The Strange Power

by L. J. Smith

Chapter 1

 

  You don't invite the local witch to parties. No matter how beautiful she is. That was the basic problem.

  I don't care, Kaitlyn thought. I don't need anyone.

  She was sitting in history class, listening to Marcy Huang and Pam Sasseen plan a party for that weekend. She couldn't help but hear them: Mr. Flynn's gentle, apologetic voice was no competition for their excited whispers. Kait was listening, pretending not to listen, and fiercely wishing she could get away. She couldn't, so she doodled on the blue-lined page of her history notebook.

  She was full of contradictory feelings. She hated Pam and Marcy, and wanted them to die, or at least to have some gory accident that left them utterly broken and defeated and miserable. At the same time there was a terrible longing inside her. If they would only let her in-it wasn't as if she insisted on being the most popular, the most admired, girl at school. She'd settle for a place in the group that was securely her own.

  They could shake their heads and say, "Oh, that Kaitlyn-she's odd, but what would we do without her?"

  And that would be fine, as long as she was a part.

  But it wouldn't happen, ever. Marcy would never think of inviting Kaitlyn to her party because she wouldn't think of doing something that had never been done before. No one ever invited the witch; no one thought that Kaitlyn, the lovely, spooky girl with the strange eyes, would want to go.

  And I don't care, Kaitlyn thought, her reflections coming around full circle. This is my last year. One semester to go. After that, I'm out of high school and ? hope I never see anyone from this place again.

  But that was the other problem, of course. In a little town like Thoroughfare she was bound to see them, and their parents, every day for the next year. And the year after that, and the year after that. . . .

  There was no escape. If she could have gone away to college, it might have been different. But she'd screwed up her art scholarship . . . and anyway, there was her father. He needed her-and there wasn't any money. Dad needed her. It was junior college or nothing.

  The years stretched out in front of Kaitlyn, bleak as the Ohio winter outside the window, filled with endless cold classrooms. Endless sitting and listening to girls planning parties that she wasn't invited to.

  Endless exclusion. Endless aching and wishing that she were a witch so she could put the most hideous, painful, debilitating curse on all of them.

  All the while she was thinking, she was doodling. Or rather her hand was doodling-her brain didn't seem to be involved at all. Now she looked down and for the first time saw what she'd drawn.

  A spiderweb.

  But what was strange was what was underneath the web, so close it was almost touching. A pair of eyes.

  Wide, round, heavy-lashed eyes. Bambi eyes. The eyes of a child.

  As Kaitlyn stared at it, she suddenly felt dizzy, as if she were falling. As if the picture were opening to let her in. It was a horrible sensation-and a familiar one. It happened every time she drew one of those pictures, the kind they called her a witch for.

  The kind that came true.

  She pulled herself back with a jerk. There was a sick, sinking feeling inside her.

  Oh, please, no, she thought. Not today-and not here, not at school. It's just a doodle; it doesn't mean anything.

  Please let it be just a doodle.

  But she could feel her body bracing, ignoring her mind, going ice-cold in order to meet what was coming.

  '

  A child. She'd drawn a child's eyes, so some child was in danger.

  But what child? Staring at the space under the eyes, Kait felt a tugging, almost a twitch, in her hand. Her fingers telling her the shape that needed to go there. Little half circle, with smaller curves at the edges. A snub nose. Large circle, filled in solid. A mouth, open in fear or surprise or pain. Big curve to indicate a round chin.

  A series of long wriggles for hair-and then the itch, the urge, the need in Kait's hand ebbed away.

  She let out her breath.

  That was all. The child in the picture must be a girl, with all that hair. Wavy hair. A pretty little girl with wavy hair and a spiderweb on top of her face.

  Something was going to happen, involving a child and a spider. But where-and to what child? And when?

  Today? Next week? Next year?

  It wasn't enough.

  It never was. That was the most terrible part of Kaitlyn's terrible gift. Her drawings were always accurate-they always, always came true. She always ended up seeing in real life what she'd drawn on paper.

  But not in time.

  Right now, what could she do? Run through town with a megaphone telling all kids to beware of spiders?

  Go down to the elementary school looking for girls with wavy hair?

  Even if she tried to tell them, they'd run away from her. As if Kaitlyn brought on the things she drew. As if she made them happen instead of just predicting them.

  The lines of the picture were getting crooked. Kaitlyn blinked to straighten them. The one thing she wouldn't do was cry-because Kaitlyn never cried.

  Never. Not once, not since her mother had died when Kait was eight. Since then, Kait had learned how to make the tears go inside.

  There was a disturbance at the front of the room. Mr. Flynn's voice, usually so soft and melodious that students could comfortably go to sleep to it, had stopped.

  Chris Barnable, a boy who worked sixth period as a student aide, had brought a piece of pink paper. A call slip.

  Kaitlyn watched Mr. Flynn take it, read it, then look mildly at the class, wrinkling his nose to push his glasses back up.

  "Kaitlyn, the office wants you. "

  Kaitlyn was already reaching for her books. She kept her back very straight, her head very high, as she walked up the aisle to take the slip, kaitlyn fairchild to the principal's office-at once! it read. Somehow when the "at once" box was checked, the whole slip assumed an air of urgency and malice.

  "In trouble again?" a voice from the first row asked snidely. Kaitlyn couldn't tell who it was, and she wouldn't turn around to look. She went out the door with Chris.

  In trouble again, yes, she thought as she walked down the stairs to the main office. What did they have on her this time? Those excuses "signed by her father" last fall?

  Kaitlyn missed a lot of school, because there were times when she just couldn't stand it. Whenever it got too bad, she went down Piqua Road to where the farms were, and drew. Nobody bothered her there.

  "I'm sorry you're in trouble," Chris Barnable said as they reached the office. "I mean . . . I'm sorry if you're in trouble. "

  Kaitlyn glanced at him sharply. He was an okay-looking guy: shiny hair, soft eyes-a lot like Hello Sailor, the cocker spaniel she'd had years ago. Still, she wasn't fooled for a minute.

  Boys-boys were no good. Kait knew exactly why

  they were nice to her. She'd inherited her mother's creamy Irish skin and autumn-fire hair. She'd inherited her mother's supple, willow-slim figure.

  But her eyes were her own, and just now she used them without mercy. She turned an icy gaze on Chris, looking at him in a way she was usually careful to avoid. She looked him straight in the face.

  He went white.

  It was typical of the way people around here reacted when they had to meet Kaitlyn's eyes. No one else had eyes like Kaitlyn. They were smoky blue, and at the outside of each iris, as well as in the middle, were darker rings.

  Her father said they were beautiful and that Kaitlyn had been marked by the fairies. But other people said other things. Ever since she could remember, Kaitlyn had heard the whispers-that she had strange eyes, evil eyes. Eyes that
saw what wasn't meant to be seen.

  Sometimes, like now, Kaitlyn used them as a weapon. She stared at Chris Barnable until the poor jerk actually stepped backward. Then she lowered her lashes demurely and walked into the office.

  It gave her only a sick, momentary feeling of triumph. Scaring cocker spaniels was hardly an achievement. But Kaitlyn was too frightened and miserable herself to care. A secretary waved her toward the principal's office, and Kaitlyn steeled herself. She opened the door.

  Ms. McCasslan, the principal, was there-but she wasn't alone. Sitting beside the desk was a tanned, trim young woman with short blond hair.

  "Congratulations," the blond woman said, coming out of the chair with one quick, graceful movement.

  Kaitlyn stood motionless, head high. She didn't know what to think. But all at once she had a rush of feeling, like a premonition.

  This is it. What you've been waiting for.

  She hadn't known she was waiting for anything.

  Of course you have. And this is it.

  The next few minutes are going to change your life.

  "I'm Joyce," the blond woman said. "Joyce Piper. Don't you remember me?"

  The woman did seem familiar. Her sleek blond hair clung to her head like a wet seal's fur, and her eyes were a startling aquamarine. She was wearing a smart rose-colored suit, but she moved like an aerobics teacher.

  Memory burst on Kaitlyn. "The vision screening!"

  Joyce nodded. "Exactly!" she said energetically. "Now, how much do you remember about that?"

  Bewildered, Kaitlyn looked at Ms. McCasslan. The principal, a small woman, quite plump and very pretty, was sitting with her hands folded on the desk. She seemed serene, but her eyes were sparkling.

  All right, so I'm not in trouble, Kait thought. But what's going on? She stood uncertainly in the center of the room.

  "Don't be frightened, Kaitlyn," the principal said. She waved a small hand with a number of rings on it.

  "Sit down. "

  Kait sat.

  "I don't bite," Joyce added, sitting down herself, although she kept her aquamarine eyes on Kait's face the entire time. "Now, what do you remember?"

  "It was just a test, like you get at the optometrist's," Kaitlyn said slowly. "I thought it was some new program. "

  Everyone brought their new programs to Ohio. Ohio was so representative of the nation that its people were perfect guinea pigs.

  Joyce was smiling a little. "It was a new program. But we weren't screening for vision, exactly. Do you remember the test where you had to write down the letters you saw?"

  "Oh-yes. " It wasn't easy to remember, because everything that had happened during the testing was vague. It had been last fall, early October, Kait thought. Joyce had come into study hall and talked to the class. That was clear enough-Kait remembered her asking them to cooperate. Then Joyce had guided them through some "relaxation exercises"-after which Kaitlyn had been so relaxed that everything was foggy.

  "You gave everybody a pencil and a piece of paper," she said hesitantly to Joyce. "And then you projected letters on the movie screen. And they kept getting smaller and smaller. I could hardly write,"

  she added. "I was limp. "

  "Just a little hypnosis to get past your inhibitions," Joyce said, leaning forward. "What else?"

  "I kept writing letters. "

  "Yes, you did," Joyce said. A slight grin flashed in her tanned face. "You did indeed. "

  After a moment, Kaitlyn said, "So I've got good eyesight?"

  "I wouldn't know. " Still grinning, Joyce straightened up. "You want to know how that test really worked, Kaitlyn? We kept projecting the letters smaller and smaller-until finally they weren't there at all. "

  "Weren't there?"

  "Not for the last twenty frames. There were just dots, absolutely featureless. You could have vision like a hawk and still not make anything out of them. " "

  A cold finger seemed to run up Kaitlyn's backbone. "I saw letters," she insisted.

  "I know you did. But not with your eyes. "

  There was perfect silence in the room.

  Kaitlyn's heart was beating hard.

  "We had someone in the room next door," Joyce said. "A graduate student with very good concentration, and he was looking at charts with letters on them. That was why you saw letters, Kait. You saw through his eyes. You expected to see letters on the chart, so your mind was open-and you received what he saw. "

  Kaitlyn said faintly, "It doesn't work that way. " Oh, please, God . . . all she needed was another power, another curse.

  "It does; it's all the same," Joyce said. "It's called remote viewing. The awareness of an event beyond the range of your ordinary senses. Your drawings are remote viewings of events-sometimes events that haven't happened yet. "

  "What do you know about my drawings?" A rush of emotion brought Kait to her feet. It wasn't fair: this stranger coming in and playing with her, testing her, tricking her-and now talking about her private drawings. Her very private drawings that people in Thoroughfare had the decency to only refer to obliquely.

  "I'll tell you what I know," Joyce said. Her voice was soft, rhythmic, and she was gazing at Kaitlyn intently with those aquamarine eyes. "I know that you first discovered your gift when you were nine years old. A little boy from your neighborhood had disappeared-"

  "Danny Lindenmayer," the principal put in briskly.

  "Danny Lindenmayer had disappeared," Joyce said, without looking away from Kait. "And the police were going door to door, looking for him. You were drawing with crayons while they talked to your father. You heard everything about the missing boy. And when you were done drawing, it was a picture you didn't understand, a picture of trees and a bridge . . . and something square. "

  Kaitlyn nodded, feeling oddly defeated. The memory sucked at her, making her dizzy. That first picture, so dark and strange, and her own fear. . . She'd known it was a very bad thing that her fingers had drawn.

  But she hadn't known why.

  "And the next day, on TV, you saw the place where they'd found the little boy's body," Joyce said.

  "Underneath a bridge by some trees . . . in a packing crate. "

  "Something square," Kaitlyn said.

  "It matched the picture you'd drawn exactly, even though there was no way you could have known about that place. The bridge was thirty miles away, in a town

  you'd never been to. When your father saw the news on TV, he recognized your picture, too-and he got excited. Started showing the drawing around, telling the story. But people reacted badly. They already thought you were a little different because of your eyes. But this-this was a whole lot different. They didn't like it. And when it happened again, and again, when your drawings kept coming true, they got very frightened. "

  "And Kaitlyn developed something of an attitude problem," the principal interjected delicately. "She's*,, naturally rebellious and a bit high-strung-like a colt. But she got prickly, too, and cool. Self-defense. " She made tsking noises.

  Kaitlyn glared, but it was a feeble glare. Joyce's quiet, sympathetic voice had disarmed her. She sat down again.

  "So you know all about me," she said to Joyce. "So I've got an attitude problem. So wh-"

  "You do not have an attitude problem," Joyce interrupted. She looked almost shocked. She leaned forward, speaking very earnestly. "You have a gift, a very great gift. Kaitlyn, don't you understand? Don't you realize how unusual you are, how wonderful?"

  In Kaitlyn's experience, unusual did not equate to wonderful.

  "In the entire world, there are only a handful of people who can do what you can do," Joyce said. "In the entire United States, we only found five. "

  "Five what?"

  "Five high school seniors. Five kids like you. All with different talents, of course; none of you can do the same thing. But that's great; that's just what we

  were looking for. We'll be able to do a v
ariety of experiments. " .

  "You want to experiment on me?" Kaitlyn looked at the principal in alarm.

  "I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me explain. I'm from San Carlos, California-"

  Well, that explained the tan.

  "-and I work for the Zetes Institute. It's a very small laboratory, not at all like SRI or Duke University. It was established last year by a research grant from the Zetes Foundation. Mr. Zetes is-oh, how can I explain him? He's an incredible man-he's the chairman of a big corporation in Silicon Valley. But his real interest is in psychic phenomena. Psychic research. "

  Joyce paused and pushed sleek blond hair off her forehead. Kaitlyn could feel her working up to something big. "He's put up the funds for a very special project, a very intense project. It was his idea to do screening at high schools all over the country, looking for seniors with high psychic potential. To find the five or six that were absolutely the top, the cream of the crop, and to bring them to California for a year of testing. "

  "A year?"

  "That's the beauty of it, don't you see? Instead of doing a few sporadic tests, we'd do testing daily, on a regular schedule. We'd be able to chart changes in your powers with your biorhythms, with your diet-"

  Joyce broke off abruptly. Looking at Kait directly, she reached out and took Kait's hands.

  "Kaitlyn, let down the walls and just listen to me for a minute. Can you do that?"

  Kait could feel her hands trembling in the cool grasp of the blond woman's fingers. She swallowed, unable to look away from those aquamarine eyes.

  "Kaitlyn, I am not here to hurt you. I admire you tremendously. You have a wonderful gift. I want to study it-I've spent my life preparing to study it. I went to college at Duke-you know, where Rhine did his telepathy experiments. I got my master's degree in parapsychology-I've worked at the Dream Laboratory at Maimonides, and the Mind Science Foundation in San Antonio, and the Engineering Anomalies Research Laboratory at Princeton. And all I've ever wanted is a subject like you. Together we can prove that what you do is real. We can get hard, replicable, scientific proof. We can show the world that ESP exists. "

  She stopped, and Kaitlyn heard the whir of a copier in the outer office.

  "There are some benefits for Kaitlyn, too," Ms. McCasslan said. "I think you should explain the terms. "

  "Oh, yes. " Joyce let go of Kaitlyn's hands and picked up a manila folder from the desk. "You'll go to a very good school in San Carlos to finish up your senior year. Meanwhile you'll be living at the Institute with the four other students we've chosen. We'll do testing every afternoon, but it won't take long-just an hour or two a day. And at the end of a year, you'll receive a scholarship to the college of your choice. "

  Joyce opened the folder and handed it to Kaitlyn. "A very generous scholarship. "

  "A very generous scholarship," Ms. McCasslan said.

  Kaitlyn found herself looking at a number on a piece of paper. "That's . . . for all of us, to split?"

  "That is for you," Joyce said. "Alone. "

  Kaitlyn felt dizzy.

  "You'll be helping the cause of science," Joyce said. "And you could make a new life for yourself. A new start. No one at your new school needs to know why you're there; you can just be an ordinary high school kid. Next fall you can go to Stanford or San Francisco State University-San Carlos is just half an hour south of San Francisco. And after that, you're free. You can go anywhere. "

  Kaitlyn felt really dizzy.

  "You'll love the Bay Area. Sunshine, nice beaches- do you realize it was seventy degrees there yesterday when I left? Seventy degrees in winter. Redwoods- palm trees-"

  "I can't," Kaitlyn said weakly.

  Joyce and the principal both looked at her, startled.

  "I can't," Kait said again, more loudly, pulling her walls close around her. She needed the walls, or she might succumb to the shimmering picture Joyce was painting in her mind.

  "Don't you want to get away?" Joyce said gently.

  Didn't she? Only so much that she sometimes felt like a bird beating its wings against glass. Except that she'd never been quite sure what she'd do once she got away. She'd just thought, There must be some place I belong. A place where I'd just fit in, without trying.

  She'd never thought of California as being the place. California was almost too rich, too heady and exciting. It was like a dream. And the money . . .

  But her father.

  "You don't understand. It's my dad. I've never been away from him, not since my mom died, and he needs me. He's not. . . He really needs me. "

  Ms. McCasslan was looking sympathetic. Ms. McCasslan knew her dad, of course. He'd been brilliant, a philosophy professor; he'd written books. But after Kaitlyn's mother had died, he'd gotten . . . vague.

  Now he sang a lot to himself and did odd jobs around town. He didn't make much doing them. When bills came in, he shuffled his feet and ruffled his hair, looking anxious and ashamed. He was almost like a kid-but he adored Kait and she adored him. She would never let anything hurt him.

  And to leave him so soon, before she was even old enough to go to college-and to go all the way to California-and for a year-

  "It's impossible," she said.

  Ms. McCasslan was looking down at her plump hands. "But, Kaitlyn, don't you think he'd want you to go? To do what's best for you?"

  Kaitlyn shook her head. She didn't want to listen to arguments. Her mind was made up.

  "Wouldn't you like to learn to control your talents?" Joyce said.

  Kaitlyn looked at her.

  The possibility of control had never occurred to her. The pictures came when she wasn't expecting them; took over her hand without her realizing it. She never knew what had happened until it was over.

  "I think you can learn," Joyce said. "I think you and I could learn, together. "

  Kaitlyn opened her mouth, but before she could answer, there was a terrible sound from outside the office.

  It was a crashing and a grinding and a shattering all together. And it was a huge noise, so huge that Kaitlyn knew at once it could come from nothing ordinary. It sounded very close.

  Joyce and Ms. McCasslan had both jumped up, and it was the plump little principal who made it to the door first. She rushed out through the office to the street, with Kait and Joyce following her.

  People were running up on either side of Harding Street, crunching through the snow. Cold air bit Kaitlyn's cheeks. The slanting afternoon sunlight threw up sharp contrasts between light and shadow, making the scene in front of Kaitlyn look frighteningly focused and distinct.

  A yellow Neon was facing the wrong way on Harding Street, its back wheels on the sidewalk, its left side a wreck. It looked as if it had been broadsided and spun. Kaitlyn recognized it; it belonged to Jerry Crutchfield, one of the few students who had a car.

  In the middle of the street, a dark blue station wagon was facing Kaitlyn directly. Its entire front end was accordioned. The metal was twisted and deformed, the headlights shattered.

  Polly Vertanen, a junior, was tugging at Ms. McCasslan's sleeve. "I saw everything, Ms. McCasslan.

  Jerry just pulled out of the parking lot- but the station wagon was going too fast. They just hit him. . . . I saw everything. They were going too fast. "

  "That's Marian Gunter's station wagon," Ms. McCasslan said sharply. "That's her little girl in there. Don't move her yet! Don't move her!" The principal's voice went on, but Kait didn't hear any more.

  She was staring at the windshield of the station wagon. She hadn't seen before-but she could see now.

  People around her were yelling, running. Kaitlyn hardly noticed them. Her entire world was filled with the car windshield.

  The little girl had been thrown up against it-or maybe it had crunched back up against her. She was actually lying with her forehead touching the glass, as if she were looking out with open eyes.

  With wide eyes. Wide, round
, heavy-lashed eyes. Bambi eyes.

  She had a small snub nose and a round chin. Wavy blond hair stuck to the glass.

  The glass itself was shattered like a spiderweb, a spiderweb superimposed on the child's face.

  "Oh, no-please, no . . . " Kaitlyn whispered.

  She found herself clutching, without knowing what she was clutching at. Somebody steadied her.

  Sirens were wailing closer. A crowd was gathering around the station wagon, blocking Kaitlyn's view of the child.