The Reluctant Fortune-Teller

by Keziah Frost

  Stanley cracked his knuckles and apologized again.

  Carlotta murmured with sympathy to Margaret, “Oh, Marguerite, quelle dommage!”

  To which Margaret couldn’t help whispering back, “Pass me the frommage,” on cue. So, Norbert thought, she couldn’t be too badly hurt.

  Within the large, cool, darkened room, a woman walked around swirling a burning stick in counterclockwise circles.

  “This is white sage,” she sang out to them, trailing the smoke around the room.

  She was a middle-aged woman wearing a white dress that looked oddly like a nightgown, and she twirled as she swirled. “I am Hermione Duckworth,” she sang, looking steadily at Norbert.

  “I’m sure you are,” said Norbert, unnerved.

  These were odd people, and it was odd for Norbert to think of others as being odd.

  “Burning a white sage smudge stick,” Hermione sang on, “is how we clear all negative vibrations from this space. I am cleaning, cleaning, all the negative vibrations. I allow only harmonious energies to remain.”

  Stanley supported her efforts. “Got to get the bad juju outta here before we begin our spiritual work today, you know?”

  Norbert nodded, “Of course.” He didn’t know what bad juju was, but was confident he’d be better off without it.

  “Stanley, stop playing the Lion at the Gate and come help us out here.” Edith was organizing a circle of armchairs upholstered in red velvet, and was assisted by another woman. “Daphne Cook, meet Norbert Z and his guests,” said Edith. “Daphne has had many interesting lives as well, haven’t you, Daphne?”

  Norbert observed a small, humorless-looking woman with her steel-gray hair cropped close to her head. She looked like a former nun.

  Edith said, “You’d never guess this, but Daphne is a former nun. And so our spiritual journeys lead us far and wide!” Edith opened her arms to emphasize the width of Daphne’s journey.

  Daphne, unsmiling, looked from one member of the Club to the other, like a child being forced to meet new children at nursery school.

  Birdie prompted, “You’ve had many interesting lives, Daphne?”

  “Oh, yes,” answered Daphne. “I was in Pompeii in 79 AD when the volcano erupted, sending lava and ash over the whole city, obliterating it in just a few moments.”

  Carlotta murmured, “Such unfortunate timing for you.”

  Daphne blinked.

  Edith rang a little bell.

  “Let us gather in our circle, all seekers.” Edith waved toward the red chairs and set an example by sitting herself down and settling the brown-and-yellow layers of her clothing about her.

  Norbert and the Club followed suit. Stanley cracked his knuckles a final time before sitting. He tilted his head toward Norbert, as if to a comrade, and quipped, “There’s a seeker born every minute, eh, bud?”

  Norbert felt an overwhelming dislike of Stanley.

  Daphne, formerly of Pompeii, sat on the other side of Stanley, looking at her feet, which were clad in beige loafers. Hermione, holding her long dress between thumb and forefinger like a fairy-tale princess, glided to the center of the circle.

  Edith introduced her: “Hermione is our visiting past-life regressionist. She has been here for two days, and her classes have had full enrollment each time. But, unfortunately, she will be going back to Arizona tomorrow. Hermione will be hypnotizing us and leading each of us to our own buried past-life memories. Let’s all turn our attention to Hermione.”

  Hermione made contact with each expectant pair of eyes, turning herself in the circle. “Thank you, thank you, truth seekers, for bringing your energy here today. Let’s just take a moment to feel our energy, shall we?” She put her hands together over her heart and closed her eyes. “It’s goooood to be here!” Hermione breathed deeply to show everyone how to do it. “I am the author of many books on reincarnation, including my latest, Who Do You Think You Were?”

  Hermione allowed a few moments for the title to register. She interpreted its meaning: “You see, even before you do a hypnotic past-life regression, something in you already knows about your past lives. Each life leaves an energy imprint on your soul. And science tells us that energy cannot be created nor destroyed. A trauma from a past life can still be affecting you in this life.”

  Hermione’s movements were graceful and her voice was calming.

  “For example, a year ago, a woman I worked with remembered a life as a prisoner.” Hermione’s voice dropped, allowing her audience to imagine the awfulness of the memory. “She said she related to this because she felt like a prisoner in this life, as if something was preventing her from making free choices and moving forward. After she understood where this emotional block was coming from—from her awful life as a prisoner—she was free to shed the impression that she was not free.” Hermione raised her arms as she spoke, illustrating the concept of freedom. “She was able to choose goals and act on them. My friends, it changed her life!

  “In my writing, over and over, I say: ‘Recall it and resolve it.’

  “So today, we’re going to use hypnosis to bypass all the conscious, left-brain, critical judgments. Through hypnosis and imagination you will reach a memory of a past life. Do you have any questions before we begin?”

  Hermione smiled encouragement.

  Norbert was observing Hermione’s performance, and trying to imagine himself in such a role. It seemed beyond his reach, for he still considered himself a practical person in spite of the fact that if he were filling out a form he would now have to list his profession as “fortune-teller.” He tried to see himself standing before a group of people instructing and hypnotizing them. It seemed impossible. But then, so did reading cards, before he began to do it. Before him lay another twist in his path, and if he took this way, once again, his life would never be the same.

  Birdie raised her hand. “What is hypnosis, exactly?”

  “What a wonderful question!” beamed Hermione. “Hypnosis is nothing more than focused attention! You are in and out of hypnotic trances all the time, without even realizing it. When you’re driving and listening to the radio, and then you arrive at your destination and don’t remember the trip—you’ve been in hypnosis. It’s simply the very natural state of focused attention. Next?”

  “I hope you won’t have us quacking like ducks?” asked Margaret, laughing lightly and looking around at the group for approval of her witticism.

  “No, not at all! That’s stage hypnosis. No quacking, and no barking, either. Well, not unless you were a duck or a dog in your past life.” She smiled reassuringly. “Other questions?”

  “What if we don’t ‘go under’?” asked Carlotta. “I’m sure I’m not hypnotizable.” Norbert thought that Carlotta had no intention of submitting to this exercise.

  “Well, then, you’ll miss the experience, won’t you?” said Hermione, untroubled.

  Carlotta looked irritated.

  Birdie asked, “And we will remember everything when we wake up?”

  “Yes, you will,” answered Hermione. “The whole point is to retrieve memories. And you’ll find, besides, that hypnosis is a very pleasant and relaxing state. You will enjoy it. With that said, is everyone ready to begin?”

  Norbert was certainly ready to have a pleasant and relaxing experience. Touring this place, receiving the strange job offer from Edith, meeting these odd people, and being aware of the Club following behind and what they might be thinking of it all, had worn him out. The thought that he would soon have to make a decision that might once again change the direction of his life was overwhelming him with the desire to escape into sleep. He was very, very tired.

  “And so we begin,” said Hermione, and her voice became very sweet and fluid. She spoke on and on, in a calming rhythm. “Make yourself as comfortable as possible in your comfy chairs. That’s right. Close your eyes, if you will, please,
and just be sure you have nothing crossed—no crossed arms or crossed legs, because that crosses your meridians.”

  Norbert couldn’t guess what meridians might be, but he was too tired to ask. Closing his eyes felt fine.

  “Plant your feet flat on the floor, grounding yourself with the earth. And now, just begin to take some nice deep cleansing breaths, in through the nose, and out through the nose, just really bringing your attention to your breath...just noticing. Nice, deep breaths... Notice how the air feels going in through your nostrils, and how it feels going out... And...follow...the sound...of my...voice. Now, throughout this exercise, you may find your mind wanders from my voice at times. That’s okay. Just gently bring your attention back to the sound of my voice.”

  The room was perfectly still, except for the sound of breathing all around the circle. Even Ivy, in her carrier, was snoring ever so softly, so that only Norbert could hear.

  “There may be sounds around us, and you may not even hear them...or if you do, they will serve only to send you deeper into relaxation.”

  “Let’s begin now by relaxing each and every part of the body. Bring your attention to your feet. Relax your toes and your feet, and let them just...melt. Now bring your attention to your ankle joints, let them relax and...melt.” Hermione continued directing the group to relax and melt every body part, bit by bit, all the way up to the scalp. Norbert felt very happy.

  “And now,” said Hermione, her vowels becoming longer and her voice even more soothing, “the body is totally relaxed. Let’s go now to the mind, where we will begin to gently and peacefully go down through the levels of consciousness until we reach the unconscious, and it will be so pleasant and relaxing to do this.

  “See yourself going down a long flight of stairs. Down, down, down. When you finally get to the bottom, you will be in a former life, with all the sights, sounds and smells of that time surrounding you once again. Keep going down the stairs, deeper and deeper, deeper on down, down, down and down. As you reach the bottom step, look around. I will count from three to one, and when I get to one, you will be in your former life. Three...two...one.”

  Hermione paused here for what seemed to Norbert like a long time.

  “Walk along. Notice—what are you wearing on your feet and body? Describe to yourself—where you are...what you are doing...what are your thoughts and your feelings.”

  If Hermione said any more, Norbert did not hear her.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Four of Diamonds:

  Be open-minded, and allow yourself to explore new ideas. Why not?

  He was walking along in a vivid world. He was in a forest, much like the forest they had driven through to come to the Center for Deeper Understanding. He walked until he saw someone.

  The person Norbert beheld in his trance was a sleeping man who looked very much like Norbert—or how Norbert would look if he allowed himself to grow a beard. The sleeper was propped against a tree, and his beard was long and flowing—flowing the length of the man’s body and on past his boots. Such an odd, long beard. It didn’t seem a very interesting life; for as long as Norbert observed him, the man just kept on sleeping.

  As Hermione’s voice directed him to get ready “to return to the here and now,” the name “Rip Van Winkle” came to Norbert. “Ridiculous!” he thought, drowsily.

  Everyone in the group was blinking and looking around at everyone else. Some were stretching and yawning.

  Norbert wondered what the others had experienced. Certainly he had done the hypnosis wrong. He couldn’t have been a fictional character in his previous life.

  Edith was handing around a big bowl of “homegrown, organic apples! So crunchy and juicy!”

  “Before we take a break, let’s debrief on our experiences, while they are still fresh!” Hermione turned about the circle, looking for a volunteer.

  Carlotta was looking refreshed and pleased. She grabbed the biggest, reddest apple from the bowl before passing it on. Norbert thought, So she didn’t “miss the experience.” No, she never would. And she’s happy about who she was.

  Carlotta began to raise her hand, but Hermione saw Margaret’s hand first.

  Hermione said, “Yes? What was that like for you?”

  “I saw myself as a man, a soldier dying on a battlefield, and I knew I was in France. And my full name came to me!” Margaret stopped for full dramatic effect. “Joyce Kilmer!”

  Birdie drew in her breath. “Margaret! I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree. Joyce Kilmer is the poet whose name you were trying to think of in the car!”

  Hermione said, “That is exceedingly rare, to remember one’s name. Very often we get a scene of some sort, but to have a name! Well, that’s lucky, isn’t it?”

  Margaret was glowing, like a child who has done well.

  Norbert saw Carlotta ready to take her down a peg or two.

  “Yes?” asked Hermione in Carlotta’s direction.

  “I remembered my name, as well! I saw myself writing, writing, and I was wearing eighteenth-century feminine clothing. At last I saw the title of the book I was working on. The title was—” Carlotta could stop for dramatic effect as well as anybody “—Pride and Prejudice.”

  As Carlotta prepared for this impression to sink in around the group, Daphne spoke up. “You must be mistaken.”

  All eyes turned to Daphne, the former nun.

  Daphne said, “We can’t both have been Jane Austen, can we?”

  Carlotta’s satisfied smile faded. “Are you saying that you think you were Jane Austen?”

  “I’m saying that I was Jane Austen. I clearly remembered, just now, a long chat with Cassandra.”

  Carlotta tossed her head. “Cassandra who?”

  It did not take a Jane Austen fan to sense that Carlotta had just made a fatal mistake.

  Daphne crowed, “Cassandra Who! Cassandra was only Jane Austen’s—I mean my—sister and lifelong confidante!”

  “Friends, friends!” interjected Hermione soothingly. “There is no need to argue! Clearly, you both remember being Jane Austen. Clearly, you were both Jane Austen.”

  Both Jane Austens looked nastily at one another.

  “Let me explain the concept of soul groups. This is important knowledge for all of us. Between lives, you see, our souls return to something like a big pool, or a big soup, you could say. When it’s time to reincarnate into an entity on the earth plane, a scoop is taken out of that pool. That scoop may contain essences of more than one soul. It all gets mixed up together, you see. We are all one, you know. So what we have here is two sister souls—what are your names, please?”

  Daphne said, “Daphne,” and tilted her head, as if ready to wrap her mind around the concept that Hermione was offering.

  Carlotta said, “Carlotta,” and folded her arms, as if to say she knew this was all silly to begin with.

  “Yes, Carlotta and Daphne. Two sister souls who inhabited the same body once as Jane Austen, and then got ladled back into the soup, to come back again as two separate individuals, to meet here, today, at this hour! Now, isn’t that synchronicity?” Hermione could not have looked happier.

  Norbert felt a pang of compassion for Carlotta. This whole day had taken her off her own turf and onto her rival’s. Instead of enjoying her carefully tended certainty of her own superiority, she had been feeling sharply inferior to Edith. The past life as Jane Austen was her one chance to show her own exceptional status. And now she was being asked to share it. It was all just too much for poor Carlotta. Norbert gave her a smile of encouragement, but she frowned irritably in return.

  Hermione called on “the lady with the lovely red hair.”

  Norbert had been wondering what Birdie was making of all of this. Did reincarnation conflict with a belief in spirits lingering around Earth, or did the two beliefs work together, he wondered.

 
; Birdie, swallowing a bite of her apple, said, “I’m not sure if I was really hypnotized, but I was very relaxed.”

  Hermione was reassuring. “Relaxation is all it is. Nothing more.”

  Birdie continued, “Well, whether it was a dream or a memory of a past life, I don’t know—”

  Hermione again encouraged, “Yes, these memories will tend to feel like dreams—or as if you are just making it all up. Go on.”

  “It seems I was a famous painter.”

  Carlotta, as if she had been holding herself back for as long as she could, burst out, “It really does strain credulity, doesn’t it? So many world-famous people here today?”

  Hermione agreed. “It is unusual. People typically remember very quiet lives, in deserts and on farms, in villages or on islands. But we do not doubt the unconscious. If you remember it, then it is so.”

  Carlotta tapped her foot.

  “Which famous painter in particular, Birdie?” asked Norbert.

  “One of my favorites. Frida Kahlo.” Birdie explained to the nonartists in the group, “She was a Mexican painter of the early twentieth century who used surrealism and vivid colors.”

  Margaret enthused, “That makes sense! That’s why you love painting in this life!”

  Carlotta said, “Oh, for Pete’s sake. Wait just a minute, please. What year were you born in, Birdie?”

  “1943.”

  “When did Frida Kahlo die?”

  Birdie didn’t know. No one knew.

  Carlotta pulled out her iPhone. “Google will know!” she proclaimed.

  “‘Frida Kahlo,’” read Carlotta. “‘Died 1954.’”

  Carlotta turned to Hermione. “Explain that one, if you can. Birdie was eleven years old when Frida Kahlo died. They were both living at the same time. So how can Birdie be her reincarnation?”

  “There is no problem here,” answered Hermione, serene. “There is a concept called ‘parallel lives.’ Imagine, if you will, the soul as a beam of light that can be split in two directions. Those two directions can represent the two different bodies that are animated by the same soul. So, yes, strange to say, there can be two or more people living at the same time, who share the same soul.”