Canes of Divergence (12 page)

There was something Owen was still not telling him – well, there was a lot he hadn’t told him yet, but there was something very specific Owen was avoiding mentioning right now.

“Why are you bringing the letter, Owen? Why not let your dad do that himself?”

Owen hesitated for far too long.

“Is your dad going to be
able
to see Quinn again, Owen?”

“Maybe.”

“
Maybe?
”

“Probably not. At least, not for a very long time.”

It was likely at that point that Zander decided just to turn off reality for the rest of … well, however long this was going to take them. But he did have to ask one more question.

“Wherever you’re taking me, today, Owen … however it is that we’re going to help Quinn – are we going to come home?”

Owen stopped what he was doing and turned to face Zander, a serious look in his eyes. “Would it change your mind about helping me if the answer was no?”

Zander looked around the living room; he thought about the duffel bag in the car, the strange experience of being in Quinn’s room, the conversation he’d had with Owen this morning, and finally, he shook his head. “I promised.”

“Then the answer is probably. We’ll probably come home.”

“Okay.”
Fabulous. Nothing at all to be concerned about with that, right?

Owen headed into the kitchen now, turning on the lights in there, and then Zander heard the sound of a door opening. “Come on,” Owen said, his voice disappearing down what sounded like stairs.

Zander followed him through the door at the back of the kitchen, down a set of carpeted stairs.

Most basements in Bristlecone weren’t finished, but this one was. There was no laundry room or storage down here – the whole thing had been converted into what looked like a very nice laboratory. The white tiled floor was pristine,
as were the metal tables and countertops, which reflected the bright overhead lights. Organized neatly along the counters and on built-in shelving, were a number of microscopes and machines Zander couldn’t identify.

There was another library down here, though these shelves were contained behind glass doors. Zander had the impression that everything here was sterile
.

A large refrigerator dominated a back corner of the room, with separate thermometer readings showing on the front of the doors at the top and the bottom
. Owen, after washing his hands thoroughly at the large stainless-steel sink, headed immediately for that refrigerator and pulled open one of the doors.

Zander was staring at the huge glass-doored cabinets that held a wide variety of medical supplies – bandages, gauze,
gloves, tubing … he didn’t even know what most of it was. “Does, uh … Doctor Rose bring his work home with him?”

“A little bit, I think. But they mostly used this lab for their other research, and so William could study.
And a lot for storage, I think.”

“So William could study
what
?” Zander had certainly used a microscope in school, and he’d dissected a few organs and creatures in his biology classes … but there was nothing he’d ever have needed a set-up like
this
for.

“Medicine. William is a doctor, too.”

“William wants to be a doctor, too?” Zander clarified.

“No, he already is one. Can you hand me that cooler over there?”

It was time to stop asking questions, Zander thought. He wasn’t getting any answers that made sense, and every new thing Owen told him was just making his head spin even more.

He found the cooler Owen was talking about on a metal rack near the sink.
It looked like an ordinary picnic cooler with a handle and a blue lid. Like everything else down here, it was absolutely clean.

Zander had no idea whether to be very impressed at the set-up Doctor Rose had down here – or terrified out of his mind.
He was beginning to wonder when he was either going to wake up, or discover that he was on the set of a science-fiction movie. He got creeped out again for a minute, thinking how easily this could have been an operating room … when his thoughts drifted to bodies again, he turned them back off.

He carried the cooler over to Owen, who was meticulously examining boxes that looked lik
e they contained some kind of drugs.

“Thanks,” Owen said, and he began pulling out boxes and carefully laying them in rows on the bottom of the cooler.

“Whoa, Owen! What are you doing? Those are not ours!”

Owen didn’t stop; he didn’t even look up from his task, which seemed to be emptying the entire refrigerator. It had been mostly empty, except for a couple of fully stocked shelves. “Everything I say, remember?”

“I didn’t think that was going to include
stealing
stuff!”

“I’m not stealing it. If I leave it here, it’s just going to expire before anyone can use it.”

“This seems like a bad idea.”

“Well, if Nathaniel gets mad about it, I’ll tell him it was all my idea – that I made you do it.”

“I’m supposed to be the responsible one here.”

Now Owen looked up, locking his eyes on Zander’s. “Do you think he won’t believe me?”

No, Zander didn’t think that at all.

“Why would Doctor Rose
leave all of this stuff here?
Drugs
?”

“This wasn’t all here when he left.
This shipment came about two weeks ago. My mom had to sign for it.”

Zander’s jaw dropped. “How did you know what to do with it?”

He shrugged. “The boxes all say what temperature they have to be stored at. I just read them, and looked at some of Nathaniel’s notes for how he does things.”

“None of that is dangerous, is it? Or illegal?”

“No.”

“Do I have to just take your word for that?”

Owen didn’t answer; he finished arranging the boxes in the cooler and then took what must have been some kind of cooling pack from the refrigerator and laid it over the top of them before closing the lid. After that, he carried the hiking backpack around the room, opening random cabinets, and pulling things off shelves, filling the backpack as full as he could before closing it.

Rosewood Castle, Eirentheos

“W
ILLIAM! I NEED
an explanation for this.” Linnea’s voice found him even before the main door of the castle clinic hit the wall as it came slamming open.

He set aside the petri dish he’d been working with and came out of the lab in the back, peeling off the gloves he’d been wearing and dropping them in a metal bin.

“What’s going on, Linnea?” he asked, when he saw her standing there with Ben.

In answer, she grabbed Ben’s wrist and held it out toward him. Ben shrugged apologetically.

William washed his hands at the sink, and then walked over to Ben. The deep scratch that they’d noticed and cleaned three days ago was now swollen and bright red. Ben’s whole arm was getting warm. “It looks like it’s infected. When did this start?”

“I don’t know.” Linnea looked up at Ben with a demanding expression on her face. “I just now saw it. I’m suddenly seeing a whole new side to the long sleeves he’s been wearing for the last three days.”

“Ben?”

“It
seemed fine yesterday, a little swollen maybe, but this morning it was hurting a lot more, and it’s just gotten worse.”

“He came upstairs a little bit ago to get changed, and I find him having trouble getting his shirt off because it hurt so much. Why didn’t I know about this?”
Linnea was clearly upset.

William could barely touch Ben’s arm without making him wince. “I’ll clean this out again, and get some antibiotics into you, too, to be safe. I’m going to go and get some supplies, hang on.” The last place he wanted to be was in the middle of Linnea and Ben’s conflict, though he knew he was going to have to answer to his sister eventually.

“Can I help you?” Ben asked. William could hear the underlying plea for a private conversation, and he nodded, motioning for Ben to follow him. This, of course, nearly caused steam to come out of Linnea’s ears.

Once they were inside the small supply room, William closed the door. He started gathering the things he needed while he waited for Ben to talk.

“How much danger am I in?” he asked. “What are the chances that this thing really is infected with water disease?”

“Pretty low,” William said. “But it’s still possible. With the way that thing is infected, I’m going to bet you were in contact with something from that fox.”

“Is your bite infected? It was much worse than mine.”

“No, but Nathaniel has cleaned it out every day, and I’ve had lots of antibiotics, too. You really should have let me know as soon as it started to bother you.”

“I’m sorry. I’m a little scared about all of this, and I’ve been trying not to upset Linnea, but now I’m getting worried. Should I be avoiding touching her, too? I know you’re not touching Quinn.”

William stopped short. “How do you know that?”

“Um … I don’t mean to be impertinent here Your Majesty, but, your wife and mine do consider themselves to be sisters.”

“And Quinn has been talking to Linnea.”

“Can I be frank here Your…”

“It’s William, Ben. Or Will. You’re my friend and my brother long before you’re my servant. That was meant to be a statement a second ago, not an accusation.
You can
always
be frank with me, please.”

“Then, yes. Quinn and Linnea have spent a significant amount of time together the last few days. Linnea doesn’t tell me everything, I’m sure, but from what I gather, Her Majesty is quite upset.”

“I know she is.” Truthfully, he’d barely seen Quinn. Most of it was his fault – he’d been spending his days holed up here in the lab with the dead fox’s brain, trying to remember the notes he’d made when researching rabies in Bristlecone – notes that were still there, on the other side of the gate. When he wasn’t in the lab, he’d been riding out to Mistle Village to see how things were going there.

Even when he did return, though,
she’d been distant – taking long baths before bed, or even being in bed and asleep before he came in. Last night, he’d sat and watched from the couch when the baby woke for a middle of the night feeding. Quinn had to have known he was awake, too, but she’d never once looked over at him.

“So is it safe? Am I putting Linnea at risk by touching her?”

“I don’t know, Ben. Nathaniel thinks it’s perfectly fine. I’m honestly probably being an idiot with Quinn, but when I think about the chance of doing something to the baby… Even if we can get this vaccine made in time and it works – which is a slim enough chance to begin with – there’s no way it would be safe enough for someone so tiny. And he’s so little and susceptible. Maybe I wouldn’t get her sick, but what if I got something on her skin that he got in his mouth?”

“Have you talked to Quinn about it? Told her all of this?”

“I tried to the first night, but I was upset, and I know I did it wrong. I have never seen her hurt like that before – I’ve never hurt her like that before, for sure, and I don’t know how to fix it. I can’t tell her what she wants to hear.”

“What do you think she wants to hear?”

“That everything’s going to be all right.”

Ben nodded, pausing thoughtfully before he spoke. “Again, if I’m not overstepping here … I suspect Her Majesty is well aware of what might happen. Do you think it’s possible, though, that what she actually wants to hear is that things are okay between the two of you
today
, and that you both can face even the worst case scenario together?”

William raised an eyebrow wryly, nodding toward the front room where Linnea was still waiting for them to return. “Do you ever wonder why something as obvious as that sounds is so much easier to see about someone
else’s
relationship?”

Ben chuckled and nodded. “Indeed. I’ll go and speak with her now.”

“I’ll give you a few minutes.”

When William finally emerged from the back of the clinic twenty minutes later, things were calm. Linnea’s face was streaked with tears, and she gave him a look that let him know he still had her to answer to later for keeping this from her at all, but she was okay. She and Ben were sitting on one of the cots, facing each other and holding hands.

“Is that for me?” Ben asked, a little wide-eyed at the sight of the syringe on the tray William was carrying.

“Yeah. Sorry. I’m going to clean up that scratch again, and put some ointment on it, but then I’m going to give this to you, too.”

“If it’s all the same to you, I think I’d rather you do that bit first.
”

William chuckled. “Not a problem. Stand up for me for a minute.”

“Am I still going to be able to ride my horse right after this?” Ben asked as William was prepping.

“
Sure. I did it the other day. You might want to take some pain reliever and have a nice hot bath afterwards, though. Okay, look at Linnea now and take a deep breath, then let it out slowly.”

“
Oh, ow. I thought I got out of this part the other day.”

“In the other world, there are all of these stories about foxes being sneaky. Those stories always seemed kind of silly to me until now. But that fox found a way to bite just about everyone, even after you killed him.”

“I don’t know if that was stealth or revenge,” Ben said, wincing as William finished. “But if I was the referee in that game, I might have to give the final point to him.”

“
I’m not giving it to him yet. We still have some moves left. I’m done with the bad part here. Sorry about that. You should be good to go – at least until we have the other medicine.”

“
Is that medicine going to be done on time?” Linnea asked.

“Maybe. So long as we manage to not destroy this batch and it
works,
then Ben’s chances are really good – he probably hasn’t been exposed anyway, and
if
he was, the exposure was much more minor than mine and Alice’s. He likely has a lot more time before he would be in any real danger.”

“But he still could be.” Linnea was biting her lip.

“I can’t say that he’s not, Linnea. Obviously. I’m sorry we didn’t tell you immediately, but now that you know, do you really regret the extra three days you had where you weren’t sharing in our nightmare?”

Linnea flew off the cot
and was in his face so quickly that he knew he’d said exactly the wrong thing. “That is bole splick William! I don’t care how many worlds you’ve lived in – in not one of them do you get to write yourself off like that. This did not become my nightmare an hour ago when I found that scratch on Ben. We have
all
been living with this for three days over
you
.”

Tears were streaming down her face again, but she didn’t even stop to take a breath. “I know you’re scared. We all do. We all know you’re down here and out in Mistle Village trying to fix this, and solve it, and pretend like you’re in control,
but
damn it
, William, this is not just yours. You don’t get to protect us from this. If you keep this up and something happens – if, the Maker forbid, you don’t make it through this – I will not be able to forgive you for taking this time away from us.”

William lost it. His sister’s words gutted him completely. When he turned to hide the sudden torrent coming down hi
s own cheeks she grabbed his shoulder and wouldn’t let him go, instead wrapping her arms around him despite his protests – even in his anguish he was afraid to get his tears on her – but she didn’t care, and wouldn’t be convinced otherwise.

When it was all over, Ben handed him a handkerchief and patted him on the back. It should have fel
t awkward, but it didn’t at all. Ben hugged him then, an unspoken understanding passing between them.

William excused himself for a moment to go and wash his face. When he returned, everyone had re-collected themselves, and it was like nothing had happened, but everything had changed.

“Where are you planning on riding your horse to tonight, anyway?” he asked, as he turned his attention back to cleaning Ben’s wound.

“Today is the day the gate would have been opening. Even though it doesn’t open anymore, Luke likes to ride around the area, just to check things out. We still wonder how Hector knew about it, and we just … like to make sure it’s secure, Your Majesty. My father and I were going to go with him, if that’s all right.”

“Of course it’s fine.
Luke has never seen anything, has he?”

“Nothing substantial. A couple of moons ago, he found someone wandering near the bridge alone. He questioned him, but of course, there was no cause to detain him. The gate was still closed. It’s all just precautionary.”

William nodded. “I would be tempted to join you – if I wasn’t quite sure that I very much need to remain here at the castle this evening.”

“I have to say I believe that’s a good choice, Your Majesty.”