Next to him his mother gasped and began to cough very hard.
The purply silver dots stopped twisting and began to vibrate in nervous unison. “Mom, are you okay?”
She shook her head and gasped, “Water, please.”
He brought her a glass, and she sipped it. “I think—I need to lie down,” she told Ford, then thanked Rondy and went to her room.
“I’m afraid I don’t know,” Rondy said, handing Ford’s ID back. “Let me ask around the office. It was a pleasure getting to meet you, Ford. I hope you’ll be able to get off work early again in the next few weeks.”
“I’ll try. This was”—he looked at his mother’s door—“it was good. Thank you.”
Sadie felt Ford’s confusion but also the happy swaying of the milky circles. They seemed to glow from within, taking on the faint image of Rondy holding her notepad with his mother beside him on the couch, the image becoming more distinct and refined, as though being imprinted as a memory. He knocked on his mother’s door and opened it.
“Mom? Are you—”
“Why did you do that?” Her voice trembled, with anger, Ford assumed, letting the force of it shatter the memory he’d just been etching. “Why did you need to ask about that mark on your ID?”
Sadie wasn’t sure it had been anger, but once Ford unleashed his it no longer mattered. “Because I want to know what it means.”
“You—” his mother started to say, but Ford put up a hand to silence her.
“No. Stop. I don’t want another one of your lectures about behaving for the Roaches. I mean, RCHE.” His voice was trembling and his entire mental landscape had become dark, hot, and viscous. There were no real images, just skeletal bits of memories devoured by anger. It was an amazing equalizer, Sadie thought, capable of reducing the best and the worst memories to the same slop.
“I did what you asked me to do,” he told her. “I did my best.” Sadie felt his voice catch as his vocal cords tightened and knew that was the real cause of his pain. He’d thought it had gone well. He’d let himself enjoy it, and then—“I did a damn good job. I thought you would be happy. But all you can think of, the very first thing out of your mouth, is to find fault.”
“Because I care,” his mother said, her voice low and tense.
“Care what RCHE thinks. Not about me.” Sadie was torn between wanting to hug him and shake him.
The sound of a key in the front-door lock was followed by Lulu calling out, “I went to the park!”
“I don’t want her to see me this way,” Mrs. Winter whispered.
“Of course,” Ford agreed, stepping out of her room and closing the door.
Lulu was standing in the middle of the living room twirling back and forth, wearing a khaki flight suit. “I went to the park,” she repeated.
Sadie felt Ford working to keep his relief from Lulu’s view, thinking that he didn’t want her to know how much it meant that she’d done it so she wouldn’t feel bad if she couldn’t manage it again. He kept his hands in his pockets, to hide their shaking, Sadie thought. She didn’t know if she agreed with his not telling Lulu how brave she was, but she was impressed by how thoughtful he was about it.
“How was it?
“Dirty. But I went. Can I tell Mom?”
Ford shook his head. “In a little while. She’s sleeping.”
“She’s okay, isn’t she?” Lulu’s eyes filled with worry, and Ford’s heart squeezed. Misdirect, his mind ordered. Distract.
“Mom’s okay, but I don’t know about you.” He picked Lulu up and tipped her over. “You seem to have flipped your lid.”
Lulu shrieked with laughter, and Sadie felt her heart expanding. She loved these moments with Lulu, loved the bouncy, supple feeling when his mind went in unexpected directions—even unexpected by him. Spontaneity.
“Let me go!” Lulu giggled. “That’s not fair.”
“Oh, yes, Copernicus, get in there,” Ford said as the dog came to lick Lulu’s upside-down face.
“No,” Lulu squealed, wriggling. Soon she and Ford and Copernicus were collapsed on the couch, hiccupping with laughter.
When the hiccups subsided, Lulu laid her head on Copernicus’s middle, said, “What did you and James fight about before he died?”
Ford’s mind became a smooth glimmering surface, which Sadie knew marked the first steps in a self-protection sequence. Was this what he felt guilty about? That he and James had fought? “What do you mean?” he asked, and Sadie felt his deliberate effort to keep his tone light.
Lulu stayed sprawled against Copernicus, her eyes skewed downward, fingers fanning back and forth through the dog’s gold fur. “The month before he died, you two hardly talked to each other at all.”
“That wasn’t a fight,” he said, too quickly. “We were just annoyed with each other. Like how you get with me if—oh, wait, I can’t think of anything. Since I’m perfect.”
Lulu puffed out her cheeks. “Agree to disagree.”
“Time for dinner,” Ford announced. Cop-out, Sadie called. “Do you want mac and cheese or mac and cheese?”
“Let’s flip a coin,” Lulu said. “Copernicus, your calclass="underline" heads or tails?”
CHAPTER 16
Ford was still asleep when Sadie woke the next morning. During shallow stasis Sadie hadn’t had much trouble sleeping when Ford slept, but since she’d been back she’d found herself waking at odd intervals.
Or maybe, she admitted, it was intentional. When she woke like this his mind was quiet and still, exactly the conditions Naomi had suggested were perfect for accessing the subconscious. Any information she could bring back about the subconscious would improve her standing with the Committee.
The last time she’d had a chance to explore while he slept she’d thought she’d seen something flickering at a point along the perimeter of his mind, but he’d woken before she could explore. She saw it again now, and went closer.
It appeared to be coming from a door that opened and closed rhythmically, like the portcullis on a miniature-golf castle, alternatingly revealing and concealing a landscape beyond. She approached but the door closed before she reached it, and stayed closed until she backed away, when it opened again. She tried again, once going slower, another time dashing toward it, but no matter what she did she couldn’t get the timing right, and it shut before she could get past it.
A defense mechanism, she thought. How would Ford camouflage something he wanted to hide?
The answer came almost immediately. He’d reverse it. Like the hinges on the wrong side of his workshop door, the passage would be open when it appeared closed and closed when it looked open.
The next time she didn’t stop when the door closed but kept moving toward it, then through it. And found herself in an entirely new universe.
She was standing in a vast hall with ornate moldings, elaborate chandeliers, and walls lined with gilt-framed mirrors, sumptuous but all slightly careworn—like a well-used Versailles, built of shimmering dots of color. There was music coming from somewhere, but it was too diffuse for Sadie to make out a tune.
The space, which seemed to stretch forever, was filled with thousands of figures made of twinkling dots. Some of them were static and faded, as though over time parts of the subconscious became ossified; others swayed and danced in front of the mirrors.
As Sadie moved through them she realized the music was actually snippets of repeated phrases, a girl’s voice saying “your brother,” a guy muttering “Liars! They are all liars!,” someone humming “Frosty the Snowman,” a man shouting “Know what you deserve?” and, in Ford’s mother’s voice, “James?” They all sounded familiar to Sadie, and she thought this must be where the windy voices from his consciousness came from.