The Forgotten Room

39

It was half past two in the afternoon when a quiet knock sounded on Logan’s door.

He glanced up from his desk. “Come in.”

The door opened and Kim Mykolos stepped in. She had a satchel slung over one shoulder and was holding a plate covered by a linen napkin.

“I didn’t see you at lunch, so I thought I’d bring you a sandwich,” she said, putting the plate on his desk. “Roast chicken with avocado, peach chutney, and watercress. I had one myself — they’re not bad.”

Logan sat back and rubbed his eyes. “Thank you.”

She slipped into a nearby chair and regarded him intently for a moment. “I wanted to tell you how sorry I was. About Pamela, I mean.”

Logan nodded.

“You know, I felt bad, talking the way I did to you about her. Now I feel even worse.”

“You couldn’t have known.”

They sat in silence for a minute.

“Have you heard anything?” she asked a little awkwardly. “About the fire, I mean?”

“Preliminary investigation is ruling it an accident. Faulty electrical wiring, overloaded fuse box. Supposedly.”

“You sound skeptical.”

“I am. I was there. I’ve never seen a fire rage like that one did.” He swallowed. “She never had a chance.”

The talk died away again. Outside, Logan could hear hammering, the whine of a band saw. Work was already under way to prepare the mansion for Hurricane Barbara. In a matter of hours it had strengthened to a Category 2 hurricane off the Delmarva Peninsula and, if it kept racing along its current track, was forecast to make landfall somewhere along the southern New England coast late that evening. Lux was already putting together evacuation plans.

“What are you working on?” Kim asked, gesturing at the papers that littered his desk.

“Something I’ve been meaning to tell you about.” Briefly, he described Olafson’s secret safe, the hundred-year freeze, how he’d successfully convinced Olafson to give him the documents. As he spoke, the expression on Kim Mykolos’s face — which had been an odd mixture of regret and embarrassment — slowly changed to intense interest.

“What a break,” she said when he finished. “What have you discovered?”

“Not as much as I’d like. Unfortunately, the documents in the safe don’t go into any detail about the nature of the work. The assumption was that, in 2035, the director would be able to peruse the reams of paperwork in the secret lab — paperwork we now know to have been deliberately removed.”

“So what have the documents told you?”

“How to access the lab — which we’d discovered already, thanks to Pam. The names of the three scientists who were directly involved in the work. Oh, and the name of the venture: Project Synesthesia.”

Kim frowned. “Synesthesia?”

“A neurological term for an unusual phenomenon where stimulating one sensory pathway causes the stimulation of a second. Tasting colors. Seeing sounds. It was a topic of great scientific interest in the early part of the twentieth century, but that interest died out long ago.”

“Interesting.” Kim thought for a moment, eyes far away. Then she turned back to Logan. “But what does it have to do with catching ghosts?”

“I was asking myself the same thing. I’m beginning to wonder if I was wrong about the purpose of the Machine.” He shifted in his chair. “At least we now know where ‘Project Sin’ came from. It was clearly the nickname, or code name, for the work.”

“Nickname,” Kim nodded. “You mentioned the names of the scientists. Anyone I might have heard of?”

“I doubt it.” Logan glanced over his desktop, picked up a sheet of paper containing three brief paragraphs. “Martin Watkins was the elder scientist on the project. From what I can gather, he spearheaded the work. He was an expert in physics. He died quite some time back, in the early 1950s. Apparently a suicide. Edwin Ramsey was his associate, a mechanical engineer. He died four years ago. The third was named Charles Sorrel, the junior man on the project. A medical doctor, specializing in what today would be called neuroscience. I don’t know what happened to him — I haven’t been able to track him down.”

“And that’s all you’ve learned?” Kim looked disappointed.

“Yes, save what I’ve been able to read between the lines. The work was obviously controversial and cutting-edge, which is why it took place in the secret room. But there’s nothing in this dossier about why the work was abandoned — why it was considered dangerous.”

Another silence fell over the room. Kim looked out the window, chewing her lip absently. Then she turned back.

“I almost forgot. I’ve made some progress of my own in examining those small devices we found in the room. A little progress, anyway.”

Logan sat up. “Go on.”

“Well, based on the components, I think they might be tone generators. At least in part.”

Logan stared at her. “What? For what purpose?”

She shrugged. “I haven’t gotten that far yet.”

“What’s their relationship to the Machine?”

“Can’t tell you that either. Sorry.”

Logan slipped the napkin off of the sandwich. “Doesn’t sound very menacing.”

“I know. I could be wrong. I’ll keep working on it.”

Logan picked up half of the sandwich. “A tone generator.” He prepared to take a bite. Then a thought came into his head and he put the sandwich down. “That reminds me. I meant to ask if you could lend me some Alkan CDs.”

“Great minds think alike.” She rummaged in her satchel. “I have one right here.” She handed the jewel case across the desk.

He glanced at the cover. “Grande sonate ‘Les quatre âges,’ by Charles-Valentin Alkan.”

“A four-movement piano sonata. Real hairy one, too. It was Willard’s favorite.”

Grasping the CD, Logan rose from his desk and walked into the bedroom, Kim following. Beside the bed was an alarm clock with a built-in CD player. He slipped the CD into the loading slot, adjusted the volume. A moment later, the room became filled with precisely the music he’d first heard in Strachey’s parlor: lush and romantic, yet at the same time seemingly possessed by demons; full of complex passages that veered between major and minor, wickedly complicated, shot through with the rising arpeggios and chordal work he remembered so vividly. He took an instinctual step back.

“What is it?” Kim asked him. “You look like you’ve just seen a ghost — to coin a phrase.”

“This is it,” he told her. “The music I’ve been hearing in my head.”

“What does it mean?” she asked. “You don’t think the Machine’s responsible, do you?”

Quickly, he shut the music off. “No,” he said, returning to his office and sitting back behind the desk. “No, I don’t think so. Recall my telling you I’m an empath? The first place I heard that music was in Strachey’s study. If I was to speculate, I’d guess that the empath in me was picking up what Strachey himself heard — when he was becoming sick.” He paused. “But there’s something else.”

“What?”

“When I first heard that music — in Strachey’s study — I smelled something, as well. It was awful, like burning flesh.”

“Alkan’s music has weird effects on people. Some have claimed to smell smoke while listening to it.”

Logan barely heard this — he was thinking. “Right before he died, Strachey said he was being pursued by voices. Voices that tasted like poison. And then Dr. Wilcox, at breakfast. He raved about voices in his head. Voices that hurt, that were too sharp.”

“I wasn’t there,” Kim said. “Thank God.”

“At the time, I assumed Wilcox meant the voices hurt because they were too shrill, too loud. But I don’t think that’s the kind of ‘sharp’ he meant. I think he could feel the voices.”

Kim looked at him. “You’re talking about synesthesia — aren’t you?”

Logan nodded. “Smelling music. Tasting voices. Feeling voices.”

Kim stood before the desk, considering this for a long moment. “I’d better get back to work,” she finally said, in a low voice.

“Thanks for the sandwich,” Logan replied. He watched her leave, shutting the door behind her. His eyes traveled to the sandwich, sitting on the white china plate. Then they moved to the sheet containing three paragraphs — the brief dossiers of the scientists behind Project Sin. After a moment, he picked up the sheet and began rereading it thoughtfully.