels “a greater rage than [she has] felt in quite some time,” but “for once, [she does] nothing to silence it” (201).

In the parking lot, Maeve finds Andre and Liz trying to get into their car. They fumble with their keys, their words slurring. Maeve greets them happily, telling them that she took Cinderella’s costume as a gift from the park. She tells them that she is going to give them a ride home.

As Maeve drives, with Andre and Liz struggling to remain conscious, she tells them that she put a large amount of Diazepam in the donuts in the break room. Maeve plays the song “Psycho” by Jack Kittel as she talks to them about it. She turns up the music as Liz passes out against the window and Andre drools into his lap.

Maeve can’t move Andre out of the garage, so she slits his throat outside the car and leaves him there. She paints herself with some of his blood. She then drags Liz into the basement. Waiting for Liz to wake up, Maeve listens to the Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack, watches porn, and masturbates.

When Liz wakes up, she is tied to a wine rack. Maeve is standing before her wearing the mouse ears that Andre wears at work each day. However, she has fastened Andre’s actual ears to the headband. Liz looks at it in horror and tries to scream, but she is gagged.

Maeve’s phone rings and she sees that it is Gideon—who is calling her for the first time since she texted him to leave her alone. She is briefly hopeful, then becomes enraged that she allowed herself to feel any emotion other than anger. She smashes the phone into pieces, letting out a “banshee” yell.

Maeve tells Liz about her plans to torture and sexually assault her with a metal pipe. She explains that Liz and she could have been friends—that Kate and Maeve were actually good at their jobs and cared about it—but Liz ruined it out of jealousy.

Maeve plays the theme song to her ice princess character. She explains to Liz that her character is an anomaly compared to other princesses, as she was both good and bad because of the power she was forced to hide. It was only when she embraced her powers—and the potential danger that went with them—that she was able to truly be herself. Maeve sings as Liz sobs and tries to yell through her gag.

After torturing then killing Liz, Maeve leaves her body in the basement, then dismantles Andre. She puts him in the basement alongside Liz.

Maeve showers and then goes to her grandmother’s room. She is still enraged about Susan and Gideon. She looks at her grandmother and thinks back to a conversation they once had. Her grandmother told her that people will always be jealous and try to take things from them. At the time, Maeve wondered what she had that was worth stealing. In answer to her thoughts, Tallulah took her into the cellar.

Maeve goes to where she found the most recent doll. She destroys it on the pavement, feeling as though it is necessary but also as though she will be “cursed” in some way for having “broken an idol” (218). She waits for several hours in the vines, convinced that the girl will come back to get the doll—just as she retrieved the other ones.

Maeve finally sees the girl come back. She thinks of how the girl “looks just like [her], but darker” (218). The girl is shocked to find that the doll is gone, then she spots Maeve and runs away. Maeve sprints after her, chasing her through the streets. When they come to a busy road, the girl hesitates, and just as Maeve almost catches her the girl darts into traffic. Maeve struggles to follow her, then realizes that the girl is gone. She asks an unhoused man by the road where the girl went, but the man is confused, insisting he never saw one.

Maeve walks along the Strip, overwhelmed by something that is beyond rage. She walks for more than an hour until she hears music coming from the Viper Room. As she steps inside, she realizes that the band playing is the same band that used her grandmother’s picture for their advertisement. The picture is projected on the walls behind and above them as they play. Maeve stands among the crowd and watches.