Chapter 6 - The Clinical Abode
Three hours later, the estate of St. Jude-in-the-Pines returned to its natural state: an immaculate, silent mausoleum.
The golden fairy lights had been shut off. The two hundred guests had departed in their sleek black sedans, carrying with them the dramatic story of the poor Vance boy who had briefly stood up before collapsing into a terrifying neurological seizure.
In the second-floor master wing, Julian lay in his four-poster oak bed.
The room smelled of oxygen tanks and iodine. An IV pole stood beside his mattress, a bag of clear fluid dripping lazily through a narrow plastic tube into a catheter taped to the back of his left hand.
Julian wasn't sleeping. His eyes were wide open, staring at the elaborate plaster molding on the high ceiling.
The drug Victoria had given him in the ambulance—a heavy dose of liquid diazepam—had paralyzed his throat and vocal cords, leaving his mind sharp, crystalline, and trapped inside an unresponsive shell.
The heavy mahogany door opened silently.
Victoria walked into the room. She had changed out of her blood-stained silver dress into a simple, tailored silk robe of pale ivory. She carried a silver tray bearing a glass of warm milk and a small brown glass bottle with a dropper lid.
Behind her came Dr. Harrison Thorne.
Dr. Thorne was sixty, tall, with silver hair brushed sleekly back and gold-rimmed spectacles that reflected the single nightlight plugged into the baseboard. He wore his white lab coat over his evening trousers, a stethoscope draped around his neck like an emblem of office.
"He's quiet," Dr. Thorne said, stepping to the side of the bed and lifting Julian’s right eyelid with a gloved thumb. He shone a small penlight directly into the pupil. The pupil contracted instantly. "Brainwave activity is elevated, but the motor cortex is fully suppressed by the sedation."
"He stood, Harrison," Victoria said. She set the tray down on the bedside table with a soft clink. Her voice was devoid of emotion, as flat and clinical as an autopsy report. "He didn't just twitch. He stood upright for eleven seconds."
Dr. Thorne sighed, turning off his penlight and dropping it into his pocket. "I told you four months ago that the neuro-inhibitor doses were losing efficacy. His body is metabolizing the compound faster than it did when he was seven. He's growing, Victoria. Muscle memory is a powerful evolutionary drive. If his spinal column continues to receive normal signaling during periods of high adrenaline, the blockade will fail entirely."
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Victoria walked over to the tall arched window overlooking the dark gardens. She wrapped her arms around her waist, looking down at the empty teak dance floor below.
"He cannot walk, Harrison," she said quietly. "If Julian walks, the trust dissolves."
