The Lucky Ones(89)

Sleepily she nodded. It would be nice. It would be nice to forget it all happened—Roland’s arms, the wave, the kiss, his hands on her waist, the tears, the shame, Thora telling her that Roland had killed a little girl... Yes, she did want to forget it all. But that didn’t make any sense. She was twelve, a kid, but not stupid. You couldn’t magically make people forget things.

She closed her eyes and started to fall into sleep, and when she was almost out, she felt Dr. Capello’s strong arms under her, lifting her up and carrying her from his office. Was he taking her back to her bedroom? To his? No, they were going up. She heard the creaking of stairs under his feet and felt hot sticky air on her face. The attic. He had taken her up to the attic. But why?

She was too sleepy to ask. Those pink pills, they were the allergy pills Kendra had to take in spring, the ones that made her fall asleep and stay asleep for ten hours straight when she took two. Allison wanted to wake herself up but the pills had her. Even when she felt something cold on her temples, she couldn’t shake free of her need to sleep. But she knew she had to try.

“What about the dragons?” she asked.

“You really don’t want to sleep, do you?” He sounded almost proud of her for the way she could fight off sleep. “The hippocampus is a structure at the center of the brain. Hippo means horse. Campus means sea monster. They call it that because it looks like a sea horse or a water dragon. That’s all.”

“Oh,” she said. “There’s a dragon in my brain.”

“There’s a dragon in all our brains,” he said. “And some of us have nice dragons and some of us have bad dragons. You know what I do sometimes?”

She shook her sleepy head.

“I slay the bad dragons,” he said.

“Like a knight?”

“Just like a knight. How about you recite one of your poems to me,” he said. “That’ll help you fall asleep. And when you wake up you won’t remember anything bad about Roland. Okay?”

“What poem?” Her body felt so heavy. Her brain like mush. But if someone wanted her to recite a poem, she would do it.

“Kubla Khan,” he said. “That’s a good dream poem. Maybe it’ll give you good dreams.”

“‘In Xanadu,’” she began, “‘did Kubla Khan / A stately pleasure dome decree...’”

She was almost asleep, one second from it, when she felt something hard, something that tasted of plastic being shoved into her mouth between her lips. She felt something cold on either side of her forehead. And then a shock tore through her, a shock like lightning had struck her. It lifted her into the air and ripped a hole into her brain.

And after that...nothing.

The next thing she remembered was waking up in the hospital in Astoria. The first face she saw was her great-aunt Frankie’s. She was a tall thin lady with long white hair tied up in a bun. Her dark eyes sort of reminded Allison of her mom. Allison liked her immediately.

“What are you doing here?” Allison asked, after her aunt Frankie introduced herself.

Aunt Frankie answered very simply, “Little girl, I’m getting you the hell out of here.”

*

Allison pulled into the long driveway to the house, parked and went inside. She went quietly, not wanting to draw attention to herself. Where Deacon and Thora were she didn’t know, but she glimpsed Roland standing on the deck, staring out at the water. Praying? Maybe. She wanted to talk to him more than anything but she couldn’t trust herself yet. Or him.

She went right up to the third floor. Part of her wanted to confront Dr. Capello but she didn’t know what to say to him. She needed proof, first of all. She needed proof that what she remembered was true.

Outside Dr. Capello’s bedroom door she paused and listened. Allison heard nothing. She peeked in and saw the room was dark. He must be sound asleep. It was late, past eleven, but Allison knew she wouldn’t sleep for a very long time.

She went to the attic door. It was unlocked. She turned on the light and walked up the wooden stairs, going as slowly as she could. She didn’t want a creaking footfall to telegraph to the entire house where she was and what she was doing. She made it up without a sound, no sound but her own shallow, panting breaths.

Allison knew what she was looking for, and she even had a good idea where to find it. She walked to the south wall, to the row of display cases where Dr. Capello kept his collection. She pulled down one white sheet and peered through the glass front doors. She saw bone drills and assorted ivory-handled scalpels, a metal mouth stretcher, a copper syringe and a sterling-silver catheter. But not what was she looking for. She pulled down the second white sheet on the second glass case and searched it top to bottom. Nothing again. Allison was starting to panic now. Any second Roland would come up and ask her what she was doing and why she was doing it, and she didn’t have a good answer. She ripped the sheet off the third and final case and scanned all the contents.

Nothing.

She stood up and rested her head against the top of the case. It had to be here. Had to be.

“Where the hell are you?” she said to herself.

“Tell me what you’re looking for,” Dr. Capello said, “and I’ll tell you where to find it.”





Chapter 25

Allison spun around and saw Dr. Capello in his blue bathrobe standing at the top of the stairs.