by Kay Kenyon
Attraction. To manifest around others an aura of appeal ranging from agreeable charm to strong charisma. Research has not identified a strong sexual effect. Underlying ability (always present to some degree), but can be heightened by some practitioners.
Chorister. Can augment the effect of a meta-ability by combining the abilities of several Talents. To operate as a chorister, the individual must possess the same Talent as those he is aggregating.
Conceptor. Manifests an unusual level of emotional persuasion, especially in leadership. Not subject to the limitations of geography. Not augmented by proximity. Underlying ability. Examples: Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler.
Compelling. Exerts an insistent, sometimes inescapable, persuasion to action. The object of compulsion must be in proximity to the practitioner. Talent is under control. A few case studies exist of abilities under the rating of 4.
Disguise. To effect, in the minds of viewers, apparent changes to the body, especially the face. The perceptions achieved are most commonly youthfulness or advanced age, with other distortions less common. Few case studies. Controlled by the intention of the practitioner.
Mesmerizing. The object of a mesmerizing event experiences a decrease in awareness or judgment. The range of the effect (for high ratings) has been seen to extend to a small crowd. The experience may not be remembered as unusual and indeed is often denied, as though those so acted upon cannot accept the dissonance experienced. Controlled by the intention of the practitioner.
Natural defense. The meta-ability of an individual, known as a natural defender, who cannot be influenced by others’ hyperpersonal abilities. The Talent appears to have no effect on other classes of ability, such as psychokinesis, which influences physical systems. Few case studies. Underlying ability.
Suggestion. When in close interaction with an individual, practitioner can sow an impression or conviction in an object’s mind. The manifestation may linger after the initial suggestion, and may be refreshed upon subsequent encounters. Few case studies. Controlled by the intention of the practitioner.
Spill. Eliciting from others a spoken admission of a closely held secret, opinion, fear, memory, or longing. The person who spills may evince regret or shame at having shared a hidden thought, but will have no sensation of having been acted upon. An often unwelcome meta-ability that can be disruptive of social relationships. Manifestations spontaneous.
Trauma view. A quasi-real viewpoint of another’s negative emotional experience. The ability is dependent upon proximity. Can manifest as a highly accurate view or as a symbolic, dream-like sequence or tableau, or a combination. Manifestations spontaneous.
11
WRENFELL, EAST YORKSHIRE
THURSDAY, AUGUST 6. “How are you getting on?”
Martin jumped as though startled. Kim hadn’t meant to sneak up on him, but his door had been open.
“I hope you like this room,” she said. “It looks north, to the moors. Not that you can see them from here.” She looked at his bed, covered with a brown-and-yellow counterpane. Not Robert’s. Mrs. Babbage had replaced the items the family most associated with Robert. It was good to give the room a new use, and it seemed to Kim especially fine that it be used by a young man.
“I do like it,” Martin said. “Sometimes, Shadow comes in, when you’re not around.” His suitcase still remained open on the window seat. A plate with biscuit crumbs lay on the nightstand.
“May I sit?”
“Oh. Sorry. Yes.” He looked around, and found that the two chairs were both inhabited by dirty clothes. “I have to get to the barn, though. Mr. Babbage won’t like it if I’m late.”
She sat on the bed. “Well, I just want to see how things are going. Are you getting the hang of the place?”
“The hang?” He brightened. “Oh, you mean the barn and the chickens and mucking out things. I don’t mind any of that. It’s a lot more interesting than my da’s shop. And especially the horse.”
“And how do you feel about being here, with all of us? I hope you feel welcome.”
A sliding-away glance. “Nothing wrong, is there?”
“No, of course not. We’re just happy to have you here. The house is so empty most of the time.” She looked around the room with its faded striped wallpaper, the iron bedstead that Robert had once painted black, now flecked like granite.
Martin sat on the bed, half facing her, but at the other end near the pillows. “I’ve decided not to go home when the term starts. If I could stay, that is.” He glanced up to gauge how this went over. “Mr. Babbage needs help. I could lend a hand. And I don’t always eat this much. It must be a growth spurt.”
“Well.” Kim felt relieved to know he liked it at Wrenfell, but the idea of staying on was another matter. “We’ll have to see, won’t we? Your parents might have something to say about that. But let’s not plan too far ahead. You might find that you don’t like things quite so much when the newness wears off.”
Martin gulped, his Adam’s apple bouncing in his slender neck. “Oh, that’s not going to happen.”
Kim smiled. “You haven’t met my father yet.”
“Rose says he’s the best. Never got mad when she broke things, and besides, he’s never home.”
“A slim recommendation, don’t you think?”
Martin’s face cracked into a smile. It slowly faded. He stared at the floor with its faded rag rug. “I see things sometimes.”
Well. She had wondered if he would assert his site view claims again. “You see things? Like what?”
“Oh, things. Things in this room.”
She felt her chest cinch up. “Here?”
He nodded, not making eye contact.
Site view. But of course, if it was real, if it was going to happen, it would be in this room. What had she been thinking of, to bunk him here? They sat in uncomfortable silence for a time. She found herself whispering, “What do you see?”
For a few moments Kim hoped that he would lose his nerve, and the whole thing could just be swept under the rag rug. They would pretend he hadn’t brought the subject up.
“Your brother,” he said, low and steady.
She could not respond. It had been a mistake to give Martin Robert’s room. But when Mrs. Babbage had looked askance at the idea, Kim had insisted. At the time, she had thought it was nearer the lavatory, and boys his age didn’t like the morning sun, so a north prospect would suit.
“He was afraid.”
Kim heard herself whimper. A horrid little cry deep in her throat.
“Not afraid of . . . of the fighting. But afraid he wouldn’t measure up. Wouldn’t be what he was supposed to be in front of the other soldiers.”
Kim felt that a hot brick was stuck in her chest, preventing her from breathing. She started rubbing the watch on her wrist, polishing the crystal with the sleeve of her sweater. It was eight twenty-six.
“When the bullets came, he wanted to be brave, to not care too much about getting hit and help the others to not be afraid.”
“That’s natural,” Kim managed to say. “One wishes to do one’s duty.”
Another long pause. “And he worried about you.”
“Me?” She risked a glance at Martin, who looked at her from under his long eyelashes, defensively, ready to bolt. “What about me?”
“He worried that . . . if something happened to him, it would go hard with you. That no one would understand, especially not in the village. Your friends, even your parents, that no one would . . . be on your side. That they wouldn’t know how you and Robert had always taken care of each other. Like when he beat up that Massey kid who stole your lunch pail.”
A few tears slid in hot pathways down her cheeks.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean . . .”
“Just hush, Martin. You must let me cry.” After a moment she wiped her face on her sleeve. She whispered, “What else, what else was there?”
“That he wasn’t sorry to go. He wanted to go.”
Of course
he did. At first they all did, when the war began and it was going to be all glory and honor. They were so trusting, so innocent of the slaughter to come. She repeated numbly, “Wanted to . . .”
“I think so. It sounded like it. That he was proud to be the one to go.”
“Sounded? You mean you heard him?”
Martin frowned. “No, it’s not like that. But somehow, I know what he thought.”
Kim took a deep, tattered breath. Her mind clattered on, being logical, even while she was awash in longing. “I didn’t know it worked like that. Site view.”
“Sometimes.” He stood, looking at her in what must be her obvious distress. “I don’t have to stay in this room. I could stay in the barn.”
She pulled out her hanky and dried her face. “Oh, Martin, the barn! Of course you must stay in Robert’s room.” She got up from the edge of the bed. “You were quite right to tell me.” She was at a loss for what to say to this youngster who had just slipped her from her moorings and sent her adrift into dark memory. “You did the right thing.”
As she turned to go, Martin said, “I don’t want to meet with Vicar Hathaway anymore. He’s on my da’s side, not mine.”
She turned back. “I see.”
“I mean, I’ve had two meetings already. He thinks I’m a liar.”
She couldn’t think about this right now. “Let me see what I can do.” She turned to go.
As she closed the door, she heard him say in a resentful murmur, “At least Alice is on my side.”
Out in the hallway, she made for the bathroom, feeling dazed. In front of the sink, she splashed her face with cold water. Looking into the mirror, she saw a stranger with black hair stuck to her temples and chin, eyes bright with pain.
It was no accident Martin was in that room. She had put him there. She had wanted his Talent view of the room. It was exceedingly strange how one could make cunning plans and not even realize it. But now that she had had her glimpse of Robert, she felt rather sick, almost as though he had died again.
Sitting on the edge of the claw-footed bathtub, she dried her face. There was a thread of shame woven through the tenderness and old grief. When one heard of desperate family members participating in séances to contact their lost sons, brothers, and husbands, one could only feel pity for them. But was it any different, now, with Martin? Some things we aren’t meant to know. She had learned that over the years with the spill. Forcing some things into the light could lose you a friend. Or uncover old losses, making them dreadful again.
She couldn’t make sense of it right now. Adjourning to her room, she took out her well-worn copy of the London and North Eastern Railway timetable and traced the columns of arrivals and departures. The stops and connections to other lines. There was no secret to the British railway system. In fact, it embodied an elegant, systematic plan. She had always found the little LNER booklet a comfort, framing the world in an orderly way, which was very important, given the sorts of things that could happen.
A FIELD IN WILTSHIRE
THAT NIGHT. Dries Verhoeven arranged her so that she sat upon the grass, leaning up against the great stone, her head tipped back just so, for good effect. To show how she had died. They wouldn’t find her until morning, and no one would disturb her repose until then. He folded her hands in her lap so that anyone seeing her from a distance would think she was looking out toward the view, thus approaching her for a most disturbing discovery.
“For God’s sake, leave it be.” Bats swooped overhead, feasting on nets of insects. His companion was only a blur in the thick, hot night.
“Ach, for whose sake?” Dries wiped the blood off his glasses with a rag, deliberately taking his time.
“Just hurry, can’t you?”
Dries replaced his glasses. It was no time for a religious discussion, but he did find it ludicrous to speak of God in a world where a young girl could be slaughtered within a stone’s throw of the thatched and rose-riddled village where she had lived. A hapless God, or one who did not care. Either one was not worth one’s devotion.
He stood up and regarded his handiwork. Fourteen years old, or perhaps less, lanky hair, a flowered blouse and full skirt. With the moon just rising, colors were shades of gray, her blood black in the lee of the stone. He expelled a noisy breath. It really gave him no particular pleasure to kill, nor was he indulging an irrational hatred of young people. It was something people didn’t often realize, that there might be logical and compelling reasons to put out a life.
The girl’s mongrel dog, however, that was a different matter. Quieting the yapping thing did bring some satisfaction.
He couldn’t help needling his nervous companion. “Do you like to say a prayer for her, perhaps?”
“For God’s sake!” came the outraged whisper, conveying the panicked desire to leave before anyone could stumble upon them.
For that reason Dries paused longer. There were times when one’s tasks were worth methodical care. As a restorer of antique dolls, he knew that excellence could not be rushed. “We have put out her light. You see how dark she is?”
“You have done. You.”
“Oh, there we must have a difference, my friend. I used the knife, but you brought her to the car, ja? A reasonable person will say we have both done this thing.”
His companion walked away, not wishing to hear more.
Dries sighed. Some people could not bear the truth, that the world was cruel and without pity. People in these times had grown soft. Even the ignorant tribe that had dug these barrows and set these stones knew that the gods were brutal and life, terrifying.
He shook his head. Humanity was devolving. It was what he liked about dolls. They, at least, never changed.
12
HYDE PARK, LONDON
SUNDAY, AUGUST 9. In the darkened park, Julian approached the agreed-upon bench and sat next to a diminutive man with sparse, flyaway hair wearing a suit a decade out of date. He set his package down between them.
The statue of Achilles was just visible through the row of trees that separated them from the busy intersection at Hyde’s corner. “The statue used to be naked,” Julian said.
Owen Cherwell looked about until he realized that Julian was talking about the great statue of Achilles. “It is naked.”
“No, shortly after it first went up, they put a fig leaf in place. I expect it was required when it got about that the statue’s face was based upon the Duke of Wellington.”
“Well, quite right, then,” Owen said.
Julian couldn’t tell if he was being ironic or not. He didn’t know Owen very well yet, even if the man was one of his. “Have you been reading about the youth killings?”
Owen cut a glance at Julian. “A third death on Thursday. Avebury, I read. At the location of the massive henge and standing stones.”
“Yes, the stone circle site. The dead girl, Frances Brooke, came from the village next to it. The police believe these are signature killings, since the crime methods are identical.”
“The papers have been saying so. Horrible. But our lot is involved?”
“We may have a foreign connection.”
“Night Owl, you mean?” Owen frowned. “I thought those were military assets being eliminated.”
“Yes, but we’ve got a new angle to consider. The young murder victims may all have had Talents.”
Owen shook his head and swiped at his brow as though he had walked into a cobweb. “Talents?”
“I’m afraid so. We knew the first two adolescents claimed to have Talents. Yesterday we learned that the third victim did as well. That’s the foreign connection. It’s tenuous, but in the Continental murders and the British ones, the victims are Talents.”
“Talents,” Owen murmured. “Terrible news.” He shook his head. “But the victims here are children! It can’t be the same at all.”
“Clearly, there are differences. But we’d like to follow up on the possible involvement of Dorothea Coslett.”
“Coslett?
You think an English baroness could be involved in murdering young people?”
“Worth a look, we think. There are some resemblances: You know that the Nachteule Talent assassinations are partially funded by Coslett. So, she already has her hand in murder. Then, as I said, in both crime strings so far, the victims are Talents. Finally, the location of the latest murder at Avebury. As a Neolithic site, it might be significant for the spiritualist crowd.”
“Good Lord,” Owen said, “the woman’s a peer. Funneling money to Nazi Germany is one thing, but this . . .”
“It’s a stretch, but we’ve decided to take a closer look. Nothing official. We’ll work up an excuse to get next to the family—undercover—and see what might turn up.”
Owen shook his head, still trying to absorb it. “But how do you know these youths had genuine Talents? We certainly haven’t been testing young people in my shop.”
“If they bragged, or told the wrong people, the killer might think their claims were true.”
Owen frowned. “Ah. They may have been accidental victims.” The thought seemed to cheer him, that his potential future test subjects might not be at risk after all. “But you mention the wrong people. Who would that be?”
“Worst case, sleeper cells throughout England. Spies living here who are only activated when needed. That would mean that many young people are at risk of exposure. In any case, we’re still trying to grasp what’s going on. The two sets of Talent murders aren’t identical. On the Continent, as you know, the victims are adults and the killings have been arranged to look like accidents. Here, the crimes target youth and are obviously murders. So, things don’t line up enough to properly question the Cosletts.”
Owen asked, “Does this spiritual group believe Talents have religious significance? Is that a connection?”
“I don’t think so. In their literature there isn’t much mention of them, except to imply that some people may have gifts—perhaps their term for Talents—that make them suitable for leadership. Dorothea Coslett started Ancient Light, and her convictions appear to be standard crackpot mysticism. Part of the cult’s appeal could be that people are dazzled by her claim that Sulcliffe Castle is some kind of spiritual center, and when she opens up the grounds to followers, there’s free food and hobnobbing with the great lady herself.”
