Strangers

the rings on your hands. So maybe it's not the right idea. On the other hand, it does explain some things, and maybe if we think about it long enough, we'll see how it explains these other puzzles, as well. And as a theory, it has one big plus."
        "What's that?" Ned asked.
        "It could explain why Brendan was involved in two miracle cures in Chicago. It could explain the whirling paper moons in Zebediah Lomack's house. And the destruction here at the diner on Saturday night, when Dom was trying to recall what had happened the summer before last. It could explain the source of the apparitional light."
        On the jukebox, the last of a series of songs had faded to its end as Ginger began to speak. But no one got up to choose more music, for they were riveted by her promise to explain the inexplicable.
        "To this point," Ginger said, "the theory's pretty mundane. A red cloud of contaminant. Nothing hard to accept in that. But now… you've got to take a big leap of imagination with me. We've been assuming that the miraculous healing and certainly the poltergeist phenomena have some mysterious external source. Father Wycazik, Brendan's rector, thinks that external source is God. The rest of us don't feel it's exactly divine. We don't know what the hell it is, but we all assume that it's an external power, something out there somewhere that's taunting us or trying to reach us with a message or threatening us. But what if these wonders have an internal source. Suppose Brendan and Dom really possess some power, and suppose that they possess it because of what happened during the night of the red moon. Suppose they have telekinesis - which is the power to move objects without touching them, which would explain the whirling paper moons and the destruction in the diner."
        Everyone looked at Dom and Brendan in amazement, but no one was more startled than those two men, who gaped at Ginger, shocked.
        Dom said, "But that's ridiculous! I'm no psychic, no sorcerer."
        "Me neither," Brendan said.
        Ginger shook her head. "Not consciously, no. I'm saying maybe the power is in you, and you're just not aware of it. Bear with me. Think about it. The first time the rings appeared on Brendan's hands, the first time he exercised his healing power, was when he was combing the hair of the little girl in the hospital. He's said he was overwhelmed with pity for her and filled with frustration and anger that he couldn't help her. Maybe it was his intense frustration and anger that freed the power in him, even though he wasn't aware of it. He couldn't be aware of it because the acquisition of this power is part of what he's been made to forget. Okay, the second time, with the wounded policeman, Brendan found himself in an extreme crisis, which might trigger these powers." She began pacing and talking more rapidly to prevent debate until she'd finished. "Now think about Dom's experiences. The first one, in Reno, at Lomack's house. The way you told it to us, Dom… as you wandered through the house, you became so frustrated by the ever-deepening nature of the mystery that you wanted to rush through those rooms and tear those paper moons off the walls. Those were your very words. And, of course, that's what happened: You pulled those moons off the walls, not with your hands but with this power. And remember, the pictures only fell to the floor when you shouted, 'Stop it, stop it!" When it did stop, you thought something had heard you and obeyed or relented, but in fact you stopped it yourself."
        Brendan, Dom, and a couple of the others still looked skeptical.
        But Ginger had captured Sandy Server's imagination. "It makes sense! It makes even more sense if you think about what happened here on Saturday night, right in this very room. Dom was trying to remember back to that Friday in July, trying to remember what happened right up to the second where his memory block took effect. And while he was struggling to remember… all of a sudden this strange noise, this thunder, started to rumble through the diner, and everything started to shake. He could've been unconsciously using this power of his to re-create the effects of whatever happened back then."
        "Good!" Ginger said encouragingly. "See? The more you think about it, the more it hangs together."
        "But the strange light," Dom said. "You're saying Brendan and I somehow manufactured that?"
        "Yes, possibly,"