The Astral Traveler's Daughter

by K. C. Archer

  “Probably didn’t. Just took it deep underground.”

  “Literally underground,” Teddy agreed, thinking about Sector Three.

  “Or Whitfield,” Dara said. She arched one pierced eyebrow. “How’s that for a conspiracy theory?”

  Teddy laughed. Then finally looked around the room, noticing the bright pink bedspread and plethora of scented candles. “Oh my God, I’m sorry. I didn’t even ask who you’re saddled with this year, now that Molly’s—”

  Just then the door opened and Ava Laureau entered, throwing a look of casual disgust at Teddy’s presence. Teddy didn’t recognize her at first, because Ava wore a gold face mask and had her hair in rollers.

  “Beauty-sleep train is about to leave the station, Dara,” Ava tsked. “You know this.”

  “It’s ten already?” Teddy asked.

  As Ava removed the K-Beauty situation from her face, Teddy stood and moved to the door. “Thanks,” she said to Dara. “For listening.”

  She walked back to her room. Empty. Jillian was probably still in the library working on HEAT business. Teddy slumped on her bed, took the necklace out of her pocket, and studied it once more. If this was the key, she had to find the lock. Or maybe this was the lock and she was the key? Whatever. Metaphors were Clint’s thing.

  Teddy tried to center her breathing, concentrate her psychic energy. She willed that telltale heat to form in her palm, despite how awful the travel had been. She’d never experienced pain like that. She’d thought her lungs would burst, her head would explode. Not only had the physical experience been disorienting, the emotional toll had been alarming as well. She was willing to go through it all over again, however, if it brought answers. But no matter how hard she squeezed the stone in her hand, the pendant remained cold.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CLASSES STARTED PROMPTLY AT NINE o’clock the next morning after a healthy and hearty breakfast of vegan flourless blueberry oatcakes with non-dairy vanilla cream. The only thing that would have made it better would have been bacon, lots of bacon. Also if Jillian had somehow acknowledged Teddy instead of focusing all her attention on her canine dream diary.

  After breakfast, Teddy walked with Dara to their first class, Psychometry. The familiar room beckoned at the end of the polished parquet hallway. Another thing that beckoned? Nick Stavros, who stood a few feet away from the classroom door.

  “Hey,” Teddy said, drawing to a stop beside Dara. “I’ll meet you inside, okay?”

  Dara hesitated outside Professor Dunn’s classroom. Following Teddy’s gaze, she spotted Nick. “Seriously, Teddy? Not again. I thought you were over it.”

  “I am over it,” Teddy snapped back. “Over him. Not that there ever was—Look, never mind. Just go in without me, all right? I’ll be there in a second.”

  She strode—okay, she hoped she strode; she was walking with as much confidence as she could muster—down the hallway toward Nick. She’d seen him at the assembly, but that had been at a distance. This was the first time they’d been up close and personal in months. He looked good. Tan and fit, his dark hair swept back. He’d probably just finished a run, she thought, remembering how he liked to take long, solitary laps around the island.

  Last year, running had been her favorite way to clear her head, too. If she were being 100 percent honest with herself, it was also what she’d done to accidentally-on-purpose run into Nick. She blushed at the memory of her almost teenage-like crush.

  “Teddy,” Nick said, buttoning his jacket, his greeting cool but not unfriendly.

  “Hey, Nick.” She was surprised at how easy it felt, standing next to him again. She was even more surprised to find that the nervousness she usually felt around him was gone. Maybe her crush was, well, crushed. Too much had happened between them to ever go back to the way it was. Now there was only one thing she wanted, and it wasn’t his arms around her waist, as nice as it was.

  He looked over her shoulder at the other students filing into the classroom. “Something I can do for you?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I just wanted to make sure we’re okay. After, you know, everything that happened.”

  His expression gave nothing away, so she watched his eyes. She could just as easily have pushed into his head. But that would have been a violation of trust. She was beyond that now. She was an adult. She may have thought she needed to be with someone like Nick in order to level up into adulthood, but somehow, Teddy found, she was getting to that place all on her own. A flicker of something that might have been amusement flashed through the green depths of his eyes.

  “Yeah,” he finally said. “I know. And yeah, we’re good.”

  “Good. I’m glad. Because—” She paused, cleared her throat. How was she supposed to say what she really wanted to tell him?

  Don’t hold what happened last year against me. I want you to hire me at the end of all this. All right, Cannon. Just out with it.

  “I’m really hoping for a spot on the FBI track.”

  His face still gave nothing away, but Teddy could have sworn that the corner of his mouth ticked up. “And why’s that?”

  “Because I think that’s the track I’m best suited for. Also—” She hesitated, considering her words.

  Because everything else feels like a dead end or a hopeless riddle.

  She needed access to things. Top-secret things. Redacted things. Anything and everything pertaining to the PC. Because a necklace wasn’t a cache of information she could read. Because Yates and Clint weren’t people she could control. But since she couldn’t say that, she decided to go with as much of the truth as she could: “I need to find my birth parents. Find out what happened to them.”

  “And you think, as an FBI agent, you’ll have access to all sorts of information.”

  She nodded.

  “You realize,” he said with a sigh, “that’s entirely the wrong reason to become an FBI agent. The agency is bigger than anyone’s personal life. Even yours.”

  That stung more than Teddy wanted to let on. He wasn’t hearing this right. If she could explain . . . “I know that, Nick. I was just—”

  “It’s about serving your country. Any good FBI agent understands that. Maybe you will, too, at the end of this.” He looked back over her shoulder. “I should get in there.”

  Before she could say another word, he moved past her and down the hall, then ducked into Professor Dunn’s classroom.

  Teddy stared after him, telling herself the conversation could have gone worse. She could have made a joke about their one-night stand. Could have mentioned breaking in to the FBI building last year. But in the end, Nick had shot her down.

  She gathered her dignity and followed him inside only to find a classroom full of students staring at her and Sergeant Boyd—rather than Professor Dunn—standing at the lectern in front of the room. Upon Teddy’s entrance, Boyd paused dramatically, and her lips curved upward in that tight, poisonous sneer Teddy had spent her entire first year learning to dread. “How nice of you to join us, recruit.”

  Too bad she’d run away and joined Whitfield Institute rather than the circus. She’d take a lion and a tiger and twenty clowns over Boyd any day. She scrambled into a seat and waited for Whitfield’s own version of the three-ring show to begin.

  Pyro leaned forward from the chair behind her. “Dara said you were talking to Stavros? Really, Teddy?”

  She hissed back, “None of your business.”

  Boyd’s eyes narrowed. “Late and disruptive, Cannon? I’ll see you in my office after class.”

  Teddy clenched her jaw. Wouldn’t be Whitfield without Boyd on her. The allure of a fresh start sure had worn off fast.

  “You have made it through your first year. But don’t believe that your place here is safe,” Boyd said, addressing the room. “Because you’ve made it, more will be expected of you—both in the classroom and in the field. This year, we start assessing you for placement on government service tracks.”

  “I heard a rumor that at the en
d of the third year, the top students get to pick their track,” Kate interrupted.

  “I’m getting there, Ms. Atkins. Yes and no,” Boyd said. “You may request a specific posting, but there is only one way to influence that outcome.” She paused dramatically. “And that is by your performance. Your drive. Your dedication. To that end, we will be evaluating you both in your classes and on your casework. Starting now.”

  Teddy watched as Boyd turned and seated herself between Nick and Joan Wessner, Whitfield’s new Secret Service instructor. Teddy knew that as long as Boyd had a say, she’d never let Teddy pick her own track. Now Professor Amar Dunn ambled to the front of the room, late, as always. His hair was shoulder-length and wavy and wet—no doubt from surfing this morning—his Nirvana concert T-shirt tattered and worn—no doubt from actually attending that concert years earlier. Teddy had underestimated him initially. He looked like he belonged on a beach, not in a classroom. But the guy was a bona fide genius.

  “Emotions,” Dunn began, lightly tapping against his temple, “do not simply happen up here. Fear makes our palms sweat. Our face goes purple with rage. The sight of someone we love makes our heart leap. We gasp or even faint when shocked. Get goose bumps when spooked. And so on and so forth. In sum, emotions put our body through physiological changes. The more intense the emotion, the stronger our physical reaction. But it’s even more than that—why do you think they call it a gut feeling? Because we sense it in our gut. We feel with both our body and our mind.” Moving to the blackboard, Dunn lifted a piece of chalk and scribbled out a word.

  “Psychometry,” he said. “Who can tell me what that means?”

  Ben Tucker’s hand shot up. “The ability to use an inanimate object to gain information about the person or place associated with that object. Like with a photograph of a crime scene: sometimes looking at a picture will trigger a vision.” He leaned back in his seat, preening with satisfaction.

  “Thank you, Mr. Tucker,” Dunn said. “That’s certainly a start. But that’s not exactly correct.”

  Teddy was surprised when Dara tentatively raised her hand. “While it’s true that a photograph can bring on a vision, we have to also think of objects that don’t have implicit narratives.”

  Teddy studied her friend. Was there more to Dara’s new power than she’d shared? The death visions she’d been getting over the summer—could some have been triggered through this kind of psychometric connection?

  Dara continued, “Like with an object. For example, from our case last year. Marlena’s jewelry.” It had been their first field case, and Jillian had performed psychometry when she’d used the murder victim’s ring to connect with Marlena’s spirit.

  Dunn nodded. “As psychics, we can ‘read’ the energy of these objects, using an item to trigger a psychometric moment—but if you want to be technical . . .” He turned to the board. “Recent studies have shown that emotions are more than just chemical reactions in the brain. Instead, scientists in the field of psychoneuroimmunology are suggesting that emotions are molecules: short chains of amino acids and receptors that can be found throughout the body. Those gut feelings? Emotion molecules in your gut. Psychics have known for years than emotions are tangible and that your DNA leaves behind traces of emotional history to study. Science, it seems, is finally catching up.”

  Dara cleared her throat. “So that DNA remains on a piece of jewelry, like Marlena’s ring.”

  Or a pendant, Teddy thought. Like my mother’s necklace.

  Dara continued, “What you’re saying, Professor Dunn, is that if you consider emotions as entities and not abstractions, then maybe it’s not the object itself that will tell us something but the traces of emotion imprinted on that object.”

  “Exactly.”

  “How does that help us get a read on an object?” Ben asked.

  “Good question, Mr. Tucker. Objects become imbued with genetic material. So technically, what we’re doing in psychometry when we touch an object is trying to pick up on those molecules and use them as a way to jump-start our abilities. It’s a shortcut. These objects, through touch, may be a way to mitigate limitations to your powers, such as temporal and spatial distance.”

  Teddy knew Clint wanted her to develop this skill to travel with the necklace. Though Teddy wasn’t sure how it would help with astral telepathy. But if psychometry was a shortcut into someone’s head? If she could avoid the mental work of building a house? She’d save so much psychic energy.

  Ava raised her hand. “When you say ‘objects,’ you’re also talking about murder weapons, right?”

  “Certainly,” Dunn said, “but not exclusively. As Ms. Jones mentioned, any object significant to a specific event—or important to a person at that event—can be a highly effective psychometric tool.” He began to walk up the aisle between the students. “There are psychics who specialize in psychometry, gleaning all sensory information from touch. But it’s a skill almost all of us can hone and then employ to receive sensory information that relates to our abilities. Clairaudients will likely hear information when they touch an object. A clairvoyant will have a vision.”

  “Where does that leave me?” Pyro asked from behind Teddy. “Hard to imagine that controlling fire can relate to all this.”

  Dunn paused, considering the question. “Guess we’ll have to find out.” If anyone else had said it, Teddy would have assumed the words were a joke, but Dunn spoke with genuine curiosity. He shot a glance to the corner of the room, where Boyd, Wessner, and Nick watched. “As Sergeant Boyd mentioned, this year we begin evaluating you for government tracks. Obviously, psychometric skills are helpful with evidence work.”

  FBI. Her chance to prove herself to Nick.

  “So, today,” Dunn continued, “we’re going to attempt to read objects. Learn to sense the human energy permeating the inanimate. I want you to think of your fingertips as magnets and those emotion molecules as metal. You need to draw them to you. Or, if we’re thinking more touchy-feely, sense the part of the object that’s charged with emotion and then tap in to it. That’s how you need to focus your psychic energy. You’ll know when it starts working.”

  “How?” Teddy asked.

  “Heat,” Pyro answered without missing a beat. “The object will get warm. I guess any stored energy, even psychic energy, can cause an exothermic reaction.”

  Just like the stone did.

  Dunn lifted a black cloth bag and explained that each of them would place a personal possession in it, and then a student would draw an object to read. In order for the exercise to work, the owners had to remain anonymous. Dunn would wait outside with the bag as each student brought him an item.

  One by one the students filed into the hall to give their object to Dunn. When it was Teddy’s turn to deposit her item into the bag, she hesitated for a moment, holding the necklace in her fist. She wanted desperately to see if another psychic could provide insights into her mother’s past. At the same time, she wasn’t sure she wanted to risk exposing her mother’s secrets.

  “Ms. Cannon?” Dunn prompted.

  Teddy dropped the pendant in the bag. She returned to the classroom, then watched Boyd, Nick, and Wessner leave the room one by one to deposit a personal item.

  Dunn returned, swept his gaze over the room. “Who’d like to go first?”

  Ava raised her hand. “As a medium, I’ve done object work before. So I should be a natural.” She sneaked a smile in Nick’s direction. Teddy rolled her eyes.

  Dunn brought the bag to Ava. She stuck in her hand and retrieved a small American flag pin. Teddy wondered if it belonged to Nick or Boyd. But in truth, it could have belonged to anyone in the room. Maybe Kate, whose family served in the military.

  “Remember,” Dunn coached, “your fingers are magnets.”

  Ava nodded, focusing intensely on the task. She rubbed her hands together, then held the pin in her palms.

  “Can you feel the energy?” Dunn asked.

  “I can.”

  “Go
od. Tell us what you sense.”

  The class fell into a hush. She cocked her head one way and then the other, as if fine-tuning her reception. “Blood,” she said. “Blood everywhere. A lot of it. Shock. Pain. It’s happening fast. Too fast. It feels hot. I think it’s a bullet wound.”

  “Any read on who the object may belong to?” Dunn guided.

  Ava’s eyes glazed over as if she were slipping into a trance. Her voice pitched low. “My partner’s hit. Call for backup. It’s her leg. Protect—”

  In seconds, Wessner was up and across the room, grabbing the pin from Ava’s hands and slipping it into her own pocket. “You can write down that she passed,” Wessner said quietly to Dunn, then went back to her seat in the corner.

  Ava smiled wide. Which struck Teddy as . . . wrong.

  A stillness settled over the room. “Next?” Dunn said.

  The class stayed silent. Not a lot of volunteers eager to follow Ava’s performance.

  Now or never, Cannon.

  Teddy raised a hand.

  Dunn brought the black bag and instructed Teddy to remove the first object she touched. She reached in and came out with a wooden bangle bracelet she immediately recognized as Jillian’s.

  She took a deep breath. Like magnets, Dunn had said. Teddy rolled her fingers against her thumbs, generating friction. She picked up the bracelet, closed her eyes, and tried to focus on sensing the Jillian-ness of the jewelry: her split-level in Jersey and her hamster, Fred, and her penchant for patchouli. Her summer with Eli. Eli, what was his deal, anyway? But . . . no. Teddy was supposed to be focusing on the emotion molecules.

  She centered her thoughts and tried again. The wood began to warm beneath her fingertips. It was working! Even though she wasn’t in the mood, Teddy felt happy. But there was something underneath. Nerves? Anxiety? She felt her heart speed up. And then, without having to do the work of picturing a house and building a bridge into Jillian’s mind, she found her astral self reach out, and all of a sudden, she was inside Jillian’s head.

  Immediately, Teddy could tell how visiting a memory was different from what she’d experienced when she’d traveled in Sector Three. In the bunker, she had visited the past. She’d been there, experiencing events in real time. Now, inside Jillian’s thoughts, the edges of the scene were softer, blurrier. Time bounced, and she struggled to pin down the details of what unfolded in front of her.