“Indeed.” Malachai’s gaze actually wavered a moment. She had always made it a habit to throw a big dinner party once a month. After the abortion and her interrupted attempt at suicide, she had stopped socializing at work altogether.
“Yes, indeed. In fact, some of them were wondering why she stopped in the first place.”
“Well.” Malachai paused a moment, looking at some papers. He tried to make it seem a deliberate move, but Ydrel could tell he’d knocked the senior psychiatrist off balance. Malachai didn’t know how much he knew, nor how. Ydrel was fine with that—let him think it was his psychic powers. Better yet, let him think some rumors were starting. “Well, shall we begin an exercise?”
“You mean an experiment, and no, we shall not.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’d like that. I said, we shall not do an exercise today. I am tired, and my stomach hurts, and frankly, we’ve been doing your ‘exercises’ for years and they don’t work. If the best you can come up with is hooking me up to that machine”—with one foot, he pointed to the specialized EEG that waited behind the cabinet doors—”then perhaps I need to seek help elsewhere.”
“Such as from your friend, Joshua?” Malachai spoke with a calm controlled voice, and Ydrel knew he’d stepped over the line.
Well, nothing he could do about it now. “Such as with anyone who will treat me like something other than a lab rat.”
Malachai spoke softly. “You are not a lab rat, Ydrel. You are a strong and caring person with a complex and fascinating condition. I can’t help feeling that if we just knew more about what caused it, we could better bring it under control.”
Ydrel might have believed him, had he not had a similar experience with the Master last night. Now, he just snorted and stared at the ceiling.
Malachai spoke again. “In all the years we’ve worked together, I’ve never tired of you. Indeed, you have become a primary focus of my practice. Young Joshua, on the other hand, is here to study psychology; his work with you is a favor for Edith, really, and I’ve seen indications that he’s beginning to resent that.”
Listened to that speech, did you? Anger burned away any feelings of uncertainty Ydrel may have had about Joshua. Intern Joshua had always been straight with him, even when irritated, while Doctor Malachai, concerned Doctor Malachai, was tapping his room. He stared at the ceiling until he had control of his features, then tilted his head to look laconically at the psychiatrist.
“You really believe an inexperienced teenaged intern is going to teach you to control you abilities enough that you can leave this place?”
Ydrel said nothing. The whole line of questioning was starting to make him sick again. He wanted to go lie down. “May I go now?”
“Very well.” Malachai turned to his computer.
The royal audience was over.
*
When the doorbell rang promptly at 5 o’clock, it was all Sachiko could do to keep from leaping over the coffee table in her enthusiasm. You’re acting like a giddy teenager, she chided herself. Nonetheless, when she peeked through her peephole and saw Joshua standing there, smiling, she felt a thrill of butterflies below her sternum. She hoped it didn’t show when she opened the door.
“Hi.” His smile broadened. “You look beautiful.”
She rolled her eyes. “I wasn’t trying to.” In fact, she’d changed at least three times that day, trying to find something that was casual but not too grungy, nice without being provocative. She’d finally settled on a pair of soft cotton drawstring pants with a matching t-shirt. She had pulled her hair into a ponytail and purposely refrained from putting on make-up. They were going to study or she was going to toss him out, she’d told herself each time she’d felt the urge to put on just a little blush. Now, she wondered if maybe some make-up wouldn’t have been a good idea, after all, if only to minimize the flush she felt sure was showing on her face. “Come in. What have you got in the bag?”
“Study goodies,” he said, handing her the bag. He set the pizza on the table while she rifled through it. She pulled out Oreos, a couple of candy bars, and Ding Dongs. “I like chocolate when I study,” he said with a sheepish grin. Also in the bag were three CDs. “I don’t study with music,” she said, pulling them out.
“One has simple tunes we can put mnemonics to,” Joshua said. “It’s great when you have stuff you need to know by rote. The other two are for, uh, breaks.”
She looked at the homemade labels: Break-fast, and Break-slow. Just looking at them ate at her resolve to keep this date limited to study, but she handed them to him and told him to put them by the CD player. Then she pulled out the last items. “A plastic knife? And Play-Dough?”
“Well, I figured since you wanted to be a surgeon, you might be a tactile thinker. I thought we could make models and you could operate on them.”
“You are too weird!” She laughed, but didn’t look up to meet his eyes. And young! Play-Dough for study and romantic music for breaks? And he thinks I’m full of surprises. What am I doing with him?
And why does it feel so right?
“I am not, I—Hey!”
“What?” At his exclamation, she looked up from the containers of brightly colored clay—how long had it been since she’d played with that stuff?—and saw him standing by the entertainment center, staring with horror at the roses Malachai had given her. “What’s wrong?”
“They don’t have any thorns!”
“Uh, huh. I think they’re genetically engineered that way—”
“It’s horrible!”
“You have something against biotechnology?”
“No, it’s just…” He was breathing in short breaths. He paused, took in a deep lungful of air and said, “Roses without thorns are—are defenseless. Damaged. Nobody should ever think of you that way!”
She replied slowly. “Nobody does.”
He continued to stare at the flowers as if he expected a snake to emerge from them.
Maybe surprises weren’t always a good thing. Was he going to run again? “Joshua, you’re starting to weird me out, here.”
He shuddered, looked at her, then shook himself. “I’m sorry. I have no idea where that came from. Glad I didn’t notice last night,” he added with an embarrassed laugh.
“Me, too.” She went to him and took the vase. “Tell you what. Why don’t I just put those in another room, and you get us a couple of sodas?”
“Yeah. OK.”
When she returned from putting the vase in the study, he had taken the sodas and goodies over to the couch where she had her books. He stood up as she approached. “Hi. Can we sort of do this again?”
“I don’t know,” she teased. “I’m not sure I want to repeat that scene.” He laughed. “Maybe you ought to talk to someone about that? You do work with a bunch of psychiatrists, after all.”
She expected him to laugh again, but he answered seriously. “Nah. I think I’ll do some biospiritual focusing when I get a spare hour or so. If something doesn’t turn up, I’ll ask my mom. There’s something about thornless roses…” He shook himself, then moved closer, a different smile on his face. “Actually, I was thinking about something else,” he murmured as he put his arms around her.
She’d thought that, recalling the evening before, she had built up their kiss into something more than it was. She was wrong, wonderfully wrong. When at last, they pulled apart, slightly breathless, she smiled. “Promise not to run this time?”
He smiled, too, and took her hands in his. “Promise, but you have to promise something in return.” He kissed her hands, but couldn’t meet her eyes. She waited. He was always so confident, even brash, at work, and now he was so shy. It was a side of him she hadn’t expected.
Still not meeting her gaze, he said, “Promise me we won’t go past first base.”
Despite herself, she snorted. That was the last thing she’d expected to hear! “Awfully sure of yourself, aren’t you?”
“No!” Now he looked up.
“No, I’m not. That’s why I need your promise.”
The look he gave her was so vulnerable, so wounded, that she had the sudden urge to wrap her arms around him and protect him—from what? Slightly off balance, she answered more gruffly than she intended. “Sure. No problem. You’re here to help me study, right?”
He smiled, and she saw the tension leave his shoulders. “Right. So what do you want to tackle first?”
CHAPTER 19
Sachiko sighed and tried to focus on the log entry on the computer screen before her. It wasn’t easy to do. Although she’d been able to concentrate fully in class—in fact, had actually anticipated part of the lecture, thanks to the silly ditties Joshua had made up for her—the routine of work at the institute made it all too easy for her mind to wander, and her mind kept wandering back to Joshua and the other part of their study date.
He was such a funny combination of contradictions. He had made her promise to keep things cool, but the first time she had stretched and called for a study break, he had run his hands up her sides from waist to fingertips, then settled her hands around his neck before letting his fingers slide back down her arms and over her back. He moved in to kiss her, setting her blood afire. She’d wanted more, and it was obvious he had, too. Yet he had pulled away first. Once, as he had kissed a particularly sensitive spot on her neck and she had moaned his name, he’d actually pushed away, gasping.
“That was the most…erotic…thing I’ve ever heard. Please, don’t do that again.”
Erotic. He should talk, with those hands of his…
The computer had gone to screensaver again. With annoyance, she tapped the keyboard.
I wonder where he is today. He hadn’t shown up at shift change, as he sometimes did, and she hadn’t dared ask about his whereabouts. She didn’t have a work-related reason to know, and had made him promise to keep their romance private. He’d warned her he would not keep secrets from his parents or his friends back home, but agreed that at work, he wouldn’t say a word—
“Boo.”
Joshua’s voice, low and close to her ear, made her jump and give a short “Ya!” of surprise. She spun. He’d already backed up several paces, his arms up, his face a study of childlike innocence. “Joshua!”
“Blame her!” he said, pointing to Monique, who was nearly doubled over with laughter. “It was her idea, I swear!”
“I’m sorry, Sachiko,” Monique sputtered, wiping tears of mirth from her eyes and not looking sorry at all. “But you’ve been staring at that same entry for ten minutes. Do you even know what it says?”
“I—” Sachiko glanced at the screen, but the log entry had again been replaced with a picture of a beach.
Monique gave a knowing look at Joshua, which he returned. “So, who is he?”
“Who’s who?” She forced herself not to look Joshua’s way.
“Come on. You should have seen the goofy half-smile on your face. You don’t think I know what that means? I’ve worn it myself on more than one occasion.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sachiko answered coldly.
Monique would not be put off. “You may like to keep your home life secret, but this is one secret you aren’t keeping. It’s a man. I know it. Joshua, you’re a perceptive guy, what do you think?”
“I think,” he said slowly, “I’d be better off keeping my mouth shut.” He glanced at his watch. “Dr. Malachai wants to meet with me in an hour, so I’ve only got about forty-five minutes to spend playing catch with Ydrel. Say, would either of you like to join us?” He glanced shrewdly at Sachiko, then Monique. “Or would you rather watch?”
*
Joshua left before he could see Monique’s reaction, but he heard her “tu!” of shock, and Sachiko’s calm reply, “You said yourself he was perceptive.” He chuckled to himself, ignoring the querying look a passing orderly gave him. He probably shouldn’t have done it, but it might keep Monique off Sachiko’s case for a while.
Of course, he probably shouldn’t have done what he did to Sachiko, either, but it was just too good an opportunity to pass up. She really was in another world—one with him in it, he hoped—and besides, it was probably the only chance he’d have to get so close to her for days. She didn’t wear perfume, but the flowery scent of her soap, enhanced so well by her pheromones, would sustain him for at least a day.
He let out a sigh as he opened his locker in the deserted locker room and started undressing. It was probably just as well she wanted to keep their romance out of the workplace. Many months of dating LaTisha had given him a taste for quick, illicit encounters in public but out-of-the-way places. Even now, he could imagine himself with Sachiko in some cliché of a storage room, her lips hot and urgent on his, her hands tearing at the buttons of his shirt. He’d kiss her neck and she’d moan his name—
He tossed off his shirt and changed, quickly and a little roughly, into his gym clothes, forcing the image of her out of his mind lest his body reveal his train of thought. Instead, he thought about Ydrel. There is one person that I don’t think either of us can hide this from. He knocked on Ydrel’s door.
No one answered.
“Hey, Ydrel, you up?” Josh opened the door a crack, then wider when no voice objected. He walked in, amazed at what he saw.
The room was a mess, but not with the usual sloppiness he’d seen before. Papers looked like they’d been tossed in the air and allowed to fall like confetti. Descartes, the bear, was sitting atop a pyramid of books, a copy of Arrow’s Flight upside-down in its paws. The bedspread and pillow were on the floor—on the side of the room bordered by a closet, Joshua noted. He poked his head into the bathroom. A big smiley face of toothpaste was sliming its way down the mirror over the sink. A gentle breeze caught his attention, and he went back to the bedroom. The window was open, its curtain hanging out on one side. The desk beneath the window was in curious disarray. The desk chair had been pulled out partway, and the books looked like they’d been pushed aside or stepped on. He glanced out the window into the courtyard, and what he saw made him head back to the nurses’ station fast.
Sachiko was talking to one of the orderlies Joshua had only met in passing. “We don’t have time to watch,” she teased as he approached.
He ignored her. “Anybody know why Ydrel is up in a tree?”
The orderly laughed. “Who knows? He’s been there since, like, eight o’clock this morning.”
Sachiko frowned. “There was nothing about it in the logs.”
The orderly—Paulie, Josh remembered—shrugged. “So? He’s probably still in his pajamas, too.”
“And this didn’t strike anyone as unusual?” Joshua asked, his temper rising. “Something, that, I don’t know, might be brought to Dr. Sellar’s attention?”
Again, Paulie shrugged. “They do crazy stuff all the time.” He lowered his voice conspiratorially. “This is an asylum, you know.”
He apparently thought he was making a great joke, but it was clear Sachiko wasn’t amused. “I think you and I and your supervisor need to have a little talk,” she said with a deadly edge in her voice. Paulie looked bewildered. “Joshua, you want to get Edith?”
He considered. “I think I’ll talk to Ydrel first, see what’s going on and what I can do. Would you call Edith when you’re done here?”
“This could take some time.” She fixed the orderly with a glare Joshua hoped he’d never come under. Paulie paled slightly.
Good. “Take your time. I need a while with Ydrel, anyway.”
*
Ydrel was about halfway up a huge oak tree at the far end of the courtyard, laughing and tearing leaves off a branch and watching them fall. It was a beautiful tree with thick boughs spaced just right. Most of the trees Joshua had grown up with were either too young or wrong for climbing, and for a moment, the intern considered going up after the errant client. In the end, though, he decided one of them had better stay connected to the earth. “Hey, Ydrel!” he called out. “Come on down.”
“Make me!” The boy’s laugh was high and light, but a little forced. He tossed a handful of leaves in Joshua’s direction.
He ignored them. “I’m an intern, not a fireman to rescue an idiot stuck in a tree. And I’d really rather not yell or get a crick in my neck. Besides,” he added in sudden inspiration, “I’ve got a secret.”
“You forget,” Ydrel said. With a sudden crashing of leaves and small branches, he jumped. The boy landed on the lowest branch with his heels, slipped, caught himself at the knees and hung upside down. “I’m psychic. I kno-o-ow all!” He made a spooky sound, then laughed.
“OK. Read my mind,” and he thought hard, You’re acting weird, even for an asylum. Get down here before they come to get you with a straitjacket.
Whether the young client read his mind or just the expression on his face, Joshua didn’t know, but with a sigh, Ydrel grabbed a smaller branch and started to heave himself up. The branch broke under his weight and he fell hard onto his back. He lay there, blinking, the broken branch still clutched in his right hand. Then he began to laugh hysterically.
Despite himself, Joshua grinned. “Very smooth. Now—Hey!” He jumped back as Ydrel suddenly rose and swung the branch, sword-like, in his direction. “Watch it!”
“Don’t worry,” replied Ydrel, who now held the branch in both hands and was swinging it in what looked like a martial arts form. “I was on the fencing team in school, and I was good! There was even talk of me making the Olympics before I gave it up.”
Watching him pretending to fight against one opponent—or more, from the way he swung in one direction and kicked out in another—Joshua thought it looked less like fencing and more like the stuff they did in “Star Wars.” Still, he had to admit after Ydrel performed a helicopter move—two swinging kicks and a slash with his branch at the same time—he was good. “So why’d you give it up?”
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