“Do not interfere,” Mr. Brown said, grabbing Daphna roughly by the arm. “Or you will jeopardize his life.”
Quinn was unconscious, draped under blue cloth. An IV ran to his arm. Two other tubes ran from his chest and thigh to the large steel cart with all the monitors and attachments. Yet another tube was down his throat.
Daphna wavered on her feet, but Mr. Brown steadied her. He slid a chair behind her and helped her sit down. Then he sat down in a chair next to her.
“Remain calm, young lady,” said Dr. Lewis while he affixed electrodes to Quinn’s head. “This is a delicate operation. The boy has been given complete instructions on what to do on the other side. Now sit there calmly while I finish the prepping.”
“Oh, God,” Daphna groaned. This was her fault for being indecisive. She was now going to have to answer for this, too. “Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.”
Daphna tried the breathing thing again. She did better this time, and it helped a bit, especially when she managed to take air all the way into her stomach through her throat. She lost track of time for a while.
When she came back, Daphna saw Quinn’s eyes had been taped shut. Dr. Lewis was inserting something into his ears. She turned away, looking for anything to distract her, and something did, something odd and out-of-place on the giant desk at the far end of the room. Sitting next to the computer was a colorful sculpture made of—gumdrops?
Daphna got up and approached the desk. She recognized the double helix now. It was a model of DNA. She’d done a similar project when she was in elementary school. Dr. Lewis must have grandchildren. The thought struck her as odd.
Daphna took the model back with her to her seat.
“We have three ways of determining brain death,” Dr. Lewis said when Daphna sat back down, as though someone had asked. “One: a cessation of functioning in the cerebral cortex, as indicated by a flatline on the EEG here.” He pointed to a monitor. “Two: lack of brain stem response to auditory stimuli—hence the speakers in the boy’s ears. They will emit clicks. And three: a lack of blood flowing through the brain, which we’ll take care of soon enough.
“Now, this device here—” Dr. Lewis pointed to the large machine hooked into Quinn— “is called a Heart-Lung machine. It will provide circulation and oxygenation while the heart is stopped. It is cooling the blood as we speak.”
“Here, now,” he continued, sounding as if he were simply explaining how equipment worked rather than how he was killing a human being. “The boy’s temperature has reached 75 degrees. The ECG—” He pointed to another monitor— “indicates cardiac malfunction.”
“Please stop this!” Daphna cried, leaping to her feet. The gumdrop model fell to the floor. “I’ll do it! I’ll go!”
“Daphna,” warned Mr. Brown, standing up in case she did something stupid, “you risk his life with this behavior.”
Daphna forced herself to sit back down. She tried to take in long, deep breaths, but couldn’t control them. She gulped for air like a drowning victim.
Dr. Lewis was giving Quinn a shot now. “A massive dose of potassium chloride,” he said.
A moment later, he pointed to the EEG: a flatline. Then he pointed to another monitor and said, “Brain stem response to the speakers is growing weaker. There,” he added a moment later. “It’s gone.”
Next Dr. Lewis turned off the Heart-Lung machine. Then he reached below the table and pushed a button, raising Quinn’s head. “To drain the blood,” he said.
Once Quinn was partially upright, Dr. Lewis stepped back from the table and looked at Mr. Brown. He gave a satisfied smile and said, “Success! The boy is dead.”
“Bring him back!” Daphna cried, again on her feet, but Dr. Lewis looked only at Mr. Brown.
“Bring him back! Time is disconnected in Heaven! You can bring him back now!”
Mr. Brown looked at his doctor with no expression at all. He said nothing for an excruciatingly long few moments, but then finally nodded. Dr. Lewis switched on the Heart-Lung machine. The readouts on all the monitors immediately jumped back to life.
“That’s good, right?” Daphna cried. “He’s going to be okay?”
“It will take a few minutes for his blood to warm up,” Dr. Lewis said. “Have patience.”
Quinn’s eyes began to flutter.
“Mr. Brown,” said Dr. Lewis.
“Quinn!” Daphna pleaded.
All three rushed to the operating table.
The moment they reached it, Quinn’s eyes burst open. He screamed, dislodging the tube in his throat. Then he began to thrash, threatening to loose the others still in his chest and thigh.
“Hold him!” Dr. Lewis cried. Together they held down Quinn’s shoulders and arms.
“His legs! Hold his legs!”
Daphna lurched to Quinn’s feet and clutched his ankles.
“Fire!” Quinn rasped. His voice was awful, ragged like Asterius Rash’s used to be. “The fire!”
“Quinn!” Daphna cried. “What did you see? Are your parents there—in Purgatory? Did you see the book?”
“Fire!” Quinn cried, his eyes rolling in his head. “Books on fire! Everywhere—books on fire!” He thrashed again. “Heaven!” he moaned. “No one—nothing but the fire! The Dragon is burning the books! It’s trying to get out!”
“He’s still there!” Mr. Brown cried. He threw himself over Quinn’s flailing body to hold it down. “Do it now!”
Dr. Lewis, who’d let go of Quinn, took a needle out of a long silver box. It was already full of a clear liquid.
Daphna smelled something sweet, a hint of licorice and lemon—tarragon?
“What is that?” she begged. “What are you doing?”
“It will help,” was all Dr. Lewis said. He injected Quinn in the arm.
Quinn seized violently. Now the tubes jerked out of his body and his blood began to spill. Then he collapsed, and the monitors went berserk.
Daphna staggered back as Dr. Lewis spun round, frantically reinserting the tubes. Then he grabbed those paddles she’d only seen on TV and shocked Quinn with them. Mr. Brown had also backed away. He sat down again.
The crazy beeping machines settled down.
“Is—is he okay?” Daphna asked, crying now. If Quinn—
“Is he back?” Mr. Brown asked. “Is he coming back?”
“Coma, I fear,” said Dr. Lewis. He didn’t sound panicked at all, which was both disturbing and reassuring.
“Coma?” Daphna whined. “He’s in a—?” She moved to take Quinn’s hand, but felt her foot squish something—those gumdrops. She reached down and pried the hunk off her shoe, but instead of tossing it away, she looked at it.
Then she looked at it closer.
Each gumdrop had a letter on it. There were four in her clump: A, T, C, and G.
Daphna squatted down and sorted through the others scattered on the floor. They were all A’s, T’s, C’s and G’s.
She got up, white as a sheet, her mind spinning.
Mr. Brown looked at her.
Suddenly, Daphna understood. She knew exactly why she’d been attracted to a single Book in the Light, why she knew in her very soul that it was hers.
It was hers.
“Quinn didn’t go to Purgatory,” she said, her voice hitching, “he went to Heaven. The Books in Heaven—They contain the formulas for our DNA. We come from those Books, and we return to them when we die. Those Books contain people’s souls—and they’re burning!”
Daphna didn’t have time to observe how this was received because her phone rang. She ripped it out of her pocket.
It was a one word text message from her brother.
The word was ‘Help.’