Track 41

“Saturn’s Rings”

Present Day

“Thanks again for seeing me on short notice, Moira.”

“I knew you’d take me up on my offer,” she says, sliding a steel door open and waving me in. Dressed in a flowing gold gown with pleated batwing sleeves, she looks more like a magician than a licensed hypnotherapist. Her black hair is javelin-straight today. On each of her elegant fingers, she wears two gold rings.

When I called, Moira suggested I come to her home office. I didn’t expect this. The industrial loft conversion is totally open-plan, including the bathroom. Massive abstract artworks hang on red-brick walls. Thick layers of oil paint look like they were lashed onto the canvas by someone in a fit of temper. I was excited on the drive to Bartlett, but now my body’s all locked up with tension.

I so hope I don’t need to use that bathroom while I’m here.

“I’m not saying you’re transparent or predictable, but you clearly have a certain level of curiosity,” she says in a knowing tone. “I had a feeling your anonymous friend wouldn’t come knocking on my door. He’s a very closed-off person, isn’t he? Very guarded.”

“Only with people he doesn’t know. He’s been burned in the past.” I shift from foot to foot, suddenly consumed with the thought that I hadn’t done a background check on Moira. How could I be so careless as to just trust that she is qualified? Anybody could print up a business card and say they are a hypnotist.

Moira gestures for me to sit on an electric-blue velvet sofa that incidentally matches her eye makeup. A camera is set up on a tripod.

“You record the sessions?”

“Yes, but it’s totally up to you. It doesn’t have to be recorded.” She sinks gracefully into a purple paisley armchair opposite me and rearranges her sleeves.

I stare at the camera. “How do I know the footage isn’t going to end up on YouTube or something?”

“I promise it won’t, but if it makes you feel better, I will not press the record button while you’re under. Sound good?” When I nod, she continues. “I write notes for my own clinical files. Even my memory can be fallible.”

“Can’t you hypnotize yourself if you forget?”

“Sure. There are ways.” She smiles. “But let’s bring this back to you. What exactly do you want out of this session?”

“I just want to know if I really have been abducted by aliens.” I fold and unfold my hands. I’m still not totally relaxed, but I am feeling less suspicious about her qualifications. “Since the support group meeting, I’ve been told I was abducted when I was twelve.”

Moira’s mouth falls open. She quickly recovers and sits straighter. “So you’ve had multiple abductions.”

I cringe. “Maybe. Possibly? And if that’s the case, I want to figure out what the hell to do about it.”

One thing I won’t be doing is selling my story to Aunt Carole’s favorite tabloids.

What would my dad say? If I tell him, he’ll probably find some way to have aliens arrested and put on trial.

“Okay, so here’s where I explain a couple things before we start,” Moira says. She crosses her legs and grabs an iPad from the coffee table between us. “Sometimes when we use hypnosis to bring up memories, it’s not always an accurate, objective picture of what happened in the past. Memories may be colored by your own perceptions, by your distortions.”

“You mean, what I remember might not actually be what happened?” I frown. “Then what’s the point of doing this?”

“It can still give you clarity. Peace of mind, even.”

“Peace of mind that I’m not losing my mind?”

“Some people like to think of it that way. I call it enlightenment.” She chuckles, putting me at ease. In her natural environment, despite the costume, she seems less theatrical and more like a regular human being.

“I’m ready to be enlightened. On film.”

Moira smiles and presses a button on the camera. She grabs the tablet and brings up a GIF of black-and-white stripes moving in an endless spiral. “Keep your eyes on the white swirls. Watch them go around…and…around…and around. Take a deep breath in. Five, four, three, two, one. Breathe out. Five, four, three, two, one.”

My thoughts soon slow down as I focus on the sound of Moira’s soft speech and the perpetual spiral.

“Breathe in…breathe out. That’s it. Your legs are feeling heavy. You’re sinking into the sofa. Breathe in. Breathe out. Now your torso’s getting heavy. In…out. Your shoulders are heavy. Eyelids are drooping. Your head’s like a bowling ball. Sinking. Breathing in. Breathing out. Entire body completely relaxed. Listening only to me.”

I want to keep my eyes open to keep watching Moira and the ribbon of white in the spiral. But it’s hard. All I want to do is sleep.

“Don’t fight it, Cassidy. Let your mind go still. Breathe in. Breathe out…”

I become aware of wind rushing through my nostrils, filling my lungs. Feel the muscles contract to force air back out. Behind my closed eyelids, I sense the room becoming dimmer and dimmer, till there’s no light at all. Just pitch-black darkness. I’ve sunk so deep into the couch that I no longer feel the softness of the cushions. Still falling.

Moira’s voice sounds far away, eventually fading into nothing.

I’m still falling into oblivion.

When will I hit rock bottom? Is there a rock bottom? Does the universe have a bottom?

As soon as those thoughts whirl through my brain, my fall is broken.

I land on a hard bench. The force of the fall startles me awake. Looking up, I see a blank white ceiling. At least I think it’s the ceiling. It seems to be several stories high.

The walls are white now. Everything’s white. It’s like I’m in the middle of a blizzard but without the snow driving into my eyeballs. I’m cold. So, so cold.

Beside me is a figure silhouetted by a bright white light shining from a source that I can’t figure out.

I sense strong shoulders. A determined posture. So familiar. So…Hayden.

“Hayden, is that you?” I murmur.

The figure leans over me. A face sharpens. A gray-purple alien face with eyes that look like gaping black holes.

My body jerks in response. The figure’s slit-like mouth opens ever so slightly.

“It’s me,” says the alien in Hayden’s voice. “I’ll keep you safe.”

I scream. “No! Get away from me! Don’t come near me! Oh God, why can’t you let us go? Haven’t you done enough?”

The alien screeches. Two more aliens rush to the bed and stare at me, also screeching. Then more surround me. Their cries are loud enough to shatter glass.

Suddenly, a voice cuts through the noise like a thunderclap. “One, two, three. Wake up, Cassidy.”

Groggy, I struggle to sit up, then fall back on the cushions. “Am I awake?”

“You’re awake. You’re in my loft,” Moira says in her soothing, melodic voice. “You don’t have to get up right away. Ease into it.”

My vision sharpens. Those violent-looking paintings glare down from the walls. Sunlight bounces off spherical glass paperweights. This is no spaceship.

“How do you feel?” Moira asks. In no way does she seem alarmed or even the slightest bit concerned.

“Did you get it all on video?” My heartbeat thunders through my body. The coldness I felt in the presence of aliens is still with me.

Moira’s brow furrows. “Yes, it was running, but to be honest, there wasn’t a lot to capture.”

“Capture. Not the best word choice,” I mutter, catching my breath. I zero in on the worn knees of my jeans. In the vision, I wasn’t wearing much. Just some paper-thin gown that reached halfway down my thighs.

“Of course. I’m sorry.” Moira takes the camera off its tripod. “I mean you didn’t respond to my suggestions out loud. But that’s okay. People respond to hypnosis in different ways.”

“Let me see that clip.” Sure enough, there I am lying serenely on the couch as Moira’s soothing voice pulls me under.

In the ten-minute recording, I moan once or twice. My eyelids flutter here and there. A twitch of my foot. But most of it is me just…sleeping like a lamb.

There was no sign of me freaking out. No clue that I saw my new boyfriend morphing into an alien.

Moira peers at me curiously. “What did you see when you were under?”

Grimacing, I say, “It…it’s too embarrassing. It had to be a nightmare, not a memory. My subconscious is making stuff up.”

“Are you sure?” She tilts her head in confusion.

I picture Hayden’s firm jaw, espresso-brown eyes, and rosy lips I’d kiss all day and all night given the chance. Conjure the sexy slope of his shoulders, lean torso, and long legs. Think about the strong hands that have gently cupped my face and turned me into a puddle. Yep, physically he’s a fine example of a male human. He’s not a bobble-headed alien.

“I’m sure. Can we try something else?” I ask Moira. “Like, I’ve read that you can use hypnosis to stop bad habits.”

“Yes, I’ve helped people stop smoking, stop procrastinating, you name it.”

“Is it possible, then, to plant a suggestion in my head? Something that’ll help me remember my next alien abduction?”

Moira leans forward, her eyes intense. “You think you’ll be abducted again?”

I steel my spine. “The last thing I want is for aliens from planet Zimbot to make a habit out of kidnapping me. But if they do it again, I have to be able to remember.”

And then stop them once and for all.