Persistence of Vision

  ***

  Marcus finished his watch and woke Clay, who slapped his own cheeks loudly to fully awaken and then walked grudgingly toward the cart.

  Whoever was on duty sat on top of the cart, keeping watch over the camp. From up there it seemed one had more control and could take more in. It was an illusion, of course—a psychological thing. He could cast his mind up to where the owls nested or below the ground to where the earthworms crawled with equal ease. But from atop the cart Marcus just felt more in control, as though he could take in a larger dominion.

  Besides, there was less temptation to sleep atop a metal cart than if you were sitting on your soft bedroll.

  Marcus lay down beside Maggie. She’d slept peacefully so far, but he could tell she was troubled, nervous for the coming mission. He didn’t blame her. She’d been here so short a time and with so little training.

  More than anything he wanted to pull her into his arms, but he didn’t know if she would be comfortable with that. And he didn’t want to disturb her sleep.

  Content that for now she was close by and sleeping peacefully, he rolled over and told his mind to rest.

  He judged by the moon that he’d been sleeping for about two hours when Clay shook him awake.

  “Marcus, wake up.”

  Marcus sat up on one elbow, trying to clear the mist from his eyes. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s Maggie.”

  Marcus was instantly awake. He sat straight up and looked down beside him. Maggie’s bedroll was empty.

  “Relax.” Clay put a calming hand on his shoulder. “She’s over there about a hundred yards west of us.”

  “Why didn’t you stop her?”

  Clay shrugged. “I thought maybe she was going to relieve herself. But it’s been half an hour, and she hasn’t come back. I can sense her. She’s just standing there. I don’t want to startle her or invade her privacy. Besides, I’m on watch. I’m really not supposed to leave the camp.”

  Marcus nodded, getting to his feet. “It’s all right. I’ll get her.”

  It didn’t take Marcus long to find her as he made his way through the darkness, casting his mind out for anything that might trip him or be a pain in the toe. Clay was right; she hadn’t gone far.

  He didn’t want to startle her. Any other member of the team would have sensed his approach, but Maggie was still new at this and obviously occupied by something, so he purposely stepped on leaves that would rustle and dragged his feet through the grass.

  Her back was to him as he approached her, but when she turned her head to the side, he knew she’d heard him. As he got closer, she turned her body as well so she could look back at him.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Did I wake you?”

  “Clay did when you didn’t come back.”

  Maggie sighed and rubbed her forehead. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry.” Marcus stepped up beside her and put a hand on her shoulder. “Just tell me what’s wrong.”

  “Nothing, really. Just couldn’t sleep.”

  Marcus cleared his throat. “You were sleeping pretty soundly when I was on watch.”

  Maggie laughed softly. He loved the sound of her laugh.

  “Okay, so I could sleep. I just kept waking up. Disturbing dreams.”

  “About what?”

  She gave him a look that said really, and he put his hands up.

  “Okay. I guess there’re a few things to choose from. You want to talk about it?”

  She gazed up at him and spoke softly. “No.”

  The moon was fully above them, and she was looking at him in a way that heated his blood. He thought about leaning in to kiss her, but then she turned away.

  “Um, Marcus, what’s that?”

  Dejected, Marcus followed her pointing index finger out into the darkness. He didn’t see anything.

  “What?”

  “That light.”

  “Light?” Marcus was instantly alarmed. A visible light could mean trouble—other people, patrols of Arachnimen, other unknown dangers. “Where?”

  She continued to point, but Marcus only saw shades of black and gray. They were in a forest of sorts, but it wasn’t dense. The stand of trees they’d made camp in was the only enclosed area for miles, and he and Maggie were now outside it. He could only see the stillness of the landscape that the moon revealed and the shadows of the places it didn’t.

  “Maggie, I don’t see anything.”

  She dropped her arm and huffed at him in frustration.

  “Do you still see it, or did it go out?”

  “No, it’s right there. I’ve been watching it for fifteen minutes. It flickers sometimes, like someone’s walking in front of it, but it hasn’t gone out.”

  Disregarding what his eyes told him, Marcus cast his mind out, searching for some source of thermal or radiant heat. He found several heat sources nearby, but most weren’t any larger than his fist—tiny forest animals sleeping tranquilly in their dens. A few miles south, he came upon what he thought was an owl, and a huge one at that, perching high overhead in the canopy. Then he came upon slightly larger nocturnal animals—raccoons, he thought—squabbling over the corpse of chipmunk. But there was nothing that would give off light.

  He went out farther, searching. When he’d reached a distance of seventy miles, he stopped. Even if there was light out there, there was no way she could see it from this distance.

  Marcus looked down at Maggie, but she wasn’t looking at him. She was staring out at the supposed light, focusing on it. Confused, Marcus tried to figure out what she might be seeing. Then something occurred to him.

  “I don’t know if anyone’s told you this, Maggie, but you are quite good at finding light.”

  “Joan said that,” Maggie said. “She said I had a gift for finding it.”

  “You do. Maggie, I don’t sense anything close that’s giving off light. I don’t think you’re actually seeing it.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Of course I am. It’s right there. I’m looking at it right now.”

  “I know, but listen. I’m not calling you a liar. I’m saying that you’re not actually seeing the light.”

  She gave him a blank stare.

  “Okay.” He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to him, her back to the supposed light. “Do me a favor. Stop looking at it. Instead, cast your mind out and try to sense it. Tell me how far away it is.”

  Looking none too happy about it, Maggie obeyed. Marcus could sense her putting her feelers out, but he didn’t follow her progress too closely. He wanted her to figure this out on her own. They stood like that for ten minutes before Maggie’s eyes flew open, shock written across her features.

  “What? Did you find it?”

  “I…I think it’s on the beach.”

  “On the coast?” Marcus laughed out loud. “You see, Maggie. This is what I’m trying to tell you. The coast is another twelve hours’ ride away. There’s no way you could see the light from here.”

  “But, then how…?”

  “Turn around. Tell me if you still see it.”

  Maggie turned around, eyes searching the darkness. “No. I don’t see it anymore. Why can’t I see it anymore?”

  Marcus smiled down at her. “We’re going to have to tell Doc about this in the morning. It’s the kind of thing that would fascinate him. You know something about the way the brain works from your education, right?”

  Maggie nodded uncertainly. “Yeah, but not much.”

  “Do you know what happens to a child’s brain when it is damaged?”

  Maggie kept throwing glances into the darkness toward where she’d last seen the light. “Children’s brains are more resilient than adults’. Their brains will create new pathways so the functions of the damaged parts aren’t lost.”

  “Exactly. Adult’s brains aren’t that adaptive. As we age, our neural pathways become set, but barring damage, our brains are still always growing, learning, and creating new p
athways for us to process new information. I’ve heard of this before, but I’ve never actually seen it. Until now.”

  “What?” Maggie was getting more exasperated by the second.

  “Sometimes we—human beings—come across something that’s alien to us. It’s something that can’t be sensed with our five senses. Our brains are only trained to process information gained by those five senses. When we sense something in a different way, we have a hard time processing it. So our brain creates a new pathway to help us understand what we’re sensing. It converts the information into something we can identify by one of our five senses.”

  “So, you’re saying”—Maggie rubbed her forehead then glanced to the west again—“what exactly?”

  “I think you sensed that light on the beach, because finding light in the darkness is one of your natural abilities. But you don’t have your memory of doing it before, so you were confused by it. Your brain created a neural pathway. It took the information your mind had already gathered and converted it into something you would recognize—a visible light. It’s a way to help you understand what you’re sensing. Then, when I told you to close your eyes, you found a superior way to identify and understand what you were sensing. You realized the source and the distance, and though you didn’t realize it consciously, your brain figured out what was confusing it about the sensation. So you no longer need the neural pathway it created before. It’s become obsolete.”

  “And that’s why I can’t see the light anymore?”

  “You never saw it, not with your eyes. Your brain just told you that you did.”

  Maggie’s head went back and forth between him and the surrounding darkness for several seconds. “That’s weird,” she finally managed.

  Marcus laughed and wrapped his arms around her from behind, pressing his face into her neck. It felt like the most natural thing in the world to do, and she didn’t pull away. Rather, she leaned back against him and let him kiss her neck. He sighed. Why was there never enough time? He wanted to rekindle his romance with Maggie, and she seemed open to the idea, but they were on a mission that could change the world as they knew it. There was simply no time for romance now.

  After a minute he reluctantly released her, taking her hand. “Come on. We need to get some sleep.”

  Maggie immediately went rigid, planting her feet.

  “Don’t worry,” Marcus said, gently putting an arm around her waist. “I’ll be close by if the dreams return. Besides, if we don’t get back soon, Clay may send Karl out after us. And trust me, Karl’s a bear when you wake him up in the middle of the night.”

  He could still sense her reluctance, but she smiled and nodded. Without another word she let him lead her through the darkness to the camp.