Serafina and the Virtual Man - By Marie Treanor Page 0,2
long has it been bothering you? When did you first notice it?”
“Months ago,” Petra said bitterly. She glanced at her husband. “About five?”
He nodded. “Around then, although at first it was so slight that we didn’t pay much attention. It was just little things, like a glass falling off a shelf, papers blown around on my desk as though the window had been left open. Only it’s gradually got worse.”
“So what does it do now?” Sera asked, sitting down as if to get comfortable for a long story.
Dale Ewan moved, hemming Jilly in, and sitting down where she’d been, forcing her to move along and sit beside him. She kept a decent space between them, was aware without looking of Petra observing her.
“Trashes the place,” he said at last.
“Oh dear. When was the last time it did that?”
“Last night,” Petra said, her voice hollow.
Sera and Jilly both glanced around the clear, spotless room.
Jilly said, “You must have been up early clearing the mess.” Maybe that was why there was no stuff lying around.
“Oh, it wasn’t here in this room,” Dale said. “It was upstairs. Do you want to see?”
“I think we should,” Sera said with careful patience. “Jilly?”
Obligingly, Jilly got out her laptop and the “gizmo” she carried around mostly for show. Sera was the only instrument they really needed.
Jilly opened the laptop, pressed the power button, and twisted the monitor panel until she could lay it flat like a slightly fat tablet.
Although Dale Ewan cast an amused eye in its direction, his gaze lingered on the less recognisable gizmo. “What’s that?”
“It reads any unusual elements in the environment—gasses, radiation, etc. It also reads changes in temperature very quickly, which can be a useful guide to the presence of spirits.” Jilly switched it on and stood, jerking the laptop bag into a more comfortable position on her shoulder.
“What does it say now?” Dale demanded.
“Nothing very much.”
“We’ll take readings here first, and then in the place the spirit was last active,” Sera explained.
“I thought you were a medium,” Petra said, frowning.
Sera said. “I am. In this day and age, we use all the technical help we can find too. Lead on.”
Both the Ewans led the way toward the staircase, although Petra kept glancing back over her shoulder, as though anxious to make sure they were following.
“Well?” Jilly murmured.
“There’s something going on,” Sera breathed. “Gives me the creeps. Very, very faint creeps, it’s true, but there could well be something in the house.”
“Well, there’s bugger all furniture.”
Sera swallowed a laugh and hurried after their hosts. Jilly followed more slowly, the gizmo attached to the screen of the laptop which she carried as she walked. She’d already detected Wi-Fi, and found her way into the Ewans’ network. Several personal computers and printers and assorted unidentified hardware. The gizmo was picking up powerful electronic activity, far more than was justified by the hardware she’d located. Interesting.
She’d leave it to Sera to pick up the psychic stuff, while she tried to figure out the electronics.
“You work from home, Mr. Ewan?” Jilly asked as they reached the top of the stairs.
“Dale, please. And yes, very often I do. We have offices in Edinburgh and London, of course. I divide my time between there and here.”
“Any of your colleagues come here to work?” Sera asked.
“No. Or at least only occasionally as messengers or for a quick chat. Never to sit down and actually work. Why?” They were walking around the gallery, past arches and closed doors. One door, about the centre of the gallery, wasn’t quite closed, but Dale and Petra led them past it. The gizmo was quite excited by now—either there was even more electronic activity up here, or they were closer to its source. Or both. Jilly pretended to ignore it.
For an instant, she caught sight of them all trouping past the large mirror: Dale and Petra, the perfect, beautiful couple, tragically worried, like the leads in a popular suspense film; Sera, cool, capable, and active in her leather jacket and short, almost spiky black hair framing her fine-featured, ever-curious face. Sera seemed almost to glow with vitality these days, as if she were happy.
And finally, glancing surreptitiously at the mirror, came Jilly herself in her figure-hugging, short-skirted, grey suit, clutching tablet and gizmo, not a blonde hair or a fleck of makeup out of place; the stranger she’d so carefully manufactured and plastered on for the world. With a rare jolt, she wondered if she, Jilly, was still in there.