Page 70 of Ringer
Dim voices, trailing across her mind like distant comets. One a flinty blue. One the soft white dazzle of a shooting star.
“We named them. Some of the replicas. It was a gamewe played. They only had numbers before. It wasn’t Cassiopeia... what was her name?”
Lyra,Lyra thought. She opened her mouth. Her words evaporated into bubbles of air.
“Jesus. Looks like she’s trying to talk.”
The woman leaned closer. Her hair tickled Lyra’s cheekbone. “What’s that, honey?” she whispered.
“Lyra,” Lyra managed to say, and the woman cried out softly, as if the word was a bird, some soft thing that had landed in her palm.
“Lyra,” she said. “Of course. Can you open your eyes, Lyra?”
Lyra did, surprised by how much effort it took. The pavement hardened beneath her again. There was pain in her ankle, a sharp pain behind her eyes. Her mouth tasted like blood.
“Do you remember me, Lyra? My name is Dr. O’Donnell. I knew you at Haven. Remember?”
She reached up to touch Lyra’s face. Her fingers smelled like lemon balm.
Turn the page to continue reading Lyra’s story. Click here to read Chapter 15 of Gemma’s story.
SIXTEEN
LYRA WOKE UP AND FOR a confused moment thought she was back at the Winston-Able Mobile Home Park: in the distance she heard the thud of music and people laughing, the scattered catcall of loud and joyful conversation. But it was too clean, and it didn’t smell right. When she moved, she thumped her head on the arm of a sofa.
“Sorry for all the noise.” When she heard Dr. O’Donnell’s voice, Lyra remembered: the car, the driver, the cones of light, and Dr. O’Donnell’s hair tickling her face. She turned and a flock of birds took off in her head, briefly darkening her vision. She must have cried out without meaning to, because Dr. O’Donnell reached out and touched her cheek.
“Poor thing,” she said. “We wrapped your ankle up nice and tight. It doesn’t look broken to me, thankfully.”
Lyra noticed then that her ankle had been wrappedtightly in tape, and various cuts and bruises had been treated with CoolTouch: it had left a shiny film on her elbow and shins.
“Is this CASECS?” she asked. The room looked nothing like a hospital. There was a desk cluttered with belongings in one corner, and shelves filled with books. A miniature fridge hummed in the corner, and a stuffed bear wearing aNumber One Bossshirt gathered dust on top of it. Lyra was lying on a scratchy dark-wool sofa. There were framed posters on the walls, giant posters of people she didn’t recognize. There was a clock on the wall, and a paper calendar with cats. There were no keypads on the door and the only lock was the handle variety.
“This is part of it,” Dr. O’Donnell said. She wasn’t even wearing a lab coat—just jeans and boots and a light sweater. Maybe that was why Lyra felt so shy around her—that and the gray in her hair, the lines around her eyes, the sharp angle of her nose, all features Lyra hadn’t remembered. She had changed or she was different from the start, and either way, Lyra was nervous. “We’re a small operation. We keep a staff of just under a hundred and fifty. That includes the cleaning crew.” She smiled.
Then Lyra remembered Caelum, the way he’d veered off in the darkness when the headlights swept him, and the guard radioing for backup. “Where’s Caelum?” she asked, sitting up and blinking at another rush of birds in her head.
“Caelum. Is that what you call him?”
“That’s his name,” Lyra said, and felt anxious for reasons she couldn’t exactly say. The laughter, the distant drumming of music, a faint smell of alcohol—maybe it all stirred memories of Haven Christmas parties, when the researchers would remove their shoes to slide down the halls in their socks, and the air was edged with a taut, superficial tension, like the lip of water in a glass about to overflow.
“Don’t be afraid,” Dr. O’Donnell said, and that, at least, reassured her: Dr. O’Donnell still had that skill. She could look at something, or someone, and understand. “He looked hungry. Sonja—she’s my research assistant—went for pizza. Caelum’s probably halfway through it by now.” Her smile made new wrinkles appear and others collapse. “Are you hungry?”
Lyra shook her head. She was dizzy, and nauseous, and thirsty. But not hungry.I’m sick,she wanted to say.Help me.But she was too shy. She wished Dr. O’Donnell had been wearing a lab coat. Wished she’d looked more like a doctor, and that the room looked more like a hospital. Here she felt her sickness was a stain, that it would be terribly out of place.
Dr. O’Donnell got a bottle of water from the miniature fridge, which was also stocked with Diet Cokes.
“Drink this, at least,” she said, once again as if she’d read Lyra’s mind. She took a seat, and Lyra was awareof how closely Dr. O’Donnell watched her drink, no doubt taking note of the way Lyra’s hand shook. But Dr. O’Donnell didn’t comment on it, and she didn’t offer to help, either. “I still can’t believe it’s you. Number twenty-four, wasn’t it?”
Lyra nodded. It was strange to hear the words out loud, even after only a few weeks, strange to think of herself again that way,one of a series,something that could be stacked or arranged.
Dr. O’Donnell was watching her. “A Green. Is that right?”
Lyra nodded again, this time because her throat seized.
“And Caelum,” Dr. O’Donnell said, “is he a Green, too?”
“Caelum is a control,” Lyra said, surprised the words brought a bad taste to her mouth. She was expecting Dr. O’Donnell to look sorry for her and was glad she didn’t. But she was also confused. Did Dr. O’Donnell know what that meant? Did she know that meant Lyra was dying, and Caelum had to watch?
