“Do spirits have emotional signatures?”
“Oh yes.” Robin nodded. “Very definitely. Sometimes they’re more emotion than anything else.”
“Interesting.” Toni nodded. “Okay, I’d be game for that.”
Val raised her hand. “Okay, who’s the telekinetic?”
Megan said, “That’s me.”
“Just so you know, I’m hella jealous. Telekinesis is so much cooler than psychometry,” Val said. “Can you imagine being able to, like, do the dishes while you make yourself a cup of coffee? It’d be like having an extra hand.”
Monica gasped. “Val, you might even be able to… fold all your laundry.”
“Stop judging my laundry sofa. It’s clean. Who cares if it’s folded or not? My two boys? I doubt it. If they want folded clothes, they can fold them.”
Megan raised her hand. “For the record, I don’t have anywhere near laundry-folding control yet, but I do agree that would be awesome. Folding laundry is the worst.”
Val pointed at her. “Thank you!”
Monica shook her head. “How can you say that when ironing exists?”
“Who irons anything anymore?” Toni asked. “The only person I know who irons is my mother, and that’s only my clothes for mass on Sunday.”
Katherine watched the interplay of personalities, completely fascinated. The five women around her were all very different, but it was evident that the three women from Glimmer Lake were longtime friends. They spoke to each other more like Katherine spoke to her sister.
Yet she could already see Toni and Megan showing some solidarity with each other even though neither was likely to admit it.
And her?
Well, she still felt a little bit on the outside, but she also felt included. She had a tie with all these women now. They were an accidental sisterhood of supernatural abilities. In another age, they would have probably been called a coven and burned for witchcraft.
Moving on from that pleasant thought…
“I haven’t had any more visions,” she said. “Rather, I haven’t had any helpful ones. I might get a flash of a dish or a cup falling, which isn’t helpful. I saw a car accident once; that was awful. I was able to stop a little boy from falling and hitting his head very badly at the grocery store last week. He was in the aisle over and was trying to climb out while his father shopped. I was happy I was able to save him from a few stitches.”
“That’s great,” Monica said. “And at the beginning, I had a lot of mundane visions too. Mostly in my dreams, but sometimes waking ones. More dreams though. So I had this vision about you, and we’ve all been thinking about you girls. My thought was, what if we all took a few days off to come over here to the coast and help you all get a handle on this? I mean, we can’t teach you everything, and I’m sure you’re all busy—”
“Not me.” Megan’s smile was bitter. “I moved out here and I have no job. No business. My husband is constantly gone. My kids are all doing their own thing. I’m thinking about getting a dog just so someone is excited when I come home at night.”
Awkward silence fell over the group. Katherine glanced at Toni, only to find the woman staring back at her, looking as lost as Katherine felt.
“I want a dog,” Katherine blurted out. “A fluffy one. Medium-sized. Maybe a poodle.”
“You should get one,” Toni said.
“Agreed,” Monica said. “Definitely get the dog.”
“I’m more of a cat person,” Val said. “But whatever floats your boat. And Megan, the upside to your children and husband being sort of assholes right now is that you have me for the rest of the week. I can’t teach you how to move stuff, but I do know quite a bit about the psychic energy of objects. And we can commiserate about teenagers.”
Megan took a deep breath and forced a smile to her face. “Thanks. That would be great. I’ll give you my number.”
“And Toni and I can work on the empathy stuff,” Robin said. “I’ve been doing some research too.” She reached down and took a manila folder out of her enormous purse. “And I have some ideas.” She noticed everyone looking at the folder. “I like research.”
Katherine felt an immediate kinship with Robin. She probably liked spreadsheets and charts too. A kindred spirit.
“And you and I can talk about seeing the future,” Monica told Katherine. “I know your visions are much more immediate and literal than mine, but maybe we can learn how to stretch things so that whatever you see, you have more time to react. I used to have no control of mine, but lately I’ve been able to control them a bit more.”
Katherine nodded and felt a little bit of her unease settle.
“Yes. I think I’d like that. Control would be good.”
Chapter 17
“So.” It was Thursday, and Monica met Katherine at North Beach Coffee Company. “How are you?”
Katherine had barely taken her seat. She’d finished office hours that afternoon after two classes in the morning—Thursdays were her busiest day—and then sent two of her graduate students over to the Fred lab to do preliminary work on the current prototype that Job and Britt had tweaked.
“I’m…”
Overwhelmed.
Worried.
Stressed.
Confused.
She hadn’t had any time that week to dwell on Abby at the hospital or think about Justin and Sarah’s cases. She hadn’t had time to do much more than keep her head above water.
Katherine’s silence must have clued Monica in.
“I’m… busy.”
“I know how complicated this thing can be,” Monica said. “You’re dealing with normal life, which is always busy, while also dealing with this new and very unexpected power that you didn’t ask for. Personally, I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve wished I could switch with Robin or Val.” She lowered her voice. “I don’t want to know
