The Eighth Guardian (27 page)

I shake my head. “Why should I believe that your dad wasn’t a part of this setup from the get-go? He knew my dad, too.”

“I don’t know what he knew.” She drops down onto a bench and cradles her head in her hands. “I don’t know. Maybe you’re right. Maybe my dad
did
know about you all along. Maybe he’s been in on the lie. I don’t know who to trust anymore. And that’s why I can’t go back there. So I’m staying, and you’re going to help me cut this damned tracker out of my arm. That’ll send a message. My tracker will deactivate, and they’ll know I’m not a puppet anymore either. That will rattle them.”

“Or they’ll think I killed you, and that will only strengthen their resolve.”

Yellow holds out her arm again. “Cut it out. Now. Or I will.”

“Yellow—”

“Use the scalpel, Iris!”

“You’re going to need medical attention. How are you going to get it if Annum Guard is already following up on every arm injury to teenage girls recorded in the last—whatever—years? You’re going to get caught.”

Yellow doesn’t respond, but her teeth tug on her bottom lip, so I know she didn’t think about that.

“We’ll go back before there were records,” she says. “We won’t get caught if we go back far enough.”

“And you also might die of blood loss.”

“1812,” Yellow says. “This date, 1812. Set your watch.”

“Yellow, that’s ridiculous. I’m not going to—”

POP!

Yellow and I gasp and turn. Orange stands a few feet in front of us at the entrance to the hospital. His eyes narrow when he sees us.

“Yellow,” he snarls. “What the hell are you doing?”

Yellow turns to me with panicked eyes. “Do it!”

My fingers fumble with my watch as I turn the year dial. The hands fly around the face, and I pray I counted right.

Yellow shuts her pendant, and there’s another
POP!
as she disappears out of view.

“No!” Orange screams, then he looks right at me. “Don’t you dare!”

“Don’t believe everything you’re told,” I tell him. And then I project back to 1812.

When I land, I’m standing on an empty tract of land where Massachusetts General Hospital will one day be.

“Sixty seconds,” Yellow gasps beside me. “That’s all we have. More like fifty seconds now. Cut it, and we’ll project again!”

“This is crazy, Yellow, where do you expect to project to?”

“Forty-five seconds!”

I grab the scalpel from her. “Damn you!” I snarl. “Hold out your arm and grit your teeth!”

Yellow steadies her feet and turns her head to the side. “Do it.”

I take a breath and dig the tip of the scalpel into Yellow’s forearm. She gasps but doesn’t yell. But then I cut deeper, and she does. She lets out a scream that echoes across all of Boston. I’m hurting her. I flinch, but then there it is! I dig the little green chip out with the blade of the scalpel. The cut is much cleaner than the one I made on my own arm. Having a proper medical tool sure helps.

“Five seconds.” Yellow’s voice is all breathy and stunted.

“Done!”

I fiddle with her watch, giving it a half turn back. My hands are covered with blood, and my fingernails clatter against the face. I wipe my hands on the old lady’s dress before I turn my own dial.

“Here we go. We’re going to 1782. I’m sorry.” And then we project.

There are even fewer buildings than there were before. 1782. I try to remember my history. Is the Revolution still being fought? Dammit, are we going to walk into a battle? I should have been more careful.

But there’s no one around. I think it’s really early in the morning, judging by the sun. Yellow is grumbling beside me. She’s taken off her sweater and pressed it around her arm as a tourniquet, but blood still spills down her shirt and gray corduroy skirt.

“This hurts so much.” She pants.

I want to tell her it’s her own damned fault, but I don’t. “Come on.” I take hold of her shoulder and drag her across the empty plot of land, toward the Old State House. We need to find people.

Yellow stumbles, and her knee lands on the ground. I pick her up. And then in the distance I see a boy atop a horse, guiding a wagon. He can’t be more than twelve or thirteen.

“Help!” I shout at him. “Help, please!”

The boy turns his head and sees us, then turns the reins so the wagon heads toward us.

“Hold on, Yellow, he’s coming.” My head whips over to her as she stumbles. I loop my arm under her elbow and yank her up.

The boy’s face scrunches up into a confused expression the closer he gets. It’s understandable. I’m wearing an old lady’s blood-stained muumuu, and Yellow’s in a miniskirt. Not exactly colonial garb. But then he takes one look at Yellow’s arm, and his eyes grow wide. It’s clear our clothes are instantly forgotten.

“We need a doctor,” I tell him.

“Who are you?” He sounds horrified.

“Does that matter?” I snap as I guide Yellow into the back of the wagon. I jump up behind her. “Please, just take us to a doctor.”

The boy looks back at us, then snaps the reins, and the horse starts toward the harbor.

Yellow sits slumped over, cradling her arm.

“How are you?” I ask.

“This hurts,” she whispers. But I have to say, she looks a lot more coherent than I was. Of course, I did do a better job of cutting the tracker out of her arm than I did my own. I was more careful. More precise. I didn’t go digging around for the damned thing, probably nicking several arteries in the process.

A few minutes later, after we’ve passed the Meeting Hall, a very primitive form of Fanueil Hall—hard to believe that will be a tourist mecca someday—and a street that will one day house a line of bars, the boy stops the wagon in front of a shingled two-story house.

“Dr. Hatch lives here,” the boy says.

I jump from the back of the wagon. “Thank you.” As I help Yellow down, I turn back to him. “Is the doctor at home?”

The boy shrugs his shoulders. His eyes are wide, as if he’s afraid of us. He looks away, flicks the reins, and the wagon takes off.

Yellow pulls away the sweater to examine her injury. “Looks like the bleeding is slowing down.”

I peer in to look, too. She’s right. The blood’s still flowing, but it isn’t pouring out of her arm like it was before. And Yellow seems fine. Well, not fine, I guess, but she’s in no danger of passing out like I was. Although it probably wasn’t the smartest idea to use cashmere as a tourniquet. Little ivory fuzzies are now mixed in with the blood.

“Do you think we can just leave it?” she asks.

I glance at her arm again and shake my head. “The cut is too deep.” I reach up and knock on the door. “It won’t heal without stitches.”

Yellow nods.

A few moments later, the door swings open, and a very small man stands before us. He’s practically Yellow’s size. He’s wearing a white shirt with wide, puffy sleeves, brown short trousers that stop at his knees, white stockings, and black shoes with a big buckle on each of them.

“Are you Dr. Hatch?” I ask.

“I am.” He looks Yellow and me up and down. He has a distant, distrustful look on his face.

“We need your help, sir. My friend was . . . was stabbed. With a knife. In the arm. Can you stitch it for her?”

The doctor takes another look at Yellow, and his eyes fall on her supershort skirt. “No.” Then he takes a step back and slams the door in our face.

I recoil. I can’t believe that just happened. What about the Hippocratic oath? Is that just a load of crap? I look at Yellow, expecting her to mirror my shock and disgust, but she just shakes her head with a sad expression on her face.

“Dr. Hatch!” I shout as I bang on the door with my fist. “Dr. Hatch, you open this door this instant! You are doing harm by refusing to help us.”

A few seconds later the door swings open again, and Dr. Hatch is back. He’s staring at me with squinted, angry eyes that I can look right into, seeing as he’s about an inch shorter than I am.

“I know what you are,” he spits. “The both of you. I don’t help common whores. I am a God-fearing man.”

My eyes get really big as the door slams in my face again. Did I just hear that right? Whores. This asshole just called me a whore.

I whip around to look at Yellow. “It’s because of how we’re dressed,” she says.

I know, and I don’t care. I reach for the doorknob and turn it. The door swings open into a living room. It practically bangs into the staircase. There’s a fire going in a fireplace across the room. Only a few wooden chairs and a dining table stand between me and Dr. Hatch. He jumps.

“What are you doing? Get out of my house!”

“We need your help,” I repeat, enunciating every word. “I know what you think of us, but you’re mistaken. We’re not . . . what you said we are. We’re just two lost girls from . . . from Philadelphia.”

I shouldn’t have said that. Philadelphia is a long way from Boston. How the hell would two young girls have made their way from Philly to Boston alone in the middle of the Revolutionary War? I’ve always been bad at lying on the fly. Those were my lowest Practical Studies grades.

“Philadelphia?” the doctor repeats with raised eyebrows.

“Yes, our fathers are in Boston . . . doing business . . . with . . .” I’m making this ten times worse. I should just shut up. But instead I try to rack my brain to think of anyone I can remember from history class who lived in Revolutionary Boston. “With Paul Revere!”

Yellow’s face scrunches up into a disgusted expression.
Paul Revere?
she mouths. And then she turns to the doctor. “Please, sir, I’m a good Christian girl myself.” She reaches into the neck of her shirt and pulls out a small gold cross. It’s dwarfed by the owl pendant lying on her chest.

“What’s that?” The doctor points to the Annum watch.

“A gift from my father.” She pops open the lid to reveal the watch face. The doctor’s eyes light up.

“I’ll stitch you up, but that’s my price. I want
that
as payment.”

“No way,” I scoff. “Give me a needle and thread, and I’ll do it myself.” This isn’t true. I would have no idea where to start. But I could try.

“Okay,” Yellow says. “I agree to your terms.”

I grab onto Yellow’s other arm. “Are you insane?”

But Yellow just slips the necklace over her head and hands it over. The doctor takes it in his hands, examines it, and closes his fist around it. “I’ll be right back.” Then he disappears through a door into a back room.

“What is wrong with you?” I ask Yellow.

She shrugs. “I’m done with this. Chronometric Augmentation. Annum Guard. I’m so sick of it. I’ve always thought I belonged in another time period, so why not here?”

I blink. And then I blink again. “You’re going to
stay
here? Permanently?”

“Why not?” Yellow says. “It’s . . . what is it, 1782? Maybe I’ll hop a boat over to England. The Regency period is going to start in a few years. I’ve always loved Jane Austen. Maybe I’ll live in a manor house and fall in love with an earl or something. It’ll be nice.”

My mouth drops open. I close it, but it drops open again. “Are you out of your goddamned mind? I should have known you were one of
those
girls who’s all into Jane Austen just because she read
Pride and Prejudice
in an English class, but ugh.”

And then Yellow’s face betrays her. She cracks a smile and laughs. “I’m joking, genius. Handing over the necklace was the quickest way to get him to stitch me up so we don’t waste any more time. Every hour we spend here is like four days. We need to get out, and soon. So while I’m getting stitched up, you go outside, sneak around back, break in, grab the necklace, and we’re gone. Got it?”

The door swings open, and Dr. Hatch is back. I stand there, shaking my head. I have to admit it. She got me good. Well played, Yellow. Well played. If I didn’t hate her so much, I think she and I might actually get along.

The doctor pulls out a flat tray that holds a needle as big as one you’d use for quilting and some stuff that looks like twine; and even though I’m not squeamish, looking at these downright primitive medical tools twists my stomach. I turn to Yellow, and she’s as white as a ghost. But then she makes eye contact with me and jerks her head toward the back door.

“I’m going to wait outside,” I say as the doctor picks up the needle. Yellow settles into one of the dining chairs and grits her teeth.

“Can’t stand the sight of blood, eh?” the doctor asks. He uncaps a plain glass bottle filled with amber liquid and hands it to Yellow.

“Something like that,” I mumble. I set the files and notebook on the table next to Yellow.

“Take a drink of that,” the doctor orders.

Yellow lifts it and eyes it. “What is it?”

“Whiskey. Strongest stuff I got. You’re going to need it.”

Yellow sets the bottle down on the table, untouched. “I’ll be fine. Just fix my arm, please.”

The doctor presses the needle to Yellow’s arm, and I fly out the door. I shut it behind me, but the heavy wood does nothing to hide the scream that Yellow lets out. It starts small, as if she’s trying to hold back but builds into an “Ah-ah-aah-aah-AAH!” My heart sinks for her. This is not going to be pretty.