by Marie Harbon
Despite this all being so illogical, his words intrigued her.
“Why has it been postponed?” she asked.
The Michael figure pondered, apparently reluctant to give away the solution, much like a good teacher would encourage discovery in his students.
“The environment was unfortunate.”
“My childhood?” she assumed, pensive. “Why can’t I remember my parents?”
“Some things are simply too painful, especially for such a young child. The truth will become known, but you must look deep within. You are like a bookshop that has been closed for a long period of time, the knowledge has been abandoned and left disorganised. Events will soon set in motion which will enable you to begin reading these books again, and add new ones to the collection. There is a new job on the horizon, which you should be humble enough to accept. It is not charity, it is the beginning of the true path and yet, only the beginning. It is not, however, your final destination.”
“And what is my final destination?”
The Michael figure responded emphatically. “Something you cannot yet comprehend.”
“You’re suggesting that everything is…preordained. I believe in free will.”
“What is free will? You have already chosen your path, you just don’t know it yet.”
The figure started to fade subtly. Ava had one last question that had been sidelined, despite being a burning issue.
“Why did Michael disappear from my life?”
The fading continued but, as if he had a sudden change of heart, the figure leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. She felt a strange burning sensation, then nothing. The moon shone through the window and the clock still ticked. Glancing over at the clock, she saw it was 4am, such a lonely time of night, and the appearance of a figure that looked just like Michael exacerbated the emotional famine.
On their last day together, he’d held her face in his hands, kissed her softly and told her with sincerity that their new life in the States was going to be wonderful. After that, she got no answer on his phone and found no one at his flat. In fact, she discovered a ‘to let’ board attached to the brickwork. It had been so abrupt.
The old hurt almost drowned out the lucidity of the vision. In an absent minded manner, she touched her cheek and found it felt rough to the touch. Startled, she jumped up and examined her face in the bathroom mirror. A red mark stood out, as if it had been previously exposed to the sun. The Michael figure had left physical evidence to suggest that the lucid dream had been more real than she wanted to believe. How could such a meeting ever have taken place, and how could something imaginary leave physical evidence though?
It called into question the other hallucinations she’d experienced. Did they have any basis in reality after all, no matter how absurd that reality? Or was someone slipping psychedelic drugs into her food or drink? No, that was really paranoid thinking. It led her back to an unfortunate conclusion: she was developing schizophrenia. Her sister, Maria, had been institutionalised due to this and if Ava developed the same condition, it would ruin her career. Should she seek help with the condition, or as the ‘angel’ indicated, let the process take its course?
6
The Institute
Paul arrived at The Institute, an imposing Victorian house on a side street in Chelsea, London, on December 8th 1959. The sun had already started to set, casting a twilight glow over the city. Since his last visit to London, the air quality had improved, with no pea-soup smog to clog the lungs. However, in many ways it felt like nothing had changed. Little, if any traffic stood on the side streets. Children still played out, although some were being called in for tea. Boys played with hand-crafted guns, made by whittling away a stick or lump of wood with a penknife, and girls either pushed their dolls in prams or played hopscotch. Chimney sweeps with sooty faces made their way home on their pushbikes, long-handled brushes, rods, and dust sheet strapped on tight.
He stood on the doorstep and tapped loudly with the brass knocker, not sure what to expect. The elegant front door had a large stained glass effect window in it, and an additional window high up above the door. It added some character to its otherwise imposing Victorian architecture. No one answered so he tapped again. Looking around whilst waiting, he noticed a red, Route Master Double Decker bus stop on the adjacent main road. A few people jumped on the back, and a man chased after it as it pulled away.
Finally, a woman answered the door. She appeared to be in her late thirties or early forties, judging by the first etchings of age in her face and the mature style of dress. She seemed somewhat stiff and awkward, but when she saw him she smiled, revealing a slightly warmer side to her personality.
“You must be Dr. Paul Eldridge. Mr. Richardson informed me last week you were coming to work with us for a while. My name is Miss Tynedale. I’m his administrator and housekeeper. Please, come in.”
Paul stepped inside the hallway. It contrasted radically to The Establishment’s warm interior, with white walls and chequerboard tiles on the floor, which gave it a clinical feel. An imposing Victorian staircase with ornate spindles and newel posts faced the door. Miss Tynedale took Paul straight through to a small office on the ground floor, and closed the door. Nothing like the offices back at The Establishment, this sterile room had rows and rows of books on shelves, and several filing cabinets likely to be as full as the shelves. The simple and minimalistic furniture comprised a desk, two chairs, and a lamp, aside from the cabinets and bookshelves. The pale green paint on the walls looked ancient, giving Paul the impression this place wasn’t particularly homely.
Would he enjoy it here?
“We’re honoured that you’ll be working closely with us,” Miss Tynedale declared. “You come with the highest commendations.”
“Thank you,” Paul responded.
“This is the more human side of Mr. Richardson’s business. He has a number of…investments he’d like you to investigate.”
“When will I meet these people?”
“Tomorrow, everyone will be in testing then. For now, you can get yourself rested and settled. We’ve prepared a room on the top floor for you, where you can make yourself comfortable for the rest of the day.”
She led him upstairs and on the way up, he got a glimpse of the upper floors. Pictures of scientists adorned the walls and he gazed at Newton, Heisenberg, and Einstein, to name a few. On the first floor, he saw a few men in lab coats enter and leave one of the rooms, although the second floor seemed more subdued.
Miss Tynedale presented Paul with another sterile room, which had an iron-framed single bed, blanket box, chest of drawers, wardrobe, and spindly chair. Paul put his suitcase on the floor at the end of the bed, and closed the fine drapes at the large dormer window.
“Supper is served at 7:00pm. If you wish, we can bring something to your room.”
“That’s very kind of you, but I’ll take it downstairs.”
“Breakfast is served between 7:00 and 9:00am. When you’ve finished, please meet me in the office. You have a busy day ahead.”
She closed the door on her way out and he parted the drapes, watching the activity on the streets below. Then he just sat on the bed, feeling quite deflated.
“Jesus Christ…what am I doing here?”
***
He slept restlessly, as it took time to adjust to a new bed and this one wasn’t particularly comfortable. Initially he dozed, dreaming of his little cottage but the dream became disjointed, tainted by sounds of the city. Around 3:00am, he woke and sat bolt upright in bed, disturbed by a presence in the room. He looked to the window, and saw a feminine figure by the drapes framed by moonlight, which startled him for there shouldn’t be anybody in the room.
“Miss Tynedale?”
The figure didn’t turn to meet his gaze or reply, which disconcerted him further.
“Excuse me, but this room is private. You shouldn’t be in here.”
Finally, the figure spoke. “Where am I?”
; Paul attempted to hide his jitters. “You’re in my room, please leave.”
“Where is your room?” she continued.
“You’re in The Institute, and I strongly believe you have no right to be in here.”
“The Institute?”
“Yes, and you must leave.”
She paused, as if considering Paul’s words then she made a decision.
“There is a better time and place for this,” she declared, and promptly vanished before his eyes.
Paul heard a clatter, as if something had fallen to the floor.
A feeling of coldness washed over him and he felt sick. The experience left an aura of surrealism and he began to question if he was actually awake, as lucid things could happen on the verge of consciousness. Even though he’d subjected his mind to LSD in the preceding years, this appearance had a more disturbing aspect to it. He sat quietly for a while, but finally resumed his slumber.
Sleep lasted until the morning and he awoke to the light of dawn, barely remembering the interlude from 3:00am. His rational mind had accepted the experience as part of the dream state. He rose and moved over to the window, to part the drapes but on doing so, he trod on something sharp. Wincing, he bent down to look and found an ornate hair pin on the floor, which he picked up and admired with some curiosity. It was certainly very beautiful, set with gems arranged into six numbers, 787878, which seemed odd for a hairpin. Someone must have loved it, for it looked well used. It could have been here a while, unnoticed without piercing the foot of a visitor until now. Then he had a flashback of 3:00am. The female figure had vanished with the sound of something clattering to the floor.
No, there couldn’t be a connection…the female figure didn’t exist while the hair pin was a material object.
He took breakfast downstairs and sat in the huge communal living area, a more homely room than the rest of the house. It had delicately patterned 1940s wallpaper, which was green and yellow, and a slightly threadbare carpet with a traditional pattern on it in green and brown. Numerous old sofas sat around, looking well used, while a sideboard with a gramophone and Bakelite wireless on it suggested entertainment took pride of place. Three round teak tables stood in the imposing bay window area of the room, and Paul took a seat there, ready to dine.
While drinking his tea, he handed the hair pin to Miss Tynedale and explained that a previous visitor must have dropped it. She turned it over in her hand.
“Hmmm, I don’t recognise it and frankly, there haven’t been any female visitors to that room for a number of years. I could ask the chambermaid though.”
That had to be the answer, it belonged to the chambermaid.
As Paul finished his tea, she informed him, “They’re almost ready for you upstairs. Everyone is looking forward to meeting you.”
He wondered exactly how extraordinary these people were, and what abilities they may possess.
***
Paul and Miss Tynedale entered Room 7, a clinical looking place with tables and chairs that had partitions between them. Two young women sat in the room, one with fair hair and a Japanese girl.
“This is Emilie,” Miss Tynedale said, introducing the fair haired woman.
She had a simple elegance about her, with her long, fair hair plaited and gently pulled back to reveal a fresh face. Slightly freckled, she had startling blue eyes, a short nose, and a wide mouth. She wore modest clothing: a flowered dress to her knees, and flat shoes. Paul got the impression she had a nuance of self confidence yet was quite shy, an odd blend that gave her an interesting allure.
“Bonjour Monsieur,” she said, revealing her true nationality.
“Bonjour Mademoiselle,” he replied.
“She’d like to give you a demonstration of her abilities,” Miss Tynedale interjected.
Paul felt receptive so Emilie continued, handing him paper and a pen.
“Parlez vous le francais?”
He gestured with his hand, indicating not very much.
“Please sit behind the partition and draw a picture,” she told him.
Paul did as she asked, and twiddled the pen before commencing to draw. He scribbled a diagram, featuring some electrons orbiting a nucleus and when he’d finished, he admired his scrawl and put the pen down.
“Look at your picture, and see it in your mind,” Emilie instructed.
He stared at it, taking in every line and each blob of ink where the pen had paused. Emilie concentrated, closing her eyes so she could visualise what Paul had drawn, then she herself began to scribble. After a few minutes, she put down her pen.
“This is what you drew,” she said, “come and see.”
He picked up his picture and they compared. Close, pretty damn close. Her picture represented a more artistic rendering of his electrons and nucleus. She’d accurately visualised his drawing in her mind, unless she’d cheated. Emilie smiled coquettishly.
“I receive thoughts and pictures from the mind of another,” she explained. “Your English word for this is telepathy, I believe.”
Paul looked to Miss Tynedale, who gave nothing more away while Emilie appeared to mentally scan him. Her disclosed ability made him conscious of his thoughts.
They moved over to the Japanese girl, who sat alone at a small round table. Miss Tynedale introduced her as Sakie, this petite girl with long dark straight hair, beautiful oriental eyes that could have melted Hitler’s heart, and compact little body. She had the skin of a teenager, showing no signs of ageing or cellular degeneration. When they approached, she gestured for him to sit opposite her.
Sakie took a compass out of her pocket, placed it on the table, pulled her chair closer and suspended her hands above it. Paul watched closely. She moved her hands over the top of the compass, slowly at first then she gathered momentum, introducing bodily movements so that finally, the whole of her body performed a circular action. The needle of the compass first began to quiver in response to her hands. As her bodily movements increased in intensity, so did the needle’s response. It sputtered around at first, but began to do something amazing. At the peak of her movement, it spun wildly, total at the mercy of Sakie’s ‘magic trick’. When she decided she’d had enough, she relaxed her hands and body and the needle returned to normal.
After some thought, Paul said, “You must generate some kind of magnetic force.”
“That is exactly what we believe she does,” Miss Tynedale stated.
A compass responded to the magnetic north pole by pointing towards it. For that needle to spin as it did, it must have been exposed to an aberrant electromagnetic field. Paul wished he’d brought his equipment today to test her, right there and then. As he hadn’t, he vowed Sakie would be the first to have her EM field measured, if that was what Max wanted him to do.
She peered at him and said, “Finish.” Her Staccato manner suggested she was a girl of few words.
“Thank you Sakie,” said Paul, keeping it brief, assuming she knew little English.
Miss Tynedale led him out of Room 7 and they crossed the landing to enter the room opposite. Inside, Paul saw four sets of round tables with chairs, two of them occupied by a man and a woman, albeit not at the same table.
The woman had pleasant, friendly features and she was slightly overweight. Paul estimated her age as late twenties and she had long, dark, wavy hair. Her eyes were large and brown, with a friendly twinkle in them. The man on the other table looked quite athletic although a little severe. His shrewd eyes scrutinised Paul and he seemed quite determined, although not hostile at all. Aged around thirty, he had sandy coloured hair and wore a fine gold necklace. They both sat quietly at their respective tables, waiting for something.
“This is Beth and Peter, who have both been with us several years now. Peter was born in Switzerland, but he lived in England previously.”
A non-descript woman in a lab coat entered the room, carrying two envelopes. In turn, she opened them and handed the contents to Beth and Peter, who placed the received information on the ta
ble. The woman in the lab coat spoke.
“Your subject today is a young woman, who has been missing for six months. Her mother has heard nothing and wishes to know if she’s passed on.”
Simultaneously, they picked up their own copy of a photograph and Paul watched as they studied it. Beth closed her eyes and stroked the picture with her index finger, while Peter concentrated intensely.
Beth responded first.
“She’s telling me that the day she disappeared, she was walking by a secluded section of the river. A man approached her to ask for help finding his dog, then he proceeded to take her into the trees…oh…”
She fell silent, so Peter continued the story.
“She was raped and then strangled… her body is buried in a clearing near to where she disappeared. There is a natural dip in the trees… I can give more precise instructions on how to find her.”
The woman in the lab coat produced a map, handed it to Peter and he placed his hands over it lightly. While he did so, Paul became aware of Beth studying him with fascination.
“There’s a strong spirit who watches over you on a regular basis,” she told Paul.
He didn’t know what to think. These tests and the abilities of the subjects didn’t appear to have any scientific basis, although nevertheless, they piqued his curiosity. Beth continued to focus on him.
“The blitz…”
Those two simple words opened his heart but before Beth could continue, Miss Tynedale led him away.
“There’ll be another time and place for a personal reading,” she informed him. “We cannot prejudice the test. I take it you clearly understand the nature of Beth and Peter’s abilities?”
Paul nodded, regretting the interruption. He genuinely wanted to hear Beth out.
“Contact with the deceased, I would suggest.”
She gave a nod of approval and gestured to Paul to follow her, while he gazed back at Beth, who tried to mouth something at him. He shrugged and figured there’d be another time and place for what Beth wished to impart.