The Season of Risks

Chapter Eleven

 

  Yawning, I put on a robe and followed Sloan outside, into the moon garden. The flowers bobbed, their petals snowy against foliage so dark it looked black.

  No ghosts.

  "They were here. " He looked so disappointed, and so sweet in a borrowed red flannel bathrobe, that I forgave him for waking me up.

  "Haven't you ever seen ghosts before?"

  He shook his head. "And there were two of them. Girls, looked like. Playing some kind of game, I think. I asked them who they were, but they wouldn't speak to me. "

  "You be careful what you say to a ghost. " Dashay stood behind us, ghostly herself in a silver caftan. "They might take it the wrong way, and then no telling what kind of harm they bring. "

  "How can they hurt us?" Sloan clearly didn't like the idea that ghosts could overpower vampires.

  "Think about it. " Dashay crossed her arms. "How can we harm them? They are dead. "

  I thought, So are we, technically.

  Sloan's eyes bore down on me. "No, we're not dead. We're the undead, remember?"

  I had an urge to untangle his hair with my fingers.

  Dashay sighed. "Undead children better come inside. Go back to bed. We can talk about ghosts and such in the morning. "

  They sat at the breakfast table. Dashay and Bennett seemed determined to educate Sloan in ghost etiquette. If you speak to a ghost, they said, choose your words very carefully.

  Bennett added, "Or they may come back to haunt you. "

  Bennett made a joke? I thought.

  Dashay grinned. Sloan looked confused, and Dashay began to explain it to him.

  I went back to my room to make a phone call.

  We'd slept late, and it was nearly ten when I dialed the number in Miami. A recorded voice said, "You have reached the office of Dr. Godfried Roche, winner of the Xavier Prize for Innovation in Medical Research. Currently we are scheduling appointments for March. Please leave your name and number. "

  March? I couldn't wait that long. "My name is Ariella Montero," I said. "I need to talk to the doctor. But I'm leaving Florida in a week, and I really need to see him before I go. I'll take any available appointment. " I left my telephone number, repeated my name, and said, "Please," instead of good-bye.

  After that, the week went quickly. Bennett taught Sloan how to fish, so we had fresh grouper on the barbecue for dinner three nights in a row. I cleaned out my closet, producing four large bags of clothing to donate to the thrift store run by the local no-kill animal shelter. But all the while, I was in a haze of anticipation.

  Dashay came in one afternoon while I was sorting through a pile of shirts.

  "Why are you giving that one away?" she said as I threw a blue T-shirt into the fourth bag. "It looked nice on you. "

  I'd decided the shirt was babyish, the kind of thing a twelve-year-old might wear. "It's time to put away childish things," I said.

  "Oh my. " Dashay shook her head and went away.

  Good thing she did, because my cell phone rang seconds later. The same cold, sharp voice I'd heard on Dr. Roche's answering machine informed me that a rare cancellation had occurred. Could I see the doctor at noon on January third?

  Only four days away. Excited, nervous, elated, scared, I assured the voice that yes, I would be there on the third.

  New Year's Eve came quietly in Homosassa Springs. We watched a fireworks show over the Gulf and came home to eat a stew made with black-eyed peas, rumored to bring good luck.

  I spent the first few days of the new year saying good-bye again-to Grace, the bees, the gardens, the horses. The horses' long-lashed eyes spoke of love, loyalty, and patience. Would they recognize me when I returned as a twenty-two-year-old? And what would my family make of me?

  A verse from the Bible kept running through my mind: when I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I reasoned as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

  I told myself, so could a woman.

  Then came the time to say good-bye to Sloan. Bennett had offered to drive him back to Hillhouse, so that I could load my car and drive straight to my internship in New York. I'd be staying at a hotel until I found a sublet or a room to rent.

  Sloan said it had been a fine holiday. "You've all made me welcome," he said, his eyes going from Dashay to Bennett to me. "It's been grand. "

  I gave Bennett a good-bye hug. He tilted his head toward Dashay, then climbed into the truck. Dashay hugged Sloan, and I did, too. It was a brief embrace, but he hugged back harder than I'd expected, and his body felt a little less skinny and stiff than it looked.

  We pulled apart. "Are you going to finish my portrait?" I asked him.

  "Nah, I need you around to do that. " But he stared at me, as if memorizing my face. "You'll be back in March, isn't it?"

  "Yes," I said. "March. "

  "Well, then. " He stowed his backpack on the cab floor and sat squarely in the passenger seat.

  As they drove off, I sent him a thought: next time you see me, I'll be older.

  Sloan didn't look back. I wondered if he would like me more, once we were the same age. I wondered how I'd feel about him.

  Dashay probably knew I wasn't driving straight to New York. Even though I blocked my thoughts, she had intuitive powers that went farther and deeper than anyone else's.

  She didn't say anything. She helped me pack up the Jaguar, gave me a perfunctory hug, opened her mouth as if she wanted to give me last-minute advice, then didn't say anything. I drove away from Blue Heaven with a lump in my throat.

  As I fastened the gate behind me, I looked up the winding driveway, thinking of all I was leaving behind. For a second I thought I saw two figures standing in the grass near the bend, waving good-bye.

  But when I looked harder, nothing was there. As I drove on, I checked the rearview mirror every few miles, just in case.

  A few miles out, the lump in my throat began to dissolve. I grew giddy thinking about what might be waiting ahead to greet me.

  Nearly everything I'd heard about Miami had been negative. Dashay called it a "vicious" place, home to vampire gangs that stole blood from hospitals and blood banks and fed on mortals freely. As I drove off the highway and came into the city, I made sure the car doors were locked-not that a locked door would have been enough to stop a rabid vampire gang.

  Dr. Roche's office was in South Miami, in a high-rise office building called the Center for Integrative Neurosciences. I parked in a garage and found the elevator labeled CIN. A hot breeze gusted at me when I stepped out, swirling the skirt of the blue dress Dashay had given me as a New Year's present. The air smelled of sea salt and carbon monoxide, more tropical yet more urban than it had been in Homosassa and Georgia.

  Roche's outer office was nothing like Dr. Cho's-no soothing fountains or bamboo benches here. Everything had been made of dark, gleaming metal, and the room was lit by recessed ceiling lights. Even the receptionist seemed metallic, her copper-colored hair fitting her head like a cap, her features as perfect and polished as those of a bronze statue.

  She led me into an adjacent office, this one as glaringly bright as Dr. Cho's examination room, with a black upholstered steel chair as its centerpiece. The chair itself seemed massive, broad and heavy. At its top, a skinny metal tube supported a black rectangular cushion meant as a headrest.

  She told me to sit down. "You are extremely lucky to have been given a chance to meet the doctor," she said. "Most patients wait for months and months. "

  I didn't feel especially lucky. I felt nervous.

  On the wall facing the chair hung a large framed certificate, whose gilt letters read: "The Xavier Prize for Innovation in Medical Research has been awarded to Dr. Godfried-"

  Before I could read the rest, the doctor strutted in. He reminded me of a bird. A small man, shorter than me, he had a thin neck and legs, a round belly, and a large, bald head. His nose
was beaklike, his eyes dark and small. His lab coat was black, not white, and it zipped up the front.

  Dr. Roche took short, quick steps to reach the chair, and as he moved, his eyes scanned me, darting from left to right. Was it a turkey vulture he most resembled?

  "Ms. Montero. " His voice sounded unusually reedy. "You've come here for Septimal. Tell me why. "

  He preened himself as he spoke, his fingers stroking his throat with obvious affection. His long fingernails looked sharp.

  "I've thought about this for some time," I began. As I talked, telling him why I wanted to be twenty-two, never mentioning Cameron, I had a sense that he was studying me, recording data. I told him how old I was. I told him I wanted the advantages that came with adulthood. I didn't tell him I was half-human, because then he might have turned me away.

  He rested both hands on his paunch, seeming proud as a pregnant woman. He didn't seem all that interested in what I was saying, though. I couldn't hear his thoughts, and I couldn't tell for sure if he was one of us.

  When I'd finished talking, he said, "You've come to the right place. CIN is dedicated to clinical research into the underlying biology of perception, memory, movement, emotion, and other aspects of consciousness and cognition in vampires and in humans. I was one of the first physicians in the United States to administer Septimal, and I am the foremost practitioner using Septimal today. Are you aware that I am the recipient of the Xavier Prize?" He said it as if he were the only recipient.

  "I've heard that. "

  He stroked his left arm with his right hand. "Septimal is truly a kind of miracle drug, better than anything else on the market. One treatment will take you from adolescence to maturity, adjust the gray matter in your brain, and prune your neural connections, simulating the normal aging process. I will make you into the woman you want to be. " He extended his arms, waved his small hands. "Look around you. This is where the magic happens. "

  "So you'll give me Septimal?" I felt a little lost among his extravagant claims.

  "Of course. " He grinned, as if my question was unnecessary.

  "When?"

  "Does right now work for you?" He laughed, a kind of birdlike titter. He picked up a clipboard from a table and handed it to me, along with a pen.

  "Standard consent form. Sign here," he said, pointing at a line on the paper.

  The print was so small I could barely read beyond the words I hereby authorize. I signed and handed it back.

  Then I noticed a gleaming silver tray on top of one of the black metal cabinets. The tray held a single hypodermic needle filled with red fluid.

  Before I could speak, he'd picked up the needle and returned to the chair. "Now you might feel a slight sting, nothing worse than a pinch. "

  He thrust the needle deep into my inner arm. I thought, He never asked if my parents approved. He never asked me to pay him. And how did he know I wanted Septimal before I mentioned it?

  Then the world went away.