The Firebird

I had never heard of Emerson, or the Institute, until four years ago. My elder brother, Colin, was the one who’d put me on to it. One morning he’d come down to breakfast looking even more thoughtful than usual. Giving a nod to the stack of brochures at the side of my plate he’d remarked, ‘You’ve decided on Edinburgh, then, for your Masters?’

‘Yes,’ I’d told him. ‘Russian studies and art history.’

My mother had smiled. ‘Russian studies,’ she’d said. ‘You can study a Russian for nothing, at home. Just look there.’ And she’d given a nod to our grandfather, reading his newspaper at the far end of the table. He’d remained dignified, as though he hadn’t heard, but he had folded his newspaper down for an instant to let his eyes smile at me.

Colin had continued, ‘Then you might want to get to know these people.’ He’d handed me a page he’d printed out from his computer, all about the Emerson Institute. He’d watched me while I read it through, then added, ‘They do studies there, real scientific studies that might help you understand that thing you do.’

The air had stilled and thickened in the kitchen. And my grandfather had set his paper down. His eyes had lost their smile. ‘You don’t ever tell anyone what you can do, Nicola. Do you hear? Always I’ve told you, since you were a little girl. Never tell anyone.’ And when my mother had tried to placate him he’d lifted a hand. ‘No. This is not for argument. I know,’ he’d said, in a tone harsh with feeling. ‘I know what can happen. You keep this a secret. You tear up that paper.’

My brother had calmly remarked that this wasn’t the Soviet Union, and the researchers in Edinburgh were not the KGB, who had done God knows what to my grandfather back in the sixties, when they’d learnt through his neighbours that he had … abilities.

What he had undergone in their intelligence programme had been so traumatic he never had told us the details, but I’d felt the depth of his pain and concern as his eyes had met mine down the length of the table that morning. ‘Nicola,’ he’d said to me, ‘tear up that paper.’

I’d done as he’d asked. But I hadn’t forgotten. And then in my final year, when I’d come back from my term in St Petersburg, I’d seen an ad in the paper for volunteers – anyone, just normal people, not psychics – to help take part in a new study the Emerson Institute was just beginning. No risk, I had thought. I could see what they did without ever revealing what I could do.

So I had answered the ad.

I cut those memories off, deliberately. At the edge of the green park I stood for a moment and gathered my courage, then drawing a steadying breath I crossed over the road and went in.

The receptionist was new, but the other woman standing with her back towards me, leaning on the tall reception counter, was no stranger.

Dr Keary Fulton-Wallace wasn’t psychic. She’d had no clue I’d be coming, and when she turned round her features plainly showed her surprise. I’d never known her age. I knew she’d told me once she had been a researcher for over twenty years, and so must be approaching fifty, but she had a youthful energy that made that seem impossible. She would have made a perfect Peter Pan, I thought, in pantomimes.

Tossing her bright cap of auburn hair out of her eyes, she recovered herself and smiled at me. ‘Nicola! How wonderful to see you.’ Just like that. As though the past two years had never happened.

I hovered. ‘I’m sorry, I ought to have rung first. Is this a good time?’

‘Yes, of course. Come, let’s sit in my office.’

Her office still looked the same. Only the calendar over her desk had changed, no longer seascapes but views of a garden. She shifted a pile of papers from one of the chairs at the side of her desk. ‘Let me get us some tea. Do you still drink the green kind?’

The prodigal son must have felt like this, I thought – relieved and embarrassed and touched by the fuss being made.

‘Nonsense,’ was her answer to my protests that she didn’t need to wait on me. ‘You’re very welcome company today, and I was just about to stop and take a break myself, at any rate.’

She fetched the tea, and a half-plundered packet of Hobnobs, and settled in as though I were an old friend stopping by to chat. She’d made me feel just this relaxed and this welcome two years ago, when I had first ventured in, all uncertain, and she had explained what they did at the Institute.

‘Parapsychologists don’t try to prove extrasensory perception exists,’ she’d said then. ‘We test hypotheses, like any other scientist, and our test results here have shown overall evidence that would support the hypothesis that ESP does exist. So we form more hypotheses, run more tests, try to find out – if it’s actually there – how it works.’

I’d taken part in two studies she’d led. The first one, where I’d hidden in among the normal people who had volunteered. And one more, after that.

‘I had a question,’ I said now, ‘about the psychometry study.’

‘Oh, yes?’

The question made more sense, I reasoned, if I backtracked just a little and explained about my job now, and the fact I had a carving that I wanted to authenticate. ‘I thought I might try using my … I might just try psychometry, and see if that can lead me somewhere, help me find the proof of where it came from.’

She thought that was a very good idea. ‘You know me. It’s the practical applications of ESP that interest me the most. How can I help?’