“I’ll take it up to the office.” She takes the box from Nan and carries it up the stairs. On the landing, she bumps into Jane, who is exiting her room.
“Hmmm. That looks quite terrifying. What is it?” Jane asks. Her long hair is pulled back today, and a shaft of sunlight from the window on the landing catches it and turns it to molten silver.
“Just something I’m working on,” Holly says, trying to slide past, but Jane is too sharp.
“For the boy? Let me see.” She follows to the office, where Holly reluctantly opens the box. She unwraps the vial of blood and holds it up to the light, checking to ensure it isn’t cracked or broken.
Jane shakes her head. “It looks ordinary enough. What do you plan to do with it?”
“It’s the last one I have,” Holly says. “But there’s no sense holding on to it for too long. It won’t be viable. I’ll inject Jack with it today. All of it. He needs it.”
Jane reaches out and gently takes the vial from Holly, turning it this way and that. “That cream of yours the other day was quite the miracle-worker,” she says. “I might not have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, the difference it made in Jack.”
Against the office’s subdued walls, Eden’s blood takes on a rich, mesmerizing red. Holly can’t take her eyes from it. “And this is the source, so it must be even more powerful,” Jane muses. “Tell me. Have you ever tried it on yourself?”
She doesn’t so much as glance at Holly’s leg, but her scrutiny stings anyhow. No, Holly wants to say. Of course not.
And yet. In the aftermath of the car crash, it was Jane who canceled her vacations and charity dinners to sit with Holly in the hospital, to take her to physical therapy and to be fitted for a brace. Jane knows exactly how badly Holly’s leg was damaged and how hard Holly worked to recover the use of it, because she was there. She knows no amount of rehab could have made it as fit as it is now.
Holly doesn’t make a defense. She doesn’t explain that she didn’t dare test Eden’s blood directly on Jack until she knew whether it was safe, until she understood what it would do. She doesn’t talk about the hours she spent terrified that the tingling sensation that coursed through her body with the first injection meant she’d done something wrong, that she’d die when Eden and Jack needed her most. That she hasn’t taken it since those early days, although regular usage would cure the limp that plagues her when she’s tired or cold. That she’ll never use it again. And that for every hour she’s spent researching a cure for Jack, she’s spent that and more on Eden.
And she doesn’t say a word about how hard she cried the first time she took blood from her daughter.
“Yes. In the beginning,” is all she says. She reaches over and takes the vial from Jane, wraps it back in its protective casing. When it’s covered, the light in the room seems to dim a little bit.
“Well then,” Jane says, “I suppose I should leave you to it.”
“I suppose so.” Holly turns away and busies herself tidying the desk.
“Holly,” Jane says. She’s lingered by the door.
“Yes?”
“It’s quite all right to feel badly. Just not too badly.” This time, those bright blue eyes look directly at Holly. “No matter how much you used, most people—myself included—would have used more.”
And with that she is gone.
* * *
After Jane leaves, Holly finishes a few emails, checks over the marketing plan for Pixie Dust one last time. There’s a problem with the vendor for the glass bottles—they’re struggling to keep up with the advance orders—and Holly could leave it to Barry but drafts a letter anyhow. She’s stalling, she knows, but the conversation with her mother has left her unsettled. She’s done the right thing—anyone who has seen Jack run across the lacrosse field will attest to that—but she can’t help but feel the wrong of it anyhow.
The work helps steady her, as it almost always does, and when she’s calm again, she pulls the vial back out of its refrigerated box. She’s readied the needle so often over the years she could do it in her sleep, but this time she’s hyperaware of the sharp metal point beneath its cap, of the rich red color of the blood as she draws it out of the vial. It’s as if she’s under some sort of spell.
She gives herself a mental shake. She doesn’t have the time for this. She needs to find Jack and get on with it. She carries the needle in its casing with her down the hall and to his room. But when she taps on the door, he’s not there. Nor is he in the library or game room.
She hurries to the kitchen, where she asks Nan if she’s seen him. “Ed’s out of school for the summer, so I think they’d planned lunch and then maybe hitting some of the shops. Ed’s dad might meet up with them, if he’s bored enough with this week’s chippie. He’s a teacher, so he’s done as well. But they should be back early.”
Holly bites her lip in frustration. Jack’s out as well, his school having finished two days ago. He’d been elated, a mood change she would have welcomed were it not for the fear his increasingly free schedule struck in her. “Why can’t I go now?” he’d raged at her when she’d forbidden him from taking off on the Tube to explore London by himself. “There’s absolutely no reason. You just don’t want me to have any fun.” He’d stomped up the stairs in a fury, slamming the door to his room behind him, and she’d counted herself grateful that he hadn’t walked out the front door. She doesn’t know how she could have stopped him.
She hates the idea of him wandering the streets. The shadowy figure of Peter is never far from her mind. I can fix that for you . . . But today Jack is with Ed, and possibly Ed’s father. He’ll be fine.
“He said he’d already talked with you,” Nan offers. “That might be why he didn’t come up to the office.” She looks at the wrapped needle in Holly’s hand with undisguised curiosity, but before she can ask about it, the doorbell rings.
The two women look at each other. “I don’t think your mother is expecting anyone,” Nan says. “Jack probably forgot his key again.” She moves toward the hall, but Holly beats her to it.
“I’ll get it,” she says. She has a few things to say to her son. She doesn’t want to leave the syringe in the kitchen with Nan, so she takes it with her as she hurries to the door. She’ll pull Jack into the hall bathroom and inject him there.
She opens the door. “Where have you . . . ,” she starts to say, but the words die on her lips. It’s not Jack at all, but Christopher Cooke, dressed in a biker kit, his helmet tucked under his arm, his prosthesis hidden by leather gloves.
“Been all your life?” He finishes her sentence for her with a cheeky grin. “I’ve asked myself that same question.”
“I wasn’t expecting you,” Holly says, unable to think of a snappy comeback. He’s caught her off guard—again. Even worse, she hears footsteps behind her. She prays fervently for Nan but knows her luck’s not that good.
“Holly? Is that Jack?” her mother calls before coming into view. “I’m heading out for a late lunch and wanted to make sure you’d found him before . . . Oh, hello.” Christopher gives her his most winning smile. Jane, no slouch in her ability to recognize an attractive male, returns it.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt. I was wondering if you’d need the car to look for Jack,” she says smoothly.
“You seem to have a distressing habit of losing people,” Christopher observes sotto voce to Holly.
Holly glares at him but bites her tongue. Around Christopher, silence is a virtue. She does, however, answer Jane.
“Jack is out with Ed,” she says. “He should be home soon, so I don’t need the car. Enjoy your lunch.”
“Well then, please tell me you aren’t going to keep your . . . friend . . . standing on the steps,” Jane says. She makes no move to leave.