I don't own Doyle. I don't own the Secret Saturdays.
I own Corbin, Zander, the servants, the animals, and whoever else shows up occasionally.

Much of this chapter exists simply because I'm playing around with the "psychic versus magic" mentality, and attempting to further develop some ideas in that direction for my original fiction.
Well, that and the fact that I believe that all children are psychic to some extent—some just outgrow it as they get older, for a variety of reasons.

At the bottom, I have a basic explanation of what I was trying to do with Doyle's abilities.

Timing: Same day, or maybe the day after, as the previous chapter.

Stray

"Dad?"

"Hmm?" Corbin looked up from his book to see Zander's dazed expression. "Hey, what's wrong? Did he get scared off?"

"Who? Oh, Doyle." Zander swallowed. "No, he's fine...I think." Zander slid down the wall to a sitting position. "Um, dad? Horses are smart, right? I mean, you can train them kinda like dogs?"

Corbin put down the book and tilted his head back. "There's some debate over how smart horses are; most people think dogs are quite a bit smarter, but yes, they can be trained just the same." He smiled. "If the human is smart enough, at least."

"Could you...could you train 'em to play soccer? Like, say, just take a few minutes and tell 'em what to do, and then they'd be ready? Or—or maybe they could watch a few games, and then you tell 'em the rules?"

"What? No," Corbin replied. "Yes, they're smart enough to learn; no, not that quickly. No human could ever learn that quickly; we certainly couldn't train an animal any better. There's too many things that we take for granted, that a horse won't understand the same way, maybe won't understand at all."

"Like Doyle doesn't understand when someone's just being nice," Zander muttered. A little louder, he said, "What about Viper?"

"Viper is...." Corbin thought for a moment. "Viper cannot be trained. At all. Not that he isn't smart; he's plenty smart, smarter than most humans—not that that's saying much. If he wasn't, he'd go after any human he saw. But after what his owners did to him...." He shrugged. "He's better than any guard dog, but the best I could train him is to convince him not to hurt my family."

"Oh, okay."

"Zander, are you okay?" Corbin knelt in front of him and peered into his face. "You kids haven't been overworking yourselves, have you?"

"N—no, I just saw...." Zander shook his head. "I don't know what I saw." He let his dad fuss over him for a moment. "Dad? You remember what Benton said about Doyle? That thing with the foxes? And how Doyle seems to trust animals, even though he doesn't do well with people?"

"Can you blame him?" Corbin replied. "Animals are not cruel, for sake of being cruel. Survival, maybe, but not just to be hurtful." Then he remembered that hypnosis session, and the first vaguely remembered monster. "Usually." They didn't know why the creature had attacked, but there had been something disturbing about Doyle's memory of it, something that nobody could identify.

"No—well, yeah, but not just that. I think—I think he can talk to them. And—and he can understand them."

Zander told his father about the latest game, and about how Viper had taken part. Corbin sat patiently, listening to and analyzing what most other parents would have thought pure make believe.

"And you know something? Viper playing goalie wasn't even the weirdest thing."

"How so?" Corbin asked.

"Doyle, he—when he said something about me not being able to hear Viper, he—he seemed surprised, like he hadn't known I couldn't hear them. And...." Zander shook his head, trying not to laugh. "I'm actually wondering if I should feel annoyed about it; I think he felt sorry for me. Like me not hearing them meant I was crippled or something."

—

"All right, boys, I've got a new game for you," Corbin announced a couple of days later. "Zander, you may remember this one, but it has been a while, and I've changed out the rules a bit."

He sat down at the table and motioned for Doyle and Zander to join him, and then laid down a few sheets of paper and a deck of cards.

"What I have here are called 'Zener' cards," Corbin said. "Each card has one of five pictures, a circle, a star, a cross, a square, or a set of waves." He drew each symbol as he named it. "I've a deck of fifty, meaning ten of each card. I will take one card at a time, and both of you—separately, mind—need to guess which picture is on the card. Whatever your guess, write it down. Do you both understand?"

Both children nodded.

"Take however much time you need, and...let us begin." Corbin shuffled the deck, then took one card from the top. Once the children wrote down their guesses, he noted what symbol was actually on the card and laid it aside, then took up another card. This continued until the entire deck was used.

After they finished, Corbin sent the boys off while he and one of the servants helped to compare the lists.

"So what's the deal with this test, anyway?" one of the servants asked. "Aren't these for precog, at least the way you did it? Thought you wanted to check for telepathy?"

"I'd thought I might use the cards for that," Corbin agreed. "But if he is precognitive, this will show if I need to find some other test."

"Hey, Corb?" another servant said. "Did you...show them which cards you had?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Did you shuffle the deck after?"

Corbin blinked. "Um, no, I don't believe so."

The servant showed him another pattern. At the beginning of the test, their guesses were statistically plausible, though Zander showed a little more accuracy than Doyle. Their misses, in terms of what they missed and how often, seemed to be all over the place. As they progressed, their accuracy seemed to improve significantly. Towards the end, Zander correctly guessed all but five of the last twenty cards; those other five were merely out of order. Doyle correctly guessed all of the last twenty.

One of the servants glanced at the list and whistled. "Advice, Corb? Don't play poker with these two. Ever."

Corbin looked at the lists again with a sheepish expression. "Oops."

—

The next morning, after breakfast, Corbin explained the results to the two boys. "I'm told this kind of memory is very...rare." He gave Doyle an amused grin, and said, "If you weren't learning your numbers, this could not have happened."

Then he sat down and tried the test again. This time, after marking down which card he actually had, he shuffled it back into the deck before drawing the next card.

They took these tests several times over the next week. The results suggested talent in both children, but the evidence was negligible enough that further testing could go either way.

Corbin decided that the evidence was so slight that if Doyle really could understand animals, the difference would be clear, and he chose to proceed with the next step.

Over the course of the next two weeks, Corbin arranged for one child to see the cards, and the other to guess. When Doyle saw the cards, Zander guessed right about 80 percent of the time.

When Zander saw them, Doyle's guesses were no better than before, though the patterns seemed a little more regular.

Corbin made a note to look into that, and went on to the next step. He took Doyle outside and convinced him to put on a blindfold, then proceeded to show the cards to whichever animal they could convince to sit still long enough.

Viper came along, and Doyle sighed. "Mister Corbin, sir, Viper wants to know why we got to do this."

"That's why we're doing this," Corbin replied. "Because you think you can understand the animals."

Doyle took off the blindfold. "What do you mean? Of course I can understand them." He looked confused. "I never seen anyone else guessing these cards, so what's that got to—"

"Not everyone can understand animals, Doyle," Corbin said. "Outside of stories told for fun, you're the first person I've heard of who can."

"But—but you guys talk to your animals all the time. And them farmers—"

Corbin shook his head. "We talk to them, yes, and some people learn to understand their body language. But we do not understand them; we do not understand what they say. It's not even that we can't understand their language, either; we don't hear or see anything that we could even try to translate. I don't know what it's like for you, Doyle, but it's not like just another language to us. Not to the rest of world."

Doyle stared around him. He thought about the weird looks people had given him when he talked to their animals. "You—none of you can understand them? You can't hear them?"

"Not one of us," Corbin repeated.

Doyle told them that Viper agreed to the test, and the stallion lay down to watch the cards while Doyle turned around with his blindfold on. Corbin proceeded to show the cards to the stallion one at a time, and Doyle named them off as they came.

"Star. Circle. Waves. Star. Square. Circle. Sq—" Viper whinnied, and Doyle changed his answer. "Uh, Star." He turned around. "Viper! You're not supposed to correct me out loud! You're just supposed to think it at me."

"That's all right," Corbin said. "Let's just keep going."

After they'd checked with several animals, they compared Doyle's answers with the actual cards, and discovered he'd erred only about 5 percent of the time. Upon examining the lists more closely, they saw that he'd mixed up a few squares and stars, but made no other mistakes.

—

A week had gone by in this manner when Zander asked to try something. He wanted to try sending again, but with a new tactic.

Corbin agreed, and when Zander saw the cards, and tried to think them at Doyle, the younger child guessed right perhaps 60 percent of the time. He still mixed up squares and stars, and occasionally circles were thrown into the mix, but it was definitely a case of mistaking one specific image for another.

Corbin frowned at the results. "How—how did—" He glanced at the results again. "Is he getting better at this? At reading you, I mean?"

"I don't know, maybe," Zander replied. "Or maybe he's reading me different."

"Different how?"

"Well," Zander said, "when we did this before, when I saw the cards, I thought about what the things were called. I thought the names, the words. But when he saw them...I don't know what he thought, but everything I got from him was pictures. I didn't get the word 'star,' I got the picture of the star. Same with the others. Same as when you had us writing them; I wrote it, he drew the picture." He turned to Doyle. "That's how they do it, isn't it? The animals?"

Doyle nodded. "Everything's pictures or sounds and stuff to them. Closest they get to words is if it's something they don't have an image for, and they got make sure I understand—like maybe a person's name. But then, they don't send the word, they send.... They send the sound of a two-legger—a human—saying the word."

"But when I tried to think at you before, I used the words," Zander added. "I didn't do it the way you're used to with them, did I? So you didn't understand it the same. And I used the pictures this time, so you understood it better." Doyle nodded.

"He still did a lot better with the animals than he did with you," Corbin said. "Even this way."

"So he's better at picking them up than he is me." Zander shrugged. "He understands them differently. He made the same mistakes, so maybe it ain't always clear, and I'm a little less clear than they are. Like when you got a new TV, and some channels come in better?"

Corbin finally shrugged off the whole discussion and left the two to talk.

"So can you hear them okay, now?" Zander asked.

"Not always," Doyle replied. "It's like—" He looked out the window and pointed to the stables. "I can 'hear' them talking, but none of them are talking to me right now. I mean, Viper is, but the rest...." He shrugged. "I guess it's more like when your servants are all talking, maybe if you listen hard enough you can hear what they're saying. But they're all talking at the same time, and none of them are talking to you, so it's harder to pick out." He glanced back towards Viper and shook his head. "No, that isn't right, either. If your servants were all talking, it'd be hard to hear one of them even if he was talking to you. But I can hear Viper just fine over the others...." He shook his head again. "I don't know."

Zander nodded. "You said Viper's talking to you right now?"

"Yeah, he's telling me it's all right to tell you about it."

Zander blinked at that remark. Was that why Doyle was suddenly willing to talk? Because one of the animals said it was okay? "So how's he sound? To have him actually talk to you?"

"Be like if one of your people came down and whispered in your ear, only.... It don't sound quite like it."

"Like a different accent? Or a different language?"

"Um...." Doyle had to think about that. "Accent, probably. Only it's the humans who sound like they've got an accent."

"What if...." Zander thought carefully. "What if they didn't want to be heard? Not like they just weren't trying to talk to you. What if they want you not to hear it?"

Doyle shook his head. "Never tried it. I suppose there might be a way to hear them, but I probably couldn't do it."

—

Weeks passed, and the testing continued in its various forms.

Zander came downstairs once to see his dad going through the deck. Doyle's head was on the table, his arms covering his face.

"Wave. Wave. 'Nother wave. Wave. Wave." His voice was muffled by his arms, but he sounded tired. "Still a wave."

"Hey, dad," Zander called. "Thought you'd eliminated the pre-cog."

Corbin shook his head. "I've eliminated the possibility that it could interfere with other tests. I have not eliminated it as a possible talent, for either of you." He looked at the deck with a strange expression. "This particular session has proven...odd, however."

"How so?" Zander asked.

Corbin gestured at Doyle, who continued to call out wave after wave. "These results are a statistical near-impossibility."

Zander snorted. "Isn't that kind of the point? See if you can guess a lot better than what the odds say will happen?"

"He's been right about 70 percent of the time, with the same guess. Zander, I've drawn these cards a hundred times already, and almost every single one has been a wave. Since I have shuffled the deck every time, I could, theoretically, have missed some cards in so many draws, but to draw from the same group of ten nearly every time?"

Zander's eyebrows shot up. "Hey, Doyle, don't you think you should pick another guess? You can't on getting waves all the time, can you? Even though you have."

"I ain't guessing anymore," Doyle mumbled.

"Hmm?"

"I said I ain't guessing." Doyle pulled his head out of his hands. His expression was guarded as always, but Zander corrected his earlier thought; Doyle sounded bored. "I'm done guessing. I chose a picture, and I want that picture."

Zander and Corbin shared confused looks. Zander reached for the deck and turned it over. He flipped through the cards and placed them in front of his father, one by one.

Over half the deck was waves.

Zander collected those that were not and laid them out, face down. "Doyle, do you want these cards to be waves?"

Doyle looked at him, then at the indicated cards. "Yeah, sure." He laid his head in his arms again.

"Which one, Doyle?" Zander pointed at the cards. "Which one do you want to be a wave?"

Doyle looked again and pointed to a random card.

"But that one's a cross," Corbin muttered.

"I want it to be a wave," Doyle said.

"Dad?" Zander took the indicated card and flipped it over.

It was a wave.

—

The next day, Corbin found a couple of packs of regular playing cards, with different color backs, and began testing another theory.

As the testing advanced, they learned that Doyle had a limited ability to change things, though it seemed to drain him.

In one such test, he showed Doyle a card from each deck—a four from the red deck and a three from the blue, then flipped them back over. "Now, then, can you swap the three and the four?"

"Dad, I really don't think—" Zander began.

"Easy, Zander, I just want to see."

Doyle looked at the cards for a moment. "Done," he said with a sigh.

Corbin glanced down. The cards were in the same position he left them. "They're not changed."

"Maybe they're not changed 'cause you're pushing him too hard," Zander muttered.

"I did swap 'em," Doyle protested.

"Dad," Zander whispered. "Remember how I talked about wanting Doyle to enjoy himself? I don't think he's enjoying himself."

"Try it again," Corbin said. To Zander, he whispered, "What do you mean?"

"I don't know if he was having fun when this started, but I know he ain't having fun, now. You're not even looking at helping him, anymore. You're just pushing him so you can see what he can do, making him do this until he can't do anymore. You ain't like that, anymore."

Corbin gave a start. "Sorry," he said. "Sorry, I wasn't thinking." He looked up at Doyle and forced a smile. "Ah, what am I doing? You're wanting to sleep, and here I am, testing you like some kind of lab rat. Go on, off to bed with you."

Zander and Doyle both went off to bed, and Corbin started to clean up the cards.

He picked up the two on the table and flipped them over.

The blue card was a four, and the red card was a three.

Long explanation, but probably better here than trying to work it into the chapter.
I have a few "psychic" abilities I've given Doyle (three, in particular) that I plan to work into my original fiction. Namely that, though not everybody of this particular group has these abilities, they are rather...common among people with certain other abilities (one of the later steps of that "animals behave strangely" business). Kind of like the "Required Secondary Powers" as explained on TVTropes.
Or not.

First, most important—and given previous chapters, probably the most obvious—I'm trying to say that Doyle has a telepathic ability.
However, since he picks up animals better than he does humans, and since animals in general don't think the same way humans do, there's my hand-wave for why it doesn't show up in official canon.
The only way I see canon ever contradicting that one (or rather, that theory contradicting canon) is if JS decides he is telepathic...but understands humans better.... (Unless it comes up in the show—or somebody asks him—I doubt JS will come out of the blue and say "Doyle's not telepathic," so there goes that contradiction.)
Otherwise, it's a case of "it's not canon, but it could happen."
The telepathy has another affect that has already shown up now and again throughout my story, though I've never actually mentioned it as such, outside of Doyle's attempt to explain it. I haven't decided if I will mention it, let alone explain it, outside of certain key other stories (namely, stories in which someone else has a similar ability).

Second, and here's where it got weird: I don't want to say that Doyle is precognitive or anything else. Yes, at some point, I start giving him precognitive dreams, but I don't want to include that in the list of his personal talents.
At least beyond the "all children are psychic" theory. (Hey, I dreamed up a scene in the actual show, months before it happened. That doesn't mean that I'm precognitive. Although JS suggested I might be...but I'm sure he was joking.... Mostly sure.)
The thing with reading the cards in the first test is that he can sense the properties of an object. This ability is comparable to psychometry (also known as token object reading)—except that his ability doesn't involve knowing things about the owner of said object.
My hand-wave for this one is to say that this is part of the reason that "punchy, kicky" Doyle is as good as he is at the science stuff, such as his chemical combo (episode 8), fixing and improving various machines (microwave field generator in episode 9), and various other scientific stuff he's worked on. (As well as my claim somewhere within my fanfiction that he's got a natural skill for fixing things...such as the Naga relic, episodes 22 and 25—and one or more other ideas I'm playing around with in my fic.)
Which is to say, this ability is how he understands the properties of what he's dealing with well enough to...deal with it.

Doyle's sort-of psychometry, combined with the magic I've been playing around with, creates another ability: a skill comparable to micro-telekinesis.
That remark in an earlier chapter about "wanting to open the door" besides the point, I am not going to have Doyle move objects with his mind (though it's left open, so it won't contradict things if JS came up with it). He can, however, change the properties of objects...like swapping the faces of the cards even though the cards never moved.
This one in particular is the reason that he's got a knack (within the boundaries of my fan-fic, at least) for healing. General healing, that is, and quick recovery from minor injuries, or "survive long enough for proper treatment" healing, not anything as specialized as recovering from certain types of injuries (as we'll see in a couple of my main fics).
However, because this one is more of an active ability—as opposed to the "passive" ability to hear and understand thoughts, or to sense an object's properties—it takes a little more out of him. (Which is the other reason he can't use it to recover from major injuries; the drain could kill him as quick as the injury would have.)
I'll hand-wave that one by saying that his Micro Adhesive gloves (...episode 2 of season 2, right?) are his way of accomplishing one of the things he could've done with Micro-TK...but without the drain on his strength. And that there are probably other examples throughout the series.

There, you have one child who has the potential to use a vast number of psychic abilities simply by creative application of only two or three.
I like pulling that stunt. It's the same one I use to select Gifts in my Valdemar fan-fic...if I had Valdemar fan-fic.
It doesn't always work, though.

Fourth, the carvings, and their "attractive" properties: I have no idea.
They were "originally" a perfectly mundane hobby I came up with in the beginning of the Sierra story (in a scene that might no longer exist in any form, at that).
Part of my brain just insisted on playing around with them from there, particularly when deciding why Doyle got involved with the Revan household.
The carvings could be another product of the magic/TK, but the magic within them?
Maybe I'll just say that it's largely instinctive, combined with general spells that anyone with magic can learn, and leave it at that.