Poltergeist

Poltergeist

Kat Richardson

Living, lambent fog overlay the living room around me. Vague shapes and eddies moved through the gleaming mist trailing subtle colors while the bright gold of the houses protective spell coiled around the structure like a friendly vine. It was almost restful in that place and company, though I doubted I'd ever come to like it. Though Mara Danziger was safely in the normal world while I was in the Grey, I was able to see the sleeping child in her lap as a white shape, and my friend had been shrouded in a blur of blue light and gold sparks. I was even able to hear her, though the sound had a slight underwater quality to it.

"You know, you don't go slipping accidentally anymore," Mara said in her tumbling Irish voice. "That's good. Are you still seeing things the same way?”

"Yes, and no," I murmured, sitting on the couch—the shadowy shape of a couch on my side—and closing my eyes. "When I'm in here, it's not much different. When I'm outside, I can look at it without having to go all the way into the Grey, but I see layers now, and colors—people and things have…colors, like threads, tangles, glows. I can slide down below the fog if I want to and look at the power lines—”

"Can you, indeed?”

"Yeah. The deep part of the Grey is like…It's all bright lines, like computer drawings." Then I shut up because I didn't want to say that the lines weren't just lines or conduits or paths; they were somehow alive and I felt compelled to conceal that.

Mara was quiet a moment. "I think that's the grid itself—the network I've told you of, through which raw magic flows.”

"What are the colors? What do they mean?" I asked.

"I'm sorry to say you'll know more than I on that score. I don't see magic as you do. The glows are auras, but the others…I'd guess they're connections, like electric cords that connect related things in the Grey to each other or plug the things into the power grid, but I'm not sure. Y'could ask Ben, if he can stay awake long enough. Between the class schedules and keeping after the child, we've neither of us enough free time to spit.”

The Danzigers were both instructors at the University of Washington—Mara taught geology and Ben languages and linguistics—but they each had personal interests in the paranormal and they'd helped me out with this Grey business from the very beginning. Ben was the theoretician and scholar. Mara, being a witch, was a bit more practical.

Mara continued. "Still, you're doing much, much better than a few months ago. Feeling better about it?”

I drew a deep breath, pushing the Grey away, and opened my eyes as I exhaled. "I don't feel sick all the time," I replied. "And I don't have to live in it, most of the time. Sometimes it still gets the better of me and I fall in, but mostly I have control of it more than it has of me.”

Mara grinned at me from her couch, her green eyes sparkling, and said, "Don't go getting too cocky, now, Harper. There's still a vast trickiness to the Grey.”

I snorted. That was not news to me, even then.

* * *

That was a couple of months ago. We'd been sitting on the matching couches in the Danzigers' living room, a sunny, comfortable spot and a far cry from the slippery mist-world of the Grey—the here/not here place that lies like a fringe of shadow between the normal and the paranormal. It's the world of ghosts, vampires, and magic, and I am one of its few dual citizens. There are people like Mara—witches and so on—who can touch the Grey in some way and draw power or information from it, but as far as I know, only ghosts and monsters truly live there. I, however, seem to be half in and half out all the time. I can't do magic, or exorcise spirits, or anything flashy like that: I'm a Greywalker—a human who can enter the Grey and move through it as if it were the normal world. Apparently I got this way when I died for a couple of minutes.

So far, no one had been able to explain why me and not everyone else medical technology pulls back from clinical death, but I seemed to be the only Greywalker around the Pacific Northwest. There didn't appear to be a cure or even a way to quit, but Mara and Ben had been teaching me how to keep it under control and how to stay out of trouble, insofar as I could stay out of trouble. My work and the Grey seemed to intersect more often than I'd have liked and it hadn't been pleasant. As a private investigator, I usually carried a pretty dull caseload, but once the ghosts and vampires found me, things got weird fast.

In October, months after the calm on the couch, I wished that the meeting I was driving to would be normal, even boring, but since I'd been recommended by Ben, the self-proclaimed "ghost guy," I wasn't holding out a lot of hope. Within a few minutes of my arrival, even that bit of hope was totally dashed.

I sat in a boxlike office for twenty-three minutes as Professor Gartner Tuckman told me that he and a motley group of strangers had made a ghost. Not in the film noir, bang-bang sense but in the creepy, woo-woo sense. Frankly, I found Tuckman creepier than some of the ghosts I've met. He was thin and intense with a hectoring, arrogant manner, a sharp voice, and the cultivated piercing gaze of a silent film villain. He was also a liar—at least by omission.

I held up a finger to stem the battering wash of his words. "Let me see if I understand this, Dr. Tuckman. You put together a group of people who made up a ghost and haunted
themselves?”

"No. They did not 'haunt' anything. There is no ghost. It's an artificial entity powered by their own belief and expectation. The parapsychologists would call it a group thought-form—"

"I thought you were a parapsychologist.”

He scoffed. "I'm a psychologist. I study the minds of people, not spooks. The point of this project is observing how rational individuals become irrational in groups and how that is reinforced by the group itself. In re-creating the Philip experiments, I gave them an acceptable focus for their irrationality.”

"The group in the Philip experiments claimed to have created an artificial poltergeist, right? Psychokinetic phenomena and all.”

He rolled his eyes. "Overly simplified, but yes.”

"So you told your group to make up a ghost, believe in it, hold these séances, and they'd get phenomena. Did they?”

Tuckman tossed his head. "Of course they did. Regardless of anything else questionable about the Philip experiments, they did, undeniably, manifest minor instances of psychokinesis—PK. Once my group had that information, they became open to the idea that it could be done. Then I supported their belief in the phenomena so they produced PK effects on their own.”

"You're sure this isn't a real poltergeist?" I asked.

"Poltergeists don't exist. They're the conflation of simple events, suggestion, coincidence, and minor stress-induced PK activity by the operator. There is no 'ghost' involved. Just people. By reinforcing their expectations and subconscious irrational beliefs, I hope to see how far they'll suspend rationality before they rein themselves in.”

"Your group produces measurable, reproducible PK phenomena?”

"Yes. But suddenly the phenomena are off the scale. We've had a massive jump in the number and strength of the phenomena, as well as the kind. I think one of the participants is faking additional phenomena. I want you to find out who is doing this and stop them, help me get them out of the group before they ruin the experiment.”

"If the faked phenomena are helping the group believe in ghosts, how is that bad for you?”

Tuckman glowered. "Because those phenomena aren't under my control and are too far outside probability to be legitimate responses.”

I sat back in my slick chair and let Tuckman stew in his angry silence. His request—and his anger—didn't make sense. He wanted to see how far his group would go, but when they went farther than he expected, he assumed he was being scammed. He didn't seem to believe in the paranormal himself, but he'd accepted PK—or had he? I tilted a glance at Tuckman through the Grey and watched green tendrils dart out from around him like tiny snakes striking at flies. I hadn't seen anything quite like that before, but I could make a good guess what it meant.

"Why do I have the feeling you're not telling me something, Dr. Tuckman?”

"Nothing you need to know.”

Fat chance. I stood up and slung my bag over my shoulder. "Dr. Tuckman, I doubt Ben Danziger told you I was an idiot when he recommended me, so why you're treating me like one I don't know. But I don't need the money enough—or the aggravation—to work for a client who lies to me or hires me under false pretenses. If you want a serious investigation, you'll have to level with me about your ringer, because I'd find him or her eventually. But if what you really want is a patsy to go through the motions and take the blame for something, you need to look elsewhere.”

"I don't know what you mean.”

I gave him the tired face. "Bullshit. You said you reinforced the group's expectations. The easiest way to do that is to create apparent PK phenomena yourself—or have a confederate do it for you. I've seen plenty of con games and this is pretty much the same thing—get someone or a group of someones to believe they're special, then you see how much you can get from them before they figure out they're being conned. Now, I don't care about the particulars of your experimental technique, but if you want me to find your problem—assuming you really have one—you have to disclose the truth. What you tell me is confidential, but I don't work well in the dark and I get a bit testy when I feel like I'm being had—or set up.”

I stood and stared at him a moment. He gave me the villain eyes again. I rolled mine in response. "Fine," I said and turned to go.

Tuckman leapt up. "No, wait." I felt his hand close on my upper arm. The cold of his personality licked my skin like the little green snakes I'd glanced in his aura.

I spun back, yanking my arm loose, and gave him a glare that burned up from the very depths of the dead through the network of Grey that limned my bones—the "gift" of a meddlesome vampire that tied me into the grid at the deepest level of the Grey. Tuckman pulled his hand back to his side with a sharp inhalation.

"I'm—I apologize, Ms. Blaine. I need to find the individual who's undermining my project and I cannot do it myself. I do have a…confederate in the séance group who helps reinforce the phenomena. Please sit down and we can discuss it further.”

I sighed and gave the chair a sour look. It was bowl-shaped and upholstered in repulsive green vinyl. I threw my bag into it and pulled out my notebook, again. Still on my feet, I turned back to Tuckman as he returned to his desk chair.

I can't like every client—economics doesn't let me be that choosy— but I disliked and distrusted Tuckman and was sure I'd regret staying on. I comforted myself with the petty pleasure that at five foot ten I towered over him.

I summarized his recent recitations and asked for a list of project participants. "Be sure to include all of your assistants, including the ones running the magic tricks—they're the most likely to be involved. I'd also like to see exactly what phenomena you're getting. I'll need to see recordings, but I can tell a lot more if I can observe the whole setup in person, in real time." If Tuckman was getting any legit paranormal activity, I probably wouldn't be able to see most of it on a recording, but in person was a different situation. Even glass and sound baffles wouldn't filter it all from my Grey-adapted eyes.

For a moment, I thought Tuckman would object, but he swallowed it. He had to. Spoilers at work wasn't the only possible answer to Tuckman's problem, but he wouldn't consider any that couldn't be seen or recorded. I, on the other hand, had firsthand knowledge that ghosts and poltergeists did exist and weren't just conflations of ordinary events by stressed minds. Few people get smacked as hard by them as I'd been, though. OK, so call me prejudiced, but I did wonder what he was really getting.

"All right," Tuckman conceded, looking sour. "There's a session tomorrow afternoon. I'll arrange for you to observe from the booth—”

"I'd prefer to be in the room.”

"Impossible. Disruption of the setting may cause the legitimate phenomena to fail. The experiment must remain clean—that's why I need you. Everything is monitored. Everything is documented. I have an early session video here and I'll get my assistant to sort out some more representative recordings for you to study. But unless there is no other way, you cannot be in the séance room during the session.”

It was frustrating, but I had to give him the point for now. "All right. Now, you said that your group did produce some actual PK activity on their own, yes?”

"Yes. They do produce some verifiable and reproducible table raps, movements, light flickers—that sort of thing." He let his mouth curl into a smug little smile. "They've demonstrated remarkable skill at it, especially considering the short time they've been working together.”

"Then it's possible your group is actually producing all these phenomena themselves.”

"It is
not
possible.”

So speaks a mouth attached to a closed mind—and here I'd had such hope for science when I was younger. "What makes you think so?”

"The phenomena are too large, too powerful. It's beyond the ability of simple human minds to exert such physical force without physical contact. You'll understand when you see the sessions.”

I suspected I'd understand a lot more than Tuckman did. "How big is the group?" I asked.

"Eight. Seven study participants and one assistant—I'll count Mark Lupoldi as a participant, though he's my…special assistant.”

"The one who fakes phenomena.”

"Yes.”

"OK. Make sure he's noted on the list that way. Can you take me to see your experiment space now?”

"No. I have a lecture to give in fifteen minutes.”

"I can go by myself if you'll give me the key and directions. Unless there's something in the room you don't want me to see…”

"If you want to start digging into it right away, I wont object." He took a ring of keys from a tray on his obsessively neat desk and removed two. He held the large, brassy keys out to me. "Here. It's room twelve in St. John Hall. The building is unlocked this time of day, but you'll need the key to the rooms, including the observation booth. The room numbers are stamped on the keys. Sign in and out with the front desk and leave the keys with the proctor when you leave.”

He unlocked the file drawer in his desk and pulled out a pristine manila folder with a typed label that read celia.

"Who's Celia?" I asked.

"Our 'ghost' is named Celia Falwell. It took quite a while to find a name for which there was little or no information on the Internet.”

"Why did it matter?”

Tuckman shook his head with impatience. "Because I didn't want them Googling the name and dragging information in, subconsciously, about whoever they found. The personality had to be consistently their own creation." He looked at his watch. "I don't have time for this." He drew a computer disc and a sheaf of paper from the folder and stood up. "I have to get to my lecture." He picked up an expensive, soft-sided leather satchel and pocketed the rest of his keys.

He waved me out and locked up his office before handing the pages and disc to the department secretary. "Please make a copy of these for Ms. Blaine and put the originals in my box, Denise.”

Denise frowned at him. "OK." She was over thirty, but wore her hair, clothes, and makeup like a twenty-year-old. As soon as Tuckman turned away from her, she puckered her face into a disgusted expression.

"I'll see you tomorrow at the session. You can call me this evening if you have questions," Tuckman said, giving a little nod before he left me alone with the secretary and her sour silence.

Once Denise had finished making copies for me, I headed for St. John Hall.

Pacific Northwest University was founded by fire-breathing Calvinists in 1890. I guess they figured that the visitation of more literal hellfire in 1889, when the downtown core of the city burned to the ground, proved that Seattle needed some salvation through education—since neither temperance nor politics seemed to have had much effect in that direction. Its religiosity didn't take very strong root, however—the school is pretty secular now, and not as large or prestigious as the nearby University of Washington. A lot of people mistake the small campus of PNU for a private high school. Its apparent size is deceptive; quite a few of the large houses nearby are actually school property, in use as dorms, labs, and offices.

I strode west through the quad, raising flurries of new-fallen leaves before me and a scurry of phantoms in the edges of my vision. Places people frequent tend to build up a layer or two of ghosts and lingering Grey things after a while and the campus of PNU had collected its share. So long as I kept my eyes straight ahead, I could keep the vague, uncanny figure that flowed along beside me in my peripheral vision. If I turned my head, it seemed to vanish, though I knew that was just the treacherous nature of the Grey. I held it at bay for now. The ghost turned and faded through me as I stopped in front of my destination. I shuddered from the rough cold of the phantom's passage.

St. John Hall was a squat Art Deco building of yellow brick and odd-sized windows. I suppose the intent of the architect was a warm, golden building with glinting windows that filled the interior with light. Time and use had made the building look grubby and half blind where the windows had been covered up inside. I peered at it, letting the chill and the cloudy light of the Grey well up around me. The building didn't look a lot different in the Grey than it did in the normal, except for the usual flickers of history and a bright, hot spot of yellow that seemed to penetrate one of the upper windows like an arrow shaft through a target.

I was reluctant to step all the way into the Grey and take a clear look at that yellow shaft of energy. Bad enough that I was standing out in public looking at it, without risking going all translucent and slippy myself. I had no idea what anyone else would see if I let myself go through to the deep Grey. I knew what I would see, though: black emptiness and a blazing grid of lines that describes the world in hot colors of energy and potential magic—this was the inexplicably alive thing I could not describe to Mara or anyone else. That gleaming yellow shaft looked like part of the grid and I was willing to bet it ran through room twelve.