So it was for the next thirteen days: sketching in the morning, lunching alone from her spot on the shark tank while the others searched and collected. She tolerated Arthur’s presence in the afternoon. She listened to the sound of Wormy typing on the typewriter in the bedroom. Most of all, she waited for Ricketts to acknowledge her in even the most cursory way, and in this regard, she sometimes got her wish. He would nod at her from the tide pools or offer a polite, dimensionless hello as he wandered into the kitchen for a bottle of beer, and the thrill of the encounter would be just enough to sustain her until that evening, when she and her father would both make their separate returns to the house on the hill. At dinner, which was still being prepared without conversation or camaraderie, they would stand at the kitchen counter and Anders would look at her in a way that seemed heavy, that sought to convey something; but he never asked any questions or voiced any suspicions, and she was never forced to lie or brag or defend herself. For some reason, she was no longer expected to play the spy, which meant her days in Ricketts’s lab remained unnoticed, unquestioned, and began to acquire a dreamlike quality as a result.
Today, though, she knew it was real. As she stood there tracking his progress through the grid of shark tanks, she knew the universe was solid and verifiable, and she wanted to do something to prove it. So she reached down and grabbed the nearest object she could find: a small, sharp-edged rock that landed in the bucket with a clang.
He whipped around, hurried to her side, and held out his hand.
“Let’s see.”
She passed the bucket to him. As he peered inside, she watched his face closely, desperate to see something—anything—that would replace that look of epic, imperturbable calm. So when he smiled broadly, it was contagious, the last remnants of her reserve mutating into relief.
“I’ve been trying so hard to—”
“Come here,” he said. “Slowly.”
She bent down next to him, as near as she could come without touching. His face was just inches from hers, so close that she could practically feel his beard against her cheek. When he extended his hand to retrieve the rock, she saw the source of his sudden happiness: two worms, flat and pale and oblong, their bodies covered in blue, branchlike markings that reminded her of trees in winter.
“Large flatworms,” he said.
She nodded. “Alloioplana californica.”
“I thought you hadn’t bothered yourself with the names.”
“I lied.”
Another smile, another seizure in her heart.
“Well, everyone has a different idea of the truth, I suppose.” He shrugged. “As for these two little miracles, there’s no doubt. They’re excellent finds but delicate ones. So much as brush them with a fingertip, and they’ll split in two.”
He reached into his pocket and extracted a glass microscope slide. Then, with what seemed like an excess of caution, he maneuvered the slide directly beneath the bigger worm’s head and remained motionless, wordless, as it recoiled slightly before oozing its full length onto the glass. He secured the rock between his knees, careful to leave the second worm untouched. Then he removed a glass vial from his other pocket, filled it with seawater, and eased both the slide and the worm into it.
“God, I love these,” he said quietly. He plugged the vial with a rubber stopper and then tilted it up toward the sky. “Most people think they’re appalling, but I just love them, I really do.”
In the high, bright glare of the shore, she could see, more clearly than ever before, the evidence of his age. There were wrinkles—deep ones—across his brow, a stubborn quality to the way he held his mouth. In his eyes, though, was that flintlike spark, the glow of the fog internalized.
“You try the next one,” he said, resting the vial beside the bucket and producing another microscope slide from his pocket.
“I don’t think—”
“Just do it. Nice and slow.”
He passed her the slide, retrieved the rock from between his legs. She did her best to mimic him: holding the slide with a light grip, approaching the worm with a reverence that seemed wholly disproportional to the task at hand. For a moment, the worm seemed unwilling, its body contracting, its branches rippling, but she didn’t flinch. Instead, she remained perfectly still as the worm began to pour itself incrementally forward, making its deliberate transition off the rock and onto the slide.
“Oh,” he said. “Very nice.”
He held out his hand. She passed the slide to him. He slipped the second worm into the vial alongside the first.
“I’ll draw them,” she said.
He looked away from the worms and into her face. And there it was: the expression she had been trying all this time to cultivate, waiting all this time to see, a new sort of wickedness framing his grin, a glad darkness born from the type of pain that, if you endure it long enough, eventually turns to pleasure.
“Yes,” he replied. “But first, we need to kill them.”
They were in a room she had never seen before.
“Sit over there, on the Buick,” he instructed. “I’ll let you know when it’s time.”
“Can I—?”