by M. K. Krys
“Wow,” Arthur breathed. “You actually did it.”
“I told you I did.”
“But you actually actually did it!”
Okay, now he was just being rude.
“What now?” Beacon asked.
“We can put it under a microscope. Run a few lab tests—pH, stability, viscosity. And we can compare it against info online. See if it’s any different from real vitamin injections.”
“That’s it?” Beacon asked. “How can any of that prove it changes people?”
“It can prove that the vitamin injection isn’t what they say it is—at least I hope it can. And I don’t feel comfortable testing on animals. Unless you can find a willing subject, that doesn’t leave us with a whole lot of options. Incoming! And then you just carry the two,” Arthur said loudly, pointing dramatically at a workbook as a pair of students approached. They gave Beacon and Arthur a weird look before resuming their conversation and walking past.
“You can never be too careful,” Arthur whispered to Beacon out of the side of his mouth.
Beacon flipped the book so that it wasn’t upside down. “Agreed.”
He pulled out the salmon sandwich Donna had packed him against his will and peeled off the plastic wrap.
“What about the pictures?” Arthur asked.
Beacon brought up a picture on his phone, leaning in with Arthur as he munched on the sandwich (which, fine, was pretty good). He’d tried to look at the photo earlier, underneath his desk, but Nixon kept glancing over at him and he couldn’t trust the Gold Star not to tell on him and get the phone confiscated.
He scanned the single printed page of blocky computer script. At the top of the page was the name Everleigh McCullough, and beneath it was a number: Participant 1258BYZ.
“Participant?” Beacon said. “That’s kind of weird.”
“Super weird,” Arthur said. “Why not student or even patient?”
They kept reading.
Healthy female with a non-concerning history, save for recurring ear infections around 12–14 months old and a tonsillectomy at 9 years old, which was tolerated well. Allergy to tree nuts and Elastoplast. Significant mood changes in the last year, reportedly beginning after the death of the participant’s older brother. Defiance, back talk, sarcasm, and limit-testing behaviors noted to be increasing in frequency and severity.
“How do they know all this stuff?” Beacon said, feeling light-headed.
“They must have talked to your dad.”
Beacon hadn’t considered that, but his dad had been in contact with the school. He guessed it made a certain amount of sense that the school would want to have any relevant medical information about its students, but ear infections at a year old? Talking back to your dad? Why did Nurse Allen need that information?
He wondered what he would have found in his own file. Relentlessly optimistic. Nervous and scattered. On the verge of a nervous breakdown.
“Look at this,” Arthur said, pointing.
Next to C27H4403 was a handwritten note that read: Left arm, tolerated well, no reactions.
“That must be the vitamin injection,” Beacon said.
“That’s the formula for Calcitrol,” Arthur said.
“What’s that?”
“The active form of vitamin D.”
“That’s it?” Beacon said.
“Well, they’re not just going to write ‘Formulation for the transition into a Stepford Wife’ are they?”
“What’s a Stepford Wife?” Beacon asked around a mouthful of food.
“Trust me, you don’t even want to know. I watch a lot of old movies with my grandma. Okay, let’s see Nixon’s.”
Beacon swiped to the next picture.
“Hey, that’s my file!” Arthur said.
“I thought you’d want to see it,” Beacon said. Though now that he was looking at the file, and the long list of seizures and medical complications listed inside, he was second-guessing himself. Arthur’s cheeks were red as a tomato.
“Let’s skip to Nixon’s,” Beacon said. He quickly swiped to the next picture, and they both leaned in again.
“Whoa,” they both said together.
Nixon had had the injection dozens of times.
“Okay, that is one hundred percent verifiably weird,” Arthur said. “Why would he have been given the same injection so many times?”
“Maybe his vitamin D levels are really low?” Beacon said, playing devil’s advocate.
“Or maybe the injection isn’t what they say it is,” Arthur said.
Beacon had to agree. It was too weird.
“Look—‘repeat episode of erratic, oppositional behavior,’” Arthur muttered, reading a note listed on the file. “Are you sure this is Nixon’s file?”
“His name’s right at the top,” Beacon said. “Look—there it is again,” he said. Another note about Nixon’s behavior.
“I knew there was something up with those Gold Stars,” Arthur said triumphantly. “Now I have proof. I just wish you’d had time to get pictures of a few more of their files. Now that would be some evidence.” His eyes glimmered.
“What’s the deal with you and the Gold Stars?” Beacon asked.
“There is no deal,” Arthur said stiffly.
“Did they kick you out or something?” Beacon pushed.
Arthur snorted. “They’d have to have let me in first.” Arthur’s eyes popped wide, as if he hadn’t meant to say that part out loud. He cleared his throat.
“What happened?” Beacon asked.
“I dunno,” Arthur said, shrugging heavily. “Jane just said they were full. But then they added Nixon and Perry, and now your sister. I guess they just didn’t want me.”
Why wouldn’t they want Arthur? He’d seen his bedroom—there was no way a kid that obsessed with science didn’t have killer grades. Beacon guessed it was possible they just didn’t think he was “cool” enough, but for some reason, that didn’t feel like the truth.
“Do you think it’s because you’re immune to the injection or something?” Beacon asked.
Arthur’s eyebrows scrunched up in thought, as if he’d never considered that before.
“Heads up!” someone called.
A soccer ball hurtled through the air. Arthur blocked his face dramatically, even though the ball landed at least three feet away from him. A student ran over. Not just any student, but Beacon’s sister.
Everleigh sported a pair of knee-high socks and satiny soccer shorts.
“Hey, Beacon! How are you?” she asked breathlessly. “I heard you fainted.”
“What are you wearing?” he asked, ignoring her question.
“I joined the soccer team!” she said brightly.
A whistle blew, and she looked over her shoulder.
“Gotta go! See you at bedtime.” She kicked the soccer ball back toward the field, then chased after it.
“Bedtime?” Beacon called. “Where are you going? What about the bus?”
“I’m going to Jane’s after school,” she said, running backward. “We have a Gold Stars meeting at seven and we need to get a few things ready.” Then she spun around and trotted off, her ponytail bouncing behind her.
Beacon watched Everleigh run nimbly around the field, high-fiving her teammates after scoring a goal. He hardly recognized her. In fact, he was having a hard time remembering all the stuff he would need to add to the notebook about her weird behavior. Arthur had said to write down whatever was different: He might as well just write everything.
Of course Beacon wanted Everleigh to be better. He didn’t want her to keep wallowing in her room and pushing everyone away, like she’d done for the past year. He didn’t want to keep watching her wear her guilt like a badge of shame she’d be stuck with for the rest of her life. But he also wanted his sister to be his
sister. And this wasn’t Everleigh.
He had to do something.
A thought popped into his head. It seemed so obvious that he couldn’t believe he hadn’t come up with it before. The plan formed quickly, and a sly smile crossed his face.
“What?” Arthur said.
“I have an idea.”
10
The church sat at the top of a sloping lawn overlooking the sea. There were towers and turrets and huge patches of moss clinging to the ancient stone walls. Beacon would have thought it was a castle if it wasn’t for the cross rising into the thick, dark clouds.
According to Jane, the Gold Stars held their meetings here. So after dinner, he and Arthur had met up on the main road and headed for the church.
“What now?” Arthur said. They were hidden behind the gnarled trunk of a tree twenty feet away from the church. Arthur’s bike and Beacon’s skateboard were lying in the grass as they watched the church through a pair of binoculars they passed back and forth. So far, they’d discovered that there were only a few casement windows on the ground level, and the glass was so thick, you could see only smears of color moving around inside.
Beacon felt the weight of disappointment like a ten-ton truck on his shoulders. This had been his idea, his mission, and it was failing before it even started.
Branches creaked and swayed above them in the howling winds.
“We have to go inside,” Beacon said.
“What if we get caught?” Arthur said.
“Then . . . then we say I’m here to get my sister.”
“That seems like a bad idea,” Arthur said.
Beacon thought so, too, but he wouldn’t admit it.
“Don’t be such a wimp,” he said, echoing his sister’s words. But he wasn’t his sister, and he just felt like a jerk for saying it.
Just then, the church bells pealed, sending a flock of pigeons above them cooing and flapping into the sky. Beacon yelped and ducked, covering his head with both hands.
Arthur raised his eyebrows over his glasses. Beacon quickly rearranged his shirt and ran his fingers through his thick brown hair.
“Let’s just do this.”
Arthur stowed his binoculars in his backpack, then hiked the bag up his shoulders and tightened the straps.
“Operation Moonlight Serenade is underway,” he said.
Beacon knew better than to ask what that meant.
Beacon and Arthur stepped out from behind the tree. Ducking low, they jogged up the hill until they reached the crumbling front steps of the old church. The boys exchanged a glance before Beacon climbed up to the top and grabbed the door handle. He twisted it slowly. The heavy wooden doors broke open, the sound echoing around the high ceilings of the church. Beacon cringed at the loud noise, but when no one appeared, he stepped warily inside.
Pale gray light shone through the stained glass windows, casting an eerie glow onto wooden pews covered in faded red velvet. It smelled like incense and dusty old prayer books.
Beacon had been in a church exactly once. It had been full then—standing room only. That’s what happens when a sixteen-year-old dies.
“Where is everyone?” Beacon whispered. He could have been sure that Jane said they held their meetings here. She’d pointed right at this place that first day in the junkyard.
“Probably in the basement,” Arthur whispered. “There’s a rec room people use for meetings and stuff like that. Look, there’s a door back there.” He nodded toward a door tucked all the way in the corner.
They stole down the narrow aisle between the pews, their tiptoeing footsteps deafening on the cold stone.
Beacon could hardly believe he was doing this. For half a second, he thought, Wait until I tell Everleigh about this. But then he remembered that he couldn’t tell Everleigh. She would only rat him out to their dad.
He felt an unexpected twinge of sadness inside his gut. He’d never really thought that he and Everleigh were particularly close. Not like it was on TV, anyway, where twins had a special connection, finished each other’s sentences, and were basically glued at the hip. Beacon and Everleigh argued and bickered from sunup to sundown, covering everything from which TV show to watch to who got to sit in the front seat on the way to visit their grandma in the nursing home. But they had been friends, Beacon realized. Maybe even best friends. He couldn’t think of anyone else he’d want to tell his deepest secrets to, or anyone who knew him half as well as Everleigh. And now she was gone—here, but gone.
Well, Beacon wasn’t going to let that happen. He’d already lost his brother. He couldn’t lose his sister, too.
They reached the door. Through it was a narrow set of stairs that led into darkness.
“I guess the cemetery was taken,” Arthur said thinly.
“It’s just a basement. There’s nothing to be scared of.” Beacon said it with more confidence than he felt.
He reached for the light switch, but Arthur said, “No! Someone could see.”
“Right. Good point.” Beacon lowered his hands, wiping his clammy palms on his jeans.
“Like you said, it’s just a basement,” Arthur said. “Nothing to be scared of, right?”
Beacon nodded and boldly stepped through the door.
Despite his pep talk, dread crawled up his spine the deeper they went into the bowels of the church. The stairs seemed to go on forever, the air taking on an impossibly colder, mustier scent. Finally, they reached the bottom. A long hallway with faded red carpeting stretched out into shadows. There was a single, bare lightbulb flickering from the low ceiling that reminded him of an old horror film his dad liked, where a set of dead twins haunted an old, creepy hotel.
He shook his head hard. That was definitely not what he should be thinking about right now.
“Which one do they hold the meetings in?” Beacon whispered, looking at the doors set into either side of the hall. They were all closed.
“I don’t know,” Arthur said. “I’ve never been down here before.”
“Haven’t you lived here all your life?” Beacon said.
“So? I’m Jewish!”
“Well, how do we know which one they’re in?” Beacon asked.
Arthur twisted up his mouth. “We’ll just listen at the doors. It can’t be—”
His words were cut short as footsteps sounded from the stairwell.
The boys gasped and looked around for someplace to hide. Without knowing which room the Gold Stars were in, they could walk through any one of these doors and straight into their meeting.
The footsteps grew louder. Shadows moved on the wall at the end of the corridor. Any moment they would be caught.
Beacon grabbed Arthur’s arm and pulled him through the first door he could reach. Miraculously, it was unlocked, and the boys stumbled inside a dark room. Light from the hall reflected off a stainless steel refrigerator. There was a toaster and coffee maker on the counter, and chairs rested upside down on a small table. They were in a kitchen.
The footsteps approached. There wasn’t enough time to close the door without being noticed, so Beacon and Arthur squeezed behind the door and pressed themselves against the wall. Through the gap between the hinges, Beacon saw a flash of blue and gold and dark, tightly coiled hair.
“Thank you so much for helping,” a female voice said. “I wouldn’t have been able to carry these on my own.”
“No problem. Happy to help,” a boy replied.
Jane and Nixon. The Gold Stars walked down the hall with stacks of juice boxes and cookie packages in their arms.
Beacon’s heart pounded like a war drum.
Nixon and Jane walked closer. Closer. Closer.
They were right in front of the door to the kitchen. If Beacon and Arthur were caught now, there would be no explaining why they were skulking around in the dark. And if they got caught, they’d los
e their chance and never find out anything.
But the Gold Stars didn’t notice them. They walked down the hall with purpose, chattering to each other.
They were safe.
Just then, a loud noise erupted inside the kitchen. It sounded like a cat yelping after someone had stepped on its tail.
Beacon’s eyes flew wide open.
Nixon and Jane stopped.
“What was that?” Jane said.
“I don’t know,” Nixon replied. He cocked his ear as Arthur scrambled to shuck his backpack, which was emitting loud hisses and shrieks.
“Turn it off, turn it off!” Beacon mouthed at Arthur.
Arthur pulled out the ARD and frantically felt along its sides for the power switch. He flicked it off just as Nixon and Jane turned around.
“It was coming from in here,” Nixon said.
The boys pulled back behind the door, making themselves as small and quiet as possible.
Nixon stepped into the doorway. Everything inside Beacon bunched up tight, his heart banging against his rib cage. Nixon scanned the kitchen. If he took another step into the room, he’d see Arthur’s backpack on the floor. Two more and he’d see them.
Beacon didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.
Nixon frowned and took another step inside. Just then, there was a loud thunk, thunk noise from the refrigerator. Beacon recognized it as the sound his fridge back home in LA made when the ice maker dropped ice cubes into the tray. Nixon’s forehead smoothed.
“Just the fridge,” he said, walking out.
The boys stayed pressed behind the door until Nixon and Jane’s footsteps faded. Then Beacon let out a huge, relieved breath. When they were certain Nixon was out of earshot, Beacon peered cautiously outside the room and just caught the door at the end of the hall as it closed behind the Gold Stars.
“What the heck?” Beacon snapped. “Why’d you bring that? You almost got us caught!”
“Don’t you realize what just happened?” Arthur said. “The ARD went off.”
“Yeah. And it almost ruined our investigation.”
“No. You don’t understand. The alien radiofrequency detector went off,” he repeated more slowly. “In the presence of Gold Stars.”