by Becky Durfee
“Mom?” he said loudly. “Can I have my tablet?”
“Not now, sweetie.”
“Why not?”
“Now is not a good time.”
“Well, what can I do, then?”
“You can talk to Miss Mary.”
“But I don’t want to talk to Miss Mary. I want to play with my tablet.”
“Don’t be rude, honey. Miss Mary is a very nice woman.”
Jenny watched the exchange, wondering if this was going to be an exercise in futility. She allowed her eyes to shift to Dr. Wilson, who gave a subtle nod in Mary’s direction. That had been her cue.
“Devon,” Mary said timidly, “I’d love to talk to Matthew.”
He glanced in her direction with wide eyes at first, followed quickly by the familiar furrowed brow. “Matthew isn’t here.”
Jenny’s heart skipped a beat. Was it possible that Matthew had already crossed?
Mary clearly wondered the same thing; her helpless glance in Dr. Wilson’s direction indicated she didn’t know what to do with that statement. Dr. Wilson flashed a stern expression back at Mary, as if to say, we rehearsed this.
Returning her focus to Devon, Mary said, “I’d like to talk about my mother, Julia.”
Devon froze for a moment, his face blank. “What about her?”
Jenny didn’t know if Matthew or Devon had been the one asking.
“I want to let Matthew know how he can see her again.”
The child remained still; his intensity made the room feel as if all the air had been sucked out. “How?”
Mary cleared her throat. “He needs to cross over. Julia is on the other side, and he can see her again if he crosses.”
Devon looked confused. “How do you know that’s where she is?”
“Well,” Mary began sweetly, “that’s where people are supposed to go after they pass away.”
“I know that,” Devon said matter-of-factly.
Mary still spoke in a tone reserved for small children, even though it wasn’t obvious which person was communicating with her. “You do?”
Devon simply nodded before walking over to Mary, leaning his little body against her legs. “But how do you know that?” He tapped her gently with his pointer finger.
Mary put her arm around Devon, rubbing his back with the care of a loving grandmother. “Miss Jenny told me.”
Seemingly satisfied with that answer, Devon lowered his gaze to the floor, looking as if he was deliberately avoiding eye contact with Mary. “You have to go there, too. Not now, but later.” He paused before adding, “After.”
Mary battled tears as she whispered, “I will. I promise.”
“Good,” Devon declared, “because I want to see you again.”
Jenny’s breath caught at the use of first person; apparently Matthew had been the one communicating all this time.
A surge of emotion seemed to hit Mary; she hung her head and bit her lip, managing only a nod as a response. Jenny watched as Devon stood motionlessly for several seconds, then quickly changed his demeanor and began to run aimlessly throughout the room. It was easy to tell the exact moment Devon returned to his natural state of being.
Jenny stood up and approached Mary, who was holding strong despite an obvious desire to cry. Her tone was sympathetic. “You did great, Mary.”
With a childlike expression, Mary looked up and asked, “Do you think it was enough?”
“I hope so,” she replied. “Only time will tell, I guess, but you seemed to get the message across.”
Mary closed her eyes and spoke with determination. “I just want everyone to be at peace…my father, Devon, Kayla. I think that will only happen when my dad crosses.”
“Well, now that he knows you are safe—and plan to join him one day—I would think he’d like to be with your mother on the other side. I don’t know what exactly goes on there, but I am under the impression that it’s amazing.” Jenny shrugged her shoulders and widened her eyes. “It’s got to be better than the last fifty years of fruitlessly searching around here.”
Mary didn’t look up when she muttered, “I think anything would be better than that.”
Jenny contemplated what the past few decades must have been like for Matthew, deciding it surely felt more like centuries to him. She shuddered and whispered, “I agree.”
Dr. Wilson appeared at their side, and Mary immediately posed, “Do you think he will require more contacts?”
“I should think not,” he said, irritating Jenny with his robotic tone. “He had the opportunity to say more if he wanted, but he seemed satisfied. This appearance was brief, and it had even to be coerced to some degree; my conclusion would be that he is at peace with how things have transpired here.”
Despite Jenny’s growing contempt for Dr. Wilson, he was still the most knowledgeable person in the room on the subject of possession, so she directed her question at him. “Do you think he will cross now?”
“That’s my impression.”
The expression on Mary’s face looked like a mixture of relief and sadness; while that conclusion was what everybody had wanted, it meant she had just said goodbye to her father…again. It was as if she’d lost him twice. Jenny compassionately placed her hand on Mary’s shoulder; the gesture seemed appreciated.
With what appeared to be a forced change in mood, Mary clasped her hands together and said, “So, are we done here? Can Devon finally go home and go back to being a regular little boy?”
Jenny looked over at Kayla, who was fishing Devon’s tablet out of her bag but clearly focusing her attention on the conversation.
Dr. Wilson’s tone remained mechanical. “I believe he can.”
The silence that ensued spoke volumes. There was an element of triumph involved with that statement, but jubilation was certainly inappropriate; the day’s events had been much too somber for that.
The room was heavy, and everyone seemed afraid to speak…everyone, that is, except for Dr. Wilson, who turned to Kayla and emotionlessly asked her permission to write about Devon’s story in his next publication. Jenny closed her eyes and shook her head; perhaps it was the pregnancy, but his emotionless personality was grating her last nerve. She wished she never spoke to him about visiting Addy Roth; then she could have made the visit without him. As it was, she had made him actively involved in that investigation.
As Kayla and Dr. Wilson talked logistics, Jenny focused her attention on Mary. “Are you going to head home after this, or are you going to stick around a while?”
Mary smiled pleasantly, which tugged at Jenny’s heartstrings. She was a lovely woman, managing to keep her graces in the most horrible of circumstances. Everyone should be so amiable. “Well, my whole family is here; that doesn’t happen often. We’ve all arranged to stay for a few days, so we’re going to treat it like a mini-vacation.”
Jenny smiled in return. “A little reunion, of sorts.”
“Exactly.” Mary’s smile faded, but the agreeableness remained in her face. “What’s next for you?”
“Me?” Jenny glanced over at Dr. Wilson quickly before replying, “I need to find out a little bit more about a place called Eden.”
Everyone had cleared the meeting room except Jenny and Dr. Wilson. The camera had been disassembled and packed away, Jenny’s swollen feet had found themselves stripped of shoes and propped on a chair. “So, Dr. Wilson, when you were dealing with Addy, you had mentioned that she wouldn’t give you a name associated with the spirit.”
“That is correct.”
“Well, I have since found out that the people at Eden didn’t go by their given names; they each chose their own, and they were unconventional. The two names I am aware of are Jove and Music Maker. Is it possible the spirit really did give you its name, but you just didn’t know it was a name?”
With his eyes fixed on Jenny, he replied, “When asked her name, she told us she didn’t have to give us…wait, what was it? Oh yes…us corrupt prisoners of society any information at all
.”
Jenny‘s expression deflated. “I suppose that wasn’t the spirit’s assumed name.”
“No, I shouldn’t think so.”
Undeterred, Jenny continued, “I have the contact information of one of the people who left Eden. I can’t remember his name off the top of my head, but he lives in Minnesota or someplace in that general vicinity. The woman he left with apparently died about a decade ago.”
“Would you like me to call him?” Wilson asked.
Jenny stifled the snort that begged to come out; Dr. Wilson would have been the last person she’d want to make that call. “That’s okay,” she said politely instead. “You have a lot going on. I can give him a call. It would be great if you could call Addy’s family, though, and try to arrange a meeting. Now that it appears we’re done here, I’d like to go down and see her.”
“I would like that, too,” Dr. Wilson replied. “It would be great if you could tell me if she’s a psychic or if there’s just something about a child’s brain that makes them susceptible to contact. That’s been something I’ve been trying to find out for years.”
“It shouldn’t be too hard for me to tell,” Jenny said. “All I’d have to do is meet her.”
“Well, let’s make that happen, then.”
Yes, let’s make that happen, Jenny thought, so you can further your research.
Then, she silently scolded herself for being nasty.
“I’d also like to make another trip to Eden,” she added, “most likely getting a hotel nearby. I’m hoping a second visit to the compound will give me some insight about what went on there. I also want Zack talk to the Bedford police a little more—again, I don’t want to go anywhere near the officers myself, for fear of how I might react.” She smiled slyly and added, “I wouldn’t want to slug anybody or anything.”
No reaction from Dr. Wilson. What a surprise.
Jenny uncomfortably cleared her throat. “So, is that the plan, then? You arrange a meeting with Addy, and I’ll do a little research about, and maybe pay a visit to, Eden?”
“That sounds like a good approach to me,” he declared. “I have some writing to do about what happened here this week with Devon, but I can certainly squeeze in a phone call.”
Jenny plastered on a smile, secretly wishing that she didn’t need Dr. Wilson present to make any of this happen. Either that, or she wanted her hormone levels to go down a bit so she could better tolerate him. Sadly, she was confident that neither of those wishes was going to come true.
Troy Bauer’s voice sounded deep and throaty on the phone, which Jenny assumed was due to a lifetime of cigarettes. Despite the gruff tone, however, he sounded like he had a jovial personality.
“I’d like to ask you about what life was like at Eden,” Jenny concluded after getting him up to speed, “and, honestly, I’d like to find out why you left.”
“That second part is easy,” he declared with a chuckle in his voice. He reminded Jenny of a less wholesome version of Santa Claus. “We left because Sabrina was expecting a baby.”
Jenny was pretty sure she was stating the obvious, and she wasn’t certain about the tactfulness of the question, but she had learned over the past year never to take anything for granted. “Your baby, I assume?”
He let out another jolly laugh. “I certainly hope he was.” He dragged out a lengthy and rough, “Naaahhh, I’m just kidding. It was my son. He came out looking just like me, for crying out loud—I couldn’t have denied him if I tried.”
Jenny smiled, loving the fact that her gift led her to people like Troy. She otherwise wouldn’t have had the occasion to talk to an older gentleman from Minnesota, but his colorful character definitely brightened her day. Remaining professional, however, she simply said, “Did you leave because you didn’t want the baby growing up on the…” Was the word compound offensive? “…at Eden?”
“We didn’t want her giving birth at Eden. Jove had a rule against getting outside medical help—he called the whole health care profession corruption at its finest. He thought doctors were some of the most overpriced and over-valued people in the world; he felt they did little more than guess most of the time.” Troy raised his voice an octave, which Jenny presumed was his imitation of Jove’s take on doctors. “You have a virus. Get some rest and eat some soup. Oh, no insurance? That’ll be twenty dollars, please.” He returned his tone to its normal, gruff sound. “Keep in mind that twenty dollars back in 1960 was like a hundred dollars today. It certainly wasn’t cheap, that’s for sure. And you’d get nothing for it—at least, that’s how Jove looked at it.”
“But you and Sabrina wanted to have a doctor present when she had the baby,” Jenny concluded, stating it more like a sentence than a question.
“We sure did, especially after what happened to that girl.”
Jenny’s nerves began to tingle. “What girl?”
A grunt signaled Troy’s displeasure in telling the story. “She was a young thing—couldn’t have been more than nineteen, I guess. She had some pretty, long blond hair—that’s what I remember about her most. Golden One—that’s what we called her, because of that hair.”
Jenny listened politely, although she was eager for him to get to the point.
“She got pregnant while she was at Eden. I’m not sure who the father was—I can’t rightly remember. I’m not even sure she knew, to tell you the truth. There was a lot of that…free love back then, although I guess I shouldn’t be telling this to a young lady.”
With a sincere smile, Jenny replied, “I can handle it. Besides, I’m not all that young.”
“Oh, believe me, you are. I can hear it in your voice.”
“Well, thank you.” Trying to steer the topic back to Eden, Jenny said, “So, what happened to Golden One?”
Another grunt. “She died while trying to have that baby. Her water broke, but she didn’t go into labor at first. Medicine Man kept her bedridden after that, but a couple of days went by before she actually started having labor pains. In the meantime, infection must have set in. So there she was, burning up with fever, trying to have a baby. I felt so bad for her. She looked as miserable as she could be.”
Jenny put her hand on her own belly, trying to distance herself from the story.
“I told Jove she needed to see a doctor, but he said no. We had Medicine Man, who, according to him, knew just as much about healing people as any trained professional. Besides, he said anything they would have done to her would have been unnatural and unaffordable, and people had been giving birth without interference for thousands of years. He insisted she would be fine with just a little positive energy.”
“Positive energy?”
“Yes.” Troy sounded bitter. “Can you imagine? There was this poor girl, sick as hell, trying to give birth when she barely had enough strength to sit up—and there we were, the rest of us, dancing around and singing about shining the love light on her and crap. We were a bunch of high idiots, that’s what we were. She was dying, for goodness sake, and all we did for her was dance.”
No wonder Troy didn’t like telling this story; he watched a young woman die when she didn’t need to.
“If she could have just gotten a little bit of antibiotics, she’d have been fine, I bet,” he went on, “but Jove didn’t let that happen, and we all just sat back and allowed it.”
Jenny’s tone reflected the sympathy she felt for Troy. “How did the baby fare?”
“She lived a day; that was it.”
Hanging her head, Jenny absorbed that notion. That baby should have had grown children by now. “I can’t blame you for wanting to get out of there, then,” Jenny said.
“I wasn’t about to let something happen to Sabrina and the baby just because Jove didn’t trust doctors. I may have been willing to do just about anything he told me, but I drew the line when it came to the woman I loved and my baby.”
Jenny smiled. “What did Jove say when you told him you were leaving?”
The Santa-style laugh ret
urned. “Oh, no…we couldn’t tell him that. Are you kidding? There was no leaving Eden once you signed on. You had to take part in a commitment ceremony when you first joined, which made it against the rules to leave.”
“You weren’t allowed to leave?”
“Nope. We sure weren’t.”
Jenny thought back to Dawn’s assessment of The Family as being a cult, determining she actually had it right. “Wow. What would be the consequence if you did?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Troy said with all joviality gone from his voice.
Jenny thought for a moment, but the ‘obvious’ punishment didn’t come to her. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but I’m afraid I don’t know what it is.”
“I’ll give you a hint,” Troy said flatly. “Forty-five people were dead two weeks after we left.”
Chapter 12
Jenny’s jaw hit the floor. “You really think the overdose was a result of you leaving Eden?”
His gruff voice made the words seem even more eerie. “It would be an awfully big coincidence if it wasn’t, don’t you think?”
She wiped her eyes with her free hand, trying to see how this latest piece of the puzzle fit in with the rest. Things weren’t adding up in her head. “Mr. Bauer, I have a confession to make.”
“A confession?” he asked. “What could you possibly have to confess about?”
Jenny giggled; Troy reminded her a little bit of Elanor, which may have explained why she liked him so much. “I guess confession is the wrong word. I have an admission; is that better?”
“Maybe. Depends what it is.”
She released a sigh. “I’m a psychic, and I’ve been contacted by one of the members of Eden.”
Met with the familiar silence, Jenny continued. “I’m not sure which person is speaking to me, but I got a very clear message that the members of The Family didn’t voluntarily take pills. This wasn’t an orchestrated suicide—it was a murder.”