passed by.
Doors opened an inch or two and people peered out as we walked down a long, narrow hallway to Lisa’s room in the dormitory wing of the building. I smelled the room before I really saw it. The odor of burnt sage was just as pungent there as it had been in Chekotah’s office. “Did she smudge it right before she left?” I asked. And I wondered just how much sage she’d burned.
“No…that was from this morning.”
We all trooped in. Not much to see. Twin bed, desk, laptop. No decorations, except for a photo of a grim-looking Mexican couple in a faded 1970’s green-tinged shot. A half-empty bag of Cheetos with the top rolled down and secured with a hair clip. A Netflix disc. Not particularly lived-in, other than a wad of clothes on the floor at the foot of the bed. Then again, she was going to be leaving in a month.
“The smudging,” Jacob said. “Is it…policy?”
“Well, no. I was just….” He sighed. “I was meditating. Trying to see if I could get a handle on the situation. Any kind of insight that might help.”
“Wouldn’t a precog be better for that?” I said. It just kinda popped out. He’d said himself he wasn’t precognitive. PsyTrain was no Camp Hell, but someone there had to be at least a precog three or four.
How the heck could someone possibly disappear in a building full of psychics without one of them knowing what happened?
“No one’s turned up anything,” he said. “Obviously. Or we’d have Lisa back.” Snippy again, though I guess there wasn’t any other way to respond to my precog remark.
“And Karen,” Dreyfuss said. Maybe a little too brightly. Or maybe I was projecting.
“And Karen.”
Karen Frugali’s room was connected to Lisa’s by the shared bathroom in between. The furniture was the same, but the bed was set at a weird diagonal to the rest of the room. A red Chinese screen parti-tioned off another corner, and behind that, stacks of books four feet high stretched up the floor, teetering slightly, as if we’d just caught them slipping into a dust jacket that was a little more comfortable.
“Feng Shui,” Dreyfuss said. “Gotta love it.”
I knew what Feng Shui was about, vaguely, but it was slippery knowledge that hadn’t fared too well among all the other memories I’d repressed. I mean, I got that it was about the flow of…Chi. Shit. I was surprised I even remembered that much. But what I didn’t know was what type of Psych would concern herself with it. “What was Karen’s talent again?” I said.
“Light worker,” Chekotah said. He was staring down at a picture of a baby on Karen’s nightstand, so he didn’t notice my WTF-expression.
I glanced at Jacob, who shrugged. Good to know I wasn’t the only one who’d never heard of it.
“What level?” I asked.
“We don’t rank our students according to level,” Chekotah snapped, and again I felt like I’d somehow managed to pogo on his very last nerve. “That’s for the government to do.”
“You know what I’m thinking?” Dreyfuss said, again in his we’re-all-pals-here voice. “Directly upstairs, there are a couple of bedrooms just like these, exact same configuration. Right? Makes sense for us to stay in those.”
“But the student rooms are nowhere near as spacious as the staff—”
“It’d really expedite this whole thing.”
Chekotah closed his eyes and composed himself for a moment. Even with everyone playing nice, it looked like our visit was sucking all the energy right out of him. Maybe he needed to go stand behind the red screen.
While Chekotah went back to his office to break the news to Lyle that he’d need to get two different rooms ready for us, we cooled our heels in the cafeteria and waited for the students we’d displaced to clear out. Again, I kept my eyes open for something that would set off my Camp Hell alarms, and again I discovered I had nothing to worry about. The PsyTrain cafeteria had framed “inspirational” posters on the
Doors opened an inch or two and people peered out as we walked down a long, narrow hallway to Lisa’s room in the dormitory wing of the building. I smelled the room before I really saw it. The odor of burnt sage was just as pungent there as it had been in Chekotah’s office. “Did she smudge it right before she left?” I asked. And I wondered just how much sage she’d burned.
“No…that was from this morning.”
We all trooped in. Not much to see. Twin bed, desk, laptop. No decorations, except for a photo of a grim-looking Mexican couple in a faded 1970’s green-tinged shot. A half-empty bag of Cheetos with the top rolled down and secured with a hair clip. A Netflix disc. Not particularly lived-in, other than a wad of clothes on the floor at the foot of the bed. Then again, she was going to be leaving in a month.
“The smudging,” Jacob said. “Is it…policy?”
“Well, no. I was just….” He sighed. “I was meditating. Trying to see if I could get a handle on the situation. Any kind of insight that might help.”
“Wouldn’t a precog be better for that?” I said. It just kinda popped out. He’d said himself he wasn’t precognitive. PsyTrain was no Camp Hell, but someone there had to be at least a precog three or four.
How the heck could someone possibly disappear in a building full of psychics without one of them knowing what happened?
“No one’s turned up anything,” he said. “Obviously. Or we’d have Lisa back.” Snippy again, though I guess there wasn’t any other way to respond to my precog remark.
“And Karen,” Dreyfuss said. Maybe a little too brightly. Or maybe I was projecting.
“And Karen.”
Karen Frugali’s room was connected to Lisa’s by the shared bathroom in between. The furniture was the same, but the bed was set at a weird diagonal to the rest of the room. A red Chinese screen parti-tioned off another corner, and behind that, stacks of books four feet high stretched up the floor, teetering slightly, as if we’d just caught them slipping into a dust jacket that was a little more comfortable.
“Feng Shui,” Dreyfuss said. “Gotta love it.”
I knew what Feng Shui was about, vaguely, but it was slippery knowledge that hadn’t fared too well among all the other memories I’d repressed. I mean, I got that it was about the flow of…Chi. Shit. I was surprised I even remembered that much. But what I didn’t know was what type of Psych would concern herself with it. “What was Karen’s talent again?” I said.
“Light worker,” Chekotah said. He was staring down at a picture of a baby on Karen’s nightstand, so he didn’t notice my WTF-expression.
I glanced at Jacob, who shrugged. Good to know I wasn’t the only one who’d never heard of it.
“What level?” I asked.
“We don’t rank our students according to level,” Chekotah snapped, and again I felt like I’d somehow managed to pogo on his very last nerve. “That’s for the government to do.”
“You know what I’m thinking?” Dreyfuss said, again in his we’re-all-pals-here voice. “Directly upstairs, there are a couple of bedrooms just like these, exact same configuration. Right? Makes sense for us to stay in those.”
“But the student rooms are nowhere near as spacious as the staff—”
“It’d really expedite this whole thing.”
Chekotah closed his eyes and composed himself for a moment. Even with everyone playing nice, it looked like our visit was sucking all the energy right out of him. Maybe he needed to go stand behind the red screen.
While Chekotah went back to his office to break the news to Lyle that he’d need to get two different rooms ready for us, we cooled our heels in the cafeteria and waited for the students we’d displaced to clear out. Again, I kept my eyes open for something that would set off my Camp Hell alarms, and again I discovered I had nothing to worry about. The PsyTrain cafeteria had framed “inspirational” posters on the
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