found that Cthylla fans had left a massive pile of roses and lilies outside the front gate.
*
Kamerynne met with her parents’ lawyer after the funeral.
“It seems your parents made some changes to their will that I was unaware of and would have advised against,” he said gravely. “But nonetheless the alterations are legitimate and legal.”
“What changes?” she asked. She’d had a hard time feeling anything but numb since the phone call. Her parents’ bodies were too badly damaged for an open casket funeral, and so their deaths still felt unreal.
“Your father and mother have both left 80% and 90%, respectively, of their money to the Messina Strait Foundation.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a religious organization, one that your mother was apparently involved with most of her adult life. According to the notarized letter she left behind, she apparently joined it either before or during her work on Cthylla , and your father became involved recently. It’s news to me, too,” he added, apparently reading the confusion on her face.
“What does the foundation do?”
“They offer spiritual retreats and workshops. Past that, I’m honestly not sure, except that now they have a great deal of money with which to do it.”
Kamerynne couldn’t help Nat or anyone else without money. And if she couldn’t help...what good was she?
“Am I broke?” She immediately hated how much her question made her sound like a little girl.
“Oh, no, don’t worry...you still have your parents’ house, and they left you a trust fund that should enable you to maintain the house and pay for your college and personal upkeep indefinitely. You should be able to live comfortably without having to work unless you want to.”
“I do want to work,” she said. “I want to be...worthwhile.”
*
She and Nat both started their freshman years at UCLA the next year. They left Olga to take care of her parents’ house and they split a dorm room on campus. Nat majored in art, of course, and Kamerynne tentatively settled on journalism; she wasn’t sure she wanted to try coding games, but writing about them for magazines seemed fun. And if she majored in English she knew she’d have to write a bunch of papers on a bunch of old books that had bored her half to death the first time her father made her read them.
The week before midterms, two events changed Kamerynne’s life forever.
The first was that she attended a guest lecture offered by a visiting investigative journalist from The New York Times .
“There’s always a paper trail,” the journalist told them. “Every thought that every person physically writes down or sends through an email is recorded somewhere. Every communication leaves a ghost behind. If you jot down a note on a piece of paper resting on a phone book, and then you tear up that paper, guess what? The imprint of your pen marks are on the cover of the phone book. A good investigator can find that and read that. If you send an email, even if you and your recipient delete it? That message has traveled through a dozen routers, and that email can be packet sniffed or recorded. There’s always a paper trail, even if it isn’t paper.”
Kamerynne sat up straighter in her seat. Bloody Mary didn’t have to be spoken aloud anymore to summon her spectre, it seemed.
She was still mulling over palimpsests and packet sniffers when she arrived back at their dorm room. “Paint it Black” was blasting on the stereo, and Nat was unconscious on the floor, barely breathing in a puddle of pill-spotted vomit.
*
Kamerynne spent five long hours by Nat’s side at the ER. Nat regained consciousness briefly and started wailing and trying to pull out her nasogastric tube and IV. The doctors had to sedate her and told Kamerynne it was best if she went home.
So she went back to the dorm room; the janitorial staff had cleaned up the vomit in her absence, but the air in the room had a sour chemical smell. Kamerynne sat on
*
Kamerynne met with her parents’ lawyer after the funeral.
“It seems your parents made some changes to their will that I was unaware of and would have advised against,” he said gravely. “But nonetheless the alterations are legitimate and legal.”
“What changes?” she asked. She’d had a hard time feeling anything but numb since the phone call. Her parents’ bodies were too badly damaged for an open casket funeral, and so their deaths still felt unreal.
“Your father and mother have both left 80% and 90%, respectively, of their money to the Messina Strait Foundation.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a religious organization, one that your mother was apparently involved with most of her adult life. According to the notarized letter she left behind, she apparently joined it either before or during her work on Cthylla , and your father became involved recently. It’s news to me, too,” he added, apparently reading the confusion on her face.
“What does the foundation do?”
“They offer spiritual retreats and workshops. Past that, I’m honestly not sure, except that now they have a great deal of money with which to do it.”
Kamerynne couldn’t help Nat or anyone else without money. And if she couldn’t help...what good was she?
“Am I broke?” She immediately hated how much her question made her sound like a little girl.
“Oh, no, don’t worry...you still have your parents’ house, and they left you a trust fund that should enable you to maintain the house and pay for your college and personal upkeep indefinitely. You should be able to live comfortably without having to work unless you want to.”
“I do want to work,” she said. “I want to be...worthwhile.”
*
She and Nat both started their freshman years at UCLA the next year. They left Olga to take care of her parents’ house and they split a dorm room on campus. Nat majored in art, of course, and Kamerynne tentatively settled on journalism; she wasn’t sure she wanted to try coding games, but writing about them for magazines seemed fun. And if she majored in English she knew she’d have to write a bunch of papers on a bunch of old books that had bored her half to death the first time her father made her read them.
The week before midterms, two events changed Kamerynne’s life forever.
The first was that she attended a guest lecture offered by a visiting investigative journalist from The New York Times .
“There’s always a paper trail,” the journalist told them. “Every thought that every person physically writes down or sends through an email is recorded somewhere. Every communication leaves a ghost behind. If you jot down a note on a piece of paper resting on a phone book, and then you tear up that paper, guess what? The imprint of your pen marks are on the cover of the phone book. A good investigator can find that and read that. If you send an email, even if you and your recipient delete it? That message has traveled through a dozen routers, and that email can be packet sniffed or recorded. There’s always a paper trail, even if it isn’t paper.”
Kamerynne sat up straighter in her seat. Bloody Mary didn’t have to be spoken aloud anymore to summon her spectre, it seemed.
She was still mulling over palimpsests and packet sniffers when she arrived back at their dorm room. “Paint it Black” was blasting on the stereo, and Nat was unconscious on the floor, barely breathing in a puddle of pill-spotted vomit.
*
Kamerynne spent five long hours by Nat’s side at the ER. Nat regained consciousness briefly and started wailing and trying to pull out her nasogastric tube and IV. The doctors had to sedate her and told Kamerynne it was best if she went home.
So she went back to the dorm room; the janitorial staff had cleaned up the vomit in her absence, but the air in the room had a sour chemical smell. Kamerynne sat on
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