Tom was so rushed on Saturday morning—with the cat yowling to be fed, Francesca asking how many would be for lunch and dinner and did they want anything in particular, Sue telling him they were late, and Sanders nowhere to be found—he was sweating in his mad dash to get away by the time he started down the long driveway with Sue beside him.
“Why didn’t you tell me last night her flight got in so early?” Tom asked, panting and reaching for the water bottle in the cup-holder.
“Early?” Sue was clearly startled. “It’s past nine. You said going to the airport in the morning would be fine. We could have made other transport—”
“No, no, of course it’s fine.” He rolled down his window, blue cotton henley sticky against his back. “I just hadn’t realized it was—did you see Sanders this morning? When he got out of the shower, I thought he went down to breakfast, but I didn’t see him again.”
“He was in his office. And if you’re interested in where he is, maybe you should pay more attention to him.”
“What do you mean?” Tom laughed. “We don’t keep GPS on each other. I was just asking. I wasn’t even sure if he knew we left. Sorry nothing came up last night. So will ... um...?”
“Amanda?”
“Yes. Will she be able to help you?”
“She could. I doubt she will.”
Tom glanced sideways at her. “What?”
“Why would she help?”
“I thought that’s why she was coming here. But, also ... they’re not talking to you anymore, if that’s the word. So, someone else...?”
“I explained that yesterday. Weren’t you listening?”
“I remember the harp lesson.” Tom rolled up the window and put the AC on as they turned onto a main road around the lake and picked up speed.
“We’re building trust. I’m not surprised no one came forward last night. Baby steps.”
“Maybe Amanda could be that extra—”
“You’re still not listening. We don’t need someone out here to rattle cages. If we can open communication this weekend, we will, if we can’t, we won’t. This isn’t a test or a race. If you can’t trust the process, at least let me assure you it is going well—with no countdown attached.”
“I wasn’t trying to rush you. Just thinking that was why you had other people coming.”
“And you were being impatient—”
“No—”
“Yes. You interpreted ‘nothing happening’ as a sign that whatever you perceived I was doing wasn’t working and I therefore needed assistance from someone more capable.”
“I never said anything like—”
“You don’t have to say it. Your impatience demonstrates your own lack of faith in what I’m doing.”
“That’s nonsense. Of course you know what you’re doing.”
“I know that. Do you?”
Tom looked at her, then the road, back to Sue, again to the road, mouthing soundlessly.
“I just said, wait...” He frowned. “After all we did yesterday, yeah, I kind of thought you’d wrap things up last night. And instead...?”
“Tom? Would you listen to me if I gave you some advice?”
“That might depend on the subject.”
“Life advice.”
“Ah, that’s pretty all encompassing. I’ll do my best.”
“When you don’t understand something, acknowledge that you don’t.”
He waited. She seemed to be done.
Tom looked over at her again. “That’s it?”
“It? If you’d been doing that ever since I arrived here, this entire process would have been different. If you were living by it now, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Think about it. What if you assumed that other people know more than you do?”
“About what?”
“Everything.”
“That would make me kind of stupid, wouldn’t it? I’ve been in journalism a long time. I’ve learned stuff.”
“No, it would make you human. You wouldn’t be impatient to drive a spirit out, or corner one and make it talk on your terms. You would take for granted that I understand my job and I’ll let you know when it’s time for a talk.” Sue turned from looking out the window to watching Tom again. “I love your energy. I’ve told you that. But reactionism to situations we don’t understand is perfectly natural. It’s not very comfortable to feel like you don’t know what’s going on or what to do, is it?”
Tom frowned at the road. When had he even been all that impatient or been acting like she didn’t know what she was doing? He’d supported her all day yesterday. He’d even been on board with the animal communicator. Well, he might have laughed at first. Was that part of the problem? Treating something she recommended as a joke wasn’t demonstrating much professional respect, even if his amusement wasn’t aimed at her profession.
After a minute with both looking down the scenic highway toward Geneva and the airport, Tom said, “I didn’t realize I was bad at admitting when I didn’t understand something. Research has been a way of life for me, actually.”
“On your own? So that you can tell people at a dinner party all about the life cycles of volcanoes or keep up-to-the-minute information on world stock markets? Or do you run around at the dinner party telling people that you don’t understand volcanoes, but you’re writing a piece on them, and does anyone have any good resources to recommend?”
Tom said nothing.
“There’s a big difference between someone who is savvy and industrious enough to go after something, research, ask the right questions, and solve a problem, and someone who’s comfortable running the risk of showing vulnerability. It’s natural to hesitate when it comes to, ‘I don’t understand.’” She paused, watching him as he watched the road. “I’m going to get to the bottom of what presence is trapped in your house. But those spirits are not the only ones who need to trust me for it to happen. What do you need to know to feel comfortable with my work so that you can relax and not project doubt or impatience or negative energy into a clean space?”
“I didn’t realize I was being negative either.”
“Impatience creates stress and unfairly skews expectations and your own feelings about results. After the wait, you’re more likely to feel let down. Impatience, by the way, is not the same as anticipation, which is what I’m feeling at getting to see Amanda shortly.”
A few more minutes of silence while Sue gazed at the lake.
“I didn’t mean to push you last night,” Tom said after a while.
“I know that. I just want you to understand that this is my job. Not yours. I’ll answer questions if you have them. But this is the kind of work that doesn’t always have answerable questions either. For me, and much more for you, a great deal of what I’m doing is a matter of faith and instinct.”
“That makes sense.”
“Can you trust this process? Ask when you don’t understand? And if there is no easy answer, or it’s just not a good time, have a little faith?”
Tom nodded. “Yeah. I can do that. And ... I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Just the wrong attitude. Which I thought I’d gotten over after that first round.”
“I assumed you had as well. But you’re thinking too much. You and Sanders both.”
“I’m actually surprised he’s been taking this so well.”
“Sanders has other things on his mind.” Again, she looked at him, then out the window. “Anyway, he does not object to anything I do because, it seems to me, he feels this is beyond him. If I brought a preschool into his house, he wouldn’t ask me to tell him everything I know about managing four-year-olds. He would just ask me to clear off. You’ve been far more invested in this from the start. But you’re also over-thinking.”
“Which is certainly not faith.”
“No.”
Tom glanced at her. “I’m glad you’re here, and I’ll follow your lead, okay? Whether that’s mopping or building a fire or staying out of the way. And if it takes you an hour or a month, that’s okay with me. I’m not in any rush.”
She laughed and he was reminded of how beautiful he’d found that sound when he’d first heard it. Had it only been a few days ago? Seemed like weeks. Seemed like...
Also smiling, Tom asked, “You really think we knew each other before?”
“Of course we did. I’ve done some regressions just to find people and connections. I’ve never been anywhere where there weren’t several. I’ve known my family before, my friends, everyone in my coven. I may have seen you before, but I didn’t know who you were then.”
“When we did ours, it was so specific, just going back to find an exact match and figure out this one relationship. It never occurred to me that there were other people to ... watch for, or connect with. How do you know when you find them?”
“You knew Sanders when you found him in the past?”
“That’s right. It was just ... knowing.”
“Exactly. I’ll tell you if I find you. And you can always come by to see us when you’re next in London. I’m sure Lee would be interested to do another regression with you after all your work together. It sounded like you were a big case for him.” She looked at him, smiling.
“Yeah, probably was.”
Still some time before the airport.
Tom told her about their regressions. About Sanders seeing Lee to manage pain, then Lee advising he do regressions to find a past trauma that could be linked.
“I guess that kind of thing, if not common, does happen now and then?” Tom glanced questioningly at Sue.
“Oh, yes. It’s a matter of how you die in the previous life. If you died of pneumonia, say, you may be someone in this life who has asthma and chronically bad lungs, easily susceptible to lung infections or similar. If you died of starvation—”
“You may have a tendency to hoard food now? Be really sensitive about food waste?” He looked at her.
“You went through that?” Sue asked.
“Vicariously. Sanders remembered a life where we were together during the Irish Famine.”
“So did I.”
“What?” Almost swerving as he snapped his head around.
“I did,” Sue said. “I was in a city. But I didn’t die from starvation. I was shot.”
“That’s amazing. He said we were out in the countryside, so I guess no relation, but...” Glancing at her again. “Wow. That doesn’t sound like a good way to go either.”
“Better than starving. I’d had frequent stomach aches since I was a child. My mum tried different doctors, different diets, but it seemed to come and go for nothing at all. After I met Lee and had that regression, remembering being shot in the stomach, it all clicked. I could feel the exact spot, understood just what happened. I came out of the trance, and it was gone. Just like that. He’d told me it would if we could find that it was linked to a memory. I’ve been a fan of past life regressions ever since.”
“I wish ours had been that easy. We did all kinds of stuff. It was a death for Sanders causing problems in this life, just like you said. But our situation was so messed up, so intense—not that I’m sure your being shot wasn’t awful. It turned out, I was the one who’d killed him. In a really ... horrifying way. We were opposing soldiers in World War Two. How he died in 1945 somehow left him nearly crippled with pain for this entire life, until the regressions. Ironically, I was okay for this life. We never got to how I died. Probably as an old man in my sleep, justice being what it is. So it was all on Sanders. We had to work at ours. It wasn’t enough that he remembered. That made things worse in his case. He was bedridden after the regression. It took us going back to Lee together and working through it to change what happened, creating new memories. I can sit here now and tell you that I committed an incredibly heinous murder in that life, but it’s a hazy dream compared to the clear-as-day memories of the revision we did with Lee.”
“You rewrote your own history? I never heard of such a thing.”
“We hadn’t either, obviously. I’m not even sure if Lee had ever done it before, but he knew about it. We changed what we’d done so we could both walk away. Again and again we went over it, like memorizing a script. And Sanders got better. Not as fast as you and your stomach, but nearly. The only thing—” Tom stopped, frowning at the road.
“Is there still something wrong with Sanders?”
“No. It’s ... we’ve both been having nightmares. In his, he’s arguing with his superior officer and he can’t get them to change plans, with his hands literally tied. He can’t stop this ambush from happening. Something always goes wrong. For me, we get to the end, the saying goodbye, but I don’t make myself walk away. I know if I turn back, it will all be undone. I can’t look around. I have to walk across the bridge and walk away and not look back. But I don’t. I’m always starting back, or turning, and everything blows up in my face again. I’m not sure why. We did so well. We’re done. Sanders isn’t in pain anymore. But then ... I don’t know what’s wrong with us.”
“Have you talked to Lee?”
Tom shook his head. “Maybe if we were still over there. Anyway, we had thought they were getting better. Instead, over the past couple months, or...” He paused, glanced at Sue. “Or four?”
“Since you moved into the house your dreams have become more intense?” Sue looked at him.
Tom wished he wasn’t driving. “Yeah,” he said softly. “So here’s me admitting I don’t understand something.”
“Here’s me admitting I don’t have answers for you,” Sue said. “I do know spirits can make us dream more vividly, and can reach out to us through dreams. Why they would only heighten your own nightmares about your past lives, I have no idea. What’s the connection?”
“World War Two?”
“Do we know that?”
“I guess not. Military though. Uniforms. Damn, I can’t get away from it. I was a military brat—in this lifetime. I never wanted it. I’ve been running from the military ever since ... since we met in 1945. Even before that.”
“You may not like it, but it’s a world you know. Sanders as well. I guessed you could have been perfect targets for these spirits just because you were already connected after your regressions. Lee said so too. But it’s more. Perhaps they recognized you. I don’t mean from previous lives. I just mean shared kinship. Like one person of the same religion or nationality recognizes another. It may be even more important than I’d thought for you and Sanders to be involved in this. Tonight, you should both stay up. I don’t know if they’ll bring the pieces together for us, or if we’ll have to look, but they clearly need help. The military connection and dreams, and you two being the ‘haunting’ targets after who knows how many years of them waiting, none of it is chance. Which means there’s something you, and Sanders, can do to help them and allow them to finish their crossing.”
“I’m thinking I should feel privileged about that, instead of disturbed, so I’m just going to go with, ‘Oh, great. I sure hope we can help.’”
Sue laughed. “It will be okay. I told you.”
“I know. And I have faith in the work. I trust you.” He glanced at her.
“Thank you. That means a lot.”
Tom soon put on his signal to exit for the airport, feeling unaccountably grateful to Sue. It took him a moment to figure out why. She had done her remonstrating in private this time, not in front of Sanders.
They were good. And he was determined that she would have no reason to take him to task again.
Sue texted as they neared the airport, telling him that Amanda and Lars had landed, but Lars and Rhys would be staying in the city for a weekend holiday and would rent a car. So only Amanda to pick up. Sue talked about them and their progress in the airport while she read from her phone, as if Tom knew these people. It seemed like a time to be asking questions to broaden his understanding, but Sue was busy. Tom just waited for her to indicate where she wanted him to go.
“Park or pull up? Is she—or are they—already coming out? Do you want to go in? What?”
He ended up letting Sue out, then circling once to stay out of the loading zone and pulling back up to wait only a minute before she emerged from automatic doors and the small crowds of travelers, drivers, and airport personnel.
Tom pulled in behind an SUV against the sidewalk and hopped out to help with bags after Sue spotted him and waved.
He glanced up from opening the trunk to find Sue—in yellow summer blouse, green skirt, soft purple boots, and headband that looked like it was made of tiny green leaves—breezing toward him with her arm around another woman.
She was a little taller than Sue, athletic, wearing a T-shirt and jeans, carrying only a backpack and messenger bag. Her hair was cropped short, longer on top, and several tattoos could be seen on her upper arms and neck. Silver adorning various piercings glittered below the August sun.
Though she shook Tom’s hand, smiling and thanking him for coming out to meet her as Sue introduced them, Tom could hardly hear Amanda. He couldn’t get his bearings at all for a moment. He felt as if Peter Pan, instead of bringing Tinker Bell and the ragtag Lost Boys to champion their cause, had instead returned to him with a Doberman pinscher.