The Acropolis Read online

  Chapter 2

  Emma

  I was dying.

  The doctors told me I was an aberration, afflicted with an illness that had never been documented. I was then all of eleven, a thin wisp of a girl with a dark braid down my back, my face ashen with horror. I wasn't supposed to live out the year.

  But that was then. I have been dying now for six years, and I am constantly under the scrutiny of medical experts and therapists. It is a miracle, they say, that I have lived as long as I have, but I am beginning to believe they are wrong. Maybe I wasn't meant to die, only live in misery for the rest of my life.

  "It's going to be fine," my mother whispers.

  We are sitting in an elegant, overdone sitting area waiting to see yet another specialist, and I know my face is pinched, not with nervousness but with disgust. No one is going to be able to help me. I am beyond saving. But my mother is desperate. I am her only child, adopted when I was three months old. Two years after the adoption, her husband, my adopted father, was diagnosed with lung cancer. Four months later, he passed away while hooked to machines pumping him with morphine. My mother has never fully recovered.

  "They say optimism prolongs life," my mother chirps as she flips through a homeopathic magazine. When all treatments failed, mom turned to natural and experimental medicines. I am sick of being sick.

  "Maybe it's time to let go," I mumble.

  My mother gives me a sharp look, her once young face lined by years of stress. Her auburn hair is pulled back from her face and pinned up at the back of her head. She wears glasses perched on the tip of her nose. They are only for reading, but she rarely takes them off. The spectacles are made up of red-rimmed frames that clash badly with my mother's baggy khaki pants and tucked, blue silk shirt. She has lost weight.

  "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that."

  I hadn't expected any less.

  "Emma Chase!"

  My mother and I stand as one, although I tower over her by a foot as we saunter over to the large African-American woman who has called my name. I like her instantly. She has on red scrubs with a name tag shaped like kissing lips, and she smells like cotton candy. The tag says her name is Grace.

  "Hi, sweetheart! You Emma?"

  I nod shyly. Emma is such an unassuming name, very plain and utterly unromantic, unless one is a fan of Jane Austen. Which my mother is. But the name suits me.

  I am the epitome of "almost" but "not quite." I am almost, but not quite six feet tall. I have almost, but not quite black hair, ranging somewhere in the very dark brown vicinity. I am almost, but not quite too thin. And I have almost, but not quite brown eyes. My mother calls them "russet." But I am utterly offended by that particular color description. My eyes, in my opinion, are the one sure thing about me. They are amber.

  Grace is chattering in front of me, and I paste on my best "I'm sure I will be delighted by the facility" smile. I have the "new doctor" routine down to a science. I am going to be seeing two different professionals today, both part of the same hospital.

  Grace leads me to a scale, and I step onto it without her asking me to, even though I can give her my stats without her needing to check. I am 125 pounds with a temperature of 103.0.

  Grace sticks a thermometer just inside my ear and then gives me a look before writing the numbers down carefully. It is a look I know well. The constant fever is part of the reason the doctors are so baffled. I have been living with a body temperature ranging from 103.0 to 105.0 for years now with no physical side effects. Point blank, I am abnormal.

  "Are you on any medications?" Grace asks as she leads us into an empty room.

  I am immediately impressed. The room is large with thick, mocha-colored carpet and caramel walls. There is a dark brown leather sofa in front of another smaller chair of the same material. Abstract portraits of varying swirls of color are interspersed with several diplomas on the wall. The color scheme has me craving a caramel frappucino.

  "I have a list," my mother answers, and I turn my attention back to the nurse as she motions for us to sit. We stay standing.

  Mom takes a small memo pad out of her purse, flips to the first page, and hands it to Grace. The nurse starts scribbling furiously on her clipboard.

  "And these meds are having no effect on the fever?"

  "I can't keep them down," I interrupt. It is yet another reason I am freakishly abnormal. My body seems to reject medications. They make me violently ill. Even Tylenol.

  My mother gives me a pained look. Grace just nods and scribbles more notes. She smiles at me before looking at my mother, her eyes encouraging.

  "Dr. Reed will be with you in a moment. I'll send this paperwork downstairs for her physical evaluation."

  Mom nods, her eyes taking in the room anxiously as Grace exits. I place an arm across Mom's shoulders.

  "Looks like therapists have better digs than the docs with the stethoscopes. You think she uses the couch for naps or to seduce really hot patients?"

  "Emma Renee Chase!"

  Her voice is high and scolding, but I don't miss the smile she tries to hide. I want to punch the air triumphantly. Mom doesn't smile nearly as much as she should.

  "You look ten years younger when you do that," I murmur.

  Mom grins crookedly, using her finger to push her glasses further up her nose just as a knock sounds on the door. The smile vanishes instantly.

  "Emma Chase?" Dr. Reed says dully as she enters the room.

  I turn toward the voice and grimace. While Grace had been a cheerful, encouraging woman, the doctor now making her way across the room is the female version of Attila the Hun. One of the Diplomas on the wall introduces her as Helen Reed. I mentally nickname her "Helga." She is the size of a football player with a huge Grecian nose and large beady, un-waxed eyes. It isn't pretty.

  “So, how are we today, Emma?” Helga asks as she steps in front of us, her gaze peering unobtrusively over a pair of horn-rimmed glasses.

  I shrug. Helga glances from me to my mother.

  "Can I see Emma alone a moment?"

  This startles us both. Mom knows I'm not good at conversing with people I'm not familiar with. I am, quite simply, terrified of anything I don't have control over. My fears are part of the reason I'm here. Another symptom, the doctors say. Extreme paranoia. I have developed what they like to call a hyper-phobic disability. Which means, and I digress, that I am literally terrified of everything. Literally. Everything. Spiders, the dark, fire, heights, closed spaces, snakes, . . . everything.

  "I'm not sure that's such a good idea . . ." Mom says as Helga starts urging her toward the door.

  I don't even have time to argue before the door clicks shut in my mother's stunned face. Helga turns to me.

  "I have reviewed your records, Ms. Chase, and I am not entirely convinced you are as sick as you would have people believe."

  I am at a loss for words, my heart beginning to pound as I wipe my sweating palms down the side of my dark blue jeans. The long sleeve green cardigan I have on suddenly feels too hot. I know my temperature is rising.

  "M-m'am?" I stutter.

  Helga's eyes narrow.

  "The fever I can't figure out, but according to my charts, your physical tests have all been outstanding. Maybe some sort of neurological disease then? And yet, even with the fever, your mental facilities seem fine.

  "D-doc. . ."

  She ignores me.

  "As for the paranoia . . ."

  I am instantly aware of her intentions, and I squeal as she reaches for the light switch on the wall next to the door. There are no windows in the room. If this is a test, it is a bad one.

  "No!"

  The room goes pitch black. What comes next is not my fault. The screams that fill the room no longer just my own.

  Helga pulls at me. I am wrapped around her. How I got there is beyond me, but I can't let go. I won't let go.

  Distantly, I hear banging on the door. Helga struggles against me,
yelling for help, and shoves me backward so the people in the hall can enter without any resistance. Lights suddenly flood the room.

  Helga shouldn't have turned off the lights! Otherwise, they never would have found me there, bear hugging Dr. Reed while frantically screaming and shedding tears of pure unadulterated blood.