“They’ll have a difficult time finding a jury, I imagine,” Thomas says. “It’s supposed to be unbiased. Who can be unbiased about murder? It’s clearly wrong.”
“Unless he didn’t do it,” I blurt, surprising myself. Everyone’s eyes are on me. “I mean—that’s what the trial is for, isn’t it? To determine innocence?”
Pen shrugs. “Guess we’ll see. Is there a math exam this week?”
And the topic of Daphne Leander and Judas Hensley dies away.
“Lex?”
“What is it?” he says after a pause. I knocked, but he won’t open his office door to me. Lost in his brilliance, I suppose. He was always like that—going off by himself. But his blindness has intensified it.
“I wanted to talk to you,” I say.
“Talk about what?”
“Things,” I say. “That’s what sisters do. You know, because you’re my brother and I care about you?”
“You bug me,” he says. “That’s what sisters do. How do you know I’m not trying to nap?”
“You aren’t,” I press. “The ceiling is practically crumbling over my bedroom.”
He ignores me. Alice, standing at the end of the hall, frowns in apology. Lex has even begun to elude her. I worry for him, alone in all that blackness.
I sit on the floor and lean against the door.
“Who was that little girl at your jumper group?” I ask. “She had a bow in her hair.” Too late, I realize a physical description won’t do my brother any good. “She can’t be more than eleven or twelve.”
No answer.
“The day of the fire, I caught her putting up papers in the ladies’ room at the theater. I think she put them up at the academy, too. They were copies of a paper Daphne Leander wrote about the gods being a myth.”
The door opens, and I tense to keep from falling backward. Lex reaches out for me.
“Where are you?” he says.
“Down here.” I hold up my hand and he takes it, feeling his way until he’s on his knees across from me.
“That girl is none of your concern,” he says.
“Is she really a jumper?” I say.
“Yes. And you have no business talking to her.”
“She’s Daphne Leander’s sister,” I say. “Isn’t she?”
“I’m not kidding, Morgan. You stay away from her.”
He’s in a miserable mood, and there’s no sense pressing him for more, but all he’s done is pique my interest.
“Since you’re out, come on and eat something,” Alice says. “I made berry cobbler.”
Later, when Lex has retreated to his office once again, Alice is washing the dishes and I’m drying them.
“He is right,” she says. “It’s best if you stay away from that girl.”
“Who is she?” I say. Alice takes her husband’s side about most things, but she’s always had a soft spot for me.
“You were right,” she says, handing me a dripping plate. “She’s Daphne’s sister. She may be a little girl, but she’s got a lot of demons. It’s best if you let her alone.”
I’ve heard that saying used to describe my brother. “A lot of demons.” That’s what my father said while we all kept vigil at Lex’s bedside in the hospital. I didn’t know what he meant. But now I’m thinking of Amy Leander, and what it must have been like to learn her sister wouldn’t be coming home. It was the most awful thing I could imagine, watching my brother fight to breathe in that sterile room. But at least he
Alice starts talking about frivolous things—greenhouse vegetation and silver earrings in jewelry shop windows that she thinks will make my eyes sparkle—and I play along, but she isn’t fooling me. There’s something happening to Internment. That’s as certain as Daphne Leander is dead.
8
—“Intangible Gods,” Daphne Leander, Year Ten
BASIL THROWS A STONE INTO THE LAKE, trying to make it skip.
“Like this,” I say, pitching the stone into the water at an angle. It hits the surface and promptly sinks. Basil tries not to laugh.
“Well, I was good at it when I was little, anyway.” I fall back into the grass and watch a cloud that’s sloping over the atmosphere.
“Our engineers spend so much time studying the ground,” Basil says, settling beside me. “Ever think about what’s above us?”
“The tributary,” I say. “The god of the sky.”
“But those are intangible,” Basil says. “Spiritual. What I mean is, what if there’s more land up there? What if there are people living on the stars?”
“I’ve never thought about that,” I say, and suddenly I feel overwhelmed by how much there is to know, and how much I will never live to figure out.
In the distance, there are patrolmen sitting in the gazebo, trying not to seem as though they are watching. I can no longer tell if they’re trying to protect us, or if they’re suspicious of us.
Basil tilts his head against mine. From a distance, we’re just another young couple lazing about in the park after class.
“You aren’t crazy,” he says.
“What?”
“I’ve known you all your life, and you’ve always tried to hide the parts of yourself that you think are wrong. But nothing is wrong with you.”
Those may be the best words he’s ever said to me. I mutter “Thank you” but it doesn’t feel adequate.
I don’t tell him about the card Ms. Harlan gave me, and I don’t tell him that I’m beginning to think I need her help.
On Friday, Lex doesn’t go to his jumper group. Instead, there’s a cavalcade of footsteps above our common room, rattling the hanging light.
It sounds as though they’re having a party upstairs, but that can’t be right. Lex would never allow something like that. I’d like to ask my mother about it, but she’s asleep, which is something that happens more and more lately with the prescription she’s taking. I don’t tell Lex; he’s opposed to all the pharmaceuticals, even the mildest ones. But she’ll often be asleep when I get home, and then late into the night, I’ll hear my bedroom door creaking open as she checks in to be sure I’m safe. I pretend to be asleep when this happens. I have to seem unburdened. After all that has happened with Lex, I can’t give my parents cause to worry about me.
When I can take the stomping no more, I head upstairs and knock on the door. Alice opens it just as far as the chain latch will allow. She never uses the chain latch.
“Morgan.” She blinks. “Is everything okay?”
I try to see behind her, but whatever’s happening is in another room. I can smell something baking—apple pie, I think. “Are you having a party?” I ask.
