Teddy couldn’t help but think of the yellow house that haunted her dreams, which had been occurring with regularity; when she was especially tired from a long day of school, the images were particularly vivid.
“The memory palace is the inspiration behind this technique. Since you’re using this to help store another’s memories, we’re going to have to diverge from the device at this point.”
“What do you mean?” Teddy asked.
“It’s impossible to navigate everything that’s happening in someone’s astral body. You’re going to build a structure to help organize it, so you can control what images you want to see. Instead of being bombarded with thoughts and memories, you can place them in rooms, look through them at your leisure. But what I’m wondering, since this is all theoretical, is how you can be able to access the subject’s house.”
Teddy adjusted herself in the seat across from Clint’s massive desk, her eye catching the screw in the left-hand corner. “I’m not following.”
“Once you’ve made it past your subject’s fortifying wall—if that person is psychic, you should assume there will be one—you’re going to have to summon his or her house, so to speak. You’ll have to synthesize what you know about the subject into a unified, concrete structure—everything you know about him or her combined into one design. Then enter it. I’m assuming the better you know the individual, the more detailed the structure will be.” Clint cleared his throat. “I think we should try it.”
“Like now?”
Clint rolled up his sleeves. “Like in Dunn’s class. You picture an image—a walkie-talkie, right?—to help build your connection between minds. I’m going to lower my wall, and you have to lower yours, and then you’re going to try to organize what you see inside my head into one structure—my house. Then imagine your astral self walking into it. And then find a memory. Sound good?”
“Yeah, totally—just make an imaginary house out of everything I know about you and walk through it and find a memory and then tell you about it. After that, why don’t we hold hands and go for a unicorn ride on a rainbow?”
“Teddy,” Clint said, eyebrows raised.
“Okay, okay.” She hadn’t performed astral telepathy since Molly had freaked out on her a few weeks ago. She wasn’t scared, exactly. She just hadn’t had any favorable experiences using this supposedly amazing skill.
“Focus,” Clint said. “I’m lowering my wall.”
Teddy dimmed her mental wall until it was just a low hum of electric current. She considered everything she’d learned about Clint—his messy office, his dad jokes, his old jersey. The memory of his dog. The screw on his desk. A piece of paper on his desk caught Teddy’s eye: Lab Report. Her thoughts went back to her blood sample. She couldn’t think about that now; if she wanted to get this right, she had to focus.
When she reached out to his mind, she wasn’t confronted with a cacophony of images; instead, she saw . . . nothing. From inky darkness, a shape started to emerge. She felt the urge to blink but forced herself not to. She walked toward a white picket fence, an orderly lawn. It wasn’t the same place she’d seen in Clint’s memories, the one with his dog. What emerged was a small two-story white house with a gray shingled roof. In the window, a light was on.
In her mind’s eye, she saw herself walk up the steps, reach for the doorknob, and open the front door. When she turned toward where the kitchen should be, she didn’t see a kitchen at all. She walked into a memory.
The first thing she registered was that it was night. And that she was in the desert. She could feel the hot air on her skin. She could smell smoke in the air. The charred aftermath of an explosion. There was nothing but miles and miles of arid, empty space. Teddy somehow understood that what mattered wasn’t on the surface at all but underground. A bunker. A number three surrounded by concentric circles etched on the bunker door. She heard bullets in the background and ran back toward the door to Clint’s house. And suddenly found herself in the worn chair in Clint’s office, looking right at him.
“What did you see?” he asked. “I felt you in my mind, but I couldn’t see what you were looking at. What were you trying to see?”
She turned the power of her wall back up to high. She didn’t know why she lied, but she did: “Your dog. Another memory of your dog. You were playing catch.”
Clint smiled. “It worked! The house?”
Teddy nodded, still unsettled from her trip into Clint’s memories. “It did.” She reached for a pitcher and a glass of water on a side table. “Do you live in a place with a gray roof? Neat lawn?”
Clint rubbed his chin. “Interesting. That’s what my house looked like to you?”
Teddy nodded again, taking another sip of water.
“No, I’ve never lived in a house like that. It sounds nice, though.”
“It was nice,” Teddy said. “It looked like a home.” She looked around the office. Clint was distracted, happy with her performance. She hoped to take advantage of it. Find out what she could about the lab. “Mind if I change the subject?” she asked.
“If it’s about the break-in, Teddy, all students have been given the same information—”
Even without reading her thoughts, he’d known what she would ask. But she didn’t have the same information. She knew the names of the three students whose blood samples had been stolen. That coupled with what she’d just seen . . . “It’s about my genetic markers.”
“How do you know about genetic markers?”
Teddy thought for a minute before the lie came, too easily. She hated lying. But she didn’t have a choice. She had to know. “When I bumped into Eversley in the hall the other day, I must have connected with his mind. I saw that he knew I had both maternal and paternal genetic markers. That’s
