P. Parrish - South Of Hell

“Look down at yourself,” Dr. Sher said. “Look at your clothes and shoes. What do they look like?”

“I’m wearing a blue dress,” Amy said. “And black leather lace-up shoes. They don’t fit me right, and they’re heavy and hard to run in.”

“Are you running now?”

“No,” Amy said. “But I’m afraid. I hear the horses coming. I see a white horse pulling a black carriage. I hear the men. The fire is in their hands.”

Louis caught Joe’s eye and mouthed the word Carriage ? She just shook her head.

“Are there other people with you, Amy?” Dr. Sher said.

“He is there… and his wife.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. They’re watching.”

“What do they look like?” Dr. Sher asked.

“He has eyeglasses and a long black coat, heavy to keep the cold away. She wearing a long yellow dress, and her hair is black and piled up on her head.”

Louis glanced at Joe. She was leaning forward, elbows on her knees, mesmerized by Amy’s narrative.

“I’m running,” Amy said. “I’m running through the corn. It’s cold, so cold. My chest hurts.”

“Why are you running?”

“They’re chasing me,” Amy said. “I hear the horse’s hooves on the dirt. They’re close, very close. But I can’t go to the cellar. John is there, and I can’t let them find John. So I run to the corn.”

Amy’s breathing became labored.

“What is it, Amy?”

“They found me. They found me in the corn. They’re dragging me back, back to the barn. No!”

“Calm down, Amy,” Dr. Sher said. “You’re safe. Just tell me what you see.”

“He has a whip.”

“Who? The man with the eyeglasses?”

“No, one of the others,” she said. “The fire… I can feel it on my skin.”

“Is the barn on fire?”

“No, no,” Amy said impatiently. “Torches! They scare me, but I can’t move. I can’t move. I am naked now. They have taken my clothes. I’m so cold.”

“Slow down,” Dr. Sher said. “Relax.”

Amy’s voice suddenly deepened, became almost unrecognizable. “Stand back,” she said. “You stand back, Amos. You let us do what we need to do.”

“Who is speaking, Amy?”

Amy let out a low moan. “The ropes… they are pulling me up on the hook. The whip… it hurts. It rips and rips. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die.”

“Amy, pull yourself away from the pain, and get past the whipping,” Dr. Sher said. “Look down now. Where are you?”

For the next few seconds, Amy was quiet. Dr. Sher glanced up, meeting Louis’s eyes. She seemed as mystified as he was.

“I’m lying on the ground,” Amy said softly. “I’m freezing but warm with my own blood.”

Dr. Sher placed her hand gently over Amy’s.

“I hear digging,” Amy whispered. “They are digging a grave. It is my grave.”

Louis heard Joe pull in a quick breath.

Then, suddenly, Amy went limp. She fell quiet again. It was the second or third time she had, but Louis got the feeling that her memory — or whatever this was — was over.

Dr. Sher awakened Amy and told her to rest. Then she motioned Louis and Joe from the room. Once in the foyer, she closed the French doors to the living room and took several deep breaths. She was watching Amy through the doors.

Louis glanced at Joe. Her face was white, and she was holding her arms over her chest like she was cold.

“All right,” Louis said quietly. “What the hell was that all about?”

It was a while before Dr. Sher turned to face them. When she did, her pale blue eyes took a moment to focus. “I don’t know,” she said.

“Those weren’t memories of her mother’s death,” Joe said.

“No, they weren’t. At least, not all of them,” Dr. Sher said.

“She had one of her episodes last night,” Joe said. “It’s like a nightmare, but she’s awake. She mentioned the name John last night, too. And she said she was dying. Not her mother, Dr. Sher. She said she was dying.”

Dr. Sher looked at Amy again. And this time, when she looked back, first to Louis and then to Joe, her clinical mask had slipped back into place.

“I think Amy believes she was the black woman whose bones were found in the barn,” she said.

“Jesus,” Joe whispered. She took a step away, walking in a small circle in the foyer.

“What, she’s mentally ill?” Louis said.

“I-” Dr. Sher hesitated. “I don’t believe she is.”

Joe turned back. “Then what is causing this?”

Dr. Sher took a second to gather her thoughts. “Memory is a complicated process,” she said. “But research tells us that the qualities of a memory do not always provide a reliable way to determine accuracy. For example, a vivid and detailed memory may be based on inaccurate reconstruction of facts. Or even on self-created impressions that appear actually to have occurred.”

Joe was listening intently.

“Also,” Dr. Sher went on, “memory is a reconstructed phenomenon, and so it can often be strongly influenced by various biases such as social expectation, emotions, the implied beliefs of others, inappropriate-”

“Doctor,” Louis interrupted, “help us out here.”

Dr. Sher gave him a small smile. “Sorry.” She glanced back at Amy before she went on. “I’ll try to keep this simple,” she said. “Some doctors believe that childhood abuse can cause repressed memories. Later, these memories can resurface on their own or with help.”

“But why does Amy think she’s a dead black woman?” Joe pressed.

“People think memory is just a matter of recall, but it is also about how the brain reconstructs that memory,” Dr. Sher said.

Joe was shaking her head.

“Let me give you an example,” Dr. Sher said. “A child might have a memory of standing on a street looking into a scary alley. As an adult, he might falsely remember the alley as containing a dead body, when in fact the child saw only a homeless man sleeping in an alley.”

“So, you’re saying Amy is mixing real memories of the farm with things from her imagination?” Louis asked.

Dr. Sher nodded. “It’s called confabulation. Put simply, it is the mixing or confusion of true memories with irrelevant associations or bizarre ideas. And no matter how strange or untrue, these ideas can be held with the firmest of convictions.”

Louis had to ask the question again. “Is she mentally ill, Doctor?”

“Confabulation is a function of brain chemistry, and it is associated with patients who have suffered brain damage or lesions,” Dr. Sher said. “We’d have to do some tests…” Her voice trailed off.

Louis was watching Joe, knowing she was seeing Owen Brandt backhand Margi and thinking about what horrors Amy might have suffered at the farmhouse. Things she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, remember, because maybe, unlike the made-up memories of some dead black woman, the real memories were too close to home.

“This still doesn’t explain everything,” Louis said.

“What do you mean?” Dr. Sher asked.

“Like why she can sing in French,” Joe said.

“Or how she knew where those bones were buried,” Louis said.

“No, I guess it doesn’t,” Dr. Sher said softly.

They fell quiet. Louis was looking at Amy. And Amy was just sitting there on the settee, looking back at them. Through the wavy old glass of the French doors, Amy was just a soft-focus pink blur.

“Okay,” Dr. Sher said softly. “There’s one other thing I need you to consider.”

They both turned to her.

“Before I retired, I was head of research here at the university. I’ve written many papers on various disorders and conditions. I can’t believe I am going to say what I am about to say.”