The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fourth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  Steph didn’t take offense. She kept coming back, kept talking. Paula put up with the woman because with Richard out of the house she needed help with Claire—and because she needed her alone time more than ever. The yellow house women may have been Jesus freaks, but they were harmless. That’s what she told herself, anyway, until the night she came home to find Claire gone.

  * * * *

  III

  Paula knew how to play the hospital game. Say as little as possible, act normal, don’t look at things no one else could see. She knew her blood tests would come out normal. They’d shrug and check her out by noon.

  Her doctor surprised her, though. They’d assigned her to Louden, a short, trim man with a head shaved down to gray stubble who had a reputation among the nurses for adequacy: not brilliant, but not arrogant either, a competent guy who pushed the patients through on schedule. But something had gotten into him—he was way too interested in her case. He filled her afternoon with expensive MRIs, fMRIs, and PET scans. He brought in specialists.

  Four of them, two neurologists and a psychiatrist she recognized, and one woman she didn’t know who said she was an epidemiologist. They came in one at a time over the afternoon, asking the same questions. How long had she experienced the seizures? What did they feel like when they struck? Did she know others with these symptoms? They poked her skin to test nerve response, pulled and flexed the fingers of her clenched hand. Several times they asked her, “Do you see people who aren’t there?”

  She almost laughed. He sat beside her the entire time, his arm cool against her own. Could anyone be more present?

  The only questions that unsettled her came from the epidemiologist, the doctor she didn’t recognize. “Do you eat meat?” the doctor asked. Paula said sure. And the doctor, a square-faced woman with short brown hair, asked a dozen follow-up questions, writing down exactly what kinds of meat she ate, how often, whether she cooked it herself or ate out.

  At the end of the day they moved Paula into a room with a middle-aged white woman named Esther Wynne, a true southern lady who’d put on makeup and sprayed her hair as though at any moment she’d pop those IV tubes from her arms and head out to a nice restaurant.

  Doctor Louden stopped by once more before going home that night. He sat heavily beside Paula’s bed, ran a hand over his gray scalp. “You haven’t been completely open with us,” he said. He seemed as tired as she was.

  “No, probably not,” she said. Behind him, her companion shook his head, laughing silently.

  Louden smiled as well, but fleetingly. “You have to realize how serious this is. You’re the tenth person we’ve seen with symptoms like yours, and there are more showing up in hospitals around the city. Some of my colleagues think we may be seeing the start of an epidemic. We need your help to find out if that’s the case.”

  “Am I contagious?”

  He scratched his chin, looked down. “We don’t think so. You don’t have a temperature, any signs of inflammation—no signs that this is a virus or a bacterial infection.”

  “Then what is it you think I have?”

  “We don’t have a firm idea yet,” he said. He was holding back, treating her like a dumb patient. “We can treat your symptoms though. We’ll try to find out more tomorrow, but we think you have a form of temporal lobe epilepsy. There are parts of your brain that—“

  “I know what epilepsy is.”

  “Yes, but TLE is a bit…” He gestured vaguely, then took several stapled pages from his clipboard and handed them to her. “I’ve brought some literature. The more you understand what’s happening, the better we’ll work together.” He didn’t sound like he believed that.

  Paula glanced at the pages. Printouts from a web site.

  “Read it over and tomorrow you and I can—oh, good.” A nurse had entered the room with a plastic cup in her hand, the meds had arrived. Louden seemed relieved to have something else to talk about. “This is an epilepsy drug.”

  “I don’t want it,” she said. She was done with drugs and alcohol.

  “I wouldn’t prescribe this if it wasn’t necessary,” Louden said. His doctor voice. “We want to avoid the spikes in activity that cause seizures like today’s. You don’t want to fall over and crack your skull open, do you?” This clumsy attempt at manipulation would have made the old Paula furious.

  Her companion shrugged. It didn’t matter. All part of the plan.

  Paula accepted the cup from the nurse, downed the two pills with a sip of water. “When can I go home?” she said.

  Louden stood up. “I’ll talk to you again in the morning. I hate to tell you this, but there are a few more tests we have to run.”

  Or maybe they were keeping her here because they did think she was contagious. The start of an epidemic, he’d said.

  Paula nodded understandingly and Louden seemed relieved. As he reached the door Paula said, “Why did that one doctor—Gerrhardt?—ask me if I ate meat?”

  He turned. “Dr. Gerrholtz. She’s not with the hospital.”

  “Who’s she with then?”

  “Oh, the CDC,” he said casually. As if the Centers for Disease Control dropped by all the time. “Don’t worry, it’s their job to ask strange questions. We’ll have you out of here as soon as we can.”

  * * * *

  IV

  Paula came home from work to find the door unchained and the lights on. It was only 7:15, but in early November that meant it had been dark for more than an hour. Paula stormed through the house looking for Claire. The girl knew the rules: come home from school, lock the door, and don’t pick up the phone unless caller-ID showed Paula’s cell or work number. Richard took her, she thought. Even though he won partial custody, he wanted to take everything from her.

  Finally she noticed the note, in a cleared space on the counter between a stack of dishes and an open cereal box. The handwriting was Steph’s.

  Paula marched to the yellow house and knocked hard. Steph opened the door. “It’s all right,” Steph said, trying to calm her down. “She’s done her homework and now she’s watching TV.”

  Paula pushed past her into a living room full of second-hand furniture and faded rugs. Every light in the house seemed to be on, making every flat surface glow: the oak floors scrubbed to a buttery sheen, the freshly painted daffodil walls, the windows reflecting bright lozenges of white. Something spiced and delicious fried in the kitchen, and Paula was suddenly famished. She hadn’t eaten anything solid since breakfast.

  Claire sat on a braided oval rug, her purple backpack beside her. A nature show played on the small boxy TV but the girl wasn’t really watching. She had her earphones in, listening to the CD player in her lap. Lying on the couch behind her was a thin black woman in her fifties or sixties.

  “Claire,” Paula said. The girl pretended to not hear. “Claire, take off your headphones when I’m talking to you.” Her voice firm but reasonable. The Good Mother. “You know you’re not supposed to leave the house.”

  Claire didn’t move.

  “The police were at the green house,” Steph said. A rundown place two doors down from Paula with motorcycles always in the front yard. Drug dealers, Paula thought. “I went over to check on Claire, and she seemed nervous, so I invited her over. I told her it would be all right.”

  “You wouldn’t answer your phone,” Claire said without looking away from the TV. She still hadn’t taken off the headphones. Acting up in front of the women, thinking Paula wouldn’t discipline her in public.

  “Then you keep calling,” Paula said. She’d forgotten to turn on her phone when she left the hospital. She’d stopped off for a drink, not more than thirty, forty-five minutes, then came home, no later than she’d come home dozens of times in the past. “You don’t leave the house.”

  Steph touched Paula’s elbow, interrupting again. She nodded at the woman on the couch. “This is Merilee.”

  The couch looked like the woman’s permanent home. On the short table next to her head was a half-e
mpty water glass, a Kleenex box, a mound of damp tissue. A plastic bucket sat on the floor. Merilee lay propped up on pillows, her body half covered by a white sheet. Her legs were bent under her in what looked like a painful position, and her left arm curled up almost to her chin, where her hand trembled like a nervous animal. She watched the TV screen with a blissed-out smile, as if this was the best show in the world.

  Steph touched the woman’s shoulder, and she looked up. “Merilee, this is Paula.”

  Merilee reached up with her good right arm. Her aim was off; first she held it out to a point too far right, then swung it slowly around. Paula lightly took her hand. Her skin was dry and cool.

  The woman smiled and said something in another language. Paula looked to Steph, and then Merilee said, “I eat you.”

  “I’m sorry?” She couldn’t have heard that right.

  “It’s a Fore greeting,” Steph said, pronouncing the word For-ay. “Merilee’s people come from the highlands of Papua New Guinea.

  “Merilee, Paula is Claire’s mother.”

  “Yes, yes, you’re right,” Merilee said. Her mouth moved more than the words required, lips constantly twisting toward a smile, distorting her speech. “What a lovely girl.” It wasn’t clear if she meant Claire or Paula. Then her hand slipped away like a scarf and floated to her chest. She lay back and returned her gaze to the TV, still smiling.

  Paula thought, what the hell’s the matter with her?

  “We’re about to eat,” Steph said. “Sit down and join us.”

  “No, we’d better get going,” Paula said. But there was nothing back at her house. And whatever they were cooking smelled wonderful.

  “Come on,” Steph said. “You always love our food.” That was true. She’d eaten their meals for a month.

  “I just have a few minutes,” Paula said. She followed Steph into the dining room. The long, cloth-covered table almost filled the room. Ten places set, and room for a couple more. “How many of you are there?” she said.

  “Seven of us live in the house,” Steph said as she went into the adjoining kitchen.

  “Looks like you’ve got room for renters.”

  Paula picked a chair and sat down, eyeing the tall green bottle in the middle of the table. “Is that wine?” Paula asked. She could use a drink.

  “You’re way ahead of me,” Steph said. She came back into the room with the stems of wineglasses between her fingers, followed by an eighteen- or nineteen-year-old black girl—Tanya? Tonya?—carrying a large blue plate of rolled tortillas. Paula had met her before, pushing her toddler down the sidewalk. Outside she walked with a dragging limp, but inside it was barely discernible.

  Steph poured them all wine but then remained standing. She took a breath and held it. Still no one moved. “All right then,” Steph finally said, loud enough for Merilee to hear.

  Tonya—pretty sure it was Tonya—took a roll and passed the plate. Paula carefully bit into the tortilla. She tasted sour cream, a spicy salsa, chunks of tomato. The small cubes of meat were so heavily marinated that they could have been anything: pork, chicken, tofu.

  Tonya and Steph looked at Paula, their expressions neutral, but she sensed they were expecting something. Paula dabbed a bit of sour cream from her lip. “It’s very good,” she said.

  Steph smiled and raised her glass. “Welcome,” she said, and Tonya echoed her. Paula returned the salute and drank. The wine tasted more like brandy, thick and too sweet. Tonya nodded at her, said something under her breath. Steph said something to Merilee in that other language. Steph’s eyes, Paula noted with alarm, were wet with tears.

  “What is it?” Paula said. She put down the cup. Something had happened that she didn’t understand. She stared at the pure white tortillas, the glasses of dark wine. This wasn’t a snack, it was fucking communion.

  “Tell me what’s going on,” she said coldly.

  Steph sighed, her smile bittersweet. “We’ve been worried about you. Both of you. Claire’s been spending so much time alone, and you’re obviously still grieving.”

  Paula stared at her. These sanctimonious bitches. What was this, some kind of religious intervention? “My life is none of your business.”

  “Claire told me that you’ve been talking about killing yourself.”

  Paula scraped her chair back from the table and stood up, her heart racing. Tonya looked at her with concern. So smug. “Claire told you that?” Paula said. “And you believed her?”

  “Paula…”

  She wheeled away from the table, heading for the living room, Steph close behind. “Claire,” Paula said. Not yelling. Not yet. “We’re going.”

  Claire didn’t get up. She looked at Steph, as if for permission. This infuriated Paula more than anything that had happened so far.

  She grabbed Claire by her arm, yanked her to her feet. The headphones popped from her ears, spilling tinny music. Claire didn’t even squeak.

  Steph said, “We care about you two, Paula. We had to take steps. You won’t understand that right now, but soon…”

  Paula spun and slapped the woman hard across the mouth, turning her chin with the blow. Steph’s eyes squeezed shut in pain, but she didn’t raise her arms, didn’t step back.

  “Don’t you ever come near my daughter again,” Paula said. She strode toward the front door, Claire scrambling to stay on her feet next to her. Paula yanked open the door and pushed the girl out first. Her daughter still hadn’t made a sound.

  Behind her, Steph said, “Wait.” She came to the door, holding out Claire’s backpack and CD player. “Some day you’ll understand,” Steph said. “Jesus is coming soon.”

  * * * *

  V

  “You’re a Christian, aren’t you?” Esther Wynne said. “I knew from your face. You’ve got the love of Jesus in you.”

  As the two women picked at their breakfast trays, Esther told Paula about her life. “A lot of people with my cancer die quick as a wink,” she said. “I’ve had time to say good-bye to everyone.” Her cancer was in remission but now she was here fighting a severe bladder infection. They’d hooked her to an IV full of antibiotics the day before. “How about you?” Esther said. “What’s a young thing like you doing here?”

  Paula laughed. She was thirty-six. “They think I have a TLA.” Esther frowned. “Three-letter acronym.”

  “Oh, I’ve got a couple of those myself!”

  One of the web pages Dr. Louden gave her last night included a cartoon cross-section of a brain. Arrows pointed out interesting bits of the temporal lobe with tour guide comments like “the amygdala tags events with emotion and significance” and “the hippocampus labels inputs as internal or external.” A colored text box listed a wide range of possible TLE symptoms: euphoria, a sense of personal destiny, religiosity…

  And a sense of presence.

  Asymmetrical temporal lobe hyperactivity separates the sense of self into two—one twin in each hemisphere. The dominant (usually left) hemisphere interprets the other part of the self as an “other” lurking outside. The otherness is then colored by which hemisphere is most active.

  Paula looked up then, her chest tight. Her companion had been leaning against the wall, watching her read. At her frightened expression he dropped his head and laughed silently, his hair swinging in front of his face.

  Of course. There was nothing she could learn that could hurt her, or him.

  She tossed aside the pages. If her companion hadn’t been with her she might have worried all night about the information, but he helped her think it through. The article had it backward, confusing an effect for the cause. Of course the brain reacted when you sensed the presence of God. Neurons fired like pupils contracting against a bright light.

  “Paula?” someone said. “Paula.”

  She blinked. An LPN stood by the bed with a plastic med cup. Her breakfast tray was gone. How long had she been ruminating? “Sorry, I was lost in thought there.”

  The nurse handed Paula the Topamax and watched as
she took them. After the required ritual—pulse, blood pressure, temperature—she finally left.

  Esther said, “So what were you thinking about?”

  Paula lay back on the pillows and let her eyes close. Her companion sat beside her on the bed, massaging the muscles of her left arm, loosening her cramped fingers. “I was thinking that when God calls you don’t worry about how he got your number,” she said. “You just pick up the receiver.”

  “A-men,” Esther said.

  * * * *

  Dr. Louden stopped by later that morning accompanied only by Dr. Gerrholtz, the epidemiologist from the CDC. Maybe the other specialists had already grown bored with her case. “We have you scheduled for another PET scan this morning,” Louden said. He looked like he hadn’t slept at all last night, poor guy. “Is there anyone you’d like to call to be with you? A family member?”