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
