Keeper of the Children

by William H Hallahan

  Somehow, the death of the dog had underscored the breakup of his family, put a period on it. It was as though a hostile force had smashed his house and scattered his family to set them on solitary wandering paths.

  He put the shovel away, then reentered the house through the kitchen, where he dropped his rain gear and turned out the kerosene lamp. He stood and listened, and he realized why he hadn’t fled from the house: the humbling sense of dread that had followed him and filled him the whole long day was gone. He felt calm, unthreatened.

  The house was silent save for the remote drumming of the rain.

  The witch on the stair blocked his way. He stooped to pick her up: just a doll again. The guide strings were tangled and several had been pulled from their moorings. The gown was rent and torn, the head crushed permanently out of shape, the eyes cocked into a semblance of comic, harmless idiocy. Cold air flowed from the doll.

  Benson now realized several things. He’d touched something extraordinary and unnatural, formless, frozen. It exuded an unappeasable malevolence. It had an awesome strength, capable, he believed, of reducing the entire house—walls, roof, rooms—to rubble in minutes.

  But most important, he realized that whatever it was, whatever its nature and constitution, it was vulnerable. It could be—had been—thwarted, stunned, compelled to withdraw at least for a time.

  The question was how to get at it.

  He stepped around the armoire, the broken banister, the pulley and the net and plaster, and look the short steps to his bedroom.

  Shoeless now, on his back, on his bed, listening to the rain, Benson lay and listened for a footfall on the stair.

  CHAPTER 6

  Behind Independence Hall lies Society Hill, one of the oldest neighborhoods in Philadelphia. As Benson walked through it, it resembled a city after a bombing.

  Rebuilding was going on everywhere. One square block after another of Colonial and Federal townhouses had been rescued from the receding ghetto. In narrow streets under large sycamore trees, old boarded-up buildings were being reopened, gutted, then rebuilt within their own brick shells. Hundreds of others had been restored, ruddy bricks sandblasted and repointed, new plumbing and wiring added, partitions and walls for jerry-built slum apartments torn out.

  Handsome old front doors were scraped, repainted with a patent-leather finish and supplied with brass door knockers, letter slots, house numbers. White marble front doorsteps were destained and scrubbed for the first time in decades.

  Hammers and electric saws sounded all over the area. Buildings beyond rescue were torn out like rotted old teeth and replaced with new structures. In many places whole blocks were leveled and new townhouses and apartments built.

  The incongruity of it struck Benson anew as he walked down Panama Street past a young couple, each carrying a large table lamp. At the curb he circumvented a stack of boxes brimming with rubble from plaster walls. In a window next door a woman was hanging a basket of ivy.

  He came at last to an iron gate, entered and walked down a narrow alley. At the end he came to an old brick townhouse.

  He rapped on the door, glancing around at the network of back alleys and lanes. The breeze had the odor of the river in it. As Benson stood there, the sunlight broke through the gray, drifting cloud cover, and the breeze was freshening from the southwest.

  “Well well well,” said Harold Herald, six and a half feet tall, with thick eyeglasses. He’d gotten quite heavy. Fat. “If it isn’t the fastest camera in the east. Been a while, Eddie boy. Come on in.” He took Benson’s hand in his two huge, pillowy ones, then walked back into the house, talking over his shoulder. “How long’s it been? You’ll have to meet Celeste. You’ll like her.”

  As they walked down the hallway, Benson heard Arabian music. It seemed to be coming from the kitchen.

  The house was filled with Victorian furniture. Oak and walnut abounded: tables with ornate carved legs, red plush chairs and couches, golden oak paneling with inlaid ivory and many doorways, each with a carved door. The ceilings were high and most of the windows had a stained-glass border across the top. There was a moose-head hat rack over an exceptionally large mirror, an elephant-leg umbrella stand, stuffed owls under glass domes, old Oriental rugs. The staircase had a flamboyant handcarved newel. Over a fire-place made of white Carrara marble hung a smoke-darkened portrait of Queen Victoria. To Benson, it all resembled an authentic, carefully researched movie set.

  Harold paused on the marble flooring of the hallway. The shrill sound of the music sounded through the closed kitchen door.

  “She’s working on her new career.”

  “Oh. What is it?”

  “She’s become an ecdysiast.”

  “Ecdysiast. It seems to me I know what that word means.”

  “Belly dancer.”

  “Stripteaser.”

  “Well, maybe it’s a combination. Actually, she’s very good.” He led Benson through the doorway into a very modern kitchen.

  Benson was surprised: she was quite striking, with beautiful eyes and black hair. In a white housecoat her figure was full, even stout, as she bent over trying to prop up a book on the kitchen table next to the record player. The pages showed photographs of a belly dancer in various poses.

  “This is Celeste. Celeste, Eddie Benson. He went to school with me. From the old neighborhood. Use a coat hanger to prop up the book.”

  Celeste let the book fall and smiled at Benson. Then she put her arms around his neck and kissed him. It was a frankly sensuous kiss, given without haste. “Hello, Eddie Benson.”

  “She can read people’s character by kissing them.”

  Benson smiled at her smile. “Is that called lip-reading?” She chuckled and waggled a naughty-naughty finger at him and began to sway to the music.

  “In here, Eddie.”

  Harold led Benson through another kitchen doorway to the small room behind the dining room. Ceramic symbols of the zodiac were tacked to some walls, star charts and planet graphs and tide tables pinned up on others. Books were piled everywhere. Sunlight flowed into the room.

  “This room hasn’t changed much,” said Benson.

  “Oh, no. No. Hasn’t changed at all. Even Celeste isn’t allowed in here.”

  Benson leaned forward. “What happened to Ruby?” he asked in a low voice.

  Harold Herald leaned over too and spoke softly between his big pink hands. “Ruby went to California with a vanload of food freaks and eighty pounds of sprouted wheat. Celeste materialized one night at Tallow’s Ale House and more or less claimed me after she gave a lip-reading to every guy in the joint. That’s very good. I have to remember that: lip-reading. Anyway, she said I gave off the best aura and came home with me. Well—” He softly clapped his hands together and spoke in a normal voice. “It’s been a long time since last we met and all that. What’s the occasion?”

  “How’s the syndicated column coming?”

  “Slowly, slowly. Everyone’s writing an astrology column these days, but I did an astrological forecast on my column and it looks like in another year or so, it’ll really be rolling. In the meantime …” He nodded at the kitchen.

  “You think she can make it?”

  “Oh, yes, there’s a big demand for dancers in all the bars around here.”

  Beyond the open kitchen door, Celeste’s bare feet stepped softly on the black-and-white tiles as she moved in time to the music.

  Harold watched Benson watch her. “Well,” he said finally. “What’s new?”

  “Harold, what can you tell me about Tibet?”

  “As in Chinese Communist Tibet?”

  Celeste removed her white housecoat and started dancing in a brief belly dancer’s costume. Her skin was flawless, and she was surprisingly lithe for her weight as she moved in time with the music.

  Harold watched her for a moment. “Too many crepes. She’s a marvelous cook but she specializes in crepes and we’re both wearing too many of her best.” He patted himself on a trembling be
lly. “So. Tibet. What about it?”

  “You’re a serious student of the occult, right?”

  “Please. Parapsychology.”

  “Okay. Parapsychology. You’re a student of parapsychology.”

  “Just astrology. That’s all I’m concerned about.”

  Still writhing in tempo, Celeste turned the page and leaned closer to her book, squinting at the photographs. She reached behind her and pushed the door shut.

  “What do you know about Tibetan monks?” said Benson.

  “About four sentences worth. Why?”

  The unlatched door swung slowly open. Celeste had removed her halter and was dancing bare-breasted, watching the photographs. Benson inhaled involuntarily, then stood and pulled the door to again.

  “It’s okay,” said Harold. “She doesn’t mind.”

  “I see that.” Benson sat down. Slowly the door swung open again. Celeste’s dancing was more spirited now, and her large breasts moved freely. Still staring at the photographs, she clutched her hands behind her head and put her elbows above her ears. Everything was moving. Benson turned his chair away slightly.

  “She has a real knack for it,” said Harold. “Ten pounds will make all the difference.”

  “Breathtaking,” said Benson without looking. “What about the monks?”

  “Monks. Yes; They’re the heavyweights of the occult world. They were locked into those Himalayan mountains for thousands of years, until the Reds chased them out. All kinds of weird things used to go on there—maybe still do.”

  “Like what?”

  Harold shrugged. “I told you. I know about four sentences’ worth. They’re basically Buddhists, but there are all kinds of sects and they’re all mixed in with a lot of primitive mountain deities.”

  “I’m not getting much out of this.”

  “I’m not putting much into it. Look. I said they’re the heavyweights. They’re miles ahead of everyone else. They’re into ESP and meditation and spirit roving—”

  “What’s spirit roving?”

  “Leaving the body. And levitation, and demonology, sorcery and spells and all kinds of stuff like that. Strange things have come out of those mountains. Disembodied spirits, reincarnated gods, fiends, infestation of demons—how am I doing?”

  “Go on. Why would a monk leave Tibet?”

  “Well, they all did. The monks and their lamas jumped across the border of Nepal when the Chinese Communists took over Tibet. And from Nepal a lot of them scattered into India and Southeast Asia. You know, most of those Tibetan monks go into the Buddhist monasteries when they’re about twelve and stay in for life. So when they got into the cities of India and Asia it was like letting the kids off the farm. They must have really had their eyes opened.”

  “Okay. What else?”

  “Well’s dry,” said Harold. “Here. You go see this guy.”

  Benson read the name on the paper. “At the university?”

  “Yes. He’s right on the main campus. He’s head of the Psych Department there. He’s a parapsychologist, and he’s got bundles of grant money to find out if there’s anything to this occult stuff. And he’s been to Nepal.”

  “Great. Thanks.”

  “What’s this all about?”

  “There’s a Tibetan monk right here in town and I’ve got problems with him.”

  “Ohhhhh.”

  “What’s ‘ohhhhh’ means?”

  “It means oh, like oh watch out, they’re very weird people.”

  Celeste flowed into the room and danced in front of Harold. “Does this seem authentic, Harold?”

  Harold watched her for a moment. “What do you think, Eddie?”

  “Authentic,” said Benson.

  “That’s nice,” said Celeste. Still dancing, she bent down, put her arms around Benson’s neck and slowly kissed him again. “You are very tense, Eddie Benson. You have a big problem, and you should be careful that it isn’t bigger than you are.”

  It’s called psychokinesis,” said Dr. Hart.

  “That’s the ability of the human mind to move an object without touching it?”

  “Yes, that’s close. PK. Psychokinesis.” Dr. Hart had a goatee, a black triangle in the midst of which was a mouth always verging on a smirk, the mouth of a born skeptic.

  “Can the spirit leave a human body and return?”

  “Ah, now you’re talking about Oobies. Oh-oh-bee. Out of body. That’s what this laboratory is studying. Astral projections. Spirit travel.”

  Benson leaned forward. “Have you ever seen a spirit leave the body?”

  “You had to ask me that, didn’t you? We were getting on so well. Well, let’s see. Have I ever observed the human spirit leave the body? I don’t know. At least, I haven’t knowingly observed it, but it may be happening all the time.”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “The problem is the tools we measure with. Science is quite embarrassed by all these occult subjects. ESP. PK. Oobies. Telepathy. Precognition. We don’t know how to measure them. It’s only been since the late thirties that this whole subject has come out of the closet, and it’s filled with myths, lies, legends—do you have any idea how many frauds and loonies have infested this occult world? Well, now nearly a dozen major universities—including this one—are studying the subject. For the first time, really gifted scientists with adequate funds are in the field. But there’s a problem with science itself now. It’s a crisis of confidence. In fact, science doesn’t trust itself anymore. Everything’s being challenged, changed, revised. Two and two doesn’t necessarily add up to four anymore. Depending on whose mathematics you use. And this occult subject is as big as an ocean and all we’ve got so far is a thimbleful. Come here. Let me show you something.”

  Dr. Hart stood up and led Benson down a hallway past several windows that looked out on the campus. Students hurried to and from their classes.

  Dr. Hart showed him into a large room, in the middle of which stood a glassed-in chamber. In the chamber was a bed surrounded by various pieces of electrical apparatus. Elsewhere about the room were tables and chairs and free-standing black screens. On the tables were decks of cards, dice, discs with different numbers and in different colors.

  “When we find someone who says he can take trips out of the body, we bring him here and we try to test him. In the early days we used to sit him down or lie him down, then tell him to go somewhere—say, to your house and identify the objects on, say, your coffee table. We got some very interesting results. People often described things they saw while out of the body that were amazingly accurate. But it raised as many questions as it answered. How did we know the person was actually out of the body? Maybe it was mental telepathy or a form of precognition. We have some really unusual clairvoyants. We have people who seem to be able to influence the casting of dice—statistically significant influence.

  “Okay. So we tried to find another way to measure oobies. We put people on that bed over there and put all kinds of monitoring equipment on them, heartbeat, respiration, brain waves. You know, the brain gives off different kinds of waves depending on its emotional state, depending on whether you’re awake or asleep. We’ve had some very interesting adventures, but nothing we can go to the community of world scientists with and say, ‘Aha, we have documentary proof that people can leave their bodies.’ One of the reasons we can’t is that our measuring devices are inadequate.”

  “Then how do you know oobies exist?”

  “We don’t. But do you have any idea how many people have experienced oobies? How many reputable people? Sigmund Freud did. Thomas Alva Edison did. Dr. Carl Jung, Ernest Hemingway. W. B. Yeats, Mitchell the astronaut, Jack London’s friend Ed Morrell, plus scientists, doctors, politicians. So many people, in fact, that one of our prominent scientists says that we, right now, are in an amazing evolutionary process. The human brain is reaching its next stage: the bodiless state. What I’m afraid of is, it’s happening before I develop the tools to measure it.”

&nbs
p; “How do you get the tools?”

  “I don’t know, Mr. Benson. Maybe the Orientals and the Indians can help us. They’ve been doing this stuff for thousands of years. But we have made some progress—we can’t disprove it. And that makes a scientist very humble.”

  “Did you ever hear of the human spirit leaving the body and manipulating physical objects in a distant place?”

  “Oh-ho. That would be an oobie with PK.” Dr. Hart glanced at the glass chamber. “Can you do that?” His eyes were suddenly checking out the heart- and brain-monitoring equipment.

  “No. Does an oobie ever take the form of something dark and black—like silk or smoke? Something ice cold, freezing cold?”

  Dr. Hart looked at Benson. “Have you seen that? Answer me seriously.”

  “I’d rather not. What I want to do is meet someone who claims to leave the body.”

  “You’re not going to tell me about your something dark and black and freezing cold?”

  “Not now.”

  “Later?”

  “Maybe.”

  Dr. Hart looked at Benson unhappily for a long time, weighing and discarding many words. “Sanjay Nullatumbi,” he said at last.

  “Who’s he?”

  “A yogi. I’d give a lot to work with him. But he refuses to submit to studies. A very unpredictable man. Why do you want to meet a man who claims to leave the body?”

  “I want to take lessons.”

  It was a three-story Victorian mansion, surrounded by old high rhododendrons and hemlocks, set back from the road in the midst of several acres of neatly kept shrubbery. Behind it, Benson saw the original carriage house with the original servants’ apartments above and beyond that, at the back of the estate, a new motel-style building and a large pavilion. Inside the pavilion a number of people, women mainly, were doing yoga exercises under the guidance of a teacher.

  A young Indian in an American sport shirt answered the door. He led Benson to a large living room with a deep fireplace and left him there. Benson went to the window and looked across at the pavilion. There were, he estimated, some thirty women and men sitting cross-legged in an awkward approximation of the lotus position, listening to the teacher. They watched as he slowly rolled his head in a full circle, nearly touching his shoulders with his ear as his head turned. The students imitated his action.