Read Online The Forever Drug by Lisa Smedman - Free Book Online

still ,
    Alas! My own was full as chill ...
    I know not why I could not die .
    ***
    An odd choice for an epitaph, but one that could be rationalized as a token of a mother's near-suicidal grief at the loss of a beloved daughter. It could also be taken as evidence that Jane really was more than two hundred years old.
    Nobody lived that long. Except maybe elves. They were rumored to have life spans measured in centuries. But the first elves had only appeared in 2011, when magic returned to the world. The oldest elves were only in their fifties now—although some of them looked as though they were still in their early twenties, which was how the rumors about longevity got started.
    Jane wasn't an elf. She didn't have pointy ears. At least, I didn't think she did. Her hair had hidden the tops of her ears, now that I thought about it. But even if she was an elf, she'd have to have been born after 2011.
    What I'd uncovered in the archives had surprised me. But I still refused to believe it. Jane could have done the same legwork I had, could have looked up the old burial records and "adopted" one of the bodies of the cemetery. Even so, part of me wanted to believe her. Jane seemed so sincere, so certain . But weren't those the hallmarks of a true crazy?
    And then there was that word she'd used in the scanning lab: sphygmomanometer. It had taken me a while to figure out the spelling, but when I had, the archivist had come up with an interesting detail. "Sphygmomanometer" was an old-fashioned word, the original name of a medical instrument invented in the 19th century: the blood pressure cuff. Where had Jane dug up a word like that?
    I was preoccupied with these thoughts as I walked down the lane at the side of Gem's house. And I was sleepy. I didn't usually stay up until noon. But as soon as I saw the back gate hanging open, I tensed and came fully awake.
    Something was wrong. The gate shouldn't have been open. Gem had gone out shopping today, but both she and I were always careful to close the gate— and Haley wouldn't have been able to open it on her own. No passerby in her right mind would ignore the red-lettered Beware Of Dog sign tacked on to the fence—and even if they did, Haley's barks would have frightened them off.
    I suddenly realized that the yard was quiet.
    I dropped into a low crouch and sniffed. There was an odd smell, one that made my eye itch. Kind of like medicine, but stronger. I poked just the tip of my nose inside the gate; the smell was stronger inside the back yard. Then I looked—cautiously—into the yard.
    I almost yelped when I saw Haley stretched out on the ground. For a heartbeat or two, I thought she was dead. Still in a crouch, I made my way over to her on clumsy human legs and touched a hand to her chest. She was still warm, still breathing. The strange medicine smell puffed from her nostrils with each breath she exhaled.
    Haley's eyelids were flickering. She let out a soft whine. I stroked her cheek as her eyes opened, and murmured to her to lie still. She looked confused, but unhurt. I was relieved by the thought that she was already recovering from the drug.
    I shot a glance at the house: nothing looked unusual there. Then at the garage. My hackles rose as I saw that the door was open. I couldn't tell, with my feeble human eyes, if anyone was inside. And so I changed, only remembering to tear off my clothes at the very last moment.
    The garage was empty. There was no sign of Jane. None of the furniture had been disturbed, and there were no signs of violence. Had it not been for Haley, lying drugged in the yard, I might have thought that Jane had simply woken up and wandered away. She was unlikely to have remembered where she was, and would have had no compelling reason to stay.
    No, someone had taken Jane away. His smell lingered in my doss like a bad spoor: a combination of sweat-damp wool fabric and musky cologne. He'd even left his mark in my toilet. I quickly covered its stench with my own