by Rik Johnston
CHAPTER TEN
I
NEW ANXIETIES SURFACE
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1995
Megan had been released from the hospital that morning, after having spent three days in the detox and addiction ward, and she couldn’t be happier that she had been freed at last. While Megan spent her time detoxing, she begrudgingly got herself signed up with an outpatient rehabilitation program, one that she had already taken the time to work on. When Tuesday had met her at the hospital that morning, the two of them went and had breakfast at The Pancake Palace, a local diner that served legendary breakfast fare. After breakfast, the two of them went to visit the office of the psychiatrist on the card that Samuel Thornton had given Tuesday the previous week.
It wasn’t long before Megan and Tuesday Moxley had arrived at the building where Doctor Anthony Frederiksen’s office was located, The Millwork Tavern, as it was known to the locals. It was an old building, likely one of the oldest in Cadence Falls, which served as a mini-mall for local businesses. The shops were all centered around walkways on each level that opened up where you could look up and down this middle section where various pieces of art were hanging. The building was placed on the main street area of Cadence Falls, high on the hill where it had large windows that looked out over directly over the waterfall that flowed from underneath it, into the tributary river that flowed through The Devil’s City and into the Columbia River.
Cadence Falls, partly a mill town and partly a tourist town, was once a jewel of the Pacific Northwest. Back in its heyday, Cadence Falls boasted more sawmills and paper mills than any other town in the in its area due to its location on the Columbia River, but when The Devil’s City was established, it took more of the seaport duties from Cadence Falls. Having a major waterway at their disposal, The Devil’s City had become a high-profile port city for the region and a hub of distribution, and over the years it had become a full-fledged international shipping center. Because the river channel was deep and wide enough, it could support up to four lanes of shipping traffic as far up the river as The Devil’s City, an advantage that wasn’t shared by the cities further up the river as the narrowing of the shallower channel.
Between the loggers, mill workers and longshoremen, business was booming in Cadence Falls. It was in 1911 that The Millwork Tavern was founded in what used to be an old saloon back when Cadence Falls was just a fledgling settlement. The saloon had evolved into a popular jazz and blues club where millworkers could come after their shift and unwind following a long day of work. It was originally a two-story building with the bar seating on the floor and on the balcony with a full view of the stage. As the club became more and more popular, the building expanded and added a brothel to it where workers from all over the region would come to sample the goods. During the Prohibition Era, The Millwork Tavern put on the front of being a dry bar with live music, but also had a hidden speakeasy for some of its more exclusive clientele where alcohol was still being served seven days a week. The building was eventually expanded so the various Labor Unions could headquarter on different floors there, and the upper floors became luxurious dens where the Union heads could entertain visiting mob bosses coming to collect their piece of the action. The penthouse of the building continued to host a VIP club, where city leaders could go and have a drink after a long day at city hall.
In that middle section of the building, where those executive offices for the Labor Unions had once existed, had become prime real estate for business professionals. These were now the offices for accountants, attorneys, and medical professionals. It was on the sixth floor of The Millwork Tavern where Doctor Anthony Frederiksen claimed a luxurious workspace for his office. Though there was only one receptionist, he shared this office space with two other psychiatrists, but his office was the largest space of the three.
Upon entering the reception area, the light dimmed dramatically from the sky lit windows of the retail levels. The walls were covered in a warm cherry hardwood that absorbed the light and gave off an ambiance of calmness. There were two very fine black leather sofas in the waiting area that met each other in the corner with a cedar end table between the two, some magazines scattered about it. At the other end of the room was a large, polished oak desk where the receptionist was seated. A plaque with her name on it sat in front of the computer monitor where she was ticking away at her keyboard, transcribing appointment notes.
Michelle Simmons worked the desk, taking appointments, answering phones, doing transcription and filing. If ever a doctor had an exceptionally good assistant, she was it. Doctor Frederiksen was very appreciative of Michelle and often told her that he didn’t know how his practice would survive without her, and he made certain she was compensated with great pay, good health and dental benefits, and plenty of vacation time every year. She worked hard, was attentive to detail, and wasn’t afraid to correct any mistakes, financial or otherwise, that came across her sight. As soon as the door opened, Michelle finished the item she was working on, and then addressed the new clients. “Good morning, how can I help you?”
Tuesday pulled out the business card from her pocket and reluctantly and placed it on the desk in front of Michelle, “I got this from Councilor Thornton at school, and he referred me here for treatment.” Tuesday said nervously, tapping her finger on Doctor Frederiksen’s name on the card. “He said that I should see this guy.”
Michelle could sense Tuesday’s trepidation, but was warm and accommodating, “It’s OK, you don’t need to be scared.” She said with a smile. “You’re in luck; he’s actually had a cancellation this morning, so he’s available to do an intake session with you.”
Michelle opened a drawer on her desk and flipped through a few files, producing some forms that she placed on a clipboard and handed to Megan. “I’ll need you to fill these out, please.”
Michelle stood up from the desk and went back into the office area while the mother and daughter went to take a seat in the waiting area on one of those awesome leather couches. Megan began to fill out the paperwork to the best of her ability while Tuesday fidgeted in her seat. Tuesday wasn’t happy about being there and had serious doubts that this wouldn’t end any differently than her previous attempts at seeing a psychologist did.
“Mom, do you think this guy will be any better than any of the others?” Tuesday asked with the doubts creeping into her voice. “Do you think that he can help me?”
Megan stopped what she was doing and looked at her daughter, “It says he takes and original approach to child psychology, so maybe.” Megan tried to answer as optimistically as she could. “I don’t know; all you can do is give it your best shot.”
“I hope so.” Tuesday whispered, though she had protested the counseling sessions, she began to hope beyond reason that this might be the one who would really help her. “I really do.”
When Michelle came back she held the door open for Tuesday. “Doctor Frederiksen will see you now.” Michelle announced. “This way.”
Tuesday got up from the couch, with Megan hot on her heels, but Michelle stopped her at the door. “I’m sorry, but the doctor specifically requests that all parents are to remain in the waiting area for the duration of the session.” Michelle demanded in a slightly snooty tone.
Megan’s defenses shot up like a bottle rocket on the Fourth of July. “But I’m her mother!” Megan protested, putting on her aggressive stance. “She can’t go in there without me!”
“I’m sorry.” Michelle responded sincerely, trying to calm Megan down. “I really am, but it’s the doctor’s policy to work one on one with the patient without third party interruption.” Megan didn’t like the policy, but she unwillingly accepted it. Tuesday was not so accepting.
“Mom, I don’t want to go without you!” Tuesday said, slightly elevated and panicked, “I need you!” Of all the psychologists that Tuesday had seen, this was the only time that she hadn’t had to have her mother by her side. For Tuesday, it wasn’t also that s
he wanted her mother there for her own peace of mind, but after her mother’s overdose, she didn’t want to leave Megan to her own devices for too long. Tuesday felt as if she were her mother’s keeper, and decided that the burden of Megan’s sobriety was as much hers to bear as it was her mothers.
“It’s okay sweetheart.” Megan surrendered, trying to reassure her daughter as best as she could. “I’ll be right here when you’re done.” She reached out for her daughter and gave her a quick hug, letting her know that she would be there for her. “You’ll be alright; do you understand?”
Tuesday nodded her head, but was still very nervous about it. She was somewhat spooked about having to go into the office without her mother present, after all, her mother had been there for every counseling session she had ever had. Her mother being absent was the unknown quantity. She turned to walk down the corridor and forward to her meeting with Doctor Frederiksen.
“His office is the last door on the right.” Michelle said in an informational tone. “You don’t have anything to worry about, you’ll be just fine.
If only Tuesday were as optimistic as Michelle and her mother were. The click and the thud of the door closing behind her wasn’t as reassuring as Tuesday had hoped.
II
DOCTOR ANTHONY FREDERIKSEN
The sound of the door closing reverberated down the white tiled hallway and Tuesday had to take a couple of seconds to adjust to the clinical bright, white light that filled the area. She began her journey down the corridor as any journey began, with one step, and then another. The walls of the bright corridor were adorned with oil paintings with scenes from tropical islands, which was the only color in the otherwise colorless hallway. Upon closer inspection of the paintings, the lower right hand corners were marked with a “AF”, indicating that Doctor Frederiksen had painted them himself. To Tuesday, that had made a statement. The otherwise clinical look of the white hallway had been interrupted with swatches of color painted by the very doctor she was going to see. It meant to her that he went against the grain, and that he was rebellious in his nature, that he imposed his will over what had been established. While Tuesday walked down that corridor, she tried to weigh in her mind whether or not that was a good thing or a bad thing and what consequences it might have on her therapy.
Tuesday had finally reached the door to Anthony Frederiksen’s office. She reached her hand out slowly for the shiny brass knob that represented a choice in her mind, to turn this knob would signal making a commitment to battle her inner demons, and she wasn’t sure if she had the strength or presence of mind to do it or not. To walk away from the knob meant that she would continue to suffer this lifestyle, but keep herself from becoming mentally scarred any further.
Suddenly her thoughts turned to Jason, and how much she really wanted to get to know him. A thousand thoughts flew through her mind at the speed of light, and came to one conclusive thought. “I need to defeat this curse once and for all.” How could she have a normal life like this? How could she be everything she hoped to be for Jason with this hanging over her head? Without another thought, she turned the knob and stepped into the office.
Anthony Frederiksen’s office was much like his waiting room was, warm polished hardwoods, but with a personal flair. The room had a pair of display cases containing items he had accumulated on his travels, trinkets and collectibles from six different continents. At the end of the room, there was a large floor to ceiling window with the rain beading off the outside of it. The window looked out over the waterfall and onto the valley and the Columbia River beyond, a magnificent view of lower Cadence Falls and The Devil’s City. Flanking either side of the window was a large vase, one that seemed to be African in origin, and the other Asian, most likely Middle-Eastern, each filled with tall stalks of dried grass that with fluffy white plumes on the tops of them. The walls were covered in photos of the places Doctor Frederiksen had been, Japan, Australia, China, Russia, France, Rome and London, at least those were the places Tuesday had recognized from the landmarks in the photos the doctor had been mugging with. At the end of the room opposite of the large window, there was a doorway that led to another chamber. On each side of the chamber door, there were large bookshelves, filled with reference volumes, and various books on psychology. In the middle of the room there was a nice mahogany desk, and on that desk was a decent pile of paperwork, some files, and a framed picture of what Tuesday could only assume was Doctor Frederiksen’s wife and son with him in front of The Great Wall of China. But Doctor Frederiksen was not sitting behind his desk on this day, he was standing in front of it waiting to welcome Tuesday.
“Hello there.” He said with a gentle smile and a clipboard in his hand, “I assume you’re Tuesday Moxley, I’m happy to meet you.” He motioned his left hand toward the other chamber, “Let’s get started, shall we?”
Tuesday turned her head toward the other chamber where Doctor Frederiksen had begun to walk to. Cautiously, she followed him into the dimly lit room where a comfortable looking chair, a metronome, a sofa, a plant on a small table, and a day bed were the only items in the room. Instead of the warm, natural hardwood look, this room was decked out in a soft, pastel blue, which felt very calming when she entered it.
“Please, take a seat on the sofa.” Doctor Frederiksen said. “Let’s take a few moments to get to know one another.” As he sat down in the comfortable chair, Tuesday noticed there was a panel on one of the armrests, which Doctor Frederiksen used to adjust the lighting in the room, bringing it up to a normal, conversational level. Tuesday moved over to the sofa and took a seat, sinking into it and feeling its comfort enveloping her.
For the first time, Tuesday could take a look at Doctor Frederiksen. What surprised her the most was that he had very kindly features, and he was thoughtful and gentle in his speech and his manner. His thin frame hosted a somewhat obese belly, typical of a man in his fifties, but he seemed as if he was in fairly good shape overall. His head hosted a dignified receding hairline but still full of short dark brown hair, with some graying on the sides and in his well-trimmed beard. On his face, he wore an expensive looking pair of silver wire frame glasses with bifocal lenses in them. All in all, he seemed like all the rest of the psychologists she had been to see. Doctor Frederiksen was silent for a few moments while he flipped through a file of paperwork that he had on his clipboard, nodding a few times as he studied the notes in the text.
“I have your transcripts from Doctors Parsons, Wilson and Smith.” Doctor Frederiksen said deep in thought, almost as if he were speaking to himself. “It says they have made little to no progress with your case.” The only reaction that Doctor Frederiksen gets from Tuesday is a blank stare and a blink of her eyes. “It also says that you have been expelled from school because you would not cooperate with Samuel Thornton, the school counselor. And that on your last day of school you threatened to kill the Jackson girls on the school bus.”
Tuesday began to feel the anger well up in her and became defensive hearing this. She didn’t come to see Doctor Frederiksen to be reminded of the way she had been treated at Cadence Falls High School. She had come for help, but now it seemed as if Doctor Frederiksen was as useless as Doctors Parsons, Wilson, Smith and Thornton were. She found herself blurting out defensively, in spite of herself.
“Those girls are always starting fights with me!!” Tuesday said in plain and clear defense of herself. “They don’t like me, and I definitely do not like them. And in my defense, I didn’t threaten to kill them. What I said was I wished they were dead. There’s a difference.”
“That is a difference. And that’s not so uncommon, kids not getting along.” Doctor Frederiksen said, almost as if he were agreeing with her. “And what of Doctor Thornton? What’s your problem with him?”
“Doctor Thornton, I’d only met him in the office that one time.” Tuesday answered. “And I didn’t want to talk to him because he was a total moron. He was theorizing
about my problems without even trying to communicate with me. He is just one of Principal McCauley’s flunkies, he doesn’t care about my problems, and he doesn’t care about me.”
“The transcript also says you have an enormous amount of disdain for Principal McCauley.” Doctor Frederiksen added.
“The man doesn’t give me many reasons to like him.” Tuesday replied, confident and self-assured. She sat in silence for another moment while Doctor Frederiksen finished looking over the transcript. When he was done, he closed the file, and opened his notebook and made sure his pen was ready to write the things she would be willing to talk about.
“I suppose while it is true that Samuel Thornton is a colleague of mine, I too, consider him to be somewhat of an idiot.” Doctor Frederikson said, breaking the tension in the room. This is the last thing Tuesday expected to hear from this psychologist, especially since Thornton claimed to be a friend of his. “I attended school with him, Doctor Thornton’s grades were the lowest in our class. He may not know his stuff, and he’s fairly pompous, but he’s a heck of a nice guy.”
Tuesday needed confirmation of Thornton’s claims of friendship. She’d wondered if it was another one of Principal McCauley’s lies. “Samuel Thornton said you are his friend, is that true?” Tuesday chimed in, studying Doctor Frederiksen’s reactions in hopes that they might betray something about him. No such luck.
“Yes, he and I are friends.” Doctor Frederiksen explained. “He was considered to be a joke in our college graduating class. He was having a lot of difficulty with the course, so I would help him out; tutor him from time to time. A lot of the other students were cruel to him, yet I couldn’t treat him like that. It meant a lot to him to become a psychologist. It was a promise he had made to his late father, and I couldn’t stand by and let him fail at that promise, not when it all came so easily for me. We also worked together briefly for a company in Bellingham many years ago. Sam didn’t mean to misjudge you; he’s just not good at what he does. I’m not sure in reality if he could even help himself with his own problems.”
Tuesday’s assumptions about Doctor Frederiksen rapidly melted away. She thought he would be just like everybody else who had ever attempted to examine her but the truth of the matter was that he was a person who truly wished to help others. She wanted to know more about this new doctor, and what he could possibly do for her. Tuesday felt some remorse for having treated Samuel Thornton so disrespectfully. However, she did not feel anything at all for “That Liar McCauley”, as Tuesday had affectionately begun to call him.
“If you talk to Doctor Thornton anytime soon, could you please tell him that I’m sorry for the things I said to him? Tuesday asked politely, “I had no idea.”
“I’m sure you’ll get the opportunity to tell him yourself soon.” Doctor Frederiksen replied. “I should be able to get you back into school in no time at all.” He seemed to relax in his chair a little bit, and continued talking to her. “My eye has been on you for some time now, Miss Moxley. Despite my sincerest efforts at procuring your case, my efforts have gone mostly unnoticed up to this point.”
Miss Moxley? Tuesday had hated when Principal McCauley addressed her as “Miss Moxley”, but coming from Doctor Frederiksen, it didn’t sound so bad, in fact she kind of liked it. “You…know who I am?” Tuesday asked shyly, a look of misperception upon her face.
“I know a lot about you, Miss Moxley.” Doctor Frederiksen responded, focusing on Tuesday and her reactions to his words. “I know about your problems, and I may have solutions that you haven’t yet attempted, or even thought about.”
Tuesday scoffed at the thought, “A solution? The others couldn’t help me, what makes you think that you can?” Tuesday wanted to treat this visit as just as much of an intake interview for Doctor Frederiksen as it was for her. She needed to know that he was a good fit for her, and that she was a good fit for him.
“I can help you because I am willing to take certain risks for you.” Doctor Frederiksen stated in a reassuring manner. “I’m willing to take risks that the others wouldn’t. I’m willing to go the distance for you because your recovery is what’s most important.”
No matter how confident or reassuring his words were, Tuesday needed to push him until she heard a specific answer, one she was waiting to hear for a long time. “Yeah, all the others said that too.” Tuesday stated defensively, realizing she was sounding a lot like her mother. “Why are you shrinks all so arrogant? Why do each of you think that you’re the only one that can solve my problems?”
Doctor Frederiksen set down his pen and leaned forward slightly in his chair, locking his fingers together, his sad piercing eyes staring into hers. “Miss Moxley, I’m not asking for your trust today, and I’m not offering any solutions today. There’s nothing special about me, but I may have suggestions to offer you to help alleviate your unique challenge, and I can only offer them to you. It would be up to you to implement those suggestions. I want to help you live a normal and fulfilling life, and I’ve been theorizing about this particular scenario for a long time. I’ve been involved in this longer than you realize. Now, are you ready to listen to what I have to say?”
This was pretty close to what Tuesday was hoping to hear, and it made her heart glad. Perhaps there was light at the end of the tunnel for her and for the first time she realized that she is ready to open her ears, her eyes and her mind to what Doctor Frederiksen has to say. She didn’t trust him any more or less than the previous doctors, but was willing to give him a chance.
“Okay.” Tuesday responded, feeling her nervousness melt away like sheets of ice in the springtime. “What is it you want me to do?
III
DECODING THE SIGNS
Doctor Frederiksen sat back in his chair again, getting comfortable and clicked his pen open again. “I have been interested in the practice of dream therapy since my college days.” He began to speak in that silky-smooth monotone voice of his. “I believe that our dreams tell us things about ourselves that we don’t or can’t see in the world of the conscious. We don’t see these things because we either choose not to or because the signs are beyond our comprehension or are too obvious to pick up on?”
Tuesday was suddenly confused by what Doctor Frederiksen was telling her, but it was certainly something that none of the other shrinks had hit her with. But she couldn’t understand what he meant by all of this.
“Signs?” Tuesday asked, scratching her head. “What kind of signs?”
This line of questioning was not completely surprising to Doctor Frederiksen as he continued to explain. “The signs are things that are linked to your subconscious. They are the things that tell you the complete meaning of your dreams.” He stated, sounding knowledgeable on the subject. “For example, if you went down two floors to Molly’s Book Emporium and found a book on dream interpretation, it would tell you many things. Say you had a dream, and in that dream you lost one of your teeth. The interpretation in the book would tell you that sometime in the future you would be parted with a significant amount of money, or at the very least, are worried about losing some money.”
Tuesday thinks that she is following what the Doctor is saying, and found herself moving her tongue around the inside of her mouth in an effort to check if any teeth were missing. Much to her relief, they were all still there. It was a good as time as any for Tuesday to defend her point of view on the subject, she knew that everything that happens in her dreams is completely obvious to her, and will inevitably happen. Worse yet, she would experience the emotions and the pain of the people around her.
“No, my dreams aren’t like that.” Tuesday said, attempting to put the experience into words. “My dreams are more real than that. I dream it, and I see what will happen. And then I feel the pain of the victims, and the emotions of the bystanders. I feel the sadness of their families, and am burdened with the same sense of loss and grief.”
Doctor Frederiksen con
tinued, trying to take Tuesday’s train of thought to the next station. “Where other people have dreams and there are signs that may show them what happens, your dreams are more literal. There are no signs for you and everything that happens in your dream; you are completely powerless to stop it from happening.”
Tuesday simply nods in agreement. “Yeah, that’s right.” She said, completely in awe that somebody else understands her dreaming process. “I dream it and it happens.”
“Everybody has the ability to tap into the future by decoding their dreams.” Doctor Frederiksen said, trying to evoke understanding in his patient. “They only need to recognize the signs. Some people are very good at it, and others are oblivious to it. Where you differ is that the signs automatically decode themselves and manifest in a literal interpretation. Your mind translates all of that data without you having to do it manually.”
“What you’re telling me is that my brain does all the work for me?” Tuesday asked with a befuddled look on her face. “That my brain figures all of it out, and I just see it like I’m watching a movie?”
“Correct.” Doctor Frederiksen replied, a slight smile forming on his face from the satisfaction of Tuesday’s revelation.
“What are we going to do about it then?” Tuesday asked, feeling more hopeful about things than she had in years. “How can we blind me to the signs?”
Doctor Frederiksen got a look of shock on his face, “Child, why on Earth would you ever want to be blinded to the signs?” He asked in a state of confusion, not understanding what it was that the girl in front of him was seeking.
Tuesday felt her sense of outrage rising, she felt as if she’s suffered with these nightmares long enough and it was something she never wanted, something she never asked for. She just wanted to be a normal girl, to have the same opportunities and social interactions that other girls of her age would have. Was that too much to ask? Her voice became louder, though only slightly.
“I am tired of having these nightmares, and I hate being scared all the time.” Tuesday stated defiantly, trying to make the meaning of the agony she had endured for so long clear to him. “I’m fearful of having to relive these dreams shortly after I have them, and I more than anything I hate that people blame me for all of the accidents. All of the deaths.”
“And it’s completely alright to feel that way.” Doctor Frederiksen calmly stated, trying to reel Tuesday back in to a comfortable place to express her story. “Your emotions are validated, but I think that what you’re looking at as a curse, could really be a gift.”
Tuesday’s anger was escalating and she felt herself stand up to walk out the door and cut the appointment short. It appeared to Tuesday that Doctor Frederiksen was as clueless as his colleagues were. She didn’t want to think of her problem as anything but evil. It was no gift, not when it caused so many injuries and deaths. Tuesday always thought that the people she dreamed about who were killed were, in a way, the lucky ones. There have been many who survived the things she had foreseen, and they were crippled or disfigured, or living out their days on life support. One time, many months after one of her dreams, she encountered one of the victims who had not passed away, and seeing him suffer, being pushed by his wife in a wheelchair, that he was simply a human in a vegetative state, that was worse than any death she could imagine.
“This is no gift!” Tuesday practically screamed, trying to get her point across. “Not when it brings the deaths or injuries of so many people. It makes me feel responsible for all of it. You have no idea how it feels to experience so much discomfort and death. I just want it all to go away! I thought you might have an answer; it seems I was mistaken.”
Tuesday found herself moving ever closer to the door when Doctor Frederiksen spoke again, “Why should you want it to go away, when you could learn to control it?” There it was again, that silky, seductive voice, the one that brought her attention back to the topic at hand. “Have you ever heard of dream control, Miss Moxley?”
Just as Tuesday was about to turn and walk out the door, his words stopped her dead in her tracks, and she returned to the couch and sat back down, her curiosity getting the better of her.
“Dream control?” Tuesday asked inquisitively. She’s never heard of this, and was suddenly confused again. It occurred to Doctor Frederiksen that the best way to keep Tuesday’s anger in check was to present a mystery, and slowly unravel it for her to keep her engaged in what he was hoping to accomplish. As long as she was curious, he could use her hunger to move her in a positive direction.
“Dream control is a technique where you realize that you are awake inside your dream.” Doctor Frederiksen casually explained. “The first step to achieving dream control is to recognize that you are dreaming while you are dreaming. That’s when you awaken in your dream.”
“That’s not a problem.” Tuesday confidently replied, thinking back on the countless times that she felt awake, but as an inactive participant in what she was dreaming. “I do that often enough as it is. While I am having one of those nightmares, whenever I see my reflection, either in the water, or a window, or a mirror, I appear colorless, in black and white. Everything else is in color.”
“That is an excellent observation!” Doctor Frederiksen said with a degree of excitement in his usually monotonous voice. “You are already very wide awake inside your dream. Do you instantly recognize the difference between a normal dream and one of these dreams where you see the future, Miss Moxley?”
Tuesday nodded reluctantly, trying to blot out the memory of some of the dreams she had witnessed. “My normal dreams are very strange.” Tuesday said, attempting to find a way to create an explanation that would differentiate between the two. “In my normal dreams, I dream of celestial beings and tribes of humans who are spread throughout the universe. I have dreams about a post-apocalyptic wasteland where people are rebuilding from a great holocaust. I have dreams about a persecuted man who doesn’t speak, but eventually destroys the world. And I have dreams about a detective who solves supernatural mysteries. And then there’s the dreams about the man on the mountain.”
“Very interesting.” Doctor Frederiksen said, furiously scribbling notes in his notebook, trying to keep up with everything that Tuesday was telling him about her “normal dreams”.
“The most recent dream I had was about a plane crash.” Tuesday began. “I was standing in the aisle of the plane and it was pandemonium. Normally when I have a dream like this, I feel everything that all the victims would be feeling. So, if they’re all scared, I feel that. If they’re in physical pain, I feel that too.” Tuesday looked at the floor in shame. “Sometimes when they don’t die right away, I feel that prolonged agony that they’re going through and I wish that they’d just get it over with because the pain is so intense. So, about the plane crash, normally I would be feeling and experiencing everything that the passengers in the cabin would feel, all of them, but for some reason, I was focused and calm.”
Doctor Frederiksen sat quietly in his comfortable chair, taking notes of the things Tuesday was telling him. He took a moment to interject, “Why do you think that was? What was different about it?” He asked Tuesday with a keen interest, experiencing something new to write about.
“I’m not sure what was different.” Tuesday explained, still trying to pull the entire dream into focus. “I felt as if I was centered on one passenger. There was so much chaos in the cabin at the time, and I kept looking down the aisle for that one person who kept me grounded. I spotted her at the last split second, and it looked like the passenger was me. I couldn’t be sure; it was only that second before the cabin erupted in flames.”
“It appears that we have established that you are wide-awake in your dreams.” Doctor Frederiksen acknowledged, “Now you just need to assert some power over your situation.”
Tuesday doesn’t understand what Doctor Frederiksen was asking of her, and expressed her frustration. “And how
do you propose that I do that?” Tuesday asked in an exasperated tone. “It’s not like I haven’t tried.”
“How have you interacted with the situation?” Doctor Frederiksen asked, still scrawling words into that notebook of his.
“I see these things happen, and they’re not just freak occurrences. They are very real to me.” Tuesday said, trying to properly put the events into words. “I yell for them to move, to get out of the way, and to look behind them. I try to warn them, but they never hear me, and they all die anyway.”
Tears began welling up in Tuesday’s eyes as she takes a moment of silence to articulate what she is feeling. It was difficult for her to form words as she recounted the tale of her most recent fatal tragedy.
“Last week I had a dream that a woman was killed by a car.” Tuesday said, struggling to get the words out. “I watched it, and I screamed for somebody to help that child when the stroller began rolling, but nobody could hear me. The baby carriage… it rolled down the hill and the mother, well she didn’t see it at first. Before the driver even pulled out onto that street, I knew that he was a man, I knew that he was engaged to be married, and that he was going to spill his coffee all over his lap. I… I could sense the car… it was … out of control. I knew he had to steer back the other direction…to you know, avoid an oncoming vehicle. And I could see him yanking the steering wheel, hard to the right, and too far… he sailed across the other lane and into the tree. I could hear the split-second cry of the mother amidst the terrible screeching of metal… being twisted and deformed around the tree. I can still hear it, you don’t forget a sound like that. I can still hear the mother’s cries of agony as life leaked from her body. I screamed as hard as I could for them to move, and it was like nobody heard me. My efforts were completely useless.”
Tears began flowing freely, streaming down her cheeks and dripping off her jaw and into her lap. Doctor Frederiksen reached over and plucked a tissue from the box, and offered it to her. She extended her hand, taking the tissue and dabbing her eyes with it.
“Miss Moxley?” Doctor Frederiksen addressed her, sensitive to her emotional state. “Are you ready to learn to take control over your nightmares?
Tuesday, sobbed quietly to herself said, “Please, just make it stop. I can’t do this anymore.”
Another moment of silence passed between them as Doctor Frederiksen nodded his head slowly. “Tuesday, I can’t make it stop. The ability to see these things is hardwired into your brain.” Doctor Frederiksen said remorsefully and with a degree of compassion Tuesday hadn’t experienced from her previous psychologists. “But I can teach you how to control it so when it happens, you don’t have to feel like it’s your fault. You can change the outcome of your dream so that the real tragedy can be masked behind a veil of secrecy. How could you be responsible for it, if you don’t have the same dream?”
Tuesday was still visibly upset, but she was listening to the words that Doctor Frederiksen was saying as she nodded skeptically, acknowledging what he had been saying to her in a moment of understanding. This was the breakthrough that Doctor Frederiksen had been waiting for.
“I will guide you; teach you how to control your dreams.” Doctor Frederiksen said optimistically. “You will be put under a state of deep hypnosis where I can enter your dreams and guide you through them.”
Tuesday was suddenly frightened by the proposition of hypnosis, as she hadn’t heard good things about it. Even the previous psychologists she had visited hadn’t dared to suggest such an idea.
“Hypnosis?” Tuesday asked skeptically. “Couldn’t that be… dangerous?”
“No, Miss Moxley.” Doctor Frederiksen laughed, “Not at all. The public is widely misinformed on the uses of hypnosis. The perception they have on it is formed by what they see on television and in the movies. You should know that I specialize in dream therapy, and that this is a very common technique in my practice. I can solve many dream related problems by the simple use of hypnosis. This problem is no different.”
Doctor Frederiksen stood up and walked back out to his desk, bringing back a packet of consent forms and credentials, complete with comments from former patients who had nothing but praise for Doctor Frederiksen and his work. “You can take this home and let your mother look over it.” He stated. “You are a minor in this State, so you should pay special attention to the last page of this packet. This is an authorization form that I need your mother to sign before we can continue any further therapy of this kind.”
Doctor Frederiksen handed the packet to Tuesday who extended her arm and accepted it, but she was somewhat cautious about it.
“That will be all the time we have for today, Miss Moxley.” Doctor Frederiksen said. “I’ll have Michelle set you up for another appointment next Tuesday provided that your mother signs the forms and you continue to be cooperative. Once she signs the forms, I should be able to get you back into school.” Doctor Frederiksen walked out of the treatment room and sat down behind his desk, looking over his notes from his encounter with his new patient. Tuesday followed him out of the treatment room and to the office door where she turned to look at Doctor Frederiksen.
“Thank you, Doctor.” Tuesday gratefully and optimistically said. “I hope that you are the one who can help me.”
“You’re welcome, Miss Moxley.” He said with a smile on his face, feeling as if he had accomplished a great feat with Tuesday. “See you next time.”
Tuesday turned and walked out the door and down the brightly lit corridor to the waiting area where her mother was waiting for her. She ran up to Megan and gave her a huge hug with a very serious look on her face.
“I’m alright Mom.” Tuesday stated, almost wore out from her encounter with Doctor Frederiksen. “But we need to talk.”
Tuesday knew that she had a new battle to fight with her mother.
