The 100 Year Miracle Page 26

  Tilda let her feet go again, carrying her along, but she kept her eyes up. The air was cold, but it was also clean. It smelled like cedar and rain—of both storms that had gone before and storms still to come. Breathing it all in felt like drinking a big glass of water. It felt good for her, cleansing in a way no air had ever been or felt all those years in D.C.

  Tip stopped on the trail ahead of her, and Tilda, enraptured, ran into him.

  “Look,” he breathed.

  Tilda tilted her head to the sky and saw through a break in the trees a bird soaring over them. Its white head was in sharp contrast to the dark brown of its body, and its wingspan was so large it made her feel like prey.

  “Bald eagle,” she whispered.

  She almost never saw one on Olloo’et. There were too many people, too much activity.

  “This way,” Tip said. “We’re almost there.”

  The trail, already single track, had a spur even narrower. Despite his pack, Tip took off, landing only on the balls of his feet as he hopped from footfall to footfall up the trail. Tip’s legs were long, and his body was young. Young enough not to know this terrain was challenging, and so within moments, he was far enough ahead that Tilda couldn’t see him.

  She had worn her sneakers, and she thought for a minute about running after him, an idea that was quickly discarded. She knew she wouldn’t make it far before she started huffing and puffing and would have to walk, and besides, she didn’t want to chase him or anyone else. She was tired. Here in the woods where no one could find her seemed as good a place as any to rest, and so she kept to her own pace.

  When Tilda caught up, they were at the top of a hill. Just to the left was a small clearing where the trees made room for the sky, and the ferns made room for the little cabin. Grasses and nibbly plants that would attract deer were here, but mostly it was a thick bed of fallen pine needles that made a soft carpet under her feet as she walked after him toward the door—or more precisely the doorway, as there was no door to fill it.

  A small wooden sign proclaimed this structure CAREY’S HOUSE, built and cared for by the Carpenter’s Island Trail Association. At the bottom of the sign was a little wooden box with a hinged top. Tilda stopped to open it. Inside, on a thin chain was a pen, which made her think there had been some sort of guest book at one time or another, but it was gone now, perhaps filled and taken away by the trail people, perhaps stolen. Now spiders had taken over the box, crisscrossing it with their webs so densely that only a teenager on a dare would have ever stuck his hand inside. Tilda let the top drop shut and wiped her hands on her jeans.

  Tip was inside and had already begun unpacking. She followed him. The cabin was empty and so dim she squinted to see into the corners. Tip was laying down a sleeping bag that he’d unzipped until it was one thick, flannel-topped picnic blanket before reaching for the food in his pack.

  She’d only eaten those handfuls of trail mix that day, and her stomach made greedy noises when he pulled out the cold fried chicken. There was potato salad dressed with vinegar and capers, Brussels sprouts caramelized with bacon, and for dessert, he’d brought walnut brownies cut into little squares.

  “I have a confession,” he said.

  Tilda was untying her shoes to keep from tracking mud onto the blanket.

  “I bought the brownies from the bakery downtown.”

  He put a chicken leg on a paper plate and passed it to her. She picked it up and took a bite without serving herself any of the side dishes first. It was as good as she had hoped it would be.

  “I’ll try to find it in me to forgive you,” she said, her mouth still a little full.

  “I’m a terrible baker. You should know that if we go into business together.”

  The drumstick became less appetizing. This wasn’t at all the conversation she had hoped for. “I’m not doing any business right now,” she said.

  “It’s perfect for both of us.” Tip spooned potatoes onto her plate, which she was now ignoring. “You need something to do, and I need an investor. We can run the numbers together and see where we stand.”

  The cabin smelled dank and musty. The edges of Tilda’s mind thought about the spiders.

  “I need something to do?”

  “Babe, that space won’t stay empty forever, and I’ll need to be open by the time the summer tourists roll in.”

  Tilda hated nicknames, but that wasn’t the point.

  Tip leaned over the open containers of food and put his hand on her leg. “I know it wasn’t something you’d planned on, but the opportunity is just too amazing. Downtown has Brasserie for the high-end stuff, and The Galley is an old, worn-down tavern.”

  Tilda liked The Galley.

  “But there’s nothing in the middle for the tourists. That’s what I’m talking about doing here—a gastropub where people can come in their shorts, pay middle-of-the-road prices, and get high-end versions of their favorite things. The best onion rings. The best burger. Sloppy Joes made with wild boar. An oyster bar with different varieties every day. We’ll get a great bartender to do spin-offs on old-fashioned drinks.”

  “I like burgers,” Tilda said. “I just don’t want to be the person selling them.”

  “You won’t. I’m going to take care of everything. You can stay completely in the background.”

  Tip was running his fingers up and down the underside of her forearm.

  “You’re not listening,” Tilda said to him.

  It really was too dark in the cabin. The woods around them blocked whatever sunlight the clouds hadn’t already gobbled up.

  “I don’t have a lot of other places to go for this.” Tip was doing his best to make meaningful eye contact. “This could all slip through my fingers.”

  Tilda looked away from him. She was taking a moment to decide just how to word her next question.

  “When did you decide to ask me for money?”

  “What?” He took his hand back and made his eyes wide.

  “When—and I mean exactly—did it occur to you that I might make a good investor for your restaurant?”

  “What are you driving at?” Tip asked.

  “Was it when I first showed up at Harry’s? You came over and spoke to me at the coffee shop the next day, remember?”

  “I remember.”

  “Were you thinking of me as a checkbook then?”

  This whole thing was horrible. It was hurtful and stupid, and Tilda was fairly certain she had embarrassed herself. The longer she sat there the more embarrassed she got. She thought about being in bed with him, and that made everything worse.

  “I’ll still want to sleep with you,” Tip said, as though her thoughts were his to look into. “Even after we’re business partners.”

  Tilda fought the bark of a laugh that bubbled up her throat. “Okay.”

  “Okay, what?” Tip wadded up a paper napkin and threw it on the ground.

  “Okay, nothing. Nothing at all.” Tilda sniffed and told herself it was the cold. It was cold out there. What a terrible day to go boating.

  “I’d like to show you the business plan I’ve created.”

  Tilda did not want to see the business plan. The only thing worse than knowing he was in it for the money would’ve been footing the bill and having the whole island know. She left the piece of chicken on her plate with the rest of the food untouched.

  “Where are you going? Aren’t you going to eat?”

  Tilda was getting to her feet and brushing at her backside. “No, I’m not.” She reached for her shoes and shoved her feet inside them as quickly as she could.

  “Tilda.” Tip got to his feet, too. “We’ve got something here. Let’s build on it.”

  “What do we have here?” she asked, still bent over her laces. “What exactly is this?”

  Tip opened his mouth but couldn’t find the words, and Tilda didn’t know if she’d won an argument or lost one.

  “Thanks for the picnic,” she said.

  “Are you leaving?”


  Tilda had her back to him. She was in the doorway and then through it, covering ground as fast as she could without breaking into a jog. A fat raindrop landed on her face, and she brushed it away with her hand before another took its place.

  “Tilda!”

  His voice was both angry and pleading, and she didn’t answer him. She was tired of being asked for things. She was tired of being asked for things by people who didn’t deserve to ask at all, and so she was keeping her things. She was keeping her money and her time and her help, and so yes, he was going to have to fend for himself. And she wasn’t sorry. Another raindrop landed on Tilda’s cheek, and she left it there. She was already on the trail and moving downhill. There was no one to see it.

  When she got to the place where the dirt turned to asphalt, no one was around. The houses looked as though they had shut themselves up and pulled themselves in tight. Now out of the trees, Tilda looked up and saw the clouds had changed in the last twenty minutes. They were lower and darker than she remembered, and she was starting to doubt her earlier prediction. She wasn’t at all sure the storm would wait until it hit the mainland to tear itself open.

  The wind pushed over a nearby trash bin left by the curb, and a red plastic cup rolled out and blew past Tilda’s feet too fast for her to stop it.

  “Shit.”

  She pulled her phone out of her pocket to check the ferry schedule. It was too nasty to take her own boat back. She would have to leave it at the dock, come back for it later. She was walking fast, trying to put as much distance between herself and Tip as she could. She didn’t want him to see her, to catch her, to touch her. She couldn’t bear the idea of it, and she jabbed at the screen harder, trying to make the page load faster.

  “Ferry Service Canceled.”

  “Goddammit,” Tilda shouted and threw her phone to the ground. It bounced in its protective case and landed screen up, the same message still shining up at her.

  “Ferry Service Canceled.”

  38.

  It was easy not to notice the clouds when there were always clouds. So who was to say it hadn’t been coming for hours? But it didn’t feel like hours. It was as though a sheet were dropped over the setting sun, like the lowering of a backdrop during a play. And now when the crowds of Last-Minute Lindas raised their eyes to the sky, they saw thick swirling clouds of the darkest gray broken only with streaks of olivey green, which scared them. The clouds roiled like something was alive inside them trying to get out, and they were monstrous. They were so large they filled the sky all the way to the horizon no matter what direction you looked, and even the sky was not large enough to hold them. And so they pressed downward, lower and lower, until even the bravest started to feel the breath of claustrophobia on their necks.

  The wind got stronger, moving the clouds and pulling on the trees and on their clothes. Hair whipped into the faces of the women until they were all but blinded, but still they stayed. The assembled crowd wanted to see the miracle before the Artemia lucis faded, the adults died off, the eggs went into stasis, inert until something—something they still did not understand—one hundred years from now woke them and started the process all over again. People had always clustered around the research site, but now there were so many that they had to spread out, some of them going down to the most inaccessible area of the bay—just where Rachel needed to work.

  Fish and Wildlife had dispatched more deputies with more yellow tape, cordoning off all of it and standing guard. The crowd, nervous now as sheep with the smell of wolf in the wind, lowered their chattering and turned their eyes to the sky. Their phones, once at the ready to capture the first glow, were lowered.

  Rachel was above them looking down. She’d hidden herself off the access path in the woods. The incline was steep, and she’d wedged herself against a tree to keep from losing her footing and sliding down. She crouched there, her left foot going numb, keeping watch, a position she could not have held just one week ago. Oh, what a difference these few days had made.

  She knew it would take hours for all of the tourists to leave. Two o’clock, three o’clock in the morning, maybe. That’s when John would expect her to leave for her collections. She would show him. The sun had just started to set when she’d slipped out the front door of the Streatfield house. Once she was clear of the residential road, she’d stepped off into the woods, pushing her way through the ferns and the underbrush where no one would see her, and now here she was, lying in wait, watching the crowds watch the sky. She could feel the sizzle and zap in the air around her and wondered if it was the first tingle of an electrical storm or if it was something inside her, something she was throwing off.

  Then the sky split in two, and all the rain came down.

  * * *

  “You have to speak up.” Tilda was standing under the awning of the pizza shop that had closed before she could get inside. The rain was making more noise than she ever would have imagined rain could, and with one hand over her left ear, she was straining to hear Juno.

  “It’s Dad,” he was saying. “He’s really bad.”

  “Do you need to call Dr. Woo?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Well, can he stand?”

  “It’s not—It’s not like that.”

  Tilda opened her mouth to tell him where she was, explain her situation and why she could not get there, explain that he would have to care for his father tonight, but Juno’s words came before hers could.

  “I think he might hurt himself, and I don’t know what to do. I can’t—I can’t even get to him. He locked the door. He’s in there alone.”

  “Can you talk to him?”

  “He’s not making any sense. He hears me, but the things he’s saying—” Juno let the words fall off.

  “Okay.” It was not okay, but Tilda was trying to buy her mind some time. “Call Dr. Woo and tell him what’s happening.”

  “His office will be closed,” Juno said.

  Tilda knew that. Of course she knew that. She just didn’t have another plan.

  “Are you coming home? I need you to come home,” Juno said.

  “Yes, of course,” Tilda said. “I’m leaving right now.”

  “Okay,” he said, sounding more like the boy he had been than the man he had become. “Okay. We’ll wait for you,” and then he hung up.

  Tilda stood there alone in the rain. Tip had not passed back this way. She did not know if he had headed to the ferry building to wait for a boat that would not come or if he had stayed at the cabin with his picnic. Either way, she supposed it didn’t much matter.

  She put the phone in her pocket, pulled the hood of her jacket over her head, and took off across the street toward the public docks at a run. It wasn’t that far, she told herself. She could handle it. The boat could handle it. It would be fine. It would absolutely be fine.

  * * *

  Hooper’s master key opened the camp’s business office, which was a single room with two metal desks pushed together, so that their occupants would be nose-to-nose all day long. The walls were wood paneled, and something—it was hard to know what—smelled like mildewed carpet.

  Hooper had not intended to scare Rachel the night before. He hadn’t intended for her to know he was there at all. It hadn’t been terribly difficult—between what he had gotten from John and what he read of her notebook—to figure out what she was doing. He just needed to know how she was doing it and how far along she was. He checked his watch. Tonight was the last night the creatures would glow. Tomorrow the adults would begin to die, leaving only the eggs to float out into the Pacific. There was very little time left, and he still hadn’t found his damn cell phone. He picked up the landline on one of the desks and said a small prayer that went something like “please, please, please.”

  It worked. There was a dial tone.

  Hooper punched in the number, and a receptionist picked up. “Tern Laboratories,” she said. “How can I direct you?”

  “Dr. Cahill, please.”
>
  Hooper had met Cahill at a conference two years before. They’d passed time in the hotel bar talking about dart frog venom. His lab was in phase II research for the development of a nerve pain treatment derived from the toxin. This had been only moderately interesting to Hooper at the time, but the two had kept up a friendly, if sporadic, professional correspondence.

  “How are the frogs?” Hooper asked after they’d progressed through the pleasantries, which included a recounting of Cahill’s son’s broken arm.

  “The research didn’t progress to the third phase,” he said. “The initial results were promising, but there were too many anticholinergic effects to go forward.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “It is. I had hopes.”

  There was a slurping noise, and Hooper imagined the other man was taking a sip of something hot, probably coffee.

  “I may have something equally hopeful if your lab is interested.”

  There was a pause, and Hooper imagined him setting the mug down. “We’re always interested. Are you planning to step away from academia?”

  “I’m going to need you to sign a nondisclosure agreement before we go into detail,” Hooper said by way of an answer.

  “Naturally,” Cahill agreed. “Can you give me some general idea of what we’re talking about?”

  “A painkiller,” Hooper said, “unlike anything on the market. Revolutionary.”

  “How far are you?”

  “Far enough.”

  “I’ll get the agreement.”

  After hanging up, Hooper jogged to the van in a hurry to get back to the site before he was missed. With one hand he started the engine and with the other felt for the seat belt, which was too old to retract properly. His fingers brushed something hard wedged down in the small well between the bottom of the door and the base of his seat. Grabbing the edge, he pulled it out.

  It was a phone, the small flip kind without GPS or Twitter, the kind that only sent text messages if you were patient enough to hit the number 2 three times to type the letter C. It was the phone of an old person or a broke person. It was his.