To Best the Boys(31)

Not gentlemen?

Gentlepersons.

“Rhen?”

I jump and drop the letter on the table as the door creaks and a light illuminates the steps as well as the entirety of Da’s face. He rubs a hand across his eye. “Thought you’d be home later.”

I shake my head. “I went to Sow’s pub to see the boys.”

He frowns and tilts his head. “You went into town? You’re all right though, yes?”

“They put restrictions on the fishing industry.” I set my fingers on the table in front of the letter. “They’re limiting how much the men can fish.”

“I heard.” He’s still analyzing me with his gaze that’s ensuring I’m okay as well as taking in the fact that I’ve not even changed or begun baking. “It was all anyone was talking about when I went to see the Strowes.”

“How can they do it, though? Just—decide something like that for everyone. Especially when it won’t even affect them.” I glance around. “And—and Lady.” I turn toward her cage. “Da, Lady’s dead.”

He descends the stairs and sets the lantern on the table beside mine. “I know.”

“So what about the Strowe girl? Is she still alive?”

In the lamplight his eyes glisten and turn damp. “She became incapacitated today.”

Exactly. Of course she did. I press my fingers harder into the table until I can feel the sting of my blood pulsing—until I can feel the life that is wasting away here—and whisper, “And that’s okay with everyone? We’re just supposed to live with that?” I jerk a hand toward the stairs and whisper, “And what about Mum? Did you see the blood on her pillow tonight? Did you hear her breathing? What is wrong with the medical community that they can just let this happen?”

Da’s face goes two shades of pale and his gaze flits to the stairs. He obviously didn’t see Mum’s blood. My heart implodes, and I throw both hands in the air. “Da, what are we doing?”

He still hasn’t moved. “We’ll get it figured out, Rhen. I promise.”

“No, we won’t! Or at least not soon enough.” I gesture at the vials and dishes on the floor around us, then at the tiny room. “Not with this rudimentary setup!” And I’m yelling, and I don’t even know why I’m yelling at him because it’s not his fault. He’s not causing this, but I can’t stop.

“No offense, but you’ve been telling me for years we don’t have the supplies to test the methods like we need to. To even try to create new medicines for simple infections. We can’t even get the dead tissues we need without breaking the law!”

He blinks and studies me, then sits down on the low stool, and his body suddenly looks old. More than that, it’s his stance. Weary. Defeated. I can see it in his eyes. “I definitely don’t think we should give up, but I agree that we may be at the mercy of the state-supported researchers on this one, Rhen.”

“Wait . . .” My voice falls. “Are you serious?” A rush of warmth fills my vision, and I blink it away. “Da, what are you saying?”

He looks sadly at me. “I saw Lady when I got home. I just hadn’t got around to moving her.”

“Okay, and?”

“I assume you saw the blood samples I took this evening,” he says quietly. “The salesman was fine a week ago.” Da’s tone goes scratchy. “And your mum’s blood has altered to look more like his. Rhen, the disease is morphing, and I . . . I think I’m out of ideas on this one.”

What is he saying? Oh hulls, what the bleeding fury is he saying? That he’s given up hope? That he doesn’t believe we’ll find a cure? Did he ever believe? Or was he just letting me think I could become something more—and that we were actually making a difference?

I look around as hot tears fill my eyes. This has all been a joke—one in which we’ve been playing make-believe and pseudoscience. I’m not a scientist in training. I’m a child entertaining fancies about who we are and what we can do.

His eyes are soulful. “I know what you’re fearing, and it’s not true. I still believe someone will eventually get there. I just don’t know that it’ll be us. But I don’t want you to give up hope.”

“Hope for what? That Mum will miraculously recover? That enough people will die so the researchers will finally look into it? Or maybe that parliament will fund them? None of that is hope—it’s dependency, and it’s pathetic.”

“I know, but other than keep trying there’s nothing else we can do. Someday this disease will reach their doors, and we’ll hopefully have something to show them. At that point they’ll pay attention. Right now it’s just too new. Too unknown. So until then we keep doing what we know. We’ve already created an antibiotic for the weak fever, and you’ve almost cracked the vaccine for the lung-fluid illness. Even if . . .” His voice fades off, as does the hope I’ve built our entire past six months around. Hope that he and I could save Mum. That we were doing something bigger—something more worthwhile with our time than simply watching people slip away into a sickness we don’t even have a proper name for.

I grit my teeth and sound like Jake and his father and all the men down at Sow’s. “Maybe we should bring it to their doors.”