The Vines by Shelley Nolden (ebook and pdf reader .TXT) 📕

love in her palm and swore that she would never loosen her hold on it. Even while driving a scalpel through Ulrich’s heart.

February 1967

he bitter cold seeped through her friendship quilt, down comforter, and parka, yet Cora wouldn’t relinquish her post on the morgue roof; she’d been watching for Ulrich every morning since he’d taken Kristian four months earlier. Not once had he come to deliver provisions, resume the experimentation, or even discuss their son. Rather than seek her advice, presumably he’d been allowing Petra and Rollie to make mistakes as they learned. Undoubtedly Angela wouldn’t have been sharing her expertise.

The transition must have been tough on Kristian. She pictured him, confined to a crib with wooden rails, wailing in the night for Mutti. Would they have figured out that he wanted his back rubbed? She hoped so. At least he had his blankie. She shivered and conjured the warmth of his body, snuggled against her, twitching as he dreamed important baby dreams. Did he still remember her at all? By his birthday, in less than a month and a half, she knew he wouldn’t.

She would miss the marking of his second year, and every one after that.

Tears blurred the skyscrapers across the strait, and she was amazed by her body’s endless supply. If only her food caches could likewise never run out. The ache in her hollow stomach had become an almost constant companion.

Although unlikely, Ulrich could be planning to return with Kristian once the weather improved. In the current conditions, the passage through Hell Gate would be dangerous for a toddler who liked to climb. The tension in her shoulders eased with the prospect. Maybe Ulrich would bring him on his birthday. Just in case, she would have a present ready, as well as an iced cake. From what Mary had taught her, and the two chocolate bars she’d been saving, she would manage something.

Such fantasies are dangerous, she reminded herself. An untouched torte on March 30 would only make the distance between them feel wider. Still, she knew that as the day drew near, she would prepare, just in case.

She raised her head above the wall to gaze across the river. The buildings looked as densely packed as the Salmonella typhi Ulrich had once let her view through the microscope. Which one held her boy? When Ulrich returned, she would beseech him to point it out to her, even though she knew he’d coldly refuse.

Now that she wasn’t busy caring for her child, each day, empty of meaning, stretched on until dark arrived. Hourly, she berated herself for disobeying Ulrich. Now regret was constant and more punishing than any pain she’d ever known.

She shifted her attention back to the river and inhaled sharply. In the early light, she could just make out an approaching boat. Its shape matched the fishing trawler that Ulrich chartered for his trips. She dove to the ground, though it mattered little if he’d seen her, and peered through the spy hole.

The boat stopped alongside the dock, and Ulrich leaned out to buffer them from the pylons. Still, no sign of Kristian, although Ulrich might have made him stay in the cabin. Suddenly sweltering within her parka, she prayed that he would emerge.

Ulrich’s usual henchman tossed him a line. It fell into the channel as Ulrich jumped onto the pier and bellowed her name.

His anguish hit Cora in the gut, and she knew something must have happened to their boy. She threw the blankets aside and raced down the stairwell and through the morgue. “Where is he?” she yelled as she neared the dock.

“Halt!” he ordered, raising his arm.

He wasn’t wearing protective gear; he had no intention of stepping onto the island. Instead, Ulrich must have come to deliver bad news, and by the tone of his voice, he believed she was to blame. Please God, let my baby be okay. “Where is he?”

He glanced at the sailor, whose exaggerated efforts to arrange the bumpers made it clear he wanted Ulrich to believe he wasn’t listening.

The wind tugged at Ulrich’s coat, and he let it rip the hood from his head. “He’s ill.”

Her vision blurred, and she swayed. “How’s that possible?” she asked, blinking rapidly to clear her head. All of Kristian’s blood samples had been free of her pathogens, but they could’ve been hiding somewhere else within him, she speculated.

“He’s got influenza.”

Only the flu. Her headache dulled, and her breathing slowed.

“How is he?”

“Improving.”

Then why was Ulrich here, and so angry? The answer struck her with the force of a bullet: they’d been wrong about his immune system. Apparently, he was just a normal boy. Except, possibly, when he was on North Brother. Her heart beat faster as her hope flew skyward.

“Maybe he’s like me, and his immunities only work here.”

If Ulrich had come to the same conclusion, Kristian might yet be napping in the cabin.

“I’m sorry,” Ulrich said in a softer tone.

No, it couldn’t end this way. “But you said . . . that your Aryan genes . . . our baby might turn out like Pettenkofer. There’s no way I didn’t pass my germs to Kristian. His body must have fought them off. That would mean his immunities are even stronger than mine. But like mine, they must only work while he’s here, right?”

Ulrich sighed, and a gust amplified his frustration. “You think I haven’t considered that?”

“Bring him to me.” She bit her lip to stop herself from begging.

“You know that’s not possible,” he said in a gruff tone.

“Why?”

“Because he would miss his mother.”

Her knees buckled, and she hit the pavement. A tingling sensation overran her face and hands, and she realized she was panting. She must have had the wind knocked out of her. Or her body couldn’t bear the notion of Kristian wiggling out of her arms, crying for his new mommy.

Of all the things Ulrich had ever said to her, that comment had been the cruelest. She detested him, and someday she would end him.

But