by Tom Reamy
“Poe, stop! You’re scaring me now.”
“Not at all, young man.” Weatherly rushed in to repair the breach. “Obviously, they’ve discovered the detour is also flooded and are turning the cars around.”
Poe grimaced and laughed. “Spoilsport!”
Ann picked up the kettle and looked at me. “I’ll put on some more water,” she said and left the room. I followed her, kicking myself for not getting her alone sooner.
The door to the kitchen was open. I leaned against the doorjamb and watched her fill the kettle from the hand pump. She had short dark hair—actually not much longer than mine. She was tall, with long, very good legs. With high heels she would be taller than I, but she was wearing sneakers. I was five-ten, but I hoped to make it to six feet in a couple of years. I know I didn’t make a sound, and she had her back to me.
“Hello, Ben Henderson,” she said without turning around.
The kitchen was dark and gloomy even though one of the kerosene lamps was burning. I had her alone and I didn’t know what to say. So I pretended interest in the lamp.
“It’s a wonder people didn’t go blind with no more light than these things make.” I gritted my teeth.
“They probably did,” she said and lit the burner under the kettle. Then she turned and looked at me. She had a faint, slightly impudent smile on her lips. I felt as if I were standing there stark naked. It came so suddenly and unexpectedly. I blushed like a virgin. Then I blushed because I was blushing. The sensation was so erotic, I had to do some fancy mental footwork to keep from really embarrassing myself.
She laughed, but there was only fondness in it. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to embarrass you. I only wanted to see if you could pick it up.”
“Loud and clear,” I said, fighting the tingle in the pit of my stomach.
“You’re a very good-looking young man,” she said matter-of-factly. “You should be used to it.”
“It was a little different this time. You knew I was picking it up.”
She leaned back against the kitchen cabinets. Her voice was wistful. “Don’t you sometimes wish you were like everyone else? Do you get sick to death of always knowing?”
“Yeah. Sometimes.”
“You’re very lucky, you know. Your family loves you very much.”
“You don’t have a family, do you?”
“No. They were both killed when I was little. I was adopted by an aunt. Did you see that?”
“No, not really. I felt sadness and a sense of loss when you mentioned my family. It had to’ve been something like that.”
“My aunt and uncle are very good to me, but, unlike you, there’s no warm, comfortable glow into which I can retreat when things get a bit overwhelming.”
So I did something I’d been wanting to do since I’d found out Ann was like me. She looked at me with pleased surprise. “Thank you, Ben,” she said softly, like white velvet flowing over burnished gold.
“Think nothing of it. Warm, comfortable glows supplied on demand.”
“You’re an idiot.” She chuckled.
“It was real, you know.”
“Yes, of course, I know,” she said simply. Then she laughed. “And watch it, I’ve picked up that one before.”
“Sorry.” I grinned. “Involuntary reflex. Besides, you started it.”
“You’re not a child to me, Ben.” I had again that feel of white velvet.
“I know. It takes a little getting used to, I guess. I thought I was all alone.”
“Seeing yourself as others see you is true with a vengeance in our case. I guess the worst part of it is so many things are boring.”
“Like card games.”
“And school. Did you skip a grade?”
“Yeah.”
“Me, too. I’m in my last year of college.”
“One more year of high school. What will you do when you finish?”
She shrugged. “I’ll probably do postgrad work and get my doctorate in psychology.” A smile. “That’s one field we’re very good in.” I looked at her and she looked at me. It was good, so good. But we had a problem.
“What do you think Professor Weatherly is up to?”
She frowned. “I don’t know. I have a feeling all this has been contrived somehow,” I felt the same thing, but I didn’t say so. She knew. “He’s my psychology professor at the University of New Mexico. When I stopped at that roadblock and he pulled in behind me, I was surprised, to say the least. He said he was on his way to Hawley, that he had lived near there as a child, that he owned some property and had come to settle some affairs.” She looked around the room. “This seems to be the property and we seem to be enmeshed in his affairs.”
“How did you happen to be here?”
She shrugged. “No reason in particular. After classes yesterday, I just decided to take a drive over the weekend. I don’t know why. It seemed a good idea at the time, though I’m not so sure now.” She looked at me and smiled. I felt the hum of violin strings. “No. It was a good idea.” She lowered her eyes. “The water’s boiling. We’d better go back.”
She turned toward the stove with her back to me. “Ben? What you were thinking a moment ago. I didn’t mind.”
“I know,” I said and took the kettle. She turned off the burner and looked at me. It never even occurred to me to blush.
On the way back to the parlor we found Tannie sitting on the bottom step of the stairway with one of the kerosene lamps beside her. She had her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands. She had that perplexed expression she would get when she ran up against something too complex for her to understand. She was obviously waiting for me to help her out.
“Tannie, what are you doing wandering around?” I asked.
“I wanted to see the burned room,” she mumbled with her mind still on something else.
“Did you find it?” Ann asked.
“Yes, thank you,” she said politely, then looked up at me with a little frown. “Ben, what do ghosts look like?”
“I don’t know,” I said and laughed because she was so serious. “I’ve never seen one.”
She looked at her toes and absently scratched her leg. “I always thought they wore sheets, or that you could see right through them. Now, I think they look just like people.”
“What did you see?” I asked seriously, because I knew she’d seen something.
“There was a lady in the burned room. She was about two hundred years old and wore funny clothes.” She looked up at me again with a puzzled little squint. Tannie related all this to me very matter-of-factly, because she knew I never disbelieved her when she was telling the truth.
I put the kettle on the floor and sat beside her on the step. “What did the lady do?”
“Nothin’. She wouldn’t talk to me.”
I took her hand and stood up. “Come on back to the fire. Ann and I will go see.”
Mom, Dad, Poe, and Linda were playing bridge. Carl was looking out the window again, and Jud was reading Rex Reed’s Conversations in the Raw. Weatherly sat on the couch looking depressed.
“Mom,” I said, “Tannie was exploring.”
“What? I thought she was with you. Tannie, you know better than to wander off without telling us.”
“Heck, Mom,” Tannie sighed, expressing the triviality of her offense, “I was just talking to the ghost.”
The reaction from Weatherly was so strong that I turned and looked at him. He was a severely startled man.
Mom smiled. “Sure you were.”
“I’ll be back in a minute,” I said, still watching the professor. “Ann and I are gonna look around.”
“Okay. Be careful.”
“Sure.” I retrieved the lamp from where Tannie left it on the stairs. “Tannie was telling the truth,” I said. “She saw somebody.”
“Yes, I know.” Ann smiled.
I smiled back at her because it was the easiest and most pleasant thing in the world to do. “I keep forgetting. Professor Weat
herly is definitely keeping secrets from us.”
“I know that too. He wasn’t telling the exact truth when he said he lived here as a child.”
“Didn’t he?”
“That part’s true. He did. But he was evading the issue somewhere. Didn’t you pick it up?”
“I wasn’t thinking about it. I seldom read people without a good reason. It’s usually too discomfiting and embarrassing. I just sorta close them out like a background noise you get used to and don’t hear unless you listen for it—or, unless it’s very strong, like when Tannie mentioned the ghost. I picked up an extreme dose of surprise and confusion. I don’t think the professor was expecting to find anyone here.”
We checked out several upstairs rooms, all bedrooms, before we found the burned room. One door, which should have led to the tower if my memory of its position was correct, was locked. I raised my eyebrows questioningly at Ann. She shrugged. The burned room had been a bedroom as well. It looked as if no one had touched it since the fire fifty years ago. The furniture and walls were charred in places but only scorched in others, as if the fire had raged fiercely for a few minutes and then been instantly doused.
But there was no old lady with funny clothes.
When we got back downstairs, Tannie was facing the others defiantly, and near tears. She turned and ran to me. “Ben, would you please tell these people what I saw?” she said with a quiver in her voice.
I knelt and took her in my arms. She put her arms around my neck and valiantly kept from crying. “I’m sorry, honey,” I said softly. “When we got there she was gone.”
“Do you think I’m imagining things, too?” The quiver had grown more pronounced at the thought that I, too, might be against her.
“Of course not,” I said firmly. “She really did see someone,” I said to the others. I stood up, but Tannie kept a grip on my hand.
“How are you so sure?” Judson Bradley Ledbetter asked with a supercilious sneer.
“Has the ghost made an appearance?” Poe asked with genuine interest.
“You’ll have to ask Professor Weatherly about that,” I said.
The professor frowned at me as if one of his own troops had turned on him. He fidgeted a bit and then sighed. “I can assure you there are no ghosts in this house,” he snapped irritably. “However, you are due an explanation, as I see some of you are letting your imaginations run away with you. Before I explain anything, and I still can’t tell you everything, I want to show you something.” He went to the table where the bridge game had been abandoned.
“Why can’t you tell us everything?” Dad asked, becoming a little bit irritable himself.
“You wouldn’t believe me, Mr. Henderson,” he said, sighing impatiently. “And there’s no point in alarming you unnecessarily.”
Poe grunted. “It’s statements like that that alarm me unnecessarily.”
“Mr. McNeal,” Weatherly snapped, “there are no ghosts; you are in no danger. Please stop this wild speculation.” Poe hunkered his head protectively between his shoulders and grinned at me. Ann and I cocked an eyebrow at each other. Weatherly was difficult. He was telling the truth, but I had a feeling it was only technically the truth. “Now, everyone,” he continued and sat at the table, “gather around. Ben, you and two others sit down.”
I sat opposite him, anxious to cooperate and find out what was going on. Ann stood beside me. Mom and Dad sat in the other chairs. Everyone else gathered around except Carl, who watched from the other side of the room. I had the impression he was staying close to the door on the verge of bolting. Weatherly gathered up the cards and handed them to Mom. “Now, Mrs. Henderson, please shuffle the cards carefully and deal out four hands.”
Mom gave him a quizzical frown but did as he asked. Weatherly picked up his cards and fanned them. The rest of us did the same. I had thirteen clubs neatly arranged in order, with the deuce on the left and the ace on the right.
“Now, Ben,” Weatherly said, “tell us who has the winning hand if we were playing bridge.”
“Dad,” I said.
He nodded with satisfaction. “Correct,” he said crisply and laid his cards face-up on the table. He had thirteen hearts. Mom had thirteen diamonds and Dad had thirteen spades. “Explain how you knew.”
“I can’t explain,” I said with a frown. “It’s like… like explaining sight or sound or smell to someone lacking them. Dad knew he had the winning hand, and I… felt… sensed him knowing it.”
“Did you know exactly which cards he had?” Weatherly asked intensely.
“No. But it wasn’t hard to figure out when I saw mine.”
“Read everyone in the room, Ben,” he said like a wire stretched to the breaking point. He never took his eyes off mine. “Your parents.”
“Concern. Love.”
“Tannie.”
“She’s still mad.”
“Poe.”
“Interest. Wonder.”
“Linda.”
“Love. Incomprehension.”
“Mr. Ledbetter.”
“Disbelief. Annoyance.”
“Mr. Willingham.”
“Nervousness. Stoicism.”
“Me.”
“Determination.” I narrowed my eyes a little, and he knew I read more than that, but I didn’t say anything else. “Ann.”
I hesitated. How could I put Ann into words? I couldn’t, and so I just grinned like a sap. Ann put her arm around my shoulder.
“Ben…” Mom said in a tight little voice.
I hadn’t really wanted my parents to find out like this, though my father had known subconsciously for quite some time. He’d never said anything; he hadn’t wanted to upset Mom and didn’t really want to believe it himself. Now they were both confused and frightened. I started to say something, to try to ease their worries, but Ann beat me to it.
“Don’t you see, Clare?” she said quietly. “You and Charles think of Ben as an adolescent. So he acts the part to please you. It’s difficult for us to be ourselves and not just the reflection of others. I went through the same thing. No one likes an uppity kid.” She ran her fingernails through the hair on the back of my neck.
All I could do was grin and turn red. She hit me lightly on the back of the head.
“Ben…” Mom said again.
“I know, Mom.”
“So, there you are,” Weatherly said, getting us back on the path of his purpose, whatever that was. “Ann could have told me the same things. They are both telepathic and empathic, though Ben is the more sensitive.”
“Telepathic,” Jud snorted and poured himself another cup of coffee.
“Don’t worry, Jud,” Ann assured him. “We can’t read your thoughts, only your emotions, your state of mind, and the like.”
“But I also knew who had the winning hand,” Weatherly barreled ahead. “I knew where every card lay, because I controlled the deal. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have known any more than… the man in the moon.”
“I figured that,” I said.
“How did you control the deal?” Dad had accepted everything completely.
“That, too, is difficult to explain,” Weatherly sighed. “Ben and Ann are telepathic and empathic. My own ability is telekinesis, though I believe these days they are calling it ‘psychokinesis.’”
There was a momentary silence. “What’s that?” Linda asked wide-eyed. Poe had his arm around her and she leaned against him. Poe was quiet, absorbing everything.
“The ability to mentally control physical objects,” Weatherly explained tersely.
“You mean mind over matter?” Linda breathed.
“Yes,” he sighed, “I believe that is the popularized term.”
Jud was pacing a short path on the faded carpet. “Let’s see you make that shoe move,” he snorted and pointed to Poe’s still damp sneaker on the hearth.
Weatherly leaned back in the chair and tiredly ran his hand over his face. He broadcast resignation to the constant interruptions. He nodded and the
shoe rose into the air. Mom and Linda gasped. Tannie was watching bug-eyed. Carl Willingham eased a little closer to the door. The shoe made a circle of the room and plopped back on the hearth.
“There’s more to it than moving shoes about, Mr. Ledbetter,” Weatherly explained impatiently. “Matter can also be controlled on a molecular level. Mrs. Henderson, lift the top card, please, and look at it.”
She gave him a curious look and turned the card. It was the three of hearts.
“Turn it face-down again.” Mom did so. “Now look at it.” Mom exposed it once more. The hearts had been replaced by little yellow daisies. “It is now the three of daisies,” Weatherly said without looking at it. “I could continue to perform carnival tricks until morning, but there are more important matters. There is something absolutely vital which I must do. I could not do it alone; not without the aid of a telepath. I have been searching for thirty-five years. I had just about given up hope. And then I found Ann. My dear, I must apologize for the way I maneuvered you here.”
“Maneuvered?”
“Yes. I’m afraid it’s turned into something of an imbroglio, however. I instigated your weekend drive by thinking it at you for the past two weeks. Naturally, you thought it was your own idea. I created the rainstorm, the roadblock, and the flooded detour. Of course, I never intended the rest of you people to fall into my little charade. Yes,” he said and sighed, “I seem to have botched it rather badly.” He brightened. “But, actually, it has turned out rather well. If things had gone according to plan, I wouldn’t have found Ben.”
“I don’t believe any of this!” Jud flopped onto the couch and stretched his long, fashionably sheathed legs in front of him. He looked away with a sour expression.
“Really, young man,” Weatherly said in exasperation, “creating a rainstorm, a couple of wooden barricades, an animated yellow slicker, and a little water over the road, differs from controlling a deck of cards only in degree. It’s exactly the same principle.”