Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls - Jane Lindskold [63]
The decorating scheme in both rooms is uniformly done in shades of tan and beige, lighter for the walls and floor, darker for the furnishings.
Tour completed, I sit on the bed. After the activity of the last several weeks, the abrupt stillness galls. The green curtain of foliage gives me no sense of time and I have nothing with which to amuse myself.
Idly, I stretch my hearing to find what the room might say, but it only reeks of newness. All I learn are the locations of the concealed monitors. Betwixt and Between are correct; anything done in these rooms will be monitored.
Unwilling to talk, I activate Athena and lose myself in the owl’s pleasure in flight. Gradually, I slip out of my concerns and into a simple world, dodging after dust motes in the sparkle of the sunshine.
They leave me alone for several days; two, I think, but it might be three. Meals arrive on some irregular schedule and though Betwixt and Between complain about the blandness of the fare, I do not care what I eat.
The thin paper receptacles the food arrives in crumple into brown dust after a few hours, but until then I can fold origami figures, remembering Bumblebee teaching me and Chocolate how to make them one night when it was too wet for even the Tail Wolves to go out and do business.
I eat and sleep and play, but refuse to speak, and after some time, they come to me. More specifically, she does: Dr. Haas.
She comes into my cell, white, golden, emerald. My eyes are hungry for color after the dull, tan room, the unremitting green without. She is some relief and as such I study her.
Seating herself on one of my spongy chairs, she flashes her white shark’s smile at me.
“You know, I don’t believe we’ve ever been introduced—even though we’ve met several times. I’m Lea Haas and I’ll be working with you here at the Institute.”
I refuse to play her pretty game and sit mute. Betwixt and Between hiss “Bitch” and Athena hoots soft agreement. Allowing a faint smile to curl my lips, I study her. Was that the faintest blush on the alabaster skin?
Before I can decide, she has shifted, crossing one leg over the other. “Sarah, you are due some explanation. Since you cannot—or will not—converse with me, I am forced to lecture.”
I say nothing and she sighs. “Being difficult will not help you, Sarah. It may even hurt.”
Again pause. Again I stay silent. Again the sigh.
“As you may remember, Sarah, you were born in the Institute’s original complex. What you may or may not know is that you were part of an attempt to breed for some very specific and very improbable talents. Enhanced memory and empathy were the lesser qualities; the goal of the project was to maximize what has been dubbed ‘magical thinking,’ the ability to obtain impressions from what are commonly termed inanimate objects.”
I must have given some signal that I understood, for she stops her lecture and looks at me.
“I see. You know something of this. Interesting.”
Inwardly, I growl, unwilling to show any more. Dr. Haas studies me for a moment more and then continues.
“There were various attempts, but finally success, or something close, was achieved with three children. Even with these three, the results were less than ideal. The eldest, a girl named Eleanora, did show potential, but her main talents were in memory. The youngest—you, Sarah—showed incredible potential, but was unable to communicate. The middle, a boy named Dylan, was highly talented, but so sensitive that he was prone to collapses. Still, the project intended to develop all three.
“Then came a budget cut that severely crippled the Institute. Eleanora was dropped from the project. Sometime later, after another cut, Sarah was also dropped. Since she was nonfunctional, she was institutionalized. Independent funding