Vanessa

by David Howells

Chapter 10 – EXPERIMENT

  Annie listened to the night. She had made the usual small talk to quiet her friend’s nerves, and then went on to larger subjects. “Ryan shared the same stories with them as he shared with Carl?”

  “Yeah, it still gets to me a little, but not as much as Ryan thinks it does. Gives me a good excuse to visit you and he feels good about being protective of me when I come back. The old softie.”

  “Archibald was like that; tough on the outside, plum pudding on the inside, soft and sweet.”

  “Any luck with Covington?”

  “You tell that man of yours that the Major made a double whammy and got five more through, the old fox, since you were here last. That leaves fifty. Pulled two wild ones, he did. Last week, the whole troop of them raced in close, reined in and gave the loudest rendition of Dixie I’d ever heard. I can sense things during the day, if they’re loud enough. There was clapping and yahooing to beat the band, enough to miss the two he was sneaking by. I think that the two avoided my attention that running for it would have caused by blending in with a group of live riders. There’s a new horse path that runs just behind the house that gives riding tours, from what I hear talk of from the night staff. Makes folks feel more like they’re back in time. They even dress them proper to my time period and some of them always choose army clothes. That’s probably why she didn’t notice them until it was too late.

  “Pulled a bigger stunt today, with smaller groups of them racing every which way, then distracting me with two groups of them trying to form a wall in front of the children.” Annie made a sighing motion. “The fewer they are, the harder it’s going to be for the good Major. So, what’s Ryan up to? Vanessa, can he help?”

  Vanessa knew by now she could talk to Annie without tipping the cards to Mad Annie. “Take heart, Annie, there’s new blood on the team. From what I’ve seen, your alter ego is in for some nasty surprises.”

  Annie thought, “New surprises?” That could mean success, but might also call for her destruction. “That suits me just fine, Dear. Now, let’s talk about getting yourself back into someone that rascal of yours can sink his teeth into.” Two ancient women giggled.

  8AM sharp. Different driver, same limo. Marianne had come to use that phrase in place of a more traditional one. This time it was off to Rhinebeck and to the Beekman Arms for breakfast, where a section was reserved for them downstairs. Ryan ordered his favorite: Eggs Benedict. Allen wondered how Ryan could live so long with a cholesterol intake like that. The rest followed with their orders, all house specialties.

  “The sign outside said this is the oldest inn in the country,” Allen commented.

  “Sort of,” replied Gustav. “Actually there are older inns, but this one is the oldest continually running one. It’s a pretty well-known town, too. There’s lots of history in it. Like me, you know?” That got a few laughs.

  Rachel liked the ‘oldness’ feeling of the inn. Downstairs always had a real wood fire going, the beamed ceiling had dozens of Revolutionary War artifacts iron nailed to them; muskets, flint-locks, farming tools and other reminders of the past. “Maybe that’s why you like this place, Ryan. Must be nice to be where there are things older than you are.”

  “Coffee’s good, anyway,” said Allen. He’d never liked the stuff growing up, but the rigors of all-nighters at RPI encouraged legal amphetamine use: caffeine. Mom liked it light and sweet; he liked it straight out of the machine and called it ‘naked coffee’, when his mother wasn’t within earshot.

  It was getting routine. Small talk, relax, and then big Boss begins. It was a comfortable group to be in. Ideas here came in their own time, fast or slow. “That kept stress down,” thought Marianne, who had been employed before in places with ‘sweat shop’ mentalities. She loved her current bosses all the more because they valued her so highly and let her know it. Marianne Cabrini had and used the right to give Ryan or Gustav the boot from her office area, should they get in her way or on her nerves. Neither of them would have it any other way. She had already begun to consider office changes, which was her domain. Would they have to move, or add on to the current office (maybe take over Gustav’s apartment upstairs)? Would Allen and/or Rachel be there temporarily or permanently, and would it be now, soon, or later? There were changes to the stationary, hard and software refinements. How did they like their coffee? Her memory for detail, Gustav would tell visitors, would qualify her for a nightclub headline act. To gather those details, she sometimes compromised propriety for efficiency, and her decisions might not have always met with her bosses’ approval. It was simpler to just not tell them about it.

  Her newfound friends might have been upset to know that she had peaked into wallet and purse last night. Not to steal, but to get an idea of the stores, brand of tissues, methods of payment and dozens of other preferred items that, having knowledge of, would help her make them more at ease. She noted that, in one of the Allen’s wallet picture casings, a picture was missing. There was one of his biological father, his mother, his adopted family and the outline of a missing picture. Sure enough, checking his trash, she found the discarded picture of Madam Melissa. She took it, of course. You never know where something like that might come in handy, and her filing system for potentially useful information could teach the FBI a few things.

  “The honest answer to my longevity is; I don’t know.” That wasn’t expected, and surprise showed on two faces. “I suspect it has to do with a re-alignment of molecular polarity due to my prolonged magnetic field exposure. I’ll throw some thoughts your way, though to me, the ‘whys’ aren’t as important as the ‘what do I do to make use of this’.

  Magnetism is a whole field, excuse the pun, by itself. There is so much that we just don’t know about it. Jupiter rotates twice as fast as earth, causing it to have a magnetic field larger than the sun. If you read back in the Old Testament, there were people living for long periods of time. Check with paleontologists and you find that the magnetic flux over the earth was, at that time, many times what it is now. Magnetic healing is something that’s been around for a thousand years. There are natural lodestone caves in Germany reputed to have amazing healing powers. At one time the largest company in Japan made specialized magnets for healing purposes. Nike bought them out. Magnets are now standard issue in many of their sports shoes.

  “Our bodies have nerve networks that conduct electricity in order to tie in four trillion cells into a central processing unit called the central nervous system. String every nerve you have end to end, Rachel, and you would form a line that would wrap around the world (her eyes widened), twice (her jaw fell). Any electric current has a magnetic field around the conducting substance, and our whole nervous system is essentially countless conduits of electrical impulses. Add to all that circuitry the eastern philosophy that we have twelve sets of energy circuits called meridians, the efficiency of which determines our level of health and longevity. It’s a marvelous multi-part system of intricate, interlocked circuitries that self-analyzes, corrects, heals and, for some reason, runs down. Why we age and die has never been explained to my satisfaction. Might it be that magnetism holds the key? I am long-living proof that it may be so. So, why not research this as an eternal life project? I’ll leave it to you: overpopulation with inevitable wars, economics, God syndromes, dynasties, just to name a few flash points.

  “Some did try magnet experiments on animals in the 50’s and 60’s. The results were mostly unhealthy for the test subjects. I appear to be a million-to-one fluke. So, the question that was burning holes in your pockets was the one that I am least able to answer.” Allen felt he was back in college. At least, he wouldn’t have to study for midterms here.

  “A little disappointing, but I can live with that,” said Rachel. “Can you tell us more about Vanessa?”

  Ryan looked at his watch, nodded and said, “Very well. We were married, as your own research proves. We soon fou
nd that she aged normally and I didn’t. I didn’t completely stop, just slowed down immensely. By appearances, I now seem to be in my early 40’s. We moved to Chesterfield, just on the western outskirts of St. Louis, and settled down for a bit, thanks to the appearance of my son, Obediah. He was the third child for Mary’s body, the first two being the twins. He was a big baby, so they had to deliver Obediah by surgery and botched it. She wasn’t able to carry to term after that. We didn’t mind too much as Obediah was a handful all by his lonesome. Early on he picked up a habit of jumping. Put him on your lap, he jumped. Stand him up and put his hands on something to hold him steady, he jumped. Vanessa told me that kind folk often took pity on her and offered to spell her when she rode the bus, but handed him back shortly afterwards (some of them were men, now speaking in higher-pitched voices).

  Those were good years. We did a lot of traveling and helped quite a few entities move on. Having Vanessa alive did have a few disadvantages. You’d be surprised how handy a friendly ghost can be at times. I was still the happiest man in the world with a healthy son, a beautiful and loving wife and doing something I felt to be one of the most important jobs in the world. Add to that the financial freedom we enjoyed, and you get as close to Heaven as any mortal has a right to be. The one thing that stuck in both of our craws was Annie. We kept going back, talking with her, talking with the soldiers. All we could do, well all I could do since Vanessa was no longer able to communicate with entities, was be of moral support and a brain storm resource. Who knows? Maybe some of that cheerleading kept Major Covington trying. We hoped so. I haven’t been down there in a couple of weeks...wonder if he’s had any success since we were there last.”

  Rachel was taking it all in, as before. She remembered Carl, her pain that day she found in an instant that her whole life had changed. She wondered how it must have been for Vanessa to find out that her husband would long outlive her. But, it could be worse than that, couldn’t it? “Ryan, sorry for interrupting, but I was thinking about Vanessa. She kept getting on in years physically and you didn’t. People grow old together and that is part of why a marriage is so important. We share aging and dying, supporting each other. When Vanessa saw herself getting wrinkles and arthritis, I can’t imagine the problems that must have caused for her. You are an attractive man and she must have felt like an old crone compared to you long before she actually was one. How did she handle that?”

  “Badly, at first. Vanessa loved to be with people. We enjoyed good friends and good times. I remember when we finally had to admit the obvious.” He closed his eyes and pictured that day, so clear in his memory, as he continued...

  “It was that Navy thing, it has to be. It’s not that you age well, you stopped aging. I’m going to wither and die and you are going to be just as you are now. You’re going to get sick of wheeling around a wrinkled, crippled woman and you’re going to move on to someone new.”

  “Stop that, right NOW. I don’t know what’s going on for sure and neither do you. Fine, maybe my outside looks like it isn’t aging, but maybe my inside is and we’ll still get old like normal people.”

  He opened his eyes again, still seeing the look on Vanessa’s face that combined fear with anger so eloquently. “Vanessa once had felt it was a mistake to become human when Penny and Patricia reached to the mother that was no longer there. Those feelings returned in spades. She felt doomed to see her husband abandon her. “What choice did he have?” she must have thought. We couldn’t go out in public much longer without somebody finally noticing.

  “Make-up and hair dye only postponed the inevitable. I could be made to look older, and she younger, but it was just a stopgap. She went on and on about me visiting her at the rest home on Tuesdays and don’t forget the Geritol. That’s a vitamin/bowel regulator that they used to give elderly dinosaurs.

  “She kept on at it and I had to let her get it out of her system. “I should never have done it. It was a stupid mistake, a sin against God and He is delivering purgatory right to my doorstep. Why don’t you just leave me, damn you! Go on and leave me now! I’ll find someone normal to fall apart with, and you can just jump from bed to bed for eternity and be happy.”

  “I was aghast at how what someone else might look at as a blessing, had become a curse. It was beyond what any man should be confronted with or had ever been called upon to endure. Finally, I walked over to Vanessa, grasped the front of her shirt with both hands and hauled her up so that our noses were touching. I had never mistreated her, making this action so alien to Vanessa that it wrenched her from her downward spiral.” Ryan didn’t repeat what he had told his bride, but it was still etched in his heart, word for word.

  “Vanessa Fitzgalen, you are going to listen to me. I have never fully loved a woman until I loved you. Love does not die from wrinkled skin or capped teeth. You are the woman I am bonded to, who I loved before you were reborn into this body and who I will love after you leave that body. If you are lucky, you will move on when this body dies and I will walk this earth the luckiest man alive because I had the honor of receiving your love. If, for some reason, you remain with me, I will continue to love you as I did before and you will continue to be my companion and soul mate. LOOK AT ME! Was I a mistake? Was Obediah a mistake? Love is NOT a mistake! I love you, now and forever, more than mortal man can because everyone else just loves until death does them part. Now, there’s the door. You can walk out and turn your back on your husband, if that is all I am worth to you. I will then live a forsaken man in constant sorrow. Or you can continue to be my wife for the rest of our earthly existence. Now, what is it going to be?”

  Aloud, “Guess my own fires forced open Vanessa’s heart. She never forgot a single word I had said, she tells me. Some time after Vanessa died her second death, Annie had asked her if she wanted to go back to human again, to hold me again.

  “Vanessa considered this, and said yes, but not yet. It’s not time. Instead, it was a time to understand the lessons her reliving had taught her. That’s what we’re supposed to do, isn’t it? She said, “What ever it was I didn’t learn in my first life that caused God to keep me here, I must not have learned in my second life, because here I am, still here. I have to know why. And should I waste time like a vulture looking for another body to borrow, checking out the emergency rooms for a nice looking young thing who wouldn’t mind renting out her old place? That’s just too gruesome. No. When it is time, if ever, I believe that the opportunity will be pointed out to me.”