by Dermot Davis
“I was serious about I said about your psychic gifts, Andrew. I hope you give yourself the opportunity to develop them further.”
“Something tells me I’m going to have lots of time to do just that,” Andrew replied as he returned Dowling’s cell phone.
“Sorry that you didn’t get to talk to your girl.”
“Yeah, so am I,” Andrew replied sadly. “So am I.”
Andrew shut the car door behind him and gave a final wave to Dowling. His feet felt heavy as he turned the corner to walk toward the ugly grey buildings of LA’s finest correctional facility. Passing police and sheriff’s deputies who walked and congregated in small groups, Andrew didn’t shift his gaze or try to disguise his identity in any way. As he climbed the steps to the entrance of the building he noticed that with each step he became more and more terrified.
Stopping on a step, his entire body trembled with so much fear that he found it hard not to cry. I can’t go in there crying like a baby, he thought to himself, wiling himself to be stronger. The longer that he stood, almost paralyzed near the middle of the multi-tiered concrete steps, the more that time seemed to slow down. As if looking ahead and seeing his future for the next few years, he began to realize that he just couldn’t face it.
Feeling a debilitating heaviness in his heart and soul, his already wobbly knees buckled and he landed on a step in a sitting position. Unable to climb another step, he sank his head into his hands and sobbed. I can’t do it, he said to himself. I’d rather die than go back in there. It wasn’t that he wanted to shirk his responsibility and evade paying back his debt to society; it was simply that he hadn’t got the strength or the fortitude to see it through.
Sitting in the middle of the granite staircase in the blazing midday sun, Andrew felt lost and alone. Feeling so low on hope, he was close to bottoming out into abject despair. The one true optimistic notion he had remaining in his mind; the one true glimmer of light left shining in his darkened heart, were his thoughts about Fiona.
If anything could give him strength it was the knowledge that Fiona loved him, no matter what. If anything could give him some semblance of hope for the future, it was the knowledge that he would still get to see her smile. If he didn’t have the strength to do what he needed to do for himself, he knew that he could do it for her. He could do anything for her, he realized. As long as she remained in his life, he would show up for her. I can go on, he almost said out loud as he rose to his feet.
With a sudden influx of energy and a renewed sense of purpose, Andrew turned to face the entrance of the building. People came and went and yet no one seemed to notice or care about him. I can do this, he said as he gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. Summoning all his will power and thinking only of Fiona, he climbed the remainder of the steps that led to the front entrance.
“Andrew!” he heard a male voice calling him from behind. An immediate smile crossed his face as he turned and saw Dowling running breathlessly up the steps towards him. Waving aloft his cell phone, the man looked like he had been running quite a bit. “I didn’t think I was going to make it,” he said, finally stopping to catch his breath.
“What’s up?” Andrew asked, puzzled but looking happy to see him.
“I was driving home,” Dowling said and paused to get another breath. “Let’s walk over here,” he then said as he felt uncomfortable with all the security personnel coming in and out of the building. “My cell phone beeps when I get an email so I thought that maybe I should pull over and check it out,” he explained as he took another big breath. “It wasn’t for me, it was for you,” he said, giving Andrew his phone. “Obviously I read it, hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course not,” Andrew said, scrolling to the last message of the inbox.
Realizing that it must be from Fiona, he felt some trepidation as he opened the message: was it going to be good news or bad? As soon as he clicked on the email, he smiled. Following her phone number was a very short message, all in caps: DON’T GO BACK THERE! CALL ME!! LOVE YOU!!!
“I don’t know how your girl normally sends emails but that one looked important,” Dowling said.
“Once again, I’m so grateful to you,” Andrew said. “I mean, I don’t know what this means, maybe she’s changed her mind, I don’t know, maybe she just wants to talk, you know?”
“Well, we shouldn’t hang around here too long,” Dowling said, looking increasingly uncomfortable in the surroundings. “Why don’t we go back to the car and you can make your call, sound good?”
“Thanks again, Gus. You’re a life saver,” Andrew said, smiling and walking like he had a spring in his step. Unable to wait till they were back at the car, Andrew dialed Fiona’s number.
“Hello?” she answered tentatively, not recognizing the number on the caller ID.
“Fiona, it’s Andrew,” he said, a huge smile on his face.
“Where are you?” she asked urgently. “I’ve been worried sick! Are you okay? Where are you calling from? Did you go back to the—”
“Relax, no, I’m okay, I didn’t go back,” Andrew interrupted her. “I was on my way back, right outside, actually.”
“Oh, thank heavens, you’re free and you’re alive and I can’t believe I’m hearing your voice,” Fiona said delightedly.
“Of course I’m alive,” Andrew said, almost laughing with pride and pleasure over how much she was excited to hear from him. “How come you changed your mind?” he asked. “Have you changed your mind, about me going back there?”
“Andrew, I am so sorry for advising you to do that," Fiona said. "It’s so confusing, I didn’t know what to think and I really should have known better, I’m sorry,” she said quickly.
“Are you okay?” he then asked. “You sound, I don’t know, this is such a big turnaround, I guess.”
“We need to talk,” Fiona said, sounding more calm. “We need to devise a better plan. I wasn’t thinking. You can’t come down here, just yet,” she said, as if thinking out loud. “Can you stay some place safe?”
“Yeah, I think so,” he answered, looking directly at Dowling. “You want to meet someplace neutral?”
“No, I need to meet with my dad first and then we should talk or maybe we should talk and then meet with my dad,” Fiona said, her thinking confused.
“O-kay,” Andrew said, pausing for the right question to ask. “Sounds like things are still changing. I’m so glad to hear your voice, you have no idea,” he then said, his face breaking out in another big smile.
“I love you so much,” Fiona said. “And I’m so sorry for everything.”
“What do you have to be sorry for?” Andrew asked. “You’re like a gift; a gift in my life.”
“Well, now that I know that you’re on the outside and safe…” Fiona said, her mind still thinking and planning. “Let’s talk in a bit and I’ll get my head straight in the meantime. Is this a good number for you?”
“For a little while, I guess, yeah,” Andrew answered. “I have your number now, anyways.”
“Oh my God, this is so…” Fiona said excitedly yet unable to find the right word to complete her sentence. “Call you later, love you,” she then said and then hung up like she had something important to do.
“That went well?” Dowling asked as Andrew returned the cell phone.
“Yeah, real well,” Andrew said, sounding doubtful.
“Is everything okay?”
“I’m not sure if everything is okay, Gus. She’s changed her mind but she hasn’t yet told me why,” Andrew said thoughtfully. “Something must have happened with her father, or whatever it is, the father has something to do with it, pretty much guaranteed.”
“The offer of my hospitality is still on the table, if you choose to partake?” Dowling said.
“Yeah,” Andrew laughed. “I choose to partake, thank you very much.”
Chapter 8
Question after question and coin toss after coin toss, Fiona sat in her room with the I Ching divination bo
ok in her hands. Looking more confused than when she started, it was becoming clear to her that there really was no easy answer from there on out; she would have to come up with her own solutions.
It was painful for her to consider that her father may have had something to do with Andrew’s misfortune. Not wanting to dwell on her father’s intent, she felt more peace of mind admitting that he may have inadvertently crossed a boundary. However, even assuming that he was acting in her best interest, his attentions needed, in some way, to be neutralized. Giving him what he so obviously desired was the only way to divert his attentions away from her and subsequently, from Andrew.
Finding her father reading a book in his customary armchair in the library, she stood in the open doorway. “Everything okay?” he asked, wondering why she was standing there, remaining quiet.
“We can do it now,” she said somberly. “If it’s convenient for you.”
Simon placed a leather book marker to keep his place and gently closed the antiquarian book. “The time is most convenient,” Simon said and smiled.
Back seated in the throne-like chair in her father’s ritual room, Fiona was still not sure she was doing the right thing. She was also not sure how she would be feeling after the transference. Would she lose all her gifts and suffer a reduction in consciousness, of her identity, even? Would she feel like herself afterwards or would she experience herself as being “less smart” than ever before?
If it meant that her father would leave Andrew and herself alone, she was prepared to do pretty much anything. However, even if the transference of her gifts actually did work, she could not be certain that her father would, indeed, leave them both alone. Fiona felt queasy as she watched her father prepare himself by reading a passage from some creepy old book.
“If I do this you have to promise me that you will leave Andrew alone from here on out,” she then said.
“What do you mean?” Simon asked innocently. “I never even met the boy.”
Fiona got up from her chair and retrieved Andrew’s baseball cap from the trash. She placed it before him on the altar. “Promise me,” she said, looking him firm in the eyes. “This stops here.”
Unable or unwilling to explain how the baseball cap ended up in his trash, Simon lowered his eyes as if he felt busted. “I promise,” he then said quietly, although he secretly had his doubts. Returning to the chair, Fiona settled herself and shook her body to relax.
Placing her hands upon the armrests of the chair, she gently closed her eyes. “I’m ready,” she then said.
As they feasted on take-out Thai food, Andrew answered another question as Dowling grilled him about his childhood. Fascinated by the abilities he had demonstrated earlier, Dowling engaged his scientific mind in order to determine whether Andrew’s gifts were a product of nature or nurture; was he born with them or did he in some way develop them throughout his upbringing?
“Please forgive all these questions,” Dowling said as he spooned more food onto his plate, “but your gifts are so rare it would be remiss of me not to delve any deeper.”
“Not at all,” Andrew answered amiably. “I’m enjoying talking about myself.”
“What I’d really like to do is get you into the lab tomorrow and run you through some more tests. I’ve got some very interesting gizmos over there that I think you might like.”
“I’d love to,” Andrew said, smiling. “I’d like to know, for myself.”
“Excellent!” Dowling exclaimed, already deciding what tests he would run. “I could maybe write a paper, if the results are as good as I think they are going to be; this could get my funding back!”
“Yeah, what happened with that?” Andrew asked between mouthfuls. “You didn’t publish, so you perished?” he asked, referring to the classic academic cliché, “publish or perish.”
“In some ways, yes, but in other ways, no,” Dowling answered, his facial expression suggesting that it was more complicated than that. “Academic funding has changed,” he explained. “It’s a whole different ballgame than it used to be; there’s very little funding for pure research anymore.”
“How do you mean?” Andrew asked.
“Used to be you’d get funded because the science was good; simply on its own merits. Nowadays the only way to get money is from private industry or the military. Science doesn't get funded because it might benefit the discipline or help out humanity in some way."
“It doesn't?” Andrew asked.
“Private industry wants to use the work to get people to buy more stuff and the military wants to use it either to get more intelligence or worse, use it as some kind of weapon. I’ve taken money from both of them but I don’t want to do that anymore. Maybe I’m getting old but it's important for me to be able to sleep at night. I think you know what I’m saying.”
“I think so,” Andrew answered.
“I don’t know much about your present situation but your girlfriend’s father could be…” Dowling said and stopped to think of the right word.
“Dangerous?” Andrew suggested.
“Yeah,” Dowling agreed. “What do you know about that serpent order?” Andrew asked. “Did your wife tell you anything at the time? What they did and stuff?”
Dowling made a face as if it was an old pain he didn’t particularly want to start dredging up all over again.
“If it’s too—“
“No, that’s okay,” Dowling said, interrupting. “You should know what it is you’re dealing with here. I don’t know much; my wife… Abigail was her name,” he said fondly. “She was English, as the name may suggest,” he added.
“Cool,” Andrew said, for want of a better response.
“Abigail was very secretive at the time; we weren’t married that long… The order has a presence in a lot of cities in Europe and the US. According to them they can trace their roots back to ancient Egypt but as far as I can tell they started in England early last century and spread out slowly.”
“What is it they do, exactly?” Andrew asked.
“Well, like all such secret societies, each member primarily helps each other to advance spiritually and in their careers and what have you; some of them are very high up in finance, politics, global commerce and so on. Purportedly they seek enlightenment and higher knowledge. Is their agenda pure? Or have they got a subversive agenda, working behind the scenes to affect the course of history in an attempt to control the world or whatever? I don’t know. Their activities are secret; that leads to a lot of speculation, a lot of anecdotes and conspiracy theories... it’s hard to tell what’s true from false.”
“That clears things up,” Andrew said jokingly.
“Well, let me put it like this. Are they powerful and dangerous? Certainly. Anybody that can pick up the phone and have access to someone in authority… access to power is power, right? Dowling asked.
“Like if someone say, knew the prison warden and said, hey, let that guy free or let that guy serve more jail time… he’d have the power to change things, I get it,” Andrew said, nodding his head in understanding.
“Exactly,” Dowling said. “And let’s face it, it’s human nature to form groups with others that share a similar purpose, happens everywhere. Everyone strives to make their agenda become a reality, whether that agenda be political or religious or racial or sexual orientation, whatever.”
“Yeah, except in those situations we all know what their agenda is. If they’re a secret group, maybe they don’t even know what their agenda is?” Andrew suggested.
“Every group has a mission statement, Andrew, defined or not. It’s implied in the very matrix of their organization, it’s their reason for joining together in the first place. Maybe at the bottom of the organization they don’t know but rest assured, whoever’s pulling the strings at the top knows exactly what their organization’s agenda is.”
“So, Fiona’s father is dangerous because he knows people? He can pick up the phone and get to talk to someone that can help or hinder, right?”
Andrew asked.
“Correct,” Dowling agreed. “But he could also be dangerous by the magick, the rituals, that he does, alone or, more powerfully, in groups. That’s what that power of thought exercise demonstrates,” Dowling said as Andrew nodded in the affirmative. “But that’s another conversation,” Dowling said, picking up the empty food containers from the table.
“So, magick is basically thinking about something that you want?” Andrew asked as he cleared away the dirty plates.
“There’s more to it than just thinking but yeah, thinking, or rather, intention, is a large part of it,” Dowling said as his phone rang. “This might be for you,” he said as he didn’t recognize the number on the caller ID. “Hello?” he answered. “Yes, he is,” he then said and handed the phone to Andrew.
“Hello?” Andrew spoke into the phone, wishing it to be Fiona, which it was.
Fiona lay on her bed, her mood brightened upon hearing Andrew’s voice. “Is it my imagination or has everything become so life or death all of a sudden?” she asked, smiling.
“It’s just your imagination,” Andrew answered and smiled. “What’s going on?”
“Not much,” Fiona answered, feeling more and more relaxed. “Just Facebooking some friends and stuff.”
“Fi, no disrespect but you don’t have any friends. And if you do have a Facebook account, you must have been keeping it a secret from me,” Andrew teased.
“Can a girl not have any secrets?”
“I’m beginning not to like secrets, anymore,” Andrew said, only half-joking. “Are you at home?”
“Yeah, just transferred my secret magical powers to my father,” Fiona said lightly. “Just another Saturday night in the Palisades.”
“You did that, seriously?” Andrew asked.
“Want to hit the road with me?” Fiona asked.
“Absolutely,” Andrew answered, excitedly. “When and where?”
“Tomorrow? Your place?”
“Wow,” Andrew said, realizing that she is serious. “Are you okay? Did anything—”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Fiona answered quickly. “Might be slow in thinking but otherwise, I’m right as rain.”