The Unseen

CHAPTER THIRTY

They had another.

A girl. Brendan had found her, and when he called Laurel in from the other lab room on his cell phone she could hear the subdued excitement in his voice, though he was trying to keep it neutral.

The girl was a sophomore, small, slim, and startlingly pretty, in both a catlike and doll-like way. Pale, pale skin, silky butter-colored hair, a small bow mouth, almond-shaped blue eyes, and a honeyed Southern accent. She was manicured and pedicured and waxed and plucked, and her embroidered camisole probably cost more than every piece of clothing Laurel had on. Laurel could see instantly that Brendan had worked his magic on her; the girl’s eyes followed him around like a starved feline stalking a canary.

“Dr. MacDonald, this is Katrina DeVore.”

“Hello, Katrina,” Laurel said. The girl looked her over, and her eyes narrowed, but she didn’t speak.

Brendan didn’t seem to notice the deliberate snub. He motioned Laurel over and showed her his clipboard, where he’d recorded results for five consecutive card runs. The girl had scored from twelve to fifteen hits on each test, significantly above chance. What’s more, her scores increased with each test, while generally a subject’s test scores tended to decline over time.

Laurel had been reading about this phenomenon in an article titled, “The Role of the Experimenter in the Successful Elicitation of Psi Results.” Dr. Rhine had believed that the kind of experimenter actually in contact with a subject was critical and that the experimenter’s personality was a determinative factor in the psi-testing environment. Rhine assumed that subjects were made, not born, and that it was the experimenter’s job to adequately prepare his subject for a psi test.

Laurel looked over Katrina’s personality inventories. Her PBS indicated she had strong traditional religious beliefs, and no belief whatsoever in aliens or extraordinary life forms—but she did answer ambiguously about anything psi-related: reading minds, predicting the future, movement of objects with the mind.

Laurel put down the clipboard. Brendan looked toward the girl, who instantly lit up under his attention. “Katrina, I’d like you to do a second run of tests with Dr. MacDonald.”

Katrina’s face turned sullen; it was clear to Laurel that she didn’t like that idea one bit. But she smiled sweetly and told Brendan, “Of course, Dr. Cody.”

Brendan left the room. Katrina perched with a ballerina-straight back in front of the card display, ignoring Laurel entirely as she sorted the cards with maddening slowness. Her dislike wasn’t merely obvious; it fairly rolled off her in waves. Laurel felt like a footservant.

When Katrina had finally made it through five sets of cards, Brendan came back in, and again, the blond girl lit up like a Christmas tree. “Can you wait outside for a moment, Katrina?”

Katrina shot daggers at Laurel with her eyes, and answered prettily, “Yes, Dr. Cody.”

Brendan reached eagerly for the envelopes to tally the results.

They were abysmal. She’d only managed to get one or two cards correct in each of the five runs.

“I don’t understand…” Brendan fretted.

“I guess she was more motivated with you,” Laurel said, keeping her voice even, while inwardly she rejoiced. Dodged that bullet.

Brendan looked devastated. He slumped back in his chair, staring at the cards as if he could will a different set of results. Then suddenly something seemed to hit him, and he shot forward in his seat.

“Wait a minute. Chance is five cards per run.”

“Yes…,” Laurel started, puzzled—and then it struck her what he meant.

“These results are too far below chance,” Brendan said triumphantly. “She was deliberately failing. She’s got control over this.”

Yes, and a massive grudge against me, Laurel thought, unprofessionally, but she said nothing aloud. Not that Brendan would have noticed; he was already halfway to the door.

“Let’s try the dice tests.”

He practically bolted to the door and ushered Katrina back in, beaming. “How did I do, Professor Cody?” she asked guilelessly, managing not to look at Laurel.

“Very interesting, Katrina. Very interesting, indeed. I’d like to try another type of test, if you’re up for it.”

The dice machines tested ability to influence the fall of a set of dice. The dice were shaken mechanically, in a revolving Lucite tube, and the test subject was to concentrate on the dice and attempt to make the dice fall as sevens, or snake eyes.

With Brendan’s encouraging presence, Katrina displayed a dramatic concentration on the machine, and the resulting falls of the dice were impressive, 31 percent above chance.

At one point Brendan stepped close to Laurel to murmur into her ear, “I think we’re in business.”

Laurel saw Katrina’s face cloud, and at that moment, the slowly rotating dice machine suddenly went wild, flipping crazily around on its stand.

Laurel stared in shock. Did that really just happen?

“Whoa!” Brendan leaped to shut off the machine as Katrina cowered back, wide-eyed. “Sorry about that. What can I say—they’re fifty years old…”

Katrina slid an oblique look at Laurel and Laurel wondered if they weren’t taking on more than they could handle.

They finally dismissed Katrina, who tendered Laurel another malevolent glare at as she left.

Brendan turned to Laurel and he didn’t have to speak. They had tested over five hundred students in three weeks, and there was no one besides Tyler who was even close. And even Laurel felt a rush: What are the chances that we’d find two so quickly?

Brendan leaned on the lab table. His eyes were alight. “I say we do it with just the two of them, if we can get them to agree. We can’t just keep running tests forever. And their scores really are exceptional.”

“What about controls?” Laurel countered.

“We’re the controls,” Brendan answered immediately.

“No, I meant—”

“So did I. Non-psi-gifted subjects. That’s us. I think we should keep this as small and controlled as we can. We add more people and we risk losing the quality of subjects.”

Now that the prospect of actually moving into the house was looming, Laurel found herself dragging her feet, metaphorically speaking. “How much do we tell them about the history of the house?”

“We definitely let them know that we’re going into a house that has a history of poltergeist activity. Absolutely.” He paced the room, planning. “Maybe we show them the police report to set up expectation. Otherwise…” he trailed off, turning to her, “otherwise, I think we say as little as possible, at least at first. Let them pick up on the history—or not.”

Laurel opened her mouth to protest and he cut her off. “I know what you’re going to say. I know you have doubts. But Mickey—one week. Just a few days even. Even just walking through the house with those two. At the slightest hint of anything dangerous we’re out of there, I swear to you.”

He picked up Katrina’s and Tyler’s test scores. “But with subjects like this—how can we not at least try?”