The Unseen

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

They did card runs that night. Brendan insisted on it. “We need to monitor the levels of psi daily, for consistency.”

Katrina’s scores were higher and higher. She seemed on fire. Every card run she performed was better than the last, and she preened under Brendan’s praise. Tyler did worse and worse; Laurel could see his frustration building even as he sat there. Finally he flung his cards across the room, without completing the run. The cards fluttered to the floor, enigmatic symbols.

“This is bullshit,” he raged. “We’re just passing time, waiting for something to happen that Miss White Sugar didn’t make up.”

Katrina rose, with spots of red flaming in her cheeks. “Just because nothing’s happening for you—”

Brendan was instantly walking between them, intervening. “Katrina, why don’t you take a break? Just step into the dining room and fill out your notebook about the tests you just completed.” She was unhappy, petulant, but he smiled at her and Laurel could see her melt. “I’ll come in and we’ll talk about them just as soon as you’re done.”

Laurel had to admit, he had the touch. Katrina lit up and moved through the door into the dining room without protest.

Brendan turned to Laurel. “Dr. MacDonald, I’d like you to test with Tyler.”

Laurel looked at him, startled. “What—”

“I want to mix this up; try a telepathy test. You sort through a deck of cards, and Tyler will write down his guesses of the cards you are looking at.”

There was a hole in the pit of Laurel’s stomach; she felt wrong about it in three dozen different ways, but nothing she could articulate.

Tyler looked at her from the testing table, a challenging look, and she walked over and sat down across from him. The lamplight was low, a soft haze around them.

He sat forward in his chair, and she realized he would be staring at her for the entire run. She reached for the first boxed deck and removed the cards. Her hands were trembling slightly. She forced herself to look down and think of nothing but the cards as she gripped the deck in her left hand and turned over the first card: a star.

After looking at the card she placed it face down, maintaining the original order, as Tyler wrote down his guesses on a pad.

Five runs of twenty-five cards each.

She turned over a card, and stared down at the black symbol, making the card the only thing in her mind. That part felt fine, for a while; it was a relief to lose herself in the imperative of the symbol: circle, square, star, cross, two wavy lines like water. With each run that she did, the symbols became larger, metaphorical, elemental. The circle, the square, the star, the cross, the waves: eternity, construction, celestial, religion, water.

And then something else began to creep in—she could feel Tyler’s mind. Maybe it was just the sense of his eyes holding steadily on her face, but she felt that he was seeing what she was seeing, that they were looking at each card together, hanging in some space between them that was also inside them. It became more and more real, this space… as if they were in a white room with each card suspended for a moment in the air between them, like a painting hung in a gallery.

It seemed to go by in a second—and last forever. The feeling was hypnotic, intoxicating—and dismayingly sensual. She was aware of his body just a few feet from hers… she could feel the warmth of him, the life force.

When she put down the last card she kept her eyes fixed on the table, unable to look at him.

Brendan cleared his throat—a gruff, uncomfortable sound—and stepped beside her to pick up the deck of cards, then Tyler’s scorepad.

He walked over to the table he was using as a desk, and set the cards and the pad down, then returned with a second set of cards and another pad. He put the pad on the table in front of Laurel and handed Tyler the deck.

“This time Tyler will send and Dr. MacDonald will receive.” His voice was flat, he almost sounded angry, and Laurel felt a stab of unease. What’s wrong?

She looked up, then, and caught Tyler’s eyes, still on her face, and this time he looked away from her.

The second run was even more intense. She didn’t look at Tyler, but stared at the black screen dividing the table in half. Or maybe she had her eyes closed—she couldn’t tell, because she was back in the white room again, the room in which she and Tyler sat and looked at a symbol suspended in the air between them, as tangible as a piece of art in a museum.

Her hand held the pencil and made the appropriate marks; she was barely aware she did it, and again, time had ceased to exist; it could have been five minutes or it could have been an hour.

Then the white room suddenly vanished as she heard a chair scraping, and Tyler said, “That’s it.”

His voice was strained. Laurel opened her eyes—or focused—and for a moment Tyler looked at her with no guile or amusement or mockery, simply looked at her without smiling.

Brendan stepped abruptly up to them, breaking the moment. He collected the cards and the notepad.

“Thank you, Tyler, that’s all for tonight.”

Tyler stood, and Laurel thought he looked disoriented. He mumbled, “G’night,” and walked a bit unsteadily toward the archway and out.

Laurel turned in her chair to look toward Brendan, who was already seated back at his work table with the cards and guess sheets in front of him.

She started to stand—and Brendan stood and said sharply, “Stay there and fill out this mood sheet.” She sat back, startled at the edge in his voice. He crossed to her table and gave her a blank mood sheet, with its adjectives for assessing mood. She glanced over the sheet and half-heartedly circled a few words: drained, lethargic, anxious, tense. She wasn’t going to write what she really felt, which was—weird. Like bursting into tears, like the vulnerability she felt after sex. She felt—open.

She glanced over the words on the page again and her eyes fell on the word erotic.

She pushed the page away, and was aware of Brendan turning around behind her at the desk. She stood, and felt wobbly. “How did I do?” she asked, trying to keep the question light.

“Right at statistical chance,” he said briefly, not looking at her. “Both rounds.”

Laurel stared at him, startled. “I—really? That’s all?” She thought of the symbols that had been so clear, hanging in the space between her and Tyler; she’d been so sure that they were communicating on some level.

“Why?” Brendan asked, and his voice was wary.

She forced a shrug. “Oh, well. It doesn’t matter.” He was looking at her and she couldn’t read his face in the dim light. She took the few steps over to his table and lay the mood sheet down. He’d already returned the cards to their boxes and the score sheets were no longer on the table.

“It wore me out, anyway,” she said lamely. “I’ll—see you in the morning.”

“Good night,” he said, without smiling, and she had again the feeling that something was wrong.

“Good night…,” she said tentatively, but he turned away from her, to the desk, and she walked slowly across the room. Her reflection followed her in the mirrors like a ghost.

Upstairs in her room she took the desk chair and pushed the top of it up under the doorknob. When she stepped back from the door she felt sure that she was being watched. She turned to the balcony door and crossed to it, checked to see that it was locked. She undressed hurriedly, so self-conscious she pulled her sleep shirt over her head before slipping off her clothes underneath it. She felt open, vulnerable, that there were no boundaries anymore.

And are there? If I can walk into a room and share Tyler’s mind…

But you didn’t, she reminded herself. You only scored at statistical chance. Whatever you thought was happening was all in your mind.

She lay in bed for the longest time, exhausted but unable to sleep; with her eyes closed she saw the Zener symbols suspended in front of her, in a room that was not a place, in a space beyond time.