Under the Skin (21 page)
Authors: Vicki Lane
Seeing our concerned expressions, Joss reached up to touch the heavy bandage that covered much of the right side of his head. “It’s not as bad as it looks. I was in a car accident a few days ago and I’m still feeling a little banged-up. I made them let me out of the hospital though. I’ve been told that this workshop will be life-changing for me and I don’t want to miss a minute of it. But I keep having these blackout moments, where I forget where I am and what I’m doing—that’s why I was late last night and again this morning.”
He applied himself to his food and Gloria and I exchanged a glance.
“Are you sure you’re going to be up to all the activities,
Joss?” Gloria’s voice was unexpectedly soft. “We’re supposed to go outside in a few minutes for the trust-building session. Do you think—”
Our tablemate paused, his fork hovering in midair, and stared at my sister as if memorizing her features. “You’re … Gloria, right? All those names last night, I …”
His unabashed scrutiny of her face continued and I saw her look down before answering “Yes, I’m Gloria and this is my sister Elizabeth. And we know you’re Joss. But seriously, do you think—”
His dark eyes seemed to blur momentarily. “I think this session is necessary. I need very badly to learn to trust. I’ve needed it all my life—to trust and be trusted. Will
you
trust me, Gloria?”
The way he looked at her made me a little uneasy. A hungry look. I studied him covertly. What age was this Joss, anyway? Late twenties or early thirties would be my best guess but he was just so young-looking. Far too young to pique Gloria’s interest, I thought; she’s old enough to be his mother.
“Trust is an essential element in a gathering like this. We must all feel the freedom to ask questions long unasked, to speak truths long unspoken. We meet as strangers but we must forge a bond so that we can make use of the united energies of the group. Our success will depend on this bond.”
We ten
Seekers
, as Giles referred to us, were gathered in a loose circle on the green lawn in front of the inn, listening to his explanation of the so-called trust-building exercises that would precede our psychical explorations. I was trying to pay attention but the view of the mountains and the perfection of the colorful flowerbeds at the edge of the yard were far more compelling to me than
the idea of forging some hypothetical bond with this group.
My mind wandered as I studied the flowers and Giles’s voice seemed to segue into the sleepy buzzing of the bees that were working the early blooms.
Trust … buzz, buzz … group bonds, buzz, buzz … trust …
Trust. The absolute core necessity in a relationship—not sex, not wit, not income, not usefulness, but trust. The bone-deep knowledge that a person is what they seem, will
continue
to be what they seem. If a person—
If Phillip—
“Lizzy!”
A sharp elbow in my side and Gloria’s hiss in my ear brought me back to the here and now and Giles’s soft voice.
“… so we’ll begin with simple eye and hand contact. You may be surprised at your reactions to this basic exercise. I’d like you to take the hands of the person opposite, look into his or her eyes, and count to sixty. If you need to blink, that’s fine, but don’t look away. Len and I will start around the circle, with me moving to the right and Len to the left …”
What followed was a stately promenade of Seekers as the circle turned itself inside out and each of us gazed into ten pairs of eyes, one after another. Dark eyes, gray eyes, all shades of blue eyes, turquoise eyes (Gloria had worn her tinted contacts), and hazel.
I was surprised at how amazingly personal it felt, how difficult it was not to look away—and how very long sixty seconds could be. When at last I’d faced them all and held hands—soft, calloused, dry, clammy, warm, or icy—with each of them, it was true, I was more ready to trust any one of them simply by the fact of having shared that interminable minute. Even odd Xan, from whom I’d expected an impersonal and clinical contact, seemed more likable now as he blushed slightly and I felt his hands tremble in mine.
Giles put us though a series of these trust-building exercises. We led and were led blindfolded about the lawn; we made our way, blindfolded again, through a “minefield” of paper cups, no longer led but responding to our seeing partner’s spoken directions. It was interesting to see how difficult it was to direct—how aware of your partner’s gait and response time you had to be—and how very tiring it was to give your complete attention to the task.
There were more exercises and the day grew warmer. We were all glad when Giles called a halt and suggested that we return to the covered porch where water and lemonade would be waiting.
“And in the interval before lunch,” he said, leading our little gaggle of Seekers back to the welcome shade, “I’ll talk a bit about the multidimensional universe and astral spirits.”
I sipped at the tall glass of fresh lemonade and drew a spiral on the bedewed glass. The trust exercises had been one thing; now, I was being challenged to absorb a mass of Spiritualist information of the sort that my nephew Ben termed New Age shit. But I had promised myself to approach this weekend with an open mind for my sister’s sake. Okay, then, I’d make an effort to understand this New Age … stuff.
The multidimensional universe, according to Giles, who spoke of it with the familiarity of a frequent flyer, was composed of various planes, all of different densities and vibrating at different rates. The first plane, he informed us, is the physical.
“This,” he waved his hand to encompass our surroundings, “ ‘this goodly frame the earth,’ as Hamlet calls it, is of the densest matter and accordingly, it vibrates at the slowest rate. Beyond the physical plane lie the various levels of the astral plane and it is there that
the astral spirits we hope to communicate with have their being.”
As Giles explained it—“… and this is just a construct, mind you; these concepts are more easily grasped with a map of sorts …”—we would be attempting to communicate with spirits who had left the earthly plane—died, in other words—and moved on to the astral plane.
One of the astral planes, that is. According to Giles, there are three—high, middle, and low, with multiple levels within each. These astral planes act as a buffer zone between the dark earthly plane and the realms of celestial light and mental-causal inspiration.
Or something like that. I was trying hard to follow his explanation and not roll my eyes. As he spoke, I began to visualize a three-layer cake, sitting on an ugly lumpy cake platter (the physical plane). The bottom (and somewhat soggy) layer of the cake was the lowest astral plane, where the unenlightened (unen
light
ened, as Giles put it) went after “passing over” (the words
death
and
dying
being somehow taboo). These dark spirits on the bottom layer had been unable to make a good transition from life—in fact, they might not even realize that they had died and, in consequence, might keep trying to return to Earth. Ghosts, in other words.
The middle layer—er, plane—was described as a rather pleasant place where most spirits go for R & R before moving on up. A kind of Earth with all the bad parts left out. It sounded like my sort of place and I hoped that my vibrations matched it.
The thing about vibrations, here again, as Giles described it, is pretty much like Karma. Or the biblical
As ye sow, so shall ye reap
. During life, a person’s thoughts and beliefs determine their vibratory rate: pride, anger, wrath, and all the other Seven Deadly Sins, for example,
are low-vibration thoughts while love and spirituality yield very high vibrations.
“And, just as the lowest astral plane is similar to Hell or Purgatory, the highest would be akin to the Christian Heaven. Many Spiritualists call this Summerland. It is somewhere within these planes that we shall seek the spirits …”
I looked around the group. Everyone was rapt—some openmouthed and wide-eyed, others nodding in agreement as if this was familiar ground to them. Gloria, her eyes alight, leaned forward. Her hands were palm to palm, fingertips at her lips. I could see that she was clasping the little locket she had shown me the night before. A tiny gold heart and inside, where a picture ordinarily would be, a wisp of dark hair. Engraved on the other side in minuscule letters was the simple inscription:
Dana—7/28/73—Always, Mama
.
Dana, the name she’d given that long-ago stillborn baby—the baby she longed so urgently to reach this weekend.
The DeVine Sisters
May 11, 1887
“I won’t! I tell you, I won’t! Give her the money back! Tell her anything … say her Julia’s busy on the other plane, playing with her horrid little dog; tell her I’m dead; tell her—”
The torrent of protest ceased abruptly and Dorothea fell back on the divan. The smartly administered slap had shocked her into silence and she curled up on the cushions, one hand to her stinging cheek. Her beautiful eyes brimmed with tears as she looked up at her attacker
.
“Theo, you needn’t have—”
Theodora gazed down at her sister in disgust. Then she turned and paced to the window where she put aside the heavy drapes and leaned her forehead against the glass. “Don’t you understand, Doe,” she said, her voice weary, “that our finances are not such that we can turn away clients? You saw Murchinson’s letter. He has no more engagements for us. And when the month—”
“Oh yes, I saw Murchinson’s letter … yes, and that dreadful newspaper story!” Dorothea’s voice was low but urgent. “Theo, don’t
you
understand? It’s
I
who am responsible for that poor mother’s self-destruction. How can I, after that, carry on with this … another deception?
I’d always felt that I was bringing comfort, some assurance … but now, after this fiasco—”
The woman on the divan buried her face in the cushions and gave way to racking sobs. Her sister waited at the window till the fit had passed. At last, when Dorothea had subsided into sniffling hiccups, Theodora came and sat beside her, taking her sister into her arms and murmuring soothing words
.
“Doe, Doe … it wasn’t your fault. The Waverly woman was quite unbalanced … We all remarked upon it at the time. Of course it’s regrettable that she—But think of all the mothers to whom you
have
brought comfort … women who now carry the precious memory of a last touch, a sweet adieu, and the knowledge of their beloved child’s perfect happiness in that joyous land beyond the veil …”
Theodora stroked her sister’s hair as she spoke. The honeyed words ran on and little by little Dorothea grew calm
.
“I
have
helped those poor women; I
know
I have. I couldn’t bear to think I should be so wicked as to play upon their sorrow and all for the money. Bless you, Theo, for reminding me … but, oh
, need
I see Julia’s mother today? Pray, put Mrs. Farnsworth off till tomorrow or the next day. I’ll be stronger then …”
There was the rattle of a key in the lock
.
“Well, my dears, we have a new prospect.” Lorenzo DeVine pulled off his gloves and dropped them into the hat he’d just placed with his walking stick on the lunette table by the entry. “Mrs. Farnsworth has been singing your praises, Doe, and she has a young friend who is eager for a sitting. A Miss Cochrane, from Pittsburgh. You may have seen her about—dark hair in a fringe, a decided jaw, and determined eyebrows. Not one of these shrinking southern belles but a forthright little Yankee—a girl after my own heart, by damn.”
Smiling at some recent memory, he took a seat, crossed his legs, then fixed Dorothea with a stern gaze. “Has she come to her senses, Theo?”
The afternoon was warm and the two young women strolling about the spacious grounds bent their course past the croquet court where a lively game was in progress, making their leisurely way toward a little clump of trees and rocks
.
“Shall we wander through these curious stone formations, Miss Cochrane? The shade would be agreeable—don’t you find the sun rather warm even with a parasol?”
The keen eyes under the heavy fringe of dark hair peered at the narrow path. “Why, that would be most pleasant, Miss DeVine. I’ve been wild to take a look at these queer rocks—the porter told me they had something to do with the Red Indians who once dwelt here.”
The two paced along the path, exclaiming at the oddness of the shapes of the stones. Miss Cochrane hinted at the unspeakable savage rituals that these same rocks might have witnessed then stopped her ready flow of speculation on seeing her companion’s look of distress
.
“Oh! My dear Miss DeVine! Pray, forgive me for running on in such an unladylike manner! I’d forgotten that one who is in daily contact with the mysteries beyond the veil is apt to be unduly sensitive … You look a little faint; would you rather we returned to the hotel?”
Theodora forced a smile. “Not at all. It’s a touch of the sun and, if you’ll forgive my mentioning it, my sister laced me a bit too tightly this morning. Perhaps if we sat on that bench just there in the open area …”
They settled themselves on the bench, a fantastic composition of twisted rhododendron limbs, and Miss Cochrane insisted on applying her little bottle of smelling salts to Theodora’s nose
.
“I always carry it,” she explained, returning the useful item to her reticule. “If only I had my
eau de cologne
with me to put on your wrists; it’s wonderfully refreshing.”
Laughing now, Theodora assured her friend that she was quite recovered. “But how is it you are so well prepared? Are you here in attendance upon an elderly parent? An invalid aunt?”
Now it was the other’s turn to grow quiet. Her lively expression slackened and she turned her head away for a moment before replying, “No, alas, I’m here alone. My darling mother passed away this spring. I was with her almost constantly during the last months of her life. She was quite ill and couldn’t bear for anyone but me to attend her. By the time of her … blessed release, I was badly run down and Papa insisted I try the Mountain Park’s rest cure for a month. He puts much faith in the mountain air and the mineral waters.”
Theodora reached over and patted her new friend’s hand. “My dear Miss Cochrane, Renzo—my brother—said that you were hoping to speak with a loved one but I had no idea your bereavement was so recent. I am so sorry, my dear …”
Miss Cochrane pulled a dainty handkerchief from her sleeve and patted her eyes. “It was most kind of your brother to introduce us. I feel as if I’ve found a real friend in you. Won’t you call me Liza Jane, the way they used to … at home?”
“Her mother suffered terribly toward the end. A cancer in the breast, a brutal operation, a prolonged period of partial recovery, and then a return of the growth in the other breast. The poor woman couldn’t bear the thought of going under the knife again. She was kept under morphia much of the time but nevertheless her suffering was horrendous. Miss Cochrane has dabbled
in Spiritualism and is much concerned to think that her dear mother may be trapped on the lower plane. There have been rapping sounds in the room where she died and the dead woman’s wardrobe door often is found open in the morning when it was firmly shut the night before. Miss Cochrane—or Liza Jane as the family calls her—also mentioned a cold draft …”
Theodora paused in her brushing of Dorothea’s luxuriant mane. “Are you getting all of this, Doe?”
Her sister didn’t look up from her notebook but her pen continued to scratch. “… family pet name, Liza Jane … rapping, wardrobe door, cold draft. Do go on brushing, Theo; that was never a hundred strokes.”
NELLIE BLY
from
ONE HUNDRED AND ONE WOMEN WHO
MADE A DIFFERENCE
Elizabeth Jane Cochran, who would later become Nellie Bly, intrepid investigative journalist, was born May 5, 1864, in Cochran’s Mills, Pennsylvania. Her father’s death when she was only six and her mother’s subsequent marriage to an abusive man may have sparked her later interest in investigating situations where women were at risk.
Known at home by the nickname “Pink” due to her childhood fondness for the color, as a teenager Elizabeth Jane added an “e” to the family name, becoming Elizabeth Jane Cochrane.
When the family (her mother now divorced) moved to Pittsburgh in 1880, Elizabeth Jane wrote an angry letter to the editor of
The Pittsburgh Dispatch
in response to a sexist column. The editor was so impressed by her language that he offered her a position at the newspaper. It was here that she assumed the pseudonym Nellie Bly and launched into a series of investigative articles on female factory workers. When she was reassigned to the women’s pages to write on gardening, fashion, and society, on her own initiative, at twenty-one, she traveled to Mexico as a foreign correspondent. After six months, she ran afoul of the dictatorship and, threatened with arrest, returned to Pittsburgh, where she was assigned to report on the theater and the arts.
She left
The Pittsburgh Dispatch
in 1887 and four months later took an undercover assignment for Joseph Pulitzer’s
New York World
. Her
Ten Days in a Mad-House
, a firsthand account of the brutal conditions in the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island, was published in September, 1887 …