Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 113051 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113051 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
“And here we are at the end of our tour and the two most important places,” she says. She nods to the building on the left. “That’s the lab. You’ll find yourself in there once a week when Dr. Janet Wu is teaching. She’s our genomics lab manager.”
“Only once a week?” I ask. “I thought I would be spending day and night in there.”
Everly studies me for a moment. “For most students, the introduction to the lab is gradual,” she says carefully. “We have a lot of real work going on in there around the clock and our own way of doing things. I know you have plenty of lab experience, especially with eDNA and your project with Archaeorhizomycetes, which were fantastic findings, by the way. I can’t wait to discuss that in detail with you. But even so, we do things differently at the lodge. I have no doubt by the end of summer, you’ll be in there as often as I am.”
Though she punctuates her speech with a bright smile, I can’t help but feel a little disappointed. I needed this internship to lift me to the next level. The idea of working in the actual lab with this foundation, making a real difference, rubbing elbows with the technicians and doctors who were certified geniuses, would have meant I made it. It wasn’t enough for me to just earn my degree; I wanted to become something more than just another grad student.
This place was supposed to make me into something more.
And now that it looks like I won’t end up with a degree anytime soon, I need this more than ever.
“So then, what will I be doing here?” I ask, trying to hide the petulance from my voice. My Adderall is working overtime to keep my emotions in check.
“Plenty, don’t you worry,” she says, pointing at the other building. “That’s the learning center. You’ll have your morning class in there with Professor Kincaid or Professor Tilden. Your afternoons will be spent out on foraging expeditions.”
“Foraging expeditions? To find more of your fungi?”
“Well, yes, that’s part of it,” she says reproachfully, and I realize I’m being too brash. “We have tried to grow the specimen in the propagation lab, but it doesn’t seem to thrive. But you’re not glorified mushroom foragers, if that’s what you’re worried about. You’re searching for the next big thing, whatever that might be. The Brooks Peninsula is just at our doorstep, a piece of land as wild and untamed and unexplored as anything on this earth. The peaks there are untouched by the last ice age, with flora and fauna and fungi that don’t exist anywhere else and have yet to be discovered.”
“Is that how you discovered your fungus?”
“Amanita excandesco,” she says.
It takes me a moment. “Is that the official name?”
She nods, and I do a quick Latin translation in my head. “Excandesco. So it glows? Is it luminescent?”
Her smile is coy now. “You will find out in time. How about we introduce you to the rest of the students.” She puts a light hand on my shoulder and gestures to the door of the learning center.
I dig my heels in. The last thing I want is to be introduced to the rest of the students like it’s the first fucking day of kindergarten. I was already a late arrival to begin with; surely they’re done with class by now.
“It’s alright, Sydney,” Everly says. She presses a little harder in an effort to move me forward. “They’re just your fellow grad students. They don’t bite. Although there is one bad apple every season, isn’t there?”
Just as long as it’s not me, I think. I take in a deep breath. My social anxiety may be at an all-time high, my palms clammy, my heart thudding in my throat, but I can’t let that hold me back in front of her. I just have to suck in the embarrassment.
She guides me to the door and opens it for me, ushering me inside.
The room is far more casual than I thought it would be. I was expecting to step into a lecture hall, but this has more of a meditation retreat vibe. There’s a desk and a whiteboard, with a man dressed in a red flannel, holding a marker, standing in front of it, longish blond hair tucked behind his ears. I take it he’s the professor, but he looks more like a thirty-something surfer. The ultimate guru.
In front of him are the students, some sitting at a couple of long tables, others sitting on giant pillows on the hardwood floor that’s been piled high with various rugs. At the back, logs burn and crackle on the hearth, warmth filling the room. I quickly count ten students and notice Amani isn’t among them. I guess I’m not the last after all.