Chapter 3
Three
Van McBride was surrounded.
Arthur went looking for him in Arundel Hall and found him at one of the cafeteria tables, sitting across from Donna McBride
and Allie Shiner . . . a girl so beautiful, Arthur believed it was unsafe to look at her directly. People suddenly got clumsy
around Allie—Arthur had seen it happen. It happened to Van all the time. Once, Van had glanced at Allie before trying to leave
a room, missed the door, smashed into the doorframe headfirst, and had to go to the student infirmary for a cold compress.
Donna wasn’t too shabby herself, though Arthur couldn’t imagine making out with her. She looked too much like Van. She was
three minutes older than her twin brother and could easily be mistaken for him in low light. Only last spring, one of Donna’s
boyfriends had sat down next to Van in the gloom of the student union and slipped a hand onto his thigh before realizing he
was fondling the wrong McBride. “Carry on, son,” Van told him. “This is the most action I’ve had in months.”
Perhaps a dozen undergrads were gathered around Allie and the McBride twins. Donna had half a deck of cards in front of her
and Van had the other half, like they were playing a game of War. Arthur watched as Donna lifted the top card from her deck
and peered down at it, keeping it hidden from her brother. They locked eyes.
“Three of spades,” Van said.
Donna flipped the card onto the table, face up, so everyone could see the three of spades. There were whoops and yells of
satisfaction.
Van lifted a card off his own deck and gave it a cursory look.
“Black. It’s black,” Donna said. “I’m picturing a cruel son of a bitch, someone used to being served. A king? The king of clubs?”
“Oh, listen to this baloney,” said Allie.
Van dumped the king of clubs face up on the table.
Donna hardly glanced at her next card before Van shook his head and muttered, “Four of diamonds.”
Donna tossed it in the air. A pimply freshman caught it and showed the other onlookers: four of diamonds.
“Can you read my mind?” asked the student on Arthur’s left. Arthur looked around and saw he was standing next to a fellow senior, name of
Colin Wren. Colin slid a card off Van’s deck and looked at it.
“No. It only works with Van. It’s a twin thing.”
“Now you gonna tell them how we’ve been twins before,” Van drawled.
Donna nodded. “That’s right.”
“Before?” Someone in the audience cackled. “Before what?”
“Before this life. We were siblings in Salem. They killed us because we loved the devil.” Donna reported this as a matter
of simple fact.
“Ugh,” groaned a girl at one corner of the table. “So creepy. People act like the devil’s some big joke. They don’t ever think it could happen to them.”
“Don’t ever think what could happen to them?” asked Colin.
“Damnation,” the girl said. She plucked at a gold cross around her neck. “They think the devil is just a story. But there’s
a preschool in California where the teachers made all the kids have sex with each other and then stab a goat. Satan is coming
back in a big way.”
Van said, “So are bell-bottoms. Just goes to show, no great evil is ever truly laid to rest.”
The girl wrinkled her nose, shook her head, and took off.
“You’ve got a lot going on,” Colin said. “Twin telepathy and reincarnation, with a sprig of Satan worship to add flavor. I
like it.”
Colin had the angular build of a coffin, broad shoulders and narrow hips.
His bald scalp gleamed beneath the dining hall’s chandeliers.
Arthur had seen Colin at school fundraisers, in the company of his grandfather, a professor emeritus in psychology, a bright-eyed old man who wore bow ties and was never without a pocket square in his double-breasted coat.
Colin lived with his grandfather on a vast estate just off campus, called The Briars, on the headland.
Arthur found Colin vaguely intimidating, more like a professor himself than a student.
“How long have you been able to read each other’s minds?” Colin asked.
“Since we were little,” Donna said. “We had our own language too. Do you remember, Van? Di biyah?”
“Di kisa? Manjay mwen,” Van replied.
Arthur looked away. Maybe that sounded like a secret twin language to everyone else, but it sounded like a Louisiana Creole
to him, and the McBrides were from Pensacola.
Colin said, “I love this stuff. I have a lot of theories. Have you ever seen Zener cards? My grandfather has a deck.”
“What’s a Zener deck?” Donna asked.
“It’s a way to test for the presence of psychic potential. You should come by my place sometime. I’d be interested to measure
the full extent of your power under controlled conditions.”
“Can I come?” Arthur asked. “I’d like to see you measure the full extent of Van’s power.”
“It’s already been measured,” Van said. “Tenth grade, me ’n’ the boys passed a ruler around the locker room. Seven lousy inches.
Proof there may be a devil—but there sure isn’t a God.”