“Ms. Willow,” the nurse said, this time with more urgency.
“I’m sorry. Yes?”
“The doctor would like to speak with you outside. I can stay with the kids.”
Jane hesitated.
“Really, Ms. Willow, he’d prefer to talk to you alone.”
Jane walked to the door, her back stiff and her hands clenched so tightly she could feel the acrylic nails digging into her palms.
“The nurse said you wanted to speak to me,” she said to Dr. Howe as she stepped into the hall, leaving the sliding-glass door cracked behind her.
“Jane,” Dr. Howe’s lips tightened into a thin line. “I’m sorry. We’ve done everything we can do. Without a new heart—”
“What about the balloon?”
“The valvuloplasty was always a temporary fix. You know that. Between the scar tissue and Riley’s condition . . .” He trailed off.
“I just . . . I didn’t think . . .” Jane leaned against the wall. “So she needs transplant, then. How do we go about that?” She pressed her palm against the cold tile and tried to steady the sadness already swelling in her eyes.
“Well, that’s where things get tricky. Riley doesn’t qualify for a transplant.”
“What? Why?”
“You have to understand, Jane. Riley’s condition is degenerative. Even with a new heart, Riley would have to continue the valvuloplasty procedures, and we’d be right back here in a few years. The board won’t approve a transplant in a case like this.”
“So you’re telling me my baby girl is going to, what, die, because the board doesn’t think she deserves a new heart?”
Jane’s whole body shook with grief and fury.
* * *
A few minutes later, Jane returned to the hospital room alone. Quinn could see Dr. Howe standing motionless, peering through the doorway until the metal latch clicked back into place. She turned to her mother, who sank into the blue recliner, her shoulders limp and defeated.
“Mom . . .”
“Yeah, baby?” her mom whispered, careful to keep her eyes shut tight. The conversation with Dr. Howe weighed on her like a pressing stone. Jane wondered if Quinn, like her, ever held her breath in the hopes that Riley might keep a little more air for herself.
“You want me to give Riley a bath tonight?”
Quinn’s mother gave her a pained smile. “That would be great, baby. Thank you.”
Jane hated to have Quinn take care of Riley, but some days the inevitability of having to bury Riley was all she had room for in her chest.
“Mom—I love you.” Quinn pushed her hand into the bend of her mother’s arm, squeezed, then went to get Riley ready for bed. Quinn was used to picking up the slack when her mother buckled. She didn’t mind, of course. That’s what being a big sister is about, or at least that’s what people told Quinn.
* * *
“Riley, let’s go! Time for a bath!”
Quinn shouted down the hall. She gathered a towel and the robe Riley had left in a pile on the floor. The robe was still damp from the night before.
“Riley, I told you, you need to hang up your robe or the inside won’t dry!”
“Sorry. I forget!”
Quinn suspected that Riley never actually forgot. She thought Riley just liked the way Quinn would run the robe through the dryer during Riley’s bath so the fabric was warm when she got out.
“Uh huh,” she chided, poking Riley in the ribs. “Hurry up, or we won’t have time for a story before bed.”
That got Riley moving. She often begged to hear Quinn’s stories, and Quinn never seemed to run out of them. Once, Riley had wondered aloud if Quinn had other whole lives inside her from the way she could invent a world and know everything about it by the time Riley pulled her pajama top over her head.
After the bath, Quinn folded Riley’s robe around her, fresh from the dryer, then brushed the tangles from her hair.
“Quinn?”
“Yeah?”
“What do you think happens to them?”
“Who?”
“The people in your stories.”
“What do you mean?”
“When you’re not talking about them. What do they do up there?”
“Up where?” Quinn asked, creasing her brow.
“In your head. Isn’t that where they live?”
Quinn laughed. “Yeah, I suppose so.”
She thought for a long time, running the brush down Riley’s hair until was smooth.
“I don’t know. Live their lives, I guess. What does anybody do when no one’s looking?”
“Wonder,” Riley answered so softly that the word was almost swallowed by the humidifier humming beside Riley’s bed.
“Wonder what?”
“That’s what people do when no one’s looking. They wonder.”
* * *
“Okay, Mom, Riley’s clean and tucked in,” Quinn said, climbing into her mother’s lap. She was too big, she knew, but her mother smiled and made room for her all the same.
“What did the doctor say?”
“Don’t worry about that right now, baby.”
Jane couldn’t hide the telltale way her tongue trembled when she got bad news at the hospital. Quinn knew that her mom would eventually tell her what Dr. Howe had said—what choice did she have? Jane’s parents had died the year she graduated high school, and Quinn couldn’t remember ever meeting her father’s parents. Any extended family they still had lived hours away, and most had drifted into memories. One more side effect of Riley’s condition—people don’t know what to say to the mothers of dying children, so they don’t say anything. Silence becomes a sort of exit.
“She’s almost seven,” Quinn whispered.
Tears were beginning to swarm just behind her eyes.
“Yeah. What do you suppose she wants for her birthday?”
“I don’t know. A real butterfly, maybe.”
“Is that what you want to get her?”
“No.”
Quinn was silent for a long time.
“I’m going to get her a new heart.”
Quinn felt her mother’s arms tighten around her as tears made a home on her cheek. Her mother didn’t know, but Quinn had already started a campaign the only way she knew how: when she’d written a letter to Santa earlier that year, she’d asked for a new heart for Riley; when they went to church with grandpa, she prayed for new heart; the wishing well at the zoo, the note in the balloon she sent up into the sky with Riley one Saturday afternoon, the book under her bed where she wrote her stories. She had even slipped a note into a kaleidoscope she had built from an old kit she found in a box of discarded toys and clothes they were taking to the women’s shelter. Always, the wish was the same: find Riley a new heart.
“Quinn—”
“Mom, I’m serious,” Quinn interrupted. “Riley needs a new heart, and I’m going to get her one. You just have to believe. There’s all sorts of magic if you believe.”
Chapter Three
The next morning, Quinn was up before the sun. She had fallen asleep in her mother’s lap, so she eased down from the loveseat and walked to her and Riley’s bedroom, lingering outside the door for a moment. Riley didn’t snore, exactly; the sound was more like a coo, a soft contented sigh every few minutes. The cooing was so loud some nights that Quinn had trouble sleeping, but this morning she couldn’t imagine a more peaceful sound. She checked her watch. Her mother and Riley would be awake soon. Quinn wanted to be back before they noticed. She pulled her jacket from the hall closet and slipped out the door, pushing her arms through her sleeves as she walked.
She couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of the butterfly garden—the only place that made Riley happy—sooner. Of course she should leave one of her notes with the butterflies. What better place for a miracle? Quinn had gathered a handmade card and her favorite purple pen. She’d have to move quickly if she wanted to get back before her mother and Riley woke up.
Quinn loved
being awake before everyone else. The streets were so quiet that Quinn could feel the world around her buzzing. The morning air was cold, and Quinn could see her breath as she hurried along the sidewalk. She felt the teleidoscope bouncing beneath her coat and pressed a hand to her chest. She had become enthralled with her first kaleidoscope when she was just a toddler, shrieking each time her father tried to free the toy from her grasp for a nap or a meal. Her collection grew over the following years, until Quinn’s bedroom shelf resembled a futuristic skyline. The skyline, like the circle of friends she had built in her first two years at school, stalled abruptly on the day Riley was born. The week Riley first came home from the hospital, Quinn got a package from her father with a note. Inside the package, she found an odd contraption, something called a kaleidoscope.
This is just like your teleidoscopes, Quinn, the note read, except that this one reflects everything you see instead of trapping everything inside. Our world is going to be very different now. Whenever you get sad, just put this to your eye and you’ll be able to see all the beauty in front of you, all the wonderful things we sometimes forget.
Quinn tried to remember where her father had been, what had been important enough for him to miss Riley’s birth, but the memories were like ghosts she couldn’t hold onto. The harder she fought, the more the images transformed into muddled wisps. She could remember the words in that note exactly, and the way the paper smelled of marshmallows and dust, yet her father’s face eluded her.
* * *
The garden would be closed, so she’d have to find a way inside. That wouldn’t be easy, as the owners were very careful about housing and protecting the butterflies. Normally, visitors had to stand in a small room with glass doors on either side. One side would open, allowing visitors to step in, then close behind them. The next set of doors wouldn’t open until the first set had closed and locked. This was supposed to keep butterflies from hitching a ride out of the garden. The entire space was surrounded by glass panels like a greenhouse. The building was relatively large, with several trees and even a small pond in the middle. Quinn had no idea how she’d get in, but she had to try.
She tiptoed toward the edge of the enclosure and put her hands against the glass. Once, she remembered, Riley had found a small gap between two panels where a hose connected the inside air to the outside. If she could find that spot again, maybe she could fold her card and slip the note through the hole. Quinn followed the perimeter, feeling the space between glass panels for any hint of an opening, kneeling now and then to inspect the seal at the bottom. The owners were careful and meticulous—they had to be to keep so many butterflies contained. Even the smallest gap would be enough for most of the butterflies to squeeze through, and it wouldn’t be long before every butterfly in the place found their way out. Living things are funny that way—they hate to be contained. Freedom pulls at them like gravity, or maybe the tide. Quinn didn’t really understand the difference if there was one.
She had nearly circled the garden when she felt a faint breeze tickle the back of her hand. To her surprise, Quinn was standing in front of a heavy black door. She had never seen the door from inside the garden. The door didn’t have a handle, but Quinn saw a gap at the door jamb just large enough to fit her hands. Quinn gripped the edge of the door, pressed until the tips of her fingers went white, and pulled. The door didn’t budge. Neither did Quinn. She pulled again. And again. Finally, the door gave way and squeaked open. The room beyond was dark. Quinn squinted against the sun, which was just beginning to creep over the horizon, and felt her way into the room. She smelled cleaning supplies. Must be a storage closet, she figured. There were shelves on both sides of her. Quinn ran her fingers along their edges to guide her through the dark. She hadn’t gone very far into the room when she felt something sharp and metal press against her hip. She moved her hand down to discover a handle, which she turned and pulled toward her. Nothing. She tried pushing the door open, and suddenly she was surrounded by the sounds of the garden.
Quinn looked around, getting her bearings. She and Riley had come here nearly every weekend for two years, but she’d never seen this corner. The side of the door that faced into the garden was green so that, from a distance, the paint blended in with the foliage. Quinn stepped through the bushes, careful not to crush any butterflies underfoot as she searched for the trail she usually followed. She felt the familiar crunch of sand and gravel beneath her feet almost immediately. Once on the trail, Quinn had a better sense of where she was. She headed toward the pond where Riley liked to sit on her bad days. Riley had told her once that she liked the way the butterflies reflected in the water because she could see both sides of their wings at once. Several large stones had been placed around the pond, as well as a series of thick bushes. Quinn planned to leave the card in the bushes, where Riley and others wouldn’t notice. Quinn didn’t much care for butterflies, but as she approached the pond she was transfixed by a spectacular purple flash. The color was so bright that Quinn thought that there must be some sort of light placed near the water, but then the flash darted between the green leaves. Quinn followed the trail of purple to the water, where she saw a butterfly the size of her fist perched on the surface.
Quinn moved forward, and the butterfly dipped beneath the water. How strange, she thought. Quinn couldn’t remember ever having seen a butterfly willingly go under water. And for this long? Quinn was at the edge of the pond, kneeling. Without thinking, she pushed one hand into the water. She expected the pond to be shallow; what need would they have for a deep pond? She was nearly elbow-deep in the water, though, and still couldn’t feel the bottom. She pushed further until her entire arm was in the water—no bottom. Inexplicably, Quinn ducked her face beneath the surface. She didn’t know what she expected to see, but she certainly didn’t think she’d find a small, swirling galaxy inches from her face. She held out her palm and extended slowly until she touched what felt like the edge of a thick bubble. She pressed harder, and a semisolid, glistening edge wavered in the water. Quinn pushed her hand through the bulbous layer until her fingers disappeared into the drowning stars. Realizing that her now-drenched arm and face were wetting the card in her hand, Quinn set the card at the foot of a bush, then sank her whole body into the pond.
The water was cold for a moment; then it seemed to close around her almost like a sleeping bag zipped around a body. She checked her jacket, then her pants, but neither felt wet. The sounds and smells of the garden were fading. Her calves and forearms burned as if they were being stretched to their very limits. Quinn opened her mouth to scream, and she found that the air around her tasted like raspberries. She tried to raise her arms above her, but they were pinned down. She had fallen into an enormous cocoon, she thought. But that was nonsense. There was no such thing as a cocoon big enough to hold a person. She was so busy trying to understand why she couldn’t move that she hardly noticed her sight returning. The space around her grew. She stretched her arms instinctively, shedding the cocoon-like coating, and looked around. She was surrounded by an opalescent sphere. Her legs were free, but she wasn’t standing. Rather, her entire body was being cradled by another layer of the bulbous film she had touched in the pond. The more she moved, the further she sank into the iridescent layer. Without warning, she dropped from the bulb and landed on something solid.
She tried to breathe, but no matter how much she gasped, her lungs shouted for more air. She remembered a trip to the mountains she took with her parents before Riley was born, and how hard it had been to breathe. Her father had taught her to take slow, shallow breaths so that she wouldn’t get light-headed. Quinn concentrated on the rise and fall of her diaphragm until she had slowed her breathing. Her heart, which had been thumping hard, settled.
She tried to move and realized that whatever had been holding her had vanished. She rubbed her eyes and turned to her right, then left. The ground was dry, cracked like her lips during winter, but her hands burned when she went to push herself up. She swallowed hard.
The butterfly she had followed into the pond now flitted in front of her. She could see that the wings were electric indigo, and they shimmered in the light—the sun, maybe? Quinn couldn’t tell. This place was definitely bright, but the light didn’t seem to come from anywhere at all. No yellow spot in the sky. No shadows on the ground either. She heard a scratching sound behind her and turned to see a dark figure rush past on a giant hen.
Quinn rubbed her eyes again and squinted to be sure she had seen what she saw. Sure enough, what looked like a woman was riding back toward her on an enormous, white hen. The thing’s legs were impossibly long. Quinn guessed the hen was at least as big as a full-grown horse and just as fast. The pair slowed and turned toward Quinn.
“Sorry about that, kid! You sure came out of nowhere.”
Quinn furrowed her brow. “I was just—and I put my hand—”
“Slow down, peach. I’m Meelie,” the woman said, climbing down from the hen. She had on long green pants, a bomber jacket, and an old leather pilot helmet with eye goggles.
“Hi,” Quinn replied. Her eyebrows were bent into confusion and her voice felt like sand in her throat.
“Have you been here long?”
“I don’t—I don’t know. Where is here?”
“Oh, this place hasn’t got a name that I know of.”
“How’d I get here?”
“Same as the rest of us, I figure. Tried to find the bottom of something dark and wound up in the middle of something bright?”
“You could say that, yeah.”
“Yep. That’s how I got here. One minute my plane is nosediving toward the ocean waves, the next I’m lying on the ground and coughing up dust.”
“You’re a pilot?”
“Used to be. Haven’t figured out how to get this dang chicken in the air, though.”
“So that is a chicken? I’m not crazy?”
“No, you aren’t crazy. Darnedest thing, huh, a six-foot chicken?”
The Kaleidoscope Sisters Page 2
