Page 33 of A Gathering Storm

“No,” Nicholas answered, this time without any hesitation. “There is no one here. Only me.”

“Only me.”

Something about the hollow way he said that made Ward look at him more closely.

This was one of the days, Ward realised, when Nicholas grew melancholy in his trance. Sometimes he got this way, though it was difficult to tell only from watching him.

“I am all alone,” Nicholas said now. His tone was matter-of-fact, but there was an edge to it that made Ward’s chest ache.

Ward hesitated, unsure how to answer. “You are not alone,” he said at last. “I am here with you.”

Nicholas laughed at that, but there was no humour in the dry chuckle. “No. You are there. OnlyIam here.”

Ward frowned. Where wasthereand where washere? Sometimes he didn’t understand the things Nicholas said when he was in his trance state. He was given to opaque utterances that probably made perfect sense to him, but were impenetrable to Ward.

Ward wanted to comfort him though, so he said again, gently, “You are not alone, Nicholas.”

His words didn’t seem to have the desired effect. Nicholas just shook his head, rolling it from side to side on the back of the chair.

Ward’s stomach was in knots from gazing upon Nicholas’s naked unhappiness. He didn’t know what to do. After a few moments, he picked up his pen and scratched inside the notebook,NH asserts repeatedly that he is alone, as if the mere recording of that truth would somehow deal with the matter. Which was ridiculous. Disgusted with himself, he scored the words out and closed the notebook with a snap.

“Rest for a few minutes, Nicholas,” he said, pretending a confidence he did not feel. “Then, when you’re ready, open your eyes, and wake up.”

Some time later, when Nicholas had roused from his customary post-trance nap, they sat down to dinner together. Nicholas had unbent enough to stay for dinner every Sunday evening since his second visit.

Snow lay peacefully curled up under the table at Nicholas’s feet while they ate. Nicholas seemed to be enjoying the meal, but Ward’s appetite was off. He toyed disinterestedly with his dinner, musing bleakly on the unremarkable results from the last few Sundays’ work.

He had put Nicholas into a trance a number of times now, and today, for the first time, Nicholas had given every appearance of fully cooperating with what Ward had asked of him. That was progress, at least. On the previous occasions, whilst he’d consented to being hypnotised in the first place, once in the trance state, he’d demonstrated a reluctance to comply with Ward’s requests, in particular, refusing to attempt to contact spirits.

Today he had cooperated though. And yet despite that, he’d still made no contact with any spirit, not his mother nor anyone else. In fact, he hadn’t seemed to be able to detect any kind of presence at all—not even Ward, who had been sitting right beside him!

Rationally, Ward knew he shouldn’t allow himself to feel discouraged. It was early days still. But it had been weeks since he’d started working with Nicholas, and their progress was so slow, it felt as though they were going backwards. It was only after today’s failure that he realised he’d presumed that once Nicholas really tried,somethingwould happen.

“You’re not eating,” Nicholas observed, setting his cutlery down and fastening his bright gaze on Ward.

Ward shook his head. “Don’t mind me. I’m not especially hungry, and I’m bad company this evening besides.”

“Yes, you are,” Nicholas agreed. “And I think I know why.”

Ward gave him a look. “Oh, really? Why don’t you tell me, then, since I don’t know myself.”

Nicholas seemed unfazed by that testy reply. “You’re coming to understand that I’m not what you’d been hoping for. You convinced yourself at the outset, despite my protests, that I had some mystical connection to the spiritual plane—probably because of what Jed Hammett said to you in the Hope & Anchor that day—but now you’re beginning to realise that I really am just as ordinary as I told you I was.”

Ward scowled. Nicholas was about as far from ordinary as it was possible to get in his opinion. Not that he was about to tell Nicholas that.

“It’s far too soon to be reaching any conclusions about anything,” he said instead. “As I told you when we began, I need to test many combinations of conditions. So far, we’ve been working only with the application of one potential factor, namely a trance state. I would have been surprised if we’d had any real results as yet.”

Nicholas didn’t respond to that, just raised one brow.

Ward pressed on, manfully. “My intuition about my experience on theArchimedesis that it was all the conditions working together—my exposure to a strong concentration of natural electromagnetism, the presence of ozone, my hypnotic state—that enabled George to reach me. In all honesty, I’m not hopeful we’ll see any positive results until we’re able to combine most or all those factors in appropriate concentrations. But that doesn’t mean this exercise is unhelpful. I’m building up detailed records of my observations of your responses, and all of that data, even that showing nothing happening, will assist me.”

Nicholas plainly wasn’t convinced. “Why do you look so defeated then?”

Ward sighed. “It’s the magnitude of it,” he admitted. “Realising that it’s taken six meetings with you to get to this point and that we’ve scarcely begun yet. And we only have a few more Sundays left.”

Nicholas eyed him. “We should be able to go down the Hole soon, shouldn’t we? Will that help?”

“Perhaps. I hope so. I just wish . . .”