The Migration, page 8
I don’t believe her wavering smile. The blood is leaking through the bandage.
“Please,” I whisper, “can you call my mom?”
* * *
—
I’ve slipped into an almost trance-like state of waiting, but now a tense conversation beyond the privacy curtain jolts me awake.
“Where’s my daughter? I need to see her right now.”
“She’s just through here. But it’s important I speak with you for a moment first. Her blood wasn’t coagulating properly…”
“God, let me see her, will you?”
A moment later Mom teeters at the edge of the curtained area. Mascara from the day before darkens the creases beneath her eyes. She glances from monitor to monitor, then she comes to the side of my cot. “Sophie,” she says. “Oh god, Sophie. You’re okay. When the hospital called, I thought. I thought…” Her gaze snags on the bandage, the bright smear of blood on the sheet. The yellowy cloud of bruises near my collarbone where my body slammed against the seatbelt. “What were you doing?”
“I just couldn’t sleep. I wanted to take a drive.”
She stares at me. “Sophie…”
“I know it was stupid.”
“You shouldn’t be doing that. You haven’t passed your test. You shouldn’t be…” Her voice is dopey and leaden. I remember she took something, a sleeping pill. But despite that her eyes are two bright dots of panic. “You could have died.”
I know she’s right. I look around at the machines cast like a constellation around my bed. I wish I could hide. The monitors spill my secrets to the world: blood pressure too high, my heart is galloping.
I’m not okay, not by a long shot.
* * *
—
“Try to focus, Sophie. Please.”
Dr. Varghese touches me lightly on the shoulder, trying to be comforting. Mom is standing in the far corner, dull-eyed now and not talking. She has heard all of this before. We both have. The medical ID bracelet the nurse gave me feels unpleasant and alien around my wrist.
“I know we’ve talked about how JI2 operates, but it’s important that you understand, that you really understand, what this means for you…”
We tiptoe round the grave. Dr. Varghese’s doing that, isn’t she? She’s tiptoeing, trying not to scare me too much, not right away.
“Sometimes your blood might not clot properly. Or you might experience arrhythmia, your heart beating too fast. Most of the time these symptoms are benign and your body manages to sort itself out but if you’re under stress the symptoms could get worse.” Her eyes skim over my arm. A rusty smear has crystallized beneath the tape.
“How much worse?”
“I know what happened to your sister was terrible.” She touches my hand again but I pull it away. “Her case was different. You’re older, Sophie, and you’re healthy. Your body should be able to handle the condition better and we’re learning more about it every day.”
“You mean, you might have a cure?”
“We’re doing everything we possibly can to grapple with this.” A thoughtful expression crosses her face but it quickly disappears. “I’ll be with you every step of the way. But there are some things we should talk about it. We’re beginning to understand the effect JI2 might have on your brain chemistry better.” She sounds uncertain here. “There’s a chance it might affect your judgment, your emotions. Bear with me for a moment: Have you ever heard of the parasite Toxoplasma gondii?”
My gaze wanders, focuses on the chewed pen cap in her pocket. The stray threads on her sleeve.
“It’s not a bug exactly, but a parasite that causes changes in animal behaviour,” Dr. Varghese says. “The parasite is excreted by cats in their feces. After several days it matures and becomes pathogenic. Mice who consume it become more active, more likely to venture out into open spaces when in the presence of predators. Their reaction times are delayed. In essence, the parasite tricks the mouse into making itself vulnerable so it becomes easy prey for the cat.” She swallows. “We think that JI2 might have a similar sort of effect. It can change your response to frightening situations so you don’t get scared the way you should. You might feel exhilarated, or even happy in some cases. Reckless. We’ve learned that now.”
“We never had cats,” I tell her. “Just a dog. He died when I was younger.” I want to understand what she’s telling me about the mice. The mice who aren’t afraid of cats. Is that what happened to Kira?
That strange glint in her eyes, I saw it. Time and again I saw it but I didn’t know what it meant.
“Would my sister have felt the same thing?” A sick hiccup of laughter bursts out of me. I thought I was responsible for what happened to her. Mom glances up and there’s a terrible look on her face, a mixture of anxiety and shock.
“It’s possible,” Dr. Varghese concedes. “Kira sometimes talked to me about feeling different. Like she knew how she was supposed to feel. How people expected her to feel. But the extent of the changes seems to be different for every patient. With some, the symptoms are more severe but others may not notice anything different than, say, the shifts in mood you experience during your period.”
I’ve already felt the effects, haven’t I? That glowing sense of glee as my fingers slipped away from the steering wheel. It felt good to let go. The same way I felt when I decided to leave the house to get Kira.
“We’ll have regular sessions to monitor your condition and if there are any changes we can tackle them together.”
“You didn’t know all this before,” I say, wanting to provoke a rise. “And Kira…she died because of it. Maybe if you’d known then she’d still be alive. What else don’t you know?”
Mom makes a noise deep in her chest, a sort of nyehh-urggh like an engine starting up in January. “Please,” says Mom and now she’s talking to me. “I can’t do this. Not now. I’m so sorry, Sophie, but I can’t go through this again.” She’s staring at me. “You’re old enough, right? You can hear this on your own? You’ll be all right?”
“Charlotte, you should stay for her.” Dr. Varghese holds the clipboard in front of her like a shield. For the first time she’s flustered, but Mom is staggering to her feet.
“I just—can’t,” she says. Then she spins and vanishes beyond the privacy curtain.
Dr. Varghese thumbs a strand of dark hair behind her ear. Does it again.
“Tell me what happens after.” My voice is hard.
She blinks twice before she speaks. “It’s too early to have that discussion.” She can’t look me in the eye.
“I need to know.” Hot tears blur my vision. “What’s really going to happen to me after I die?”
“Let me be honest with you,” she says. Her voice has lost its professional polish. She sounds raw and uncertain. “Sophie, this condition doesn’t react the way a typical disease does. We still don’t know the full extent of the symptoms. But the post-mortem anomalies…” She sucks in a breath and shakes her head. “You need to know that it isn’t you. Whatever happens after it won’t be you anymore. It’s something else.”
“How do you know?” I ask.
“You have to trust me,” she says. Which isn’t an answer at all. Beneath the sympathetic exterior is a hard kernel of fear. She knows it isn’t just a Lazarus effect. She knows something is happening to them and whatever it is, it scares her. And I remember Kira’s body last night, her muscles beginning to twitch. My own wild hope. As far as I know Kira is still there, alone, but what if Dr. Varghese is right? What if it isn’t her coming back but something else?
“You couldn’t help Kira,” I say. I want to sound angry but my voice comes out small and frightened. What have I done?
“That doesn’t mean we can’t help you.”
11
After Dr. Varghese leaves me a nurse comes by with a sedative that sends me into a long, dreamless sleep. Hours later, when I wake, Aunt Irene is in the room with me, quietly reading a book.
“Sophie?” she says as I start to stir. She rushes forward and gathers me into an awkward hug, practically lifting me off the bed. I’m so glad to see her it makes me teary. All the frozen parts of me begin to thaw and I let myself take the comfort she’s offering. Soon I’m sobbing into her chest while she holds me. “Oh, my darling child,” she says in a voice I’ve never heard her use before. She gently rubs my back. “I’m so glad you’re all right.”
I try to respond but I’m still groggy and wrung out. She releases me and pulls away to look me over. “I’m not all right,” I tell her, holding up my wrist so she can see the medical ID tag. The fear and anxiety rush back.
“Charlotte told me,” she says quietly. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. It’s not enough, I know it’s not enough—but I’ll do whatever I can to help you with this. Both of us will. It doesn’t have to be like—”
“Kira.”
“What happened was an accident. It was just an awful, stupid accident. You understand that, don’t you? And Dr. Varghese is very good. The research she’s doing could really help people like you. If you’re careful then there isn’t any reason you can’t go to Cherwell College and take your A-level exams like you were planning.”
For a moment I let myself believe what she’s saying. Maybe she’s right, maybe it doesn’t have to be so bad. I could get past this, I could be safe, or safe enough, if I just listen to her and Dr. Varghese and Mom.
“Where’s Mom?”
The smile disappears. “She had—there was…” A pause. “Someone from the Centre called about an hour ago. They’re going to release the body to the Barton crematorium later today. She has to go pick up the ashes.” I look at her in surprise but Aunt Irene goes on. “After what they told us I thought it could be weeks, months even, but it’s better like this.”
Panic squeezes my lungs but I force myself to relax. They haven’t discovered she’s missing yet. They’d have to tell us, wouldn’t they? Or maybe this is just their way of hiding the mistake.
“Will Mom—could I go too? Could I see Kira?”
“That’s not a good idea. They won’t let anyone see her body. There are protocols in place. It just isn’t—not while the condition is still active. Things are different now. They’re taking precautions.” A pause before she presses on. “We can scatter her ashes somewhere really beautiful, somewhere she would have loved. Port Meadow, maybe, or we could take a trip to the south coast—Bournemouth or Dorset.”
“But Dad wanted us to go home.”
“No one’s thinking about you going back to Toronto. Not while you’re sick.”
“Does he know?” I ask sharply.
Aunt Irene squeezes my hand. “He agrees. The best place for you is here. But listen—maybe this is too much, too fast. You don’t have to think about it right now. For now let’s just get you home.”
* * *
—
Outside, the sky is streaked gunmetal grey. Milky puddles line either side of the road, broken branches garnish the lawns. The rental car smells like pine-scented air fresheners. It reminds me that there are other things to talk about, practical consequences for what I did.
“I shouldn’t have taken your car last night. I’m really sorry. It was a stupid thing to do.”
“You’re okay, Sophie, that’s the most important thing. It could’ve been much worse. These country roads aren’t lit very well and most of them haven’t been properly maintained. You’re just lucky there was someone around to find you. You could’ve been stuck in the car for hours. You might’ve…”
Died, she doesn’t say but I can tell she’s thinking it, because I’m thinking it too.
“I know. My head wasn’t screwed on straight.” This has the ring of truth, at least.
“Believe it or not, I understand how you must’ve been feeling. Blindsided and angry and…well, however it was you were feeling. It was…our fault for not taking better care of you. So where you went, how you handled your grief, I understand. But you can’t take risks like that, not now.”
I manage a shrug.
“Better things will come. I promise. We’ll get you a bicycle so you can get around on your own.” The car lumbers awkwardly through a roundabout. “We should have done that earlier but there was just so much to get organized when you first arrived. But you’ll need one, particularly once you start school. Then you’ll be able to see your friends more easily.” She’s trying to distract me, I think, trying to make me feel better. “You had one at home, didn’t you? Or I suppose you just took transit—but everyone rides here. You’ll need a helmet, of course.”
When we pull up in front of the house, the sandbags are still there beside the Thames, but now the men in fluorescent vests are struggling with unwieldy sacks. No more Hulloo, me durrck! And then I realize they aren’t sandbags at all. As they lift, the damp canvas briefly reveals a human form: hips, knees, shoulders, the faint bulge of a head. They’re fishing bodies from the river.
There were others then, drawn to the flood like Kira was. Caught up in the locks and weirs or tangled in weeds.
“I can’t come in with you. It’s the start of term and they need me at the university,” Aunt Irene says. “Will you be okay for a little while? Your mom should be there.”
She isn’t saying anything about the bodies. The hiss of the Thames sounds monstrous in my ears—a terrible, blank static.
“I’ll be fine.”
“I know you will.” A pause. “One more thing. The nurse gave me this.” She hands me a HemaPen. “You know how to use it?”
“Yeah,” I tell her, hating it. The dull, dead weight in my hand.
* * *
—
The council’s notice beside the door to Aunt Irene’s house, already dog-eared and etched in dirt, lists the number of registered inhabitants in case of a flood evacuation. Now it’s in need of updating.
Inside, a grey smear of light falls across the entrance. The first thing I see is a sympathy bouquet from the Dean of New College—white roses, anthuria and orchids in a crystal vase next to the sink. And another made up of lilies and purple larkspur. The flowers are beautiful, but the sight of the cut stems annoys me. They’re already dead. This is just the pretense of life.
A noise from one of the bedrooms startles me and for a moment I have a mad thought that it’s Kira come home from the cement works. I close my eyes and the shuffling sound becomes footsteps, barely audible. Everyone has a unique set of sounds, I’ve discovered. When you live with someone, share a bedroom with them, you can identify their breath by rhythm, texture and pitch. Each exhalation is distinctive. I open my eyes, walk as silently as I can up the second flight. Upstairs, I press my ear to our bedroom door, but whatever I heard has vanished. No movement.
The noise sounds again from behind me and I cross the hallway. A thin slice of light bleeds out from beneath the entrance to Mom’s bedroom. I raise my hand to knock.
She must have heard me come in. She must know I’m out here.
I stare at the door, willing myself to move. A series of sharp gasps, ragged half-sobs come from inside. Then a shadow cuts the light beneath the door into uneven wedges and my skin prickles. The door wobbles briefly, but it’s an old house, it breathes with the wind. Sometimes the foundations creak and the bathroom door flies open when you think you’re alone. You’d think the house was haunted. If you were the kind of person who believed in ghosts. As I rest my forehead against the smooth grain of the mullion, the latch bolt catches the door from swinging open. I hear a faint snick. Inside, someone has turned the lock. A ward has been set against unwanted guests.
My exhaustion is too much. I know there are things to do, that Kira is out there. In the back of my mind is a faint whispering, go, go on…but every part of me aches. Go on yourself, I’m wrung out, I’m beaten.
In the bedroom, too tired to make it up the ladder, I collapse onto Kira’s bed. It still smells of her: sweet, milky and slightly stale. For a moment I let the familiarity of it surround me. This is the Kira I want, the way she was before it all went wrong. As I lie there breathing in and out, remembering her, sleep slips a dark sack over my head and ties it tight.
12
I open my eyes to daylight. It’s nearly two in the afternoon but the air in the bedroom is so chilly I feel sheathed in ice. “It’s the river,” Aunt Irene told me when we arrived, “that’s why it’s so cold. I have to wear gloves if I want to get any work done in here. It can get colder in here than it is outside.”
The river—of course, it’s the river.
I go to the bathroom cabinet looking for some painkillers but I don’t recognize any of the labels. None of the brands are the same as they were in Canada. Paracetamol? Anadol? I take two and hope for the best.
The house is quiet. I wonder if Mom has already left for the crematorium. If she has, this may be my best chance.
I dress quickly, head downstairs and shrug on the green wool coat Aunt Irene bought me for Christmas and a jersey knit hat. I sling a cloth satchel filled with cereal bars and two bottles of Coke over my shoulder as my stomach flip-flops between hunger and nausea. I start to write a note, get about halfway through before I crumple it up and shove it into my pocket. What am I going to say, anyway? What would make sense?
* * *
—
Outside, the January air mists my face with light drizzle. Above me, the clouds huddle close to the peaked roofs of the terrace houses, creating an endless sky. Pure white without detail or shading. I walk to the centre of town where I find a double-decker bus headed north. “Oy,” says the driver. “In or out?”
It’s an unspoken rule that young people go to the top level, and leave the bottom for the elderly. But as I grab my ticket, he nudges the gas. I stumble forward. I can’t risk the narrow stairwell, not with my arm aching like it is from the accident, so I sink into one of the plastic seats on the bottom level.
