Lisica Chapters

Thanks for joining us on our Scientist Soap Opera escapist journey to the mysterious island of Lisica! You can find previous episodes in the link above or column on the right. Please don’t forget to subscribe and leave a comment if you enjoy what you find!

Audio for this episode:

18 – Quite So Well

Flavia is so happy to see Amy she could kiss her. At last. She has won back her freedom. She wants to collapse and just be carried away to her cot in the bunker but she knows she can’t lay down her burdens quite yet. She turns to Xaanach, her shadow these last couple days. But the tiny girl is gone, vanished into the greenery. Well. That may be for the best. As far as Flavia can tell, Xaanach and the hermits of the mountain aren’t welcome in the villages.

Katrina is yelping with joy, wrapping her in her arms, kissing her cheeks like a long-lost relation. Flavia grips her back. Now that she is in the embrace of her friends her ordeal takes on a dreamlike quality. It recedes instantly into the past.

Amy hugs her too. The warm contact against her skin nearly makes Flavia weep. “Basta. Please. We still have to get home.” She steps back and wipes her eyes. “But where are Maahjabeen and Triquet? We have to find them. I think they followed me.”

“Followed you?” Amy frowns. “When?”

“That first day. The day they stole me.”

“No, no.” Katrina assures Flavia. “They got back safe and sound. Don’t worry about them. It’s just you.”

“Now…” Amy wonders, “how do we actually get back? They won’t let us back in the village to the way out.”

Flavia pulls away from Amy, a manic desperation filling her. “Where? Who won’t let us leave?”

Katrina indicates the knot of adult villagers still standing in the center of the clearing, hands up, watching them with wary hostility. “They think you’re some kind of bad juju, that’s for sure.”

“It isn’t me. No! It’s Wetchie-ghuy.”

The name provokes a collective low moan from the villagers. The children who had been watching from the doorways of their redwood bark houses duck their heads back in, squealing in fear.

Flavia steps into the village. “Wetchie-ghuy does not own me. I am not his—his wife. I am not his property. I am a free woman.”

But they still look at her with stone faces. She has been touched, infected or stained like Amy was for just taking a single step up his trail. For Flavia, this is too much.

“No! I hate him! I am my own person! Fuck Wetchie-ghuy!” She lifts a fist and shakes it at the mountain behind her. With two quick strides she returns to his trailhead and spits on it. Flavia drags her foot across the dirt, renouncing him. Then she realizes she still wears the shawl of silver fur that he had draped over her shoulders. She throws it on the ground and stamps on it.

The villagers hiss with worry.

“I am done. I am completely done.” Flavia marches into the village and they raise their hands. But she lifts her own to ward them away, aiming directly for the tunnel mouth. They fall away from her before she can touch them.

Katrina and Amy scamper through in her wake, hurrying past the villagers with downcast eyes.

Flavia is forced to stop. A single man stands in the tunnel mouth, barring her path. It is the first man they always meet, the elder with the fox—who is nowhere to be seen. She stops in front of him, needing him to understand she plays no part in Wetchie-ghuy’s devious machinations. She points at the mountain. “Wetchie-ghuy. Nák. Wetchie-ghuy chán. Bad. È cattivo.” She mimics strangling a kneeling figure. She points at its imagined face. “Wetchie-ghuy.” With all her effort she chokes him.

The elder watching her keeps his face impassive. But his eyes are surprisingly filled with grief. In silence he finally turns away, shoulders slumped in defeat, leaving the passage open. Flavia pushes past him with a muttered Italian curse. But she stops after just a step.

The fox crouches before her. One last challenge.

But this is something Flavia feels she can actually do. Boris her dog has taught her all kinds of canine manners. She patiently kneels, holding out the back of her hand for the fox to smell. It does so, idly, looking up at her with black shining eyes.

Without knowing why, words speak themselves from her lips. “I won’t tell anyone. I will keep your secret.” She doesn’t know what it means but it still somehow seems to make sense.

Satisfied, the fox flickers away, appearing once more on the shoulder of the elder who is rejoining his people in the village.

Amy hurries after Flavia, filled with more shame than she’s ever felt. These people were so joyful and welcoming just an hour ago. And she still doesn’t fully understand what she did wrong.

Katrina tarries at the tunnel mouth. She can’t let it end like this. Her DJ instincts kick in and she lifts her phone. With a few quick flicks of her fingers, a song begins at max volume, filling the space with piano and strings. Then Elton John’s plaintive voice sings:

What have I gotta do to make you love me?
What have I gotta do to make you care?
What do I do when lightning strikes me?

They goggle at her, the ethereal sounds coming from the phone clearly unlike anything they’ve ever heard. She holds it high as the kids peek their heads out again. The music draws them forward.
What do I say when it’s all over?
And sorry seems to be the hardest word…

Katrina puts her hand over her heart and starts swaying back and forth in time to the music, signaling her apology with gestures. She lets the song play out, the villagers swaying in time with her by the end. She lets the silence stretch for a long moment before blowing a kiss to the crowd and holding up a peace sign. Then she turns and hurries after the others into the dark passage back home.

Ξ

“Hey… I got an idea…” Jay stands in front of Katrina’s platform, happily stumbly drunk. “Let’s dance.”

She’s spinning what she calls her digestive set at the moment, a spacey atmospheric collection of chords with no beats that she likes to play for everyone after dinner. They all ate and drank too much and now, after the intense celebration Triquet led the whole crew in once Flavia had emerged from the trap door in the bunker, they are all depleted and content. Well, all are except Jay.

“Yeeeeah!” Katrina loves the unstoppable surfer dude. “That’s the spirit, mate! Ain’t no party if the party people say that the party won’t stop til dawn!”

“Right on!”

“I said it won’t stop bumping til dawn!”

“Right on!”

“Til dawn!”

“Right on!”

She hits him with a dropping bass note, then spins it into a techno remix of Liszt’s La Campanella, the piano’s chimes interlaced with real bells and a disco drum line beneath.

Jay stumbles away in the sand, satisfied with the beat. He can’t dance the way he wants with this bum leg but he can’t sit still. Not with Flavia back! There’s never been a celebration like this one.

Mandy stands and spins into the empty space. “Ooo pretty!” As a twelve year-old piano student she had once played this at a recital. It never occurred to her to dance to it. But now, high on Alonso’s wine and Jay’s weed, she feels like a breathless spinning wind-up Victorian doll, her beach skirt flaring as she turns. She throws herself into Jay’s arms and he catches her neatly despite his injuries. They laugh.

Mandy leaps away, closing her eyes and raising her arms. She feels so pretty, spinning neatly in the sand. She just wants her glow to shine in the gathering darkness, for anyone else who might need it. Love and beauty, in the end, are all that matter. Then her eyes open to even more beauty.

Maahjabeen dances before her, in a sinuous Tunisian style that almost makes Mandy do something very foolish. But she keeps her hands to herself and just watches the woman with open-mouthed fascination.

Maahjabeen has never been so happy in her life. When she had lost herself in the storm it was one thing to survive and return, but losing someone else… La. Now she knows how Mandy had felt when she had abandoned her on the beach. The crushing responsibility for another woman’s life. How had she been so cavalier about it before? Thank you, God, for Flavia’s safe return. Impulsively she grabs Mandy’s hands and hugs her tightly. “Chokran. Chokran, Mandy. Thank you for caring for me.”

Mandy has no idea what the lovely woman means but she does her best to hug her back in exactly the same way. Her eyes catch Esquibel’s watching from their platform. Her lover is laughing at her, fully-aware how bowled over Maahjabeen’s embrace makes Mandy. And she won’t let go. Mandy can only widen her eyes to communicate her shock. Esquibel laughs even harder.

Katrina will never waste an opportunity to make Maahjabeen happy. She finds the Amani Al Souwasi track and mixes it with a bit of hard drum and bass. Now it’s time to see how much she can make Maahjabeen move.

Amy cries out, clapping her hands. Maahjabeen whirls in response, performing a sharp traditional step she’s only done at weddings. They all cheer her. She likes this, how carefree it is, how there are no pushy men to fend off, how much she is appreciated. She has never felt more seen, but in a way she somehow loves. For once she doesn’t want to hide beneath her scarf or out on the open ocean. She wants them to see her for who she truly is. With every gesture she reveals herself and they cry out with joy. This is really happening. She’s blossoming like a flower. And Katrina keeps driving the music deeper, harder… Oh, now it is becoming physical and nearly sexual. But this is as far as Maahjabeen will go. She is still a proper Muslim girl.

With a laugh she spins away, falling against Pradeep. He yelps but holds her up. With an impulse she’s never felt before she cups his square chin and wetly kisses him before pulling away.

Pradeep quivers like he’s been struck by lightning. The camp laughs at him. Everyone laughs, including Maahjabeen. Oh no. Why did she do that? Why are they laughing? He looks from face to face, his anxiety rising…

But Jay barrels into him, roughing him up like a sport teammate. “Oh, no you don’t, Pradeep. You don’t get to be this gorgeous guy getting kisses like that from gorgeous chicks and respond like this.” He presses his joint into Pradeep’s hands.

Abashed, Pradeep glances at the others while he inhales from it. They’re all smiling at him, nodding in agreement. “Oh, this is an excruciating amount of attention, everyone, but I do appreciate your attempt to, well, help.”

“It was a very nice kiss.” Maahjabeen can’t believe she says this and she laughs, covering her mouth. “I recommend everyone kiss Pradeep. He is very kissable.”

Jay crows. “Yeah, baby! That’s the truth!” And he plants his grizzled lips against Pradeep’s clean-shaven mouth. But nothing stirs between them except merriment. With a laugh, Jay falls away. Next, Miriam grabs Pradeep by the wrist. She is very drunk, her pale face flushed red. “Don’t mind if I do.”

Pradeep is only able to yelp before she drops him backward like a Hollywood ingenue and kisses him with passionate force. It is an amazing kiss, something Pradeep has never experienced, a gushing tender passionate sweep of sensation and emotion that leaves him with fingers and toes tingling. He doesn’t even know if he’s attracted to Miriam but with a kiss like that it hardly matters.

She leads a dazzled Pradeep a couple steps to Alonso’s chair. With a happy laugh he grabs Pradeep’s face and kisses him tenderly like a father. Then it’s Triquet’s turn.

They make a delicious little show of it. “Oh… Pardon me… I was just freshening up.” From somewhere, Triquet has taken out a small make-up kit and is running glossy red lipstick around their lips in a pursed moue.

Katrina cat-calls into her microphone and Triquet sends her an exaggerated wink. Then, adorned in their floral housecoat and chiffon scarf, they stride forward, sultry, fixating Pradeep with a steamy gaze, then Triquet rushes him and kisses him soundly.

Pradeep falls back into the sand under the passionate assault. Triquet ravages him for a good ten seconds before breaking away.

Pradeep can do nothing but gasp and laugh. Now Triquet is tickling him, rolling around on top of him talking baby talk and giggling. Pradeep is laughing so hard he is crying.

Katrina, Esquibel, and Mandy dogpile them, everyone kissing and tickling each other. Flavia, who hasn’t been able to move from her camp chair since returning, lifts her wine glass and cheers.

Alonso looks strangely at Amy, slowly shaking his head with wonder. “What is it with kids these days? I think this is the most beautiful and innocent thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Wait wait wait.” Esquibel disentangles herself from the giggling mass. She stands, dusting the sand from her legs. “It isn’t over yet. I have something to show you first.”

Everyone falls apart, gasping for air. They needed that release. Pradeep is smashed at the bottom, his head whirling, quite sure he has never had so many people touching him at the same time. And the anxiety is still there, about the regrets they’ll all have in the morning, but he must admit that he didn’t actually die of shame and they didn’t recoil once they realized who he ‘really was’ or whatever Pradeep happened to be worried about at the time. They still care for him. It is just that the sensation is so overwhelming…

Esquibel has scampered over to Katrina’s laptop. Katrina sits up, Mandy’s head in her lap. “Yeeeeaaah!” she howls, urging Esquibel on. “Do it, doc!”

With a brilliant smile, Esquibel switches tracks. A woman’s voice calls out, a long sustained note, before descending in non-Western microtones to Maasai drums and a soundscape of driving energy.

Esquibel is the DJ now. And her joy forces them to their feet. Yes. She will show them what dancing is all about.

Mandy is the only one not moving. She only stares, stupefied at the good doctor. “I can’t believe how good you are at everything!” she finally shouts, dropping into a deep dancing stance and rocking her hips. “This is so good!”

Katrina spins free and points at Esquibel. “Respect. You are—”

“Oh, shut up,” Esquibel snarls at her, “and dance.”

Ξ

“Do the kayaks have names?” Amy asks between grunts as they muscle the boats over the sand.

“Names? No.” Maahjabeen makes a face. People are always trying to not only anthropomorphize their gear but infantilize it. “They are tools, Amy. Do you name tools?”

“Well, some of them.” They leave the blue kayak at the edge of the fallen redwood’s roots so they can haul the yellow one through the undergrowth. “I mean, boats and ships do traditionally have names. For like hundreds of years if not more.”

“Fine. So what would you name them?”

“Well, wouldn’t it be appropriate for them to have names that are special to you? Like from Tunisia? I’m sorry. Does Tunisia have its own language or do you just speak Arabic?”

“We don’t ‘just’ speak Arabic. It is our own version called Derja. There are many words and pronunciations specific to Tunisia, and each region has its own vocabulary. There is an old Tunisian Berber language too. Many of our names come from it.”

“Is yours an old name? What does Maahjabeen mean?”

“Yes. It means my face is like the moon.”

“Oh! That’s so nice. What kind of names do boats have? Let’s see. We could call this one… I mean, what’s yellow on the ocean? I know. Let’s call it Firewater. Her or him?”

“All boats are female. Firewater. Okay.”

“And the blue one…” They put Firewater down and return for it.

Maahjabeen puts her hand on the blue boats’ nose. “Aziz.”

“Oh! That’s pretty. What does it mean?”

“It is the name of the man who sold me the boats. He gave me a good deal or I would not have been able to afford them.”

“Well that’s as good a reason for a name as any! Better, I’d say!” Amy looks proudly at the two boats lying side-by-side. “Firewater and Aziz. There! That’s better.”

“If you like.” But Maahjabeen is pleased that Amy is showing her beloved boats so much attention. They are all friends now and that means very specific things to Maahjabeen. She will share her food and drink, tell them of her hopes and dreams, trust them on the open water. She has gone through storm and nightmare with these people and now their bond means something. “I like the names.”

Amy beams at her. “I am so glad you’re here, Maahjabeen. Now let’s see if your predictions are correct.”

“Your predictions. I just observed what you pointed out.” It is easy to be deferential to the older woman, now that her knowledge is proven. Maahjabeen is eager to see if today is finally the day. She slips into Aziz’s seat and seals her spray skirt. Amy pushes her off into the lagoon and then joins her in Firewater. The water today is fairly calm, brushed into tiny ridges by the breeze. White surf beyond the break rolls in with as much force as ever.

“After you.” Maahjabeen nods and points with the blade of her paddle at the mouth of the lagoon.

Amy laughs, demurring. “No no. I’m out of practice. Please. Show me the way, Maahjabeen.”

So she digs in, propelling Aziz forward through the mouth. She is on high alert, the surf crashing so close. But there are gaps between the waves and also the rocks they crash against. By timing her moves, she is able to climb the ebb tide up to their faces and then ride them at a diagonal to safety. It’s kind of like Tarzan swinging on vines. She never understood that story. How would he know there is another vine to grab until he has already let go of the first one and is flying helplessly through the air? Well, how will she know a wave won’t behave other than expected and smash her against these jagged black teeth?

And the answer is faith. Her faith always sees her through. Perhaps Tarzan had a similar faith. Perhaps he was a believer without even knowing it.

She finds a calm little pool protected behind a shoulder of rock and she waits here for Amy, who has been caught up on the crest of a wave, heading toward her. She is surfing it expertly, smile wide in a rictus grin of concentration, but she is cutting across its face at too sharp an angle. Maahjabeen is worried that she will get carried onto the rocks…

At the last moment, Amy paddles off the top and into the swell behind, shooting sideways toward Maahjabeen with the thunder of the surf ejecting her.

Amy pulls up with a squeal, fighting Firewater to a standstill beside Aziz. She is panting hard.

“That was… quite a bit of paddling.” Maahjabeen can’t tell if it had been intentional or not. If so, it was the flashiest maneuver she’d ever seen.

“Oh god. I think I wet myself.” Amy shivers. “So soaked I can’t even tell. What do Tunisians say, when you almost die like that?”

“Inshallah. By the grace of God.”

“Exactly. That was definitely my big inshallah moment.”

“Here is your stillwater passage. But watch out for these rip curls on the side, Amy. Are we strong enough to get over them to the quiet water before the waves get to us?”

“Oh, those are pretty huge.” From the shore, Amy hadn’t been able to see these spinning whirlpools the waves create as they rush toward the rocks. “But, yeah. I think we got it, as long as it isn’t a huge one.”

Maahjabeen angles the nose of Aziz toward her final destination, past the rollers in the open water. “Inshallah!” A blessedly small wave crests but gets undercut by the shelf beneath the water here. It dissipates before it even reaches the rocks. She paddles for all she’s worth, the stiff length of the boat reaching across the edges of the whirlpools to the smooth water on the far side. She doesn’t have long, she knows. It is time to paddle to freedom.

Amy watches her companion dig deep in the water and shoot forward with ease. Soon Aziz is halfway across the danger zone but a big wave is already rising in the coming set, maybe three waves out. Maahjabeen will have to hurry.

The next waves slow her, the current stopping her in her tracks and the climb over the mounting swell harder each time. She has her eye on the big wave coming in too. She needs to hit it just right to win past or it will carry her all the way back to the rocks.

She does so, with a grunt and a scream, shooting over the lip just as it begins to form. Maahjabeen made it! She’s out on the open ocean now! She’s safe!

Turning back, her wide grin of triumph is answered with a salute of Amy’s paddle. But she just sits there and her smile slowly fades. She is surprised how long Amy takes, letting four whole sets go by before she sees a wave she likes. To Maahjabeen’s eye it isn’t a particularly auspicious wave, but Amy seems to think otherwise.

And Amy is right. The rhythms of the ocean slacken and she’s given a flat peaceful ride out to where Maahjabeen waits.

“Whew!” Amy cackles. “That was lucky.”

Maahjabeen shakes her head at her, rueful. “I can’t wait until I am old enough to have such patience.”

And now they are on the shining sea together, the sun breaking through the clouds over the island behind them. It is a beautiful day and they are finally free.

Maahjabeen laughs and pulls ahead, in her element. She plies the currents like a dolphin, the smooth sides of Aziz cleaving a tiny wake on either side. She is surprised to see Amy keeping pace off her port side. The older woman has perfect technique, the blade spinning and dipping in her hands. Firewater bobs like a happy duck on the ocean.

They curve off to the left, to follow the cliffs to the east that none of them have yet studied. The seastacks are painted white with bird droppings and some unknown pinnipeds cluster on a pocket beach in the shadow of the cliffs.

Amy crows with delight upon seeing them and paddles closer. “Oh my GOD! Maahjabeen, look!”

But Maahjabeen is worried about the closeouts here. It takes all her strength not to get sucked in by the currents racing toward the rocks. “What? What is it?”

“Unless I’m mistaken these are Hawaiian monk seals! Found only on Hawai’i! And they’re endangered! My old friend Mark Van Dorn will lose his MIND when I tell him I’ve found a new population. This is huge!”

“Do you have one of those readers Alonso wants everyone to carry? The—the… what do you call it?”

“The Dyson readers?” Amy laughs. “I don’t think a seal would fit in the collection bay. No, I’ll need to get a blood sample at some point. And wow! Look at the seabirds! Those aren’t just any Uria lomvia. They’re too dark! They must be lomvia arra, the North Pacific variant of the thick-billed murre. This is wild. Nowhere else on earth do we see these two species, one from Hawai’i and one from the Arctic, intermix like this. I wonder if there’s any actual interaction? Pradeep will have a field day here! Literally!”

“My estimate is that this is a rising tide for the next four hours, Amy. We shouldn’t spend too much time…”

“Yes, it’s true. If we want to see more of the cliffs we should move on before our window closes. But just think of how much research is to be done here! Eight weeks is—!”

“Well, more like five and a half weeks now. That is why it was so hard to lose those first couple weeks.”

“Exactly. We have to come out here every day now!”

They paddle on, the shadow of the island on their left side stretching across the water, chilling them. Amy picks up her pace, keeping warm with the effort. How nice it had felt to have the sun on her skin, if only for a brief moment. Now it’s time to go to work. Let’s see if her old muscles will put up with the exercise. It’s been… three months? four? Since she’d been in a boat? And that was just goofing around with friends in Elkhorn Slough.

But there’d been a time, in the not too distant past, when she was such a monster on the water that she could literally paddle all day. She had once soloed the entire Humboldt coast in six nights for crying out loud! She can do this. But her shoulders and core are already starting to build up that lactic acid…

“Look!” Maahjabeen points her paddle at a fold in the cliffs where the water disappears within. “I think that is the sea cave!”

“Oh, wow. Should we go in?”

“I have been wanting to for days now. Weeks.” Maahjabeen shoots forward, eager to see it. The channel cuts into the black and gray cliffs at an angle, which makes its mouth nearly impossible to spot. But she isn’t looking at the landmass, she’s following the water, and there’s a current sucking in and billowing out there, she is sure of it.

She reaches the channel atop a modest wave, that allows her to coast off its lip behind as it crashes against the walls and fills the channel with foam. Maahjabeen backpaddles slowly behind, waiting for Amy to join her on the next wave. The channel is much wider than she thought, perhaps twenty meters across. But the stone of the cliffs has been sheared away ahead. This has been artificially expanded, probably to accommodate larger boats.

Amy coasts in behind her and they both have to fight over the foam of the wave to maintain position in the center of the channel. Then they scoot forward, amazed looks on their faces. At first, the passage is open to the sky, a deep cleft in the rock. But then it closes far over their heads and the way forward grows dim.

Sea stars populate the wet walls. A fringe of mollusks and seaweed marks the tideline. It is enchanting, the sharp tang of sea creatures and the vegetal smell of the seaweed beneath barely masking the stench of something rotten. The channel opens into the cavern, but they don’t even realize it at first because the bare stone columns separating the water into multiple channels are so broad. This is where the surf is broken into harmless ripples, leading to the calmer ebb and flow issuing from the cave.

They glide into the darkness. A natural shelf above the tideline holds the carcass of a sea lion, its tail partially torn off. Amy holds her breath and paddles closer, fascinated to see teeth marks on the flesh of the poor creature. She rejoins Maahjabeen and finally releases her breath with a gasp. “Well! Pradeep will absolutely adore that fellow! Shark bite. Or orca…”

“Orca? Really?” Maahjabeen has kept her eyes peeled today but she has yet to see them. She considers this a good omen, that they are silently watching over her.

“Good grief,” Amy shakes her head, “the American military is… so weird!” She peers into a chamber they carved into the rock, its irregular floor flooded with concrete that still supports rusting iron struts. “What were they doing in here?”

“Who knows. Those people are crazy. They bomb cities for no reason. They bury a sub in the beach. It makes no sense.”

Maahjabeen feels the need to explore every corner of the sea cave. She is finally scratching the itch she first got when they lost Flavia last week and they discovered it from the other side. And who knows when she’ll find the time to come back?

The jetty is fairly dangerous, having partially collapsed into the black water. She steers clear of it. The open water on the far side of it receives the flow of the freshwater fall from above. So strange that it should flow here in an unbroken roar, unseen and unknown, for so long. From water collected in the island’s interior, then down the cliffs of that fantastic waterfall and along the creek… why, this is the water they drink at camp. Then underground and falling in a wide shelf into this cave. For ages. A hidden wonderland.

As with so many of her encounters with nature, the world of mankind falls away as a laughably thin construct and she is left with eternity. The never-seen face of Allah. Peace.

Ξ

Mandy holds Alonso’s swollen feet in her hands. They buzz with his agony. Really no point in doing any actual work on them yet. They are still too raw. So she just holds them, keeping herself clear so she doesn’t accumulate his pain, breathing through the soles of her feet into the earth.

His breaths are ragged. He lies back on his cot with his sleeping bag over him, his forearm across his eyes. There is so much trauma here Mandy isn’t sure she can encompass it. He needs some way to get rid of it, a path for it to leave his body. Maybe putting it into words will help. “Can you tell me about it?” she asks.

“No.” He doesn’t move. But his leg twitches.

Mandy is relieved despite herself. The last thing she needs is to hear a torture victim recount the details. She can only be so clear for so long before darkness like that would find its way in. That’s a lot of darkness.

“How do your feet like feel?” Maybe this is safer territory. “Can we just, you know, like write an abstract here? How would you introduce the subject of your feet in a paper?”

“Like… like may I present some very roughly ground hamburger. Hamburger that is always buzzing in agony. Sometimes spikes of nerve pain. Then there is the bone ache. So deep and relentless. It is… I cannot think. I am only the pain.”

“Are my hands okay?”

“Your hands are wonderful.”

“Thanks. I never liked my hands. I was always dropping things growing up and my mom would say my hands were all thumbs and I’ve never been able to get that image out of my head.”

Alonso gives her a polite laugh. He is just… hovering here in his cot, not giving her an opening. He is evidently not ready for this. She shifts her hands to cup his ankles. “How’s this?”

But he can’t answer her through his sudden tears. His hand opens then clenches in a fist. Ah, how he used to run! He was always so fast, a sprinter on his athletic club track team and a wing when they played fútbol. And he could hike for days. Climb mountains… Now it was gone, all gone forever and he couldn’t let go of the grief. Was he really going to spend the remainder of his days just sitting or lying down watching his body turn to sludge? He couldn’t bear the thought of it. And the pity of this… this waif here at his feet. Also unbearable. She is so light and spritely. Yet even being this close to the ruin he’d become has darkened her and brought her down. Intolerable.

He struggles to sit up. “Fine. I am fine. And I’m sure there is other work that you need to be doing at the moment, Miss Hsu.”

But she doesn’t let go. She’s too connected, and when a stab of pain shoots through him it lurches through her gut and she gasps. “No no. Nothing better to do, Doc. Just starting here, step by step. We need to be patient.”

“But it is ridiculous. I mean, there is no scientific basis in what you are doing. You know that, right?”

“There’s no basis in stretching tendons and aligning scar tissue?”

“Well, of course there is. But that isn’t what you are doing. You are just holding my abominable feet and taking deep breaths. That isn’t anything. That’s just voodoo nonsense…”

“Then why is it a problem? You said my hands feel wonderful.”

“They did. And you are very nice to do this, Mandy, but…”

“But it’s hard for me to make contact like this without you having to take a deep breath yourself, isn’t it? And you don’t want to take a deep breath.”

He falls back, staggered a bit by the insight. “Is that what it is?”

“Well, I think so. At least at this stage. Since I’ve been in here, you haven’t taken a single deep breath. You haven’t even taken a normal breath. It’s like you’re scared of me.”

“Well, I am.” He laughs a bit more heartily, and this releases his diaphragm a bit. He hadn’t even realized how much he’d been holding it. Now he sighs, his breath hovering in his throat. “And you’re right. I don’t know what will happen if I take a deep breath. I don’t know… why it is so hard…”

“No way. I’d be so scared after what you went through. But it’s okay. You realize it can’t hurt you any more, right? It’s just the past and the past is over. It’s done. And all that is left is to step forward. Like stepping off a cliff and helplessly falling…”

“Afraid of how much it will hurt when I land. Yes. That is why, certainly. Can’t we do this when I am unconscious or something, though? I wish they could just shut off all the pain receptors in my body. I never need to feel pain ever again. It has been too much.”

“You have absolutely been through too much pain. But come on, Alonso. A deal: Six deep breaths and I’ll leave you alone. Just six.”

“Six is a lot. You don’t know what you’re asking of me.” He holds up a hand to clarify. “I do like your company, Miss Hsu. I just want you to stop touching me.”

They both laugh now and his breath eases a little more.

“There you go. I felt the muscles of your legs relax a bit.”

“So what? What does that get me? Voodoo, I say.”

“Come on. It can’t be controversial that increased bloodflow to a wound site will bring more healing factors. But we like to constrict them, shut them off from the things that help them—”

“I reject the proposition that some unmeasurable spiritual healing energy is flying through your hands…”

“I didn’t say there were! I’m saying things like white blood cells, uh, growth factors, all the things your blood carries literally can’t get to the site because you’re tensing it. It needs to be released so the juices can get in there. Right? This is like physical therapy 101. That can’t be controversial, can it?”

“Well, the controversial part is that releasing these muscles leads to uncontrollable pain. And you don’t have anything for the pain. That’s the thing. It will be like putting my legs in a fire and I can’t take them back out.”

“But your body will heal, if you let it. Until about six months have passed there’s a window with the scar tissue. You’re still in that window. But when it closes and your feet are just a mass of scars? I don’t think you’ll even be able to walk. It’s kind of a now or never scenario, Doc.”

“Okay! Fine! So what do you want me to do?” Panic grips him. She isn’t giving him a way out. Where is Miriam? She knows how to handle him when he’s this grumpy. This… kid… simply doesn’t know what she’s doing.

“Just six breaths. Deep. From your belly. That’s all I’m asking for today. Don’t think about like flexing your legs or anything else. Just keep your mind empty and give me six good deep breaths. Then I’ll leave you alone.”

“Wait. There is Doctor Daine. Doctor! Do you have a moment?”

Esquibel stops at the edge of the big platform and peers through the mesh into the tent. “Yes, Doctor Alonso?”

“There is an important thing about nerve pain, yes? Where if you allow too much to be felt, especially if it is chronic, it like burns a permanent circuit into that nerve, yes? And that is when it becomes neuropathy. I have been reading. That is my primary fear now. That I will end up with permanent nerve damage if I let the pain get too intense. I can’t allow it to burn those circuits. But your… protege here, she wants me to just suffer through it.”

“Yes, Doctor. Her approach is extremely painful. In the short-term. It is true.”

“But I don’t want the permanence of the pain. We need to deaden my nerves. I cannot handle any more pain. Maybe you could give me something for it so I can go through this process without making things worse.”

Esquibel looks at Mandy, who obviously disapproves of this. But Esquibel has been a doctor now for a good long time. She knows what to do. “Yes, Alonso. I do have something. A calcium-channel blocker. Quite powerful. It will probably put you to sleep.”

“Sounds perfect. Can I have four?”

“Oh, one should definitely be enough. But I’ll give you two just to be sure. Will a painkiller interfere with your treatment, Mandy?”

“Well, kind of, yeah. His responses will be off.”

“Not with this one. It is a new experimental compound. Quite specific. Showing wonderful results. Here. I will get it. And no side effects!” Esquibel calls out over her shoulder as she hurries to the bunker. A moment later she is back with her medical kit. She removes a bottle and hands a pair of clear gel pills to Alonso.

He frowns at it. “What is it called?”

“It is hormone-based. Very safe. Let’s see.” She reads the bottle. “Ehh, cholecalciferol. Here. Drink with water so it doesn’t upset your stomach.”

Alonso nods, eagerly tosses the pills back, and sips them down.

Mandy grins at him, encouraging. “Six breaths.”

“Will you wait, please? You are too eager to hurt me. How long, Doctor? When will I feel the effects?”

Esquibel holds his wrist pulse and consults a watch. She nods, satisfied. “It is very fast-acting. Through your saliva glands. You should start to feel sleepy now. And the pain should be subsiding.”

“Mm. Perhaps. But I am definitely feeling the tiredness. Okay.” Alonso settles back in his bag, his lids drooping. “Okay, fine. Let the torture begin once more. Deep breath number one.” He takes a shuddering breath that only fills the upper lobes of his lungs.

Mandy shares an agonized look with Esquibel. “Oh my god I’m like the opposite of a torturer.”

“Shh. He knows.” Esquibel pats Mandy’s shoulder.

Alonso looks at them with dull resentment, letting the drug’s effects claim him. “And two.”

“How is the pain?” Esquibel cups his jaw.

“You are right. Much better. Three.” This is a real deep breath, and his legs roll away from each other, finally releasing. “See, Miss Hsu. This is all I wanted, was for you to do your work without…” But he is fading fast. He waves a vague hand and settles. “And four.” But it is the last deep breath he takes before a rattling snore indicates that he’s asleep.

Mandy holds the swollen, angry feet, throbbing out of sync. She feels the fibers unwind under her fingers and slacken. Now she can do some gentle work, figuring out the extent of the damage and planning a way forward. They are somewhat pliable now. His ankles are frozen. Probably shattered. And his metatarsal bones are sheathed in traumatized fascia. But the change is so dramatic she can’t believe it. Mandy exchanges a surprised look with Esquibel. “That was so fast! What is that miracle drug? I need it for all my patients. Choleca… what was it?”

“Cholecalciferol. No, it was just a couple pills of Vitamin D3. Just a placebo.” Esquibel places a gentle hand across Alonso’s brow, untroubled for the first time. “But I didn’t realize it would work quite so well.”