The Manitou

by Graham Masterton

  “Miss Tandy, a lot of people have recurring dreams. It usually means that they’re worrying about the same thing over and over. I don’t think it’s anything to get het up about.”

  She stared at me with these big deep, chocolate-brown eyes. “It’s not that kind of dream, Mr. Erskine, I’m sure. It’s too real. With the ordinary sort of dream, you feel it’s all happening inside your head. But with this one, it seems to happen all around me, outside me, as well as inside my brain.”

  “Well,” I said, “supposing you tell me what it is.”

  “It always starts the same way. I dream I’m standing on a strange island. It’s winter, and there’s a very cold wind blowing. I can feel that wind, even though the windows are always closed in my bedroom. It’s night time, and the moon is up there behind the clouds. In the distance, beyond the woods, I can see a river, or perhaps it’s the sea. It’s shining in the moonlight. I look around me, and there seem to be rows of dark huts. It looks like a kind of village, a sort of primitive village. In fact, I know it’s a village. But there doesn’t seem to be anyone around.

  “Then I’m walking across the grass toward the river. I know my way, because I feel I’ve been living on this strange island all my life. I feel that I am frightened, but at the same time I feel I have some hidden powers of my own, and that I am probably capable of overcoming my fear. I am frightened of the unknown—things that I don’t understand.

  “I reach the river and I stand on the beach. It is still very cold. I look across the water and I can see a dark sailing ship anchored offshore. There is nothing in my dream which suggests that it’s anything else but an ordinary sailing ship, but at the same time I am very frightened by it. It seems strange and unfamiliar, almost as though it’s a flying saucer from another world.

  “I stand on the beach for a long time, and then I see a small boat leave the sailing ship and start rowing toward the shore. I cannot see who is in the boat. I start running across the grass, back to the village, and then I go into one of the huts. The hut seems familiar. I know I have been there before. In fact, I can almost believe that it’s my hut. There is an odd smell in it, like herbs or incense or something.

  “I have a desperately urgent feeling that there is something I must do. I don’t quite know what it is. But I must do it, whatever it is. It is something to do with the frightening people in the boat, something to do with this dark sailing ship. The fear seems to grow and grow inside me until I can hardly think. Something is going to come out of the ship which will have a terrible effect. There is something in that ship that is alien, something powerful and magical, and I am desperate about it. Then I wake up.”

  Miss Tandy was screwing a handkerchief around and around in her fingers. Her voice was soft and light, but it carried a prickly kind of conviction that made me distinctly uneasy. I watched her as she spoke, and she seemed to believe that whatever she had dreamed about was something that had actually happened to her.

  I took off my Green Bay Packers hat. It was a little incongruous, under the circumstances.

  “Miss Tandy, that’s a very odd dream. It is always the same—in every detail?”

  “Exactly. It’s always the same. There is always this fear of what is coming out of the ship.”

  “Hmm. And you say it’s a sailing ship? Like a yacht, something like that?”

  She shook her head. “It’s not a yacht. It’s more like a galleon—one of those old-time galleons. You know, three masts and lots of rigging.”

  I pulled my nose some more and thought hard. “Is there anything about this ship which gives you a clue to what it is? Is there a name on it?”

  “It’s too far away. It’s too dark.”

  “Does it fly any flags?”

  “There is a flag, but I couldn’t describe it.”

  I stood up and went over to my bookcase of occult paperbacks. I pulled out Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted and a couple of others. I laid them out on the green baize table and looked up one or two references about islands and ships. They weren’t helpful. Occult textbooks are almost invariably unhelpful, and often they’re downright confusing. But that doesn’t stop me from drawing a few dark and mysterious conclusions about my clients’ nocturnal flights of fancy.

  “Ships are usually connected with some kind of travel, or the arrival of news. In your case, the ship is dark, and frightening, which suggests to me that the news may not be good news. The island represents your feelings of isolation and fear, in fact the island represents yourself. Whatever this news may be, it is a direct threat to you, as a person.”

  Karen Tandy nodded. I don’t know why, but I felt really guilty handing her out all this bullshit. There was something genuinely defenseless and tense about her, and there she was with her dark brown bobbed hair and her pale impish face, so serious and lost, and I began to wonder if her dreams were really real.

  “Miss Tandy,” I said, “May I call you Karen?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’m Harry. My grandmother calls me Henry, but no one else does.”

  “It’s a nice name.”

  “Thank you. Look, listen, Karen, I’m going to be frank with you. I don’t know why, but there’s something about your case that doesn’t strike the same kind of bells as the usual stuff I get. You know, old ladies trying to get in touch with their Pekinese dogs in the happy kennels in the sky, that kind of garbage. There’s something about your dream that’s—I don’t know, authentic.”

  This didn’t reassure her at all. The last thing that people want to be told is that their fears are actually well founded. Even intelligent, educated people like to be comforted with the thought that their night-time visitations are all a cozy kind of bunkum. I mean, Jesus, if half the nightmares that people had were actually real, they’d go straight off their heads. Part of my job was soothing over my clients’ terror, and telling them that the things they dream about were never going to happen.

  “What do you mean, authentic?”

  I handed her another cigarette. This time, when she lit it, her hands weren’t quite so trembly.

  “It’s like this, Karen. Some people even though they’re not aware of it, have the potential power to be mediums. In other words, they’re very receptive to all the occult buzzfuzz that’s flying about in the atmosphere. A medium is like a radio, or a television set. Because of the way he or she is made, she’s capable of picking up signals that other people can’t, and she can interpret them into sound or pictures.”

  “What signals?” she frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “There are all kinds of signals,” I said. “You can’t see a television signal, can you? Yet it’s around you, all the time. This whole room is crowded with images and ghosts, pictures of David Brinkley and advertisements for Kellogg’s Cornflakes. All you have to do to pick them up is have the right kind of receiver.”

  Karen Tandy puffed smoke. “You mean that my dream is a signal? But what kind of a signal? And where could it come from? And why does it pick on me?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know why it’s picked on you, and I don’t know where it’s from. It could have come from anywhere. There are authenticated reports of people in America having dreams that have given them detailed information about people in other countries far away. There was a farmer in Iowa who dreamed that he was drowning in a flood in Pakistan, and the same night there was a monsoon rain in Pakistan that killed four hundred people. The only way you can account for stuff like this is by thinking of thought waves as signals. The farmer picked up the signal, through his subconscious mind, from a Pakistani guy who was drowning. It’s weird, I know, but it has happened.”

  Karen Tandy looked at me appealingly. “So how can I ever find out what my dream is really all about? Supposing it’s a signal from someone, somewhere in the world, who needs help, and I can’t find out who it is?”

  “Well, if you’re really interested in finding out, there’s one way to do it,” I told her.

  “Ple
ase—just tell me what to do. I really do want to know. I mean, I’m sure it’s something to do with this—tumor thing, and I want to know what it is.”

  I nodded. “Okay, Karen, then this is what you do. Tonight, I want you to go to sleep as usual, and if you have the same dream over again, I want you to try and remember as many details—factual details—as you can. Look around the island and see if you can spot any landmarks. When you go down to the river, try and map out as much of the coastline as you can. If there’s a bay or something, try and remember the shape of it. If there’s anything across the river, any mountain or harbor or anything like that, fix it in your mind. Now there’s one other thing that’s very important; try and get a look at the flag on the sailing ship. Memorize it. Then, the moment you wake up, note everything down in as much detail as you can, and make as many pictorial sketches as you can of everything you’ve seen. Then bring it to me.”

  She stubbed out her cigarette. “I have to be at the hospital by eight tomorrow morning.”

  “Which hospital?”

  “Sisters of Jerusalem.”

  “Well, look, because it’s obviously important, I’ll drop by the hospital and you can leave the notes for me in an envelope. How’s that?”

  “Mr. Erskine—Harry, that’s terrific. At last I really feel I’m getting down to something.”

  I came over and took her hand in mine. She was cute, in her pixie kind of way, and if I hadn’t been utterly professional and detached from my clients, and if she hadn’t been going into hospital the next day, I think I would definitely have taken her for dinner, a friendly ride in my Cougar, and back to Erskine’s occult emporium for a night of earthy activity.

  “How much do I owe you?” she said, breaking the spell.

  “Pay me next week,” I replied. It’s always boosted the morale of people who were going into hospital if you asked them to pay you after their operation. It suddenly made them think that perhaps they were going to live, after all.

  “Okay, Harry, thank you,” she said softly, and stood up to leave.

  “You don’t mind finding your own way out, do you?” I asked. I flapped my green gown around by way of explanation. “The neighbors, you know. They think I’m a transvestite or something.”

  Karen Tandy smiled, and said goodnight. I wondered how good it was really going to be. After she’d left, I sat down in my armchair and had a long think. There was something wrong with all this. Usually, when my clients came fluttering in to tell me their dreams, they were standard technicolor epics of frustrated sex and erotic embarrassment, like going to a cocktail party with the Vanderbilts and finding your shorts around your ankles. There were dreams of flying and dreams of eating, and dreams of accidents and nameless fears but none of the dreams had ever had the uncanny photographic clarity, and the same totally logical sequence, as the dream of Karen Tandy.

  I picked up the telephone and dialed. It rang for a couple of minutes before it was answered.

  “Hello?” said an elderly voice. “Who is this?”

  “Mrs. Karmann, this is Harry Erskine. I’m sorry to trouble you so late.”

  “Why, Mr. Erskine. How nice to hear your voice. I was in the tub, you know, but I’m all snuggled up in my bath towel now.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Mrs. Karmann, do you mind if I ask you a question?”

  The old dear giggled. “As long as it’s not too personal, Mr. Erskine.”

  “I’m afraid not, Mrs. Karmann. Listen, Mrs. Karmann, do you recall a dream you told me about, two or three months ago?”

  “Which one was it, Mr. Erskine? The one about my husband?”

  “That’s right. The one about your husband asking you for help.”

  “Well, now, let me see,” said Mrs. Karmann. “If I remember it rightly, I was standing by the seaside, and it was the middle of the night, and it was awfully cold. I remember thinking I ought to have put my wrap on before I’d come out. Then I heard my husband whispering to me. He always whispers, you know. He never comes out loud and shouts in my ear. He was whispering something I didn’t understand at all, but I was sure he was asking for help."

  I felt distinctly strange and worried. I don’t mind messing around with the occult when it behaves itself, but when it starts acting up, then I start getting a little bit of the creeps.

  “Mrs. Karmann,” I said. “Do you recall seeing anything else in your dream, apart from a seashore? Was there a ship or a boat out there? Did you see any huts, or a village?”

  “I can’t recall there was anything else,” replied Mrs. Karmann. “Is there any particular reason you want to know?”

  “It’s just some article I’m writing on dreams for a magazine, Mrs. Karmann. Nothing important. I just thought I’d like to include one or two of your dreams, since they’ve always been very interesting.”

  I could almost see the old lady fluttering her eyelashes. “Why, Mr. Erskine, that’s awfully nice of you to say so.”

  “Oh, one thing more, Mrs. Karmann. And this is important”

  “Yes, Mr. Erskine?”

  “Don’t tell anyone else about this conversation. Nobody else at all. Do you understand me?”

  She let out breath, as though the last thing in the whole world that would ever occur to her would be to gossip.

  “Not a whisper, Mr. Erskine, I swear.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Karmann. You’ve been a terrific help,” I said, and I laid down the phone more slowly and carefully than I’ve ever done in my life. Was it possible for two people to have identical dreams? If it was, then maybe all this bunk about signals from beyond could be real. Maybe both Karen Tandy and her aunt Mrs. Karmann were capable of picking up a message from out there—from out of the night, and playing it through in their minds.

  I didn’t take any notice of the fact that Mrs. Karmann claimed it was her husband trying to get in touch with her. All elderly widows thought their husbands were floating around in the ether, anxiously trying to tell them something of vital importance, whereas what their phantom partners were probably doing out there in spiritland was playing golf, squeezing the ghostly tits of nubile young girls, and enjoying a few years of peace and quiet before their erstwhile wives came up to join them.

  What I thought was that the same person was trying to get in touch with both of them, trying to communicate some nameless fear that had gripped her. I guessed it was probably a woman, but you couldn’t really tell with spirits. They were supposed to be more or less sexless, and I guess it must be hard trying to make love to a luscious spirit lady with nothing more substantial than an ectoplasmic penis.

  I was sitting in my flat thinking all these irreverent thoughts when I had the oddest sensation that someone was standing behind me, just out of my line of vision. I didn’t want to turn around, because that would have been an admission of ridiculous fear, but all the same there was an itching feeling in the middle of my back, and I couldn’t help casting my eyes sideways to see if there were any unaccustomed shadows on the wall.

  Eventually, I stood up, and threw a rapid glance backwards. Of course, there was nothing there. But I couldn’t help thinking that something or somebody had been—somebody dark and monkish and silent. I whistled rather loudly and went to pour myself three or four fingers of Scotch. If there was one kind of spirit of which I thoroughly approved, it was this. The sharp bite of malt and barley brought me down to earth in very rapid order.

  I decided to cast the Tarot cards, to see what they had to say about all this. Now, out of all the mumbo-jumbo of clairvoyance and spiritualism, I have a certain respect for the Tarot, in spite of myself. I don’t want to believe in it, but it has a peculiar knack of telling you exactly what kind of state you’re in, no matter how hard you’re trying to hide it. And each card has an odd feeling about it, as though it’s a momentary picture from a dream you can never quite recall.

  I shuffled the cards and laid them out on the green baize table. I use the Celtic cross arrangement of ten cards because it’s the easiest. “
This crosses you, this crowns you, this is beneath you, this is behind you...”

  I asked the Tarot one simple question, and I obeyed all the rules and kept it firmly in front of my mind. The question was "Who is talking to Karen Tandy from beyond?"

  As I laid out the cards, one by one, I couldn’t help frowning. I had never had such a peculiar reading in my life. Some Tarot cards hardly ever come up, and when they do, they strike you straight away because they’re so unfamiliar. Most people’s readings are full of minor litigation cards, or cards that show anxiety about money, or arguments in the home—all the lesser cards in the suits of cups and wands and pentacles. You very seldom see cards of terrible disasters, like The Tower, which shows tiny people hurled out of a castle by a jagged flash of lightning, and I had never once turned up Death.

  But Death came up, in his black armor, on his red-eyed black horse, with bishops and children bowing in front of him. And so did the Devil, with his hostile hairy glare, his ram’s horns, and naked people chained to his throne. And so did the Magician, reversed. This way round, the Magician’s card signified a physician or magus, mental disease and disquiet.

  I sat staring at the cards for almost half an hour. The Magician? What the hell did that mean? Did it mean that Karen Tandy was mentally disordered? Maybe it did. Perhaps that tumor on the neck had affected her brain. The trouble with these damned cards was that they were never specific enough. They gave you four or five varying interpretations, and you had to make your own mind up.

  The Magician? I shuffled the cards again, and used the Magician card as my question. To do that, I had to place it in the center of the table, cover it over with another card, and lay out the Celtic cross all over again. The cards would then give me a more detailed explanation of what the Magician was all about.

  Nine cards went down, and then I turned up the tenth. I had a very weird sensation in the bottom of my stomach, and I started to feel that someone was watching me again. This couldn’t be possible. The tenth card was the Magician, too.