by Sheila Lowe
“So? What if I like Satan?”
Despite the fact that she did not, in fact, like Satan, Jessica, like many girls her age, tended to want the opposite of what others insisted was good for her, or at least act like it.
The woman, paying no attention to the retort, asked her, “What do you know about the pentagram?”
“Penta—what?”
“These pendants that you’re looking at are all pentagrams—the five-pointed star. Sometimes it’s enclosed in a circle, in which case it may be called a pentacle. One point of the star is always upward, which represents spirit. The number five is symbolic to the human being. You have five fingers on each hand and five toes on each foot. You have five senses—sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste.” She paused to make sure her student was paying attention. “So, the first point is spirit and the other four are the elements—earth, air, fire, water. In the pentagram that you picked, the pentagram is inverted. It has one downward point, which symbolizes the subversion of spirit, of Man being ruled by his carnal desires. In this form, it is associated with devil worship.”
“So why do you sell it if it’s so bad?” Jessica retorted.
“We have many kinds of customers.” The woman gestured to the rack. “I see this one calls to you.” She picked out a pendant that had caught Jessica’s eye while she was speaking. It hung from a woven black cord and was made of a dull greenish-blue metal. The outside ring was encircled by a band etched with nine symbols.
“What makes you think I was looking at that one?”
“The symbols on the circle represent the planets,” said the gray-haired woman as if Jessica had not spoken. “This pentacle is the one for you.”
She took Jessica’s hand and turned it palm up, gazing at it for several seconds. When she raised her face, the green eyes had acquired a faraway expression. “You have an intriguing destiny,” the woman said in a dreamy voice. “But first, tragedy comes before you find your path.”
An icy finger traced its way along Jessica’s spine. “Tragedy?” she echoed.
The woman laid the pendant on her open palm, then closed her hand around it and held it for a long moment. “Take it,” she said at length, letting go. “It’s yours.”
“But I—”
“It chose you. It’s not often I give away my creations, but you need to wear this. It will protect you.”
The chill again. “Protect me from what?”
Sadness entered the woman’s green eyes. She squeezed Jessica’s hand tighter, then let go.
“Nothing to be concerned about for many years to come. Just be sure to always keep it somewhere on your person.”
And Jessica had worn the pendant faithfully. Until, in the excitement of leaving home for college, it had gone into a velvet bag, stowed in a box of keepsakes, forgotten until this very moment.
She picked it up from her worktable and closed her hand around it the way the green-eyed woman had done all those years ago. The green-blue metal felt warm, pulsing with a heart of its own. What if she had followed that woman’s advice to keep wearing it? Would she have married Gregory Mack? Would she have had the accident that led to her memory loss and the spirit voices?
Would Justin be alive?
The cord slipped easily over her head. The pendant fell between her breasts under her sweater. Feeling safer now that it lay against her skin, Jessica removed the cloth she had thrown over the shadowbox and switched on her magnifying lamp. She took the sculpted figure of the hog-tied woman and laid it on the tabletop, positioning it under the magnifier. Looking at the magnified figure, she drew a sharp breath.
Zach had pointed out that the pentagram on the spine of the figure was inverted. Under the powerful lens, it was easy make out what his naked eye had missed: the head of the goat, Baphomet, at its center. More evidence of a satanic cult killing.
The inclusion of the symbol associated with the devil left Jessica uneasy, knowing she had been used to create it. The victim had used her to destroy the child’s bedroom she had created and change it into a brutal crime scene.
That’s one powerful spirit. Now, how can I get her to come back?
When she was in treatment for the brain injury and aftereffects of the coma, the physical therapist she worked with had trained Jessica that when her brain went into overload and started to fry, taking notes and writing down what was happening in her life would help organize her thoughts. It had proved true on more than one occasion when confusion and frustration began to take over.
She wanted so much to help solve the murder, and to help the victim in the afterlife if there was a way. Getting a pad and pen, she started setting out a timeline:
― Voices (background until Hailey showed up)
― Occasional episodes, no regular times
― Hailey M. shows up, all hell breaks loose
― Voices, Voices, Voices
― Episode at Ariel’s Gallery
― Episode at beach—Justin and burned boy
― Burned boy in car
― Justin in dream
― Episode—Sh
As she started to write the word “Shadowbox,” the temperature in the room dropped at least ten degrees, the way it had just seconds before the last episode.
She was alone in the cottage, yet somehow, her shoulders were being roughly wrenched behind her. Her wrists and ankles, too. Jessica cried out in pain. The pen dropped from her fingers and rolled on the floor.
Agonizing pain seared her back, spread along her spine. Her back arched and she cried out again. What was happening to her? Was there a way to stop it? She turned her head left and right, trying to see whoever, or whatever, was causing the pain.
A few feet from the chair where she sat, trussed with invisible bindings, a filmy white mist hovered close to the floor.
The apparition was not the first Jessica had ever seen, but it was the first she had encountered while being helpless, hogtied by invisible bindings and about to lose it.
The mist began to rise and take a human shape.
The only defense she had was her voice. She yelled as loud and strong as she could.
“What do you want? Leave me alone!”
She sucked in a breath and opened her mouth wide. Before she could scream for help, the mist disappeared. And with it went the sickening pains in her joints and her back. The room temperature returned to normal.
Jessica let out a shaky sigh. She rubbed her wrists, her ankles, which seemed to be none the worse for her experience. With blinding clarity, she understood that in the same way the burned boy in her vision at the beach had showed her his scarred face, the satanic cult murder victim had just made her spirit presence known. Like the clay figure in the crime scene she had created, she had been subjected to how it felt to be hogtied and helpless. The pain in her spine was the victim’s pain from the knife embedded in her back.
Now that she had sent the spirit away, she regretted it.
A voice spoke in her head as if she had made the remark out loud. “You did ask for it.”
Dude, could you do it a little less dramatically?
Jessica’s gaze fell on the notepad, which she was surprised to see was still on her lap.
Under the last line, written in a handwriting not her own, were the words “retribution,” and a signature: “Finley Hunter.”
SIX
Jessica drove the sixty-five miles to Venice Beach, where Zebediah Gold saw patients in his home office. Like her, he lived in a studio behind a larger house. His was behind an Asian-style home enclosed behind a high wall.
In the amnesia days when she believed she was Jenna, the first time she met him she had arrived at his door for what the doctor expected to be a second visit. He was as unaware as Jessica that he was treating the wrong twin.
Ever since then, Dr. Gold had been a constant in her life, the rock she had clung to through the years since amnesia. Whenever the weight of the past threatened to crush her; when the void left by the death of her child wante
d to swallow her whole, she would call him. He never insisted she see him on a regular schedule. Knowing he was there when she needed him was as comforting to Jessica as she imagined a loving mother’s hug might be.
Every time she strolled through the Japanese garden between the two dwellings, she made it a point to pause at the miniature bridge that spanned a koi pond. Stopping beneath the Japanese Black Pine, she patted the head of the laughing Buddha statue and said a prayer for the Buddha to help Dr. Gold fix her problem with Jen.
Today, Zebediah Gold wore his standard casual linen shirt, shorts and sandals. He ushered her inside with a brief hug. “I’m happy to see you, Jess.”
“I know, it’s been a while.”
“That wasn’t a reproach. I hear from you when the time is right.”
She grinned. “That’s very Zen of you.”
“A paradox, my dear?” He grinned back. “How many Zen masters does it take to change a light bulb?”
“Tell me, Dr. Gold, how many Zen masters does it take to change a light bulb?”
“Three. One to change it, one not to change it, and one to do neither.”
She gave the expected chuckle and they settled into their respective chairs at either end of a low table. Even after all this time, Jessica felt more comfortable with that barrier between them.
“How’s everything going?” asked Dr. Gold after pouring, as he always did, green tea from the iron pot that stood on a trivet.
“I guess if it was going well, I wouldn’t be here, right?”
“Sad, but true.” He handed her a cup of tea and sat back, ready to listen after his standard opening of ‘How can I help’? Then waited patiently until she was ready to unburden herself.
Accepting the cup, Jessica set it on a coaster on the table. Over most of the drive down to Venice she had worked out how best to explain what had been happening to her. Their many conversations had taught her that he was all compassion and empathy. There would be no judgment from Doctor Gold.
She sat back, crossed her legs and got herself ready for the big reveal. “I’d like to get your opinion, okay?”
“Of course.”
“What do you believe happens when we die?”
Both his brows went up. “I must say, you’ve surprised me, Jessica. That’s not a question I would have predicted. I need a moment to think about it.” He stroked his beard, as he was apt to do while pondering a philosophical question. His answer, when it came, was as philosophical as the question.
“What is the sound of one hand clapping? Since no one has come back to report on it, there is no answer. So, I believe that we die and that’s the end of it. We do what we’ve come here to do, and then we disappear into nothingness until the next life—I do believe in reincarnation.”
“What do you think of people who say they’ve seen the spirits of their dead relatives, or they’ve gone to heaven and been sent back with a mission to complete?”
He smiled. “Wishful thinking, I suspect. Strong emotions can make us imagine all sorts of things.”
His words disappointed her more than she would have expected. “I thought you would be the kind of person who would believe in the sound of one hand clapping.”
As she was speaking, a woman materialized behind him and looked at her in a meaningful way. Surprised, Jessica asked her telepathically to identify herself, and was further surprised when the woman began impressing thoughts on her mind.
“I take it you disagree?” asked Dr. Gold. “I’m sure you have a good reason for—” He interrupted himself and turned his head to look over his shoulder. “What are you looking at, Jess?”
The spirit woman was being quite insistent, talking so fast that Jessica had to struggle to keep up. She spoke to her therapist. “This might be a strange question, but who is the lady you knew with the M name—M-Mad—Madison, Maddy—Oh, Madeleine? Is that it?”
Dr. Gold startled as if she had poked him with a branding iron. “What? What did you just say, Jessica? How do you—?”
Jessica raised her hand, signaling him to wait while she listened to the spirit. “Okay, I get it,” she said, then brought her eyes back to him again. “She was your wife? Not for very long. But you always stayed friends. For a long time. Obviously, she’s on the other side now. I’m so sorry.”
Dr. Gold’s expression was a mix of astonishment and bewilderment. “Who told you—” Then, “Claudia? She told you about Madeleine?”
“No, not a word. Maddy is standing behind you on your left side. She’s beautiful, Doctor Gold.” The spirit woman drew her attention again, continuing to transmit thoughts. “She says she knows she wasn’t the right one for you, but she wants me to tell you that she never stopped loving you and…what? Oh. She wants to say thank you for finishing the book. She’s very happy with the way it turned out, even though there were some serious problems with—I’m not sure what. Do you understand that? She doesn’t say what the problems were.”
Refocusing her gaze on her therapist, she saw that his eyes were shining with unshed tears, which he covered by blowing his nose. “I’m so sorry, Dr. Gold,” she said, at once contrite. “This must seem super-intrusive to you, but the spirit people can get very insistent. This is what I’ve come to talk to you about. Some pretty strange things have been happening to me.”
“Jess, I—I’m speechless. How in the…?” She had never seen him at a loss for words before, but he was staring at her as if she were an alien trying to talk him onto her spaceship, bound for the outer reaches of the universe.
“I’m like that little boy in the movie, Doc. I see dead people. Until recently, I only heard them, but now—”
Dr. Gold, still looking shell-shocked, collected his wits and sat forward in his chair, elbows on knees. All engaged interest, he was back in therapist mode. “How long has all this been going on, Jess?”
“It started not long after I came out of the coma, these quiet voices in my head. I was afraid to admit I was hearing voices and have everyone think I was crazy, so I pretty much turned a deaf ear and tuned them out as best I could. When I first met you, when I had amnesia, there were no voices. After I got my life back, they started up and I went back to ignoring them. Then, one night a few weeks ago, a woman who was murdered came to me in a dream and gave me clues that helped Zach solve the case. Since then, it’s escalated. I started having these blackout episodes and the voices got louder and nonstop. Now they line up, trying to get my attention.”
“Why don’t you tell me about the blackouts.”
“It starts with this whistly-shrieky noise in my head and then my vision fades to black. I don’t fall down or, like, faint. When it first happened, I couldn’t see anything at all, but within a couple of minutes, everything was back to normal. But now, it’s different. A couple of days ago I saw my son, Justin, and another spirit boy playing ball. We spoke to each other and it was as real as you and me sitting here now.” Pausing for breath, Jessica looked at Doctor Gold to see if he had anything to say. He gave an encouraging nod to continue.
“The next time it happened, I was out of it for hours. I made a shadowbox and have no memory of doing it—it was horrible, a crime scene. When I woke up, I was standing out on my patio in the rain. And in case you’re wondering, when all this started, I went to see my neurosurgeon. The tests showed nothing physically wrong with me. Maybe I’m just crazy, but I don’t think so.” The telling of it for the second time left her drained.
Doctor Gold looked at her, his face neutral. “It sounds to me as if you entered a brief fugue state, similar to when you had amnesia, although of course, that was for a far longer period.” He tipped his head to one side, considering her. “Do you have any thoughts on what these spirits want from you, Jess?”
“There’s no mystery. They want me to give messages to people, like I just did to you, and I’m okay with that. The problem is, there are so many of them; it’s overwhelming when they want to reach people that I don’t know how, which is most of the time. It’s
different with Maddy because I know you. Of course, I had no inkling that she was going to show up here, but when I sat down, there she was. I think maybe it’s because she wanted you to believe me. She gave some evidence so that you would.”
“It’s hard to disregard. You’re sure Claudia has never mentioned her?”
“Absolutely one-hundred-percent sure. Besides, she’s still standing there. I can see her as plain as day. Not in the flesh, but semi-transparent. She’s saying she wants you to tell her nephew how proud she is of him for what he’s accomplished.”
Dr. Gold blew a breath through puffed cheeks. Now he was the one to raise a hand to stop her. “Okay, okay, I believe you. And yes, tell her I will pass along the message.”
“You can tell her yourself if you hurry. Her energy is starting to fade.”
“Okay.” He turned around in his seat and spoke to the woman who was invisible to him. “Thank you, Madeleine. I will definitely tell him.” Turning back, he shook his head in apparent amazement. “Well, that came out of left field, to say the least. Now, let’s focus on you. How can I help you?”
“I told Jen everything I told you. Let’s just say it didn’t go well.”
“You hadn’t told her before now?”
“No, she’s way too judgy. And the way she reacted proves I was right. We’d just arranged for me to babysit the twins. Then, after I told her about the spirits—and I only told her because she insisted I tell her what was going on with me—she changed her mind. Now we’re not talking.
“Look, Doctor Gold, I’m here because I need to convince her that she doesn’t have any reason to be afraid of me. I’m not possessed by demons, which is what she thinks. She should let me see my nieces without her hovering over us. I need you to help me.” Jessica picked up her cup and drank the bitter green tea, wishing he would keep some sweetener on the table. Why did it have to taste nasty to be healthy?
“I understand you’ve waited quite a while to babysit your nieces. You’ve mentioned it before and I know how much it means to you. They’re what—two now? Three? Time does fly. Have you thought about the situation if it was reversed? Wait—I’m not judging, I’m just asking.”