“August,” came the muffled answer.
I turned the black metal deadbolt and pulled the door open. He looked paler than usual, and dark circles under his eyes made him look older than he was. “Dred sent me to get you for breakfast.”
The three of us found Dred filling four plates with toast and bacon and setting them at the table.
“Good morning,” I said.
He only nodded.
Ursula wriggled her hand from my grasp, crossed the room, and attached herself to his leg. His expression relaxed and he laid a hand on her hair. “Time to eat, pumpkin.”
We all sat down and Dred picked up a thick, off-white ceramic mug of coffee and began to sip.
I stole a glance at August, who shook his head. I spoke up anyway. “Can I say a prayer for the food?”
He stopped mid sip and stared at me over the top of his cup.
“What’s a prayer?” Ursula asked.
He set his cup down. “Go ahead,” he said to me. He tapped Ursula’s head gently with his forefinger. “Bow your head.”
She watched as August lowered his head, then followed suit.
“Lord,” I began, “thank you for a new day and for this food, and thank you for bringing August and I here safely. Please bless our conversation and keep our loved ones safe. In Jesus’ name, amen.”
“Amen,” August echoed, and Ursula copied him. Dred said nothing.
We ate in silence, and I tried to warm to the surreal nature of the situation. What should we say? What should we do next?
The internal questions prompted me to ask one aloud. “Do you have a telephone?” He must have had some way to keep in contact with Edmunds before. We could use the same method to talk to the Doctor and get advice.
He scraped at his toast a bit with one fingernail. “I did.”
August and I exchanged glances.
The man sat back and sighed. “Look, Edmunds pulled funding and cut me off about a month ago. He was the one who was able to get me a good network connection out here. I’ve been mostly stuck since he backed off—I’m expecting him to call the police any day, so I just... we just stay here as much as possible.”
“Why would he do that?” August frowned.
A different question took shape in my mind. “About a month, you say?”
Dred nodded. “It was abrupt. I don’t know why. He’d known about Ursula from the beginning.”
“The beginning?” August queried.
“A couple of years ago. He tracked me down personally and came here to discuss a deal. He would basically get all the recognition if a cure was discovered. My contribution would be entirely anonymous. That was fine by me. I wanted the cure, not the fame. Well,” he smiled a bit, “and the money. Let’s face it, I’m not a wealthy person.”
He seemed as open as Edmunds had. But my confusion was put on the back burner by the cogs that turned in my mind on another line of thought. “About a month ago is when the Doctor first heard from Edmunds about working with him.”
“Of course. He saw a less risky path for himself.” Here Dred’s voice turned bitter. “He gets access to my research, makes himself look noble for refusing to work with someone experimenting on a little girl, and probably takes double glory for the cure and for rescuing her. It’s clever. I suspected something along those lines.”
Toast crunched in the silence that followed. I glanced at Ursula who was watching me carefully, her brown eyes seeming to take in every movement I made. I smiled. She smiled back.
“Do you think...” August paused to gather this thoughts, then began again. “Do you think that Edmunds had anything to do with Crash’s arrest?”
The chilly air wormed its way into my bones. “How could he? And... why?”
August shrugged. “Maybe he wanted us to have less help. I don’t know. He had to realize we’d figure out the truth when we got here.”
Assuming Dred is telling the truth. Only one of them could be honest. How did we know which?
August spoke up again. “You said last night you weren’t ‘exactly’ doing experiments on her... what do you mean?”
Dred met his eyes. “I have given her some of the treatments that have tested positively in some of the animals. None of them would cure Langham’s disease, but... they seem beneficial in other ways.”
I nearly choked on my bacon, and blood flooded to my cheeks. “So you are using her for trials, like her mother said.”
“I try them on myself first,” he said quietly. “She keeps a bell in her room to ring if she ever feels sick. Look, this research is my life. Technically everything I’ve done so far belongs to Edmunds, so I can’t even sell any of it. I want my life to count for something. Maybe it’s only making one little girl a bit healthier and stronger, but that’s not nothing.”
Ursula scooted off her chair and ran over to Dred. “All done, Daddy.”
“Good job.” He kissed her hair. “Why don’t you go play now?”
August stiffened. “Maybe Andi should play with her.”
Dred looked down, but August met my eyes.
I stood up. “Come on, Ursula. Why don’t you show me what you like to play?”
With a bright smile she clutched my hand and led me back down the hall.
October 22nd, 2321
5:47 a.m.
Baltimore, United States
James Edmunds pulled the dark green curtain back with one finger and looked out on the dark, busy Baltimore morning. So many cars, so many buildings. Honking, lights, sirens in the distance.
All so fragile.
“Okay. But they haven’t come out yet?” he heard his assistant say in the background. There was a pause, then, “All right. I’ll let Mr. Edmunds know. All signals going in or out are still blocked. Nothing can get through.”
A soft beep sounded, muffled by the plush hotel carpet.
“Any news?” Edmunds asked, still staring out the window.
“Nothing really. The kids are still in the castle. But Mr. Key says the men are in position for whenever that changes.”
“Good.” Edmunds’ lips formed into a smile and he dropped the curtain. “I doubt it will be long.”
CHAPTER XI
That day in the castle felt like at least three days. There was nothing for me to do except play with Ursula while August talked with Dred and examined his work. She showed me her school, simple reading and math problems that Dred had her do each day. She wanted me to play with her toys, of which there were plenty, and have tea parties and help her decide who each of her dolls should marry.
I had never played with dolls very much as a child. The Doctor had bought me one or two, but when I took them apart to find out what was inside, he gave up on that and let me do puzzles and build things with blocks instead.
Ursula seemed the exact opposite. She had very little curiosity, but a huge imagination. Her doll stories were elaborate, involving excessive amounts of romance and drama and tragic death.
She also talked a lot about her favorite show, Galactic Lucy. Television was something else that had never interested me, probably due in part to the Doctor’s influence. Holographic shows were just becoming widespread when I was old enough to appreciate them, but he believed they were damaging to one’s vision, and limited my exposure. Besides, by the time I was six I had Crash to take me on real adventures, and by the time I was ten, I was in space living out stories of my own.
Ursula, however, seemed perfectly content with her shows and her toys. Her favorite doll was a miniature of Galactic Lucy’s title character—a smiling, blue-eyed blonde in a spacesuit.
We ate twice more in the course of the day, simple meals prepared by Dred, but other than that I didn’t see August until Ursula had finally drifted off to sleep in the bed we were sharing. She had been talking for nearly an hour, reciting her favorite episodes, telling me about the time Dred took her camping, plying me with questions about the Surveyor and space.
I had no idea that merely listening to a six-year-
old could be so tiring.
August knocked quietly on the unlocked door and poked his head in. “Is she asleep?”
I nodded, and he beckoned to me. With a glance over my shoulder to make sure she was all right, I followed him out into the hall and closed the door behind us.
I leaned back against the wood and just looked at him for a moment.
“Are you feeling okay?” he asked.
I sighed. “I’m fine, August.”
He frowned, but began talking. “What are we supposed to do now? Do we sneak her away in the dead of night? Take Dred with us? Wait for Crash?”
I tilted my head back to rest against the door. “Is there going to be a problem getting her out of the country?”
“I don’t know. She’s a natural born Austrian citizen, and she’s underage... with no legal guardian. It might get... messy. I don’t know whether we have enough money to buy anyone off. And I’m sure Dred doesn’t, even if he wanted to help us.”
“You don’t think he does?”
His eyes searched mine for a moment. “You don’t trust him, do you?”
Did I? “I don’t know... he seems... genuine.”
“Andi... you thought Edmunds seemed genuine, too.”
I winced. “There’s more information now.”
His look reminded me of the Doctor’s. “Are you saying that because there’s actually more evidence for Dred’s story, or... because his story is the one you want to be true?”
That stung. And August was rarely so direct. I did want Dred’s story to be true. It was the one that left Ursula happy and healthy.
“I’m sorry...” He looked down at his hands. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
I should have said that it was fine, that I needed to be challenged. I didn’t have such a good track record when it came to determining who could be trusted. My reasoning was worthy of suspicion.
But Ursula seemed happy. Six-year-olds couldn’t very well hide their feelings, their natures, their lifestyles. Could they?
“Have you tried messaging the Doctor?” he asked, puncturing the awkward silence.
“Several times. I tried the Captain and Guilders, too. Even Crash. Nothing will go through.”
“Same here. And I tried Dred’s phone... there’s no service.”
“So what do we do?”
He closed his eyes, looking paler than usual against all the dark gray stone. “I don’t know. Let me think.”
I looked down.
“But... don’t trust Dred, Andi.”
This irritated me, but I couldn’t put my finger on the reason. “I didn’t say I trusted him. I just said he seems genuine.”
August nodded, but didn’t reply.
After a moment, I stepped forward and stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “Goodnight, August.”
His cheeks got slightly less pale. “Goodnight.”
I watched him retreat down the hall and disappear into one of the rooms a few doors down. Poor August. So far outside his comfort zone, trying to lead the way and protect us. His cheek had been as cold as it was pale when I kissed it—all this couldn’t be good on his blood pressure. I should check it in the morning.
I slipped back into my room and locked the door.
My subconscious didn’t seem to understand that the reality of what we had discovered should replace the speculation from before. When I slept, I was still in a dungeon, though this time I wasn’t the little girl. I wasn’t anyone. I was just watching from some uncreated body, there and yet not there, while she shivered in her dungeon.
Alone.
After awhile she called out, “Daddy? Are you there?”
No reply.
The place grew darker and darker until there was no light, no bars, no floor or walls even. Only her. Alone.
I walked towards her, suddenly embodied, but never seemed to get any closer. I tried to call her name but no sound came. I ran. She remained far away.
No—she was actually getting farther away the faster and the longer I ran. The floor dropped out from under me and I screamed.
I awoke to a small, cold hand stroking my hair.
“Did you have a bad dream?” a little voice asked.
I blinked the sleep from my eyes and squinted at Ursula in the moonlight. She sat up in bed and leaned over me, smoothing my hair back from my forehead with her small hand.
When I didn’t answer, she went on. “Daddy does this when I have a bad dream. He said it makes them go away.”
I smiled a little and let myself relax into the mattress. “Yes. I had a bad dream. But it’s gone now. It’s okay.”
She stopped stroking and laid back down, but kept looking at me. I looked back, not wanting to take my eyes off her. So small. Almost as pale as August, but lacking his timidity. My eyes, but none of my practicality.
After awhile her eyelids drooped, and then her breathing slowed to a steady rhythm. But I remained wide awake for a long time, watching my little sister through the night.
***
I couldn’t have dozed off for long when a soft, steady knock jolted me awake again. The light coming through the window was still dim and blue. But getting into winter, I remembered, the light came later. It could well be already morning.
The soft pounding continued, so I pulled away from Ursula and slipped out from the under the covers, shivering a little as I hurried across the room, stone floor cold against my bare feet. I unlocked the door and peeked out.
August.
“You’ll wake Ursula,” I murmured.
“Good.” He pushed his way into the room. “Wake her up. We need to get out of here.”
I just blinked at him, wrapping my arms around myself.
He lowered his voice to a barely audible whisper. “I waited until Dred was asleep to check his locked records.”
Locked? Was my brother a hacker as well as a lock-picker? But he went on without explaining that part.
“He has been experimenting on Ursula, Andi. More than he admitted. He hasn’t just been giving her general treatments, he’s been injecting the diseases and then giving her the cures.”
My gut twisted. “Langham’s disease?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so. Not yet. But we need to get her away.”
I jerked my head back towards the sleeping girl. But—the way Dred talked to her—soothed her nightmares away—
“Come on,” August whispered, adding urgency to his voice.
I swallowed and tried to pull my thoughts together. If he said he’d found those records, he had. I had to just trust him for now. Once Ursula was far away, we could dig into it all further. “What about getting her across the border?”
“We’ll worry about that later.”
I nodded. “Go get some supplies. He owes us that much. I’ll get dressed and bundle her up.”
He left the room and I raced to get into my jacket and stuff my few unpacked belongings back into my pack, fingers trembling from combined cold and nervousness. What if Dred caught us? What if we got attacked by wolves again on the way back? What if they wouldn’t let us take Ursula out of the country?
And how were we going to explain all this to her?
I knew that at six years old nobody, no matter what they said or who they were, would ever have been able to convince me to leave the Doctor.
So how could I convince my sister to leave her beloved Daddy behind?
CHAPTER XII
“Ursula,” I whispered, settling on the edge of the bed and gripping her shoulder gently.
She continued her steady sleep breathing.
“Ursula,” I said a little louder, shaking her a bit by the shoulder. “You need to wake up, Ursula.”
She inhaled sharply and then rolled towards me, eyes still closed.
“Wake up,” I whispered.
“Is it morning?” she asked, rubbing her eyes with her fists.
“No.” I took hold of her shoulders and pulled her to a sitting position. “But we have to take a
trip.”
“A trip?” She opened her eyes slowly and blinked at me.
“We have to... go somewhere else.”
“Where?”
I wracked my brain. “To... visit my other daddy. He wants to meet you.”
Her face brightened. “Is my Daddy coming?”
I swallowed hard, determination wavering as I looked into her clear, brown eyes. I couldn’t lie to her. But if I explained what was going on, would she come? She was too big for us to carry, but too young to understand.
I settled for the closest I dared get to a lie. “Not right now, but he might come later.” Might. It wasn’t a lie. He might. Sometime.
She frowned. “I want Daddy to come...”
I gripped her shoulder a little tighter. “I know. But he can’t right now.”
She looked at me for another moment, then her face cleared. “He just needs to finish his work, then he’ll come.”
I didn’t have the heart to correct her.
I dressed her quietly in her little blue dress from the day before, not daring to venture into her bedroom to get anything else. It was too close to Dred. Then I slung my backpack onto my shoulder and took her hand in mine.
“We have to be very, very quiet,” I whispered.
“Why?” she whispered back.
“Because your daddy is resting. We don’t want to wake him up.” It wasn’t untrue.
We tiptoed out of the room and met August at the end of the hall. He had his coat zipped all the way up to his chin and his backpack already settled on his shoulders. “Ready?” he whispered.
I nodded, and clutched Ursula’s hand tighter.
“Wait,” she whispered as we started across the dining room. “Lucy wants to go on a trip, too.”
August paused and looked from her to me.
“Her doll,” I explained. “Ursula... we have to go...”
She stood her ground and tugged my hand. “But Mama gave her to me.”
I looked helplessly at August.
“Isn’t her room next to Dred’s?”
I nodded. And he could hear well enough to comfort her after a bad dream. He was either a light sleeper or the stone walls didn’t hide much. Or both.
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