“A dream,” his mother said, kissing him on both ears.
After a relatively cheery breakfast and warm good-byes at the school gate, her mood quickly reverted to unease. She was eager for her morning appointment with Barbara and headed straight uptown to arrive early.
Barbara’s apartment was one of the high-ceilinged gems hidden above Manhattan’s flower district, though only a handful of shops there still sold potted trees and orchids. Six floors up, with wood-paneled walls and tall, sun-filled windows, the apartment always reminded Caitlin of an old but beautifully restored ship. The impression was inevitable, given the number of intricate knots displayed around the room—in table legs, fabric runners, throw pillows, and various media framed and mounted on the walls. Barbara’s first career had been as a mathematician specializing in topology. Her friends and family had decided that knots were her thing, and despite the fact that it had been ten years since she’d changed professions, they continued to gift her display-worthy examples for her collection.
Barbara had a round, open face with a strongly pointed chin and sculpted eyebrows. But what everyone noticed first were her crystal blue eyes. If you stayed with them, they shone like hopeful, helpful lights.
The women embraced warmly at the door before Caitlin found the familiar comfort of the armchair across from Barbara’s. Concise and controlled, she then told her everything that had happened, from the first trance with Maanik to the “journeys” to Galderkhaan to Odilon’s energy to the strange woman on the train.
When she was finished, Barbara smiled warmly. “How many times did you rehearse that in your head?”
Caitlin laughed. “Twice on the way here. I wanted to give it to you as objectively as possible.”
“Well, you tipped the narrative into clinical. In your ten minutes left, are you prepared to tip back into the personal?”
Caitlin looked at her watch. “Yikes,” she said, suddenly feeling anxious that she wasn’t going to get what she needed before the session was over. She took a deep breath and pressed her back against the chair, uncrossed her feet so they were flat on the ground, and placed her hands cupped one inside the other on her lap. “Okay, doc. I’m ready.”
“All right, let’s start with something big and basic. Which concerns you most: the idea of new, expanded abilities—”
“Am I crazy to believe they’re even possible?” Caitlin blurted.
“I’m asking the questions,” Barbara reminded her.
“Sorry. Right.”
“Which concerns you most: the idea of expanded abilities, or the belief that Galderkhaan existed and in some way you might be linked to it?”
“Oh god, Barbara. Both. I feel—stupid. Really stupid. And afraid. The lady who runs into disaster scenes is cowering in a closet. Why aren’t I exhilarated? Why aren’t I… I don’t know. Taking charge? Writing a paper about it or…?”
“Didn’t you do that with Maanik and the others? Take charge?”
“Yes, but when it’s just me I can’t… think myself out of paralysis.”
“Is there something specific you are afraid of?”
“Oh yeah,” Caitlin said. “That with all the evidence that’s piling up—”
“Each scrap of which is still circumstantial or has an alternative explanation, as far as I can see—”
“Fine,” Caitlin said. “Fine. I’m still very afraid that everything I’ve experienced is real. I scared myself last night, Barbara. I told Ben unequivocally that I’d witnessed history that’s long gone. Not imagined it, not dreamed it, saw it. I was so sure. Yet even that doesn’t scare me as much as the fact that someone will find out and decide I’m losing my mind.”
“You aren’t,” Barbara assured her.
“I’m not so sure,” Caitlin said. “If we buy that I self-hypnotized at the United Nations, what if I’m doing that unwittingly, over and over, in small bites—on the subway, remembering people and places that may be fiction, imagining the cat brushing against people who aren’t there?”
“Cats were wiccan familiars for a reason,” Barbara said.
“What, you’re saying I’m a witch?” Caitlin laughed.
“No, no—I’m saying cats are unexpected little creatures. That there are explanations for everything, including unremembered dreams surfacing when you’re awake and post-traumatic stress triggered by people making strange gestures in your direction, like Maanik did.”
Caitlin sighed. “Maybe. Maybe. But what if what I’m doing, and the time I’m taking to do it, causes me to lose my job? What happens if the decision makers happen to see or hear and label me a quack?”
“And if you didn’t look at the negative? These experiences have been liberating. I see a change in you, Caitlin. What about Maanik and Gaelle and the other people you have helped and will continue to help?”
“I know, and maybe that’s ultimately what I’m afraid of,” Caitlin said. “That all my training goes out the window and… like I said, I become the crazy lady who does some weird semaphore thing with kids.”
Caitlin moved her arms willy-nilly but what was meant as a joke hit her in a very different way. It felt comfortable, like she was communicating something very personal.
“Let me take this in another direction,” Barbara said.
“Please do.”
“Are you afraid you’ll start having episodes like Maanik?”
“No,” Caitlin answered without hesitation. “This is different. I mean, I don’t feel in danger of causing physical damage to myself or anyone else. But taking this further—” She swallowed a lump in her throat, paused and breathed deeply. “For the sake of argument, whether this is real or imagined, what if I fail to recognize my reality anymore? The one I’m in with my son, and my work? What if I explore in here”—she said pointing to her head—“and I get to a place where I can’t go back to normal?”
“Again, you’re anticipating what may never occur,” Barbara said. “You’re creating the perfect storm for a self-fulfilling prophecy. Whatever is going on, might this just be a phase?”
“Jesus!”
Barbara started. “What?”
“I thought you said ‘aphasia,’ like I had a mental dysfunction.”
“Caitlin, I said ‘a… phase.’”
Caitlin fell silent and Barbara gave her the space to calm. She forced herself to breathe. “You know what’s sad? All this talk and thinking and heightened emotions and ‘powers.’ God, it might actually be easier if I were crazy. Easier for me to deal with, easier to fix.”
“I don’t agree at all,” Barbara said. “What’s more, in my professional opinion you are quite sane. And I think you know it. Which is not a bad thing,” Barbara pointed out. “You retain the capacity to be there for everyone who needs you. Focus on that. Stop playing with these ideas like they’re all loose teeth.”
“Easy for you to say. You don’t speak Galderkhaani.”
Barbara smiled strangely. “No, but I came close.”
Caitlin looked at her in shock. “Wait, when? How? What?”
“No. This is your session, not mine.”
“My session ended five minutes ago—I was watching the clock. What are you saying, Barbara? You can’t just let that drop.”
Barbara sighed and leaned back. She dropped her professional mask. “It was while I was doing postgrad at the University of Virginia. I agreed to a past-life regression for a neurobehavioral class.
“With about two dozen people as witnesses, I was hypnotized and led back to some time and place when I could make click consonants like the Xhosa people in South Africa, though I was speaking in a language no one recognized. I did that for about ten minutes, then came back through my own life—speaking English.”