Lake

 

 

I turn my head at the click of my door’s lock releasing. I’ve been told this precaution won’t be necessary once I’ve merged with Sophie—which still hasn’t occurred.

“Take a walk with me,” Deborah says.

She refuses to tell me if I’m the only Candidate who hasn’t merged, but I must be. If there were others, Cecil wouldn’t look at me the way he does each time I admit another night has passed dreamlessly. It briefly crossed my mind to lie, but I’d skew their results. I may be desperate, but I’m not a cheater. Or a saboteur. To me, the Scientific Method is as sacred as the Ten Commandments.

I set aside my book and leap to my feet. “Where are we going?”

“I’ll explain when we get there.”

About now, I’m up for cleaning toilets in a boy’s locker room if it means escaping these four depressing walls.

Dr. Deborah Duvaney is my assigned Guardian during my awake-life. We’ve spent a great deal of time together this past week, trying to determine why I can’t dream. Last night, she brought me a cup of warm milk with nutmeg. Since milk has tryptophan, an amino acid that induces sleep, I’d been hopeful. It was delicious, but it didn’t work.

Deborah passes her crystal keycard in front of the reader to unlock my door. I follow her click-clacking heels down the white, unadorned hallway. This secret research facility used to be a school, and its opulent exterior hasn’t been altered, but beyond the entryway they’ve eliminated every vestige of The Flemming Academy’s old-world charm.

“Here we are,” Deborah announces in front of a white door labelled Sanctuary.

It seems we’re now trying meditation. Or prayer.

She steps aside, and I blink in surprise. The room appears vintage, making me feel as if I truly am a student in an elite boarding school in upstate New York. The ceiling is adorned with dark, wooden beams, and the fireplace’s ornately carved marble mantle is stunning. One of the walls is lined with books that appear to have actually been read, and I yearn to revel in their titles. There’s even a plaid, wool blanket draped across the back of a worn, leather couch, and a vase of real-looking, white roses on a coffee table

Deborah clears her throat. “We find a more relaxed setting tends to help in these situations.”

My stomach clenches. These situations? Am I being released from the Nobels Program?

The room’s ambiance transforms from tranquil to its true purpose: a place to console. When Grandma Bee was first diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, the doctor delivered the news in a similar setting. As he explained that Grandma Bee was already in the middle stage of the disease, my dream of graduating high school early and taking the full-ride scholarship to Stanford University vanished.

While researching the horrors my grandma would experience in the late stage, my new reality took root. I vowed she wouldn’t be displaced from the only home she’s ever known. Dad wasn’t there for Mom while she was sick; it was Grandma Bee who’d cared for her daughter-in-law. Now, it was up to me to be my grandma’s caretaker.

I’m not complaining. I love her. I have to keep reminding myself that the disease is responsible for her personality changes. Still, caring for her was the most demanding thing I’ve ever done—and it’s only going to get worse.

Deborah gestures to the couch.

I select the stiff-backed chair and trace my scar. The nine-year-old memory flickers to life. It was the first time my grandma trusted me with a sharp knife. In less than a minute, I slashed open my thumb, bloodying the carrots. Grandma Bee held my hand tightly while they stitched me up. I don’t remember where Dad was, but he wasn’t the one promising chocolate ice cream afterward.

“Lake, it’s been more than a week, and—”

“I’ve been thinking about her soul,” I say, before Deborah has a chance to do the deed.

She blinks a few times. “Excuse me?”

“Sophie’s soul. What happened to it after her body and her consciousness were separated?” If Sophie exists in my mind, but I’m unable to merge with her, is she stuck between this world and the next?

“That’s not something you should concern yourself with.”

From Deborah’s pained look, she wants me to drop it, but this could be the final time we ever interact. “I read about an experiment where a body was weighed before and after the person died. There was a twenty-one-gram difference, which was attributed to the soul leaving the body.”

“This isn’t approp—” she cuts off her own words with a frown. “Is this what you’ve been thinking about?”

“If there is a heaven, Sophie is going to need her soul.”

Without empirical evidence, it’s difficult for me to embrace the concept of heaven, but Grandma Bee has never questioned her belief that she’ll be going to a better place. We stopped letting her drive after she got lost going to the church she’d attended her entire life. Dad promised to take her there after I left.

Dad promises a lot of things.

I wince when recalling all the times I’d believed him as a kid, like how he’d figure out a way to keep us from getting evicted from our house. Then there was the time he told me the kids at school wouldn’t notice I only had one pair of shoes. And, the band will call any day now to ask him back. His favorite: none of the jobs he applied for were worthy of his talent.

Before I left, I asked Pastor Mayer to call Dad if Grandma Bee didn’t show up for church. I know the nurse could bring her, but it means so much to her when she can show off her family. Dad owes her this. We’d have been homeless if Grandma Bee hadn’t taken us in.

Deborah begins to pace across the richly-colored Oriental rug, halts abruptly, and faces me. “Lake, do you believe Sophie is already dead?”

Deborah told me Sophie selected me because I rated in the highest tier for tenacity—which I think is a compliment. That trait had never failed me. Until now.

“Please, Lake. I need you to answer truthfully.”

My eyes drop to my chewed fingernails. “When I first woke from the procedure, I assumed Sophie made it, too. But now, after all this time … I’m no longer certain.”

Deborah’s forehead creases into an exclamation point. “I need a few minutes.” She rushes out, and the lock clicks into place.

When the man in the gray-blue suit offered me this opportunity, it felt like my family had won the lottery. I’d just been awarded first place at The American Chemistry Club for the second year in a row, which is what probably put me on the Darwinians’ radar. But if I don’t merge, Dad will no longer receive their huge payment. That money allowed us to hire a full-time nurse to live with Grandma Bee, freeing me to come here and do miraculous things.

The ticking clock on the mantle marks each passing minute as my thoughts spiral into freefall. If I had merged, Grandma Bee would’ve been cared for by a professional with the skills needed to deal with late-stage dementia. If I had merged, Dad could’ve had another chance at making it in the music business. And, not unimportantly, if I had merged, Sophie would’ve had a second lifetime to discover how to end the ravages of Alzheimer’s. Maybe, just maybe, in time to cure Grandma Bee.

Together, Sophie and I would’ve made life-expectancy tables obsolete.

Instead, I let everybody down.