SECRET OF THE WOLF

by Susan Krinard

  "What… what had the messenger to say of your sister? Is she well?"

  "Better than well." He leaned back, watching her with a secret smile. "The little vixen has married—an American, no less—and I didn't even know it! Another long and complicated story, which she promises to tell me in detail when we meet again. But she's never sounded happier. I confess that she almost doesn't sound like herself at all. And she tells me that my brother's family in England is well, his two young children growing like weeds. They're all on excellent terms now…" His smile faded. "We've been too long apart. She said she's had men searching for me for over two years, since I stopped writing. I owe my family a great many explanations."

  "There is… nothing to stop you from tendering them in person," Johanna said, managing a smile of her own. "Your sister found you at the right time."

  "Yes. I'm myself again—more myself than I've ever been."

  "Then you should not delay going to her."

  He gazed at her with that long, unblinking, predator's stare that Fenris had bestowed upon him. "Do you want me to go, Johanna?"

  No! Not without me… She swallowed the cry. No need to become hysterical, Johanna. Calm, calm and prudence.

  "I want you to be happy," she said. "You have so much to reclaim, Quentin. All the things you left behind, in England—your family, your heritage—"

  "My old ways as a rake and ne'er-do-well?" he said. "Oh, yes. The second son, returning home to become a burden on his family."

  "You would not be a burden on anyone," she said, her throat growing thick with passion.

  "Except upon you."

  She surged to her feet. "You were never a burden. You were my patient, and then my friend. My dear friend."

  "Only a friend, Johanna?" He rose with deliberation. "As I recall, you told me that you loved me."

  This was the moment. Speak. Her mouth was so dry that she could hardly swallow.

  "You promised me, Johanna, that you'd see me through to a cure. Are you going to abandon me now?"

  "You are no longer my patient. You have not been, since we—" She caught her breath, her face unbearably hot. "In any case, you have made remarkable progress, crossed the most difficult threshold."

  "But I'm not cured, you know. I have all of Fenris's memories, as well as my own. Ugly memories." He wasn't joking any longer. "I must learn how to forgive myself. I don't know if I can do it alone."

  She refused to let him belittle his own extraordinary accomplishments. "You are strong, Quentin, or you would not have survived."

  "Not that strong," he said, walking toward her. "Not strong enough to leave you." He knelt at her feet. "You see, I love you, Johanna."

  He loves me. He… loves… me. Her entire body vibrated like a metronome, and her mind went utterly blank.

  "Patients often think that they love their doctors. It is a common—"

  He sealed her lips with his finger. "But you just said I'm not your patient, Johanna. Can't you make up your mind?" He sighed and shook his head. "Let me help you."

  Giving her no time to prepare, he leaned forward and kissed her. Deeply, passionately, with everything he was and could become, with Fenris's ferocity and Quentin's gentleness.

  "I have a proposition for you, dear doctor," he said, when he let her up for air. "Be my wife."

  "Quentin—I want you to know that I… I—"

  "You might as well take pity on me." He smiled, the old smile laced with both wickedness and a new resolve. "I've been waiting to love you in a proper bed ever since that night in the Barbary Coast."

  Rampant desire made it impossible to concentrate. "I have been trying to tell you, but I am not very good—" She wet her lips and croaked out a laugh. "Quentin, I need you. I do not wish to go on without you by my side. I love you."

  He gave a crow of triumph and kissed her again. She laced her arms around his neck and hugged him as if he might vanish if she dared let loose. Was she dreaming?

  "You know—" she gulped and started again. "I am merely human. How will your family accept—"

  "My family cares about me, and they'll love you for the remarkable woman you are." He bared his teeth. "I assure you that they will."

  "But you must want to return to England."

  "America is my home now. My old life is over."

  "You… understand that I am a doctor." She laughed again, nervous and jubilant. "I am not much of a cook. Nor a housekeeper—"

  He took her face in his hands. "My Valkyrie. I would never ask you to give up your great gifts for healing the mind." He kissed her hands, one by one. "I know very well that you can get along without me. But together—" He swung her off her feet and twirled her in a dizzy circle. "Beware to anyone who stands in our way!"

  They kissed, and danced about the parlor like a pair of dervishes, until Johanna's hair came loose and they both looked as though they'd just left the bedroom. Johanna didn't even bother to straighten her frock.

  This was not madness. She loved, and was loved by, a man who expected, even demanded that she embrace her gifts, just as he embraced his. He'd never regard her as anything but an equal. A friend, a helpmate, a lover.

  She knew she'd have cause to doubt herself again. So would Quentin. But they would no longer be alone in fighting their battles. She need not be strong and sensible and responsible every moment of every day; Quentin could be those things for her.

  As she would be for him.

  "At least one matter is relatively straightforward," she said, summoning up the breath to speak. "I have already considered that it would be best for the Haven's residents to relocate to a place far from Silverado Springs, where we can start afresh. You said that your sister lives in New Mexico. We should be able to sell my uncle's remaining land for a good price. Surely there is land to be bought and room to build in the Territory. I will have to talk to the others, but—"

  "Does that mental machinery of yours ever cease its work?" he teased, kissing her on the nose. "Of course, my Valkyrie. I've passed through the Territory, once or twice. It's a wild country, but there is still room for men and women to grow. We'll find our place there."

  "You won't mind sharing our lives with my patients?"

  "Not at all. As long as we have a little time to ourselves." He gave her a delightful sample of what he had in mind for their private times. Johanna found her thoughts turning with increasing persistence to her bed down the hall.

  But she still had obligations. "I must say good-bye to May and Mrs. Ingram. And there's your messenger—"

  "Not quite yet. You didn't answer my question." He dropped to one knee again, and took her hand between his. "Will you marry me, Johanna?"

  She felt the smile on her face growing and growing until it became a ridiculous grin. "It seems a perfectly rational thing to do."

  He jumped up, caught her about the waist and whirled her around and around with such a caterwauling that Mrs. Daugherty, Irene, Harper, Lewis, Oscar, May, and Mrs. Ingram came to watch in amazement.

  Johanna only laughed. If she'd gone a little mad, it was a price she was willing to pay.

  * * *

  AUTHOR'S NOTES

  Secret of the Wolf is a work of fiction. As an author, I love to explore intriguing story ideas that may or may not necessarily reflect my own personal beliefs or those of current specialists in a given field.

  In Secret of the Wolf Johanna Schell is an early "psychiatrist" who used the relatively new science of hypnosis to help her patients. The modern concept of the trance state was made popular by Franz Anton Mesmer in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. Mesmer advocated the concept of "animal magnetism." The Marquis de Puysegur was the first to describe the three central features of hypnosis. But it was James Braid who, in 1843, coined the word "hypnosis," and he wrote many papers on the subject as well as using forms of hypnotism in his medical practice. In 1845, James Esdaile performed his first operation under hypnosis, or "hypnoanesthesia." However, as the nineteenth century progressed, hypnotis
m fell out of favor and most physicians considered its therapeutic use a stumbling block to acceptance by the medical community.

  In the mid-nineteenth century, a French country physician, Ambroise-Auguste Liebault, began using the method to treat various illnesses in his rural patients. He wrote a book that was largely ignored, and it was not until a colleague, Hyppolyte Bernheim, paid him a visit in 1882 and adopted his methods that hypnosis was revived as a respectable therapeutic tool.

  Johanna is ahead of her time in this respect, since she and her father continued to develop medical applications of hypnosis during a period when it was out of fashion.

  Today, hypnosis is used to treat many kinds of disorders and remains a somewhat controversial type of therapy. More controversial, however, is the concept of "suppressed memory" and "Multiple Personality Disorder." There are wildly divergent views on both subjects.

  Some psychiatrists, psychologists, and specialists are advocates of the concept of "suppressed or recovered memory," in which a person—usually a child—will "hide" a traumatic experience from the conscious mind. The theory is that such hidden memories may be uncovered through hypnosis and other forms of treatment. In Secret of the Wolf, Quentin possesses such memories. Some mental-health specialists believe that the act of uncovering these memories will help effect a cure. Others strongly believe that "recovered memories" are often implanted by the therapist, or are simply an amalgam of wishes, beliefs, and actual memories.

  Some advocates of the suppressed memory theory believe that traumatic childhood experiences can result in Multiple Personality Disorder, or MPD, which is now called Dissociative Identity Disorder (DSM-IV.) The brain "separates" itself into at least two personalities with different functions, which allow the child to deal with the unbearable. Others claim that the additional personalities do not really exist at all, but are the products of the therapy itself.

  The concept of MPD/DID was born in the seventeenth century, when Paracelsus recorded the case of a woman who claimed that another personality stole her money. In 1812, Benjamin Rush described several cases that fit the modern definition of MPD/DID. The case of Mary Reynolds, in 1817, was described by Silas Weir Mitchell as one of "double consciousness." Later in the nineteenth century, a number of physicians and psychologists, including Eugene Azam, reported cases of two or more personalities sharing the same body. Interestingly enough, the early cases were nearly always a matter of only two personalities; it was not until the twentieth century that cases of true multiples were uncovered.

  Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, a recently named phenomenon, is displayed by the character of Harper in Secret of the Wolf. In the nineteenth century, the condition was variously known as "soldier's heart," "railway spine," traumatic neurosis, nervous shock, and various forms of neurasthenia and hysteria. During WWI, it was called "shell shock." Today, entire fields of study are devoted to PTSD, its causes, symptoms, and cures. As with the other conditions mentioned above, there is considerable debate about the specific parameters of PTSD.

  I neither advocate nor refute these theories in Secret of the Wolf. They are used in a fictional sense to tell a story.

  Because these subjects are so controversial and many-sided, I offer a selection of sources for further information. A full spectrum of opinion on these subjects is represented in the following.

  Disclaimer: Susan Krinard does not in any way advocate or recommend these websites and/or books as representing her personal beliefs, the current state of mental health research, or the "truth or falsehood" of hypnotherapy, suppressed/false memories, or MPD. Susan Krinard does not advocate the services of any practitioner or organization mentioned, or linked to, the following websites, nor is she responsible for website content. Viewers should visit at their own risk.

  Websites

  History of Psychiatry and Mental Health Treatment

  http://psy.utmb.edu/research/psyepi/course/lconcept/history/

  history.htm http://www.psychnet-uk.com/training_ethics/history_of_psych.htm

  http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/6061/enJinha.htm

  Hypnosis

  History of Hypnosis

  http://ks.essortment.com/hypnosishistory_rcdg.htm

  http://www.infinityinst.com/articles/ixnartic.html

  http://www.hypnotherapy.freeserve.co.uk/History%20of%20 Hypnosis.htm

  Hypnotherapy.

  http://www.altemativemedicinechannel.com/hypnotherapy/

  http://home.earthlink.net/~johnsonsaga/hypnotherapy2.html

  Suppressed/Recovered Memory and False Memory Syndrome

  http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Taubman_Center/Recovmenm/Archive.html

  http://www.skeptic.eom/02.3.hochman-fms.html

  http://www.mhsource.com/pt/p991137.html

  http://www.vuw.ac.nz/psyc/fitzMemory/contents.html

  MPD/DID

  http://www.dissociation.com/index/Definition/

  http://www.religioustolerance.org/mpd_did.htm

  http://www.psycom.net/mchugh.html

  http://www.csicop.org/si/9805/witch.html

  http://www.usc.edu/dept/law-lib/law-center/usclaw94/saksart.html

  http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~n9140024/CampbelIPM.html

  http://www.golden.net/~soul/didpro.html

  * * *

  Partial Bibliography

  Berrios, German and Porter, Roy, eds. A History of Clinical Psychiatry: The Origin and History of Psychiatric Disorders. New York: New York University Press, 1995.

  Bliss, Eugene L. Multiple Personality, Allied Disorders and Hypnosis. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.

  Brown, Peter. The Hypnotic Brain: Hypnotherapy and Social Communication. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1991.

  Dean, Eric T., Jr. Shook Over Hell: Post-Traumatic Stress,Viet-nam, and the Civil War. Cambridge: Harvard University Presss, 1997.

  Ellenberger, Henri F. The Discovery of the Unsconscious. New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1970.

  Gauld, Alan. A History of Hypnotisim. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

  Grob, Gerald N. The Mad Among Us: A History of the Care of America's Mentally III. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994.

  Hacking, Ian. Rewriting the Soul: Multiple Personality and the Science of Memory. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Paperbacks, 1995.

  Jackson, Stanley W. Care of the Psyche: A History of Psychological Healing. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1999.

  Morrison, James. DSM-IV Made Easy. New York: The Guildford Press, 1995.

  Reid, William and Balis, George. The Treatment of Psychiatric Disorders, Third Edition. New York: Brunnner/Mazel, 1997.

  Sargant, William. Battle for the Mind: A Physiology of Conversion and Brain-Washing. Cambridge: Malor Books, 1997.

  Scull, Andrew, ed. Madhouses, Mad-Doctors, and Madmen: The Social History of Psychiatry in the Victorian Era. Philadelphia: The University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981.

  Shay, Jonathan. Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994.

  Shorter, Edward. A-History of Psychiatry: From the Era of the Asylum to the Age of Prozac. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1997.

  Stone, Michael H.- Healing the Mind: A History of Psychiatry from Antiquity to the Present. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1997.

  Best wishes,

  Susan Krinard

  Skrinard@aol.com

  http://members.aol.com/skrinard/

  P.O. Box 51924 Albuquerque, NM 87181