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"Now, now--is this the same woman who only about a year ago was
W I T C H L I G H T 93
telling me that my ghosthunting was only an excuse to cater to my obvi-
ously delusional megalomania?"
Truth's cheeks turned pink. "It's a good thing I've got you around to
yank me down offmy high horse," she said meekly. "But at Taghkanic, of
all places."
"Of all places," Dylan agreed. "And Hunter Greyson was on the para-
psych track--he should definitely have known better than to go fooling
around like that. Remember the 'Philip' experiments in Toronto back in
the seventies? The group generation of psi phenomena, including RSPK?
Colin would have pinned his ears back if he'd known--Grey was in his
Occult Psychology seminar in his senior year. Come to that, so was Win-
ter. I've been doing some checking," he added in explanation.
"Hunter Greyson? Winter didn't mention him," Truth said, frowning.
"She's very cagey about letting on what she actually remembers and
what she doesn't, have you noticed? It isn't normal to have memory gaps
like that--not without organic trauma or at least a history of drug
abuse," Dylan said.
"Or physical abuse," Truth suggested. "Repressed memory--"
"--will mask single isolated incidents for which there is no corrobo-
rative reinforcement, not the kind of ongoing abuse that someone would
need to just drop four years of their life. Besides, she was living on cam-
pus, and you know how closely the faculty, proctors, and student services
watch those kids. If she'd exhibited anything like an abuse pattern then,
they'd have spotted it," Dylan said firmly.
Truth reached for the uncorked bottle, and Dylan moved to intercept
her and pour the wine himself. Truth smiled at him over her glass.
"It sounds like you've done your homework on \Vinter Musgrave," she
acknowledged. "Should I be jealous? And you never did tell me who
Hunter Greyson is."
"Hunter Greyson's file is missing from the admissions office, but most
of the faculty still remember him--Professor Rhys even suggested that
Grey'd stolen his own file; apparently he was known for pranks like that.
Winter Musgrave and Hunter Greyson were quite the item their senior
year, and with three other students had quite a close-knit little clique.
They ran twenty percent over baseline in group telepathy experiments--
chose records are still in the file over at the Institute."
"I'd like to see them," Truth said soberly. "I bet Winter would, too."
94 MARION Z I M M E R BRADLEY
"I'd think twice about showing them to her--at least until I found
out what she remembers--and why she can't remember the rest," Dylan
said.
"Maybe you're right," Truth said, unconvinced. "I just get the feel-
ing..." She paused for a moment, then went on. "That there's some-
thing she needs to do, and not much time left for her to do it in."
Winter had been sure she
tually had to shake her to
she'd slept for almost two
"Don't look so tragic!"
wouldn't sleep, but to her surprise, Truth ac-
awaken her, and when she did, Winter found
hours.
Truth teased. "Dylan says the sauce could use
the extra time, and since I'm usually up at the lab half the night, I'm
more used to late dinners than early ones, and so is Dylan."
Winter regarded her dubiously, her mind awash with suspicion and
reflexive guilt.
But why? She frowned. It was almost as if she were split into two peo-
ple inside herself---one with a rational response to events, the other de-
termined to assign blame for everything, usually to herself.
"All right," Winter said with an effort. If there's any blame to assign here,
it's Truth's, not mine. She's the one who knows when she wants to eat dinner. "Just
let me wash my face and I'll be right with you." I'm not responsible for the
entire world, after all.
That defiant vow actually seemed to have some effect; the beclouding
guilt receded, and Winter found that without its choking presence her
grasp of those newly won memories that she'd tested today was stronger--
vague and wavery still, like something seen through heat-haze, but per-
sisting even in the face of that inner voice's disapproval.
Those people were real. Her past was real--and if the past, as every-
one always said, was a foreign country, then she'd just gotten her passport
back.
Ir only remained to make use of it.
Winter found herself earing with real appetite--and dinner, she told her
inner censor fiercely, certainly didn't seem to have been ruined by any de-
lay. The pasta was tender, the sauce was savory and filled with meat, and the
bread was still warm, with a chewy golden crust and soft white interior.
They did not talk about Nuclear Lake or its monster through most of
W I T C H L 1G H T 95
the meal, but toward the end, when the pasta had been removed and the
salad bowl set out, Winter broached the subject to Truth again.
"You said--at the lake--that there was a way to find out what's really
causing all this," she said to Truth.
Truth hesitated. "There are some things I can try that I didn't men-
tion before," she said, sounding faintly reluctant. "Knowing that you've
been involved with the Blackburn Work... That changes things."
The Bla&burn Work. All Winter really knew about it was what she'd
read in the book about Truth's father--that and a confused memory of
shadows in candlelight, music and incense .... And Hunter Greyson.
"Is-- Was-- Was Grey a Satanist, then?" Winter asked hesitantly.
"Those drawings..."
"The Blackburn Work isn't Satanism," Truth corrected her firmly,
"any more than astrophysics is. Thorne--my father--created it--draw-
ing on older sources--to be a way of knowing; a way of gathering infor-
mation from the universe. Of course, it has its risks, but everything
does from climbing Mount Everest to crossing the street."
"It isn't that far from gathering knowledge to gathering power,"
Dylan said, glancing meaningfully at Truth. "As you well know."
"And I think I would have noticed if that were so, even after all this
time," Truth shot back. "Anywhere there is faith, there is a danger of its
perversion."
"You're saying you're a psychic," Winter said, her voice quivery as she
attempted to keep disapproval out of it.
"It's just as foolish to say you're not when you are, as to say you are
when you're not," Truth said pragmatically. "And haven't you had
enough proof that psychism is real?"
Winter flinched inwardly. "I'm just.., crazy," she said defiantly. "All
this--it's coincidence, nothing more. Really."
"You're not crazy," Truth contradicted determinedly. "And you don't
really want to be, do you? You're not making things up just to get atten-
tion, as so many so-called psychic sensitives do. But that is what you
are--a psychic sensitive. You're having your life invaded by a change you
aren't ready for--a psychic change; and just as a physical growth spurt
will cause aches and pains and make a person clumsy for a while until she
adjusts, you're having problems."
96 MARION Z I M M E R BRADLEY
"Problems!" Winter exploded, thinking of the pathetic corpses of
birds and squirrels she'd found on her doorstep and in her house. Was it
better to think they were her fault--or that they were not?
"Problems," Truth repeated firmly. "Some of them are frightening for
you--and I admit they worry me, too, insofar as they don't follow the
standard pattern for poltergeists. There is no conventional treatment for
poltergeist phenomena, as I said--but in your case, considering that you
may have been Sealed to the Circle, there are some other things I would
be willing to try, with your consent."
Winter poked at the soggy remains of her salad. The thought of mad-
ness would have been almost comforting--madmen were not responsible
for their actions, after all. Truth Jourdemayne's insistence on her sanity [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]