The Witch's Ladder Read Online Free

at the instant Travis died.
    “ It’s as if he were calling out to us for help,” she surmised, “but we just couldn’t interpret the signs.”
    Doctor Lieberman empathized, noting the paradox of their situations. “You people are in a unique position to feel the pain of others,” he told them. “However, you mustn’t confuse your gift for being able to remain in spiritual touch with other souls as being your responsibility for stopping that which is clearly out of your physical control.”
    Sadly, few found solace in his words.
    It was during those first few days that my partner, Detective Carlos Rodriquez, and I interviewed everyone in Doctor Lieberman’s workshops and found no cause to suspect any of them in Travis’ murder. After several weeks, we’d run out of people to question and found ourselves no closer to finding Travis’ killer than we were on day one.
    By the time the monthly whole-group workshop rolled around, all had grown eager to work again as one group. There seemed a heightened sense of fellowship among the group combined than what existed among the group divided. Chris Walker even mentioned that at one point, suggesting they alter their schedules to include the group meeting every Sunday instead of just once a month. Doctor Lieberman promised to take the idea under advisement with Doctor Lowell and get back with an answer as soon as possible.
    Meanwhile, the experiments that night were all lively. One in particular involved the twins, Shekina and Akasha, as they tried their telepathy skills on each other.
    “ Okay, gather round,” said Doctor Lieberman. “We’re going to try the Rhine twist.”
    Jean leaned in next to Lilith and whispered, “What’s the Rhine twist?”
    Lilith said, “It’s a take-off of an old ESP experiment, sort of a card-guessing game where the subject has to guess one of five symbols without looking.”
    “ You mean like ink blots?”
    “ Yeah, only these symbols are less abstract, like circles, squares, stars. The twist comes in the way Doctor Lieberman plays Shekina against Akasha. He has the twins sit back to back. He’ll show Shekina the card, but Akasha must guess which one it is.”
    “ Why does he do it like that?”
    “ To spice it up,” she said. “Only it’s my guess that the two will screw with Doctor Lieberman’s head a bit.”
    “ Why would they do that?”
    “ Like I said, to spice it up.”
    One by one, Doctor Lieberman revealed the Rhine cards to Shekina, who then concentrated on sending a telepathic image of the card to Akasha. The results were both amazing and entertaining. Not only did Akasha correctly guess the cards an impressive ninety-nine percent of the time, but she also identified them correctly even when Shekina purposely tried to send the wrong image to her sister. They repeated this experiment several times, with Shekina and Akasha switching roles as the sender and receiver. Later, the Doctor also included Gordon Walsh in the experiment because of his telepathic abilities, and though Gordon scored well, he proved no match for the combined telepathic powers of the twins.
    During a break in experiments, Akasha approached Valerie, who had taken a seat in the corner alone. “Are you all right, Valerie?” she asked in her South African, English accent.
    Valerie snapped to attention as if suddenly awakened. “Oh yes, of course, Akasha. I’m fine.” She smiled unconvincingly. “Guess I was daydreaming.”
    “ Something troubles you.”
    “ No. It’s nothing.”
    “ Valerie?”
    “ Okay. Maybe.”
    “ What is it?”
    She gave in with a shrug. “The truth is I don’t know. I have an uneasy feeling, like something bad is about to happen. I can’t explain it. I mentioned it to Barbara earlier, but she said she doesn’t feel it. I don’t know. I suppose it’s my imagination. I’m letting it run away with me. Maybe it’s because the last time we all met like this… I mean, the last group thing when we were all