With your heart pounding you click on EXIT.
You'll return to the gallery another time.
Maybe.
Twenty
Not all memories are conscious. We have loads of nonconscious memories—they're called "habits."
—Random notes: Julia Gordon
1
Julie pulled off the headset and stared at Sam as she waited for her heart to slow. She knew the tentacle couldn't have really grabbed her—she had no physical presence in the memoryscape—yet it appeared to be trying. Maybe that was good. It seemed a sure sign that something inside Sam was aware of her presence. But why such a frightening and ugly manifestation? And why try to snare her like that?
Retaliation for the memory she'd just relived?
Julie squeezed her eyes shut against a stab of remorse.
Can't say I haven't got it coming.
She glanced over at Alma, who was scribbling furiously on her yellow pad.
"What was that all about?"
"Which 'that'?" Alma said, still scribbling. "The cartoon, the diner or the kraken?"
"Kraken?"
"The tentacle. The kraken was a mythical creature that used to rise from the depths, grasp hapless ships, and drag them under."
"Why would she have a kraken in there?"
"I can't say just yet. Perhaps it's a manifestation of Samantha herself, or her subconscious. Something obviously deep."
"Could that be why it reached for me—a sign she's trying to reach me?"
Alma's head snapped up. "Now there's a possibility. A very intriguing thought." She went back to scribbling. "If only I could have seen that first session yesterday."
"But I described it to you."
"Not the same as seeing and hearing with my own eyes and ears. Those landscapes are simply acrawl with meaning and symbols." She sighed. "If only I'd taken an earlier flight."
Guiltily, Julie glanced at the videotape box. The cassette with the little X on its label, the tape of the session in question, sat within arm's reach among the blanks.
Why not? she thought. Eathan is hours away in London. Alma will have time enough to watch it any number of times before his return. And if I ask her to keep mum, for Eathan's sake...
Could she trust this woman who made nocturnal visits to Eathan's bedroom? Julie imagined Alma's hierarchy of loyalties as Eathan first, Sam second, and Julie last.
But she had to risk it, for Sam's sake.
She reached over and plucked the X tape from the box.
"Alma? I hope you'll understand why I did this----- "
"Did what, dear?"
"Held back the tape of yesterday's first session. I—"
Alma leaped to her feet and snatched it from Julie's fingers.
"You have it?" she said, staring at the blank label. "This is it?"
"Yes, I—"
But Alma was already headed for the hall. "I must see this immediately!"
"But—"
Julie hurried out after her and followed her downstairs to the family room, explaining her concerns about Eathan's reaction to the tape.
"I don't think you give your uncle enough credit," Alma said. "He's considerably more resilient than that. Consider what he's already absorbed from Samantha all these years."
Julie didn't want to mention her other reason: losing access to the wall cabinet.
"Just don't tell him. I don't even want him to know the tape exists. I hope I've made that very clear."
Alma stopped and looked at her. "If that is what you want, my dear, then that is the way it shall be. Fair enough?"
"Fair enough."
"Smashing. Now I must see this at once!"
As Alma disappeared into the family room, Julie dug into her pocket for the key to the wall cabinet. Maybe she'd better do some more snooping while she still could.
And then she remembered: Hadn't she seen a locksmith shop in Robin Hood's Bay as she drove through yesterday? She had Eathan's key. Why not have a duplicate made?
She headed to the front closet for her coat.
2
When Julie returned with the duplicate key, she immediately checked on Alma in the family room. She found the psychiatrist sitting in the dark, utterly absorbed in the videotape playing before her.
The light from the open door reflected off her glasses as she glanced over at Julie. "I'm so glad you let me see this," she said. "It adds so much!"
Julie left her there and went directly upstairs to the study. She wanted the original key back where it belonged before she did another thing.
After replacing it in the drawer, she took the duplicate to the wall cabinet and tried it in the lock. It worked. Good.
She debated whether to delve further into that locked file cabinet. She'd only scratched the surface there, only seen part of the top drawer. She was about to pull the doors open when she heard a timid tap on the study door.
Quickly she relocked the wall cabinet, pocketed the key, and said, "Yes?"
Clarice, the maid, opened the door. A little mouse of a woman, she gazed at Julie through thick glasses. "Pardon me, mum, but 1 wonder if I'd be disturbing you if I cleaned now."
"No-no," Julie said. "Come right in. I was just looking for something to read."
Damn. The maid must have seen her come in here. Hopefully she wouldn't think enough of it to mention it to Eathan. Clarice hadn't been here during their childhood, when the study was Eathan's sanctum sanctorum, and no one else was allowed.
As Clarice started dusting, Julie wandered over to the bookshelf where she'd seen the neurochemistry journals with the Nathan Gordon articles. Just what sort of research had her "visionary" and "unorthodox" father been into?
3
Julie put off the day's second trip into Sam's memoryscape until Eathan returned from London.
After seeing the dunning notices in the locked file cabinet, she'd wanted to quiz him on Dad's financial problems. But now, having read her father's journal articles, she had far more pressing concerns.
Eathan arrived in the late afternoon. The skies were a battleship gray, the air cool and damp. Not too many more blue-sky days in store.
She let him freshen up, then tracked him to his study, where she found him seated at the desk unpacking his briefcase.
She was more than a little nervous as she stepped through the door.
"Welcome back," she said. She held up the journals—she'd decided to be up-front about the articles. "I'm returning these."
He looked up. "What are they?"
"Neurochem journals with some of Dad's articles. I was in here when Clarice was dusting and spotted them on the shelf. Hope you don't mind."
He glanced around at the shelves. "Here? I'm surprised you found them. Of course I don't mind. They're part of your legacy from Nathan. Frankly, I find them impenetrable. I tried to read them after the fire but couldn't make much of them. Too much chemical mumbo jumbo. Do they make any sense to your'
Julie nodded. "Yes. Maybe too much."
"I'm sorry?"
Julie stacked the journals on his desk. "All his work^-at least what's in these—seems to center around right-brained and left-brained aspects of intellect and personality. He didn't use those terms. He simply called them creative and analytical abilities."
"I know the theoretical basics—Nathan and I discussed them many times. He saw creative and analytical abilities occurring on a bell curve, with analytical on the left and creative on the right, and the optimum at the top of the curve, where both abilities were perfectly balanced. I forget what examples he used, something like Einstein on the left, Van Gogh on the right, and Frank Lloyd Wright atop the curve."
"That sounds about right. But it's kind of scary in these articles the way he talks about influencing someone's place on the curve by dosing them with various neurohormones during their developmental years... making them more left-brained or more right-brained, whichever you wish."
"Just theory."
"But it's not just theory.
He outlines ways to do it. It sounds like..."
Eathan smiled through his beard. "Social engineering?"
"'Well, yes, that too. But..." Her mouth was suddenly dry. Dammit! How could she say this? "But Sam and I are identical twins and yet we're so different. I mean, who's more right-brained than Sam? And as for me—"
Eathan shot to his feet. "Julia, stop it! Stop it this instant! How can you even think such a thing? Your father loved you two! You were the lights of his life. He would never even consider experimenting on you! It's unthinkable!"
"No," Julie said, slowly, deliberately. "It's not unthinkable. You yourself said he wanted to prove his theories but was turned down for research grants. And then his wife bears a set of identical twins. What better experimental subjects? They're genetically matched. Dose them with different sets of neuro-hormones and see if their development follows the predicted paths."
Eathan's face reddened. "I will not stand here and allow anyone, even his own daughter, to slander my brother like that!"
"It's not slander, Eathan. It's a horrible suspicion, and if Sam and I were more alike, it never would've occurred to me. But we're not, so it did. I don't want to believe it. Talk me out of hs."
Eathan sighed. "What can I say except that Nathan and I grew up together and, unlike you and Samantha, we were very much alike. We had our disagreements, of course. All brothers do. But on the whole we were best friends throughout most of our lives. No one, not even your mother, knew him better than I. And tell me, would the man who risked his life to carry you two out of that burning house ever entertain the thought of experimenting on his own children?"
Julie saw the flames again, felt the heat, and that strong arm wrapping around her, lifting her, and carrying her through the smoke and flames to safety.
She took a breath. Eathan's words made sense. The man who ran back into that fire to save their mother would not risk harming his family.
"Deep inside I think I knew it couldn't be true, but I needed to hear you tell me. The idea latched onto me as I was reading the articles and I couldn't shake it." She smiled sheepishly. "Pretty silly, I guess."
Eathan didn't return her smile. "Ridiculous is more like it. And insulting to his memory. Imagine, thinking that of your own father." Finally he did smile, but only slightly. "Perhaps you and your sister aren't so far apart as you think. That's the sort of wild idea I'd expect from Samantha."
"You've got a point there. Sorry."
"I'm not the one you owe the apology to."
Eathan seemed tired. Perhaps things hadn't gone well with the lawyers.
As he went back to unpacking his briefcase, Julie considered the next area of her father's life that needed explaining: his financial problems. But she'd have to be more circumspect here.
"Was Dad well off financially?" she said.
"Why do you ask?"
"Well, you said he quit his job and went looking for research grants__ I was just wondering where all the money came from. You know, our trust funds and all that."
Eathan didn't look up. "Oh, it came from insurance. Nathan was anything but rich. He was going through especially tight times before the fire, and that made the insurance companies act very suspicious."
"Suspicious?" Julie felt her chest tighten inside. "Why would they be suspicious?"
"Note I said 'act' suspicious. The plain truth is they didn't want to pay out two million dollars to a pair of five-year-old orphans." He looked up now and this time his grin was tight and very real. "But I made them pay every dime they owed you."
"But what was their problem?"
"Your father and mother each carried a million-dollar accidental death policy on themselves. You see, when you're young and healthy—like yourself, for instance—the most common cause of death is an accident, so it was a smart, cost-effective way to provide for their children's future should anything happen to them. But if you think two million dollars is a lot now, it was an enormous sum in nineteen seventy-two. The insurance company tried every trick in its arsenal to keep from paying. It sent one investigative team after another to look for evidence of arson, or that the bodies were not Nathan and Lucy Gordon."
He leaned over the desk. "I tell you, Julia, it was infuriating. I'm glad you two were too young to realize what was going on. To suffer through that fire, and then the endless investigations, the repeat autopsies ..." He shook his head in disgust. "But none of their investigators found anything suspicious. So finally they paid up. And then I took the bastards to court to force them to add the interest that would have accrued during the desk."
That single word, bastards, punched home the depth of Eathan's feelings on the episode. It was atypical of Eathan. Julie couldn't remember him cursing once during her childhood.
"But let's talk about the present," he said. "Any progress on Samantha?"
Julie described her memoryscape excursion earlier today— neglecting to mention the fact that Dr. S. hadn't been along to monitor her.
"I'm getting ready to go in again. Want to sit inr
"Yes. I suppose I should. I just..." He shrugged.
Poor Eathan. He still couldn't get used to the idea of peering into his niece's mind.
"Good," Julie said. "I'll collect Alma, we'll get Dr. Siegal on the line, and we'll be ready to go."
"I wonder what we'll see this time?" he said softly.
Good question, Julie thought as she left him at his desk. Hopefully I can steer clear of whatever is lurking under the surface there.
Twenty-One
If a dream state is an accurate model for Sam's ruined memoryscape, maybe I'll encounter new insights there. The "undocking" process that results from the cholinergic PGO waves in sleep—the dissolution of cognitive associations formed by the awake brain—allows new, unconventional associations to form. Most of what we call "inspiration" is the result of this free-form, dissociative process. It's been shown that intense prayer or deep meditation can bring on a dreamlike cholinergic state. When this results in a solution to a thorny problem, usually God or a maharishi gets the credit, but real thanks should go to the brain's PGO waves.
—Random notes: Julia Gordon
You float in the center of the gallery. You wish you were alone, but Dr. S. is watching. Alma and Eathan are nearby, also watching. The gang's all here.
And everyone's got their secrets. You and Alma share one. And Dr. Siegal doesn't know you've gone in without him. And you now know that Eathan has secrets: your father's papers in his locked file cabinet, papers Eathan said were destroyed.
You're torn between the desire to see your sister's memoryscape and to get back to Eathan's study.
You look about the gallery. Against a wall, the lion of Venice still roars, and, farther on, you see Sam's big painting. You go closer. More details have been added. As the memoryscape deteriorates, is the painting being reborn? Yellow-orange light flares from somewhere in the center of the painting. But the center is empty. A dark, oblong shape blocks the light source. But the shape remains a secret.
Another secret. You have ideas about the big secrets.
They're about your father, your mother. Their relationship, his work, his success, his failure. Eathan has always been so protective. Does he believe you need protection from the truth? Yes ... if he thought it would hurt you.
And then, in another corner of the gallery, you spot a new canvas. You move to it, and it's the strangest of them all.
A bit like a Mondrian, with his stark lines and boxes, his abstract constructs that always seemed to you to be devoid of feeling. Except this painting—whether it's Mondrian's or Sam's—is all jumbled. The lines are broken, disconnected. As if someone took scissors to the canvas and cut it up.
You notice something on the painting. You move closer.
It's you.
Or rather, a tiny paper-doll version of you—trapped between two lines. Part of the jumble. So eerie and disconcerting to see yourself reduced to a stiff paper figure.
You move the glov
e over your image. You let the virtual hand hover over the image a moment—and then you click.
The paper doll comes to life. You see the tiny image of yourself smile. But then the smile fades as the doll figure looks left and right, seeing that it's trapped.
Then, like a piece of bacon on a skillet, the Julie doll begins to brown and curl, twisting into a charred knot before vanishing in a tiny puff of smoke.
And without doing another thing, you seem to melt into the painting—through the painting—and then you're outside, hovering above the black sea.
It's still dark out here, still tomb-silent and desolate, but now you notice there are fewer islands, and the remaining ones have changed position: They've gathered closer, as if huddling together until they too slip below the surface.
You spot an island where the lines and boxes of the painting are now real. A confused girderlike structure painted in garish primary colors stands on the shore. And at the bottom is an opening, a doorway.
You start toward it, then—like the paper doll—you're in the structure, in a long, featureless hallway.
I don't like this, you think.
You point the glove down the hallway and move.
The hallway goes on forever. You keep moving but there's no break in the monotony, no side paths, just this one endless hallway. And it's dark. Barely enough light to see the virtual walls on either side, and only a few feet ahead.
Then you hear sounds. People talking, voices overlapping. It's impossible to hear what's being said, who's saying it.
You stop moving. The sounds ... off to your left. You look that way and see another corridor. You turn right and find still another corridor leading in the opposite direction.
Finally someplace to go, but where do all these bleak corridors lead?
The voices fill the space, so it doesn't seem to matter much where you go. You move the gloved hand left and begin gliding that way ... and that hallway opens into a room with an enormous checkerboard floor surrounded by a dozen doors. A single red bulb glows on the ceiling, like a bubble light from a police car. Except it's not flashing. No emergency now.
F Paul Wilson - Novel 05 Page 20
