“So what’ve you been up to?” asked Kirk.
“Exams, mostly,” I said. Now that my mind was clearer, it hadn’t taken me long to catch up on the schoolwork I’d missed. “Today was World History.”
“Oh, yeah? How’d that go?”
“I think I did okay,” I replied, and took a quick sip of my iced tea. Truth was, I knew exactly how I’d done. Seeing everything I read in color made it easier to remember, and if I’d thought about it hard enough I could probably have quoted the textbook word for word. But I didn’t want to be that obvious, so I’d thrown in a few deliberate mistakes. The last thing I wanted was to be singled out as a prodigy—or worse, a cheater.
“There’s no way you wrote that poem,” said Tori.
I turned, startled. Floating out of class on the lilac-scented cloud of my teacher’s praise, I hadn’t even heard the Noise until Tori was right behind me. “What?” I said.
“You copied it from somewhere,” she told me, her voice barely audible above the familiar drone. “I don’t know exactly where, but I bet it won’t be hard to find out. So if you don’t want everybody to know you cheated—”
“I didn’t cheat!”
Tori put her hands on her hips, which made her look annoyingly like an ad for designer jeans. “This isn’t just about you, you know. Lara’s pretty upset that her poem didn’t get picked for the competition, and I don’t blame her.”
Until now I’d avoided Tori as much as I could, not even looking at her if I could help it—it was the only way I could stop her Noise from driving me crazy. At times I’d felt guilty for treating her so rudely, but now that Tori had finally lived up to her ugly burnt-umber name, I felt justified. “It’s not my fault your friend’s jealous,” I said. “And how do you know I didn’t write the poem myself?”
“All that stuff about ‘martyred leaves whispering out their souls,’ or whatever? Please.”
This year, Champlain Secondary was participating in a province-wide poetry contest, and only the best poem from each school could be submitted. The prize for the winning student was two hundred dollars—just what I needed to finally buy the new keyboard I’d been saving for. So of course, I was determined to win.
I’d worked incredibly hard on that poem. I’d spent a whole Saturday afternoon hunched over my desk, scribbling and erasing one word after another, then crumpling up the page in frustration and starting again. I’d been almost ready to give up, convinced that nothing I wrote would ever be good enough—but the next morning I’d woken up with one perfect phrase in my head, and after that the rest of it came together like magic.
The poem I ended up with wasn’t long, but it was the most emotional thing I’d ever written, and it had taken all my courage to turn it in. How was I to know my teacher would read it out loud in front of everybody? But once my embarrassment subsided I’d felt a shimmer of pride, especially when Mrs. Mailloux said she and the other judges had chosen it to represent our school in the competition. And now Tori was trying to take that away.
“You’re wrong,” I said. “That poem is all mine, and if Mrs. Mailloux thinks it’s good enough to enter in the contest, that’s her call. Not yours.”
Tori’s lips flattened. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Then she strode away, leaving me wondering whether I’d just called her bluff or made a very big mistake.
But a few days later Mrs. Mailloux took me aside, and told me she had some bad news.
“There have been some concerns about the originality of your entry,” she said. “And after looking at it again, the judges agreed that the language and imagery do seem a little too sophisticated for a student your age. I’m afraid we’re going to have to pull it from the contest.”
I’d never forgotten the humiliation of that moment, when I realized that not only my good reputation but the prize I wanted so desperately had been stolen from me. Until then, I’d had no personal grudge against Tori. But from that day onward, I hated her almost as much as Melissa did. . . .
“Oh, hey,” said Kirk, jolting me from the memory. “Got something for you.” He dug a piece of paper out of his pocket and dropped it onto my tray. “Picture of your boyfriend.”
I unfolded the page and found a printed photograph of a grizzled, elderly Gregory Peck, wearing thick glasses and a baseball cap. “Very handsome,” I said, forcing my voice to lightness. “Nice to know you’ve made good use of your computer time. But aren’t you worried Mr. Lamoreux’s going to notice you fooling around online and kick you off?”
“For what? I didn’t even have to hack through the nanny software to get it, and it’s not like I’m printing off porn. Unless . . .” He grabbed the picture and turned it sideways. “Ooh! I never saw that before.”
“What, in his beard?”
“I’ll never tell,” he said, and waggled his eyebrows as he licked the last crumb from his fingers. “So . . . you going to eat the rest of that sandwich, or what?”
I pushed my plate toward him. “Go crazy.”
“Too late,” he said. “But seriously, what are you waiting for, caviar? This is a nuthouse. Tuna salad’s about as good as it gets.”
To me, the sandwich had tasted like moldy green zigzags. But supper would be blue and round. “I’ll hold out for the macaroni,” I said.
“You are nuts,” said Kirk.
. . .
As I walked out of the cafeteria, I barely noticed the police officer standing across the corridor. But when I took a second glance and realized who it was, I stifled a gasp.
It was Constable Deckard.
And he was talking to Dr. Minta.
Hastily I backed into the girls’ washroom, hoping that neither of them had seen me. If I put my ear to the door and listened hard, maybe I could make out what they were saying—
But all I heard was the dull clatter of trays and cutlery from the cafeteria, and the maddeningly loud laughter of two nurses in the hall. And when I dared to look out again, both Deckard and Dr. Minta were gone.
They could have met by coincidence, I told myself. Police officers came in and out of Pine Hills all the time. They’d probably just been discussing the weather or last night’s hockey game.
But deep down I was certain they’d been talking about me.
. . .
I was sitting in the library a couple of days later, gazing out the window at the steel-wool clouds and the pine trees dripping with rain, when Dr. Minta appeared in the doorway and beckoned me over.
“I’d like to introduce you to someone,” he said.
My gaze slid past him to a pair of tranquil blue-violet eyes, and my heart did a little somersault in my chest. “Uh . . . sure,” I said.
“This is Dr. Sebastian Faraday, a graduate student in neuropsychology from the University of South Africa. He’s here for a couple of months while he works on his thesis.”
Dr. Faraday stepped forward, offering me the strong square palm and long fingers of a surgeon. “Hello,” he said.
Just one word, yet it resonated through my bones like a cello. My muscles slackened, and my tongue felt thick and heavy. I couldn’t speak.
Dr. Minta gave a little cough. He murmured, “Perhaps it isn’t the best time . . . ?”
“Sorry,” I said, collecting myself and thrusting my hand into Faraday’s. “Hello.”
He shook it once, in a professional but friendly sort of way, as Dr. Minta continued, “Dr. Faraday is conducting a study, and he’s looking for volunteers. I thought you might like to participate.”
If it involved listening to Dr. Faraday talk, I thought I might too. “What would I have to do?” I asked.
“Nothing difficult or uncomfortable,” said Faraday. “Just a simple visual test, where I show you a few pictures and you tell me what you see.”
Dark chocolate, poured over velvet: that was how his voice tasted. I wanted him to follow me around and narrate the rest of my life. “That’s all?”
“For now, yes,” said Faraday. “At this point I’m just
looking for patients who might qualify for further testing. I’m sorry I can’t pay you for your time, but at least it would be something different?”
His eyes crinkled as he spoke, as though he’d guessed how tedious I found my daily schedule and how glad I’d be for a chance to escape it. He was right, but still I hesitated. If I passed his test—or failed it—what would that mean? What if it proved there was something wrong with me?
On the other hand, it might also prove that there wasn’t. And if I was going to convince Dr. Minta to let me go, I needed all the support I could get.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll do it.”
. . .
Dr. Minta showed us into an empty meeting room, excusing himself to attend to other business but leaving the door pointedly open. Nervous and excited at the same time, I pulled out a chair and sat down as Faraday hefted a battered leather briefcase onto the table. He snapped it open and rummaged through it, emerging at last with a pen, a digital timer, and a notepad.
“Right,” he said, taking out a stack of laminated pages and laying them facedown between us. “Let me know when you’re ready, and we’ll begin.”
“I’m ready.”
“Alison Jeffries, correct? Age sixteen?”
“Seventeen.” Well, close enough. I hardly even tasted the lie.
“Sorry.” He scribbled a correction. “Now, have a look at this.” He picked up the timer in one hand, then lifted the first sheet and turned it toward me. “Here’s a diagram made of number symbols, with a shape hidden in it—”
“It’s a triangle,” I said. The answer was obvious: most of the page consisted of green fives, but off to one side sat a group of shiny red twos.
Faraday’s brows went up. He turned to the next page, which was mostly twos with a few fives on one side. “What about this one?”
“A diamond.”
“You sound confident.”
“You mean I shouldn’t be?” I squinted at the diagram, but the diamond was still there. Was it my perception of shapes or colors he was testing? Either way, it seemed absurdly easy. He might as well have asked me how many fingers I had.
“Here’s another,” he said, turning to the third page. This one was made up of 8s and Bs, which looked similar enough at first glance that it took me an extra second to recognize them. Still, once I’d adjusted to the font, the contrast was plain. “Star,” I said, trying not to sound bored as he showed me the next few pages, each one more densely packed with symbols. “Octopus. Spaceship.”
Faraday sat back, regarding me with the unabashed delight of a child who’d just unwrapped a model train set. “Ms. Jeffries,” he said, “you’ve done well. Very well indeed.”
“Is that . . . a good thing?”
“Oh yes. Excellent. I have a few more volunteers to test, but they’ll have to be pretty quick to beat your score.” He fingered the unused timer, still smiling. “So what do you think? Would you be interested in moving on to the next round?”
“What’s involved?” I asked.
“Well, first we’d discuss your results from today’s testing, and I can explain to you what they mean. Then I’d like to do an interview and have you fill out some questionnaires. Nothing too personal, though—and if you prefer, I’ll keep your identity private.”
Nothing personal? Respecting my privacy? This man was like the anti-Dr. Minta. “Sounds good,” I said. “When do we start?”
“Splendid!” Faraday put his hand over his heart and gave me something between a nod and a bow—a foreign gesture, but a respectful one. “I’ll just need you to sign the release form . . . and if all goes well, we’ll meet again tomorrow.”
. . .
“He’s gay,” pronounced Kirk over the lunch table, with all the conviction of an oracle.
“What?” I said.
“With a name like Sebastian Faraday?” He smacked his packet of crackers with the flat of his hand, then tore it open and dumped the pieces into his soup, where they drifted like ice floes on the greasy surface. “Come on. It was fate.”
“Kirk, you haven’t even met him—”
“Does he wear pink? Oh, sorry, I mean salmon?”
The sheer outrageousness of it cracked my annoyance, and I gave a splutter of laughter. “Shut up.”
“He does!” The words bounced gleefully across the space between us. “With tight jeans, and shiny Italian shoes—”
“No, he doesn’t.” With an effort I managed to get control of my face again. “Trust me. Actually he’s pretty scruffy-looking, but . . .”
“But what?”
“His voice is gorgeous. And he’s got the most amazing eyes.” I hadn’t meant to say it, but it just slipped out. I hadn’t meant to sound so dreamy about it, either.
Kirk made a face. “No perving on the staff, please. So what did he do? Stick electrodes all over your forehead and make you play chess?”
“No, he just showed me some diagrams and asked me what I saw in them.”
“Sounds dumb.” Kirk’s lip curled. “Maybe I should have stuck with arts therapy.”
“He’s testing you, too?”
“This afternoon, yeah.”
“Well, it doesn’t take long,” I said. “I don’t think you’ll have time to get bored. And once you’ve met him, you can tell me if you still think he’s gay. But not,” I added firmly, “until then.”
. . .
When I stepped outside for my daily walk, the rain was trickling to a stop, the puddles along the walkway broken by only an occasional ripple. A humid breeze misted my face and hands as I walked the familiar circuit around the courtyard, drawing deep breaths of the earthy-smelling air.
I’d never been much of an outdoor person before I came to Pine Hills. But after weeks inside those bland clinical walls, I felt as though I’d never take sunlight or fresh air for granted again. Unfortunately I could only go so far inside the compound before I had to retrace my steps, but if I ignored the fence and focused on the forest beyond, I could almost pretend that I was free.
Soon my strides carried me past the windows of the meeting room, where Faraday sat hunched over his laptop, all knees and elbows. I watched him out of the corner of my eye, wondering what had brought him all the way to northern Ontario and what this study of his was all about. He seemed to think I had what he was looking for, but what did that mean? The diagrams had been so simple, the images inside them so obvious—it was hard to believe he couldn’t find a hundred other patients who could do the same.
Unless it had something to do with my special perceptions, the ones that frightened my mother so much . . . but that seemed unlikely. Surely he wouldn’t have been so relaxed and even happy about my test results if they’d shown anything so abnormal. Or at least, I hoped not.
Still, even if I was dubious about Faraday’s research, I was definitely fascinated by the man himself. Not only was his voice amazing, so was his name: violet to match his eyes, tranquil and playful at the same time, full of shimmering highlights and unexpected depths. And the Sebastian part wasn’t bad either—all oregano and woodsmoke, with a hint of sensuality that made my skin flush just thinking about it.
But there was something else that drew me to Faraday, too. Some elusive quality about his face, or his coloring, that made him seem almost . . . familiar. And yet I was certain I’d never met him before. If nothing else, I would have remembered those eyes.
They weren’t contacts either: no telltale edge around the iris. I had looked.
. . .
“So,” said Dr. Minta at our next appointment, “have you finished that essay I asked you to write?”
He meant the one about my childhood, of course. And since I knew I had to at least pretend to cooperate if I wanted him to think I was getting better, I’d forced myself to scribble down a few thoughts. I pulled the pages from my folder and handed them over.
Dr. Minta’s smile faded to a frown as he adjusted his glasses, and I could tell he was having trouble reading my handwriting. I prob
ably should have written the essay on the computer, but Kirk didn’t like it when I played with the monitor settings, and besides, typing always made me feel like I was tapping my skull with a very small hammer. I preferred handwriting, where every loop sent a flush of aquamarine up my arm as though I’d dipped it in a tropic sea.
In the essay, I’d described myself as the oldest child of an unlikely match between a university professor and a miner’s daughter, a quiet little girl who’d had more books than playmates until Melissa Partridge bounced out of a moving van and announced that we were going to be best friends. To make Dr. Minta think that I was opening up to him, I’d talked about a few social problems I’d had in primary school—mostly schoolmates accusing me of being snobbish, for reasons I’d never fully understood—and some of the quarrels I’d had with my little brother. I even mentioned the time I’d gotten disqualified from the school poetry competition in ninth grade, and how hurt and disappointed I’d been. But I hadn’t told Dr. Minta anything that my parents or my teachers didn’t know. And I didn’t say a word about Tori.
Dr. Minta leafed through the essay, making little “hmm” noises. At last he put the pages down and remarked, “That’s interesting, how your parents met. How do you feel about that?”
My father had been teaching at the university for nearly a decade when my mother enrolled as a mature student at the age of twenty-five. Apparently the irony of a course on Romantic poetry being taught by a shy middle-aged bachelor was lost on her, because halfway through the year she’d decided she was in love with him, and managed to convince him the feeling was mutual.
“I don’t think it’s important,” I said.
“The age difference, or the way their relationship began?”
“Either one.” After all, it wasn’t like my dad had taken advantage of my mom; from what I could tell it was just the opposite. My father was a sweet man, but most of the time he acted like his body was only there to keep his brain from dragging on the ground. If my mother hadn’t pursued him, he’d probably have spent the rest of his life single.