of responsibility for Murray Ray's death that she had not even now wholly thrown off.
“Maggie told me all about your experiment to create a ghost, Miss Cross. I must tell you that in my view it is a misguided and possibly a dangerous endeavor. Maggie, too, had been coming to think of it that way for some time, so she told me. The events of last night, which I imagine you are familiar with, only confirmed her in that belief.”
Joanna held up a hand. “Can I say something before we start making any accusations? Maggie was a willing volunteer and knew exactly what she was doing. I'm more sorry than I can say about what's happened. I was very fond of Maggie. The whole group was. But this was a properly run and monitored experiment, and anyone was free to pull out whenever they liked. In fact, although I wasn't there myself last night, I understand that this was what Maggie had decided to do.”
“Miss Cross, I'm making no accusations. Maggie's death appears to have been from physical causes arising out of a known clinical condition. But if you will allow me to say so, I think she and the rest of you involved have gotten yourselves into something deeper than you'd bargained for. If you'll take my advice you'll stop now, before anything else happens.”
“I'm sorry, I have to be clear about one thing.”
They both turned to Heather McBride, who had spoken.
“Are you saying that my mother's death was from natural causes brought about by this ‘experiment’?” She gave the last word an emphasis that made it both suspect and somehow preposterous.
“I am saying,” said the Reverend Collingwood, picking his words with ponderous care, “that she believed something had been started which had to be stopped. She also believed that she was the one who was going to have to bear the main burden of doing that.”
“But why, for heaven's sake?” Joanna protested. “There were eight of us.”
There was a lugubrious piety in Collingwood's long face as he turned to look at her.
“She didn't believe that the rest of you were prepared to take the danger as seriously as she.”
24
Sam phoned the members of the group to tell them of Maggie's death. Their weeks of sessions together had created a sense of family intimacy that left them all deeply affected by the news. When they met again three days later, it was a sense of personal loss that remained uppermost in their minds more than any thought of Adam or the rights and wrongs of the experiment. Drew and Barry both shed a tear when they entered “Adam's room” and saw the group there minus Maggie. Even the normally reserved Ward Riley was visibly moved.
A new wooden table had been furnished to replace the broken one. When they were all settled around it Sam addressed them soberly. “Obviously I've written to Maggie's son and daughter expressing our sorrow. I have to say there was a hairy forty-eight hours when it looked as though the university might become the subject of a court action. Maggie's son, pushed by her local pastor whom she'd talked with the night of her death, wanted to hold us liable. But the daughter, thanks largely to Joanna's persuasiveness, would have no part of it. So the only thing we have to face now is the question of whether we go on with the experiment or not. If any of you have any thoughts, anything you want to say…”
Joanna cleared her throat. “I'm the only one who missed that last session, but it looked pretty astounding on tape. It was also clear that Maggie was deeply alarmed at what was happening, and there's no escaping the fact that it almost certainly played some part in her death. On an emotional level, part of me says okay, that's far enough, let's just drop this whole thing right now. The experiment was set up for my benefit, to give me something to write about, so I feel a personal responsibility…”
“But you shouldn't,” Sam interrupted her. From the murmurs of agreement around the table it was obvious that the others all felt the same way. “The experiment was set up as part of the research program of this department,” Sam continued. “If we hadn't done it now with this group, we'd certainly have gotten around to doing it sooner or later with some other group. If there's any responsibility, it's mine. If I'd known Maggie had a weak heart, I'd have dissuaded her from taking part in the experiment. Unfortunately she never told me, nor did I ever think of asking. But there's no point at this stage in breast-beating and crying ‘mea culpa.’ Maggie's dead and that won't bring her back. What all this does bring us face to face with is a question that's central to a great deal of what we're trying to do in this department. That question is: What are we to make of phenomena that defy our criterion of rationality? We've all seen things in this room that do that. My belief remains firm that these phenomena are created by our own minds and by nothing else. Maggie, it appears, had become convinced that there was some outside agency at work. What I'd like to ask is do any of the rest of you feel this way?”
There was a silence as he looked around their faces one by one. Barry shook his head as though summing up the feeling of the whole group. No one dissented.
“You know what might be interesting?” Roger said, pulling thoughtfully on one side of his mustache. “Why don't we talk to Adam-find out what he thinks about all this?”
Sam gave a faint smile. “It's what I was going to suggest, but I'm glad somebody else came up with it first.” He looked around the table again. “Everyone agreed?”
There were nods and murmurs of accord.
“All right. Adam, are you there?”
There was silence. Joanna noticed that they were all sitting with their hands in their laps, with the exception of Sam, who was leaning on the table, and Barry, who had one hand resting on it curled into a loose fist. Sam became aware of the same thing simultaneously. “Maybe we need to go back to square one,” he said, “everybody hands on the table, palms down.”
Everyone did so. Then Sam said, “All right, let's try again. Adam, are you there?”
The silence lengthened until Pete said, “Maybe he can't hack it with the new table.”
“Adam, we'd like to talk with you,” Sam said. “Please respond this time. Are you there?”
They all felt as well as heard it: two sharp raps for no.
“In my neighborhood that's what they used to call a Polish yes,” Barry said, looking around the table. “No offense to anyone of that extraction.”
Ward Riley frowned thoughtfully. “Perhaps it means that someone's there, but not Adam.”
Joanna saw Roger's eyes dart from Ward to Sam, who was careful to avoid their gaze. She knew what he was thinking, what they were all thinking. Because she was thinking it too.
“Is that right?” Sam said quietly. “Someone's there, but not Adam?”
A clear, firm rap for yes.
Keeping his voice deliberately calm and seemingly casual, the way she'd seen him do all along when things got tense, Sam asked, “Can you tell us who you are?”
The scratching noise that came from the table wasn't like the one they were used to. It was lighter, the product of a different wood fiber. But it came, they recognized at once, from within the wood itself, not from anywhere on the surface, neither on top nor underneath. It was the sound that Maggie had correctly identified as Adam wanting to write. Now someone else wanted to do the same.
“We should have thought of this,” Sam muttered. “The Ouija board's in pieces and we haven't got a replacement.”
“I'm on it!” Pete was already out of his chair and heading for the table by the wall. “This worked when I was a kid,” he said. “No reason why it shouldn't now.”
He took a sheet of paper and wrote out the letters of the alphabet with a felt pen. Then he took a pair of scissors and cut them into squares. He cut another piece of paper in two and wrote “Yes” and “No” on the separate halves. Then he arranged them around the table just as they had been on the Ouija board. For a pointer he brought over an empty water glass, which he turned upside down and placed in the center.
Nobody had spoken throughout the operation, almost as though they feared that by uttering the wrong word they might break some kind of spell. Pete returned to his chair and they all, without having to be prompted, placed a fingertip lightly on the overturned glass.
“Please tell us your name,” Sam said.
The glass began to move. There was a kind of inevitability about its progress that made Joanna think of
