Greely's Cove (19 page)

“He was nineteen years old and completely dependent on his family. He had never spoken a coherent word, never laughed or smiled, nor so much as shown recognition of a family member. He could neither dress himself nor attend to his sanitary needs, and at any given moment he would shriek meaninglessly at the top of his lungs, flailing his arms and feet, breaking furniture and such, frightening everyone around him. Like you and your wife, Mr. Trosper, his parents had consulted dozens of physicians and therapists, only to hear that the case was utterly hopeless. Most recommended institutionalization, of course.” Carl felt a little stab of guilt. Thank God Lorna had resisted his arguments for sending Jeremy to an institution. He listened with his head lowered as Craslowe went on.

“We effected his recovery through what we call channeled hypnotherapy, as we did with Jeremy. In all honesty, once the process was under way, the young man cured himself, just as Jeremy did. As is typical in such cases, we discovered that the subconscious had been assimilating knowledge throughout his entire life, that he actually
did
know how to speak and behave like a normal human being. All that was needed was to open the door through which this knowledge could flow.

“Today he is a productive laborer in a factory. He’s learning to read, which should enable him to seek more responsible jobs in the future. His father wrote recently with news that he’s even met a young woman and that they plan to marry.”

Lindsay seemed fascinated. “Are you saying that Jeremy has been subconsciously learning things all his life, and that these things are just now coming out?”

“Precisely,” said the doctor, “although Jeremy’s case is extraordinary in one respect: The boy is probably an actual genius. His powers of deductive reasoning are truly enormous. I suspect that his subconscious mind, during the period of his emotional and mental disability, compensated for its lack of expression through intense intellectual growth, and that today—given the opportunity to vent itself at last—is doing so and is manifesting a prodigy. As you well know, the boy has taught himself to read in just under six months, and he is reading on a level that most adults would consider difficult. I find it all very exciting and a wonderful way to end a long, long career.”

“But what went wrong in the first place?” asked Carl. “Why wasn’t Jeremy able to relate to the world like other kids? This door in the mind, you spoke of: Why wasn’t it open from the moment he was born?”

The doctor delivered his answer with sacerdotal reverence, drawing out his words and pausing occasionally in order to find those suitable for laymen’s ears. He spoke of “baseline consciousness,” that level of awareness at which every person begins life. Not all children begin at the same level, he said. Some, like Jeremy, start life at a level that is barely conscious at all, and they do not progress to higher ones in the normal way.

Between the worlds of conscious mind and physical behavior lies a mental “frontier,” which, wrote a neurosurgeon named Wilder Penfield in 1943, lies on the upper midsurface of each cerebral hemisphere of the brain—the “supplementary motor area,” the master control center of all voluntary action. In Jeremy’s case, Craslowe explained, the frontier was especially wide and difficult to cross, meaning that his intellect had virtually no control over his behavior.

“Even so,” said Craslowe, “he had perfectly functioning senses. He could see and hear normally. He could touch and taste and smell. Through the senses, his subconscious intellect gathered knowledge of the world around him.”

And this, thought Carl, explained how Jeremy remembered him beardless and without tinges of gray at the temples, even though they had not been together since long before Jeremy’s recovery.

“Jeremy’s problem was that he suffered a chronically altered state of consciousness, the reason for which we lack the means of knowing,” said the doctor. “We simply used hypnotherapy to activate the proper neural events in his brain, then relied on his subconscious intellect to sort out the problem of controlling his actions and behavior.”

“I see,” said Carl, not quite honestly. “All this through hypnosis. I wonder why none of the American doctors suggested it.”

“This sort of application is not highly regarded in the United States,” answered Craslowe. “Oh, you’ll find hypnosis being used by clinicians here and there to help people stop smoking or to root out the causes of various neuroses and psychoses, but seldom as an actual therapy. Most consider it the realm of nightclub entertainers, I’m afraid, even though it was used quite successfully as a surgical anesthetic here and in Europe during the nineteenth century. Physicians in India used it in this manner for hundreds of years before that.”

“Then the American medical world should hear about Jeremy’s case,” suggested Lindsay. “Maybe it isn’t a miracle, Doctor, but it’s certainly a dramatic success. Who knows how many other people could be helped by the knowledge?”

Craslowe’s liquid eyes widened and for the briefest moment seemed to become dimly luminous from within, which Carl assumed was a trick of the firelight. A burning log snapped loudly, and the air moved in a vague whisper.

“I fully intend to publicize this case, Miss Moreland, but in due time,” replied the doctor evenly. “I’ll grant that Jeremy’s recovery has been dramatic, but there is yet more work to do. His therapy should continue for at least another year, possibly two, just to ensure that his mental processes do not lapse back into their old rut. They are like muscles that have been paralyzed for years. They require a regimen of proper therapy and exercise in order to develop normally. For this reason I intend to withhold publication of the case until we can be totally certain of long-term recovery. I hope that I can count on both of you to cooperate in this regard.”

“We’ve agreed,” said Carl, “that his therapy should continue for as long as you say.”

“Good,” said Craslowe. “And for my own humble purposes, I would beg you not to spread word of this case. You can be assured that I will publicize it at the appropriate time through the proper professional channels. Until then I would prefer not to be the focus of media attention and all the attendant speculation.” He smiled in a way that Carl found unsettling. “Besides, I’m not at all good with reporters.”

“I think we can agree to that,” said Carl, forcing himself to ignore a tiny warning bell in the back of his mind. “But I’m curious about something else, Doctor: Jeremy seems to have an accent that comes and goes. I wonder—”

“Nothing to worry over, Mr. Trosper. The accent is English—rather like my own, I expect, since my voice has been the only one he’s heard while under hypnosis. It’s only natural that he would subconsciously imitate it, just as the average two-year-old imitates the speech of his parents. There’s no doubt at all that he’ll grow out of it as time goes on, especially after therapy is discontinued. By the time he reaches maturity, he’ll sound exactly like a red-blooded American lad, and not at all like a crusty old Oxford professor, I can assure you.”

Lindsay and Carl joined in a quiet little laugh that brightened the heavy atmosphere a shade.

Carl asked whether he, as a parent, should take any special measures in raising the boy, in supervising and nurturing him, and on this point Craslowe was forceful.

“None at all, Mr. Trosper. In every sense Jeremy’s everyday life should be totally normal. In fact, he’s fully capable of handling more freedom than the average child of his age, given his intellectual endowment. It’s imperative that he have the latitude to explore and experience the world on his own terms, for he’s been deprived of the usual learning experiences of early childhood. He desperately needs the exercise of managing his own behavior and organizing his own responses to the situations of day-to-day living.”

And what about schooling? Carl wanted to know.

The doctor recommended that Jeremy be kept out of school for at least six months. Time would be needed for testing to determine his academic level. Quite conceivably, he would need some special instruction. Despite his intellectual brilliance, he lacked much of the fundamental knowledge needed to mesh successfully with a formal curriculum. For the time being, Jeremy should be allowed to study on his own.

“I’ve already lent him many books,” said Craslowe, “and he seems to enjoy them. A structured academic program is not a matter of pressing concern at this moment.”

So that was where Jeremy had gotten the mountain of books in his bedroom, thought Carl. “Well,” he said after a brief silence, “I think you’ve answered most of my questions. Unless Lindsay has some more...” Carl had developed an itch to leave this house, to be free of the brooding atmosphere that seemed to soak through his pores and stir up his nerve endings.

Lindsay had no more questions, and her taut face suggested that she too was anxious to leave.

“Well then,” said Craslowe, gathering himself to rise out of his leather chair, “I’ll assume that we’ll carry forward the therapy as we have been doing since the beginning—twice a week, one o’clock on Tuesdays and Fridays.”

As they all stood up, Carl caught a fleeting glimpse of the doctor’s hands, which had remained out of sight throughout the entire interview. For the briefest moment, they were visible while en route to the small of Craslowe’s back, where he clasped them away from view. Carl thought he saw dark velvet gloves. Maybe it was another trick of the dancing firelight that suggested an outlandish deformity, an abnormally long and snakelike finger. Carl’s flesh grew prickly and cold, and he was glad that Craslowe did not offer to shake hands.

“Is this an appropriate time to make arrangements for payment?” asked Lindsay. “I know that Carl will be against this, but I’d like to help with the fees.”

“Oh, I see that your sister didn’t tell you,” said the doctor. “I’m not charging for my services in this case. Having heard about Jeremy shortly after arriving here, I offered my help gratis. My reward has been the joy of having had a hand in Jeremy’s rebirth as a normal human being, not to mention the intellectual fulfillment of success. Besides, I’ve always believed that no man stands as tall as when he stoops to help a child.”

The double doors swung open, and the sad-faced Mrs. Pauling appeared with Carl’s and Lindsay’s coats.

Somehow, Mitch Nistler got through the day. If old man Kronmiller noticed that his assistant embalmer had shown up late for work again, he gave no clue of it, and Mitch was spared yet another harangue about his overall worthlessness.

Around midmorning a death call came in, so Mitch and another employee were dispatched in a hearse to bring the body in for embalming. Throughout most of the afternoon, he assisted his boss in the process of preparing and dressing the body for viewing.

When quitting time came at last, Mitch threw on his weather-beaten anorak and, grimacing against the cold rain, jogged across the rear parking lot of the Chapel of the Cove to his battered old El Camino. Once behind the wheel, he paused only long enough to light a cigarette and curse his worn windshield wipers, which merely channeled the water into distorting streaks on the glass. Seconds later he was on Sockeye Drive, headed not for Liquid Larry’s, which was his nightly custom, but in the opposite direction, propelled by a craving far greater than his thirst for alcohol.

With one hand on the wheel, he rummaged through a clutter of wadded hamburger wrappers, empty cigarette packs, and beer cans on the seat next to him, until finding a much-used cassette. He shoved it into the stereo on the dash. The music of Twisted Sister, a raucous heavy-metal band, shrieked from the cheap speakers behind the seat. The driving bass tones thumped in his chest, and he began to feel vaguely good about things for the first time that day. Then the music died and the sick old cassette player coughed out the tape by the yard, issuing unnerving clicks and squeals.

“Fuck a bald-headed duck!” he spat, smacking the dashboard with the bottom side of his fist, killing the machine for good. The death of the music brought an aching quiet that left room in his mind for a legion of fears. Chief among them was Jeremy Trosper. How the boy had gotten into his house no longer mattered. Of far greater concern was
why.
Mitch wracked his brain for some explanation of how Jeremy could have know about the theft of his mother’s corpse, or how he even could have known where Mitch lived.

Why would a kid track down the thief of his mother’s body, and then content himself with protecting the thief’s secret, as he had promised to do, instead of going immediately to the police and reporting the outrage? And wasn’t this the same kid who everyone knew was a drooling, screaming basket case?

The memory of Jeremy’s smooth, cultured voice and the evil glow in his hazel eyes gave Mitch gooseflesh. Crawling in his belly was the dread that he had become a helpless puppet who was dancing at the hand of some fiendish puppeteer, performing a play that he could never hope to understand.

Who owns Mitch Nistler?

He turned off Sockeye Drive, and his headlight beams flitted and jounced through the dark trees alongside Old Home Road, the muddy forest trail near which stood his pathetic little house, separate and apart from the mainstream of Greely’s Cove. A smattering of decrepit clapboard shacks stood in clearings along the road, most of them deserted and overgrown with Scotch broom and holly. His was the third house off Sockeye Drive.

Mitch’s breath caught like a chicken bone in his throat when he saw yellow light streaming through the grungy windows of his living room. Next to his rickety front porch sat a fat Chevy Blazer with bulging tires and gleaming roll bars, meaning that Corley the Cannibal Strecker had come to call. Disliking locked doors and lacking a scintilla of respect for anyone’s privacy, Cannibal had simply let himself in, probably with a crowbar.

Mitch parked the El Camino and forced himself to walk into his own home, cringing at the thought of meeting Strecker and his horror-movie girlfriend again. As he gripped the broken handle of his front door, he prayed that Cannibal had not ventured upstairs.

“So, what do you think of the place, Marvelous Mitch?” asked Cannibal Strecker, sweeping a hammy hand through the air, indicating the shabby room, the ramshackle house, and presumably everything else in this dark corner of the woods. “I admit it’s no Four Seasons, but it ain’t a hell of a lot worse than the dump you live in, right?”