Leaving Time(106)

While Nevvie drove off in the ATV in search of Hester, I disconnected the fence controller and unwound the wire, creating an open gate. I waited until I heard the engine revving and spotted the elephant following Nevvie placidly. She was a sucker for watermelon, and there was a whole one on the ATV for her that would be placed closer to Maura.

I hopped on the vehicle as we drove to the site of the calf’s grave, where Maura still stood, her shoulders sloped and her trunk dragging on the ground. Nevvie cut the engine, and I hopped off, setting the food for Hester a distance away from Maura. We had brought a treat for Maura, too, but unlike Hester, she did not touch hers.

Hester speared the watermelon on her tusk and let the juice drip into her mouth. Then she curled her trunk around the melon, plucked it from the ivory skewer, and crushed it between her jaws.

Maura didn’t acknowledge her presence, but I could see her spine stiffen at the sound made by Hester’s crunching. “Nevvie,” I said quietly, climbing onto the ATV again. “Turn on the engine.”

Lightning fast, Maura pivoted and thundered toward Hester, her head shaking and her ears flapping. Dirt chuffed, a cloud of intimidation. Hester squealed and threw back her trunk, just as willing to stand her ground.

“Go,” I said, and Nevvie angled the ATV so that Hester was headed off before she could get close to Maura. Maura didn’t even turn toward us as we shepherded Hester away, to the other side of the hot-wire fence. She faced the raw, dark grave of the calf, which stretched like a yawn across the earth.

Sweating, my heart still pounding from the confrontation, I let Nevvie lead Hester deeper into the African enclosure while I reaffixed the wire joints, crimped them closed, and reattached the battery clamps. Nevvie drove up again a few minutes later, as I was finishing.

“Well,” I said. “I told you so.”


I took advantage of the fact that Grace was still watching Jenna and stopped off at the African barn to talk to Thomas. Climbing the spiral staircase, I heard no sound from inside the space. It made me wonder if Thomas had found the whitewashed walls and if that had been enough to snap him back to equilibrium. But when I reached the door, the knob turned in my hand and I stepped into the room to find one wall entirely covered with the same symbols I’d seen last night, and another wall half finished. Thomas stood on a chair, writing so furiously I thought the plaster might burst into flame. I felt as if my skeleton had turned to stone. “Thomas,” I said. “I think we need to talk.”

He glanced over his shoulder, so absorbed in his work that he hadn’t even heard me come in. He didn’t seem embarrassed, or surprised. Just disappointed. “It was going to be a surprise,” he said. “I was doing it for you.”

“Doing what?”

He stepped off the chair. “It’s called molecular consolidation theory. It’s been proven that memories stay in an elastic state before they are chemically encoded by the brain. Disturb that process, and you can alter the way the memory is recalled. To date, the only scientific successes have occurred when the inhibitors are given immediately after the trauma. But let’s say the trauma’s already past. What if we could regress the mind back to that moment, and give the drug. Would the trauma be forgotten?”

I stared at him, completely lost. “That’s not possible.”

“It is if you can go back in time.”

“What?”

He rolled his eyes. “I’m not building a TARDIS, a time machine,” Thomas said. “That would be insane.”

“Insane,” I repeated, the word breaking on the jetty of a sob.

“It’s not literal bending of the fourth dimension. But you can alter perception for an individual, so that time is effectively reversed. You take them back to the stress, through an altered consciousness, and have them reexperience the emotional trauma long enough for the drug to do its job. And here’s the part that’s a surprise for you. Maura, she’s going to be the subject.”

At the sound of the elephant’s name, my gaze snapped to his. “You aren’t touching Maura.”

“Not even if I can fix her? If I can make her forget her calf’s death?”

I shook my head. “It doesn’t work that way, Thomas—”

“But what if it did? What if there were implications for humans? Imagine the work that could be done with veterans who suffer from PTSD. Imagine if the sanctuary cemented its name as a critical research facility. We could get seed money from the Center for Neural Science at NYU. And if they agree to partner with me, the media attention could bring in investors to offset the loss of revenue the calf had been projected to bring in. I could win a Nobel.”