Chapter 14: The Council

The Blackridge council met on Monday at ten, in a hall with a pine ceiling and a seat for every household.

The seats were full.

Word had gone around the territory overnight, and people had come to see whether the Garricks would still be sitting at the long table.

My father was.

He sat at the end in his gray suit with a glass of water in front of him, as if this were any other week.

My mother sat behind him with her hands folded.

Cora was not there.

Dr. Lowry had driven her to Northmere at dawn and put her in the lab's spare room with a nurse at the door.

I stood at the back with Rafe, in a clean jacket, with the brace under my pant leg.

The chair of the council, the white-haired woman from the stage, rapped her knuckles on the table.

"We'll begin," she said. "A complaint has been put to this council by a resident of this territory. Ivy Garrick, come forward."

I walked the length of the hall.

Every head turned as I passed.

"State what happened, in order," the chair said.

I told it plainly.

The shelf, the key, the tea, the red light on the monitor, the downgrade at 2:14, the forty-seven minutes.

I played the transcript through the hall speakers one more time.

When my father's level voice said, Received, a man in the third row muttered a word I will not write.

When it was done, the chair turned to my father.

"Councilman Garrick."

"This is a family matter," he said. "My daughter is unwell, and a stage is no place for it."

"I'm asking you whether you ordered that downgrade."

He took a sip of water.

"The clinic's alert desk follows a danger-level protocol," he said. "In an incident log, there are no daughters, only patients."

He said it as though it were a credential.

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