He resumed his seat across from Rachel, opened the folder, and drew out the contents. Pages spread over the tabletop. And then the vials.
“You drew their blood,” he said. “James and Anna.”
“With their permission. After the cure, when it became clear they … I hadn’t had the opportunity with the others. I thought it might help somehow. But they went too fast.”
“Have you analyzed it?”
“There was no point.”
“And this stuff,” he said with a gesture at the remaining vials. “Did you pour any out?”
“No, just burned the notes. The serum itself, I was saving for last.”
He examined the three vials more closely now than he had back in the cottage. The clear liquid was tinted a sort of amber. In the other two, the liquid was a similar color but milkier.
“Which is which?” He’d never seen the serum before. A slight chill overtook him. The power in these vials was too much. Maybe no human should have it, mortal or longevite.
“The clear is the original,” she said. “The cloudy is the cure.”
“Two vials of the cure?”
“One for you. One for me.” She ran her thumb over one of them with a wistfulness that shook him.
He cupped them in his hand, slid them into the folder, and stood. “These are going back to bedroom storage.”
“Please,” she said.
There it was again. Whether she knew it or not, a sliver deep within her wanted life. He had to breathe a few times before he returned to the kitchen, and by then Rachel had begun perusing the notes.
“What are you seeing?” He studied the page she ran her finger over.
“Doc’s stuff is gone.”
“All of it?”
“I guess it was on top. What’s left is mine.”
A loss, deep and permanent. History destroyed. “Doesn’t seem to bother you.”
“Oh, I have a lot of it memorized.”
“But the physical archives …”
“Can’t cry over spilled milk.”
He had no words.
“So, practically speaking, here’s what we have left. See these formulae here, these are copies of Doc’s work. Until I decided to destroy everything, I worked from my copies and kept the original separate, for safekeeping. Anyway these equations got me the version of the cure we have now. I had started tweaking the proportion of ingredients, but one problem of course is a viable control …”
Her hands went still. Her eyes lifted to Zac, and in one long exhalation she surfaced from the science, transformed from settled lake to agitated stream.
“Hey,” Zac said.
“If I get it wrong again, this time it will be David Galloway who shrivels to death.”
“You have time. Years. No one’s going to rush you.”
“It should be destroyed. All of it, right now.”
Zac felt again the dragging weight of David’s burden, the expected sorrow of Tiana’s casket lowered into the earth. So many caskets had lowered while longevites stood watching.
“No one else is going to take it as it is,” he said quietly. “If you pour it out now, you’re as stuck as the rest of us.”
She shuddered. “I don’t know that I can create what we want.”
We. Thank God. He set his hand on hers and knew what he had to say—to her alone, surely never to Cady, but if he didn’t say it, Rachel would soon brim over with rancid guilt.
“Rachel, listen to me. You did not kill Anna.”
Her back pressed against the chair. She shook her head.
“No,” he said. “You told her, ‘This cup is poison.’ She drank it anyway. Knowing. She was broken inside, and that was not your fault.”
Not until he spoke the words aloud did he fully see. Every if in Anna’s letter was a lie.
“The poison was my brew,” Rachel whispered.
“So you remake it. However long it takes, you keep trying.”
She stared down at the papers, the work of her own mind. “Holly and Sean got no warning. I told them they could be mortal again. They thought it over and decided it would be an adventure.”
“You made a mistake,” Zac said.
“I was arrogant.” She looked up at him, and her lip trembled. “I’m not any longer.”
He squeezed her hand. When he began to let go, Rachel grabbed hold and squeezed back.
For an hour she pored over the information that had escaped her pyre. She broke it down for him, and he understood most of it, but his own mind never could have conceived it. This woman was a science genius possibly matching the caliber of her father.
She watched while Zac took pictures of every sheet of paper and sent them from his phone to his laptop. Then they put all of it away, returned to their seats at the kitchen table, and for the next hour used This or That as a loose model for conversation. They discussed books, music, movies, food, history, technology. The upheaval in Rachel began to calm again. She seemed happy to discuss comic book characters for the rest of her life. She had no concept of home cooking, but her favorite restaurants numbered in the several dozens. She knew cars. She’d done minor repairs on her vehicles for years.
“But Stormie, she’s been a good girl. Hardly anything wrong with her since I bought her.”
“Stormie?”
“Oh, grin if you want. I always name my cars. This one’s Stormie. With an i-e.”
“I guess your first was Tin Lizzie?”
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t do clichés. Anyway, I was a kid, remember? The automobile wasn’t in my scope of life then, except to ride in one occasionally.”
“I waited to buy until 1915. Of course the cost dropped again after I took the plunge.”
“But you’d have been wealthy by then.”
“Not really.” The past wrapped him in soft tendrils of story, details twining. “Just a guy in his sixties who’d done a good job saving money. I didn’t have the combined lifetimes of squirreling away gold and cash, not yet.”
Around eight, Simon lumbered into the kitchen, straight for the coffee. He prowled for breakfast ingredients, and Rachel took over, mixing up thick batter and pouring small circles in the skillet.
“What are those?” Simon pointed.
“They’re called silver dollar pancakes.”
“I hope you plan to make at least thirty.”
She laughed.
“Can you make crepes?”
“Oh no. If Zac didn’t have the boxed mix, I couldn’t make these either.”
They ate Rachel’s pancakes with butter and syrup, a few with peanut butter at her suggestion. Not Zac’s usual eggs-and-bacon preference, but he’d have let her serve him steamed shoe leather if it kept her thoughts away from the vials in the bedroom.
When she left to “freshen up,” using the term as if it were still common vernacular, Zac gave Simon a quick summary of their conversation. “She’s got to talk to Cady and Finn, but somebody needs to prepare Cady and gauge her response.”
“She might not appreciate that.”
“I’ll text first.”
“So I stay here and play warden while you go play mediator.”
Oh … he hadn’t thought to ask. Only assumed. He scrubbed his hand through his hair. “If you don’t mind. I don’t know what else to do, to keep the family together.”
More than he’d meant to say. Simon went still, his attention notched up to laser-pointer intensity.
“I guess you didn’t hear a thing I said last night.”
To the casual observer, Simon’s tone would sound indifferent, which meant he was keenly invested.
“I heard you. I don’t agree, that’s all.”
“Hmm.”
“And I’m going after them.”
Simon huffed. “Fine. I’ll stay with Rachel.”
When Zac left, she and Simon were in search of a checkerboard he was fairly sure lay around the apartment somewhere. If not, Rachel said she had a deck of cards in her car.
&
nbsp; Sitting in his car in the apartment lot, Zac began a text to Cady. HEY. He stared at the word. What else? She’d know he wanted to discuss Rachel, and she wouldn’t want to. He wished he didn’t have to push. CAN WE TALK? he added then hit SEND.
He began driving, but not toward the hotel. She and Finn could be anywhere around town, and anyway, he had another matter to deal with. He coasted down the narrow streets toward Cousin Connie’s.
At nine in the morning, the bakery bustled. Connie manned the counter alone and barely looked up when he walked in. He slipped into the back, washed his hands, donned plastic gloves, and came out behind the counter. Together they weathered the rush, while Connie said not a word to him and he bent and straightened at the glass cases, fulfilling orders. Spots were dancing in his vision by the time the last customers left, smiling and waving as they passed through the door.
Connie turned to him at last, hands on hips. “All right, Zac, I … Oh, for goodness’ sake, look at you. You came to work sick? And handled people’s food?”
“Not sick,” he said.
He braced his right hand on the counter and pressed his left to his side. He’d forgotten how much movement was involved in this job because it was never more than ten feet in a single direction.
“I, um, broke a couple ribs.”
“You ridiculous boy.” She brought a folding metal chair from somewhere in the back kitchen and pointed down at it. “Sit.”
He eased down and hunched forward a little. “Thanks.”
“What are you doing here with broken ribs?”
“Wanted to explain.”
“And took on the midmorning rush instead.”
“You looked stressed. And I owe you no-show time.”
“So you came in two hours late.”
“I’m sorry, Connie. This isn’t how I usually behave on the job.”
She was studying him hard. “I think I believe you.”
He lifted his hands, palms up. He had no excuse he could share.
“I saw a rather disturbing picture of you yesterday, online. Looked like David Galloway’s bookstore in the background.”
Agh, this. Of course, this. He blotted his forehead with his right sleeve. The spots were lifting from his vision as the pain in his side faded. “Yeah.”
“Care to explain?”
“I don’t do drugs. It was … I had a panic attack.”
“Because of your fall?”
“Not exactly. There are some old things I can’t talk about that mess with me sometimes. David’s a friend; he covered for me best he could. Didn’t know someone snapped a picture.”
“It’s unfortunate.” Her expression was shifting from one form of consternation to another; this one was on his behalf. “Even celebrities should be able to keep some things private.”
“I’ve done fine until now. Well, you know.” He gestured to the bakery’s main space, where mercifully no new customers had entered to see him hunched in a chair pale and sweating and being stared down by Cousin Connie. “I can work for hours without being recognized. I’m not Tom Cruise.”
“I’m sorry for the added stress. And I’m sorry you’re hurt. What happened?”
“Fell.” He grinned. “I mean, how else would I do it, right?”
She gave a deep guffaw. “At least you can laugh at yourself.”
“One thing I’m expert in.”
“All right, son, the deal stands. Someone else comes along to answer that sign in the window, no hard feelings between us. Until then you’re still employed here, but today you’re going home to ice and rest.”
“I can do something.”
“I need you for the counter, and we’ve just seen how that went.” The brusqueness faded, and she stepped close to pat his shoulder. “Listen, Zac, a car accident broke one of my ribs in 1989, and I remember it like it was yesterday. Go home.”
He pushed to his feet. “What about the next six weeks?”
“Let me think on it. Maybe I can come up with a job that’ll help me out and not strain you too much.”
He rolled his eyes.
“Go on, get.” She shooed him out from behind the counter.
He turned and held out his hand. “Thanks.”
She shook it. “Rest up and heal up. I want you back here as soon as possible. They might not always recognize you, but they buy more from you than they do from me.”
He winked, and she laughed, and he squeezed her hand before letting go.
His phone buzzed before he reached his car. Cady. MEET US AT THE LIGHTHOUSE.
THIRTY-FOUR
He had to go to them. He had to listen. Maybe speak too, but if so he had no idea what he was supposed to say. The drive gave him twenty minutes to formulate his thoughts, but they refused to fall into a manageable line.
At some point he emerged from under the rainstorm into an overcast chill. The two-lane blacktop road trailed the coast of Lake Michigan in the direction he and Simon had driven last night to Leahy. Zac was driving up a slight incline now, which made sense for the location of a lighthouse.
Brown park signage ensured he couldn’t miss it: Historic Lighthouse 1.3 miles, then in 1.2 miles an arrow turning right onto a dirt driveway. Long and winding, ending at a blacktop lot with no more than a dozen parking spaces, empty but for Finn’s and one other car. Zac parked, got out, and looked around. A tiny visitors’ center with a restroom off the back. A trail of rough cement steps leading up and around a tree-covered hill. He tilted his head and could just see the blue-and-white tower. The beacon still resided there, no longer lit except on holidays, so David had told him.
Okay. He was in for a hike.
First he poked his head into the visitors’ center. The paunchy bald man behind the brochure counter grinned at Zac’s entrance and told him there weren’t tours in the off season, but he was welcome to check out the lighthouse on his own. Good to know. No mortals would interrupt on behalf of the historical society.
He headed outside and started up the steps. The divide felt wider today between them—mortals and longevites. The counter-minding guy had been sixty or nearing it, just this side of the Vietnam generation. So young. As Zac climbed, his purpose solidified. The longevites must not remain divided.
Any normal day, he would have welcomed the exertion. If Connie could see him now, she’d call him a ridiculous boy. He couldn’t argue as he panted and winced along his way. The clouds overhead drooped like sodden wool but spilled not a drop. The wet grass and pavement, the dripping trees, warned him rain could return any minute.
The main floor of the lighthouse, the living area, was no larger than Rachel’s beach cottage. Zac stepped inside, crossed the floor to the stairs, and called up.
“Hello?”
“Zac?” Finn called from somewhere above him.
“Yeah.”
“Come on up.”
The staircase was a narrow spiral with a wrought-iron rail. Zac stood at the bottom and tilted his head to look above him—straight up, close walls, daylight streaming from somewhere high and out of sight. Maybe he could make it if he focused on the light. He gripped the rail and climbed, counting steps. He froze on eight, and at least twenty remained. He firmed his grip on the rail, but his feet refused to move. Tingling traveled from his clenched hands up his arms.
“I’ll wait for you outside,” he called.
“Oh, it’s too close in here,” Cady said, her voice quieter, not aimed at him. Then she raised it. “Give us a minute.”
Zac turned and forced his feet to move, though now the low ceiling from staircase to cottage brought tension into his shoulders. Still no other tourists. He went outside and paced around the lighthouse, not much area to circle. The structure was sturdy old brick, weathered gray. He ran his thumb over mortared edges smooth with the years. A good old place, faithful to its work, casting its light to prevent the loss of ships and people. He wished he could go up and study the beacon, see the lake and the horizon as the lightkeeper once saw it.
Finn and Cady approached from the opposite direction. They were dressed for warmth and walking—jeans, sweatshirts, sneakers. Finn was fathomless as ever; Cady betrayed little more as she nodded to Zac.
“Hi.”
“Hi,” he said.
“I guess you found her alive.”
Zac blinked, unprepared for this Cady. A shade less antagonistic than she’d been last night, terse and locked down instead.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Finn said we should hear you out.”
He spread open hands to them. “Mostly I came to hear you.”
“I think my viewpoint is pretty clear.”
“And I came to … to find a path.”
“I know what my path is, Zac. It’s the path of the last ones standing after attempted extermination.”
He didn’t realize he was shaking his head until Cady’s hands sprang to her hips and her voice lashed between them.
“Don’t you dare tell me this was an accident.”
“It was,” he said, trying to gentle his voice, but those two words were a barb under her skin no matter how he said them. He knew that. He should have held his peace, heard her as he’d said he was here to do, without remark.
But Rachel.
“She made the serum deliberately,” Cady said.
“Not to do what it did.”
“To do exactly what it did!”
“Not in that time frame, Cady. Not—”
“She killed my family, Zac. There is no other point to make. She killed them and—” Her hands fell to her sides. A shudder ran over her. “And she buried them.”
Something he could answer. A way to help. “Yes.”
Cady’s stillness held potential not unlike a box of dynamite’s.
Zac measured his words one at a time. Let this be a binding, not a new wound. “She performed their burial. She left you the letter. It’s all been Rachel; she confirmed everything to me.”
“Anna,” Cady said.
Zac nodded.
“And James.”
Another nod.
“She presented them with a cure and they chose it.”
From Sky to Sky Page 27