once, but twice.
I was just about to turn to Helen again when Felicity let out a sudden heavy sigh that bespoke relief. I watched on as her body relaxed and her breathing slowly returned to the earlier slow, even rhythm that had accompanied the onset of the trance.
In a single, easy motion my wife stretched her finger upward into the air.
CHAPTER 18:
“Thank you, Felicity,” Helen said. “Lower your finger now and relax.”
Felicity’s face remained slack, but her finger levered back downward without so much as a tremble. Her tension had more than just visibly ebbed; all evidence of it had disappeared but for the tear trails that still dampened her cheeks. For me, however, the expectant silence that fell into step behind her muffled display of anguish was causing my hairs to bristle.
“You should relax too, Rowan,” Helen told me.
“Easier said than done,” I replied. “Something doesn’t feel right about this.”
“What’s up, white man,” Ben asked, still sitting at the dining room table. “You goin’ all la-la?”
“No.” I shook my head. “Something just feels strange.” I paused for a moment and then let out a forced sigh. “I don’t know… It might just be me. It seems like nothing ever feels right anymore.”
“Well,” Helen spoke up, “from a clinical point of view, the session is going very well. In fact, what you just saw should have been the worst of it.”
“Should have been?” I asked. “The word should doesn’t exactly evoke an air of extreme confidence for me, Helen.”
“Yes, I understand that,” she replied. “Let me explain. What she has experienced will certainly still have emotional consequences tied to it, but at this point it is merely information. She is no longer watching the repressed memory play out; therefore, the connection with it is somewhat dulled. It will not be as intense as re-experiencing it.”
“Okay,” I replied, trepidation still evident in my voice. “So what now? Do you wake her up?”
“No, not yet,” she shook her head as she answered. “Hypnosis is no more perfect than the supernormal incidents that you are prone to, Rowan. While I have given her a post-hypnotic instruction to remember what she has now re-witnessed, some detail may still be lost upon awakening. What we do now is attempt to retrieve the information by having her recount it to us while still in a trance state.”
She leaned to the side and reached for her purse, which she had stowed beneath the edge of the coffee table. After rummaging around for a moment, she withdrew her hand, and in it was a micro cassette recorder. She quickly popped it open, checked the tape, then closed the cover and tested the buttons.
“For an actual forensic hypnosis session, I would have been better prepared,” she informed us. “We actually should have been videotaping the entire process, from the initial interview through termination of the session. However, for our purposes, I believe a brief audio recording will suffice.”
“This ain’t goin’ into court if that’s what you’re talkin’ about,” Ben offered from across the room.
“Precisely,” Helen returned, then momentarily shifted her focus back to me. “Truly, Rowan, you can relax now.”
“I’ll relax when this is over,” I told her.
She gave only a knowing nod as a reply. She was no stranger to the inner workings of my brand of emotionally imbued logic, so she knew she wasn’t going to be able to talk me down.
She activated the recorder and laid it on the end table with the microphone directed toward Felicity.
“Now, Felicity,” she began. “I want you to speak now, and tell us what you have just seen. Start at the beginning and take your time.”
“Candee is arguing with RJ again. She just isn’t working out.” Even though her face remained blank, Felicity began speaking as if she had been carrying on a conversation with us all along. I immediately noticed a thread of reluctance running through her voice. “There’s simply too much friction between her and the others. She doesn’t even seem to care how a Coven works. I don’t want to talk to her about this, but I’m just going to have to. I need to tell her she should seek another group. Row, I wish you were here to do it. You’re so much better at letting people down easy than I am.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but before I could get a word out, I felt Helen’s hand on my arm. I looked over my shoulder, and she was shaking her head.
I nodded and remained silent.
“Felicity,” Helen began. “I want you to move forward in time. You were teaching your class, and by all accounts, you had some type of seizure.”
“Yes,” Felicity replied, calmly switching the subject. “The class was about Dark Moon magick, and I was going over one of my favorite Dorothy Morrison spells with the group. I had just recited the last line where you call to the Crone of Darkness and ask her to allow you to feel the unseen an…”
Her words ended without warning. No stutter, no sound, no nothing. They simply halted mid-breath, leaving an expectant silence in their wake.
“Go on, Felicity,” Helen prompted. “It is okay. Just tell us what you remember.”
My wife’s head tilted forward, slowly at first and then simply fell as if she’d lost consciousness. As her chin touched her chest, her head lolled to the side, and she creased her brow in a display of pain. She rolled her head back upward and allowed it to tilt back, bringing her face up toward the ceiling, then let out a heavy breath.
“Jesus I hurt.” The words came out of Felicity’s mouth, but the voice was completely unfamiliar.
I turned a hard stare back to Helen and she held up her hand, motioning for me to wait.
“Felicity?” she asked.
I turned back to my wife and watched as she blinked her eyes several times.
The voice came again, louder and defiant. “What, you can’t turn on the goddamned lights around here?”
She grimaced visibly and then ran the tip of her tongue across her teeth.
“Fuck,” she said. “My tooth’s broke.”
I felt a sudden closeness and looked up to find that Ben and Constance had moved into the room with us and were watching intently.
“Larson got hit in the mouth,” Ben whispered, then canted his head toward Felicity. “Is she doin’ what I think she is?”
“If you mean is she channeling Brittany Larson,” I returned, “yeah, I think she is.”
I shot another glance toward Helen and then turned back to Felicity. I knew something hadn’t felt right about all of this, and now that feeling was starting to get worse. Much worse.
My wife’s hands were resting on the arms of the chair, and she began to physically jerk and tug as if trying to lift them, but they barely moved. She rotated her wrists as she struggled- stretching her fingers outward and then doubling them back into fists. She pushed herself slightly forward and twisted her shoulders while wriggling in her seat, groaning as she pulled against the unseen bonds. No matter how hard she tried, her forearms remained planted on the rests as if they were actually tied there. She finally let herself fall back into the seat and let out a frustrated shriek.
“Fucking asshole!” the voice burst from her lips as a defiant shout. “Do you have any idea who I am?!”
“Jeezus,” Ben muttered. “She’s got a pair.”
Felicity suddenly jerked her head to the side, pulling it away from something unseen as she sent her eyes searching.
“Don’t you touch me,” the voice growled. “My father is goddamned Mayor you idiot. Every fucking cop in the state is probably looking for me right now.”
Her head jerked backward, and her jaw clenched as her neck began to stretch. A nasal whine came from her nose amid the sound of her choking.
“Bring her back,” I demanded, whipping around to face Helen. “Now.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “I think so. Felicity, return.”
My wife’s head instantly fell forward then began to slowly tilt back upward. Her chest rose with a deep breath
