“Okay, how?” Jennifer asked. “Tell me what happened with you. That might help me understand what’s going on with me.”
“Well, about three years ago, at two different times within a two-month span, I had very close physical sightings of Dance’s spaceship here over New York City. What I didn’t understand then was that that was his way of signaling me, sort of tapping my subconscious memory. But it wasn’t until my experience in Central Park—the one that was written about in the Times—that I really began to investigate. I did all sorts of research into metaphysical theories, and eventually I came across ideas on mediumship.”
“Then I met several mediums, and one of the entities who came to those meetings offered to teach anyone who was interested how to channel. Even then I didn’t think I would devote my life to channeling. I was working as an editor at Redhook magazine. I had a career. I had a boyfriend who I was living with, and who I thought I loved. I was happy. Or thought I was.”
“But it was in that class, in a receptive state, under the guidance of the other entity, that Dance made the telepathic connection. And as soon as he did, the memory of that previous agreement came back to me: who he was, who I was, what the ship sightings and the experience in Central Park had meant. All of this that had been blocked out of my consciousness came back to me.”
She smiled over at Jennifer. Now it was dark in the room, and the firelight cast their shadows against the far wall of the apartment.
“When I saw you in the doorway, I knew,” Phoebe went on softly. “I knew that you had had a similar experience. The only difference is that the entity you’re channeling is from the past, and Dance is from the future.”
“You mean he tells you what’s going to happen a hundred years from now?”
Phoebe shook her head. “Dance isn’t of this planet—he’s an extraterrestrial, which makes him different. Most channels—like Kathy Dart—allow discarded consciousnesses, which have been alive and no longer are, to come into their bodies. Those consciousnesses have no physical entity, but Dance does—it’s just not like ours. His is an extraterrestrial consciousness, and he and I are linked telepathically.”
“Why is he here? Why is he doing this to you?”
Phoebe shrugged. “I’m not sure, really. I think he is coming through now to assist us in learning that we have the answers we need, to live the lives we want to live.”
“He does not appear physically, because he wants us to focus on the message rather than the messenger, which is where we’d focus, of course, if we saw this little green man walking around.” She laughed. “Dance is channeling through me so the message will stand on its own. And we can decide whether the message works for us or not.”
“What he has to share in no way implies that he thinks his world is better than ours, just that he—they!—are different from us. They recognize that we are learning a lot, that we are beginning to explore things that are relatively new to our society.”
“Is his name really Dance?”
“No, they don’t have names in their society because they are telepathic. I call him Dance because that was what he seemed to be doing when I first saw him hovering over Central Park. He seemed to be dancing before my eyes.”
“But I’m not like you. No one is trying to speak through me. I just have these feelings, these weird, frightening experiences, and suddenly—”
“Because, Jennifer,” Phoebe continued, “you have been trapped inside your own logical, organized, institutional world, and your so-called ‘logic’ has kept you from the great wealth of knowledge within what we call the spiritual world.”
“There’s nothing strange about psychic ability. It’s simply survival. It’s how our minds work to keep us functioning in the world. The reason we can see is so that we don’t fall off a cliff. The reason we can taste is so that we don’t ingest poison. All of our senses are keyed to survival, including the psychic sense.”
“However, we know our physical senses. The mystical is what we do not know. We have to surrender to this experience and enter into it.”
“I guess that’s my problem. I’m afraid to surrender to the mystical world,” Jennifer admitted.
Phoebe nodded. “You know, Einstein used to get up every morning and say that he didn’t know anything. He believed that everything he knew could be disproven at any time. He wanted to treat his mind like a piece of blank paper. Let me experience! Let me learn all over again! That’s what the New Age philosophy is all about.”
Phoebe sat up straight. One leg was pulled up underneath herself, the other sticking straight out. Using her long, thin fingers to tick off the names, she listed the great mediums from history.
“Joan of Arc heard voices telling her to go to the king of France. She was then thirteen years old. Joseph Karo, a fifteenth-century Talmudic scholar, channeled a source called ‘maggid’. Saint Teresa of Avila and Saint John of the Cross, both Christian mystics, were channelers. Joseph Smith channeled an angel named Moroni and, based on what the angel said, took his people to the promised land and founded the Mormon church. The list is endless.”
“But I can’t—”
“And didn’t you just tell me you were suddenly able to run thirteen miles after you saw Kathy Dart?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Jennifer shook her head and stared into the blazing fire. “I don’t know anything,” she whispered.
“Yes, you do. You know everything, and now you’re getting a glimpse of what the world as a whole has to offer. It’s frightening to realize your true potential. No one can blame you for not going forward, for saying: That’s enough. I’m comfortable. I’m happy. But are you really happy with the limits of rational thought? Jennifer, give yourself a chance at least to experience life.”
“How do I know it’s true? How do I know you’re to be trusted?”
“Begin with yourself. Trust yourself first. Ask yourself why you are feeling these emotions.”
“I don’t want to do this!” Jennifer interrupted. “Don’t you understand? I don’t want to be a channel! I don’t want anyone, or anything, to take me over, to use my body. I want it to stop!” Again Jennifer kept herself from saying more, from telling Phoebe how she killed, once she was seized with the brutal power.
Phoebe kept silent. She picked up one of the fire irons and poked at the burning logs till the dry wood sparked and hissed into a burst of sudden flame.
“What is it?” Jennifer asked, realizing the woman had more to say.
“I’m not sure there is anything you can do,” Phoebe said softly, then looked up at Jennifer. The sweet smile was gone from her face. “This entity wants to be heard. He, or she, wants to be channeled through your body, and I’m afraid there’s nothing you can do to stop it. Just as I could not stop Dance from coming to this world to teach, you cannot stop your entity. The spirit’s time has come, Jennifer, and you have been selected to serve its needs in this lifetime.”
Jennifer looked away and stared at the fire. Okay, she thought, but Phoebe’s Dance had come to teach. Her entity, Jennifer now realized, had come to kill.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
JENNIFER FLUNG HER ARM out and hit the bedside lamp, knocking it to the floor. The phone was ringing. As she reached for it, she knocked the receiver off the hook. The illuminated dial of her digital clock read 5:24 a.m.
She picked the phone up from the floor and said angrily into the receiver, “This better be good.” But the line went dead.
“Shit!” She slammed down the receiver. Fully awake now, she sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed her eyes. The heat was coming on in the building, and the steam pipes clanged. She knew she wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep. Telephone calls in the middle of the night always made her think someone was watching from an apartment across the street or from a darkened phone booth at the corner.