“Her family is. They’re an old American family and her father became very wealthy in investment banking. Ann Peckham lives very simply, though. She’s a student at New York University, an art history major. I’m sure her father helps her with her rent. This is New York, after all, but she waitresses part time.”
“Are you rich?” I asked.
“Hardly,” he laughed. “I’m a professor.”
“You are a professor?” I liked this man more than I wanted to. I let myself trust it, for instinct is all one has when memory is missing.
“I teach history,” he told me. “I’ve written a few books. I have a continuing education class for adults and I teach several undergraduate courses in American history at NYU.”
“History?” I smiled. “What do I remember of history, I wonder?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “You tell me.”
“I do not have memories, yet I feel that I know something important. The knowledge is not in my memory at all, but in my soul,” I said. “Does that make sense to you?”
“Tell me everything you know, everything you can remember. It might help.”
I looked at his face. He was so handsome and sweet. Have you ever seen a face that made you want to weep, simply for the compassion and strength of character found there? That was Michele, for me. He was clearly a sensitive and tender man, and his face revealed that. But he was also strong, oh so terribly firm around his jaw. I loved the way his hair curled tightly near his brow and the color of his eyes was such a pretty shade of brown and shaped like an almond. The familiarity comforted me. I knew him. I knew him entirely.
“What is it, Annie?”
“Do not mourn history,” I told him suddenly. “It is just an illusion. That girl of yours is not gone. She is not a ghost.”
“What do you mean?” he questioned.
“Life does not pass.”
“Doesn’t move on?” he asked with a grin, as if I jested him.
“No,” I said.
“Then how do you define progress?”
“What progress?”
“The television? The telephone? Space travel? How about electric lights, look?” He got up and seemed to perform magic.
“My God,” I said. “How did you do that?” I rose to my feet and began to turn the electric lights on and off. It seemed to be the most fascinating thing I had ever seen, and I laughed as I played with the switch.
“If there were no history, Annie, there would be nothing to discover.”
He seemed so sure of himself but I had no earthly idea what he was referring to; telephones—space travel? How bizarre.
“All is contained in now. We find what is already there, like God,” I told him. “The soul does not know progress. The soul simply is and discovers what already is.”
“Then why do we suffer death, Annie, what merciful God would allow it?”
“God did not choose despair or grief for us; we chose it for ourselves by agreeing to become flesh and blood. Life contains opposites. Grief is the opposite of joy and that, too, is ours. All of life is opposite to something. But the soul has no opposite. Like God, it contains both life and death simultaneously. But being a soul is not the opposite of life and being alive. Death is the opposite of life. The soul simply is, like God. In order for the soul to know God, it must agree to be born to that one eternal moment where nothing passes prior to something else. We believe it does but our belief only gives order to the universe, nothing more. The end is the beginning. Do you see?”
“I can’t say that I agree with you. Take the Civil War and something like the ignorance of the Salem Witch Trials. They have passed into history,” he said. “Thank God history contains that.”
“The Salem Witch Trials?” I suddenly felt cold and began to shake.
He moved close to me and put his hands on my shoulders.
“Annie, what is it?” he asked and I felt his touch on my flesh. How good it felt.
“I do not know,” I told him.
“I’m teaching a course now on The Salem Witch Trials. Last semester, I taught a special class on The Civil War. At the moment, I am learning about American Indians and the tribes that lived here in the Northeast. That would make for a great course. I’m considering the subject for my next book. It’s rather fascinating.” He laughed and turned to smile at me. “I didn’t mean to upset you. That’s just what came to mind.” He took my hand and squeezed it. “I’m a bit obsessed with the eruptions of history.”
“I have been to Salem,” I said.
“You have?” He was surprised.
“Yes, I think so, but I do not really remember.”
“Well, you are from Massachusetts,” he told me. “I mean, Ann Peckham is from Massachusetts.”
“My soul was born in Loudon,” I said quickly.
“Loudon? Where’s that?”
“France.”
“You’re French?”
“No, English. But perhaps my mother was French.” I put my head back into my hands and began to cry again. “Oh, I do not know who I am or where I have come from.”
“Annie, that friend I mentioned, she really may be able to offer you some explanation. She’s a psychic. Perhaps she can help you get your memory back. Perhaps she can explain why the image in the glass is not this,” he said as he held up the picture of Ann Peckham.
I looked up at him and felt comforted.
“A psychic?”
“Yes, I see her often. She was one of my students last year. We became friendly. She’s a bit strange, but she shares my interest in the occult. We dabble in it together. She’s regressed me back in time. She’s really good at it. We’ve been at it for at least a year now.”
“There is no linear regression,” I told him. “There is only movement through time and space, a severing of dimensions to reveal what we know of as time.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I do not know,” I told him.
“She says that.”
“Who says that?” I asked him.
“Elizabeth. My friend, the psychic.”
“Elizabeth?” I said. Suddenly, I felt confused.
“Yes. She says that too. She speaks just like you do also.”
“Elizabeth?” I said again. I felt that I should know something, but as I struggled to capture that knowledge I found myself with nothing more than a vague memory of someone with the name Elizabeth. But I could recall not a thing beyond that.
“Oh, Michele, I do not belong here. I do not belong here.”
I cried in his arms and he held me tightly. He smelled like rain. I realized that after seeing my true image in the glass that my sense of sight and smell grew stronger. Michele’s scent was good. It was fresh and the scent of him obliterated the foul smells that now came from beyond the door.
“Annie, I’m confused,” he said as he held me.
“You smell like rain,” I said. “I like it.”
“I love a girl. I can’t see her, but I have held her in my arms. I have been with her so intimately and I…I love her.”
I noticed that his face appeared so sad, so sad that I wanted to cry again.
“Why does that confuse you?” I asked.
“Because I feel she would look like you. If I could see her she would have your face, the face in the glass.”
Suddenly, I wanted to find myself in his arms again. I wanted to feel safe. The yearning was so strong I almost begged him to hold me.
“So is it your face that completes the vision of my Annabel, or are you and Elizabeth playing some cruel trick on me?” he whispered.
“That is familiar,” I said.
“What?”
“The name Annabel,” I told him.
He went very quiet and his face was set in a pained look, as though something was hurting him very deeply.
“Am I Annabel?” I asked. The name had sounded good to me.
“She is in danger. Elizabeth and I are trying to save her. She has regressed me to Salem and the wit
ch trials,” he muttered.
“I cannot follow you,” I cried. “I cannot follow what you are saying, but I feel that I should.”
“Maybe you are my Annabel. If I could give her flesh and blood, maybe, she would look like your image in the glass,” he told me gently.
“Something fits but I do not know what it is.”
Suddenly, Michele jumped up and grabbed my arm.
“Duty calls. I’ve been watching Ann’s dog while she’s been in the hospital. I’ve got to feed her.”
“I have a dog?” I smiled. That seemed nice but I had no memory of it. “What kind of dog?”
“A beautiful white shepherd,” he told me. “Come, she’s just across the hall.”
* * * *
Michele took my hand and led me to his room. It was as small as Ann Peckham’s but comfortable. The dog came right to him when he entered and reached her paws up to Michele’s waist. Her happy barking made me laugh.
“Look who’s here, Beauty,” he said.
“Beauty? Is that her name?”
“No. She has a strange name. I never remember it.”
The dog looked up at me and began to turn in circles before leaping into my arms and nearly knocking me to the ground.
“She’s so happy to see you. She knows you,” Michele said.
“But I am afraid I do not remember her. How did I come by her?”
“Well, actually a stranger gave her to you, I mean, gave her to Ann.”
“A stranger?”
“Yes. He was very upset, and he apologized for taking the dog. Before Ann could tell him he was mistaken, that the dog was not hers, he disappeared.”
“And she kept the dog?”
Michele nodded.
“Who are you?” he asked me as he walked up close to me and stared at my features. He was so tall that it strained my neck to find his eyes. “What’s happened to Ann Peckham?”
“I do not know who I am. I am lost,” I told him. “And Ann Peckham is most likely dead. I am sorry, but it must have been God that called her. I did not harm her.”
“How can there be death if all is now?” he asked accusingly.
Without really knowing what I was saying the words fell from my lips again.
“Death is a moment when all time meets. She is there, your Ann Peckham. It is where we all begin and end.”
“Annabel?” he whispered. “Is it you?”
He took me in his arms and kissed me. I responded to his kiss, so warm and mysteriously familiar. His lips were soft and seemed to erase all fear. The anxiety left me and I had no other feeling but the touch of his longing on my heart. I knew that if all souls are fated to mate, then mine had found home. But this tenderness was not to last. Urbain was near. His breath was right beyond the door. His foul hand was around my neck. Evil was waiting for Annabel Horton. And evil thrives on waiting.
Chapter Thirty-One
Ah Elizabeth, if I had only recognized you when I walked through your door that pretty spring morning, but I did not. And if I were Annabel Horton, with all my faculties intact, would I have known the girl I left on the hill in Salem? I cannot say. Your flesh had been so altered by the chronological linear illusion of human life that I might not have known you as the wife of my son and the victim of my first offense.
No matter. You knew me entirely, and perhaps I owe you my eternal soul because of it.
* * * *
“Now remember, she’s a bit weird but don’t let her frighten you,” Michele was saying as he led me up a block in Manhattan in the West Eighties. The woman that Michele called Elizabeth Horton Guyon, lived on the ground floor of a pretty gray building.
“Guyon? Is she your sister?” I asked. Guyon was certainly not a common name. That I knew was so.
Michele laughed and told me that Elizabeth had some crazy notion that he had fathered her husband.
“She told me she had enrolled in my class, not only to learn history, but because she noticed my last name in the newspaper.”
“How could you have fathered her husband?” I asked. “You are too young.”
“Precisely,” Michele said as he held my hand and knocked twice on the door. I heard several locks released before the door opened. I suddenly found myself staring at a woman who was gapping back at me. She appeared to resemble the image I had seen in the glass, but she was older by at least thirty years. Her mouth was open in an odd shape and her hand went immediately to her breast.
“Good God!” she cried.
I could not speak. I stared and searched her face. I knew that I knew her, but I did not know from where.
Then, before I could blink again, I found the woman in my arms. She was hugging me so tightly that I felt she would knock the breath from me.
“Oh, Annie,” she cried. “Oh, Annie, Annie, Annie. Where have you been?” she asked through her tears.
I could not answer her for I had no idea what she was talking about. She grabbed my hands and led me inside. Michele followed in a bit of a stupor. I could tell he was confused, terribly confused.
“It is Annabel Horton,” she said at last.
“Annabel?” Michele whispered. “The girl from Salem?” He looked bewildered.
Elizabeth nodded.
“Then why do you call her Annie?”
“It is a long story.” She smiled at me.
“But she’s alive. How can that be?” he said.
“She walks through time as I have done. It was she who taught me.”
“No. This is crazy.” Michele laughed as if a very funny joke had just been told to him. “I want to believe it but it’s too bizarre, even for me to believe.”
“I tell you, it is true,” Elizabeth said fiercely and led me to the glass. “Look at her. She is in borrowed flesh. But look in the glass, Michele. Who do you see?”
He walked to my reflection and touched the image of my cheek.
“This is amazing,” he said. “How do you see her?”
“It is difficult to explain, but I see her as Annabel Horton, and at the same time, I see her borrowed image.”
“And others? How would they see her?” he asked.
“They would see only her temporary flesh, I am afraid.”
“Are you saying that the world sees her as Ann Peckham, and that would not change, even if they saw her in a mirror?”
“That is precisely what I am saying.”
“Then what gives me the power to see the real Annabel in the glass?”
“You are Matthew’s father. You are a witch, Michele, or a warlock, if you prefer that term, though it matters not. You have not begun to know your own power. It is the dimension you are in. It shields you from your spirituality.”
She returned to my side. I had been listening intently to their conversation.
I knew she spoke the truth, but I still remained vague, and without conscious memory.
“Do you know me, Annie?” she asked as she held my hand.
I could only shake my head and stare at her. I felt I should know her, but I remembered nothing.
“When I left you on the hill in Salem I had no idea where to go. My soul seemed to linger forever, right above your own, but you never noticed my presence. The night the cat took you, I wept so fiercely because I could not offer you assistance. I was devastated and called out to you, but you never answered me.”
“A cat took me?” I wondered what she meant.
“Oh, Annie, I waited forever in darkness. I waited for centuries trying to transport myself to Brooklyn. Eventually, I found myself there. It was like waking up after a long sleep, and yet, I knew there had been no real passage of time. It was you who taught me that, Annie. Oh, do you not remember?”
I shook my head and she continued.
“I had crossed a dimension. I looked the same and my dress was the same, but the century had changed quite drastically. When I realized I was in the twentieth century and not in 1851, as I had wanted to be, I panicked and tried frantically to alter my circumsta
nces, but I could not cross the barriers again. Despondent, I journeyed over the river into Manhattan looking for some kind of shelter in which I felt safe, for the streets of Brooklyn were not comforting. I eventually found a group of people in a beautiful church. They walked a labyrinth, just as we had done in Salem. I joined them every evening. They fed me and even began to pay me for my ‘channeling’, as they called it. I was able to charge enormous amounts of money to regress people in time and conjure up dead relatives.”
She laughed loudly and all the bracelets on her wrists made jingling sounds. She ran her fingers back through her hair and continued with her tale.
“I found this pretty little apartment thirty years ago, and I have been here ever since. I have been making my way as a gifted psychic, as they have come to call me. I stopped trying to explain that there is no past from which to discover poor lost ghosts and just decided to enjoy my notoriety. Last year, I noticed in the paper that a historian and professor named Michele Guyon was teaching a course on the Civil War. I was overjoyed to see the name ‘Guyon’, for I had looked for it without success. I knew I must enroll in Michele’s course. I recognized immediately that he was Matthew’s father, for the resemblance was extraordinary. Do you remember, Annie? When we were in Salem you spoke to me of a beautiful dark man who saved you from the tree?”
She could tell by my expression that I hadn’t a clue as to what she was talking about. She sighed very deeply before she spoke again.
“Much to my dismay, Michele had no earthly idea of his power, or who he really was. I have been trying to teach him. I do not think he fully believed me though until he laid eyes on you,” she said and winked at him.
Her reminiscences fascinated me, and I followed every word carefully, though nothing of what she said rattled my memory. I could see that she was an attractive, older woman, and I sensed that we were connected in some way, though I was not sure how. As I recall the tale to you, it makes me smile to tell it, for Elizabeth looked so much like a gypsy. She had a piece of bright material that went around her head, and that would have been so unlike the Elizabeth I had known. When my memory finally returned to me, I often thought of the image and it made me laugh out loud. I learned that the word for the material was a scarf, and it flowed like her hair, all the way down to her shoulders. Aside from all the bracelets on her wrists, there were silver rings on all her fingers and large circular rings in her ears. Her blouse was a burst of pink and orange and her skirt hit her ankles in some colorful pattern of yellow and purple triangles that was so bright I could even see it clearly through my imperspicuous vision.
Annabel Horton, Lost Witch of Salem Page 23