Stop,she commanded, and all at once, as if an invisible hand had come down and closed around the charm, it held perfectly still.
“Jump up and down,” she told it, saying the words aloud this time, because all of a sudden, it felt like it was alive, this silver symbol, and it didn’t seem strange at all to be talking to a necklace.
The charm moved, dancing, leaping up and down like a puppet on a string.
A dark, doubtful part of herself said,You idiot. You’re moving it. Of course you’re moving it and you’re not even aware of it.
She thought of her science teacher Mr. Pomprey, who’d taught the class about natural selection. Earlier in the year, they’d covered the scientific method. Make observations, propose questions, come up with a hypothesis, test your hypothesis.
Olive looked at the necklace.
The silver charm at the end is bouncing up and down,she observed,as if the cord is being jerked repeatedly, like a yo-yo. There is no breeze. I’m holding my hand perfectly still. Something else must be moving it. What hypothesis would explain this phenomenon? I hypothesize that I legitimately have telekinesis, like a character in a movie or comic book.
Was she going crazy?
This wasn’t possible. People couldn’t do things like that. It didn’t happen in real life, only in made-up stories.
Her head felt foggy, and the pain in her temples was coming on strong. She was tired and thirsty.
Hattie had been able to make things move, make objects around her fly through the air. That’s what Aunt Riley had said. So maybe it was being here that did it. Maybe it was the place, the bog, that was responsible somehow.
Or maybe Hattie was helping her.
Her head hurt more.
“Am I making this move?” she asked aloud, looking at the necklace. All at once, the bouncing stopped. The cord hung straight and still, the pendant motionless.
No, dummy,it seemed to say.It’s not you at all. How could you have thought such a thing?
You’re just Odd Oliver. What powers could you possibly have?
“Hattie?” Olive said, her throat tightening a little around the name. “Are you here? Are you the one making it move?”
The necklace began to swing in big clockwise loops.
Olive’s hands felt prickly, her whole body humming with a strange electricity. Her body was a conduit. A conduit for Hattie to come through.
“Okay,” Olive said. “So, does clockwise mean yes?”
The charm moved in clockwise circles again.
Yes! Yes, yes, Hattie was speaking with her. Actually communicating.
“What’s no?”
The necklace stopped, then began to revolve in the opposite direction, counterclockwise.
“Right, got it,” she said as her heart hammered and her palms grew sticky with sweat.
So she could ask yes or no questions.
Her mind was going so fast, she had trouble coming up with her first question.
“Is this really Hattie Breckenridge?”
Yes,the necklace said, swinging clockwise.
Of course,she thought.Of course it is. Who else would it be?
