scarred old butcher-block table in the center of the kitchen and sat down in one of the ladder-back chairs. She waited until he sat down across from her, then spoke slowly. "Explain the visions, you mean?"
"Can you explain them?"
Nell shrugged. "I understand them a bit better than I did while I was growing up—even though what I felt instinctively way back then turned out to be pretty accurate."
"For instance?"
"What it is I actually tap into during a vision. A sociologist would say I had just experienced what they call an apparitional event. That I had seen—or at least claimed I had seen—the ghost of my father walk through this room. But that's not what I saw."
"No? What, then?"
"It was… a memory."
"Whose memory?"
She smiled faintly. "In the very broadest sense, it was the memory of the house."
"Are you saying this house is haunted?"
"No. I'm saying the house remembers."
"You said something like that before, years ago," Max noted. "That some places remember. But I don't understand what you mean. How can a house have a memory?"
"Any object—a house, a place—can have a memory.
Life has energy, Max. Life is energy. Broken down into their most basic form, emotions and thoughts are energy: electrical impulses produced by the brain."
"Okay. And so?"
"And so energy can be absorbed and retained by an object or a place. By walls and a floor, by trees, even by the ground itself. Maybe certain places are more likely than others to retain energy because of factors we don't yet understand, because their physical composition lends itself to storing energy, or there are magnetic fields—or even that the energy itself is particularly powerful at a given moment and we ourselves stamp that into a place with our own strength and intensity.
"However it happens, some places remember some things. Some emotions. Some events. The energy remains trapped in a place, unseen and unheard until someone with an inborn sensitivity to that particular kind of energy is able to tap into it."
"Someone like you."
"Exactly. There's nothing magical about what I do, nothing dark or evil—or inhuman. It's just an ability, as natural to me as your instincts about horses are to you. A perfectly normal talent, if you will, that not everyone has. Maybe it's genetic, like the color of our eyes or whether we're right- or left-handed; in my family it certainly seems to be, at least partly. On the other hand, there's every possibility that every human being has the capacity for some form of psychic ability, that everyone has an unused area of the brain that could perform seemingly amazing things if we only knew how to… turn it on."
Nell shook her head and frowned slightly as she looked down at her coffee. "We're pretty sure that some people are born with the potential to develop some kind of psychic ability, that in them the area of the brain controlling that function is at least partly or intermittently active, even if it's entirely on an unconscious level; we call them latents. They usually aren't aware of it, though another psychic often is."
Max frowned, but all he said was, "But latent abilities do sometimes become active on a conscious level?"
"They have been known to. As far as we can tell, turning a latent into a conscious, functioning psychic requires some sort of trigger. A physical or emotional trauma, usually. Like a shock to the brain, literally or figuratively. Something happens to them, an accident or an emotional jolt—and they find themselves coping with strange new abilities. Which would explain why people with head injuries or who develop certain kinds of seizures often report psychic experiences afterward."
"I had no idea," Max said.
"Not many people do. I didn't, until I joined the unit and began to learn." She shook her head again. "Anyway, in my particular case, my brain is hardwired for a sensitivity to the sort of electrical energy produced by… emotional or psychologically intense events. Those events leave
"Can you explain them?"
Nell shrugged. "I understand them a bit better than I did while I was growing up—even though what I felt instinctively way back then turned out to be pretty accurate."
"For instance?"
"What it is I actually tap into during a vision. A sociologist would say I had just experienced what they call an apparitional event. That I had seen—or at least claimed I had seen—the ghost of my father walk through this room. But that's not what I saw."
"No? What, then?"
"It was… a memory."
"Whose memory?"
She smiled faintly. "In the very broadest sense, it was the memory of the house."
"Are you saying this house is haunted?"
"No. I'm saying the house remembers."
"You said something like that before, years ago," Max noted. "That some places remember. But I don't understand what you mean. How can a house have a memory?"
"Any object—a house, a place—can have a memory.
Life has energy, Max. Life is energy. Broken down into their most basic form, emotions and thoughts are energy: electrical impulses produced by the brain."
"Okay. And so?"
"And so energy can be absorbed and retained by an object or a place. By walls and a floor, by trees, even by the ground itself. Maybe certain places are more likely than others to retain energy because of factors we don't yet understand, because their physical composition lends itself to storing energy, or there are magnetic fields—or even that the energy itself is particularly powerful at a given moment and we ourselves stamp that into a place with our own strength and intensity.
"However it happens, some places remember some things. Some emotions. Some events. The energy remains trapped in a place, unseen and unheard until someone with an inborn sensitivity to that particular kind of energy is able to tap into it."
"Someone like you."
"Exactly. There's nothing magical about what I do, nothing dark or evil—or inhuman. It's just an ability, as natural to me as your instincts about horses are to you. A perfectly normal talent, if you will, that not everyone has. Maybe it's genetic, like the color of our eyes or whether we're right- or left-handed; in my family it certainly seems to be, at least partly. On the other hand, there's every possibility that every human being has the capacity for some form of psychic ability, that everyone has an unused area of the brain that could perform seemingly amazing things if we only knew how to… turn it on."
Nell shook her head and frowned slightly as she looked down at her coffee. "We're pretty sure that some people are born with the potential to develop some kind of psychic ability, that in them the area of the brain controlling that function is at least partly or intermittently active, even if it's entirely on an unconscious level; we call them latents. They usually aren't aware of it, though another psychic often is."
Max frowned, but all he said was, "But latent abilities do sometimes become active on a conscious level?"
"They have been known to. As far as we can tell, turning a latent into a conscious, functioning psychic requires some sort of trigger. A physical or emotional trauma, usually. Like a shock to the brain, literally or figuratively. Something happens to them, an accident or an emotional jolt—and they find themselves coping with strange new abilities. Which would explain why people with head injuries or who develop certain kinds of seizures often report psychic experiences afterward."
"I had no idea," Max said.
"Not many people do. I didn't, until I joined the unit and began to learn." She shook her head again. "Anyway, in my particular case, my brain is hardwired for a sensitivity to the sort of electrical energy produced by… emotional or psychologically intense events. Those events leave
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