Crone's Moon: A Rowan Gant Investigation (18 page)

“Don’t worry over it, Rowan,” she replied as
she cast a pleasant smile toward me. “Benjamin sometimes forgets
that I do in fact have a social life. The truth is, I was actually
considering a trip to the ladies room just so I could page myself.
I needed an escape, so as it turns out, your call was
serendipitous.”

“Escape?” Ben asked.

“He was boring me to tears, Benjamin,” she
said as she turned back to him. “That’s all, nothing more. Stop
imagining the worst, please.” She cocked her head to the side and
gave him a curious stare. “You have been drinking haven’t you?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“It would certainly explain your mood this
evening,” she replied. “You are even more overprotective than
usual.”

“So sue me.”

“And would I happen to know what prompted
this little binge?” she pressed.

He brushed off the question. “It’s not
important.”

“Yes, I thought as much,” she replied with an
understanding nod, gleaning untold information from his evasive
words. “We should discuss that later. At the moment, however, I
seem to recall something being said about a murder investigation
and the need for a hypnotist. Well, here I am.”

T
he flame on the candle
reached upward, stretching into a thin tongue as it licked at the
air. It undulated in an ever-increasing rhythm until it seemed to
almost vibrate then it began to die back downward. I watched
intently as the threadlike wisp collapsed into itself to finally
become a flickering teardrop of yellow-orange that cast a soft glow
into the dimness of the room.

After some discussion as to how a session of
hypnosis was to be conducted, as well as detailing our ultimate
goal, even Helen agreed that if it worked, there would still be
some amount of danger involved. Given Felicity’s and my
preternatural connection with the other side of the veil, we could
very easily springboard from the hypnotic trance state directly
into a full-blown ethereal excursion. Helen still felt confident
that she could control the situation if it did in fact occur;
however, as with anything in life, it was something she could not
guarantee with absolute certainty. The fact that there was even a
remote chance of slipping past the gates and into the world of the
dead was a point of hot contention for my wife and I.

We both agreed that this was something that
had to be done. Backing out of it was not even an issue. Given the
circumstances, however, neither of us was willing to let the other
be a guinea pig. The banter between us didn’t last long before
Felicity simply insisted that she be the one to go under; or at the
very least, that she go first. In her mind, I was only to become
involved as a last resort if she was unsuccessful. And, she had
every intention of seeing to it that she didn’t fail.

I, of course, was dead set against her facing
any of this at all. I abandoned my earlier argument, not that it
had been getting me anywhere to begin with, and without
embellishment told her no, absolutely not; the subject of this
experiment would be me, and only me, end of story.

She wasn’t ready for story time to be over
yet.

As was her stubborn nature, she had just
looked back at me in silence like I was speaking an unfamiliar
foreign language. After a moment, she said something on the order
of, “Damn your eyes, Rowan Linden Gant, if you sit in that chair,
you’ll never make it under because I’ll be slapping you silly.”
There may well have been a few Gaelic expletives interspersed, but
that was the general gist of it, and she said it in dead
earnest.

The important thing here is that this was the
second time this evening Felicity had threatened to get physical.
You always knew just exactly how serious she was whenever she
intimated violence. While I figured it was unlikely that she would
actually follow through, I had no desire to put it to the test.
Manifest proof, yet again, that one should never argue with a
redheaded, Irish Taurus when she has already made up her mind. With
this one, at least, you simply could not win.

I suppose that one of these days I would wise
up and take my own advice in that regard. Maybe.

So, having begrudgingly conceded, I now found
myself sitting in our semi-darkened living room, quietly watching
my wife begin her journey.

“Don’t speak, Felicity. Simply listen to my
voice and relax.” Helen Storm’s soothing tone sounded nearby.
“Breathe in deeply and let the air flow slowly from your lungs.
Allow it to take with it the stress of the day… Relax…
Breathe…”

This was what Helen referred to as the
‘Induction,’ the process by which the hypnotist starts the subject
along his or her way. To me, and I am sure Felicity as well, it was
a lesson right out of ‘Wicca 101’. Everything she was doing was a
basic grounding technique a Witch would use to become centered and
connect with the earth before performing magick or ritual. If I
didn’t know what was actually going on here, I would assume that
she was preparing to cast a circle.

“Keep your eyes focused on the flame…” she
continued, her voice an even, melodic tenor. “Watch it… Study it…
Allow it to become the only thing that you see.”

Ben and Constance were in the dining room,
still within earshot but physically out of the way so as not to
prove a distraction to the process. I, however, was positioned
immediately beside Felicity as she reclined in a chair. Proximity
was the one concession I had demanded.

I was to be her failsafe. While Helen
concentrated on extracting the hidden information, if any, I would
watch for signs that my wife was slipping too far across the
threshold. It all came down to the fact that whether Felicity liked
it or not, I had absolute control over ending the session if I felt
it was getting out of hand.

Of course, if it became necessary for me to
take a turn concentrating on the flame, she would have the exact
same power. Even so, she made me promise not to stop the session
needlessly just to get her out of harm’s way. I cannot say that I
hadn’t considered doing just that, but I made the promise, and I
would abide by it. My hold card was the fact that we hadn’t
discussed exactly how far was too far, and it was too late for her
to argue that point now.

“Keep watching the flame, Felicity,” Helen
spoke again. “You are comfortable… You are relaxed… You are at
peace with yourself and everything around you… Allow that comfort
to fill you from head to toe… Embrace it, and allow it to embrace
you…”

I watched the rise and fall of Felicity’s
chest as it slowed, becoming a barely perceptible movement of her
near frozen form. Her face was slack, lips parted slightly and eyes
fixed in a glazed stare firmly attached to the glowing tip of the
candle. I could physically sense how grounded she was. She had
become so disconnected from the conscious mind that even her
psychic defenses were quickly falling away. That worried me but not
enough to stop the session. I had actually predicted that it would
happen before we even started, so even though I was concerned, I
wasn’t surprised.

I immediately extended my own ethereal
shields to surround her as well as myself, effectively negating her
sudden vulnerability to the non-physical energies around us. This
was a task at which she was far more practiced than I considering
that she had done it for me on numerous occasions when I was
suffering a psychic episode. Still, it was an ability I possessed
even though these days it took a bit more concentration on my
part.

“Now, I want you to close your eyes,
Felicity,” Helen instructed in a quiet voice. “Maintain the image
of the flame… See it in your mind’s eye… Watch it flicker as if
your eyes were still firmly focused upon it… Allow it to illuminate
your world as you begin to see a staircase before you, leading
downward…”

As expected, my wife was slipping into the
trance in record time, undoubtedly due to years of meditation and
psychic exercises. Of course, it didn’t hurt that Helen was good at
what she did. While she had outlined the various stages of the
induction for us, it wasn’t readily obvious when she moved from one
to the next as she did so with such fluid confidence.

The serenity was momentarily broken by the
sound of a dull clunk. In reality, it wasn’t very loud at all, but
in the stillness of the house it echoed heavily. I jerked slightly
and looked up across the room to see Ben staring back at me with
his own startled expression. His hand was held out toward his
coffee cup where it rested on the dining room table as if motioning
for it to stop making noise. He tensed and frowned then mouthed the
word ‘sorry’.

I slowly turned back to my wife and saw that
fortunately the sound hadn’t affected her in the least.

Helen continued. “When you see the staircase,
Felicity, you will raise your right index finger.”

Almost as soon as she had finished speaking,
my wife’s finger arched upward of its own accord and came to rest
as if pointing at something in the distance. Consciously, Felicity
most likely wasn’t even aware that her finger was raised. It was
doing so based on something Helen had called an ideomotor response.
It was a physical manifestation of the power of suggestion driven
by the engine of the subconscious mind.

“Good,” Helen announced with a faint note of
satisfaction in her voice. “Now, lower your finger. Before we
proceed, we will establish this simple boundary. If at any time you
hear me say the word ‘return’, you will immediately come back to
this place of absolute comfort and safety. I will then begin
counting from one to ten. When I reach ten, you will awaken. You
will be calm, relaxed, and you will remember everything. If you
understand this, raise your finger again.”

Felicity’s pale index finger rose on cue.

“Very good. Now I want you to step forward
and begin walking down the stairs. As you do so, feel yourself
sinking deeper into the sensation of comfort… You will feel as
though you are swaddled in a deep, restful sleep, yet you will
remain alert… Focused… Aware of your surroundings and of my voice…
When you reach the bottom of the stairs, there will be a
comfortable chair awaiting you. Take a seat in it, and when you
have, lower your finger.”

Again, almost before Helen’s voice had a
chance to fade, Felicity’s finger was on the move.

“That was a short staircase,” I
whispered.

“Sshhhh,” Helen shushed me softly, then
whispered in return, “There are only as many stairs as the
individual requires. No less and no more.”

I still thought it was a short staircase even
if it was only a visualization. Either that or Felicity had
mentally taken them two at a time and at a dead run. But, I kept my
mouth shut; Helen was the expert on this, not me.

She paused for a moment after Felicity’s
finger had fully lowered. I’m not sure whose benefit the brief
respite was for, but I desperately needed it myself. As relaxed as
my wife appeared to be, in contrast, I was just as tense, if not
doubly so. I took the opportunity to draw in a deep breath or two
while seeing to it that my own ground was intact and solid.

Finally, Helen began to speak again. “I still
do not want you to speak, Felicity, but I want you to open your
eyes.”

Slowly, her eyelids fluttered upward, but the
hypnotically imposed distance was evident in her glassy stare.

“You now see a movie screen in front of you,”
Helen told her. “Playing on the screen there is a documentary. I
want you to watch it closely. I want you to notice every detail…
Every nuance… No matter how unimportant it may seem. While you will
remember that this documentary is something that was once seen
through your own eyes, you are now separate from it. At this
moment, you are simply an observer.

“The subject of this documentary is an
experience you had earlier this evening when you were teaching a
class to your Coven mates. Something happened that only you were
able to see but you have now repressed. You will see it once again
as you watch this documentary before you. Remember that you are
only an observer. Watch… Listen… Remember… Do not speak… When it is
over, you will raise your index finger again to let me know.”

I watched Felicity’s expressionless face as
she stared, unblinking into the dim room, looking not at, past, nor
even through Helen. For all intents and purposes, we did not exist
for her at this moment in time. The mental picture playing out
before her was all that occupied her world.

After a long moment, there was a thin, nasal
whimper. At first I glanced around, looking to see if one of the
dogs had migrated from the bedroom and wanted to be let out. But,
when it sounded again, slightly stronger this time, I easily
pinpointed it as coming from my wife.

I focused my attention solely on Felicity as
I watched her respirations steadily increase. They were coming as a
series of rapid, shallow breaths that soon became the palpitating
rhythm of loosely harnessed panic. I shot a concerned glance at
Helen, and she gently shook her head.

“It is all right, Rowan,” she whispered.
“This is to be expected. She is fine.”

Without a word, I returned my gaze to my wife
and watched her shallowly puffing out the breaths as she continued
to whimper. Still, she stared straight ahead, attention fixed upon
a horror only she could see.

Her eyes were glistening with dampness, and a
single tear broke loose from where it had welled and began
trickling down her right cheek. It was rapidly followed by another,
and then a second stream began flowing from the left. Her body
tensed, and the whimpering grew into what sounded like a stifled
scream that was repeated not once, but twice.