Daniel Hecht - Land of Echoes

Julieta looked puzzled. "Yes. Why?"

"And Tommy said he got a touch of sunstroke up there?"

"Right. I'd forgotten. It didn't seem serious at all."

"His drawings changed drastically after those sessions. And I had a powerful contact with an entity or entities there last night. I can't believe it's a coincidence. So I need to know the area's history better. Julieta, are you sure you can't tell me any more about it? Lynn, do you know anything?"

Julieta shook her head. Lynn ventured, "Locally, I think it was once called Lost Goats Mesa. But I don't think it has a name now."

Ed met Cree's eyes, and he smiled minutely: goats.

" So-Joyce, I know you've got a lot on your plate, but can you add that in? Dig up some history for this area? Stories associated with the mesa or the old trading post? Who lived here, when, anything."

Joyce had been taking notes on her pad, and looked up quickly. "I am all over it."

"Ed will need to conduct a comprehensive test of the school's electrical system, particularly the boys' dorm and this building. The flickering of the lights might give us some clues. Julieta, can you put him in touch with your maintenance people so they can help? He'll need to look at the whole grid here-transformers, circuit breakers, incoming lines, everything."

"Frank Nez is our chief physical plant man. I'll take you over to his shop when we're done here, but…"

"I'll tell him it has something to do with state safety compliance," Ed put in.

"Perfect." Cree had taken some notes on what she needed to accomplish at this meeting, and now she glanced down at her pad. "I've got two more items on my agenda. One, as I said, I had an important session with Tommy today. The good news is that, thanks to Joseph, Dr. Corcoran is letting me meet with the boy. And when I was there, I was increasingly able to feel it- as something distinct or separate from Tommy. Which means I'm on the road to identifying it."

Julieta said haltingly, "And the bad news?"

"I'm sorry, Julieta. The bad news is, this thing is progressing rapidly. It's taking him over, minute by minute. So far, he's been resisting it pretty well, and he can intentionally cooperate with people trying to help him. But I don't know how long that'll be the case. I think it's wearing him out." Julieta's face broke into lines of grief, and Cree went on quickly, "I didn't meet his grandparents, but on the off chance Tommy goes home, I'll need to have their approval to keep seeing him. Julieta, that's an area where you can help. Speak to them, speak to Joseph. It would be good if Ed and I can rig him with the FMEEG, but the technology there can be intimidating-we'll need some persuasion on our side."

Julieta was looking away, out the window at the empty western horizon, but she nodded.

"Finally, I'll need to go out to the mesa again tonight. Ed or Joyce, it would be good to have one of you there with me." Cree faltered as she tried to explain to Julieta: "It… I sometimes have a hard time coming back. It helps to have someone remind me who I am. What world I'm in."

Joyce gave her an approving nod.

"So, with that," Cree said, "off we go. Into the fray, swords upraised, right? All for one and one for all."

"And huzzah," Ed muttered. They all stood soberly and adjourned.

Joyce went off to Window Rock to get a start with the archives at the Navajo History Museum before it closed for the day. Ed arranged to meet Cree at nine-thirty for a second trip to the ravine, then went with Julieta to meet the maintenance staff and get a tour of the electrical system's components in preparation for the exhaustive analysis he'd conduct tomorrow. Lynn was called to tend to a boy who had badly scraped both elbows playing basketball.

Cree spent the evening resting and reading more of the materials Mason and Joyce had provided. It was disquieting stuff in more ways than one.

From what she'd read so far, it was clear that most cases of "possession" from earlier eras were actually examples of clinically definable maladies. Many were obviously epilepsy or schizophrenia, but some were more likely DID, dissociative identity disorder, previously referred to as multiple personality disorder. The condition was believed to be caused by a combination of neurological predisposition and early childhood trauma so severe that the victim "quarantined" aspects of his or her personality, locking them away to escape the pain of coping with the trauma. Most people lived in some degree of forgetfulness or denial, but with DID victims the sequestered parts began to develop independently, to grow and articulate as complete, separate personalities that could emerge under the right triggering circumstances. The supposed "epidemic" of MPD during the 1980s had been discredited as a phenomenon largely created by unscrupulous therapists, but a number of cases, stretching back centuries, held up under scrutiny and made it clear that though very rare, the disorder was real.

At the same time, the inverse was also true: To Cree's eyes, some of those now labeled as MPD/DID sufferers were clearly victims of invasion by a separate, roving, extracorporeal entity.

Again, she had to admire the insight and courage of Mason's basic dictum: No theory of human psychology could be considered accurate or complete unless it accommodated the principle that mind is to some degree independent of brain or body and that the human personality is shaped by psychological and social influences that extend beyond the physical lifetime.

Included in the papers Joyce had provided was one of Mason Ambrose's most famous monographs, published eighteen years ago as a slap in the face to the psychological status quo. Describing five specific, well-documented MPD case studies, he had challenged anyone to offer a single fact that was demonstrably inconsistent with the idea that the victims were in fact possessed by a distinct, externally originating entity. Despite their scorn, his detractors mustered only feeble efforts to refute the idea. Some psychologists had applauded the paper, assuming that Mason intended it only as an ironic argument against current diagnostic criteria for MPD, a way of saying that criteria that didn't permit ready refutation of such a wild theory had to be inadequate. Subsequent developments in the field had reinforced that view, and multiple personality disorder had been dropped from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual.

Cree, of course, knew that he'd meant it literally.

Mason had relished the ongoing controversy. But now, rereading that first paper in the light of the bedside lamp in the ward room, with desert-dark windows on all three sides, Cree found herself deeply unsettled. Somehow it made the awful stuff more real-the biblical and medieval accounts and the quasi-religious or pseudomedical reports from the last ten centuries. In particular, she couldn't shake that damned woodcut image, the rearing saint above the contorted sufferer, the worm spewing and coiling. Maybe because it echoed too well Tommy's description of the maggots in the sheep.

There was another perspective, Cree knew: the old faiths of the world, the nature religions and shamanic spiritual traditions, like that of the Navajo. For a moment she wished she wasn't so far from a library, then realized she had access to a knowledgeable source. She went to the nurse's office, dialed Paul's home number.

"Hey."

"Hey, yourself," Paul said. "I was hoping it was you."

"You busy?"

"Monday night. I'm busy trying to shed the accumulated stresses of a day of dealing with other people's intractable problems. I've got a tall, slim, sensuous companion named Beaujolais Nouveau who is, shall we say, helping me unwind."

Cree heard a clink of glass, the sound of wine pouring. "Trying to make me jealous? It won't work. I'm calling for professional advice."