Several men snickered in agreement.
“This,” Carson lectured as he emptied the contents of the syringe into my arm, “is a brand-new derivative of morphia, only recently discovered. Called ‘heroin,’ when administered intravenously in the proper dosage, I’ve found it quite effective at bringing on a state of euphoric quietude.”
Carson withdrew the needle. A line of blood streamed from the hole to pat-pat-pat upon the clean white marble.
As a melty, delicious calm filled my chest and began to roll through my limbs, an article I’d once read flickered from the files inside my mind.
Heroin (diacetylmorphine) was first synthesized in 1874 by the English researcher C.R. Wright. The drug went unstudied and unused until 1895, when Heinrich Dreser, working for the Bayer Company of Germany, found that diluting morphine with acetyls produced a drug without the common morphine side effects. Heroin was touted to doctors as stronger than morphine and safer than codeine. It was thought to be nonaddictive, and even thought to be a cure for morphine addiction or for relieving morphine withdrawal symptoms. Because of its supposed great potential, Dreser derived his name for the new drug from the German word for “heroic.”
There was a question I meant to ask. Something impor-tant. But my lips had started to go tingly. I tried to focus. There’s something I need to do.
Suddenly, I couldn’t quite bring myself to care. As the effects of the drug slipped down my legs and back up into my head, my knees turned into rubber bands.
“Rubber bands,” I said to no one in particular. “Rubber. That’s a fun word. Rubbery rubber.”
Is that me? Am I talking? I wondered. “Another fun word is numb. Num-bah.” I looked over at an old lady with hunched shoulders who was sneering at me with disgust.
“You kind of look like a turtle,” I told her. “But I like turtles, so thass okay.”
The doctor’s face appeared before me. Huge. Blearing in and out.
“Naughty.” I tried to cluck my tongue at him, but it had swelled inside my mouth.
The attendant’s arm slinked around my torso as my legs gave. Two attendants grunted as they lifted the stretcher and began to carry Doug from the lobby. I reached out toward them, knowing somehow that it was a very bad idea for them to take him away. But with the drug dragging on my limbs and eyelids, I couldn’t really remember why. After all, Doug was lying down. And lying down sounded like a really great idea.
A nap. Yep. A nap would be awesome right about now.
Dr. Carson nodded to someone behind me. I was lifted off my feet, hoisted into someone’s arms. Whoever was carrying me began to push through the crowd toward the open door of the lobby. Though it felt great not having to use my legs anymore, a little voice inside me spoke up, telling me not to leave with these people.
“Wait,” is what I wanted to say. But the hunk of meat inside my mouth wasn’t cooperating and all I could manage was a soft “W-w-w-w.”
We emerged through the brass doors into the brisk late afternoon. Sunshine slanted across the buildings, leaving our side of the street in shadow. We crossed the sidewalk and I was deposited inside a spacious carriage. My jelly spine no longer wanting to hold me upright, I slumped sideways. Wind streamed through the open windows, carrying a faint scent of smoke and frying meat. The doctor climbed in after me and ordered the driver to take us to Greenwood Institute.
My head bounced against the velvet interior as we began to move. Out the window, I saw the people who’d followed our little drama to this point begin to disperse.
I struggled to sit upright. Hold on. This isn’t right.
Half a block from the hotel, I saw two familiar, red-haired figures hurrying down the sidewalk. Gripping the door handle, I dragged myself over until my chin rested on the bottom of the open window. The figures stopped dead in their tracks. Both their faces crinkled with confusion.
The last thing I recall as the coach sped by and the darkness pressed in is Collum’s voice fading into the distance as he shouted my name.
Chapter 24
THE BOY HELD TIGHT TO THE GIRL’S HAND AS THEY RAN.
He’d promised her grandfather that he’d take care of her until her Poppy came for her. But when the other children veered away toward the forest root cellar, the boy had circled around to the back side of the huts.
“Stay here,” he said as he concealed her behind a large holly bush. “I have to go back and help my mum.”
“No!” She’d grabbed at his hand, but he was already running.
The girl wasn’t sure how long she’d knelt there, behind the bush. But at the sound of shouts, she jumped to her feet. She wanted to flee. But she knew not in which direction safety lay. And besides, her grandfather . . .
She stole up to the rear of one of the wattle and daub huts. When she peered around the corner, she saw the large Spaniard on his horse, looming over the boy’s mother. The boy was trying to wedge himself between her and the rider. Just as the woman pushed the boy behind her, a flash of silver.
Red droplets arced into the air, glittering like rubies in the winter sun. They boy cried out as his mother went to her knees, then toppled into the dirt. He covered her body with his own.
“Poppy. Poppy. Poppy.” The girl whispered the name over and over, but did not see him.
“Search every hut,” the Spaniard called to his men as he wiped the dripping sword on his sleeve. “Then burn it. Burn it all down.”
The other riders dismounted. Naked swords gleamed, torches flamed as they began to kick in doors.
The old man with the staff shambled forward. The Spaniard jerked his head and one of his men cut the old man down with one stroke. Women screamed. Smoke choked the air. At the center of it all, she thought she saw her grandfather, his little-used sword raised as he charged toward the Spaniard.
The girl crumpled. Tears and tears and more tears. She saw the boy kneel beside his mother. She watched him brush the hair back from her blood-streaked face. A final bow of his head, and then his quick hands removed something from her neck.
The boy stood very still amid the chaos. His eyes roamed over his ruined, burning village until they finally met the girl’s.
Much later, she kept slipping on frost-tinged leaves that littered the forest floor, but the boy never let her fall. When night crept in, he told her they’d better not build a fire for fear the bad men who killed his mother might find them. The boy covered them both in branches and leaves. They huddled together. And sometime during that long and terrible night, he must’ve wrapped his skinny arms around her. For when she woke in a pink and gold dawn that glittered through the treetops, the boy was holding her.
Though I fought to hold on to it, the memory receded in a whirl of white. Still half in that other world, I whispered to the boy. “Oh, Bran. Oh, I’m so sorry.”