Dark Visions

by L. J. Smith

  "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.

  She knew Curt Gunter. The little girl must be Lindy, his baby sister. Why hadn't Kait realized? Why hadn't her picture shown her? Why couldn't it have shown her cars crashing, with a date and a place, instead of that pathetic kid's face? How could it all be so useless, so completely freaking useless . .. ?

  "Do you need to sit down?" the person holding her asked, and it was Joyce Piper, and she was shivering.

  Kait was shivering, too. Her breath was coming very fast. She clutched harder at Joyce.

  "Did you mean that, about me learning to control ... what I do?" Kait couldn't call it a
talent.

  Joyce looked from her to the accident scene with something like dawning realization. "I think so. I hope so,"

  "You have to promise."

  Joyce met her gaze full on, the way people in Thoroughfare never did. "I promise to try, Kait."

  "Then I'll go. My dad will understand."

  Joyce's aquamarine eyes were brilliant. "I'm so glad." She shivered violently. "Seventy degrees there, Kait," she added softly, almost absently. "Pack light."

  That night, Kaitlyn had a strangely realistic dream. She was on a rocky peninsula, a spit of land surrounded by cold gray ocean. The clouds overhead were almost black and the wind blew spray into her face. She could actually feel the wet of it, the chill.

  From just behind her, someone called her name. But when she turned, the dream ended.

  CHAPTER 3

  Kait got off the plane feeling giddy and triumphant. She'd never been on a plane before, but it had been easy as anything. She'd chewed gum on takeoff and landing, done twists in the tiny bathroom every hour to keep limber, and brushed her hair and straightened her red dress as the plane cruised up to the gate.

  Perfection.

  She was very happy. Somehow, once the decision to go was made, Kait's spirits had lifted and lifted. It no longer seemed a grim necessity to come to the Institute; it was the dream Joyce had described, the beginning of a new life. Her dad had been unbelievably sweet and understanding-he'd seen her off just as if she were going to college. Joyce was supposed to meet her here at San Francisco Airport.

  But the airport was crowded and there was no sign of Joyce. People streamed by. Kaitlyn stuck close to the gate, head high, trying to look nonchalant. The

  last thing she wanted was anyone to ask if she needed help.

  "Excuse me."

  Kaitlyn flicked a sideways glance at the unfamiliar voice. It wasn't help; it was something even more disturbing. One of those cult people who hang around airports and ask for money. He was wearing reddish robes-Tuscan red, Kait thought. If she were going to draw them.

  "I'd like a moment of your time, please." The voice was civil, but persistent-authoritative. It sounded foreign.

  Kait edged away-or started to. A hand caught her. She looked down at it in amazement, seeing lean fingers the color of caramel locked around her wrist.

  Okay, jerk, you asked for it. Outraged, Kait turned the full power of her smoky blue, strangely ringed eyes on him.

  He just looked back-and when Kait looked deeply into his eyes, she reeled.

  His skin was that caramel color-but his eyes were slanting and very dark, with an epicanthic fold. The phrase "lynx-eyed" came to Kaitlyn's mind. His softly curling hair was a sort of pale shimmery brown, like silver birch. None of it went together.

  But that wasn't what made her reel. It was a feeling of age from him. When she looked into his eyes, she had the sense of centuries passing. Millennia. His face was unlined,, but there were ice ages in his eyes.

  Kait couldn't remember ever really screaming in her life, but she decided to scream now.

  She didn't get a chance. The grip on her wrist tightened and before she could draw a breath, she was jerked off balance, moving. The man in the robes was pulling her backward into the jetway-the long corridor that led to a plane.

  Except that there was no plane now and the corridor was empty. The double doors closed, cutting Kaitlyn off from the rest of the airport. She was still too shocked to scream.

  "Don't move and you won't get hurt," the man in the robes said grimly. His lynx eyes were hard.

  Kaitlyn didn't believe him. He was from some cult and he was obviously insane and he'd dragged her into this deserted place. She should have fought him before; she should have screamed when she had the chance. Now she was trapped.

  Without letting go of her arm, the man fumbled inside his robes.

  For a gun or a knife, Kaitlyn thought. Her heart was pounding violently. If he would just relax his grip on her arm for an instant-if she could get to the other side of those doors where there were people . . .

  "Here," the man said. "All I want is for you to look at this."

  He was holding not a weapon but a piece of paper. Glossy paper that had been folded. To Kaitlyn's dazed eyes it looked like a brochure.

  I don't believe it, she thought. He is insane.

  "Just look," the man said.

  Kaitlyn couldn't help looking; he was holding the paper in her face. It seemed to be a full-color picture of a rose garden. A walled rose garden, with a fountain in the center, and something thrusting out of the fountain. Maybe an ice sculpture, Kaitlyn thought dizzily. It was tall, white, and semitransparent-like a faceted column. In one of its many facets was the tiny, perfect reflection of a rose.

  Kaitlyn's heart was still pounding violently. This was all too weird. As frightening as if he were trying to hurt her.

  "This crystal-" the man began, and then Kaitlyn saw her chance.

  The iron grip on her arm loosened just the slightest bit as he spoke, and his eyes were on the picture.

  Kaitlyn kicked backward, glad that she was wearing pumps with her red dress, slamming a two-inch heel into his shin. The man yelped and let go.

  Kaitlyn hit the double doors with both hands, bursting out into the airport, and then she just ran. She ran without looking behind her to see if the man was following. She dodged around chairs and phone booths, heading blindly into the crowd.

  She didn't stop until someone called her name.

  "Kaitlyn!"

  It was Joyce, heading the other way, toward the gate. Kait had never been so relieved to see anyone.

  "I'm so sorry-the traffic was terrible-and parking in this place is always-" She broke off. "Kaitlyn, what's wrong?"

  Kaitlyn collapsed in Joyce's arms. Now that she was safe, she somehow wanted to laugh. Hysteria, probably, she told herself. Her legs were shaking.

  "It was too strange," she gasped. "There was this guy from some cult or something-and he grabbed me.

  He probably just wanted money, but I thought-"

  "He grabbed you! Where is he now?"

  Kaitlyn waved a hand vaguely. "Back there. I kicked him and ran."

  Joyce's aquamarine eyes flashed with grim approval, but all she said was, "Come on. We'd better tell airport security about this."

  "Oh-I'm okay now. He was just some nut. . . ."

  "Nuts like that, we put away. Even in California," Joyce said flatly.

  Airport security sent people looking for the man, but he was gone.

  "Besides," the guard told Joyce and Kaitlyn, "he couldn't have opened the doors to the jet bridge.

  They're kept locked."

  Kaitlyn didn't want to argue. She wanted to forget all about it and go to the Institute. This was not how she'd planned her grand entrance to California.

  "Let's go," she said to Joyce, and Joyce sighed and nodded.

  They picked up Kaitlyn's luggage and carried it to a sharp little green convertible-Joyce's car. Kait felt like bouncing on the seat as Joyce drove. Back home it was freezing, with twenty inches of snow on the ground. Here they drove with the top down, and Joyce's blond hair ruffled like down in the wind.

  "How's the little girl from the crash?" Joyce asked.

  Kaitlyn's spirits pitched.

  "She's still in the hospital. They don't know if she'll be okay." Kaitlyn clamped her lips together to show that she didn't intend to answer any more questions about Lindy.

  But Joyce didn't ask any more questions. Instead, she said, "Two of your housemates are already at the Institute; Lewis and Anna. I think you'll like them."

  Lewis-a boy. "How many of the five of us are boys?" Kaitlyn asked suspiciously.

  "Three, I'm afraid," Joyce said gravely, and then gave Kait a sideways look of amusement.

  Kaitlyn declined to be amused. Three boys and only one other girl. Three sloppy, meaty-handed, too-big-to-control, hormone-crazed Power Rangers.

  Kaitlyn had tried boys once, two years ago when s
he was a sophomore. She'd let one of them take her out, driving up to Lake Erie every Friday and Saturday night, and she'd put up with what he wanted-some of what he wanted-while he talked about Metallica and the Browns and the Bengals and his candy-apple-red Trans Am. All of which Kait knew nothing about. After the first date, she decided that guys must be an alien species, and just tried to deal with him without listening to him. She was still hoping that he'd take her to the next party with his crowd.

  She had it all planned out. He'd escort her into one of those big houses on the hill that she'd never been invited to. She'd wear something a little dowdy so as to not show up the hostess. With her boyfriend's arm around her shoulder, she'd be modest and self-effacing, complimenting everything in sight. The whole crowd would see she wasn't a monster. They'd let her in-maybe not all at once, but over time, as they got used to her being around.

  Wrong.

  When she brought up the party, her lake-loving boyfriend blustered around, but eventually the truth came clear. He wasn't going to take her anywhere in public. She was good enough alone in the dark with him, but not good enough to be seen with him in the daylight.

  It was one of the times when it was hardest not to cry. Stiff-lipped, she'd ordered him to take her home.

  He got angrier and angrier as they drove. When she jerked the car door open, he said, "I was going to dump you anyway. You're not like a normal girl. You're cold,"

  Kait stared after the car when it had gone. So she wasn't normal. Fine, she knew that already. So she was cold-and the way he'd said it made it obvious that he didn't just mean her personality. He meant more.

  Well, that was fine, too. She'd rather be cold all her life than feel anything with a guy like that. The memory of his humid palms on her arms made her want to wipe her own hands on the skirt of her red dress.

  So I'm cold, Kait thought now, shifting in the front seat of Joyce's convertible. So what? There are other things in life to be interested in.

  And really, she didn't care how many boys were at the Institute. She'd ignore them-she'd stick with Anna. She just hoped Anna wasn't boy-crazy.