To Best the Boys(12)
His reply is so slow I raise my eye from the glass to find his expression clouded. He dips his head in a familiar gesture that says it’s better not to ask. Her disease has advanced faster than we’ve previously seen—she’s gone from a healthy, giggly child to bed-bound within a matter of weeks. “It’s like the disease is accelerating,” he says quietly. Then adds, “How are you feeling today?”
“I’m well.” I move away from the magnifier and lift my top lip for him to look at my gums, then raise my arm for him to test my joints. When he’s done I move to the shelves, where I pull down a tray of vials filled with chemicals and bonding agents.
I unseal one and dip a clean glass stick inside to withdraw a single liquid drop and place it on the glass dish beside the fresh blood sample. “Here, I’ll get this next test batch started before I leave.”
“No, no. You go get ready for Uncle Nicholae’s party. You’ll already be late from the looks of you.” He lifts up Lady and returns her to her cage.
“It won’t matter if I’m late.” I smear through the blood on the dish to mix it with the liquid. “The only person who’ll care is Seleni.”
He chuckles. “You not caring if you’re late means you’ll forget to show up at all. And this can wait until later. Now go.”
I lean closer to stare through the scope at the glass dish. Just like the others, the dead man’s blood cells show signs of the disease. And just like the others, there’s a faint sense of familiarity about the way they shape themselves around each other. I shake my head. Who cares if I’m late? Pink Lady’s progress is tangible, and the reality that we might be onto the cure is something I can’t ignore. What if Mum and the Strowe girl could be cured too? “I should stay here with this new blood sample. It looks like he may have had the disease. I’ll attend another time.”
“Another time you might miss the chance. With the equinox tomorrow, there’ll be a horde of people there, and you can’t ignore social engagements to sit over microscopes and rudimentary experiments in the dark, Rhen. I’ll go over his blood work.”
“This is far more important than attending their party. What if this is a real breakthrough, Da?”
“Good point, except now it’s just a matter of watching and waiting, and I can do that just as well as you.” His tone turns firm. “Mum and Lady will be here when you get back. You can’t do anything for them right now. So go do something there.”
He’s right, of course. Seleni said there would be university and parliament members there.
I nod. “In that case I’ll try to explain to the uni and government officials again how bad the illness is getting. Maybe when they hear what we’re seeing, they’ll reconsider—”
“That’s not what I meant. You have to meet people your age, dance, breathe a little.”
“I spent time today with people my age.”
He snorts and returns Lady to her cage. “From the smell of you, they were all dead. Besides, you know it’ll please your mum. Go scrub up, do something with your hair, dance with Vincent King, and make her happy.”
“You should’ve smelled me before I rinsed in the ocean,” I mutter. But I don’t argue. “I’ll try to get them to hear me this time and actually do something.”
“Fine.” He clears his throat, and suddenly sounds weary. “But try not to get kicked out, yeah?”
With a small sense of purpose and a giant swell of the first hope I’ve felt in months, I turn to head up the stairs and out to the back, where I take a quick, discreet sponge bath, then come in to shiver and dry my hair in front of the tiny oven in my chemise.
When both are no longer dripping, I comb out my hair and braid the long, brown strands into ropes and bind them at the base of my neck with a string. I slide into one of the two dresses I own that were handed down from Seleni and fancy enough for an Upper party. A midnight taffeta with a slightly-too-loose bodice for my small chest above a puffed skirt that reaches long enough to cover my worn shoes.
I check my reflection in the kitchen window and almost laugh. Why I expected it would’ve altered since the last time I wore it is wishful thinking. I look like a fae doll dressed up for a funeral. I drop my gaze and swallow the embarrassment threatening to rise. It’ll have to do.
After grabbing one of Mum’s shawls from the wall hook, I slip it on, then pause to brace my spine and chest before I set my hand on the door to her room. You will not cry, you will just breathe.
I swallow and purse my lips. Come on—you cut up corpses and run tests on rats. Facing your mum is not unbearable. But my hands still sweat, and my throat clenches and I want to throw up. Because all I usually feel in these moments is scared and angry and weak. And this time is no exception.
I just want the mum I’ve always known back. Healthy. Vibrant. Strong enough to steady me when I don’t know how to steady myself on certain days. And to hold me when I don’t know where I belong—because lately, more than ever, I think I belong nowhere.
Instead, I end up holding her—the slowly fading body of skin and bone that is my mum—and I’m so desperately grateful she’s there to hold, yet so desperately terrified that I cannot hold on tight enough. I can’t fix her. And when she goes . . . I won’t know how to fix Da.