by Keith Thomas
“What do these voices tell you?”
Ashanique thought for a second. “Their stories. Life stories. But it sounds silly saying they tell me these things. They don’t tell me. They don’t show me either. I just know them. Like when you wake up and open your eyes and even though you’ve been dreaming about something crazy, you know you’re in your room. You know that the dream was just a dream. I know their stories.”
Matilda wrote down: dream vs story.
“Can you tell me George’s story?”
Ashanique nodded. “But it’s sad.”
“I understand.”
Ashanique was quiet for a moment before she said, “Why do you want to know all this? I tried to tell Mrs. Carol. She didn’t want to hear it. I tried to tell a few of the other kids who live around here. Like the boy next door. Him, the rest of them, they said I was crazy, that I’m talking like I’m sick or something. Why do you want to know about this so bad? Mrs. Carol make it sound really terrible or something?”
Matilda folded her arms in her lap. “Okay. Like I said, I’m a professor—”
“Of what?”
“Psychology.”
“You’re not a doctor . . .”
Matilda cringed at that. It was a sore point. One she’d battled before.
“No, I have a PhD in psychology.” Matilda felt as though that would be saying enough, but she couldn’t help herself. Even if Ashanique didn’t care, she needed to prove herself, to defend her choices. “I knew I wanted to go into research, so I did a duel PhD in neuropsychology and chemistry. I talk to patients because I like people and it’s something the university encourages. We enjoy getting out into the community and helping where we can.”
“So what do you want to know?” Ashanique asked.
“Tell me about George. All these drawings you’ve done—”
“He did them.”
“Okay,” Matilda said, correcting herself, “all the drawings that George has done. I see people fighting. I see fire and horses and . . . it looks like cities in ruins.”
“The people are soldiers. George was never a very good illustrator. He drew small doodles for his kid sometimes but . . . this stuff is different. These are overwhelming.” Ashanique pointed to a corner near the window. “That is the battle of La Bassée . . . and over there is Lens and Armentières. And up on the ceiling is what he saw at Wieltje. That last one is significant. I don’t know if I’m pronouncing it right, but it’s a village where George saw the gas being used the first time. . . .”
Ashanique’s careful French struck Matilda; the girl had either heard the names of these villages and towns before, or someone had taught her how to pronounce them.
“What gas?”
Ashanique pointed over her shoulder at a crayon triptych above the bedroom window. Soldiers could be seen lying on the ground, scattered like blown leaves. Their faces, though scrawled in a child’s hand, were twisted into tearful howls.
“Phosgene,” Ashanique said matter-of-factly. “Typically mixed with chlorine.”
“And where did George read about that?”
“He didn’t. He saw. He was one of the lucky ones to have a gas mask.”
Matilda looked past Ashanique at the drawing.
“People always assume it’s the chlorine,” Ashanique continued. “But it wasn’t. The chlorine was bad all right, but phosgene was a terrible irritant to the lungs and the mucus membranes. Most of the exposed soldiers survived the gas attack at the Third Battle of Ypres. The ones who didn’t, they suffered something awful.”
Ashanique’s expression was one born of experience. It was the crimped, pained face of someone talking plainly about something that, under any circumstances other than the dilution of time, would have been unbearable.
Matilda excused herself for a moment and pulled out her cell to text Todd. She sent him the room number and told him to come up. Immediately. Then, reaching into her purse, Matilda pulled out a small video camera. She knew she was bending every ethical rule imaginable, if not outright breaking them. But she needed proof, photographic evidence, that what she was hearing was as real as it felt. Trying to calm her excitement, Matilda told herself that there had to be a trick: There is simply no way this girl is what she seems. You need to break the illusion down, make sense of it. You’re being played, girl.
“Is it okay if I film our interview?”
“Do you usually film your interviews?”
“Only the ones that I need to revisit.”
“So you believe me?” Ashanique asked.
“I believe that you’re telling me the truth.”
“Fine,” Ashanique said.
Matilda set the video camera on the tray. Leaning in to look through the viewfinder, she lined Ashanique up within the digital frame. As she did so, she noticed that the girl was smiling but still anxious. Ashanique toyed with several colorful plastic bracelets on her left wrist—one red, one green, one yellow, and another red. Matilda wondered if this was the very first time that anyone had really, truly listened to Ashanique’s story.
“Do you show it to other people?” Ashanique asked.
Matilda shook her head. “No. Just for me. It’s transcribed, though.”
“And who does that?”
“Someone at the university.”
“Someone you trust?”
“Of course.”
“Good,” Ashanique said. “Because some of what I’m going to tell you is disturbing. Some of it is going to make you very uncomfortable. I just want to make sure you don’t get in trouble for it.”
“I won’t.”
Matilda pressed record.
A little red light flashed on the back of the video camera.
“Here we go,” Matilda said, more for her own comfort than the girl’s.
11
11.13.18
Transcription #098.19
Dr. Matilda Deacon / Employee Number 34-7609
The following transcription is of an interview with a female eleven-year-old subject, AW, re: her belief that she is experiencing “past life” recollections.
AW is a healthy girl. African American. Oriented to time and place. Appeared calm and willing to answer questions. Mother was not present, but AW’s caregiver approached me. She was quite concerned about AW’s behavior—suggesting it was an emergent situation.
Note: I have a consent form on file signed by AW’s mother—Janice Walters—for social service work in the Marcy-Lansing Apartments. Consent was collected by my colleague Dr. Todd Garcia-Araez, eleven months prior to my visit. There are no records of Dr. Garcia-Araez ever speaking with AW or Janice.
RE: past lives: AW is stringent in her conviction that these recollections are the result of inherited memories—though she describes them as “people” who exist inside her.
DR. TODD GARCIA-ARAEZ comes in around minute three.
00:00:15
DR. DEACON: Can you tell me about George?
SUBJECT AW: George Edwin Ellison was a British soldier in World War I. He was the last British casualty of the war.
DR. DEACON: What unit was he with?
AW: Fifth Royal Irish Lancers. A private.
DR. DEACON: And when did he die?
AW: He was killed by a sniper’s bullet at 10:55 a.m. on November 11, 1918. He died at 10:59 a.m. It was raining. He didn’t hear the shot. He fell backward. The rain was hitting his face.
DR. DEACON: And you . . . experienced this?
AW: Every second of it. As if it was this morning.
DR. DEACON: Does that scare you?
AW: At first it did. More from the shock.
DR. DEACON: This was a violent death. I would imagine that would be quite frightening to see, let alone experience.
AW: Yes, but you have to put it in perspective. George came from a long, long line. He knew it would continue beyond him. At that last second, he knew. . . .
DR. DEACON: How? How did he know that?
AW: I don’t know. It was in the
last milliseconds. The very last images in his brain. He saw them. He saw me.
DR. DEACON: He saw you? In 1918?
AW: Yes.
DR. DEACON: You do know that some people will have trouble understanding that, right? That some people will suggest that this is all information you learned. Or were taught. That maybe this stuff just got mixed up in your head. Sometimes, we conflate dreams with reality. There have been studies—research studies—showing that nearly 50 percent of the memories we have are inaccurate. They’re either distortions or they’re made up.
AW: That’s because science hasn’t caught up with this yet. It’s like that saying about the elephant and the blind men.
DR. DEACON: That they can only describe one part of the animal. A trunk. Big ears. A tail—
AW: And it sounds like a fairy-tale creature when you only talk about parts of it. But when you see it as a whole, you understand it’s . . . reasonable.
DR. DEACON: And you can see these memories the same way?
AW: Yes. (pause) But it’s not just seeing. I feel it. I know it. Anyone can know the facts about George. Stuff that was in the papers. He was a miner. Had a wife and a child. I can tell you everything about George. But it’s not so much me telling you the facts. It’s the feelings. And he . . . felt so much.
DR. DEACON: What did he feel?
AW: George looked at the world different from the way you and I do. He sometimes would stop dead in his tracks. . . . They’d be marching—his regiment—and he’d stop and just stare up at the sky. All the other guys bumping into him, they’d think he was crazy. He wasn’t. He was looking at the clouds. The way the light bounced off them, the way they moved and shifted shape. That captivated him, but it was more than just the visual. It was the way it felt. Staring up into the sky, seeing the clouds, he was in awe of it. . . . The feeling he had was astonishment. . . .
DR. DEACON: At clouds?
AW: Sounds silly. I know—
DR. DEACON: It doesn’t. No, I didn’t mean— Clouds can be striking. The sky can be inspiring. Some people can find beauty in the smaller details, the things most of us either ignore completely or take for granted.
AW: That was George. He appreciated the little things.
00:03:12
DR. DEACON: Do you know what cold reading is?
AW: No.
DR. DEACON: It’s a skill that some people have. Mind readers. Magicians. A way to tell what someone is thinking. To expect their answers and their choices but reading their body language, their facial expressions—
A door is heard opening. AW looks off camera.
DR. GARCIA-ARAEZ: Sorry.
AW: It’s okay. We were just talking.
DR. GARCIA-ARAEZ: Is it all right with you if I sit in?
AW nods.
AW: Are you going to ask me questions too?
DR. GARCIA-ARAEZ: Not unless you want me to.
DR. DEACON: Getting back to where we were. Are you telling me these things because you think they’ll impress me?
AW: Of course not. You wanted to talk to me.
DR. DEACON: Yes, I did. I’m trying to help you.
AW: I don’t need help. Not any help that you can give me. I’ve seen the elephant, Doctor. I don’t think that makes me crazy. (pause) I’m not doing any cold reading. Or whatever. I’m telling you what I know. You can look it all up online—everything about George—but that won’t convince you, will it? And you need to be convinced.
DR. DEACON: I don’t think it’s that cut and—
AW: George carved a smiley face on the back of his pocket watch. It was a gift from his uncle. Nothing too expensive, but that pocket watch saw George through the war. It kept him sane. He was thinking of his kid one night. There was a break in the shelling, the air stank of sulfur and the sky was lit up like it was on fire, but for the first time in days, there was a moment of silence. He carved the smiley face in the back of the pocket watch then. It wasn’t like an emoji. He wasn’t an artist or anything, but it was more detailed than just a circle, a curved line, and two dots. It was something to make his kid happy, a present to him. He died looking at it three weeks later. . . .
DR. DEACON: What do you think all this means? Beyond having this information, beyond seeing and feeling these things, what does it mean to you?
AW: Do you believe in synchronicity, Doctor?
DR. DEACON: I suppose it depends. There are competing definitions. But I do believe in meaningful coincidences.
AW: The Night Doctors say synchronicity is real.
00:07:39
Dr. Deacon gasps and then is quiet. AW leans forward.
Silence until:
00:07:42
DR. DEACON: The Night Doctors. Where did you hear that?
AW: I’ve seen them. In my memories. George didn’t see them. He was dead before they came. But the other ones did. I was drawing a picture of it before you came here.
DR. DEACON: What other ones?
AW: I remember them all. All the way back. They were scared. My old selves, they were terrified. . . .
DR. DEACON: Of the Night Doctors?
AW: Yes.
DR. DEACON: Are you scared of them? Does someone here or at school hurt you? Maybe someone you trusted? Maybe someone your mother knows?
AW: I should be scared of them, but I’m not. They will be looking for me. I know that now.
DR. DEACON: Why will they be looking for you?
AW: Because of what happened in that place.
AW turns around to the bed and picks up a drawing of a square black building in a forest by the ocean. There is snow around the building.
DR. DEACON: What happened there?
AW: Something terrible. I can’t see the details yet.
DR. DEACON: But you will eventually, you think?
AW: Yes.
DR. DEACON: I would very much like to hear about that then.
AW: You’re a nice person, Doctor. I know you’re trying to help me. But if you do, the Night Doctors will find you. They find everyone. . . .
There is a rustling sound before recording stops.
00:10:21
End
12
“THE HELL IS going on in here?!”
Janice stormed in, incensed.
Ashanique jumped up and ran between her mother and Matilda as Matilda shoved the video camera back into her purse.
“Mom, it isn’t—”
Ashanique stopped short when she saw the fury in her mother’s eyes.
She knew, instinctively, that Janice’s rage wasn’t because of Matilda’s being there—it was because Ashanique had broken her mother’s trust. And trust, as Janice had explained since Ashanique was old enough to understand the word, was the glue that kept a relationship between mother and daughter strong.
Without trust, well, you had nothing.
Ashanique wanted to defend herself. She wanted to tell her mom that she wasn’t a part of this—Matilda came in because Carol brought her. But she knew that wasn’t the full story. The full story was that Ashanique wanted to talk, that she was desperate to tell someone about what was happening to her. And she wanted Janice to know that Matilda was a sweet person, a person who would listen without judgment. Or fear. But the words never left her mouth.
“I need you to leave,” Janice told Matilda. “Right the fuck now.”
Todd stood at the front door and held it open as Matilda gathered her stuff and formulated apologies. “Mrs. Walters, I’m sorry. Carol asked me to talk to Ashanique because she was worried. I don’t know if you remember, but you signed a release form when my colleague and I came a few months ago—”
“Doesn’t matter. I didn’t approve this.”
“That’s what I’m telling you—”
Janice pointed to the door.
“I need you out. Now.”
• • •
Janice had spent two hours stuck in traffic.
Work had been hell, and she was getting worse.
The h
eadache that had trailed her home blossomed during her commute. Every red light, every time the bus driver tapped his brake, the discomfort grew—what began as pinpricks behind her eyes had metastasized into a throbbing mass of white-hot pain. Janice tried to defuse it with ibuprofen and MetroChime—exceeding the strongest dose Dr. Song had recommended—but they did little to help. Dr. Song had warned Janice that at her age it would be only a matter of months before she’d need to begin IV treatment and possibly a year or two before the “long nap.”
Fuck that, Janice had thought at the time. Not me. Not now.
Truth was, Janice’s condition had never affected her work. But that week, she’d been able to cut hair only four days. The other three she was shaking in bed. It took everything in her to not look like the complete mess she was.
The most recent memory that had crept into her head was profoundly disturbing. Luckily, it was choppy, as half-formed as the mind that made it. When Janice pieced the memory together, she saw her own feet, twisted by disease, clumsily stomping through mud thick with the scythe-like rib bones of cattle and grinning human skulls. She held a human femur, one end sharpened into a fierce point, in her left hand. Its tip was bloodied. The afternoon’s headache brought the memory with it and further strained Janice’s already tenuous hold on her patience.
And that was before she found Matilda in her apartment.
While Matilda kept trying to explain herself, all Janice could think of was the gun in the bathroom. She knew people had killed for far less. But she couldn’t do it. No matter what the memories might suggest, she wasn’t a killer.
“I’m going to go, okay,” Matilda said, backing out of Ashanique’s room and heading toward the front door, where Carol stood, red-faced. “But I really need to talk to you about your daughter. Please, there is something—”
“No.”
Janice followed Matilda through the living room.
“Not going to happen, Doctor.”
“But there is something going on with Ashanique. Carol’s not making it up or being overreactive. I think it would be really, really valuable for both you and Ashanique if you brought her by my office at the university. Just to talk through some of what she’s told me. I think this is very important.”
