by Rex Baron
She stared at the young girl who sat quietly playing with a doll near the window.
“What do you think it means?” Elizabeth asked the white-haired woman who had summoned her.
“I'm not entirely certain,” Miss Auriel answered with a ponderous sigh. “I do know that it is coming through Lara's mind as a symbol of some type, and symbols are the language of the unconscious. The five-pointed star characteristically represents the wholeness of man, the amalgamation of all five archetypes of the human condition. By that I mean to say, the warrior, the king, the sage, the priest, and the magician. By these five classifications, we can characterize the way the unconscious mind perceives itself and acts things out at any given time.”
“But you said the star signifies the sum total,” Elizabeth repeated the concept for her own clarification.
“Precisely,” Miss Auriel replied with a little jerk of certainty to her head. “She is acting from a state of mind that is aware of them all at once, not one at a time as most people are. She is above the normal consciousness, in a place where she is able to commune freely with the intelligences of other worlds.” Miss Auriel gave Elizabeth a leveling gaze. “Do not be surprised, my dear,” she said. “I think you know perfectly well of what I speak. I am sure that we both have experiences that cross the boundaries of science and clinical therapy into these less comfortable realms.”
Elizabeth nodded her agreement.
“But what is she trying to tell us?”
“It is the green-colored eye that puzzles me,” Miss Auriel said, bringing her fingertips to her lips in thought. “It could be an expression of the function of the third eye, but that is firmly rooted in the collective unconscious as an eye within a pyramid, like the Masonic symbol on the back of a dollar bill. This is different and far more confusing, as if it were placed in the center of the star as a key, a doorway to the forces beyond.”
“But I don't understand why you have asked me here,” Elizabeth said, unable to take her eyes off the seemingly uncomplicated child in her pleated skirt, who sat at play in the corner. “What can we do?”
“We must try to save her mind before it is eclipsed altogether,” Miss Auriel answered, as she paced back and forth in front of the wall of drawings, searching in each of them for a clue. She spoke quietly, not wanting to distress the girl or alert the dark forces that crouched within her, waiting for the next opportunity to spring to life. “You must realize, Doctor Winslow, that this is a religious institution and I have every reason to believe that the headmistress has already contacted a priest to come and perform an exorcism on the poor child. Such an action could have devastating effects on her mind, and, as far as I'm concerned, it is a misguided, though well-meaning, mistake.”
Elizabeth blinked in bewilderment, prompting Miss Auriel to explain further.
“You see, my dear,” she said with a kind smile, “this is not the work of Satan. It is of far greater significance than a religious scuffle between good and evil. It is more in the nature of an imbalance in the cosmic forces. What is required here is not the banishment of wickedness, but rather the creation, the generation of true goodness to help close the door on this intrusion of evil. So you see, bringing in a priest to do battle with Lucifer is simply one old patriarchal arm wrestling with another for supremacy, and in the end, of very little real value. What we need is the goddess energy, the female component to help balance the scales. And we haven't a moment to lose.”
“I will do whatever I can,” Elizabeth answered. “Perhaps if I recall her hypnotic suggestion we might get to the bottom of this green eye business.” She fumbled in her bag to find the small, mirrored ball that she had used to put the girl into a trance, while Miss Auriel brought Lara to a seat in the circle of chairs.
“There now,” the old woman said to the girl. “Now that you’re comfortable, I want you to concentrate on this drawing of the star you did earlier this morning.” She held the paper up in front of the girl as Elizabeth introduced the shiny spinning object to Lara's field of vision and quietly began her instruction.
“When I say the control word, you will be able to tell us what we need to know. Just remember that you are safe and this is nothing more than a dream.” Elizabeth shot an unsteady look at Miss Auriel, who responded by patting her hand with reassuring confidence.
The child's eyes widened as the shiny orb instantly took its effect. She seemed to know that some part of her was in danger and she shuddered with fear as her small body drew up on itself in cowering distress. Lara's gaze locked on the green eye at the center of the drawing and formed a word with her lips. “AUGENBECH,” she shouted.
“That's right,” Elizabeth said, turning the girl's body so that her full attention was aligned with her own face. “That is the control word... Augenbech… ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR.”
Without warning, Lara began to kick violently out in front of her. Elizabeth tried to steady her by her shoulders, but the child seemed possessed by an unnatural strength.
“Lara,” Elizabeth shouted sternly, “you must tell me what has taken hold of you. Do you hear me, Lara? You must calm yourself and tell me.”
“HATE,” the child screamed as her face writhed into a frightening open-mouthed expression that reminded Elizabeth of the ancient stone faces that spouted water she had seen while visiting Rome in her undergraduate days.
While Elizabeth struggled to keep the girl contained, Miss Auriel set about pushing back the conference table and chairs, and drawing a large circle on the floor with a crimson crayon. Inside, she inscribed the five-pointed star and then the stylized green eye.
“Hurry,” she instructed Elizabeth, “we must get her inside at once.” Without explanation, the old woman directed Elizabeth to place the child on the drawing she had just scrawled on the floor. She snatched her from the chair and positioned her carefully so that each of her limbs corresponded to one of the points of the star and her head rested precisely where the top of the star touched the circumference of the circle.
Lara lay quiet for a moment, stunned by the power of the forces at work. The frail white-haired woman knelt over the child and placed her hands in the shape of a cross over the girl's heart, in exactly the place where the eye had been drawn beneath her.
The girl breathed in heavy, uneven gasps, and her eyes bulged in her head as they scanned the space above her for deliverance.
Elizabeth watched as the the Art Therapist sat frozen with her eyes closed and her hands resting firmly on the girl's chest. Her face seemed to take on the resolve of a much younger woman, and Elizabeth could see distinct traces of beauty return to the faded face, as a flush of pale color rose to her cheeks and her hair appeared to take on an amber luster. It was like seeing a hologram of Miss Auriel, viewed in layers, where all the ages of her life were chronologically present at once. It was as if the youthful girl of long ago shared the same space with the withered, frail creature Elizabeth had seen only a moment before. The layers of the illusion wavered before her eyes, giving off a phosphorescence that transmitted itself down the length of her arms and into the body of the child.
As Elizabeth continued to watch in amazement, a cone of pale blue light rose up from the spot where Miss Auriel placed her hands. It continued to rise until its whirling outermost edge was in line with the outline of the circle in which Lara lay.
“AUGENBECH,” the girl cried aloud, “AUGENBECH, HELP ME!”
The girl's body writhed under the weight of the spiraling energy, and she brought her hands up to her face and folded them before her as if in prayer.
“I can see a young woman and a knife,” Miss Auriel whispered from her trance-like state. “She was attacked and left for dead. She has come because she was called. She has come to help and have her revenge. She must be sent back.”
Miss Auriel took in a long, deep breath, and made a high-pitched sound with her lips that resembled that of a teakettle in full boil. “I call upon Binah, the mother, to lead her home, to take her to the place
of sleep and forgetfulness,” she whispered.
Elizabeth heard the high-pitched whining sound in her ears, and, although she clapped her hands to her head to drown it out, it was no use. The sound came from all around, permeating the room with a frequency that seemed to vibrate its contents with a searing light of purification.
Miss Auriel's voice echoed in the stale air. “I call upon the messenger, Michael, to lead the way, the Archangel Raphael to heal the pain and Gabriel, to sound the joy.”
All at once, Lara let out a scream, as a dark energy left her body and appeared to be absorbed into the hands and arms of the kneeling old woman. Elizabeth looked on in horror as the beautiful light that had glowed about Miss Auriel seemed to be slowly expunged, and the darkness made its way up to her heart. Her body jerked in a kind of spasm as the weariness of age once again found its way into the features of her face.
Within a moment, everything had changed. The elderly woman bent over the child, but now the girl lay blinking up in bewilderment at the kindly old face that smiled down at her. Miss Auriel removed her hands from the youngster's chest and helped her to a sitting position. She turned to Elizabeth with a conspicuous little sigh of exhaustion.
“I do think we ought to put another suggestion in her mind that she forget all this frightening nonsense before you bring her fully out of her trance,” Miss Auriel said. “I think the poor child has been through more than enough.”
Elizabeth nodded silently, and went about leading the girl from her suspended state back into the present time and place.
When it was all over, she watched the small actions of Miss Auriel with new interest, as the exorcist pulled a thin-brimmed felt hat onto her head and buttoned her cardigan at the throat as if warding off a chill.
“Is it over? Will she be all right now?” Elizabeth asked with uncertainty.
“Oh, dear me, yes,” Miss Auriel chuckled thinly. “Thanks to you, we have put the energy at rest and stopped the girl from being preyed on by any villain who wished to call up the darkness.”
“But I did nothing,” Elizabeth said, only now aware that her whole body was trembling.
“Quite the contrary,” the elderly lady said with a wink, “you did everything. You opened the door and allowed me to step through.”
Chapter Six
UCLA Campus, Los Angeles
Elizabeth lay on a table in the dimly lit lab. Sensing devices that monitored her heartbeat and brain patterns were attached to her body, and she lay as still as she could under the weight of the tangible silence.
“How do you intend to get to this memory?” Marc asked, breaking her concentration. “How do you know that your mind isn't just being creative, making up whatever it wants to amuse itself?”
“I don't entirely,” Elizabeth answered. “Although I do feel that I can judge the difference in frequency between a daydream and a bonafide memory. I think I've already developed a link to the memory of my Aunt Lucy, and will tune into that frequency if I can.”
Nearly an hour passed as Marc carefully watched the gauges and tracked the steady blue lines on the monitor screen. In her brain, Elizabeth tried to conjure an image she remembered of her aunt that she had seen in a family photograph, but was unable to sense any change in her consciousness that would indicate she had made contact. The face of her aunt floated behind her closed eyes, until she suddenly realized that she was outside the persona of the dead woman, not inside.
It had been folly to visualize her Aunt Lucy's face, the very thing that kept her apart from merging with the elusive memories. She needed to get inside the memory, not remain where she was, looking on, like an observer. She must become the memory, as if it were her own, like the philosopher's door that one must become in order to pass through.
“It was the music,” she whispered aloud, creating an eerie shock wave of sound that disrupted the silence of the room.
“What did you say?” Marc asked, looking up from his logbook.
“The music is the link,” she repeated. “The music is the constant in the equation of time. Everything else has changed since the Twenties, but the music of the opera is exactly as it was back then. Don't you see,” she explained with excitement, “it's like in the Bible when it says... in the beginning there was the word and the word created all things. You can speak things into existence, or jinx something by talking about it. The sound has an effect. It is the agent of creation and the current upon which history flows. If you can find the exact frequency of sound present at a given time and space, you can access that time. Put on a tape,” she instructed, pointing to a cabinet near the closet. “There is an opera in there, the London Philharmonic playing the overture to Tristan and Isolde. Put it on softly and let me try again.”
Marc quickly filled the room with the distant bleating of French horns and quivering violins, as the orchestra built the love theme strain by strain.
Elizabeth closed her eyes and let the music sweep over her, carrying her imagination to the forests and castle ruins, which the romantic music inspired. Suddenly, within these images, other images fought their way to the surface, exploding into her mind like fireworks, illuminating moments in time that were foreign, and yet familiar and real.
Elizabeth found her awareness floating toward a pale blue light just ahead. It was a star painted on a gray, faded door. She opened it to see two lovers in the aftermath of lovemaking. A beautiful, dark-haired woman, whose name she could almost recollect, clung to the sleeping body of a man.
“David… you vile liar,” Elizabeth called out, as Marc watched the gauges register a marked shift in brain waves.
She saw a medallion worn around the sleeping man's neck, and she felt a numb sensation overtake her body, as if she had suddenly been plunged into icy water. Her hand reached out, and closing around the medallion, she tore it away from where it lay. She held it high over her head and shouted indistinguishable words of anger.
Suddenly, she was in an orchard surrounded by fruit trees. A young man was barefoot and inched away in fear as his robe opened to reveal a glimpse of his tanned body. He lunged at her and grabbed for the medallion, but he could not reach it in time, before she flung it out over a stand of orange trees.
“You are all mad,” he shouted after her as she stormed toward her automobile.
The sensations of real anger and betrayal, evoked by the memory, were experienced as exhilarating and genuine by Elizabeth’s physical body. Her mind whirled around the image of the glistening medallion as it flew out over the orchard, that bright summer day, long ago. She could not fathom its meaning, but sensed the fatal impact it had on the lives of those it touched.
Her consciousness, within the dream, aware of its purpose, urged her to concentrate on her original intention, to find some concrete landmark that she might use to confirm the veracity of her encounter with this place, over half a century away in time.
Once again, she concentrated on the music, listening to the spaces between the notes that might serve as doorways into her Aunt Lucy's memories. The lulling strains of the love theme swam in her head, scrambling the orchard and the Prussian blue sky of the late afternoon. The bunches of round, glowing oranges on the trees arranged themselves into a neat luminous row of globes around a makeup table in her dressing room, the afternoon sky draped itself around her and trailed behind her on the floor as a heavy velvet cape, attached to a silver collar at her throat. She was talking to a bearded man who was offering a theater program for her to sign. She took the pasteboard card and signed across the top: To Reginald Christian, the voice of the press, to which mine is sadly unequal... Aufwiedersehen Lucy von Dorfen.
Elizabeth's consciousness quickly scanned the front cover of the playbill as it exchanged hands and rooted in her mind the printed name and date: “Faust, New York, September 21, 1921”
“I'm sure you find us provincial, by European standards,” the man said insincerely, with a smug little grin. “Remember now, anything you say might find its way into my column
in the morning, so do be generous.”
Elizabeth felt a toss of her short-cropped hair, as her head fell back into a lusciously carefree laugh.
“Not at all,” she replied with a wide smile. “New Yorkers are very clever, and although they don't dress as well as the French and Austrians, their jewels are real and twice as big.”
Elizabeth enunciated the words aloud as Marc recorded them into a tape recorder at her side. She could feel her mouth form itself into pouting lips, a gesture that she had never, in all her life, displayed. She felt her body, straight and tall with graceful arrogance, move seductively in a way that she had never dared.
In the vision, a portly middle-aged woman approached and embraced her with jolly familiarity.
“I do so look forward to our little voyage together,” the round-faced woman chortled. She took her by the arm and led her into a drawing room, filled with a cluster of well-heeled guests. “I must introduce you to a few friends,” she said.
Elizabeth was aware of the well-meant but insistent pressure of the woman's arm twined through hers, pulling her along toward a small group of people dressed in black, with veils over their faces. A feeling of panic and dread overtook her and she felt her legs give way under her.
“I can't go with you,” she pleaded, clawing at the woman's arm to release her from its grip. “I must not sail with you. Please... please,” she heard herself say.
The group in black rushed toward her as she crumpled to the floor, peering down at her sadly, but unmoved, unable to help her. They stood clustered together in the pouring rain as one by one their faces blurred into blackness. She reached out her hand into the void. “Help me,” she called, hearing her own voice reverberate into an impenetrable vortex of blackness. Her hand trembled in front of her face, until she felt a firm grip around her wrist.
“Elizabeth.” She recognized Marc's voice through the void. “You must wake up now, and return to the present. Listen to the music,” she heard his voice repeating. “The music will bring you back to this time and place, like the tide going out, just relax and let it bring you back. Just relax. Don't fight it and you will soon be home.”