I grabbed a dish towel and dried my hands and arms. I had to get a second one to wipe the sink and the counter. Finally I seemed to have gotten it all. I used one more towel to scrub everything with bleach and then tossed all three—soaked with blood—into a bag. I didn’t know what to do with them, so I took them down the block to a service laundry that I always use. I walked up to the counter, and the woman there eyed my small bag.
“Is this it?” she asked.
I looked around nervously. I did not want anyone to see my red-stained towels.
“I had a bit of an accident and cut myself,” I said. I knew this sounded odd, considering there was not a mark or a bandage on me. I pulled out one of the balled-up towels. “Please do your best to get the blood out. I just got these towels, and they’re expensive.”
She took the bag from me and pulled out the other two towels. I was paying more attention to the people around me, wondering what they were thinking about me.
“Miss Jackie,” the woman said. From her tone, she must have been trying to get my attention repeatedly. She held up one of the towels.
“There is no blood—nothing. Only heavy bleach. I can wash them for you.”
I grabbed the towels and turned them over frantically, wanting to validate what had just happened to me. There was nothing. Only bleach.
* * *
After months of whispers and thumps and a disembodied voice, I finally started seeing the culprit. She would appear on the street and go darting through traffic. I would see my own reflection in the glass of a store window and then hers right behind me. Once I walked downstairs and found her sitting in my office chair, wearing the same lucky red sweatshirt I had just put on. Another time, she made me take a drink. I fought my own hand as it brought the alcohol up to my mouth. I’ve never been a drinker, and it immediately made me sick. I ran into the bathroom to throw up and found her sitting on the counter, where she babbled away incoherently as I hung over the toilet. I could make out some words—she said that she was beautiful, and the two of us had work to do. She passed me a tissue so I could wipe my mouth and laughed at me. I felt sicker than ever.
I knew she was dead. But I did not know who she was or what she wanted. Did she want help? Did she want my body, my life?
Even my most mundane actions, my boring errands, were not exempt. I couldn’t even make an ordinary trip to the grocery store, for goodness’ sake, walking out to find the blue sky turning to deep gray. The air was thick, and the trees began to sway in the increasing wind. I quickened my steps, hoping to make it the six blocks home before the sky opened up.
“Jackieeee . . .”
The word was whispered directly into my ear. I spun around, expecting to see someone right over my shoulder, but no one was there. The wind tugged at my clothes as I gawked at the empty sidewalk behind me. I turned and started toward home again.
“Jackieeee . . . be with me . . .”
This time there were footsteps, too, pounding the pavement behind me. I started to run. The sky cracked open and shot lightning. The way things were going, it was probably aiming directly at me. I looked up at it and lost my footing. Down I went with my bag of groceries, stupid cans spilling everywhere. And then there was stupid me, embarrassed as I got to one knee and started gathering my food. A woman stopped and bent down to help. I was starting to thank her when she took a can of beans out of my hands and began to giggle. I slid back on my knees to look up at her but couldn’t see much past the matted hair obscuring her face. Just that glimpse, though, and the way she held herself sent a chill of fear down my back. What did she want with me?
“I see you’re still eating this,” she said, her gaze on the can of beans. She kept staring at the can and my gaze followed hers, but I focused on her hand—gray flesh and chewed fingernails embedded with dirt and blood. She saw my look and dropped the can, swinging her hand behind her back.
“Don’t you look at me like that!” She started sobbing and licking her lips. “It wasn’t my fault!” Her breath came in heaves, and I moved back, trying to put some space between us. I finally realized that no one else could see her. All the people rushing past me, crouched on the sidewalk, were not aware of the woman at all. I knew I had taken one step beyond that door of mine that swings both ways as often as it wants to.
“Do I know you?” I asked softly. “Why are you following me?”
She stood up and kicked over my poor grocery bag. “Take your stuff and get the fuck away from me.” Then she used one hand to cover her face while the other tugged at her dirty pants, reminding me of a shameful child trying to hide. I suddenly felt sorry for her.
“Don’t cry,” I said. “I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings.” I stood slowly and carefully picked up my last few scattered cans, trying not to move quickly and set her off again. “Why do you follow me?” I asked.
“Because you know me. We’re the same, can’t you see?”
With that, she swung toward the busy avenue and bolted into traffic. “Race you home!” she yelled over her shoulder. I grabbed my groceries and raced after her, reflexively yelling for the cars to stop. I shoved past people waiting for the light to change and then stopped and reminded myself that I was the only one who could see her. The people behind me began to whisper about the crazy lady, meaning me. It isn’t me, it’s her, I wanted to yell. The light changed and I ran, away from the whispers and toward home.
I burst through my front door and saw the alarm was still set. She hadn’t gotten in. Or had she? Who was this woman? I kicked the door shut and dropped my now-trashed bag of groceries onto the floor.
“I know you’re in here. Come out and show yourself,” I said. My bedroom door slammed shut.
Now I was actually scared. This had never happened to me before. I bolted into the kitchen and dug a knife out of the silverware drawer. Sweat from my run—and my fear—dripped down into my eyes. I wiped it away and took a breath. That small action gave me pause. What the hell was I doing? Standing in my own kitchen holding a knife like Norman Bates and shrieking at a ghost? I had to get a grip. I put down the knife and began to walk slowly down the hallway to my bedroom. As I approached, the door cracked just a bit, and my beloved cat Oreo shot out past me. She raced to the living room and started scratching at the glass French doors that led out to the front yard.
I followed her and tried to scoop her up into my arms. I had to drop down on all fours and crawl after her as she scooted around a folding screen and kept scratching and meowing at the window. I knew she was trying to show me something, and I was damn sure I didn’t want to see what it was. I finally got my arms around her and started to slide backward, away from the French doors. She clawed at me, and I let her go as I stared up and outside. What I saw froze me with fear. A tall man dressed all in black stood on the other side of the door. His face was covered with a rag, which he lifted in order to press his mouth against the glass. His breath frosted the pane before he stepped back slightly and let the rag fall back into place.
“Jackie,” I heard him say, as if he were in the room with me, “give me what belongs to me.”
I crawled away as fast as I could, trying to keep from being pulled into a fight I had nothing to do with.
* * *
As this woman kept stalking me, I tried desperately to live a normal life. Well, normal for me. My job as a psychic medium isn’t exactly something you find in the “help-wanted” section of the paper. I use my skills in many ways, not all of them related to death. I help the love struck decide whether their infatuations are truly right for them. I help guide artists and performers toward their next projects. I help families find relatives who have been lost to the streets and the ravages of drugs. I guide people on their deathbeds over to the other side. I help law enforcement with homicide and missing-person cases. And I help those robbed of loved ones by murder or suicide have that last conversation they would otherwise be denied.
I am the combination of two bloodlines rich in the supernatural. My father was a Blackfoot Indian who knew the earth and its rhythms. He was connected to everything natural, and he used those links to stay within the good and the right. He did not walk in the darkness. His view of the worlds—both this one and the next—was expansive, and he taught me to notice what most others did not. Each thing had a purpose, and if I knew that, I could open my mind to its other possibilities. He taught me how to summon our ancestors and ask them for guidance, and he brought me to my special protector, the spirit wolf assigned to me at birth who has guarded me ever since. And he taught me how to treat everyone—no matter what their station in life—with respect.
My father was a huge man, big and strong. He worked with his hands all his life, molding steel and iron into all sorts of things, pipelines and bridges, and swinging a sledgehammer most men couldn’t even lift. He came down from Canada and met my mother in New Orleans. Where else would she be, my voodoo high-priestess mother? She was of Sicilian descent, but she was Bayou through and through, an expert in the humid byways and old mysticism of the South. She spent her life ridding other people of their demons, but what she vanquished also fascinated her. In the end, the dark proved too tempting and too powerful. My mother trapped a very strong demon, but rather than damning it back to hell, she tried to set it forth to work for her. Instead, it consumed her, and even an exorcism could not defeat it. It took me years to accept that my own mother had succumbed while in an abandoned hotel on Coney Island, where even two priests and a nun could not overcome the demon inside her.
The exorcism had been going on for days when I got there, just in time to see my mother floating in the middle of a blood-spattered room. Her empty eyes showed the empty space where her soul had been, forever eaten by the devil. She had lost. In her work—her communications with the dead, her ridding others of demons—she had lost. And ever since, I have lived in fear that the same thing would happen to me.
* * *
The woman who had been haunting me finally introduced herself one night at the movies. I walked into the theater restroom, and the fluorescent lights began to dim. The row of toilets began to flush all at once, and the faucets ran to overflowing. I started breathing heavily, and saw the frost of my exhale come from my mouth like Arctic air. I went into a stall and sat down, praying that I could just go to the bathroom in peace. Then an invisible hand scratched letters into the back of the door, right in front of my face.
P-A-T-R-I-C-I-A.
I felt faint. My heart thudded in my chest, and my breath froze my lips. I had to get out of there. I pushed open the stall door and ran toward the exit as the toilets started to overflow. Water spilled everywhere. I felt like I was going to pass out. I reached the exit, and although I barely had the strength, I peeked behind me. Nothing was out of place. All I saw was a silent, clean, dry bathroom. I stood still for a moment, shaking, and then looked in the mirror. It cracked, splitting my reflection in two.
THREE
I had coffee in my hand and headphones in my ears as I descended into the subway. My music blocked out the chitchat around me as I waited for the R train. I was on my way to one of my favorite little cafés down on the Lower East Side to meet an artist friend of mine for a late breakfast so we could talk about his upcoming project.
Many artists run their ideas by me so I can give them the vibe I get about their concepts, enlightening them about what will come. I always meet these clients in person. They need to look into my eyes and sit with me to create the spark of inspiration. We go into a meditative state together. This allows them to let go of any physical pain. Any emotional pain, of course, goes into their creation. What is art without tears of the heart? To the public, it might just seem like a beautiful piece, but to the artists, it is nothing less than a slice of their soul.
This wonderful friend of mine had just yesterday come to my office, which is one of the best places to do a ritual circle. My black mirror and altar are surrounded by antiques and illuminated by a red crystal chandelier. The light bathes the purple walls, red-leather couch, and leopard-print rug. The two of us sat on the couch and held hands to exchange creative energy. We stared into each other’s eyes, and his hands became electric. It was as if every one of his unanswered questions fell into place at that very moment. This is a must with artists—visualizing every step as the process begins.
The energy was so intense that the two of us started dancing. We blasted music and recordings I have of war drums, and we painted our faces with Native American markings. We danced around the office as he opened up his spirit, which was exactly my intent. I know very well that the spirit moves the body and feeds the mind. Now my toes tapped to the music on my iPod as I waited for my train and remembered the day before. We had really rocked it out, and I’d felt great about helping him continue his increasingly successful career. We’d worked together for more than sixteen years and now just needed to finalize plans for his show over coffee. I love this part of my work. Who wouldn’t? It’s so positive, so full of anticipation and promise.
The roar of the approaching train interrupted my thoughts. It looked empty, and I initially thought it would blow right through the station like all out-of-service trains do. But it began to slow, and I automatically moved toward it. No one joined me. Everyone else on the platform continued with their conversations and didn’t even glance toward the train. That never happens here in New York. There’s always a hurried jostling, maybe even a little shoving, as people rush for the seats.
The train screeched to a stop, and the doors banged open. My logical mind told me not to get on that train, but my feet worked by themselves, almost tripping me as they carried me through the doors. I really had no choice. I hesitantly walked onto the train, and the doors slammed shut behind me. Everyone else stayed on the platform. The train lurched forward, and I looked around. There were four homeless people with me in the car. All of them were sleeping, curled around plastic garbage bags that I guessed held all of their worldly possessions. One guy clutched a small transistor radio, held together with rubber bands. I sat across from him and looked down at my iPod, thinking how fortunate some of us are.
I continued to sit there, almost transfixed. I paid no attention to the stops, or to whether the train even stopped at all. It rocked from side to side as it went even faster. An empty bottle of whiskey rolled out from under a seat and bumped its way down the speeding train until it hit my shoe. I slowly lifted my foot to let it pass, but it stayed where it was. Why doesn’t it roll down the aisle? I wondered. The train was moving so fast, I would roll down the aisle if I stood up.
I kicked the bottle underneath my seat and tried to shake off my stupor. I shut off my iPod, hoping to hear the conductor announce an upcoming stop. But there were none. The train was going through a dark tunnel, and all I could see were flashing red and blue lights that made me dizzy. I got up to get a better look at the tunnel graffiti and realized that the train was on the middle track, the express track, and was not going to stop.
A sound came from behind me, and I remembered the homeless people with whom I shared the car. I turned and saw them still asleep, but an old newspaper blew through the air toward me. As I bent down to look at it, it stopped moving, as though it was trying to show me something.
WOMAN FOUND DEAD, PATRICIA FONTI,
AUGUST 10, 1992, AT THE AGE OF 39
I glanced around the car, thinking that someone was playing a joke on me. I picked up the newspaper and walked over t
o the sleeping man with the transistor radio.
“Is this a joke? Did you do this?” I demanded, waking him up. “Look at it!”
I was so upset I couldn’t help myself. I moved to the center of the train car. “Who did this to me?” I yelled, waking everyone up.
The radio man looked at me like I was crazy, which set me off even more. He took a pair of broken reading glasses out of his pocket, put them on, and looked at the paper I shoved at him.
“What is this?” I demanded again. “Look at the year.”
“1992,” he answered.
Fear settled in me. “What year is this?”
A chorus answered me. All four of the homeless people said in unison, “It’s August 1992.”
What? The year 1992 was more than twenty years ago. I threw the newspaper down and sank into a seat, cradling my head in my hands and rocking back and forth. “Wake up. You just have to wake up. This isn’t real,” I chanted to myself. I stayed huddled in that position until I felt the train begin to slow. I raced back to my window and peered out again. This time, I saw a long arrow painted on the tunnel wall. My eyes followed its direction, and outside in the tunnel I saw a small group of people squatting together and sobbing. The train slowed almost to a stop, as if it wanted me to see every detail of their torment. They were all in robes. One woman’s back was exposed, and I could count every rib through her gaunt flesh.
And then I saw him, a dark figure standing over the group. I could not make out his face even though I pressed my cheek against the glass of the train window, straining to get a look at him. But I knew who he was. I had seen him darting in and out of dark places for years. He had appeared in my dreams, pulling me toward a dark psychic cesspool. The tall man in black. The devil. And now he was so close. He pointed down the tunnel as the train moved forward again, this time with the rhythmic clack of a roller coaster straining toward its highest point. He continued to point, and I continued to be carried away. Clack, clack, clack.
The Haunting of the Gemini Page 3