“You still want to do this?” Barbara asked.
Caitlin hesitated a moment longer then lowered her arms. “Yes. I do.”
Deciding there was no point in debating further, Barbara told Caitlin to lie back comfortably.
“Thank you,” Caitlin said as she snuggled back into the crisp polyurethane.
“You want me to record the session?”
“Yes, please.”
Barbara pushed the record button on her phone and placed it on the nightstand. She shut the light off, then lifted the chair and moved in even closer, so she could bend nearer to Caitlin’s ear. Her smooth, low voice would be Caitlin’s only connection to this world. That would leave her free to give up all other tethers, to float in her subconscious. The only light came from the monitors at Caitlin’s bedside and a sliver that slashed across the floor beneath the door.
Caitlin shut her eyes and forced herself to relax.
“All right, Caitlin. You’re going to answer each question with the first thing that comes to your mind,” Barbara said. “Do you understand?”
“I understand.”
“Where are you?”
“In a hospital room.”
“In your mind’s eye, look up,” Barbara instructed. “What do you see?”
“The ceiling.”
“What do you see beyond it?”
“A room above me.”
“Who’s in the room?”
“A . . . a very sick . . . woman.”
“What’s her name?”
“Jessica.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“Car accident.”
“Where?”
“FDR.”
“What is she thinking?”
Caitlin’s voice caught, choked. “How . . . how good her life has been.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s had love.”
“Whose?”
“Her husband’s. Her children’s.”
“What does she see in her head?”
“Her family. Her parents. And . . .” Caitlin smiled. “Summer camp.”
“What is there that makes her happy?”
Caitlin continued to smile. “First love. First kiss.”
“Where are they in the camp?”
“At a dark lake.”
“What’s the lake called?”
“Garbage . . . beach.”
“Why?”
“Counselors . . . drink . . . there . . . make out . . .”
Caitlin’s monotone and hesitation showed that she was beginning to disassociate from her own life. Barbara wanted to push her further; that was where control lay and guidance could be achieved.
“Do you see them?”
Caitlin smiled. “No . . . I hear them. Sex. Smell them . . . toking . . .”
“Are you contact-high?”
The smile broadened. “A little.” She giggled. “A lot. Whoo! Haven’t . . . been . . . high . . . since . . . since . . .”
“I want you to go back further,” Barbara gently coaxed her. “You’re floating now, in your life.”
“Gee, Abby . . . is . . . so . . . pretty.”
“Your sister.”
“Baby. Baby . . . sister.”
“Go back further.”
Caitlin had been smiling lightly. The smile left. “Stupid . . . pogo . . . stick . . .”
“Further. You’re no longer Caitlin.”
Caitlin seemed to sink into the bed; it was really a long, slow exhale. Her arms rose in unison then dropped.
“What just happened?” Barbara asked.
“China . . . chi gong exercise . . . village . . .”
“Go back again and keep going. Don’t stop until you are with Jacob.”
“Polar bears . . . Northern Lights . . . an iron forge . . . wooden boats . . . warriors . . .”
Caitlin’s expression brightened, then tensed. This was followed by a slight side-to-side motion of her head.
“I am here . . . but I cannot find my son,” she said, her voice rising. “I cannot see Jacob!”
“Stay calm,” Barbara said.
“He should . . . be here . . . I should . . . feel him.”
“Be patient,” Barbara said gently.
“No!”
“What is it?”
“Galderkhaan . . . fading!”
Barbara laid her fingers on Caitlin’s wrist. Her pulse was speeding. “Caitlin, you must stay calm. If you panic, you’ll break the trance.”
Barbara left her fingers where they were. After a long moment she heard a moan. It came from Caitlin but did not belong to her. It was much, much deeper than her normal voice. At the same time, Caitlin’s pulse steadied. Then it slowed. Barbara jumped. Caitlin was staring at the ceiling.
“Caitlin, can you hear me?”
The woman continued to stare. Barbara tapped her wrist. She was striking an acupressure point designed to stimulate the blood flow without removing her from the trance.
“Caitlin?”
The woman did not respond. She continued to stare, unblinking. Her breathing was slow and deep. Then she began to shiver. Barbara continued tapping her wrist with two fingers.
“I’m going to bring you out,” Barbara said. “Close your eyes.”
Barbara reached out to shut her patient’s eyes but hesitated; it was as if she was going to close the eyes of a dead person. Instead, she held a finger in front of her eyes.
“Caitlin, it’s time for you to come back. I want you to look at my finger.”
Suddenly, Caitlin’s arms rose slowly from her sides as if they were weightless. Barbara quickly withdrew her finger, not wanting to interfere with the ideomotor reflex. It was action independent of the hypnotist, often the key to deeply buried conflicts. Barbara watched as her companion’s arms formed a circle above her torso and just hovered there.
“They’re here,” Caitlin said in a low monotone. “I am with them.”
“Who?” Barbara asked.
“The luminous circle . . . the gold snake.”
“Is this the same snake you saw before? In your vision?”
Caitlin nodded. “They . . . they are real,” she said. “They want me to . . . come.”
“You will not go,” Barbara said.
“I must. They . . . want to endure.”
“You are to stay here,” Barbara said more insistently.
Caitlin was suddenly not herself. It happened in a series of subtle ways as her arms formed the circle: her voice flattened, eyes deadened, respiration grew low.
Barbara grabbed her cell phone and shined the flashlight briefly in Caitlin’s eyes. Her pupils were fully dilated yet they barely responded.
“Caitlin, where is the circle?” Barbara asked.
“In awful darkness!” she said. “This is not . . . death! It is absolute destruction! But—my god, it’s not the end!”
“Yes, it is,” Barbara said. She pushed Caitlin’s arms down, thrust her finger back in front of her eyes. “Look at me!” Barbara shouted. “I’m going to count to three and you will come back with me to the hospital room.”
“Can . . . can . . .”
“Yes, you can!” Barbara agreed.
The psychiatrist began to count. When she was finished, Caitlin exhaled loudly then relaxed. She was still staring, though her eyes were not as wide, her pupils no longer fully dilated.
“Where are you, Caitlin?” Barbara demanded.
The woman blinked at her. “I’m here. I’m with you,” she replied.
“So you see me?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“Did you see the light I shined in your eyes?”
Caitlin hesitated. Barbara turned the light back on. This time Caitlin winced w
hen it struck her pupils.
“You didn’t react when I did that half a minute ago,” Barbara said as she turned off the record button.
“What was happening? What was I saying?” Caitlin asked.
“I’ll play it back for you in a minute,” Barbara said. She herself needed a moment to try and figure out what had just transpired. “You just lie there. Don’t even think about trying to get up.”
Caitlin did as she was told. “I don’t understand where I ended up,” Caitlin said. “I was in Galderkhaan, then it was gone. Not destroyed, just . . . gone. I can’t remember how it happened.”
“You were retreating,” Barbara said. “You went back very fast, very far.”
“I didn’t see Jacob when I passed through Galderkhaan,” Caitlin said. Tears began to form in her eyes. “I know that much. I couldn’t even feel him.”
“Do you know why?” Barbara asked. “It’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, Caitlin. Jacob is here. He’s in New York, in your apartment.”
Caitlin wiped the tears. She was confused, she was angry, and she had no idea what to do next. Maybe Anita and Barbara were right. Maybe everything she did going forward would just muck things up even more.
“Whatever you just experienced, Caitlin, we both know you didn’t leave the room. We’ve had this discussion. Real or not, everything you think you experienced was in your head, where it is subject to personalization, corruption, subjectivity, a host of unreliable markers. Even with racial memories—which are bona fide genetic triggers, quantifiable biological imprinting—those ancient codes inside us may still be using the mind to tell a story.”
Caitlin shook her head slowly. “I don’t believe that. Just because we can’t understand it, that doesn’t mean what’s in my head is false. After the incident in the park I was in Galderkhaan!”
“And after the tornado, Dorothy was in Oz,” Barbara said.
Caitlin grew angry. “I know the difference, dammit!”
“Do you? Because there’s also a rational explanation for everything you said when you were under, and you know what it is.”
“What? Delusion? Grandiose delusion?”
“It fits, doesn’t it? Inflated sense of self, relationship with a deity—called to the side of God. You just said as much in the session. How many point-to-point correlations do you need?” Barbara moved closer. “You know I believe in energies that exist apart from the body. But Caitlin—you’ve used that idea, that belief, to concoct a psychodrama.”
Caitlin looked at Barbara with an expression that was profoundly sad and something else Barbara had not seen, ever: fear.
“That’s not what’s happening,” Caitlin said. “Anita has seen things . . . Ben.”
“They saw shadows, they heard your words, your—what, acting out?”
“I cured those kids, Barbara!”
“By getting into their psychoses,” she said. “It was a masterful job of psychiatry. And then it was done.”
“You’re wrong.”
“We all want to support you, Caitlin. You say you destroyed the park. The FDNY says it was underground water and gas lines.”
“Which I broke.”
Barbara sat back. “I’m not going to continue arguing this with you. There’s no point. What you do in the hospital is between you and Dr. Yang. But as much as I find this topic personally fascinating, this approach is not doing you or Jacob any good.”
“Uh huh. And your recommendation?”
“Rest, girl. Those kids a few weeks ago—the situation between India and Pakistan boiling around you? That took a toll.”
Caitlin pouted. It was the only way she could stop herself from screaming.
“How about I do this?” she said, rising. “I’ll send you the recording of the session. Listen to it. Have Ben come over and listen with you. If there’s somewhere, some way, you’re convinced I’ve whiffed, call me. In the meantime, just do me one favor. Please reconsider what you’re doing with your son.”
“Sure.”
“I mean that, Caitlin.”
“I know. And I’ll think about it. I will.” She looked at her friend. “I may not agree with you, but you know how much I respect you.” Caitlin managed a half-smile. “And that’s the last word.”
Barbara gave her a squeeze on the shoulder. Collecting her phone cable, she sent the audio file then left with a little smile and a small wave.
Alone in the hospital room, Caitlin O’Hara knew then that her life would never be the same: to her, Standor Qala, Vilu, Bayarma, Yokane, and Azha seemed more real to her than anyone in her life, other than her son.
Which meant that either she was truly delusional . . . or two worlds were on the verge of colliding.
CHAPTER 16
Flora Davies gazed at the spot where Adrienne Dowman had been sitting.
All that remained of the young woman was a diploma on the wall and a stiff, blackened corpse on the floor. Strips of burned flesh hung from her bones with red, raw muscle peeking out from beneath. The odor was sinful.
Throughout the experiment, the laboratory associate had sat supernaturally still even as flames started to appear under her clothes. Then, in a flash, a ferocious blaze erupted, consuming her body from sole to scalp. As though entranced, she had not moved, had not cried out, had not even twitched. She just sat there as her flesh bubbled away, as her hair flew off in short-lived flamelets, as her eyes and the insides of her nostrils liquefied and ran down the white bones of her face—the entire process concealed more and more by noxious, oily smoke. It only took seconds for the ruddy fire to finish its job before dissipating.
The laboratory sprinklers had come on as the young scholar burned. The water not only doused the flames, it caused her body to collapse with a soggy crunch by its added weight. The shower also short-circuited the electronics.
The acoustic levitation hookup died. The olivine tile fell to the platform with a thunk.
As water rained down, Skett cried out an oath over and over, louder and louder. Flora forced herself not to think about Adrienne. It was the stone that had connected her with a Galderkhaani. There was no way to break the connection other than by learning to control the tile.
But Skett hadn’t expected an inferno, Flora thought. The Technologists never had sufficient respect for the tiles.
Almost at once, smoke detectors throughout the Fifth Avenue mansion went wild. An automated call went out to the New York Fire Department. Flora did not concern herself with that. Her three-person office staff was used to crises; this was one more. The ungoverned tile was her immediate concern.
She jumped from the seat where Skett had placed her and slapped on a large industrial-size fan whose location she knew by feel. Choking in the ash-filled air, she pulled a towel from a rack by the industrial-size lab sink, wet it in the spray from the overhead nozzles, and wrapped it around her mouth and nose. She shut the sprinklers from a panel above the sink then approached Casey Skett. He was coughing and leaning over heavily by a laptop on the lab table, pinned there by the opaque smoke.
Simultaneously, Flora’s wall-mounted landline beeped. It was her personal aide, Erika. The Group director picked up, after nearly slipping on the water-slickened floor.
“Ms. Davies, are you all right?”
“Yes,” Flora told her aide. “Shut the alarms and call the neighbors. Apologize for the incident, but assure them there’s no danger. Then call the fire department—tell them it was a smoke condition, nothing more.”
“I’ll call the FDNY first,” she said.
“I would hold off on that one,” Skett said, coughing hard as he turned toward her.
“Wait, Erika.” Flora regarded Skett with open contempt. “Why?”
“Let them come, you’re going to need them,” he said. “And tell her to leave the building. Quickly.”
Flora told Erik
a to hold off on calling the fire department and just to go outside. She could alert neighbors in person.
“If I need anything, I’ll call your cell,” Flora said. Hanging up, her eyes continued to burn into Skett. “Explain yourself. What else have you done?”
“Me? Nothing. We’ve both done this, Flora.”
“We’ve done what? And no lectures, please.”
“This tile,” he cocked his head toward the olivine stone. “It’s going to rip this place to sawdust.”
“It didn’t do that before we had the acoustic control,” she said. “Why should it now?”
Skett wiped his face with his sleeve. “Figure it out, dammit.”
“No, you’re going to talk,” she said.
“What’s your leverage?” he asked. He wiggled the phone. “This is drenched and dead. Jasso’s cut off.”
“The computer is, and has been, recording everything that has taken place in this room. The recording is being stored offsite. If this place comes down, if I die, that data will automatically be reviewed.”
He looked over at the laptop. “That’s soaked too.”
“It’s waterproof.”
Skett’s eyes narrowed in challenge. “You’re bluffing.”
“Not my style,” Flora assured him. “The Technologists really don’t know much about technology, do they? Everything in here is custom-built. Did you really think I submitted to you because of a knife? I let you run this because how else was I to find out who you really are, who you work for, and what you and your Technologist employers know?”
“Paranoia will always trump planning,” Skett said. He pushed back his wet hair and happened to glance at the charred body that, just moments before, had been a living woman. “And I always thought I was low on compassion!”
“Spare the psych profile,” Flora said. “She was beyond help before we started this. We’re wasting time. The fire department is only a few blocks away. What else do you know that you’re not telling me?”
He looked over at the tile. It was still vibrating and beginning to glow again. “That stone is now fully reconnected to the tiles in the South Pole, and it is probably getting a bump from the one in the freezer,” Skett told her.
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