Search for the Dead Page 22

  Christine shook her head, smiling. “No, only dead people, and only in my head.”

  “That’s reassuring—although I suppose there are schizophrenics and the like who may have some form of this and be unable to explain it to anyone, or it just drives them mad. But I’ve been wondering lately if I could use it for some good purpose, like communicating with autistic people, or even schizophrenics. Of course, I’m not sure how I could make that available without hanging out a shingle, which would be a little peculiar, but I’ve only just started thinking about it.”

  “It’s a nice thought, even if nothing comes of it, Abby.”

  Christine looked at her watch. “I should go. If you go forward with this, maybe someday you could come with me and sit with someone who’s near death.”

  It was unquestionably an odd idea, yet it made perfect sense to Abby. “I don’t want to say I’d like that, but it might be valuable to me. Thank you, Christine.”

  Christine stood up. “Let me know what progress you make, but I warn you, I’m not a very sociable person, so don’t plan to hang out with me often.”

  “That’s fine with me. If I find out something relevant, I can email you.”

  “That would be perfect. I’ll be going now. As I said, I have other plans for tonight.”

  “Thanks again for coming over, Christine. I really appreciate it, and you did help.”

  “I’m glad you feel that way. Keep in touch.”

  Abby escorted Christine to the front door. Once she closed it behind her, she wondered what she was supposed to do next. She needed to think, but more important, she needed to find out if the spark with Ned had rekindled.

  She could hear him striding around upstairs, along with the squeak of seldom-used windows being forced open and shut again. Maybe she needed to spend a few minutes organizing her thoughts, while he finished up that chore. She found a pad of lined paper and laid it in front of her. Slowly she listed the various manifestations she had witnessed, taken part in, or heard about. Then she added a few she’d read about in older books, although she wasn’t sure whether they overlapped with the new list or had simply been relabeled. She was happy that her talent hadn’t disappeared completely, but she wasn’t sure if it would go back to the way it was, or if it had morphed to a new form. And if so, would it continue to change? Or were all of these just different forms of the same phenomenon?

  After her experience with MEG, she was wary of going back to using science, or at least the mechanical side. Had Joe’s few recordings from MEG provided enough information to do anything with? Or would any DNA analysis that Ned might do point to a particular gene or locus (was that the right word?) that might identify this ability? Could it actually be passed on, or was their random connection simply an accident of fate? Well, Ellie’s ability suggested a genetic link and not gender-linked, and the odds were pretty long that all these people were connected by coincidence alone. But what was it that they wanted to know?

  The kitchen was growing dark as Abby continued to sit and stare into space, thinking. Ned ambled down the stairs and came into the kitchen. “You want the light on?”

  “If you want. I’ve been thinking, and I don’t need light for that.”

  Ned flipped the switch for the overhead light. “Good or bad? The thinking, I mean,” he asked, sitting down across from her.

  “Overall, good, I think. I’m very glad I thought to ask Christine to come over. We connected, and I saw Samuel, but only in my head—I think that’s the way she sees him. That’s new. Before, it’s been a visual sighting, outside of me.”

  “You saw Samuel through Christine?” Ned asked. Abby wondered if he sounded just a bit jealous.

  “I think so. Christine agreed—she was the conduit, but she lost his image before I did.”

  “And the . . . other?”

  Abby tried to see Ned’s face in the half dark. He looked kind of wistful. She held out her hand. “Want to find out?”

  • • •

  It was fully dark when they finally managed to string together a conversation.

  “Well, that answers one question,” Ned said.

  “Not completely,” Abby replied.

  “Why do you say that? No fireworks?”

  “I didn’t mean that. Of course there were fireworks. Well, maybe not ‘of course,’ but . . . did you feel anything different?”

  “Different how?” Ned plumped his pillows and rolled over to look at her.

  “I told you before, my sensing of Samuel was different from any earlier encounters with my ancestors. He was inside my head, not outside. I wasn’t looking at him. And I can’t even say I was hearing him, but I understood what he was saying. And in a way, that carried over to, well, this.”

  “Is that good or bad?”

  “I think it’s kind of an add-on. All the old stuff was there, but this was a different viewpoint. I’m sorry, I’m not explaining this well. It’s still too new.”

  “Don’t worry about it. So no lingering aftereffects from MEG?”

  “Not negative ones, although the whole thing scared me. I mean, I didn’t feel anything when it happened, but suddenly there was this blank where there had been something before. Like when you lose a tooth, but more important than that. On the good side, it made me think seriously about how I felt about having this ability.”

  “And?” Ned asked.

  “It’s not a question of enjoying it, but I can see a potential for doing something good with it. The problem, as you well know, is that we have to be so careful approaching and finding people, and without enough other people as a sample, we’re kind of bumbling around in the dark. Do you think we’ve scared Kevin off?”

  “If we have, I’ll bet it’s only temporary. His curiosity will take over, although I’m not sure he’ll come back to us.”

  “You have any other ideas, along scientific lines?”

  “Well, we discussed the idea of epigenetics,” Ned began.

  And Abby stopped him. “And I said it was too big to just tack on to everything else we’re doing. I suppose I was hoping for something smaller and simpler, but bigger than hunting down connections one at a time. Maybe it’s too much to ask. I just hate waiting to do something.”

  “I get it, Abby. It’s frustrating for me too.”

  “Yes, but you have a job. Me, I have buckets of paint.”

  “We’ll figure something out, I promise. “As for right now . . .”

  “Yes. Definitely.” All in the name of research, of course, Abby told herself, as they moved together again.

  Chapter 31

  It seemed like no time had passed when Abby was awakened by a pounding at the front door. At least the sun was up. But door pounding at dawn seldom signaled good news. She nudged Ned. “Hey, there’s someone at the door. Can you go answer it? But you might want to put on pants first.”

  “Uh, yeah? Okay. Give me a minute.” He crawled out of bed and stumbled over to the window overlooking the front. “I think that’s Kevin’s car. Kevin’s sense of time is, uh, not quite like most people’s. I’ll go see what he wants.” Ned pulled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and went down the stairs.

  Abby decided that going back to sleep was not going to happen, and besides, she was curious about what Kevin thought was so important at such an early hour. She got out on the other side of the bed and fumbled for clothes, then followed Ned down the stairs. The two men seemed to have migrated toward the kitchen, so she headed that way.

  Kevin was leaning against the countertop, talking fast, and Ned had adopted a similar position caddy-cornered to his friend. Kevin clutched a sheaf of papers, but at least he slowed down when he saw Abby.

  “Hi, Kevin,” Abby greeted him, then took stock: hot pot boiling water, coffeemaker filled with coffee grounds. Need cups. She went to the cabinet and retrieved three and set them on the kitchen table. “What’s up?”

  “Sorry I got here so early, but I couldn’t wait. First, I’ve got to apologize for what happened to
you on Saturday.”

  “Not your fault, Kevin,” Abby said. “Nobody expected that.”

  “Yeah, I know, but I should have been more worried about you and how you were feeling, after. People tell me I lack social empathy.” Kevin made air quotes. “Anyway, I’m sorry. Ned here says you’re okay?”

  “No permanent damage, that I know about,” Abby told him. “It took a while for the effects to wear off—kind of like novocaine, where the feeling kind of trickles back.” She wasn’t going to go into the details. “You and Joe have any idea what happened?”

  “Nope. Everything on MEG seems to be working just fine.”

  “So the problem is me. Not even Ned.”

  “Looks like it. Anyway, apart from apologizing, I wanted to show you the printouts we got from before when things went south.” Kevin spread out the papers he’d brought on the kitchen table. “These are yours and Ned’s readings. You notice anything?”

  “Kevin, I don’t have a clue about what I’m looking at,” Abby protested. “What are all these lines and colors?”

  “Each line represents the continuous reading for a single SQUID, and we know where each of those SQUIDs was positioned on the skull.” He pointed to another sheet of paper. “This shows all those locations superimposed over a generic image of a skull. In simple terms, the image shows where the readings came from physically.”

  “Okay.” Abby looked again and realized what she was seeing. “And both Ned and I show high activity in the same place in our brains?”

  “Bingo!” Kevin said triumphantly.

  “And that place is?” Ned asked.

  Kevin grinned at him. “Yeah, you look at teeny-tiny bits of cells, while I’m looking at the big picture. Anything I didn’t know I looked up. I’ve been up all night.”

  Abby guessed he’d already had his fair share of caffeine. “So what do you know?”

  “Well, the general theory is that psychic experiences are associated with a decrease in frontal lobe function and a change—either an increase or a decrease—in the right temporal lobe function. Kind of like what we see in seizures.”

  “Kevin,” Abby said gently, “I know that lobes exist, but I don’t know which is which or what they do. Could you take a step back and explain it to novices like me?”

  “Yeah, sure, no problem. You’ve got four main structures: cerebrum, cerebellum, limbic system and brain stem. For our purposes we can ignore the brain stem, because that controls mostly basic physical functions, like breathing. And the brain as a whole has three main parts: forebrain, midbrain and hindbrain. The cerebrum is the biggest part of the brain, and that’s where higher functions like thought and action take place. It’s divided into four lobes: frontal, parietal, occipital and temporal.”

  Abby interrupted him again. “Kevin, it’s too early in the morning for me to take in all this. What do we need to know?”

  “I’m getting there. Frontal lobe: reasoning, planning, emotions. Parietal lobe: perception of stimuli. Occipital lobe: visual processing. Temporal lobe: perception of auditory stimuli, memory and speech. You with me so far?”

  “I think so. Ned, are you following?”

  “More or less. Sounds like there’s room for a lot of overlap. So am I to guess that you’re fitting paranormal phenomena in there somewhere?”

  “That’s what we wanted to do, right? To vastly oversimplify, it looks like all the action is taking place in the frontal lobe, or at least there are some scientists who think so. And that’s what lit up like a Christmas tree on both your MEG scans, when you connected, or whatever you two call it,” Kevin finished triumphantly.

  Ned figured out the significance first. “So you believe that you have visible proof for the location of at least one kind of paranormal experience?”

  “Yup!” Kevin said, beaming. “Joe’s being cautious about it, but I think he’s on board with that. Oh, and there’s this really cool start-up company in Seattle that’s looking at brain mapping, down to the cellular level, except they’re focusing on mice and maybe primates for now. You two should get in touch with them.” He bounded out of his chair like a jack-in-the-box. “These printouts are for you. I’ll let you slow-brain people process them at your own rate. Give me a call when you figure out what questions you should be asking me.”

  He turned and headed for the front door, leaving Ned and Abby sitting at the kitchen table, feeling shell-shocked. “I believe the appropriate comment is, ‘Who was that masked man?’” Abby said.

  “Works for me. But details aside, it looks like we struck gold on our first try. There is something physical going on in our heads, that can be documented. It’s a start.”

  Abby picked up the printouts that Kevin had left and leafed through them. To Abby’s eyes, it looked like the recording on her page had exploded at that point. “So I—or my brain fields—reacted a lot more strongly to you than vice versa? Does that even make sense? What do you think that means?”

  “I don’t know—yet. But if Kevin’s excited, then it’s got to be good. We can take our time looking at the images, but we may not understand any more than we do now.”

  Abby didn’t move, but sat sipping her coffee slowly. “Is he always so wired?”

  “Often. That’s why he never quite fit in a formal lab setting—he’d get too excited, and he was impatient with the boring stuff, like repeating experiments. But thanks to him, we’re one step closer to understanding what’s going on.”

  “And I couldn’t ask for more. So, what now?”

  Ned smiled. “It looks like we’re on the right track. Now we need to be systematic about what we’re doing—find additional subjects, refine the tests on the ones we’ve got now. And then think up some more ideas.”

  Ned was clearly excited by what Kevin had told him, but Abby felt more cautious. “Is there any one factor that suggests a way to move forward?”

  “Well, I’d still stick to our original division of labor: I’m the science guy, with Kevin’s help, and you’re the people person, although you can help with the research. Even research reports in popular journals rather than academic ones can give us a sense of where the research is headed and what other people think is important. But if you’re asking if there’s a deadline, then no, there isn’t, and we still have a menu of choices.”

  “If we’re not going to have access to MEG again, and none of us can afford to buy or rent one, I guess we won’t be able to test the rest of our group?”

  “Like Ellie? I doubt it, and I’m not sure I’d expose anyone new to what you experienced. We’ll have to keep looking for another means of testing.”

  “Okay, then. Are you going to work today? Remember, Ellie will be over this afternoon, and we’re going to put together her Halloween costume, and you’re supposed to take her trick-or-treating tonight. And I’d better go get candy, sooner rather than later. There may not be much left in the stores.”

  “Got it. Will the costume be ready? And do you need her input?”

  “That would probably be good. And it has to be ready, so I’d better get to work on it. I’ll try to rough it out, and then go out and get anything else we might need, like more candy. You can pick her up and bring her here, and she can help with the final details.”

  “I can do it—I’ll let Leslie know. We’ll be here right after school.”

  “Thank you.” Abby was pretty sure they could put together a good costume, unless Ellie was overly ambitious.

  “Think she’s going to notice that things are back to ‘normal’ for you? And us?” Ned asked, smiling.

  “I think she will—she’s very observant. And she’ll be glad.”

  “I know I am,” Ned told her. “Are you?”

  “Definitely,” Abby said.

  Chapter 32

  A showered, shaved and fed Ned left quickly after that, and Abby scurried around trying to find anything among Ned’s discarded clothes that might remotely resemble a Revolutionary War costume, with some tweaking. He wasn’t a suit or s
ports jacket kind of guy, so the pickings were slim. But Abby knew her sewing skills were not good enough to start from scratch, so they’d have to make do. She thought briefly about asking Ellie to bring something from her father, George, but while he was shorter than Ned, he was also wider, and Ellie would swim in anything of his, no matter how Abby modified it.

  Then she belatedly recalled that the Headless Horseman had been a Hessian, which she quickly verified online, and then had to look up what a Hessian military uniform looked like. She nearly burst out laughing when she saw a picture. The nice blue coat she could handle, with some red and white straps and sashes and stuff. But white pants? Who the heck put soldiers going into battle in white pants? Nice boots, though, knee-high. When she thought about it, Abby realized she had a blue jacket, from the days when she went to an office that required dressing like a grown-up, and she’d be happy to donate it to the cause. Plus, it would fit Ellie better than one of Ned’s would, but it would still allow room to conceal Ellie’s head, to make her “headless.” All she would need to do would be to make a couple of tucks in the jacket, and add some red facings and shiny brass buttons—and some way to see out from under the jacket. Knee britches they could fake.

  Done! At least the Horseman wouldn’t need a hat, because that would be harder to improvise. Abby found her jacket in a plastic box in the unused bedroom, hung it on the back of a door, and stared at it. Adding touches of red and white: easy. Maybe she’d need to unstitch the seams so the jacket would fit over Ellie’s head, and that would give the added benefit of shortening the sleeves. How was Ellie going to be able to see where she was going? That would have to wait until she could fit the jacket on Ellie.

  What else? The head, of course. Not too heavy, not too breakable. She knew there were plastic pumpkins for sale, intended to carry candy, but they were far from convincing, and probably too small anyway. Papier mâché? She had the ingredients. She’d better rough it out early in the day, so it could be dry by the time Ellie arrived. Last but not least: pumpkins and more candy, just in case. She was going to have to make a trip into town, sooner rather than later. She checked the time: still an hour before the supermarket opened.