Invisible World (2 page)

W
HEN WE ARRIVED AT THE MANOR HOUSE
, three maids were already pulling in the bedding. Bronwyn continued on, leading us into the kitchen and steering us toward the blazing hearth. She perched on its stone rim and grabbed a white towel from the pile neatly folded on a nearby table. She fluffed the tops of our hair dry, careful not to undo Kate's tight curls, less so with my free-flowing brown waves.

A servant, pretty young Elyn, met us by the fire. “Sir Alexander would like to see the girls right now,” she told Bronwyn.

“For more testing?” Bronwyn asked, pulling us closer to her.

Elyn nodded. “I believe so. He wants to see them in his laboratory. He sent me to fetch them.”

“Very well,” Bronwyn told Elyn. “Then after that, if this rain lets up and it's not too chilly, we will start our swimming lessons at the shore. You can't be living at the ocean shore and not know how to swim. It's too dangerous.”

Kate and I looked at each other, our eyes lit with enthusiasm. To learn to swim! We were so lucky to have Bronwyn as our governess.

“Now go with Elyn, girls, and do well for your father,” Bronwyn said, releasing us from the encircling protection of her arms.

Alarm filled Kate's eyes. “I don't want to,” she pleaded with Bronwyn. “Please don't make us go.”

Bronwyn stroked Kate's dark curls kindly. “It's not up to me, pet. Your father is a scientist and he's researching the family power. You girls both possess it.”

“But it frightens me,” Kate insisted.

Bronwyn knelt so that her face was on level with ours. “I understand that it seems strange to you sometimes, and I worry that it strains your young minds. But there is nothing to fear, girls. It's not a bad or an evil thing. Your grandmother from Scotland on your father's side had the power. She was a gifted clairvoyant, a mind reader of such power that many people came to see her to learn of the future.”

“She knew the future?” I was impressed.

Bronwyn nodded knowingly. “She was a mind reader and could also predict upcoming events.”

Gooseflesh formed on my arms. I felt chills of excitement. “How do you know about this?” I asked.

“As you know, your dear late mother was my good friend. She told me.” Bronwyn lowered her head and spoke on in a quiet, conspiratorial tone. “Your grandmother's mother before her was also a gifted dream interpreter and could see the future. A queen once consulted your great-grandmother.”

“What queen?” Kate asked in a breathless whisper, her fears momentarily eclipsed by her excitement.

“Mary, Queen of Scots,” Bronwyn confided, lowering her voice even further so the kitchen staff wouldn't hear. Kate and I drew very close. “The queen dreamt she saw a head floating in the air and was directed by her advisors to see your great-grandmother to find out what it meant. She felt it was an important dream.”

“What did our great-grandmother tell her?” I asked.

“She told Queen Mary that her head would soon be chopped off!” Bronwyn replied dramatically.

Kate and I gasped. “I bet the queen didn't like to hear that,” I ventured.

“She did not,” Bronwyn confirmed. “During one of the several Scottish witch crazes, she made sure your great-gran was burned as a witch.”

“Burned?” Kate asked, shaken with horror. “While she was alive?”

Bronwyn nodded. “What an awful way to die, eh? It made people practice the old ways in secret, for fear of being hunted for witchcraft. But the more secretive people became, the worse it looked for them when they were discovered.”

“And was great-gran right?” Kate asked. “About Queen Mary, I mean?”

Bronwyn nodded solemnly. “Mary Stuart was beheaded for plotting to murder her cousin Queen Elizabeth.”

“Did they think Mary was a witch?” I inquired, trying to understand the logic behind all this, if indeed there was any.

“No, just bad and disloyal,” Bronwyn replied.

This made no sense to me. Our great-grandmother, who had been good and helpful, was killed just the same as a queen who was nearly a murderess.

“Why has Father never told us of our grandmother and great-grandmother?” Kate asked. “We've never heard of them.”

“He doesn't like to talk about it,” Bronwyn told us.

“I forgot something,” I lied, backing toward the door. Turning, I ran for the outside. “I'll be right back!” I shouted over my shoulder.

It was still raining lightly, and I loved the feel of wet grass under my bare feet. Where was I headed? I didn't know. But I had to get out of that house and out into the open so I could think my dangerous thoughts alone.

When I got as far as the wide forsythia bush, I slowed, panting. “Little bird! Little bird! Let your spirit rise up!” I shouted, raising my arms skyward. “Fly beyond the veil!”

Something chirped.

A bird — exactly like the one we'd just buried — sat atop the forsythia, looking directly at me. I shut my eyes and my mind filled with images of clouds. I could see the ocean very far below me — and then I saw canyons of sun-drenched white clouds. Suddenly I was happy and free, filled with an expansive joy I've never forgotten.

Was I seeing what the bird we had just buried was seeing? Was this that bird — come to life for a moment before departing for Heaven — or another bird?

When I reopened my eyes, the bird was gone.

Everything seemed absolutely still. Not a breeze. No more rain. Faintly I heard the ocean waves crashing at the bottom of the nearby cliffs.

Had I done it?

I was sure I had. With the force of my will and of my love, I had lifted the bird's spirit up and out of its earthly body. I had sent it on its path to a new life.

Was this what a witch could do?

I was the great-granddaughter and granddaughter of witches. Might I also be one myself? Then and there, at the age of six, I vowed that somehow, I would work on developing my natural talents and study the ways of witchcraft.

It was my family legacy.

F
ATHER'S TESTING OF OUR SPECIAL CLAIRVOYANT POWERS
went on for many years. By the time I was fifteen, it was only me he tested. Kate had been excused nearly three years earlier when her powers abandoned her, slowly becoming less and less each day. Sometimes I suspected her of faking this decline, though she swore to me that her lack of ability was real.

Truthfully, I hoped she was tricking Father because she hated the long hours of testing. The idea that my abilities might also disappear with age upset me deeply. Through the years I hadn't lost my enthusiasm for learning witchcraft one bit, but the idea had become more refined. I had no intention of wearing a black coned hat or cackling maniacally in the night. I certainly wasn't planning on acquiring warts of any kind.

I pictured myself in a cozy apartment in London, living independently, supporting myself on the money I earned from my special powers. I might read someone's mind to learn if he was cheating my client. Or I could possibly use my special sight to see into a locked safe to discern its contents. Maybe I would hear the thoughts of a man to learn if he really loved my client.

This picture of living without help from anyone thrilled me. Nothing else would do. I had to make it happen. The only way I could think of to set myself free from a humdrum domestic life — the only life a girl of my station could expect — was to continue developing my mental powers here in Father's study.

Besides, I couldn't abandon Father. I was his primary test subject. His work was well known among his colleagues, the other members of the Royal Society of London, a group of investigative scientists who were so well regarded that they advised kings and queens.

On this sunny spring afternoon, however, my mind was simply not engaged. Father appeared at the doorway of the cubicle where he'd stationed me within his large office. My chin was propped on my hands and I stared up at him, sighing forlornly because I had failed to
see
the drawings he was holding up in the other part of the laboratory. “I
am
trying, really,” I insisted.

Father pushed back the long, black academic robe he wore over the flowing sleeves of his white shirt and dark pants. Returning my sigh with one of his own, he raked his hand over the thin remaining hairs of his balding head. “Maybe it's finally happened,” he said unhappily.

“What has happened?”

Father lifted a pitcher containing water from a nearby table and poured it into a goblet. “Maybe not,” he allowed, speaking more to himself than to me. “Perhaps you're only getting tired or thirsty.”

“What do you think has finally happened?” I pressed. “Do you think I've lost the power?”

Father sighed again, studying my face.

“What?” I challenged. “What aren't you saying?”

“Let me explain to you as best I can. Earlier research has proven that most psychic ability is inherited and that in many cases, psychic ability diminishes with age; for most children it is all but gone by the time a child is five years old. My belief is that as verbal speech becomes firmly imbedded in a child's ability pool, telepathic power falls away, is suppressed. But in some cases, it is not.”

“Do you mean, in cases such as mine?”

Father folded his arms thoughtfully. “Possibly.”

“Do you think I am like a baby?” I asked a bit irritably. “That my mind is similar to that of a child?”

Here Father smiled and the expression on his face grew very tender. “I believe you are a pure and innocent girl with a beautiful mind, Elsabeth. I am always so proud of you. Psychic ability expresses itself most naturally in people with happy, outgoing natures such as yours.”

Father's words made me smile, though I still worried that he meant I was childish. “What about Kate? Has she lost the power?”

“Yes, definitely. She lost the power completely by sixteen.”

“Then I might too.”

“Yes, you might.”

I considered how I felt about this. Being able to see into the minds of those around me was the most natural thing in the world to me. I had been doing it for as long as I could remember. It had shocked me when I'd first learned that others
couldn't
do it.

“On the other hand,” Father said, “there have been cases in which the power does not go away. In fact, it can also increase with age and practice.”

“Is that what happened to my grandmother and my great-grandmother?” I knew it was a calculated risk to mention them. But I wanted to know.

Father nodded as the same faraway expression as always crept into his eyes.

“Tell me about both of them,” I urged.

“You know about your great-grandmother?” Father questioned, looking very surprised.

“She advised Mary, Queen of Scots that she would be beheaded,” I said, nodding. “Bronwyn told us years ago, when we were very young.”

Father scowled at this and shook his head. “Bronwyn and your mother were so close they were like sisters. Otherwise I would have never kept her on as your governess.”

“You wouldn't have?” I asked, surprised. “Why not?”

“Bronwyn and her entire clan can't let go of the old witchy ways of the backcountry. She's filled your and your sister's heads with her superstitions.”

“Tell me about my grandmother and my great-grandmother.”

“For centuries, our family has possessed psychic powers. It's an inherited ability. Some, like you, can see into the minds of others and can also envision what cannot actually be seen with the eyes, as with the pictures you can see even when they are not in front of you. Others in our family can predict the future.” He looked at me as though trying to read something in my face. “It has produced both good fortune and terrible tragedy for us.”

“Was your mother a witch?” I dared to ask.

“My mother was not a witch,” Father insisted with feeling. “She was a midwife.”

“She helped with the birth of babies?”

“Exactly. She was knowledgeable regarding herbal medicines and had surgical skills. But, in addition, she also had the family power.”

“Is that why they thought she was a witch?” I asked.

Father nodded. “My mother could hear the thoughts of the unborn. It saved many little lives because she could hear when they were in distress.”

“And that's why they killed her?” I thought of Bronwyn with her medicines and potions, and my skin prickled with fear for her. “Do such things still happen?”

“They do, I'm afraid. This is why I devote myself to testing for psychic ability — to prove it is not the work of the Devil but a legitimate ability. We live in a time of rational thought. Everything must be tested, measured, and quantified. I record how many pictures you see correctly, and I measure it over a long period of time and under varying conditions. I need to prove that psychic ability is a natural talent that can be cultivated rather than a thing mired in superstition and the suspicion of” — he circled with his hands as though searching for the right word — “mystical rites.”

All at once it struck me. “You're afraid for Kate and me.”

I stared him in the eyes and I saw clearly what image he harbored: Kate and me swinging from a hangman's noose. It was so horrifying that a startled gasp escaped my lips.

“What did you see?” Father demanded.

Opening my mouth to reply, I discovered my throat was too dry to speak. I kept seeing my own face, ashen and hollow-eyed, lips parched and cracked — my black tongue wedged in the right side of my mouth, protruding slightly. My head hung at an unnatural angle. My neck was broken.

I stumbled forward as the room spun.

Father caught me by my shoulders. “Elsabeth! What is it?!”

The room turned once more before I collapsed.