by Ann Aguirre
“They’d like to run a few more tests,” Joshua said, his tone becoming businesslike.
“Of course.” Lucy buttoned her blouse and followed him out of the room.
The machine was unlike anything she’d ever seen. It took up half the wall with its gleaming gears and tubes. She wasn’t certain she knew what to do, but she perched on the stool, which looked almost comical next to the great mechanical beast it sat before, and waited for instructions.
A few men with horn-rimmed glasses, including the one who had interviewed her when she arrived, waited nearby, but no one spoke.
Joshua flipped a switch and the gears whirred to life, revealing a panel of light and color that shimmered in front of her.
“What do I do?” she asked him in a quiet voice so the others wouldn’t hear.
“Do you see it?” he asked.
“The web?”
Joshua’s jaw tensed, but he bobbed his head.
“Yes. It’s beautiful.” And it was. There were colors Lucy had only seen in dreams, displayed with a sparkling vibrance that sent a chill up her back. What did they expect her to do with it? What was it?
But when Lucy looked up there was a gleam in Joshua’s eyes and the men had come closer.
Whatever this web was, it was important.
* * *
“Can you touch it?” This was the real test. Several other girls had been able to view the matter on the loom, but none had been able to capture it in their hands. A few had come close, but day by day the project team had grown more disappointed. Even now the War Department was considering disbanding the program. That was why they’d had to bring in the private financiers. Men like Patton, who watched everything too closely for Joshua’s comfort.
Lucy reached out and brushed the large, airy panel in front of her. Whatever she could see, Joshua could not. Lucas had tried the serum himself, so he could be certain it worked, but he hadn’t allowed any of the other men working on the project to do so. That meant that when he wasn’t present, Joshua had to rely on the honesty of the girls. But he never doubted that any of them saw the weave. It showed in their eyes—the awe of it. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t jealous that he couldn’t see the elements of the universe laid out before him, especially given that these girls didn’t even know what they were looking at.
None of them had a clue that they had been given the ability to see the very threads of life.
But Lucy was different. Her awe was measured and removed. She seemed almost hesitant to go further, but as she did, Joshua’s attention turned to the glass holding cell that sat in the middle of the room. To the average person it looked like a small greenhouse, full of leaves and vines, but the scientists had isolated the space inside for this very purpose.
“What should I do?” she asked him.
“Grab it,” he ordered.
His eyes never left the holding cell. He couldn’t bring himself to look at Lucy as she made her attempt; too much was riding on this girl, and it made Joshua uncomfortable. But not because of what it might mean to the project if she failed. Joshua wasn’t certain he wanted her to succeed, which was what scared him. Nothing happened inside the cell and he dared a glance back at her.
Lucy’s hands dipped through the space as though they were tangled up in the air in front of her. There was a gasp from one of the men in the room, and Joshua whirled around to discover that a large fern in the holding cell had begun to wilt before his eyes. It withered, its tips turning brown, and it shriveled, dying, until finally it disintegrated entirely.
Applause startled Lucy from her work and she turned to stare at the businessmen who were laughing and patting one another’s backs. She looked to Joshua, but he couldn’t think of a thing to say. His mind was too heavy with her success.
* * *
Patton lingered as the other investors shook hands and patted one another on the back. All they could see was the small success the girl had managed, but he could see more than that. Much more than that. The girl had killed the plant, but not in the way he had been expecting. He’d been warned that there were implications to the loom technology, but where the scientists involved on the project saw only the risk, Patton saw possibility.
His eyes narrowed as he watched the young man guiding the girl out of the lab. That was a situation that needed to be controlled. Impressionable girls couldn’t be trusted around young men, who could rarely be trusted at all.
Someone cleared his throat and Patton was startled out of his thoughts. He adjusted his bow tie and turned toward the other party without hurry. It was important that the scientists remember who was funding their little project after all.
“May I help you?” The man’s white lab coat brushed the knees of his wrinkled slacks. Patton’s nose wrinkled at the sight, and the man caught the look. “I’m certainly a mess, but I’ve been sleeping at my desk. Someone has ordered tests be conducted twenty-four hours a day.”
Patton already knew that. As the project’s largest financial backer, he had insisted the trials run continuously. He was certain this man knew exactly with whom he was speaking, which meant the man knew he was the reason for the exhaustive schedule. But Patton admired the arrogance of the casual remark enough to step forward and feign oblivion. He thrust a hand out. “Harold Patton.”
“Dr. Lucas.” The man shook his hand firmly but quickly, stepping around Patton to fiddle with a large panel of buttons.
“And you’re the head scientist on this project?”
“I am one of them,” Dr. Lucas corrected him.
“And the others?”
“What can I help you with, Mr. Patton?” he asked, skirting Patton’s question none too subtly, and continuing to check down the row of panels.
“I have a question about the experiment I just witnessed,” Patton said. He placed his body in front of the next instrument panel, so that Lucas was forced to look up at him.
The doctor raised an eyebrow as he crossed his arms, a clear signal of defeat.
“The girl didn’t merely remove the plant from the weave. She mutilated it,” Patton said.
“The important thing is that she was able to touch it,” Lucas said. His eyes flickered past his visitor to the panel.
“This will only take a few seconds of your time.” And if Patton was right, it could buy both of them enough time to waste. “The plant wasn’t just mutilated, though. It seemed almost as though it was undone. How is that possible?”
Lucas scratched his head, surprised by the thought-provoking question. “These are the very building blocks of our world. It’s not unthinkable that if she could touch the strands, she could destroy them. A child knows how to knock down a tower of blocks, after all.”
“You noticed nothing strange then about what happened to the plant?” Patton pressed.
“I suppose I didn’t,” Lucas said, wondering when the other man would leave so he could stop playing wet nurse to investors. “Did you?”
“She didn’t destroy the plant, Doctor. Any child can knock down a tower or rip up a plant.” Patton stopped, counting on the doctor’s curiosity to show itself. Lucas finally stopped fidgeting with his equipment and gave him his full attention.
“I’m not sure I follow your meaning.”
Patton’s lip curled like a cat’s. “The girl killed the plant, all right, but not by ripping it up. She pulled something out of it.”
“And what do you think that was, Mr. Patton?”
“Life itself,” he answered without a second thought.
* * *
Chills shivered through Lucy’s body, settling into her stomach, which rolled and clenched. She did her best to hide it from Joshua, not wanting to appear weak. There had been a breakthrough. She wasn’t clear about what had happened exactly, but the investors had cheered and congratulated themselves. No one had spoken to her—it was as though she were just part of the machine—but her feelings hardly mattered. All she cared about was ending the war.
Joshua wal
ked beside her, keeping pace with her slow steps without complaint. Lucy dared a glance at him and felt a flutter in her chest that wasn’t an aftereffect of her time at the loom.
“I’ll have the nurses bring you some food.” Joshua’s eyes swept over her. They crinkled in concern so she plastered on a wide smile.
“I could use something to eat,” she admitted.
“Anything in the world,” he said.
“Do you have any chocolate? I know it’s being rationed—”
“You’re working for the War Department,” he reminded her.
“So I get a soldier’s ration then?” she asked. A giggle bubbled past her lips, and she turned away, cheeks blazing, shocked at the girlish side Joshua brought out in her.
“Of course,” he said. “You’re defending our country now.”
Lucy thought of Nicholas, alone and cold on a field in France, ripping open the K rations that served as his meals. She wondered how often he had received chocolate as part of his rations on those bloodied fields. She shook her head. “I don’t need any,” she said to Joshua in a strangled voice. “It wouldn’t be right.”
“Why not?” He grabbed her arm and forced her to stop in the hallway.
“Because soldiers are out there dying to save people they’ve never met and I caught a chill?”
A shadow passed over Joshua’s face so quickly Lucy wondered whether she had imagined it. His lips pressed into a thin line that he managed to curve into a smile, but Lucy was certain she had upset him. She didn’t quite understand why, though.
“Oh,” she said as realization dawned on her. “I didn’t mean that I … or that you—”
He held up a hand to stop her. “I’m overly sensitive and you’re too selfless. It will never do.”
Lucy cocked an eyebrow at him.
“We’ve had a major breakthrough today. Both of us. We should be celebrating,” he said.
“I’m sure the cafeteria will have something delightful for us to eat,” Lucy said, but Joshua was grinning at her now in earnest. “What is it?”
“I have an idea,” he said. “What would you say to getting out of here tonight?”
She hesitated. No one had told her she couldn’t leave the compound, but it had been implied by the tight security she saw throughout the halls. “Are we allowed to?”
“You’re allowed to with me,” he reassured her as they passed a group of silent guards. “What do you say?”
Lucy sucked in a breath and nodded. “Okay, I’ll go, but it’s on you if we get in trouble.”
Joshua caught her hand and kissed it swiftly. “Leave everything to me.”
* * *
Lucy hadn’t packed much when she boarded the train to Chicago. She’d thought she would return home. It was a rather foolish notion in hindsight, but Mr. Watson had insisted she leave straightaway for Los Angeles. His speech was impassioned enough to persuade her to board another train with the small case she’d brought with her. He’d promised to ring her mother for her, explaining that the secrecy of the project mandated all communication with her family go through the War Department. This hadn’t seemed an odd request then, given that they’d received all correspondence from Nicholas through the army. His letters had been read by censors. He wasn’t allowed to phone. Even the notice of his death had been filtered through the proper bureaucratic channels, delivered by a stranger in a stiff uniform.
She hadn’t considered that she’d have occasion for more than a few pieces, so there was really only one thing to wear for an evening out with Joshua: a soft cotton sundress that had faded a bit with washing, leaving the dots pale, like they’d been left too long in the sun. It would have to do, though, and despite its weary appearance it clung to her body, accentuating the curves that grew softer and more womanly with each passing year. She had no makeup, but she twisted her hair into elaborate pin curls.
“You look lovely, miss,” the night-shift nurse said as she made her rounds.
Lucy bit her lip and gathered her courage. “I’m meeting one of the scientists for dinner.”
If this shocked the nurse, she didn’t show it.
“All you need is this, then.” The nurse drew a gold tube out of her pocket and whipped off the lid. “Summer cherry.”
Lucy took the lipstick awkwardly. She’d worn lipstick before, but nothing quite this dramatic. One wrong swipe and she’d look like a traveling-circus clown. But she managed to apply it in smooth, precise strokes.
“You’ve got good, steady hands, miss,” the nurse said as Lucy returned the lipstick to her.
“Thank you,” Lucy murmured, but her eyes were frozen on her reflection, marveling at how different she appeared. One simple cosmetic and she looked years older. More sophisticated. A wave of confidence overcame her and she smiled to the girl in the glass.
“Have a nice night.”
As soon as the nurse was gone, Lucy slipped into the hall. She had arranged to meet Joshua near the cafeteria. Neither had spoken much more about whether they would get in trouble if they left, but Joshua seemed eager to avoid any security entanglements. There was a back door near the cafeteria that led out to the parking lot and Dr. Lucas’s car, which Joshua had arranged to borrow for the evening.
Joshua turned and caught sight of her heading toward him, and his mouth fell open. He had a single daisy in his hand, but when she reached him, he didn’t speak.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
He nodded. “Yes,” he said, recovering himself. “Lucas’s car is out back.”
“Is that—” She pointed to the flower that Joshua was suffocating in his hand.
“Yes,” he said, thrusting it toward her. The stem was broken and the petals had been crushed. “A lovely gesture.”
She followed him out the back door and to a Cadillac. Whatever Lucas did in that lab must have been important given his expensive car.
“It looks like a car fit for a movie star,” Lucy said, but she immediately clamped her mouth shut. It was embarrassing to think that Joshua now probably suspected she read the Hollywood rags that reported on the most minuscule information available. She didn’t really need to know what Judy Garland ate for breakfast or who was secretly in love with whom, but she read them anyway. They were an easier escape for her than the movies, which showed so much of the war in the shorts they ran between features.
“You follow the silver screen then?” Joshua’s smile widened.
“Doesn’t everyone?” Lucy couldn’t really understand people who turned up their noses at actors and actresses.
“Then you’ll like where we’re headed tonight.” He opened the door and helped her into the passenger seat.
They spoke throughout the ride, learning that they both enjoyed reading more than going to movies. Joshua shared that he was an only child, and Lucy told him about Nicholas. He sensed a weight lift from her shoulders as she spoke her brother’s name, and Joshua didn’t interrupt her even when her tone grew distant and reverent. She was running from something. Maybe it was only memories, but it was something they had in common.
Joshua stole a glance at her and tried to think of something witty or funny to say. He wanted to make her laugh, to give her a moment’s reprieve from the grief that hung over her like a heavy winter coat. But he wasn’t the type. He read books and studied physics. Joshua was dependable. He wasn’t the guy who swept a girl off her feet.
“Did you have a boyfriend back home?” he asked. It wasn’t going to make her laugh, but his rational mind wanted to know all the variables he might encounter even as he was quite convinced there was no sense in trying to be rational around Lucy Price. She was too intoxicating for him to think straight, but if she was off-limits, he might as well know now.
His question tripped a bemused smile from his companion. “No. I was never one for fooling around with boys.”
“But there must have been someone. A…” Joshua trailed off before he could add a pretty girl like you. It was the kind of clichéd mumbo ju
mbo stars said to girls in motion pictures. But still, he reasoned, it was true enough. Lucy was too beautiful not to have attracted anyone’s interest.
“A few tried,” she said. “But I only recently shed my ugly-duckling feathers. The war was nearly on before I did, and girls can’t compete with the call of fame and glory. What about you? Did you leave a girl back home?”
“My hometown is only a few hours from here, but I can assure you that no one misses me there.”
“You don’t know that,” she said.
“I do actually,” Joshua said, his eyes boring into the road ahead. “My father hasn’t spoken to me since I informed him that I’d left Yale to work for the government.”
“He must have been very angry,” Lucy said.
“Yes. I suppose when you spend a small fortune trying to keep your son in a cage, you expect it to work,” Joshua said dryly.
“I think he wanted to protect you,” Lucy said in a soft voice. “My mother pretended to support Nicholas when he enlisted, but she cried every night for a month after he left. She told me that she didn’t want him to go. That she’d never see him again. I tried to calm her down, but she insisted that he would never come home again. She said she could feel it.”
Joshua heard the ache of tears in her voice and he slowed the car.
“Maybe parents just know,” Lucy continued, her voice cracking. “Maybe your father knew and couldn’t bear it.”
“But your mother let you come here,” Joshua said. “She respected your decision and your brother’s.”
“She doesn’t know I’m here,” Lucy confessed.
Joshua stopped the car entirely, the tires crunching gravel as they came to a halt. “You didn’t tell her?”
“The man who recruited me told me that I couldn’t,” Lucy said. Her eyebrows knit together as she stared at him.
“Why would he say that?”
“For security reasons.” Her answer felt rehearsed somehow as though she’d not only been fed the line but also believed it.
“You should tell your mother,” he said.
“Weren’t you the one just telling me how horrible your father was?” she asked, crossing her thin arms over her chest.