You cant afford that, Kevin said. His mother worked hard at her job at a marketing agency, but their house was a small one, and Kevin knew there wasnt a lot of money for extra things. He tried not to ask for much, because it only made his mother feel sad when she couldnt give it to him. He hated seeing his mother like that, which only made this harder.
Do you think any of it matters to me? his mother demanded. Kevin could see the tears pouring from her eyes now. Youre my son, and youre dying, and I cant I cant save you.
You dont have to save me, Kevin said, although he wished that someone would right then. He wished that someone would come along and just make all this stop.
It was starting to seep in what this might mean. What it would mean, in less time than the end of the school year. He would be dead. Gone. Anything hed looked forward to would be cut short, anything he hoped for the future would be stopped by the fact that there would be no future.
Kevin wasnt sure how he felt about that. Sad, yes, because it was the kind of news you were supposed to feel sad about, and because he didnt want to die. Angry, because what he wanted didnt appear to matter when it came to this. Confused, because he wasnt sure why it should be him, when there were billions of other people in the world.
Compared to his mother, though, he was calm. She was shaking as she drove, and Kevin was so worried they might crash that he sighed with relief when they pulled onto the street where their house stood. It was one of the smallest houses on the block, old and patched with repairs.
It will be all right, his mother said. She didnt sound as though she believed it. She took hold of Kevins arm as they made their way into the house, but it felt more like Kevin was supporting her.
It will be, Kevin replied, because he suspected that his mother needed to hear it even more than he did. It might have helped if it were true.
They went inside, and it felt almost wrong to do anything after that, as though doing normal things would have been a kind of betrayal, after the news Dr. Markham had given them. Kevin put a frozen pizza in the oven, while in the background, he could hear his mother sobbing on the sofa. He started to go to comfort her, but two things stopped him. The first was the thought that his mother probably wouldnt want him to. She had always been the strong one, the one looking after him even after his father left when he was just a baby.
The second was the vision.
He saw a landscape beneath a sky that seemed more purple than blue, the trees beneath oddly shaped, with fronds that reminded Kevin of the palm trees on the beaches, but trunks that twisted in ways palm trees never did. The sky looked as though the sun was setting, but the sun looked wrong somehow. Kevin couldnt work out how, because he hadnt spent time looking at the sun, but he knew it wasnt the same.
In one corner of his mind, numbers pulsed, over and over.
He was walking across a space covered with reddish sand now, and could feel his toes sinking into it. There were creatures there, small and lizard-like, that scuttled away when he came too close to them. He looked around
and the world dissolved into flames.
Kevin woke up on the kitchen floor, the ovens timer beeping to tell him the pizza was ready, the smell of burning food dragging him off the floor and over to the oven before his mother had to do it. He didnt want her to see him like this, didnt want to give her even more reasons to worry.
He took the pizza out, cut it into slices, and took them into the living room. His mother was on the couch, and although shed stopped crying, her eyes were red. Kevin put the pizza down on the coffee table, sitting beside her and switching on the TV so they could at least pretend that things were normal.
You shouldnt have to do this, his mother said, and Kevin didnt know if she meant the pizza or everything else. Right then, it didnt matter.
Still the numbers hung in his head: 23h 06m 29.283s, 05° 02 28.59.
CHAPTER TWO
Kevin wasnt sure hed ever felt as tired as he did when he and his mother drove into the schools parking lot. The plan was to try to keep going as normal, but he felt as if he might fall asleep at any moment. That was a long way from normal.
That was probably because of the treatments. There had been a lot of treatments in the last few days. His mother had found more doctors, and each one had a different plan for trying to at least slow things down. That was what they said, every time, the words making it clear that even that would be something special, and that actually stopping things was something they couldnt hope for.
Have a good day at school, honey, his mother said. There was something false about the brightness of it, a brittle edge that said just how hard she was having to try in order to produce a smile. Kevin knew she was making an effort for him, and he did his best, too.
Ill try, Mom, he assured her, and he could hear that his own voice didnt sound natural either. It was as if both of them were playing roles because they were afraid of the truth underneath them. Kevin played his because he didnt want his mother crying again.
How many times had she cried now? How many days had it been since theyd been to see Dr. Markham the first time? Kevin had lost track. There had been a day or two off school sick, before it had become obvious that neither of them wanted that. Then there had been this: school interspersed with tests and attempts at therapies. There had been injections and blood tests, supplements because his mom had read online that they might help, and health food that was a long way from pizza.
I just want things to be as normal as possible, his mother said. Neither of them mentioned that on a normal day, Kevin would have taken the bus to school, and they wouldnt have had to worry about what was normal or not.
Or that on a normal day, he wouldnt be hiding what was wrong with him, or feeling grateful that his closest friend went to a different school after the last time he and his mom had moved, so that she wouldnt have to see any of this. He hadnt called Luna in days now, and the messages were building up on his phone. Kevin ignored them, because he couldnt think of how to answer them.
Kevin could feel the eyes on him from the moment he went inside the school. The rumors had been going around now, even if no one knew for sure what was wrong with him. He could see a teacher ahead, Mr. Williams, and on a normal day Kevin would have been able to walk past him without even attracting a moment of attention. He wasnt one of the kids the teachers kept a close eye on because they were always doing something wrong. Now, the teacher stopped him, looking him up and down as if expecting signs that he might die at any moment.
How are you feeling, Kevin? he asked. Are you all right?
Im fine, Mr. Williams, Kevin assured him. It was easier to be fine than to try to explain the truth: how he was worried about his mother, and he was tired all the time from the attempts at treatment, how he was scared about what was going to happen next.
How the numbers were still going around in his head.
23h 06m 29.283s, 05° 02 28.59. They were there at the back of his mind, squatting like a toad that wouldnt move, impossible to forget, impossible to ignore, no matter how much Kevin tried to follow his mothers instructions to forget them.
Well, just let us know if you need anything, the teacher said.
Kevin still wasnt sure how to reply to that. It was one of those kind things that people said that was kind of useless at the same time. The one thing he needed was the thing they couldnt give him: to undo all of this; for things to be normal again. Teachers knew a lot of things, but not that.
Still, he did his best to pretend to be normal all the way through his math class, and through most of history after that. Ms. Kapinski was telling them about some early European history, which Kevin wasnt sure was actually on any kind of test, but which had apparently been what she majored in at college, and so seemed to show up more than it should.
Did you know that most of the Roman remains found in Northern Europe arent actually Roman? she said. Kevin generally liked Ms. Kapinskis classes, because she wasnt afraid to wander off the point and tell them about whatever fragments of the past entered her head. It was a reminder of just how much there had been in the world before any of them.
So theyre fake? Francis de Longe asked. Ordinarily, Kevin might have been the one asking it, but he was enjoying the chance to be quiet, almost invisible.
Not exactly, Ms. Kapinski said. When I say they arent Roman, I mean that theyre remains left behind by people who had never been near what is now Italy. They were the local populations, but as the Romans advanced, as they conquered, the local people realized that the best way to do well was to fit in with Roman ways. The way they dressed, the buildings they lived in, the language they spoke, they changed everything to make it clear which side they were on, and because it gave them a better chance of good positions in the new order. She smiled. Then, when there were rebellions against Rome, one of the keys to being part of it was not using those symbols.
Kevin tried to imagine that: the same people in a place shifting who they were as the political tide changed, their whole being changing depending on who ruled. He thought it might be a bit like being in one of the popular crowds at school, trying to wear the right clothes and say the right things. Even so, it was hard to imagine, and not just because images of impossible landscapes continued to filter through at the back of his mind.
That was probably the only good thing about what was wrong with him: the symptoms were invisible. It was also the scary thing in a way. There was this thing killing him, and if people didnt know about it already, they would never find out. He could just sit there and no one would ever
Kevin felt the vision coming, rising up through him like a kind of pressure building through his body. There was the rush of dizziness, the feeling of the world swimming away as he connected with something else. He started to stand to ask if he could be excused, but by then, it was already too late. He felt his legs giving way and he collapsed.
He was looking at the same landscapes he remembered from before, the sky the wrong shade, the trees too twisted. He was watching the fire sweep through it, blinding and bright, seeming to come from everywhere at once. Hed seen all of that before. Now, though, there was a new element: a faint pulse that seemed to repeat at regular intervals, precise as a ticking clock.
Some part of Kevin knew a clock was what it had to be, just as he knew by instinct that it was counting down to something, not just marking the time. The pulses had the sense of getting subtly more intense, as if building up to some far-off crescendo. There was a word in a language he shouldnt have understood, but he did understand it.
Wait.
Kevin wanted to ask what he was supposed to be waiting for, or how long, or why. He didnt, though, partly because he wasnt sure who he was supposed to ask, and partly because almost as suddenly as the moment had come, it passed, leaving Kevin rising up from darkness to find himself lying on the floor of the classroom, Ms. Kapinski standing over him.
Just lie still a moment, Kevin, she said. Ive sent for the school medic. Hal will be here in a minute.
Kevin sat up in spite of her instructions, because hed come to know what this felt like by now.
Im fine, he assured her.
I think we should let Hal be the judge of that.
Hal was a big, round former paramedic who served to make sure that the students of St. Brendans School came through whatever medical emergencies they suffered. Sometimes, Kevin suspected that they did it because the thought of the medics idea of care made them ignore the worst of injuries.
I saw things, Kevin managed. There was a planet, and a burning sun, and a kind of message like a countdown.
In the movies, someone would have insisted on contacting somebody important. They would have recognized the message for what it was. There would have been meetings, and investigations. Someone would have done something about it. Outside of the movies, Kevin was just a thirteen-year-old boy, and Ms. Kapinski looked at him with a mixture of pity and mild bewilderment.
Well, Im sure its nothing, she said. Its probably normal to see all kinds of things if youre having this sort of episode.
Around them, Kevin could hear the muttering from the others in his class. None of it made him feel better.
just fell down and started twitching
I heard he was sick, I hope you cant catch it
Kevin thinks he sees planets
The last one was the one that hurt. It made it sound as though he were going crazy. Kevin wasnt going crazy. At least, he didnt think he was.
Despite his best attempts to insist that he was fine, Kevin still had to go with Hal when the medic came. Had to sit in the medics office while he shone lights in Kevins eyes and asked questions about a condition so rare he obviously had no more clue than Kevin did what was going on.
The principal wanted to see us once I was sure you were okay, he said. Do you feel up to walking to his office, or should we ask him to come here?
I can walk, Kevin said. Im fine.
If you say so, Hal said.
They made their way to the principals office, and Kevin almost wasnt surprised to find that his mother was there. Of course they would have called her in for a medical emergency, of course she would be there if he collapsed, but that wasnt good, not when she was supposed to be at work.
Kevin, are you okay? his mother asked as soon as he arrived, turning to him and drawing him into a hug. What happened?
Im fine, Mom, Kevin said.
Ms. McKenzie, Im sure we wouldnt have called you in if it werent serious, the principal said. Kevin collapsed.
Im fine now, Kevin insisted.
It didnt seem to make any difference how many times he said that, though.
Plus, the principal said, it seems that he was pretty confused when he came around. He was talking about well, other planets.
Planets, Kevins mother repeated. Her voice was flat when she said that.
Ms. Kapinski says it disrupted her class quite a bit, the principal said. He sighed. Im wondering if maybe Kevin might be better off staying at home for a while.
He said it without looking at Kevin. There was a decision being made there, and although Kevin was at the heart of it, it was clear he didnt actually get a say.
I dont want to miss school, Kevin said, looking at his mother. Surely she wouldnt want him to either.
I think what we have to ask, the principal said, is if, at this point, school is really the best thing Kevin can be doing with the time he has.