Page 6 of Grave Matter

“It has pumped seawater, tanks, and tables to keep marine specimens for short periods,” she explains. “A few of our researchers concentrate solely on marine and coastal biodiversity and nearshore habitats. Plankton, sea stars, kelp. Seeing the effects of climate change on bacteria and viruses in the water.”

The sound of a twig snapping behind me turns my head.

A tall man steps out from the path underneath the trees and walks straight past us down the wharf. He doesn’t even glance our way, and from the determined look in his eyes, I’m not sure if he even sees us standing off to the side here.

But I wish he would, just for a second, because he has to be one of the most intriguing men I’ve ever seen. Broad-shouldered in a black coat, his short hair a dark reddish brown, like the color of cedar bark at dusk, his face looking as if a famous artist sculpted it from marble, peppered with light stubble. Chiseled cheekbones, a strong jaw, and even with the faraway look in his eyes, his gaze is cold grey and intense as he scans the foggy inlet and makes his way down the steep ramp.

“That’s Professor Kincaid,” Everly says, her words quiet yet terse. “He’ll be leading the studies in the learning center, along with Professor Tilden.”

I watch as Professor Kincaid strides down the dock, his gait purposeful and graceful at the same time. He then gets on board the yacht I saw earlier.

“Is that his boat?”

She nods. “He lives on it.”

“Mithrandir,” I say, remembering the sailboat’s name. How could I forget? He must be a Tolkien fan. “Wait, that’s the same Kincaid that wrote the copy on the website? David referred to him as a doctor. I didn’t know he would be teaching.”

Everly doesn’t say anything for a moment while my eyes are still glued to him, watching as he disappears below deck.

“Yes. He’ll also be your psychologist,” she says matter-of-factly.

I blink, not sure that I heard her right. I turn to face her. “My what?”

Her delicate taupe brows knit together as she searches my face. “Kincaid will be your psychologist. Didn’t you read that part of the curriculum? Every student gets a weekly counseling session. Over the years, we’ve found it’s crucial for those joining us. The isolation, not only in the sense of the location but being away from social media and the internet, can take a toll on students, especially as the weeks tick by. Add in the temperamental weather here, and you have the recipe for, well, mental duress, for lack of a better word. You wouldn’t think it would be a big deal, but when things go south here, they go south really fast, and then…” She trails off, her expression darkening before she squares her shoulders and looks back at Professor Kincaid’s boat. “Anyway, it’s for everyone’s safety and well-being. You’ll come to like your sessions. Everyone does.”

“So that man is my teacherandmy psychologist?”

“Yes. He’s a bit prickly at first, but you’ll like him. Don’t worry.”

I am worried, actually. He might be easy on the eyes, but the only time I’ve willingly gone to a head doctor was to get diagnosed with ADHD.

“And if I don’t comply?” I ask.

The corner of her mouth lifts. “It’s mandatory, Sydney,” she says with such finality that I know what the alternative is: I’ll be sent on the first plane back.

Still, my first instinct—for better or worse—is always to rebel. I grow tense, ready to protest. Forced counseling sessions with a shrink? No, thank you.

Everly seems to pick up on this. She turns to me and leans in a little closer, enough so that I get a whiff of that jasmine and feel myself drawn into the green depths of her eyes.They match the moss on the trees, I think absently.

“We have a saying here,” she says softly. “Don’t try to change the lodge. Let the lodge change you.”

A memorable idiom for sure.

But still, I have to wonder…

Change me into what?

CHAPTER 4

When I waseight years old, I decided my goal in life was to become a mad scientist. Not just any scientist but amadone. My grandmother had a delightful collection of classic movies on VHS, and I remember playing the tapes of both the classic Boris KarloffFrankensteinand Mel BrooksYoung Frankensteinover and over again until the tape ran thin. It didn’t matter that one was horror and one was a comedy, both made me realize that becoming Dr. Frankenstein was a worthy goal for myself. I wanted to create life—I wanted to revel in it, in the magic of scientific creation that pushed the boundaries and bordered on insanity. I wanted to become so singularly obsessed with something that nothing else around me mattered. I wanted to leave my mark on the world, no matter what it took, even if it took my own mind.

My grandmother did what she could to encourage this obsession at a young age. Perhaps not my secret desires to succumb to madness, but at least the science part. We lived on a very modest budget comprised of her meager retirement savings and my father’s job as a fisherman (okay, so we werepoor). He was never home, so she was in charge of me most of the time.She’d often tell me that she wanted to be a botanist when she was younger but that her parents insisted her purpose was to be a housewife, so I became the girl who did what she never could.

She bought me cheap “scientific” kits from the dollar store, ones that were good for collecting and observing bugs or flowers. Sometimes she’d make them herself, and I’d sit around the beige linoleum table of our mobile home watching her hands, gnarled like the cedar roots outside the home, fasten a magnifying glass onto the end of pliers, telling me it was how scientists did their in-field extractions. Then I’d run out into the woods behind the trailer park in Crescent City and wouldn’t come back until the sky was the color of bruised fruit and my bare legs were scratched pink by blackberry bushes and slicked with mud.

I’d like to say my findings were boring and benign, but they weren’t. Oh, I wasn’t pulling the legs off butterflies or frying ants under the microscope accompanied by a villainous laugh, just for the hell of it. My efforts were methodical and calculated. I sliced up the fungi that grew along rotted tree stumps, burning their edges with a match to see if they contracted or showed any signs of pain (they didn’t, obviously, but I was curious). When my grandmother needed to defend her garden, I did the job of sprinkling salt on slugs, but really just to see how they would die. I didn’t go into trying to torture things; everything was entirely in the name of curiosity and science.

And the pure fucking boredom of poverty.

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