Keeper of the Children

by William H Hallahan

  “Wisdom often comes dressed in platitudes,” said Rama. Their sandaled feet moved in unison on the lawn. “For example, what could be more disarming, simpler, than the statement ‘Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall’?” He paused and looked pointedly at Benson. “Proverbs, chapter sixteen, line eighteen.”

  The next morning—was this the fifth day? the seventh?—Rama set him before the wall and left him there.

  He concentrated on the word, Ael. But soon he became restless. He wanted his bottles and wooden ball, wanted a challenge, a combat—another victory. He wondered what to do with himself.

  Rama entered with what looked to be earphones and a dark blue napkin. “Concentrate on Ael.”

  He knelt beside Benson, folded the napkin and tied it over his eyes. Then he fitted the unit over Benson’s head. It completely muffled his ears.

  Now he could neither see nor hear. Fear stirred in his stomach: anyone might enter the room and approach him without his awareness. He felt helpless, vulnerable—excommunicated.

  Had Rama left the room or remained? He felt that he’d been put into a pitch-dark, soundproofed room with the door locked behind him. He told himself to relax, to concentrate. He took a deep breath and thought.

  Ael.

  The silence, strangely, was like being deprived of oxygen. Feeling he might suffocate, he resisted an impulse to tear off the ear covers. Breathe and concentrate. He composed himself and thought. Ael. Ael.

  He heard a rhythmical sound and listened, astonished. It seemed closer. Bobby Custis, thumping his worn bongo? He listened more attentively, hands to ear covers, ready to yank them off. Now it sounded like the deep, hurried throb of a ship’s engine, propeller shaft beating through the sea. It was a strong, confident, slow beat. At last he realized: he was listening to the beating of his own heart.

  He could hear now, also, the sound of surf—rising, spilling, ebbing. The steady sound of his own breathing.

  Once identified, the two sounds seemed to subside.

  Ael. Ael. The feeling of claustrophobia was strong. He yearned for the feeling of protection his unblocked hearing gave him.

  Ael. Ael. Random images floated into his consciousness and he thrust them aside. It was so dark, so silent, so blank. And now came the moment when he became unaware of concentrating. Ael hung in block letters before his mind. Everything else seemed at rest.

  His mind seemed to be waiting expectantly.

  He heard a grunt. A powerful underwater grunt, as though made by a great swimming beast. It sounded again, closer. It could have been swimming toward him. He cocked his head to hear better. Another grunt. And now a whistle. Intermittent, shrill. More noises—a stick clattering on a picket fence, a bleating, the shriek of a crow. And now voices, talking, whispering, chuckling. Whispers, grunts, whistles—and a mad, insane, unstoppable laugh.

  Benson had arisen, stood now before the wall, blind and deaf, terrified by the chorus of sounds. He heard his name. He listened with desperate attention.

  A light appeared before his eyes—distant as a star and speeding toward him. A comet. It lowered, trailed a long green sparking tail; he ducked as it shot past with a screaming rush. He was crouched on his knees.

  The noises intensified and another light appeared, grew and sped toward him. He seemed to be in a tunnel, the track for comets. The second one loomed, shooting its long green tail, roared and thundered past over his head, dropping a shower of sparks.

  A distant figure appeared—thin as a thread and black. It seemed to be clambering toward him, growing larger. A stick figure with crablike claws and two red, glowing eyes.

  The noise thundered, the figure approached. Larger and larger. The two front claws extended toward him.

  Benson stood up and, with a shout, pulled off the ear covers and the blindfold.

  “Oh, God!”

  He walked the length of the room and back. Rama hurried into the room and looked at him, concerned.

  “Noises,” said Benson. “Horribly loud noises and comets and a sixty-foot stick man with crab claws.”

  Rama glanced at the ear covers and the knotted blindfold flung on the floor by the wall. He led Benson by the arm out of the room and walked him through the grounds, around behind the pavilion to an empty path. There they walked up and down slowly, without speaking. Benson clutched his hands together, uncontrollably anxious, unable not to hear the sounds, the voices, the rush of the comets, the mad laughter, his name called; unable not to see the awesome stick figure, so purposeful and relentless.

  They walked for a long time. Gradually Benson seemed to calm down. Rama, watching, led him back to the carriage house and to his room.

  “Those are the keepers of the door, you saw. There are many of them—beyond count.”

  “What is that place?”

  “It has many names. In the West it is called Stundevil Fen—after an English monk who first saw it in a vision.”

  “Stundevil Fen. That’s what it was—a fen or a marsh. It was like a place in Hell.”

  “You must pass over it.”

  “How?”

  “You will learn.” He paused at the door. “If you continue. That’s all for today.”

  “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” A Humpty-Dumpty fall.

  Things started to go badly. The days blurred together. Benson often failed to distinguish between his naps and the night’s sleep. He ate with appetite but little or no awareness of what he was eating. He had become indifferent to time, had lost himself in it as in a desert.

  Also, he was losing grip on time as a sequence. He slept badly. He would wake in the darkness before dawn and hear crows calling, a summons from a different world.

  He often had the sense that others, unseen, were near him. When this happened, he felt like a patient hearing murmured bits of grave corridor talk between specialists. At those times he suspected he was near insanity, convinced that the unseen were plotting against him. In a heavy rain in the night, he heard their voices muttering, threatening, hostile, under the eaves, outside his window. He heard their furtive footsteps in the hallway, and it all centered around that tunnel he’d seen. Shortly, later that same night, the Old English letters woke him, blindingly bright, dripping like volcanic lava.

  Something was fighting him for control of his mind.

  When he woke, he knew he didn’t want to go back into that room. Each day he would tell himself: Today I will leave. I will take my sanity and health and leave this place, leave the plotters before they destroy me. He had opened Pandora’s box; he must not look in again lest they reach for him and pull him inside—for the rest of his life.

  He’d completely lost count now of the days.

  Rama would appear, lead him to breakfast and, while they ate, watch Benson’s face and eyes. Gauging him, appraising, wondering.

  Nullatumbi said nothing. He didn’t visit, and in the dining hall he didn’t look at Benson.

  It was the sixth day now, or possibly the ninth. Rama had taken away the ear covers and the blindfold. Before the wall, Benson concentrated on Ael and let time pass.

  This morning he felt better, and his mind was filled with light.

  Rama entered and sat on the mats behind him, watching.

  “You are smiling, Mr. Benson.”

  Benson turned his head. “Was I? I saw beautiful lights.”

  When next Benson looked behind, Rama was gone. Benson resumed contemplating the light.

  Soon Rama returned with Sanjay Nullatumbi. They stood in the doorway observing him.

  Nullatumbi crossed the room to him. “You are feeling better?”

  “Yes.”

  Nullatumbi sat down on the edge of the chair. “We have a crisis, Mr. Benson.”

  “Crisis?”

  “Yes. We have brought you to the edge of the world you wish to enter. You saw the entrance.”

  “Stundevil Fen.”

  “That’s one of its names. It’s a
place of great terror. You saw it and felt it. If you return there, you must either cross it or—not.”

  “Or what?”

  “I warned you, Mr. Benson. It takes years for an acolyte to go through the spiritual and mystical exercises you’ve spent only a few days on. And the acolyte is protected by the profoundest faith. Yours is very weak.”

  “You said ‘or.’”

  “Yes. You must cross it—or your mind will crack. Break. If that happens, it can never be repaired. You will be insane for life.”

  Benson looked at Nullatumbi and remembered the terrifying noises, the images, the conspiratorial voices.

  “I agreed to this, Mr. Benson, because I felt I saw the strength of human love in your eyes. I still feel that way—but only you can know how strong it is. We helped you reach the edge of the Fen the other day. Are you ready to try to cross it? Or do you wish to leave here?”

  “To come back later?”

  “Or to never return. The choice can only be yours. You have to be honest with yourself, Mr. Benson. No bravado. If you feel you can’t cross, it would hardly be wise to destroy your mind. That would serve nothing. And there may be other ways to recover your daughter.”

  Benson shook his head. “No. There is no other way.”

  Nullatumbi sat now, waiting for an answer; Benson sat, remembering with frightening clarity the scenes and noises.

  Finally he drew a breath. “I’m going to do it.”

  Nullatumbi took Benson’s hand in his, a soft, brown, warm, gentle hand. “I wish you success. I hope I see you again.”

  Nullatumbi left as Rama fitted the ear covers on Benson’s head.

  At first the incredibly lovely light continued to fill Benson’s mind. It fell through towering soft clouds, in shafts and columns of enormous height, a soft gold and yellow with shadowed blue in the creases of the clouds. A supernal light of unforgettable beauty. He felt he could contemplate it forever.

  Gradually the light faded. The limitless darkness and silence returned. He felt an unendurable solitude and vulnerability; the sound of his heartbeat returned, that throbbing of a ship crossing a sea, and he sensed he was moving through space. Reluctant to go, he tried to hang back. Resisting.

  They came quickly now: in the darkness the sounds began first. The shock waves of the grunts fell on his ears like concussions, warning him of a creature of terrible strength and malice. The chattering, stuttering sound arose, then shrieks—piercing, heart-stopping shrieks, the sibilants of whispered voices with the viciousness of assassins. A giggle. A siren shrilling calamity. Air-raid horns wailing over the desolation, the sudden death of war. Strange, discordant music that filled him with despair.

  Then the other light appeared, rocketing toward him. He ducked as it shot by just over his head, trailing its tail of sparks, its passage marked by a whisper. Another dot of light. The same terror seized him, and he was aware that his progress through the dark had stopped. The second comet whizzed by. More lights were gathering. Voices—multitudes—laughed at him, laughed at his nakedness, his weakness, helplessness, lack of confidence. Incongruously, a telephone began to ring: an urgent ring, a profound warning, calling him back. He refused to turn away. The lights moved quickly: illuminated skulls. The giant, clambering stick figure with the crab claws approached, growing larger and larger.

  He heard his heart beat again, felt his movement resume. Enormous hands materialized, approached and seized him—twisting, crushing him. The pain was horrendous. The noises, the skulls and flashing lights and crawling stick figures combined to create a concert of madness, of sensory torment, of physical pain.

  He felt, on the shores of consciousness, that his body in that room in the carriage house was rolling and crawling on the mats, his hands on the ear covers. And the one clear voice, inexhaustibly screaming, was his own.

  And throughout, the telephone rang, still calling him back, urging him to return. It was too late.

  He’d reached the tunnel.

  He had no way to gauge the distance through the tunnel. The sudden return of silence was staggering, the disappearance of lights and figures and sound and menace so complete, his deliverance so timely, that he wanted to express gratitude, perform a sacrifice, kiss a hem.

  But gradually he rose through the tunnel toward a flickering light and soon perceived that he was in the cosmos, in a vast night thronged with stars. And here, in the indescribable beauty of the night, he felt a fear greater than anything he’d just felt among his supernatural tormentors. Here, in the endless distances amidst the stars.

  “What did you see?”

  He lay, panting, leaden, soaked, grateful for the hardness and support—the companionship—of the floor.

  Nullatumbi and Rama sat before him. Rama held in his hand the ear covers and blind.

  “What did you see?” asked Nullatumbi again.

  “I saw—” He sat up. “I saw.” He flung his arms apart. “Stars. Billions and billions of stars.”

  “Did you go through—”

  “Yes. A tunnel. A hole. Then I rose—up to the stars.”

  “Good. You screamed.”

  Benson drew the back of his hand across his cheek and mouth. He leaned close to Nullatumbi. “Did I leave my body?”

  “No. Not yet.” His solemn brown eyes looked at Benson. “I am very happy to see you again.”

  Rama led him to his room. Benson lay face down and slept, deep, exhausted sleep that lasted a long time. When he awoke the sun was low in the east, not long after dawn. It had been midmorning the day before when he’d lain down.

  Rama entered shortly and led him out into the grounds. Benson was surprised by the advance of springtime. Mild air moved coolly through the trees. The forsythia made a long, buttery smear along the drive. Two apple trees were in white bloom, echoed by the dogwood and, beyond, the regal color of the lilacs. Daffodils in their bed were crowded with yellow flowers, and in a sun-filled corner Benson saw the first star-of-Bethlehem flowers. He felt as though he’d reached safe harbor—a survivor and, now, an appreciator. The spring filled him with exultation.

  Rama’s face seemed beautiful to him.

  He let Benson linger over his breakfast and finally brought him, later than usual, to the meditation room. He had Benson sit down on the mat—this time, for the first time, with his back to the wall.

  Sanjay Nullatumbi entered the room, sat down on the rush in front of Benson and looked at him. He studied Benson’s face for some time before speaking.

  “There are many ways to accomplish astral travel,” he said. “I will teach you one way. You will find it easy after a while. To leave the body, you must find your exit port. That may take time. Generally you will find it between your eyes, the glabella—in the third eye, the soul’s eye—or you will find it in the top of your head, the fontanel. There are also those who leave by the way of the base of the skull. What you must do is focus your entire mind on a pinpoint of light. Shut down your consciousness: think nothing, hear nothing, see nothing. Concentrate on that point of light. Do you understand?”

  “I think so.”

  “You have developed a remarkable ability to concentrate, which is what those little paper caps were for—to train your mind to be aware of only one thing. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes.”

  “As Western psychologists would describe it, you have to reprogram your mind, your inner computer.”

  “Yes.”

  “Now, Mr. Benson, while you are concentrating on that point of light which is before your eyes … while you are gazing at that point of light, you will feel yourself rolling up from the toes, like a roll of paper—no, better, like a window shade. You will roll your inner self up to the top of your head. You will concentrate on that while seeing the point of light, and soon you will exit from your body. Can you accept that idea?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “If you cannot accept that, then you cannot leave your body. When you believe you can do it, then you will do it. And
only then.”

  Nullatumbi sat back, considering his own words.

  “Now. I regret the shortness of time. The spaces that the soul travels through are so vast that it takes the Buddhist student many years of training to become a soul navigator. The unlettered soul does not know how to avoid the many traps and pitfalls that abound there. Therefore, I am teaching you only the most basic astral travel. This is what is taught to the acolyte—the young boy in the Buddhist monastery. It can be condensed into a few weeks’ training, but it is enough for your purposes. You will be able to reach Kheim. Understood?”

  “Yes.”

  “What you will enter will be the first plane only. You will be like a child on the beach, walking on the edge of an infinite sea. You must not go beyond that edge. For that, you must have many years of moral training and religious studies. Someday, perhaps—if you survive—you may come here for permanent study. But now? No. Do you understand, Mr. Benson?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now, a final word. You have done well. You must not let the tears you shed disturb you. It is good that you are able to weep for others. Indeed, it is your tears that made me go on with the training even without the moral studies. Don’t let the tears discourage you. Or the dripping red letters.”

  “How did you know about the dripping red letters?”

  Nullatumbi’s gaze was unwavering. “I observed them.”

  Sanjay Nullatumbi arose and, without hesitation, left the room. Rama made a circular motion with his forefinger, and Benson turned to face his wall again. Rama fitted the ear covers and the blindfold and left. Benson muffled up inside his own consciousness. He located a point of light dead ahead and concentrated on it.

  Days now went by in hours; hours were months. There was, in truth, no time. Time was made of elastic. It had no consistent meaning.

  He sat, his concentration locked on the point of light, blocking out the sound of his heartbeat, resisting the distractions of phantasms and specters. His mental control now was singular; he was able to concentrate for extended periods without fatigue, to live a life of suspended activity. But still his goal eluded him, he remained within his body.