Departure. A. Riddle G.
significant. It’s like Mike said: hills, fields, and forest as far as we can see, both with the naked eye and with the binoculars Bob found in a carry-on bag yesterday.
Finally we get to the ridge from where Mike took the photograph and spot the octagonal glass structure. It looks about ten miles away, and the hike to it confirms that. We don’t even stop for lunch. To Bob’s credit, he keeps up, though he’s panting a lot harder than Mike or me and looking drained. I could swear he’s aging by the hour, but I don’t think he’d miss this for anything.
About halfway to the octagonal structure, at one of our hourly stops, I look around through the binoculars and spot something else: a stone farmhouse to the south, maybe another ten miles away. I make a note of its position—if the glass structure is a bust, it will be our next stop. I study the house for a few minutes, searching for signs of life, but there’s no movement. It looks abandoned to me.
It’s later than I had hoped, midafternoon, when we finally get to the glass structure, which is much bigger than it looked from the ridge. It’s at least fifty feet high and maybe three hundred feet across. The glass walls are frosted bluish white, and the frame appears to be made of aluminum.
There’s no pathway—dirt, paved, or otherwise—leading to or from it. Very odd.
The three of us walk the perimeter, looking for a door. Halfway around, I hear the sound of a seal breaking. A panel rises from the ground toward the ceiling, a frosted glass curtain revealing a spectacle I can barely believe.
The three of us stand there, our eyes wide.
I know this place. I’ve been here only once in my life, but that day is easily one of my most vivid childhood memories.
I was eight then, and for the entire week before I visited this place, I counted down the days and hours. It wasn’t the destination that excited me. It was the chance to take a trip with my father. He was the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom at that time, and we didn’t spend a lot of time together. That day, though, I felt very close to him.
I remember the drive, the moment I caught my first glimpse of the site. The morning fog still shrouded it, veiling the ancient treasures towering in the green field. I turned the name over in my mind as we drew closer: Stonehenge. Everything about it seemed otherworldly to me.
I was more mesmerized than my peers. To the other kids on the tour, the prehistoric monument was just a bunch of big old rocks in a field. Not to me. And not to my father. To him, it was not only history but inspiration, the symbol of an ideal. Nearly five thousand years ago, its builders had sweated, bled, and sacrificed to preserve their culture and their vision for future generations. That these mysterious people had erected Stonehenge and some part of it still remained to inspire and inform us, however cryptically, spoke to my father. It was how he saw his own career as a diplomat, I realized that day. He was building his own Stonehenge—America, and specifically its foreign relationships—to help pass down his vision of a better human society, a global one, with freedom and equality at its center. It wasn’t that he didn’t like me or spending time with me, he just thought his work was more important.
Stonehenge, age eight: that’s when I gained a perspective on my relationship with my father that spared me a lot of anguish throughout my childhood. It was a revelation for me, something to hold on to when I found myself wondering why he was never around, why other kids’ fathers took so much more interest in them.
But that revelation pales in comparison to the one that confronts me today. Twenty-eight years ago this was a crumbling ruin, chipped away by time and vandals, half the pillars gone, some lying on the ground. But the Stonehenge that towers before me now is no ruin. It looks like it was finished yesterday.
I AM A BOILING BAG OF MEAT. MEAT soup inside a fragile skin shell.
The fever is consuming me. I’ve had the flu, and my mum had pneumonia three winters ago. This is neither. This is bad. I’m sick, and scared.
Here inside the first-class cabin, the world around me flickers past in brief glimpses between sleep and foggy awareness.
The doctor’s face floats before me.
“Can you hear me, Harper?”
“Yeah.” My voice is raspy, barely audible.
“Your infection is getting worse. It’s coming from your leg. Do you understand?”
I nod.
“I cleaned the wound when you came out of the lake, but it’s gotten infected. I’m going to give you four ibuprofen, then I’ll return shortly and we’ll discuss next steps.”
I swallow the tablets and close my eyes. Next steps. That’s funny. Why? Oh, yeah, ’cause I’ve got a leg injury. At least the best bit of me is still intact.
EVERYTHING STILL HURTS, BUT THE fever’s subsided, and my head is clear. The world is back, and so is the doctor. She turns me to get a better look at my right leg and slides my jeans off. They come off as easily as if they were pajamas.
Dark fluid, black and burgundy, oozes through the white bandage that runs the length of my calf, from just below my knee to my right ankle. The skin around the bandage is puffy and red. I can almost feel myself getting sicker, just looking at it.
My limbs were numb at the end, in the plane, when whatever snagged me dug into my leg, and Nick pulled me free. Now it hurts. I can almost feel the heat rising from it, crawling up my body.
Sabrina stares at the bandage for a long moment, as if she’s a human X-ray machine and needs to hold still to capture an accurate image. Then she looks me in the eye.
“You have a severe infection originating at the laceration in your calf. Infection was a risk when you came onto the bank. I cleaned the wound as best I could and bandaged it. Those measures were insufficient. Now we need to make some decisions.”
I don’t like the sound of this.
“The next step is for me to clean the wound again and monitor it more closely. Normally you would have been getting antibiotics already, but our supply is very limited. Since your infection is one we can access, we have some chance of countering it without oral antibiotics.”
“I see.”
“If the infection is still advancing by the time the sun sets, we’ll have to take a more proactive approach.”
I nod, trying to conceal my growing nervousness.
“At that point, I will remove some of the flesh around the wound and sterilize the area a third time.”
She speaks at length in the same monotone, listing the risks in detail, using scary words like sepsis and gangrene. The long and short is, if I don’t get better today, she’s going to remove some part of my leg. Best case: my summer fashion choices will be limited from here on out. The worst case is … a good bit worse. Sabrina ends on the words “permanent loss of mobility.” Then she waits. I wonder what she wants me to say.
“Well, writers don’t get out much anyway. Haven’t played sports in decades.” So much for reactivating that gym membership when I get back to civilization.
“I’ve described your situation in detail because I believe every patient is entitled to know the details of their medical status and to be involved in the decisions for their care, when possible. And your situation is unique at present. Nick has been to see me regarding your care. He’s been quite insistent that you receive antibiotics immediately. He has enumerated certain … consequences—emotional repercussions for him personally and effects these might have on the well-being of the camp at large—should your health worsen.”
Nick