I looked at my watch and glared, giving the digits on its face an impatient scowl before twisting my wrist back down and sliding my hand into my coat pocket.
For lack of anything better to do, I pulled it back out and stuck the fresh cigarette it now held between my lips. Digging out my lighter, I lit it and took a deep drag. I had commandeered the pack of smokes from the nightstand in our bedroom. They were the ones that Felicity-or should I say Miranda -was smoking only a few hours ago. Where my wife had come up with them, I wasn’t sure. I suppose prior to trussing me up in my sleep, she could have made a run to the local quick-shop. She didn’t remember, and I didn’t press the point. It was obvious at first glance that emotionally she didn’t need to be badgered about anything, much less such a trivial fact; and in truth, it wasn’t really all that important.
Besides, just as I’d had the craving the day she was led out of the house in handcuffs, I had it again now. I’m sure I should have just ignored it, but anxiety isn’t always very tolerant of getting the cold shoulder, and they were right there, so I gave in. Right now I needed something to calm my nerves, and it was too early in the day for me to start downing Scotch. This was my chosen alternative. If it ended up blossoming into a full-time habit, I’d just deal with it and quit later. It wouldn’t be the first time the horrors of an investigation had forced me down this road.
I turned and looked out from the balcony of the office building. The sun was arcing along the clear, southern sky, but it was still cold. I vaguely recalled hearing the weather blurb on the radio saying something about the high for the day possibly making it into the upper forties. It definitely wasn’t there just yet.
I hung my head as I leaned against the railing and exhaled a combination of smoke and steam then glanced at my watch again. The numbers hadn’t really changed significantly, but then I hadn’t given them much of a chance to do so. Hearing a noise, I cast a quick glance behind me, looking toward the door to see if anyone had come out here to the building’s smoking lounge. Given that it was Thanksgiving Day and the place was deserted, it would have to be either Felicity or Helen, as they were the only other people here.
Helen had actually offered to come to our house when I called her, but even we weren’t there. The only way I had been able to calm my wife was to remove her from the “scene of the crime,” which she had all but begged me to do. As soon as she had changed and I had thrown on some clothes myself, I made it happen. We had been sitting in an all-night diner, drinking coffee and quietly staring at one another when Felicity finally took me up on my repeated offer to call Helen. As usual, she was more than accommodating. We met here on the parking lot of the building a short time later-all three of us looking as though we could use several more hours sleep.
Of course, that was a while ago. The two of them had now been sequestered in Helen’s office for over an hour, and that wasn’t even counting the sixty minutes or so spent prior to me being ejected from the impromptu emergency session.
It wasn’t that I had caused a problem. In fact, I’d actually kept my mouth shut for a change. Felicity and Helen both just felt there were some things that needed discussing without my presence. I can’t say that I was happy about it, but I kept my objections to myself and complied anyway because if it was going to help my wife, then I was all for it.
I started to turn my wrist and glance at the timepiece again then caught myself. The rampant impatience was only serving to fuel my anxiety, and looking at my watch every thirty seconds was more than just a symptom. It was aggravating the situation. I desperately needed to get a handle on it before I let it tear me any further apart than it already had. I turned and leaned back against the rail, shrugging my coat around me in response to a light breeze, then immediately winced. I leaned back forward then with extra care reached inside the folds and gingerly adjusted my shirt where it was rubbing against the blisters on my chest. After taking another long drag on the cigarette, I let out a heavy sigh and tried to think about something else.
The first thought that came to mind was the dogs.
To my relief I had found them, alive and well, in the garage without so much as a scratch. They were nonplussed and maybe a bit chilled, but fine. They did, however, seem happy to be released from their temporary prison.
“There,” I told myself aloud. “Happy ending, next subject.”
Unfortunately, thinking about the canines just led me around in a big circle. The next subject simply turned into a continuation of the original that I had been trying fruitlessly to avoid.
I simply couldn’t help but think about the fact that, in a sense, where I found the dogs told me something about Miranda. While control and dominance were the things she relished holding over her victims, there was obviously a thread of compassion somewhere within. She wanted the dogs out of the way, so she could proceed unhindered, but she hadn’t physically harmed them. She was perfectly happy to do unspeakable things to a human male, but a different type of animal such as a dog or cat was apparently safe.
Felicity, on the other hand, hadn’t seemed to fare quite as well as the canines. Physically she was fine, but emotionally she was a shattered mess. Apparently, the Lwa had exited rather quickly after I had made it out of the room, which explained why she hadn’t chased me as I expected she would.
As it was, however, the only thing my wife truly remembered was going to bed the night before. After that she professed a complete blank until she found herself standing in our bedroom, decked out in one of her old dominatrix ensembles, feeling extremely disoriented, and highly aroused. I had no reason to doubt the truth of her story. That was pretty much the hallmark of a Lwa -pop in, pop out, leave ‘em bewildered.
Of course, that was only the beginning of her mental collapse. Like anyone else would have, she had looked about the room trying to get her bearings as she fought off the confusion and began to realize where she was. While in this case the surroundings were familiar, what first met her eyes, unfortunately, were the remnants of the scene that had been playing out moments before. The bigger problem was that said tableau included my blood on the twisted sheets and me nowhere in sight. She was completely unaware of how the blood had come to be there, but considering what she had done during the last possession and how she now found herself attired, she immediately feared the worst.
She hadn’t been able to summon the courage to go in search of me, primarily for fear of what she might find. Having taken that first set of crime scene photos herself, she knew first hand the sadism Miranda was capable of exhibiting. To her, the thought of finding me dead and most likely mutilated, especially if it was by her own hand, was more than she could bear to witness. Instead, she had simply stood there in a state of shock for several minutes. By the time I returned to the room and found her on the floor clinging to the photograph of the two of us, the psychological damage had been done.
I only came to find out an hour or so later that when she first heard my voice, she had automatically assumed it was inside her head and that I was calling to her from the other side of the darkened veil.
I sucked the remaining portion of the cigarette into my lungs and then dropped the smoldering butt into a sand-filled can nearby. Shaking my head as I huffed out the smoke, I muttered to no one but myself, “Oh well, so much for thinking about something else.”
I pulled the pack from my pocket and gave it a glance. It had been around three-quarters full when I snagged it from the nightstand. Now it was down to four left. I fished one out, stuck it between my lips and tucked the pack away as I sent my other hand in search of the lighter.
“That does not look to me like your usual brand, Rowan.” Helen’s voice floated out from across the balcony, and I looked up to see her coming toward me, the glass door already levering shut on its hydraulic piston.
“Where’s Felicity?” I asked as I pulled the cigarette from my mouth.
“She is in my office, resting. Don’t worry.”
“But, should she really be alone?”
“Don’t worry, Rowan. As I said, she is resting.”
“What did you do? Dope her up?”
“We usually frown on that terminology, but yes. I gave her a tranquilizer.”
“I guess it pays to have both the sheepskins, huh?”
“I prefer to work patients through with analysis and therapy, but yes, being able to prescribe medication comes in handy, and is sometimes necessary.”
“Okay,” I finally sighed in resignation then looked at the smoke I was holding in my hand. I waved it absently and added, “It’s just stress.”
She shook her head, pulling a cigarette case from her own coat pocket. “You need not make excuses to me. I am not about to preach to you on the evils of smoking, you should know that.”
I grunted acknowledgement and offered her my lighter, flicking it and cupping my hand around the flame. She set her smoke alight then gave me a nod as she sidled over to the railing a few steps away.
“So,” I began after lighting my own. “How is she?”
“Disturbed,” she replied succinctly.
“No offense, but I think I already had that nailed down,” I replied. “The question is, how disturbed?”
“Enough to warrant concern, but not enough for you to get yourself overly worked up.”
“You’re being ambiguous, Helen.”
“Yes, I know I am. Unfortunately, Rowan, I know of no other way to put it. Your wife is a very strong individual, however, for a period of time early this morning she truly believed that she had murdered you. The simple thought that she could be capable of such an act has affected her very deeply.”
“She isn’t,” I objected. “Her body was being used by a spirit. Hell, she wasn’t even in it.”
“She is aware of that, Rowan,” Helen explained. “However, our psyches are inextricably connected with our bodies. We are what we see and perceive ourselves to be. It is one of the things that sets us apart from other animals-the ability to look in a mirror and recognize ourselves. To be self-aware. In Felicity’s mind, whether she was in control or not, it was her body that was inflicting the harm, and therefore it is she who is ultimately responsible.”
“That’s not how it works.”
“For you, perhaps, but you must understand that even though you have been through your own tribulations, you have not directly experienced that which she faced. You might well think differently if you were to switch places with her.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know about that.”
“Believe me, this is not something we need debate at this time. It is nothing more than speculation at best. The tables cannot be turned. The events simply are what they are. And, because of them, at this moment in time your wife is quite a bit more fragile than you are accustomed to seeing her.”
“Okay, no debate. But, is she going to be okay?”
“Yes, eventually.”
“Eventually?”
“The amount of healing she requires doesn’t occur overnight, Rowan,” she offered, then shifted slightly and cocked her head to the side in a thoughtful pose. After a moment she continued, “Now, I am certainly no expert on this possession phenomenon…”
“It really happened, Helen,” I interrupted.
“I am not doubting that. Please, let me finish. As I said, I am no expert on the subject, however, I suspect from what you have told me about it that such an event, especially when it comes in such an unexpected manner, is truly at the root of the issue. When combined with the physical demands and the apparent literal separation of the Id from the individual, I can only surmise that the primary psychological fallout begins there. Her actions while possessed are rising to the surface as horrors for her, however, the trigger is the feeling of disassociation.”
“Acting as a horse for a Lwa takes some getting used to, as I understand it,” I said with a nod.
“I think that would be putting it mildly, Rowan.”
“Yeah, well I suppose I’m trying not to think about it too hard right now.”
“I can understand that, however, on top of the mild hysteria over knowing she severely harmed you, Felicity is exhibiting the classic symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Many of the emotions she described over the past hour when recounting this most recent event readily associate to the same feelings she experienced after the first possession.”
“Okay,” I shrugged. “That only stands to reason, right?”
“Yes, Rowan, however what I am trying to say is that in her case the effects are obviously cumulative, and I am not at all surprised. One either faces a severe stressor that triggers the PTSD, or the anxiety and negative experiences build up until the individual can no longer tolerate them. Felicity falls into that second category. Simply look at everything the woman has been through in the past few weeks. The fact is, I am truly amazed that she held up as well as she has.”
I waited a moment then gave her a nod. “Yeah, well like you said. She’s got one hell of a strong will.”
“Fortunately, yes,” she agreed. “For the both of you.”
“Another issue that seems to be weighing on her heavily is something with regard to a sister. Are you able to shed any light on that?”
“Just that she doesn’t have one that I know of.”
“Yes, she said that she did not, but then she would always come back to an issue about a sister. She was never very clear on the point.”
My brain kicked in and cut through the fog of the most recent events, bringing our conversation with Ben back around to the forefront.
“You know, I guess it might have something to do with the DNA tests,” I said. “Your brother mentioned that when they got the samples that actually cleared her of the crime, the tests came out so close that the lab believes the actual killer to be a sibling.”
“Interesting.”
I nodded. “That’s one word for it.”
“Well, something about that has definitely struck a chord for her.”
“Wish I could help you on that, but when Ben mentioned it she was adamant about not having a sister.”
“I will take your word for it, however, I think a talk with her parents may be in order.”
“I can give you their number, but as you know, I’m not high on their list, so you’ll be on your own.”
“I am sure I can appeal to them without bringing you into it.”
A short lull fell between us as we both took a moment to digest the conversation.
“Okay, so what do I do now?” I asked, finally breaking the silence. “Do I bring her in to see you every day? Twice a day? Set up housekeeping for you in our guest room? Take her on a vacation in the Bahamas? What? Just tell me and it’s done.”
“That is part of what I came out here to speak with you about, Rowan,” she replied, extracting a fresh cigarette and lighting it from the dying ember of her previous smoke.
“Okay, shoot.”
She exhaled a thoughtful sigh as she stared out at the sparse wisps of clouds on the horizon. Her breath steamed on the crisp air, and the silence that fell between us was almost painful. I lit a fresh cigarette myself-using the task to fill the glaring void she was leaving. I could tell that for once, Helen wasn’t simply taking time choosing her words; she seemed to be at a total loss for them.
Finally, I could wait no longer. “Helen?” I queried. “What is it?”
She gave in to my question and turned toward me. I took an immediate dislike to the expression she was wearing.
“I am afraid there is simply no other way to say this to you, Rowan,” she finally said. “Felicity has elected to have herself voluntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation.”
“She what?” I stammered. “And you didn’t try to talk her out of it?”
“No, Rowan,” she replied with a shake of her head. “Actually, I am the one who suggested it.”