The Sphere
Page 10
“I don’t know anything! How many times do I have to tell you?”
“You know, of course you know,” says Morgan.
When did she start wanting me to stay? I must have missed the part where William convinced her to believe—or forced her to believe—that I’m somehow important.
“Look,” I say, “it seems to me that if some kids have disappeared, we should tell the police. Someone competent needs to take charge. A professional should be looking for the missing people, not us!”
Morgan and Beatrice whip their heads around to look at me like I just said the worst thing in the world. William gets up solemnly and walks over to the window.
“Are you crazy?” hisses Morgan, as if she’d like to slap me with her words.
William seems deeply offended. Morgan takes me by the arm and drags me out into the hall.
“No one has ever dared question William’s abilities like that. Never in his entire career as a detective has anyone doubted his competence to handle a case. And now you—the new girl!—you show up and dismiss him just like that, with that innocent face, as if you didn’t know who he was. Maybe I could believe you don’t know Romeo and Juliet, but to not know who William is...”
“He’s the best detective of all time,” hisses Beatrice.
“How was I supposed to know?” I reply in a low voice.
“Holmes!” says Morgan, leaning in so close that our noses touch. “Does his name mean nothing to you?”
I shrink back. I shrug, trying in vain to look like her anger doesn’t affect me. How should I know! It’s a last name just like any other. Come on, it’s not like everyone named Holmes has to be a detective.
“I’m sorry to have offended William Holmes. But you’ve got to understand that I don’t have any idea what you do. I just met you!” My companions seem taken aback. “Besides, how would I know your life stories? There’s a lot you haven’t told me yet.”
I look back into the living rom. William is still at the window with his back to us. The smoke from his pipe rises in coils and twists above his head. We go in quietly, waiting for him to turn around.
“Perhaps there is some logic to it,” William says slowly. Gradually he turns around to face us. “And perhaps it can be of use. I’m referring to the fact that Beatrice’s friend knows nothing about us. As my intuition told me from the moment I saw her, and as you noted, too, Morgan, the most likely thing is that she is not even one of us. This girl...”
“Eurydice. My name’s Eurydice... and no, I’m not one of you. Fortunately,” I mutter through clenched teeth.
Morgan’s empty sockets order me to be quiet. How can she look at me with that kind of intensity if she doesn’t even have any eyes?
“If Eurydice truly is an outsider,” continues Holmes, “which seems plausible, she may bring a new perspective to the matter. Perhaps she may even be able to see something we are missing.”
Morgan doesn’t agree. According to her my “shocking ignorance,” as she puts it—never mind that I’m sitting right here—is more than enough reason to keep me away from the case.
“Besides,” she says very softly to Holmes, “I can’t communicate with her. She has her channels closed off. I don’t trust her.”
“Telepathy,” Beatrice explains. “Morgan means that she cannot communicate with you telepathically.”
“Of course she can’t!” I answer, with indignation and pride and just a little curiosity.
Is telepathy real? I don’t believe in it, but I’m still proud that that awful witch can’t communicate with me. Holmes stands there, impassive, as if he’s weighing all the information.
“The decision is made,” he says. “From now on Eurydice is part of the team.”
What team? Am I part of their stories now?
Morgan snorts angrily. “We don’t even know how she got here, shouldn’t we find that out first? Who can tell me she isn’t part of the problem?”
“She’s part of the team, and that’s that,” William answers curtly. “What’s more, Morgan, you shall fill her in on all the details.”
Morgan has no choice but to follow the orders Holmes gives her. It’s clear that nobody here dares contradict his authority. So, because the big shot with the pipe says so, they tell me all about Romeo, Juliet, and their disappearance. They also explain that there’s a third person missing, an Anna Karenina—a tormented woman who apparently has a thing for committing suicide on the train tracks. It was only this morning that they realized she had disappeared.
“I’m terribly afraid that the next one was his majesty,” says William, “judging by the object you brought us.”
“The rock?” I ask. “Does it belong to a noble?”
Suddenly, despite how absurd all of this is, and despite William and Morgan not treating me the way I would like, I find that I’m enjoying being part of the team. I admit that at first I was only trying to suck up to them, just enough so they’d give up on me and let me go. But now, even though the need to find my family is still burning inside of me, I can’t help being interested. I’m a sort of detective, which would never have happened even in my wildest dreams. Deep down, I don’t really care whether I’m dreaming or not—no one has ever taken me seriously before.
“It belongs to his majesty the Little Prince,” Beatrice says in a thin voice. “That rock is his home, planet B-612.”
“An asteroid, really,” Morgan corrects her.
How can she be such an awful know-it-all? Can’t she see how bad Beatrice is feeling?
“The flower leaves no room for doubt,” adds William. “It is the Little Prince’s asteroid.”
“Yes. I fear it is planet B-612,” says Beatrice. She walks over to the object and touches it gently.
“As-te-roid,” Morgan says, sarcastically sounding out each syllable. I can’t let her get away with it.
“Look, sister—just leave her alone!”
“Sister?” all three of them ask at once.
“What’s it to you if she calls it a planet?” I add, not really caring how surprised they are at my choice of words.
“But it’s not a planet. It’s clear from its irregularities. It’s quasi-spherical.” Morgan picks the thing up and turns it around for us, as if she were teaching a class. “See? This celestial objects lacks the gravitational pull necessary to accrete matter and become round. It’s not like planets, which... Why am I explaining this to you? It’s useless.”
“Of course it’s useless!” I exclaim, not bothering to hide the note of triumph in my voice. It’s great to feel like I’m on solid ground for once—I know all about astronomy. “You don’t have to explain the obvious. Clearly it’s not a planet. All I meant was that if Beatrice wants to call it a planet, she has the right to call it whatever she wants.”
Morgan looks a little confused.
“I see how someone might confuse it with a small planet like Pluto, for instance,” she continues. “Someone who didn’t know much about it...”
“Well, no, you couldn’t confuse it with a small planet,” I interrupt. My blood is tingling because I can finally shut up this conceited know-it-all. “There are many characteristics that differentiate a planet from an asteroid. The International Astronomical Union has defined them clearly.” Morgan screws up her mouth. “And, for your information, Pluto is not a small planet. The term is ‘dwarf.’ Pluto is a dwarf planet.”
“I just said ‘small’ as a general term, it’s not like I thought that was Pluto’s classification.”
“Well, Beatrice said ‘planet’ without meaning it as a classification, either.”
Unfortunately just then William clears his throat loudly, cutting our argument short.
“Now, ladies, if we could focus on the investigation we might actually reach some conclusion. Might I remind you that there are missing people who are depending on our work?”
We sit down around the table. The moment has come to put together all the information we have available. They’re expecting
so much from me, and I’m sorry that I can’t come up with a brilliant conclusion... or any conclusion at all. Not brilliant, not stupid. Not a single thing comes to mind, which I have to admit really bothers me. It’s William and Morgan who conclude that the loudly beating wings I heard at the beach don’t have to be connected with the disappearance of The Little Prince, at least not necessarily.
“We don’t know if wings were heard during the other three disappearances or not. We must look only for characteristics that all of the cases have in common,” says Holmes. “There must be something; I’m convinced of it. If we were just talking about a single, isolated incident.... But there have been four disappearances already, in a very short period of time. The connection will give us the key to what’s going on.”
“Suicide?” suggests Morgan, but then she shoots down her own idea right away.
Romeo, Juliet, and Anna Karenina all have suicide as part of their roles, but the Little Prince doesn’t. Finally I’m starting to get what this fabled ‘role’ is all about: it’s the routine that each one of these strange people is supposed to act out over and over, forever. I’m starting to feel tired. Time ticks by and nobody can find a single characteristic that all the missing people share.
“Are they in love?” I ask hesitantly.
William nods, is quiet for a moment, then shakes his head.
“The first three, yes, but not his majesty.”
From the tilt of William’s head I can tell that he’s scrutinizing me—if it’s even possible to do that without eyes. Finally he turns to the other two women. “Morgan,” he says, “tell Eurydice all the details about the research you’re carrying out at the hospital.”
“But...” Morgan stammers. At least she’s no longer objecting outright.
“Inform her of everything.”
It seems like I’ve earned William’s respect. I don’t know how or why, and honestly I’m more surprised than anyone. But maybe it’s not so important to get back home right away. A little more time without seeing my family won’t do me any harm. I can’t pretend that I’m not happy to be part of something this exciting, even if it’s also extremely weird. It turns out Holmes is a famous detective! Missing people, a team of investigators, secrets... suddenly I’m right in the middle of one of my childhood dreams.
“The best thing is to go to the hospital so Eurydice can see for herself.”
Morgan nods grudgingly, without speaking, or even looking at me.
“You must not speak to anyone of the hospital,” Beatrice implores, as she picks up her veil and gets ready to go out. “It is in a secret wing of Gannochy House.”
“Gannochy?” I feel my heart leap. “Isn’t that a post-grad residence hall?” That’s where Axel lives!
The other three give each other a look, even without eyes. Once again something I said has left them speechless. Well, I have been a misfit my whole life—why should it be any different with them?
“Gannochy House has always been a hospital,” says William, “those whose roles call for hospital scenes use it. But there is a wing that we use secretly as a permanent hospital.”
“Permanent... isn’t it awful?” asks Beatrice. “Those who have actually had to be hospitalized at some point know of its existence, naturally, but they have promised to never speak of it to anyone, in order to preserve the peace in The Sphere. It is simply chilling for someone to have to be hospitalized for an illness that isn’t part of a role.” Beatrice begins walking, her head low.
I don’t answer. I don’t know what to say. It’s not like hospitals are the most pleasant places on earth, but in the end, they’re part of life. I don’t find them especially horrifying.
“What kind of illness do the patients in the permanent hospital have?” I ask as we walk to Gannochy House. I know perfectly well that my question is more of an effort to calm my thundering heart than any real interest in the subject. Suddenly I can think of nothing but Axel. About our argument, and what a stubborn jerk he is. His selfishness, how I left the party knowing he was watching me. It makes me furious that he didn’t stop me. He should have. If I really mattered to him he would have stopped me from leaving with Carl. On the other hand... at least now I know I don’t matter to him. Not as much as he said I did.
“It’s more like exhaustion than an illness,” says Morgan. “The patients at the permanent hospital are suffering from a weakness that can, in some cases, be extreme. Holmes came to me in the first place because my healing ability is foolproof. Of course, that only works on roles that are interconnected with mine. So, as much as I hate to admit it, there’s nothing I can do in this case,” Morgan says, more humbly than I ever would have believed possible. And the fact is that she did heal me. In a matter of seconds the wounds on my hands were gone. I’m about to point that out when she goes on with her explanation. “So, since healing was not an option, we began to study the traits that the hospitalized people had in common. At first, obviously, we suspected that the disappearances could be related to borderline cases of the infirmity. Our first hypothesis was that the missing Sphereans had not vanished; they were just lying somewhere, almost invisible, unable to move due to a lack of replication. However, none of the missing persons had ever been hospitalized, and they all enjoy—or enjoyed—excellent health. Just think—Romeo and Juliet, their health has always been quite robust. I would even go so far as to say that they’re some of The Sphere’s healthiest inhabitants. They have an enviable rate of replication.”
“Quite so,” adds Holmes.
I really am interested in what they’re telling me, but as we get closer to Gannochy House my heart beats more and more wildly. I’m trying to come up with some excuse to leave; I’m not sure I want to see Axel. But as soon as I contemplate seeing him a thought begins hammering away at my head: I haven’t seen a single person I know since the accident. In fact, St Andrews isn’t even St Andrews, at least not quite. It’s hardly likely that Axel will be where he should be. Anxiety rushes through my body, and I wish with all my heart for this to be the moment you hear about, the famous defining moment when everything changes. What if I open the door to Gannochy House and everything goes back to normal? It’s ridiculous, but I want it to be true. I don’t even care about getting any answers. I’ll give up trying to understand why things have lost their color, why I’ve had to spend all this time among such strange people. I can’t bring myself to look up from the cobblestones. I’m afraid that if I do I’ll see that the dorm has changed, too, or even worse, that it’s not there at all. What if instead of a residence hall there really is a hospital? My hands begin to shake.
“Here we are,” says Morgan.
I look up. I swear I can hear the noise of my vertebrae moving, one by one, as I lift my head. Gannochy House is the same as ever. The windows are the same; the door hasn’t changed. This is the defining moment. I’m about to go home. I swear to myself that if Axel is inside I’ll forget all about the party. I’ll wipe the slate clean. If I have to pay a price to return to reality, I am more than happy to. I walk ahead of the others and stretch my trembling hand out to the door. For some superstitious reason I know that if one of them opens the door instead of me, I won’t be able to get back to reality.
“Over here,” William says softly, almost hissing.
The other three keep walking and I stand there for a few moments, dazed, my hand still hovering near the main door. Then I’m flooded with sadness, an inevitable, inescapable sadness, like what you feel at the death of someone... something you love. My companions are a short distance away. Beatrice beckons to me and I walk toward her, dragging my feet. I’ve never felt so discouraged. I try to cheer myself up, like a little girl who can be convinced that nothing is wrong. I tell myself that they’re just going to show me something in the garden, that’s all, and soon we’ll come back, I’ll open the door, it’ll be me who opens it, and then... Just beneath the pillars supporting the building is an unobtrusive back door, hidden behind a thicket. My heart sinks. Morgan
pushes the door open without any ceremony, without any respect for my pain.
Inside it is silent as the grave, and the darkness is so thick I feel like I could reach out and touch it. Little by little my eyes get used to the dark, and I can make out a few shapes, but the light is so weak that there’s no way to tell if the dorm is the same as ever or if it has changed. I rifle through my memory for images of the one time I came here with Axel, but it’s useless, I don’t recognize anything.
We hurry through darkened corridors and up a series of staircases. When we reach the top floor, William finally opens one of the doors that dot the endless walls. Now there is enough light to see things clearly. We’re in a large room filled with beds: this really is a hospital, unfortunately. A ray of sun comes weakly through a window beneath which sits a nurse, an enormous, old book resting in her lap. The lines of her white cap and immaculate uniform stand out crisply against the gray shapes. Her gloved hands turn the pages slowly but smoothly, as if it’s crucial for her movements to be completely uninterrupted. Every time she turns a page a huge cloud of dust rises. The dust motes dance elegantly in the air, rising and falling back to the book in a sparkling wave.
“Artificial respiration,” whispers Beatrice.
Every time a cloud rises from the book the patients breathe deeply, then collapse back onto their pillows. I look at their faces. In some of them the wood is cracked; I see an arm split down its entire length. Under some beds are little heaps of wood chips. Some patients are so blurred that you would think they were about to disappear. I’ve never seen anything like it. No coughing, no blood, no bandages, not a single IV bag. Just bed after bed of blurred figures, faces full of the terror or the infinite sorrow they feel at the thought of leaving this eerie world.