Wilder Girls(41)

And the thing is at first he did. Angry, like some of us. Violent, like some of us. But most of us keep hold of ourselves, and he was on the way to losing it when he left.

No

That’s the most I can pin down.

“Interesting,” Paretta says. She fumbles with the pad of paper, and I watch her jot something down. Most of it too hard to read, but I see the word “estrogen,” and above it, “adrenal,” a word I think I remember from some lecture on puberty in sophomore bio. Maybe that has something to do with the way the teachers died, instead of giving the Tox a home like we do.

“This might sound strange,” Paretta starts, after staring a beat too long at her notes, “but is your headmistress…past a certain age?”

Like we can’t just say “menopausal.” Headmistress canceled at least two assemblies during my first year because of her hot flashes.

Yes

“And I’m correct,” Paretta continues, “that none of you were receiving hormone replacement therapy, yes?”

As far as I know yeah

But I remember one of the lectures Welch gave us when she found a condom in Lindsay’s care package. Be prepared, she said, and know your options, and an IUD might be right for some but for others—

   Wait is the pill

She’s flicking through the stack of files before I can finish writing. “Charlotte Welch, twenty-six. Ah, I see. Prescribed birth control for hormone management.” She glances up at me, smiling wryly. “I’m guessing she’s had limited access to that medication, which could definitely play a role.”

Why are you smiling? I want to ask her. That limited access you find so funny is your fault.

“Right,” she says, closing the medical file. “We’ll have to look into that. Now, as to the rest, I’m here to learn as much as I can from you about the outbreak. The more I know, the easier it will be for us to figure out how to treat it.”

Do you know what it is

A hundred questions, but that one’s the most important.

“We’re not sure,” Paretta says. “Our tests haven’t turned up much. We’ve never seen anything quite like it. You girls have such varied symptoms.”

You girls, she says, like it’s not something worth talking about. I keep my face blank, file it away. Let her think I haven’t noticed. Better yet, let her think I don’t care.

“We do know, at least, that it’s not airborne,” she goes on, “and it can’t be contracted off contaminated surfaces, which has helped with containment. But we need your help to know more. So, Byatt. Let’s start with before it happened.”



* * *



—

   Before what. Before I got there, before Raxter changed, before I ever found it on the map.

Here is Boston in my hand, spilling between my fingers. Brick and stone and a handful of streets eating their own tails. I walk and walk and lose my way and always come back.

And in the other hand, Raxter. No ferry on the horizon, mainland far and farther. Water and shoreline born new every day. Everything what it wants to be. Everything mine.

I’m buried there no matter where I go.



* * *



—

“Is there anything you can think of in the lead-up? Anything off, different?”

I shrug. It was normal I guess

Hetty told me something, though. Some girls had a fight at breakfast the day it started

“What kind of fight? They argued?”

No like hair pulling

But I didn’t see

“Okay. And who got sick first?”

Mostly seniors I think and then teachers

Your age

Paretta snorts. “I won’t ask how old you think I am.” I start to write, and she laughs outright, holds her hand up over her eyes.

   Born yesterday

“How kind.”

For most of the teachers, the end came quick. Our nurse was ancient—I think she died even before the Tox got to her—and a few of the others went out into the woods and never came back. To spare food for the rest of us, that’s what the note they left said. But the rest, women my mother’s age, gray just starting to thread through their hair, they died like it was a fever. Just dropped, their fingers not even turning black like ours.

“And how many of you girls would you say are left?”

The stack of files is looming. So many names, so many girls long gone. I stopped counting after a while, pulled the borders of the world in tight so only the three of us were inside.

Maybe 60 but not sure

“Your friends? Hetty and Reese? Are they okay?”

I never said. I would never say. I let the warmth drain away, jaw set, eyes narrowed.

How do you know them

She waves a hand. “We know all of you.”

There it is again. Said lightly, like it’s nothing, but the pill she gave me was labeled “RAX009.” And if I’m 009, will one of my girls be 010?

No. They’re mine, and I’m not letting them go.

She’s fine

We’re all fine

I know Paretta wants more. She can’t have it.

   You’ve asked questions my turn

Paretta shifts on the bed, almost uneasily. She looks like the therapists my mother used to send me to when they realized I wasn’t going to open up the way they wanted. “Sure.”