Under the Skin

by Vicki Lane

  “And Mama got her way about the abortion …”

  “No. Oh, no.” Gloria had wrapped her arms around herself and was shivering. But she lifted her chin and went on. “I let her yell and carry on and say terrible things—you know how she could be—but I told her I was going to have the baby no matter what. She threatened and pleaded and tried to bribe me but at last she realized I wasn’t going to change my mind. So we made a bargain. I would go live with Aunt Dodie in New Bern and have the baby there. And then we would decide what to do. She talked about all the nice couples anxious to adopt but I told her we’d just wait and see.”

  My heart ached at the thought of my sister separated from her child all these years. “And when the baby came, I’ll bet there was a nice couple lined up. Maybe it was the best thing—I mean, look how young you were. But have you ever … a lot of adopted children are eager to know who their birth parents are … I just wondered—”

  Gloria had shaken her head. “No. That’s not what happened. Oh, she had a nice couple eagerly waiting all right. But I hadn’t signed anything … I felt like I couldn’t decide till I saw the baby …”

  “Oh, Glory! What an awful decision to have to—”

  “I never had to.” Her voice was still flat. “The baby was born dead. They said the cord had strangled it—that it never took a breath.”

  I had listened in abject misery, aware of how badly I’d failed my sister so long ago but unable to put together any words. And then Glory turned luminous eyes on me. “You see, Lizzy, that’s the other reason I’m here. Of course, it would be wonderful if I could talk to Harry and get his advice. But the real reason for this weekend is my baby—if only I could reach my baby … if I could tell my baby how sorry I am …”

  Chapter 17

  Trust

  Friday, May 25

  When I knocked on Gloria’s door the next morning, she opened it almost immediately. There was no sign on her face of the late night that had left dark circles under my reddened eyes. It was almost as though the revelations that were still spinning through my mind had never been spoken. Glory was crisp and fresh and perfectly made-up and she greeted me with a radiant smile. Before either of us could speak, however, Steve and Dawn emerged from the Walnut Room and we all went down to the dining room for breakfast, exchanging pleasantries about the beauty of the old house, the fineness of the weather, and the interesting weekend that lay ahead.

  Xan, the fruit and nut eater, was in the dining room when we got there, sitting alone at a table and silently working his way through a bowl of mixed fruit and a smaller bowl of raw almonds. He didn’t acknowledge our entry in any way but continued his methodical mastication. I was pretty sure he had some rule about chewing each bite a certain number of times.

  As the rest of the group filed in—some still sleepy-eyed, others obnoxiously cheery and talking about the brisk hour’s walk they’d just taken—we helped ourselves at the buffet and found seats at the various small tables. Gloria and I joined Sandy from Wisconsin and henna-haired Charlene. These two had evidently just discovered a common interest in murder mysteries and were tossing titles and authors’ names back and forth.

  Next to us, Len had snagged a seat by Giles and before long the whole dining room was treated to Len’s theories on ITC—Instrumental Trans-Communication.

  “I figured I needed to experience communication through a human medium—then I can use that as a kind of a template for a program I have in mind. Of course, I’m not the only one out there working on this; there’s a fellow in Virginia named Atwater; though he’s pursuing a different …”

  Concentrating on the delectable soufflé-like thing on my plate—an airy bit of heaven called Chili Egg Puff—I congratulated myself on my choice, all the while wondering how tacky it would be to go back for a little taste of the very righteous-looking French toast that Gloria had chosen.

  “Good, is it?” I asked, noticing the look of bliss on her face. “Blueberries and pecans, is that right?”

  She rolled her eyes, smiled, and nodded. “Only the best thing I ever put in my mouth.”

  I saw Xan give a little shiver of disgust as he finished his healthful breakfast and, passing the laden buffet table with averted eyes, removed himself to the front lawn. There, as we could see through the French doors, he proceeded to go through a number of gyrations which Gloria informed me were yoga poses.

  “They’re called asanas,” she explained. “I learned a bunch of them in that workshop in California a few years ago. See—he started with the mountain pose. That’s tadasana in Sanskrit. And now he’s moving into downward-facing dog …”

  We sipped our coffee and I munched on the small (really just a taste) portion of French toast I’d convinced myself I needed to try. Savoring the fruity, nutty confection and trying not to think about the calories I’d just downed, I watched in fascination as Xan arranged his wiry body into a series of poses ranging from very silly-looking to somewhat obscene to a bit alarming. Still, I had to admit, he was as flexible as a cat. Something I’d never be, especially if I ate like this every day.

  Sandy and Charlene excused themselves to go back to their rooms and brush their teeth and I was finishing my second cup of coffee when, just like last night, the ambiguous-looking person known as Joss appeared in the dining room doorway. This time however, instead of flinging himself (I checked—there was an Adam’s apple) at Giles’s feet, he simply filled a plate and looked for a place to sit. I noticed that he had a somewhat shuffling gait, more suited to an old man than to the thirty-something he appeared to be, but put it down to whatever accident had caused the head injury he’d mentioned the night before.

  “Would it be all right …” he asked, looking at the empty seats at our table, and when we said that yes, certainly it would, he lowered himself cautiously into the chair.

  Seeing our concerned expressions, Joss reached up to touch the heavy bandage that covered much of the right side of his head. “It’s not as bad as it looks. I was in a car accident a few days ago and I’m still feeling a little banged-up. I made them let me out of the hospital though. I’ve been told that this workshop will be life-changing for me and I don’t want to miss a minute of it. But I keep having these blackout moments, where I forget where I am and what I’m doing—that’s why I was late last night and again this morning.”

  He applied himself to his food and Gloria and I exchanged a glance.

  “Are you sure you’re going to be up to all the activities, Joss?” Gloria’s voice was unexpectedly soft. “We’re supposed to go outside in a few minutes for the trust-building session. Do you think—”

  Our tablemate paused, his fork hovering in midair, and stared at my sister as if memorizing her features. “You’re … Gloria, right? All those names last night, I …”

  His unabashed scrutiny of her face continued and I saw her look down before answering “Yes, I’m Gloria and this is my sister Elizabeth. And we know you’re Joss. But seriously, do you think—”

  His dark eyes seemed to blur momentarily. “I think this session is necessary. I need very badly to learn to trust. I’ve needed it all my life—to trust and be trusted. Will you trust me, Gloria?”

  The way he looked at her made me a little uneasy. A hungry look. I studied him covertly. What age was this Joss, anyway? Late twenties or early thirties would be my best guess but he was just so young-looking. Far too young to pique Gloria’s interest, I thought; she’s old enough to be his mother.

  “Trust is an essential element in a gathering like this. We must all feel the freedom to ask questions long unasked, to speak truths long unspoken. We meet as strangers but we must forge a bond so that we can make use of the united energies of the group. Our success will depend on this bond.”

  We ten Seekers, as Giles referred to us, were gathered in a loose circle on the green lawn in front of the inn, listening to his explanation of the so-called trust-building exercises that would precede our psychical explorations. I was trying to pay att
ention but the view of the mountains and the perfection of the colorful flowerbeds at the edge of the yard were far more compelling to me than the idea of forging some hypothetical bond with this group.

  My mind wandered as I studied the flowers and Giles’s voice seemed to segue into the sleepy buzzing of the bees that were working the early blooms. Trust … buzz, buzz … group bonds, buzz, buzz … trust …

  Trust. The absolute core necessity in a relationship—not sex, not wit, not income, not usefulness, but trust. The bone-deep knowledge that a person is what they seem, will continue to be what they seem. If a person—

  If Phillip—

  “Lizzy!” A sharp elbow in my side and Gloria’s hiss in my ear brought me back to the here and now and Giles’s soft voice.

  “… so we’ll begin with simple eye and hand contact. You may be surprised at your reactions to this basic exercise. I’d like you to take the hands of the person opposite, look into his or her eyes, and count to sixty. If you need to blink, that’s fine, but don’t look away. Len and I will start around the circle, with me moving to the right and Len to the left …”

  What followed was a stately promenade of Seekers as the circle turned itself inside out and each of us gazed into ten pairs of eyes, one after another. Dark eyes, gray eyes, all shades of blue eyes, turquoise eyes (Gloria had worn her tinted contacts), and hazel.

  I was surprised at how amazingly personal it felt, how difficult it was not to look away—and how very long sixty seconds could be. When at last I’d faced them all and held hands—soft, calloused, dry, clammy, warm, or icy—with each of them, it was true, I was more ready to trust any one of them simply by the fact of having shared that interminable minute. Even odd Xan, from whom I’d expected an impersonal and clinical contact, seemed more likable now as he blushed slightly and I felt his hands tremble in mine.

  Giles put us though a series of these trust-building exercises. We led and were led blindfolded about the lawn; we made our way, blindfolded again, through a “minefield” of paper cups, no longer led but responding to our seeing partner’s spoken directions. It was interesting to see how difficult it was to direct—how aware of your partner’s gait and response time you had to be—and how very tiring it was to give your complete attention to the task.

  There were more exercises and the day grew warmer. We were all glad when Giles called a halt and suggested that we return to the covered porch where water and lemonade would be waiting.

  “And in the interval before lunch,” he said, leading our little gaggle of Seekers back to the welcome shade, “I’ll talk a bit about the multidimensional universe and astral spirits.”

  I sipped at the tall glass of fresh lemonade and drew a spiral on the bedewed glass. The trust exercises had been one thing; now, I was being challenged to absorb a mass of Spiritualist information of the sort that my nephew Ben termed New Age shit. But I had promised myself to approach this weekend with an open mind for my sister’s sake. Okay, then, I’d make an effort to understand this New Age … stuff.

  The multidimensional universe, according to Giles, who spoke of it with the familiarity of a frequent flyer, was composed of various planes, all of different densities and vibrating at different rates. The first plane, he informed us, is the physical.

  “This,” he waved his hand to encompass our surroundings, “ ‘this goodly frame the earth,’ as Hamlet calls it, is of the densest matter and accordingly, it vibrates at the slowest rate. Beyond the physical plane lie the various levels of the astral plane and it is there that the astral spirits we hope to communicate with have their being.”

  As Giles explained it—“… and this is just a construct, mind you; these concepts are more easily grasped with a map of sorts …”—we would be attempting to communicate with spirits who had left the earthly plane—died, in other words—and moved on to the astral plane.

  One of the astral planes, that is. According to Giles, there are three—high, middle, and low, with multiple levels within each. These astral planes act as a buffer zone between the dark earthly plane and the realms of celestial light and mental-causal inspiration.

  Or something like that. I was trying hard to follow his explanation and not roll my eyes. As he spoke, I began to visualize a three-layer cake, sitting on an ugly lumpy cake platter (the physical plane). The bottom (and somewhat soggy) layer of the cake was the lowest astral plane, where the unenlightened (unenlightened, as Giles put it) went after “passing over” (the words death and dying being somehow taboo). These dark spirits on the bottom layer had been unable to make a good transition from life—in fact, they might not even realize that they had died and, in consequence, might keep trying to return to Earth. Ghosts, in other words.

  The middle layer—er, plane—was described as a rather pleasant place where most spirits go for R & R before moving on up. A kind of Earth with all the bad parts left out. It sounded like my sort of place and I hoped that my vibrations matched it.

  The thing about vibrations, here again, as Giles described it, is pretty much like Karma. Or the biblical As ye sow, so shall ye reap. During life, a person’s thoughts and beliefs determine their vibratory rate: pride, anger, wrath, and all the other Seven Deadly Sins, for example, are low-vibration thoughts while love and spirituality yield very high vibrations.

  “And, just as the lowest astral plane is similar to Hell or Purgatory, the highest would be akin to the Christian Heaven. Many Spiritualists call this Summerland. It is somewhere within these planes that we shall seek the spirits …”

  I looked around the group. Everyone was rapt—some openmouthed and wide-eyed, others nodding in agreement as if this was familiar ground to them. Gloria, her eyes alight, leaned forward. Her hands were palm to palm, fingertips at her lips. I could see that she was clasping the little locket she had shown me the night before. A tiny gold heart and inside, where a picture ordinarily would be, a wisp of dark hair. Engraved on the other side in minuscule letters was the simple inscription: Dana—7/28/73—Always, Mama.

  Dana, the name she’d given that long-ago stillborn baby—the baby she longed so urgently to reach this weekend.

  VI~The DeVine Sisters

  May 11, 1887

  “I won’t! I tell you, I won’t! Give her the money back! Tell her anything … say her Julia’s busy on the other plane, playing with her horrid little dog; tell her I’m dead; tell her—”

  The torrent of protest ceased abruptly and Dorothea fell back on the divan. The smartly administered slap had shocked her into silence and she curled up on the cushions, one hand to her stinging cheek. Her beautiful eyes brimmed with tears as she looked up at her attacker.

  “Theo, you needn’t have—”

  Theodora gazed down at her sister in disgust. Then she turned and paced to the window where she put aside the heavy drapes and leaned her forehead against the glass. “Don’t you understand, Doe,” she said, her voice weary, “that our finances are not such that we can turn away clients? You saw Murchinson’s letter. He has no more engagements for us. And when the month—”

  “Oh yes, I saw Murchinson’s letter … yes, and that dreadful newspaper story!” Dorothea’s voice was low but urgent. “Theo, don’t you understand? It’s I who am responsible for that poor mother’s self-destruction. How can I, after that, carry on with this … another deception? I’d always felt that I was bringing comfort, some assurance … but now, after this fiasco—”

  The woman on the divan buried her face in the cushions and gave way to racking sobs. Her sister waited at the window till the fit had passed. At last, when Dorothea had subsided into sniffling hiccups, Theodora came and sat beside her, taking her sister into her arms and murmuring soothing words.

  “Doe, Doe … it wasn’t your fault. The Waverly woman was quite unbalanced … We all remarked upon it at the time. Of course it’s regrettable that she—But think of all the mothers to whom you have brought comfort … women who now carry the precious memory of a last touch, a sweet adieu, and the know
ledge of their beloved child’s perfect happiness in that joyous land beyond the veil …”

  Theodora stroked her sister’s hair as she spoke. The honeyed words ran on and little by little Dorothea grew calm.

  “I have helped those poor women; I know I have. I couldn’t bear to think I should be so wicked as to play upon their sorrow and all for the money. Bless you, Theo, for reminding me … but, oh, need I see Julia’s mother today? Pray, put Mrs. Farnsworth off till tomorrow or the next day. I’ll be stronger then …”

  There was the rattle of a key in the lock.

  “Well, my dears, we have a new prospect.” Lorenzo DeVine pulled off his gloves and dropped them into the hat he’d just placed with his walking stick on the lunette table by the entry. “Mrs. Farnsworth has been singing your praises, Doe, and she has a young friend who is eager for a sitting. A Miss Cochrane, from Pittsburgh. You may have seen her about—dark hair in a fringe, a decided jaw, and determined eyebrows. Not one of these shrinking southern belles but a forthright little Yankee—a girl after my own heart, by damn.”

  Smiling at some recent memory, he took a seat, crossed his legs, then fixed Dorothea with a stern gaze. “Has she come to her senses, Theo?”

  The afternoon was warm and the two young women strolling about the spacious grounds bent their course past the croquet court where a lively game was in progress, making their leisurely way toward a little clump of trees and rocks.

  “Shall we wander through these curious stone formations, Miss Cochrane? The shade would be agreeable—don’t you find the sun rather warm even with a parasol?”

  The keen eyes under the heavy fringe of dark hair peered at the narrow path. “Why, that would be most pleasant, Miss DeVine. I’ve been wild to take a look at these queer rocks—the porter told me they had something to do with the Red Indians who once dwelt here.”