Stars, I think, my stomach clenching. Their stars have disappeared.
“But what do the Enhancing Variants have to do with the Disappearances?” I ask.
A fleeting look crosses George’s face. “We don’t know,” he says, frowning. “We don’t know if what they enhance are things that may eventually disappear—?and we’ve stumbled on the cure first—?or if it’s something else.” He turns his gaze back to the microscope. “With the Enhancements, it’s as though we’re hitting up against something that’s been unlocked. And the pieces won’t make much sense until we have the whole story.”
“But look at this list, George,” Beas says. She stops playing with her bangs and straightens. “All the Variants aren’t even on here.”
She pushes the list toward George. Then she takes my elbow and angles it out to examine my heart. “Nice,” she says with approval. She gathers her uniform skirt to show the skin just above her knee, hidden under the table. “Mine changes on the day, depending on my mood.”
My heart rises when I recognize the line written there. It is Elizabeth Barrett Browning, scrawled in Beas’s looping hand: Like a cheerful traveler, take the road singing beside the hedge.
Beas lets her hem fall back down. “And don’t think I can’t see you looking, George.”
George laughs and shakes his head as he measures liquid out in a stopper. He applies a few drops to the slides. “Such a tease, Beas.”
“Fathead,” she says, but she’s smiling, and she flips her ponytail at him before returning her attention to the list.
“And there are more Variants than this list?” I prod.
George mixes up a solution of saltwater. “A few more. Guess they’re too illegal to be included.”
“Illegal is a little strong,” Beas says, tipping open the pocket on her uniform skirt to show a purple pouch inside. “Some are merely frowned upon for the potential to draw too much attention. Like the Tempests.”
“Tempests?”
“They’re a real gas. Picture what running would feel like if you became the wind,” George says.
“These are still left from my birthday last year,” Beas says, pushing the pouch back into the fold of her skirt. “I’m already Of Age,” she explains. “I’m actually in William’s year.” She purses her lips and doodles an owl wearing a hat on my Compliance list. “Let’s just say biology and I didn’t quite work out last time.”
“It’s working out just fine for you this year, though, isn’t it,” George says under his breath, but he’s smiling as he does Beas’s part of the experiment.
“I get why they don’t like the Tempests,” Beas says thoughtfully, as if she hasn’t heard George. She adds lightning strikes around her owl. “But in the end, they’re mostly harmless. Not like the darker ones.”
When she turns the page back to me, I see the warning written at the bottom.
Any Variants not appearing on this list are strictly forbidden on school property at all times. Use of them will result in significant disciplinary—?and potentially legal—?action.
Darker Variants? I think. Are there Variants that can cause harm?
Dr. Digby is suddenly behind us. “Working diligently, I trust?” he asks, but he keeps moving in response to George’s salute.
George bends to add drops of saltwater to the slides. “There we go. Gals, take a gander.”
“No need,” Beas says, bored, now examining a sheet of music she’s pulled from her violin case. “I remember what it looked like last year.”
George moves to make room for me, and I bend to focus the lens again. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust. The smooth, ordered lines of the cells remain. But their insides are shrunken and disfigured, sucked dry by the salt.
It’s just an onion, I think, backing away. But it unsettles me all the same: how the familiar can warp into something I no longer recognize in the space between one breath and the next.
Chapter Nine
After school, Mrs. Cliffton is waiting for us. She’s pulled the car onto a side lane by the orchard. “Good day?” she asks when we climb in.
Miles and I both murmur something noncommittal.
“Well, there’s something for you at home,” she says, turning the key in the ignition.
Genevieve has made little tea sandwiches cut into triangles and rich peanut butter cookies encrusted with sugar. But even better: there is mail. Letters from Cass and Father, which means they must have mailed them as soon as we left. I’m torn between whose I want to read first, but Miles snatches Father’s, so I slit open the one from Cass. It is written in her large, effusive cursive, peppered with questions about Sterling and the Clifftons. I can see her, coming home from her first day ever of school without me, climbing the rickety ladder to the only place in the house that is hers: an attic nook she’s stuffed with pillows and blankets. We often used to read there, especially on days when it rained. It held just enough room for both of us to stretch our legs along the length of the floor, our feet grazing the window, an endless stash of Wint O Green Lifesavers always hidden under one of the floorboards.
I read Cass’s letter twice before Miles is finished with Father’s. “Can I see it now?” I ask with impatience. He hands it over reluctantly. His fingerprints have already smeared some of the words.
Father’s letter is more reserved, his handwriting tight and efficient. He probably wrote it at his desk, under the light of his green glass lamp, smoking the pipe that’s engraved with a schooner. After the perfunctory questions about Sterling, he writes:
Flying to San Francisco tomorrow on a Douglas DC-3. My first time on a plane. We’ll be training for a week and then setting sail. I am unsure how often I can post from sea or how much detail I can provide on my whereabouts. I don’t want you to worry if you don’t hear from me for stretches. But know that wherever I am, it is always farther than I wish to be from you, and that you are never beyond the reach of my thoughts.
Until the day we are all together again—?
And with a heart bursting with pride for you both—?
Father
“Done?” Miles asks, and plucks the letter out of my hands before I can answer.
“Oh,” I say as he folds it back along its creases. I had planned to keep it and add it to my growing collection of Mother’s ring and Shakespeare book, Father’s dart, and Cass’s ribbon. How tightly I cling to the little pieces they’ve shed, when for now it’s all of them I have left.
“How was school?” I venture.
Miles shrugs and leaves the table. He heads outdoors, tucking Father’s letter into his back pocket. Mrs. Cliffton stands up from where she was pulling a few stray weeds from her garden, and I can see her talking with Miles, but I can’t make out the words.