Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Too many thoughts had crowded Ben’s mind that day, which was why he purposely made himself think of nothing at all as he walked home that night.
The clouds and fog had parted just enough after the rain that had fallen around dinnertime to show a few stars, but the moon…
waning down to its dark phase…was nowhere to be seen.
That was fine, however; although Silver Hollow definitely wasn’t the brightest-lit town in the world, there was just enough ambient light from the street lamps over on Main Street and the fixtures on people’s front and back porches that he made his way to the cottage without any incident.
As soon as he was inside, though, he knew there was no chance he’d be able to go to sleep right away.
What in the world was he supposed to make of that strange psychic flash Sidney had experienced at the pet store today? Was it a one-off sort of thing, or was it an early manifestation of more powers to come?
He didn’t know. As he’d already told her, while he might have brushed up against various aspects of the paranormal while researching cryptids and their habitats, it wasn’t as if he’d made a formal study of psychic phenomena.
One thing he did know, however, was that quite a few accounts existed of people suddenly developing one form of psychic powers or another after suffering a traumatic event.
He supposed that the disappearance of Sidney’s mother and grandmother could be classified as traumatic, even though she’d lately gotten confirmation that they were in fact alive.
They might have chosen to remain on the other side of the portal, for reasons he hoped would eventually come clear, but at least it still seemed obvious enough that they hadn’t perished in the otherworld.
However, they’d disappeared into the portal months ago, and it didn’t seem as if Sidney had experienced any psychic flashes until today.
Which made him believe her sudden onset of psychic abilities must have something to do with the electromagnetic surges that had plagued the town over the past couple of weeks.
The brain worked by using electrical impulses, after all, so Ben didn’t think it too strange that something about the charged atmosphere around Silver Hollow might have woken up a hidden gift inside Sidney’s mind, something she hadn’t even known existed.
Of course, the follow-up to that theory was if the unstable electromagnetic field around town had affected her, surely it must have affected other people as well. He knew he hadn’t experienced any psychic flashes, but that didn’t mean someone else might not have.
Except….
Sidney had never been able to explain why the unicorn had first appeared to that long-ago ancestor of hers.
Was it possible the women of her line had something special in their brain chemistry or physical makeup, something that allowed them to have a rapport with mythical beasts that ordinary people wouldn’t?
If that turned out to be the case, then he supposed he could see why she might be the only one to have latent psychic powers that had been awakened by the current instability in the area.
While it made sense to him, he had a feeling she wouldn’t be very happy to hear this particular theory. He could tell she’d worked hard through all this to continue believing she was a regular person whose family just happened to have a connection to legendary creatures.
If he challenged that belief, what would happen?
Frowning slightly, he went into the kitchen to get some water, then headed over to his laptop.
No way in the world was he ready to go to bed, not when it was only a little past nine o’clock.
Besides, he figured it couldn’t hurt to find out what he could about Special Agent Rebecca Morse…
and possibly learn a little about what had brought her to Silver Hollow.
Since it was now well into Saturday night and Marjorie Tran would be leaving sometime tomorrow morning, his fears about her path crossing with Agent Morse’s had diminished somewhat, but they wouldn’t disappear entirely until he knew the grad student was well on her way back to Davis.
Because Rebecca Morse wasn’t working undercover, her general bio wasn’t that difficult to find.
She was from Pennsylvania and had graduated from UPenn with a degree in international relations, and had been recruited by the FBI and trained at Quantico immediately afterward.
It looked as if she’d worked in both the Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.
, field offices before being assigned to something called DAPI.
What the hell was that? Ben thought he was pretty familiar with the alphabet soup employed by the government, thanks to his research on the fringes of things, but he knew he’d never encountered that one before.
Luckily, Google came to his aid. DAPI stood for “Dimensional Anomaly Protection Initiative,” and although he couldn’t find any in-depth information on the organization, it seemed they investigated whenever strange phenomena involving electromagnetic fields were involved.
Well, that explained why they’d shown up here.
Ben had no real idea how far the waves from the portal traveled, but he doubted they stopped at the borders of Silver Hollow.
No, they’d probably kept moving outward and had been picked up by whoever was monitoring such things, whether that was a government institution or a university research lab.
Even if a university had detected those waves first, they would have sent their findings on to the relevant government agency.
And that was probably why Agent Morse and her partner had come to town. So far, it didn’t seem as if she’d found anything of particular use, or she wouldn’t have been interviewing random residents to get their feedback on the phenomena.
Unfortunately, Ben had a feeling they would start putting two and two together soon enough.
Part of him wanted to think that might be a good thing. If DAPI’s entire purpose was tracking and researching these sorts of anomalies, then maybe they’d have some kind of solution, would be able to propose ways to get everything stabilized.
After letting out a frustrated noise, Ben closed the laptop and rose from his chair.
He knew a few more bits and pieces than he had before he started poking around, but none of it seemed to make a coherent whole.
And although he supposed he could have done more research on the spontaneous development of telepathic abilities, he knew he was tired and needed to give his brain a break.
None of this was going to change overnight.
He hoped.
But the next morning seemed like a typical enough start to the day in Silver Hollow — overcast and cool, with the sun playing hide-and-seek with the clouds, teasing him that it might decide to come out after all.
Fat chance.
Around ten-thirty, after he’d showered and gotten dressed and checked his email to make sure he hadn’t missed anything important, his phone pinged.
At once, he picked it up, thinking that might be Sidney reaching out to see if he wanted to have lunch or something, but instead, the message was from Marjorie Tran.
I’m packed up and ready to go, but I wanted to talk to you before I leave town. Do you have time to meet for a few minutes?
Considering how open his day looked, Ben had nothing but time.
Sure. Come on over.
Five minutes.
Sure enough, she was on his doorstep exactly five minutes later. Once again, she was wearing a black tank top, army green cargo pants, sneakers, and not a speck of makeup. And, as usual, her expression was so neutral he couldn’t get the slightest hint of what might be going through her mind.
Sidney’s newfound powers would have been especially helpful in a situation like this, but because they weren’t what you could call reliable, Ben knew he’d have to go on his own instincts.
“Want some water or tea?” he asked out of habit, but Marjorie immediately shook her head.
“No, I’m fine.” She paused there, then added, “Well, ‘fine’ is probably a misnomer. What I’ve found here is fascinating, and I wish I didn’t have to leave. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find anyone to take my class tomorrow, or I would have stayed longer.”
And thank God for that. During her time in Silver Hollow, Marjorie had managed to avoid any entanglements with Rebecca Morse or her partner, and Ben wanted to keep it that way.
“So…what exactly have you found?” he asked.
Marjorie pulled the iPad out of her satchel and swiped to a series of charts and graphs.
“I’ve been getting some very strange readings with my equipment.
The electromagnetic field fluctuations here aren’t completely random after all — there is a pattern to them, almost like a pulse or heartbeat.
” She handed him the iPad so he could see the display better.
“Look at this. Every twelve hours, there’s a spike in the readings, followed by a series of smaller waves that gradually diminish over the next few hours.
Then the cycle repeats. Sometimes the spike is bigger, sometimes smaller, but the pattern is generally consistent. ”
Ben studied the jagged lines on the screen, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. “Any idea what could be causing something like that?”
“That’s the million-dollar question.” Marjorie took the tablet back from him and scrolled to another screen.
“I’ve never seen anything like it before.
The closest comparison I can make is to the electromagnetic signatures you get from certain types of particle accelerators, but even those don’t have this kind of rhythmic consistency.
” She paused there and appeared to weigh her words before she went on, “You’ve been here longer than I have, and you seem to know the town pretty well. ”
“I don’t know about that,” he protested. “I just moved here last month.”