The Patient from Silvertree: Book One in the Silvertree Series

by Marian Dribus

  “See, Arthur?” said Sabrina. “It’s not as bad as you seem to think.”

  Arthur didn’t look at her. His attention was focused on Richard, and the expression on his face was far from pleasant.

  “You really are pathetic,” he said. “I should have known you’d pull a stunt like this as soon as Peterson was released. You’ve given Sabrina false hope. You ought to be ashamed. If you’re planning to be the hero, you can forget about it. I’m not going to let you experiment on her.”

  “Arthur, this was my idea,” said Sabrina. “Stop dwelling on the past, and listen to me. I’m not interested in postponing the inevitable. If I thought I didn’t have a chance to be cured, I would go into the bathroom and slit my wrists right now. This drug is my only hope. Agnes wasn’t the only person who got better because of it. Eighteen patients were treated with it, and six of them recovered.”

  “Is that true?” said Arthur.

  “Yes, I suppose,” said Richard, “but they were elderly, and most of them had so many other things wrong with them that they didn’t survive very long.”

  “What happened to the other twelve?” said Arthur.

  “Do you really want to know?” said Richard. “They bled to death. It was sudden, catastrophic, and relentless. Peterson wasn’t discouraged. He chalked it up as a useful piece of data, but he never figured out why it happened. It just goes to show how irresponsible he was. He had no idea what the drug was actually doing.”

  “Sabrina, it’s too dangerous,” said Arthur.

  “Is it more dangerous than death?” she said. “It’s true that you might lose me sooner this way, but I’m willing to take that chance. I wish you would stop being so selfish, Arthur. I want your support, but I don’t need your permission.”

  “Can’t we at least talk about the other options?” said Arthur.

  She ignored him.

  “Richard, how long will it take to make the drug?” she said. “I’m running out of time, and I’d like to get started as quickly as possible.”

  Richard shrugged.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Probably not more than a few days, but there are a lot of details we need to iron out first. For instance, how are we going to keep this whole thing confidential? You’ll need to be closely monitored throughout the duration of the treatment, but hospitals are crawling with so many people that we couldn’t possibly swear them all to secrecy. If this got out, there would be consequences.”

  “That’s why I’m going to stay right here in this house,” said Sabrina. “It will be the most convenient arrangement for everyone. What do you think, Andrew? Will that be a problem?”

  “Not as far as I’m concerned,” he said. “I’ll arrange for the necessary medical equipment to be delivered to the house, and I’ll see about hiring a nurse to take care of you when I’m not around. That will be the hardest part. We’ll have to find someone who knows how to keep quiet and doesn’t mind breaking the rules.”

  “Agnes would be perfect for the job,” said Richard. “She’s got more experience with the drug than anyone else, and she’s suspicious by nature. I’ll call her and ask her if she’s interested. She might say no, but it’s worth a try.”

  “It’s decided then,” said Sabrina. She was so elated by her success that she expected to be congratulated, but a despondent silence filled the room. She gazed around in irritation. Richard looked morose, and Arthur appeared to be on the verge of losing his composure. Lisa’s father hung his head. His guilt was almost palpable. Sabrina despised him for being so transparent. Lisa’s mother clutched his arm.

  “Andrew, please tell me you’re not seriously considering this crazy idea,” she said. “You’re a good person, and I know how much you enjoy helping people, but this is going a step too far. I don’t understand why you’re willing to risk everything you’ve accomplished. What if something goes wrong? If it were just you and me, I wouldn’t worry so much, but I’m concerned about the girls.”

  “I’m not,” said Lisa’s father. “You’ll just have to trust me.”

  “How can I trust you?” she said. “Sometimes I don’t even recognize you anymore. We used to be best friends, Andrew, but you’re so different now. I don’t even know how to describe it. What happened to us? We never spend time together anymore. You’re always so busy. I’m sorry. I’m not trying to embarrass you. I’m just upset because I’m still trying to get used to my mother being gone.”

  She burst into tears. Lisa’s father attempted to comfort her by pushing a box of tissues in her direction, but she continued to cry. Sabrina was too preoccupied with her own problems to pity Lisa’s mother. She expected emotions to run high, and it played to her advantage.

  “Arthur, we need to decide how to tell the children,” she said. “They’re not going to be happy when they find out we’re staying here indefinitely. Maybe we can arrange for them to go to school with Lisa and Veronica. That way, they’ll already have a couple of friends. It’s a shame Josh and Shannon won’t get to spend the rest of their senior year with their class, but they’re very resilient. They’ll adjust easily enough.”

  “I hope so,” said Arthur.

  Sabrina got up. Now that the confrontation was over, she felt exhausted. She had expended every ounce of her strength, and she had nothing left to give. As she finally recognized how sick she was, the pain she had ignored since her diagnosis flowed through her body and took her breath away. Her chest burned as if it were on fire, and she felt the baby slipping in her arms.

  “I need to lie down,” she said. “Arthur, I’ll leave Yvonne with you.”

  He reached out to help her, but she didn’t take his hand. She gave Yvonne to him and struggled upstairs on her own. She knew it wouldn’t be long before she had to depend on him for everything, but she wanted to postpone that eventuality for as long as possible. She went into her room, collapsed onto the bed, and pinned her hopes on the ingenuity of a killer. If Peterson’s drug couldn’t save her, then nothing could.

  Chapter 4

  The crumbled remnants of the fort jutted out of the ground like broken bones. A brisk wind blew, driving sand into every crack in the walls. Lisa felt her face going numb, but Veronica seemed impervious to the cold. She scampered up the slope and looked over the parapet with an exclamation of delight. She wasn’t exactly breaking the rules, but Lisa kept an eye on her all the same. The last thing she wanted was to grieve her mother by allowing Veronica to get hurt. She followed Veronica, and as she climbed above the thick outer wall that separated her from the sea, the roar of the waves filled her ears, and an icy blast took her breath away.

  She turned her face toward the sun. The industrial section of town lay in the distance across the river. The morning fog lingered there, and Lisa could barely discern the shapes of the warehouses that lined the far side. Even the towers of the oil refinery were invisible. Further up the river, the bridge crossed over at a peak of eighty feet, and beyond the bridge, concealed in mist, Hamilton Estate lurked in the shadows. Lisa remembered the ominous things Richard had said about it, but before she could get too preoccupied with unsettling thoughts, Veronica demanded her attention.

  “Lisa, look,” she said. “There’s a boat down there.”

  Sure enough, a small motorboat was bobbing up and down in the waves. It was tied to a concrete pillar that had been placed there to measure the height of the water, and it looked like it might break loose and drift away at any moment. A wrinkled bundle of orange cloth that looked like a hunter’s vest lay in the bottom.

  “Who do you think it belongs to?” said Veronica.

  “I don’t know,” said Lisa, but even as she spoke, she remembered Graham’s strange departure from Molly’s house on that night when they had first met. The thought of him sneaking around in the fort was so terrifying that she tried to think of an excuse for them to go home, but it wouldn’t be easy to convince Veronica, whose enthusiasm for adventure knew no limits. Stephen, who had become a permanent fixture at Veronica’s
side, smiled for the first time. He was finally beginning to come out of his shell, and to Lisa’s annoyance, he seemed to share Veronica’s curiosity.

  “Maybe it’s lost,” he said.

  “Or abandoned,” said Veronica. “Either way, the rope isn’t tied tightly enough. It’s only a matter of time before it floats away. If we climbed down there, we could probably wade out to it and drag it up on the shore to keep it safe.”

  “You’re crazy,” said Lisa. “If you think I’m going to let you do something so incredibly stupid, you can think again. I’m sure whoever left it there doesn’t want us messing around with it.”

  “But it would be so much fun,” said Veronica. “Why are you always so boring?”

  Lisa turned in exasperation and found Josh standing beside her, listening to the quarrel with amusement. He hadn’t spoken to her since their mortifying encounter with Sabrina in the kitchen, and she suspected he was trying to avoid any further embarrassment by interacting with her as little as possible.

  “Stephen, I wouldn’t risk it,” he said. “There are probably thousands of sharks out there.”

  “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” said Veronica. “I’ve lived here my whole life, and I’ve never even seen a shark.”

  “Suit yourself,” said Josh. “I’m not going to tell you what to do.”

  He smiled at Lisa and walked away as if he knew his job was done. She wanted to thank him for helping her keep the younger children out of trouble, but she couldn’t think of anything to say without looking ridiculous in front of Veronica and Stephen. She told herself he hadn’t done it for her; he was merely trying to protect his little brother. As she watched, the rope untied itself from the concrete pillar and the waves snatched the boat and carried it away. Stephen accepted the loss without a fuss, but Veronica looked disappointed.

  “Now we’ll never find out why it was there,” she said.

  Lisa hoped she was right. She left Veronica and Stephen and went behind the wall to get away from the wind. The entrance to the interior of the fort, or at least the largest part of it that was still standing, rose up in front of her. It was shielded by the slanting ground, and water trickled down the discolored bricks, making ripples in the murky pool that had collected in front of the doors.

  The more Lisa thought about the boat, the more disturbed she became. What could Graham possibly be doing with it? There was no reason for him to arrive by boat, especially if Molly’s assertion that he was in town on a business trip was correct, but maybe he had decided to do a bit of exploring in his free time. She thought about the job offer he had made to her father and felt slightly better. He wouldn’t stick around after being rejected. He would break Molly’s heart and go back to wherever he came from.

  She was reflecting on this happy thought when Veronica and Stephen dashed around the corner, dragging Josh with them. They appeared to bear him no ill will for ruining their plans with the boat. Veronica splashed through the puddle and shook the doors. A clanging sound echoed through the air. It was so disconcerting that Lisa found herself standing much closer to Josh than she had intended. In fact, she wouldn’t have objected if he had put his arm around her shoulders, but he didn’t.

  “It’s stuck,” said Veronica.

  “Good,” said Lisa. “You shouldn’t be going in there anyway.”

  “You’re not listening,” said Veronica. She sounded jittery. “I’m not playing around. The doors won’t open. Something’s in there. I can feel it watching us.”

  “You’re just trying to scare me,” said Lisa with as much courage as she could summon on such short notice. She shoved Veronica out of the way, grasped the handles, and pulled on the doors. They didn’t budge. She tried again, this time using all her strength. The result was the same. She felt something holding them in place. Veronica was right. The doors were locked from the inside. Someone was hiding in the fort.

  Veronica and Stephen stared at her with solemn faces, waiting to hear the verdict, but Lisa couldn’t think of anything encouraging to say. She realized her fear was contagious and hated herself for it, especially because she didn’t want to make a bad impression on Josh.

  “We should probably leave,” she said.

  Veronica and Stephen didn’t need any further encouragement. Through no fault of their own, they had been thoroughly intimidated, first by sharks, and then by intruders. They were rather subdued as they turned back toward the house, but it wasn’t long before they forgot about their fears and ran on ahead of Lisa and Josh, laughing together without a care in the world.

  Lisa was afraid of what she would find when she returned to the house. There was no doubt in her mind that Sabrina had done something dreadful during her absence, and the more she thought about it, the more desperate she felt. Her hands became clammy in her pockets, and she found herself shivering, but not because of the cold. She slowed down as they walked up the driveway, and by the time they arrived on the porch, she couldn’t bring herself to take another step. Veronica and Stephen went inside and left her alone with Josh.

  “Lisa, what happened back there?” he said.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “There aren’t nearly as many tourists in Silvertree as there are in some of the bigger cities along the coast, but it’s not unheard of for strangers to come here and get themselves into all sorts of trouble.”

  “Do you think we should tell your parents?” said Josh, reaching out to open the door for her in an absentminded show of courtesy.

  “No,” said Lisa. “I don’t want to give them anything else to worry about right now.”

  “What do you mean?” said Josh.

  The anxiety in his voice surprised her, and as his eyes searched her face, she felt herself coming to pieces. She averted her gaze, but he had already looked straight through her. Lisa didn’t know what to say. She wished he would stop interrogating her. Whatever was waiting for her inside the house couldn’t be worse than his questions.

  “Something’s going on,” he said. “I’ve been trying to figure it out, but I can’t seem to wrap my mind around it. My parents have been acting strange for the past few days, my mom has been wasting away ever since Yvonne was born, and your dad is an oncologist.”

  “So?” said Lisa.

  Josh shrugged.

  “My parents like to keep secrets,” he said. “They don’t mean any harm, but sometimes they take it to an extreme, and I’m not sure why. For example, I didn’t know my grandfather was alive until yesterday.”

  “Richard?” said Lisa.

  “Yes,” said Josh. “I can’t imagine my parents cutting him off unless they had a good reason, but in that case, I don’t know why they’d give him a second chance. I hope I’m not making you feel uncomfortable by asking you about all this stuff. I’m just worried about my mom, and I thought your parents might have said something. She’s sick, isn’t she?”

  “I can’t tell you,” said Lisa.

  Before Josh could reply, she hurried into the house. She heard her mother crying as soon as she entered. No one else was in the room. Lisa rushed to her mother’s side. She hadn’t seen her so distressed since the funeral. Clinging to her mother, she raised her head. Josh was still there. He looked like he wanted to help, but Lisa knew he wouldn’t understand, nor would he sympathize. After all, he was Sabrina’s son. The realization that they were irrevocably at odds filled her with despair. She didn’t trust herself to speak, so she shook her head at him, and he left the room.

  Her mother finally calmed down.

  “Mom, what happened?” said Lisa.

  “I might as well tell you,” said her mother. “You’ll find out soon enough anyway.” She recounted the conversation, confirming everything Lisa already knew and getting increasingly agitated as she went along until she arrived at Sabrina’s insistence that the house was the best place for her to stay during her treatment. Lisa was so horrified that she couldn’t remain silent.

  “This is our house, not theirs,” she sai
d. “Who do they think they are? They can’t just show up here without being invited and announce they’re moving in. There are too many of them. Why can’t they stay at a hotel instead?”

  “I don’t know,” said her mother. “Sabrina is determined to get what she wants. She’s obviously not thinking clearly, but I can’t really blame her. She’s probably scared and doesn’t want to be alone. It’s also possible they can’t afford to make any other arrangements. Sabrina doesn’t have a job, and Arthur teaches at a community college. He’ll have to take a leave of absence, and I suspect he won’t get paid.”

  “That’s not our fault,” said Lisa.

  “I wouldn’t mind them staying here if I thought we could take care of them properly,” said her mother. Her total lack of resentment baffled Lisa. “I feel especially sorry for Richard. He’s been sleeping on the couch. He says he doesn’t mind, but he’s an old man. He should have his own bed. I’ll have to take my mother’s things out of her room and put them into storage. I can’t bear to throw them away.”

  “You shouldn’t have to do that,” said Lisa. “It’s not fair. Maybe if we make it obvious we don’t want them around, they’ll take the hint and go somewhere else.”

  “No, we can’t do that,” said her mother. “They’re our guests. We need to make them feel comfortable.” She wiped her eyes. “I can’t stop thinking about those poor children. Their lives will never be the same if they lose their mother. How will they even survive? They’re so young. They shouldn’t have to deal with that sort of pain. I’ll do whatever it takes to make this easier for them.”

  “But what about you?” said Lisa.

  “I’ll make the best of it,” she said. “It’s not what I would have chosen, but I don’t want to argue with your father.”

  Lisa couldn’t bear to think about her father. Although her mother claimed to feel a sense of compassion for Sabrina and her family, the truth was clear: her mute acceptance of the situation reflected her desire to avoid a confrontation with him. Lisa knew she wasn’t going to say anything. She was just going to go along with it, and nothing was going to change unless Lisa took matters into her own hands.