The Hypnotist

by M. J. Rose

  “The most important part of your job, other than organizing our archives, of course, is to find references to those searches and objects. We can’t find what we don’t know we are looking for.”

  “You don’t know what the tools are exactly?”

  “Only for certain about the two I mentioned—the cache of stones and the flute. The rest?” He smoothed down the sheet of writing paper with the pads of his carefully manicured fingers. “We believe this is a list of others.” He sighed. “A list that is as much guesswork as science, since linguists have only recently cracked the code to the Harappan language. But this is what we have, and so this is what I want you to work with. You’re looking for mentions of objects that could fit any of these descriptions.”

  Malachai pushed the list toward Elgin, who followed along as the reincarnationist read each word out loud. “A pot of fragrant wax. Reflection orbs—which could be anything with a mirrorlike or reflective surface. A word holder, which I can’t even guess about. Ornamented picture coins. Engraved pillars, and fire and water beads.”

  “You said there were a dozen and two have been found—but you only mentioned six items.”

  “The list is incomplete.”

  “Why?”

  “There were four items the translator wasn’t able to decipher.”

  Normal curiosity was fine but too much could make Malachai suspicious. Elgin could risk one or two more questions.

  “How did you get the list?”

  “I was good friends with the man who translated it from the original. He sent me a copy before he died. If he hadn’t I don’t think I’d even know it existed.”

  A perfect answer, Elgin thought—and one that was going to frustrate the hell out of Agent Glass. There’d never be any way to prove or disprove what the reincarnationist claimed if the man who’d translated it and sent it to him had died.

  “It’s all pretty fascinating,” Elgin said, not feigning his interest. He was hooked.

  In the overhead lights, Malachai’s small dark eyes took on almost maniacal glee. “Fascinating and highly confidential.”

  Malachai had mentioned the secrecy of the job upstairs in his office, too. Elgin nodded solemnly. “I understand.”

  “Bill Hawkes said that when you worked with him at the Library of Congress you were involved in several projects that required you to have security clearance.”

  “That’s true.”

  “I don’t suppose you’d enlighten me as to what those jobs were?”

  “No, I’m still under a nondisclosure agreement.”

  Malachai nodded, satisfied, even though it had been an easy setup. Both men knew it, and Elgin guessed that while the co-director of the institute was predisposed to be suspicious, he didn’t want to doubt his newest employee. He wanted to get his investigation underway so desperately that Elgin could see it and hear it. That was something else Elgin would be sure to report back to Agents Glass and Richmond.

  “How soon do you think you’d be able to start?”

  “Monday?”

  “There’s no way you can start sooner?”

  “Tomorrow’s Friday.” Elgin could feel the other man’s impatience. “I could start tomorrow.”

  “That’s terrific.” Malachai held out his hand. “Welcome to the Phoenix Foundation, Elgin.” The black eyes sparkled. Charismatic, Elgin thought. Yes, definitely, but devilishly so.

  Chapter

  TWENTY-FOUR

  “I’m sorry, I got caught in traffic.” Lucian told Dr. Bellmer his first lie of the hour as he sat down on her couch. He was ten minutes late for James Ryan’s two-o’clock appointment, but not at all because of traffic. He’d taken Emeline Jacobs to NYPD headquarters to meet with Chief Eric Broderick and report the menacing e-mails she’d received. She’d agreed to let the department inspect the store’s computer but when the chief agreed to Lucian’s suggestion that patrol officers check on her a few times a day until they had more information, Emeline objected. Lucian made it clear no one was asking her permission. This was now an open case, he’d said. And then, even though she’d insisted she could get back to work on her own, Lucian dropped her off on Madison Avenue and Eighty-Third without getting out of the car or going into the store, or allowing his thoughts to travel back to what had happened there twenty years before. Once she’d disappeared inside, he sped across town.

  “How are you feeling?” Dr. Bellmer asked.

  “I’m okay. Thanks.”

  “How are the headaches?”

  “Still there.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you draw this morning?”

  He didn’t need to invent answers to these questions and so he told her about the episode that had occurred before daybreak. “I woke up around four. It was the same woman today, the dark-haired Mediterranean.”

  “Do you remember what woke you up?”

  “Nothing that I can remember. I just woke up needing to draw. It never makes any sense.”

  “I’d like to hypnotize you again. All right?”

  “Yes.”

  Bellmer used the same set of instructions she’d used the last time, and Lucian steeled himself against her voice and the temptation to relax.

  “It’s not working, is it?” she asked, surprising him.

  “I’m not sure why.” A lie.

  “Let’s try something else today,” she said. Reaching out, she pressed her finger on the spot between his eyebrows. “Feel that?”

  He nodded.

  She let her finger rest there for another moment and then dropped her hand and sat back in her seat. “It’s said that in ancient Egypt, in order to gain true knowledge at the esoteric schools of mysticism, you had to first go through a rigorous training that included a forty-day fast, learning to breathe, to become aware and to be attentive. Only then, when you could feel things—as opposed to intellectualizing them—you were taught what they called the fifth technique. Attention between eyebrows, let mind be before thought. Let form fill with breath essence to the top of the head and then shower of light.

  “Every ancient culture believed that we have a third eye deep in our brains, right behind that spot between your eyebrows, and there are dozens of superstitions and metaphysical theories surrounding this mysterious eye’s function. Some believed it to be a dormant organ that could be awakened to enable telepathic communication and initiate supernatural powers. Others felt it controlled memories, or could enable astral projections. We know today that’s the seat of the pineal gland, which produces melatonin, the hormone that affects the modulation of wake/sleep patterns and seasonal functions, but ancient mystics had a more elegant explanation of its purpose. They believed when you concentrate on your third eye, it opens, and through that portal you enter an intensely aware state of deep consciousness. The Buddha said that there, in the realm of the third eye, dream and reality are one. For our purposes, it’s believed the action of awakening the third eye is the way to enter into hypnosis.”

  Iris had been watching his face as she explained and imagined she saw his intellect fighting his curiosity. He wore an expression she’d seen before on other patients, but it seemed exaggerated in James. She saw something else, too. Was he being seduced by the possibility of what she was saying? Or maybe it was a flash of recognition, as if he already knew what she was telling him but until now had forgotten it.

  “I’d like you to try entering a hypnotic state via your third eye. Touch the spot between your eyebrows with your forefinger and then, while your finger is still there, close your eyes. Now, with both eyes still closed, pull them toward that spot. You’ll experience a sensation inside of you as your third eye comes awake.” She waited…knew he would feel it because she’d never had a patient who hadn’t. Yes…she could see a moment of surprise suffuse his face. As she kept talking, she saw him resist, then relax, and then, finally, saw the slack look that followed as the unending pull and promise of deep relaxation overcame him and he slipped into a
hypnotic trance.

  “James, I’d like you to travel back to Greece again today, and find the time when you were a young sculptor named Telamon.” She stopped, letting him slide backward and slip through this life to one that had occurred far in the past.

  “Are you in Delphi now with—”

  “Iantha!” he shouted, interrupting.

  “What is it?”

  “Iantha!”

  “Telamon, step away from what you’re seeing. Go back further to a time before, when everything was all right.”

  Iris watched as James’s visage calmed and the pained expression was replaced by a benign, placid countenance.

  “Tell me where you are.”

  “In my studio.”

  “It’s yours now?”

  “Yes, Vangelis died. Four months ago. Iantha and I were with him, and it was a sad but peaceful passing.”

  “Tell me about Iantha.”

  Telamon smiled. “She is my wife and helps me run the studio. We’re trying to finish the commissions that fell behind when Vangelis took ill.”

  “It sounds as if your business is thriving.”

  “It would be if it wasn’t for Zenobia. When Vangelis threw him out two years ago he started his own studio and now uses whatever nefarious means he can think of to take work from us.”

  Iris was fascinated by how easily patients in regression fell into storytelling mode. “Does he succeed?”

  “Yes, since he’s not only clever but ruthless. Iantha says she isn’t frightened of him, but I know she is. He tells whatever lies he can think of to destroy my reputation. All still to get back at me for being the sculptor that Vangelis chose to succeed him.”

  “And for being the man Iantha chose.”

  Telamon smiled.

  “How bad is Zenobia’s gossip?”

  “Very bad. Not even the trial went our way.”

  “What trial?”

  “Just three weeks after Vangelis died, while we were still in mourning, Zenobia broke into the studio during the night and destroyed one of our most important works in progress. I saw him as he was running away and ran after him, but he had too much of a head start. The next day he presented himself to the nobleman who’d ordered the piece and told him that someone had destroyed the sculpture during the night and that with all of our backlog we’d never manage to get the job done, but he could. He stole the commission away from us. When I complained to the court officials, they gave me a trial—a joke of a trial, as it turned out. As litigants each of us argued our cases. Zenobia claimed he was innocent and had not even been in Delphi on the night of the vandalism but was traveling back from Opus, where he’d been working on a frieze for a temple for many days.

  “I explained to the jurors that he’d returned the night before the sabotage, because Iantha had seen him following her home from the market. He’s followed her before.” Telamon shook his head and clenched his hands in his lap. “But Iantha had no proof, and the jurors voted to exonerate him. Most probably he bribed them.” Telamon’s face was angry now, and sweat had broken out on his brow and upper lip.

  Iris felt his fury well up inside her. “Can you move ahead in time to the next period of conflict for you and Iantha?”

  Telamon’s breathing became labored. The anger on his face morphed into sadness.

  “What is it?”

  No response except for furrows that creased his forehead.

  “Telamon?”

  “Iantha.” The one word was a wail.

  “Telamon, what is it?”

  “Iantha,” he repeated in the same tortured voice.

  “What’s happened to Iantha?”

  “She’s gone.”

  “Where?”

  “It’s all my fault.”

  “Is she dead?”

  “It’s all my fault.”

  Iris held her breath, trying not to breathe in his anguish.

  “All…my…fault.”

  Each word was so suffused with suffering it sounded as if every syllable was stabbing him. “Move the pain away. Move it away from you. You are not the pain. You can acknowledge it without feeling it. Step back from it.”

  She saw the stressed expression on his face relax slightly. “Can you try to tell me what’s happened? Does this have to do with a commission? Does it have to do with Zenobia?”

  He nodded.

  “Try to tell me what happened.”

  “Pythagoras was exiled from Italy and decided to build a school here in Delphi, where it’s safe. A circle of rocks surrounds us and protects us and we’re so high on the hill we can see whoever approaches. A priest from the philosopher’s cult in Croton arrived first to get the work on the school started, and while he was here he held a competition for a chryselephantine sculpture that would be the central figure in the compound’s sleep temple. I was awarded the commission over Zenobia. He was furious.”

  “When was the decision made?” Iris asked.

  “Two weeks ago. Since then he’s been drunk most of the time and ranting to everyone who will listen that I’m not qualified to execute such an important commission. Zenobia can be violent when he’s had too much wine, and I was worried about both Iantha and the treasures.”

  “What treasures?”

  “Once we won the competition, the priest gave us a casket of precious materials to use on the sculpture. Ivory for the statue’s face, hands and feet. Sheets of silver and gold and dozens of stones, especially those with properties associated with the god we were going to carve. Deep green malachite because it soothes and helps bring sleep and meditation. Fine lapis with deep gold veins because it stimulates mystical thinking. To eliminate worry there’s creamy brown jasper with lavender swirls. Large chunks of amethyst that help people dream inspirations. So many stones… There was also a sacred object the philosopher wanted hidden inside the statue. The priest was concerned that it be invisible, and I assured him chryselephantine works are large and elaborate enough to hide many such treasures and secrets.”

  Telamon paused, squared his shoulders, expelled a deep breath and continued with his story. “Huge crowds of people make pilgrimages here to visit our oracle. Greek and foreign dignitaries, heads of state and plebeians all descend during the four days a year the sanctuary is open to the public. They jam our roads and camp in our woods, and the wealthy ones pay large sums of money to bypass the crowds. We’re very vigilant about watching for invaders, but two days ago a group from Athens came in disguised as pilgrims and staged an attack at the sanctuary. I had no choice. All of us were needed to go and fight, so I took two of my apprentices with me and left one behind to protect Iantha and the treasures the priest had left with us. I had no choice. As a citizen my duty is to my city first. I couldn’t stay behind.”

  His voice broke and panic gripped Iris. She thought about ending the regression but instead tried to soothe him. “I know you couldn’t. And it’s not your fault. Will you tell me what happened?”

  He sat very still and silent for a moment, but the dread came off his body like tsunami-size waves that broke over her. If she was picking up this much terror from him, she could imagine how much more he was experiencing. It was critical for him to get through this event, though, if he was to figure out the meaning of the drawings that his unconscious demanded he create night after night.

  “It’s all right, Telamon,” she whispered. “What happened?”

  “Zenobia came to the studio while I was gone. He stabbed my apprentice and left him to bleed to death. He stole the box of treasures from Pythagoras’s priest and destroyed the work we’d already started on the armature. He used our own tools to do it! And he didn’t stop with the new work. He scratched angry lines into the marble faces and torsos of other works. He created a funeral pyre outside the studio and set fire to ivory hands, feet and faces, and then…but worse than that…much worse than that…he…he…Iantha was…”

  Iris knew what Telamon was going to say before he said it, as if she heard it roaring inside of him
as a thought before he managed to spew the word out. “He raped my wife. He took her in my bed. And I was not here to defend her. I don’t deserve to live.”

  “How could you have known?”

  “It’s not for that infraction that I should be punished.”

  “For what, then?”

  His voice dropped down to the ground and crawled toward her. “For what happened next.”

  Iris let him take his time.

  “He’d soiled her.” Telamon’s voice was thick with disgust. “He’d touched Iantha and made her unclean. Zenobia had always hated me, always tried to ruin what I had, and had finally succeeded. Iantha wasn’t mine anymore. She was his. Even though he had taken her by force, by terrible force, his seed was inside of her and the thought of it made me retch.” His voice dropped impossibly lower as he continued his confession. “And when she touched me…I threw her off.”

  “How did she react? What happened?”

  “Iantha…” he started, stopped and then started again. “Iantha thought it was the destruction of my studio that was causing my depression and decided to do something about it. Without telling me, yesterday, she bribed one of Zenobia’s servants to tell her when he left the house and then went there to steal back the cache of treasures. For me, so I could sculpt the god, so I could fulfill the commission. She was there in his studio, filling her pockets with the smallest stones to lighten the load of the casket so she could carry it back to our studio…so she could cure my melancholy and help me get back to work…when he came back and found her. He beat her for her transgression, then stripped off her robes and raped her again, over and over. He tore into her with his cock and ruptured her insides, and when he was covered with her blood and finished with his pleasure he picked up her poor naked body and carried her through the streets, her beautiful long black hair dragging in the dirt, her blood leaving a trail from his studio to mine. Then he stood outside, in front of our door, and yelled, ‘Telamon, your wife is back, your sweet thieving whore wife is home.’”