by John Coyne
Jennifer felt herself drifting off, as if she were taking a morning nap. She started to resist the urge to lose consciousness but remembered that Kathy had told her to let her mind wander, to let it find its own place in the depths of her subconscious. She stopped thinking. She forgot about her body and focused her attention on trying not to think. Everything slipped away. She felt as if she were falling gently through the space of her memories, dropping and dropping without fear. Then she was floating free of her body, like the night she was attacked and was looking down at herself on the operating table.
“You’re beginning to recall,” Kathy said, speaking, it seemed, from across the room. “I see flashes of your life. I’m picking them up.”
“What?” Jennifer stirred but did not open her eyes. She smelled eucalyptus.
“Are you getting any reactions? Any sensations?”
Jennifer nodded. “Yes,” she whispered. “It seems I’m in a tropical jungle or something. I can smell fruit, figs particularly. I am high up, sitting in a tree, I think.” She shook her head as the image faded, then quickly was replaced with a stronger, more vivid picture. “I’m seeing primitive people. Very primitive people. They are running, throwing spears at each other. It’s so weird. I mean, I don’t know.” Jennifer smiled, amused by the images that floated to the surface of her memory.
“Keep talking,” Kathy instructed. “What else do you see?”
“I don’t know. I mean, I’m seeing lots of things. I see a little girl. I know it’s me, somehow. I am pounding on an animal’s skull. Someone is going for me. A woman. She’s running fast. My father is there, I think. It’s all whirling past me, out of control.” Jennifer felt her body tense, opened her eyes. She saw that Kathy had pulled away the flannel sheet and was gently twisting a few of the gold needles.
“Don’t open your eyes. Don’t stir. Everything is fine, just as it should be. Talk to me, Jenny, and tell me whatever you can about these images.”
“I see myself. I mean, I know it’s me. I’m somewhere else, I think. I’m standing at the entrance of a cave. I’m bare breasted, and I’m wearing just a piece of leather around my waist. I am happy, very happy. And I am beautiful. An African, maybe. My skin is chocolate colored. I am carrying this bowl in my hands. I am a painter, I know. I hear something. I’m looking around, looking at this dense jungle, and I think I am hearing something. Then I see a crowd of people—cavemen!—they are coming towards me. I am frightened, but I don’t know why.”
Jennifer stopped speaking.
“Yes,” Kathy whispered, leaning closer. She had taken out a pad and begun to scribble down notes.
“It’s gone. Nothing.”
“That’s all right,” Kathy instructed, “let the image go and wait for the next one. There’s more. Your body is in tune. Your meridian points have been reached.”
“I see Rome or somewhere like that. Greece!” Jennifer interrupted. “It’s a building with an open courtyard. I see two men talking. They’re talking about me. I’m a student here, at the palestra, a young boy. One of the men, the man on the left, will be my lover. I know that, looking at him. He’s a poet.”
Jennifer fell silent. The recollection stunned her.
“Don’t try to evaluate anything,” Kathy urged. “Just describe. We’ll talk later.”
“I see something else,” Jennifer whispered, concentrating on the visions. Her eyes were closed, but the images that filled her mind were fully realized and brilliantly rendered.
“I see a ship. On the Nile, I believe—and it’s extremely warm. Blistering hot, really. I am wishing for a breeze, any sort of breeze. The boat is moving with the tide, toward the sea. I’m a maid, a lady-in-waiting or something.” Jennifer saw a man turn to her and ask a question. She did not hear the question, and the handsome Egyptian was someone she had seen before. It was the young reporter from the magazine. But before she could even describe the scene, explain it to Kathy, the scene faded, and dissolved. Then her mind was filled with another world.
“I’m walking down a cobblestone street. I’m wearing nun’s clothes. A long black habit. There’s a crowd of people. I’m being led to a square. I’m being punished for something, I think.” Her body began to perspire on the massage table.
The flannel sheet suddenly was too warm. “Take it off,” she begged, and Kathy Dart reached over and pulled off the long sheet. Jennifer felt a cool breeze, but her body was clammy with sweat.
“Go on,” said Kathy.
“I’m to be burned to death for my sins.” She felt herself being pulled forward by black-hooded monks, saw herself going up onto the great stage where the Grand Inquisitor stood. She glanced around at the open square, crowded with peasants, then at the high bleachers, filled with the aristocracy of the Italian town. She saw Margit there, staring down at her. She kept turning and saw another woman, dressed, as she was, in the habit of a nun. Then the Grand Inquisitor stepped into her line of vision and began to read the charges against her. He turned to the crowd as he recited the list of her sins against God, and Jennifer realized it was Simon McCloud, condemning her to death.
“Are you okay?” Kathy asked.
“I don’t know.” Jennifer realized she was crying.
“Perhaps we should stop.” Kathy stood to remove the half dozen acupuncture needles.
“No, please, let’s continue.” Jennifer wanted now to know the secrets of her past. The Italian scene had slipped away to be replaced by another image. Men were riding horses across open fields. She could see snow-covered mountains in the far distance, saw, too, that the men were being chased by Indians. Hundreds of warriors were swooping down off the hillside, billowing dust across the landscape as they galloped after the fleeing white men.
Behind them, in the distance, an overturned covered wagon tipped into a rushing riverbed. She saw a child running from the prairie schooner and realized that it was she. She saw the fright on the little girl’s face, the terror in her eyes, as she came running. One of the Indian braves swept down on the fleeing child and lifted her effortlessly into his arms. The child screamed in Jennifer’s ears as she was carried off into a cloud of dust, and she saw that the Indian was Tom. Tom, as an Apache, was stealing the white child.
On the table, her legs jerked.
“I think we’ve had enough,” Kathy whispered.
“No, no,” Jennifer shook her head. She was naked and wet with perspiration, but she was not cold. Her body felt aflame. “Please, I want to know.”
“All right,” Kathy whispered, “but remember that you have already lived these lives. Nothing can hurt you now. Lie quietly,” she instructed. “We’ll go on in a moment. Now, just calm yourself. Do you want me to explain anything of what you have seen?”
“Yes,” Jennifer said at once. “Am I seeing a lot more than other people? Or less?”
“You are a very good subject, attuned to your previous lives. We say that such a person has ‘clear antennae.’ It isn’t often that we receive such rich material on our first attempt. People often can only locate one or two such images from their past lives. I have to credit my spirits, too; they’ve guided my needles well.”
“I was seeing people that I know today. What does that mean?”
“It’s not surprising. We’re all connected; what’s important is the relationship. Who did you see?”
“Tom. Simon. And that young journalist who is doing that story about you.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if we find out that Simon was once your husband. Or even that you were Tom’s slave in a former life.”
“And Margit was with me in one lifetime.”
“The connection between you two is very strong. Perhaps she was your mother in another lifetime. What we have here is the intense bonding that is only possible in such maternal relationships. That is why Margit came to you after she was murdered. Are you ready to go on?”
“Yes.”
Kathy Dart stood again and twisted the long gold needle that she had planted
in Jennifer’s third eye. “I’m going to stimulate your recollections.” She pulled the flannel sheet up again over Jennifer’s body.
“Have we been doing this long? I feel like I’ve been on this table for hours.”
“Linear time means nothing to us, Jenny. Let your mind flow.”
Jennifer kept her eyes closed and concentrated on relaxing, on keeping her mind free. She tried to keep herself from dwelling on what Kathy Dart had said about Tom, that he was such a dominant force in her life, her master.
Suddenly her mind was crowded with vivid pictures. They came swirling at her, and for an instant she panicked, worried that she would lose all this valuable information.
“I see a young girl, I think. I am a Chinese girl. I am being held, captured. People are after me. Chinese miners or something. They’re going to kill me, kill the person who is holding me. I can’t see his face.”
“Relax, Jenny,” Kathy instructed, touching her shoulder. “Let the images pass. They can not harm you. Don’t concentrate too much. The images will find their way to the surface of your memory. Wait.”
“I see a bedroom. An old-fashioned bedroom, you know, from the forties,” Jennifer began again. “It’s a little girl’s room.” She tried to scan the dark room. Though it was daylight, the blinds had been pulled, and the room was in shadow. A dozen dolls were stacked neatly on shelves, and there was a large dollhouse in the corner. “It’s my bedroom, I just know!” she exclaimed.
“Is anyone there?” Kathy asked.
Jennifer shook her head. She was frowning, straining to see deep into her history. “There’s a woman coming in,” she said. And then, in her mind, the door opened and a shaft of light filled the dark bedroom.
“It’s Margit!” Jennifer told Kathy. “She’s my mother and she’s come looking for me. I’m there, I know, somewhere in the room.” Jennifer turned her head from side to side, trying to force the recollection, to pull the hidden memories to mind.
She saw herself then. She was just a teenager, not yet fifteen. She sat up in bed, just wakening, it seemed. She was naked. Then Jennifer saw the man, the young man beside the girl, saw him roll over in the bed. She knew even before she saw his face that it was Simon. And she knew, too, that these two were brother and sister. Her mother, Margit, screamed and brought her fists down on her daughter and son, striking them in blind rage.
Jennifer was shaking. She could not control her own body. She let Kathy tuck the warm flannel sheet more closely around her, then gently, expertly, Kathy began to massage Jennifer’s temples. It took Jennifer several minutes to focus on what Kathy Dart was saying.
“You had an episode, Jenny, that’s all. It happens sometimes. You pull up a past life that fills you with enormous guilt or remorse, and the realization has too much pain for you to handle now. But once it is uncovered, then the trauma is released. It won’t haunt you. You have lived through the experience.”
Jennifer was weeping quietly, and she kept crying, but her tears made her feel better. She was purging her body of the memory.
“I didn’t know it would be this therapeutic,” Jennifer whispered to Kathy, who was still ministering to her, arranging a small pillow beneath her head, wiping away her tears.
Kathy nodded. “At times, it is. We made tremendous progress this morning, but I think it’s time for you to let your body rest.” She smiled down at Jennifer. “I’ll turn down the lights and leave you for a while. You’ll be able to sleep. Often such past life experiences completely knock you out.”
“I’m just haunted by the thought of me and Simon. I mean, in another life
brother and sister
“
“That’s why you found him so attractive in this life,” Kathy said. “Brother or not, he’s quite handsome.”
“I have a lover.”
“We all have many lovers, Jenny.”
“Not me.”
“Why?” Kathy asked. She waited patiently for Jennifer to respond.
Jennifer shrugged. She was suddenly uncomfortable talking about her life in such detail
“I think you would feel less stressful if you allowed your true emotions to emerge.”
“I don’t think that the way to establish a permanent relationship with Tom is to become involved with another man, with Simon,” Jennifer replied. “You know we’re living in the age of AIDS! Women don’t sleep around. Why do you want me to sleep with Simon, anyway?”
Kathy nodded toward the stack of silver and gold acupuncture needles.
“I can only do so much with my treatment. I think that a loving encounter with Simon, where you share the pleasure of each other, will enrich you. It will help break down the tensions you feel, the rage you have against men.”
“I don’t have any rage against men,” Jennifer said quietly.
“Eileen told me what happened in the motel.”
“Okay, I was angry, but you would have been, too, if you had seen him. Look, I’m not going to sleep with every man who hits on me just to show that I don’t have hidden hostility toward men. What are you trying to say, anyway?”
“Look what happened to you when you saw Simon in that recall from the forties,” Kathy said patiently.
“Kathy, he was my brother! I was sleeping with my brother!” Jennifer began to cry. Lying back on the massage table, she choked on her own tears and had to lean up on one elbow, coughing and sobbing.
Kathy waited until Jennifer had gained control of herself. She used the corner of the flannel sheet to wipe the tears away, then said softly, “I am not judging you, Jennifer, or prescribing a course of action. I am merely an instrument. The anger that you’ve been expressing, the conflict you have with your lover, Tom, are simply manifestations of a deeper and more profound unrest that is lodged within the cells of your body. Your spirit holds these memories and carries them forward, from one incarnation to the next. The body remembers everything, Jennifer. Everything! You have reached a critical moment in your life.” She leaned back. “I don’t know, Jenny, what is suddenly haunting you, driving you to such primitive rage. But I do want to help you discover its cause. Only by ‘seeing’ your past lives, by conversing with Habasha, by accepting who you were in other lifetimes will you find out who you are today. Jenny, you must accept your past.”
“Am I to achieve this by fucking Simon McCloud?”
Kathy shrugged. “I only know that you two have a strong attraction to each other and that perhaps by sharing such an intimate moment, you’ll learn something about yourself.” For a moment she was silent. Then, slowly, she began to speak. “Our most intense experiences in life, Jenny, are with our family. Our lives are shaped from childhood. We’re drawn to the kind of people we grew up with. I don’t know yet what your parents are like, but I can guess.”
Jennifer glanced over at Kathy Dart and waited for her explanation.
“You were born late in their lives, and I sense that you were an only child.”
“I had a brother,” Jennifer corrected.
“Yes, but he was much older, wasn’t he?”
Jennifer nodded. “Eileen would have told you this much.”
“I haven’t discussed your family with Eileen.”
“But she knew them. Eileen and I went to high school together. My parents are retired. They live in Florida.”
“Yes, but you were never close to them. They were older. They were not pleased that you came along so late in their lives. From childhood, from infancy, really, you felt that you were unwanted. They did not give you the nurturing you needed. It was your brother—”
“Danny,” Jennifer whispered.
“You lost Danny, didn’t you?”
“Yes, in Vietnam. He never came home. They said he was killed in a bombing raid. They never found his body. I was only twelve when he died.” She began to cry.
“You know, Jennifer, what you have to realize is that we choose our parents, choose our siblings. And we do this to resolve our experiences from previous lives.”
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br /> “Why did Danny die and leave me?” Jennifer blurted out. “Was his death caused by something I did in another lifetime?”
Kathy shook her head. “I really don’t know. Perhaps he had to fulfill another destiny. His destiny. But you were not really left, Jenny. You have seen him in your dreams, haven’t you?”
“He’s always with me,” Jennifer acknowledged. “I feel him with me. He came to me when I almost died on the emergency-room table.”
Kathy Dart reached out to touch Jennifer’s arm. “Danny is with you, Jenny. Always. He is one of your spirits. And Margit Engle is another. They—and others from your oversoul—are here to guide and protect you. Just like myself, Habasha, Eileen, Simon. We’re all part of your oversoul, members of your support system.” Her pretty face was full of assurance.
“But I still don’t know what is troubling me, or which life is the source of these rages.”
Kathy Dart nodded sympathetically.
“Soon,” she whispered, “soon.” She nodded toward the row of needles. “I think with another session, we’ll have the truth.”
Now she stood and patted Jennifer on the shoulder. “Why don’t you rest here for a while,” she said. “I’ll shut off the light and you can take a nap.”
Jennifer smiled. “Thanks. I think I will. I do feel sleepy.”
“Regressions are exhausting.” Kathy went to the door and dimmed the lights. “I’ll come back later to see if you’re all right. You’ve had an exhausting morning, Jennifer, but I think we’re very close to getting some answers.”
“Yes,” Jennifer whispered, closing her eyes. “I think we are, Kathy. Thank you.”
“Thank Habasha, Jenny. He holds the eternal truths. I’m simply the messenger.”
Kathy Dart closed the door, leaving Jennifer in the dark.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
JENNIFER OPENED HER EYES in the dark clinic and saw that Simon had come into the room. Her heart beat against her chest. He must hear the wild pounding, she thought, and she took a deep breath in an effort to silence her body.
