The Haunting of the Gemini

by Jackie Barrett

  I felt a pull inside me, like someone was responding to their words and trying to get out. I pushed her back and looked at myself again in the mirror. This time, I didn’t look pretty. A white, wiggling maggot was slithering out of the corner of my mouth. I pulled it out and threw it away from me, feeling gross and disgusting. I bent over the sink and swished water around my mouth, trying to spit out the remainders of death. The two women ignored me. They turned and walked right through the bathroom door, fading away. I ran after them . . .

  * * *

  . . . What had happened? I was standing upstairs, on the restaurant’s main floor, surrounded by the ordinary sounds of happy conversations and clinking utensils. How much time had gone by? I looked at my cell phone, trying to figure it out.

  I finally saw our table and Will as he sat facing away from me. As I walked toward him, people started shooting odd looks my way and whispering to one another. I kept going and rubbed my husband’s back as I passed by him and took my place at our table.

  “Hey, you. Why didn’t you check up on me?” I said, my head down as I placed my napkin neatly in my lap. Then I looked over at him and smiled. He spit out his drink in shock and stared at me, mouth agape. I stared back. What the hell was his problem? I followed his gaze down and noticed that my blouse had several buttons unfastened. I was flaunting much more cleavage than I ever did. I reached up and felt my face. My hands came away covered with sticky pink lipstick and smeared black mascara.

  I started to bristle at the look on his face. He took notice, and his expression switched to one of worry. He reached for my hand.

  “Let me in, Jackie. I love you.”

  “You wouldn’t understand. I don’t even understand,” I said. “I’m not going to a doctor. There isn’t a prescription for this. Maybe a mental institution . . .” I laughed, though it was the furthest thing from funny.

  I looked into his eyes and saw all the obstacles we had overcome, all the dangers we had conquered—together. Both of us knew things that most people did not even realize existed.

  “Will, did you ever get a splinter, not knowing how or when it happened? But you can see something under your skin—the shape of it making the outer part of the flesh inflamed, raised up. And you begin to pick at it with a sharp pair of tweezers, pulling back the skin to expose this object that’s infecting your finger. And you grab it, trying to slide it out. You’ll do anything to relieve the throbbing. Well, that is what I’m going through. But it’s not a splinter.”

  Will slowly leaned back in his chair. “What happened when you went to the bathroom? You come back looking different. Your makeup is running down your face; your lipstick is a color you don’t wear and never liked.”

  I could feel my occupant becoming furious. Will was criticizing her directly. Her rage built. I tried to keep her down, but it was so hard. She was so powerful.

  I told Will I would wait outside while he paid the bill. He protested—he had asked for the dessert tray. Ah, my man. He knew that if anything would get me to stay, it was my sweet tooth.

  The waiter approached and placed the platter of Mexican delights in front of me. He leaned in toward my ear and started to tell me which one was best. In seconds, though, his smooth sales pitch became a deep, hollow snarl.

  “Keep looking straight ahead into that window of the kitchen door. Do you see who you are now?”

  I saw men in white medical-examiner uniforms lifting a woman. Her face passed the glass window in the door, disfigured from the murder and exposure to the elements afterward. The men brought her directly by me, commenting on the countless stab wounds that had to be the work of that serial killer on the loose. Just behind them, I saw myself walking slowly and mechanically in the same direction. The image was solid, and I watched as the vision of me passed by. I was carrying a child in my arms—the little girl in the yellow raincoat.

  The restaurant’s kitchen door swung open and the red ball I had seen the little girl carrying came bouncing straight toward me. I jumped away from the table, knocking things over, trying to get away. Will grabbed my arm, threw down enough money to cover the dinner and my antics, and dragged my sobbing self out to the sidewalk. He wrapped his arms around me.

  “Jackie, you’re not alone. You never were. And I’m not going to let anything or anyone hurt you. I made that promise a lifetime ago.”

  We started to walk, and I started to talk. I told him of the horrible things I was seeing, of trying to mimic ordinary people and their actions because I was unable to act normally.

  “I’m being pulled from both sides. There is this guy who just appears out of nowhere, dressed in black and holding me hostage,” I said. “And then there’s this woman, who makes me do things I don’t want to, and this little girl who I’ve seen my whole life. She’s somehow in the thick of it. The guy wants the woman. And the child and the woman both keep running.”

  Will listened carefully—like he always did—and waited for me to continue. When I didn’t, he decided to push the subject further himself.

  “Jackie,” he said slowly, “I found a large storage box tied up and hidden in the back of the garage. How do you know the New York City Zodiac?”

  I felt like I’d been busted. Deny, deny, deny.

  “I don’t know him. How would I know him? The woman who sometimes controls me knows him.”

  Will fired back. “How did he get our address? Why do you hide his letters? Drawings, his hair—”

  “She gave the address to him! Maybe she wants answers, maybe she wants . . .” I stopped. “Maybe . . . she wants freedom.” I heard the words come out, but it didn’t sound like me. It was a sad voice that ran over mine, like two people talking at once. I stood on the sidewalk and wondered about what I had just heard put into words.

  Will, still concerned and upset, stomped inside to take a shower, and I headed off to check on the Zodiac box. I ran downstairs to the garage the minute I heard the water go on. I locked the door behind me and pulled out the box. I needed to make sure nothing was gone. Or, more accurately, that nothing had escaped.

  The single lightbulb hanging above me began to crackle. I looked up at it and heard a quick scrape on the concrete floor behind a large CD rack we stored down here. Then came a gurgling sound mixed with laughter. I followed it around the CD rack, and there she was. Patricia, bent into a position on my garage floor that was not humanly possible—if one were alive.

  Her face was wet and gray and framed by her tangled, stringy hair. Her eye sockets looked like dark holes, and she foamed at the mouth, spitting words at me I couldn’t understand. She was strapped into a straitjacket and was struggling to free herself. She tried to stand, with the inhuman strength I have only ever seen during the horrifying events of an exorcism.

  I fell backward in terror and must have screamed, because I heard Joanne and then Will trying to get into the garage through the main car door. Will yelled at Joanne to get out of the way. They punched at the code panel, and the door began to rise. Will slid underneath and rushed past me. No, right through me. I looked down at myself and stretched out my arms. They couldn’t see me or hear me. They disappeared behind the oversize CD tower.

  I turned back toward the garage door as it finished raising up. And there he was. The tall man in black, holding a large knife. I turned and saw Will and Joanne on their knees, struggling with something. I couldn’t figure out what was going on. I turned back to the man, who grinned.

  “Only I can hear you,” he said. “Take the knife, Jackie, and join me forever. Feel the power; let me live in you. You are my Gemini. We are all two. We are all evil. Let me wrap my arms around you.”

  I did not want to be here. I did not want to be part of this. I felt so alone. And then someone took my hand. I looked down and saw the little girl in the yellow raincoat looking up at me, a spirit beside me.

  “He’s the stranger, isn’t he?” she asked, looking
up at me.

  I saw the strangulation marks around her neck. And I remembered.

  * * *

  A calendar hung on the kitchen wall. November 1950. The picture was of little puppy dogs playing in a red basket. The room was dark, lit only by the candles on a birthday cake in the middle of the table. A little girl sat in front of it, perched up on her knees, and leaned forward to blow them out. Her father told her to make a wish. Then her mother stopped her and ran to retrieve another present to add to the pile.

  “I have one more surprise for you,” she said, peeling back the wrapping. It was a yellow raincoat.

  “Oh, Mommy, thank you so much! I love it! I love it! Can I wear it today? Please, Mommy?”

  “We’ll see,” the mother said, smiling at her beautiful birthday girl. “Now, blow those candles out. You’re a big girl now.”

  She leaned forward again, clutching her worn teddy bear, and blew.

  The lights went out. Something leaned in very close and whispered a wish. I’m coming back.

  The lights came on, and the kitchen had changed. The party was gone. The calendar hung crookedly on its peg. The mother and father sat huddled together at the table. The mother clutched at the raincoat and started screaming.

  “Who took my daughter? I want her back. This is all I have of my baby . . . Someone took our baby girl.”

  The girl stood next to me as we watched the scene. The raincoat she wore was dripping with rain. The drops became blood and pooled around my feet. I couldn’t move. She took my hand.

  “I was killed by a man,” she said. I looked into her eyes and she showed me.

  * * *

  Now, as I heard Will and Joanne struggling behind me, I knew they couldn’t see or hear me. I knew how the dead felt. I knew why they so readily came to me. They just wanted someone to listen. And dear God, right now, so did I. I was just like that little girl next to me. I might be that girl next to me. I held her hand, that little girl who couldn’t run, who couldn’t get away. Just like Patricia, and just like me.

  And she had run to the only person who could see her. I closed my eyes to shut out the Zodiac standing in my garage and took a breath. The air came out in a rush as my eyes flew open, and I saw Will and Joanne standing over me. I was lying on the floor of my garage—behind the CD tower—kicking and screaming.

  “It’s okay. It’s only us,” Will said, holding his hands up so I could see them. “Look, I have nothing. It’s me.”

  Joanne sank down on the floor next to me, her eyes wide. I stopped screaming and started crying. Will asked if I’d fallen and gotten hurt. I shook my head no and managed to ask, “What happened?”

  They both had heard bloodcurdling screams coming from the garage. It didn’t sound like me, and they thought someone had broken into the house. They had found me in the corner in a trans-medium state—I was rocking back and forth and talking in two different voices, a woman and a man who seemed to be arguing.

  As I calmed down, Will turned to the large sketch pad that lay next to me. On it, I had scrawled in red crayon:

  My name used to be Jane. I’m eight years old, and I was murdered, too.

  Will carefully picked up the pad. Underneath it was one of my large kitchen knives. The knife was all scratched, and the concrete floor around me had deep gouges in it. Will snatched it quickly and moved it away from me. I hung my head.

  “I’m going to get put away again,” I said weakly.

  Both my husband and my daughter stared at me, uncomprehending.

  “What! Jackie, why would you say that?” Will said. He knew that I had never been “put away” for anything in my entire life.

  My voice was barely audible. “I don’t know . . . because she was . . .”

  Will—still carefully holding the knife away from me—told Joanne to take me upstairs to bed while he cleaned up the mess.

  “No!” I leaped to my feet. “I want everything back, now!” I grabbed everything and packed it away in the box. “I’m telling you both, stay away from my things, or he’ll kill you.”

  As I packed everything away and tried to catch my breath, a startling realization took hold of me. The tall man in black was the twin of the Zodiac. He was the devil behind Eddie’s meek smile. It wasn’t enough to murder; he had to keep their souls. He had to keep his victims from finding the arms of God. It was a double win. He victimized them for all eternity and delivered a slap to the face of the Almighty. Is there a war between heaven and hell? You bet there is.

  And Eddie was an exceptional soldier. The devil took the features of his DNA—his mirrored image—and left that concrete cell to finish his work. Eddie’s physical body could not leave, but that powerful devil inside him was free. He could walk along undetected in order to collect more trophies, and reclaim the one who got away.

  TWELVE

  At one time or another, we all have something in common—we all get stuck. We all get in our own way. Advanced degrees and overflowing bank accounts can’t help. Sometimes, the more we have, the more cynical we become. We may find ourselves acting differently, becoming distant and distracted. It can happen at any age, to any one of us. It can disguise itself as unhappiness, emptiness. Often we see it but blame others. We can begin to destroy important relationships in the quest to find the answer to that single word—why?

  Some of us have no choice but to answer this question. The glass of water that represents your soul starts to evaporate. Every morning, you crawl out of bed to examine the glass and you notice that there is less and less water. You see the stale lines where the old water was, and as you stare at those high-water marks every day, the lines become more prominent than the water itself. All you can see is the depletion of your inner happiness, your core, your soul.

  By the time people like this seek me out, they have lost their bearings. They often do not even know what their real problem is, just that they no longer feel right. My hope for these people is always the same—that they find me before they destroy their current lives, their families, their relationships. So many of them say the same thing: “Jackie, I don’t know who I am anymore. My thoughts and wants are scattered.” So I sit them down, and we begin. The key to contentment is finding the door you never knew existed. You may have to go back to move forward. You will need to enhance your senses and truly see for the first time. In doing so, chances are you’ll shed years of sorrow that you never even knew you carried.

  I begin by making my clients comfortable, just chatting. They’re often unaware that what I am looking for is the children they once were—not in this present lifetime but in their past lives. People tend to get stuck at the age that significant past events took place. For example, if someone died in childbirth in a former life, that person will now likely fear the idea of becoming a mother and associate it with heartbreak, yet long for it at the same time. Or take a man who suddenly begins to avoid his family and job. He blames everything he can think of for this behavior, because he does not know the truth—that he died at that exact age in a previous life, and he has no idea what to do with the rest of his current one.

  And so I take them back to the time when they were most happy and carefree, typically between the ages of eight and twelve, when they were still innocent. I always set my exercises in a lovely place, abundant with natural beauty. Wildflowers are waist high and sway slowly in the breeze. A magical road runs through it all, and on the other side stands a mystical forest with trees of every shape and size. The sun bounces off every leaf. Tiny animals scurry around to greet them, peeking out from the underbrush to see this child they once were.

  The child begins to get shaded in, like a figure being colored with a crayon. First the hair, the face, the eyes . . . Everything is described, including what the child is wearing. And every time I do this exercise, there is a unique choice of clothing that immediately tells me what era we’re in. Is the child wearing buttons or zippers or Velcro?
Holding a wooden toy or a plastic one?

  After we re-create this lost soul they now recognize, I stand before them and take their hands. They are not alone. We walk along the road. To the right is a fabulous garden, drenched in color like a Monet painting. To the left is a fairy-tale land, with tiny people who keep the forest safe, bushes that grow cream puffs, and clouds of mouthwatering cream. Everything makes sense to the child’s eyes.

  We walk along this road until we reach the top of a hill and see their childhood home in the distance. As we get closer, the dwelling becomes clearer and they describe it to me. There is no pain or hurt, even if it represents horror. All of that has been washed away by this marvelous land. They point and show me the window to their bedroom, the front door, the mailbox that stands just down the road.

  The door opens and out comes the adult version of themselves, who has waited anxiously for years to be reunited. They run to each other, and tears run like a river, but in this case, the river runs both ways. I stand back and watch the reunion of a soul. The adult hugs the child, and they grasp each other’s hands. This is their safe place now. They talk and walk. They’ll remember this healing conversation, and they’ll never forget or leave themselves behind again. They’ll fix the current wrong and dry the old tears away.

  We cannot fix the future without confronting the past. It’s never easy, but it is—ultimately—for the best. I have taken thousands down this road throughout my career as a spiritual medium and counselor for the soul. I have uncovered and documented many past lives, helping others to understand.

  And now, it was my turn. I knew the picture, because I painted it. And I knew that I needed to go further inside it. But it was so dangerous to do to myself. I knew that I could get stuck in between my current life and my previous one, trapped forever in a no-man’s land, if I relived my previous death. I had done this for other people, but that was different. There was always enough distance between my own life and what I was experiencing for them that I stayed safe. But this was my own life. And my own death. I could die from the fear of it. But not knowing my own past could kill my future. I kept seeing this Jane in a yellow raincoat. She was trying to tell me something. What was it?