Godspeed

Chapter 20

I adjusted the shoulders of my dress and watched in the mirror as the light bounced off the face of the charm. Then, as I had done so many times before, I opened it up and stood before my reflection, transfixed, as the gears and cogs inside the works spun. I was still unable to fathom just how it fed enough power through the humming wires in my chest and into my heart.

I thought about the last time Quinn had listened to my heartbeat, just two days since, and how he'd remarked that it sounded stronger to him than he had ever heard it before.

How was it that he didn't know, that he didn't immediately understand, that it was stronger and beat faster because he was so near? That the power that drove my heart to pound so was the strength of the love I had felt since the first time I set eyes upon him?

I chastised myself and stopped to catch my breath as I felt suddenly winded. He didn't see because he had no reason to: only love in a person’s heart could help them recognize its like in someone else. I had never been more certain of this than I had become watching Marielle and Penn, and I wondered if they would ever wake simultaneously to realize the emotion already existed in the other.

I heard a knock at my door and turned as I bid my visitor to enter.

Only a head became visible in the doorway; a smile upon the face of the person it belonged to.

"They're here," Penn said, gesturing toward the hall beyond. "The doctor asked me to send Lilibet down to his laboratory as soon as she arrived, to have you escort her."

My stomach fluttered with a flock of birds taking wing. Now we would find out if anything could bridge the chasm between Lilibet's mind and the words of the outside world. I had absolute faith that if anything — anyone — could accomplish construction of that bridge, it was Godspeed.

"Then I had best not keep the doctor waiting. Thank you, Penn."

#

Lilibet was always reluctant to leave her usual spot beside the piano, but today she was downright defiant. I wondered if it was because she did not want to go with me, or because of the fact that she did not want to miss it if Jib started to play while we were out of the room.

It was upon thinking of this that I realized that Jib was not immediately taking to the piano today. He was sitting quietly in his chair near the entrance to the room, and he did not look well.

In fact, upon approaching him and looking him fully in the face, I saw that he looked much worse than unwell.

His eyes were glazed and glassy; his face appeared swollen, much rounder than usual. On closer inspection I found his hands were distorted from their normal size as well and I could only imagine by looking at the way that he was slouching in his chair that the rest of him must be just as uncomfortable.

Schuyler took note the same time I did and immediately knelt beside the chair. He whispered to Jib, and the boy nodded.

Schuyler turned to me, shook his head, and then looked up at Penn. "Fetch the doctor, Penn. Hurry."

I looked at Schuyler with concern in my eyes; in his I saw a dreadful fear I had not seen since my own condition had stabilized. "Schuyler?" I whispered.

He did not speak, only locked eyes with mine in a glance that communicated more clearly than any words could just how afraid he was for the boy.

"What’s wrong?" Quinn asked, his medical bag gripped tightly as he grasped hold of Jib's wrist and felt for his pulse, glancing at the clock on the wall and sighing as he set the boy's swollen hand back down into his lap.

"Why did they bring you out today? They should have sent for me."

"I wanted to come." Jib said, his voice strained and weak.

"I know, but we have got to get you to bed, straight away. Schuyler," Quinn began removing Jib's boots and unbuttoning the top buttons of his shirt and coat. "Contact the Magistrate, immediately. Tell him that he must hurry to fetch his son."

All thoughts of Lilibet's machine had come to a halt in my mind, until I felt a hand on my shoulder and heard words softly whispered in my ear. "Try her on the machines, see if you can convince her."

"Me?" I shook my head. "But, Doctor, you are the one that she—"

"She must eventually learn to trust someone else, and that should be you. I will expect a full accounting of your tests when I return."

Quinn grabbed his coat off the hook on the wall and hurried to shrug it on over his shoulders.

"When will that be, sir?"

"I don't know," Quinn said, his tone grave. "I'm hoping not too quickly."

No one else in the room understood his meaning quite as I did: the only reason that he would return from Jib's house quickly tonight would be if he no longer had a patient there to care for.

"I hope not, sir." I whispered, tears falling down my face as I watched Schuyler and Quinn roll Jib's chair back into the foyer, there to await his father and their carriage.