کتاب 05-07

7

Harper woke with a jolt, as if her bed were a boat that had struck a rock, the hull grinding off stone. She blinked into the darkness, not sure if a minute had passed or a day. The boat shivered off the rocks again. Ben stood at the foot of it, nudging the bed frame with his knee.

She had slept from dawn to dusk and another evening had come.

“Nurse,” Ben said. Only it was not the same Ben who had pleaded with her the night before. This was Officer Patchett, his soft, pleasant, round face gone blank and formal. He was even in his police uniform: dark blue trousers, pressed blue shirt, dark blue coat with a white fleece lining and the words PORTSMOUTH PD printed on the back in bold yellow letters.

“Yes?”

“Mother Carol is hoping for an update on Father Storey,” Ben told her. “As soon as you’re ready, Jamie and I will walk over with you.”

Jamie Close stood in the doorway to the waiting room, passing a white rock from hand to hand.

“Before I update her on the patient’s progress, I’d like to update myself. And take a minute to get ready. If you’ll wait in the other room?”

Ben nodded and cast a casual look toward Nick, who was sitting up in bed, watching with wide, fascinated eyes. Ben threw him a wink, but Nick did not smile.

The police officer ducked through the curtain, but Jamie Close lingered.

“You like dishin’ out the medicine,” Jamie said. “We’ll see how you like takin’ it.”

Harper was trying to think of a brave, clever reply when Jamie followed her superior back into the waiting room.

Nick signed, “Don’t go.”

“Have to,” she said with her hands.

“Don’t,” Nick told her silently. “They’re going to do something bad.”

She grabbed the pad of paper and wrote, Don’t get yourself worked up. You might give yourself a stomachache.

Harper was combing out her hair in the bathroom when there was a little knock.

“Yes? Come in.”

Michael nudged the door inward three inches. His freckled, boyish face was very pale behind his coppery twist of a beard. “Insulin shot?”

“Go ahead. I’m dressed.”

He removed the lid on the back of the toilet and fished out a plastic bag with a few disposable sticks of insulin left in it. It wasn’t the most hygienic place to store medical supplies, but it kept them cold. He lifted his shirt to reveal a bony edge of fishbelly white hipbone, and dabbed at it with an antiseptic wipe.

“Ma’am,” he said, not looking at her. “You need to be careful tonight. People ain’t right. They aren’t thinking right. Allie isn’t thinking right.”

“Will you be here keeping an eye on the infirmary while I’m visiting with Carol?” Harper asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good. Nick will be glad to have a pal around.”

“Ma’am? Do you hear what I’m saying? About people not thinking right? I tried to talk to Allie at breakfast. I don’t know what’s come over her. She hasn’t eaten in days and she wasn’t in any shape to be missing meals to begin with. Someone’s got to do something. I’m scared—”

“Michael Lindqvist! She can take that stone out of her mouth and have breakfast anytime she likes. I’m sorry if you want me to give her an easy out, but I am not going to encourage more of this barbaric nonsense by going along with it. If you came in here to see if you could bully me or guilt me—”

“No, ma’am, no!” he cried with real anguish. “That’s not what I’m trying to do at all! You’re not doing anything wrong. That’s not what’s worrying me. What’s worrying me is the way Carol and Ben and all Allie’s friends are cheering her on while she starves herself. You’re in the infirmary all day and all night, so you don’t see that part. You don’t see the Neighbors sisters whispering to her that she can’t give in, that the whole camp believes in her. Or the way all her friends sit with after she’s missed another meal and chant her name until her eyes start glowing and she’s in the Bright. It’s almost like she needs them to be proud of her more than she needs to eat. And none of ’em care how thin she is or how fragile she’s getting. I’m scared she’s going to go hypoglycemic and crash. Pass out and maybe swallow that stone! Christ, it’s enough—it’s enough to make a person think about just grabbing her and—you know—throwing some stuff in a suitcase.”

He was the second person in twenty-four hours to admit he had given thought to scarpering off. Harper wondered how many others were about sung out and if Carol knew how dangerously slippery her grip on the camp really was. Maybe she did. Maybe that explained everything.

Michael swallowed heavily. In a steadier, lower voice, he finished: “You do what you think is right. Just don’t get hurt, ma’am. Allie may hate your guts right now, but she’d hate herself more if you got hurt on her account.” He took a shaky breath, and then added, “I love Carol as much as I ever loved my own mother, you know that? I do! I’d die for her in a heartbeat.” His eyes were damp and pleading and an unspoken but hovered in the air between them.

There was more to say, but no time to say it. Ben and Jamie Close were waiting.