William James
Meg sat on the South Shore train staring vacantly out the window. Clouds had come in late morning and still clung to the skyline, so she wore her light raincoat over one of the few dresses that still fit comfortably through the midriff. She would have to start buying maternity clothes soon, she knew, but doing so was not high on the priority list.
She was thinking about her conversation with Wenonah. The suspicion about Kurt that Wenonah raised—followed closely by the death of Bernadine Clinton—had left her numb. But now—with the train speeding toward her appointment with the psychoanalyst—she was forced her to examine her reactions.
How had things come to this? Did she still have a marriage? A real one?
Had Kurt been unfaithful? Is that why he was willing to stay in the city through the week? He had not commuted a single weeknight, something he would have been doing regularly had the condo sold. Oh, she knew the kind of hours he had been putting in over and above, but still . . .
She wondered again about his past, his first marriage. Why hadn’t it worked? Had he been unfaithful then?
He certainly seemed to want this marriage to work. He had pursued her without allowing for the possibility of a refusal. Following their marriage, he had been attentive to her—even as recently as the weekends in Hammond. And he seemed excited about becoming a father.
But the temptations are out there, Meg thought. Wenonah had described Valerie Miller perfectly. Valerie owned the condo across the hall from Kurt’s. She was a steamy blonde, all right, cool to other women, but with the opposite sex she was full of an Eartha Kitt verve and vibrato. As phony as a reality show. Had she seen Kurt’s weeknight bacheloring as open season? Meg didn’t put it past her for a moment.
And what about Kurt? Was he susceptible to a modern Calypso? Or to any other woman? What are his ethics?
Drops of rain were hitting the window now and beading into designs, but Meg hardly noticed. Truth was, she felt a sting of guilt for her own part. Guilt that she had not insisted he come out on some of the weekdays. She had to admit to herself that—except for those moments when the forces in the house held her in fear—she had absolutely relished those days alone in the house, and on weekends secretly looked forward to Mondays when she would drop Kurt at the station.
And there was that old, old sense of guilt, too, that in her heart she had never cleared away the remnants of Pete Stoltmeyer—and that Kurt couldn’t compete with a memory. Intellectually she knew she had to put the past—and Pete—to rest. Intellectually she knew she could not compare someone in the present to what she remembered of someone two decades previous.
But, emotionally, well, she had not caught up yet.
Valerie Miller. So, what if it was true? Conceding—for the moment—that it was true and that Kurt had been behaving badly, had violated their marriage vows, could she forgive him? Would she?
When Wenonah had first told her, cautioning her that it was merely circumstantial evidence, she would have said no, she would not forgive him. But time had tempered her judgment—now she thought that she could put it in the past, had to, in fact, for she herself was guilty of a more subtle duplicity. . . . And the child would need a father.
Meg suddenly became aware of lightning outside and heavy rain whipping against the train’s windows. She watched the drops as they struck, rolled, coalesced, and were wiped away by the wind.
She thought of Bernadine Clinton. I have so much to answer for. She was certain that Bernadine would be alive had it not been for her visit. Yet, how could she have known? Yes, Bernadine had said that she was just waiting, biding her time. And the woman sounded prepared, little knowing that Meg was her Angel of Death. Yet, those last moments—no matter how short—must have been ghastly.
Why had the spirit of Alicia Reichart materialized to literally scare Bernadine Clinton to death? At that moment?
Meg thought she knew—it was to prevent her from learning about the lives of the Reicharts. She had gone to see Bernadine for first-hand information about the Reicharts, and the woman must have had a wealth of it to give. But now she would be taking it to the grave.
Or most of it. What had she learned? Meg took stock. That Claude Reichart was a nine-year-old who played the piano with talent beyond his age and that his mother had great hopes for him. That an accident of some kind had cut Claude’s career and life tragically short.
At the moment of Bernadine Clinton’s death, however, more questions were left unanswered: How did little Claude die? How did Alicia deal with the loss of her prodigy son? What was her life like afterward? What happened to the twins? Her husband Jason? What was Alicia’s final fate?
Meg was convinced that it was no coincidence that Bernadine passed away when she did. It was part of a scheme. Alicia Reichart’s scheme. She had heard of spirits attaching themselves to a person so that even if a haunted house was left behind, the haunting continued. Meg shivered. My God, she thought, has this happened to me?
She sensed—knew—that Bernadine Clinton’s death was part of something implicitly evil. And I, too, had a part in it.
What was she to say to the Clinton family members at the funeral services on Monday?
The rain was letting up as Meg emerged from the Randolph Street station. She didn’t bother to open her umbrella. The Michigan Avenue address was not far away.
She had been given the last appointment of the day, and at precisely 4 p.m., she was shown into Doctor Krista Peterhof’s office.
The doctor came around her desk, shook hands with Meg, and introduced herself. Her Germanic accent was scarcely noticeable.
The two exchanged pleasantries and comments on the rain. The doctor then asked Meg to take a seat.
“No couch?” Meg asked, then immediately regretted the joke. She was nervous. She had never been in therapy, not that she considered this visit therapy. She was here for information.
“I have one there by the window, if you prefer.”
“No, no. I wasn’t serious. It’s just the image one has.”
The doctor smiled, sitting now in the winged back chair that matched the one Meg settled into.
Doctor Peterhof was in her fifties, Meg guessed, a bit plump but very agile. She wore a tailored gray suit and a white silk blouse, its rounded collar at the neck. Her silvered black hair was pulled back and wound into an amazing single braid that fell well below her waist. She smiled now and her Germanic features, not really pretty, gave the illusion of prettiness. She waited for Meg to speak.
“Now that I’m here, I don’t know where to begin.”
“It doesn’t matter. Relax. What one thinks is the beginning often isn’t the true place to begin. Isn’t there some Dickens novel that begins with, ‘I am born.’?”
“Great Expectations—no, wait—David Copperfield.”
“Yes, that’s right. Well, I’m certain Mr. Dickens thought that that was the very beginning, but it certainly was not.”
Meg smiled tentatively. A bit of psycho babble, she thought. Still, the literary reference gave their exchange a leavening quality.
“It was a way for the character to get started,” the doctor was saying. “A beginning.”
Meg nodded. “Since I have only an hour of your time, I’d rather start with my marriage and bring you quickly forward to the house and dreams that I told about briefly on the phone.”
“Good!” The doctor took up a notebook and positioned it in her lap. She took a silver pen from its holder on the desk.
And so Meg began. It took her half an hour to bring the story up to date. When she finished—with the details of Bernadine Clinton’s death—she was fighting back tears.
The doctor looked up from her notes. Her face seemed to have softened. “You’ve been through quite a lot in a short timespan.”
Meg nodded, thankful for the warmth in the doctor’s hazel eyes.
“And you wish for me to shed some light?” the doctor asked.
“Yes, of course, if you can.�
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“I may be able to offer some logical reasons for some of what’s been happening to you. It’ll take some explaining. Of course, logic is relative to one’s experience—and to an openness to believe. And to learn. You see, proof is often vague or nonexistent. And some of what you’ve described to me is difficult to explain.”
Meg was anxious to get to specifics. “What I find most disturbing, besides Bernadine Clinton’s death, are the dreams.”
“The lucid dreams? Ah, now there I may actually have an explanation.”
“Really?” Meg blinked in surprise. She had found the dreams the hardest to fathom. Even the materialization of Claude and Alicia seemed logical by comparison.
“Yes. But some of the other manifestations, I feel—like the tappings, the music, and the sightings—while they very well may be connected to concepts in my studies of the holotropic mind, they’re really in a vague and mysterious area.”
“The paranormal?”
“It would seem so.”
“I see. Doctor, is it possible that I’m accessing someone else’s dreams?”
The doctor smiled. “Absolutely—as well as their hopes and disappointments. ”
Meg felt a quickening in her heart. “How?”
“Do you understand the concept of a hologram?”
“Well, on the most basic level, maybe.” Meg laughed. “Don’t assume too much with me when it comes to science.”
“You’re more into literature, I’ll wager.”
“Yes.”
“I thought so. Now, I’ll try to explain a hologram. A hologram is used as a good analogy to a relatively new science of the universe.”
“So the universe may be seen as a hologram?”
“Exactly! To achieve a hologram, a photographer will split a laser light, arranging for the first beam to strike the item being photographed while the second interferes with the light of the first as it is reflected off the item. This makes for what you see as a hologram, a very clever image in dimensions.—Still with me, Meg?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Good! Now here is the analogy: each of our own realities is like a projected holographic image. Matter and consciousness are parts of a whole. You see, our bodies and our minds are parts of a whole. Within you, Meg, is a microcosm of the universe. You may not know how to consciously access the universe, but it is possible. Sometimes it’s done with hypnosis or drugs, like LSD.”
“And the reverse is true?”
“That other elements of the universe can access you?” The woman’s pencil-thin eyebrows arched. “You are a quicker study than you let on. Yes, absolutely! Of course, some people are more sensitive, more receptive, than others.”
“Like me?”
“Just a decade or two ago your dreams would have been described as mystical or mysterious or paranormal. But, now, Meg, the science of the holotropic mind provides answers.”
“So, some force—or someone—can access me, and in a way kind of possess me?”
“There is such a thing as transpersonal consciousness, and it is infinite, but I must caution you—it’s uncharted territory.”
“Transpersonal consciousness? Then you’re not writing off my dreams as coming from my vivid imagination?”
“They could be imagined, perhaps, but from what you’ve described, I find it unlikely.”
“Might I be bringing these things upon myself? Like the governess in The Turn of the Screw? Are you familiar with that story?”
“Yes, I adore Henry James! And his brother William made a name for himself in science.”
“Many critics believe that the ghosts in that story are conjured up as a result of the deep psychological needs of the governess.”
“Could be Henry’s brother gave him some ideas for that little masterpiece. I won’t fully discount that idea, but your dreams of that house and Hammond seem to suggest the transpersonal. Carl Jung’s theory is that there is a personal unconscious unique to each person’s experience and a collective unconscious that files away the experiences of everyone in one reservoir. Meg, you are part of the collective unconscious, but it is independent of you.”
“And time?”
“Time doesn’t matter a bit. Time is a linear thing that we grasp onto, but it doesn’t exist in the holotropic mind. With the use of hypnosis or drugs, people have moved back in time—to their experience in the womb, and—if you can believe it, even before that—into previous generations.”
“Seriously?”
The doctor nodded. “However, people who believe in reincarnation, people who remember parts of what they think are past lives may merely be accessing the transpersonal world, tapping into another’s life in another era and another place—as if he or she—had been that person.”
“So that would debunk the reincarnation theory?”
The doctor shrugged. “It would seem so.”
“Okay, what about the specifics of my—my situation?”
“Ah, the occurrences. Like I said, Meg, this science, the world of the transpersonal, is new and uncharted. I may call it a science, but others may not be so generous. Some solicitously call it a theory. Some discount it altogether. Anyway, in your case, many variables exist. This woman—Alicia— ?”
“Reichart.”
“Alicia Reichart. Did you bring the picture?”
“Yes.” Meg took it from her purse. “It’s just a copy—here, she’s the one in the lower left.”
The doctor took the picture, stared at it, appraising the figure Meg pointed out. “Yes, she was a very forceful personality. She just jumps right out at you, doesn’t she? Her strong vibration is evident.”
“Vibration?”
“Yes, each of us possesses a certain vibration, some individuals very positive, some very negative.”
“I see.”
“Yours, I would guess, is very positive. May I keep this picture for your file?”
Meg nodded. “I have another.”
The doctor placed the picture on her desk, then sat drumming the fingers of both hands on her chair’s armrests. “Let me say this first, Meg. I can assure you that I think you are a sane and rational person. I’ve no doubt of that. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. And you are very, very sensitive—and that is what opened you to the transpersonal world.”
“Then you do think that’s what’s going on with me?”
“This is what we know: the woman in the picture there was the original occupant of the house. She had a son with a very promising future—but who somehow died at the age of nine. How did he die?”
“I don’t know. It was one of the things I wanted to ask Mrs. Clinton before— ”
“All right. But death at that age is tragic, whatever the circumstances. This is the stuff of strong, strong feelings. Emotions, electric emotions that may cross the borders of time, may cross borders of people, so to say.”
“And these emotions may have found a fixation in me?”
The doctor’s eyes lifted, creasing her forehead. “Possibly. You said you felt an affinity to the house right away?”
“Oh, my God, yes! The first day. I had to have it. That is, except for the coach house. I have yet to go back in there. We plan to tear it down.”
“Ah, the coach house, where you saw the young boy in the window?”
“Yes.”
“Is the coach house as old as the house?”
“No, we were told there had been a barn there originally.”
“On the very spot?” the doctor inquired.
“Yes, they used the same foundation for the coach house.”
“And the boy’s image you saw on that first day, was it— ?”
“The same as I encountered on the balcony? Yes, I think so.”
“What scares you about the coach house?”
“I felt a cold there pass through me, and I just knew it was evil. I just knew.”
“And the figure Mrs. Clinton said she saw?”
“Alicia.”
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p; “So it seems we have two forces.”
“Yes.”
“You’ve seen the boy, but you haven’t seen a picture of him yet?”
“Correct.”
“And we know what Alicia looks like. Mrs. Clinton did identify her?”
“Yes . . . then, they are, Claude and Alicia . . . spirits?”
“We’re moving out of my area of expertise. I do know that some psychics differentiate between spirits and ghosts. Spirits have passed on to the other side, another dimension. On the other hand, ghosts seem to be unaware they have died.”
“Unaware?”
“Yes, and as such, they appear to be more real than spirits that have ascended to a higher level after death.”
“I’ve never heard that.”
“You saw the real image of the boy. You were able to see him, perhaps, because he remains on this lower level, closer to our dimension. Whatever the case, you are dealing with forces, energy fields.”
“Forces that are parts of the transpersonal world.”
“Everything is a part of that world, Meg. Everything.”
“Do these forces travel together, or is it just coincidence that mother and son—if that’s what they are—are both suddenly making appearances? Is one aware of the other?”
“I can only make a conjecture, but in a sense the two forces may be one force.”
“How is that?”
“In the study of the holotropic mind there is the notion of a dual unity. I say notion now; it’s not an absolute. A dual unity is a very strong transpersonal connection between two people. It’s the sense of two people becoming one, yet maintaining separate identities. Like a couple very much in love for fifty years.”
“Or like twins?”
“Yes. An even better example would be a mother and child during pregnancy and the breastfeeding stage.”
“But this is a nine-year-old child.”
“True enough. But you have a mother who had great hopes for her son. To see them dashed, perhaps even witnessing his death, too, that trauma could have made manifest the keenest sense of duality.”
Meg’s head was swimming. “And so I’m left with two spirits—or with one force that might comprise a—dual entity?”
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