Liars and Fools (11 page)

“You
did
?” I wondered why Dad hadn't told me that.

Caitlin turned on the radio. Country station.

“Caitlin, do you mind? We're talking.” Kathy snapped it off again, sounding annoyed. “She was born the year after Jack and I got married. Her name was Nicole.”

Was.
Did that mean what I thought it did? Kathy paused as if she was waiting for me to ask, but I didn't say anything. I was not going to feel sorry for Kathy, even if she told me she had a dozen dead kids. She couldn't suck me in that easily.

Kathy turned and looked at me. “I wanted to have lots of babies. But…well, after Nicole, I couldn't seem to get pregnant again. The doctors never found a reason. It was five years before Caitlin was born.”

“The light's green,” Caitlin said. The car behind us honked its horn.

Kathy stepped on the gas, and we accelerated abruptly. Caitlin opened her window and stuck one arm out, palm facing the wind.

“Anyway.” Kathy looked up at the rearview mirror, and I accidentally met her eyes for a second. I dropped my eyes back to my lap quickly. “Three years ago, Jack and the girls were in a car accident. They were on their way to a soccer game. Nicole's team was in the playoffs. Jack was driving. It wasn't his fault; the other driver was drunk. He plowed into them. Ran right through a red light.”

My throat tightened. “Oh. That's awful.”

“Yes. Jack was killed instantly. Nicole died in hospital a few days later. She was only a couple of months older than you are now—a few days away from her fourteenth birthday. And Caitlin was almost uninjured. Everyone said it was a miracle.”

Some miracle, I thought. A dead husband and a dead kid. You'd think if someone was there that day and in the business of performing miracles, they could have been a bit more inclusive.

“And it was after that you became a medium?”

Kathy turned to look at me, which was a bit worrying, as we were speeding along a busy road and talking about car accidents. “I couldn't imagine how I could keep going. Only I had to, of course, for Caitlin.”

Caitlin's face was turned away so I couldn't see her expression. She would have been eight or nine when her dad and her sister died, I calculated, and I felt a sharp stab of shame about how mean I had been to her.

Kathy looked back at the road. “I don't know if this makes sense to you or not, but I felt so guilty.”

I swallowed. I knew all about guilt, but I couldn't let myself think about that, or the whirlpool would suck me right in.

“I should have been with them that day, going to the game, but I had the flu.” Her hands were gripping the wheel so tightly her knuckles were white. “I kept thinking that if I had been there, maybe I could have done something. After Jack and Nicole died, I was so depressed I could hardly get out of bed.”

Like Dad, I thought, remembering all those weeks I stayed with Joni and Tom.

“Then one day, I saw a poster inviting everyone to a meeting at a spiritualist church. I remember exactly what it said:
Lost someone you love? Seeking comfort?
I'd never been very religious. I'd never given much thought to what happens after we die, to be honest. But when I saw this poster, I thought, Well, why not? What do I have to lose?”

“And what happened?” I asked.

“I know this might be hard to believe, but I received a message,” she said. “A message from beyond. From Jack, that first time, telling me that he and Nicole were together and that everything was okay.”

“Huh. How did you receive it? Could you, like, hear his voice?”

Kathy shook her head. “One of mediums at the church meeting—a wonderful man—he picked me out of the crowd and said he had a message for me. He asked if he could come to me, and I said yes, and he came over and told me that he could see a tall man— Jack was very tall—and that the man wanted to tell me that he loved me.”

I nodded, caught up in the story despite myself. “And?”

“And then the medium said, ‘You have lost someone else too.' And I started crying and told him about Nicole. ‘Yes,' he said. ‘She was so young.' Just like he could see her.”

I thought again about Abby's words:
it's all acting
and guesswork
. It wasn't a huge leap for someone to guess that Kathy's daughter would have been young.

“After that I went to meetings for a while. And then I started getting messages myself. Directly. From Nicole, mostly.” Kathy took one hand off the steering wheel and rested it on Caitlin's knee. “It was incredible, just incredible, to speak to her again. I thought she was lost forever, but she turned out to be so close.”

I thought she was lost forever
. All I could think about was Mom.
She turned out to be so close.
I blinked back tears so hot, they were scalding my eyes. Get a grip, I told myself. Only idiots believe this stuff. I cleared my throat. “So, do you talk to them both? Your daughter and your…” I wanted to say ex-husband, but that made it sound like they were divorced.

“Jack never speaks to me directly,” Kathy said sadly. “Though of course I have friends, other mediums, who pass on messages from him.”

Like they were all on some kind of online social networking site. Twitter for dead people. “So do you, like, talk to them too?” I asked Caitlin.

She shook her head. “Mom gives me messages from them though.”

Kathy squeezed her daughter's knee and, without slowing down, swung the steering wheel around with one hand as we turned into the mall's parking lot. I was starting to feel carsick.

“Caitlin is a bit sad about not having my abilities,” Kathy said. “I tell her she shouldn't worry about it. It's a mixed blessing, you know?”

I cleared my throat. “If you say so.”

Kathy pulled into a parking space, unbuckled her seat belt and turned to look at me over her shoulder. Rain was spattering lightly on the windshield. “It's a big responsibility. When I started receiving messages for other people, I didn't understand why I had been given this gift, but I felt I had no choice but to use it to help others.” She met my eyes and gave a sudden, unexpected laugh. “If your eyes get any wider, they'll fall right out. But I don't blame you for being skeptical. If someone had told me a few years ago that I'd end up doing this, I'd have laughed my head off.”

“But now you really believe it's possible that after someone has died…?”

“I know it is. I know that the spirits of those who have passed are still with us, and that they have a great deal of wisdom and comfort to share with us, if we only allow it.” Kathy stopped abruptly. “And I know I'm talking way too much about myself and what I think.” She waved her hands in the direction of the mall entrance. “Come on, girls. Let's go shopping.”

“Ooh, can we go in there?” Caitlin asked as we walked through the doors. She pointed to a store window display.

I followed her gaze and tried not to shudder. Mannequins dressed in strapless ruffled dresses; racks and racks of outfits in pastel peach, baby blue, mint green, candy pink. It looked like Easter had exploded.

“Me and Mom love that store,” Caitlin told me.

Me and Mom.
My breath turned to ice in my lungs.
Me and Mom.
I'd give anything to be able to say those words again.

thirteen

Abby had to go to church on Sunday, but afterward her mom dropped her off at Joni and Tom's. I was already there, finishing off the deck of cards we'd made for our experiment. Five different cards, each with a different shape drawn on it in thick black marker.

Joni's kitchen was warm and filled with cooking smells: onions, garlic, curry spices. I tossed the cards on the kitchen table, and Abby and I pulled up chairs. Joni was sitting across from us, wearing an old stretched-out sweater. She pushed her hair back from her face and looked at us expectantly.

“Okay, Joni,” I said. “This is the test for telepathy. I'll look at a card and concentrate on the shape. I'll try to project the image toward you. Take as long as you need before guessing.”

Abby leaned forward and planted her elbows on the kitchen table. “Not guessing, Fi. She's supposed to wait until an image forms in her mind and then tell us which shape she sees.”

I frowned. “Same diff.”

“No, it's not. Guessing implies she's thinking about it. We don't want her to think, we want her to intuit.”

“Intuit? Is that a word?”

Abby shrugged. “Use her intuition. Whatever.”

“Okay. Okay. I think I have the general idea,” Joni said.

Abby and I stopped arguing and looked across the table at her.

“Right,” I said. “Ready?”

“Whenever you are.”

I looked at the black circle on the first card, closed my eyes and tried to hold the image in my mind. “Okay. Take your time.”

“Circle,” Joni said.

My eyes flew open and I flipped the card around to face Joni. “That's incredible.”

Abby grabbed the cards. “You're not supposed to tell her how she did until the end of the test, remember? She has to do ten cards. And even by chance, you'd expect her to get a couple right.”

“Fine,” I said. “You try.”

She flipped a card up, hand cupped over it so Joni couldn't see. Triangle.

Joni closed her eyes for a moment. “Square.”

Abby gave me a smug look. “See? Coincidence.”

“Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe you don't project the image as clearly as I do.”

“Yeah, right. Anyway, since when do you believe in this?”

I scowled. “I don't.”

Joni cleared her throat. “Could we get on with this? I actually have about a thousand things to do this afternoon.”

“Sorry,” Abby said quickly. “Ready for another?”

Joni got two right out of ten. A perfect score: 20 percent. Exactly what you'd expect by chance.

Abby and I had already tested each other several times. The test for precognition was much the same: the subject had to predict which card would be turned up next. I'd done a little better on that one than Abby had. I'd scored one out of ten, and she'd got zero. The telepathy test hadn't been much better: I got two right, same as Joni, and Abby got three. So far, no evidence of psychic powers. Big surprise.

Tom wandered into the kitchen, opened the fridge and frowned at the shelves. He grabbed a bag of baby carrots and plopped down on a chair beside us.

“Rabbit food, anyone?” he asked glumly.

I took a carrot. “Dieting?”

Tom nodded and patted his belly. “Yup. What else is new?”

“You look great,” Abby said loyally.

He tilted his head to one side and smiled fondly at her. “Thanks, sugar.”

“Can we test you, Tom?” I asked.

“This is for your science project, right?” Tom pulled a carrot out of the bag and inspected it closely. “Sure, I'll be your guinea pig.”

“Don't worry, we're not allowed to kill or dissect anything,” Abby said.

Tom laughed. “Well, that
is
a relief.”

Abby explained the experiment as I got the cards ready.

“Telepathy first,” I said. “I'm looking at the first card and visualizing the image. When you're ready, tell me what comes into your mind.”

“Square,” he said immediately. “Am I right?”

I shook my head. “Nope. Wavy lines. Oops.” I shot a guilty glance at Abby. “I wasn't supposed to tell you that.”

Tom sighed. “Well, I better not give up my day job yet.”

By the end of the week, we had done the tests on half our classmates, Abby's mom, Joni and Tom, and each other. Nineteen subjects. We needed twenty to fit our original goal, and I knew who the last one had to be.

“I can't ask her,” I said. “It's going to be so obvious.”

It was lunchtime, and we were sitting on the school steps, watching a bunch of kids goofing around. A Frisbee came flying toward us, and Abby caught it neatly and tossed it back in one smooth motion. “Only if you make it obvious,” she said, sitting back down. “What were you planning?” She mimicked my voice. “Hey, Kathy, can we do this test on you to see if you're a big fake?”

I made a face. “No, but I just feel like she'll guess we're up to something.”

“Thought you didn't care what she thought.”

“I don't. Dad'll freak out though.”

“You want me to ask?”

I looked at her gratefully. “Would you?”

“Sure. Hey, I was thinking. The whole psychic thing. Don't you think it's sort of dramatic? You know, sort of attention-seeking? Because I was wondering if Kathy might have a personality disorder.” She pulled a massive battered book out of the oversized backpack she always carried.

I grabbed the book. “What is this?”

“
The DSM
,” Abby replied. “
The Diagnostic and
Statistics Manual
. Psychiatrists and psychologists use it.”

The book weighed about five pounds. I flipped some pages, reading quickly. “Jeez. Listen to this: ‘If you have a feeling that the external world is strange, you could have derealization disorder.' That's stupid. What if the external world really is strange?”

Abby gave me an exasperated look. “That's only one of the diagnostic criteria. You have to meet a certain number of them to get a diagnosis.”

I kept flipping. “According to this book, everyone must have some disorder or other. Seriously. This is even weirder than all those books on psychics.”

She grabbed for the book. “This is
science,
Fiona. Psychologists and doctors use this book.”

I flipped some more pages.
Depression, Anxiety,
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
.
Complicated Grief
Disorder
. I caught my breath and skimmed the next few lines. From the sounds of it, if someone died and you grieved too much or for too long, you got a diagnosis. What was too long? A year? A lifetime? And who got to decide? It reminded me of a brochure on grieving that a school counselor had given me, outlining the steps you were supposed to go through: denial, anger, bargaining and, finally, acceptance. Only I didn't ever want to accept it. “This stuff is stupid,” I said flatly. “Anyway, Kathy's not crazy. She's just a fake, that's all.”