The Strange Power

Chapter 9

Peals of laughter, musical and uncontrollable. After a minute she calmed down into snorts, but when she looked at Kaitlyn and Rob, she went off again.
Kaitlyn felt her own mouth stretch into a smile, but it was the polite, unhappy smile of someone waiting to be let in on a joke. At last Joyce collapsed against the mounded pillows, wiping tears from her eyes.
"I'm sorry ... it's not really funny. It's just... it's her medication. She must not be taking it."
"Marisol takes medication?" Rob asked.
"Yes. And she's fine when she does take it; it's just that sometimes she forgets or decides she doesn't need it, and then .. . well. You see." Joyce waved the paper. "I suppose she means it symbolically. She's always been a little worried about psychics misusing their powers." Joyce turned to Kaitlyn, obviously struggling not to grin. "You didn't take her literally, I hope?"
Kaitlyn wanted to drop through the floor.
How could she have been so stupid? Of course, it had all been a terrible mistake-she should have realized that. And now she'd blundered in on Marisol's emotional problems, or mental problems, or whatever.
"I'm sorry," she gasped.
Joyce waved a hand, biting her lip to keep from laughing. "Oh, look."
"No, I'm really sorry. It was just-it was kind of spooky, and I didn't understand.... I thought there must be some simple explanation, but..." Kaitlyn took a breath. "Oh, God, I hope we haven't gotten her into trouble."
"No-but maybe I should let Mr. Zetes in on this," Joyce said, sobering. "He was the one who recruited her, she was actually hired before I was. I think she's a friend of his daughter's."
Mr. Zetes had a daughter? She must be pretty old, Kaitlyn thought. It was surprising she would have a friend as young as Marisol.
"Anyway, don't worry about it," Joyce said. "I'll talk to Marisol about her meds tomorrow and get everything straightened out. By the way, Kait, when did you draw this?"
"Oh-yesterday, during the remote viewing experiment. I dropped it when I heard that guy with the Mohawk screaming."
"How is that guy?" Rob asked softly. He was looking at Joyce with steady golden eyes.
"He's fine," Joyce said, and Kaitlyn thought she sounded slightly defensive. "The hospital gave him a tranquilizer and released him."
"Because," Rob went on, "I still think you should be careful with Ga-"
"Yes, right. I'm going to change the protocol with Gabriel's experiment." Joyce's tone closed the subject and she glanced at her clock.
"I'm so embarrassed," Kaitlyn said as she and Rob walked back up the stairs.
"Why? After what Marisol did, you had every right to ask what was going on."
It was true, but Kait still felt that somehow she should have realized. She should have more faith in Mr.
Zetes, who, after all, had paid a lot of money to give the five of them a new life. She should have known that Marisol was having paranoid delusions.
The new life felt a bit lonely as Kait and Rob parted in the hallway. It was maddening to have him say good night so cheerfully, as if he enjoyed being her big brother. As if being anything else had never crossed his mind-which, in his view, it probably hadn't. He seemed to have wiped the entire incident this afternoon out of his consciousness.
Anna sat up as Kaitlyn came in the bedroom. "Where've you been?"
"Downstairs." Kaitlyn wanted to talk to Anna, but she was very, very tired. She fumbled in a drawer for her nightgown. "I think I'll go to sleep early-do you mind?"
"Of course not. You're probably still sick," Anna said, instantly solicitous.
Just before falling asleep, Kaitlyn murmured, "Anna? Do you know what a pilot study is?"
"I think it's a kind of practice experiment-you do it first, before the real experiment. Like a pilot episode for a TV show comes first."
"Oh. Thanks." Kaitlyn was too sleepy to say more. But it occurred to her that maybe Marisol had told the truth about one thing. Marisol had claimed to have been "around for the pilot study," and Joyce had said that Marisol had been recruited before her.
The rest was nonsense, though. Like the idea that Joyce had put something weird on her forehead- God, she was glad Rob hadn't mentioned that to Joyce. Joyce would have thought Kaitlyn needed medication, too.
And Rob . . . But she wouldn't think about Rob now. She'd deal with him tomorrow.
All that night she had strange dreams. In one she was on a windswept peninsula, looking out over a cold gray ocean. In another she was with Marisol and a group of strangers. All of them had eyes in their foreheads. Marisol smirked and said, "Think you're so smart? You're growing one, too. The seed's been planted." Then Gabriel appeared and said, "We've got to look out for ourselves. You see what can happen otherwise?"
Kaitlyn did see. Rob had fallen into a deep crevasse and he was shouting for help. Kaitlyn reached out to him, but Gabriel pulled her back, and Rob's voice kept echoing. . . .
All at once she was awake. The room was full of pale morning light, and the shouting was real.
The shouts were distant and muffled, but unmistakably hysterical. The clock said 6:15 a.m.
Gabriel, Kait thought wildly, jumping out of bed. What has he done now?
Anna was up, too, her long black hair loose. Her eyes were alert, but not panicked. "What is it?"
"I don't know!"
She and Kait spilled out into the hallway without bothering to put on robes. Rob was just emerging from his room, wearing a tattered pair of pajama bottoms. Kait felt a surge of relief that he wasn't the one doing the shouting.
"It's coming from downstairs," he said.
He took the stairs two at a time, with Kait and Anna right behind him. Kait could hear words in the shouting now.
"Help! God! Somebody help! Quick!"
"It's Lewis!" she said.
The three of them swung around through the dining room and into the kitchen. The shouting stopped.
"Oh, no," Anna said.
Lewis was standing by the kitchen sink, panting. There was a sort of heap at his feet, a heap with mahogany-colored hair at one end.
Marisol.
"What happened?" Kait gasped. Lewis just shook his head. Rob had dropped to his knees at once, and was gently turning Marisol over. A trembling started in Kait's legs as she saw the face. Under her olive complexion, Marisol looked chalky. Even her lips were pale. Her eyes were open a little, showing slits of white eyeball.
"Did you call nine-one-one?" Anna asked quietly.
"It's no use," Lewis said in a strangled voice. He was braced against the sink for support, looking down.
His face, normally sweet and impish, was drawn with horror. "She's dead. I know she's dead."
Waves of chills swept over Kaitlyn. What Rob was moving was now Marisol's body, not Marisol. That one word, "dead," made all the difference. Suddenly Kait didn't want to touch ... it. The body.
She knelt by it anyway, and put a hand on its- Marisol's-chest. Then she jumped a little.
"I think she's breathing."
"She's not dead," Rob said positively. His eyes were shut, his fingers at Marisol's temples. "Her life force is really low, but she's alive. I'm going to try to help." He stopped talking and sat still, his face lined with concentration.
In the background, Kait could hear Anna calling 911.
"What happened, Lewis?" she demanded again.
"She had a sort of... It looked like a seizure. I came down early because I was hungry, and she was in here cutting up grapefruits, and I said hi, and she was kind of crabby, and then all of a sudden she fell down." Lewis swallowed and blinked rapidly. "I tried to pick her up, but she just kept jerking and shaking. And then she stopped moving. I thought she was dead."
Medication, Kait thought. If Marisol had been on medication for seizures-and she stopped taking it... Or for diabetes. Could diabetes give you seizures?
"Where's Joyce?" she said, getting up suddenly. It was the first question she should have asked. Joyce was always down here before the kids, drinking mugs of black coffee and helping Marisol make breakfast.
"Here's a note on the fridge," Anna said. Underneath a magnet shaped like a strawberry was a note in spiky, casual handwriting.
Marisol-
Coffee niters you bought ystdy wrong kind. I'm going to exchange. Start bkfst-cut 3 grapefruit, make muffins. Muff mix in blue bowl in fridge. Where did you put receipt?
"She's at the store," Kait said, and at that moment heard the front door open.
"Joyce!" She and Lewis shouted it together. Kaitlyn rushed to the dining room entrance. "Joyce, something's happened to Marisol!"
Joyce came running. When she saw Marisol on the floor, she dumped her ecological cloth grocery bag on the counter, where several apples and a box of coffee filters spilled out.
"Oh, my God-what happened?" she said sharply. "Is she breathing all right?" Her hands flew from Marisol's wrist to her neck, searching for a pulse.
Rob didn't answer. He was sitting lotus style by Marisol's head, eyes shut, fingers on her temples. Early sun slanted in the east window and shone on his tanned shoulders.
"I think she's breathing okay now," Lewis whispered. "He said he would try to help her."
Joyce looked hard at Rob, then the strain in her face eased. "Good," she said.
"Is she epileptic?" Kaitlyn asked softly but urgently. "Because Lewis said she had a seizure."
"What? No." Joyce spoke absently. "Oh-you mean the medication? No, it's for something else entirely; he said a psychiatrist prescribed it. God knows, maybe she took an overdose. I never even got to talk to her about it."
"I know. We saw your note," Kait began. "But-"
"Listen-sirens," Anna said.
After that, things happened very quickly. Kait and Anna ran to the front door to wave down the paramedics. Just as the rescue van arrived, a black limousine pulled up behind it. Mr. Zetes got out.
And then there was a lot of confusion. Mr. Z was walking very quickly, despite his cane-and the paramedics were rushing inside with equipment- and the rottweilers were barking-and Kait was behind everyone, trying to see into the kitchen. The noise was deafening.
"Get those dogs out!" one of the paramedics shouted.
Mr. Zetes snapped an order and the dogs backed into the dining room.
"Clear this room!" another paramedic said. She was pulling at Rob, trying to get him away from Marisol.
Rob was resisting.
Then Mr. Zetes spoke, in a voice that quieted everyone. "All you young people-go upstairs. You, too, Rob. We'll let the professionals take care of this."
"Sir, she's barely hanging on-" Rob began, his voice thick with worry.
"Move!" the pulling paramedic shouted. Rob moved.
On her way up the stairs, Kait came face-to-face with Gabriel, who was coming down.
"They don't want us," she said. "Go back up. How come it took you so long, anyway?"
"I never get up until seven," Gabriel murmured, backing up. He was fully dressed.
"Didn't you hear the yelling?"
"It was hard to ignore, but I managed."
Rob glared at him as he passed. Gabriel returned it with a derisive look that started with Rob's bare feet and ended with Rob's tousled head.
"We can see from the study window," Lewis said, and they all followed him into the alcove-except Gabriel, who went to one of the other windows.
In a few moments the paramedics came out with a stretcher. Lewis's hand made a slight movement toward his camera, which was lying on the window seat. Then it dropped to his side again.
They all watched as the stretcher was loaded into the back of the paramedics' van. Kait felt both frightened and strangely remorseful. Marisol's face had looked so small among all the big rescue workers and the equipment.
"I hope she's all right. She's got to be all right," she said, and then she sat down on the window seat. Her legs were very shaky.
Anna sat down and put an arm around her. "At least Joyce is going, too," she said in her quiet, gentle voice. A little of her calm penetrated Kaitlyn, like a cool wind blowing. Below, Joyce climbed into the van and it pulled out. The black limo stayed.
Rob was leaning against the window glass, one knee on the seat beside Kait. He was completely unselfconscious about his lack of dress.
"Mr. Z sure does have bad luck," he said softly. "Every time he comes here, he finds trouble."
The cool wind blowing through Kaitlyn turned cold. She looked quickly at Rob. "What are you saying?"
"Nothing," he said, still gazing out the window. "It's just too bad for him, that's all."
Lewis and Anna looked puzzled. Kait stared down at the black limousine, feeling an uneasy stirring in her stomach.
After a while, Mr. Zetes called them down to go to school. Nobody wanted breakfast. Kait didn't want to go to school, either, but Mr. Zetes didn't ask her opinion. He escorted them out to the limousine and ordered the driver to take them.
"Oh, God, I left my sociology book," Kait said when they reached the corner. The limousine, instead of turning around, backed up.
Kait ran up the porch steps and yanked the door open, conscious of the five people waiting on her in the car. She burst inside-and then stopped in middash. Mr. Z's two rottweilers were running toward her, toenails clacking and skidding on the hardwood floor. A terrible baying struck her with the force of a physical blow.
Kaitlyn had never been afraid of a dog in her life-but these weren't dogs, they were salivating monsters whose barking made the ceiling ring. She could see their pink and black gums.