Read Online A Division of the Light by Christopher Burns - Free Book Online

girl with the visions. Maybe she’s been on your mind without your realizing it. You’ve been infected by a sense that the real world is a kind of illusion.”
    Alice shook her head. She was no longer sure what to think. Gregory went on.
    â€œWhen you looked at that girl’s face you must have seen that she was a contradictory mixture of the worldly and the unreal.What I told you was true. A successful portrait opens up the personality.”
    But Alice would not discuss it, and broke the spell.
    â€œCan you put these on a full screen? Or enlarge parts of them?”
    â€œThat’s how I decided on the characteristics that were best.”
    â€œThis one,” Alice said, pointing to the image of her body as it was flung toward the lens with its arms outstretched.
    Within a second it filled the screen. Alice stared hard at it, searching for signs that she could not detect.
    She held out one finger near to the screen and traced the shape of an oval around the head.
    â€œCan we get closer?” she asked.
    Gregory zoomed in on a close-up of the angled head. All that Alice could see was her hair, the dark glasses, a face so foreshortened it could have been that of a child being born. And no matter how hard she stared, there was nothing unusual, nothing unexplained and nothing unidentified that could be seen around her.
    â€œAnd my hands?” she asked.
    Again, there was nothing to the hands other than their reaching out in a reflex.
    â€œWhat are you looking for?” Gregory asked.
    â€œI’m not sure. I thought that maybe something would be made visible. It was all so sudden, so hurtful . . .”
    â€œ
Made
visible? Objects are either visible or they’re not. I don’t understand.”
    â€œNo. No, I imagine that you wouldn’t.”
    Gregory leaned purposefully on the table. It creaked slightly beneath his weight.
    â€œWhen we met by the river you hinted at something that mightbe found in the pictures. I told you there was nothing unusual about them. Do you want me to ask you again what you’re looking for?”
    Alice was aware that, for Gregory, the idea of the immaterial suddenly irrupting into the visible world was absurd.
    â€œI’ve heard it said that sometimes cameras catch light patterns around people. Light patterns that can’t normally be detected with the naked eye.”
    Still Gregory did not grasp what she meant, and he spoke as if he expected Alice to find his answer reassuring.
    â€œPhotography has been going beyond the visible spectrum since just after its invention,” he said, and then he paused. She looked down at the prints again. “You mean auras,” he said.
    Suddenly defensive, Alice folded her arms tightly around herself and continued to examine the prints.
    â€œThey don’t exist,” Gregory said flatly. “Oh, there are charlatans who doctor their photos to show faces and bodies surrounded by haloes of color, but that’s easy manipulation. Only the gullible would believe it.”
    â€œI see,” Alice said quietly, although it seemed to her obvious that under certain intense conditions the body would throw off an energy, a vibration, a shield that perhaps only certain kinds of photography would be able to capture.
    â€œI’m not interested in metaphysics,” Gregory said. “Meaning resides in the here and now. Truth lies in how a body moves or facial muscles react. There is no mystery, no transcendence, no Great Beyond. Images and memories are the only things that people leave behind. There’s nothing else.”
    Alice remained silent.
    Confidential, brotherly, apparently trustworthy, Gregory edgeda little closer. He lowered his voice as if they could somehow be overheard.
    â€œIt would be a big step for you; I know that. But it’s one that you should take. You have nothing to fear.”
    Alice did not react, but stared hard at the woman in the photographs.
    â€œMore than