Wilder Girls(40)

   Go on

Ask

“Ask what?”

I give him a look, roll my eyes, and he smiles sheepishly.

“I’m just wondering about what exactly it does to you.”

I take his hand from where it’s resting on my hip and slide it around to my back, where the ridges of my second spine are clear even through my jacket. His eyes go wide as he feels the curve and spike of new bone.

“Shit,” he says, and I smother a laugh. “Do all of you have that thing?”

I shake my head. Some of us just die

“But I mean—”

I know

I write a list. Mona’s gills. Hetty’s eye. Even try to draw Reese’s hand, and there are a hundred more flare-ups I can’t remember from a hundred other girls. It startles me, seeing it all laid out. How the Tox models us after the animals around us, tries to change our bodies, push them further than they’re willing to go. Like it’s trying to make us better, if only we could adapt.

“That sounds scary,” he says when I finish, his eyes wide, face solemn, and I can’t help laughing.

I guess hard at first

“And then?”

   And then. Hetty and Reese and someone needing me. A wilderness in everyone, like the one I’ve always felt in me. Only real this time. In my body, and not just my head.

Not so much

“They’ll figure it out.” He touches my cheek, plastic glove catching on my skin. “Whatever the Tox is, they’ll fix it.”

Movement in the woods, a bird taking flight. He jerks around to look. I can’t see anything but blood, flaking off his skin in the wind.

Let’s go back in



* * *



—

Back in the ward, in my bed. Curtain drawn, jacket and boots off. Hands free, whiteboard wiped clean.

“Dr. Paretta will be by in a minute,” he says. Winks as he draws his mask up, ties it tight. “If she asks, you thoroughly enjoyed doing laps of your room.”

When she comes it’s in that same blue suit, and she’s carrying a stack of files and a pad and pencil, along with a tripod and a camera. Her hair is all dark and shine, and there are deep lines around her eyes. I wonder if there are matching ones under her mask, at the corners of her mouth.

“How are you this afternoon, Byatt?”

Shrug. Fine

“We’ve been easing back on your dosage of diazepam. I hope you haven’t been in pain.”

   Shake my head. Point to the whiteboard.

“It was very helpful talking to you yesterday. I’d like to ask you some more questions, if you’ll let me.” She rests the camera on my bed and begins to set up the tripod. “Now, I know this will be a little unconventional. Normally, I’d take notes in an interview like this. But since you’ll be writing things down, this might be easier.” The tripod stable, she slots the camera into the stand.

What do I do

“I’ll ask you some questions, and you just answer me and show the board to the camera. Simple as that.”

Screen flips out, red light blinks on. Paretta sits down on the bed by my feet and props her notepad up on her knee.

“Before I get to the disease in particular, I noticed something in your chart—a bit of missing information. Can you tell me about your cycle? Has it been regular during the quarantine? I know stress and nutrition can have a big impact on these things.”

We lost them after the Tox

Paretta leans forward. “That’s very helpful, actually, Byatt. What about those of you who hadn’t hit puberty before the quarantine?”

It never occurred to me, really, to wonder. But nobody ever complained when the supplies came without tampons or pads.

I don’t think they ever got it

“But they exhibit symptoms of the disease, don’t they?”

   Yeah

“And your teachers?” There’s a glint in Paretta’s eyes, an eagerness to her voice. “Do they present those symptoms the same way you girls do?”

I guess I don’t know for sure. But something tells me neither Welch nor Headmistress is hiding a spine like mine under their clothes. They’re sick, I know that. I’ve seen the sores on their skin, seen their eyes glassy and gone when the fever hits. But not like us.

Not the ones left

“And they would be your headmistress and who else?”

Miss Welch

And they’re the ones closest to normal, aren’t they? They’re the ones who should be here, and I should be back in my room, Hetty next to me, holding on so tight it steals my breath.

I gesture to the room around me, let some bitterness into my smile. You should use them for your cure

Paretta reads the board, and I watch a frown furrow her brow. “We do want a cure, Byatt,” she says after a moment. “But there are so many more questions to be answered. I’m sure you understand.”

I don’t

She keeps going like I didn’t write anything at all. “I have records of only one person on the island having been assigned male at birth. A Daniel Harker?”

Reese’s dad. I nod. I’m not sure what else she wants from me. If she wanted to know about Mr. Harker, she should’ve picked Reese.

   “How did he react? Like you girls?”