Chasing Orion

by Kathryn Lasky

  The very next evening, I went over to Phyllis’s to ask Emmett for help with my math homework. But I was still haunted by the two words breath or death.

  “You know more about the machine, Emmett, than my dad does,” Phyllis was saying as I came in. “Hi, Georgie. I was just saying that Emmett knows more about the iron lung than my dad. I think it’s good that you know all this stuff about the machine,” she continued.

  “But I don’t want your dad to, you know, feel . . . uh . . . uh . . .” Emmett replied.

  “Topped?” Phyllis said. “Topped by a high-school senior.”

  “Naw, I didn’t mean that exactly.”

  “Listen, I’m the one who told Dad to show you.”

  “You told your dad to show me?” Emmett asked.

  “Yes, right after the second time you came over. I said, ‘Dad, show him how it all works, the alarm and all.’”

  I must have looked weird or something, because Emmett all of a sudden asked me what was wrong.

  “Nothing,” I said, then turned in the mirror to Phyllis’s reflection. “Why did you ask your dad to show Emmett all that stuff?”

  “You’ve got to know what to do if there’s a short circuit. He’s way smarter than any of the nurses around here. I just knew he was the one the minute he walked in here.”

  He was the one! One what? I almost screamed. “Listen, I’ve got to go.” I forgot all about my homework question.

  “What are you rushing off for?” Phyllis asked.

  “Nothing,” I said, and hurried down the steps. I knew Phyllis was trying to catch me in the mirrors. “You’re rushing off to nothing! That seems kind of dumb.”

  She just knew he was the one! Dammit. What did she mean by that? The one what? Was I going crazy? Crazy scared? I didn’t want to think this way. Not about Phyllis.

  That night in my sleep, I saw a face. It wasn’t exactly Phyllis. The face was furry, and across the forehead there were eight shiny beads, so shiny that they reflected Emmett’s face and mine, too.

  “Come closer.” It was a low, hoarse voice, but I knew it was Phyllis’s. Emmett started to move, crawling up the trembling silver threads of a web. They jiggled, and he nearly lost his balance. “You won’t fall. Come on, Georgie, you too.” She was calling to me now. “Remember, the threads are sticky. Come closer.” And I began to creep forward on the threads. With each dreadful step, I drew closer to this thing that I knew was Phyllis but not Phyllis.

  “Why have the mirrors turned all black and shiny?” I asked.

  “Those aren’t mirrors, silly girl. They are my eyes. The mirrors are shattered.”

  I looked down at that moment and saw the razor-sharp shards beneath me, like a carpet of daggers, and then I felt myself falling and Emmett falling, too.

  “You’re ruining everything, Georgie! Saint Georgie!” But the voice was not recognizable. It was a long sizzling hiss, and as I was falling, I saw legs — eight of them, but it was not a spider at all. It was a scorpion.

  And in my sleep I felt a sting, a sting in my heel.

  “Wake up! Wake up, Emmett!”

  I went running into his room.

  “What are you doing here?” He yawned. “Georgie, it’s two thirty in the morning!”

  “Emmett, there’s something not right about Phyllis.”

  “What are you talking about? Of course there isn’t something right about her. She’s got polio. She’s in an iron lung. She can’t breathe.”

  “But she didn’t say ‘breath,’ Emmett. I think she said ‘death.’”

  Emmett narrowed his eyes. “What are you talking about — breath, death? Are you going crazy?”

  I looked at him, searching his face. Had he forgotten about that thing he said, and then that she said? Nothing is too wonderful to be true? Or was I going crazy?

  “I don’t know. I — I — I j-j-j-just.” Emmett put his hand on top of mine. The jittering letter sounds stilled inside me. “I had a bad dream, that’s all.”

  “Do you want to tell me about it? Sometimes that helps.” I could see Emmett looking really concerned about me.

  “It was about a spider and its eyes were like mirrors and somehow it reminded me of Phyllis and I was thinking maybe, maybe she was w-w-w . . . w-w-w-w . . .” Emmett patted my hand softly. “Wanting . . . to . . . die . . . or something like that.”

  “She doesn’t want to die, Georgie. If anything, she wants to live more than ever.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “But why?”

  “She loves me, Georgie.” He didn’t blush when he said this. “And someday in the near future I think they are going to figure out how a person like Phyllis can come out of an iron lung and live. There’s medical technology out there. It can be done. I know it. This is a problem, a technological problem, and it can be solved.”

  “Really?”

  “Absolutely. They’re really closing in on it. And after that it will be a man in space and after that a man on the moon. It’s going to happen by the 1960s.”

  Getting a girl out of an iron lung didn’t sound as hard as getting a man on the moon. “But still, Emmett, it’s just 1952. It could take maybe ten years. You’ll be so old.”

  “Not that old, and I’ll wait. I’ll do anything for Phyllis.”

  “Really?” But I said the word so softly that Emmett didn’t even hear it.

  “What?” He leaned forward.

  “Nothing, just nothing.”

  I went back to my room. When I saw the little poodle lipstick holder she had given me, I took it, went downstairs, and put it in the trash can in the garage — the one with all the disgusting garbage so I wouldn’t be tempted to go get it again. Then I came upstairs and took out my diary. I unlocked it, and pressing so hard with my pencil that the tip broke, I scrawled, Even though I might be crazy, I STILL DON’T BELIEVE IN GOD.

  And then probably because I was halfway to being certifiably insane, I went downstairs and got the poodle lipstick holder from the disgusting garbage. I guess you could say I was hedging my bets. If I kept the lipstick holder, maybe nothing bad would happen to Phyllis, to Emmett, or, I guess, to me.

  Emmett started talking a lot about new medical technology that could help people like Phyllis. “But she has to build up her lungs so she’ll be ready,” he said one night at dinner.

  “How does she do that?” Dad asked.

  “By weaning — longer and longer periods of time.”

  “But didn’t you say she had a seizure the last time?” Mom asked.

  “You know, this is the funny thing,” Emmett said almost casually. Funny? What could be funny about having a seizure? “She doesn’t even know she has them.” I was shocked. I remembered Emmett coming back through the yard terrified after the weaning. But I also remember Phyllis saying that it didn’t hurt, that it felt good in a way. A beautiful place!

  Mom set down her water glass. She looked shocked, too. I was glad. Maybe I wasn’t as crazy as I thought. “I don’t think this is a case where ignorance is bliss. Couldn’t she really do worse damage to herself?” Emmett got all huffy and told us it was none of our business.

  He was probably right; it wasn’t. But it didn’t seem right that I, the youngest person at the table, was the only one to sense something wrong here, very wrong. Was Emmett putting too much faith in science? That would have been so like him. Was I the only person thinking this? Was I the only person really fearful for Emmett? I mean, I was younger and I was not nearly as smart as Emmett, but it was almost as if I were the single person in possession of a dangerous piece of information, even if I did not know precisely what that information was. I was eleven years old. What could I do? What was I supposed to do? I had tried to talk to Emmett once on the night when I had the bad dream. Death? Breath? The two words continued to haunt me. I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

  I could hardly think of those two words without going to pieces. So I had vowed never to go back. But now I didn’t have a choic
e. I had to go back because my parents didn’t want me home alone. Still I fought it.

  “Georgie, you have to go over there. I don’t care if you don’t want to.” My mom said this in her most firm, no-arguing-with-her voice.

  “Mom, I still don’t understand why I can’t stay here by myself,” I argued.

  “Because there have been two robberies in this neighborhood and I don’t want you staying alone when Dad and I go out.”

  “See? That’s what we get for moving into a fancy neighborhood.”

  “I’m not following this,” my dad said.

  “In our old neighborhood, no one had anything worth stealing. People have fancy jewelry in this neighborhood.”

  “Now, how do you know that?” my mom said.

  “I do. Mrs. Keller has a diamond necklace and matching diamond earrings. She lets Phyllis wear them sometimes — the earrings. Not the necklace.” Actually I thought it was kind of sick the way Mrs. Keller did that.

  “Can’t Emmett come back over here?” I whined.

  “Be reasonable, Georgie. Emmett is all that poor girl has.”

  That’s just the problem, I wanted to scream, and boy did Phyllis have him. He’s the one! The words crashed in my brain.

  “Look, if I stay right here in the living room with my hand on the phone and all the lights on . . .”

  “Put a button on it, Georgie. Get your homework and get over to Phyllis’s.” My dad spoke very sharply, which he rarely did. I knew I had hit the wall when he spoke this way.

  So I went over. It was chilly, but not that chilly for early December, and when I came up those steps, I felt as if I were getting caught in a small world not made by me but by Phyllis. Those flashes of light as the mirrors moved around were like the silk threads of the spider’s web spinning out into the night, capturing my reflection so quickly. But I saw it this time. I saw Emmett’s hand pop out of the port by Phyllis’s leg.

  “Welcome, Saint Georgie,” Phyllis said. It had kind of started to make my skin crawl when she called me this.

  “Hi, Georgie,” Emmett said. He was blushing.

  “Guess what we’re waiting for?” Phyllis asked.

  “Pizza, I hope.”

  “Epsilon. We should have a fair shot at it, your brother says. No clouds.”

  Emmett had started fiddling with the scope. He looked up and pointed west of the Dipper to Epsilon. I could see it now without the scope.

  “Flame rose,” Phyllis said softly into the darkness.

  They began talking, the two of them. It seemed like code again to me, but laced with all these flirty remarks of Phyllis’s, and Emmett was all moony-faced and googly-eyed. He was hardly looking at the sky, just at Phyllis again, the namer of colors. Had he given up on the secrets of the Square of Pegasus? Did he really not want to know anything anymore? Was ignorance really bliss for Emmett? Finally I couldn’t stand it a minute longer. “I’m cold. I’m going inside,” I announced.

  “Mom’s made some hot chocolate,” Phyllis said. “That’ll warm you up.”

  When I went inside, Mrs. Keller was sitting in a rocking chair doing needlepoint and watching I Love Lucy. “Georgie, my goodness, I think you’ve shot up two inches in the past week.”

  “Uh, Phyllis said there was some hot chocolate.”

  “Yes, in the kitchen, and if you want to join me in here and watch television, I’d love it. This is a very funny Lucy show.”

  It was the commercial break when I came back. “My mom loves Lucille Ball, too,” I said.

  “She is simply hysterical. Look at that wonderful face.” She nodded toward the television as the show came back on. Lucy was up to her old tricks. She was trying to get into Desi’s nightclub act. She and her best friend, Ethel, were dressed in disguise. Lucy was even wearing a mustache. She was dancing around on the stage, trying to sound Spanish and doing her best to hog the stage from Desi, who had not yet recognized her.

  When the show was over, Mrs. Keller said something about how she had seen Lucille Ball in person one time and that she had the reddest hair imaginable. “You’ll see when we get color TV.”

  “Are you getting it soon?”

  “Well, Don thinks certainly within the year.”

  This was an eerie echo of the time when I was trying on lipstick and Phyllis had made that weird joke about not holding her breath for color television.

  Mrs. Keller looked over at me. I felt I had to say something quick. I might have been looking a little strange or something.

  “What are you making?” I said, getting up and walking over to look at the needlepoint.

  “A throw-pillow cover. Know what it is?”

  I looked down at the square in the frame. There was a beautiful girl with what would be long hair when it was stitched in, and she was sitting at a loom. In front of her was a mirror. I swallowed as a queasiness welled up in the back of my throat. “It’s that poem lady.”

  “Yes, dear, the Lady of Shalott.” She looked up at me.

  “The same one she gave you for your birthday?”

  “No, I finished that one. This is a new one she gave me. She never stops thinking of sweet things, such a dear girl.” That is not the point, I wanted to scream. Why would Phyllis get you this picture all the time? The same one? Why this one? Is this some sort of bad joke?

  “Dr. Keller,” she continued, “is actually working right now on a new device that would allow Phyllis to do needlepoint, too. A kind of special needle that could be held in her mouth.”

  “Does she like to needlepoint?” I asked.

  Mrs. Keller turned around and cocked her head and looked at me as if I had said the most curious thing imaginable. “Well, my goodness, who’s to know, except it would be such a nice way to pass the time.”

  Pass the time to what?

  I snuck back to our house without telling Emmett. He seemed kind of annoyed when he got home. “How come you’re acting so weird these days, Georgie?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll be OK.”

  “Phyllis noticed it, too.”

  “She did?”

  “Yes, she sent a note for you.”

  “She typed it with that tongue thing?”

  “Yes.” He handed me a piece of powder-blue paper. It was Phyllis’s stationery and it had her name inscribed in white at the top.

  Dear Georgie,

  I’ve been worried about you. Are the Mustard Seeds making your life miserable? Come visit and we can have some girl talk.

  Love, Phyllis.

  I tucked the note into my pocket. It was strange. A few months ago, I would have been thrilled at the prospect of visiting Phyllis for girl talk. But nothing had been quite the same for a while. Since the spider dream, I had to admit I had grown fearful of Phyllis. I had to keep reminding myself how completely empty her life was, and when I did this, it was almost like a free fall through space for me. I was overwhelmed and, yes, ashamed that I had given in to my fears.

  Still I had a feeling, no more than a feeling — I knew that she was manipulating Emmett to do something really bad, like maybe help her die. And when I thought of that, I have to admit that I came close to actually hating Phyllis. But I just wasn’t really sure about how she would get Emmett to do it. Hating would not solve that mystery. It was kind of a relief not to even think about hating anymore. My job was to save not Phyllis, but Emmett. I had told him of my fears that night, and he had blown them off as if they were nothing. I somehow had to figure out when Phyllis planned to do this terrible thing and then I would some way, somehow stop it. I just had to figure out when this might happen. I wasn’t Saint Georgie anymore. I wasn’t the knight in the Lady of Shalott, ready to smash mirrors. The only person I really wanted to release into the real world was my own brother, Emmett.

  “I think a French twist, and then put the clip to the side that way,” Sally was saying as Mrs. Keller arranged a sparkling flower-shaped clip in Phyllis’s hair. On a small table beside her was a pile of jewels, the very ones I had mentioned
to my mother, the diamond earrings, and now a diamond hair clip. She and Sally the nurse were fussing with Phyllis’s hair.

  “I’m not sure,” Roslyn Keller said. “You know, I saw a picture of Grace Kelly, who I think looks so much like Phyllis —”

  “Just like her exactly.” Phyllis laughed and then flicked the mirrors. A fleeting expression of worry crossed her mother’s face.

  “Hi, Georgie,” Phyllis said.

  “Oh, hi, Georgie.” Mrs. Keller nodded to me, then continued fussing with Phyllis’s hair.

  “Yes, definitely the hair down with the clip in the side. I’ll look just like her. And the earrings, Mom, don’t forget the earrings.” I was getting a queasy feeling in my stomach. Was this the girl talk I had been invited over for? Her mother clamped an earring to each ear. Sally cooed. It was as if they were playing with a doll. It was revolting. The diamonds sparkled almost fiendishly above the high, tight rubber collar that gripped Phyllis’s neck. Mrs. Keller stepped back to admire her handiwork. “There, pretty as a picture. Should I take one?”

  “Oh, of course, by all means!” Phyllis said. Her mother looked confused.

  But I suddenly had another picture in my mind. That of Phyllis when they tried to wean her. I imagined teeny little diamond bracelets on those withered legs, a necklace draping over her arched back. The face contorted into a horrendous agony, and her ears sparkling with the diamond earrings.

  “Look how pretty you are, Phyllis!”

  Phyllis just smiled and let them play with her. But I could hardly stand it. I made an excuse and went to the bathroom. I prayed that by the time I came out, they would be finished with their doll play. Was I the only adult here? The only one who had outgrown dolls?

  When I came out of the bathroom, Mrs. Keller was in the kitchen. So I went in.

  “Yes, Georgie?” she said. My heart was thumping. I had never in my life really questioned an adult in this way. This wasn’t like begging for something from my parents that I wanted and they didn’t want me to have. It wasn’t arguing with a teacher over a grade, which I had also been known to do. This was different. My bottom lip had begun to tremble.