A Midnight Mind

Chapter 31: Breaking and Entering

Ms. Stafford's house looked nothing like what Ethan imagined a psychic's home might look like. There were no power crystals or hanging beads in the windows. No animal skulls mounted to the spidery trees on the front lawn. No black cats prowling around or ravens perched on the rooftop.

This was when Ethan realized he apparently didn't know the difference between psychics and witches.

In reality, the house was old and small but otherwise unremarkable. A pair of windows looked in on a living room and kitchen. There was a little porch with a patio chair. A red door and greenish-blue paint on the exterior tiles. Yellow leaves all over the lawn. No driveway. A cozy looking place you'd never look twice at.

"You sure this is the one?" he asked Violet as she pulled the Honda to a stop partway up the opposing sidewalk. "It looks... normal."

"Expected it to be made of gingerbread or something?"

Ethan rolled his eyes dramatically and sighed. "She's a psychic, Violet, not a witch. Tsk tsk. Amateur hour over here."

She laughed. "Excuse me, sensei. Now get the hell out of my car and go get that amnesia-saber."

"No need. I'm projecting in, remember? It's sort of like casting a spell..."

"When you come back and your physical body has a black eye, just remember this moment." Violet's smile faded as her eyes fell to the dashboard clock. It was 2:14 p.m. "Better hop to it. Midnight's ever closer, eh."

Whatever fun Ethan had been having wore off at once. He nodded soberly. "Just need a minute to concentrate."

"Yeah, I'll shut up for once. Good luck, Mur-dock."

The time it took for Ethan to project was getting shorter. He had only to stare at the mostly-bare trees on Ms. Stafford's lawn and imagine them as they would look in every season; seconds later he no longer had to imagine.

Even in the Worldmind there was nothing special about Stafford's home. It didn't glow or anything. Ethan had to remember that its appearance was based not only on Stafford's memories but also those of everyone who ever looked at it, including Violet. It was interesting to note that the house's colour shifted between green and blue, but the door was always red. When something was striking like that it was much easier to remember clearly.

Absently, he reached out and opened the passenger side door. It wasn't until he was stepping out of the car that he remembered that he had left his physical form behind, that the car was just a facsimile of the Worldmind. Looking back, he saw the Honda was gone. Once in a while a vague ghost of a car appeared in the spot Violet had parked, along with fuzzy visions of Violet and himself inside it—Ethan's and Violet's present memories, he figured. But since the Honda wasn't a permanent fixture of this spot, there was no reason the Worldmind would keep it here. He didn't let the disappearing car worry him. It was still here, in the real world. Violet was still here.

He crossed the road, trying not to let the odd sounds of cars passing by concern him. Moving cars rarely appeared on the road itself. He figured people had a clearer memory of car sounds outside their homes than they did actual memories of specific cars driving on the road. He didn't get run over during the crossing.

Leaves appeared and vanished and moved around on Stafford's lawn. Her door occasionally appeared open. Ethan looked over his shoulder as though expecting Stafford to show up. There were sometimes memory ghosts of kids playing in the next door lawn and couples walking their dogs on the sidewalk, but these visions faded away as quickly as they came. No, there were no real people here. No one to watch him breaking into someone's house—or the memory of her house, anyway. He was alone.