The Migration, page 3
I turn the page over but behind me Kira stirs on the bed, her voice guttural and indistinct, coming from somewhere deep in her chest. As I slide the page back into the book, the HemaPen stops its processes with a low blip. Numbers in a neutral dark grey scroll across its display panel but I have no idea what they might mean.
* * *
—
After spending most of the day in bed Kira gets up for dinner and won’t settle until I take her along the canal to see the houseboats. They’re as exotic as gypsy caravans, lacquered in deep purple, oxblood, navy, russet, pink and gold. Kira loves the potted plants and lawn chairs laid out on the roofs.
“One day,” she tells me, “I’m gonna live in a boat just like that. What’s the ocean between here and home again?”
“The Atlantic.”
Dreamily: “Yeah. I’m going to sail across the Atlantic. You can come too, I guess.”
“You think we’d both fit?”
“I’d fit but you might have a problem, porky.”
It’s not until well past ten that she finally nods off. I decide to get a start on the syllabus Mr. Coomes gave me. Aunt Irene has piled some of the books from the list on the corner of my bed. I curl up under the covers and begin working my way through The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It’s a strange partial autobiography of a distraught woman locked in a sick room:
For outside you have to creep on the ground, and everything is green instead of yellow. But here I can creep smoothly on the floor, and my shoulder just fits in that long smooch around the wall, so I cannot lose my way.
There’s a narcotic flow to the words as the narrator’s world contracts down to a tiny room she can’t escape. I lose myself in the story until the buzz of my tablet interrupts me with a message from Jaina.
Jayhey04: u there soff? got sumthing to show u. u’ll wanna see it. Promise.
There’s a hot itch of worry in my palms, the back of my knees. I dog-ear my page and set the book down.
We used to message daily, but I haven’t been in touch for a while now. The signal’s been on and off since the substation blew during the last storm. There are rolling brownouts to reduce the load until things are repaired. Resources are stretched thin everywhere.
FeeFeesFeed: Im here.
Jayhey04: u seen it yet? Pls tell me u saw it!
A link hovers at the bottom of the message, but I don’t click on it, not immediately. There are a load of forums devoted to JI2. Some tracking news reports, others spinning off into conjecture and conspiracy theory. Jaina’s been a regular on most of them, ever since Kira got sick. The first time she invited me to one, I lurked for a couple of days, tracking threads about the infection rates in India and China. I finally figured out the users were mostly rubberneckers, chasing disaster. I didn’t much like the idea that Jaina was one of them.
I toy with the idea of putting the tablet away, going back to my homework. I want to see how it ends, what the woman will discover in the strange sickly wallpaper of her room. But I know Jaina will badger me with messages until I give in.
FeeFeesFeed: hold on
When I click on the link, the page opens to a news video. A shaky mobile camera with a smooth voice-over talking about a kid named Liam Barrett. I can make out a small crowd of people and, beyond them, the expanse of the ocean, grey the colour of wet ash, its surface frothed with whiteheads. Clouds scud the horizon.
Liam Barrett was on a ferry off the coast of Vancouver when tragedy struck…
The footage must be from one of the other passengers because at first it focuses on a twenty-something girl waving to the camera. Behind her is a freckly kid a year or two older than Kira with a mop of blond curls peeking out from under a fur-lined trapper hat, leaning against the railing of the boat next to his dad. He’s pointing at something in the distance—a pod of dolphins? The camera zooms past him to try to focus on the sleek shapes, diving in and out of the water. Then the angle shifts and a woman is shouting, incoherent. The kid is on the railing, both arms lifted. The shot jerks and blurs, snatches a slice of clouded sky as the boat crashes into a wave and whoever is holding it loses control for a moment. When it refocuses, he’s gone.
FeeFeesFeed: i dont get it. Wht happened?
Jayhey04: did u watch it all?
A hard cut to the newsroom. The host and her partner have adopted chatty tones, like this is breakfast TV fodder, despite the serious glances they sometimes gives the camera. “Liam Barrett’s father has confirmed that his son was JI2 positive. His body was taken to St. Paul’s Hospital shortly after where the so-called jitterbug video was taken.”
FeeFeesFeed: jitterbug?
Jayhey04: its gone viral now, check it out
Another link then, with over twelve million hits. This video is clearer, a still point of reference rather than the jerky-cam style on the boat. No audio. It shows a clinical-looking room, bright lights that flare, blanking the image with white. There’s the same kid laid out on a steel table. The curly hair and still, pale face. It takes me a moment to understand. He’s dead, and this is his autopsy.
The camera trained on him wobbles. Someone must be holding it.
Jayhey04: u watching?
How could this be posted? Notifications flash at the bottom of the screen, more comments. The views are racking up.
Then I see it: his right leg has begun to hop. It’s barely noticeable at first, the way your leg might twitch if you had a bad spasm. “Shhh…” says a voice. “There it is. It’s happening again.” A blurry hand appears in front of the lens, pointing. A moment later Liam Barrett’s left leg jumps. Then his whole body starts to rock as if he’s having a fit.
Jesus Jesus Jesus. My heart is beating wildly. What am I watching?
FeeFeesFeed: what is it??
Jayhey04: CBC says its some sort of lazarus reflex but who knows?
I type “JI2” and “lazarus reflex” into my search bar, my hands shaking. The first page in my feed is a Globe and Mail article from an hour ago.
PHAC denies that JI2 is linked to post-mortem tremors
TORONTO – Vancouver’s deputy chief medical health officer said yesterday the province was investigating protocols after an anonymous video taken by a nurse was released of a boy’s body suffering what have been called post-mortem tremors.
Liam Barrett, aged twelve, was diagnosed two months ago with Juvenile Idiopathic Immunodeficiency Syndrome (JI2). His is the fourth confirmed death to be labelled as an accident in recent weeks. The case is being investigated by the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC)’s National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg but officials deny there is a link to JI2.
Most doctors attribute the strange phenomenon to the so-called Lazarus reflex, which causes brain-dead patients to briefly raise their arms. Barrett, they believe, may have been improperly confirmed as deceased. The phenomenon is named after the biblical figure Lazarus of Bethany, whom Jesus allegedly raised from the dead in the Gospel of John.
But others have suggested a different explanation.
Dr. Eliseo Gilabert, the coroner who certified Barrett’s death, said: “Liam Barrett was clinically dead, yet his body showed signs of enough cellular energy for certain genes to become active. All we can say is that JI2 seems to be inducing biological processes we still don’t fully understand. It’s time the medical community started talking about this openly.”
I try to digest this. Has Mom seen it? Aunt Irene?
I switch off the tablet. I don’t want to see any more videos or hear Jaina’s crazy theories, not when it’s my sister who’s sick. I swing myself down from the bed. Kira is still asleep, hair mussed. I crouch down next to her and touch her shoulder. After a moment she stirs, pushes my hand away. One sleepy eye opens.
“What’s wrong?” she grouses. It’s even colder in here at night. I can see the goosebumps on her exposed arm.
“Nothing.” I want to bundle her up in my arms.
“You’re making a worried face.”
“No, I’m not.” I pinch her, an old reflex from when she was healthy and didn’t bruise so badly. But she squeals, tries to tickle me back though I can keep her arms pinned to the pillow without much effort.
“Soff, don’t!” she says in that voice that always used to mean, yes, keep going. “I’ll kick your butt!” But after a second or two she scowls. “Just stop, okay?” She slumps back and pulls the covers up around her neck.
3
It’s clear from the nervous energy in the house the next morning that Mom and Aunt Irene have both heard about Liam Barrett. When I leave Kira asleep upstairs I find Mom curled up on the couch with her sketchpad, fingers blackened with charcoal, drawing meaningless patterns on the page. Something about the shape of them reminds me of The Yellow Wallpaper.
Up and down and sideways they crawl, and those absurd, unblinking eyes are everywhere.
Aunt Irene is near the refrigerator, sniffing at a carton of milk. “Power went off again,” she says, lips curled. “This is no good. Happy with toast?”
The bread is stale and neither of us trusts the butter not to have spoiled so we have the toast plain, both of us standing close to the stove. The heat is enough to keep the small space warm despite the chill rolling off the river.
“Leave her for now,” Aunt Irene says when my gaze drifts back to the sitting room. “She doesn’t want to talk to anyone. She’s pretty upset.”
I shrug, try on an adult tone: “Kira’s okay, though. She’ll be fine.” I can hear my own false confidence.
Aunt Irene wipes the crumbs from the counter into her hand. “Your mum wants to take her in to the Centre today.”
I munch on the dry toast, swallow then ask, “Will you tell her? Kira, I mean? About the video?”
“Should we?”
I let the thought roll around in my mind. Liam Barrett on the table, his skin pale and bloodless. Then the twitch of his nerveless muscles. The image fills my mind like a dark cloud.
“I don’t think it would help much, would it? You know how irritable she can get. There’s no point in scaring her.”
Aunt Irene nods slowly. “Do you want to come with me today? I can show you around the university. It’ll be good for you. I don’t want to leave you here by yourself.”
“It’s just a Lazarus effect, right?”
Her eyes drift toward the living room, settling on Mom’s half-finished mug of tea. Mom’s charcoals make a scratching sound, like an animal scrabbling to get out. “Try not to worry too much,” my aunt says, the same thing everyone has been saying for ages. “It’s no good for you either.”
* * *
—
“The pestilence which first began in the land inhabited by the Saracens, grew so strong that it visited every place…”
One of Aunt Irene’s undergraduates is reading to her, rapid-fire. I can see him from where I’m sitting in the hall outside her office. He’s a year or two older than me, gawky and skittish. On his nose sit thick Harry Potter glasses, which he pushes up as he looks over his paper. “Robert of Avesbury writes that the Black Death began in England in the county of Dorset. Those marked for death, he tells us, were scarcely permitted to live longer than three or four days.”
“That’s enough, Martin, thank you,” Aunt Irene says. “Have you looked at the spread of the plague to York in 1373? Thomas Stubbs, a Dominican friar, wrote that following Christmas the River Ouse flooded and burst its banks. The sickness raged until the feast of St. James the Apostle, which would be, let me see, late July? So, six months then…”
It turned out Aunt Irene had forgotten she had scheduled a catchup tutorial with one of her students. She’s a bit like that sometimes, lost in her own head. Waiting isn’t too bad though. I’ve curled up in a chair outside her office with a copy of The Hobbit. But I barely pay attention to it, my focus shifting back to their conversation.
“It was the same confluence of events back then,” Aunt Irene says, “the changing weather patterns and shifts in the climate. For a long time scholars thought the plague was spread predominantly by rats carrying fleas but the story’s more complicated than that. Black rats were rare in northern Europe yet those regions were still devastated by the second outbreak. There’s evidence now that warmer temperatures were spreading diseases such as malaria and dengue.”
“So as the climate changed, so did the transmission of all those diseases?”
“That was part of it, certainly, but scientists can’t agree why. Perhaps it’s that the shifts in the climate had already weakened the population. An unusually heavy rain in the spring of 1315, followed by harsh winters and cold summers, meant that most of the crops failed. It took more than five years for Europe to recover, and in the meantime there was widespread famine. Children were often orphaned and left to fend for themselves. Remember the story of Hansel and Gretel?”
The student, Martin, gulps, his sharp Adam’s apple bobbing. Aunt Irene must see the look on his face as well because her tone softens. “All right, then,” she says. “That should be enough to go forward with. I want you to do some reading on rainfall patterns in the north of England. Shall we meet again once term picks up?”
“I’ve got—” He frowns and glances at the doorway, me beyond it, but doesn’t finish. “I’ll find a way to make it work. I appreciate you seeing me early since I missed so much before Christmas.” He stuffs his books into a leather satchel, then stops, pushes his glasses up his nose again. “I’m sorry, it’s just that I had some bad news this week. From the hospital.” I can hear a familiar jingling noise. He’s pulling back his sleeve to show Aunt Irene something: a medical ID bracelet, just like Kira’s. “I’ve just been diagnosed. I mean, the tests came back positive.” He’s red-faced now. “My clinician says I don’t need to worry. Not yet. But there were complications back in December…I wanted you to know so you didn’t think I was an utter incompetent.”
“Oh, Martin, I had no idea. You shouldn’t have come in. This essay can wait. How are things at home?” I can’t quite make out Aunt Irene’s face.
“My parents died two years ago. It’s just my big sister Cath and me now but she’s clever. She’s handling it really well.”
Aunt Irene catches me staring and she stands to close the door the rest of the way, muffling their conversation. Embarrassed at being caught eavesdropping, I pretend to be reading but can’t concentrate. A few minutes later the door opens again and out comes the student. He wipes at his nose with his sleeve, glances at me.
“That’s a good one.” He nods at the book, trying out a smile and I return it. He stands there, looking a little bit lost. Is he waiting to be dismissed by me as well? Part of me wants to hug him but I don’t. Of course I don’t.
“Sophie, you can come in now,” Aunt Irene calls. He hoists his satchel over his shoulder and with the barest lifting of two fingers in a wave, he disappears. “Sorry, sweetie,” my aunt says when the door is closed behind me. “You shouldn’t have had to listen to that.”
“It’s fine,” I say, though it’s her who looks more upset. I wonder if this is the first time a student has told her they have JI2.
I glance around, looking for a way to distract her. I’ve never been in her office before, which in many ways feels like an extension of the house. The smell of old paper, musty but comforting. Her desk is the opposite of Dr. Varghese’s, cluttered with papers, receipts, a cheap vase with no flowers. Two enormous maps take up most of the north wall, one of them a replica of the Hereford Mappa Mundi that dates to the thirteenth century. I can spot the word Ierusalem in barely legible script at the centre. There—the British Isles sits in the bottom corner. Dotting the map are sketches of plants and animals, exotic birds, headless monsters with eyes glowing in their chests, minotaurs, phoenixes, camels and elephants. The second is a modern survey map of England with various pins and flags sticking out with labels bearing her spiky handwriting.
“So tell me about what you’re doing here.”
“What…” She shakes her head as if it’s a radio set to the wrong channel. “It’s a map of abandoned villages. Places where people used to live until disease struck, mostly the Black Death.”
“It happened in 1349, right? That’s what you and Martin were talking about.”
“Top marks, niece of mine.”
“You don’t find it morbid working on this? I mean, now of all times?” Morbid is Mom’s word for it, the word she uses when Aunt Irene isn’t around.
She smiles faintly. “Morbid…well, maybe. When I was younger, I was fascinated by disasters. I used to keep newspaper clippings. Bits from museum brochures, whatever I could find. It was the really strange bits that I loved best.” She stares at the pins on her map, then casually ruffles the curls of paper attached to them. “I remember reading that during the Black Death in some places there weren’t enough churchyards to deal with the dead. So they laid all the bodies on top of one another. A macabre lasagna—that’s how a monk from Florence described it. I couldn’t conceive of a disaster that large. I knew it had happened but it seemed so far removed from my own safe life. There wasn’t anything in my experience that helped me understand it.”
Her neck flushes hotly when she sees my look.
“Mom doesn’t like talking about stuff like this. She says we need to stay positive. No bad thoughts, you know?”
“Bad thoughts, well. That’s one way of looking at it.”
I can tell from her tone that she doesn’t approve. “So how do you look at it then?”
“How much do you know about the spread of diseases?” she asks.
