Weregirl

by C. D. Bell

  Someone three classrooms down let out a loud whoop, which set off muted clapping and cheering. Nessa could hear it up and down the halls. She felt her cheeks turn red. She should be savoring the win, but it felt wrong, somehow, to be celebrating anything at the same time they were thinking about Billy.

  Heading to math after third-period Spanish, Nessa passed Coach Hoffman. “I need to speak with you, young lady,” he said. “I heard you had some visitors on Sunday. You didn’t sign anything, did you?”

  “Of course not,” Nessa said, smiling at Coach’s excitement. “I told them they had to talk to you.”

  “Good. And ask your mom to call me. I’m really not pleased that they descended on you so quickly. I thought they’d at least give you twenty-four hours.”

  After Pre-Calculus, Nessa finally caught up with Bree at lunch. And this time they were in luck.

  Tim was at lunch with the other guys from cross-country. For the first time, Nessa noticed that Luc sat with them as well. He could have been included in the beautiful senior table. Cynthia at least would have wanted him there. But he chose to sit with this quiet, smart, occasional-pot-smoking cross-country crowd of runners instead.

  He was staring at Nessa as she came over like he was expecting her to be headed in his direction.

  “Hey,” she said, putting up a hand. He raised his eyebrows. She noticed he was eating a roast beef sandwich with two hands, and there was another sandwich under that one, ready to go.

  “Wow,” she couldn’t help observing. “Two roast beef sandwiches. That’s quite a commitment to carnivorous-os-ity?” They laughed together at the way the word had got away from her.

  “Yeah, sometimes turkey feels like you just put more lettuce on top of your bread.”

  It was weird about Luc. When Nessa stopped to think about it, they barely knew each other. They’d had maybe five conversations. But comparing the way she felt around him to the way she felt around Cassian, there was a difference. It seemed that there was always a real conversation going on. And then afterward, she always noticed there was another conversation going on underneath the first one.

  Maybe that’s what happens when you’re on the same team as a guy, instead of crushing on him for the better part of two years. It definitely felt better.

  “Tim,” Bree said, getting his attention. “Nessa has a question for you.”

  “I do,” Nessa concurred, pivoting from Luc. “I was wondering. That is, Bree and I were wondering…” Suddenly Nessa realized she had no idea how to frame the question. You couldn’t exactly just come out and ask someone to look up a person’s health records in a hospital. Nessa was pretty sure those should be private.

  Bree must have noticed that Nessa was at a loss, because she stepped in just then. “You work at Saginaw Hospital, right?” Tim nodded, looking wary. “I would love to do something like that next year,” Bree gushed. “It’s so…driven of you.”

  Flattery, Nessa noted, worked wonders. And Bree was particularly good at dishing it out. Maybe this was how you get elected to student council three years running.

  “I totally recommend it,” Tim said. “But I don’t work at the hospital. I volunteer there. Actually, technically, I have an internship.”

  Sid Hall put an arm over Tim’s shoulder. “He takes out the garbage!” Sid shouted. “He’s the garbage intern!”

  Tim blushed. “Shut up, Sid,” Bree said, though she was smiling as she said it. “Maybe you can come talk to us over there?” She said to Tim, gesturing to the area near the windows. “It’s quieter.”

  “Sure,” Tim said.

  “I think he’s actually Vice President of Garbage!” Sid shouted after them, his mouth full.

  “Yeah,” said Bree dismissively when they were out of Sid’s earshot. “So Nessa and I were wondering if you know what happens to bodies.”

  “Dead bodies,” Nessa clarified, and when Bree shot her a look, Nessa realized this was putting way too creepy a spin on things. Maybe she’d let Bree do the talking.

  “We were actually having a little discussion,” Bree said. “Because Nessa heard that Billy Lark, the poor little guy, that his mom was freaking out. She heard she wanted to send his body to the hospital for an autopsy. And we were wondering, do autopsies even happen in hospitals? Do you even need a doctor for them?”

  Tim straightened up, looking pleased to be asked. Bree was brilliant, Nessa decided.

  “Actually you do need a doctor,” he said, nodding. “You need a doctor and a pathologist. They don’t have to be on site, but they need to be in the hospital because sometimes the samples aren’t going to keep in the way you would hope, and it’s easier if they have access to the same computer system and protocols.”

  “Wow,” Bree said. “That’s fascinating.”

  Tim was warmed up to the subject now. “You were asking about Billy Lark,” he said. “And I did hear that, about his mom asking for an autopsy. Saginaw has a morgue and autopsy department but also acts as the county morgue. Any time there’s anything unusual about a death, our pathologists are the ones who make the determination. I can check if Billy’s body was brought into the hospital if you want.”

  “If it was, is there any chance they would have sent Billy over to Paravida to get that done?” Bree asked this casually, like the question had just occurred to her.

  Tim frowned. “Paravida?” he said. “Why would it go there? They’re not connected to the hospital. I think you need to have a license or something to do autopsies. There’s no way the body would have gone there.”

  “Can you find out?” Nessa said, then, “Ow!” That last part was because Bree had just kicked her in the shin. She could see why Bree had kicked her, too. Tim was looking suddenly suspicious.

  “It’s kind of a Snopes.com thing,” Bree said, confiding in Tim. “Want to nip those urban legends in the bud.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Tim said. He seemed to relax again. By this point, lunch was ending, and kids were moving off to their lockers or their next class. “I’ll be in touch when I learn something,” he added. Then he headed off in the direction of the science lab where he spent free periods washing out beakers.

  Bree seemed to be hurrying as well. “Where are you going?” Nessa said.

  “The library,” Bree said. “We have stuff to research. Come on.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  The school librarian enforced a strict quiet policy, so Nessa and Bree headed to the computers in the stacks on the far side of the main reading area. There were two stations free side by side, and they grabbed them. Someone was sitting only three seats away, but she had earphones on so she couldn’t eavesdrop.

  “Okay,” Bree said, whipping out a notebook. “Let’s go over what we know so far.”

  “Paravida buys Dutch Chemical out of bankruptcy three years ago. They announce that the purpose of the purchase is for some patents,” Nessa began. “And they will continue to fund all Dutch Chem obligations to Tether.”

  “Right,” Bree agreed. “Why do they do that? Dutch Chem came with lots of baggage. Which patents was Paravida after? That’s a place to start.”

  Nessa nodded. “Agreed.”

  “What was that weird letters and numbers thing that the doctor said during the autopsy?” Bree asked. Earphones girl, deep into a session of World of Warcraft, groaned.

  “7IRG. You know, it could be a patent,” Nessa said. “Aren’t patents assigned by number?”

  “No idea, but we can check,” Bree said. “And that name you overheard? Harry?”

  “Yes, I think it was a second doctor. There was the person performing the autopsy. And someone recording the results. A woman. Then a second man spoke up. Then the first doctor called him Harry.”

  “Not much to go on,” Bree said, chewing on the end of her pen. “Do you think that the doctor performing the autopsy was Dr. Raab?”

  Nessa paused.

  “I don’t think so,” Nessa answered. “I would have recognized his voice.”

 
; “Anything else?” Bree asked.

  “Yes. The aggressive wolves. There is something very wrong with them. What is Paravida using them for?” Nessa asked. “Several of them had incisions too.”

  “Incisions? Where?” Bree asked.

  “In their bellies mostly. One on its shoulder,” Nessa answered. “Could it be from fights?”

  “Probably,” Bree agreed. “I’ll research wolves and patents. You dig into Paravida’s history?”

  “Sounds good,” Nessa answered.

  Bree and Nessa powered up the computers and got to work.

  The library was quiet and warm. Nessa went back to the Paravida website she’d looked at weeks before, scrolling again through the images on the home page, trying to figure out in what ways they could possibly relate to what she’d seen the night before—the wolves, the labs.

  When Nessa rolled over “About the company,” she selected “Board of Directors.” She scrolled through professional-

  looking photos of men and women along with brief bios. She read a few of them, and then leaned back in her chair, blowing air out through her teeth.

  Paravida had a Senator and two federal judges on their board. The Detroit Chief of Police. Convenient if you needed a sympathetic ear in Michigan law enforcement. Another person who had been provost of UC Davis. People with power. Could they make a body appear to be locked in a drawer in a hospital morgue when in fact it was being stored someplace else entirely?

  The other thing that struck Nessa was how many different businesses Paravida ran. Chemicals. Steel manufacture. Medical devices. Pharmaceuticals. Nessa said, “Look at everything Paravida does. They’re enormous. They’re all over the world. They take in more money than some small countries. So why pick on Tether?”

  “Because we have something no one else has?” said Bree.

  Nessa continued the hunt. She decided to dig further into the Pharmaceuticals division. She found Dr. Raab, Nobel laureate. His bio linked out to the research institute he worked at in San Francisco. There was a long list of his published articles. Unlike high school students, these scientists wrote in groups of four or five. She scanned several pages of articles and names. Suddenly she saw something that made her heart rate shoot up. She hurriedly clicked a few more links.

  “Bingo!” Nessa whispered.

  “What?” Bree said, looking over her shoulder.

  “All these papers, the ones authored by Dr. Raab? There are always coauthors. Every single one is written by at least three or four scientists. From 1998 to 2001, Dr. Raab co-wrote seven papers with a guy named Dr. Fong. Harry Fong. And he’s an expert in chemical enhancement. It’s when cells recover when exposed to something called chemical scrubbing. There’s this weird thing that happens where tissues damaged by exposure to chemicals don’t just heal, but improve. It has to do with stem cell regeneration. Like, right here, a guy burned in an acid spill—the pictures are gross—his nose was pretty much gone, but then doctors grafted skin from his shoulder to cover it, and the shoulder skin turned into a nose. Which I don’t need to tell you shoulder skin is not supposed to be able to do, right?”

  “That’s creepy,” said Bree.

  “Guess who Dr. Harry Fong worked for?”

  “He didn’t work for the Institute?”

  “No,” Nessa said, pausing dramatically. “He worked for Dutch Chem.”

  “No way,” Bree breathed.

  “Yes, way,” Nessa said.

  “So there’s something about our damaged cells, the cells of people like Billy Lark, that make them into stem cells?” Bree wondered.

  “Yeah, something like that,” Nessa said.

  They sat there taking it in. Then Bree spoke. “That idea of the nose. Growing on its own. Is that what they’re doing?”

  “It’s scary to think about this,” Nessa said. “Not just about Billy. But for Tether. I mean, without Paravida, Tether would have disappeared. Everyone would have had to move away.”

  “I know,” Bree said.

  The bell rang for next period.

  “I’ve figured out this much. 7IRG isn’t a patent. Patent numbers are at least seven digits long with no letters,” Bree announced as they shouldered their backpacks.

  “Okay. We’ll have to finish later,” Nessa said.

  That night there was a candlelight vigil for Billy in the Veteran’s Memorial Park in the center of town. The marble monument told the story of Tether—a town that had barely been more than a farming settlement when it sent fifteen men to fight in World War I, then 80 to World War II. Dutch Chem came into existence in the early 1950s, tripling Tether’s population.

  When Nessa arrived at the vigil, she saw a crowd had formed. Some of the same people she’d seen at Billy’s house, but many more kids from school were there. People held candles, and the music teacher from the Lutheran church was singing a hymn and strumming a guitar. A lot of the older people were singing along.

  Nessa saw Mr. and Mrs. Lark up at the front. Mrs. Lark was wearing a parka that was too large for her—her shoulders were lost inside it, and the sleeves completely covered her hands. Mr. Lark had an arm around her, but they stood slightly apart.

  The minister stood up next and explained that Billy’s funeral would be held the next day and kept private. Today was a chance for townspeople to express their grief. He read a passage from the Bible, and then there was another song.

  When Nessa got closer to the front, some of Billy’s cousins stood up to read poems. The minister stepped down from the gazebo to stand with the Larks. Nessa heard murmurings between them and stepped closer.

  “It’s a beautiful thing,” the minister said, “to see how much love there was for your boy. A lot of people in Tether are sharing your sense of loss today.”

  Nessa didn’t want to look like she was staring, so she mostly looked down at her candle. But when Mrs. Lark answered, she stole a glance at her.

  “Can they bring him back?” Mrs. Lark said, her face twisted in pain and anger. Mr. Lark pulled his wife closer to comfort her.

  “Now, Ann…” the minister began.

  “No,” she said. “My child was stolen from me. And now he won’t have a chance to grow up.”

  The minister didn’t say anything for a minute, and Mrs. Lark choked out a sob. “I knew,” she said. “I knew from when he was a baby that he was special. Fragile. I was always so careful with him…” She started crying for real again. Nessa realized talking to Mrs. Lark directly was out of the question. Not now, anyway.

  Nessa turned back around, seeing that the crowd had grown in just the fifteen minutes since she’d arrived. She saw a lot of kids from school, a lot of the teachers. As the crowd surged forward, she could hear the echoes of Mrs. Lark’s crying in her head. She had to get out. She felt claustrophobic and jumpy.

  Wolfy, in fact. Nessa felt the way she had when her body was preparing to transform.

  Even though it wasn’t even close to the next change of moon.

  Pushing through the crowd, Nessa bumped into Luc.

  “Nessa,” he said. “You’re here?”

  It was weird the way he made it into a question. Why wouldn’t she be? “My little brother was the same age as Billy,” she said. “They are both in the clinic study. We knew Billy from that.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Why are you here?” Nessa asked, leaning in. Because it was strange, wasn’t it, that Luc would have anything to do with Billy? He’d just moved to Tether. Billy was homeschooled. How could they have connected?

  Luc hung his head and his eyes seemed to look inward and far away. Suddenly Nessa realized how rude her question sounded.

  “That’s not really what I meant,” she said. “I just figured since you were new to Tether…” Her voice trailed off.

  “No, it’s okay,” Luc said. “I don’t really know why I’m here either. It’s just…very sad. That this kid died.”

  Nessa wanted—inexplicably—to tell him about Paravida and the strange ambula
nce trip to the old Dutch Chem plant the previous night. But she stayed silent. “I know,” was all she said.

  “So I heard you won the Paravida Award,” he said. “Congratulations.”

  “Thanks,” Nessa said. “It’s kind of…I don’t know.”

  “A little too much all at once?”

  “Yeah,” she said. She smiled in relief. She knew Luc understood. She knew she couldn’t go around saying what she really thought of Paravida. At least not yet.

  “Hey,” Luc said, seeming to change the subject. “Want to hear something weird?”

  Nessa looked at the crowd. There were even more people gathered. There must have been at least 200. “Sure,” she said.

  Nessa followed Luc to his truck, which was still parked in the lot behind school.

  “Come up here,” he said, helping pull her up into the open bed of the truck. Two folding chairs stood empty. He pointed to one. “That’s for you.” They both sat down.

  “It’s like we’re watching fireworks,” she said.

  He nodded, “But we’re not watching. We’re listening.” He closed his eyes. “Do this. What do you hear?”

  Nessa at first heard singing. The people at the vigil had started another hymn. She remembered how during the Dutch Chem lawsuits, Tether’s downtown had turned into one long, continuous protest rally, with environmental activists and leftists bused in from all over the country. Most of the people who actually lived in Tether thought they were nuts. But still, Nessa could remember how the streets had been filled with their singing, especially at nighttime when they would switch from the songs about their demands to songs about peace and nature.

  “Not the music,” Luc said. “Listen to what’s coming from the woods.”

  It was hard not to listen to the music, but Nessa tried anyway. She heard wind in the pine trees behind the soccer field. She heard rustling in the leaves. Squirrels? She heard…