Superluminary

by Olivia Rising

  Emily offered a smile along with her small hand. “Nice to meet you, Miss Leung,” she said. “I’ve never met a woman who was brave enough to live out in a cabin all alone. Do you hunt bears?”

  Miss Leung’s lips finally curled. She took the girl’s hand into her own and shook it. “Not if they stay away and don’t become a nuisance.” She spoke with a slight Quebecois accent without any animosity in her tone.

  The kid’s cheating again, I bet, Chris thought with a flicker of amusement. They were here on a fact-finding mission, and if the little Empath could help them break the ice and get to the truth faster, where was the harm in that?

  Miss Leung turned back to Counselor. Her gaze wasn’t quite as biting as before, but it was still far from friendly. “I’ve been informed that I have to give you access to the house and provide you with any information you need,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean I have to stick around to talk to you. I’ve written down everything the police have asked me several times before.” She held out a folded piece of paper and a key ring. “While you’re poking around here, I’m going for a hike. A long one.”

  So we came all this way and we don’t even get to interview her? Chris thought with some regret. Still, part of her understood. The disappearance of a loved one wasn’t easy, and getting interrogated over and over didn’t make it any easier.

  “I’m sorry for the inconvenience.” The Counselor accepted the keys and the paper courteously. “We just want to take a look around so we can figure out what happened to him.”

  “No one tried to figure it out when he disappeared two years ago,” the woman muttered, her expression hardening when she spotted the four military officials who lingered at the far side of the clearing. “So forgive me if I’m not impressed.”

  He disappeared only a few months after the Pulse, didn’t he? Chris recalled. The Covenant was in its infancy with Paladin as the only member. She imagined how the local police were a little overwhelmed with an Evolved disappearance back then.

  “We’ll try to do better this time,” the Counselor assured. “I’d like to find out what happened to Roy, too.”

  Miss Leung didn’t look like she cared one iota about what he wanted. “Well, good luck. And goodbye forever, I hope.” After a final glance at the assembled Wardens, she marched off to the rocky lake shore at a brisk pace, never looking back.

  Once she was out of earshot, Peter spoke up. “Did they ever do a check on her? That woman scares me. She could have killed him with an ax and buried his body. Why else would she be sticking around here?”

  “No, she was in love with him,” Emily said. “A lot. And she hasn’t been able to trust Evolved people or the police since he’s been gone. She blames everyone. Even him.”

  The Counselor unfolded the sheet of paper, skimming over the contents and folding it back up without comment.

  “What’s it say?” Nora asked.

  “Nothing new,” the Counselor said. “I’ve gotten more from the police files, but I don’t believe she doesn’t know anything else. Usually when someone disappears, their life partner notices something.”

  “So why don’t we make her stick around so we can ask her more questions ourselves?” Peter grumbled.

  “Because unwilling witnesses never share more information,” the Counselor explained. “If she doesn’t want to tell us what she saw, we can’t make her.”

  “If Kid’s okay with it, we can figure out if the woman is withholding anything,” Chris said with a glance at Emily. Channeling a woman who was still alive and well was safer than invoking the memories of a potential murder victim.

  “What do you say?” the Counselor asked Emily, his tone gentle.

  “Sure, I think I can help,” she said.

  She’s always so anxious to help, Chris thought, concerned. If anyone ever took advantage of that, they would have to answer to her.

  “Where’s her ax?” Peter’s expression was serious, without a trace of humor.

  “Can’t handle tough women, eh?” Nora clucked her tongue.

  “Miss Leung is a nice person, O,” Emily said. “She’s just a lonely woman who doesn’t wanna leave because she hates giving up.”

  Don’t we all. Chris adjusted her grip on the bear helmet under her arm. Her teammates kept their headpieces in their rucksacks, but hers was too bulky to fit.

  She looked at the key ring dangling from the Counselor’s fingers, counting three keys. One for the cabin door, and the others for a vehicle and a shed maybe? She couldn’t help feeling that she was missing something. Something important. The Wardens were wasting time by just standing around.

  “So, where do we begin?” she asked others.

  “There!” Emily exclaimed. She spun around, pointing a finger at the woods on the far side of the cabin. “Let’s go that way first.”

  Chris raised an eyebrow. “Are you sensing something?”

  “Um, no, not exactly,” Emily replied, stumbling for words. “I dunno why, it just feels like we should go that way.”

  The Counselor directed his gaze at where she had pointed. “Looks like as good a place as any to start,” he agreed, unfolding the paper to skim the handwritten words. “According to the notes, that’s in the same direction as the bird nesting place the Historian was observing at the time of his disappearance.”

  Overdrive jerked a thumb over at the soldiers who were gathered around one corner of the cabin. “They don’t look like your typical birdwatchers,” he joked.

  “Really? Because their big guns make me feel like a sitting duck,” Nora said.

  The Counselor walked over to the soldiers and said a few words. Next thing Chris knew, the uniformed men headed back into the bush.

  “I told them that we would meet them back at the car in two hours,” the Counselor explained.

  Nora’s expression said she was relieved to see them go.

  As the five Wardens walked in the direction Emily indicated, the Counselor slipped his earbuds into his ears and pressed play on the MP3 player. Chris noticed his eyes roved over their surroundings just like they scanned the paper.

  Looking for connections again.

  They came to the little homemade bird observatory mentioned in the notes—a simple observation post with a roof made of a few chain-sawed logs. There weren’t any birds in sight, but the Wardens discovered the remains of a damaged video camera that had been abandoned years ago.

  “Are you getting anything?” Chris asked the Counselor, who was studying the treetops.

  “Not much,” he replied. “His girlfriend was here a few months back, visiting during one of her hikes. That’s about it. But I think one of his favorite fishing spots is close by.” He consulted the paper once more.

  They headed to the lake with the Counselor leading the way. “About here, I think,” he said, stopping by a rocky outcrop. He closed his eyes, concentrating as the others watched him with interest. “Nothing much here, either.” He flipped through the tracks on the MP3 player.

  The Wardens trouped through a small clearing to the top of a nearby hill, but without any luck. They looped back to the cabin, stopping at a shed. The Counselor unlocked it and found it contained a motorbike, a chainsaw, and an assortment of tools, but there wasn’t any sign of a crime. There wasn’t a single item that looked out of place.

  “Hey, um … so, boss … are you sure those connections you sensed in North Dakota led all the way here to Canada?” Peter asked as they trudged to the cabin.

  Chris and Nora exchanged a look. Good question.

  “No,” the Counselor admitted, pressing pause on the track he was listening to. “But Kid confirmed my sense that they came from the North East. The far North East, or as far as a person can travel by foot in a few months.” He gazed into the tree tops again. “But I’m not able to sense the older connections as well. Hardly at all, in fact. Even with yesterday’s booster, I can’t get a sense of what happened more than a few months ago.”

  “Well, hopefully Emily
will fill in some of the blanks so we can solve this thing,” Nora said.

  Chris noticed her teammate’s worried expression. You’ve got a lot riding on finding some answers here, she thought. Poor Nora.

  “We don’t have any time to waste,” Chris said, climbing the cabin steps, realizing the others were right on her tail from the footsteps behind her.

  The Counselor reached past her to unlock the cabin’s front door. Once it was unlocked Chris pushed it open, and was greeted with the distinctive smell of cedar smoke from the wood stove. It reminded her of weekends she’d spent at her Aunt Claire’s vacation home in the Rockies. The interior, with its hooked rugs on the wall and potted geraniums on the windowsill, had a female touch to it. Two walls were occupied by bookshelves so dusty, it was proof that they hadn’t been touched in years.

  Must be the Historian’s book collection. Chris recalled something the Counselor had said earlier about the Historian’s volumes on Native American history.

  Nothing about the cabin’s furnishings struck her as unusual. A plaid couch with a knit throw sat in front of the wood stove, and a large bear skin rug had been laid across the wooden-planked floor. The space in front of the south-facing window had been claimed by a simple wooden table and two chairs.

  Chris placed her helmet on the table. A quick inspection of the two other rooms revealed a bedroom and an office space containing numerous personal items. As expected, the bedroom alone looked like it had recently been used.

  “Everything’s just like it was when he lived here,” Emily commented as she settled on the couch.

  “Boooooring.” Peter grimaced. “There’s not even a TV in here, just a radio.” He made a snoring sound.

  “Some people read, y’know,” Nora retorted, pulling one of the books from a shelf. “I guess they don’t even have cable out here.”

  The Counselor grabbed one of the chairs to set it in front of the couch so he could face the young Empath. “What do you say, Kid? Are you up for figuring out what’s alluding us?” He retrieved a small recording device from his briefcase and checked the batteries.

  The girl nodded, her small face now serious and focused. Chris settled on the couch next to the Empath, prepared to intervene if necessary.

  “Do you think you need another power boost for this?” the Counselor asked. He held one of his player’s earpieces out to Emily.

  The girl shook her head. “Thanks, but I don’t think so. It’s weird, but I already feel more in tune, somehow. It’s hard to explain.”

  The Counselor replaced the device in his own ear. “Good.” He reached into his checkered coat pocket, and handed Emily the piece of paper with Miss Leung’s handwriting on it. “This should help you tap into what she’s not telling us.”

  The girl accepted it, tentative. “You want me to channel Miss Leung?”

  “It would be highly illegal under normal circumstances, I know,” the Counselor admitted.

  What, letting ourselves into someone’s house and then hijacking their subconscious without their knowledge isn’t allowed? Chris thought.

  “But we’re operating on a level beyond even counterterrorism protocol,” the Counselor added before switching the recorder on.

  Not knowing what to expect, Chris braced herself for more unpleasant surprises. The channeling of Chayton had been disconcerting—the sound of Emily’s eerie man voice still haunted her. But she realized this was their last option before giving up and she wasn’t ready to throw in the towel just yet. Especially not with Nora’s life on the line.

  “Whenever you’re ready,” the Counselor prompted Emily.

  The child Empath closed her eyes and brushed her fingers over Miss Leung’s tidy handwriting. After a few seconds, Emily’s expression and body language completely changed. She shifted sideways and draped an arm over the backrest, her stance immediately more aggressive. While crossing one leg across the other knee, she opened her eyes. They now contained a sparkle of someone else’s temper. It was the same anger Chris had seen in the cabin owner’s own eyes not an hour before.

  “Stop wasting my time and tell me what you want to know.” The words came out of Emily’s mouth, but they were said with Miss Leung’s voice. Defiant, impatient.

  Chris sucked in a breath. The child’s transformation was unsettling, but she willed herself to keep a poker face. This was their last lead, and Emily looked okay with their course of action so far.

  “Do you have any idea why or how Roy Wilson, also known as the Historian, disappeared?” the Counselor asked.

  “Not a clue,” Emily said. “I wasn’t lying when I told the officers.”

  “Did you notice anything unusual before his disappearance?” the Counselor continued. “Anything you didn’t tell the officers about?”

  “Yes,” Miss Leung’s voice admitted. Emily crossed her arms across her chest before she continued. “A teenager in the woods. Roy never introduced him to me.”

  Nora closed the hardcover book she was reading, staring at Emily with sudden interest. Overdrive shuffled closer to the couch, straining his ears, and Chris’s jaw dropped a little.

  Now this is getting interesting.

  The Counselor leaned over in his chair, eager, asking, “What more can you tell me about the teenager in the woods?”

  Emily rubbed at her jawline with the back of her hand. “It was a couple of weeks before Roy went missing. He came home from the bird nesting observatory all flustered, asking about the first aid kit. When I asked if he was injured, he said he didn’t need it for himself. He found a boy in the woods who was hurt.” She rolled her eyes. “I sent Roy out to fetch the boy so we could provide proper first aid here. But when he finally returned, Roy told me the boy didn’t need help anymore. Apparently he was healed.”

  Chris mulled the words over. Super-fast healing? Newal had that power, but he transitioned much later. Only a few dozen transitions had been reported back then. Chris was sure that she would have remembered someone with regeneration powers. Whoever this teenager was, he had come out of nowhere.

  “Did you meet the boy?” the Counselor asked.

  “The first time it happened, Roy didn’t come back for a full two hours. When he returned, he was alone,” Emily continued with an adult kind of arrogance. “He told me the kid had been picked up by relatives and was fine.”

  “And you didn’t believe him?”

  Emily barked a short laugh. “I might have believed it if he wasn’t acting so strange afterwards.”

  Chris found herself leaning in closer to Emily. Why didn’t Miss Leung mention any of this to the authorities?

  “Strange? How?” the Counselor asked, keeping his tone professional.

  Emily brushed imaginary bangs away from her eyes. “He spent every hour of daylight in the woods until the day he disappeared. He always enjoyed spending time working outdoors, but this was … let’s just say it was excessive.”

  “Do you know where he went?”

  Emily’s eyes narrowed. “There’s a natural stone pillar nearby that was considered a sacred site by the Algonquin tribe. Roy had been interested in their culture for years so he often mentioned it.”

  “I see.” The Counselor glanced at the nearest window.

  “The one time I went looking for Roy, I overheard him talking to someone there.” Emily paused, her lips pursed together in barely suppressed anger.

  “What did he say?” the Counselor pressed.

  “I heard Roy say some shit about ‘showing’ the kid something. Something about a ‘new experience’, and that he never needed to be alone again. It was all I wanted to hear.”

  Nora stomped to the couch with angry steps. “How come you never told the police about this?” she demanded. “It might have been relevant—”

  The Counselor silenced her with a searing scowl.

  Emily slowly released a breath she had held in check. “Would you go and tell everyone if your lover turned gay and ran off with some homeless teenager without so much as a go
odbye?”

  “Whoa,” Peter said, leaning over the couch. “Don’t you think that’s a bit of a stretch? I mean, if you ask me, you’re a pretty attractive woman. A little hostile, perhaps, but—”

  Another warning look from the Counselor stopped him short.

  “Why else did I find his clothes by the lake?” Emily gave a humorless laugh. “Don’t ask me why I still keep them, but I do.”

  So this is connected to the serial disappearances. Chris’s mind raced to put the facts together. But why the two-year delay between the Historian and the Burrower? Something was still missing.

  “Could you tell me how to find this stone pillar?” The Counselor pressed the recorder’s stop button.

  Miss Leung’s hostile voice described a place not far from the bird nesting observatory they checked out earlier.

  The Counselor placed a gentle hand on the child’s shoulder. “Emily, we’re done,” he said in a soft voice to sever her link to the other woman’s personality. “You can stop now.”

  The girl blinked and looked around with momentary confusion before reaching over for Chris’s arm. “I don’t like doing this,” she murmured, weary. “I’m gonna have weirdo dreams again.”

  Chris made a mental note to discuss the subject with Mr. Turner later. Sure, the girl’s revelations were helpful in terms of their investigation, but nothing was worth putting a nine-year-old through trauma.

  “You’ve been very helpful, Kid,” the Counselor enthused, not at all concerned by the child’s melancholy. “In fact, I think you’ve earned us all some ice cream once we get back into civilization. Unless you prefer a milkshake?”

  The cheerfulness in his voice ticked Chris off. You’re just anticipating the credit you’ll get for her contributions, aren’t you?

  “Mmm, milkshakes!” Peter clapped his hands together.

  “Wardens, I’m going to take a look around that pillar,” the Counselor told them, patting his music player. “In the meantime do me a favor and look around here for anything we might have missed, but please be respectful of Miss Leung’s personal items.”