PSYCHE'S SEARCH by Ann Gimpel

PSYCHE'S SEARCH  by Ann Gimpel

Transformation Series Book Two

Born with the sight, Laura McInnis is ambivalent about her paranormal ability. Oh it's useful enough some of the time with her psychotherapy patients. But mostly it's an embarrassment and an inconvenience - especially when her visions drag her to other worlds. Or into Goblin dens. In spite of escalating violence, incipient food shortages and frequent power blackouts, Lara is still far too attached to the comfortable life she shares with her boyfriend, Trevor, a flight attendant who lost his job when aviation fuel got so expensive - and so scarce - his airline went out of business. Forced to seek assistance to hone her unusual abilities in Psyche's Prophecy, Book I of this series, Lara is still quite the neophyte in terms of either summoning or bending her magic to do much of anything.

Reluctantly roped into channeling her unpredictable psychic talents to help a detective who saved her from a psychopathic killer, Lara soon finds herself stranded in the murky underbelly of a world inhabited by demons. The Sidhe offer hope, but they are so high-handed Lara stubbornly resists their suggestions. Riots, death on all sides, a mysterious accident and one particular demon targeting her, push Lara to make some hard decisions. When all seems lost, the Dreaming, nestled in the heart of Celtic magic, calls out to her. Heeding its summons brings sorrow, while opening the gates to a new life.

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Chapter One

Doctor Lara McInnis began the day clinging to a slender island of solace. Hours later, waves of patients, errands and phone calls had pounded against that island till it was nothing but a rubble heap. Rubbing wearily at her eyes, Lara finally gave up and closed them. For a moment or two she thought she might get away with it, but then an image of Arabel, her longtime receptionist, lying in a pool of her own blood rose out of some subterranean reservoir. The grizzly scene was so real, Lara’s stomach clenched. And then, like an unwelcome tape loop, it played again. And again. Opening her eyes didn’t help one whit. Arabel was just as bloody and just as dead.

Lara collapsed into the chair generally reserved for her patients. Outside her western window a scarlet sunset streaked the Seattle skyline, adding its bloody motif to the one already playing in her head. Disgusted with herself, she got to her feet and began pacing the length of her spacious office, burning a track in the Oriental rug. She knew she should be boxing up client files, but couldn’t force herself back to a task she was ambivalent about—at least not until she could get her emotions under better control.

The doorknob rattled. It startled her, and Lara’s heart jumped into overdrive. In her current state, the familiar sound was like a reproach. “How could I not have locked it with everything that’s going on?” she muttered as she rushed into the outer office. Arabel’s desk, another Oriental rug and ornate Victorian furniture with floral upholstery flashed past the edges of her vision, but she was focused on the door as she watched the knob slowly turning.

This is ridiculous, she told herself. It’s probably a pharmaceutical salesman thinking I’m a psychiatrist.

Or that demon that’s been dogging you, a darker inner voice insinuated.

Since the only other option was throwing herself out a second-story window and hoping for the best, Lara crossed the few feet to the door and yanked it open. A decidedly overweight woman jerked her hand away from the doorknob and eyed Lara balefully out of rheumy, blue eyes. Pale brown hair, going gray, was gathered into an untidy bun, and fat rolls bulged over too-tight jeans and under an inadequate T-shirt.

“Missus Stone.” Lara tried to smile as she coaxed her heart back to a normal rhythm.

“Hmmmmph, surprised you remember me.”

“Of course I do.” Lara stepped aside, gesturing for the woman to enter. The last thing she wanted was another patient visit, but it would verge on the unethical—never mind the rude—to ask Myra Stone to go away without at least finding out what she wanted.

Lara waited while Myra stalked past her, looked inside the inner office and circled back to stand in front of Lara, hands on her hips. “Guess she’s not here,” Myra snapped as she sat down in one of the reception chairs.

“If you’re looking for Caren, no; she’s not,” Lara agreed, mystified. “Is your stepdaughter missing?”

The woman grunted. She still had an expression on her face that could curdle milk, but she knotted her fingers together and said, “How about if you sit down, and you and me can have a little talk?”

“Okay.” Lara kept her voice as neutral as she could, pulled the office door shut—taking care to lock it this time—and rolled Arabel’s chair out. Her butt had barely grazed the seat cushion when the woman started talking.

“I don’t think spending time here is helping Caren. Nope, not at all,” Myra complained in an unpleasant, nasal twang. “I never know where she is. She’s still taking what doesn’t belong to her; and that father of hers, well he’s not any help at all. So it’s just me.” Accusatory eyes drilled into Lara. “All my real kids turned out fine. This one, she’s just a bad seed.” Rooting around in a battered handbag, Myra pulled out a cigarette. “Do you mind?”

“Uh, yes; I’d prefer you didn’t smoke,” Lara managed, struck by the gall of the woman and offended to hear her belittle her stepdaughter so blatantly. Caren had said Myra hated her, but Lara had assumed it was just teenaged hyperbole.

Myra stuffed the cigarette into her T-shirt pocket and pushed her bulk upright. “Not much reason for me to stay,” she muttered. “Really thought she’d be here. You’re the only one she ever says anything good about.”

If she felt like one of your real kids, maybe she’d say good things about you—or feel safe enough to love you . . . Discouraged by the woman’s callousness—after all, Caren had been through hell in her sixteen years—Lara stood, too. Trying for a positive spin, she said, “You must be concerned, or you wouldn’t have come looking for Caren. Would you like to make an appointment, Missus Stone? I already told you on the phone I’m closing my practice, but I’d be glad to find a time slot for you in the next couple of weeks. We could talk about some of the challenges of step-parenting and how hard it is for abused children to learn to trust—”

“Nah.” Myra waved her to silence. “Hell, my uncle did me and I didn’t turn out like her. I didn’t cut school or steal stuff. Or carve on myself.” Shuffling over to the door, she pulled it open and stalked out into the hall, the tiny chink in her armor replaced by a brittle, defensive anger.

“Well, think about it,” Lara persisted, addressing the woman’s back as Myra headed for a stairwell. Drawing the door shut behind her, she retreated to her office, thinking that Myra could do with a smattering of psychotherapy herself. Yeah, like about ten years worth. Crimson from the sunset bled through stained-glass windows, casting her familiar furniture in an eerie light. Lara wrapped her arms around herself, seeking the warmth of her own body for comfort.

That poor child . . . From abusive kin to a stepmother who doesn’t want her. Sorrow for Caren replaced the Arabel tape loop as color faded from the room. Lara decided it was an improvement, all in all, and she kicked a box over a few inches so she could open the lower drawer of her filing cabinet. Pushing her long red hair back over her shoulders, she proceeded to dump banded files into the banker’s box without any particular regard for order.

The outer door of her office rattled again. This time, though, it was a key sound.

“Lara?”

“In here, Trev,” she called back, straightening to greet her longtime boyfriend.

Trevor, his usually buoyant mood notably subdued, held out his arms. “‘Lo, Lara. Sorry I’m a bit late but . . . well, never mind; it will keep.” He scanned the room with his intensely blue eyes, taking in her half-finished packing job. “How much more . . .” he began tentatively as he put his arms round her for a hug.

Shooting him a look laced with pain, she shook her head. “I don’t know. I’m doing this as fast as I can in between seeing patients who want a last session or two. Thank god Arabel started calling all of them before . . .”

His arms tightened around her. “Doesn’t matter, love. It’ll be done eventually.” Blonde curls brushing against her face, he kneaded her shoulders with both hands. “Bloody hell, you’re wound up tighter than a spring.” The familiar clipped tones of his British accent washed over her like a balm.

“Feels heavenly,” she breathed. “I didn’t realize how . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“Well, maybe I did, but I’ve been forcing myself not to pay attention.” She pulled away, sinking onto the floral couch spanning part of one wall. Exhaustion dragged at her as she dropped her head into her hands, rocking slightly.

Pushing a couple of boxes out of the way, Trevor joined her. “I miss Arabel, too, you know.” There was a catch in his voice that he tried to clear away. “Any of those ready to take home?” he asked, pointing at the half dozen boxes littering the floor.

“Yeah, those three.” She jabbed her index finger at a corner of the room. “They’re records from patients I haven’t seen in at least a couple of years.”

“What are you going to do with the others?” His voice was gentle, but he placed a finger under her chin, forcing her to look at him. “What are you saving them for?”

“Guess I can’t very well keep any of them,” she muttered. “It’s not like we’re even going to be here after a little while.”

“No,” he agreed solemnly. “It’s not. And we’re not.”

Pursing her lips into a thin line, she found her feet. “Okay, then,” she snapped, angry with the universe that seemed to be stealing her life away. Pulling open file drawers, she grabbed a few charts and dumped them onto her desk. “I need these since I’m not quite done with these people, but all the rest can go.”

Nodding, Trevor joined her in front of the twin horizontal files, and together they began to move twenty years worth of Lara’s psychology practice into the waiting cartons. “You’ll need more boxes,” he noted after a few minutes. “Lots more.”

“Thought we could fill these, dump them at home, and then I’d just bring the empties back tomorrow and begin all over.”

“Ah, brilliant. Of course; that’s the obvious thing to do.” Grunting, he shouldered a box and headed for the door. “I’ll be back directly for another.”

“Right behind you,” she said, picking up a box. “I do feel better when I’m doing something other than wallowing in my own misery.”

“That’s my girl,” he shot back over his shoulder.

The minute Trevor opened the door of his old Mercedes convertible, Gunter, their eleven-week-old German Shepherd lunged out of the car, making a beeline for Lara. The little black puppy yipped, whined and launched himself at her, pulling at her wool skirt with his claws. “There, there, little man,” she cooed, putting her box down so she could unhook his feet from the fabric of her skirt. “Yes, yes; I’ve missed you, too.”

As she fondled the puppy, she glanced at Trevor. Dressed in faded blue jeans, a green chambray shirt and a tan corduroy blazer, his tall, lanky frame exuded its usual casual elegance. “How’d your day go?” she asked.

“Not bad,” he replied, shoving his box of files into the car’s small trunk and reaching for the one she’d set on the sidewalk. “We’ll have to put the rest in your car, love. No more room in here.” He slammed the car’s boot. “I started really taking stock of what’s in our house . . . and making lists. Went down to the waterfront, too.” His lips curved wryly. “Didn’t find much in the way of antique farm equipment, but I did get some leads. Bloke at the flea market looked at me as if I were daft.”

She flashed him a weak smile. “Well, dear, I suppose it’s not every day they get customers hunting for scythes, or whatever it was you asked for.”

“Let’s get those other boxes down here. Then we can walk the pup before we go home.”

Lara inclined her head and turned to go back into her building. Lucky for us the electricity’s not on the fritz. It’s almost dark out here. Power outages had been hit-and-miss. More often than not, she’d had to use a flashlight to find her way out of her building. Back in the office, she continued throwing files willy-nilly into the boxes she’d bought earlier that day. An orderly part of her rebelled when she looked at the files, no longer alphabetized, lying on their sides like beached whales. “It doesn’t matter,” she muttered fiercely. “All we’re going to do is burn them.”

She remembered something Raven had told her. Your thought patterns are still trapped in your old life. That is what has brought modern civilization to the brink of extinction: an intransigent unwillingness to change anything.

As she thought about Raven, a vision of the tall, broad-shouldered Sidhe with his flowing black hair filled her mind; and the amulet Lillian had given her, nestled between her breasts on its golden chain, thrummed approvingly. Lara grasped the moonstone through the fabric of her teal silk blouse, enjoying its warmth. Raven and Lillian: two ancient creatures, somehow alive and well in the early years of the twenty-first century. Doesn’t matter why or how, I’m just glad they’re here, helping us.

Trevor strode back into her inner office. “Got another box ready?” he asked, looking confused. “I know you told me earlier, but I don’t remember.”

“Uh-huh.” She crooked a finger off to the side. “That one. I’ll just finish this one and cart it out. Then there’ll only be two more to fill and we can head home.”

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PSYCHE'S PROPHECY by Ann Gimpel

PSYCHE'S PROPHECY Transformation Series Book One by Ann Gimpel

What if your psychotherapist could really see into your soul? Picture all those secrets lying hidden, perhaps squirming a bit, just out of view. Would you invite your analyst to take a peek behind that gossamer curtain? Read your aura? Scry your future?

Classically trained at the Jung Institute in Zurich, Doctor Lara McInnis has a special gift that helps her with her patients. Born with "the sight" she can read auras, while flirting with a somewhat elusive ability to foretell the future. Lara becomes alarmed when several of her patients - and a student or two - tell her about the same cataclysmic dream.

When she reaches out to the Institute for answers, Lara's paranormal ability sounds a sharp warning and she runs up hard against a dead end. Her search for assistance leads her to a Sidhe, and ancient Celtic rituals blaze their way into her life. Complicating the picture are: a deranged patient who's been hell-bent on destroying Lara ever since she tried to help his abused wife; a boyfriend with a long-buried secret and a society that's crumbling to dust, as shortages of everything from electricity to food escalate.

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Chapter One

Lara McInnis fidgeted in the ginger-colored overstuffed chair taking up most of one corner of her cozy psychotherapy office. Schooling her face to neutrality, she tried to gin up some energy to support her quarreling clients. Bethany Beauchamp wasn’t saying all that much, though; and her husband was cataloging her faults, clicking them off one by one on his fat fingers. Wonder why they really wanted to come here? Lara asked herself, searching for an opportunity to intervene. Aha, there it was.

“Mister Beauchamp,” she murmured, voice pitched purposefully low so he’d have to stop talking in order to hear her.

“Yes, what?” He sounded irritated, voice scratchy from too many cigarettes. “You interrupted me.”

“Yes, I know. But I was interested in what you were saying and I didn’t quite catch that last part before I, um, interrupted. Might you be so kind as to repeat it for me?” Oh-oh. Watch the sarcasm.

Ken Beauchamp straightened self-importantly in his chair, carefully slicking back a couple of mouse-brown hairs that had fallen out of place in his too-careful comb over. Uncrossing short, chubby legs encased in expensive suiting, he turned so he could look right at her with close-set blue eyes. Broken blood vessels along the sides of his nose suggested a far-too-intimate relationship with alcoholic beverages.

“We pay you quite well. The least you could do is be attentive,” he complained, an unpleasant whiny note in his voice.

She nodded, offering a silent invitation to speak to her rather than to his wife who looked exhausted. Bethany’s eight-month pregnancy dragged at her tall, slender frame and dark smudges under her hazel eyes detracted from her showgirl beauty. Light auburn hair fell in limp curls to her shoulders. Though only in her early thirties, today she looked ten years older.

After an imperceptible pause Ken took the bait and, rather than repeating his last statement as requested, he started in on Lara. “Well, Doctor, you’ve been late for our appointments twice out of the ten we’ve scheduled. None of the things you’ve suggested work and our marriage isn’t any better than it was the day we walked in here.” He sat back in his chair, a smug smile on his florid face.

“Which things have you tried?” It was difficult to keep her features pleasant. She was coming to detest Ken Beauchamp and suspected his wife felt much the same. Stealing a glance at her other patient, Lara noticed Bethany seemed to be trying not to cry. Reaching over, Lara handed her the box of Kleenex she always kept next to her chair. “Mister Beauchamp?” she urged. “What things have you tried? I need to know so I can work with you to figure out what might be more effective.” Or, so I can find an excuse to refer you to another therapist.

Ken’s face reddened even more. “I’m sure we’ve tried some of them,” he said defensively. Shifting his bulky body around in his chair, he shot his uncomfortable wife an intimidating look. “Beth, the good doctor here is asking what we’ve tried.”

Withering under her husband’s knife-like stare, Bethany burst into tears, choking on the word, “N-nothing,” as she buried her face in her hands. Outside of her soft sobbing, the corner office, morning sun streaming through leaded-glass window panes, was absolutely silent.

Lara leaned forward, her dark luminous eyes moving from Ken to Bethany. “It’s like I told both of you when you first came here, I can’t fix your marriage. Only you can do that. But, for there to be any improvement, you have to be willing to listen to one another. We’re nearly at the end of today’s hour, but frankly there’s not much reason for you to spend your money coming here week after week just so I can listen to you argue and try to referee. Go home and have an honest discussion this morning while everything’s still fresh. Figure out if you really want to continue seeing me. If the answer is ‘yes’, call me and come on back next week. If the answer is ‘no’, well . . .” She let her last words hang in the air, realizing she was hoping to never have to see Mister Beauchamp again.

“Uh, here.” Ken rustled around in an inner jacket pocket coming up with a well-creased piece of paper. “Sign this.”

Taking the paper from him, she flipped it open. Damn the man. He’d been court-ordered to attend marriage counseling and he hadn’t told her. In fact, neither of them had. Fuming, she hastily checked the box verifying attendance at ten sessions, signed the document and handed it back to him. “You should have told me, Mister Beauchamp. We might have done things a bit differently.” We sure would have, since I never accept court-referred clients. He just looked at her as he snatched up the paper, a feral smile adding a malevolent note to his already-unattractive face.

“Thank you, Doctor McInnis.” Bethany’s voice was still clotted with tears as she planted her feet beneath her ample belly, then struggled to her feet. Standing, Lara held out her hand and Bethany latched onto it like a lifeline. The two women looked down at Ken who hadn’t made the slightest effort to leave his chair. He was chewing on his lower lip, his face the color of a boiled lobster.

Acting on impulse, Lara let go of Bethany’s hand and gestured to her. “I’ll just walk your wife down to the ladies’ room, Mister Beauchamp, so she can put some cold water on her face. She’ll meet you at the car.”

Pulling the office door open, she exchanged a meaningful glance with her receptionist. “Arabel, could you please see Mister Beauchamp out?”

Without waiting for a reply, she took Bethany’s elbow, pushing her out into the hallway. As soon as they were safely out of the office, Lara turned to Bethany. “He hurts you, doesn’t he?” Her voice was the barest of whispers as she remembered the little she’d been able to drag out of Ken about his obscenely violent childhood.

A single tear leaked from one of Bethany’s eyes as she mumbled, “I, uh, can’t, um, shouldn’t . . .” They had reached the bathroom and were both inside the tiny enclosure. Lara waited, regarding her patient intently with well-honed inner senses. But Bethany maintained an edgy silence, the ragged, darkened edges of her aura radiating a gloomy melancholy. Probing with her psychic side, Lara suddenly knew much of what the woman was unwilling to divulge. And then—as was often the case when she used her gift—she wished she’d left well enough alone.

Reaching into a pocket of her plaid wool skirt, Lara pulled out a pen and one of her cards, scribbling a number on the back. “If things get bad, make an excuse, any excuse. Tell him you’re going out for a walk. Bring your cell phone and call this number. They help women like you.”

Bethany’s hand snaked out and she took the card; then a frantic look washed over her. “But what if he finds the number?” she whimpered.

“It doesn’t matter. They won’t talk to him.” Lara laid a hand on Bethany’s arm. “You probably need to get down to your car. Maybe you could come in and talk to me by yourself.”

“He’d never let me.” Dull voice matching her dead eyes, Bethany let herself out into the corridor and began walking, with the awkward gait of the very-pregnant, towards the stairs.

Back in her office, Lara stopped at Arabel’s desk. “Who else do I have today?”

Hooking her thumb out the door, Arabel asked, “What’s up with them? The mister, he seemed pretty put out. For a minute there I didn’t think I was gonna git him out of the office.”

“You know I can’t discuss patients with you, dear. Or, at least we have to pretend we don’t talk about them.” Lara smiled fondly at the elderly Black woman who had been her sole office help for over twenty years. Arabel was dressed in her usual white blouse, navy gabardine skirt and black flats. An ancient maroon sweater hung over the back of her secretarial chair. Hair in a modified mostly-gray afro, she had a piquant sense of humor and a quick temper that was sparking from her nearly-black eyes.

“Hmmmmph . . .” Arabel bristled, mouth twisted into a frown. “You know I got nobody I’d be tellin’ anything to. Never have.”

“Sorry, sorry. Didn’t mean to your feelings.” Lara held out a conciliatory hand. “Truce?”

Arabel cocked her head to one side, the corners of her mouth twitching as she reached up to shake hands. “Truce. Never could stay mad at you. Not for long, anyways.” Turning back to the computer, she brought up the day’s schedule on the monitor. “David Roth cancelled, so you’re free till one thirty. Then you got folk packed in here till close to eight.”

Lara walked around the desk so she could look at the screen. Groaning audibly, she glanced at her watch. “Okay, I’m going to swing by the gym and then grab some lunch. Call me if anything comes up.”

“You got it.” Arabel’s voice followed Lara into her office where she grabbed her purse and her BlackBerry, locked her client file drawers and let herself out the back door.

Lara’s office was in an old, pale blue Victorian on Seattle’s Capitol Hill. She’d bought the building for a song about ten years before because someone had thought there were problems with the foundation. There had been some structural deficiencies, but they’d proven relatively trivial to fix. Split into four offices, her building was home to an architect and a CPA on the first floor, and herself and a psychiatrist on the second. Walking through a carpet of leaves that had fallen off the Madrona trees thickly lining East Avenue, Lara hit the clicker and heard the answering chirp from her nearby BMW.

As she drove, Lara thought about the Beauchamps. She’d spent an unusually long time—at least the first five sessions—gathering a history from them. One problem had been Ken’s reticence to disclose much of anything. Persistence and caginess had paid off, though, and he’d told her far more than he’d meant to about the French-Irish gang-affiliated father who’d turned him out as a child prostitute at the age of eight. His mother had abandoned the family when he was so young he had no memories of her at all, just oodles of anger Lara suspected he generalized to all women . . . including her. By contrast, Bethany’s meager life story had tumbled out with very little prodding. Not that hers read much better than her husband’s.

Fears for Bethany nagged at her. “What if they want to come back?” she asked herself softly. “Should I see them?” Pulling into the parking lot for her fitness center, Lara knew she’d turn that question over in her mind as she moved through her workout. Once she lost her objectivity—and any empathy she’d tried to develop for Ken had long since evaporated—it became progressively more difficult to work with clients. She’d learned some hard lessons over the years, including that it was usually better to cut the cord sooner rather than later.

“Hi Tony!” Dropping her membership card onto the glass countertop, she snagged the proffered key and towel from the tall well-sculpted front desk attendant and headed down the lushly carpeted stairs.

“Have a good workout, Doc! Power’s on today so all the machines are available,” Tony’s throaty voice trailed after her.

Pulling her longish coppery hair into a snug ponytail, she was just pocketing her locker key when she heard her phone trilling its Bach Etude. Wrinkling her forehead in irritation, she stuffed the key back into its hole, retrieved the phone and barked, “Doctor McInnis,” without bothering to look at the screen.

“Hey there, Lara. It’s me.” The clipped British accent of Trevor, her long time, live-in lover, came through the tinny cellular system. “Sorry to bother you, love, but the power’s off again . . . at least on Queen Anne Hill.” He paused. “Thought you’d want to know.”

She found she was gripping the plastic of her BlackBerry. “Again? But that’s the third time since, let’s see, last Wednesday. How long did they say this time? Or did they? Or did you even call? What about the food in the freezer?” She stopped abruptly, realizing her voice had become unnecessarily shrill. “Sorry,” she muttered. “I’m just worried, that’s all.”

“I know, I know. That’s why I called you.” There was a hesitation. “Guess I’m worried too, and I just wanted someone to talk to.”

She closed her eyes, summoning an image of him with his Nordic features and summer-blue eyes. He was a flight attendant for KLM airlines, which meant he only worked about fifteen days each month. She’d met him ages ago on a return flight from Europe where she’d been completing the last leg of her analytic training at the Jung Institute in Zurich. Exhausted from a grueling six weeks of seeing patients, she’d been half-asleep in her narrow airline seat and he’d solicitously brought her tea and cookies. Lara wasn’t quite sure how it had happened, but he’d come home with her that night and they’d been together ever since. Those first few years had been more than a bit rocky. In fact, she’d run screaming from their home a time or two, so she wouldn’t kill him on the spot. But something indefinable—in fact she still didn’t truly understand what it was—had always drawn her back.

Sinking into one of the wicker chairs in a corner of the locker room, she felt a less-than-vague sense of unease tugging at her. “What do you think it means? Have you any idea?” There was a very long silence, so long she finally said, “Trev, you still there?”

“Yes, Lara, I am.” His accent was more pronounced, so she knew he was debating whether or not to give voice to his thoughts. Finally, he blurted, “I think we’re really running out of oil this time. Not like all those other times when the government stock-piled it and then released it after the price sky-rocketed. You wouldn’t know about this, since you’re such a news-phobe and I gas up the cars, but it was really hard to find petrol last month. Damned near impossible, actually.

“If what I suspect is true, everything that takes oil to run will eventually go tits-up.” He paused to draw what sounded like a frazzled breath before adding, “We might have been all right here in the northwest with all our hydroelectric power, except the rest of the country’s been draining power off our grid to compensate for their shortages. That’s been in all the papers since our state lawmakers have been kicking up a fuss in D.C. Anyway,” his voice was brusque, “I’m cooking up what I can from the freezer. We can talk more about this when you come home. If you get any breaks today, think about how you’d feel if we had to leave the city. Whoops, my cell’s ringing. See you tonight.”

Slipping her phone back into her locker, Lara walked towards the aerobics room and jumped on one of the elliptical trainers. She wanted to come to some decision about Bethany and her husband, but the conversation with Trevor kept intruding. Damn it, she thought irritably. He hung up before I could even react to that whole doomsday scenario he laid out. Hmmmmph! Probably didn’t want to give me a chance to talk him out of it. Meantime, I’m supposed to think about leaving the city? Where the hell would we go?

Mopping at sweat that was trickling down her face, Lara glanced at her reflection in the mirrors covering almost every wall. Staring back at her was a tall, too-thin redhead with freckles covering every inch of exposed skin. Her angular face, with its prominent nose and chin, glistened in the reflected light. Moving to the treadmill, she set it for six-and-a-half miles an hour and ran hard for ten minutes. Gasping, she slowly backed off on the speed, while increasing the angle. Ten minutes after that, she sucked down what felt like a quart of water from the drinking fountain and stopped by the squat rack to do three sets. Finishing with twenty pull-ups, she headed for the locker room and the showers.

Briskly toweling off, she felt animated and dynamic, the problems with power outages and the Ken Beauchamps of the world temporarily pushed to a back burner. Nothing like a few endorphins, she told herself, inhaling deeply. Making plans to get a smoothie-to-go with extra protein powder from the small on-site restaurant, she contemplated the afternoon’s lineup of patients.

Out of the six scheduled, there was one analytic client, two angry teenagers: a cutter and a bulimic, another couple and two lonely, middle-aged women, one depressed, the other anxious. Too bad it’s unethical to introduce patients to one another . . . outside of a therapy group that is. Lara chuckled softly to herself. She loved doing analytic work, but there weren’t many who really wanted to delve that deeply into themselves. Not to mention the cost. For analysis to be truly effective, patients needed to come three, or even four, times a week. “Magic theater, not for everyone,” she mumbled as she picked up her smoothie, a tofu bar and some green tea before heading for her car. The sun, an elusive phenomenon in Seattle, was nowhere in sight and it was raining lightly. While not cold, the day held some of the crispness typical of mid-October. Her phone chimed again but she ignored it, figuring she’d be back at her office in less than five minutes.

* * *

“Can you tell me what goes on inside you before you start cutting?” Lara took in the overweight seventeen-year-old, sitting catty-corner from her, arms and legs covered with a network of fine white scars from years of self-mutilation. Caren would have been attractive, with her silky black hair and porcelain skin, were it not for the miasma of absolute misery emanating outwards from her like a spider’s web set to trap the unwary. The girl had been coming to therapy for a month, but had been steadfastly unwilling to divulge anything.

“I suppose I could tell you, but I don’t really want to,” the teenager spat. “You don’t care about me. You see me because my stepmother pays you. This is nothing but a fucking waste of time.” Folding her arms across her chest, she stared defiantly at Lara.

Lara watched her patient intently. Caren squirmed in her chair, eyes glued to the floor. “Caren, would you look at me, please?”

“Why?” The girl sounded sullen.

“Because I want you to see I’m telling you the truth when I say I do care about you. You’ve had a perfectly rotten life and you have every right not to trust anybody.”

Caren risked a sidelong glance at her. “How do you know anything about my life? I haven’t told you very much.”

Lara was silent for several seconds. Even without her ability to read auras, she’d have been able to figure out a likely script for Caren’s early life: molested, physically abused and emotionally neglected. “What we really need to talk about is a plan so you have something to do besides carving on yourself when you feel bad. Once we can come up with that, we can talk about anything you’d like.”

“Can I take a bathroom break?”

Lara nodded. “Second door on the left outside of my office.” Watching the teenager leave, she wondered if she’d made a mistake. What if she has razors with her and cuts herself in my bathroom? How do I explain that to her parents? Making a conscientious effort to breathe, Lara glanced at her watch deciding to give Caren five minutes before going after her. Trying to summon her elusive ability to predict future events, she came up dry while wishing fervently there was a shaman somewhere who could teach her about her psychic abilities. “Yes, but first you have to be willing to tell people you can do those things,” she muttered. “You’ve always been afraid they’d cart you off to the loony bin.”

With just ten seconds to spare, Caren sidled back through the door. She had a mulish look on her face and Lara knew her young patient would bolt if given the slightest excuse.

“Thanks for coming back,” Lara offered, attempting to soothe the alienated girl.

“Thanks for trusting me to leave.” Caren resettled herself in one of the comfortable chairs across from Lara. The barest of smiles ghosted across her face and she took a deep breath. “This is really hard to talk about . . .”

“Yes, I know. But nothing you say leaves here.”

“That’s almost not the point,” the teenager mumbled, twisting in her chair. “Talking makes it hurt more.”

Lara nodded and, as she looked at Caren, scenes flashed quickly, one after the other: a woman holding a small screaming girl down then doing unspeakable things, brutal beatings, cigarettes pressed into tender flesh. Lara closed her eyes, sucking down a surreptitious ragged breath. “Yes, it does hurt to talk about it,” she agreed. “But that’s the only way out. If you keep everything bottled up inside, you’ll just keep cutting . . . The first part is always hardest. After that it won’t be quite so bad.”

“How can you know that?” Caren risked a sideways glance at her.

“’Cause I’ve done this for a long time.” Lara paused. “And I’ve got no reason to lie to you.”

Caren raised crystalline-blue eyes and Lara saw a scared little girl, living behind teenaged bravado, desperately wanting to trust someone . . . anyone, but frightened half out of her mind at taking that first small step. After a very long time, Caren began hesitantly, in a voice so low Lara had to strain to hear her. “It feels like I have to cut or something terrible will happen. I try to fight it, but I always lose . . .”

“What do the voices that live in your head tell you?”

“How do you know about them?” Caren sounded rattled. Fear flitted across her face; and she folded her arms protectively across her chest. “I didn’t tell you . . .”

“Because everybody who cuts has voices that tell them things, before they tell them to cut. It’s okay to talk to me about them. The voices don’t mean you’re crazy.”

Caren’s eyes closed. Her head dropped back against the chair. As Lara watched, one tear escaped, rolling down the girl’s pale face. Time passed. Lara knew it was impossible to force anyone to reveal their secrets. Clients had to come to an inner juncture where they believed the pain of disclosure would be worth the risk. Fleetingly, she thought about how lonely and isolated the teenager must be. Just like I was . . .

“Doctor McInnis?” Caren’s voice was thready, almost not there at all.

“Yes, dear.”

“You said everybody who cuts has voices telling them things. Have you helped other people like me?”

Lara nodded, then realized Caren couldn’t see her because her eyes were still closed. “Yes,” she said simply. “I have.”

“Did they stop cutting?”

“Some of them did.”

The girl seemed to consider this. She opened her eyes, shiny with unshed tears, and looked pleadingly at Lara. “You must be telling me the truth,” she said in a choked voice.

“How can you tell?” Lara smiled gently and, she hoped, encouragingly.

“Otherwise you would have told me all your other stupid, fucked-up cutter patients got well.”

“You’re not stupid, or fucked-up.”

“Yes, I am. And fat and ugly too.” Caren was struggling not to cry.

“That’s what the voices tell you, isn’t it?”

Caren nodded miserably, giving in to a flood of emotion.

“It’s all right,” Lara murmured. “Cry. This is a good place for your tears. Here’s more Kleenex. I think you’re courageous. Maybe we can re-program those voices to say good things.”

Caren shook her head vehemently. “Nothing good . . . never.” The words choked out between sobs.

“I want you to take a few deep breaths,” Lara urged, waiting for the girl’s emotional storm to subside. “Now I want you to listen, just listen. None of what happened to you was your fault. And it doesn’t matter how I know.” Lara held up a hand to still Caren’s protests. “You were a child. None of those things happened because you were fat or ugly or stupid. They happened because your caregivers were sadly damaged . . .”

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