Ferrol was in his basement office, reviewing validation data from the laboratory instruments that Gressani would soon use to process the girls’ blood cells. Celeste was next to him, mapping out menus and recreation schedules to keep the girls healthy and active. One video monitor was trained on the girls who were sitting on their beds, drawing with colored pens. A small TV on mute was tuned to Antena 3, but when Ferrol saw a chyron announcing a press conference regarding the kidnapping in Italy, he reached for the remote and turned on the sound.
Celeste looked up and both of them watched a tall, distinguished man in a tan suit standing in front of the iron gates of a villa, addressing the media.
“My name is Mikkel Andreason. This will be in English. I’m sorry I don’t speak Italian. I am the father of Jesper Andreason, the father-in-law of Elena Andreason, and the grandfather of Elizabeth and Victoria Andreason. My beloved family was taken from their holiday home here in Reggio Calabria. All of them they are missing. We don’t know who took them or why. What I do know is that I want them back immediately.”
“My God,” Celeste cried, “What have we done? You said the parents were left alone. You lied!”
Ferrol didn’t reply. He watched until Mickey turned back toward the villa without taking any questions, then muted the TV.
“I didn’t lie. I didn’t know until later,” Ferrol said, frowning deeply. “We have to keep our eyes on the bigger picture. All of mankind suffers from the tyranny of sickness and death. Every single day, millions of people suffer from the loss of family and friends. What we will do here can change everything. If we are successful—and I believe we will be successful—we won’t have to say goodbye to our loved ones just because they’ve reached their eighth or ninth decade. The perspective of mankind will change. We’ll live longer, work longer, play longer, love longer.”
“I know,” she said over and over, as if trying to convince herself.
Ferrol’s mood darkened. “The only unanticipated problem is that the idiots Ferruccio got to do the job ignored their instructions. I wanted children from a poor family without the means to keep the case in the public eye. We got the opposite. A billionaire, God help us! I want to do something. As a precaution.”
“Do what?”
“I want you to write this Mikkel Andreason a letter. I want you to say that you’re a psychic who’s had a vision. You’ll say that in your vision, the girls were on a spaceship, abducted by aliens with gray skin, et cetera. You’ll offer to help.”
She had a nervous habit of twirling her long hair around a finger, and she was doing it now. Twirl, release, twirl, release. “Why would we do that?”
“Because if we decide to abort our mission prematurely, for whatever reason, or when the mission is completed, I want to make sure that as many signposts as possible point to alien abduction to reinforce the story the girls will tell.”
“A crazy letter from a psychic will do that?”
“One more brick in the wall. That’s all. Listen, you want us to have options, don’t you?”
“What do you mean?”
“The more we can rely on the alien story to deflect the police away from Spain, the less likely we would even contemplate the unthinkable.”
She stood and pointed an accusatory finger. “You wouldn’t dare hurt them, Ferrol.”
“Of course not. I just believe in options. I’ll compose a letter to send to Mikkel Andreason at his offices in America. They’ll get so many letters from sick and deranged people, they’ll take no action. They’ll file it away. I want you to write out the letter on stationery and sign it.”
“But not with my real name!”
“No, no, it will have to be your real name. In the most extreme of all the scenarios, it might be necessary for you to make yourself known, to actively make sure an investigation is steered toward gray men from outer space. You would have to use your real name. These things are too easy to check.”
“I’ll never show myself like that,” she said. “I won’t do it.”
He got up and drew her close. “Don’t worry. The odds of having to show yourself are a million to one. Those are good odds, no?”
*
A year passed, and then another.
They all had their own rhythms.
Victoria and Elizabeth talked and played games and read books and wrote stories and watched videos, some of them educational to keep their minds active and learning. When they tired of their old videos and games, Gray Woman produced newer ones beamed, she said, from Planet Earth. When Ferrol and Celeste worried they weren’t getting enough exercise, mini trampolines appeared and indoor badminton and football sets. For the most part, they remained healthy. Their only significant illness occurred during their first weeks of captivity, following chemotherapy to wipe out their bone marrows for the stem-cell transplantations. For a fortnight, they had nausea and diarrhea, fever and chills, and Celeste’s competence as a nurse got them through.
Gressani ran laboratory tests, checking on the function of the new line of stem cells, transplanted into the girls and measured the length of their telomeres. He kept meticulous records in case, miracle of miracles, Ferrol ever published a journal paper on a research project that broke a thousand laws. But Ferrol wanted everything documented for posterity. As Gray Man, Gressani split care and feeding duties with Celeste and divvied up night call, which consisted of keeping a video monitor at their bedsides in case of a night-time emergency in the white room. He played games with the girls and watched enough videos with them. To make himself comfortable, he ordered a beanbag chair and dragged it into their room.
“Look at Gray Man!” Victoria said, the first time they saw him with the chair. “He’s going to sleep!”
On his off-hours, he also watched a lot of football on TV and a lot of porn on his tablet and obsessively admired his growing bank balance. To better communicate with the girls, he improved his English. And every Sunday he called his mother in Italy, inquiring if she liked the latest gifts he’d sent.
Celeste had many of the same duties, although she was the one who closely monitored the girls’ health and recorded their weight, height and vital signs. While she and Gressani both bonded with them, he was more of a pal; she was more of a mother. If she had to pick a favorite, it was Elizabeth, who was smart and feisty and rarely seemed gloomy or depressed. Victoria was more petulant and defiant and she was the one who cried longest for her mother, but by their first anniversary, neither talked about their past lives.
When Ferrol was away in Madrid at the La Paz Hospital, as he was most weekdays, Celeste ruled the roost. The domestic and estate staff—with the exception of Gunar—looked to her for routine decisions. If she ever heard the cook or one of the maids whispering to one another about the trays of food that Celeste or Gressani took to the basement, she asked if they wanted to be reported to Ferrol. Gunar, was always patrolling the grounds and interiors of the castle, but Celeste stayed out of his way as much as possible, although sometimes, she caught him staring at her like a hungry dog. When Ferrol was back on weekends, she shared his bed and, increasingly and utterly, she fell in love with him.
Ferrol maintained his double life with skill and energy. During the week, he ran his hospital laboratory, churning out data and publications on his mainstream research and fulfilling his administrative duties as the head of the institute. Without Celeste’s knowledge, he led a parallel social life in Madrid, dating a string of beautiful women and entertaining them at his apartment. When he returned to Castile and León on Friday nights or Saturday mornings, he fell back into his domestic partnership with Celeste and lavished her with all the attention she craved. But his true passion was studying Victoria and Elizabeth. He watched them endlessly on video monitors and pored over Gressani’s weekly datapoints to the point of memorization.
*
Early into their third year of captivity, Ferrol returned to the castle one weekend, eager to test some new software. He shut himself in his office and, after an hour, called upstairs for Celeste.
Her hair was still wet from a bath. “What couldn’t wait?”
“I bought some software from the Netherlands that police departments use to age photographs of missing people to see what they might look like over time. It confirms what we’ve been suspecting for a year now. The problem is, there’s too much bias in our own observations. We desperately want to believe our own eyes, but we don’t want to be led down the garden path.” He clicked his mouse and the computer awoke. “Here is a photo of Victoria from the first week she came here. I’ve used the software to age her two years—age four to six. Here’s what six-year-old Victoria should look like. Here’s a photo of her from this week.”
“My goodness, look at that,” Celeste said.
They all knew the girls looked little different to when first arrived. But, seeing the Victoria as she ought to look at age six was a light-bulb moment. Her older face was longer, thinner, her nose more narrow, her lips less full.
“Show me Elizabeth,” she said.
The age-rendered Elizabeth was even more dramatic. Ten-year-old Elizabeth was no longer a little girl. She was becoming a young lady.
“It’s working, Celeste,” he said. “We’ve seen the way their telomere length is still super-long and rock stable. With this, I’m convinced now, more than ever, that it’s working.”
“Then we can take them back, right? If we know it’s working, we can let them go. Their parents are dead, but they have grandparents.”
Ferrol wouldn’t hear of it. “It’s out of the question. It’s far too early. We have to see if the effect persists. We’ve got to check their telomeres and cell function over time. I know it’s two years, but it’s still early days. Have patience. I’m sure this is working, but we need so much more before the next phase.”
She noticed that her hair was dripping on the floor and got a paper towel.
“What next phase? You never talked about a next phase.”
He bent over, took the moist towel from her, and threw it into a hamper.
“The next phase involves you, Celeste, and it involves me.”