And yet she did. After struggling with it for what seemed like an eternity, she said, “Fine. I’ll stay in the band if you want to try to keep that going.”
Jonah felt a spark of hope, mingled with relief. “Thank you, Emma.”
“Oh, I’m not doing it for you,” she said, her brown eyes like agates. “I’m doing it for me. We’ll see how it goes.”
Emma perched on the edge of an overstuffed chair, breathing in the scent of vanilla and sage from the candles burning in the corners. This was like no health clinic she’d ever seen.
Not that she’d seen that many. She’d been vaccinated, of course—they wouldn’t let her into school otherwise. She’d gone to the Memphis Health Department for that. A couple of times, when her tonsils swelled up so much she could hardly breathe or swallow soup, Sonny Lee had taken her in to the health clinics. They’d all been cold and sterile-looking.
This waiting room was furnished with handloomed rugs and futons, tapestries and music posters softening the walls. Lamps with paper shades cast a whiskey glow over everything, like the lighting in some after-hours club. Music played softly in the background, a cutting-edge playlist.
It was wasted on Emma. She wouldn’t be relaxed until this thing was over with. But if it was the price she had to pay to keep out of county custody, she’d pay it.
It hadn’t taken long to pack up her possessions. Maybe she was getting good at it. She stuffed her few articles of clothing into the suitcase she’d brought from Tyler’s and loaded her backpack with her laptop. Emma had limited herself to four guitars—her two Studio Greenwoods, the ones she’d built herself; the Stratocaster (which Jonah had insisted she take), and a vintage Martin. Plus assorted sound equipment and other gear. Three acoustics, one electric, though one of the SGs had a pickup. She guessed she could get another electric out of storage if she wanted to, but the Strat always felt just right in her hands when she wanted to make a big noise. She’d put Sonny Lee’s guitars into storage, too, where they’d be safe if she had to make a quick getaway. When you’re on the run, you have to travel light.
The rest of her tools, supplies, and equipment she’d leave behind. If she couldn’t make this work, having one foot in each place, well, those things would be gone for good.
A constant stream of people went in and out of the dispensary—checking in using a screen outside. All seemed to be students.
Finally, Natalie came out of the bodywork room. “Emma,” she said, nodding briskly, her face like a blank page. “I’ll be doing your evaluation.”
“I still don’t think I need one,” Emma said, even though she knew there was no point. “I don’t think I was poisoned at all.”
“That’s easy enough to figure out,” Natalie said. “It’s this way.” She stood aside so Emma could enter the bodywork room ahead of her.
The coziness continued inside, with more music and fluffy white robes. Natalie directed Emma to change into a robe and a pair of sheepskin slippers, then she weighed and measured her, and took her blood pressure, pulse, and temperature, all like a regular clinic visit. Emma answered a bunch of questions about her health, while Natalie typed the answers into a tablet computer. She produced a silver conelike device similar to a stethoscope, pressed it to Emma’s chest, then slid it around, still watching the screen display. She frowned, chewing on her lower lip, apparently dissatisfied with whatever she was getting.
I told you I was different, Emma thought of saying, but was afraid to speak.
Finally, Natalie set the device aside. “I’m going to try a direct scan, okay?”
Emma nodded, though she wasn’t sure what she was signing on for. Natalie dipped some cream out of a jar. It smelled like vanilla and brown sugar. She spread it over Emma’s chest, then pressed her fingers into Emma’s skin, sliding them around over the surface, eyes closed, a furrow of concentration between her brows.
Finally, Natalie wiped Emma’s skin clean with a soft terry cloth towel, and washed her own hands. “You can get dressed now,” she said, “and then we’ll talk.”
After she dressed, Emma joined Natalie in a small, cozy room that resembled a library, with its shelves of books and black walnut paneling. It looked like the kind of room you might use to deliver bad news to a person.
Natalie motioned Emma to the chair across from her. “I have to say, you do have me a little stumped,” she said. “Anybody doing a quick read on your Weirstone would say it’s a savant stone. It’s definitely not your run-of-the-mill mainliner stone. But it’s clear, and most savant stones are pretty obviously damaged.”
“When you say ‘damaged,’ what do you mean?” Emma said. The one thing she’d always been was healthy, despite her random, raggedy-assed life.
Natalie hesitated. “The truth about savants is, we’re dying. All of us, all of the so-called survivors of Thorn Hill. We all know it, whether we’re willing to admit it or not. Even though Gabriel won’t even let us bring it up, it’s true.”
“Dying?” Emma shifted her shoulders. This was the last thing she expected to hear. “But...it’s been ten years. I know a lot of you—of us—have health problems. But if you were going to die, shouldn’t it have happened by now?”
“Many of us have. There were four thousand children at Thorn Hill. About six hundred survived the massacre. The younger you were at the time of the poisoning, the more likely you were to survive. But now we’re dying, day by day and year by year. There’s a different time line for every person. Jonah, Alison, Rudy, and me—we’re among the oldest ones left. Everyone else is gone or incapacitated.”
Emma hadn’t known what would happen in the future—but at least it was a future. Now it was like somebody had dragged an eraser across it. “But how do they die? What happens to them?”
Natalie stared down at her hands. “It’s like the older we get, the more susceptible we are to the poison. All of the adults died immediately, remember? Maybe it has to do with age. Or that the damage done back then finally catches up with us. Or maybe the toxin is lodged in our bones, like a heavy metal, and gradually poisons us to death.”
“What are the symptoms? Do people go down quick or just kind of decline?”
“Before we die, some of us begin to behave erratically, lose our judgment, and grow violent. To be blunt, we lose our minds. We call it fading. You can imagine how dangerous that is among the gifted.”
Emma stared, horrified. “But...isn’t there anything—any treatment?”
“Gabriel has hired the best researchers and healers money can buy. That’s our primary focus: research and treatment. That’s why so many of us are on medications and other therapies.” Natalie smiled faintly. “The good news is you say you weren’t there to be poisoned. But if that’s the case, I’d expect you to have a mainliner stone. See, someone who builds magical guitars—or any other kind of magical tool—I’d expect that person to be a sorcerer. But your stone doesn’t read that way. And the way you play...it’s almost like there’s magic in that, too. But there’s no mainline guild for musicians.”
“Well,” Emma said, feeling puny and low-talent, magic-wise, “I might be able to build other instruments, you know, like violins or dulcimers. I’ve only ever tried to build guitars. Same with playing. Guitars are the only instrument I...” Her voice trailed off as a memory elbowed in. From Thorn Hill.
Emma sat at the piano, on a bench so high her feet couldn’t touch the floor. A breeze stirred the curtains at the windows, and she could hear children laughing outside. She wanted to be outside with them. But she stayed, and she played, and her mother listened, eyes closed, a dreamy expression on her face, her fists gradually unclenching. Emma’s music made her mother happy when nothing else could. Emma would do just about anything to make her mother happy. She was sad so much of the time.
“I do play a little piano,” Emma said. She cleared her throat. “Or I did when I was little.”
&nb
sp; Natalie’s eyes narrowed. “Is it all right if I ask Rudy to come over?”
Mystified, Emma nodded.
Pulling out her phone, Natalie thumbed in a message. When she saw Emma looking at her, she explained, “I texted Rudy and asked him to bring over his portable keyboard.”
“Oh!” Emma said, feeling her cheeks heat. “I don’t believe I’ve touched a keyboard since I left Thorn Hill.”
Natalie rolled her eyes. “This isn’t a recital. Just an experiment.”
Emma raised both hands, palms out. “Keep in mind, I’m the person who knows the least about all this. I shouldn’t even open my mouth. But...isn’t it odd that people ended up so different, though? With such particular gifts? I mean, you can see illness through a person’s skin, and then heal them by touching them, and Rudy’s a genius at digital systems, and Jonah...Jonah...” Her voice trailed off, and she dropped her hands into her lap.
“Jonah’s touch will kill you,” Natalie said, looking Emma directly in the eyes, “and it’s so damn sweet, you’ll wish you could die all over again.”
“How do you know?” Emma demanded. “How do you know it’s such a great experience, if nobody’s ever lived to tell about it?”
“Because Jonah can’t stand to cause anybody pain,” Natalie snapped back. “Being an empath, the backwash is terribly painful.”
“Really? Well, he must be pretty miserable right now,” Emma said, “because he sure messed up with me.”
“If he’s hurt you, he knows it,” Natalie said. “He knows it better than anyone.”
“Except me,” Emma said.
“Except you,” Natalie agreed, nodding.
Eager to change the subject, Emma said, “What if people at Thorn Hill had special stones—even before they were poisoned? Me included. But because I left before the massacre, I didn’t get damaged.”
Natalie stared at Emma. “But I just don’t see how that would be,” she said, frowning. “The people at Thorn Hill were all members of the mainline guilds to begin with. For instance, my parents were both sorcerers.”
“But what I’m driving at is that it’s almost like you’ve been shaped to a purpose.”
“I’m not following,” Natalie said.
Emma cast about for a comparison. “Let’s say I take a piece of rosewood, and I want to make a fingerboard. Do I smack it with a hammer?”
“I’m guessing the answer is no,” Natalie said, rolling her eyes.
“Correct. I don’t, unless I want it to end up a pile of splinters. If I want it to be useful, I have to use the right tools, and I have to know how to shape it. If I just take a whack at it, there’s no chance it’ll turn out like I want.”
“Go on,” Natalie said.
“So if somebody whacks your Weirstone with poison, seems to me it would either destroy it completely, or you’d end up with a stone that does pretty much what it did before, only not as well.”
“But—a lot of people’s stones were destroyed,” Natalie said. “Thousands of people died. Those of us who survived ended up with random gifts, some that aren’t gifts at all.”
Emma was already beginning to doubt her theory. But, ironwood spine and all that, she forged on. “Still, it doesn’t seem like you’d end up with someone like you, who can see disease through a person’s skin, and heal them. Or someone like Rudy, who can create electrical circuits out of the air. Or Mose, who could see death coming ahead of time. Were there other people who had real specific gifts?”
Natalie shrugged. “I remember there was a girl who could talk plants into growing. If she’d lived on a farm, she could’ve raised three crops a year. But she died a couple of years ago. And Marlis Adams can communicate mind-to-mind with animals.”
Natalie’s cell phone sounded. She glanced down at the screen, then crossed to the door and yanked it open. Rudy was outside, a small keyboard cradled in his arms. “Delivery for a Ms. Natalie Diaz?”
Natalie flashed him a quick, grateful grin. “Can you plug in? We don’t need a stellar sound system. I just want to try something.”
When Rudy had set up, Natalie pointed Emma at the keyboard. “Play something.”
Emma edged up to the Roland like it might bite. “What do you want to hear?”
“Musician’s choice,” Natalie said.
Emma brushed her fingers over the keys. Something awakened within her, a sense of familiarity, like she was meeting up with an old friend who hadn’t changed a bit. Closing her eyes, Emma began to play.
It was a work she couldn’t have named, a complicated classical piece that buzzed through her fingers with a sense of release, like it had been dammed up inside of her for years. Layer upon layer of notes, a summer storm of music that carried her along in its wake.
At the end, she forced her fingers off the keys and sat back, sweat pouring down her spine. When she looked up at Rudy and Natalie, they stared at her with stunned faces.
“Maybe you should play all by yourself, and we’ll just listen,” Rudy muttered, looking a bit stricken. “You could have your own one-girl band.”
“Aw, honey,” Natalie said, patting his shoulder, “any band worth its salt is more than the sum of its parts. And you add a lot of sex appeal, too.”
Rudy made a face at her. “Play something else?” he urged, as if hoping Emma might be a one-trick pony.
“Everything that wants to come out of me seems to be classical,” Emma said. Finally, she improvised, playing the melody line of “I’ll Sit In.”
By the time she finished, Rudy and Nat were blotting at their eyes and clearing their throats.
“All right, then,” Natalie said, “I think we’ve identified two of your gifts: musical performance and instrument making.”
Emma had to admit, even if those were the only gifts she had, they suited her. Sonny Lee always said that the key to happiness was to find something you really love doing and get good enough to make a living at it.
Eager to get off the subject of her gifts, Emma said, “Going back to what we were talking about before...Do you know anyone else who was at Thorn Hill, and left before the poisoning? Anyone like me. What’s their stone like?”
Natalie and Rudy looked at each other.
“Hmm,” Rudy said, frowning. “After what happened, I think anyone who escaped the massacre went underground.”
“There’s Gabriel,” Natalie said. “He spent time there, off and on, but he was away at the time of the massacre. I don’t know if there was anyone else.” She studied on it a moment, then pulled out her cell phone and punched in a number. Someone picked up on the other end, and Emma soon figured out it was Gabriel, though she could only hear Natalie’s side of the conversation.
“I just sent you the—you already got that? What do you think?” Pause. “That’s what I think, too, but it doesn’t make sense.” She listened a while longer. “Well, she says she wasn’t there that night, that she left beforehand....Listen, we were talking, and wondered if it was possible people had different kinds of Weirstones even before the poisoning. You know, like they were different to begin with, and then damaged....” Emma could hear Gabriel’s voice, sharp as plucked notes. After a few more minutes of conversation, Natalie hung up.
“Well,” Natalie said, “he had a lot to say, but the bottom line is no, that’s just not possible.”
Leesha Middleton lived in a mansion on the lakefront. It might have brought back Emma’s nasty memories of being held captive by Rowan DeVries, but the atmosphere was totally different. For one thing, the house was pink stucco in a wood-siding kind of town, which made it seem like it had a built-in sense of humor.
Emma liked Leesha’s Aunt Millisandra from the start, even though she was dangerous to be around and often said things that everybody else was thinking, but nobody else said out loud. Things that made people cringe.
Aunt Millie always told the
truth, even when it wasn’t polite. And she was totally nonjudgmental. When Leesha first introduced them, Millisandra surveyed Emma with narrowed eyes. “My dear, I want to hear all about you. Were you the product of a mixed marriage?”
Leesha’s smile froze on her face. “Aunt Millie, I don’t think we—”
“I am, I guess,” Emma said. “My grandfather was black, my father biracial, my mother was white. I even heard there’s some Cherokee in the—”
“Oh!” Millisandra’s elegant hands fluttered. “My dear girl, I’m not talking about race. I meant, a marriage across guild lines. Like a sorcerer and a seer. Usually that results in one or the other, but Alicia says you are a mongrel.”
“I didn’t say mongrel, Aunt Millie,” Leesha said, her face as pink as the stucco. “I said savant. That’s someone whose Weirstone has been modified, who has different gifts than the standard guilds.”
“Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I don’t approve of all this tampering with Weirstones,” Millie said. “Swapping them from person to person, creating designer Weir, and all that. You never know what you’re going to get. Though I must say, that Jack Swift is a very well-endowed young man. I wonder, though, if he’ll be able to reproduce.”
Leesha interrupted this with a fit of coughing. “Why don’t I show Emma to her room, Aunt Millie? You can get to know each other—”
“You began life as a sorcerer?” Millie persisted. “Sorcerers are good with their hands, I understand.”
“Well. I guess so. I’m a luthier. And a musician.”
Aunt Millisandra clasped her jeweled hands in delight. “A luthier? Do you build violins, then?”
Emma shook her head. “Guitars.”
Millisandra’s delight seemed undimmed. “I’m something of a musician myself.”
“Used to be,” Leesha muttered. “She’s hard on her instruments.”
“Don’t mutter, Alicia,” Aunt Millie said. “Speak clearly.”
“What do you play?” Emma asked.
“Violin and cello. Cowbell, when it’s called for. Which it almost never is. What do you play?”