"Encephalitis is a virus that settles in the brain," he explained slowly. "For the next four or five days, as the virus builds up in intensity, she will be subject to extraordinary high fevers. During these fevers, the virus will attack the brain.
It is only after the fever breaks that we'll be able to tell how much damage she has sustained."
"You mean her mind will be gone?" Ilene's eyes were large with horror.
"I don't know," the doctor said. "The damage can take many forms.
Her mind; perhaps she'll be paralyzed or partly so; she may know her own name, she may not.
The residual effects are similar to a stroke. It depends on what part of the brain has been damaged."
The sick fear came up inside her. Quickly she caught her breath against it, her face paling.
"Breathe deeply and sip a little water," the doctor said.
She did as he commanded and the color flooded back into her face.
"Is there anything we can do?
Anything at all?"
"We're doing everything we can. We know so little about the disease; how it's transmitted.
In its more common form, in tropical countries, it's supposed to be carried by insects and transmitted by their bite.
But many cases, in the United States and elsewhere, just appear, with no apparent causation at all."
"We just got back from Africa three months ago," Ilene said. "We made a picture there."
"I know," the doctor said. "Miss Marlowe told me about it.
That was what first made me suspicious."
"But no one else is sick," Ilene said. "And we were all out there for three months, living exactly the same way, in the same places."
The doctor shrugged.
"As I said, we aren't really sure what causes it."
Ilene stared at him. A note of bewilderment crept into her voice. "Why couldn't it be me?" she asked.
"She has so much to live for."
The doctor reached across the table and patted her hand.
With that one warm gesture, she no longer resented him, as she did most men. "How many times in my life have I heard that question? And I'm no closer to the answer now than when I first began to practice."
She looked at him gratefully. "Do you think we should say anything to her?"
His dark eyes grew large behind his glasses.
"What purpose would it serve?" he asked.
"Let her have her dreams."
Rina heard the dim voices outside the door.
She was tired, weary and tired, and everything was a soft, blurred haze.
Vaguely she wondered if the dream would come again. The thin edges of it poked at her mind.
Good. It was coming.
Softly, comfortably now, she let herself slip down into it. Further and further she felt herself dropping into the dream.
She smiled unconsciously and turned her face against the pillow.
Now she was surrounded by her dream. The dream of death she had dreamed ever since she was a little girl.
2.
IT WAS COOL IN THE YARD BENEATH THE SHADE of the giant old apple trees.
Rina sat in the grass and arranged the dolls around the small wooden plank that served as a table.
"Now, Susie," she said to the little dark-haired doll. "You must not gulp your food." The black eyes of the doll stared unwinkingly back at her. "Oh, Susie!" she said in imaginary concern. "You spilled it all over your dress! Now I'll have to change you again."
She picked up the doll and undressed it quickly. She washed the clothes in an imaginary tub, then ironed them.
"Now you stay clean," she exclaimed in pretended anger. She turned to the other doll. "Are you enjoying your breakfast, Mary?" She smiled. "Eat it all up. It'll make you big and strong."
Occasionally, she would glance toward the big house.
She was happy to be left alone. It wasn't very often that she was. Usually, one or the other of the servants would be calling her to come back in.
Then her mother would scold her and tell her that she was not to play in the yard, that she must stay near the kitchen door at the far side of the house.
But she didn't like it there. It was hot and there was no grass, only dirt.
Besides, it was near the stables and the smell of the horses.
She didn't understand why her mother always made such a fuss.
Mr. and Mrs. Marlowe never said anything when they found her there.
Once, Mr. Marlowe even had picked her up and swung her high over his head, tickling her with his mustache until she almost burst with hysterical laughter.
But when she'd come inside, her mother had been angry and had spanked her bottom and made her go up to their room and stay there all afternoon.