Wilder Girls - Rory Power Page 0,50

be easier.” The tripod stable, she slots the camera into the stand.

What do I do

“I’ll ask you some questions, and you just answer me and show the board to the camera. Simple as that.”

Screen flips out, red light blinks on. Paretta sits down on the bed by my feet and props her notepad up on her knee.

“Before I get to the disease in particular, I noticed something in your chart—a bit of missing information. Can you tell me about your cycle? Has it been regular during the quarantine? I know stress and nutrition can have a big impact on these things.”

We lost them after the Tox

Paretta leans forward. “That’s very helpful, actually, Byatt. What about those of you who hadn’t hit puberty before the quarantine?”

It never occurred to me, really, to wonder. But nobody ever complained when the supplies came without tampons or pads.

I don’t think they ever got it

“But they exhibit symptoms of the disease, don’t they?”

Yeah

“And your teachers?” There’s a glint in Paretta’s eyes, an eagerness to her voice. “Do they present those symptoms the same way you girls do?”

I guess I don’t know for sure. But something tells me neither Welch nor Headmistress is hiding a spine like mine under their clothes. They’re sick, I know that. I’ve seen the sores on their skin, seen their eyes glassy and gone when the fever hits. But not like us.

Not the ones left

“And they would be your headmistress and who else?”

Miss Welch

And they’re the ones closest to normal, aren’t they? They’re the ones who should be here, and I should be back in my room, Hetty next to me, holding on so tight it steals my breath.

I gesture to the room around me, let some bitterness into my smile. You should use them for your cure

Paretta reads the board, and I watch a frown furrow her brow. “We do want a cure, Byatt,” she says after a moment. “But there are so many more questions to be answered. I’m sure you understand.”

I don’t

She keeps going like I didn’t write anything at all. “I have records of only one person on the island having been assigned male at birth. A Daniel Harker?”

Reese’s dad. I nod. I’m not sure what else she wants from me. If she wanted to know about Mr. Harker, she should’ve picked Reese.

“How did he react? Like you girls?”

And the thing is at first he did. Angry, like some of us. Violent, like some of us. But most of us keep hold of ourselves, and he was on the way to losing it when he left.

No

That’s the most I can pin down.

“Interesting,” Paretta says. She fumbles with the pad of paper, and I watch her jot something down. Most of it too hard to read, but I see the word “estrogen,” and above it, “adrenal,” a word I think I remember from some lecture on puberty in sophomore bio. Maybe that has something to do with the way the teachers died, instead of giving the Tox a home like we do.

“This might sound strange,” Paretta starts, after staring a beat too long at her notes, “but is your headmistress…past a certain age?”

Like we can’t just say “menopausal.” Headmistress canceled at least two assemblies during my first year because of her hot flashes.

Yes

“And I’m correct,” Paretta continues, “that none of you were receiving hormone replacement therapy, yes?”

As far as I know yeah

But I remember one of the lectures Welch gave us when she found a condom in Lindsay’s care package. Be prepared, she said, and know your options, and an IUD might be right for some but for others—

Wait is the pill

She’s flicking through the stack of files before I can finish writing. “Charlotte Welch, twenty-six. Ah, I see. Prescribed birth control for hormone management.” She glances up at me, smiling wryly. “I’m guessing she’s had limited access to that medication, which could definitely play a role.”

Why are you smiling? I want to ask her. That limited access you find so funny is your fault.

“Right,” she says, closing the medical file. “We’ll have to look into that. Now, as to the rest, I’m here to learn as much as I can from you about the outbreak. The more I know, the easier it will be for us to figure out how to treat it.”

Do you know what it is

A hundred questions, but that one’s the most important.

“We’re not sure,” Paretta says. “Our tests haven’t turned up much. We’ve never seen anything quite like it. You