The Unseen

CHAPTER FORTY

Outside Laurel moved down the brick steps and onto the gray gravel path toward the garden house. The path meandered along the reflecting pond and she was startled to see large orange and white shapes in the murk: Koi, overgrown and bloated and barely able to navigate the snarls of weeds and straggling lilies, yet somehow still surviving.

Even as neglected as the pool was, Laurel could feel the power of that carefully designed meditative walk: the long pool on one side, the soaring wall of weeping cherry on the other. Ahead, the garden house was a hobbit den of river rock; the roof had caved in in places and the yellow jasmine had done its aggressive damage, working tendrils in through cracked windows and wrapping itself around the beams of the covered patio until the wood splintered and sagged, but the structure was still reasonably in one piece. Laurel approached it cautiously, debating…

If they’re only out here having sex, I definitely don’t want to see it.

And it was a perfect spot for a tryst—given the social history of the house it had no doubt been used hundreds, even thousands of times for that very purpose.

She was about to turn back, when she heard Tyler’s voice. There was something stilted about it, not his normal speaking voice, but almost a stage voice. She frowned and moved quietly up along the side of the house toward a broken window.

She inched closer, and could now distinguish Tyler reading aloud from something.

“‘Every poltergeist haunting is a contract between the percipients, the investigators, and the house….’”

Laurel felt a jolt of shock.

What?

She leaned closer to listen in at the broken window, fascinated.

“‘In its first stages the poltergeist plays with ordinary reality. It breaks down the laws of physics, and in its very randomness creates a sense of helplessness and dependence among its human observers. As there is no predicting what the poltergeist will do, it is completely in charge of any given situation. Further, there is an order to the occurrences that is seductive, they have a logic all their own. A logic that is incomprehensible to the human percipients, yet undeniably a logic, and thus all the more fascinating—’”

Tyler broke off for a moment to break into an eerie “Mwah hah hah.”

Katrina’s voice overlapped his, an irritated drawl. “Shut up.” There was the sound of a slap, though not very hard.

Tyler said something that Laurel couldn’t catch and then there was a pause…. Laurel suddenly smelled a strong, familiar green odor drifting from the cottage.

Oh, great—on top of everything they’re getting stoned. And then she almost laughed. That might have an interesting effect on the experiment. I wonder if Dr. Leish had this problem.

Inside the room, Tyler spoke again. “Wait—this is where it really starts getting good—

“‘The poltergeist has all the power, because the human percipients give it that power. It seeks to lull the percipients into a state of amusement and fascination and gradually seduces them into complicity.’”

Laurel moved closer to the door. There was something familiar about the ideas, the rhythm of the prose.

“‘The percipients come to crave manifestations, and when they are not forthcoming, manufacture them, either by fraud or by RSPK. The poltergeist ultimately takes complete control of reality. And like drug addicts, the human percipients cut their ties to the world and in effect become addicted to the whims of the poltergeist.’”

Laurel walked in. Tyler and Katrina reclined on the same dusty divan, one propped up against the armrest on one end, the other propped up on the opposite side, their legs entwined in the middle. Tyler held a sheaf of printed-out pages in his hand.

Katrina dropped her hand holding the joint behind the couch to hide it, but Tyler didn’t bother to move.

Laurel strode forward and snatched the sheets out of his hand, scanning what looked like a professional article. The title of the article was “The Poltergeist Effect,” which was intriguing all on its own. Then Laurel froze at the name of the author.

Alaistair Leish.

“Where did you get this?” she demanded, looking up at Tyler.

He shrugged. “The Net, where else?” His eyes gleamed at her, catlike. “Just thought we should know something about what we’re getting into. Right, Dr. MacDonald?”

Laurel didn’t answer him for a moment; she was too riveted on the pages in front of her, on Leish’s name. The pages were from Leish’s long out-of-print book, The Lure of the Poltergeist. In all her research she had never come across this particular excerpt and analysis.

She looked up from the pages. “You found this on the Net.”

Tyler was watching her. “I thought you’d want us to do some research.”

“You know the rules, Tyler,” she said evenly. “We said specifically, no Internet.” He has an iPhone, of course, she thought, furious. I’m sure they both do. And then immediately realized—But he couldn’t print it, unless he brought a printer, too…

“I haven’t been on the Net since we got here,” he was protesting. “I looked that stuff up the first night you told us about the project. I swear, Sugar… I mean Dr. MacDonald,” he said in that buttery voice that probably had gotten him exactly what he wanted for all of his life. “You wouldn’t expect anyone to go out hunting or backpacking without knowing the lay of the land, would you?”

And all those innocent questions the other night about the difference between a ghost and a poltergeist. Total sham, she thought, but said none of that.

“What else do you know about Dr. Leish?” she asked instead.

“Who’s—,” Tyler started, and then seemed to realize what she was asking and glanced at the pages she was holding. “Oh, the—I don’t know anything about the guy, except that you mentioned him. It just sounded like he got it right.”

Laurel stared at him. “You just Googled ‘poltergeist’ and this is what happened to come up.” She held up the pages.

Tyler looked back at her. “Well, yeah. I mean… no, it wasn’t the first link. I read through a bunch of articles, but that one just kinda said it all.”

Laurel stood for a moment, looking at him, then turned and walked out with the pages.

Back in the house she found Brendan in the small downstairs library, in front of his laptop at a marble-topped table. She put the confiscated pages down on the table in front of him.

“What’s that?”

“Read it.”

Brendan looked at her oddly, then leaned back in the chair and read. After the first few sentences he said aloud, “What the… ?” and started to read faster; she could see his eyes skimming quickly through the paragraphs.

Laurel waited while he read it; she’d already been through the document several times on the veranda outside.

Brendan finally looked up. “Where did you get this?

“Tyler had it. He said he got it off the Net. I found him and Katrina with it. Getting stoned,” she added.

An almost comically dismayed expression crossed Brendan’s face, then he laughed. “Well, we didn’t say they couldn’t. Maybe it will be good for the experiment.”

That’s a whole other experiment, Laurel thought, but that’s not the point. “I never came across that article, did you?”

“No.”

“It’s not from Leish’s book. Tyler said he Googled ‘poltergeist’ and that’s what came up.” Brendan looked at her curiously. She lifted her hands. “He just happens to come up with a theory of Leish’s that neither of us has ever seen, and that’s the one he happens to bring here?”

The corners of Brendan’s mouth quirked. “Well, if you think about it, we did choose these two for their psi ability, didn’t we?”

She stared at him. “Are you being serious?”

“I don’t know,” Brendan said. He sounded tired, and she noticed again that he had dark circles under his eyes. “Might be good for the atmosphere.” She stared at him in disbelief. “We want them psyching themselves out, don’t we? We’ve only got three weeks, and we’re not here for our health. It can’t hurt to have them amped up.” There was an edge in his voice, too, and she wondered about that.

Laurel took the article back from him and read aloud: “‘The poltergeist ultimately takes complete control of reality. And like drug addicts, the human percipients cut their ties to the world and become addicted to the whims of the poltergeist.’”

She looked up from the article, at Brendan. He looked at her, puzzled. “What’s bothering you about it?”

If she were completely honest about why it was bothering her, it was that she had a queasy feeling about Leish suddenly showing up like that, randomly.

Above them there was a scream, then muffled pounding in the floor. They both froze and looked up, and for a suspended moment Laurel knew exactly what Brendan was thinking—that something was finally happening… something. And she saw his excitement—the almost rabid look in his eyes—before they both ran for the stairs.