Ariel had assured Donald that she already knew about Teddie’s fascination with out-of-body experiences and that she had already assumed that her sister’s interest was prompted by some developing abilities in that arena. So apparently there was no end to the family oddities. Donald promised to pass word of Ariel’s cooperation back along to the Zeitman household in Texas.
“It’d be best all around if you could just manage to pretend like you spontaneously decided to go have a holiday with your sister. You know, like you have no idea about your mom and you have no clue about what your sister is up to, and particularly like this whole conversation with me never happened.”
“Not to worry. I’m getting practice in that arena.”
Donald gave her a quizzical look as she said it, and Ariel watched with fascination as the man’s eyes went strangely blank for a second or two.
“Did you just try to read my mind?” she asked with irritation. “Isn’t that illegal or something?”
The soft, almost sad smile crossed the man’s face for a second time. “No, but it is generally considered bad manners at best and unethical at worst. I seldom violate that principle, but I know how badly your mother would like to be assured that you are safe and well.”
Another uncomfortable thought occurred to Ariel. “Does my mom???”
“No, she doesn’t,” Donald said. “Except for the lightest, most noninvasive touch occasionally just to verify that you are conscious and well. She’s actually one of the most ethical telepaths I know, and on the whole we’re a pretty damn decent group. All that empathy tends to do that to you, you know. So no worries, any secrets you have are safe with me. But please Ariel, please do be careful if you’re going to start in with a dangerous crowd yourself.”
“I will be careful. I promise. Do me a favor and assure my folks I’m fine. And remember, Donald, we never had any of this conversation.”
“Right,” he smiled back at her. “We never did.”
The next question was whether she could possibly get herself to Greenland before she left for India. Maybe she could combine the two trips and save a little money. Why not? She would get a week off work, spend the first weekend with Siarnaq, and head from there for an impromptu birthday visit with Teddie.
In between handling matters at work so that she could be gone for a week, and packing and running errands for her upcoming trip, Ariel didn’t have a lot of personal time left for worrying about her sister or the increasing drama regarding her job. Siarnaq had been delightfully excited about the possibility of a weekend together and was going to make her travel easier by meeting her in the small East Greenland town of Kulusuk, only a short flight from Iceland.
After their last encounter, Ariel was not eager to set foot on the same island as Baldur, much less to find herself in same room with him. However, she bravely arranged a second meeting with Ulfur at a restaurant, to drop off and discuss some paperwork. It would allow Ullow to consider some of her trip as work time and to cover some of her costs. With any luck it would be a non-event.
The night before Ariel left, she went back to the y1 site, thinking she would snoop around a little more and try to solidify the questions that she had for her brother’s friend Toby. She searched harder for threads that she could access that mentioned anything about HFT or Baldur.
She found some speculation that Baldur’s entire board of directors “participated,” and in fact had been selected for their ability to do so. What kind of participation? Ariel had assumed that the group consisted of investors, rich men and women bringing substantial money to the table. But if Baldur’s wealth was the minimum standard, then there were hundreds or even thousands who could qualify based on money alone. This conversation seemed to imply that d4 was a closed community, one with some sort of special entry requirement that most investors failed to meet. Could Baldur have managed to amass a small group of high frequency seers?
Maybe the gift that Ariel had always thought made her so unique wasn’t that rare at all. And maybe a group of others had figured out ways to benefit from it far more than she had.
10. Spring in India
The weekend with Siarnaq was far too short, and Ariel was surprised at how she and a man from such a different culture could share so much in common. They laughed together, and at the same things, and it was often a humor born of knowing what one had never wished to know. Siarnaq did not understand social networking sites or traffic jams or Asian Fusion restaurants, but he understood Ariel. She wrapped herself in that joy and wore it like a cloak for two glorious days.
By Sunday afternoon they were both sad at her impending departure and uneasy about the future. Travel to Greenland was far from cheap and Siarnaq lacked the means to come to Dublin. Ariel had picked up enough precollections to know that this was almost certainly not their last encounter, but that a wide variety of stormy possibilities lay ahead. Siarnaq had the same knowledge. A few hours before Ariel’s plane left they faced each other and stopped pretending like there was no tomorrow.
“Along with the joy you have shown me, I’ve learned much that is sad,” he said.
“I know,” she answered. “There are so many outcomes between us that I have trouble focusing on any one of them long enough to really understand it, but clearly few of them bode well for us as a couple. I suppose that you don’t have to be able to see the future to figure that one out.”
He looked at the floor. “I can’t leave my world and you know that. I saw one scenario in which you tried to convince me to do so and I left you in anger. I saw another in which you convinced yourself that you could live as an Inuit. It did not last for very long. But I don’t think that means that we can’t ever be together again.”
“I agree,” she smiled. “I saw several ways this happens at least once more, and it is just as wonderful. But there are other disturbing alternatives out there as well. I see a very strong chance that you get very angry at someone else I know.”
“I’m already angry at someone else you know,” he confessed. “All my life I wanted to be able to see my own future, and you have shown me how seeing your own future is both good and bad. I had a childhood friend, a cousin, to whom I used to confide my visions. He loved stories about the future and I didn’t have the sense to understand the power of what I was seeing. One day I took a leap of faith and I told him about the end, the big ending for everyone, and how I was going to help the Inuit stay self-sufficient to prolong human life. I thought that he would be amazed and proud to know me but instead he told me I was full of shit and that he’d thought so all along... It hurt me. I looked up to him and up until then I thought he believed in me. After that we stopped talking.”
“You’re still angry at him?”
“Not for that. We were barely teenagers. Kids often treat each other poorly. But he must be someone you know too, because when I touch you I sometimes get an uncommon amount of information about him. I’m sure now that he has an obsession of his own.”
“I don’t know a lot of people from Greenland…” Ariel was getting a quick idea of where this was going.
“But you do know my cousin Carl?”
Ariel nodded. “Yes. He goes by Mikkel Nygaard now, and he is an investor and one of my clients—my least friendly client, to be honest. He and I have already had one nasty run-in and he basically asked me to stay out of Greenland.”
“Well, he is even nastier than you think,” Siarnaq said. “For reasons I cannot even guess at, he has made it his life’s work to specifically undo what I once told him that I would be doing.”
“He’s trying to lure the Inuit into adopting modern ways? Why?”
“I don’t know. Thanks to you I’ve gotten many premonitions of him moving massive amounts of machinery to the far north, and I had already seen a sled of these machines myself, although at the time I had no idea what they were. Now I’ve seen visions of him hiring and teaching some of the Inuit to work with his contraptions and to care for them and generally become everything b
ut what they need to be. Why would this man to do this?”
“I wish I understood precollections better,” Ariel said. “When I’m touching you I see lives from the far future, and when I’m near you and touch things that you touch, I get some precollections about you. There’s never been anything about Mikkel, though. The truth is that I know very little about the man and even less about what motivates him. Do you want me to try to find out more?”
“No!” It came out a little harsher than Siarnaq had intended. “I want you to stay as far away from him as possible. Please. Promise me.”
“Hey, you do understand that I have to deal with him for work right?” Ariel’s tone was heavier than she meant it to be, filled with shades of “don’t tell me what to do.” She reminded herself that Siarnaq was only being concerned. “I’ll stay out of the mess between the two of you, though, no problem.”
“Thanks,” Siarnaq said no more.
“Let’s stay in touch about this,” Ariel finally added, working to soften her voice. “Call, text, email, I know that you do all of those. I’ll keep my ears open and if I learn anything about Mikkel that could be useful to you, I promise I’ll let you know.”
Ariel felt sadder than she expected she would when she hugged Siarnaq goodbye, and once she was on the plane she found herself gazing at Greenland’s white coastline as it receded in the distance. Lykke Li’s “I Follow Rivers” came on as she hit the “On” button on her mp3 player, and Ariel wondered idly if she could possibly enjoy life as an Inuit. Was she capable of following Siarnaq? Was she capable of following anyone? As the song ended, Greenland was nothing more than a tiny white dot on her horizon and she had no answers.
******
Ariel stood looking down at her sleeping sister. Teddie’s face looked pale and clammy. Reluctantly, Ariel reached out to her, thinking to touch Teddie and try to learn more about the most likely outcomes to her sister’s troubling situation. She withdrew her hand, startled, as Teddie blinked and opened her eyes wide. Seeing her younger sister’s confusion, Ariel searched for something reassuring to say.
“Hey,” Ariel said. “Thought maybe you could use a friendly face.”
“I thought my whole family was supposed to stay away from me?” Teddie whispered in a scratchy voice.
“Mom and Dad decided that your sister in Ireland might reasonably come visit you for your seventeenth birthday without arousing suspicion. I’ve taken vacation for the rest of the week. I hear that you’re not exactly supposed to be going out partying right now, but maybe we can find a way to do a little celebrating,” Ariel said, doing her best to make light of the situation.
Others heard their voices and came into the room, and Ariel stepped away from Teddie’s side, realizing that her opportunity to quietly discern Teddie’s future had passed for the time being. Maybe she’d try again later. Then again, maybe not.
The next morning while Ariel sipped on coffee she visited with Teddie’s adult friend Amy, a woman who ran a local organization to help girls who were victims of human trafficking. Amy was part of the group sequestered away at a house in Darjeeling, trying to ensure Teddie’s safety and find Michelle. She was a short, almost stocky American woman with wildly misbehaved dark brown hair and an apparent penchant for wearing brightly colored clothes. Underneath, she seemed to harbor a warm heart, a genuine fondness for Teddie, and an ability to accept that Teddie could go searching for others while having an out-of-body experience. Ariel’s admiration for the woman grew as she talked to her.
“So you think these people really go flitting around on some co-existing plane of light and energy that mirrors this world exactly and they come back with memories that are usable in our world?” Ariel asked.
Amy shrugged. “I’ve gathered a good bit of evidence by now that supports that and it’s hard to explain any other way.”
“Wow. That’s a kick. And my little sister does this?”
Amy shrugged a second time and laughed. “Apparently she does it rather well.”
Teddie poked her head full of black curls into the dining room, and when she saw her sister talking to Amy she joined them at the dining room table.
“So how did mom even find a way to talk to you about all this?” Teddie asked, looking confused.
“She didn’t. Apparently some creep you and your friends have pissed off has our whole family under radio silence, and we can’t talk about anything that involves you and Michelle. I did find out that mom finally sold that magazine article she’s been writing. It’s going to come out in a couple of months. You should say something to her about it, she’s really excited.”
“She told me,” Teddie said. “We talk about things like that, because if we didn’t it would seem suspicious. We just can’t talk about my situation. So how did you get drafted to come here?”
“Mom sent someone from London over to Dublin to talk to me in person, and he suggested that I go see you for your birthday and he sort of explained why it was a good idea. Honestly, I felt bad that I hadn’t thought of visiting you myself.”
“Did this guy happen to mention how he communicated with our mother?” Teddie was clearly trying to feel her way through this. Ariel wanted to reassure her.
“Yep, I’ve been ‘read in.’ My mother is a telepath with a whole bunch of telepath friends and my little sister goes around snooping on people.” When Teddie started to object to being accused of snooping, Ariel raised her hand laughing. “I’m kidding Teddie. I’m really envious. They both sound like incredibly cool things to be able to do.”
And they did, Ariel thought a little sadly, realizing how much she would like to be able to share with Teddie her own visions of the future and the cool things her own brain did. But Teddie didn’t need to be distracted by anything right now, and Ariel could well be putting others in danger by speaking up. Luckily, someone else came into the dining room just then and removed even the slightest temptation.
Over the next few days Ariel did what she could to provide her sister with comfort while trying her best not to go crazy being confined to the house full of people in Darjeeling. Ariel was asked to keep internet usage to a minimum and avoid any activity that wouldn’t seem normal for the elderly couple from India who normally lived in the house. That didn’t leave a lot of options. Spring flowers were sprouting in the garden, and Ariel spent hours out there in her sweats, doing yoga and practicing the various Tai Chi routines that she had begun to learn in Dublin.
Ariel spent a good bit of time considering whether knowledge of Teddie’s future would help her sister more than it would harm her. If only there was some way to tell. Assuming she saw something useful, how would Ariel explain to the others how she knew what she knew? Given the odd talents of the group already assembled, she suspected that “oh it’s just a hunch” would not suffice. In fact, given that there were two telepaths in the house, were her talents already known?
Ariel thought not. She was pretty sure that her own mother had no idea what her oldest daughter could do, and mom was apparently a good telepath too. Perhaps a combination of preoccupation with other matters, the telepath’s code of respect for the privacy of others, and good old fashioned not seeing what one didn’t expect to find had all worked in Ariel’s favor, both here and at home. In addition, Ariel supposed that over the years she had become rather good at unconsciously shielding what she was. That ability was clearly useful at the moment.
What were the chances that there was something helpful that Ariel could do if only she knew more about Teddie’s situation? On the other hand, what would she do if she learned that the most likely outcomes for her sister and her sister’s friends were awful and that her own possible involvement could only make matters worse? Ariel wondered if she could really go back to Dublin and tend to her own growing troubles if she discovered that her sister likely wouldn’t survive this ordeal and that there was nothing she could do about it.
She couldn’t know which was the case. She decided to go with a quick touch right be
fore she left. If she found something clearly useful, she could tell her sister as she walked out the door, and avoid questions from everyone else. On the off chance that she learned something that was vital for Teddie to listen to, she’d fess up about her premories and then walk out the door. And on the off chance that she learned something depressing or awful, well at least she could get out of there quickly and deal with it back home.
The day before she left, Ariel got permission to go over to Amy’s office and use the internet to take care of various business and travel matters. Her email was overflowing and her social sites had so many notifications that she’d never get through them all. Probably no loss there, she laughed.
It looked like Toby from y1 had written her a couple of days ago, asking if she could maybe meet in Frankfurt while he handled business there over the next several days. Well, it turned out she could. Everybody flew through Frankfurt sooner or later and she had a layover there tomorrow night. She set up the meeting, anxious to get back to her own concerns where she could play an active role and make a difference.
That night when Ariel got up to pee, she saw her sister sleeping on the couch and altered her plan. She wouldn’t get a more private chance to take that quick peek into Teddie’s future that she had planned for in the morning. Ariel tiptoed over, reached down and placed the back of her hand against her little sister’s cheek and she knew. Teddie would figure out how to do what needed to be done. She was figuring it out. She didn’t need Ariel’s premories. She didn’t need advice. She would be fine, and it was best to let her be. Ariel sighed with relief. Go Teddie.
“Thanks for coming. I really, really appreciate it,” her little sister said the next morning, black curls bobbing around as she looked up from a group of photos lying in front of her.
“Hey, I could get into this whole spy secret mission thing,” Ariel laughed. She wanted so badly to give her sister a hug, but decided not to complicate her exit with more information. She knew all that she needed to know. She gave her sister a grinning thumbs-up gesture as she said her goodbyes all around. Keep it light, she warned herself sternly, keep it light.
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