The Mad Scientist's Daughter

  “From your friends at school?” she said. Cat nodded and went to find Finn.

  He was up in the stuffy attic bedroom, tapping patiently on his computer. The minute Cat walked in the humidity curled her hair into ringlets. “Let me steal your soul,” she said, cocking her shoulders back like she’d seen Miranda do. The words were marbles in her mouth.

  “I don’t understand,” said Finn.

  Cat snapped his picture, and then stood on his bed and took another. Finn turned back to his computer. Cat laughed. “I just want to take your picture.” She jumped back down to his dusty floor. The sunlight streaming through the windows made his hair glisten. She took a picture of him typing. He glanced over at her and smiled faintly, in that way he did whenever she used an idiom he didn’t understand. Suddenly and inexplicably emboldened—by his confusion, by the lemony sunlight—she reached over and put two fingers along his jawline and turned his face so that he was looking right at her with his black eyes. The skin of his face was soft. She did not expect softness.

  For a moment, she didn’t move, just kept her fingers pressed against his jaw. They stared at each other. They were so close their noses almost touched. Then Cat dropped her hand to her side, stepped back, lifted the camera up to her right eye, and pressed the button that seared his image into film.

  A few days later, Miranda showed her how to shake up the film in plastic canisters, how to stretch it out in the darkroom, how to line it up under the glass of the photo processor. Cat made a contact sheet with all the pictures she had taken, and then carried it into Miranda’s bedroom to look it over. She half expected Finn to be missing from the tiny thumbnail-size pictures, like a vampire.

  “That’s a good one.” Miranda leaned over Cat’s shoulder and pointed at one of the portraits of Finn, the one where he stared straight into the camera—straight at her. “It’s intense. Who is that?”

  “My father’s assistant,” said Cat softly.

  Miranda made an odd noise in the back of her throat. She fell back down on the bed and lit a cigarette but didn’t say anything. Warmth stung Cat’s cheeks.

  She ended up making prints from only three of the pictures on the contact sheet: one of her father, one of a spray of water from the sprinklers, and one of Finn, his eyes unfathomably black.

  * * * *

  Cat went to a party on a balmy spring night. She was nearly seventeen. Her parents let her go, no questions asked, because they were heartened by the fact that she had friends and went out most Friday nights. She even brought home a boyfriend named Oscar, who despite his long hair and ratty coat met with her parents’ approval because he was, as they put it, her own age.

  Oscar picked her up the night of the party in his noisy old Chevy, the one his redneck father sold to him for five dollars. Cat had been waiting for him on the porch, and the headlights nearly blinded her. She threw her hand up, caught in the spotlight, and then ran through the dewy grass and climbed in. Oscar nodded at her and turned up his music, and they roared down the road into town. The truck still smelled faintly of the emu his father raised. Cat sat primly in the seat beside him, aware of the stiffness of her hair, the itchiness of her spangled, low-cut top. She had painted her fingernails dark blue earlier that afternoon in Finn’s room, leaning against his bed while he worked at his desk, holding her hands up to the light. Now the polish felt heavy and thick against her nails. Her eyelashes were weighed down by mascara.

  The party had already begun to spill out into the hazy night when Oscar and Cat arrived. Oscar threw his arm around Cat’s shoulders and indolently dragged her through the garage to the backyard. Someone had strung blinking LED lights from the trees. An old refrigerator filled with cheap beer lounged next to the fence. Oscar got one for himself and one for Cat. When she drank it, she repressed the urge to make a face—she’d never gotten accustomed to the taste of beer.

  Miranda showed up a little later, her arm slung around the waist of the drummer from some local band. He had graduated a year ago but he still hung around the high school, flirting with the same three or four girls. Cat knew Miranda had been trying to get this drummer to date her—or maybe just sleep with her, Cat could never tell which—for the last few months.

  Somebody dragged a sound system outside and put on music. Miranda and the drummer disappeared to one of the bedrooms inside. Cat stuck close to Oscar while he told stupid jokes with his friends, because all the people she knew at the party were either inside or stoned, and impossible to talk to either way. She watched Oscar swig from his beer bottle. Whenever he laughed, he bared his teeth. She realized she didn’t like Oscar that much. But she did like that he liked her.

  After a while, Oscar took Cat by the hand and led her to the edge of the yard, to a spot where dewberries grew wild against the fence. His face glistened with sweat. He smiled down at her.

  “Oh, Cat,” he said. “Meow. You’re so hot.”

  “Thanks.” This was what Cat always said.

  He leaned in and kissed her. Finally, Cat thought. There was something slick on his tongue. A piece of waxy paper. He pulled away.

  “Now,” he said. “We wait.”

  “Wait for what?” Cat could still taste that flat waxiness. It filled up her mouth, sticking to her teeth. Dread pooled in her stomach. “Fuck, Oscar, what’d you give me? Shit. Shit.” She scraped at her tongue with her painted-on fingernails. She knew it wouldn’t do any good. Oscar laughed.

  “Calm down—it’ll be fine.” He wrapped his arm around her, put his mouth close to her ear. “You said you’d be willing to try it with me.”

  And she had said that, maybe a week and a half ago. She hadn’t meant it. They’d just had sex on the couch in his living room.

  Oscar guided her back over to the lights of the party, sat her down in one of the foldout lawn chairs. Cat picked at a loose thread dangling from the hem of her skirt. Her heart pounded. She didn’t know what was going to happen to her—she wondered if she would be able to trick herself out of it, if she could stay within her own head. Once Miranda had slipped into the bathroom at the beginning of lunch and then went to Business Communications with wide, strange eyes and wrote out a marketing presentation, her fingers banging violently against the keyboard. She always bragged how she made an A on that assignment.

  The wait seemed to last for hours. Cat ran her clammy hands up and down the sides of her legs. The feedback from the sound system made her head hurt. The party was shrouded in humidity and smoke, and a girl on the other side of the yard laughed, and that laugh echoed over and over again in Cat’s head, that laugh like a bird crying out, and Cat was suddenly drifting apart, breaking down into molecules and then atoms, and she knew she was not a girl anymore but a ghost, a phantom, a creature made of sunlight and energy, ephemeral, intangible—

  Oscar was laughing. Was it Oscar? He put his hand on the small of her back. Was it Oscar? His hand went straight through her. She screamed. Did she? Was that really her? She jumped up and ran toward the house, white light streaking off her slowly disintegrating body and trailing across the yard—

  Cat? Cat? Are you okay? It was Miranda, eyeless. She was bleeding from the mouth. A zombie—no, her lipstick was smeared. Her eyeliner had smudged. Oh, fuck you, Oscar, you are such a fucking asshole. I can’t believe you’d do that—Miranda disappeared. Cat could still hear her voice. At least warn her! Cat pushed into the house. She wanted to find her purse, her purse with her comm slate and her house key and her bank card. She wanted out of this party. She wanted away from Oscar. She wanted . . .

  The house was dim and cool and the dark walls were lined with family portraits that all rose out of their frames, eyes glowing. Cat refused to look at them. Her purse. It was lying on the floor next to the dining room table. She wound the strap around her arm. Concentrate. She needed to concentrate. She took slow, hesitant steps out of the house, that house filled with floating eyes. Out onto the warm, quiet street. She picked a direction and walked, into the darkness, away from the noise
of the party and the weight of those floating, glowing eyes. She wasn’t sure of the direction of her own home—she didn’t recognize the street signs. They looked electric.

  Cat sat down on the curb. She was still expanding like a star. She could not stay out here all night. She could not call home. Finn. Contact Finn. He didn’t have a slate, but she didn’t have to call him. He was a computer. She saw it so clearly now, light radiating off her skin. He was a computer.

  She pulled her slate out of her bag and set it down on the curb next to her. She tapped the screen and it lit up pale blue. It was hard to see through the clouds of light her fingers were giving off. But the slate could connect directly into the computers in the house, including the one she wanted more than any other. All the information was stored in the slate’s memory, she just needed to work her way through it—numbers. It was all numbers from here on out. They wiggled and twisted in front of her. She rubbed her eyes. Light blossomed everywhere. She had done this a thousand times before, with the computers in the kitchen and in her bedroom, and Finn should be just the same, she just needed to find Finn, just needed to find Finn among all those numbers—

  She had it.

  Finn, she typed. Finn are you there? It’s Cat. She watched the cursor blink, blink, blink. It matched the beat of her heart.

  Why are you contacting me like this?

  Because I can’t tell my parents! I need you to come get me! I’m falling apart! She paused, distracted by the light coming off her fingers. Then: Don’t tell my parents! Then: Please?

  I will have to lie.

  Cat didn’t know what to say to that. She wrote Please? again.

  The cursor blinked for a long time. No answer. Then:

  Wait where you are. Keep slate with you. Be there soon.

  DON’T TELL MY PARENTS, she typed, one last time. He never responded. Cat fell back against the grass, her feet kicked out onto the street. Overhead the stars were moving. The constellations danced, Orion waltzing with Cassiopeia. Cat seeped into the soil, lighting it up—it was beautiful but she was scared, scared she would dissolve completely, she would be devoured by the world, she would become nothing, nothingness—

  A pair of headlights swept over her. Cat pushed herself up even though it was difficult in her diaphanous state. The car stopped, its engine idling, and Finn stepped out.

  “Finn!” she sighed. “Finn, my atoms are flaking off.”

  “Your atoms seem quite normal to me.” He held out his hand and Cat grabbed it and he pulled her to her feet. She closed her eyes, opened them. Finn was staring at her.

  “What have you done to yourself?” he asked.

  “Wasn’t me.” She wobbled as he guided her back to the car. “Oscar . . . that prick.” She slumped in the seat and looked out the window and saw that the place where she’d lain was now illuminated in the shape of her body. “I can’t go home like this,” she said. “They’ll know. I’ll light everything up.” She looked at Finn. “Let’s go to the park.” Finn reached across the car and put his hand on Cat’s chin and turned her face toward him. He looked straight at her eyes. Cat didn’t dare move. His eyes vibrated and then flashed silver. He blinked. “Oh,” he said. “I see.” His hand dropped to his side. “It generally takes six to twelve hours to wear off. You shouldn’t do this again. Repeated usage can lead to permanent side effects.”

  “I’ll bet.” Cat nestled herself in the curve of the car seat. “To the park, Finn!”

  He did as she requested, driving to the old rotting playground at the park’s center. The swing set and the merry-go-round were grown over with kudzu. The jungle gym was rusted and breaking into pieces. Cat stumbled out of the car and ran to the merry-go-round and sat down on the edge and tried to make it spin but the kudzu held it tight. Finn sat down beside her. Cat felt calmer now, less afraid of falling apart, even though the stars were still dancing overhead, even though she still lit up the darkness.

  Finn stayed with her all night, watching her with the calm detachment of a scientist. She wandered all over the playground, passing her hands over the flowers curled up tight for the night, watching the shimmer of stardust that flaked off her skin. At one point she was overwhelmed with exhaustion and so she wandered over to the place where Finn sat on the merry-go-round. She laid her head in his lap. The surrounding darkness settled over her like a blanket. He rested his left hand on her shoulder. She closed her eyes. She thought she felt his fingers stroking her tangled hair but maybe it was just the tingle of energy as she lit up the darkness. She couldn’t be sure of his touch but the idea of it soothed her.

  When Cat finally began to come down, just as the sky was turning pale pink, Finn drove her home. Her head was still gauzy and confused but she told him to wait in the woods for a few hours so they wouldn’t come in together—the things she learned from her friends at school.

  “Just act like you were hanging around outside all night,” she said. She was less worried, in that moment, about getting in trouble herself—she could probably talk her way out of any serious punishment. Really, she wanted to protect him. She wanted to protect him because he had protected her.

  Cat slipped in through the kitchen door. The house was silent. Her parents were still asleep. She splashed her face with cold water from the sink and then went upstairs, peeled off her sweaty, smoky clothes, and slept, dreamlessly.

  * * * *

  Cat’s parents never said anything. Maybe they genuinely didn’t hear her come home; maybe they preferred to remain in a state of denial. Either way, Cat was relieved.

  Her slate was full of messages from Miranda and Oscar. She deleted them all without reading them. She had the entire weekend before she had to go back to school and deal with the repercussions of the party, and so she put Monday out of her mind. She wanted to pretend her friends didn’t exist.

  She spent a lot of time in Finn’s room, weaving while he worked on his computer. She didn’t care what she made—she needed to do something with her hands. Sometimes Finn watched her.

  “May I try?” he asked.

  “Do you know how to do it?”

  “Theoretically.”

  Of course. He knew everything theoretically. Cat gestured for him to sit beside her on the bed, and pushed the table with the loom over in front of him and handed him the shuttle.

  “Go at it,” she said. “I’ll tell you if you’re screwing up.”

  “Thank you.” Finn picked up the shuttle.

  Cat leaned back against the wall. His movements were clumsy, like he wasn’t used to the feel of the yarn, but he did everything correctly. It calmed her, watching him. She’d been on edge all day. Distracted. Anxious. Betrayed.

  “Finn,” she said as he hunched over the loom. He looked up at her expectantly. “Thank you. For picking me up. That was . . . kind. And thanks for not ratting me out.”

  “It was no problem.”

  Cat laughed. “Oh my God, you almost didn’t sound like a butler for a minute there.”

  “Dr. Novak wrote a new linguistic program for me. He’s attempting to incorporate more idioms into my speech patterns.”

  “Idioms are a bitch.”

  Finn stopped weaving and looked out the window above his desk. Cat watched him in profile. He looked so much like a person. A person she would notice if she saw him at school or at one of the shows at the VFW hall, if she’d never met him. Then he glanced back down at the loom, back over at her.

  “That was also an idiom,” he said. “It wasn’t included in the list Dr. Novak provided for me. I’ve added it.”

  “It was an idiom about idioms.”

  “Yes.” Finn smiled.

  Cat looked at the fabric Finn had woven. The stitches were perfect. They did not look handmade. They’d been done by a machine.

  “This is very enjoyable.” Finn nodded toward the loom.

  “I know,” said Cat. “You can do it as long as you want.” She laid her head on his shoulder without thinking. He turned his face toward her and his
hair tickled across her forehead and she laughed and he went back to weaving. She watched the movement of his hands and for the first time in a long time she considered the mystery of Finn: the mystery of the clockwork inside his tall slim body, the circuit boards and memory processors. She knew they were there. She’d heard her father talking about them with his scientist friends, his colleagues from the university two towns over. She had memorized Finn’s specifications years earlier: the only information she’d ever been able to wring out of her father about Finn’s history. She used to recite those specifications to herself when she couldn’t sleep, a string of meaningless numbers and abbreviations.

  Meaningless, Cat thought. Meaningless to her. Finn combed the weft thread across the loom. Meaningless to her, but not to him.

  * * * *

  Cat broke up with Oscar underneath the tree in the courtyard. All their friends watched from the branches, like wild cats. She did it first thing in the morning because the minute she saw him—his long knotted hair, his ratty old band shirt—her heart began to pound and she tasted wax on her tongue. Predictably, he called her a bitch. Cat fled the courtyard before he could say anything more hurtful, about her father, her family, Finn.

  Miranda found her at lunch, hiding in the muggy cafeteria, surrounded on all sides by a wall of noise. She slid onto the bench across from Cat and folded her hands on top of the table.

  “I heard you broke up with Oscar,” she said. “Good idea. I totally beat him up for you at the party. I guess you got home okay?” It was hard to see the concern beneath all her eye makeup.

  “Finn came and picked me up.”

  Miranda nodded. Cat stirred the lumpy gravy on her plastic tray. It was unrecognizable as food.

  “So what’d you think?” Miranda leaned forward over the table and lowered her voice. “I mean, obviously it’s better if you’re prepared for it. But—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” Cat stood up, took the tray to the stack next to the trash cans, and walked away.

  Some days went by, then weeks. Cat avoided Oscar despite the smallness of the school, and she didn’t talk to Miranda as much as she used to. The days grew longer and hotter. It didn’t rain. Every time Cat went outside the sky was a clear wash of bright blue, utterly cloudless, but after a while that cloudlessness felt oppressive, like there was nothing between Cat and the blinding sun. The grass dried up. The garden withered. The river turned into white rocks.