Replacement in Heaven

by John Bottrill

  "They might be possessed by another living human - witchcraft usually. Or it might be a discarnate human wanting a body." He sipped thoughtfully. "The really tough cases are when it's a non-human entity. They can be nasty because their whole rationale is not like ours."

  "You mean demons?"

  "Ya, you could call them that. But you won't meet many of those, and you won't be alone anyway. You're more likely to get the straight multiple personalities, I guess. After all, you have some expertise there, don't you?"

  Gudrun's mind spun desperately. "No, I don't think so."

  "Sure you have - you were one, weren't you?"

  He'd obviously made a mistake. "You must be thinking of someone else."

  "You're kidding. Sure it's you. Why else would Mr Tibbs make a big deal about getting you here? He needs you."

  "Who is this man, Tibbs? I keep hearing about him, but I've never met him -except at my own reception, of course, and nothing made much sense then. It doesn't now either. What is all this rubbish about my being a multiple personality?" Gudrun began to get cross.

  Cary gaped. "Oh, my god, you're for real. You don't know. They let you get this far, and you don't know?" He leaned back, shocked. "You have a head start on all of us, and you don't know?"

  "Will you stop saying that!" Gudrun stood up, cross and confused. "What is all this?"

  Cary stared at her, awed. "I guess I better tell you what I know, but it's not much. Mr Tibbs often talks of you. It must all be in your file. Where the heck is it?" He started pushing files around hopefully on the top of the desk.

  "Dimity has it, but she wouldn't let me see it."

  "Oh, typical. Any department that wants can see it, but not the person concerned. Typical bureaucracy."

  Something snapped inside Gudrun. "Will you answer the question?" she shouted.

  "O.K., O.K., keep your cool. Let's see. You were a Viking or something, weren't you?"

  "My father was, but he settled in East Anglia with a Saxon wife."

  "Yuh, that's it. And you had a twin brother."

  "Ye-es, but he died at birth."

  "No. His body did, but not him. You must remember."

  "Will you stop saying that! I don't remember anything of the sort."

  "O.K., O.K., so you don't remember. What do you remember about your childhood?"

  ***

  Gudrun cringed inwardly. She'd never been able to tell anyone about it, but she well remembered the childhood taunts and her confusion, and the need to cover up. But this man seemed to know something of it. More, he seemed as if he might understand. Suddenly she very much wanted to share all the pain.

  "I was all right ‘til I was four - just like the other girls. And then one morning I woke up, and I was eight, and I couldn't remember anything about the previous four years. There was no dress to put on - just leggings and a shirt. And my hair - it wasn't long and plaited: it was shoulder-length, just like a boy's. I was so ashamed." She paused, remembering.

  "My father came over to make sure I was awake but, instead of cuddling me as he always did, he was jovial and rough and tumbled me out of bed. I didn't talk much at breakfast and, when father had gone out, mother sent me out to chop some kindling. It was father's job really. She wasn't loving like she usually was." Tears came, and she brushed them away irritably, fighting for control.

  "Go on," murmured Cary.

  "Later in the morning, a gang of boys - I recognised most of them, but they were older - came to get me to play 'Hunters' with them. Me, a girl! When I wouldn't, they taunted me - "What's the matter today, tomboy? Won't mother let you?" - and ran off, laughing. Quite unexpectedly, mother put her arm round me, and I started crying. We had a long talk, and mother cried too." Gudrun searched her pockets for a handkerchief. Gary kindly materialized one.

  "She said I'd been rough for the past four years - not like a girl at all. I wouldn't wear dresses or plaits, and I insisted on being called 'Horsa'. Father quite liked this new daughter who would stand up for herself, and even the boys accepted me as an equal. But now I didn't feel at all like that. I think it took a day or two for it to sink in that I really wanted to be a girl again, and then both mother and father accepted it happily. The boys picked on me because I wouldn't fight any more - the girls too, but I didn't mind hitting them."

  "And you remembered nothing about that four years?"

  "No, it was a blank - as if they'd not happened." She shivered. "But they had, and it happened again when I was twelve. One day I woke up and I was sixteen and dressed like a boy again. They said I'd been like a boy for the past four years. This time it took longer for my parents to accept me as a girl again, and the rest of the village too. And the worst of it was that there was no place for me. The other girls of sixteen were all full of possible marriage. But no one wanted me." She began to sob in earnest.

  Embarrassed, Cary got up and moved around shuffling papers. "Well yeah, I can appreciate that. How did you handle it?"

  "It was horrible. People said I was mad or possessed. Some said I was a witch. Eventually, it got too much for my parents to bear, they were so ashamed, so they sent me off to stay with my aunt in Norwich. She just accepted me as I was, and bought me dresses. I was quite pretty, and no one knew me. When I was nineteen, I was betrothed to a fuller. But I was frightened - not of him, but of what would happen when I reached twenty. Would I change again?"

  "But you didn't, did you?"

  "No. Something strange happened on my wedding night. I felt everything any other woman feels, I suppose - apprehension, excitement. We undressed in the dark - just as well, I think - I'm not sure at that point I would have appreciated my husband's body. In fact, to be honest, I think I myself appreciated women more. There wasn't much foreplay - I don't think he knew much. As he went into me, I gasped. It was partly the pain, I suppose. Why am I telling you all this?"

  "Perhaps it's because you've never had anyone else to tell it to. Don't worry - no one will ever hear it from me." Cary shook his head reassuringly.

  Gudrun felt better and went on. "It wasn't just the pain, though. It felt as though part of me needed to escape, and I cried out - to blow it out, as it were. As I did, I fancied I heard a voice whisper - I know it sounds silly. It said, "Goodbye, my love - my other half." Then I felt empty - not drained exactly, but not all there. I suppose in some way I felt more together, more ......oh, I don't know - feminine.”

  She paused for a minute. “Anyway, I made the usual noises for my husband. I might even have enjoyed it, if he'd lasted longer. It was always over too quickly. But he was kind. It was a happy marriage, and we had a girl and a boy before I caught the plague. My husband nursed me, but he got it too, and the children. I was twenty nine when I died."

  ***

  "That's quite a story." Cary got two cup of nectar, and she sipped hers gratefully, recovering. "And you never guessed why it all happened?"

  She looked up trustingly and shook her head. "No. Why did it happen? It's all right. Tell me. And what has it to do with multiple personality?"

  "The blank periods of your life were blank because you weren't there. Someone else was in control. The boy who took you over was your twin brother. When his body died at birth, you let him share yours. Only one personality can control a body at a time, so you shared it - in shifts, if you like. You grew up a bit, then he did."

  "But why didn't it go on? Why didn't he come back at twenty?"

  "Because you'd become a woman. Your body decided things. He could hardly take over as a male force when you had a husband, could he? So he left."

  "What happened to him?"

  "He reincarnated at once, I think. And then several other times. 'Horsa,' eh? He never told me that. Wait ‘til I see him."

  "See him? Do you mean he
works here too?"

  "Hell's bells, woman. He asked for you."

  Gudrun felt confused. "I thought it was this Mr Tibbs, but he's a Merican, and he's black."

  "That's just his latest incarnation. No, Mr Tibbs is your brother, right enough."

  As if on cue, the door opened and there stood a man she vaguely remembered. His face lit up when he saw her, and he ran towards her hands outstretched.

  "It's all right!" she jerked out. "I know now."

  His arms enclosed her in a full embrace. "Hullo, my love - my other half," she heard him whisper.

  END

  You may also like ‘THE EDINBURGH GRAIL’

  An unusual romance in the style of Nancy Mitford. It recalls student days at Edinburgh, but has darker undertones.

  Young socialite, Clarissa, leaves her convent school to become a student at Edinburgh. She lives with a gay professor, but manages to acquire two stunning suitors - both her cousins. Strange pressures are put on her by two groups to fall in love with their particular candidate. She gradually learns of her family connection with the rumoured Grail bloodline.

  One cousin falls for her, but she herself has fallen for the other - devastatingly male and dreamy - and elopes to Gretna Green with him. A last minute phone call to her mother for her blessing brings shattering news and a resolution of a recurring dream.

  Things come to a head at Roslyn at her initiation into Freemasonry. A buried family secret dictates an unexpected ending. With a last minute twist, the Priory of Sion's plans are foiled - this time at any rate. She marries one of the cousins.

  You can find this and my other books at:-