It was during this time that she also made a discovery about herself, which at first alarmed and then delighted her. She had a secret muscle inside her brain, which she could flex almost at will. It allowed her to "see" inside the minds of others. She was wise enough to know that such a gift would breed fear rather than admiration in her classmates and decided to keep this knowledge, unlike the story of her ancestry, to herself.
But the discovery of her gift fueled her interest in magic. Remote viewing, she was convinced, was essentially a magical act. After her discovery, the magic lite of her wicca coven no longer satisfied her, and she embarked on a serious study of the occult. Her main interest was talismans: ordinary objects turned into tools of magic through precise magical rules. Her talismanic knowledge would become all-important later in her life, as would her gift of remote viewing.
Most viewers discover their gift in childhood and share the discovery with a parent, a sibling or a close friend. Morrighan did not. It was a skill she relished, played with and refined. But kept deadly quiet. She was not about to let on to anyone. Least of all, her sister.
But then her mother died. On the first anniversary of the funeral, Morrighan found herself saying: Minnaloushe, I have a secret to tell you. The confession wouldn't have been made if she hadn't been grieving. Afterward, she fully expected derision from her sister. Instead, she found wholehearted acceptance.
Up till that moment, the sisters had not been close. They were jealous of each other and had little in common. Minnaloushe was the cerebral one, Morrighan the athlete. They grew up at separate boarding schools and saw each other infrequently. But on that evening, with the scent of their mother's roses drifting in from the garden and violin notes stirring memories of childhood, the sisters had the first openhearted conversation with each other they could remember. And they made a surprising discovery. Far from not having anything in common, they realized they were both mystics. They were approaching their goal from different directions, but they were on the same journey. A journey, which over the years, would metamorphose into a project that was vastly ambitious.
The project-or game as they referred to it in an attempt to make the enterprise seem less daunting-would eventually consume the women and become the driving force in their life. To seal their pact, they adopted John Dee's Monas Hieroglyphica as their personal sigil. It was the perfect symbol for the game.
Sibling rivalry was set aside. Each brought to the game her own special talent. Minnaloushe contributed a prodigious intelligence and a creativity that was genius. Morrighan's input was her knowledge of the occult. Eventually they would also draw on her talent as a remote viewer.
Together the two sisters aimed for the ultimate prize: Anima mundi. A moment of blinding illumination when they would understand the great secrets of the universe.
The way to achieve this was through building a house of a million doors. Memory was key.
In the course of her studies Minnaloushe had come across the work of such memory artists as Giordano Bruno, Giulio Camillo, Ramon Lull and others. The ingenuity, the erudition and the mind-blowing occult philosophy that lay at the heart of their memory systems took Minnaloushe's breath away. If man's mind truly was an incomplete reflection of the sacred mind, then these men's minds were approaching the divine.
It was a state of mind actively sought by the sisters themselves.
And so, over a period of twenty-two years, they built a memory palace the likes of which had never been seen before. Minnaloushe was the architect and the gatherer of information. Her mathematical skills were crucial to the design of the system. But Morrighan was the one who brought magic into play. Using occult rules, she turned the memory images inside the palace into potent talismans.
Brick by brick, door by door, object by object, the two sisters attempted to create an information system encapsulated within the gray white grooves of the brain alone: a system as wide as the universe, as deep as the human spirit.
They called it The Promethean Key.
But then something went wrong.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
"Robbie." Minnaloushe paused.
Here it comes, Gabriel thought. Finally.
"We should never have allowed him to play the game."
"You deliberately targeted that boy." Gabriel knew his voice was harsh, but he couldn't help it. Robbie must have been such an easy touch for the women. He could imagine the boy being dazzled by the sisters, dazzled by their world…
"Gabriel, I want you to understand that we did not seduce him." Minnaloushe's voice was urgent. "Unlike you, Robbie was already a searcher."
"You must have known he was not up to the task, that he would fail."
She shook her head violently. "Failing or succeeding is not the point. Playing the game is like striking at a block of granite the size of the universe, releasing sparks of divine fire. Simply catching sight of the sparks is prize enough. Robbie understood that. He knew he could never hope to achieve the level of mastery of which Morrighan and I are capable. Except…"
"Except what?"
"About a year after Robbie started working on the Art, Morrighan had an epiphany." Minnaloushe's voice was taut. "And she changed the game. She decided to transfer bits and pieces of the memory palace from her own mind into Robert's consciousness using her remote viewing skills. So what would normally take years would be accomplished within a matter of minutes. With every information transfer, Robbie's memory would expand exponentially. A quantum leap forward every time."
"And it worked? "
"Yes. At first it worked brilliantly. We had some doubts in the beginning, you know. Transformation isn't fast food. You can't just order it like a burger." She gave a ghostly laugh. "Just plonking the palace into Robbie's mind without effort on his part would have defeated the object, to say the least. And it would have been dangerous in the extreme. His mind could have collapsed like a heap of rubble. So at first, Morrighan transferred only fragments-only a very few rooms at a time-and then Robbie had to figure out the order of places, the order of things himself. To put it very simply: he would have to fill in the blanks on his own, connect the dots without assistance. As I say, at first it worked brilliantly. It was as though the process fed on itself. With every transfer, the size of the subsequent data package that could be carried over increased enormously. More and more knowledge could be transferred at a time. It was fantastic. After every transfer, Robbie's memory skills increased exponentially."
"And then?"
"The burden became too heavy. Robbie couldn't filter any longer. He was like a constantly absorbing sponge, but the fibers were starting to unravel. There were clear signs. He was turning into an insomniac. And when he did sleep, he had dreadful nightmares."
"Why didn't he stop?"
"Robbie was addicted. Despite the side effects, he craved the rush."
"Why did you allow it to continue? Weren't you concerned?"
"Of course I was. I told Morrighan to slow down the data transfer. But without my knowing, she actually speeded up the process. Robbie was all for it. And because they knew I wouldn't approve, he and Morrighan kept the whole thing a secret from me."
"Things got out of hand."
"Things got badly out of hand. But, Gabriel, until very recently, I had no idea how badly. I knew Robbie was having problems. But I also thought he was beginning to have doubts about the game itself. I was always concerned that he wouldn't have the kind of mental toughness required for the Art. I knew if we slowed down the data transfer, there was a real chance he might become frustrated and drop out. Of course, I didn't realize the data transfers had increased and were feeding his addiction.