Godspeed

Chapter 18

As alternately fascinated and delighted as I was by the company of Quinn’s misfit band of patients, I found myself growing attached to them on a level that I had not planned and could not fathom.

I was sorely troubled in my heart for the pain that each of them carried, and I had so many questions that had, thus far, gone unanswered. I decided to approach the man I thought much more likely to converse with me on the subject.

I found him in his red room, standing near one of the windows that were set to either side of the balcony doors and straightening the tie on the curtains.

“Schuyler, may I ask you a question, please?” I knew that Quinn was the one who could give me the most detailed answers if he chose; but that was the sticking point. I felt for a certainty that he would choose not to.

“Of course, Elsewhere.” Schuyler smiled gently and shook his head. “I am still finding it odd that you own up to such a nickname when your own name might be much more suitable and glamorous. Won’t you tell it to me?”

I got the same look on my face that I always did whenever Schuyler asked me to reveal my name to him — a much different expression than I wore when the same question was asked by Quinn.

Perhaps that was why Quinn was still so reluctant to answer any of my questions; I had hardly been forthcoming with in-depth answers in response to his.

"What is your question, then, my dear?" Schuyler prompted.

"What manner of illness is it ailing Jib?"

Schuyler's smile dissolved, revealing a deep unyielding sorrow beneath. "His ailment is one of his body's own making. It is not something that he came down with or caught by contagion."

"How so?"

"The way Quinn explains it, and I assure you he would explain it much better than I can—"

"If only he'd explain it. You know that if I ask..." My words faded, and we shared a moment of understanding.

"I know that Quinn has withheld answers you've asked for. But then, he does this to us all. On this subject, I don't believe he would feel the need to be as secretive. If he had not wanted you to get to know the others, he would have continued on keeping you sequestered from them."

"Well, perhaps he would explain it in terms I could not understand anyway. So it is still better if you try."

"You should be flattered." Schuyler shrugged as he fussed with the lace on the cuff of his sleeve, first on the left, then the right. "Quinn never condescends to you. Never tries to oversimplify things in explanation which would be, to his mind, considered an insult." He now straightened the lapels on his jacket and seemed to take stock of his appearance in the faint reflection he saw in the window.

He lifted his eyes to look at me, or rather I should say at my reflection as well, as he never actually turned to face me the entire time we were speaking.

"He thinks very highly of your mind," Schuyler added. The tone of his voice changed a little, just for a second, and that change troubled me. It implied that even if only for a moment, he envied me.

"Nonsense," I quickly added, moving away because I could no longer stand the power of his penetrating stare. "I am but a girl, and that is how Doctor Godspeed sees me. That is why I believe if I asked him this question, he would not answer. So please, Schuyler, will you, at last, answer?"

"Very well." Schuyler sighed. He moved away from the window and took up his usual spot in the velvet-covered chair in the corner. "Jib's ailment is, as I said, one of his body's own creation. His body seems to be attacking itself, that is the way Quinn described it to me. His systems all gone mad, and destroying his organs in the process."