Just stay alive…
Irene slipped out of bed and crossed the room to the window. It had been a brutal night. Hard to say which was worse, the fitful bouts of nightmare-ridden sleep or the wide-awake three A.M. dreads. Probably the latter-at least you could wake up from the nightmares.
Eventually, though, she had managed to arrive at an uneasy truce with her terror by continually reminding herself that so far, most of what she'd told Barbara had come true. Maxwell wanted her help, which meant he needed to keep her alive. And where there's life, there's hope, wasn't that what everybody said? A cliche, perhaps, but one that she would have to teach herself to appreciate on a gut level.
In the meantime: just stay alive. Irene parted the white muslin curtains, raised the window, took a deep breath. Mountain air, morning dew, sweet meadow grass, Christmas tree tang of the Doug firs. The two-horned mountain to the west was blue-green and shrouded in mist; the meadow grass riffled in the wind, pale green with an undertone of shimmering gold.
And now, in the daylight, Irene was able to make out a peculiar structure half-hidden in the high grass of the meadow about a hundred yards from the house, not far from where Maxwell had been walking the night before. She stuck her head out of the window for a better look, and saw what appeared to be a sunken greenhouse the size of an Olympic swimming pool, covered by an opaque Plexiglas bubble rising only a few feet above ground level.
Then it dawned on Irene that the window she was leaning out of was only a little narrower than her shoulders, and that directly below her was the roof of the screened-in porch. She eyeballed the two-story drop and realized that there was nothing to prevent her from climbing out the window and lowering herself to the porch with a bedsheet rope.
Not yet, though, she told herself. Not until you've figured out a way to get past the dogs or over the electrified fence.
Suddenly there was a knock at the door. With a guilty start, Irene pulled her head back inside and closed the window as quietly as she could. “Just a minute.” She found an apricot-colored velour bathrobe in the closet and slipped it on over her nightgown, then opened the door.
Max, in a multicolored hibiscus-print Hawaiian shirt and modishly baggy shorts. “Good morning, Irene. Did you sleep well?”
Did I sleep well? After being kidnapped and nearly raped, did I sleep well? Oh you rotten s.o.b. “Yes, thank you. Did you remember to call somebody about Bernadette?”
Max smiled reassuringly. “I called the Trinity County Sheriff's Department last night. I had to take the car phone up to the hayloft of the barn to get a signal. By now, Bernadette's probably resting comfortably in the bosom of her family. Are you ready for breakfast?”
“You know, I think I am.” To her surprise, Irene realized that she was absolutely famished. The good news about Bernadette had restored her appetite.
The kitchen was wood-paneled, with a hardwood floor, a gorgeous cast-iron wood-burning stove, now fitted with electric burners, and a round-shouldered old Amana refrigerator. The kitchen table was covered with a hand-embroidered linen tablecloth. Maxwell waved Irene to the chair at the head of the table, then opened the oven door and removed a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon.
“I'll pop some toast in for you,” he said, setting the plate down in front of Irene. She had taken a quick shower and was wearing a rust-colored cotton blouse over a pair of white cotton shorts.
“Can I ask you a question, Max?”
“You can ask.” He poured two cups of coffee from an old-fashioned bubble-topped percolator on the stove, then sat down across from Irene.
“Who was the woman I met last night?”
“Aw-aw-all in good time, lady.”
Jimmy Stewart. Max's celebrity impressions seemed to be a coping mechanism for avoiding stressful topics-of which the woman in the mask was apparently one. Irene decided not to press him; she changed the subject. “These eggs are delicious.”
“They don't get any fresher-I took 'em out of the coop this morning.”
“Aren't you having any?”
“We've already eaten-we keep farmer's hours around here.”
“What do you grow?”
“Silver bells and cockle shells and- No, I'm kidding. Just a truck garden-and of course the chickens.”
But Irene's mind had already completed the Mother Goose rhyme Maxwell had abandoned so precipitously. Pretty maids all in a row.
While Irene finished breakfast, Maxwell set up an impromptu psychiatrist's office in the woods behind the house. He was stoked as he dragged the furnishings up from the basement storeroom and down the path. For years he'd daydreamed about achieving fusion, real mastery over the others, not just sporadic control. And now, his daydream was on the verge of becoming a reality.
It wouldn't be easy, he knew-it would take work and commitment from both himself and Irene. He'd have to be honest with her, or as honest as their unusual circumstances would permit, and he'd have to allow her access to the others-and vice versa. But if it achieved the desired effect, it would be well worth it.
And if it didn't work out? Well, he and the others would still have enjoyed the opportunity, for the first time in their lives, of telling their story to a sympathetic, understanding professional. And afterward, no matter how it turned out, they'd all have the luscious Dr. Cogan to share, for however long she lasted.
It's only therapy, Irene tried to tell herself as Maxwell led her down the dappled path. You've done it a thousand times before.
Still she was rocked, momentarily disoriented, when she first came in sight of the office he'd set up in the small clearing. A padded Windsor-style myrtlewood chair and a notebook and pen for her, a padded redwood-slatted chaise for himself, a small round three-legged table placed in the angle between the chair and the head of the chaise to hold a box of tissues and an ashtray. A Freudian layout in a Jungian wood. And the sweet smell of the needles, the mushroomy smell of the loam, reminded her sharply of the redwood grove near Lucia, of the pine grove in the Trinities- she understood now that the forest was Maxwell's safe place.
“Are we missing anything?” he asked her.
“Some water, perhaps. Therapy can be thirsty work.”
After fetching a pitcher and two plastic glasses, Maxwell lay down on the chaise. Irene positioned the Windsor chair beside his left shoulder, crossed her legs, and waited with the stenographer's notebook in one hand and a green Uniball pen in the other.
She wasn't sure at first how to begin. “Do you think you might be up for another regression?” she asked him.
“NO!” Max's shout echoed through the forest, flushing the crows and jays from their boughs. Then, quietly but firmly: “No more hypnosis.”
Irene felt the fear coursing through her system-she had been reminded of how vulnerable she was, dealing with a volatile and dangerous multiple without any of the customary safeguards.
Calmly, calmly: “Of course you don't have to do anything you don't want to, Max. But if we're going to have any chance of success here, the other alters are going to have to be included.”
“Not a problem-I can take care of it.”
“Fine. As I said, you don't have to do anything you don't want to. But I do need you to know that hypnosis and regression can be invaluable tools. Perhaps later on we can work out some ground rules, some safeguards you'd be more comfortable with.”
“Perhaps,” replied Max, with just the trace of a lisp-Irene's old lisp.
She let it pass. “I just thought of something, Max. I've been acting as if this session were a continuation of an ongoing therapeutic relationship. But this is actually our first session. Which means there's a very important piece of business we need to get out of the way.”
After a quick conference with Ish (co-consciousness; no switch), Max came up with the answer. “A contract?”
“A contract.” Not only could behavioral contracts be used to set limits on unhealthy behavior, but by establishing obligations, rewards, and punishments, they could also help nurture an appreciation for cause and effect in multiples who had generally been raised by abusive adults with erratic parenting skills.
“Can do.” Max closed his eyes and conferenced with both Ish and Mose, who provided him with the contract template in general use among DID therapists. “Okay, here goes:
“I, Max Maxwell, speaking for all the alters, both known and unknown, comprising the system inhabiting the body known as Ulysses Christopher Maxwell Jr., hereby guarantee the rights and safety of our body, the rights and safety of Dr. Irene Cogan, our therapist, the safety of Dr. Cogan's property, and the safety of the property of all the alters, including any written or taped material they may provide to Dr. Cogan during the course of therapy.”
“Very good. How about guaranteeing respect for the rights, safety, and dignity of all alters?”
“On behalf of all alters, both known and unknown, I promise to respect the rights, safety, and dignity of all alters.”
“And do you have any suggestions for establishing the consequences of contract violations?”
“Accountable alters to be banished from consciousness for… forty-eight hours?”
“How about a reward for following the guidelines?”
He thought about it for a moment. “Could we go for a swim later? You and me?”
Irene thought about it. Compared to some of the things he might have asked for, a swim sounded harmless enough. And unless that structure in the meadow really was a covered swimming pool, he might even intend taking her off the property.
“Agreed. What I'll need you to do tonight, I'll need you to write up the oral contract we just made. We'll go over the document tomorrow morning, then both sign it. Between now and then-and I'm speaking to all the alters who can hear me now-if any of you can't accept the terms of the contract, you have to speak up now, or consider yourself bound by them until tomorrow morning.”
Max closed his eyes. He could hear what he called the crowd noise building in his head. Humor her, he told the others. Just humor her. He opened his eyes and turned his head, glanced over his shoulder at Irene. “Looks like we're all in agreement.”
“Excellent. Let's get started. Again, my preference would be a hypnotic regression, but if that's still out of the question, what I need, when you're telling me your history, is to hear in turn from each of the alters involved, rather than have all their experiences filtered through you. Would that be possible?”
“As long as you don't ask their names directly. Remember, if you do that, they automatically revert to me.”
“But will they identify themselves? I have to know who I'm speaking with.”
As if by way of response, Maxwell's eyes rolled up and to the right, and his eyelids fluttered. When they opened again, his lips were slightly pursed, his eye movements quicker.
“Good morning, Dr. Cogan,” he said. It was a woman's voice. Not a falsetto, not the modified Julia Child vibrato of so many transvestites, but a woman. “My name is Alicea.” A- lyss — ee-ah. “Max wants me to tell you about some things that happened to me when I was a child. Would you like to hear them?”
“Very much, Alicea. I'd like very much to hear them.”
And so began one of the strangest and most horrifying tales that Irene Cogan, who'd made a career of listening to strange and horrifying tales, had yet heard.