The Ethereal Vision

by Liam Donnelly

  ***

  In the days that followed Jane’s conversation with her new friends and their discovery of the devices that suppressed their psychic abilities, she began to notice some of the staff in the facility acting strangely. She had seen people in lab coats run through the hallways, and she had seen others, more frequently than she had seen before, go through the metallic door at the end of the second corridor. She guessed that they were reacting to the recent threats to the facility that had been broadcast around the world.

  She was spending a lot of time with Morris and growing close to him. She liked him. There was a new warmth growing inside of her that she had not felt before. She fell asleep at night listening to his heart beating through the psychic connection that was growing between them. She wondered if he did the same. For the first time in a long time, she felt truly close to someone.

  She exited her room one morning a few days after they had seen the televised threats from Ethereal End. As she stepped into the brightly lit hallway, a terrible dizziness came over her, and she leaned against the wall for fear of falling over. She touched her hand to her forehead as a dull ache began to grow there. She raised her head to look up. Through blurred vision, she saw Morris come out of his room and stumble towards her.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she replied, then hesitated. “They’ve done something, Morris. Something’s changed.” She placed a hand on his shoulder, noticing the firm muscle beneath the thin fabric. It seemed then that strength flowed from his body into hers like electricity. She was glad of it.

  “Yes, I noticed.”

  Ciara came towards them slowly, also clutching her temple. “It’s the field. It’s stronger now. They’ve turned it up.” She looked at Jane. “Can you hear me?”

  Jane looked at Ciara, knowing she was attempting to communicate with her telepathically, but could make out no clear words.

  “No, I can barely hear a thing,” Jane said, and her breathing deepened. If they had no access to telepathy, their plans to escape were nothing more than vain desires. She looked around at Morris as he groaned in discomfort.

  “This doesn’t feel good either,” he said.

  “No. It isn’t healthy. I don’t know what it’s doing to us, but it’s not good,” Jane added.

  A voice boomed over them. It seemed to come from every direction.

  “Jane Connor, please report to the testing room.” It was Lucas; his deep, dry voice resounded through the corridor.

  She looked at her friends as the echo of his voice faded. The three of them shared glances before Ciara finally said, “Come on, we’ll go with you.”

  “He won’t let you come in,” Jane said.

  “I know. We’ll walk you in that direction anyway.”

  They walked down the aisle to the main corridor and stayed with Jane until they reached the end. She turned to face them when she got to the door that led to the testing room where Lucas had brought her before.

  “We can still get through the door and shut down the field. We just have to find another way,” she said, though the resolve in her voice had faded palpably. She clutched her forehead again. “I don’t know if we’re going to get used to it this time.”

  “Me neither,” Morris said. “If he does anything to you in there…”

  “You’ll do nothing,” she said gently, cutting him off. “I appreciate the thought, but we have to play this properly if we’re going to escape.” She turned around as the door opened automatically. She stepped through and the door closed behind her.

  Lucas was standing on the other side, waiting for her with his arms folded across his chest. He was holding a pen in his hand; the other end dangled from his mouth.

  “Come with me,” he said. He turned and walked towards the same room as before. She followed. Thanks to the amplified effect of the field, she was moving more slowly than before, but her pace was picking up and she could feel her energy start to return; apparently she was adjusting to the new level. How long, though, she wondered, would it be before something inside her broke? How long before something became damaged? She winced at the thought of this; the idea of losing a part of herself to this place—to him—made her want to cry.

  Lucas watched as she walked to the other side of the room and took a seat at the far end of the table. The overhead light hurt her eyes and she squinted.

  “Are the lights too bright for you, Jane? Would you like me to turn them down?” he asked, the mocking tone in his voice obvious.

  She had the direct impression that he had been the one to give the order to dial up the effect of the suppression device. She glared back at him. “No, I’m fine,” she said in a clear tone. She looked down at the desk. Across from her, on his side, was a very minute crack from when she had first heard him slam his fist down. The impact hadn’t affected the functions of the device, though.

  “Okay. The dampening field has been lowered very slightly in this room, Jane. Would you be so kind as to test your abilities on the objects you see in front of you? You’ll find that you won’t be able to do much other than roll the marbles around. As you know, we had to make some adjustments after your previous display.”

  She glanced at the reflective glass that had been repaired. Then she looked at the objects on the desk in front of her before looking up at him. “No,” she replied.

  He stared at her for a moment, then turned to the mirror. He made a cutting gesture across his neck and turned back to her.

  “All of the recording devices in this room have been switched off now, Jane.” He began to manipulate the controls on the digital surface again.

  She began to feel queasy. She thought she would throw up, but kept her gaze fixed straight ahead at him. He flicked his fingers on the desk, and, like before, she saw another photograph fly across the space between them.

  It was another picture of her father—a different one this time, from before she had been born. It was a college graduation photograph. She had seen this image in her parents’ digital library. Momentary feelings of warmth washed over her as she recalled looking through these images with her mother.

  “I’d like to talk to you again about the accident that occurred when you were young.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, on that night, in that specific location, we recorded an immense incidence of psionic activity. I went to that location to investigate, but I found nothing.” He paused and glared at her. “I know the accident precipitated your father’s leaving, Jane.”

  The dam was once again apparent in her mind. She was standing at its base as a crack appeared and spread upward. A streak of pain shot up through her body from her navel and went straight into her mind. She had the urge to cry, but her lips stayed sealed, and her expression remained firm.

  “What do you want me to say? There was an accident. My father misjudged a turn.” She hadn’t planned on saying this, but the words came from her lips unbidden nonetheless.

  “Well, there weren’t enough details in the police report to say either way, but I think we both know that’s not what happened”

  “I don’t want to talk about this.”

  He grunted in a half sneer. “Well, I’m sorry, but you’ll have to. You stopped the car, Jane, didn’t you?”

  She answered honestly this time. “I don’t remember, Johnson,” she said, shaking her head. Once again, in her mind, the innocuous child’s toy—the teddy bear—fell from over her shoulder and through the windshield. Somewhere, along with this memory, she felt the shudder of the car as it froze in mid-air and the suffocating impact as she slammed against her safety belt. Another crack appeared in the dam, rising upward from its base rapidly like lightning.

  In her mind now she looked up at the structure of the dam. All that power, she thought as she felt for it, slowly, tentatively. All these years. That’s where I’ve been keeping it. She gasped. She closed her eyes. In her mind she willed the dam to seal itself once again, and its growing light diminished as the c
racks began to close upward.

  She opened her eyes and looked at Lucas.

  “Does the fact that you are so unwilling to use your abilities have something to do with the fact that your father left shortly after? Was he ashamed of you? Afraid of you?” Lucas asked casually, his eyebrows raised.

  She didn’t respond, just returned his stare.

  He stood, took the baseball off the table and began to walk around the far end of the room. Then, without warning, he turned, lifted his arm back over his head and threw it directly at her. It hit Jane square on her right cheek and she gasped, reaching to that spot with her hand as the ball bounced in the background behind her.

  He had thrown it hard, and its trajectory had managed to scrape off the surface of her skin there. She looked at her fingers, trembling, and saw a minute amount of blood as a pulse of pain began to build underneath her swollen cheek. Her lips were quivering, though she forced them to stay sealed as she looked back at Lucas, who was now pacing the room as though nothing had happened.

  “Let me remind you that all of the recording devices in this room have been disabled, Jane. Nobody will ever know what happened in here. Except for you and me…of course.” He leered at her then, grinning. “You’ve grown very fond of Morris,” he said after a moment of silence during which Jane wished she could reach across the table and punch him.

  “What of it?” she asked. Every word sent a streak of new pain into her face.

  “Well, if you’re not going to give me the information I need, I’ll have to persuade you. You know how far I’ll go, so why don’t you just make this easier and move the damn marbles.”

  “No.”

  “So Morris it is, then.”

  “If you lay a finger on him…” she said, but her voice was quivering now.

  “What? Tell me Jane, what are you going to do? In here, your ethereal ability is DORMANT!” He boomed the last word across the table, slamming both fists on the glass. Additional minute cracks spread out from his fists, as though in slow motion, like ice crystals might form on a window frame.

  She flinched, but only by a few millimetres. Still, she did not relent, and continued to stare into his eyes. She only faltered and looked to the side for a brief moment.

  “Get out of here,” he said finally.

  It took her a moment to realise that she was free to go. She stood up from the table, ignoring the dull ache the movement sent to her forehead and walked briskly towards the door. As she approached it, she clasped her hand over the butterfly in her pocket, running her fingers over it. She saw Lucas shift as she walked past him. She knew what was coming.

  “Wait,” he said.

  She stopped and gasped as he approached from behind. He grabbed her arm and lifted it upward. He stared at the beautiful object in her hands, and his eyes grew wide.

  “Where on earth did you get this?” he asked as he grabbed the ornament out of her hand.

  She had no more words for him and merely stared back. He glared at the butterfly, turning it over in his hand as though he were looking at some kind of alien object. Then its significance seemed to become apparent to him, as his face went blank. He looked back at Jane. He smiled, dropped the beautiful butterfly to the floor and brought his boot solidly down on it. It smashed beyond all recognition, and minute fragments of the exquisite object spread out around his shoe.

  He reached up a well-muscled arm and grabbed her tightly just below the shoulder. Then he opened the door and threw her into the corridor. She put her hands out to stop herself from slamming into the wall on the other side of the door. She turned around, placing her hands against the cold concrete there. He looked at her a moment longer, then slammed the door.

  She took a moment outside the room to breathe, then proceeded through the door back into the main corridor. She stopped for a moment, but she was more aware than ever that she was being watched, so she forced herself onward. Her thoughts were swirling as she walked back through the corridors, and now tears streaked down her face, stinging her cheek even further. The panic rising in her mind was all about Max. In losing the butterfly, she felt as though her final connection to him had been severed. Still, something gave her hope—a memory not of the past, but of something else she couldn’t quite grasp. Somewhere inside her, she felt as though she was remembering the future. Although that seemed impossible, she couldn’t dismiss the possibility and continued onward.