‘Go on.’
‘I’m not paranoid. That’s what he does, you see. And if you do what he wants, he’ll even look the other way if you break the rules.’
Dr Paley’s bushy eyebrows shot up. ‘He’s doing this with other residents as well?’
She nodded.
‘You’ve seen him do it?’
She hesitated. ‘No, not exactly . . .’
‘So they’ve talked to you about it? What do they say about it? Are they angry?’
‘No one talks about it,’ she told him, then realized her mistake.
‘Then how do you know this is going on with people other than yourself?’
She had known all along that it would come down to this. She knew because she could read his mind, but there was no way she could explain that, and now she was just sounding paranoid. ‘I – I just know. That’s all.’
His voice became gentle. ‘Jenna, if there’s something you’re not admitting you mustn’t be afraid to tell me. You have to trust me. Have you ever heard of doctor patient confidentiality rules? Anything you say in this office to me, anything you don’t want revealed to anyone else, remains strictly between us.’
Jenna looked away. A full moment of silence passed. Then Dr Paley sighed deeply.
‘Jenna, if you can’t offer any explanation for your behaviour, then I have no alternative. You’re demonstrating feelings of paranoia. You’re talking to yourself. You’re hearing voices. These actions are evidence of serious mental problems, the kind of problems we aren’t capable of dealing with here at Harmony House.’
Jenna looked at him. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ll have to consider recommending that you be sent to another facility.’
Jenna drew in her breath. ‘What kind of facility?’ she asked, but she had a sinking suspicion she already knew the answer to the question.
‘An institution that can provide the kind of therapy we’re not equipped to handle here.’
Jenna put it more bluntly. ‘A nuthouse. You want to commit me to an insane asylum.’
‘A mental hospital,’ he corrected her. ‘You’ve said you’re not a juvenile delinquent, and I believe you. But you’ve got serious issues that need to be addressed.’
‘I’m not crazy!’ Jenna cried out. ‘It’s just that I’m different!’
‘How?’
‘Because – it’s because – I can –’ she clenched her fists. She couldn’t say it. If he thought she was crazy now, what would he think if she told the truth?
‘Tell me, Jenna,’ he said urgently. ‘What makes you different? Jenna, I don’t want to send you to a mental hospital. But you have to give me an explanation, or I won’t have any alternative. Tell me! What can you do?’
‘I can read minds!’ Jenna cried out. Then she buried her face in her hands.
It was out. She’d said it. And now he’d pick up the phone and call for an ambulance. She’d seen movies, she knew what would happen next. Men in white jackets would put her in a straitjacket and carry her away . . .
When nothing happened right away, she took her hands from her eyes. He was looking at her seriously, but she didn’t see alarm in his eyes. It was more like interest . . .
‘I knew there was more to your case than meets the eye, Jenna,’ he said.
‘You did?’ she asked stupidly.
He nodded. ‘I didn’t know what, or why, but I could sense you had something extraordinary about you.’
Was he putting her on? Trying to make her dig a deeper hole to sink into?
‘Why did you think that about me?’ she asked.
‘It’s an instinct,’ he said simply. ‘Years of working with young people have given me a sense of what people are all about. You have a gift.’
‘Why did you call it that?’ she asked sharply.
He didn’t answer. ‘Tell me more about your gift.’
‘It’s just something I can do,’ she replied.
She wanted to look away again, but there was something about his gaze that held her.
‘What am I thinking about right now?’ he asked.
Still suspicious, Jenna eyed him warily. Then she began to concentrate.
It was almost too easy, like he was putting his thoughts out there in writing, in big black and white letters. ‘You’re thinking about food. Chinese food. You’re thinking about getting sweet and sour pork for lunch from a Chinese takeaway when you leave here.’ After a second, she added, ‘and cold sesame noodles.’
He nodded. ‘Very good. You’re absolutely right.’
‘I know,’ she said. But she thought his reaction was strangely calm. ‘Aren’t you shocked?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ve done a lot of research into these kinds of extrasensory abilities. Some people have gifts that simply can’t be explained scientifically. There are people who can see into the future, people who can move things with their minds . . .’
‘I can’t do that,’ Jenna said quickly.
But her expression must have told him something. ‘Does this have anything to do with your special class, Jenna? The one called “Gifted”?’
Jenna didn’t know what to say. It was one thing to give away her own secret. How could she betray her classmates?
‘I can’t talk about that,’ she said.
He didn’t press her. ‘I understand.’ He closed her file. ‘I’m going to look into this resident assistant. His name is Peter Blake, right? He cannot be permitted to continue in his position. His contract must be terminated immediately.’
‘You said you’d keep my secret!’ Jenna exclaimed.
‘And I will,’ the doctor assured her. ‘I can investigate this without revealing my sources.’
‘But he’ll know it’s me who told on him,’ Jenna protested. ‘The other kids – they don’t mind what he’s doing to them. He’ll tell them it’s me who got him fired. I could be in danger here!’
‘I realize that,’ he said. ‘Which is why I’m going to recommend that you be given an early release from Harmony House.’
‘An early release?’ Jenna repeated in disbelief.
He nodded. ‘There will be some paperwork involved. But I can make some calls, pull some strings. And with any luck, you’ll be home tomorrow.’
Home. Tomorrow. Jenna gazed at him in wonderment. So Madame was wrong. There were people in this world who could be trusted with their secret gifts. Not many, of course.
But she’d just found one.
CHAPTER TWELVE
TRACEY WAS WIPED OUT. Did invisibility drain her energy in some special, highly complicated cellular way? she wondered. No, she was pretty sure she was just normally exhausted. After all, other physical sensations remained behind when her physical self wasn’t present. She got hungry, she got thirsty, she had headaches . . . why wouldn’t she be tired? And even now, at ten o’clock in the morning, after spending the night in an unusually uncomfortable position, she had every right to be extremely beat.
When she left the house-of-the-bad-guys, it was almost one in the morning. She’d taken a few more photos with her phone, and then the group inside disbanded. Only Clare remained in the house. She must live there, Tracey thought.
She made her way back to her own home, and there she encountered a problem she hadn’t counted on. The house was dark, everyone was in bed, so she assumed she could walk right in. What she hadn’t considered was the fact that her security-conscious parents would have locked the doors from the inside. And then it started to rain.
Invisibility did not protect her from natural forces, and Tracey felt cold and wet. She found shelter in the back yard, in the septuplets’ playhouse. It was a bigger-than-average playhouse, but it hadn’t been set up for sleeping, and Tracey had to attempt sleeping on a hard wood floor. This was not a restful experience.
Now, stiff and sleepy, she sat on the steps in front of Ken’s house and tried not to doze off. The rain had stopped, there was actually some sunshine, and she figured Ken wouldn’t stay inside all
day. She just hoped he wasn’t the type who slept till noon on weekends.
He wasn’t. Just half an hour later, the front door opened and Ken emerged. Unfortunately, he wasn’t alone. A man she assumed was his father walked alongside him and they headed towards the car on the drive.
‘Ken!’ she called. Ken stopped, turned and looked around.
‘It’s me, Tracey. I’m still invisible. I’m on your steps.’
‘Ken?’ his father asked. ‘Are you coming?’
‘Yeah, sure.’ Ken mouthed some words. Tracey couldn’t figure out exactly what he was telling her, but she knew from his fierce expression that it had to be something like ‘shut up’ or ‘beat it’.
‘Ken, it’s important! I’ve found out something about the conspiracy. And I know who the real spy is. Ken, please, talk to me!’
He and his father had reached the car and Mr Preston was opening the door on the driver’s side. But Ken didn’t move.
‘Ken, let’s go!’ his father said.
‘Um . . . you go, Dad. I’ve changed my mind.’
His father looked confused. ‘I thought you wanted me to drop you off at Mike’s.’
‘I’m going to take my bike. It’s OK, you go on.’
His father still looked puzzled, but he shrugged, got into the car and took off. Ken waited until he was out of sight before he joined Tracey on the steps.
‘I’m not sitting on you, am I?’
‘Believe me, you’d know if you sat on me,’ Tracey said. ‘I still have feelings.’
‘OK, so what’s so important?’
‘Look at this.’ Tracey put her mobile phone down on the ground, where it magically appeared for Ken. ‘Click on photos and tell me what you see.’
‘Not a thing,’ Ken replied. ‘Your battery’s dead.’
Tracey groaned. Of course, she hadn’t been able to recharge it the night before. ‘Well, I’ll tell you. It’s a photo of Carter with Clare, Serena, that Stuart Kelley guy . . . and Mr Jackson. Our Mr Jackson. And Carter’s talking to them.’
She’d made an impression – she could see it on his face. She told him the whole story – how she’d followed Carter to the house and watched the proceedings through a window.
‘He’s the spy, Ken, not Amanda. That whole zombie business, it’s a big act he’s putting on. He sits in our class and pretends he can’t communicate, then he goes and reports on us to these people. That’s how Jackson knows about us. He put the knife in Jenna’s locker because he was afraid she was reading his mind and he had to get her out of the picture.’
‘How do you know that?’ Ken asked.
She remembered her promise to Amanda. ‘Well . . . it makes sense, doesn’t it?’ She hurried on. ‘Other things make sense too, Ken. Like when we were kidnapped, Carter was taken first, remember? They got information out of him about the rest of us. Then, after they took me and Emily and the others, they sent him back because they didn’t need him.’
Ken didn’t say anything.
‘Don’t you believe me?’ Tracey asked him.
‘Are you sure about Jackson? You said yourself, you were looking through a window. Maybe it was someone who just looks like Mr Jackson. I mean, I’m not crazy about the guy, but he’s the principal of a middle school, for crying out loud!’
‘He’s definitely involved with this conspiracy,’ Tracey insisted. ‘I’m not the only one who’s seen him with those other creeps. Amanda said –’ She caught herself just in time and stopped.
Ken rolled his eyes. ‘I should have known Amanda had something to do with all this. Did you two cook up this story together?’
‘Ken! Amanda is not the spy, I swear to you!’
‘How can you be so sure about that?’ he countered.
Frustrated, Tracey wanted to scream. This was exactly why a person shouldn’t promise to keep secrets.
‘You see?’ Ken said triumphantly. ‘You’re not really sure, are you? You don’t want to admit that Amanda can be this evil.’
‘And you don’t want to admit that you have a thing for her,’ Tracey shot back. ‘You’re still upset that she didn’t tell you about Serena in the seance. You’re letting your personal feelings get in the way of logic, Ken!’
‘That’s bull,’ Ken muttered.
‘Oh, come on, Ken, get real! You like Amanda, you’ve always been into her. You’re just trying to get back at her for not acting like she’s into you! Which, by the way, I think she is.’
Ken looked away, as if he didn’t want to confront something he knew was true.
‘Talk to her,’ Tracey pleaded. ‘Tell her . . .’ She tried to think of a way to clue him in without breaking her promise. ‘Tell her to tell you what she told me.’
‘Forget it,’ Ken said. ‘I’m not talking to her.’ He stood up. ‘I have to go.’
Helpless, Tracey watched him walk away. Now what? She was on her own.
Yawning, she decided to go home and get some sleep. There, she could plug in her phone, recharge it, and be all set to go back to Clare’s house.
She didn’t know the conspirators’ schedule – if they met daily or if Carter met with them every night at midnight. But if Clare’s house was their headquarters, there had to be items lying around which could provide evidence. So even if there was no gathering of bad guys, she’d accomplish something.
On her own. Totally on her own, by herself. And she was scared. OK, she was invisible. Nobody could really hurt her if she couldn’t be seen, right? But even so, she was afraid.
She tried to shake off the fear and concentrate on her immediate task. First, she had to get into Clare’s house. If there was no meeting and people weren’t going in and out, how could she carry out any investigation? For that reason, she decided to go to Clare’s earlier, in the afternoon, when hopefully the woman might leave or come home and open a door for her.
Reasonably refreshed, with her fear on a back burner and with a fully charged mobile phone, she left her room. She felt pretty focused, but even so, she couldn’t help picking up on the family conversation going on in the living room.
For once, the Devon Seven were quiet. Her parents were talking to them.
‘Girls, we know you miss Tracey,’ her father was saying. ‘Your mother and I miss her too. But even if we can’t see her, we know that she’s here.’
Her mother spoke up. ‘George, you’re confusing them. They can’t understand Tracey’s gift.’
Tracey had to smile. Her mother was right – how could the five-year-olds understand her gift, when she couldn’t understand it herself? Impulsively, out of the septuplets’ eye range, she picked up her mother’s handbag. The sudden disappearance of her bag caught the woman’s attention. Tracey then placed it back down. Her mother smiled.
‘But you don’t have to worry, girls,’ she said. ‘Tracey’s all right.’
Was she? Tracey wondered. Was she really all right? She’d never been invisible for this long before, and although she hadn’t tried to reappear today, she had the feeling it wouldn’t work if she did. And here she was, all alone, ready to embark on what could possibly be a very dangerous mission. She didn’t know what she was.
All she knew for sure was that she’d made a promise to Jenna, to get her out of that awful place. She needed to be able to prove Jenna’s innocence, and from what Amanda had told her the evidence could only come from Mr Jackson.
It took her a while to find Clare’s house. And when she thought she’d found it she was actually at the house next door. She realized this when a car pulled into the other house’s drive and Clare got out.
Tracey tore across the lawn, determined not to get shut out this time. Clare was talking on her mobile phone, and when Tracey caught up to her she was able to hear her side of the conversation.
‘I’m telling you, she’s been released! No, I don’t know why, but we have to talk about this, today. And bring the kid.’
There was a pause.
‘Good grief, you’re the principal, you can
come up with an excuse. Tell the parents it’s a special school activity or something. Or you’re taking him to see a specialist. Come up with something – just get over here.’
The kid – she had to be talking about Carter, Tracey thought. And the ‘she’ who was released – was that Jenna? Had she left Harmony House? Clare shut off her phone as she went into the house and Tracey slipped in alongside her.
Clare went through the living room, but Tracey paused and gazed around. It looked like such an ordinary living room – there was a modern sofa, a couple of chairs, a coffee table, but the only piece of furniture that grabbed her eye was a desk.
She went on through the dining room and spotted Clare in the kitchen. She was making coffee and Tracey hoped she wasn’t going to bring it into the living room. Clare might not be able to see her, but if Tracey wanted to open drawers, or move things about, she needed to do it when Clare wasn’t around.
She eased open the desk’s file drawer slowly, trying not to make any noise. A row of folders greeted her and she knelt down to read the tabs on them. Bills . . . receipts . . . banking . . . They were the same labels she’d see if she opened her parents’ desk at home. Except for one.
She was amazed to see that Clare hadn’t even tried to disguise the subject of the folder. It was right there, printed in black ink on a white tab: Gifted.
She went to take another quick look at the kitchen. Clare was sitting at a little kitchen table with her cup of coffee and she’d opened a newspaper. It looked like she’d be occupied for a while.
She pulled the folder out and set it on the desk. Taking a deep breath, she opened it.
The first page could have been some sort of application form. It bore the heading: Amanda Beeson. A small head-and-shoulders photo of her classmate was attached. It looked like it could have been a recent school photo.
Data about Amanda included her address, phone number, parents’ names and occupations. Date and place of birth. Then there was physical information.
Height: 5’2”.
Weight: 110 lb.
Hair: Light brown.
Eyes: Blue.
So far, this could have come directly from some file at Meadowbrook Middle School.