Downloaded from YTS.MX
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX
Even lost souls have a place.
Phellinus linteus.
That's the species.
Grows on mulberry trees.
Tastes like cow manure, cures cancer.
Well, that's not entirely true.
Some evidence suggests that
polysaccharides isolated from the mushrooms
inhibit the tumor growth by stimulating proliferation
of the t lymphocytes and immune function.
If you tell me what you want with these things
I could probably give you some more information.
Hey, you up for a trade?
I got some...
Trail mix.
I've been looking for those mushrooms all day,
but now I know why I haven't been able to find them.
Here.
Eileen.
I brought you a new friend,
Rocco.
Rocco, meet Eileen.
Hello Eileen, you're looking good.
All right, I'll leave you two.
Get to know each other a little bit.
Huh.
Hmm.
You're mad at me Eileen.
I get it.
I haven't been giving you much love.
No love at all.
I've been spending a little too much time
in my own little world,
while you've been drying up.
Withering away in some dark corner of the universe.
Cold, alone and mute.
I'm sorry.
I'm gonna make it up to you, I promise.
Hello.
Dr. Mercer.
- Yes. - It's Alicia Freedman.
How are you doing?
Dr. Freedman.
It's nice to hear from you, it's been too long.
How's your post-doc going?
Not bad, all things considered.
Cornell is not a rough place to do a post-doc
from what I hear.
My latest study got accepted into nature.
So that's something at least.
Something?
That's absolutely fantastic.
What was the study?
I looked at the impact
of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi on nitrogen cycling
in various ecosystems.
Wow, you're gonna be the lab's golden child.
I'm sure Richard will get his ro1 renewed a few times over
with a nature publication.
Thank you.
Well, send me your paper, I'd love to read it.
Hot off the press, will do.
Following in your footsteps.
Ha! I wish. You're leaving me in the dust.
No way.
You're a brilliant scientist.
What can I do for you, Alicia?
I know you prefer to avoid academia
and all of its pretentious trappings these days,
can you write me a letter of recommendation for the k award?
Well, normally i'd,
I'd avoid any remnants of that whole grotesque world,
but you were a fantastic student
and you definitely deserve a k award more than anyone.
So for you,
this once, yes.
I would be so grateful.
- Yes I'll do it. - Thank you so much.
When's the deadline?
In two weeks, I'll send you the form.
Perfect.
Send it over.
Listen, have a great day and congratulations.
- Have a great day- - it's all right.
Thanks again.
Hey, who's there?
Hey.
What are you doing here, kid?
I don't mean any harm.
I'm not arguing with you, what are you doing here?
I brought you back your bowl, your fork too.
Well, couldn't this wait 'till daylight?
Probably.
I, I was wondering if you had any more of that food.
Don't you have a home?
All right, come on in.
What's your name?
Elvis.
After Elvis Presley?
No,
after Elvis costello.
Your mama name you after Elvis costello?
Mm-mm.
Nope, she died the day I was born.
I'm sorry to hear that.
I never knew her.
Well, why did you get named after Elvis costello?
My daddy, the night mama died,
he held me in his arms in the hospital
and he played an Elvis costello song over and over
while his tears fell down my baby face.
What was the song?
It was called "I want you"
from the album "blood and chocolate".
That's a really sad story.
My daddy says the snow was falling outside the window,
and when the clock struck midnight
he knew that my name was Elvis.
Is your daddy still alive?
Yes, but why do you wanna know?
Well, he must be wondering where you are.
I'm not going home
if that's what you're getting at,
for a whole series of reasons.
You can't live in the woods, you know.
Says who?
Well, I got a spare bedroom, you can stay there tonight.
But we gotta get you to a real home tomorrow.
What does real home even mean?
I haven't been around children or family for a long time.
It's been about 40 or 50 years since I was even part of one.
So you're not really the best one to ask, are you?
You got a lot of weird stuff in your kitchen,
I mean, compared to other people's kitchens, no offense.
I have no idea what other people have in their kitchen.
So what do you do with all these mushrooms
I saw you hunting?
I use them for my old man aches.
Are you like a wizard or something?
Exactly.
Or more specifically a retired botanist
with rheumatoid arthritis.
Sounds spooky.
I studied fungi in my lab for many years,
extracting various components to treat diseases.
What kinds of diseases?
Viruses, cancer, diabetes, for starters.
So you put the mushrooms in a cauldron
and then you don't get cancer?
I study medicinal chemistry methods,
extracting certain molecules
that reduce the inflammation in my joints.
Does it work?
It helps, but my methods are rudimentary.
I mean, I think I was a lot better off
when I had all that fancy machinery back at my lab.
I think it's reducing the swell, but over time.
Hmm, why don't you just go to the doctor?
I do when I have to,
but I hate modern medicine.
Every time they give me advice,
my rheumatoid arthritis gets better,
but then I get 20 other problems.
You sound like my dad.
What's wrong with your dad?
He becomes one with the alien sometimes.
One with the alien?
Well,
it's like an alien takes over his earthly body
to alert the world of impending doom, something like that.
Sounds like he's got schizophrenia.
That's what the doctors call it.
They say the alien isn't real,
and that my daddy needs a lot of medicine.
Hmm.
Well, maybe they're just trying to protect him and you.
Or maybe they're worried
that the alien is gonna make him do something-
- crazy?
Can I come mushroom hunting with you?
Today?
Well, aren't you going?
Yeah, I'm going.
You wanna come?
You can come along.
Here,
come around here.
Yeah, I can see it.
- Right there. - Mm-hm.
Hey, see this.
Looks like charcoal, right?
It's called inonotus obliquus, otherwise known as chaga.
It looks ugly, but it's been used for hundreds,
maybe even thousands of years by different cultures.
They say it has medicinal qualities,
that it can heal a sick birch tree where it lives.
Take a look at the inside of it.
It's almost orange.
Yeah.
I mean, you could use it as a dye,
but I think that's wasteful.
You know, when you harvest these things,
you have to make sure that you only take half of it
off the tree,
otherwise you can hurt the tree,
and you can come back for more in a couple of years.
The earth has all these amazing organisms,
if we take care of them, they'll take care of us.
How does this one take care of us?
Well,
might fight certain kinds of cancer.
There's plenty of evidence that what chaga actually does
is up-regulate the expression of pro-apoptotic proteins
in cancer cells.
Basically it stops the growth of tumors.
Russians have known this for years
and other therapeutic reasons as well.
I care about it because of it's anti-inflammatory medicine.
My joints, they swell up
and after a while they can get damaged
so my immune system is a piece of crap, pardon my Latin.
So do you eat it like an apple?
I don't, others might.
I use a double extraction tincture method.
What I do is I grind up the chaga into a powder,
I add some alcohol,
and I shake it up a couple of times a day
for a couple of months,
and then I do a bunch of other steps,
but I'm not gonna bore you with those.
Plants are pretty cool, huh?
Ah, fungi actually aren't plants, they're...
They were classified that way because they didn't move.
And back in the late '60s, early 70s,
a guy named Robert whittaker,
he proposed they get their own kingdom.
They're actually more like us
than they are plants by the way.
They don't look much like us.
Yeah, nothing much looks like me.
You know, when I was your age,
I used to gather up mushrooms
and bring them to the back porch for my mother.
I used to think they were the most bizarre,
beautiful structures I'd ever seen.
She would cook 'em up and serve 'em to my dad
after he came home
from working long hours in the coal mines.
One of his favorites was laetiporus sulphureus,
better known as chicken of the woods.
If you eat it, so it tastes like chicken?
Yeah, kind of.
But there's also hen of the woods,
that tastes a lot better.
Mushrooms are bad-ass little organisms, if you ask me.
I knew you had some cool backstory to you.
When you left me that lunch on the rock a few days ago,
I knew that you were solid.
I don't know how solid I am,
but I try to follow my internal compass.
What's that?
You know, just try to do the right thing.
Thought you might need some help.
What do you normally eat at your house?
It depends.
If my dad's home he'll make me
one of those dinners from the freezer.
TV dinner?
Hm.
Like Salisbury steak with potatoes on the side.
What does your dad do for a living?
He works in a factory stacking lumber,
but that's not his passion.
What's his passion?
Music, he plays the guitar and he's good at it too,
but every time he doesn't take his medicine,
he, he can't go to work or play the guitar.
I always end up in some foster home
and the last one I was in was real bad.
Do you have any aunts or uncles?
Yeah, but they're in jail.
What for?
I don't know, drugs, maybe.
That's really sad.
Sounds like you had a rough go of it.
Well, I'm having a picnic with a retired botanists,
and I'm learning new things.
So I can't complain at this very second.
Don't you think your school will be missing you
and come looking for you?
I don't know, maybe.
Missing school is not a great idea, Elvis,
I'm just saying.
Education is the key.
To what?
You know, a lot of people drop out of school
because they don't have a choice.
They struggle to pay their bills,
they ended up taking jobs that endanger their lives,
or they turn to crime and end up in jail.
I mean,
I'm not trying to sound like a public service announcement,
but that's the way it happens.
It's a cycle, you know.
Then their kids have nothing to look up to
and they have no hope.
You have to be the one to break the cycle.
Did you break the cycle?
My dad died of lung disease
from working in the mines for many years.
My mom and I stood over his grave when I was 17.
She told me, "you can't die like your daddy did.
You're all I got left."
So you have a phd
and that's why you're not dead right now?
No, it's not that simple.
Yeah, I got a phd in botany,
and, you know, I ran a good lab for many years.
But you still have some weird disease.
Your phd can't do anything about that.
True, but my disease is not based on my life choices,
at least not that I know of.
You can't live in an abandoned school bus, you know,
that's, that's not a great solution.
What do you know about that bus?
I saw you run into it a couple of days ago
when you were following me through the woods.
You know the history of that park?
Of what park?
Lake shawnee.
You know the history of lake shawnee?
Well, it's an abandoned amusement park
that was built in the 1920s
over what they think is native American burial grounds.
A little girl was playing on the swings and she died
in the '60s,
so they shut the whole place down.
Why would they take that land from the native Americans
in the first place?
The English settlers,
they took it from the native Americans.
And lore has it that there was a turf war in that area
in the 1700s.
Ah, they shouldn't have fought over that land.
They should've come up with something peaceful.
Agreed.
Violence in and of itself is not the answer to anything.
That's my whole point.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
Well.
How do you like the picnic?
- Yes. - Jack?
Who's this?
Ah this is Michael Mercer.
- How are you? - Dr. Mercer, how are things?
Long time, no speak.
All is going well.
Are you still working at that same lab you told me about
the last time we spoke?
New lab, c. Elegans.
Yes, pretty good model organism.
Well, i'm pouring plates every day,
so nothing too exciting.
Smelly yellow jello, I call it.
Well, that's something to be proud of.
The scientists like me though.
I have a question for you.
Shoot.
Is your brother still working at the police department?
Yep, he's still a cop.
Can you ask him to look into something for me?
Sure, what is it?
A runaway kid has been living in the woods near my house.
He needed food and he need shelter,
so I took him in and I gave him some food,
but he refused to go home
and he wouldn't give me his last name.
Tough one.
Apparently he keeps ending up in foster care.
His dad is ill.
Look, I wanna help him,
but I don't want him missing school
and I definitely don't want his father being worried
about him.
And on the other hand,
I don't wanna turn him in to the police station
because it sounds like he's been through hell and back.
I don't know what I would do either.
But can you,
can you ask your brother if there's been a missing kid
with the first name Elvis in morgantown?
I'll call my brother and buzz you back.
You know, maybe give him a little of his back story.
No problem, will do.
Terrific, thanks Jack.
Rise and shine.
What time is it?
Time for school.
Is that a joke?
Kinda.
Go brush your teeth, we're taking a drive.
Come on.
When you think of west Virginia, what do you think of?
Mountains, drugs and blue skies.
What else?
"Mountaineers are always free," that's the motto.
Yep, montani semper liberi.
Did you learn that at school?
Yeah, but don't ask me which,
'cause I ain't going back there right now.
If you could learn anything,
what would you wanna learn?
How to build bubble houses.
Bubble houses?
You know those igloo looking houses without windows?
They're the safest places you can live.
If a hurricane or tornado hits you in your bubble house
you'll be fine.
I didn't know that.
Doesn't really make sense
why people live in other kinds of houses.
Well, maybe they like windows or sunshine.
Maybe they don't like the way those things look.
Well, I think that's shallow.
Why would people choose looks over safety?
Hmm.
That's really a good point.
People are really into what things look like.
That's just gross, if you ask me.
What are we doing here?
You need some clothes.
You can't wear the same thing every day.
Who says?
I don't know,
the clothes police, who cares?
Here's the deal.
I don't know anything about kids much less kids' clothes.
So I'm gonna let you figure out what you want
and then I'm gonna pay for it.
What if I just want some candy,
can I keep the rest of the money?
No, this is your big moment to be responsible.
Sounds stressful.
I'll be waiting right here.
Don't worry, i'm not going anywhere.
What did you get?
Huh,
some shoes, shorts, socks, pants, pajamas.
That was fast.
I was scared you were gonna drive away.
Well, I'm still here.
Put on your seatbelt.
My father died 40 years ago today.
Do you think he's with god right now?
I don't really know.
I never much believed in god.
Believing in god
doesn't have anything to do with god, you know.
What do you mean?
Believing in god helps us.
If you don't have anyone to pray to
how can you have any hope?
I believe in science.
Science won't comfort you in the night
when you're cold and alone.
Hmm.
Maybe you're right.
My father was a good man.
He worked hard,
helped people.
You'll see him again.
You a fan of ice cream?
Yeah.
Do you always eat ice cream
after you go to the graveyard?
No, but I might start.
You know, death doesn't scare me.
Oh, really?
What does scare you?
Hm, going crazy.
Yeah, that would be a lot worse.
Your body just sees what it wants to see
and hears what it wants to hear
and does what it wants to do.
It's not fair.
Well, illness isn't fair.
Are you a fan of strawberry ice cream?
Not really.
Ms. Davis brought it to me from down the road.
She had some extra frozen strawberries
she needed to do something with.
Chocolate is way better.
I'll let her know.
Have you read "the hobbit"?
Never even heard of it.
Oh, you should give it a shot.
I have another book as well,
it's pretty good.
It's more of a kid's book.
It's about a guy who lives in a mushroom house.
My grad students gave it to me for a birthday gift.
Hey, did you,
did you brush your teeth?
Mm-hm, yeah.
Two minutes?
Five minutes.
Really?
All right, well, good night.
Mr. Mercer.
Yes, Elvis.
I can't read very well.
It's okay.
It's not a requirement.
You can just leave 'em on the nightstand
and I'll put 'em back tomorrow.
Can you read to me?
Can't sleep.
Sure.
You might not like "the hobbit",
it was written a long time ago.
I'm gonna read you
the one about the guy who lives in the mushroom house.
My students thought it was hilarious
when they gave it to me.
"Jasper Jenkins was a small, slim man,
with big feet and long skinny fingers.
He was jolly most of the time and had a wide grin
that brightened up the neighborhood whenever he would smile.
Jasper was the only man in town who lived inside a mushroom.
It had tiny windows
and he would sit beside them on rainy days
and watch the drops fall from the sky and hit the mud.
Ping, ping, ping.
The mushroom house on the outskirts of town
had everything Jasper needed.
He liked to bake cookies in the big, round oven,
and pass them out to the city kids on Saturday evenings.
He was everyone's favorite guy.
"He..."
Michael Mercer here.
Hi, Dr. Mercer, it's Jack.
Jack, hi.
Did you find out anything?
Are you sure his name's Elvis?
I guess I'm not that sure.
Any kids reported missing in the last couple of weeks?
Unfortunately not, no kids, doc.
That's helpful, thanks Jack.
Yeah, no, I have to think about what to do next.
Maybe you can get him to tell you his last name.
Yeah, I'll give it a shot and I'll give you a call back.
My brother says you can call him directly
- next time. - Thanks, Jack.
I'll text you his number.
You like the book?
Yeah, I like what parts of it I can understand.
Oh, the more you read, the easier it gets.
I'm also not that good at school.
You know you're very smart.
Maybe you're just not applying yourself.
It also helps if you go.
I gotta write a recommendation letter for a friend
so you can either keep reading that book
or I can put you to work doing some chores for me.
What kinds of chores?
You can either do some mushrooming
or you can rake the leaves.
Raking leaves isn't my thing,
I'd rather go mushrooming.
Okay.
I'll give you $5 for every chaga chunk you bring to me.
But no cheating.
You can't take the whole batch from the tree.
Deal?
- Sure. - Okay.
So what you're gonna look for,
remember, like the last time, is the charcoal.
It looks like charcoal,
it'll be on the side of the tree, okay.
So you can look up and you can look around the tree,
sometimes it will be at the roots as well, okay.
Good luck.
Hello.
Officer Bradley, it's Michael Mercer,
Jack's old employer.
I, I ran the lab where,
where he worked.
Ah, hi, Dr. Mercer.
I've heard great things about you.
Yeah, same to you.
Um, listen, thank you so much
for looking into the situation with the child.
I, I just found a math test with the boy's name on it.
Ah, his name is Jacob faulkner.
F-a-u-l-k-n-e-r.
Jacob faulkner?
I don't know if he made up the name Elvis
or if he just doesn't wanna go by any other name, but-
- Jacob faulkner.
Yeah, or he just doesn't wanna go home, yeah.
I can look into it.
Give me a day or two.
Yes, um, can you look into this?
I, I don't wanna...
I wanna help the boy,
but I also don't want his family to be worried about him
and i'm,
I'm just, I'm not sure what to do here.
Is the situation stable with the boy right now?
Yes, no, no,
he seems to be doing well, all things considered.
Yeah, I can look into it.
Well, thank you for your help, officer,
I really appreciate it.
Happy to help out.
I'll be in touch.
Have a great day.
Hey.
Hey, I left you those mushrooms on the front porch,
you can check them out later.
Oh, great, yeah, I will.
And maybe you can make a career of this.
Yeah, it's relaxing roaming the woods alone.
Did you come across any black bears?
No, and I sure hope I don't.
Have you ever come across any?
I have.
You just have to back away slowly, they won't bother you.
So this is what I want from those mushrooms.
It's ergosterol peroxide.
It's a steroid derivative that you can isolate.
It keeps your immune system from getting too active.
You see.
It looks like hieroglyphics actually.
Well, if you ever take organic chemistry
you'll have fun working problems
where you move different functional groups around
depending on various conditions like heat or pressure.
If you're anything like I was.
I used to throw my chemistry books around on Saturday nights
and I'd scream.
Well, that doesn't sound like a good time at all.
Hm.
I used to have dreams about reactions and wake up sweating.
Then one day it just clicked.
So why did you retire?
You don't seem old enough.
Couldn't get any grants anymore.
I mean, the university expected you
to find these funding sources
from all these different places.
And you know what?
If your grants expire and you don't get others, that's it.
You know, you have to sell yourself out
and study topics that don't interest you.
It's what the entities are funding at any given time.
You know, I ended up feeling like a used car salesman.
And science shouldn't be like that.
That's not why I got into it.
Do you miss it?
I miss it all the time, I miss my students.
Well, you do have lab up there in the mountains.
I mean, you're not that old, you could always just go back.
Yeah, who knows?
Anyway, I'm gonna turn in a little early tonight,
my old man bone aches are heating up a little bit.
Hey, wait.
You still owe me 20 bucks.
For what?
For those four chaga chunks that I brought you.
They look nasty, but they sure make me a little bit.
Okay.
A deal is a deal, yeah, 20 bucks it is.
Hmm, thanks.
- Mr. Mercer? - Yeah.
I mean it, thank you.
You're welcome.
I'm just gonna lay down and take a little rest for a bit.
- I'll feel better. - Mm-hm.
Huh.
Elvis?
I trusted you.
You stole my father's rings.
You called the police on me.
I'm trying to help you.
I heard you talking to that officer on the phone.
You told him my name and everything.
I trusted you.
I don't care about the money,
give me the goddamn rings back kid.
Good luck.
Please, come on.
I don't wanna go back to another foster home.
You were gonna have them take me away.
You lied to me about your name.
No, I didn't lie.
- Yes you did. - My name is Jacob,
my dad just calls me Elvis.
If you're not gonna take care of me,
then at least bring me to my dad.
He may be crazy, but he loves me.
Come on.
Is this your house?
It was.
I'm sorry, Elvis.
I wonder if daddy is dead.
We're gonna find out.
What are we doing here?
We need to do something drastic.
What do you mean drastic?
We're gonna buy some chocolate ice cream.
A lot of it.
We're gonna take that ice cream,
I'm gonna drive to the top of a mountain.
And as we look down at the world beneath us
and we see those tiny dots of rocks, creeks and trees,
we're gonna eat that ice cream.
We're gonna eat it until we can't move
and they will have to send a helicopter
to airlift us out with our big bellies out of the forest.
We will hear the sounds of the chopper blades
as they fly through the sky with god's breath
on our chocolate covered faces.
I thought you didn't believe in god.
I believe in god's breath and chocolate ice cream.
I hope my dad is okay.
I hope so too.
We'll find out.
I'm sorry I took your money and your rings.
I don't care about the money, the rings are important.
Will you forgive me?
Yep.
If my dad is dead will you take care of me?
Let's see if we can find your daddy first.
If we can't, will you take care of me?
I don't even know if I'm qualified.
What does that mean?
Well, I told you before,
I mean, I don't know anything about kids.
I had some college students, but that's been a while.
I probably wouldn't be all that hard.
I mean, if you know how to make meals and don't do drugs,
you're probably a better guardian than I've ever had.
Let's see if we can find your daddy first.
My daddy was going crazy when I ran away.
He said the house was filled with rival aliens
who wanted to capture him and take him back to some planet.
I tried to hand him his medicine,
but he knocked it out of my hand and said I was one of them.
I got real scared and ran into the woods.
No kid should have to deal with that.
Hmm.
Psst.
It's like my daddy isn't my daddy sometimes,
like he's a monster in a bad dream and I can't wake up.
Bad dreams are no fun, that's for sure,
especially when you can't wake up or change anything.
What kind of dreams do you have?
I dream about chemical reactions
and old girlfriends from decades ago,
you know, boring stuff.
What kind of dreams do you have
about things you wanna do with your life?
You mean daydreams, like aspirations?
Yeah, that kind.
I don't know.
I've done everything I had in mind.
I presented scientific findings around the world,
I took my mom to easter island before she died,
I spent my life moving science forward
and now I guess I just wanna feel less physical pain.
That's not a dream.
What do you daydream?
I told you, I wanna build a bubble house
like Wallace neff, but better.
His bubble houses got torn down after a while,
so I want mine to be indestructible.
Bubble houses won't even be able to go through them.
I also wanna plant a garden with lots of potatoes,
black-eyed Susans,
everything you would need
if things go horribly wrong in the world.
What do you think is gonna go horribly wrong in the world?
I don't know, but I wanna be ready, whatever it is.
I like your idea of a bubble house to protect you
when things go wrong in the world.
You know, you could come live there with me,
you could be old and need some shelter.
I appreciate the invitation.
You...
We could have a laboratory to make your mushroom medicine.
I'd have to teach you how to make everything.
That's fine, I don't mind learning how.
We could have...
We could be two mushroom scientists
living in a bubble house.
Or a mushroom house.
Like that book you're reading me?
Yeah, that you swiped.
I'll give it back.
You know, if my daddy is dead, I will be sad,
but I'll also be a little relieved
because then I could live with you
and I wouldn't be so worried all the time about everything.
I will love him, I will always love him,
but being worried all the time is not much fun.
I used to worry about my dad all the time too.
He used to cough all night most nights.
Can we go home?
Yeah.
I think I had too much.
Well, you can have some more.
No, done.
Just give me a minute.
Hello.
Dr. Mercer.
Yes.
This is officer Bradley.
Hi officer.
So I have some information for you
on Jacob faulkner.
Please go ahead.
Jacob faulkner is the son of Davis faulkner,
originally from wheeling, West Virginia.
The father is a 34 year old man
and he's been in and out of mental institutions
for the last 15 years.
He's now in the west Virginia state hospital
after burning down their house
on west sycamore two weeks ago.
Jacob was presumed to be dead.
So I'm relieved to find out that's not the case.
He's safe at the moment.
I'm so glad to hear it.
You can bring the boy into custody
and we'll work with child services to find him a home.
The child's mother died during his childbirth
and there are no relatives that don't have criminal records.
Is there any way I could foster the boy for now?
That's awful kind of you
to wanna help that child.
Sounds like it's been a hard life for him.
I'll need to send an officer there as well.
I understand.
Can we start that process?
Is the boy close by
so that I could speak with him to put it in my report?
Yes, he's a...
He's right next to me.
Elvis?
Hello.
Jacob?
Yes, sir.
So your father is okay,
but he's in the hospital right now.
He's sick.
He's sick a lot.
We're glad you're okay.
Do you wanna stay with Dr. Mercer right now?
I would like that.
We will need to send someone to speak with you
and visit Dr. Mercer's home.
We will need to fill out some paperwork
while we sort things out, there is a process.
Yeah, I understand.
Okay.
What school do you go to?
Lincoln heights elementary,
I haven't been in for a while though.
Okay.
Thank you for sharing that with me.
We'll figure out what to do next.
Go get some ice cream.
I already did.
Thank you for your help officer.
Anytime.
We will be reaching out shortly.
Let's go.
What's that you're drinking?
Phellinus linteus and inonotus obliquus.
Is that doing anything for you?
Be honest.
Hm, I don't know.
My knee is feeling a little better
but my eyes are acting up.
What do you mean?
My immune system attacks whatever it wants sometimes
and I get this thing called uveitis,
when parts of your eyes get blurred and
inflamed.
You know, sunlight gives me a headache,
and I can't read.
It's a lot of fun.
Sorry I've caused you so much stress, you know.
It's not your fault kid.
I used to get stressed out when I had a Grant due.
You know what?
Coping with stress
is probably one of the hardest things to do in life.
Some people, they go right through it,
but not me.
My body has a huge tantrum.
I'm just not that good at it.
But I'm gonna take a little rest
then I'm gonna feel a lot better.
Help yourself to whatever you want, okay.
Mr. Mercer,
here's some water.
I'm not feeling good, Elvis,
could you get the juice from the refrigerator?
That stuff's not helping you.
You need real medicine.
Come on, take.
Your mushroom juice isn't helping you.
See, it wasn't that hard.
Gonna feel a lot better now.
You're a good kid, you know that, Elvis?
Yeah, someone's gotta keep you in shape.
Okay kid.
All right, rest up a little
and that should kick in in a bit.
See, this is the third day you've been taking your medicine
and you're already looking a lot better.
Hmm, thanks for taking care of me, Elvis.
Well, someone has to keep you in check, anyway.
Listen, you need to go to the doctor.
There we can get you a real prescription.
Mm-mm.
Okay, if you go to the doctor, I'll go to school.
Really?
Yeah, but you have to go.
Okay,
deal.
All right.
Have a nice dinner.
You know, I'm no expert,
but you need to try new things.
You're a walking contradiction.
What do you mean?
You say you believe in science,
but you don't like doctors.
Doctors believe in science.
You say that you're not good with kids, but as it turns out,
you're actually pretty good with kids.
Well, n of 1.
Fine, n of 1.
But listen to me,
there's sun over your head,
that sun is gonna go past your face, past your messy hair,
and enter deep into your bones.
It's gonna warm you up
and stop you to be such a stubborn troll.
You're the worst wizard in the state of West Virginia.
Maybe that sun can warm you up
and get you to stop stealing.
Quiet.
Listen, sun over your head.
Now lie down.
It's gonna give you the strength to go to the doctor.
It's a beautiful day outside.
Birds are singing and flowers are blooming.
You know, it's okay to be afraid to go in to the doctor.
I guess I'm just afraid of what they might tell me.
Well, what I try to do is make myself okay
with the worst thing that can possibly happen,
then the thing that's going to happen doesn't seem as bad,
like my dad being dead.
If I can be okay with that,
then the worst thing doesn't seem as bad.
What's the worst thing that they can tell you?
I guess that I'm gonna die.
If anything, the doctor's going to stop you from dying
so quickly.
We're all going to die, you know.
So what's the verdict?
That you're gonna die anytime soon?
Nope.
Hm, did they tell you anything ground-breaking?
Just told me to take my meds and gave me a checkup.
See, I told you it wouldn't be so bad.
Aren't you glad you went?
I think so.
Well, since a deal's a deal,
I wanna start going back to school.
Do you think you can get me there every day?
Absolutely, I'd be happy to take you to school every day.
I was glad you wouldn't mind.
Anyway, since my dad burned down our house,
I don't have...
I don't think I'll be seeing him for a while.
You might be right about that.
Well, do you wanna go fishing?
When?
Right now.
You don't seem beat up like you did before.
Sure, we just,
we just have to grab the Poles from home.
I'm fine with that.
You got anywhere else to be?
Nope.
I have absolutely nowhere else to be except being with you.
Perfect, that makes two of us.
Mr. Mercer, come get your prescription.
Okay, that's enough.
Elvis, that's enough.
And reel it in a little bit.
Hook.
I will.
- I'm bad at this. - Okay, you take this one.
This one's already set.
It's already in the water.
- Just hold it. - Hold it? Okay.
Put your finger here like this
and then put it back like that.
That's it, good.
Just hold it.
The castle goes on the ends,
- like this, okay. - Mm-hm.
So you put your castle on the ends.
That's it, okay.
And the knight, your knight, the horse, okay,
goes on the next square.
And then you have your bishop that goes on the next square,
okay.
And then you do queen on own color, okay.
- This is the queen- - okay.
And the king, okay.
So this is the queen?
That's the queen, that's right.
The king is the tallest piece.
Technically they're almost the same size.
And these are called pawns,
and you just put those in front, okay.
Dear daddy,
I know that you are still in the hospital.
The nice policeman told me
that you burned down our house on west sycamore.
I actually drove by it and saw it with my own two eyes.
It was burned to the ground,
but I know you must've had a real good reason,
like those creatures coming for us.
You must've been so scared
and I feel bad for having left you alone with them.
I hope you can forgive me one day.
They said that they don't think
that you will be getting out of there for a long time.
I do think that they will take real good care of you though,
and that's what you deserve.
As for me, I'm doing pretty well
considering how much has happened in the last year.
I ended up finding this retired botanist in the mountains,
and he was nice enough to take me in.
He studies mushrooms, isn't that funny?
He gathers them from the forest
and then brings them back to his house.
He used to do lots of his experiments with them
and that's what he's teaching me about now.
I'm learning all about science.
At school, they even put me in gifted and talented class,
isn't that hard to believe?
Remember how I was always so slow before?
I couldn't even read very well back then.
I'm getting a lot better though, daddy, a lot better.
Anyway, Mr. Mercer takes me to school every day
and picks me up afterwards.
He says, he's going to get me a volunteering job
at a science laboratory
when I get a little older.
Maybe I will even go to college one day.
Mr. Mercer is also working on the papers to adopt me.
He's almost finished with the process,
but I just want you to know
nobody could ever take your place.
You may be sick, but you're my one and only daddy
and I will always love you no matter what.
I just want you to know that.
Oh, also, by the way, guess what?
We are building a bubble house, daddy.
Remember how you and I talked about that a few times?
Those houses that would keep us safe
from hurricanes and aliens?
Well, Mr. Mercer and I are actually making one ourselves.
He calls it a mushroom house but I call it a bubble house.
When it's all done, we are going to move into it
and live there forever.
It'll even be big enough for you to come stay
if you ever get out of the hospital.
I also want you to know, daddy, I am okay.
Everything's going to be just fine for you and me.
Hope they are letting you play your guitar in the hospital.
I'm sure the other people they would like it.
Also, both me and mama are there with you in spirit.
Much love, Elvis.
Do you think they will let us
bring a cake into the hospital?
Not sure, but it can't hurt to try.