“What, why?”

“Just come over here please, Miss Huff,” Dr Mortlock motioned with her fingertips for Annora to join her.

Three other members of the Agency had been able to arrive on short notice, so the Winsbury group was joined by Henrik Olsen, the tall white-haired Scandinavian; Special Agent Matt Allerton, wearing a patterned jumper that was far too chunky to be appropriate for springtime; and Rachel Malone, who looked especially concerned.

"Miss Huff,” Dr Mortlock addressed Annora again.

“Felicia, I think she’s fine where she is,” Mr Fletcher sounded slightly annoyed as he spoke to the headteacher.

“Mr Fletcher, I would prefer for Miss Huff to join me on this side of the table.”

Reluctantly, the red-haired young girl did as she was told, and looked very anxious to be the centre of attention of everyone in the room.

“The others are almost here,” said Rachel, reading a message from the screen of her phone.

“We should wait for them,” said Mr Fletcher.

“Agreed,” Rachel added, ignoring the resulting scowl from Dr Mortlock.

“Are we allowed to know what’s going on?” said Maggie.

“You’ll find out, Maggie,” Mr Fletcher assured. “It’s just easier if we wait until they’re here so we can explain to everyone at the same time.”

They were all relieved when the remaining three members arrived. Sue, the teacher from Harnbury School, Detective John Cane, and Howard each pulled up a seat and shuffled themselves into place around the table.

“What’s up, Hugo?” Detective Cane enquired. “Your message sounded serious.”

“We wouldn’t have called an urgent meeting for anything less than a serious matter, Detective,” Dr Mortlock replied and John Cane snapped his mouth shut.

“My friends,” Dr Mortlock addressed the room. “We have reason to suspect that our group has been infiltrated.”

Eyes widened around the table.

“Infiltrated is a strong word—” Hugo Fletcher tried to ease the tension.

“It is an appropriate word, Mr Fletcher.”

“But we don’t know yet what we’re dealing with, Felicia.”

“Exactly,” she snapped, “which is why we should exercise extreme diligence and not be blindsided by emotion, Mr Fletcher.”

“Would one of you please explain what’s going on, here?” Sue said, her huge head of tight curls shaking as she spoke.

“We believe Miss Huff has been compromised,” Dr Mortlock cut right to the heart of the matter.

“What?” gasped Annora. Her shocked face looked directly to Jessa for help.

“What do you mean?” Tonia questioned forcefully. “Annora hasn’t done anything!”

“Do you have any evidence?” Detective Cane jeered. “Or are we simply basing this on the hunches of a hormonal teenager again?”

Jessa felt her face burning in a rising panic. She wanted to say something—anything—to ease the increasing tension in the room, but she couldn’t justify putting into words any of the thoughts that were jumbling themselves in her mind.

Oh no.

He’s right. I don’t have proof.

But Dr Mortlock and Mr Fletcher believe it this time. They were the ones who put the pieces together.

It’s their theory, not mine.

She forced her concentration back into the room, where everyone was trying not to look too imploringly at Annora.

“Felicia,” Matt Allerton started, “where is this idea coming from?”

“We received some… intuition… leading both Mr Fletcher and myself to conclude—”

“Intuition, eh?” Howard scoffed. “So it’s Baxter again.”

He doesn’t believe me.

“What of it, Howard?” said Dr Mortlock. “We’ve already established that Miss Baxter is a highly skilled parapsych, so what does it matter if she was the source?”

“Because there’s no evidence, dammit! This kid could be leading us on a wild horse chase, and we’re expected just to go along with it? Nonsense!” He rose from the table.

Say something.

“I might expect this from Fletcher, as soft as he is, but come on, Felicia, let’s be real.”

“Sit down, please, Howard. I’d like Miss Baxter to detail her experiences to the group.”

Howard crossed his arms over his bloated belly but made no move to return to his seat at the table. Everyone cast their gaze to Jessa.

Say. Something.

“Miss Baxter, would you please tell everyone about the dream you had?” Dr Mortlock proposed.

Say anything.

Jessa looked at Flynn. Everyone at the table was looking at her with either concern or fear or confusion. But Flynn simply looked on with kindness.

“I— I…” Jessa’s voice cracked, and she cleared her throat more loudly than she intended. “I had a dream about Annora. I’d fallen asleep after my open-mind practice. I dreamed that she had these scars on the back of her head. But when I touched them she started, I don’t know—she wasn’t herself anymore.” Jessa made the mistake of looking at Annora, who was quaking in silent tears. Jessa looked down and focused on the fingernail she was picking at. “She was possessed or something. And then she ran to the roof. I think she was going to…” she lowered her voice, “she was going to jump. She kept saying something about ‘his mighty resurrection.’ And that’s it, really.”

The room was quiet.

“Hugo, what makes you think this was futuresight?” Rachel asked reasonably.

“Jessa told me about another dream that I subsequently witnessed becoming something of a reality,” he replied.

“So you’ve just had two of these dreams, Jessa?” Rachel questioned further.

“They’re the only two I can remember.”

“What was the second one, the one that Mr Fletcher knew about?”

“I dreamed Maggie failed a test because she missed some questions on the back page of an exam paper.”

“So in real life, has Annora done anything to suggest this dream was futuresight?” Henrik asked rationally. “Because, no offence intended, but any futuresight, and especially one of this detail and magnitude, would be incredibly unlikely at Jessa’s age.”

“We couldn’t take any chances, Henrik,” said Mr Fletcher. “So no, I suppose Annora hasn’t done anything, but we called this meeting immediately to decide how to proceed from here.”

Everyone turned to Annora. The small girl seemed to have shrunk into her chair and disappeared into herself even further under everyone’s scrutiny.

“I didn’t do it,” she said in a small voice. “I don't even know what you think I did, but I swear I didn’t.” Her eyes bulged with wetness.

“Miss Huff,” Dr Mortlock said. “Pardon my directness, but, to your knowledge, have you ever met or had any interaction with Silas Lynch?”

“No! Of course not!” Annora wept.

“It’s all right, Annora,” Mr Fletcher said gently. “But think really hard, is there anything that’s happened to you that might be linked to Silas Lynch? Or maybe you’ve seen the two men wearing long coats, like Jessa described to you once. Remember?”

“I remember Jessa saying it, but I’ve never seen them!” Annora implored.

“This is ridiculous,” Detective Cane said. “She doesn’t know anything; she’s just a kid. This is a waste of time.”

“Wait,” said Rachel. “Before we get too carried away, has anyone checked Annora for the scars like Jessa’s dream predicted?”

“I don’t have any scars!” Annora said defensively.

“Maybe not,” Rachel replied very calmly, “but would you mind if I just look?”

Jessa admired the soft quality to Rachel’s voice. It also seemed to placate Annora, who nodded her approval. Rachel paused, then moved toward Annora.

The room and its occupants watched on in a curious and nervous silence. Rachel placed her hands on Annora’s shoulders and squeezed gently to massage some of her tension away. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you,” she said softly, smoothing Annora’s hair back into a ponytail. Annora closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Jessa stopped picking at her fingernails and paused with one nail indenting her own flesh.

Rachel parted Annora’s hair down the centre of her scalp, exposing a white line of skin in between the two sides of taut gingery curls. She let out a light breath.

“Looks fine to me.”

Annora also let out a sigh of relief.

Rachel lifted up the ponytail in her hand and leafed through the soft hair right at the back of Annora’s skull. “Wait, what’s…” her face scrunched for a second and then unscrunched into a blank look that the onlookers could only understand as horror.

“Oh shit.”