The Waning Age
Page 26
“Wow.”
He smiled. “Neat, right?”
“I was going to say creepy.”
“So the change Cal manifests is not contagious, but the change is likely both caused by change somewhere else and effecting change somewhere else. For all we know, you are the catalyst and Cal is the effect. Or it could be someone in Tibet. This is all still theoretical.”
I nodded. “Okay,” I said, after a while. “Can I ask for something?”
His eyes widened. “You want me to take a look?”
“If the results can maybe suffer the same kind of accident that your camera footage suffered.”
He nodded eagerly. “Absolutely.” He jumped up from his chair. Then he grabbed a few things from his desk and shooed me out the door. “This way,” he said, pointing down the corridor. I walked beside him past two metal doors and then he unlocked the third on the right-hand side. We came into a small room with a white dome that looked like crystallized mosquito netting. Beneath it was a bed with a white sheet. One wall had screen decals, the other had a long, framed series of old punch cards from the early days of computing.
Glout pressed a button beside the screen decals that made the dome tilt like an opening clam shell. “Go ahead and lie on the bed,” he said. “You can close your eyes and relax. You can even take a nap if you like.”
“No thanks.” I climbed onto the bed in my damp trench coat. The white dome slid back into place. From the inside, it was opaque. It was like looking up into the heavens in the Sierras: black night and hundreds of stars.
I heard Glout’s voice from behind the dome. “This will take about half an hour.”
“Okay,” I said. “Are you going to make me imagine awful things? I’m not very good at imagining.”
“Nope,” he said cheerily. “Just watch the stars.”
I did as he suggested. I watched the stars on the inside of Glout’s dome, and I tried to relax. I thought about Cal at his music lesson. I thought about meeting him and Madeleine afterward and having tea. Then Cal and I would ride the bus back to Market Street and the train back to Oakland. Maybe we’d have dinner with Cass and Tabby and Joey. Maybe we’d read after dinner and I’d fall asleep in the armchair while Cal read until midnight with his flashlight. It would be a nice evening.
The dome whirred quietly and started lifting. “That’s it?” I said.
“It was half an hour.”
“Passed by quickly.”
Glout was dancing from foot to foot like an antsy skeleton doing a jig.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Okay—well, you remember how I said once that the brain was like a network of roads, and a faded brain has lost its side roads?”
“I remember. Driving in a rut.”
Glout grinned and took my hand. His bony grip was surprisingly strong, animated by excitement. “You’re making new roads, Natalia. Little side roads. Not too many yet. They’re narrow, but you can use them.”
* * *
—
When I got to Madeleine’s house, I waited outside for a little while. The rain had shifted to mist, and the bungalow before me looked like the warm woodcutter’s cottage in a fairy tale, with smoke pouring from the chimney and fiddle music pouring out through the open door. Inside I could see yellow light, a short corridor painted blue, and, briefly, Madeleine’s upright shoulders as she walked past with a cup in her hand. Then the music stopped, and I heard a peal of delighted laughter—Cal and his irrepressible, invincible joy, filling the house in the music’s wake.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I began this book in the summer of 2015, just before things got complicated. As I was starting the draft, I managed to slice off two fingertips. I typed with bandages the size of bratwurst for a while. In retrospect, that was the easy part. From what followed, I have a new sense of what it means to count on people, really count on people, and I’m tremendously grateful for the help of all shapes and sizes that allowed me to get through this period and, along the way, write this book.
Thank you to Dorian Karchmar for incisive reading, for the big picture, and for support far above and beyond the crafting of a book. I have felt your steady presence through every step of this. Thank you to Kathleen Nishimoto for insight and passion on multiple drafts; I felt most confidence in this book whenever I talked to you about it.
I feel very lucky that this book has benefitted from the talent and sensitivity of my editor, Kendra Levin. Thank you, among many other things, for your ability to envision a book on its own terms. I am grateful to Ken Wright, Maggie Rosenthal, Laura Stiers, Abigail Powers, and Krista Ahlberg for readings generous and precise. Thank you to Nancy Brennan, Elaine Demasco, and Lindsey Andrews for designing a beautiful book that made me think about the content in new ways.
Several people gave me comments on all or part of the manuscript. Alex, Ben, Ed, John, Laya, Mark, and Tui of the Newton Writers Group offered encouragement and welcome critiques on the first few chapters. Pablo and Simon waded through complete (but very rough) drafts.
So many friends and colleagues helped to keep me going during these tough times. Sometimes an understanding word at the right moment made all the difference. My heartfelt thanks to all of you, and especially to Tina, Natalie, Bill, Karen, Kirsten, Arianne, Kevin, Franziska, Ginny, Sarah, Prasannan, Zack, Deborah, and Christina.
My parents, Martha Julia and Steve, not only read the draft, they continue to cheer, genuinely and invincibly, at the slightest piece of good news. Tom, thank you for the boundless enthusiasm. Alton, thank you for believing unconditionally. Rowan, thank you for your bright light in the darkness.
This book is dedicated to my brother, Oliver. The least of it is that you read this book multiple times and gave invaluable comments. Thank you for being the most steadfast, generous, and wise best friend.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
S. E. Grove (segrovebooks.com) is a historian and world traveler. She spends most of her time reading about the early modern Spanish empire, writing about invented empires, and residing in Boston. Follow S. E. Grove on Twitter @segrovebooks.
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