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  “I don't know,” Quinn said, his tone grave. “I'm hoping not too quickly.”

  No one else in the room understood his meaning quite as I did: the only reason that he would return from Jib's house quickly tonight would be if he no longer had a patient there to care for.

  “I hope not, sir.” I whispered, tears falling down my face as I watched Schuyler and Quinn roll Jib's chair back into the foyer, there to await his father and their carriage.

  CHAPTER 21

  IT WAS WITH MUCH TREPIDATION that I asked Schuyler to let me into the doctor's laboratory, and it was only because he'd heard Quinn's instructions to me that he deigned to do it.

  Even so, he did not leave Lilibet and I alone there; he took up a seat in the corner of the room and pretended to drink his tea, though I knew from the length of time he'd held the cup that it must have long since gone cold.

  We were joined as well by Penn and Marielle, though they seemed to be in their own world, off in the opposite corner, speaking in whispers. Once I heard Jib's name spoken between them. I watched as Marielle began to cry and Penn did what he could to comfort her, though the look on his face betrayed that he was just as desperately worried as she was.

  We all were.

  Still, I had been given a task to perform: I would stick with it and complete it to the best of my ability.

  Moments turned to hours as I stood there, explaining patiently in one way after another just what the machines were intended to do, and how Lilibet should go about trying to use them.

  She stared blankly ahead, ignoring me, or so it seemed, until finally in frustration she sat down on the floor and began tapping her fingers against her leg again.

  Just as I had noticed before, when I spoke to her directly, using her name as part of the question, she would wait a moment after I'd finished speaking and then she would begin to tap. I was determined now to take advantage of this, and I begged Schuyler's assistance for a moment.

  I asked him to help me move the modified keyboards down onto the floor, one at a time, and sit them to the right and left of Lilibet.

  I then demonstrated each to her, one at a time.

  “You see, Lilibet? This one has all the consonants on the left and the vowels and numbers on the right,” I explained. “The doctor says he knows you can read, Lilibet. Won't you show us how you can write as well?”

  Lilibet kept rocking back and forth, and then finally, she began tapping on her leg.

  In that instant, I had an idea.

  “Look, Lilibet,” I said, typing out each word as I spoke it, “This is how you use the keys to talk. You can tap out your words like you already do only this way, we will hear you. We will listen.”

  I tore off the strip of paper that had unrolled from the machine and held it up before her. “Do you see? The words I just spoke to you are right there. Right there.”

  After another hour of trial and failure, I was worn out. I dropped my aching head into my hand and marveled at the patience Quinn must have had to get her to the point where he knew her well enough to know she could read.

  “Please, Lilibet.” I took hold of her face gently and she seemed to ignore me completely. I released her, not wanting to antagonize her in what was already a clearly agitated state. I sighed, closed my eyes and then after a long moment, opened them again.

  “I know that you must have so much to say, so much you want us to know. Or so much you want to ask.” I noticed that her hand started tapping faster against her leg at the mention of answering questions. “There is something you want to know, isn't there? Something you want to ask us. Well,” I picked up her right hand and tugged it away from her, placing it on the keys of the machine to her right. “Ask, and I'll do everything I can to get you an answer. Come on,” I urged her desperately, my heart aching from exhaustion and my head swimming from working in such circular patterns of thought for hours. “Ask!”

  I dropped her hand onto the keys and she struck one, randomly. She jumped as it snapped against the roll of paper, yet seemed to relax when it didn't make a noise as loud as a normal, everyday typewriter would.

  She slowly turned in the direction of the keyboard and stared at it for a long time. I didn't move or speak now, except to raise my eyes up to see that Schuyler, Penn, and Marielle were all silent, the two men watching with rapt attention.

  We all waited, and waited, a seeming eternity before we heard her fingers tap against those keys again; the first time just as if to get the feel for them, the second with much more intention in an attempt to make a word.

  I waited until her slow, methodical tapping ceased, and she went back to staring ahead into nothing and rocking back and forth.

  Schuyler's eyes begged me to tell him what I saw on the paper, and as I looked at the unfurled roll before me, tears formed in my eyes; not just because the girl had made an attempt, neither simply because she had succeeded.

  The hardest part was seeing the question she had asked, using only consonants.

  The scroll read: “jb gt bttr”

  “What does it say?” Penn asked excitedly, grasping Marielle's hand as she gasped with surprise that her sister had managed to communicate somehow.

  “She wants to know if Jib is going to get better,” I replied, and I could not stop myself from reaching out and touching Lilibet's face softly. “Oh, Lilibet, how I wish your very first question was one for which I had an answer.”

  “I have the answer.”

  We all turned to see a ghostly, haggard Doctor Godspeed standing in the doorway.

  “Quinn?” Schuyler leapt from his chair and approached.

  Quinn ignored him and moved slowly toward Lilibet. He looked at the paper in my hands, then at me, for a long moment. Then he dropped down to one knee beside Lilibet and spoke very softly the words we had all feared might come.

  “I'm sorry, Lilibet, but the answer to your question is no.”

  A long and heavy silence overtook the room, each one of us lost in our own thoughts until the muffled sound of tapping upon bastardized typewriter keys sounded once more. After it ended, and the girl's hand withdrew back into her lap, Quinn reached out and tore off the end of the paper.

  He gasped an incredulous, emotional burst of air into his lungs and shook his head when he saw the text it contained.

  I swore that I saw the glint of unshed tears in his beautiful eyes, as he handed the paper to me next. He hung his head low as he battled, struggling to contain his emotions in a way I had never seen before.

  “Don't thank me for trying, Lilibet. I wish there was more I could do,” Quinn whispered, stopping suddenly to clear his throat. “So much more.”

  I looked over at Schuyler, tears streaming silently down my face and threatening to track down his as well. His eyes begged the question that he could not bring his lips to speak.

  Before I could give Schuyler his answer by explaining what the paper said, Quinn cleared his throat again and then sat down from his kneeling position, right alongside Lilibet.

  “So, I see that our young friend has gotten in there, at last, and you've found your way to the surface, haven't you, Lilibet?” Quinn again sounded overwhelmed, and had to stop speaking a moment to regain his composure. As he did he reached over to me and grasped hold of my hand. He squeezed it once, slowly and tenderly.

  My heart pounded beyond belief, straining against the limits of the mechanical as he whispered into my ear the words, “Well done.”

  I closed my eyes, soaking them in, taking in his nearness, and found some small comfort in our victory over Lilibet's internal prison even in this moment of such unfathomable sorrow.

  When I opened my eyes again, I found that Penn and Schuyler were staring at me directly, both looking somewhat startled by the exchange between Quinn and I. Penn simply seemed surprised. Schuyler's expression was something entirely different; he was upset by it.

  “So, Miss Lilibet favors only the consonants, does she?” Quinn noted that she had completely ignored the machi
ne to her left and only used specific keys on the one to her right. “This allows us more freedom for the case design, as if she's only going to use the consonants there is no need of including the vowels. Neither does she seem to have any interest in using the keys with short words I created for her, look.” He indicated the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ keys, as well as the one that was designed to type in one stroke her entire name.

  “Show me, Lilibet. Show me if you want me to make this so you can take it with you everywhere.”

  Lilibet began to rock more quickly; she actually appeared as though she was afraid of something.

  “You don't have to use it any more than you want to, Lilibet,” I promised, putting my hand upon her shoulder for a moment. “You can get lost in there, like you always do, as much as you must. It's just sometimes…” I let my words trail off, watching her for some indication she was listening, and sure enough her rocking began to slow. Quinn nodded to me, indicating with his eyes I should press on. “We'd like to know more about you. What you think, what you want, what you don't want. Who you are.”

  Tears burned my eyes anew as I looked down at the slip of paper that Quinn had handed me. It showed such depth of concern for others did lurk inside this girl, locked in her own head and heart for so long. I yearned to know more about her. “Who are you?” I whispered again, and collectively we held our breath as her hand crawled slowly across her leg, then the floor, over to the keyboard of the machine once more.

  Four distinct keystrokes were heard, and upon the paper was the simple, and simply profound, answer to my question.

  I began to sob softly now, resting my forehead against the girl's shoulder. She sat there, unaffected by my nearness, a gesture of affection she would previously have shrunk away from.

  “For the love of God, Quinn, what does it say?” Schuyler blurted.

  Quinn shook his head once again. He tore off the strip of paper and held it aloft.

  “The question asked was, ‘who are you’,” Quinn whispered. “The answer, of course, is this.”

  Schuyler approached and saw that upon the paper were four consonants, forming the framework of a name.

  The paper said: “llbt”

  “Of course, you are Lilibet,” Schuyler whispered, reaching out and placing his hand atop the girl's head. “Who else in the world would you be?”

  CHAPTER 22

  THE DOCTOR ROSE and moved toward the decanter of spirits at the opposite end of the room. He poured himself a glass and drank deeply from it before speaking again. “Schuyler, take them upstairs.” He gestured toward Penn and Marielle, who was weeping, softly but still loud enough to be distinctly heard.

  “What can I do, Quinn, anything?”

  “You can take them upstairs, as I asked,” Quinn replied evenly, his eyes warning Schuyler off as he considered making an approach.

  “Penn,” Schuyler said, and Penn obeyed, offering his arm to lead Marielle away. “If you change your mind,” Schuyler offered, his expression at once hopeful that Quinn might, but certain he would not.

  Assuming that ‘them’ included me, I made my way toward the door, Lilibet in tow. She did not go along easily, but kept turning back in the direction of her new communication device. This did not escape Quinn's notice.

  “I shall get it finished and back to you directly, Lilibet, my word upon it.”

  That was all it took to satisfy the girl and she fell in step with the others as we moved toward the exit.

  As I was about to shut the door behind us, I noticed Quinn's eyes staring out blankly ahead of him, in my direction, and he seemed to consider, for a moment, speaking.

  Since he did not, I took the liberty of doing so. “If there is anything you require of me, Doctor Godspeed, you have but to ask.”

  He opened his mouth but no words issued forth. His lips opened and closed several times, and then he merely nodded before taking another long draw from his drink.

  Finally I could bear it no longer, the thought of him carrying and battling such an all-consuming grief alone. I had to know exactly what he was fighting; I had to know exactly what was wrong with Jib.

  “Doctor,” I approached him again, in slow, stunted steps.

  “His organs are failing,” he declared, before tilting his head back and draining his glass empty. “It will not be long now.”

  I was a little startled that, given this fact, he had left the boy's bedside at all. As if able to read my mind, or at the very least correctly gauge my reaction and the accompanying emotions, he spoke again. “I had no choice but to leave him tonight. You see, officially I was never his physician, and so in his waning hours, when none of my experimentation…” He spoke the last word as if doing so left a bitter taste in his mouth; clearly he hated the word and the darkness it implied. “…could further aid him, then the palliative care offered by standard, licensed physicians was called for.”

  I realized too that having other doctors care for Jib in his final days would protect Quinn, his work, and his other patients, myself included. I thought about what Jib's parents must be going through, knowing that he was their only child, and how much it must have pained Quinn to be unable to help them.

  “I will return, when it is safe. If…” He slumped heavily down into his desk chair, holding his head in his hands. “If the boy asks for me.”

  I approached him cautiously, aching to touch him, to console him, to offer him the solace that only the embrace of love, truly and purely felt, can give. Yet the moment my hand got within a hair's breadth of touching him, he seemed to know it; he bolted upright, looking at me with blood red blue eyes and a complexion the color of ash.

  “Please,” he whispered, much more kindly than he would have done, I imagined, if I were anyone else. “Leave me.”

  I did as he asked, but doing so took strength and a power of determination I did not know that I was capable of.

  I was only able to find it because he'd asked it of me.

  * * *

  The red room was eerily still with Jib's absence and the news of his condition. We all tried to pass the time any way we could to help ease our pain, and while for Penn and I that meant remaining silent, for Marielle it meant speaking. Excessively.

  “What does he look like, really?” she asked me, her hands working the knitting needles faster and faster as she spoke.

  “Who?”

  “Penn,” she whispered, leaning closer to me. “Who else?”

  I glanced across the room where Penn was slumped over a book once more.

  “You can't see him at all yourself?” I asked, finally broaching the subject I'd wondered about for so long.

  “Not in the detail I wish to,” she answered sadly. She set down her knitting and removed the spectacles from her eyes and began to rub them. “These create an enormous strain, you know. They are heavy, and tiresome.” She set them on the table beside us, and I looked at them more closely than I ever had before. I was amazed by the thickness of the lenses and also the craftsmanship in the metal that held them. They were made with a keen eye and a careful hand, and I was certain there was not another pair like them in all the world.

  “He made them as small as he could to allow me enough range to move around without injuring myself. I am though, still lacking the ability to see much beyond motion and light. My eyes are so extraordinarily sensitive to the light that he altered the color of these lenses, I still do not understand how.”

  “The doctor does a great many things that I do not understand,” I admitted softly.

  Marielle begged now. “Please. What does he look like?”

  I handed her spectacles back to her and stood, taking her by the hand and pulling her along with me.

  As we walked past him I saw Penn flinch, and I remembered what he had told me about whispers being as loud to him as the regularly spoken word. He knew what she had asked me, and I wanted to answer where he could not so easily ascertain what was being said.

  “The first thing you must know about Pen
n is that the amplifiers make it nearly possible for him to read minds.” I took her face gently into my hands. “Dear girl, don't you know that anything whispered in the same room as he is in may as well be shouted?”

  She immediately reddened, until her cheeks were pinker in hue than the glasses she wore. “No, tell me it's not true.”

  “It is true, he told me with his own lips.”

  She groaned and dropped her head into her hands with the kind of overwrought dramatics of which only girls in their middle teenage years seem capable. “NO! Do you know how many conversations I have had, whispering with him in the room, thinking he could not hear?”

  I felt a small smile purse my lips, and shook my head. “Do you not know that teenage boys are as prone to want to listen in on girls their age as girls their age are to whisper about them?”

  “Yes, yes, be that as it may, you still haven't answered my question.” She stomped one foot and folded her arms now, leaning back against the wall. “What does Penn look like?”

  “I haven't really taken notice,” I said, and thinking about it, it was true. Even when in the dining room and seated nearest Penn, my attention was continually drawn across the table to the face of a much older man. “How do you think he looks?”

  “Well,” she lowered her voice again, and started once more wringing her hands into tight knots before the pinafore of her dress. “His hair seems to be the first thing you'd notice about him. He seems pale of complexion, but I cannot tell for certain the color of his eyes. I imagine that he has fine cheekbones, and a dreamlike expression upon that handsome face most of the time.”

  “Are you sure that you cannot see him clearly?” I asked, truly marveling. Her description was eerily correct. “You've described him with astounding accuracy.”

  She sighed heavily. “That is what I feared.”

  “Why do you fear it?”

  “I feared that in his looks, if I could but make them out, I'd only find more reasons to love him so desperately.”

  The small smile that had taken up the unusual location of residence upon my usually down-turned lip now withered and died there. I understood exactly what she meant.