All the Broken Places

by Anise Eden

  “How long did it take you?”

  “A few years. She’s still a work in progress.”

  A labor of love, then. I imagined Ben’s hands massaging leather conditioner into the seats…then dug my fingernails into my palms and forced myself to focus. “It’s gorgeous. A real work of art.”

  He gave a modest shrug. “It keeps me busy.”

  Ben seemed so at home in business suits; I never would have guessed that his hobby involved spending hours in a garage. I wondered if he would ever stop surprising me. “Where did you learn how to restore cars? In the Marines?”

  Ben’s jaw clenched. I sensed that I’d somehow stepped on a landmine. Within seconds, though, he reined in his reaction. “My father taught me the basics, but I learned the rest in the Corps.”

  I bit my lip, unsure where to go next. I decided that a compliment couldn’t hurt. “Your dad must be really impressed by this beauty.”

  I was wrong about the compliment. Any hint of expression disappeared from Ben’s face, leaving behind an inscrutable mask. “He died before I got this car.”

  “Oh.” Grief tugged at me again—this time for his loss. “I’m so sorry, Ben.”

  “Don’t be.” His voice was as cool and hard as a pebble. “Don’t trouble yourself.”

  I gasped softly as a small shard of his pain escaped the tight control Ben had over his emotions. It flew out of him and into me, bitter and rough with anger. My instinct was to reach out to him, but it was clear that he didn’t want to talk about it.

  As I sat there mentally searching for what to say next, a shout from behind made us both jump. “So that’s where you are! What are you two doing out there?” Kai demanded from the top of the landing. He stood, hands on hips, wearing skinny jeans, a poppy-red tunic with kimono sleeves, and matching red platform heels. “Counting leaves? I thought Cate and I had a meeting!”

  Kai’s voice shook Ben out of his dark mood. He arched an amused eyebrow at me. Caught off-guard by his sudden show of levity, I pressed my lips together to keep from laughing. Ben turned toward the church and shouted, “We’re coming!”

  “Well, okay then!” Kai replied. I heard his high heels clip-clip off into the distance.

  “We’d better go,” Ben murmured. “You don’t want to get in trouble with him, believe me. Wait there.”

  My reluctance to get out of the car must have been obvious as Ben stepped around and opened my door. “I’ll take you for a ride sometime if you like.”

  “That would be great,” I said, although I was sure he was just being polite. As he followed me back to the church, I wondered what had happened with Ben’s father that had caused him so much anguish. It troubled me to think that I would never find out, that there was no way for me to help. Once a therapist, always a therapist, I thought with chagrin. Just remember, you’re the client now.

  • • •

  Ben led me down the hallway to a small meeting room with a dark wood conference table and two chairs. On the table, Kai was arranging an assortment of rough-hewn crystals of various colors on a black velvet cloth.

  As I walked in, Kai immediately embraced me. “Have a seat, you poor baby. Vani told me everything.” He made a shooing hand motion at Ben. “Go away, leave us alone. We have things to talk about. And close the door on your way out.”

  Ben ignored my look of dismay and obeyed Kai’s orders. “Bring her back to my office when you’re done.”

  “Go! Shoo!” Kai said.

  “Don’t worry, Cate, you’re in good hands,” Ben reassured. “See you later.”

  “The best hands,” Kai corrected. He sat down and gestured for me to do the same. “Here, hold this.” Kai placed a cloudy white crystal in my palm, then closed my fingers around it and rested the back of my hand on the table.

  I watched, mystified, as he closely examined the rest of the crystals. “What are those for?”

  “Hmm? Oh.” Kai looked up. “Well, you’ve had to use a catalyst, yes?”

  So that’s what Vani had told him. “I guess so…”

  “But you didn’t know that’s what you were doing. I know.” He patted me on the arm. “Well, as you tell me about this catalyst of yours, both of your energies will charge the crystals. Then I can read them to figure out what meditation technique you need to learn, what kind of totem you need…that sort of thing.”

  So Kai was a fruitcake. At least he was a kind fruitcake who for some reason appeared to want to help me. I figured there was no harm in going along. Besides, Ben had planted the idea in my head that I might have unwittingly been using Sid as an emotional toxic waste dump. If there were any truth to that at all, I wanted to know as soon as possible so I could put a stop to it. I took a chance that Kai might know something useful. “What do you want me to tell you?”

  “Oh, anything. How you met, how things are between you—whatever comes to mind, really.” With a sober expression, Kai gestured for me to begin.

  I gave him the short version of my story with Sid. To my amazement, nothing I said seemed to surprise Kai. After I finished, he leaned forward and asked in a low, intimate tone, “And are you in love with this Sid?”

  “No, no. It’s not like that. We’re just good friends.”

  “So he’s not taking advantage of you or anything?”

  “God, no. If anything, these days I’m usually the one calling him.” I squinted at Kai. “Why would you ask that?”

  He tapped my hands. “Open up.” I opened my fingers. Kai removed the crystals and placed them carefully in a cloth bag. “A lot of empaths can’t tolerate intimacy with non-catalysts, leaving them with only one option,” he explained. “There are lowlife catalysts out there who take advantage of desperate empaths, trapping them in a cycle of dependency.”

  “Oh, no!” My face heated up as I realized what he was asking me. “It’s not like that at all. Sid’s a great person. He would never do anything like that. Besides, he’s never even heard of this empath/catalyst stuff.”

  “Glad to hear it.” Kai began studying the crystals again. “I was just checking to make sure Pete and Ben don’t have to take him out behind the woodshed.”

  I smiled uneasily. I couldn’t tell if he was joking and I didn’t particularly want to find out. “You said a lot empaths can’t…be with non-catalysts?”

  “That’s right. Hold this one for a minute.” Kai folded an orange-yellow crystal into my hand. “When things get really intense in relationships, empaths tend to open themselves up and completely let down their defenses. That’s not a problem when you’re with a catalyst since they soak up all of the emotional energy. But with a regular person, you experience all of your own emotions plus theirs. That’s too much for any one person to handle. Usually it becomes overwhelming, even frightening.”

  “Oh.” That explained a lot about my past romantic failures. I looked down at my hands.

  “Don’t worry, honey,” he said, patting my arm again. “It’s a problem that’s easy to fix once you learn how. By the time you finish this program, you’ll be able to be with anyone you like.”

  I wanted to believe him, but I’d already had too many failed attempts at “normal” relationships. I knew better than to let myself hope. I decided to change gears. “Absorbing all of that toxic stuff, does it harm the other person? The catalyst, I mean?”

  “No, not at all. To a catalyst, toxic emotion is like water rolling off a duck’s back.”

  “Thank goodness.” Relief flooded me. At least I hadn’t been hurting Sid.

  Kai gave me a sympathetic look. “I hope you know that none of this is your fault. You’re not alone, either. A lot of empaths have to use catalysts to survive until someone teaches them how to manage those toxic surges.”

  A cold feeling of dread settled in my stomach. “Toxic surges?”

  “A surge of negative emotions,” he explained, “the ones you absorb from other people. When they build up to toxic levels, it triggers a surge. That’s what causes that sickness you get when you
need to call Sid. What do you call it?”

  “I don’t have a name for it.” I shrugged. “I just know that the pain inside of me gets too heavy sometimes. Being with Sid takes the edge off, makes it manageable again.”

  “For a while, you mean.”

  I nodded.

  “Well, I’d put down money that this pain of yours reaches toxic levels pretty often with all of that empathic submergence you do at work—yes, Dr. MacGregor told me about that. And I guess she was right, too, that submerging into others costs you more than you let on. But don’t worry.” He covered my hands with his. “That’s why you’re here. I’ll make you a totem—a pendant, I’m thinking—and create a customized meditation technique for you to learn. I should have the pendant in a day or two, and I’ll have the meditation ready for you sometime next week. Then you can take care of your own toxic surges, catalyst or no catalyst. And eventually you’ll learn how to submerge without bringing anything nasty back with you.”

  That sounded promising. It would certainly be nice never to feel that awful sickness again. And I was sure it would please Sid if in the future my phone calls came solely from a place of desire, not desperation. But still…I bit my lip. “What if I get a toxic surge before next week?”

  “If you feel one coming on, just tell Ben and he’ll get Vani and me.” Kai smiled broadly. “Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. We have a lot of tricks up our sleeves.”

  “Okay.” I did my best to feel reassured. Meanwhile, I couldn’t get over how much effort Kai was willing to put into helping me, someone he’d just met. “Listen, I’m not sure why you’re being so nice to me, but thank you. I really appreciate it.”

  Kai’s face crinkled. “You don’t have to thank me, baby.” With an abrupt burst of concentration, he stared at my hair. “I’m a good judge of people, and I could tell right away you’re a sweetheart.” He reached over and began rearranging various strands of my braid, tucking some in and pushing some back. “That’s better. Besides, I feel a little bit sorry for you.”

  He looked so concerned that it worried me. “Because of my hair?”

  “No—well, a little, yes. We’ll work on that. But mainly because of everything you’ve been through trying to help people. The point is, I like you, so why wouldn’t I be nice to you?”

  “Thanks.” I smiled, his openness moving me to candor. “I like you, too, Kai.”

  “Of course you do.” He gave a faux-modest head bow. “Everybody with a lick of sense does. I’ll take that one now.” I handed him the orange-yellow crystal, and he rolled it up in the velvet cloth with the others. “That was a citrine crystal, by the way, for cleansing. Never a bad idea.” Then he stood up and walked around the table, draping his arm around my shoulders. “So, you ready for class?”

  What I was ready for was a smoke break, although I hadn’t had a cigarette since college. I fell back against my chair. “I didn’t know there was a class.”

  “Oh, yes! Intro to Paranormality 101, or something like that.” Kai gracefully offered me his hand. “Come on. It won’t be boring, I promise. Let’s go find Ben.”

  Chapter Nine

  “How did it go?” Ben asked when we reached his office.

  “Fine,” Kai replied. “We covered everything we needed to cover, and I have what I need to put Cate’s cure together. Isn’t it time for class?”

  “Yes. Let’s go.” Ben looked me up and down. “You look a little tired. Are you sure you’re up for this?”

  I tried to smile. “Kai promised it won’t put me to sleep.”

  “He’s right, there,” Ben said enigmatically. He led us through the lounge and down the hallway to a small classroom where Vani appeared to be setting up some sort of presentation. She had placed a number of colored markers on the ledge of a large dry erase board in the front of the room. Kai joined Vani up front. He arranged some objects on a small desk, then draped a white linen cloth over them. In his bright red tunic, Kai stood in stark contrast to Vani who, while effortlessly glamorous, was businesslike in a dark suit, white cotton blouse, and tasteful black heels. Being in their presence make me feel like a prickly weed in a flower garden.

  Ben retrieved two folding chairs from against the back wall and set them up behind a long table, facing the front. He gestured for me to sit in one, and he took the other. Vani announced that they were ready to begin. She had written “Parapsychology” across the top of the board and drawn the rough outline of a hand further down.

  “Welcome, Cate! This is Parapsychology 101—or at least that’s what we’re calling it today, since Ben informs me that you’re a fan of the scientific paradigm.”

  I gave Ben the side eye, but he pretended not to see. “Yes, I guess you could say that,” I said to Vani, “but what other paradigm is there—I mean, for a subject that ends in ‘ology?’”

  “Oh, believe me, there are others,” she said. “We just like to ‘meet the client where she is.’” She put air quotes around the common social work maxim.

  I couldn’t help but smile. I was starting to appreciate Vani’s sense of humor, even though it had teeth at times.

  “First, my qualifications.” She held up an imaginary piece of paper and pretended to read from it. “Dual bachelor’s degrees in marketing and psychology with a parapsychology emphasis from the University of Northampton, first class honors; trained at the School of Advanced Psychic Studies in London, as I mentioned before; and I’m originally from India, where we believe that things do not have to be fully understood via the Western scientific paradigm before they can be considered real.”

  As that was not an insubstantial list, I gave a nod of acknowledgement.

  “Just so I have a baseline,” she asked, “what do you already know about parapsychology?”

  I bit my thumbnail and considered whether to be honest or diplomatic.

  “Go ahead,” Ben quietly urged. “What you really think, remember?

  I shot him a “don’t push me” look. “Okay, well,” I began, “all I know is that in grad school, they said it was a pseudoscience that kind of died out in the Eighties. They also said that a lot of scam artists were involved, and it had ties to the occult. And I’ve seen that reality TV show Ghost Trappers; they mention parapsychology on there sometimes.”

  “Not bad,” Vani said. “Ghost Trappers is the extent of many people’s exposure. Allow me to tell you what parapsychology really is.” She turned to the board and wrote the definition as she spoke it. “It’s the scientific study of psychological phenomena that cannot be explained by the known laws of nature.”

  So it was an actual field of study? I sat up straighter in my chair. “You mean things like aura reading and being an empath?”

  “Exactly.” Vani pointed to the hand she’d drawn. “There are five categories of these phenomena. The first is psychokinesis, in which the mind interacts with other people or objects from a distance. There are several sub-categories—the most well-known being telekinesis—but the only one we use here is psychic healing, which encompasses empathic submergence and empath healing.”

  “Empath healing is the technique I told you about earlier,” Ben added.

  “Right, I remember,” I said, trying to look cool rather than incredulous. “But wait—telekinesis? Isn’t that moving things with your mind?”

  “Yes, although the jury’s still out on whether that exists,” Vani said. “Personally, I’ve never seen any evidence of it.”

  “That’s because it’s bogus,” Ben grumbled.

  Kai tsk-tsked. “Well, aren’t we judgy this afternoon.”

  “As I was saying,” Vani said crisply, “that’s the first category.” She wrote “psychokinesis” along one finger of the hand. “The second category is clairvoyance, or the ability to see and know things about people or objects that others can’t. Aura reading fits in here, along with your other empathic gifts.”

  In answer to my questioning look, Ben said, “Your abilities to pick up on other people’s emotions and to
form the filaments you told us about.”

  I nodded, feigning comprehension.

  Vani wrote “clairvoyance” on the second finger. “Third is mediumship, or the ability to communicate with the spirits of the dead. I know you must have heard of that, Cate.”

  “Yes.” Those scam psychic hotlines—and any number of scary movies I’d watched in high school that featured psychics sitting in dark rooms, wearing turbans and hoop earrings and staring into crystal balls.

  Kai held out his arm and pretended to examine his fingernails. “That’s my area of expertise, in case you were wondering.”

  “Oh, wow.” I forced myself to smile and nod. Kai, a medium; that seemed to fit. Anyone who believed they could talk to the dead must have an extremely fertile imagination, and Kai definitely had one if he believed in crystals and totems. Not that I doubted Kai’s sincerity, just his sense of reality.

  As Vani finished writing “mediumship” on another finger, she said, “Fourth is precognition, or the ability to see the future.”

  As the categories grew more bizarre, I shot Ben a “help me” look, but his attention remained focused on Vani.

  “That’s Eve’s gift, although she’s just starting to develop it. And finally we have telepathy, or the ability to read others’ thoughts. Asa is a telepath, but don’t worry.” She gave me a wan smile. “He gets splitting headaches when he uses his gift, so he won’t be eavesdropping on your thoughts. He only reads minds when absolutely necessary.” Vani wrote the last two categories on the hand’s remaining fingers. “Those are the five categories of parapsychological phenomena. Any questions so far?”

  I looked down and rubbed my forehead, searching for something, anything that I could ask without trumpeting my skepticism. “Yes, okay,” I said, “I have a question. That definition of parapsychology—what do you mean when you say ‘phenomena that cannot be explained by the known laws of nature?’”