“From what we’ve been able to determine, the primary element is an organic component that we believe exists only in the caves in this area.”
“But still,” Miriam pressed, “you don’t know how to make it yourself.”
Vale sighed and seemed to concede the point. “It’s an ancient secret, yes. They’re very guarded about it.”
Miriam laughed. “So you’re just as much a prisoner here as everyone else.”
Vale shook his head. His tone grew terse. “To be completely free from disease, from aging—you call this a prison?”
“It’s not just disease and aging we suffer from, Mr. Vale,” Miriam countered. “You can never leave this place, can you? You’re like a drug addict. And you have to do whatever they tell you to; am I right? The one who supplies the drugs always has power over the ones who take them.”
Vale stood. George could see his pale complexion turning pink. “You’re making judgments about things you know nothing about, Mrs. Wilcox. I suggest you discuss this decision in depth with your husband. If I can’t persuade you of the benefits of this arrangement, perhaps he can.”
As soon as Vale had left the room, Miriam turned to George. “How could you have gone along with this?”
George hung his head. Now he was on the stand. “You don’t know what it was like to watch you drift away from me over the last four years. To have you looking at me like I was a stranger. To watch you… fall out of love with me.”
“I was the one with the disease, George.”
“And you said yourself you didn’t want to go back there again. You know how terrible that was. What would you have done for me?”
Miriam paused, her lips tightened a moment, and she looked down. “Do you really think you can live forever?”
“I don’t know what to think,” George said. “They told me it would cure your Alzheimer’s. They didn’t say anything about longevity. Or that we’d have to move here. I just knew we’d be together again.”
Miriam touched his cheek. “Sweetheart…”
“But we could live another eighty or ninety years at least. Maybe twice that. What could we do with that kind of time? Think of all the things we could accomplish.”
“But is it worth it?” Miriam said. “What good is living so long if we have to spend it cooped up in this town? Doing whatever Vale tells us to do? That’s not life—not real life.”
“We’ll be together. That’s enough for me.”
“George—” Miriam’s voice grew gentle—“I know what you intended, but this feels like we’re trying to cheat the natural order of things.”
“Natural order?” George grunted. “If your Alzheimer’s was part of the natural order of things, then I’m fine with cheating it. I refuse to let you go back to that condition. I don’t care what it costs me.”
“I’m not saying this isn’t a wonderful opportunity. It’s incredible and I’d love for it to last forever. But something about it just feels wrong. Everything has a cost to it—more than just money.”
Miriam’s comment was hauntingly perceptive. George knew if he were Vale’s employee, he would end up having to do as he was told. And he would be helping keep this place a secret. George had never been above bending the law a bit in order to get a business deal done or to gain leverage over a competitor. Still, he’d never gone so far as to do anything overtly illegal. But then, he’d never had quite so much to gain before.
Or so much to lose.
He felt Miriam’s hand on his arm. “You know what I believe, George. I’ve lived a good, long life—a full life. And I know there’s something better waiting for me after it. So much better than this. I’m not afraid to die.”
“I am.”
She rubbed his arm. “You don’t have to be. We were meant for something better than this world. For eternity. This body is wasting away no matter what we do—even their perilium can’t stop it completely. They might live for hundreds of years, but eventually death will catch up with them.”
“But what’s wrong with trying to put it off for a while?”
“I think we would be miserable here.”
“Well, the others all seem happy enough with their arrangement. You talked to them, right? Did they seem miserable?”
Miriam sighed. “I suppose not. The Brownes and the Huxleys seemed to love it here. I couldn’t get them to shut up about it.”
“Did they feel like they’d been cheated? Did they have any regrets?”
“No.” Miriam rested her chin in her palm and drummed her fingers lightly on the table. “No, they seemed perfectly happy.”
“Well, there you go,” George said. Though he’d gotten a very different impression from Amanda McWhorter out on the patio last night. She was anything but happy. Now he wondered how long she had actually been out here and how old she really was.
Miriam continued, “But we’d have to move away from all our friends. And church. What are we going to tell everyone?”
George shrugged. “Maybe you’ve forgotten, but you haven’t been very close with anyone for a couple years now. I stopped bringing you to church when you stopped recognizing anyone. I think in their minds, you’re already gone. You were gone a long time ago.”
“I just get a bad feeling about this place, George. Why does he have to go to so much trouble to keep it a secret?”
“Can you imagine what would happen if word of this ever got out? I mean, if the public found out there was a cure for cancer or Alzheimer’s or any disease out here—let alone a fountain of youth—this place would be overrun with crazies. And if that happened, no one would benefit from it.”
“So instead they keep it a secret only for a select few? The very wealthy? That’s not right either.”
“There’s just not enough of it for everyone. Besides, even if it could be mass-produced, can you imagine the nightmare this planet would become if everyone lived two hundred years? Or three hundred? We’re stretching our resources thin the way it is. Talk about hell on earth….”
Miriam turned away, frowning. “It just smacks of elitism, George.”
“Then so be it.” George felt a certain resolve growing inside him. He could see the logic to Vale’s methods. Elitism or not, he was starting to see the rightness of it.
Besides, it wasn’t like they had much of a choice anymore.
Chapter 27
They spent the rest of the day indoors. Miriam had said she was feeling a bit restless, so she offered to help Amanda in the kitchen. The two of them spent most of the day together talking while George lingered on the periphery. It looked like they had struck up a bit of a friendship, and he was thankful for that. Amanda seemed to be a rather lonely person, and George knew it would be good for Miriam to have a friend as well.
Amanda shared some of her life story with them. She had apparently arrived in Beckon in 1923 at the age of seventeen. It was incredible to think that she was over a hundred years old. She looked barely twenty-five. Miriam peppered her with questions about the perilium, the town, and mostly about Thomas Vale. Amanda provided only vague answers to most.
George frowned inwardly; a hundred years was a long time to be so miserable.
He also heard them talking about God at one point and wasn’t a bit surprised. Miriam had always been able to worm her beliefs into almost any conversation. There was a time in his life when it had annoyed George. Now? Not so much.
And rather than seeming put off herself, Amanda looked genuinely interested in what Miriam had to say. Something about what Miriam was sharing appeared to have struck a chord.
That evening Miriam complained of feeling tired, so they went to bed early. George slept fitfully. He kept thinking about the van he’d seen the day before and wondered what the story was behind it. Who was inside, and why were they here? He was hesitant to ask about it since the only way he’d been able to see it was through the window in the other wing, and he didn’t want Vale to know he’d been poking around.