If She Wakes

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Nineteen minutes before her brain and her body parted ways, Tara Beckley’s concern was the cold.

First night of October, but as the sun set and the wind picked up, it felt like midwinter, and Tara could see her breath fogging the air. That would have been crisp New England charm on another night, but not this one, when she wore only a thin sweater over a summer-weight dress. Granted, she hadn’t expected to be standing in the cold, but she had a commitment to deliver one Professor Amandi Oltamu from dinner to his keynote presentation, and the professor was pacing the parking lot of the restaurant they’d just left, alternately staring into the darkness and playing with his phone.

Tara tried to stay patient, shivering in that North Atlantic night wind that swept leaves off the trees. She needed to get moving, and not just because of the cold. Oltamu had to arrive at 7:45, and precisely 7:45, because the Hammel College conference was coordinated by a pleasant woman named Christine whose eyes turned into dark daggers if the schedule went awry. And Professor Oltamu — sorry, Dr. Oltamu, he was one of those prigs who insisted on the title even though he wasn’t a medical doctor, just another PhD — occupied the very first position in the program of Christine with the Dagger Eyes, and thus he was worthy of more daggers. It was, after all, opening night of the whole silly academic show.

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