ChapterNine
An excerptfrom the article “Exploring Lyssa: The Story of Josephine Wyeth,” written by Elise Sasini and featured in The San Francisco Light, May 17th, 2048—
I ask Vanessa to tell me a little bit about her father. I’ve barely gotten the words out before she tilts her head back and laughs again.
“What is there to know?” She is still grinning when she says, “He’s exactly how you would expect him to be: laid back, intensely curious, loves to laugh. He keeps a great den and will rip your arms off with a smile if you upset Mama. He’d be the first person to tell you he’s a simple guy.”
“You say that like he hasn’t lived an incredibly interesting life. Isn’t part of the exhibit all about the intersection of the virus and the war your father fought in?”
“It’s funny that you assume I equatesimplewithuninteresting,”she’s quick to point out. “Why is that, exactly? A minimalist painting is simple, but we have a whole wing in the FMA dedicated to them. I once caught a woman weeping in front of Ayolo’sBlank Canvas —a five by ten foot white painted board. When I asked her what she found so moving about it, she said,‘It’s the brush strokes. When you get up close, you can see them all. They’re so small and so close together. It must have taken himyearsto paint this.’Not so uninteresting.”
Chastened, I hold up my hands in surrender. “You’re right. There’s no reason to equate the two.”
Vanessa goes for a tiny meat pie arranged neatly on a platter, nestled amongst sliced cheese, honeycomb, and meat-wrapped melon. “My Dad’s a bit likeBlank Canvas.He’s simple at first glance, but if you step closer, you see all the brush strokes that make him so unique. If you talked to him today, you would probably never guess that he set out from his village at seventeen and spent sixty years in the wilds of the Northern Territories, entirely on his own, until he migrated south to join the Packlands.”
The village she speaks of is now the capital of Kalaallit Nunaat, Nuuk. I cannot imagine what fortitude it might have taken for a boy of that age, in a time before electricity, hiking boots, or helicopter rescues, to wind his way down from the edge of the world. Then again, Otto Beornson is considerably more adapted to such a journey than myself.
“Unless you saw his scars, you probably wouldn’t guess that he fought for forty years, holding the line between the Orclind under Lee Seymour’s command.” She pauses to take a bite of her pie. When she speaks again, there’s a wistfulness in her voice that I recognize. “But you know— when my mom walks into a room, if you watch his eyes, it’s like,wow.There’s so much more going on there. You can sense it in him.”
“Brush strokes,” I venture.
“Brush strokes,” she echoes, wiping her fingers on a cloth napkin. “So many brush strokes.”
ChapterTen
An excerptfrom the diaries of Josephine Wyeth generously provided by the Wyeth-Beornson family to the Fairmont Museum of Art:
November 12th, 1870-
My father’s lyssa protocols are as follows:
Stage one — Exposure
The subject must be exposed to me in a small, closed room for three hours, six hours the following day, and twelve hours the day after.
Stage two — Contact
The subject will be given food I’ve touched and blankets I’ve slept with. If he shows no sign of infection, I will be put back in the cell to maintain what Papa calls “close quarters contact.” If he still shows no signs of sickness, then the next day is dedicated to “full contact.”
I hate this stage the most. I am used to regular humiliation, but I do not think I will ever be able to accept stripping down with a stranger who hates or will come to hate me. They see everything, and when hours and hours of contact fail to produce the results my father seeks, as it inevitably will, they will think of me — fleshy and white and scarred and monstrous — with revulsion for the rest of their days.
Stage three — Exchange
[One sentence has been crossed out many times, making it illegible.]
Today is the second day of stage one with the shifter. He hasn’t tried to kill me yet. I suspect this will change when he accepts what is happening to him, and for reasons I cannot explain, this inevitability upsets me more than it ever has before.
ChapterEleven
As she expected,the shifter showed no signs of having lyssa the next morning. She knew this because Harrod fetched her again, but it was hardly a surprise. A subject had never shown signs of infection before stage three.
Harrod would not catch her unawares this time. Josephine made certain that she was up and dressed just before dawn broke over the pale blue mountains far in the distance.
Although her stomach remained in a riot of unease, she felt a niggling compulsion to dress neatly, to wash her hair, comb it thoroughly, and braid it tight against her scalp. Her clothes felt strange when she donned them, so she fumbled through dressing herself three times before she settled on a dark skirt and ruffled blouse.
For reasons she couldn’t articulate even to herself, it was of the utmost importance that not a hair or thread be out of place when she entered the shifter’s cell.
I will never be able to hate you. Andwhen I leave this place, I’m taking you with me.
