Her lip trembled and the trembling spread in waves to her whole body. She said one word in reply. “Yes.”
*
Ferrol, Celeste, and Gressani marked the fourth anniversary of the girls’ captivity with a special dinner of suckling pig and grilled vegetables served in the banquet hall. The restive feelings of past year had been replaced by the frenetic pace and excitement of the past four months. Ferrol and Celeste now had genetically altered stem cells circulating and dividing inside their bodies. Ferrol’s procedure had gone smoothly. Celeste’s had not. She developed sepsis when her bone marrow was at its peak of chemotherapy suppression, and had it not been for Ferrol’s skills and devotion, she might not have survived. Now, they were both strong and happy. Prior to the transplants, Gressani concluded that his leverage had never been higher and he got Ferrol to double his salary, so his mood had vastly improved too. And the contagion even spread to the girls. They seemed happier and more active. Ferrol had gotten them stationary bicycles, and they raced each other every day.
Sated on roast meat, they were waiting for the cook to bring out dessert when Celeste glanced at the display on her phone, a live feed from the white room that she covered with a napkin whenever the cook came in. She noticed something and removed herself to the far reaches of the hall to turn up the sound.
She heard screaming and began to run.
She had never donned the Gray Woman costume so quickly. Ferrol and Gressani hurried to the basement with her and both of them watched the monitors as Celeste went in.
“Vicky is bleeding!” Elizabeth cried. “Help her!”
Celeste brought gauze with her and she tried to staunch the flow of blood from Victoria’s nose.
“What’s going on, Dr. G?” Gressani asked.
“I don’t know,” Ferrol snapped. “Suit up and give them chocolate milk with barbiturates. I want to examine them.”
By the time Gray Man entered, Elizabeth had a nosebleed too. She became hysterical and ran into the bathroom to check herself in the mirror.
Ferrol picked up the image in the bathroom camera and said to himself, “What the hell is happening?”
Hours later, Ferrol raised his head from his microscope and delivered the verdict. The girls were still sleeping, a deep barbiturate sleep, their noses packed with gauze.
“I’m not an expert, but I think this could be leukemia.”
“Both of them?” Celeste said.
“The blood smears look identical,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “There are a lot of immature white cells. I’m not sure what type. I’m going to have to do some research.”
“How is this possible?” Celeste said, fear catching in her throat.
Ferrol pushed his stool away from the bench and got up. “Both of them sick simultaneously. The only explanation is their stem cells. We must have activated oncogenes. I’m going to have to do some research.”
“Stop saying you need to do research!” Celeste cried. “You said the treatment was safe!”
“For four years, it was,” Ferrol said, weakly.
Celeste was on her way to a full-blown hysteria. “I want you to remove my stem cells! I don’t want them inside me anymore.”
“Calm down. Let’s go upstairs and get some brandy.”
“I don’t want to calm down! I want the cells gone.”
His words spilled out in a gush. “Come, let’s all go to the kitchen for brandy and dessert. I’m going to run back to Madrid in the morning. They need platelet transfusions. I’ll get compatible platelets from the blood bank. I’ll figure out what kind of therapy they need and get the right drugs. This will be okay. We’ll get through this. I’ll learn the techniques to study their oncogenes. Once I know what went wrong, I’ll be able to develop a solution. Don’t worry, Celeste. You won’t get sick.”
Gressani was the only one who remained calm. He shook his head and said, “I’m sorry, Dr. G, but I think the girls need a specialist. This is serious. They could die.”
His lit fuse touched powder and Ferrol exploded, shouting so loudly that Celeste and Gressani tried to shush him for fear the sound might penetrate the white room.
“They are not going to die! No one is going to die!” he screamed. “They are staying right here. It’s not open to debate. I need to study them to find out what to do. Now, come upstairs and have some fucking dessert!”
*
Ferrol was gone for three days. While he was in Madrid, he called Celeste every few hours for status reports. They were still bleeding, she said, but it wasn’t catastrophic. He told her he was making progress. He had the platelets. He thought he knew the kind of leukemia it was. He was working on procuring the drugs to treat them.
When he finally returned to the castle, he hurried inside with a cooler box of platelets and a bag of medicines. He found Celeste in the kitchen, having a cup of tea, with a wan and peculiar look.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded. “How are they?”
She didn’t answer and that unnerved him.
“Tell me, goddamn it!”
“I think we should go downstairs,” she said.
He hurried ahead of her and reached his office first and looked at the monitor.
“Where are they?” he said, scanning the white room. “Where the hell are they?” He switched views and looked at the bathroom camera feed. The only off-camera area was the toilet stall. He said, “Are
