by A. A. Bell
She heard Neville grumble as he walked ahead of them, the sound of his footsteps taking him as far as a pair of large ghostly brown doors. They were closed and a similarly brown ghost stood guard — a handsome young man with muscled arms and a friendly face. Neville’s footsteps didn’t pause to open the doors, though. Within seconds, she heard him greeting familiar voices inside.
‘Is the door really open?’ Mira whispered to Ben.
‘It is. Do you want to wait; see if a ghost opens the ghostly version of it?’
Mira shook her head. ‘I can do this.’
She walked right up to the closed ghostly doors, where she smelled a familiar mix of soap and gun oil.
‘Hello, Mira!’ Matron Sanchez called from inside the room.
Mira stopped, still unable to see anything except the ghostly door and the ghostly guard she’d have to walk through to get inside. She tried to sidestep him, but bumped into something else.
‘Are you okay, ma’am?’
Mira yelped in surprise. It was the ghost — almost. The voice came from close beside him, as if he had an invisible shadow that could talk. She touched the ghost’s shoulder; didn’t feel anything and pushed through him timidly until she reached his middle and found a warm invisible shape.
‘Ma’am?’ he asked again.
Mira startled and pulled back her hand.
‘Ben?’ she whispered, knowing he was still close behind her. ‘Is there only one guy here or two?’ She couldn’t smell or hear anyone else.
‘One, but he won’t hurt you.’
‘And the door’s definitely open, right?’
‘I’ll prove it,’ Ben said. ‘Give me your hands.’
She did and he transferred them to hook onto his arm and elbow.
‘Now close your eyes and follow me.’
She obeyed and promptly found herself on the other side of the wispy translucent barrier.
‘Hey, wow! I just walked through the door!’
‘It’s a miracle,’ Neville muttered, a short distance to her left.
‘Did she give you any trouble?’ asked Matron Sanchez. Her voice came from Mira’s right, where someone had scrawled a maths formula on the ghostly brown blackboard.
In the centre of the room, desks had been arranged into the shape of a horseshoe, where two ghostly men worked with an assortment of equipment and talked silently to a grossly overweight woman. She sat on a chair in the middle of their horseshoe, attached to their equipment by wires from her head, neck, chest and arms.
Nearby sat a leathery-looking man, much older than the others, with a much lighter shade of skin. She noticed the pattern of Braille dots stamped on the toes of his leather shoes and startled, realising exactly whose ghost she was looking at.
‘That depends on your definition of trouble,’ said Neville. His voice came from the opposite side of the room to where the ghost sat. ‘It was an experience, all right, but I can’t say she was aggressive.’
Two of him! Mira trembled. One each side of me!
‘No trouble,’ Ben confirmed. ‘She’s still a little jumpy, though. The docs just have to be careful to warn her before touching her.’
‘You’ve got it,’ said Van Danik.
His voice came from the same direction as the large, broad-chested ghost sitting at the horseshoe table. On his left sat a long-haired Asian ghost.
Mira walked timidly towards his voice to get abetter look at the two ghost doctors and their ghostly equipment. There was a laptop with a sticker on it showing a computer being warped and sucked into a weirdly shaped whirlpool in the slanted shape of a figure eight, with the words: Warning, do not divide by zero! She giggled, remembering the first day her father had taken her to the old schoolhouse, where she’d seen the stern ghostly teacher throw chalk at one of his students for failing to recognise the sleeping figure eight as the symbol for infinity.
‘Matron,’ Ben said behind her, ‘those sunglasses I gave her seem to help so much I’m beginning to think she might be blind from some kind of oversensitivity to glare. Is that possible?’
‘I think she’s been diagnosed with just about every eye disorder at one time or another,’ Sanchez replied. ‘So it may be a factor.’
Mira leaned over the shoulder of the skinny longhaired Asian ghost for a better look at the strange equipment he was using. It looked a lot like the binoculars her father had often used to look for bikini girls sunbaking on boats in the bay. Bird-watching of a different kind, he’d called it. Except these binoculars were much bigger and set up on a tripod. It seemed as if the ghost was using them to magnify the insides of the fat ghost lady’s eyes.
Strangely, she could smell the ghost of the Asian doctor — his hair smelled like pine needles!
‘This is my seat,’ he said, startling her. She leapt away. ‘You’ll need to sit over there.’
‘How did you do that?’ she snapped.
‘Do what?’ asked Ben, and she realised everyone must be looking at her. Everyone except the rude ghosts, as usual. They kept playing their silent games.
She pointed at the long-haired ghost. ‘He talked without moving his lips! They don’t talk! Ghosts never
talk. I always have to read their lips. And he smells nice. Ghosts never smell like anything.’
‘What’s she on?’ asked the Asian ghost, again without looking up from his work or moving his lips.
She recognised his voice as Dr Zhou’s, but it didn’t make sense — unless the invisible version of him was sitting in exactly the same place as the ghost.
‘I don’t mean that in a derogatory way,’ he said. ‘How much has she had, of what and when?’
‘We can’t discuss medication in front of clients,’ Neville replied. ‘There shouldn’t be much left in her system by now anyhow. Her last dose was last night at eight. I’ll bet that’s the problem, though. She’s missed two doses so far today.’
‘I’m not hallucinating,’ Mira said. ‘I’m not crazy either! He talked! He was invisible the last time I saw him, so now he must be sitting inside a ghost!’
‘Mira, honey,’ the matron said, ‘listen to what you’re saying. He was invisible the last time you saw him?’
Mira kept her eyes on the ghost. He started to move his lips as if speaking to the other ghosts — but no sound came out. She had to lean around in front of his face to lip-read what he was saying, and realised that he was asking questions about the fat ghost’s age and parentage — and not getting any responses except for the constant silent mumbling of numbers that didn’t make any sense.
‘If anyone’s crazy in here, it’s her!’ She pointed at the ghost woman.
‘Nobody’s calling you crazy, Miss Chambers,’ said Zhou.
She leaned closer to the Asian ghost and noticed that his ears were scarred. They looked as if they’d fallen off, melted a little and been stitched back on.
‘Would you like to take a seat just there?’ he asked,startling her with the proximity of his breath — so close that she could smell he’d had salmon for lunch. ‘We’ll try to fathom the difference between what you think you can see and hear.’
Mira nodded, but was shaken. ‘Can we wait until she’s finished? I don’t want to sit in her lap.’
‘In whose lap?’ Ben asked.
Mira pointed to the central seat.
‘We need a few more clues than that,’ said Van Danik. Like Zhou, the invisible version of him seemed to have merged with his ghost, except his ghost had just bitten the head off a stretchy snake-shaped lolly.
‘There!’ Mira insisted. ‘The fat lady who’s mumbling numbers really fast.’
‘Moaning Joan?’ asked Neville.
‘Neville!’ Matron Sanchez scolded. ‘I’ve told you before — do not speak in a condescending manner about clients!’
‘Sorry. I mean Joan Gilders. Moaning Joan is her. was her nickname. She’s not there, though, Mira. Nobody is.’
Mira pointed again and snapped her fingers. ‘I can see her sitting right there
, as clearly as I see the desks and chairs! She’s got a mole on her right cheek and two more on her neck!’
‘You only think you can see her,’ Neville argued. ‘From your memories.’
‘Are you sure?’ Sanchez said. ‘Mira was blind when she came here so she couldn’t have known about Joan’s birthmarks. could she?’
‘But she did hear me telling the docs about her,’ Ben said, ‘so she knows that Joan mumbles answers to complex maths calculations.’
‘No, no, no!’ Mira said in frustration. ‘I know because I can see her. She’s right there!’ She leaned closer to read her lips. ‘She just said “If a equals for and bee equals five and n equals six then...” Oh, look! I know!’ Mira clapped her hands and pointed from Joan to the blackboard. ‘She’s working out that sum on the board! Silly me, it wasn’t the word “for", it was the number “four".’
‘What sum?’ Sanchez asked. ‘The blackboard is clean.’
‘It’s not!’
Van Danik sucked in his breath. ‘Trace over it for us,’ he suggested.
Mira laughed. ‘You don’t think I can do it, but it’s just like the horizon, isn’t it, Ben?’
‘Show them what you mean,’ he said. ‘You have to admit, it does sound a little strange from their perspective.’
Mira nodded and bounded across the room to find a piece of chalk. It wasn’t where she could see it, though, just like some of the things at the treehouse, so she fumbled blindly along the chalk tray until she found a piece big enough to write with.
In large letters, she scrawled out a short maths formula and drew a box around it:
(A + Bn)/n = x
‘Hence God exists,’ Van Danik said, explaining why he’d written it there the first time. ‘That was the solution to an argument I was having with Hawthorn, but —’
‘You can prove God exists?’ Ben interrupted. ‘Mathematically? Are you kidding me?’
‘Indeed I am not. However, her eyes were stitched shut that day, and I wiped the board before we left, so when did she see it?’
‘I can see it now,’ Mira insisted. ‘As well as the longer one beside it.’
Without needing to be asked, she wrote R$$ — 1/2g$$R = 8$$GT$$ and underlined it.
‘Okay, hands up,’ Van Danik ordered flatly. ‘Who taught her string theory?’
‘The only string theory we do around here is macramé,’ Sanchez replied. ‘Sometimes a little knitting.’
‘She’s psychic!’ Neville cried. ‘She homes in on my family jewels with deadly accuracy every time!’
Van Danik snorted sarcastically. ‘I’d much rather identify a scientific explanation.’
Footsteps approached Mira swiftly and the chalk was snatched from her fingers.
‘Can you see this?’ Van Danik challenged.
The blackboard squawked, making her skin shiver. She heard a piece of chalk snap, but the sharp edge of the chalk kept moving and she knew that what he was writing now was twice as long as the first formula but not as long as the second.
‘I can’t see you,’ she said, ‘or your writing, just what was already there when we came in.’
‘Intriguing,’ Van Danik mused. ‘Considering the formulae you just wrote, I’d expect you to recognise your own name. So assuming you’re telling the truth and not withholding information, this is quite a puzzle.’
‘And I need it to be solved more than you do,’ Mira replied with more patience than she felt, ‘so please don’t assume that I’d be so stupid that I’d lie to you, especially today.’
‘That wasn’t meant as an insult,’ Van Danik assured her. ‘Let me take my foot out of my mouth and rephrase it: we need more data before we can attempt to pose a hypothesis to this conundrum.’
‘Was that English?’ Mira whispered to Ben.
‘Almost. Roughly translated, it means they need to start before they can finish.’
‘Would it help,’ Zhou asked, ‘if we moved the tables and equipment away from your ghosts?’
‘Maybe. I won’t be sitting inside Joan then, but if you make the tables and chairs invisible, it’s the same as making me blind to them.’
‘Well, that makes sense,’ Van Danik said flatly. ‘I’ll just put away my invisibility ray gun and shift them manually.’
‘There’s your foot again,’ Sanchez warned.
Mira frowned, but stayed near the blackboard, listening to furniture scrape across the floor. As she expected, not a single thing in the room appeared to move — except the ghosts, who made only small movements as they worked with their ghostly sensors and talked silently amongst themselves.
‘How’s that?’ asked Ben after they’d finished.
‘Invisible,’ she replied. ‘Ben, can you help me find the seat now?’
He did, and Van Danik assisted her in attaching the cold invisible wires for the heart monitor and the localised EEG sensors around her head.
‘We’ll need your sunglasses off for this,’ Zhou said.
Mira panicked, slapping her hand up to hold them in place. ‘Do you have to? Bright light hurts me.’
‘I need to see your eyes,’ Zhou explained, ‘so I can read the tiny changes inside them each time you answer a question.’
‘Through your ophthalmoscope? Is that how you say it?’ Mira pointed to the ghostly desk of equipment behind her. ‘That ghost was talking about it as we came in.’
Silence answered her for a long moment.
‘That funny binocular thing on the smallest tripod,’ she persisted. ‘Except it’s not like any scope I’ve ever touched at appointments with other eye specialists. They always used fat pen-like ones that are hand-held.’
‘I have one of those too,’ Zhou said. ‘This scope has been modified, though, to suit our special needs.’
‘Is that your ghost?’ she asked. ‘The one with long hair and scarred ears?’
Silence again.
‘Why’s everyone gone quiet?’
‘Because,’ Zhou replied, ‘they’re all looking at me. I’ve rarely let anyone close enough to see these.’
Mira heard a few gasps and guessed that he’d drawn his hair aside.
‘Accident when I was a kid,’ he explained, but she could tell from a darkness in his tone that he had a deeper secret. ‘Please allow me to see your eyes, Miss Chambers. If I wasn’t already intrigued, I certainly am now. How you can sense details so perceptively when you’re supposed to be blind is scientifically perplexing.’
‘I tell you, she’s psychic!’ Neville insisted. ‘There’s no science about it.’
‘Thank you, Neville,’ said the matron dismissively. ‘This is obviously going to take a lot longer than I’d expected. You can go back to the ward now and I’ll page you when we’re finished.’
Neville grumbled as he trudged out, just as a new, burlier ghost entered, tucking in his shirt and double-checking his fly as if he’d just been to the toilet. Then she heard more footsteps, followed by a cough, as if the new ghost had an invisible man in its shadow, just like the younger ghost in the hall. The cough reminded her of the deep voice of authority she’d heard the first time she’d met the doctors — the one she’d nicknamed Mr Authority. The sound of footsteps followed the silent brown ghost to a place by the window, where he stopped to look out as if watching for danger. It’s time-delayed, Mira thought. The sound of the footsteps had followed the ghost’s movements at the same speed and stride length, just like watching a movie where the footage and soundtrack had fallen out of sync.
‘Did you hear me, Mira?’ The voice was Ben’s.
‘What? Sorry. I got distracted.’
‘Dr Zhou just asked if you could turn your head back towards his voice and hold still while they finish applying the sensors for you.’
Mira nodded, but not with confidence. A cold shiver of fear rippled down her spine.
‘Would you like a jelly snake?’ offered Van Danik. ‘Only watch it, those things are addictive.’
Mira shook her head. ‘I only like chocol
ate for treats. I haven’t had any for years.’
‘Would it help if someone held your hand?’ asked the matron. ‘Ben or me? Or even both of us?’
‘I can’t. I need my hands on the glass, like Joan... don’t I?’
‘It’s a sensor for pulse and temperature,’ Van Danik explained. ‘And yes, you do.’
‘Amazing,’ Zhou said. ‘You must be able to see something, if not consciously, then subconsciously. I’d bet my life on it.’
‘Can I keep my hands on her shoulders without affecting your tests?’ asked Ben.
‘If you stand behind her,’ Zhou replied. ‘That should be okay.’
‘Yes! If the sky tries to suck me up, you can hold me down, Ben. Okay?... Promise?’
‘You bet.’ Ben shifted into position behind her, rested his hands on her shoulders and massaged gently.
‘I’m taking off your glasses now,’ Van Danik warned.
Mira closed her eyes with another shiver.
‘She gets embarrassed when people stare,’ Ben explained.
‘I can understand that,’ Zhou said. ‘I have the same problem with my ears. Now hold still, please, while I shift this a little.’
She heard Zhou adjusting the ophthalmoscope until she could sense the cool metal almost touching her cheek. Then he gave the order that she dreaded more than anything.
‘Open your eyes for me.’
‘Are you sure I have to? It hurts. I mean it really hurts!’
Zhou sighed. ‘Well, I suppose we can ask the first few control questions without the scope. What’s your name?’
Mira replied, then Van Danik tightened a wire connection and confirmed her accuracy.
The next two questions concerned her age and the number of children in her family, then she sensed a renewed tension in the air.
‘It’s time, isn’t it?’
‘I’m afraid so,’ Zhou replied. ‘But take as long as you need.’
She removed the glasses and white pain pierced through each eye to the back of her brain.
‘Too bright!’ she screamed. ‘It’s burning! It’s burning!’ She wrenched her face away, clamping her eyes shut, and saw soldiers wading into a flooded river, getting sucked under and drowning. ‘Not again!’