She stiffened. Someone had spoken her name very clearly.
She looked around the room. No one in the room was looking at her. The round-faced boy was looking down at the table, at a pack of cards he held in his hand.
Laurel.
She heard it again. And then she realized: the voice was in her own head.
She glanced around the room surreptitiously. Who was it? Who was speaking to her?
She stared toward the table. Victoria was speaking, soundlessly. The round-faced boy with the electric eyes was concentrating on the cards. The Zener cards. There was one card in front of him—the bold black O.
Laurel, the voice said again in her head, and now she knew. Young Uncle Morgan.
He said her name again, quite clearly, but she saw that he had not moved his mouth. Somehow, he was speaking inside her head.
Play the cards with me. Come sit and listen.
She glanced at the others warily.
They can’t see you.
Laurel’s eyes lingered on Leish, with fear.
He can’t hear us. It’s his great anger—he has no ability at all.
Laurel stepped out of the archway, walked across the misty room to the table, and sat down across from him. None of the others acknowledged her. The cards were spread out between them.
She looked back into the boy’s eyes—so familiar … and even through the strange black and white she knew they were blue, Carolina blue.
She had no idea how to express the things that she wanted to say—she had no idea how to begin.
Just ask, he said, and his thought was as warm and comforting as a caress. Concentrate on the card and say what you want to say to me.
She concentrated all her being into the words, and thought at him: Is this the past?
She felt immediately exhausted from the effort, but was rewarded with the tug of a sad ghost of a smile at his lips. And then a haunted look that wrenched her heart.
Somewhere between. Half-life, he said enigmatically. Then his face darkened and he glanced at the others around him.
But where is this? How can you see me? she thought at him, frightened.
A jumble of thoughts came from him then: Vortex whirl pool threshold gateway timeless limbo. She could feel his frustration at the inadequacy of the words.
Dimension. He finally ended. Dimensions. There are so many more than one.
She could hear everything he said clearly in her head. But no one around them heard. Leish never turned toward either her or Morgan.
The round-faced boy was looking at her intensely.
What happened? she thought at him. He glanced surreptitiously at the tall, blond man.
Dr. Leish wanted big results, violent results. He wanted to see the poltergeist effect at full force. He thought—hoped—that our psi ability would bring the force out into the open.
Laurel felt a chill, realizing how very closely they had followed Leish’s example. She looked at the table, at the séance—so eerily similar to what her own group had just been doing
And he—made contact? she asked silently, her own voice hollow inside her head.
Not him, the young man—Morgan—said. It was a dynamic, between the house, and us—
Another RAP reverberated through the whole of the house … through the foundation, through Laurel’s body. Everyone at the table looked up, electrified. Laurel clenched herself, thought at the young man at the table.
What is it?
He glanced for a second toward her. What she got from him was not words but a black wave of fear … it made her cold all over. Her teeth began to chatter and her breath came shallow and fast, she could actually see it in the air, but she pressed on.
Morgan … Uncle Morgan … I need to know. Is it madness? An imprint of madness on the house?
For the first time she saw the young man across from her flinch. Again he did not speak, but the voice in her head was raw and urgent.
It is dangerous to think you understand. It is many things. It is pure irrationality. There is no answer. It is a mistake to think that you know. It will not be known.
The young man at the table closed his eyes briefly. Then he opened them and Laurel heard in her head:
We opened a door.
She looked toward the striking blond man with the clipboard. Is that how Dr. Leish died? Because of something you saw? What?
Morgan shook his head, a quick, surreptitious shake. You must get out before it is summoned again. Stop it before they open the