“Don’t touch her. Don’t do anything. It’s incredible.
Sam stood only feet from her as she swayed once again, cradling her hands against her chest as if to ease their pain. Then, shivering uncontrollably, she fell to her knees. “William, don’t leave me. Oh, God, save my child,” she whispered brokenly. “Let someone come. Please…bring us…bring him…food. Please…I’m so cold…so cold…” Her voice trailed away to a sob and slowly she subsided onto the floor. “Oh, God…have mercy on…me.” Her fingers grasped convulsively at the rush matting that carpeted the room, and Sam stared in horror as the blood seeped from her hands onto the sisal, soaking into the fibers, congealing as she lay there emitting dry, convulsive sobs.
“Joanna? Joanna!” Cohen knelt awkwardly beside her, and, defying his own instructions, he laid his hand on her shoulder. “Joanna, lass, I want you to listen to me.” His face was compassionate as he touched her, lifting a strand of her heavy dark hair, gently stroking her cheek. “I want you to stop crying, do you hear me? Stop crying now and sit up, there’s a good girl.” His voice was calm, professionally confident as the two men watched her, but there was growing anxiety in his eyes. Slowly her sobs grew quieter and she lay still, the harsh rasping in her throat dying away. Cohen bent closer, his hand still on her shoulder. “Joanna.” Gently he shook her. “Joanna, are you hearing me? I want you to wake up. When I count three. Are you ready? One…two…three…”
Under his hand her head rolled sideways on the matting. Her eyes were open and unblinking, the pupils dilated. “
The panic in the man’s voice galvanized Sam into action. He dropped on his knees beside them, his fingers feeling rapidly for a pulse in the girl’s throat.
“Christ! There’s nothing there!”
“Joanna!” Cohen was shaking her now, his own face ashen. “Joanna! You must wake up, girl!” He calmed himself with a visible effort. “Listen to me. You are going to start to breathe now, slowly and calmly. Do you hear me? You are breathing now, slowly, and you are with William and you have both eaten. You are happy. You are warm. You are alive, Joanna!
Sam felt his throat constrict with panic. The girl’s wrist, limp between his fingers, had begun to grow cold. Her face had taken on a deathly pallor, her lips were turning gray.
“I’ll call for an ambulance.” Cohen’s voice had lost all its command. He sounded like an old man as he scrambled to his feet.
“No time.” Sam pushed the professor aside. “Kneel here, by her head, and give her mouth to mouth. Now! When I say so!” Crouched over the girl, he laid his ear to her chest. Then, the heel of one hand over the other, he began to massage her heart, counting methodically as he did so. For a moment Cohen did not move. Then he bent toward her mouth. Just as his lips touched hers Joanna drew an agonizing, gasping breath. Sam sat back, his fingers once more to her pulse, his eyes fixed on her face as her eyelids flickered. “Go on talking to her,” he said urgently under his breath, not taking his eyes from her face. Her color was beginning to return. His hands were once more on her ribs, gently feeling the slight flutter of returning life. One breath, then another; labored painful gulps of air. Gently Sam chafed her ice-cold hand, feeling the stickiness of her blood where it had dried on her fingers and over her palms. He stared down at the wounds. The cuts and grazes were real: lesions all around the fingernails and on the pads of the fingers, blisters and cuts on her palms, and a raw graze across one knuckle.
Cohen, making a supreme effort to sound calm, began to talk her slowly out of her trance. “That’s great, Joanna, good girl. You’re relaxed now and warm and happy. As soon as you feel strong enough I want you to open your eyes and look at me…That’s lovely…Good girl.”
Sam watched as she slowly opened her eyes. She seemed not to see the room nor the anxious men kneeling beside her on the floor. Her gaze was focused on the middle distance, her expression wiped smooth and blank. Cohen smiled with relief. “That’s it. Now, do you feel well enough to sit up?”
Gently he took her shoulders and raised her. “I am going to help you stand up so you can sit on the couch again.” He glanced at Sam, who nodded. Carefully the two men helped her to her feet and guided her across the room; as she lay down obediently Cohen covered her with the blanket. Her face was still drawn and pale as she laid her head on the pillow. She curled up defensively, but her breathing had become normal.
Cohen hooked his stool toward him with his toe, and, perching himself on it, he leaned forward and took one of her hands in his. “Now, Joanna, I want you to listen carefully. I am going to wake you up in a moment and when I do you will remember nothing of what has happened to you here today, do you understand? Nothing, until we come and ask you if you would like to be regressed another time. Then you will allow us to hypnotize you once more. Once you are in a trance again, you will begin to relive all the events leading up to this terrible time when you died. Do you understand me, Joanna?”
“You can’t do that.” Sam stared at him in horror. “Christ! You’re planting a time bomb in that girl’s mind!”
Cohen glared back. “We have to know who she is and what happened to her. We have to try to document it. We don’t even have a datefix-”
“Does that matter?” Sam tried to keep his voice calm. “For God’s sake! She nearly died!”
Cohen smiled gently. “She did die. For a moment. What a subject! I can build a whole new program around her. Those hands! I wonder what the poor woman can have been doing to injure her hands like that. No, Dr. Franklyn, I can’t leave it at that. I have to know what was happening to her, don’t you see? Hers could be the case that proves everything!” He stared down at her again, putting his hands lightly on her face, ignoring Sam’s protests. “Now, Joanna, my dear, you will wake up when I have counted to three and you will feel refreshed and happy and you will not think about what happened here today at all.” He glanced up at Sam. “Is her pulse normal now, Dr. Franklyn?” he asked coldly.
Sam stared at him. Then he took her hand, his fingers on her wrist. “Absolutely normal, Professor,” he said formally. “And her color is returning.”
“We’ll send her home now, then,” Cohen said. “I don’t want to risk any further trauma. You go with her and make sure she is all right. Her roommate is a technician at the labs here, that’s how we got her name for the tests. I’ll ask her to keep an eye on things too, to make sure there are no after-effects, though I’m sure there won’t be any.”
Sam walked over to the window, staring out at the snow as he tried to control his anger.
“There could well be after-effects. Death is a fairly debilitating experience physically,” he said with quiet sarcasm.
It was lost on Cohen, who shook his head. “The lass won’t remember a thing about it. We’ll give her a couple of days to rest, then I’ll have her back here.” His eyes gleamed with excitement behind the thick lenses. “Under more controlled conditions we’ll take her back to the same personality in the period prior to her death.” He pursed his lips, took a handkerchief out of his pocket, and wiped his forehead with it. “All right. Here we go. Joanna, do you hear me? One…two…three.”
Joanna lay still, looking from one to the other, dazed. Then she smiled shakily. “Sorry. Didn’t hypnosis work on me? In my heart of hearts I thought it probably wouldn’t.” She sat up and pushed back the blanket, swinging her feet to the floor. Abruptly she stopped and put her hands to her head.
Sam swallowed. “You did fine. Every result is an interesting result to us, remember.” He forced himself to smile, shuffling the papers on the table so that her notes were lost out of sight beneath the pile. The tape recorder caught his eye, the spools still turning, and he switched it off, unplugging it and coiling up the wire, not taking his eyes off her.
She stood up with an effort, her face still very pale, looking suddenly rather lost. “Don’t I get a cup of tea or anything, like a blood donor?” She laughed. She sounded strained; her voice was hoarse.
Cohen smiled. “You do indeed. I think Dr. Franklyn has it in mind to take you out to tea in style, my dear. It’s all part of the service here. To encourage you to return.” He stood up and went over to the door, lifting her anorak down from the hook. “We ask our volunteers to come to a second session, if they can, to establish the consistency of the results,” he said firmly.
“I see.” She looked doubtful as she slipped into the warm jacket and pulled the scarf around her neck. As she groped in the pocket for her gloves, she gave a sudden cry of pain. “My hands! What’s happened to them? There’s
