“So let me see if I understand, Mister Gant,” the county M.E. said, summing up the explanation I’d just tried to give her. “What you’re telling me is that you somehow psychically connect with the immortal soul of the deceased and then proceed to conduct a pseudo-forensic interview about the crime. Correct?”
“Close, but not exactly.” I scrunched my face and gave my head a tentative sideways dip. My anxiety was competing with everything else for my undivided attention, not to mention that I was already struggling to explain a nebulous concept to someone who was likely a skeptic. So, getting my point across definitely wasn’t coming easy for me this morning. I shrugged and told her, “Something of that sort would be ideal, of course, but I’m afraid it just doesn’t happen that way.”
“Then how does it happen?”
“Well, you were right about the connection part. But once that’s done, I really just turn into an observer. What I see generally doesn’t make much sense, but I watch anyway and try to remember whatever I can. Usually that’s fairly easy. It’s the forgetting that I have problems with. But anyway, I also listen… And then afterwards, when it’s over, it all comes down to me trying to shove a bunch of really bizarre puzzle pieces together.
“If it works the way it’s supposed to, I pick up enough clues to actually make them fit and form at least a partial picture. And, if I’m lucky, that picture fills in some blanks for the police, which in turn helps solve the crime.”
“You make it sound fairly simple.”
“Believe me, it isn’t. I wish it was.”
“So you still get these clues from the spirit of the deceased though, right?”
“Sometimes yes. Other times…well…it’s pretty hard to explain, but the victim definitely plays a role in it, yes.”
“So you’re saying it’s a ‘had to be there’ kind of thing,” Doctor Kingston said, boiling down the ambiguity of my answer to a simple phrase. However, her tone didn’t sound at all mocking, which was a bit of a surprise given some of my previous experiences, in particular with persons of the scientific ilk.
I nodded. “Yeah, pretty much.”
“I see,” she replied, leaning back in her chair. A crease formed across her forehead, and it was obvious that she was carefully digesting everything I’d told her thus far. Finally she said, “So what if it doesn’t work like it’s supposed to?”
“Best case scenario, I just don’t get anything,” I told her.
“That implies there is also a worst case scenario,” she prompted.
I shrugged. “There always is with just about everything, isn’t there?”
“Can you give me an example?” Doctor Kingston asked.
Under the circumstances, I really didn’t want to start down that path. I was having enough trouble going along with this as it was. Dredging up the things that could go wrong certainly wouldn’t help.
I tried to circumvent the question while still reassuring her and at the same time myself. “It’s nothing that you would need to be concerned about.”
“But what about you?” she pressed.
I lied, not that I expected it to go unnoticed, but I gave it a shot anyway. “Not really.”
As expected, she looked at me with something akin to suspicion. “Are you absolutely certain about that?”
“I take it we’re coming back around to something you’ve heard?” I asked.
She acknowledged with a dip of her head. “Yes, I’ve been privy to a few stories.”
I shrugged. She obviously wasn’t going to let up, so I had no choice but to address her concern, like it or not. “Then maybe it would be easier for me to answer you if you share what you’ve heard,” I said. “Then I can tell you if it’s legitimate or unfounded.”
“All right then,” she said. “I’ve been told by an extremely reliable source that while doing this sort of thing you have experienced maladies ranging from violent seizures to an apparent cardiac arrest. Spontaneous hemorrhaging and the sudden appearance of stigmata-like wounds were also mentioned.”
I let out a heavy sigh in the wake of the comment. As the memories conjured by it began to overtake my brain, I muttered, “Well, unfortunately, I’m afraid I can’t deny any of that.”
“So then you can see my concern?” she pressed.
The question didn’t register. My attention had already taken a hard right turn and was now well off course, speeding headlong through a darkened tunnel of foreboding. I knew she had said something to me, but since the words didn’t connect, I simply grunted what I thought might be an appropriate response. “Yeah…”
“All of those things sound fairly serious to me. So for my own peace of mind, what I really need to know is if they are something that could possibly happen today if I were to allow you to go through with this?”
The question echoed past me as I stared through her at the wall. Again, the words were nothing more than noise rattling in my ears, with no meaning or reason.
The painful memories that were now assaulting me had already been in the back of my mind; they always were. However, I purposely kept them locked away. That tactic seemed to work for the most part, until someone would come along and manage to let them out, that is. Just like was happening right now.
With them now on the loose and running unchecked through the front of my brain, my anxiety received an unwanted boost that felt like it all but stopped my heart. I couldn’t keep myself from extrapolating the experiences and applying them to the current situation. Unfortunately, in each of these mental simulations, I was not the subject, Felicity was.
The hole in the pit of my stomach was growing. I could feel it expanding through my gut as the bile churned and gnawed around the edges.
I felt a thump against the back of my leg but ignored it. A moment later it came again, a bit harder. Through my self-imposed fog, I finally realized it was the toe of Felicity’s tennis shoe. She hadn’t assaulted me with a full-fledged kick, but the force of the second thud told me it wasn’t merely an accident either; it was definitely on purpose and meant to get my attention. I slowly glanced over at her and saw that she was staring at me with more than a little concern in her eyes.
“Rowan?” she said. “Are you okay then?”
Doctor Kingston was speaking almost simultaneously. “Mister Gant, is something wrong?”
“I’m… I’m sorry,” I stuttered in apology, turning back to her. “Sorry… Just… Ummm… What was the question again?”
She gave me a cautious stare and then paraphrased her earlier query, “Should I be concerned that you might experience some sort of life-threatening reaction if I let you go through with this?”
“Well…” I began with a heavy sigh. “I really don’t think it’s anything to worry about in this case…” I forced myself to say the words, even though I didn’t believe a single one of them myself.
“Are you certain?” she pressed. “No offense intended, but you don’t sound particularly convinced.”
I reached up and rubbed my forehead. The onslaught of images set loose by my unrestrained imagination was still ravaging my brain. And now, the endless loop of the vision depicting my battered and emaciated wife was playing over the top of them in vivid, contrasty hues. The acute distress they caused was consuming me in violent waves, and I could no longer maintain the calm charade.
“Mister Gant?”
“I’m sorry,” I told her, shaking my head. “I just… I just…”
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
“What?” I asked. I understood her words, but anything resembling a coherent response escaped me. I looked over at my wife then over to Ben. They were both staring at me with worried expressions.