The Cassandra Read online

  But there was the coyote, lurking behind one of the valves. I looked in a panic at Dr. Hall, but he hadn’t seen him. The physicist walked in the other direction, toward a worker standing at a basin with a clipboard in his hand, and he began speaking to the man good-naturedly.

  There was no sight of the lamb. I assumed it was dead now, nudged into a corner somewhere within the reactor.

  The coyote padded over to me, tongue hanging out of his mouth. Those yellow, wheeling eyes.

  There is a way to destroy all of this.

  “Leave me alone,” I said. “I’m working. You’ll get me in trouble.”

  It would take one mere, small error to cause a fire. It would set back the project for years. I can tell you what to do—

  I listened irritably, hearing the instructions without committal.

  —jam slugs, drop them here but not here, combine these metals, you’ll find them here, start a SCRAM by messing with the panel-lit gauges.

  “What we’re doing here is good,” I argued. “We’ll win the war.”

  The animal growled and nipped at my ankles. It tickled more than it hurt, but I kicked him angrily away.

  Then came a shout.

  It was Dr. Hall.

  “Get that animal out of here!”

  The man in the suit came forward, frowning in his hard hat, clapping his hands at the coyote.

  “Out,” he said. “Get out!”

  They see him. It’s not just me.

  Coyote put his tail between his legs and ran for the door. It opened right as he reached it, pushed ajar by another worker, and he flew through it. Dr. Hall and the man sprinted after him and I followed, pumping my legs.

  Coyote struck a northern path along the hallway, dodged right, flew past Dr. Hall’s office, and came to the entry door where we clocked in and out. He skidded to a halt there, trapped, and turned to us, arching his back and snarling.

  “Get him out of here,” Dr. Hall said again.

  The men hesitated, nervous about approaching a wild dog.

  “There’s a rifle in my office,” Dr. Hall said, and one of the workers turned to fetch it.

  The yellow eyes bored into me.

  Let us out.

  Dr. Hall watched the dog in terror; he likely feared the product’s contamination more than he feared being bitten. I hurried forward and reached over the coyote’s trembling body to open the dense steel door. The wind yowled coldly at me, scrabbling at my skirt. The animal raced into the whiteout and I let the door slam shut behind him.

  When I turned, Dr. Hall was watching me strangely. “Thank you, Miss Groves.”

  “You weren’t afraid of that mangy mutt?” one of the workers said.

  Another worker returned with the rifle. This made me laugh.

  You can’t kill an aufhocker, my grandmother once told me. You can scare them away, but they’ll always return.

  “Where’d it go?” the man with the rifle demanded.

  Dr. Hall accepted the firearm from him. “Miss Groves saved the day,” he said.

  I asked about the remainder of the tour.

  “We’ve seen quite enough for today.” Then, after a moment, “How did that animal get in here? Can you two please check the other doors, make sure they aren’t ajar?”

  A couple of men nodded, hurrying away. Dr. Hall ordered the rest of us back to work.

  I thought of the lamb, the hunk of breathing meat that the coyote had shown me, a fetus ruined by some unknowable force. We reentered the office, and I went over to my little desk but then stopped and turned.

  I asked him, with more worry in my voice than I intended, “How dangerous is the product? How at risk are we of being harmed?”

  Startled, Dr. Hall looked up at me. His expression slid from surprise to annoyance to condescension.

  “Of course you’ve heard me speak about the safety regulations here,” he said. “You realize the efforts we’ve taken.”

  “But we’re ignoring those regulations—”

  “Because we’ve been ordered to, Miss Groves, and because we have a bigger battle at hand. The truth is, we don’t yet know what will happen.”

  “Farm animals,” I said. The night of demons. “Produce. The organs of any person eating the food. We’re poisoning the very soil.”

  Dr. Hall, to my surprise, laughed. “Are you a scientist, Miss Groves? You have quite the brain for it.” He wiped at his eyes beneath the frames of his glasses. “Look, Mildred, if I may be candid in this moment, I do enjoy working with you. You’re not a dummy. You do what I say the second I say it and you don’t complain. You ask questions that I find annoying but that are also interesting to me, scientifically. Your line of questioning right now is one that my colleagues and I are considering. Please trust that we aim only to win the war, not to harm ourselves. That’s not to say, of course, there aren’t dangers in this business, it’s just to say the benefits greatly outweigh the risks. So please don’t worry about these matters. Do what you do best: Duck your head, do your work, be respectful. You’ll go far for a woman, I think, as long as you can remain steady.”

  “Remain steady,” I said, and I really did want to, but as I turned back to my desk, I stepped awkwardly onto my frostbitten toe, and a thunderbolt of pain rocketed from my feet to my jaw. I winced and nearly cried out, but as quickly as the pain hit me, it passed.

  Dr. Hall didn’t notice. Instead, he gestured at my messy desk. “You forgot about your typewriter.”

  “I’ll clean it up straightaway,” I said.

  I sat in the stiff wooden chair and finished applying the cleaner, and then I righted the typewriter and went to wash my hands again in the lavatory. As I walked a disturbing tune whistled through my head,

  LOYAL MILDRED GROVES

  LOYAL MILDRED GROVES

  A LAMB WITH NO LIMBS

  AND A LAMB WITH NO NOSE.

  I was relieved to find the bathroom spotless and clean. Stanley had been very thorough. I wondered where the lamb-that-was-not-a-lamb was now. Being digested? The aufhocker would eat anything.

  When I went back to the office, Dr. Hall stood at the big picture window, admiring the precision and orderliness of the control room. Two men busied themselves with the examination of buttons and dials. It was a world that made imminent sense, a man-made triumph that could be controlled and calculated and understood.

  This, I realized, was why I put so much hope in Hanford.

  What if I let the coyote in, I thought, watching Dr. Hall’s back in his tan, worsted wool jacket. Just like I let in the meadowlark?

  See, breathe, come to life.

  My own world could never be explained.

  1945

  WEDDING DRESS

  The holidays came and went, and those of us who stayed at Hanford, the vast majority, as it turned out, worked long, twelve-hour shifts but were then treated to exciting events by the commissary, boxing matches and variety shows and even a circus troupe. On New Year’s Eve they fattened us with endless flowing beer and heaping plates of food, ham and biscuits and gravy. I ate so much that the top button of my skirt popped off, and I had to hurry back to the barracks and repair it before the dancing began. When I returned, I danced with Tom Cat. I tried flirting, but I wasn’t very good at it, and neither was he. He seemed distant and sad. He was, unlike me, homesick. He said he wasn’t feeling well and when he left early I decided to leave, too.

  That evening I dreamed I was in a chapel, standing next to Tom Cat in a dark wedding dress; it dripped with a wet, heavy liquid. Tom Cat briefly put his hands on my hips and they came away stained with blood. He lifted his palms to show me and beamed proudly. It’s wonderful to have our child right here, he said, and the audience watching us broke into applause. I looked for our child but there was only a dark spider on the floor, circling a pool of blood near my feet. In the front pew sat Gordon, and next to him, radiantly beautiful, was Beth. She dabbed at her misty eyes and mouthed, Lover’s leap.

  I woke remembering that red w
as the color of love. It wasn’t necessarily a nightmare, I told myself, although the unease of it dug into my bones, swelling my joints. It seemed inevitable to me now that Tom Cat and I would be married. Think of it as a good thing. This is what upstanding young women do, marry, have children, domesticate. I’ve been told so my whole life. He would be as good a husband as any.

  Later that day, when I saw him at the mess hall, we shook hands in a jocose manner and my right hand came away wet. I turned it over. My palm was smeared with blood.

  “Mildred,” Tom Cat exclaimed. “You’re hurt!”

  His own hands were as clean as a newly washed sheet. He retrieved a wet rag from a waitress and used it to wipe the blood from my palm. There was a gash across the entire pad of my thumb, shallow but long.

  “I must have cut it,” I said. “I must have sliced it on something.”

  On my dream, I thought, and I shivered.

  “Must have been my own bones,” he said, and laughed, and I laughed, too, because there was something true to that, really. He pressed the rag to my palm and went with me to the clinic, where they wrapped my hand in gauze.

  Beth walked by as one of her colleagues attended to my hand. She carried a pile of clean sheets.

  “What happened?” she asked, pausing in the doorway of our examination room.

  “We’re not sure,” Tom Cat said. “Mildred cut her hand. Not much deeper than a paper cut, but it bled some.”

  Beth gave me a hard look. I held my chin high. I didn’t do anything. I’ve been good.

  Beth softened. She looked at Tom Cat with gratitude. “I’m glad you’re taking care of her.”

  “It’s nothing,” Tom Cat said. “I like being with her is all.”

  Beth smiled at him. I read it all in her face: She pictured a wedding, too. But what she pictured wasn’t like the wedding in my dream. She envisioned an ivory dress, pastel cakes, a golden cross, a bouquet of dahlias. She couldn’t know that the dress was red, blood red, and the blood would only touch me, it wouldn’t affect Tom Cat in the faintest.

  I remembered the spider on the floor, circling the pool of blood—how easy a creature it would be to destroy.

  * * *

  There were children at Hanford. Not a lot of them, but a few. Some of the men brought their families to live here, although most didn’t stay for long. I enjoyed seeing the youngsters around the campus, decorating the mess halls and the small, makeshift school with their funny drawings of snowmen and Santa and Jesus. In their faces was the light of the season; you could smell the excitement haloing them, the aroma of sugar cookies and cinnamon.

  I didn’t buy myself the footwear I wanted. For the rest of the season I would wear Mother’s pinching shoes and my old boots with the patched soles, and I was fine with it, having sent almost all of my money to Martha and Mother. For the most part I was comfortable enough, except for the frostbitten toe, which had gone numb and registered no sensation now other than a foreign dullness.

  “You’ve damaged the nerve,” Beth said.

  I tried to tell her it wasn’t my fault, but she rolled her eyes in response, a cold thing to do, and she urged me to take some responsibility for myself.

  “He’s asked about you, you know. The doctor. He wants to make sure you’re mentally sound. I’ve told him you’re as healthy as a plump pear.”

  I noted her insulting tone. She told this to me as though wanting me to argue with her. I didn’t. I just smiled and thanked her.

  She watched me for a moment and then said, sighing, “Of course you’re just fine. And that’s what I keep saying.”

  I was grateful to her, but I didn’t like the suggestion that I was being watched.

  “He checks in with Dr. Hall, too.”

  “What?” The notion panicked me. “He can’t do that.”

  “He has to, Milly. There’s so much at stake here, he says. He has to follow up with all potential head cases. If it weren’t for Dr. Hall and me, you’d have been fired already.”

  This comforted me. It meant Dr. Hall had fought for me.

  “Dr. Hall likes you,” she confirmed. “He told the doctor that while you’re certainly naive, you’re quick to learn and as loyal as a mutt. He doesn’t usually trust his secretaries, he said, but there’s something different about you. He admires your candor and, oh, what did he call it … your inquisitiveness. But that’s what makes them nervous. They’re letting people go for asking too many questions.”

  “I can’t lose this job, Beth,” I said. “I can’t go back to Omak.”

  “Of course you can’t,” Beth said, and whatever coldness she’d shown me evaporated. She hugged me, quickly, firmly. “But please take care of yourself, Milly. If there is any other strangeness, I’ll feel very guilty for hiding it.”

  I assured her: I would be nothing more than Boring Old Milly, and the affectionate look she gave me almost convinced me that I could suppress my powers.

  I’d had no sleepwalking incidents since the night of the hibakusha, and the valerian helped me relax in the evening. But every now and again I woke with a feeling that my feet were sore, or I’d have a scrape on my cheek or hands as though I’d been bouldering the basalt cliffs near the river, and I’d wonder if I was still meandering about, but clandestinely, somehow, unbeknownst even to me. I worried about what the heron said to me without my remembering. But then, maybe I was safer this way. I let it go. It was better for these secrets to unfurl in the darkness.

  At work, Dr. Hall kept me busy. He didn’t like it when I sat around fidgeting, so he piled my desk with papers. He had me shorthand all of his phone calls and interviews with his important men. When Mr. Farmer arrived, speaking heavily with his Italian accent, Dr. Hall urged me to curtsy. As calm and collected as Dr. Hall always was, I could tell that he was falling over himself to impress Mr. Farmer, and he didn’t fail. When Mr. Farmer readied to leave after a day of intense discussions, the two men shook hands and, for a moment, Mr. Farmer refused to let go.

  “I’m impressed with you, Phillip,” he said to Dr. Hall. “Your head is in the right place. Try to see that your heart is there, too.”

  Dr. Hall’s usually calm expression fluttered for a moment. He said, modestly, “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that Albert and I want what’s best for the people. All people. Not just the ones here, but worldwide. Yes, even our enemies. That’s why this implement is so important. It’s meant to stop violence, not create more of it. Do you see?”

  He smiled encouragingly at Dr. Hall and Dr. Hall nodded.

  “The general says we’re making great gains there,” Dr. Hall said. “If we don’t hurry up, we won’t even need the blasted thing.” He laughed. “What a waste of effort and expense that would be!”

  Mr. Farmer was silent for a long moment, looking at Dr. Hall curiously. The men had been holding on to each other’s hands this entire time, in a friendly, confidential manner, but now Farmer let go.

  “Maybe it’s for the better,” Mr. Farmer said, but there was a note of longing in his voice.

  “I’ve been asked,” Dr. Hall said, “to hurry along the production, whatever it takes, no matter the safety measures. This pushes more waste downriver.”

  “I suspect downriver won’t suffer to the extent that the environment downwind will suffer,” Mr. Farmer said. “Have you seen the steam rising from the smokestack? We thought the wind would diffuse it all—it’s certainly persistent enough—but the vapor hangs on like a stubborn woman.”

  “We’re doing what they tell us,” Dr. Hall said. “We really have no choice.”

  The men were silent for a minute, standing together philosophically with their arms crossed.

  “War is a terrible thing,” Farmer said gravely.

  “I’m guilty of wanting to see what will happen.”

  “We’ll all be guilty, if this is handled poorly.”

  Mr. Farmer nodded kindly at Dr. Hall and then turned for the door. On his way out, he stopped before me and I nodded at
him modestly.

  “You seem like a sweet girl,” Mr. Farmer said in his lilting Italian accent. He turned to Dr. Hall. “She’s an able secretary, no?”

  “Miss Groves is as discreet as a stone,” Dr. Hall said.

  “Secrecy and safety,” I said. “So very paramount.”

  Mr. Farmer beamed at me. “A very good girl.”

  He congratulated Dr. Hall, as though he were my father, as though he had formed me out of clay from the riverbed.

  “She doesn’t disappoint,” Dr. Hall said.

  I lowered my eyes. “You’re all very kind.”

  I was blushing, caught up in the heat of a flattering moment, but I wasn’t feeling as bashful as I seemed. I struggled to swallow a roar of triumph.

  What a frightening roar it would be.

  It would tear the coats right off their backs.

  LOVEBIRDS

  For a long time, I was calm.

  Other Hanford residents were not.

  One day in early spring I waited for Tom Cat at the cattle car stop. Lately we’d taken to sitting together and mutually ignoring Gordon’s blustery stories. A week earlier the driver had swerved, avoiding a deer that had lurched into the road from behind a scabby boulder. We were all jolted and I gave a surprised shout. Tom Cat grabbed my hand and squeezed my fingers tightly. “We’re okay,” he told me, and I bit my tongue to avoid telling him, I know. We held hands the rest of the way. A good husband. Something every young woman needs. I tried to banish my earlier premonitions of the meadowlark in his rib cage, of the red wedding gown.

  I thought instead of our future visits to Omak, how we would endure Martha and Mother together, forming a team against them. We’d have a curly-haired daughter named Susan and a sweet-natured little boy we’d call Harold, after my father. My daydreams, I mused, were so much more pleasant than my visions. They made the sweat and weight of Tom Cat’s hand tolerable. When we left the bus that day, Tom Cat gave me a warm smile and I went up on my tiptoes to kiss him quickly on the cheek. It wasn’t like me to do such a thing, but I wanted to show my gratitude. You and me against Mother and Martha. I didn’t care that I was getting ahead of myself.