“I was not with her last night. This was a trap to see if you would say that I was home last night.”
I realize I have failed him and my heart cracks. I try to speak but nothing comes out. My voice is failing me as I have failed him.
“This was her way to spy on me. She knows I am working at the cobbler shop during the day and I told her I cannot leave you at night.”
“I did not know. I wish I had known,” I mutter.
“I am not blaming you, ma moitié. It is my mistake. Do not worry, I will fix this. I will not permit her to abuse you over it.” He kisses my head as we continue down cobblestone streets on our way home.
“Bon soir,” Monsieur Gauthier calls to us as he makes his night watch rounds.
“Bon soir,” I call back to him, sadness in my usual bright tone.
Something is bothering me, besides Mme. Michaud’s trick. But I cannot figure out what it is. It is just out of the reach of my mind.
••••••
Even though my brother has taken on some jobs for Mme. Michaud and spent time satisfying her cravings, I feel a chill from her. Her smile is different with me; there is a different tone to her speech. It feels as if my brother has not been able to make it right with her.
“Do you feel a difference?” I ask him as we walk home one night.
“A little bit.” He thinks for a moment. “She will come around eventually.”
“She has not had me cleaning chamber pots, so for that, I am thankful.” And we both laugh.
“Bon soir,” we greet the night watch as we pass the man, one of the newer ones.
“Monsieur Gauthier must have the night off,” my brother comments.
“It is so cold, I do not blame him for not wanting to be out.” I watch the white smoke from my breath curl into the dark January night.
“Lock up after me, ma moitié,” my brother says as he prepares to leave after dinner. Every night he says the same thing to me, and kisses me on each cheek, then my forehead before he goes.
Once in my sleeping gown, I blow out all the candles and crawl into my box bed, drawing the curtain. As I drift off, it comes to me. I know who he is. I sit up in bed. Alarmed. I know who the man is.
The man on the night watch. It is the man who took Mme. Michaud to the theatre.
••••••
It is morning and my brother is not there. He never returned the night before. My stomach hurts. Not from hunger. I feel fear. Something is very, very wrong.
Dressing quickly, I run down to the street. Someone must know where he is. Small groups of people are huddled on street corners, whispering. I feel their sideways glances. Something is very, very wrong.
The charcuterie shop is closed. Merde! I had hoped that my brother’s friend, Monsieur Diot, might know where he was. Maybe they had been at the tavern together. But the shop is closed when it should already be open.
I lift my skirts so as not to trip as I run down Rue Montorgueil toward Saint-Eustache. As I go to enter the side door into the school rooms I am met by the imposing figure of the priest, tall and smelling of incense, a heavy gold and bead crucifix hangs down the front of his frock.
“Arretez-vous.” Stop!” he commands. “Sortez-vous.” Leave! “Maintenant.” Now!
“Pourquoi?” Why? I ask, tears beginning to stream down my face. What has happened? Where is mon moitié?
“Sodomites and criminals will not bring filth into our hallowed halls,” he bellows, his ugly words reverberating off the gray stone walls.
What is he talking about? I am so confused by what is going on. Something is very, very wrong and I need my brother. I need my brother now.
He shoos me off the property like I’m dirt under a servant’s broom and I stand at the start of Rue Montorgueil not knowing where to go. Again, I lift my skirts and begin to run, tripping over cobblestones I can barely see through my tears.
Lilette’s mother will know what to do, I decide, and run toward their apartment. Climbing the stairs, I stand before their door, tear stained and out of breath. Opening the door with Lilette’s baby brother still latched onto her breast, my confused story spills out between sobs.
“Calm down, we will find out what is going on.”
She makes me tea, which I sip while she finishes feeding the baby.
“Did you eat?” she asks.
I shake my head and she points to some bread on the table. I thank her, but I cannot even look at food without my nausea rising. My stomach and heart are sick with worry.
Where is my brother?
Out on the street we see a small group of people talking. She tells me to stay where I am and hands me the baby to hold while she goes and talks to the neighbors across the street.
Watching her face grow grave with concern, I start to choke on my own tears and hide my face in the baby’s neck. She comes back across the street and takes me by the arm.
“Where is my brother? Do you know where my brother is?” I am distraught. I cannot lose him. I just cannot.
“Oui,” she whispers, barely moving her mouth. “He was taken to Bicêtre.”
“Bicêtre,” I gasp. “The hospital?”
She stops and turns to face me, taking the baby back. “No, Geneviève. Not the hospital. He was taken to the prison.”
My knees are gone and I sink to the cobblestones. Lilette’s mother reaches under one of my arms and pulls me up. She continues to talk in a whispered tone. “He was caught and arrested by the night watch.”
“The night watch,” I spit out. That man. Madame Michaud’s spy. “For what? What did he do?”
She looks away and then continues to look at the ground as she tells me, “For performing sodomy. For homosexual activity.”
“What? My brother? Who would my brother do that with?” I am shocked.
“With Monsieur Diot, the charcuitier.”
I cannot breathe. I have to get to my brother. Bicêtre is far away. How will I get there?
“I need to see him. This is all a mistake.” Breathing deeply, I try and gather my thoughts. “Mme. Michaud. I need Mme. Michaud to help me. She has a carriage. It can take me to my brother. She can help me.”
Lilette’s mother walks with me to Mme. Michaud’s home. A man-servant answers the door, but will not permit me in. I ask to speak to Madame and he tells me that she is indisposed. I beg and plead, but to no avail.
“Leave, Madamoiselle.”
I tell him my brother is in trouble and he shuts the heavy wood door without another word.
Staring at the weathered planks, I am shocked. How is this happening? Mme. Michaud was my only hope to travel to Bicêtre and now it is rapidly slipping away. Stepping back from the entrance, I gaze up. There, in the third-floor salon, at the window where my brother recently repaired the sash, stands Mme. Michaud, her dress a claret red silk.
Our eyes meet and she smiles, then draws the curtain.
As she listens to her patient’s story, Dr. Claire Stoddard literally finds herself gasping for air. The detail is so exquisite that she can feel it. She can visualize it as if it is swimming before her eyes, a motion picture so vivid. She can see that little redhaired girl, looking up from the rough-hewn grey cobblestone street, as if she herself is the one looking down from that salon window in Paris. She can feel the texture of the woman’s silk brocade dress, the color of dark cherries in summer and the slightly scratchy texture of the lace curtains she peers through.
“Were you able to see your brother again?” she asked her patient.
“No. Not until that sham of a trial. I was told that they wanted to make an example of him and Monsieur Diot.”
“So, they were found guilty?” the psychiatrist continued to probe.
Kylie is almost violently twirling a lock of hair. “Yes, they were sentenced to death.” Her voice is a mix of sorrow and anger.
“Did you speak to him?”
“No. He saw me in the courtroom and pounded his heart. I watched him mouth the words, “Ma
moitié.”
“You should not go, Geneviève. You should not see this.” Both Lilette and her mother plead with me, but there is nothing that will keep me away. I cannot stay away and neither can the throngs of Parisians who make their way through the squalid summer heat to the Place de Grève to witness yet another debacle of humanity.
I press my way through the crowd, Lilette follows. Her family has been the only ones at my side, while everyone else has abandoned me. The smell of sulphur is thick in the air and the people are cheering. As I make it to the front edge of the crowd, I can see the stake. My brother and Monsieur Diot are bound to it with heavy rope. The flames from the kindling are licking up their legs. I can see from the position of my brother’s head, hanging to his chest, that he is already gone. There were rumors that they would be strangled first to make their deaths more humane. There is nothing humane about any of this.
“Mon moitié,” I cry. “Mon moitié.”
I continue to push trying to get to him. I must get to him and pull him down, take him far away from this vile, ugly crowd. I cannot lose another family member to fire.
“Mon moitié.” I am reaching out, arms outstretched, but they are pulling me back. Pulling me away from mon moitié. “No. No. No,” I cry. “My brother needs me. Let me go to my brother. Get him down from there. He did not do anything wrong.”
Two large men have me pinioned. I cannot get to my brother, although I continue to try and fight their binds. The fire climbs their bodies, igniting their shirts which combust into brilliant blue engulfing flames. I realize that their shirts have been stuffed with sulphur as part of their eternal damnation, for we have now smelled Hell.
“Bruno,” I wail, as I try to break loose. “Bruno….”
“Who is Bruno?” The psychiatrist is quickly typing into her iPad.
“Mon frère. My brother. My brother is Bruno.”
“Bruno is your brother’s name?” Quickly, Claire tries to corroborate.
“Yes.”
Checking her notes, “So, your brother is named Bruno Lenoir?”
“Oui,” the response a reverent whisper.
Pulling up Google, Claire types in Bruno Lenoir. The first entry reads, “France: Plaque Unveiled for Last Men Executed for Being Gay.”
With shaking hands, the psychiatrist placed her iPad on her desk, quickly skimming the article. 1750. Rue Montorgueil. Bruno Lenoir. Jean Diot. Burned at the stake. Place de Grève.
Grasping the edge of her desk, nearing the point of hyperventilation, the enormity of what has just occurred washes over Claire Stoddard, engulfing her, momentarily robbing her senses. Oh, my God. I must tell Marshall. I have to document every detail.
For those psychiatrists utilizing hypnosis and regression analysis with patients, it has proven nearly impossible in their discipline to corroborate the facts and tie them back to actual individuals in history. But Kylie Martin/Geneviève Lenoir had just provided a credible account of a historical event. It wasn’t an event that one could say, “Oh, they just read about that in their history book.” At least not as an American student, who would not have been privy to the details of a foreign event that wasn’t of world magnitude. Yet, from what Claire could see, Kylie’s recounting of the event was remarkably accurate.
Not only did this provide significance in the field of psychiatry and regression therapy, but the ramifications for the belief in reincarnation and of souls living on, surviving death, was earth-shattering. As a scientifically trained professional, Claire’s left brain was ready to mount an attack to debunk what had just happened, yet her gut knew that this was, in fact, one of those breakthroughs into dimensions we did not yet fully understand.
Regaining her composure, Claire pressed on, “Please tell me what happened after Bruno’s death.”
“I was taken.”
“What do you mean taken? Please be more specific.”
“Two men grabbed me. They kept me in a building with others who were taken. They hurt us. Treated us like wild animals. Abused us. Turned us from children to women. Weeks passed before they loaded us onto a barge and from there a ship.”
“Where did the ship take you?”
“They were taking me to Louisiana.”
“To work in the silk factories?” Claire surmised.
Kylie nodded.
“What happened in Louisiana?” Claire knew she could check ship manifests to corroborate.
“I never made it.”
“What happened? Where did you end up instead?”
“I died. I was sick and malnourished. Too weak to fight for my food. People would steal my rations. I had no clean water. They stole my water from me because they knew I could no longer fight them. The pain of starvation.” She rocked, her arms wrapped around her stomach. “I thought I had known hunger. I knew nothing.”
“And you died during the voyage?”
“Yes. I starved.” Kylie was curled up on the couch, remaining quiet for a few moments. “I ended up in the ocean.”
“Are you gone now?” Claire was fascinated, hoping she’d get more.
“I’m gone.”
“Tell me what you learned from that lifetime.”
“Tolerance and independence. And what it’s like to truly have a love bond with another person.” Kylie fell silent. “We never said goodbye,” her whisper was barely audible, but the glistening tears that streamed along her cheeks with that last statement were highly visible.
“Okay Kylie, I am going to count to three and on the count of three, Geneviève will be back in her time and you will be in present day.”
“One,” she paused. “Two,” another pause. “Three.”
Wrapping her arms around herself tightly, Kylie took a series of slow, deep breaths, removing the RGB glasses and headphones, yet her eyes remained closed. Across her face traversed a myriad of emotions, which Claire wished she could have captured digitally. Sadness. Pain. Relief. Confusion.
When her eyes finally opened, she blinked a few times, yet remained unfocused. A moment passed before she looked up at Claire, locking eyes with the therapist.
“And you wonder why I have weight problems. I was starved to death.”
Patient: Kylie Martin
Session #65
Regression #16
December 16, 2014
Regression Length: 10:15 A.M.–10:50 A.M.
Entity: Geneviève Lenoir
Location: Paris, France
Year: 1749-1750
••••••
Shell shocked would be an understatement. Holy fucking shit. Holy fucking shit. It was all she could repeat in her head. Holy fucking shit. Bruno. He couldn’t stay out of trouble. He was so charismatic, thought Kylie. Even looking at him from the viewpoint of a sibling, it was obviously impossible for men and women alike not to be taken in by his charm and dark, handsome looks.
The tightening around her heart, squeezing, cutting, bursting. The pain of losing him. First Gunther and now Bruno. These losses felt so absolute. And the love was overwhelmingly real. She thought Gunther had been painful, but seeing Bruno strapped to a post in the Place de Grève was still unbearable as she crossed 63rd Street in Manhattan.
Post-regression come-downs, as she had named them, were getting tougher and tougher as her regressions revealed more and more details and the entities became three-dimensional strangers who she knew intimately and loved deeply.
I never want to be hungry and thirsty like that again. Those pageant bitches can starve themselves into some neurotic designer’s delusion of perfection, but I don’t ever want to go hungry again. Fuck that shit.
And abused and taken advantage of by men that way. What a horrible, helpless feeling. Ugh. I’d rather they not look at me. Not touch me.
The rhythmic sound of tapping snapped her back from the netherworlds, bringing an instant smile to her face, and all felt right again within that moment. He showed! He was there and oddly she needed him on this day more than she had imagined, and that felt a l
ittle shocking, yet good. He was the only one who could be a salve for the hurt in her soul today.
On the other side of the window, the camouflaged rock star’s lopsided grin shone like a beacon only she could see. Jesse fuckin’ Winslow, you are a sight for sore eyes and not just because you are one sexy man.
Kylie made her way to the upfront corner where he sat at the window bar. Taking the seat next to him, it was impossible not to match his smile with one of her own. It was so good to see him. Amazingly good.
He slid a small box over so that it was in front of her, followed by her favorite frozen drink that he had waiting. Immediately, she recognized the blue inscribed logo on the box. Had she just tasted these minutes before or well over two hundred years ago. It was confusing, hard to separate the merge. And today is the day Jesse showed up with this. Seriously? Universe, you are so fucking with me.
“You didn’t.” Her hand was on the top of the flap.
Laughing, “I did. But I have a confession to make.”
Kylie stopped, her hand not moving.
“I ate one,” Jesse confessed.
Bursting into laughter at an admission she did not expect, Kylie opened the box to find a lone éclair. Realizing she needed this, the levity and laughter, made her want to throw her arms around the charismatic rocker to thank him just for his mere presence on this emotional day. What was that saying? There are no coincidences.
“I’m really sorry,” he was so sincere. “It was a moment of weakness. These things should be used as drug replacement therapy.”
Trying hard to not laugh, “I understand,” she deadpanned at the serious nature of his crime.
Picking up the fine pastry, Kylie broke it in half, holding out one of the pieces to Jesse.
“No, it’s for you,” he protested.
“You brought it all the way from Paris. That was so thoughtful. Please share it with me.” Kylie wanted to laugh, how funny that she was offering him her food after her thoughts walking over from Claire’s office about foolish starving pageant girls, and now here she was, giving away her food.
Reaching out, Jesse took the treat, his fingers grazing Kylie’s. Clitoral jolt, she thought. Damn, title that one The Awakening. This man is too sexy for his own good.
Love on the Edge of Time Page 6
