Lucid Design Read online

  Contents

  Lucid Design

  Copyright

  Acknowledgements

  Dedication

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  About the Author

  Oghma Creative Media

  Bentonville, Arkansas • Los Angeles, California

  www.oghmacreative.com

  Copyright © 2020 by The Designed, LLC

  We are a strong supporter of copyright. Copyright represents creativity, diversity, and free speech, and provides the very foundation from which culture is built. We appreciate you buying the authorized edition of this book and for complying with applicable copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. Thank you for supporting our writers and allowing us to continue publishing their books.

  Names: Tailor, Kate, author

  Title: Lucid Design/Kate Tailor | Designed #1

  Description:First Edition | Bentonville: Fife, 2020

  Identifiers: LCCN: 2019946954 | ISBN: 978-1-63373-542-2 (hardcover) |

  ISBN: 978-1-63373-543-9 (trade paperback) | ISBN: 978-1-63373-544-6 (eBook)

  BISAC: YOUNG ADULT FICTION/Science Fiction |

  YOUNG ADULT FICTION/Loners & Outcasts |

  YOUNG ADULT FICTION/Action & Adventure

  LC record available at: https://lccn.loc.gov/2019946954

  Fife Press eBook edition February, 2020

  Cover & Interior Design by Casey W. Cowan

  Editing by Gordon Bonnet, Linda Knight & Amy Cowan

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published by Fleet Press, an imprint of The Oghma Press, a subsidiary of The Oghma Book Group.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  THIS BOOK IS possible because of a group of speculators, an accountant, a podiatrist, a Belgian, a set of crazy aunts and their husbands, two lovable children, a father, a missed mother, an extra mother, and a great group of Oghmaniacs.

  To my only slightly evil twin.

  1

  PAIN PULSED THROUGH Raleigh’s leg with each beat of her heart, startling her back to consciousness. Asphalt bit into her cheek, and her metal bike-frame tethered her to the ground. The metallic odor of dirt and mud overtook the lingering smell of morning dew. She’d blacked out, again, the fourth time this week.

  It wasn’t her first episode on a bike, there was a reason she’d never been handed the keys to the car, but it was the first time she’d awoken on this stretch of path. A creek rushed in the distance, and a cement underpass lay ahead. It came back to her, she’d been on her way home from Emily’s house.

  She had to get up. Her leg covered in warm blood was the worst of the wounds. If the accident was bad enough, her mother would use this as more reason to have her stay home. Raleigh couldn’t let a scratch hold her back, couldn’t let the blackouts hold her back. Not anymore.

  “Are you all right?” A man in cycling shorts stopped his bike and crouched down near her. His hands opened in a gesture of help, but his face held the open-mouthed expression of not knowing what to do.

  “Fine.” She caught her reflection in his wrap-around sunglasses. Her hair poked out of her helmet.

  “That was a bad fall. Is there something I can do?”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “Your leg.” The man pointed to her calf.

  Raleigh winced as she shoved the bike to the side and got a look at her left leg, or at least tried to look at it. Blood ran down her skin, dripping onto the concrete and staining it red. A deep cut, but still just a cut. Not a broken bone or a concussion. This scar would add to the collection she already had going. The bruises from two days ago were a deep purple.

  Home was a thirty-minute ride away. Not that she’d be riding in this condition. Closing her eyes, she mapped out the city behind her eyelids. There should be a hospital a few blocks away.

  The man had his phone out. “I’ll call an ambulance.”

  “No, don’t. It’s not that bad. I’m fine. You can go.” Raleigh grabbed her sleepover clothes from her pack. She compressed the nightshirt over the cut, gritting her teeth through the pain. Then she tied the two arms together. It worked just well enough to stop the bleeding, or at least mask it.

  She lifted her bike up and limped in the direction of the hospital. He pocketed his phone, and after another head-to-toe glance, picked up his own bike, mounted in one fluid motion, and was off.

  With him gone she had no reason to appear strong. She crumpled against the bike, a painful wheeze strangling in her throat. She hurt, but at least her bike wasn’t broken, and neither was she. This wasn’t her first fall. The most important thing was to get back up again, not stay down. Her condition could only defeat her if she let it, and today was not that day.

  Ten minutes later she’d dragged herself the four blocks to the hospital. It would be another Sunday morning spent in the emergency room. The automatic doors opened for Raleigh, and the tart odor of disinfectant stung her nose. She wobbled in, the gash on her left leg seeping with each step. The shirt no longer masked the blood, only sopped it up. With only a few open seats in the waiting area, she wouldn’t be getting out of here anytime soon.

  Second in line, Raleigh waited behind a family with an infant. His wails cut the air, and she instinctually gripped her ears, the blood from her hand wetting her hair before she could think better of it. Over the mother’s shoulder peeked a beet-red face, but it was more than a fever. Raleigh sensed the blood throbbing painfully through each ear. Every scream threated to pierce the inflamed eardrums. Raleigh clenched her teeth, trying to ignore his pain, wishing she could block him out. Instead she waited uncomfortably until they stepped away, and the distance eased the intensity.

  The receptionist peered over her desk, frowning at the trail of blood Raleigh left in her wake. “I need a mop,” she called over her shoulder. Then, to Raleigh, “Have you been here before?”

  “Once a few years ago, I should be in your system.” A fair bet, Raleigh was in all of them. “My name is Raleigh Groves.”

  “Are your parents here?”

  “I’m eighteen.”

  “Then take these forms, fill them out, and we’ll get to you as soon as we can.” She handed Raleigh a towel then craned her neck to speak around her. “Next in line.”

  Raleigh winced to the side as a man with a mop appeared. Reaching down, she pressed the soft white cotton on top of her dirtied shirt. The only open seat in the room was beside a woman wearing a mask and gripping her stomach.

  “I might have the stomach flu,” the woman warned.

  Raleigh needed to rest her leg and took the seat anyway. Her own stomach turned as she sensed a wave of nausea roll through the woman. That wasn’t the flu. A tiny heartbeat fluttered away low in the woman’s abdomen. The fetus couldn’t have been more than eight weeks old. His kicks were too light to bother his mother, but he was human enough for Raleigh to sense. Obviously, the woman didn’t know, and Raleigh didn’t want to risk her secret by telling.

&nb
sp; After returning the form to the receptionist, she sat and waited. She let the stinging pain of her leg distract her from the infant’s ears and the woman’s nausea and the rest of the ailments in the waiting room. Then an older couple entered, and she fought the urge to grab her head. The older man’s head felt as though it were cleaved in two.

  “Donna, let’s go back, it’s too busy. I’ll take another aspirin,” the old man said. His wife ignored him and spoke to the receptionist.

  How could he think with pain that bad? His left hand moved toward the bridge of his nose as if he had to feel his way. Funny, he was usually right-handed.

  He was having a stroke.

  The man took a seat in the corner with his wife. Raleigh couldn’t stay silent about this. “Excuse me, this man is having a stroke!” She used the tone of voice her uncle Patrick, a physician, used. No one moved, instead a hush fell over the room. “Look, he’s favoring his left side.”

  The receptionist moved quickly from behind the desk, her white sneakers squeaking on the clean floor. She crouched down to his level and studied his eyes. “Get the nurses, his pupils aren’t the same size.”

  Raleigh crept back to her seat, careful to keep out of the way as a pair of nurses rushed over with a wheelchair. They loaded him up and moved quickly through the heavy doors to the exam rooms. The attention of the room went with them. Only the receptionist kept her eyes on Raleigh. “You’re an observant girl,” she said as she walked back to her desk.

  Raleigh shrugged. Hopefully no other urgent problems walked through the door. Catching one ailment could be overlooked, but two would draw suspicion. Not that those suspicions ever went anywhere. She’d referred a great number of people to Uncle Patrick and his colleagues. Always grateful, the physicians had come to trust her, despite no one knowing how her ability worked. Raleigh held a place alongside unexplained medical phenomena like dogs who smelled cancer.

  Eventually, a nurse dressed in panda bear scrubs escorted her through the double doors to a wide hallway flanked by exam rooms. “It says here you fell off your bike?” The nurse flipped through her questionnaire.

  “Yeah.”

  “Was a car involved?”

  Raleigh took a deep breath. “No car. I blacked out.”

  “Fainted? Please step onto the scale.”

  She didn’t bother slipping out of her shoes. “It happens all the time.”

  “Did you eat breakfast this morning?”

  Thankfully the nurse didn’t immediately try to tease out if she was doing drugs. “Yes. It happens a lot. I just need a few stitches.” These questions weren’t necessary, all she wanted was to be fixed up and on her way.

  “Have you been to see a doctor about it?” The nurse led Raleigh into an exam room with a bed on wheels. Cries and talking echoed through the glass wall. The curtains didn’t keep out the shadows of the other patients walking to their rooms.

  Raleigh sat down on the solitary bed, the plastic lining under the sheets crumpling under her movement. “Many. I’m only here for the shin.”

  “Okay. Doctor Ng will be in to see you shortly.”

  Dr. Ng entered before the nurse finished saying his name. He grabbed a pair of gloves, and the nurse stood in the doorway ready to help.

  “She fell off her bike,” the nurse said. “Blacked out.”

  Dr. Ng sat on the stool and slid over to Raleigh. Delicately, he unwrapped her leg revealing the peeled back skin and cut that had begun to clot. “Good idea, using the shirt. This looks pretty deep. You’ll need stitches, but you knew that, and that’s why you’re here.”

  He pulled a small tray over, and the nurse handed him some thread. The disinfectant stung as he cleaned the cut.

  “What caused the blackout?”

  “No one knows. But I get a few a week. I wear protective pads when I cycle, but every now and then I fall on something sharp. I’m not sure what cut me this time. When I woke up on the bike path, I wasn’t far from your hospital, so I walked.”

  “Brave girl,” Dr. Ng said.

  There were two types of doctors. The first didn’t want to delve into her problems, and the second liked the challenge of her mystery illness. Dr. Ng’s face grew contemplative, and she feared he was more of the latter.

  “Have you been tested by a neurologist?” he asked, as if he was the first to consider it.

  “Lots. It’s not seizures or anything with the vasomotor system.”

  “Big word for an eighteen-year-old. Is it hormonal?”

  “We don’t know what it is. It started when I was seven, before puberty. So, they don’t think it’s that. And it’s not cancer, before you ask.”

  “I don’t normally ask that. I’d presume that you would’ve mentioned it on your form... if you knew you had cancer.”

  “I’m one of those medical mysteries.”

  “You know, I’ve heard about a girl around your age who’s supposed to solve those.”

  She fought the urge to shift in her seat. For a moment she wondered if he knew, but his smile indicated it was an off-the-cuff comment. He, like many doctors in the area, had probably just heard of her in passing. Most of them didn’t put too much stock in her legend, unless they saw her at work. Ironically, she could diagnose everyone else’s illnesses, but not her own.

  “All done.” Dr. Ng patted her good knee. “You’re good to go. Hope they find out what’s causing those blackouts.”

  “Me, too.” She wondered if he was going to offer her a sucker.

  The nurse told her to stay put for a moment and came back with a printout of what they’d done, when to follow up with her primary, and a little information on scar care. Raleigh thanked her and was on her way.

  —

  “I’VE BEEN WORRIED about you,” Raleigh’s mother, Beth, said at the sound of the mudroom door opening.

  This didn’t come as a surprise. Her mother constantly worried, and with Raleigh’s condition, she was a good candidate for that concern. Raleigh put down her helmet and pads, then stood in the mudroom for a few moments readying herself before heading into the kitchen.

  “I tried calling your phone.” Beth stood near the stove, her doughy hands on her hips. A yeasty odor lingered in the air. When she was stressed, Beth baked. Currently the countertops were overrun with cookies and breads.

  “The screen broke, so I couldn’t answer it.”

  “Did you fall again?” Beth inspected her daughter, homing in on her shin. “When did you get that?”

  “This morning, on the way home from Emily’s house.”

  “I told you she lived too far away for you to ride your bike.”

  “It’s a forty-minute bike ride... usually.”

  “Emily should have driven you.”

  Raleigh sighed. “I could just as easily have fallen a few blocks away. The distance has nothing to do with it.”

  Raleigh’s dad stepped into the kitchen and headed straight for the coffee pot. “Raleigh, you’re home. See, Beth? I told you she was fine.”

  “Theodore, she has been to the ER.”

  Theo swept his eyes over his daughter. “At least it’s not her head. You were wearing your helmet?”

  Of course, she’d worn her helmet, and the pads, and the ugly reflective jacket so people could spot her better. She bit down the snarky comment that burned in her chest. Over the years she’d given them too much grief. “I wore my helmet.”

  “Mail came for you yesterday.” He handed her a packet off the counter. “It looks important.”

  The seal of the University of Colorado adorned the corner of the thick white envelope. So far, she’d managed to intercept all university-mail before her parents saw it, which meant stopping at home before going to after-school activities. She didn’t expect the registration packet for another week. How often were people ahead of schedule? Better yet, how often did it ruin everything?

  “What is it?” Her mother reached out her hand.

  Raleigh grabbed the envelope before her mother could tak
e it. She had a speech prepared to tell her parents. One that she’d been revising since last December when she’d been accepted. The timing was never right. Of all the moments though, this seemed the worst. The thick envelope weighted heavy on her hand and conscience. She had to come clean. “I’ve been accepted to the university.”

  Her father smiled, and her mother said, “Online university! I’m so glad you decided that’s best.”

  “No. University, university, in Boulder. I want to become a doctor, and the best way to do that is by taking pre-med classes there.”

  Her mother’s face fell slack. While her mother stood at a loss for words, Raleigh indulged in what this scene would look like in a normal household, or hers if she were a normal girl. The college-bound child announcing to their parents that they’d been accepted and given a full scholarship. A scholarship earned with a 4.0 GPA. After the announcement, they’d pick out duvet covers for the extra-long twin bed in the dorm room. There might be some fussing over the class schedule but nothing troubling. One thing was for sure, there’d be smiles and congratulations. Unfortunately, Raleigh wasn’t that girl.

  Her father clasped her shoulder. “Congratulations, Raleigh.” The small statement aligned him with her against her mother. Raleigh’s father might’ve been the lawyer in the family, but her mother was far better at debating. She also usually got her way, at least when it came to Raleigh.

  Her mother’s brow furrowed, and Raleigh could imagine the arguments brewing. The frustration on her mother’s face gave way to confidence and a bit of a warm mother-knows-best smile. “Honey, we haven’t budgeted the money for college. Don’t forget I just opened the flower shop. You’ll dig yourself into debt. And with your health situation, you might never be able to work it off.”

  “I earned a full scholarship.”

  Her father let out his breath, and she could feel his chest loosen. It occurred to Raleigh that he may’ve scraped together the funds and gone against her mother. Now he didn’t have to spend the money.