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I can’t give them more than one sense—yet. But I can make them feel like they’re inside a painting. I start at one end of the dining hall and paint water and flowers on each white wall, converting the dining hall into Monet’s Water Lilies. His original is twelve separate paintings, and he meant them to be laid out side by side and displayed in a specially made oval room to create an endless whole. I’d never known that story; Bat told it to me.
I finish just in time for our noon meeting. Lake’s delight is my reward. I even get a smile out of Marty, and I haven’t seen one on him for a while.
Stryker pulls out the chair next to him. “Lake, sit by me. I haven’t seen you in days.”
She does as he asked. “I’ve been meaning to come by, but time has gotten away from me.”
He nods knowingly. “I’ve been putting in the hours, too.”
So she didn’t leave me to be with Stryker. We were getting along great until I told her she’s beautiful, which obviously backfired. I go over and sit in the chair on the other side of her.
She smiles at me.
Between Lake’s reaction and their praises about my Monet reproduction, this is the best I’ve felt since I got here.
Then Anna drops her tray on the table and plops down next to me. “We need to talk.”
When it comes to Anna, I’ve been using my own share of avoidance tactics. “Why?”
“Do I need a reason to talk to my notorious artist friend?” Her heavily lined eyes offer a challenge.
I don’t have a thing going on, but I’m not going to let her stomp her black army boots all over my good mood. “I’m busy.”
I can almost see a thundercloud forming over her head. “How exactly did an orphan capture the attention of the Darwinians?”
Stryker’s head whips around.
I shrug. “Just lucky, I guess.”
Stryker studies me for a few more ticks of the clock, then turns to the others. “Let’s get this meeting started. First on the agenda, has anyone heard how Alex is doing?”
“His breathing is much better,” Jules relays while re-arranging vegetables in her salad.
“Are you sure?” Lake says. “I visited Alex last night and he said his symptoms haven’t improved. And he doesn’t know when he’s being released from … that place. The infirmary.”
“I meant, he isn’t getting any worse,” Jules explains.
“Isn’t this his third time in there?” Anna asks.
“Fourth,” Marty answers without looking up from his notebook.
“Have they figured out what’s wrong with him?” I ask.
No one offers up an explanation.
“Lungs don’t just give out.” Anna says. She slams down her pop can with enough force to make the brown liquid shoot up from the hole in the top. Her nails are chewed down to the quick, which looks painful. I don’t remember them being that way before.
“Environmental?” Marty says.
“This is an old building,” Lake says. “There could be mold, or …”
“Asbestos?” I guess.
She nods with a frown.
“Is anyone else having problems breathing?” Stryker asks.
Headshakes all around.
“How about any other symptoms, like headaches or nausea?” he asks.
More nos.
“They’d never allow us to live in a sick building,” Jules says. “Our health and safety is their top priority.”
Lake rolls up a napkin and holds it like a cigarette, which is strange because I’ve never seen her smoke.
I catch Stryker noticing it, too. “I’ll ask them to test our air quality,” he says.
“You’ve been sleeping so much lately.” Jules all but flutters her eyelashes at him. “I’ll ask them to do it.”
Lake leans over and whispers to me, “Who is the girl in the boat?”
Lake must not have been as into my story as I thought. “The Lady of Shalott.”
“Of course.” Lake looks at the napkin cigarette and wads it up, looking confused. “Why is she sad again?”
My heart plummets into my stomach. She’s playing some kind of twisted mind game with me. I’d hoped we were past that. “Quit messing with me, Lake. You know about the curse.”
“That’s right,” she says quickly. Her eyes don’t meet mine.
We had a great talk because of that story. Did it mean nothing to her?
A guttural sound cuts through the air. All eyes turn to Marty as he rips a few pages from his notebook, crumples them into a ball, and whips it across the room. Probably the best throw of his life. He dashes out of my water lily covered dining hall.
“Marty, wait!” Jules calls as she goes after him.
I get up and grab Marty’s crumpled ball of papers. I’d love to read it, but whatever is on those pages is between Marty and his Mentor, Angus. I’ll give them back to Marty later. I stuff them into my front pocket and sit back down next to Lake. Her attention is focused on unwrapping a piece of gum.
I’ve been so psyched about my Water Lilies reproduction, I didn’t notice the dark bags under Lake’s eyes, or that her skin is paler than usual. I can see blue blood vessels at her temples. She looks exhausted. I guess she could’ve forgotten about our conversation.
The pressure of trying to change the world is starting to get to all of them. I don’t have that kind of stress, but Bat is my Mentor. I thought I got shafted when I learned the truth about him, but I may have won the jackpot.
“Does anyone have anything else we need to cover?” Stryker asks.
“I’d like to thank Orfyn for painting this room.” Anna makes a big point of scanning the entire length of my painting. “Your style is so urban chic.”
“It’s called Impressionism,” I say through gritted teeth.
When everyone gets up to leave, I ask Lake, “Do you have a minute?”
“You coming, Orfyn?” Anna demands.
“I need to talk to Lake first.”
Anna clamps down on her jaw so hard, I’m afraid she’s going to crack a molar. “Be sure to come by my place when you’re done.”
I wait until Anna leaves. “Lake, are you feeling okay?”
“Never better.” She doesn’t quite meet my eyes.
“I’m worried about you. I think you forgot the Lady of Shalott’s story. It’s pretty memorable, and I did paint her to look like you.”
“Everything isn’t always about you.” Her glare feels like it could burn off a few layers of my skin. “Thanks for reminding me who you really are.” Her hair bounces with each angry step as she heads to the door.
I’ve never seen Lake blow up like that. And what she said doesn’t even make sense.
“Lake, you okay?” Stryker asks as she rushes past him.
On the other side of the door, I hear, “Why does everyone keep … keep … asking me that?”
Stryker comes over, grabs me by the arm, and pretty much drags me out the door. Once we’re outside, he demands, “What was that about?”
“Lake’s not thinking clearly.”
He starts grinning. “If she blew you off, then she’s finally coming to her senses.”
“I’m not kidding. Something might be wrong with her memory.” I tell him what just happened.
Stryker’s smile drops, and he finally looks like he’s taking me seriously. “I’ll go talk to her.”
“I’ll come with you.”
He shakes his head. “She trusts me. She’ll tell me if something is wrong.”
“Are you saying she doesn’t trust me?”
“If she did, she’d still be talking to you. Leave it up to me.”
I want to keep fighting him, but he’s right. Lake wouldn’t admit to me that she didn’t remember. I come back inside, reach Anna’s room, and keep walking. I can’t deal with her now. Minutes later, someone starts pounding on my door. I turn on music and crank up the volume to drown out Anna’s demands.
The music starts grating on my nerves, and I turn it off. I open the fridge, but nothing looks good. I grab a brush and some paints. Sitting cross-legged in front of my wall, I wait for inspiration to hit. All I can see in my mind is Lake’s angry face, and all I can think about is how she wouldn’t confide in me. I should go to sleep and forget about this day, but I’m too worked up.
I touch my brush to the black paint on the palette and, despite everything, soon lose myself. A few hours later, I lean back and inspect my work. I didn’t plan it, but I’ve painted rolling purple and gray clouds, and a churning white-capped sea. Turquoise waves crash on shore, pounding the sand like fists. I don’t know where this scene came from, because I’ve never been to a beach like this.
I stand and stretch my arms over my head. The tightness in my chest is gone, and my nerves aren’t so jangly. I’m calm enough to admit that my pride got in the way. I cared more about how Lake trusts Stryker, and not me, than I did about Lake’s forgetting.
I’m going to tell Bat what’s going on. We’ve never talked about my awake-life because there’s not much he can do about it, but he’s the closest friend I have.
A twinge of guilt zings me. Anna wanted to talk to me, and I blew her off. I’ll stop by tomorrow.
Orfyn
Bat is in a painting, but I don’t recognize it.
He’s on a cold-looking beach. There are some differences, but it looks a lot like the one I painted. Strange coincidence? Bat isn’t sure, either.
He’s part of a crowd looking at an enormous beached whale. Bat told me it’s called View of Scheveningen Sands, and it’s famous because when they cleaned the painting, the whale was uncovered. Years after it was completed, some idiot painted over the whale, erasing van Anthonissen’s depiction of a once-in-a-lifetime event. Who’d be that arrogant? That’s even worse than getting my work tagged over, because I never expected mine to last.
Bat waves his hands, and the whale vanishes.
“Hey! Put that back!”
Bat claps his hands twice and the dead, gray whale reappears. “What’s up with you today?”
“Sorry. I’ve been worried about Lake.”
He waddles to the front of the painting. “What’s wrong with her?”
“She forgot an entire conversation.”
“Is she the only one?”
“I don’t think the others are forgetting stuff, but Alex can barely breathe, Marty is a wreck, and even Stryker, who usually shows less emotion than my dirty socks, is losing his cool.”
Bat frowns, which transforms his face into a person I barely recognize. “Are the doctors doing anything about it?”
“I’m not sure.”
He leans in closer and studies my face. “Anything wrong with you?”
“Do you mean, aside from an annoying craving for grape soda?” I joke, hoping I’m not getting his meaning.
He doesn’t chuckle, like I expect. “Let me know if you start feeling strange, okay?”
I’ve felt strange since the moment I passed through The Flem’s wooden doors, but I don’t think that’s what he means. “I’m good.”
“The thing with health is, you never really know,” Bat says.
A single thread of uncertainty wraps itself around my confidence and binds itself with a sturdy knot.
Bat picks up a stone and attempts to skip it. It warbles through the air, making it six feet from shore, then plunges into the ocean skip-free. The water splashes, and the cold light shimmers through the water drops. “I found a live starfish!” He picks it up and trudges to the edge of the shore, places the starfish in the surf, and lets the waves return it to its undersea life. “This is the first time I’ve been to the beach in years.” He falls backward and his butt dents the sand.
“Because you were sick?”
He shakes his head. “That happened later. I couldn’t leave the house. Whenever I went past my stoop I’d start shaking and couldn’t breathe.”
I look around his basement with fresh eyes. “Was it always like that, Bat?”
He sweeps his legs like a windshield wiper. “It wasn’t so bad before my mom died.”
“How long ago was that?”
“What’s the date?”
I tell him.
“Eight years, two months, and six days.”
He was basically a prisoner. “That’s why you’re creating your program.”
He nods. “Now I can go wherever I want.”
And Bat doesn’t have to be the only one. If we create this game for real, everyone could experience a world beyond their four walls—a world as painted by centuries of artists. That’s not a fake goal like saving the humanity in Art. It’s something that would truly change people’s lives. Everyone could travel everywhere. Go back in time. See anything. That’s a real purpose.
Bat pulls the pink robe’s edges over his belly. “It’s getting cold. I’m coming back.” Within a blink, he’s in his recliner.
He had to have been so lonely all those years. Even worse than how it feels to paint in an alley in the middle of the night. Now, neither of us will ever be that alone again. I wish Sister Mo could’ve met Bat; she would’ve liked him.
“It’s time for you to go,” he says.
Sometimes you’ve got to ask, just to make sure you’re wrong. “I don’t need to be worried about the others, right?”
“Who knows what’s going to happen the longer we’re here.”
My stomach flutters. “Do you know something you’re not telling me?”
“It’s simple probability. You never get it perfect the first time. Sometimes it takes a second or third or fiftieth attempt.”
Stryker
I turn the corner, dreading to see the painting I damaged. I’m going to need to own up to it, admit I lost control.
Orfyn hasn’t said a word.
I do a double-take when I reach Jules’s door.
There’s now a new painting of a landscape with a pond, and a farmhouse with a dog out front. It’s beautiful.
Who wouldn’t seek out the person who destroyed his work? Who wouldn’t get angry? Want to retaliate? Orfyn just fixed it.
He’s a really good guy, and he’s right. Something is off with Lake. She’s been struggling to find the right words. Not all the time, but it’s been happening enough to be noticeable. I would have asked her about it earlier, but I barely have time to eat. It’s a pathetic excuse. I should have checked in with Lake sooner, but it takes so much energy to maintain the wall blocking out my feelings for her.
Which is worse, caring too much or not caring enough? Bjorn, I know, would love to weigh in.
I’ve been a pitiful friend by pretending nothing is wrong with her, just because I’m afraid I can’t control my emotions. I put on a mask of indifference and head to her room. There isn’t a scrunchie around Lake’s handle. I knock, but she doesn’t answer. We don’t have locks—they’d be redundant with Big Brother—but we do have an unspoken code where you don’t barge in on someone. I ease open her door. “Lake? Are you in there?”
When she doesn’t answer, I peek in. She’s stretched out on the couch with an arm thrown across her eyes.
“Go away, Orfyn.”
My insides twist. Does he come here that often? Not that I care. “It’s Stryker. How about a walk?”
Lake doesn’t move. “Not now.”
“It’s been a while since we’ve caught up.”
She sighs dramatically, gets to her feet, and takes her own sweet time reaching the door.
“Don’t forget your hat,” I say.
“I didn’t forget,” she snaps. She turns around and snatches her hat off the counter.
When we get outside, I say, “Let’s go to the rose garden. I know you like it there.”
She robotically walks beside me. I gesture to the bench, and she obediently sits. As I’m trying to figure out a way to start this not-so-easy conversation, I notice that the closest bush has huge yellow roses. The other roses look healthy, too, and all the weeds are gone.
“Did you do this?” I gesture to the garden.
“Deborah found me the supplies I needed to make my fertilizer.”
“These roses look great.”
“Thanks.” She almost smiles.
I mean it, but I also need her to be less defensive, or we’ll get nowhere. I take her hand as reassurance. When she intertwines her fingers with mine, my heart rate soars. Her skin is so soft, and it’s as white as marble.
I should not be holding her hand.
I force myself to keep clasping it. “Still Sophie’s lab assistant?”
She nods. “Does Bjorn still have second thoughts about being merged?”
Unease runs through me. “He says he’s fine with it. What does she have you working on these days?”
She grimaces. “Dissecting.”
“The octopi?”
“Sophie and I prefer to use octopuses as the plural.” She drops her head and mumbles, “They’re not real.”
“But it feels like they are when you’re in the dreamspace.”
“Sophie assures me I’ll get novel … I mean, numb to it. Eventually.”
Her stumble makes me wince. “You’ve been doing that more and more.”
“Doing what?”
“Mixing up words.”
She yanks her hand out of mine. “I apologize if I’m not communicating properly, but you’d have difficulty too if you had to kill your pets day after day.”
I retrieve her hand and hold it in both of mine. It’s so small. I feel like I need to hold it as gently as a Fabergé egg. “Lake, don’t be angry. I’m worried about you.”
“I’m just tired.”
“It could be more than that,” I push.
Her eyes pull away from mine. “I’m fine.”
“Will you talk to Deborah about it?”
She turns to me, and her eyes are flashing with anger. “Aren’t you the one who’s constantly lecturing me not to provide them a reason to be concerned?”