The girl caught sight of Claire, and waved her over. Claire hesitated, remembering what kind of reception she'd had from Alex, but finally went. She stopped out of grabbing range and said, "Are you having car trouble?" Because that made the most sense, obviously.
The girl looked at her and said, "I can't find my mom's office."
"I . . . Excuse me?"
"I know it's around here somewhere. My God, I go there all the time! It's ridiculous! Look, can you help me?"
"Uh . . . sure," Claire said cautiously. "What's the name of the office?"
"Landau Realty."
Claire had never heard of it. "You're sure it's around here?"
"I'm sure. It was right there. But the sign's gone, and there's nobody inside. I've been up and down the street. There's not even a note. It's ridiculous! I was there yesterday!"
A man came out of another building down the street, carrying a briefcase. The girl yelled at him. "Hey, mister! Where's Landau Realty? Did they move?"
He hesitated, frowning, and then walked over, tucking his newspaper under his arm. "Excuse me?"
"Landau Realty," the girl repeated. "God, really? Has everybody gone crazy?"
"You're . . . Laura, right? Iris's daughter?"
"Yes! Yes, Iris is my mom." Laura breathed a huge sigh of relief. "Now we're getting somewhere. Look, her office was right here, and I don't understand. . . ."
The man was looking at her very oddly. He also looked at Claire, as if she ought to be doing something. She had no clue. Finally, he cleared his throat and said, "Laura, look--I don't know what happened, but you know where your mom is. She . . . she died last year. The office was closed up. I attended the funeral. So did you."
Laura stared at him, wide-eyed, and shook her head. "No. No, that's not true. I'd remember--"
She stopped. Just . . . stopped. It was like someone hit a reset button in her head, because all of a sudden she looked older, and her face just crumpled with the weight of misery. "Oh, God," she said, and put both hands to her mouth. "Oh, God, I remember that. I remember--What was I thinking? Why did I . . . ? Oh, God, Mom . . ." She burst into tears and got back into her car, slamming the door as she fumbled for a tissue out of her purse.
The man hesitated, then decided he really didn't want to hang around to be a shoulder to cry on. He walked away quickly, like whatever had gotten into Laura might be contagious.
Claire hesitated. She felt like she ought to do something, but suddenly getting to Myrnin's lab seemed much more important.
Her conscience was cleared by Laura Laudau blowing her nose, wiping her eyes, putting her car in drive, and heading off down the street, still crying.
Something was very, very wrong.
It's the machine, Claire thought.
It had to be the machine.
When she went to see Myrnin about it, though, things didn't go as she'd planned. Not at all.
First, as she descended the stairs, she found that the lights were all off. That wasn't like him; Myrnin had no real concept of energy conservation, and he couldn't be bothered to turn things off if they were already on. Power failure, Claire thought, but when she located a switch on the wall and threw it, all the sconces on the walls lit up with a reassuring golden glow, spilling color and life through the room.
Myrnin was lying stretched out on one of the lab tables, wearing a crimson dressing gown that had seen better days--at least fifty years ago. His eyes were closed, and he seemed . . . dead. Asleep? But Myrnin didn't sleep, not really. She'd seen him nap occasionally, but he'd wake at the slightest sound.
She'd just clomped down the steps and switched on the lights, and he hadn't moved.
"Myrnin?" She said it reasonably loudly, but he didn't stir. "Myrnin, are you okay?" She was getting a sick, strange feeling about this. He looked . . . posed, almost. Like a corpse laid out for burial.
After what seemed like an eternity, his eyelids slowly raised, and he stared blankly at the roof of the lab. "I think I was dreaming," he said. His voice sounded drugged and slow. "Was I dreaming?" He turned his head and looked at her with strange, luminous eyes. "I thought you were gone." "I went home," she said, and her uneasiness intensified to a prickling all over her skin. "Don't you remember?"
"No," he said softly. "No, I don't remember. I've been feeling . . . tired. I wish I could sleep. Sleep must be a very nice thing." In the same distant, contemplative voice, he said, "I loved her, you know."
Claire opened her mouth, then closed it without saying anything. Myrnin didn't seem to care either way. "I loved her and I destroyed her. Don't you ever wish you could take something back, Claire? Something terrible that you wish never happened?"
He really wasn't well. She just knew it. She could feel it. "Maybe I should call Dr. Mills," Claire said. "Or Theo. You like Theo. You can talk to him."
"I don't need a doctor. I'm perfectly fine. I checked my blood for any signs of degeneration, and I'm free of any sign of the disease that afflicted us before." He shut his eyes again. "I'm just tired, Claire. Tired and . . . tired of everything. It's a mood. It will pass." To prove it, he sat up and hopped off the lab table--from depressed to manic in one leap. His heart wasn't in it, but he rubbed his hands together and smiled at her. "Now. What do you have for me, my little mechanic?"
She hated to say it now, because she knew it was absolutely the worst time to try to talk to him, but she had no real choice. "I think there's something wrong with the machine," she said. "I think maybe we did something wrong."