Blood of the White Bear

by Marcia Calhoun Forecki

  “A KOL is an individual – a dynamic, charismatic individual – who speaks for a field of study or process. That person establishes herself as a leader on her subject – in your case the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. You speak and write articles. You guest lecture at universities. You give interviews on CNN and PBS about medical topics – not limited to RA. You receive awards – we take care of getting you nominated for the awards. As the knowledge leader, your opinions become valued and sought after. One of those opinions is that ROMeze is an important weapon in the whole arsenal against RA. If you can expand the knowledge gained from developing ROMeze to autoimmune disorders generally, that’s the icing on the chocolate cupcake.”

  “I’m a scientist.”

  “A leading scientist. An influential scientist. I heard you killed at the conference when you introduced ROMeze.”

  “I talked about P1601. It’s still in development. I have a lot of work to do yet on the drug.”

  “That work can be done by – let’s say, less dynamic scientists.”

  “It’s my project, my grant.”

  “Not any more. Theo thinks we need to put some distance between you and the grant, and frankly, from a career track point of view, this could not be a better opportunity for you.”

  “I’m to become a spokesperson?”

  Cella’s smile remained in place, but her voice took on a broken glass edge, “A knowledge opinion leader. The contacts you make will be personally invaluable to you. I’m not being disloyal to say you will, probably, do yourself more good than you would being hidden in a lab at Socoro.”

  Rachel was impressed with the smiling ice sculpture. Under Cella’s caramel-colored page boy haircut were some rapid-fire neurons. Rachel wondered how much of the velvet voice was a performance; at least sixty percent, she imagined.

  “What about my lab team? We’ve been together for several years, some of us.”

  “Some will continue to work on the FDA trials. Others will be reassigned. Socoro has a place for all. No one is being let go,” Cella cooed.

  “Except the embezzler,” Rachel corrected her. Reyna looked up from behind the monitor. Her eyes were a lovely green, Rachel noticed.

  “Of course,” said Cella. “She won’t be prosecuted, though. The Foundation is fine with the work-out.”

  “Good. How long do I have to consider this?”

  “Take all the time you need,” Cella said, “but not too long. Your glass ceiling is seriously cracked. Your breakthrough is imminent, Dr. Bisette. Do you wear much fuchsia? That color would be stunning on you. Won’t she photograph well in fuchsia, Reyna?”

  Rachel gulped her coffee. She did not want to discuss color palettes. She wanted to get out of the room and onto the water. A few hours on the river was what she needed to sort out the events of the past few days. By the time Cella reported to Theo Walcz that she could make Rachel into a brilliant opinion leader, Rachel was slipping her scull into the Norwalk River.

  Rachel cycled to the marina. Her legs were so full of nervous energy that her feet kept slipping off the pedals. Her mind raced from one revenge scenario to another.

  I’ll blow the whistle on Socoro’s rush to market on P1601. I’ll walk into the FDA and chain myself to the receptionist. I’ll appear before Congress. I’ll make a video that will go viral.

  At the marina, Rachel retrieved her newly repaired scull and practically ran with it to the water.

  I’ll hide a roll of hundred dollar bills, covered in cocaine, in a baggie, duct-taped to the bottom of a shelf in Walcz’s mahogany credenza. I’ll send a surge to Cella’s giant computer and blow out the motherboard five minutes before she makes a presentation. I’ll, I’ll …

  As soon as Rachel eased the scull into the water, seated herself and felt the familiar pull of the water against the oars, her vengeful mind started to calm. She glided on the liquid ribbon. Her arms and legs took over, working independently of her brain. Entering the walls of trees was like returning to the past, stroke by stroke, to childhood and the comfort of a womb. Safe, silent, and sensual. Rachel was in a place where the senses ruled and thought was unnecessary. It was a place of the spirit. When she surrendered to the river, the images of her mind were her father’s arms around her and the smell of her mother’s blouse against her cheek. She smelled the woody, smoky fragrance of an outdoor fire. She floated under the expanse of the sky, held in strong arms. Here and there, popping into her mind in every scene, was the laughing face of the kachina.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The farmhouse sat far from the street, which had been a dirt road when the northern Virginia house was first built, two tidy stories with the original stone chimney. Fans of fuchsia azaleas grew on both sides of the front steps. Helen Walker grew up in this house, and her great-grandmother planted the azaleas. The long drive from the street to the house was paved ages ago with stones. The roots of weeds growing between the nineteenth century paving stones pushed up some of them, so the drive looked like unplowed ground. The family entered the property from a side street and parked in back of the house.

  In recent times, developers tried to buy the property. Helen’s father successfully fought off the bribes and condemnation threats of a strip mall developer. Mr. Walker watched the mall being built, enjoyed a decade of success, and saw it become abandoned. Helen grew up in the two story monstrosity. Her classmates declared it haunted. For a semester in high school, after her father died and her mother succumbed to mourning, the kids called her Carrie and laughed at her behind her back. Helen used most of her inheritance to buy a Kawasaki to ride to school, where she chained it to the flagpole.

  After graduation, Helen went to California and attended the University of Southern California. She rode the Kawasaki, wearing bikini tops and miniskirts, studied clinical psychology and mythology, and earned credentials in hypnotherapy and homeopathy. She opened a clinical practice, wearing scrub shirts over her bikini tops. Some weekends, she surfed; on others, she hiked the foothills of Mount Wilson for herbs.

  In 2000, Helen’s mother was diagnosed with bone cancer. Helen sold her surfboard and her Kawasaki, packed her herbs into baby food jars, and shipped them to Virginia. She flew to Baltimore and rented a car. She drove to the back of the old house from the side street, called Enterprise to pick up the car, and stayed with her mother until the end. Helen managed her mother’s cancer pain with herbs and hypnosis. Her mother refused to drink “Drano,” as she referred to chemotherapy. Helen’s marrow was a match for a transplant, but there was no insurance to pay for it. By the time Helen arranged for a second mortgage and a personal loan, it was too late for the procedure. The two women held hands at the end, lying together in a bed strewn with fragrant eucalyptus. The stereo played Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez continuously until Mrs. Walker felt good enough to die.

  Helen stayed in Virginia, studied with Appalachian midwives and herbalists, and opened a practice on the first floor of the old house. She pulled up the old paving stones from the front drive and made a little parking lot off the side street. The long drive became an herb garden. Helen turned the old summer kitchen building into a small herbarium. Neighbors started driving past the deserted strip mall with their windows rolled down to enjoy the fragrance of the front garden.

  * * *

  Rachel turned off the side street into Helen Walker’s driveway. Aunt Pansy told her precisely how to get here, where to park, and instructed her to make sure to walk around to the front door, so she could experience the garden. When Rachel arrived at the front of the timeless, southern farmhouse, the fragrance stopped her. The air smelled sweet, musty and fresh, changing just slightly as she turned toward different areas of the garden. What struck her scientific eye next was the profusion of the plants. She was surrounded by flora of every size and hue of green, some flowering, some tall and flexible like old prairie grass. There were plants with small round leaves that seem
ed to have pushed their way into any opening. It was impossible to follow the trail of the vines back to the original plant. Rachel remembered cartoons she saw as a child where plants grew around characters’ legs and pulled them up until they were hanging upside down. She shuffled her feet a little, in case the vines were heading her way.

  Rachel recognized the nervous feeling she was experiencing. She wanted to put the plants into pots and rows, organized by type and size, and perhaps by medicinal properties. She would arrange clear areas where she could set up experiments with soils and pollination. These plants could be arranged into a very substantial collection for study. Rachel thought that if she were in charge of organizing this garden, she would start by tracing the branches of that little succulent vine.

  “Are you admiring my garden or analyzing it?” Helen Walker stood at the edge of the gallery, what old southern farmhouse owners called a porch. Rachel wondered how long Helen stood there. She was impressed that Helen recognized the scientific mind at work. Maybe Helen was as intuitive as Aunt Pansy claimed, although it was more likely Aunt Pansy bragged about Rachel’s career accomplishments, as she did to so many others.

  “Everything is so beautiful and lush,” said Rachel.

  “Yes. Nature finds its own order. I think it wise not to mess with that plan,” said Helen.

  Rachel followed Helen into the house. Every window was uncovered and open. They were the old style windows, long and narrow. The crocheted valances at the top were exactly what Rachel expected. There were tall, pillar candles in the old, wrought iron fireplace, already burning away.

  “You have a lovely home. It’s so open and light.”

  “Thank you. I’m grateful I get to work out of my home. I’m rather spoiled here in my little paradise. When I go to the District or Annapolis, to the natural food shops there I work with, I’m always glad to see everyone and equally happy to get back home. Would you like some tea?”

  Rachel said, “Yes,” and then hoped Helen would not ask her to choose a specific kind. The only teas Rachel drank were Lipton and not Lipton.

  Helen returned with cups and saucers. Rachel peeked inside her cup. It looked like Helen forgot to add the tea, or she was using one tea bag all week.

  “It’s white tea. I added rose hip and a little dried nectarine. I hope it’s not too fruity for you.”

  “It’s very good,” said Rachel after taking a sip. She still thought it was a pretty weak beverage, but she loved nectarines, so she decided she might finish the cup.

  “Tell me how I can help you,” said Helen.

  Rachel set down her tea cup. She was relieved they were not going to talk about tea.

  “My parents died when I was three in a plane crash in New Mexico. I was with them, the only survivor. I don’t remember much about it. I’m not sure I want to. I’ve seen reports of the accident, and I’ve been satisfied with that knowledge, until recently. I’m a scientist. Things happen through various physical processes, but the facts discovered in the National Transportation Safety Board investigation don’t explain one thing: why I survived. How did I get out of my seat and safely out of the plane?”

  “How do you think it happened?”

  “I remember someone. Just vague images, you know. Like things in dreams that are out of place or that change. I don’t remember her face, only her voice, the touch of her hands on my hair, and a scratchy blanket. Also, I’ve been seeing kachinas, in dreams and when I’m awake. Are you familiar with kachinas?”

  “Yes,” said Helen. She sat opposite Rachel and leaned forward in her chair.

  “That’s the face I see in my dreams about the crash.”

  “Very interesting.”

  “I have a kachina doll. My father gave it to me after one of his trips to the Southwest, but I don’t think I’m imposing my toy’s face onto the person at the crash site, if there was such a person. There was nothing in the reports about anyone finding the plane before the sheriff’s department came to the crash site and found me sitting in the tail of the plane, after the fire was out, unburned. I want to know what all this means.”

  “The answer is in your memory,” Helen said. She sat back in her chair. It was time to begin her work. “Your mind is your protector. It is quite literally your body guard. You’re a doctor, so you know all this.”

  “Tell me, anyway. Information from a new perspective is new information,” said Rachel.

  “I like that. You’ll be an excellent subject for hypnosis. Your mind is already so open,” said Helen. “Memory is one of the mind’s greatest shields, you might say. You know that eyewitnesses to the same event don’t remember the event in the same way. You know the mind does not remember pain. We remember there was pain, and that it was bad, but we cannot call up a pain memory as we can the memory of a delicious piece of mom’s chocolate cake or the feeling of warm sunshine on the skin. We can recall those things and have the same physiological response to them, as if we were experiencing them in the physical. Now, here’s the good news: our minds protect us by refusing to recall pain with a psychological response.

  “You have few memories of the crash because you were so young, of course, but also because your mind has been protecting you. It won’t stop now. Your mind will not let those memories hurt you after they surface.”

  “My mind will protect me from doing something completely stupid, while I’m ‘under,’ right? No duck quacking or rampant use of the f-word?” asked Rachel.

  “Hypnosis is the art of focus, like meditation and prayer. You aren’t asking your mind to do something out of the ordinary. You are relieving it of its protective chores, so it is free. You get to this state by repetition – prayer and chanting work the same way—or by deep breathing and by visualizing. Once the mind is free, it gives up its memory treasures.

  “You won’t be out of touch with reality. You’ll just refocus. It’s like when you go to the movies. You become so absorbed in the film that you don’t remember where your car is parked. If someone talks or coughs, you come back to more immediate focus right away. That’s when you notice your shoe is stuck to the floor in old, spilled soda. Don’t worry. No one can make you do anything while in hypnosis that you would not do in a fully conscious state.”

  “Then, I’m ready,” said Rachel, and she gave a crisp nod for emphasis.

  Helen suggested Rachel get comfortable, either sitting or lying down, as she preferred. Rachel stretched out on a comfortably worn, brocade sofa. Helen draped a small cotton quilt over Rachel’s feet, and after Helen talked her through relaxation visualization, Rachel was ready to mine her memories of that day in the desert.

  * * *

  Rachel began: “I’m going on a trip with daddy and mommy. We are going to see daddy’s work. This is the place daddy got me a pretty bracelet. See it. Shiny with little green stones. I don’t remember the name. One time, he brought me a doll. Her name was Kachina. She has beads on her dress and wears moccasins.”

  Who is on the airplane?

  “Mommy, daddy, and a driver man. His name is Pilot.”

  What is it like to fly in an airplane?

  “My stomach flopped. Mommy says not to be scared. Daddy tied me in my seat, so I won’t fall out of it if the airplane flies upside down.”

  You’ve been flying a while now. What is happening?

  “Mr. Pilot told my daddy to come up by the steering wheel. They are talking loud.”

  Can you hear what they are saying?

  “Mr. Pilot says someone is chasing us. Daddy says to put the plane down.”

  What is happening now?

  “It’s too loud! The engine is screaming. Mommy reaches out her arms to hold me. Daddy says, ‘No.’ He says to stay in my chair with my belt on. Daddy put a pillow in my lap. He said for me to put my head down in the pillow, but I can’t sleep now. The plane is too loud, too loud.”

  Don’t cry,
Rachel. The sound will soon stop. Can you see anything?

  “My head is on the pillow in my lap.”

  What can you hear?

  “Mommy is crying. Mr. Pilot is shouting. The noise is too much. Please, I can’t listen any more.”

  The noise has stopped now. The plane is on the ground. Where are you?

  “In my seat. I can’t get out of the belt. The belt won’t open.”

  What do you see inside the plane?

  “Everything fell down. The seats are sideways. Mommy is quiet. Daddy is quiet. There is blood on mommy’s front and daddy’s head. I can’t get out of my chair! Mommy, help me! Wake up, daddy! Get me out of my chair.”

  Do you feel hot or cold?

  “I feel very hot. Oh, no, it’s a fire! Mr. Pilot’s seat is on fire. I can see fire out of the round window behind mommy, too. I can’t get out of my chair!”

  You are out of the plane now. Where are you?

  “I am running. No, someone else is running. Someone is carrying me.”

  Can you see who is carrying you? Look up and see the face.

  “It’s a bear. A soft white bear is carrying me, but I am not afraid at all.”

  Look up again. Look at the face again.

  “It is my kachina doll. My kachina is carrying me.”

  You are safe now. Where are you?

  “In a blanket. In a tiny house. There is a woman with braids in her hair like my dolly, Kachina. She is singing. I can’t hear her song very well. She is not singing to me.

  “I can see out of the top of the little house. The roof is gone. I see an airplane up in the sky. It has a big flashlight under it. The flashlight is shining down from the sky.”

  What is in the light from the airplane? Can you see what is on the ground?

  “It’s my daddy’s airplane. It’s all on fire. Mommy, daddy, come out of the plane! Come and get me. Come to the little house. Come out now, mommy and daddy.”