Possessed

by Stephanie Doyle

  Definitely better to think about murder.

  The route to the institute was as familiar to Cass as breathing. The brick-front town house in the northwest section of the city had really been more of a home to her than her grandparents’ house had ever been.

  After Cass’s mother had disappeared and her grandmother discovered she’d be raising Cass, she had tried to turn the statuesque colonial in the Baltimore suburbs into a home suited for a child. But Cass’s grandfather’s stern presence had lingered everywhere. There was the No Food or Drink Outside the Kitchen rule, the No Playing Roughly on the Grass rule, the No Loud Noise After Six O’clock in the Evening rule. The No Friends Over for Playdates rule.

  None of the rules had been overly harsh or difficult to follow. They had just made being a kid less fun. The feeling that she was a chore to her grandparents, rather than a joy, a burden rather than a welcome addition, had never escaped Cass growing up, and it obscured her memories of the lighter moments. Because there had been those, too.

  Helping her grandmother in the kitchen. Working with her grandfather on his model train. It hadn’t all been grim. Until Gram’s health had started to fail. Then her life had ended quietly with the hospice workers, her husband and her grandchild at her side.

  She’d connected with Cass briefly just that once. The message had been simple. Goodbye. I love you. Everything is going to be all right.

  But she’d lied. Or she hadn’t known what would happen. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that Cass eventually had gotten away from her grandfather, away from the asylum, away from all of it.

  She stopped in front of the building numbered 802. It hadn’t changed. The modest gold plaque by the door proclaimed it to be the Institute of Psychical Studies, as legitimate looking as any other scientific center in the country. And why not? Dr. Farver had earned degrees in psychology, philosophy, religion and parapsychology. He was funded by wealthy donors who believed in his work and his research. He regularly published his findings regarding the evolution of telepathy in the human brain. He was respected by his students, his research subjects and his staff.

  Unfortunately, he was considered a quack by most of his scientific peers.

  It never seemed to bother him. He didn’t listen to the sly whispers behind his back at academic conferences although he heard them. He pretended to imagine that when his colleagues asked questions about his research they were sincere, and so he answered as if they were, although he knew they weren’t. At least that was what he had always told Cass.

  Knowing that it wouldn’t be locked during the day, Cass reached for the door and opened it. Dr. Farver liked to create the feeling that everyone was welcome, especially for those who weren’t always so easily welcomed by society.

  Madeline “Mad” Edelman had not changed in the five years Cass had been gone. She sat in her spot at the reception desk as always. Her bifocals sat as low as they could go on her nose without falling off. She typed away on the keyboard, gazing at the monitor as if she still couldn’t get over that it wasn’t a typewriter.

  She wore a loose-fitting purple dress that floated around her large, round body like a cloud. Her jewelry was always practical as well as pretty. Hematite today, because it was good for the blood.

  “Hey, Mad.” The words caught in her throat as Cass announced her presence.

  She watched the woman raise her head at the unexpected intrusion, then saw in her face, her emotions transform from surprised to happy to nostalgic when her eyes landed on Cass.

  “Cassandra.” She clasped her hands to her overendowed bosom so hard that her glasses popped off her nose. “I knew it. I knew you would come back some day. Dr. Farver said…well, it doesn’t matter. You’re here. I was so worried about you.”

  The guilt that had been plaguing her didn’t get any lighter. Cass realized how wrong it had been to cut off everyone from her institute days. Mad hadn’t deserved to be ignored. Certainly she deserved more than a lousy Christmas card each year.

  It had just seemed that cutting all ties would be easier when she’d left.

  And it had been. For her. That didn’t make it right. Exactly what she’d done by avoiding her grandfather’s funeral. Easy. Not right.

  “I’m sorry. I could say that I wanted to call, but the truth is…”

  “Stop. Not a word.” The woman stood with an easy grace despite her girth and circled the desk with the poise of a dancer. She stood in front of Cass and placed her hands on her cheeks. Cass could see the marks of age that had crept in over the years. The lines around her mouth were deeper, her jowls were heavier. But she still smelled like lavender.

  “I mean it. I should have called.”

  “It’s over. You’re here. You’re good? No, you’re not good.”

  Clearly, Cass hadn’t done a very good job of hiding her recent tribulations. Then again she’d never had a very good poker face.

  “I’m fine. I need to see him, but I didn’t even call to see if he had an appointment open.”

  “Lucky you, he’s free.”

  “Really?”

  The older woman winked at her. “Really. He doesn’t know it, but his two-thirty just became his three o’clock. Go on. He’ll want to see you.”

  Cass leaned in and kissed the woman’s cheek. “Thanks, Mad.” She followed the stairs behind the reception area that led to the second floor and Dr. Farver’s office. Students and subjects, those Dr. Farver considered to be especially unique, were housed in the third floor attic. Cass and Leandra had called that attic home for almost six years.

  Leandra . Another person she’d lost touch with. Cass’s opposite in every way, she’d been tall, blond and built. She laughed hard, played hard and embraced her gift with the same fervor as someone who had just won the lottery. She’d quickly tired of Dr. Farver’s testing. She only wanted the credentials of having been “tested” by the institute as a way to get in the door of the higher priced psychic houses on the West Coast. Those that actually employed people with true gifts rather than frauds wanting to separate people from their money.

  The blond bombshell had wanted Cass to follow in her footsteps and join her in taking the Hollywood elite for large amounts simply by doing what she did as naturally as breathing.

  Cass had passed.

  Now Leandra was the famous L. Morningstar, booked years in advance by the stars to do readings. She appeared on Larry King Live regularly to thrill the audience and to attract more customers. And why not? Leandra was no fake.

  The idea of it made Cass laugh. Her on Larry King Live? On the Late Show with David Letterman? On the Oprah Winfrey Show? No, it didn’t work. Not her style.

  Still, that didn’t mean that they couldn’t be friends. That they couldn’t do more than exchange Christmas cards once a year. Cass could visit her if she wanted. Vaguely, she wondered if this sudden need to reach out was nothing more than a reaction to losing Dougie. But maybe it went deeper. Maybe she was starting to realize that she’d cut herself off from people. All people. Even the ones who cared.

  No time for self-evaluation. Remember, dead monster on the loose.

  Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, Cass made her way down the hallway to Dr. Farver’s office door and knocked gently. She heard the “come in” and opened the door to find him sitting behind his desk in a gray turtleneck, studying the contents of a folder. Probably the results of a test for his two-thirty.

  Tall and whipcord lean, he sported the salt-and-pepper hair typical for a man in his fifties, but his trimmed beard was all white. To say that he looked like the stereotypical fussy professor would be unfair of Cass, as he was the only professor she had ever known. But she wouldn’t confuse him with a rock star.

  “Hey, Doc.”

  He flapped the folder shut. Unlike Mad’s, his face didn’t undergo any transformation. It registered total surprise and it stayed that way.

  “I didn’t think…”

  “I’m sorry about not returning your calls. And for not
letting you know my new number.”

  “Your number was listed but not your address. There was a book I wanted to send you.”

  “I’ll give you my new address before I leave,” Cass offered as an olive branch.

  He pursed his lips and set the folder down on his desk. “You don’t have to feel obligated, Cassandra.”

  She made a face at the use of her full name said with all the authority of a man who used to get to tell her what to do. It had been his right since he was the one who had rescued her.

  Cass remembered the day vividly. He’d shown up at the asylum talking with each of the patients who had been segregated into the nonviolent wing of the hospital. He’d spoken to them, asked them a few questions and moved on. Cass had assumed he was just another doctor coming in to figure out what made them tick.

  He’d stopped in front of her bed; she’d been sitting in the chair next to it. He’d asked her why she was there and she had told him because her grandfather had sent her there. Because he didn’t believe. He’d asked her what it was that her grandfather didn’t believe and she had told him. Then he’d called to an assistant who had been tagging along behind him making notes. Dr. Farver had wanted to know if she sensed anything about the assistant.

  It was the first time she’d ever been asked to prove her gift. For a moment she’d been so rattled that the only thought that had emerged was escape. Then she opened herself and used some of the skills that she’d recently learned from others who had been labeled “nuts.” His aunt had come through. A favorite aunt who had passed away the week before who wanted him to know that she’d always treasured her music box with the dancing Cinderella on top and wanted him to have it.

  The assistant had gone white and Dr. Farver had nodded solemnly. He’d appealed to the state to have Cass released into his custody. Since she’d had no history of violence, drug abuse or a criminal record and since she would soon be eighteen and of legal age anyway, the court had allowed it and she had gone to live at the institute.

  He’d been her hero. Her imaginary long-lost father. And for a time her very first crush. Until she saw George Clooney.

  “I know I’m not obligated. I just…I think I took things a bit too far.”

  “Yes. So you came all this way to apologize.”

  “No,” she said slowly.

  “Excellent. I have a new subject that you absolutely have to meet. She’s quite exceptional. Maybe almost as talented as…”

  “No. Doctor, I didn’t come here to get tested or to test with anyone. I was-this is going to sound really awful, but I was hoping maybe you could help me.”

  Clearly deflated, he leaned back into his office chair and steepled his fingers together. When Cass said nothing, he indicated the chair in front of his desk where he wanted her to sit, then went back to steepling his fingers, as was his habit.

  “What do you need help with?”

  Cass sank into the plush seat and tried to formulate a way to say what she needed to say so that he would believe her.

  “There have been some changes,” she began cautiously.

  “With your talent?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you mind?” He opened a desk drawer and pulled out a mini-tape recorder that she knew he always kept on hand for just this purpose.

  “No.” Cass wasn’t thrilled with the idea of being recorded, but it was how he worked and she was here for his help.

  “Explain.”

  “I don’t know that there is any point in explaining.” Not when he wouldn’t believe her, anyway. “I guess I just hoped you could help me figure out the extent of the change. How do I go about cataloging it? What kind of tests should I do?”

  “Cassandra, I can’t possibly begin to help you figure out how to test these changes until I know what they are.”

  “I had an encounter. A physical one. There was a voice in my head and a picture.”

  “That’s typical for you.”

  “Yes, but this time I couldn’t keep it on the other side of the door. It got inside and I couldn’t stop it and…it attacked me.”

  She watched his face carefully but only saw his lips press together in a pensive line.

  “You’ve used your room as a tool for control,” he stated.

  “Yes.” Cass leaned forward, eager to make him understand. “The fact that I couldn’t keep it out scares me. What if they start using me? What if I lose control to whomever is making contact? I couldn’t bear it.”

  Dr. Farver shook his head almost sadly. “They?” he questioned. “You mean spirits.”

  “Yes.” She sighed, leaning back in her chair.

  “Cassandra, how many times do I have to tell you? You are not hearing or seeing dead people. They’re just thoughts. The memories of the person’s mind you are reading. And thoughts can’t hurt you. You’re not a medium. You’re a telepath.”

  Chapter 11

  It had been a mistake. She shouldn’t have gone. She knew he would probably never believe that what she did was make contact with the other side. A devout scientist, Dr. Farver likely didn’t even believe the other side existed. For the six years she’d lived at the institute, he’d tested her regularly, always believing that her gift was the ability to read other people’s minds and extract their thoughts and memories.

  Cass curled up in her train seat thinking how horrible such a gift would be. It was bad enough that she freaked people out by letting them know what their late aunt Sally had to say to them, but to read their minds? To know their intimate thoughts? People would run from her as fast as they could. Hell, if she were ever confronted with a telepath, she would run, too.

  But telepathy, unlike clairaudience, was grounded in scientific theory. A belief that thoughts were nothing more than energy. That the mind was part of a shared network of them. A single consciousness. Dr. Farver believed that some people were born with antennae that allowed them to tap into the network and to access the thoughts of others they came into contact with.

  He believed it so adamantly that he summarily dismissed any evidence to the contrary. For example, the things that the living didn’t know, that only the person who was dead could reveal.

  And the pain. He could never explain the pain.

  He had no problem recognizing that severe mental anguish could result in a manifestation of a bruise on her body. That also was grounded in science. It was where the pain originated from and why she experienced it that he could never fathom.

  At least she’d gotten to see Mad. The guilt that had been plaguing her for months now was lifted. She’d given Dr. Farver her new address and promised him that she would check in. She’d refused to meet his newest subject, another exceptional telepath, he’d told her, but she had agreed to keep him updated on any more changes in her gift.

  Practically, he’d told her to keep a diary and to log what she felt were aberrations the moment they happened. Cass had had to hold back a snort at that point. She seriously doubted logging the fact that she was getting the crap kicked out of her by some crazed beast would help. But it was a step.

  The train slowed to a stop and the conductor called out 30th Street Station. Cass grabbed her satchel, left the train and took the stairs up to the main level. It was late, after seven, so most of the daily commuters had cleared through, but there was still a smattering of people milling about the food court area and others on the benches waiting. Glancing up at the center board, Cass could see a train coming in from New York was soon to arrive. No doubt it would be packed with the last of the commuters, and she figured she should get out of the station quickly if she was going to get a cab home.

  As she walked toward the doors that led out to the street, she spotted a familiar face. Malcolm McDonough was standing in the center of the station looking up at the board. The click, click, click indicated something was changing, and she watched as he read that the inbound train from Baltimore had just arrived at track eight. He walked toward track eight and stood by it, clearly waiting for the
doors below to open and the passengers to come filing out.

  It was a fool’s errand.

  Hesitating for a second but ultimately unable to walk away, Cass wandered over to where he stood so stoically. An immovable object, really.

  “You think you’ll recognize him?”

  Startled, he swung his head in her direction. “What are you doing here?”

  “I could ask you the same thing.”

  He sighed and decided not to answer.

  Cass nodded. She took in his dark overcoat and the suit underneath it. It was too soon for the funeral-the coroner had only just released the body-which meant he had probably come from work.

  “Let me guess. You went back to your office today. Tried to work but probably couldn’t focus. Ultimately you gave up. So you checked out the arrival times of trains from Baltimore and figured you would come down here and just see if you could recognize someone getting off this train. A familiar face that maybe you had seen with Lauren at one time or another. What were you going to do then? Tackle the person? Question him or her? Make a citizen’s arrest?”

  “It didn’t sound as foolish five hours ago.”

  Cass closed her eyes. “How many trains have you been here for?”

  “This is the fourth.”

  “And?”

  “And no luck. But you already know that.”

  Cass held her hands up in defense. “Hey, it didn’t take any psychic ability to figure that out.”

  His impassive expression was replaced by the weariness she’d seen so vividly in him the day before. He walked over to a bench, still within eyeshot of track eight, and sat down. Cass sat next to him.

  “You should go home. There’s nothing you can do here.”

  “Her killer came through here. From Baltimore to Philadelphia by train.”

  “You don’t know that,” Cass countered. “That ticket could mean anything.”

  He glared at her. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? You told me she said it was important.”

  “It was. To her. It doesn’t mean she was telling me where to look for her killer.”