Mind Over Mind

by Karina L. Fabian

  “So why didn’t you say anything?”

  Again the rolling eyes. “Normal people like chocolate.”

  Joshua had noticed Ydrel’s eyes moving up and left, the way most people accessed visual memories, and played the hunch.

  “Where’d you read that?” he asked, and fought down a smile of victory as both Ydrel and Sachiko glanced at him in surprise.

  “There’s a comment in my record. ‘Almost pathological avoidance of chocolate,’ whatever that means. How did you know?”

  “You’re the psychic. Read my mind and figure it out for yourself.”

  Ydrel flushed hotly and leaned forward. For a moment, Joshua thought they were going to have a repeat of their earlier confrontation. But Ydrel just snatched up another sweet and took a large bite. “I’ve read you enough for one day,” he said through a mouthful. “Besides, Sachiko can’t read minds.”

  “Well in that case,” Joshua said, turning his most winning smile on the beautiful nurse, “I’d be glad to answer any questions you have.”

  Did she flush just a little? She ducked her head, her silky hair covering her face for a moment, and Joshua was aware only of her. He could hear the exotic music of a Japanese Koto, see her hands move over the instrument and cherry blossoms fell around them, filling the air with their delicate scent. She looked up, met his eyes—

  —and broke the illusion with a cockney accent: “What is the approximate air velocit-yy of the unladen swallow?”

  She’d caught him off guard, but the reference was too obvious to miss. “African or European?” he replied in the same accent, then joined her. “I don’t know—aaah!” They fell into giggles.

  “What?!” Ydrel cut in sharply.

  “Monty Python’s Holy Grail!”

  Ydrel sighed. “A movie. I can’t watch video. Epilepsy, or so they say. The flickering screen triggers seizures.”

  Now it was Joshua’s turn to be confused. “I never noticed the screen flickering.”

  “My mind processes information faster than humans.”

  Joshua decided to let that comment slide for now. “So you’ve never seen any movie? Or TV? No Python? No Star Trek? That stinks.”

  “You like Trek, too?” Sachiko cut in.

  “Uh-huh. There are only two things I have to do every year: go to StarCon in Denver and RenFest in Larkspur.”

  “I love the Renaissance Festival! We have one in Massachusetts. I go every year—costume and all.”

  “Warrior, wench or noble lady?” Even as he asked, he was imagining her in outfits for each. He hoped it didn’t show on his face.

  Maybe it did, for she smiled coyly. “Depends on my mood. You?”

  “Oh, wench, definitely!” Laughing, he turned to Ydrel, who was staring at them, mouth open, a line forming between his brows. “You have got to get out of here. You’re missing out.” The look of surprise turned into a glare, and through the corner of his eye, he could see Sachiko wearing a similar look. “Don’t worry about it,” he told her in a stage whisper. “It’s part of the therapy.”

  She turned to Ydrel, seeking his reaction. She really cares for him, Joshua thought, Not just as a nurse. There’s something else there. Not romantic, just…tender. Despite the insight, he felt a flare of jealousy that confused him. He set his paper cup on the floor under his chair. Maybe he’d had more to drink than he’d realized.

  Meanwhile, Ydrel had reassured Sachiko that things were OK. “We’re going to join Jerks Anonymous together,” he quipped.

  “Ri-ight. Well, speaking of therapy, I’d better go do the rounds once more before the shift ends.” She started through the door, then stopped, her hand on the knob. “You sticking around for a while?”

  Joshua nodded. “Another half hour or so. I won’t have any more to drink, promise.”

  She nodded. “Still, come by the desk before you leave. Good night, Ydrel. Happy birthday.”

  He lifted his cup in salute. “Thanks to you.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Even after she’d left, her smile seemed to linger, and for a while, the two sat silently, each in their own thoughts. Joshua simply replayed the conversation with Sachiko, hearing her laughter like bells, light but just a touch mellow. He’d never liked tittering, giggly girls. The more he reviewed the last half hour, the more he noticed her reserve, how she never really answered or asked questions, keeping the conversation friendly but not personal.

  He shook himself mentally. For crying out loud, they’d just met, and it was Ydrel’s “party.” And what was this protectiveness Ydrel has for her? The feeling was certainly mutual. There was something more going on there, some dynamic he was missing…

  Well, he had all summer to discover it. Slowly, he focused his attention on the young patient in front of him. Ydrel remained cross-legged on his bed, eyes resting on a patch of nothing on the bedspread before him, just the sort of non-stare that Joshua had probably been wearing earlier. In one hand, he held his plastic cup of Scotch, rhythmically rolling it between thumb and middle finger. It was still nearly full; he’d done a good job of pacing himself.

  Joshua started moving into a complementary position: one ankle on his knee, elbow on knee and chin resting in hand. His cup remained on the floor, but the chair swiveled, and he moved it gently to match the rhythm of Ydrel’s cup. It was something he’d been training himself to do since he attended his first Neuro Linguistic Programming seminar. Match postures, match breathing or rhythm, establish rapport on a nonverbal level. Observe and react. Then decide what you would do with it.

  He decided to start easy.

  “If you’re trying so hard to be normal that you’d choke down chocolate cake, why do you insist on being called something as unusual as Ydrel?”

  “It was supposed to be my name,” he responded quietly and took a rather large swallow of his drink. “My mother said the name came to her in a dream. But she was trying hard to keep on good terms with her family, so she named me Deryl, D-E-R-Y-L. After she died, my aunt and uncle insisted on writing it the conventional way. For convenience, they said.” He glanced around the room resentfully. “Guess what happens when you’re not ‘convenient’ in my family?”

  “So, how did you know I was Catholic?” Joshua challenged gently instead. “And don’t give that ‘I’m psychic’ crap. I want to know what process.”

  “Big on process, aren’t you?” The words were harsh, but his posture hadn’t changed much. Certainly not to the tensed-up straightness Joshua had noticed when Ydrel was feeling defensive. Ydrel sighed and thought. Again his pupils contracted and moved as he reviewed the memory. Joshua leaned forward. That was so weird.

  “There was music,” Ydrel started, then in a high tenor, sang, “Panis Angelicus, fit panis nominum. You were kind of sad because you weren’t playing for the choir. There was this lady holding a gold cup—a chalice, I guess it’s called. I don’t think she was a nun or anything, but she was old. She said, ‘Blood of Christ’ and her voice shook. And the wine—I don’t know, is it good stuff? It was awful strong and sour. A little…spicy?” Ydrel made a face. He shut his eyes. When he opened them, his pupils were back to normal, slightly dilated against the light of the room. “Good enough for you?”

  Joshua’s reply was hoarse. “Great.” It was, in fact, a frighteningly accurate account of last week’s communion—in Pueblo, Colorado. He began to understand the way Ydrel’s aunt had looked at him today. He took a slow breath, trying to cleanse himself of the thoughts and feelings inside. He could sort out his internal signals later; right now he needed to be aware of the externals. “Uptime,” Bandler and Grinder called it; being wholly aware and reacting to what was going on outside you, rather than listening to the internal messages. He noticed Ydrel had leaned forward, head in hands. His shoulders were tight and hunched. His breathing was shallow and a little fast. “You all right?”

  “Yeah. I will be. I don’t usually go into someone else’s mind like that, not willingly, anyway. It makes me dizzy being in two bo
dies at once. So, do you believe me now?”

  “No idea.” It was a totally unconsidered, completely honest answer. “But does it really matter? My belief isn’t going to get you out of here—nor, for that matter, is my friendship.”

  “So hope isn’t the cure?”

  “Do you believe it is?” When he got no answer, Joshua continued. “I think hope helps, but it’s neither necessary nor sufficient.”

  “So how do you cure a psychic?” Ydrel challenged, eyes still buried in the heels of his hands. The tension in his wrists seemed less, so Joshua met the challenge with a direct and honest answer.

  “Same way I’d cure a schizophrenic, or someone with Dissociative Identity Disorder or phobias, or whatever: give them the tools they need to make it in society despite their condition. You can do it, and I can show you how.”

  Now Ydrel laughed. “Talk about arrogance! I’ve been here five years and no one’s been able to—quote—break my illusion. What makes you so special?” His voice had a snide tone, yet he sat forward, and his face was alive with interest. Joshua felt a spark of excitement but ignored it, instead leaning forward himself. For a while now, he’d been matching Ydrel’s breathing, using the rapport they’d established to calm him. Now he increased the pace of his own, bringing some enthusiasm into his posture as he did to his words. He sat up, waving a hand before him and setting it on his lap as he spoke.

  “I’m not trying to break any illusion. It doesn’t matter if you’re psychic. It doesn’t matter if you think you’re Joan of Arc. What matters is being able to effectively handle yourself around people so they don’t get this urge to toss you in an institution. I mean, there’re lots of people who claim they’re psychic. They have conventions and everything. So why is it they’re out there and you’re in here?”

  “They’re fakes!” Ydrel suddenly exploded. “You have no idea what it’s really like, when somebody’s thinking or feeling something really strongly or you have several people feeling the same thing and you get so overwhelmed and you find yourself acting out their desires—only they can keep control and you’re—I’m—just lost! There was this new teacher—gorgeous, really incredible—and on the first day of school, she comes in wearing a tight blouse and mini-skirt—I practically leapt a desk to get at her because that’s what all the other guys were thinking about doing. That’s what being psychic is.”

  “Really.” Surprised, Joshua dropped the posture and breathing, but he managed to pay attention to the eyes. It happened so fast, but yes, it was there: that pinpoint contraction of the pupils. What was that?

  Ydrel looked down, ran a hand through his long blond hair and pulled. “I was twelve. I didn’t even know if I liked girls. I still don’t. It took two students and a faculty member to pull me off. And it just got worse. I couldn’t be around happy people without laughing hysterically. And if people were angry…” He took a deep breath and let it out in a gust. “After I—I tried to kill myself, my aunt and uncle brought me here.” He gave a short laugh. “I guess I should be thankful. At least Malachai was able to teach me to put up some barriers.”

  “But they’re not enough?”

  “Obviously. Did Edith tell you about the one time they did release me? The first thing I did was smash all the bottles in my uncle’s liquor cabinet because the butler—yes, Joshua, they have a butler—is an alcoholic and was obsessing on it, had been obsessing on it for years. It was that or drink myself stupid, just because he wanted to. That was nothing. My aunt took me shopping. All those people, all those thoughts…It was like ants crawling in my skull. I was just managing to ignore them, and I felt this woman screaming—”

  “’Felt?’”

  “Yeah, felt. Inside my head. I couldn’t help it. I snuck away from my aunt, followed the thoughts—she was so scared!—I found her in a part of the mall that was being renovated. This guy had her pinned. He was going to—” Ydrel broke off.

  “What did you do?” Joshua asked.

  Ydrel shivered. “Beat him unconscious. Then I tried to knock myself out, too. See, he was so full of hate, and he wanted to— So I did, too. And the girl tried to stop me and I yelled at her and scared her all over again and I tried to run but the police showed up. So I ended up back here, where the environment, at least, is controlled, even if it isn’t exactly normal. Even then, it’s not always safe for me. Sometimes, Malachai puts someone in the room next to me…to study my reaction, sometimes to punish me.” He looked up and his eyes were wide with fear. “I’ve got to get out of here, Joshua. It’s not safe for me anymore.”

  Joshua was beginning to think it wasn’t safe for him either. The last thing he needed on his internship was to get caught up in some problem between a patient he wasn’t supposed to be taking on, and the head of the institution—a friend of his father. Still…Earlier, when Ydrel had laughed at the idea of Joshua helping him, Joshua had moved his arm in a very deliberate way. Now he used that same motion to recall those feelings of hope and interest Ydrel had expressed. He waited as Ydrel calmed, watching him take a shaky breath and release his hold on his hair, his fingers running through the length, before he spoke again.

  “We’ll work on it, Ydrel.”

  The younger man nodded.

  “OK. You have some barriers. You’ve said that they work sometimes. I want you to think about one thing that keeps you here that your current barriers don’t protect you from.” He couldn’t see Ydrel’s eyes, for the patient had shut them, but waited for other cues.

  “When my barriers work sometimes, or not at all?”

  “Your choice.”

  “The Miscria.”

  “You don’t have to tell—the what?” Curiosity got the better of him.

  “The Miscria. It calls me, and when it does, I can’t help it—I fall into this trance. I can be doing anything, even walking, and just—boom. Then I have to tell it everything it wants to know before it lets me go with some new assignment, and for weeks I’m studying God-knows-what until it calls me again.”

  “You’ve lost me.”

  “Information, Joshua.” Ydrel opened his eyes and waved impatiently to the pile of books on his desk.

  Joshua walked over and examined the covers. “The Miscria wants to know military history?”

  “Tactics. Swordsmithing. Triage. Medieval fortress architecture. So I go cra—I have to learn everything I can about the subject, and it just wants more. At least we have a good librarian. He humors me, you know.”

  Joshua set down the book he was leafing through: Eye in the Sky, A Warfighter’s Guide to Space Reconnaissance, by Felix Monroe. “So this ‘Miscria’ calls you, you pass out in your oatmeal, and you tell it everything you know about whatever subject it’s told you to study? So...ever refuse?”

  Ydrel blinked. “I— But it needs to know.”

  “Why? Ever ask it?”

  Now Ydrel sat forward, dumbfounded. “I…It never occurred to me to ask.”

  “How about going inside yourself and asking it now?”

  Ydrel shut his eyes, furrowed his brow. Joshua stayed standing by the desk, watching the young man first tense completely, then seem to relax every muscle, much the way someone under hypnosis would relax while remaining straight in their seat. Several minutes passed in silence before Ydrel shook his head. “I can’t. It has to call me.”

  “Then that’s your first assignment. When it calls you, try this: First, see if you can establish some kind of arrangement so that it doesn’t call you at inconvenient times—you decide together what that means. Second, find out more about it, like why it needs this information so badly.”

  “What if it refuses?”

  “That’s really up to you. Myself, I’d hold out. Blackmail can work wonders.”

  Ydrel met his eyes in a steady gaze, not challenging and not trying to see into him, yet searching. “You don’t believe me about the Miscria, do you? You think it’s some weird part of my unconscious. You don’t believe it’s an outside entity.”

 
Joshua moved his hand as part of a shrug. It was a visual anchor he’d used many times and it was a natural movement for him. “It doesn’t matter either way. The process works the same. Just give it a try. You don’t have anything to lose.” A yawn escaped his mouth, surprising him. He hadn’t realized he was so tired. “I’m sorry, but I’m beat. Finish that drink off, if you want it, and go to bed. I’ll see ya in the morning.”

  He started for the door when Ydrel called him back. “Are we going to be friends? I mean, regardless of what Edith asked you to do?” he asked.

  He regarded him for a moment, a spoiled and snarky kid dealing with something he didn’t think he could control. Josh could help him; he knew that. But be friends?

  Then he thought about how this spoiled kid had jumped up to protect the nurse he considered the one good person in his life. There was definitely more to him than met the eye.

  Joshua smiled. “Yeah, Ydrel. I think we are.”

  *

  When Joshua got to the nurses’ station, Sachiko was deep in conversation with another nurse, so he parked himself at the counter and waited. He was lost in appreciation at the way her hair caught the light, and he was trying hard not to stare. She approached, a slight frown on her face. “What are you doing here? I thought you’d gone home.”

  Joshua blinked in surprise. “You asked me to come by first.”

  “That was two hours ago.”

  “Really?” How did he lose track of time so badly? “Really,” he repeated softly.

  “Un-huh. Shift’s over and we’re just heading out. How do you feel?”

  Now Joshua smiled. “Wiped. Ydrel is one intense kid.” The comment earned him some snickers, not only from Sachiko but from the other nurses. He wasn’t sure if they were agreement or in amusement—he wasn’t much more than a kid himself—so he let it pass. Sachiko introduced him to the others: Monique Jones, a 30-something black woman with a matronly smile, and Kelsey and Keith St. Claude, both tall and blond, close enough in looks to be twins, but actually a married couple. They chatted for a few minutes, then Kelsey excused herself to “make the rounds.” Joshua offered to walk Sachiko and Monique to their cars, again earning amused looks. They stopped at the locker rooms to pick up their stuff, signed Joshua out at the security desk, and headed into the dark parking lot.