She was struck by the intensity in his eyes. Patrick reached into a pocket of his coat. He showed her what he held in his hand; a shapeless lump of blackened plastic and metal. "It's the number generator's CPU. We tested the circuits before you came; there was nothing wrong with the machine. She melted it down to nothing. Do you see that? Do you understand what this means?"
"Electricity," Jess murmured. She took the lump from him and held it in her hands; it was still slightly warm. "That's what it feels like. Some kind of electrical charge."
"I don't know what it is. But I want to find out. This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance. There have been cases, once or twice a century, of people with a talent like hers. Uri Geller was one, though even his abilities were never truly proved beyond the shadow of doubt. But we all have the possibility inside us, I'm sure of it. It's just a matter of learning how to unlock the right doors."
"Why are you doing this, Patrick? What's made you search these things out, what drives you?" Do you understand, I have to know before I can possibly trust you?
"You don't want to hear that story. It's really nothing special."
"If I didn't, I wouldn't have asked."
"All right. But don't say I didn't warn you." Patrick gestured at the empty church, at the rows of pews, as if it would make her see. "My father was a minister. I grew up in churches, spent more time in them than I did at home. But my father loved God more than he did his children. At least that was the way it felt. I was always trying to impress him, make him notice me. But nothing worked.
"Then one day, I was about eight years old, I ran away from home. I didn't get very far at first, it wasn't a real attempt, but I remember getting lost in the woods behind our house. Those woods were deep. It got late and I remember being very frightened by the dark. And finally I remember someone speaking to me. It was my father. He said, come home, son, come this way. And I just followed his voice until I saw the house again.
"When I got to the front steps my father opened the door. He didn't say a word, he just held out his arms. There had been people out looking for me, but my father had just stayed behind. He said he wanted to be there to guide me home.
"After that, my father and I had a special bond. I understood him and he understood me. And I never forgot that night. You don't forget something like that."
"Where's your father now?"
"He died when I was seventeen. Diabetic shock. They put him in the hospital overnight, said he'd be out the next day. But I knew he was never coming back. I knew. Have you ever felt anything like that? Not a hunch, or an educated guess. When the moment comes you're sure, you've never been so sure of anything your entire life. It becomes a part of you, a certainty."
"I don't know." Tiredly. Yes. She thought of childhood dreams, headlights, and the scream of car's tires, of nights waking in a choking sweat. Memories surfaced like creatures from the deep. Maybe I have. Maybe I just don't want to admit it.
"We're holding in our hands the key to a new kind of life, Jess. A higher life on earth. More spiritual, more peaceful, more connected. Mind over matter. Imagine the possibilities. I truly believe that it's just within our reach."
"Maybe so. But you're wrong about Sarah's being able to learn to control it. She's barely able to hang on for the ride. And if you push her, if you try to dissect her like some kind of lab specimen, you'll be no better than anyone else."
The door slammed open at the other end of the church. "Two hundred beats per minute," Gee announced, trailing paper like white fluttering birds. "Blood pressure through the roof. Her EEG was off the charts. Temperature dropped thirteen degrees, enough heat energy to lift a truck. Big one too, one of those semis with the eighteen wheels."
"Good Lord," Patrick whispered almost reverently. "And she was still on sodium amytal. Imagine what might have happened if she were clean?"
"I'm imagining it," Jess said grimly. "Is that supposed to make me feel better, or worse?"
"Give me the word," he said with urgency, facing her, holding her wrist gently between two fingers, as if he was afraid to touch her. "Just tell me and I'll have it all planned by tomorrow. She'll be free to live her life as normally as possible, I promise you."
"I can't do that. I have to go through the proper channels. It wouldn't be fair to her. It wouldn't be fair to anyone involved."
Patrick looked at her for a beat. He nodded, and did not look too disappointed. Did he know something she did not? Or had he just anticipated her response?
"All right. Here's my home number. Just tell me you'll think about it. It's a standing offer. For now, take her back, go home and get some sleep. You look like you could use it."
--27--
She tried; oh, how she tried.
But back in her little apartment that evening, with the October wind whispering to get in and Otto pacing restless by the door, Jess could not think of sleep. Not now, not here, maybe not ever, with the feeling of Patrick's kiss still haunting her lips. She didn't know what to think of that, of him, of anything. When she closed her eyes the walls pressed in close and she couldn't breathe, could not find herself among the voices clamoring to be heard.
Finally she set up a blank canvas on the easel at the window, mixed her paints at the sink, turning yellows into reds, swirling and dipping, smoothing, finding her place. A rough bristle will do, she thought, tonight is calling for broad, bold strokes. It was necessary to clear her head. She wished briefly she could be up in the night sky, above the clouds and under the full moon. But this late the airport would be empty, planes tied down and covered for the night like slumbering metal beasts. And she knew from experience that the need was only her desire to escape, something she had to fight against, especially now.
Her mind was free to drift back in time. She had been left alone more and more often after Michael's death, as her mother searched for answers at the bottom of a bottle. An orphan of alcoholism. It made her more self-sufficient, but also took from her a portion of her childhood. She became the adult in a family of two. At times her mother would not come home at all, and she would have to fend for herself. It made her grow up too fast, kept her from forming a solid foundation upon which to build her life, left her with a shaken self-confidence, left her as an overachiever, a person who pushed herself to the dropping point and then pushed some more. If she had to run a mile for gym class, she would run two; if she needed a B on a test to get by, she would get an A. There were no markers for her performance, no limits set. So she set her own, always trying to prove something. That she was better than this life.
Understanding your weaknesses is the difference between a person who is led by life and a person who leads, Jess told herself. She bathed the canvas in a base of gray, a touch of lighter orange near the top to simulate the color of a coming dawn, as the 2:00 a.m. train rattled by down below. More paint, thicker strokes. White and dark playing off each other, creating shadows and light, texture and depth. The night she had returned from college her freshman year, Christmas Eve, filled with the hope of a new beginning; her mother on the phone, I've started going to meetings, I'm getting with the program. The tree was up and decorated for the first time in years. The living room was clean and bright and empty. Waiting on the sofa, angry, then worried, then finally hours later her mother at the door, slurring her words and stumbling, the sound of a man's voice. Get the fuck out of here, my daughter's home. . . .
So she knew. The point was, she knew something of how Sarah felt. Unable to trust, to ever feel truly secure. Sarah felt like the world was out to get her. And why shouldn't she? Jess searched for that common thread and clutched at it. She knew it was important to have a bond with the person you were trying to understand. You had to walk in her shoes.