I stood, but wove on my feet as if drunk, so I took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. After a few more times, I felt better and realized I was in my studio.
Black angry splashes caught my attention. I turned slowly in a circle, moaning as I did. Every Froggity painting on the wall, the ones I’d completed for the next series, had been slashed with black paint. My books had been strewn around the room. My computer had been pounded into nothing but a pile of parts.
Growling in fury, I paced, desperate to yell at the person who had done this. It had to have been Blanche. She found my note. She chose to ignore everything I asked her to do. Bitch.
My hands shook as I gathered up my computer and carried it gently to the dust bin. Too upset to even cry, I sagged against the wall. The digital versions of the paintings had been in my computer. The backups were on a fire-engine red thumb drive, which I found stomped to bits beside the computer.
When I put my hands on my hips, so frustrated, I felt a lump in the back pocket of my shorts. I pulled out a piece of folded notepaper and opened it. God, would these letters never stop?
Dearest Jamie,
How dare you give me a list of tasks you require. I am not your slave to order about as you will. In fact, I am in charge of you, and of everything. I will figure out a way to take your body and your life, permanently. The idea that I would passively remain stuck in the past is laughable. The riches in this life are beyond imagining, and I intend to take all of them for myself. This includes Chris. She is a gem you have never appreciated, and has been the best guide to this world that I could have asked for. If you are reading this, it means we have once again traded bodies, but I have taken steps to ensure that the next time I return to your body, I will remain there until Jamie “Blanche” Maddox dies of old age. Fuck you…. Blanche
Shaking, I jammed the note back into my pocket, fled my office, and ran for Halsey House. My phone said it was Sunday, so Chris should be home. I banged into the flat, slamming the door behind me. “Chris? Chris? Are you here?”
She stepped into the hallway from the kitchen. “I was just about to call you. Waffles are almost ready.”
“I hate waffles. Why would you make waffles?”
Chris’s jaw twitched. “Because last week you told me you loved them now.”
“That wasn’t me,” I shouted, directing my fury at Chris because Blanche was gone. “I’m Jamie, and I’m back. Look at the note Blanche left me. This is war, Chris. I’m gonna kill the bitch.”
Chris took the note from my trembling hand. She read it out loud, then let the note flutter to the floor. “Jamie, this note is in your handwriting.”
“God’s blood, of course it is!” I shouted. “It’s my body, so it’d be my handwriting.”
“God’s blood? What the fuck does that even mean?” Chris stepped back into the kitchen, reached for the counter, but didn’t make it. Her knees folded like a wounded deer’s and she collapsed against the cabinet. Her shoulders shook. I recognized the signs. Chris was a silent crier.
I knelt beside her. “Look, I’m sorry I yelled at you. It’s not your fault. The God’s blood thing is Elizabethan. They tend to curse all of God’s body parts. I’m surprised Blanche hasn’t done that. I—”
Chris clutched at my T-shirt, eyes wild. “I love you so much. Do you know that? And I’m terrified for you. One minute you’re Jamie and then you’re Blanche and then you’re Jamie. You hate waffles, then like them, then hate them. You paint, then you write, then you paint, and I’m going crazy. I can’t live like this.” I took her in my arms, holding her tightly against me as she sobbed. “You need help, Blanche. Please! Please get help. We can’t do this without help.”
I wrapped my legs around her as she curled up on the floor. “Please,” she whimpered. Tears stung my eyes as I stroked her hair. Chris had never broken down like this before.
“Baby, it’s okay. We—”
“No, it’s not okay. You need help. None of this is normal.”
I leaned toward an open, low shelf, grabbed a handful of tissues, and handed them to Chris.
“Okay, okay,” I crooned. “We’ll make an appointment to see Dr. Kroll. It’ll be okay.” I kept her warm with my body, massaging her shoulders and back, until the shuddering ceased and she fell quiet.
For me to remain sane, I had to believe that my travels back to 1560 were real. Yet this was tearing Chris apart. I had no choice.
* * *
Dr. Kroll wasn’t what I expected. She couldn’t have been more than a few years older than we were. Her hair was unfashionably long, two thick braids brought forward over each shoulder. She wore shiny brown boots, a mid-length skirt of some sort of flimsy material, and a peasant blouse. She would have fit right into the sixties. Her office was painted a soft orange, the chairs and pillows splashing the room with a mild turquoise and pale pink.
“Fill me in, Blanche,” Dr. Kroll said. “Tell me what’s been happening.” I looked at the small clock on the table beside her striped chair. “Don’t worry,” she said. “We have two hours.” Chris sat in the chair next to me, hands clasped in her lap.
“First, my name is Jamie.” Then I told her everything, even details I’d kept from Chris for fear of alarming her. I told them both about Winston and the plot to murder Dudley. I even confessed my own suggestion that they kill Amy Dudley instead. I told them about Ray Lexvold. I shared that I’d made a friend in Harriet. I told them about my respect and affection for Queen Elizabeth and my joy at life with a dog by my side. I told them that I—in Blanche’s body—was pregnant.
Dr. Kroll didn’t write down one single word. Weren’t psychiatrists supposed to take notes? Then she turned to Chris. “Now tell me what’s been going on from your perspective.”
“After the accident Jamie was not herself at all. It was as if the whole world terrified her. She stayed in the spare room. Wouldn’t sleep in our bed. Wouldn’t look out the window. Barely ate. But then she started coming back, which was such a relief. It was as if she had to relearn everything, however. She watched TV constantly, asked questions that only an alien suddenly dumped in London would ask.”
I nodded at Kroll. “See? That was Blanche, struggling to adjust to life in the twenty-first century.”
“One of the things that fascinated her was money and the idea that a woman could earn it herself, that she didn’t have to wait for a father to dish it out.”
“See, Blanche again.”
Chris waved in irritation. “You knew all that stuff from your research.”
Kroll leaned forward. “Chris, keep going.”
“She started rereading all her books on the Tudors, and I even found her crying one morning. When I asked her why, she flung the book across the room and said, ‘Dead! Everyone I ever knew or loved is dead.’” Chris shot me a look. “That hurt, I can tell you.”
“It wasn’t me!” I snapped.
“Then Blanche started writing, on paper at first, but then she asked me to show her how to use her laptop, as if she’d never seen it before. She pretended to be a quick study, but of course, she already knew how to do everything. Then she wrote like crazy. She only stopped when I pulled her away to eat. She let me read part of it one day.” She turned to me. “I know you think painting is your thing, but your novel is riveting.”
“It’s not mine,” I said, weaker this time. My story was lunacy compared to hers.
Chris shared a few more details of her life with Blanche. “She calls me ‘her princess,’ which I love. And sex with Blanche is different.”
“In what way?” I snapped.
“It’s hard to describe,” she said. “But don’t pretend to be jealous. Blanche is part of you. She is you. So it’s not like I’m being unfaithful or anything.” Then she finished, ending with the waffle story. Dr. Kroll steepled her fingers and stared at me like I were a ripe pineapple needing to be carved open.
I waited, my heart thumping loudly in my ears. This was it, the point where she told me I was crazy. But maybe—just maybe—she might believe that 1560 was real.
“We need to run a full brain scan,” she finally said. “I want to compare the readings with any records that this Dr. Rajamani might have. And there are a few tests I would like to you to take.”
Chris’s hands shook in her lap. I wanted to reach over and take one in mine, but then I realized I was the one who needed comforting. It was my brain, my life we were picking apart like a Thanksgiving turkey.
Dr. Kroll shifted in her chair until she looked directly at me. “Jamie, I find your story amazing and rich and incredibly exciting. Because of what you’ve told me, 1560 now feels as real to me as this very moment.”
My mouth went dry.
“Let me ask you one question. Have your feelings for life in 1560 changed any since you first visited that time period?”
“Changed?”
“Do you feel more or less excited about being there? Do you feel more or less calm at the idea of staying?”
I licked my lips. “Well, I hated it at first. Everything was so freaky. I kept doing and saying the wrong thing. But now when I go back, I can see the beauty in a world that technology hasn’t yet dominated. Life is complicated in many ways, yet so much simpler at the same time.” I didn’t look at Chris. “Each time I return, I grow more…comfortable.”
Dr. Kroll’s eyes flickered away then returned to my face. She tried to hide her inhale, but I saw the rise of her ribcage. “Jamie, this is going to be hard for you to hear, but you exhibit all the signs of someone with dissociative identity disorder. You might have heard it called split personality. For some reason, perhaps because of a deep trauma or something in your unconscious mind, when you were shocked by Dr. Rajamani’s equipment you created another identity. Think of it as allowing an unfamiliar part of your personality to emerge. These two personalities, Jamie and Blanche, are fighting for control of your mind and your body.”
Chris began to cry softly, wiping her eyes with the palms of her hands.
I felt numb. “I don’t believe you.” Kroll didn’t know what she was talking about.
“I don’t want you to be ashamed or embarrassed by this. Mistakenly, mental disorders used to be associated with character flaws, but luckily, we no longer frame psychopathology in such cruel terms. Still, there’s so much confusion about our psyches that people tend to feel ashamed of any problems.”
I threw up my hands, still unwilling to accept anything she said.
“You have created a world with fascinating characters. You have a dog for the first time in your life. You are becoming more comfortable in the past, which tells me that your mind is trying to find some way to resolve the struggle between Jamie and Blanche. If one of your personalities can be convinced to remain permanently in the past, either Jamie or Blanche, then the other can take full control of you, here, now.”
I showed Dr. Kroll the note. “Are you really trying to tell me that I wrote this to myself? That I, as Blanche, want to harm myself? That I trashed my own studio?”
Dr. Kroll read the note and handed it back to me. “The power of our unconscious mind can be frightening. You are struggling with something and this is your mind’s way of resolving it. Why has this happened? I don’t know.”
I met Dr. Kroll’s steady gaze. “I don’t believe you are right, but for Chris’s sake I’m willing to move forward with your suggestions.”
She glanced at the clock. “I would like to do some tests. Once we have those results, we’ll discuss medication options, as well as therapy to uncover the issues that might have led to this psychic break.”
Chris clutched at my hand, eyes moist. “Blanche, we’ll figure this out. We’ll get through this together, okay?”
I pulled my hand away. “My name is not Blanche.” I should have been jealous that Chris kept calling me Blanche, but strangely, I wasn’t.