Tag: Psychological Thrillers

Chapter 23 – Together

We awoke cuddled together at the foot of Chase’s bed, wrapped in his comforter. Chase was moaning.

“Too late,” he said, “too late.” I kissed him and ran to the kitchen for coffee. Caffeine and aspirin. When I came back he was holding his head.
“Bad one,” he said.

“Except we found her!” And I felt fine. I was beginning to see the psychic pain engendered by our flights was different according to what we went in with and how we could process what we learned. See? If there’s always progress, there’s always hope.
“Maybe Bex will loan me his gun,” moaned Chase.

I made him drink bitter instant coffee. Our roles were reversed from my “spontaneous combustion” at Hadleigh. As log as there were two of us, we could help each other through anything.
“W don’t need Bex for anything and we certainly don’t need guns,” I insisted.

Chase rolled coffee around his mouth as if was a fine wine; then ruined the effect by gargling. “Well then what the hell are we going to do?”

“Maybe we can’t get Corso for everything,” I asserted, acting brave for Chase’s benefit, “But we can make a start. The sex thing is bad. He’s involved with his students, so even if he tries to blame us, they’ll do something to him. Maybe they’ll lock him up.”
“You’re willing to have the world…see that?”

“I think the world may be already seeing it.” Although it would be just like Corso to play gatekeeper so he could make money. Off of us. Besides, we owed the others something; at the very least to make sure “dream lab” never happened again. “We’ll go to the Dean. Remember, he said dream lab was recorded. He has to show them something. ”

“He’ll just say the equipment malfunctioned,” sighed Chase, rubbing his jaw as if soul flight dislocated it. “How about this, I promise we’ll do whatever you think is right.”

“First, walk me back to my room so I can get my things.” It would only take moments to pack it up and never return to that “sick building”. I admitted the unmentionable. “I’m scared of Bex.”
“Let’s go.” He struggled to his feet, rolling a bit as we came together. Steadying each other. “And then I’ll fix that window.”

Darkness was just settling on an ordinary – to everyone else — Sunday afternoon. Students strolling, linking, hailing one another and hooking up. It looked safe. It looked as if all we had to fear was each other. That’s what the maze-master wants the mice to think.

“Let’s don’t wait until it gets too dark,” I angsted in full Foreboding Mode.
“I’m ready. Thanks for the “to go”. He flourished at me his plastic cup.

We crossed the quad without a problem, though I felt people looked at us strangely. Because we walked so close together, marching hip to thigh in a solitary unit? Inside Hadleigh, I allowed myself to unravel a bit as the hiss of automatic doors closed us in.
“One down,” I said aloud.

I might sigh with relief, but my inner bell was gonging, and I’ve learned to ignore that at my peril. Something was wrong but I couldn’t tell what. Still, here at Hadleigh we were surrounded by students; the night security guy had even taken over the desk. Phones in every room, cell phones in every pocket.

First warning: elevator out of order. That was the first bad thing. And the freight elevator was in service. We waited for it quite awhile.

“Eight floors is not so bad,” said Chase. “No pain, no gain.” Tossed his coffee cup into the trash.
He said that so lightly, then saw me wince.

“Sorry,” he apologized. “It’s just that we’re fighters now. Can’t afford to ditch training just when you’re approaching Final Contest. “ He took my hand. “Come on, I’ll race you.” As we chased up the stairwell he shouted. Facilis descensus averno!”

“You got that right,“ I puffed. Going up is so darn hard! It’s so much easier to let your muscles go limp and slide. But…better up than down.

At every floor the fire doors were propped open – illegally, but it lent me confidence. Heartening scraps of music could be heard at every floor; Snow Patrol, Hands Down, Vampire Weekend.

Speaking of Vampire Weekend, there were so many people around. Nothing can go wrong in a big crowd. Right? Unfortunately most of them were hollow-eyed revenants fleeing Saturday night crime scenes for parietals. With their piss- stained hair and their bile-stained clothing they were not good advertisements for the party-hearty lifestyle. Somehow we never get to see the “after” photos. Corso’s zombies. I imagined the mark of Corso on every forehead.

I believe they shuddered as much at the sight of us as we shuddered at the sight of them. Because we were going up, like fireman, while they fled the burning building? Maybe we are all just ghosts to each other anyway.

When I exercise I can’t talk. So I have to think. If shame is felt only by the haunted, that’s damned unfair. Gives the thin edge of the wedge to those like Dr. Corso who applaud a guiltless super-race. Confidence and entitlement – those most envied of attributes — shine out around him like a magical light. At least two corpses in his wake plus a genocidal wave of shame. And what of bodies unrecovered?

“We’re dead to him already,” I gasped aloud.

Chase knew exactly what I meant. “If so, he’s wrong,” said Chase, hardly showing the effects of an eight-storey climb, “I was dead but you brought me back to life.”

“He’s the dead one”, tolled my inner bell. I took off my shoes for the last three flights. I think now I can say I’ve officially had it with stiletto heels. It’s kitten heels from here on out, unless Chase begs. I wished I could say something light, to conceal the fact that I was puffing too hard, but I was puffing too hard.

“And I don’t even smoke,” I said, unlocking my door.
Chase proclaimed our new mantra “Facilis descensus–,”

“Avernum!” Corso finished triumphantly. He lay stretched at full length upon my bed, shirtless and exposing his perfect six-pack. “So glad you’ve been keeping up with your Virgil, Stevie. You’ve got to be careful to get the declensions right. Excuse me, I mean Chase, of course.”

How was he able to suck every scrap of power out of a room and use it to fuel his own personal generator? Reading glasses perched upon his nose and my laptop perched upon his thighs. He turned his shining face to me and said, “I must apologize for checking your work, Jazz but it did get a bit dull waiting for you. Unfortunately, there’s no work here. There are, however, lots of other interesting things. JazzOne makes a terrible password. How’s the chemistry going?”
No, no, don’t close the door; don’t lock us in with the monster. But these damned heavy, soundproof, fireproof doors – so unlike poor Miss Howk’s – close by themselves.

I was still holding my shoes; should Ithrow them at him as if he was a dartboard? I flushed; feeling him effortlessly read my every thought. I could flee down the stairs, but I’d never leave Chase alone to face the dragon. I saw his shoulders set in that familiar wrestling stance; but Corso wouldn’t crumble like Bex; this was real-time, and my room is deficient in vases to throw. And besides, if we marked him it put us further in the wrong. My brain seemed frozen. I was long past having clever things to say. All I managed was, “How did you get in?”

Chapter 20 – Revenge

“I’m so sorry,” said Chase. “He’s a monster. But I’ll get even with him. I’ll get him eventually.”
“Slow down,” I said, braced against the dashboard, scrabbling for my seatbelt. “Put your seatbelt on.” He was driving like a maniac.

“He never pinned me,” said Chase, grinding his teeth. “It’s a question of how low you’re willing to go, and no one’s ever willing to go as low as him.” Which father was he talking about now? In some perverse way, were they both the same to him?

The car raced upward through the gears. I tried attaching Chase’s seatbelt. He rocked in his seat, rejecting restraints.

Probably not a good time to bring up what we had just seen, right now, when I was in fear for my life. Before my eyes danced raucous headlines; framed gothic visions of Mom and Annika viewing my shattered corpse. How could they know that before my death my body had been stolen, my shell invaded by hermit crabs and passed around like an intoxicant? If I had been beamed into outer space as an alien plaything then what was left for me? Who was I now? Could I ever get myself back? I had never felt so separate from Chase; with this dissonance our flying must become destructive and destroy us both.

My panic boiled into words. “Tell me it’s not real! The sex tape he showed us?” Corso’d deliberately banished our souls, disinvoked the spirits he had no use for…
Chase turned to me the stricken face of a drowning man going down for the last time.

“Of course it’s real,” he said. “Don’t you see it explains everything? Sexsomnia. I knew it was something like that. If you flood the hippocampus it can’t make any memories to retrieve. He did always want to be the only brain in the room.”

“You mean…he rufied us?” I was as disgusted at myself as at Corso. Madder, if anything. I knew Corso was a snake. Why had I taken the chance when deep inside I could see perfectly well how dangerous he was?

“He must have used something extra to jumpstart the acetylcholine flood, to overcome sleep paralysis. Maybe propanolol. That’s been found to erase adrenalin-fueled memories. We were sleepwalking.“

“This is your fault,” I yelled angrily, bracing my body against the tinted window. “You led us there; we were lambs to the slaughter.”

“You’re right.” Chase looked sadly at me with terrible eyes. “It’s all my fault. They always say they’ll let you go if you bring another one. I’m a hellhound. Someone better put a stop to me.”
But he was also putting a stop to me…Obviously a very bad time to stage a fight — angry, scared, insulted as I was.

“Don’ t you see at least it’s the evidence we’ve been looking for? But to tell them we have to survive. If you don’t slow down Corso will win.”

Once again I’d found the magic incantation. Our speed slackened. Then Chase said, “I can’t slow down with that guy on my tail.”

I checked my side mirror. There was a silver car right behind us as if hooked to our bumper. At first I thought it must be Cutter Farrell looking for payback, refusing to give up, then I saw the unmistakable grinning face extend outside the window a long, black gun.

“Oh, my God, it’s Bex!” I cried. Who let Bex in? Who was allowing Bex to steer? It could only be me.

The shot was synchronous with a muzzle flash and Shelby’s back window exploded. A tree flew up suddenly in front of us. Panic clogged my brain to slow motion as I tried working out the problem. We flew all right; separate and upside down. I felt my own teeth shatter as they telescoped into the dashboard; Chase shot through the windshield like an astronaut and the whole back of the car reared up to flip us over. Tree branches grasped me upside down and warm blood flooded my eyes. I heard rather than felt the bones in my body dissolving; veins and sinews shredding, yet somehow I was speaking.

“Wake up.” I pleaded. “Hold me.” The part of myself that Corso didn’t want was talking to the spark of Chase’s essential self as we struggled back to life.

Chapter 18: The Ninth Circle

Zoya appeared at the foot of the stairs carrying a bottle of wine. “Sweetie,” she said, “I need your help with this.”We followed her into the dining room.

Winter darkness turned the windows into mirrors, multiplying a thousand-fold the chilly light of red and silver candles. Pelmets and chandelier festooned with holly; mistletoe and evergreen looped with golden ribbon. High backed chairs sat before complex place settings of multiple plates; amethyst crystal and violet chintz-patterned china. Under a glass dome sat a white coconut cake decorated with careful icing flowers; lilies rioting with orchids, because sugar has no season. Absence is not presence. The emptiness made me shiver.

“You look lovely in Cyanne’s clothes, by the way,” Zoya told me, her eyes moistening as if Cyanne had gone forever and would never come back. “You remind me of her, though your coloring’s so different. Snow White and Rose Red. Did you see the scrapbooks? I’m the scrapbooker; I put them together. That’s why we need such a big house, because I save everything. I’d love showing you those books; maybe tomorrow afternoon. They’re all in Cyanne’s room. We can have tea and a good cry. ”

“God, Mom, not the scrapbooks, please,” moaned Chase, as he deployed a silver and ebony handled wine opener.

“Looking forward to it,” I promised. I would have pinched Chase if I’d been close enough. Zoya and I would cry and Chase would wear the bear costume! That would be better than cake for me, but one must honor the steps of the hostess’ dance. Rely on Jazz to change the subject.
“Are you the pastry chef?” I asked Zoya.

“I make everything,” she said. “I embroidered this tablecloth. And the napkins.”
Loaded with lace. They were exquisite.

“Mom was raised by nuns,” said Chase, popping opening the wine. Christmas wine from Lebanon, I noticed. “They beat her into submission.”
His mother squared her shoulders and rapped him lightly with a tinseled and berried silver cake knife.

“No blasphemy, you heretic. The past is past, and it’s my birthday. Bring in the wine,” she commanded, “Unless you think it should breathe.”

She put a hand to her own throat. Self-choking? “My yoga teacher has to always remind me to breathe.” She ran back toward the kitchen, like a convict under electronic monitoring who’d strayed too far.

Chase captured me in the doorway beneath the mistletoe and we felt each other’s heat, skin flushed from a bubble bath, from love, perhaps also from some nebulous but contagious fear. Rose Red. My next archetype?

Chase was in no hurry to join his mother.

“I want this moment to last forever,” he muttered huskily. That’s what I thought. Sacred moments.
“Isn’t it unlucky to bake your own cake?” I murmured to Chase.
“That’s a rumor started by people who hate to cook,” he told me. “She’s making her own birthday dinner, too.”

Extra obligation to enjoy it? Anticipatory shudder, at the mounting pressure.
“She loves to cook,” Chase reminisced. “Not that she eats. My Dad hates her lumps and bulges – though he likes them enough on other women. She loves bringing people together. And nourishing them.“

What would Chase make of my amiable but haunted mother, my over-eager sister and our cramped apartment? Let’s admit it, families are impossible. No one plays by anyone else’s rules. We were of the tribe that didn’t cook, venturing out on celebration days to one of those horrible sneeze guard factories where uncontrolled children throw meatballs at each other.

Granting the birthday wish for togetherness, we joined Zoya in the kitchen. The kitchen was welcoming and warm; not threatening like her dining room with its fish forks and demitasses. This obviously was where people would relax if given a choice. The comfortably padded barstools had backs and brass rails and the ceiling offered hanging copper pans like low-hanging fruit. There were enough knife racks, cherry cabinets and gleaming granite for “chef’s delight”.

At the center of a ring of gas burners, wearing a black apron dotted with pink hearts, the fire priestess herself officiated over a quintet of bubbling pots. Seeing us, she rattled a pair of wine glasses from an overhead rack. This brought up to five – I counted — the total stemware for which I would be personally responsible this evening.

“I hope you like Welsh rarebit and Coquille Saint-Jacques,” she said, flushed with an outer heat and an inner excitement that made her rouge stand out in patches. “It’s so hard to keep the rarebit from separating.”

“Yum,” said Chase, bellying up to a barstool. “If you don’t mind, we’d like to start eating now.”
“Of course,” said his mother, pushing a mighty trough of fruit, cheese and pâté directly beneath our noses. “I hope you like this wine, Jasmyn. We could have champagne, if you’d rather.” She used her foot to open the wood-paneled refrigerator behind her, revealing a wine bin.
“Jasmyn is nineteen,” I said, trying to make a joke of it.
Zoya stared at me uncomprehendingly. In her world people never turned down booze. “But surely you’ll toast with us?”

So they were one of those families, people over whom the nation’s alcohol laws hold no power. Friends of mine had parents like these, who thought nothing of putting a keg key in a kid’s Christmas stocking. In such families age and time are blurry concepts. Nothing a man ensconced in his castle should have to bother about, anyway.
Churlish to refuse.

“Is it rude to ask for ice?” I queried, operating on the theory that less is more. I would have added seven-up if they’d let me.

“Yes,” said Chase.“Oh, give the girl some ice,” Zoya told her son irritably. “Don’t be so
doctrinaire. This is a party. People can have what they want.”

Why is that never, ever true? Chase the negotiator said, “At least try it without,” so I surrendered to his ministrations while he poured me a dram. They watched like a pair of cats as I sipped. Not bad. It smelled like cinnamon and tasted like berries.

“Wow,” I said, feeling the magical flush radiate throughout. Off to the races. “More please. It’s delicious.”

Chase poured out for both of us.

“To life!” cried Zoya, lifting a full highball glass full of what I could only hope was iced tea. She was standing right next to open flame. I looked around helplessly for a fire extinguisher. On the other hand it was her birthday. And she was the fire priestess.

“To life!” we echoed and drank. I was ready to toss my glass over my shoulder like people in the movies, but I would have been the only one. The others refilled theirs. Remedial again. Jazz was already falling behind.

While we picked at the cheeses, Zoya made salad.

“I usually pick my own watercress,” said Zoya, “There’s a wonderful patch in a brook right down the hill. Too bad it’s not in season. Now we must rely on South America. It’s so dangerous, don’t you think, all this Third World dependency.”

OK, whose mother isn’t strange? I liked her. I felt Chase’s pain evanesce rippling me. “I think lately all the worlds have mixed together,” said Dreamweaver Jazz. “You know, now geisha makeup comes from China? Think how that must upset the Japanese.”

“They deserve it,” said Zoya. “So what have you two been up to? What have you been doing at school that’s so important?”

Chase and I looked at each other with wild surmise. What version of our activities could be socially acceptable?

“We’ve been busy with a research project,” said Chase finally. Guardedly.
“My,” his mother encouraged, “That sounds exciting.”

Apparently that was all she needed to hear. Formalities dispensed with she turned to me and unleashed her pent-up question.

“So, Jasmyn, where did you go to high school?”

Chase made a warning noise in his throat, presumably directed at his mother, but I saw no reason not to answer. I chose to assume she meant the place I’d graduated from.
“Archbishop Cavanaugh.” I knew she’d like that.

Zoya brightened visibly. “You’re Catholic?”

“Er, no,” I admitted awkwardly. Maybe I should have taken Chase up on his offer of a mendacity tutorial. Can inability to lie render me socially impossible?

19. An Evening at Home

The house was miniature Norman castle, hands down the most imposing building on the cul-de-sac. Upturned floodlights embedded in the lawn showcased a virtual stage set. You’d have to sleep blindfolded to get any rest under these conditions. Were we staying for Christmas? Details seemed fuzzy or were missing. I could only hope my room would be at the back of the house; in the servant’s wing. Otherwise it would be like sleeping on an airport runway.

All that raw newness made the house seem thrown together overnight, like a fake-front Disney castle. A “Potemkin village”. Is this the kind of house that bankrupts build? You didn’t need to be psychic to intuit disastrous cracks, fundamental leaks, yawning chasms beneath all that stucco and stone. Or is this rental maze jealousy spilling over?

“I better warn you I’m unpredictable around money,” I told Chase. “Everyone I’ve ever known has been broke. ”

“There are so many levels of brokenness,” said Chase, holding my hand.
The ornately carved front doors opened in a central turret; a sort of castle keep, guarded by stone lions. I imagined them swiveling blank orbs to inspect as I went past: “Who goes there?” in some foreign tongue, but a door opened before Chase could ring. The tiny, shriveled figure standing there could have been any age from child to grandmother.

“Hi, Mom,” said Chase. “Long time no see.”
“Steven!” she breathed out in a great rush ofjoy, embracing him in a mighty hug. Finally turning to acknowledge me.

“I’m Zoya,” she told me shyly. Rigidly coiffed, heeled and pearled, she was heavily made up and had unlikely red hair but her eyes were soft and gentle. When she reached out to embrace me I could feel her birdlike bones. I couldn’t hug back because I was holding the damn plant so I just stood there like a lump of baloney. It would have been an excellent moment to unload our gift but it was far too big for her. Chase could have warned me!

“This is for you,” I said, demonstrating the cactus, making it do a little dance. “Happy birthday.”
She touched it uncertainly, as if it might bite her.
“Oh, dear,” she said sadly, as recalling past distress, “I suppose I’m just like this plant. Prickly and ancient.”

Gift-giving is loaded with symbolism all right; we just forget that sometimes its unintended symbolism. Chase did try warning me about that, but I insisted on behaving as if we were in my world where uncertainty equals fun surprises.

“That’s not it at all,” said Chase-Whose-Real-Name-is-Steven, rescuing me from the suddenly unbearably heavy present, “You’re the lady who blooms even in winter. It’s going to have three blossoms, see? A Trinity, like a shamrock. That’s why we thought ofyou.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Stevie,” she patted his shoulder, so moved she could hardly speak. “Such a gift for words.”

A look flashed between us that spoke more than words, but Chase’s voice was robo-speak. “I’m called Chase now. Remember, Mom?”

Zoya said fiercely, “Chase is a disgusting name. It doesn’t mean anything! Steven was your great-grandfather’s name, and your great-great grandfather’s. “
Chase sighed, the put-upon son. “Primitive tribes give their children temporary names, until they are old enough to say who they are.”

I could certainly see the flaw in that reasoning. Why should we emulate primitive tribes?
Zoya darted forward to grab Chase’s hand. “Oh, what have you donetoyourpoorwrist?” Shefeltaroundherbosomforapairofglasses, tried dragging him beneath the chandelier, but effortlessly he pulled away. Probably he had been too big for her since toddlerdom.
“I was tied up to something,” said Chase. “Jazz got me loose.”
Another look. I may have blushed.

His mother glanced back and forth between us, trying to smile but making disbelieving throat clicks. “Oh, sweetie,” she sighed at length, “I never can tell when you’re teasing.”
Like many tiny women, she scurried when she walked; and like many thin women, she kept her shoulders hunched protectively forward against a permanent chill. She lectured the plant as Chase unloaded it on the hall table; “You behave now.” I stole an opportunity to look around.

On either side of the staircase stood two life-size white plaster statues like a pair of sleep-struck guests. This could only be Chase and his sister on the cusp of puberty. Some people have their baby’s shoes bronzed; this family was more ambitious. They apparently subjected their offspring to full body-casts. Untouched by time or fate, with clear eyes and perfect skin, they lent a scary threat to the entryway, as if anyone stepping beyond this point risked ossification. Behind me I heard Zoya whisper intimately to her son, “I’m so glad you’re here. It’s the best birthday present I could ever have.”

But Chase wouldn’t let his mother forget about me. He propelled me forward. “Meet Jasmyn Suzino,” he said.

“Jazz.” I tried hard to look nice and unthreatening, as opposed to, say, psychic and weird. But honestly I wished myself elsewhere. How did I become captive in Chase’s life story exactly? This dream felt very unlucid. Is there opaque dreaming? I once asked for a cloak of invisibility in my Christmas stocking. Oh, to be a fly on the wall, and figure out the dance before you’re asked to join in!

Zoya gave me the once over, then she gave me the twice-over. She walked around me like I was the Statue of Liberty. A full seven-twenty. Was it the name? Make up or lack thereof? Filthy clothing? Because I seemed to be wearing unprepossessing black jeggings and a weightlifter’s sweatshirt. Was I just too “ethnically diverse?” I felt crazy unprepared, just like Soliz in her naked dream.
Now she peered beyond me as if questing for my retinue. “Aren’t you staying the night? I don’t see any luggage.”

“No luggage,” said Chase. “We had kind of an incident at school. A woman jumped out of Jasmyn’s window, so the police won’t let her into her room. I thought she could borrow from Cyanne.”

Another flashed exchange of looks – challenging from him, warning from me. This was only going to get more difficult if Chase insisted on being one of this dream’s unmanageable elements.
“Oh, my goodness,” said Zoya, “How terrible. Was it your roommate? Was she badly hurt?”

I had to let Chase answer for me.“It was a school nurse, actually, and we barely knew her. She was
killed.” He seemed to take malicious pleasure in this recitation.

“Oh, my God!” Zoya’s hands flew up to her heavily powdered cheeks. “Why would anyone do such a thing? Why couldn’t you stop her?”

“Don’t you think some people are better off dead?” Chase queried lightly. “We weren’t there, Mom. I swear we had absolutely nothing to do with it.”

Zoya glanced uncertainly from one of us to the other. “You’re joking with me, aren’t you?” she queried. “You know I hate it when you tease about serious things.”

“Well, I do need fresh clothes,” I croaked, the cat-got-my-tongue turning frog. Frogs need water, and I needed a bath. “I hate showing up at your house looking like this.” In our next OBE I’m doing all the steering.

“Well, you’re welcome to borrow anything of Cyanne’s,” said Zoya. “She’s at school in Tennessee anyway, and she’s got way too many clothes. I’m always telling her. Think of the starving Africans! She buys things and then decides she doesn’t like them! What a flibbertigibbet! It’s like she’s a different person every morning!“

She chased us up the stairs shaking a dust cloth, “I hope you won’t go back to that university, Stevie. It sounds most unsafe. Or will they give you both an automatic A?“
“Urban legend, Mom.”

“At the very least they should give you the rest of the semester off. Give Jazzelle the tour, Steven. I’m working on dinner. It’s going to be fabulous.”

On the stairs I muttered bitingly, “Trouble-maker.”

“I’m more of a rabble-rouser really,” said Chase. “So much rabble. So little time.”

18. Treachery

So that’s where we went. The twilight had thickened into darkness so Chase turned on all the auto lights. We were cosmonauts, safe inside our personal re-entry machine that could take us anywhere. Red and the yellow flickers lent Chase’s face an unearthly glow. Outside the car windows a fine drizzle was getting underway, obscuring the names and dates on the tombs and markers of Chase’s “shortcut”. We were back in the graveyard! Isn’t that where they put the bodies? Could they fit an extra one?

Then suddenly we spilled out on an unfamiliar road. The bodies were behind us now, consigned to the earth we flew above… Why was riding in this car so much like flying? Was it the hush, the lack of noise? Or was it my passenger status; that I had no idea where I was going but was ready for anything?

“We need to stop and get a card,” said Chase.

“Remind me. What’s the occasion?” Was this lucid dreaming? Where could we possibly be going? All I knew was that Chase wanted to steer. So let him steer.

“My mom’s birthday.” He smiled at me.

“How about a present?” I asked, fighting for time. “Shouldn’t we bring a gift?”
He shook his head. “She says she never wants anything.”

“That’s just something mothers say. It’s never really true.” I knew I had forgotten something, but all the forgotten things seemed so unimportant. The “now” was perfect. Me and Chase. Wanting it to last forever…

Chase’s face too wore a dreamy, happy expression. “I don’t recognize this road,” he said. “The GPS went black. It’s been proved that we’re born with innate tracking ability but if you don’t use it, you lose it. Maybe we’re lost. We took a strange turn out of the cemetery.”

“Doesn’t Shelby know where to go?” “Sure. Let’s let her drive.”Lights ahead.

“Pull in here, “ I said, grabbing Chase’s arm. It was a Farmer’s Market, deserted looking but sporting Christmas lights. Chase obeyed but parked unwillingly. “I thought you were letting Shelby drive.”

“I will. But we can get a present here. It’s my first time meeting you mother. I want her to like me.”
“They won’t have anything,” Chase disparaged.

“Let’s just look.” Can’t I steer a little too? I took his hand. “ Walk with me.”
He smiled. “How can I ever say no to you? This is why men fear women,” he grumbled. “Everything turns into shopping.”

Do men fear women? First I’d heard of it but I suppose everyone fears everything at one time or another. Chase was reluctant to step out of Shelby, his transitional object. She had assumed the job of body armor.

The Christmas-lit stalls were empty, shabby, silent. Had I been here before? Weren’t we supposed to be looking for a body? No, that couldn’t be, we were on a nice date. A visit to the country. I was going to meet his mother. Besides, you’d never hide a body on a farm where earth turns every season. No more corpses. I must start thinking pleasant thoughts or his mother wouldn’t like me. But we stepped through sheets of torn plastic fluttering like ghosts, the ghosts of poor Mrs. Corso’s damaged dreams. Mrs. Corso had once been, if not young, at least an excited, hopeful bride…
The greenhouse was well-lit, looking warm and jolly. Had Corso fed Miss Howk to the flowers?

Would we recognize her burial spot from the flowers she had nourished? In my imagination little Christmas roses pursed their floral lips to perfectly reproduce poor lost Howk’s insolent expression.
Chase put my cold hand underneath his coat. He was dressed for this weather; I wasn’t.

Inside the greenhouse the air was putrid with canned “Ho-ho-hos.” The curse of Tiny Tim, arriving two months early. The woman huddled over the cashbox didn’t look up from her celebrity magazine to greet her only customers. Was it my imagination that she resembled Nurse Howk, as the senior citizen she was never allowed to be? Sometimes surviving winners are not a pretty picture. Tattoos and piercings don’t age well. Did Howk regret that she died in all her beauty?

As we walked through the rows of wreaths and poinsettias I could feel Chase wishing himself elsewhere. Too bad about flying. It can be scary as well as pleasurable. It always shows us something we don’t want to see.

“Sorry,” he apologized. “Christmas was always miserable in my family. Never could live up to its advance billing.”

I picked up a poinsettia with greeny-white flowers. Had Howk’s corpus sucked the red away?
“Those things are poisonous, ” said Chase.

“Thanks for the instruction,” I murmured. Wouldn’t want to give Chase’s mother poison as a present. Even though, if you think about it, everything can be poisonous if you don’t use-as-recommended.

“Christmas is what you make of it,” I mildly suggested.

Annika and I give each other Dollar Store presents only. That’s where Annika got the mismatched yarn to knit my color-block scarf. The scarf back Corso still has. Speaking of poisons.

“All this stuff is hopeless,” Chase said in his self-flagellating way.

“Here’s something perfect.” I offered him a plant.
“It’s a cactus!” he sneered. “Worst present ever.”

“It’s a Christmas cactus,” I countered. “Blooms only once a year. Blooming thorns, get it? Just like your tattoo.”
“But it’s not blooming now. Thing looks dead.”

“But it’s going to bloom.” I shook the tag at him. “It says here. Christmas is about hope.” It was the biggest Christmas cactus they had. It promised three flowers, if it ever got going.

“I hope we can get out of here,” said Chase, grinning. “I hope you let me buy this plant.”
“Sold.” He pulled out his wallet. “I yield to your touching faith in the future.”

This is a collecting expedition, I realized. Every time we’ve soul- traveled together, we collected something. It’s really about figuring out what you’ve got.

Behind our silent cashier a rack of cards. Chase picked up a few to read the insides while Senior Citizen Howk scrabbled for his change.

“So what will you do when you run out of faith?” he asked me.
“Get more. People run out of faith, like you run out of dinner. That’s no reason to starve.”
He wouldn’t allow me to chip in even a dollar. Competitive bastard. It had been my idea, and he was stealing it.

“You’re an idea-jacker. Let me buy a card.”
“Here,” he said. “This one.”

A picture of a blazing fireside with a dog and a cat sleeping on the hearthrug.
“Powerful juju,” Chase said, “Looks just like my dog Honey. She’d eat that cat for Christmas dinner.”

We both signed the card.Chase sighed with relief to be back in the car. “I know where I’m going, now,” he said.

17. Flying

We were as nervous as two kids contemplating an adult-sized prank. In his room he paced while I made tea and turned the lava lamp to low.

I said, “Corso gave us some kind of drug. What do you think it was?”

Chase said, “I’m pretty sure the drugs had nothing to do with it. It probably was an amnesiac of some kind. Twilight sleep.”

“Miss Howk said it was a sedative.”

“Twilight sleep’s scopolamine. Locoweed. It has hallucinogenic properties.”

“But our experience couldn’t have been a shared hallucination. Hallucinations don’t find bodies.”
“Well, it could have been some form of mental telepathy.”

“You mean, like, we already know everything, and we just picked each other’s brains?”
He threw himself on the bed, arms behind his head. “Or we picked Corso’s brain.”

I shivered so violently I huddled by the radiator. “I’d rather fly into hell itself than into Corso’s brain,” I said.

“I’m not afraid,” said Chase. “I’ve been there.”
The tea kettle whistled. He launched himself forwards.“Sleepytime OK?”

“Seems appropriate.” I looked outside before fixing the blinds. It was a drab, drear winter day, utterly lacking promise. A good day to take the kind of nap where you don’t wake up till spring.
“We need ocean sounds,” Chase called from the kitchen. “Google them on my laptop.”

But if the dream lab experience left something to be desired; why recreate it?

Chase appeared in the doorway with steaming mugs. “It’s only a tiny monster. Shouldn’t we stare it down?”

I certainly agreed in principle. All the monsters of memory have to be stared down. Could Chase teach me how to do it?

Presto. Ocean sounds filtered through the laptop speakers.

We took a couple sips of bitter tea. It triggered memories all right. Corso’s stained glass window crazy-quilting in front of my eyes; my broken window at Hadleigh looking back at me; pink dust sifting through the air at Howk’s place.

“I’m scared,” I said.“Stay close to me.”We lay back, mugs of tea forgotten on a packing crate. “Let’s match our breathing,” he suggested.

I had need of his body heat. Deep breath in, deep breath out. A little ripple of pleasure ran through me.

“This is like a really fun date where I don’t know where I’m going,” I said. Bex was never the ringmaster of such things; he wanted me to make the responsibility of choice so he could yell at me later.

“You’re right,” said Chase. “It might be wonderful. We shouldn’t go in scared.”
It’s true. Back at dream lab I had wished I’d fly.

“Mmmm,” Chase murmured. “Feels good.”

“Where are you?” I demanded. “Don’t leave me behind!”

He embraced me harder. “Imagining I’m in Shelby. If Shelby had wings we could really leave all those other idiots behind.”

“Take me,” I whispered. Snuggling.

16. Lucid Dreaming

Using a dishcloth he knocked the wall phone off the hook and dialed 911. A dispatcher’s voice squawked at the other end. Chase dropped the receiver, and raced me out beneath the useless plastic wall.

“Aren’t we going to talk to them?”
“Hells, no! We are officially not here. They’ll send someone out to check. Especially given the restraining order.”

I fretted pointlessly. “We should have put her wig back on.” Haunted by the fear that I’m the one that took it off.

Said Chase, “Sorry. That’s not on The Crime Scene Tour. No handling the corpses. Less is more.”
“They’ll know we called,” I argued as we climbed into Shelby.

“They know someone called. If we don’t give them us to chase, who do you think they’ll look for? Corso! Which is as it should be.”

As we drove down the insufferably long avenue I imagined tree after tree turning its mutilated head to stare after us imploringly. At the intersection of Mad Bear and Route 108, Shelby turned left instead of right. On the corner of the four-way stop was a waffle place. Chase insisted on a booth by the window. “We can see all the action from here,” he said. “Plus I love waffles.”

And I love blintzes exploding with blueberries. A police car – no lights, no sirens, no speeding – moseyed past our vantage point long before our order arrived. It turned in at Mad Bear Road.
“There they go,” said Chase. “Let’s hope leaving the basement door open was enough to send them down there. Since psychic powers aren’t taught at police academy.” He sounded glum and deflated, as if the party was over and only cleanup loomed. Personally, I don’t enjoy feeling on the wrong side of the law.

Under this aggressive artificial light Chase looked younger; like me he’d skipped the makeup and paler, reddish hair threatened to overtake his dye job.
I asked Chase, “Got a light?”

I knew for certain that I was in love with him when he handed over a lighter without even asking me why I wanted it. Around us the tables were empty; it was not a busy morning. From their bald surfaces I gathered six candles and built a little circle. The waitress watching from the corner of her eye was bemused, but voiceless. Maybe even crazy customers are always right. I sparked Chase’s curiosity.

“What are you doing?”
“Building a circle of safety,” I said. “So they can’t come after us.” A circle of trust, so we spoke only truth to one another.

Candlelight flickered off his martyr’s cheekbones. His heart attack special arrived and he poked at it like a child whose eyes are bigger than his stomach. Something had killed his appetite. He reached out with his wounded wrist and took my hand. “Thank you for taking over my head,” he said. “I didn’t like what was there before.”

Feeling every beat of my own sore heart, I released the breath I’d held since I was five. “Maybe we’re soulmates,” I suggested. “Two halves of a whole.” I couldn’t forget our magically rhythmic walk. It was like we were one creature. Maybe we were always meant to help each other.”
“Makes sense to me,” he said, leaning way forward, as if longing to be on my side of the table.
It was time for him to expel that pain. “So, share.” I suggested. “What happened? Why not tell me what Corso did to you?”

“If I tell you,” he warned me. “You won’t love me any more. You’re going to want to back out. You won’t have anything more to do with me.” He flipped the lighter up and down.

I touched his healing wrist. “I doubt it. But that’s the thing everyone forgets, isn’t it? People are always free to do pretty much anything they want.”

He shivered in his seat. “I’ll never be free. No one’s done the terrible things I’ve done.”
How could I manage this central intimacy? Kisses, fire circles, crime scenes, out of body experiences and a fireman’s carry rescue can carry a couple just so far. I moved into his side of the booth and put my arms around him, rubbed my cheek against his, close as I dared.

In his ear I whispered, “Shouldn’t we share our nightmares, now that our universes are perpendicular?”

That made him laugh. “Perpendicular like bumper cars,” he said. The analogy was inspired, because I could visualize it. “So get in my car. Let’s steer together.”

He looked at me like he really wanted to believe me. “I won’t blame you for walking away,” he said. “I want you to know that’s OK.”

I nodded, as if agreeing, but feeling certain nothing he could say would turn me away.
“Corso was my teacher at the Cathedral School,” he said. “He was still pretending to be a priest back then. He molested me.”

He pulled ice out of my water glass and ran it over his face as if to reassure himself he still existed.
“Wow,” he said. “I’ve never told anyone young before. Even the lawyers – didn’t want to know everything.”

I hadn’t expected it, but as I turned the idea around I could see it was the only thing. I kissed the side of his face before whispering, “How old were you?”

“I was seven, eight years old when it started,” said Chase. His blue eyes glazed over, focusing on the horror within. “It went till I was thirteen. He taught catechism and theology.” He snorted. “You better believe he had his own version of the Ten Commandments. He always tried to make it seem like it was all my idea, like he was answering some call I’d made.Like he was recognizing me as already lost.”

I stroked his face, drinking in his clover scent. “You have to know that isn’t true. You were just a little kid.”

“My higher brain might know it. But my heart feels – I can’t explain. Co-opted. Stolen. It’s like he ruined me. It’s like he stole my soul and he won’t give it back.”

“We’re taking it back.” Slid my hands inside his jacket and laid my head on his shoulder. “And your heart is fine. It’s mine.”

“I’m happy for you to have it.” His breath along my neck. “Take it. Please. Corso had secret hand signals he used to use, fingers on my palm, telling me what he wanted. It gets worse. I brought him others,” he hissed. I could feel his stomach writhing against me. “That made it easier on me. We were Corso’s little club. They always tell you if you bring them someone else, they’ll let you go. It’s a lie. News flash: absolute suffering corrupts absolutely.

And once you give in you’re gone forever. Fatally, fatally lost. See? Now I’m a monster as well as a victim. Monsters aren’t gay or straight or anything, they’re just rapacious. Monsters can’t have girlfriends because they’d crush them. “ He laughed hollowly. “He broke me. Don’t you see he’s holding my past hostage? He captures you with this big pretense that time is meaningless, that we’re somehow outside of consequences, but don’t you see, time is the only thing. Because it’s the theft that can never be made right.”

“Yes, it can,” I insisted. “I know because we stepped outside time,” I sounded more confident than I felt. “I think our souls are separate. Pristine. My half waiting for your half.”

I felt him withdraw from me, so I spat out my “secret”. Such as it was. A pathetic little one-celled monster, compared to his. “When I was a little baby, my mother thought I was molested at my daycare center, because some other kids were. But I didn’t remember anything. I was just too little. You can call it a block. But the only thing I know is soaring. I learned how to leave my body, then, I thought everyone did that. In dream lab my fear was, if I ever did it again, I wouldn’t come back. And that scared me so much I was afraid even to sleep.” I squeezed his arm. “Until I found my flying partner.”

“Dissociation!” he exclaimed, meeting my eyes for the first time. I saw the lawyer, the thinker, the scientist awaken within him. The monster – a nightmare construct anyway – was banished forever.
Chase clutched me hard. “You’re so right. I thought separating body from spirit–flying away–was such a terrible thing. Asignofweakness, the mark of a slave. I wanted to be Corso, always in control. Power seemed like plundering people and using them for fuel. But now that we know – can we ever do it again?“

“You mean because we looked down?” My turn to tease him. “I think we can only grow stronger. It’s just an ability; like, say, running. Takes practice. And commitment. You can be running to something or from something, or you can get into running as a discipline. Maybe we learned it first to defend ourselves, but now we know how. Did you read that Cadwallader book? This is the central skill, the art people have yearned for throughout the centuries. It’s both the ultimate union and the ultimate freedom. It separates the mortal from the immortal. It’s what we’re counting on at death.”

“But what if we’re frozen in our bodies? Trapped?’ He chewed his lip angrily. “Like, over-identified with our bodies?”

I touched my mouth to the shell of his ear. “You’ve proved that you can break free, ” I whispered. “So come with me.”

His eyes lit with excitement. “I thought it was escape. But what if it’s presence, not absence? You know how they say when you’re lost; climb the tallest thing you can find? Well, I feel like that’s what we’re doing. We’re overseeing the universe; so we can sort the puzzle pieces. Thank you, Jazz.“ I looked up to see a line of breathless wait staff watching us as if we exotic birds perched briefly on their floating wreck. Just made us sit closer together, whispering more intimately.

“You’re more than just my lucky charm,” said Chase, “more than someone sharing an amazing

gift–”

“Don’t forget your gifts,” I insisted. “Inquisitiveness. Determination. Courage. Tenacity. Intelligence. You must have seen the future while you surveyed the puzzle, because you recognized me. Let’s just get away from him. Isn’t happiness the best revenge?”

There it was, the dragon in the room. The subject we had to discuss. The fire dampened and went out of him.

“Don’t you see I tried that already? Corso’s horror never ends. Back at choir school, when he met my sister he decided he wanted her. Part of his growth plan, he told me, like he uses people for vitamins. That’s when I realized you can’t placate the monster; you have to destroy it. Otherwise you‘re only feeding it and making it bigger. I refused to go back to that school. I finally told my parents.”

“What did they do?”

The words were so painful his lips cracked and peeled before my eyes. “Actually, they did everything wrong. First they didn’t believe me. Then they talked to Corso, who as you know is a plausible bastard. Shock therapy was his recommendation, like he hadn’t been shocking enough. He encouraged them to blame me. But I knew too much. There were too many others involved, and that’s where he overstepped. Some of them denied it, but not all. One kid hanged himself. Corso should have killed me before making me his lieutenant. He learned never to make that mistake again.

The diocese got lawyers. They kicked Corso out. Then he got lawyers. Then all the other kids’ parents got lawyers. “ He drummed his fingers restlessly on the greasy, gummy table. “My dad saw a payday. He had dreams of power, too. A chance to build his dream house, to buy all the toys he’d ever wanted, to become his own man.

The one thing he had always hated was taking orders. His idea of freedom is the freedom to kick other people around. Naturally he couldn’t let our lawyers run things. If they didn’t act like servants they made him feel small. So while he hired and fired, time went by. All the other families settled. Everyone hated us. After three years, the diocese caved. But at that point I was old enough to emancipate. You better believe I just wanted to get the hell out of there. My father has a knack for making people hate him, plus I could prove abuse, so the judge wouldn’t give my dad any of my money. My father declared bankruptcy. He said our family was ruined–my fault, of course. But I did escape. I got the hell out of there. ”

I struggled to comprehend the runaway train of damage. “But if you’d escaped Corso once, why did you come back to him?“

“Because nothing bad happened to him! All he got was his freedom – which he’d been wanting anyway. I couldn’t get it out of my mind that he wasn’t hurting! The police never got involved, so he never spent a night in jail where he belonged. Every night I tried to sleep, that’s what was racing through my head. I finished high school out of state, but I kept track of him, going from strength to strength. The big bequest he got from some old lady bought his way into Cadensis. Then when I enrolled here, I discovered he’d married some other elderly rich woman nobody had ever had time for – like he was opening up a new specialty.

I had my name legally changed and I disguised myself…but he recognized me right away. He was flattered that I’d come here! Took it for granted that I couldn’t live without him.”

“But did he — “
“Thank God I was no longer his type. He’d had my vitamin, absorbed me, the way a cannibal absorbs his enemy. Don’t you see I’ve got to make hi spit me out?”

“But how could he never apologize?”

“By insisting he’d “recovered”. Bullshitter!” Chase growled like an animal. “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger! He doesn’t think he did anything wrong. He thinks he did me a favor.”

“He doesn’t think sex with children is wrong?”

“His mind changes everything that happened. His goal is to destroy your memory. Says I’ve got him all mixed up with Dad. Who knew settling out of court record could prove so devastating? It means there’s no official record; everyone signed confidentiality agreements. But I’m never forgetting what I know. Corso hates the truth, I’m telling you. It’s like he’s allergic to it. He has rafts of excuses. Believe me, you don’t want to hear it.”

“Try me.”

“How about, that I’m an old soul who never really was a kid! How about that! He recognized me, is all. It’s like the opposite of a soulmate. Fellow demons, I don’t know. He says celibacy is perverse and wrong ‘cause it’s inhuman. He’s the victimized one. I was special. I was magic. And look how great everything turned out! I’m about to graduate; he’s a big time professor! No harm, no foul. If I’m having problems they are caused by my lack of freedom. Or my unwillingness to let go of the past. Corso tells everyone he’s a healer. “

“A healer who needs to murder people.” The man I’d trusted. Had to trust, because he was the dealer and the dealer holds the cards.

Chase went on, “He’s just a polyamorous, polymorphous genius placed on earth to cure us of whatever ails us. And you know what ails us? Having any independence apart from him. Don’t you see I’ve got to destroy him? I let the monster out of his cage. In some horrible way, I feel like I created him.”

It was a thicket all right, but if we tackled it together we could find our way through. “He’s trying to make you feel responsible,” I said, “So it lets him off the hook. You are not responsible. It’s time for you to forgive yourself.”

“Maybe he didn’t kill his wife; maybe he got too clever and had Howk do it,” Chase continued, ignoring what I said. “It would be just like Howk to think she could hold back a piece of evidence that made her safe.“

“Forgive yourself,” I interrupted. “It’s the first thing you have to do. Until you do that your eyes won’t clear and neither of us can see.”

“It’s just words,” said Chase. I can’t eat, can you?” He signaled the waitress for the check.
Of course I couldn’t eat, the blintzes were too sweet, I didn’t know they’d arrive smothered in sickening mounds of whipped cream.

In the car I returned to the attack. “Everything’s just words. This conversation we’re having now. You telling me you love me.”

“No,” he insisted really wounded, “Don’t say that. Some things are so real they cross the bounds of time and space.”

I felt safer locked in Shelby than under the eyes of lip-reading wait staff. “Forgive your child self,” I repeated. “He’s just a little boy.”

“Oh, I can forgive him,” said Chase, starting the engine. “He definitely didn’t know what he was doing. But I can’t forgive myself now unless I stop him. You’ve got to help me. Do you think Howk could be buried at Hadleigh? Somehow?”

“He wouldn’t be so stupid.” I realized Chase was telling me he couldn’t forgive himself as long as that self belonged to Corso. And as long as it did, how could it ever be mine? “He can’t afford two corpses turning up at once. He needs a place where she disappears forever. He wouldn’t want her ever to be found and if she is, it has to look like an accident. You know he thinks he’s smarter than anybody. So my Hadleigh vision must mean something different.”

At the crossroads a police forensics van turned into Mad Bear Road. Chase angled the car out onto Route 108. “Let’s hope this is the beginning of the end.”

“What’s the end? What end are you expecting?”
Resolutely he refused to meet my gaze.

I said, “We need to fly again to find Howk’s body. You know it and I know it. And we can’t do it as long as you make space between us.

“If I take him out, my family gets the money. Everybody gets what they want.”
“Except me of course. Don’t you see if you offed yourself, you’d be killing me?”

He drummed his fingers against the steering wheel. This fantasy had supported him for so long and I was asking him to live without it.”

“But what do we do? How can we make sure he’s rendered harmless?”

I imagined Corso ruling Super-Max. “I don’t know yet,” I admitted. “Don’t you see we can’t guess?

The universe is trying to tell us but for some reason we can’t listen. We need to fly.”
“All right,” said Chase. “I surrender. “Let’s fly.”