Maeve Fly

Maeve wanders around the Strip to different bars. She ends up at a brothel. She goes into the men’s restroom, which she is angry to learn has a TV while the women’s does not. As she washes her hands, the TV flashes images from different parties throughout the city, and she spots Gideon and Kate. A man stands behind her, annoyed that she is in the men’s restroom, but she shoves her used paper towels into his mouth and walks out.

At the bar, she uses the band member’s phone to search social media. She learns that Kate and Gideon are being posted about everywhere, lauded as a famous set of siblings. They were invited to an exclusive Halloween party. She notes how Kate looks “happy” in her photos, usually with Derek. Then she sees photos of Gideon with the actress Maeve met in the pool, but the actress has been on a retreat for weeks. One article speculates that Gideon is with a model named Svetlana. Maeve angrily throws her phone behind the bar, smashing open a bottle of liquor.

Maeve goes to the Tata Tiki Lounge. She is shocked to find that Johnny and The Bartender are the only ones in there—even though it is barely dawn—because she is going at a different time than normal. The Bartender serves her a piña colada and turns on Halloween music, then goes in the back. Maeve drops the teeth she collected into the jar on the bar. She then realizes that Johnny is staring at her. He tells her that they are out of his wine, and Maeve realizes that this is the first time she has ever seen him sober. She asks him to have sex, and the two go into the restroom. As Maeve looks at herself in the mirror, she thinks she “look[s] more like [her]self than [she] ever [has],” and that she was stupid to “ever want to hide” who she is (233).

Maeve goes home. It is Halloween. She is determined to do her grandmother’s makeup and then prepare herself to find the girl with the dolls. However, when she gets to her grandmother’s room, she realizes that her grandmother has no pulse.

As the previous chapter ended with “There is —” (234), this chapter has only the one-word end of the sentence: “Silence.”

Maeve is distraught at her grandmother’s death, thinking how “the stronger half” of herself is gone (236). However, she then feels Tallulah’s presence inside of her, realizing that nothing can kill her. She dresses her grandmother in fine clothes and jewelry, then carries her down the stairs. She talks with her, telling her that they will go to dinner, and Tallulah answers, warning her to be careful of her blouse.

They sit together at Jones—the restaurant where they ate on Maeve’s first night in LA—with spaghetti and Old-Fashioneds. They discuss Maeve’s night ahead. In the text, it is unclear whether Tallulah is present only in Maeve’s imagination.

Back at home, Maeve makes up her grandmother’s bed. She tells herself that “Hilda was wrong” and her grandmother “will no longer need this bed because she is no longer sick” (238). She turns on Halloween music and dances in her grandmother’s room.

Maeve goes into her grandmother’s closet and gets out a box from the back. Inside is the dead Playmate costume that Tallulah wore when she posed on the Mustang years ago. Using the same photo that the band used in their advertisements as a guide, Maeve puts on the costume and does her makeup exactly how Tallulah had it. As she looks at herself in the mirror, Tallulah tells her how beautiful she is.

Maeve goes to the Halloween party at the Chateau Marmont, where she assumes Kate and Gideon will be. The valet gawks at her as she gets out of her grandmother’s Mustang, commenting on how she looks just like the woman from the photo. In response, Maeve kisses him aggressively.

Inside, Maeve does several shots, then dances alone in the middle of the floor. She interacts with several people dressed as iconic villains, grabbing Freddie Krueger’s crotch, touching the Joker’s chest and hips, and grinding with Jack Torrance from The Shining. She feels as though she is “going to summon forth all the spirits of the dead, awaken the wolves and incorporeals, the demons, every monster” (241).

Maeve spots Kate and Derek. Kate is dressed as Linda Blair from The Exorcist, while Derek is dressed as a priest. She tries to talk to Kate, but Kate doesn’t see her and goes outside. Maeve sees Derek drop what she assumes is Rohypnol into Kate’s drink. Maeve stops him from following Kate. She whispers to him how much she loves his work, then asks him to meet her in the bathroom while she touches him. Derek looks at her, considering, so Maeve intentionally grabs the glass that has been drugged and drinks the whole thing, then goes to the bathroom.

In the bathroom, Maeve takes Derek into a stall and then ties him to the toilet. She touches him and flirts with him, then reaches into his pocket and pulls out more Rohypnol. She puts two on his tongue and then makes him swallow them. She then turns angrily, scolding him for thinking that he could drug Kate. She also tells him that she switched glasses and did not consume any herself. She finds a chain around his neck and realizes that it is a cocaine spoon, then uses it to gauge out his eye as he screams. She decides she can’t kill him because then Kate won’t get to be in his movies. She instead shoves the spoon up his nose. She tells Derek that he won’t even remember what happened and, if he does, no one will believe him anyway.

Maeve goes back to the dance floor. She is confronted by Kate, who yells at her because people saw Maeve kissing Derek. Maeve tries to explain, but Kate interrupts her. She accuses Maeve of having no future and trying to destroy Kate’s, while also yelling at her for never using Tallulah’s influence to get her an acting role. Maeve feels “so full of love for this person and so full of terror” (248). Kate tells her to stay out of her life and then leaves her.

Maeve is despondent, but Tallulah tells her that Kate means nothing and that she should continue dancing. Maeve dances, ignoring everything and everyone around her, until she hears commotion. She realizes that they have discovered the unconscious Derek. However, her entire focus is on Gideon, who looks at her from across the room. She realizes that “there is nothing else” other than Gideon (250).

Maeve and Gideon go back to her grandmother’s house. They have sex in the living room, with no music and no toys, just their bodies. Maeve thinks how “consumed” she is by him, everything else in her life falling away.

Maeve wakes up the next morning and finds Gideon in the living room. She drinks coffee and they talk, then spend hours having sex. She thinks of nothing else other than being with him.

Later in the afternoon, they stop to eat. Maeve prepares to go into the cellar for champagne but is interrupted by a knock at the door. It is the same two police officers who visited her before about Hilda. Maeve is momentarily nervous until they tell her that they are just there to inform her that Hilda is still missing. She pretends to act shocked, and they remind her to call them if she thinks of anything that might help.

When Maeve goes back inside, the keys to the cellar are gone. She finds Gideon down there.

Maeve again thinks back to the time that her grandmother took her to the cellar for the first time, wanting to show her something. On the way down, Tallulah told her about her pregnancy with Maeve’s father. The baby’s father was a famous man who threatened to ruin her career if she did not have an abortion. However, his insistence is what made Tallulah decide that she needed to have the child—to prove to him that she was stronger than he was. She told Maeve never to show anyone who she truly is because no one would ever understand. She said that they will always be “wolves.” As she unlocked the cellar door, she told Maeve that she would be meeting her grandfather.

Maeve finds Gideon standing at the cellar door, looking in at the collected body parts, bones, and Liz’s dead body. Many of the bones are from Tallulah’s murders, along with the handful of fresh body parts contributed by Maeve. At one end are her grandfather’s bones, propped up and arranged on a daybed “surveying it all” (263).

Gideon turns to Maeve and tries to tell her that he understands what she is and doesn’t care. Maeve begins to cry, as she hears her grandmother’s voice telling her that she made an irreparable mistake by bringing him here. Gideon tries to tell her that he brought something for her that she needs to see, but his words are repeatedly drowned out by Tallulah’s voice. Maeve grabs a jar of cactus poison and smears it into Gideon’s eyes so he can’t see. He continues to try to stop her, but she gets the mace and hits him repeatedly. When he finally stops talking, Maeve realizes that she is repeating the words “How did you get in?” over and over (265).

Maeve showers and cleans up her home, then finally works up the nerve to pick up Gideon’s clothes. In his pocket, she finds an envelope. Inside are eight photographs of dead bodies along with a newspaper clipping about the death of Jared Rao. One of the photos is of the actress from the pool. Maeve realizes that Gideon was trying to tell her about this when she killed him.

Maeve takes Gideon’s keys and goes to his home. She walks through each of the rooms, thinking how she let Tallulah’s voice drown out Gideon’s, so she failed to hear him. She finds a locked room at the end of the hall. Inside is the actress’s body. In the center of the room is a worktable with tools and pieces of doll parts. There is one final doll there with a wolf’s body and fly’s wings. Next to it is a tiny jack-o’-lantern.

Maeve begins to cry. She thinks of how “it wasn’t Tallulah’s voice” she has been hearing—but her own because this is her “story” (271). She knew that it was always going to end in tragedy. She reads the words written on the final doll, “I See You” (271), as she sobs.