Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls - Jane Lindskold [38]
“Hmm, other test subjects or possibly controls.” Professor Isabella drums the table. “Any write-ups on Sarah?”
“Some, really jargon filled but, from what I get, the fact that she didn’t talk made it tough for them to guess what she had. They knew she had something, not how much. Dylan seems to be the big favorite; Eleanora scored way up there on memory, but lower in empathy and nearly null in magical thinking. After a point, she isn’t shown on as many charts, usually just an annual survey.”
“Sarah’s files end when?”
“About when she must have been transferred to the Home. I’ll do some more hunting to see if either of the others have later records.”
“Very good. However, what you have found thus far confirms some of my guesses.” Professor Isabella steeples her gnarled fingers. “I believe that Sarah and her siblings were part of a project to cultivate magical thinking. Whether they were the result of breeding for the tendency or something else, I cannot guess at this point. What I can guess is that the experiment was most successful with Dylan. His charted abilities are higher than Sarah’s in magical thinking and empathy. Sarah’s memory is listed as better. Eleanora, although extraordinary in some ways, was apparently a washout from the experimenter’s point of view. What do you think so far?”
I nod. This matches my awakening memories some, although Eleanora is but faintly remembered and those memories see her as near grown while I am quite small. I doubt that I saw her often.
“I pass with relief from the tossing sea of Cause and Theory,” I comment, “to the ground of Result and Fact.”
“Yeah,” Abalone agrees, “but what I don’t get is why anyone would want to create superstitious people.”
“Ah,” Professor Isabella smiles. “Not superstitious—magical thinkers—people who so believe in or perhaps sense the living spirits in the inanimate world that what is dead matter to you and me might somehow be able to communicate with them.”
“Sharp old bird, ain’t she,” Betwixt comments.
“Sharper than most,” Between cuts in. “Now, hush.”
I scratch them both at the base of the necks and listen.
“Whoosh!” Abalone shakes her head so that the locks dance like candle flames. “That’s a lot to believe: Sarah able to talk to ‘things.’ She can’t even talk to people.”
“I’m not certain that Sarah can talk to things any more easily than she can to us. I’ve noticed that even when she’s muttering to herself she uses the same quote patterns as the rest of the time. What I am saying is that things may be able to talk to Sarah.”
“What do you think, Sarah?” Abalone asks. “Has the professor hit on the truth?”
I hesitate. The professor’s theories about Ivy Green and investigation into magical thinking are tantalizing. They fit many curious holes in my memory, holes that I am beginning to be suspicious about. I should remember more. I had been nearly an adolescent when I left there for the Home. And some memories—of Dylan especially—have been coming back so vividly.
I shake myself out of conjecture and try to honestly answer Abalone’s question.
“’Tis strange, but true; for truth is always strange—Stranger than fiction,” I finally say.
“Oh, wow!” Abalone’s eyes get round. “If we could only be sure about this.”
Professor Isabella smiles slyly. “I think we have proof already, Abalone. When I take Sarah to a museum, she often spends time muttering to a painting or sculpture. I started noticing that she was quoting things I had never read to her—but I dismissed this, thinking someone else must have taught her and she’s simply remembering. You, however, have had a more definitive experience.”
“What?” Abalone is clearly puzzled.
“What did Sarah say when you asked her how she got out of the secretary’s cell at the police station?”
“She said something about the walls having ears,” Abalone says slowly. “Oh, flip-it! You mean…”
“That’s right. What if for Sarah the walls don’t only have ears, but mouths as well? What if the wall told her how to get out?”
She looks quizzically at me. In memory I hear a happy voice chirping “I got a secret