She extracted her hand to free the chalk and write. She wanted to ask for Greta, to get moving, to get back to the find she had made and not been able to fully explore. She wanted to get out of bed. When she made to put the chalk to the board, Joseph kindly, but firmly, plucked it away and said, “No more. If you woke up I was supposed to let you know what happened and give you five minutes. After that, I’m supposed to give you another dose. You have to sleep so you don’t move your throat and neck too much.”
She made a moue and earned a laugh from Joseph. He said, “Pouting does not work on me.” He poured a small spoonful of medicine from a bottle and spooned it into her mouth a few drops at a time. It was harder to swallow than she thought. The instinct to swallow was so basic that she hadn’t realized the mechanics of it before. By the time the drops were gone she was already sleepy again. He helped to lower her back down and tucked her in like she hadn’t been since early childhood. She felt him press a kiss to her forehead and felt so very safe and loved. It was easy to fall asleep.
Days passed slowly and Marina grew increasingly impatient. Greta had only popped her head in for visits when Joseph was there and she was unable to speak in detail. Her indirect references toward their project had earned only cold glances. She was healing but using her voice was still taboo. That made it even harder to be subtle since everything was chalked onto a board.
When she finally got a look at her neck she had been appalled at what she looked like. An angry set of handprints encircled her swollen neck in shades of purple and blue and bright red. There were even bruises on the point of her chin and the back edges of her jaw. It was horrible looking.
While Joseph was out of the room she gave her voice a tentative try and found that almost nothing came out like it should. It was a weak and reedy thing that was also strangely deep. It sounded a bit like a boy’s does when in the process of changing. And it hurt.
Everything having to do with eating, talking, swallowing or moving her neck hurt. While she was drugged and asleep the medic had inserted a tube that ran from her nose to her stomach. She had to suffer the unique experience of feeling the change in temperature as liquid food was forced through the tube and down into her stomach. Without having to go through her mouth, she found herself nauseous after she was fed. The mind worked in mysterious ways.
Sela visited every single day, though Marina was careful to hide her neck from her daughter with a handy piece of sheet or by draping a towel across it. She looked at it often and Marina knew she wanted to see what had happened, but Marina nudged the topic away and Sela complied. As a deputy’s shadow, there was no lying to her about what had happened, at least not lying any further than the official story, so Sela knew that a person had hurt her mother. She handled it relatively well, Marina thought, and was proud of her.
During one of the other lulls where Joseph was gone for a break, she had searched the room and the things that had followed her from her former room. There was nothing from her finds in any of the drawers. Even the small book she had found first and her pack were gone. She had crept down the hall to her old room but it was as bare as if she had never been there at all.
After six days had passed in bed, the medic pronounced her fit to resume light duties but only on the condition she kept the tube in and refrained from trying to speak. She had readily agreed, bobbing her head in agreement to all his terms despite the dull pain that resulted. Joseph and she had gotten into what might be termed an argument if any exchange in which one party was limited to abbreviated words on a chalkboard could be called such.
He was adamant that she come home. He argued that she couldn’t possibly deny that whatever she was doing — emphasis on whatever — had already caused her pain and brought her near to losing her life. He loved her and she could see that. She knew he would rather stay right where he was and watch over her if she didn’t come home.
She used his own excuses after coming home with a black eye or split lip after subduing an angry drunk or breaking up a fight. He looked at her with such disappointment that she nearly crumbled. Then she thought of the blue orb against the black of a space so big she couldn’t truly imagine it and regained her resolve.
Marina was up and around and ready to confront Greta if that was what was needed. Her antsy behavior let Joseph know the time for bedside care was over. He took his leave and returned to duty after following her around for a day and fussing every time she did something he thought too ambitious. He barely got a foot onto the stairs when Marina stopped waving and marched toward the archives where she hoped to find Greta.
Greta was there and at her accustomed place at the table. Instead of the maintenance records of before, she was surrounded by all the treasures that Marina had uncovered. She looked up from her reading, the giant Legacy book open in front of her. They said nothing for a moment and just stood those feet apart, looking at each other. The last two standing, the look seemed to say.
The historian broke eye contact first, her eyes returning to the page. She asked, “How much of this did you look at before the Taylor thing happened?”
The question was a loaded one and the tone let Marina know it was meant that way. She wasn’t just asking what she had been able to read, but how long she had hid it all so she could read it alone. She was asking how long she had been scurrying around while the rest of them followed the rules.
Marina couldn’t answer her with her voice so she approached the table and knocked on the surface sharply with her knuckles. While Greta looked on, Marina scribbled her answer on the chalkboard she now carried around with her. Finished, she thrust the board at Greta like she was daring her to do something. She had written, ‘Returned late. Had to see if there. Then T came to kill me.’
Greta flinched a little at the final words. She faced Marina with a searching gaze, her eyes flicking once to the lurid blue, green and yellow of her bruises. She inclined her head, a bare suggestion of an accepting nod that also let her know she had reservations about giving it. She asked, “How did you even know where to search? Where did you search?”
Marina scrubbed the board while Greta spoke and quickly sketched her response. Before she turned the board around she pointed to the small book, the In Memoriam book that lay at the edge of the table. Then she turned the board. ‘That book. Found in archives. Curious to read. Found the code. Went right away.’
Greta reached for the book and handed it to Marina. She said, “Show me.”
She skipped the revelations about the numbers being years so as to not confuse the issue and went straight to the letter from Wallis. Greta only looked on, brows drawn together as she tried to follow along without words of explanation to help. Marina pointed to the numbers and then held up a finger for her to wait and went to retrieve one of the logs. She showed her the codes for the electrical boxes and willed her to understand.
Greta took the book from Marina’s hands and then spent a long moment comparing the two notations. She looked back up at Marina with something like surprise in her face, “You figured this out by yourself?”
Marina screwed up her mouth to the side in an expression that conveyed very clearly, ‘Is that so surprising?’
Greta shook her head, a wondering look on her face and said, “I wouldn’t have figured this out in a year. I wouldn’t have even thought to look at it like that.”
Marina pointed to her badge, the sign of Fabbers with its bolt of electricity and crossed tools, and shrugged.