Audrey Rose

24

“Good morning. My name is Steven F. Lipscomb. I’m a Doctor of Psychiatry and have been chosen to lead the team of three psychiatrists selected by the court to conduct this test.”

The slight, forward hunch of his body and the few remaining strands of gray hair put him somewhere in his sixties, though he might have been younger. The crow’s-feet at the corners of his weary, patient eyes, his calmness of manner and intelligence, coupled with an almost humorless sincerity, affirmed his place in the ranks of the medical profession.

“After consultation with my colleagues Dr. Nathan Kaufman and Dr. Gregory Perez, we have decided to approach the testing of the subject individually, in succeeding shifts, Dr. Kaufman to succeed me, Dr. Perez to succeed him, should the testing fail to achieve results after a predetermined length of time.”

He was standing in a room that was calm, softly lit, barren of decor, and, save for a leather couch and a hard-backed chair, devoid of furnishings. The walls were an impersonal buff, which lent an added dimension to the somewhat limited space.

“There is no special reason why I was selected to start the testing. It was a purely arbitrary decision and in no way is meant to imply that I am either better qualified or more experienced in hypnotic techniques than my colleagues.”

He stood by the chair in the center of the windowless examining room and seemed to address his own image reflected in a rectangular mirror constituting an entire wall. He knew, however, that he was not talking to himself, but to a tightly packed group of people who were exercising their legal right and mandate to watch him and listen to him from the other side of the looking glass.

“You have all received personal and professional data sheets on each member of the examining team which should amply acquaint you with our medical backgrounds and credentials. If further information is required, we will be happy to furnish it at the conclusion of the test.”

He knew that his voice was reaching the principals in this trial through a speaker and that they were probably totally absorbed in what he was saying, displaying neither the restlessness nor the lassitude his lectures ordinarily evoked in his students at the university. But even if there were some shifting about, some clearing of throats and coughing, he would not be aware of it since, like the one-way glass, the room was additionally soundproofed to preserve further the myth of seclusion and privacy.

“Before bringing in the subject of this test, I’d like to say a few words about what we are endeavoring to do here this morning. Hypnosis is neither mysterious nor uncommon and is in wide use today among psychiatrists as a therapeutic means of alleviating the symptoms of certain mental disorders. Hypnosis is the term applied to a state of heightened suggestibility induced by another person.”

He was also aware that his image, as well as his voice, was being transmitted to the recreation hall on the third floor via a small, innocuous TV camera implanted in the upper part of the room above the mirror. Having earlier assessed the rec hall, he knew that more than a hundred people, some from distant parts of the world, were at this very moment hunched over their pads committing his every word to paper.

“Before bringing the subject in, I’d like to add a few words about hypnotic age regression and the level of trance that will be necessary to induce a vivid flow of memories from her earlier life.”

Nineteen people were crammed into a space designed to hold ten. The jury had been given the best seats and were crushed together against the glass, with Judge Langley nestled ceremoniously in their midst. The DA and the defense attorney had the dubious pleasure of sharing a bench in the upper left quarter of the cubicle, directly behind the court reporter, whose steno machine and table took up the space of a person. Hoover, with guard in attendance, sat directly in front of Bill—a proximity that was more than disconcerting to him.

“And after the subject is sufficiently relaxed and reassured that nothing harmful will occur to her, I will use.…”

Janice had excluded herself from the ringside proceedings, electing to join the reporters in the rec hall instead. Her decision, Bill reflected with the same hopeless repetition of grief he felt whenever Janice entered his thoughts now, was clearly motivated by her need to avoid him. She had been successful at doing so ever since he had arrived at the hospital earlier that morning.

“…and once I have determined that the suggestions are working, I will test her to ascertain the depth of her trance. Once that has been satisfactorily established, I will commence to regress her into her past life.”

He should have got to the hospital sooner, Bill knew, but when he had learned from Dominick that Miz Templeton had left in a cab with a heavy suitcase, all he could think about was tying one on. It was a bruising beaut that left him limp and trembling and with a terrifying headache that wouldn’t quit. Even now he felt as if a shaft of hot steel were running through his head from the left ear to the right.

“Oftentime the regression will release a flow of free associations that frequently arouse memories of early emotional events of a traumatic nature. The subject may express feelings of pain or profound melancholy and may even cry out or display bizarre personality changes. I will attempt to keep her away from these painful moments, but understand, this is normal and to be expected in age regression and will not prove harmful or injurious to the child in any permanent way. Also, I will be able to awaken her and bring her out of trance at any point I wish.”

He could have called Janice, Bill thought. Even drunk, he could have at least done that. Displayed some small vestige of parental concern. It had occurred to him of course, but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to a telephone. He knew the things she’d say, which was more than he could face.

“What we are attempting this morning is unique in the annals of psychiatry. To regress a subject to a time of early infancy and, even beyond that, to a prenatal period, while it has been achieved in experimental studies, is certainly uncommon enough, but to attempt to take a subject beyond a present life into a former lifetime has never, to my knowledge, fallen within the purview of serious psychiatric inquiry.”

They had talked, briefly, in the hospital cafeteria earlier. The place was packed with reporters, and a carnival atmosphere prevailed. He saw her sitting at a table, alone, drinking coffee. When she saw him, she rose and hurried to leave. He had intercepted her at the door and had said, “Janice, trust me for once, I know what I’m doing.” She had seemed so tired, beaten, her face drawn and empty, her gaze averted from his. “No, you don’t,” she had replied in a helpless voice, bereft of hope or accusation. “But even if you did, it wouldn’t matter. It really wouldn’t matter.”

“In agreeing to conduct this test, I do so with no pretense of a belief or faith in its ultimate success. I am here at the behest of a government agency to perform a function I have been trained and am licensed to perform.”

Bill’s clothing clung to his skin. The room was like a pressure cooker. Why was the garrulous old bastard going on so? Why couldn’t he shut up and get the damn show on the road—get the damn thing over with?

“An hour ago I met with the defendant, Mr. Hoover. He has told me five facts about his daughter’s life. Details of events of a special, intimate nature that made a memorable impression on Audrey Rose and that are known only to Mr. Hoover, myself, and my colleagues. If we indeed achieve our purpose here this morning, I will ask the subject to recall these events. Her ability to do so, or not to do so, might well prove conclusive.”

It would be over—soon. Soon the issue would be settled—once and for all. Soon they’d all be together again. And once it was over and behind them, they’d find their way back to each other. There would be a distance, a strain for a time, but in the end there’d be forgiveness. Their love would help Janice stretch to forgiveness—in time.

“I will now bring in the subject.”

All was silent in the recreation hall, as more than a hundred pairs of eyes unblinkingly fixed on one of three strategically placed television monitors, each purveying the same angle of Dr. Lipscomb as he walked to the examining-room door and opened it to admit Ivy.

The contact between eyes and screens was palpable, like a high-tension electrical current, Janice thought, fighting to concentrate on the technical aspects of the test. She had conditioned her mind to accept the test as the next inevitable step in a progression that was unstoppable. She would not cry, she had counseled herself. Tears would serve no purpose now, would be of no use to Ivy or to herself. It was too late for tears. But the sight of Ivy on the screen, entering the room and allowing the doctor to lead her by the hand to the couch, so shy, so trusting, so vulnerable, caused Janice to catch her breath. For an instant, she feared panic would overwhelm her, and she had to struggle to suppress it.

Ivy’s lovely blond hair had been bobbed to a feather cut by Janice, and her facial skin still bore the high color of her recent injury, and yet, even over the coarse black and white transmission which reduced everything to indiscriminate shades of gray, her beauty remained undiminished.

Sitting back comfortably on the couch with one foot tucked up under her, Ivy betrayed no nervousness and seemed in total control of herself.

“Relax, Ivy,” Dr. Lipscomb said in a softly insinuating monotone. “Relax and allow every muscle in your body to become limp and loose. As we discussed the other day, you will not be harmed in any way, but simply feel very tired, very tired, so tired that you will wish to fall asleep for a while. Nothing harmful, nothing bad is going to happen to you. You will not mind falling asleep for a while, for soon you will begin to feel so tired, so tired that you will not mind falling asleep. Will you mind falling asleep, Ivy?”

“No, it’s all right,” Ivy replied, wide awake. “I won’t mind.”

No, Ivy wouldn’t mind, Janice thought. Although the psychiatrists in all their smug wisdom thought her a child and easily deceived, Ivy had quickly fathomed the purpose of the test and had confided it to Janice.

“They want to hypnotize me to find out if Audrey Rose is making me do all those crazy things.”

“You don’t have to go through with it,” Janice had told her. “Nobody can be hypnotized against her will.”

“But I want to,” she had replied with eyes grave and anxious. “I have to know what’s wrong with me. I can’t stand being the way I am.”

It was truly amazing, Janice had thought, how Ivy too had become a willing part of Audrey Rose’s conspiracy. First, Scott Velie, then Bill, then Hoover, then Judge Langley, and now the victim herself, all being whipped into a unity of purpose by a force incomprehensible to them. Was it possible that only she, Janice, knew what was going on, that only she had divined the meaning and intent behind Audrey Rose’s latest ploy?

It surely seemed so. At every turn Janice had been rebuffed.

All through the long weekend she had tried to get through to somebody, made countless calls to the apartment in the hope that Bill had finally decided to go home, but he never did. Scott Velie had been unlocatable. She’d tried to coerce the operator into divulging Judge Langley’s unlisted phone number—claiming it was a matter of life and death, which it was—but all her passionate pleadings had been met with softly courteous refusals, first by the operator and then, maddeningly, by her supervisor.

When she did finally get to Langley early this morning after waiting two hours in the frigid, wind-whipped hospital parking lot for his rented limousine to arrive and did, at last, get to register her objections to the test in her strongest, most earnest, yet respectful tone, his response, rattled off to her as they sprinted across the treacherously slick parking lot, had all the spontaneity and sincerity of a prepared statement committed to memory.

“Madam, I understand your objections, and I feel very deeply about them. You have every right to make your feelings known, and under normal circumstances, I would give every consideration to your wishes. However, your husband and the defense both have equal rights of consent in this matter and, I am told by Dr. Lipscomb, your daughter has also consented and not only is willing to undergo the test but wishes very strongly to do so. What we are doing is, no doubt, highly unusual, but this is a criminal case. The charge is a very serious one, and should the defendant be found guilty, he will be subject to very severe penalties. In the consideration of that and in the interest of justice, I must deny your request. But rest assured, we have taken every precaution to ensure the safety of your child. We have brought in the best psychiatrists, and the test will be conducted as if in the privacy of a hospital room.”

Langley had been her last rational hope.

Her only option left was irrational.

The test was scheduled to start at ten. At 9:05, she’d sought out Dr. Webster. Found him in the lobby. Talking with reporters. Freshly starched smock, shining stethoscope around his neck, fully prepared for the occasion. Janice caught his eye. He joined her in the vestibule, which was cold and deserted.

Was Ivy well enough to go home? she’d casually inquired.

“Sure,” he’d agreed. “Soon as this test is over.”

Her next stop was Ivy’s room. She’d found her sitting on the bed, chatting amiably with the three psychiatrists. Their conversation was light and general, no doubt a charming exercise. Relaxing the patient before the operation. They’d hardly noticed Janice. She’d waited patiently for them to leave. When, after two or three minutes, they didn’t, she’d interrupted with a slightly hysterical “May I please have a few moments alone with my daughter?” The psychiatrists eyed her with professional interest and silently left.

Pulling Ivy’s overnight bag out of the closet, she’d quickly started to pack. Ivy watched her with suspicion. Finally asked, “What are you doing?”

“Get your coat,” Janice ordered. “We’re getting out of here.”

“What?” said Ivy, in shock.

“I’m not letting you go through with this thing!”

“Mom!” The word exploded in a rush of tears. “Mom, I’ve got to! I’ve got to! Don’t you understand?” she cried in panic. “I’ve got to do it! Please! Please! Please!” Her voice dissolved into great heaving sobs.

Janice went to her, frightened. “Easy, baby, easy—” and tried to take her hand, but Ivy jerked it away and gripped the sides of the bed.

“I won’t let you take me away! I won’t!” she shouted, her reddening face consumed with anguish. “I won’t! I won’t! I won’t!”

The door opened. Nurse Baylor stuck her head in.

“Can I help?”

Janice remained standing by the bedside, staring blindly down at the tear stained, contorted face, unable to speak, paralyzed by the aching effort it cost her mind to absorb the fact that there was no help for Ivy, no possibility of mortal help left for her child—that Audrey Rose was not to be stopped. That now her will would prevail.

“I want you to relax,” continued Dr. Lipscomb in the soothing, regular voice. “I want you to relax. Let yourself fully relax. Lean back and be very comfortable.”

The friction of pens against paper, of charcoal against sketchboard, formed a counterpoint of sound to Dr. Lipscomb’s voice as he produced a pencil flashlight and gradually held its beam aloft in his right hand.

“Look at the light now, Ivy. Look up and keep watching the light. Keep watching it. Keep watching. Now, as you’re watching the light, you’re beginning to feel your eyes growing heavy. Your eyelids are getting heavier and heavier, and you’re finding it harder and harder and harder to keep them open. Finding it harder and harder to keep watching the light. Harder and harder.… And slowly your eyelids are feeling so heavy that they want to close … want to close. And slowly your eyelids are feeling so heavy that they begin to close … begin to close.…”

The position of the light, well above her level of vision, was so placed to cause her eyelids gradually to feel heavier and heavier from the strain of constantly looking up, and the suggestibility of the repetitive, metronomic voice slowly worked its effect on Ivy.

“Your eyelids are beginning to get so heavy, so heavy, they’re getting heavier and heavier … so heavy that you cannot keep them open at all … and your eyes are beginning to close, beginning to close, even though you don’t want them to, they’re beginning to close … so heavy you must close them, must close them, close them, close them.…”

Janice heard her own pounding heart join the counterpoint of sound as she watched her daughter gradually relinquish her will to this stranger spiriting her off into an endless night.

“Your eyelids are so heavy now, so heavy, that they must close and remain closed, remain closed. Now your eyes are closed. They’re closed so tightly that you cannot open them. You cannot open them. Even if want to, and try your hardest, you cannot open them. Try! Try to open them, Ivy!”

The television camera zoomed into Ivy’s face as she tried to open her eyes, strained hard to open them, but could not.

The view from the observation booth was not so fortunate. Not only was the one-way glass an impeding factor, but Dr. Lipscomb’s chair had been imprudently placed at an angle so that his body blocked more than half the subject. The people on Bill’s side of the room got only a partial view of Ivy. Those on the other side got no view of her at all. Which caused Judge Langley to testily demand that someone go tell the doctor to move aside.

“Patience,” Scott Velie’s voice counseled respectfully. “Wait till she’s fully under.”

“There, you cannot open your eyes, they’re so tired, so tired, they simply must stay closed. Just relax, Ivy, relax—nothing bad is going to happen to you. You are safe and snug and fully asleep now. Finally asleep. And now your right arm is beginning to feel lighter and lighter. Its feeling so light that it wants to lift away from the couch. So light it just seems to want to float in the air.”

It did.

“And now your arm is beginning to feel heavy again, so heavy that it wants to fall back onto the couch, fall back onto the couch and rest itself.”

It obeyed.

“You are fully asleep now. Fully asleep. If I wish to awaken you, I will count to five. At the count of five, I will say, ‘Awaken, Ivy!’ and you will awaken promptly. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” Her voice was weak, pallid.

“At my command, you will awaken, and you will feel rested and well, as if you had taken a nap. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

The scraping of a chair, followed by a stumbling footstep, preceded the appearance of Scott Velie’s silhouette at the window. He tapped lightly on the glass and caught the attention of the doctor, who, turning about nervously, quickly grasped the problem and obliged by shifting himself and chair off to the side, permitting the court an unencumbered view of the subject. The slight disturbance in no way seemed to affect or elicit a reaction from the sleeping child, and once settled, Dr. Lipscomb renewed the hypnosis.

“Now, as your eyes are closed, and you are deeply asleep, and you are completely relaxed, you’re gradually moving back in time. Back, back, Ivy … back in time. You’re moving back in time to your eighth birthday. All right, Ivy, I will count to three, and you will be at your eighth birthday party. You will remember every detail of your eighth birthday party. One, two, three.…”

In the next instant, an expression of joy appeared on Ivy’s face—an inner, contained joy that seemed pure and natural and genuine.

“You are now at the party, among your friends. Do you see your friends, Ivy?”

She nodded, still smiling.

“Tell me about them, Ivy. Who is at the party?”

“Bettina, Carrie. Mary Ellen. The twins. Peter.”

“Tell me about your presents. Do you love your presents?”

“Oh, yes. I love my Terry doll with travel wardrobe. And the game of Clue that Bettina bought me. And the roller skates.…”

Janice winced inwardly when the roller skates were recalled. The memory of the ear-shattering, head-splitting sound of Ivy clopping around the apartment on them in tears after falling every third step, and Janice’s decision to bury them away in a closet and pretend that they had either been lost or stolen, came crashing back in alternating waves of guilt and sadness, knowing that the skates, still haunting that closet, would remain there now, unused, forever.

“Now we will leave this birthday and go back in time to an earlier birthday. Just relax and move back in time to your fourth birthday party, Ivy. I will count to three, and you will be at your fourth birthday party. Ready! One … two … three.…”

Her look turned suddenly grave, taking on the plaintive expression of a much younger child, a child who has just sustained a keen and humiliating disappointment.

“You are now at your fourth birthday party. Your friends have brought you presents, Ivy. Do you see your presents, Ivy?”

Her cheeks flamed with hurt and resentment. She turned petulantly away from the doctor’s question, chin quivering.

Noting her reaction to this area of remembrance, Dr. Lipscomb gently led her away from it.

“What a grand birthday cake your parents bought. It’s got four lovely candles for you to blow out and make a wish on, Ivy.”

“Five candles,” she sullenly corrected. “Didn’t buy it. Too offenspif. Mommy made it from a magzadine, and I helped her.”

Tears sprang to Janice’s eyes at the sound of the voice, the sweet, simple voice of her four-year-old, making all those charming mistakes in pronunciation. “Offenspif” for “expensive,” “magzadine” for “magazine”—wistfully recalling the times she had hesitated to correct her, waging war with the years to preserve her exquisite naïveté, reluctant to let go of the child.

Janice’s mind was suddenly wrenched back to the present by the sound of sobbing, as she watched Ivy, huddled in the couch, hands covering her face, surrender herself to heartbreak in wave after wave of sobs so intense as to cause her body to shudder. Why was she crying? Janice asked herself, probing her memory for some clue to her grief. It had been a joyous birthday, hadn’t it? And then Janice remembered. There had been a moment, a terrible moment when that boy—what was his name?—

“He broke it!” Ivy sobbed. “Stuart broke my monkey!”

Yes, Stuart—that was it—the wind-up toy—a monkey on a tricycle. Stuart Cowan, a boy from the nursery school Ivy attended, had wound it up so tightly that the spring broke.

“Damn rotten little boy!” Ivy wailed.

Bill swallowed as the scene shot vividly back to him. It was a melee. Ivy screaming. Stuart laughing. Bill mollifying, telling her that Stuart was just a damn rotten little boy.

“Damn rotten little boy!” Ivy repeated in a singsong of sobs.

“It’s all right, Ivy,” soothed Dr. Lipscomb. “It’s all right. You’re going to move away from that bad memory. You’ll leave it now and move back in time even farther. You’ll move back in time to your third birthday. One … two … three.… You are now at your third birthday party, Ivy.…”

The tears stopped. The expression became remote, then softened. A smile hovered at her lips, followed by a tinkling, childish giggling, which then exploded into a burst of laughter—harsh, raucous.

“I win! I win! I win!” she screeched in the wild, hysterical manner of a three-year-old. “I win! I win and you lose! You all lose ’cept me!”

“Very good, Ivy,” praised the doctor. “Very good. Now, move back in time a little bit farther. A little farther back in time. You’re two and a half, and you’re having trouble sleeping. Go back to the night when the bad dreams began. You’re dreaming now the same dream you had on that night.…”

Her expression gradually tightened. She began to feet and tremble. Her breath came in quick, shallow bursts. The whimpering came next. “Mommydaddy mommydaddy hothothot—” And began to build.

Bill heard sharp intakes of breaths and a general nervous stirring in the observation room.

Janice sensed a deep hush around her as pencils paused above pads and attentions riveted on the screens.

“DaddydaddydaddyhothotHOTHOT—”

“All right, Ivy! Leave the bad dream!” Dr. Lipscomb commanded. “Leave the bad dream! It’s morning, and the dream is over!”

The whimpering abated. The face lost its tension, began to relax.

“Good, Ivy, good.… Now just relax, relax, calm. I want you to slip back farther and farther in time now. Go way back in time, Ivy. Way back to a time when you can see and hear and feel and think but you cannot say things. You’re a little baby in Mommy’s arms now, and Mommy’s putting you in your carriage.…”

Once again, tears rushed to Janice’s eyes as Ivy began to chortle and smile and express the small, scattered discomforts and pleasures of early infancy. The utter sweetness of this recollection came back in full force, bringing with it the very feel and smell of the tiny bundled body in her arms and a stab of pain to her heart for all those treasured, precious moments forever gone, forever lost to her, some even beyond the rescue of memory.

“Very good, Ivy,” Dr. Lipscomb told her, his voice so soft, so caressing in its gentleness. “And now, we are going even farther back in time … farther back … farther back to a time before you were born … before you were born … before you were born.…”

The repetition, the insinuating cadence, the firm, indomitable note of command gradually began to manifest an overwhelming lethargy in the child. Eyes tightly shut, head reposing on a shoulder, her hands slowly clasped together as if in prayer, and her knees gradually drew up to her chest in a startling approximation of a fetal ball, whereupon she remained rigidly still, neither moving nor flinching nor seeming even to draw breath, in effect, duplicating the perfect in-limbo attitude of a fetus floating in the womb’s juices.

The moment was electric.

“My God,” Janice heard someone behind her whisper, “she’s in her mother’s womb.”

In the observation booth, not a ripple of sound disturbed the steaming, fetid stillness as nineteen people were held captive by the incredible performance.

His face bathed in sweat, his eyes blurring from the room’s closeness and the strain he was subjecting them to, Bill could only stare along with the rest of them, uncertainty giving way to incredulity, as the weird behavior of his child, his own little princess, unfolded before his stunned scrutiny. It was impossible, he thought. She was playacting. Had to be playacting. Wasn’t asleep at all. Just putting the old duffer on. Had a good memory of her birthdays, that was it. But—how did she know about things like fetuses? And what they looked like? Books? Bettina probably. She was pretty damned advanced. And yet—it was weird, how still she remained, how deathly still—like one of those things in jars you sometimes see in doctor’s offices. Weird. His struggles and his doubts were now showing plainly on his face. And his fear. If this was on the level, it was wrong. All wrong.…?

“Back, back, back in time,” the verbal metronome continued, urging, pleading, pushing, “back in time, back farther and farther to the time before you existed as yourself. Back to the time when you were not Ivy, not Ivy, not Ivy, back to the time when you were somebody else, somebody else, not Ivy, but somebody else.”

This was wrong. Bad. The way she sat there, not moving, hardly breathing, suspended in space, floating. What the hell was he doing to her? Where was he taking her? Was it possible he was really taking her back to another life? Crazy. Impossible. And yet—

“…not Ivy, but somebody else, somebody else, back in time, back in time, back in time … back in time until you can remember, until you can remember, remember, remember remember … remember the very next thing, the very next thing, remember, remember … you are not Ivy but somebody else.… somebody else … not Ivy, not Ivy … but … who are you? Who are you? WHO ARE YOU?”

He’d stop it! Dammit, he’d stop it! This was wrong. Bad. He’d stop it now!

“WHO ARE YOU?”

“I want this test stopped, Mr. Velie!” Bill had risen to his feet and was swaying uncertainly. His head felt ready to burst.

“WHO ARE YOU?”

“I want it stopped!” he demanded in a quavering voice, clutching the chair to keep from falling. “God damn it, do you hear me?”

“WHO ARE YOU?”

“Stop this test!” he shouted. “Mr. Velie, Judge Langley—do you hear me?”

But even if they heard, which was doubtful, none could act, for all sat mesmerized, shocked into silence by the specter that was slowly materializing on the other side of the mirror. For now the child was sitting bolt upright on the couch, eyes wide open and staring, body rigid, expression startled, hovering between terror and amusement, warily seeking a persona just beyond reach, moving tentatively, cautiously, toward the brink of some startling discovery.

“WHO ARE YOU?” the voice pursued relentlessly, pushing, thrusting, projecting her forward on her course.

Trembling, Bill tried to steady himself but collapsed into the chair, unable to speak, hardly able to breathe. He tried to close his eyes to blot out the scene but could not. He’d have to look. This was his doing—his goddamn doing—now, he’d have to watch it—all of it!

“WHO ARE YOU?”

Suddenly, her face froze. Her eyes—bright, expectant—grew even wider, beseeching some distant memory which now appeared to be at hand, within reach. Her breath quickened. The lines of tension around her mouth relaxed into a gradual smile, spreading softly, suffusing the face with a light of such shimmering joy, radiating a warmth of expression so tender, so grateful as to be unmistakably that of a homecoming. She had arrived—at last. After long and weary wanderings, she had finally come home.

“Mommy?” the child’s voice rang out, clear and sharp. “Mommy!” She laughed, in peal after peal of rapture and delight. “Mommy! Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!”

It was at this moment of arrival, of laughter and reunion, that Janice Templeton shut her eyes and began to softly recite the Prayer for the Dead.

“O God, Whose property is always to have mercy and to spare, we humbly beseech thee for the soul of the servant, Ivy Templeton, which thou hast this day commanded to depart out of this world.…”

“Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!” the childish voice repeated in an unabating litany, but the tone underwent a subtle change. What had been gay, joyous, charged with a fervor of jubilation and rejoicing, gradually began to take on a note of anxiety and hysteria. “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!” the voice shrieked, graduating up the scale, in a rising glissando, from fear to fright to strident horror.

“… that thou wouldst not deliver her into the hands of the enemy, nor forget her unto the end, but wouldst command her to be received by the holy angels.…”

“Mommy-eeeeee!”

In the observation booth there was shocked silence. No one moved.

Bill peered feverishly through the murky glass, his eyes locked on the distant face, hardly able to focus. What the hell was happening to her? She was laughing one minute, and now—It was changing. The voice—the face—was changing. It was breaking apart—fragmenting into panels and lines of fear … terror—breathless, welling terror … like kids wear on their faces coming down a roller coaster. That was it, she was swaying back and forth like she was moving—no, like the world around her was moving—like the couch was moving and the world was rushing by her.…

“Mommy-eeeeee!” The word got swallowed up in a scream so high-pitched and intense that the wall speaker crackled and popped.

“My God,” someone in the room whispered as the screams sustained a strident peak and the swaying became more pronounced—back and forth, from side to side, forcing her hands to cling to the arms of the couch and her body to fight to stay upright, to fight this power that seemed determined to send her reeling through the air.…

“It’s all right, Ivy!” Dr. Lipscomb said nervously.

“Eeeeeeeeeee!”

“It’s all right, Ivy!” he repeated, his voice rising, mustering sternness. “You will leave this memory now! You will move farther back in time away from this memory! Farther back in time, Ivy!”

“Mommy-eeeee!” shrieked the voice as her body swayed and teetered to and fro, wildly now, the muscles of her face drawn into knots, her head zigzagging from side to side, her fingers desperately clutching the fabric of the couch to keep from being hurled into space.

“You will move away from this memory, Ivy! When I count to three, you will move back in time. One … two … three!”

“Mommmm-eee! Crash-crash-crash-crash!”

“One … two … three! Do you understand me, Ivy!”

“Not Ivy!” a voice in the observation room whispered hoarsely. A voice that was Elliot Hoover’s. “She’s not Ivy!”

“Moooommmm-eeeee! Crash-crash-crash-crash!”

Her scream, rising to decibels of a stridency that overloaded speakers and eardrums alike, pierced the air in a single sustained note as her body, incapable of longer resisting its own violent, turbulent oscillations, thrust itself upward from the couch as if impelled by some irresistible power, sending her staggering to her feet and holding her suspended in space momentarily—arms outstretched, eyes bulging, the scream dying in her throat—before dropping her to the floor with a shocking suddenness and force that could be heard through the speakers. Head striking first, her body tumbled over in a bruising, somersault, whereupon she remained in a crumpled ball, writhing and trembling in what seemed only partial consciousness—eyes half closed, a line of blood trickling from her mouth, and muted, pained moans of a terribly injured person rising and falling in her throat.

The effect upon the audience was staggering and unmistakable.

“… it was smoking, and one of the back wheels was still turning.…”

All around Janice, chairs scraped. People rose. A deathly silence held as all awaited the terrible aftermath.

“O Lord, deliver her from the rigor of thy justice. O Lord, deliver her from long-enduring sorrow.…”

Dr. Lipscomb, stunned into speechlessness along with the others, recovered his professional presence and, dropping to his knees, placed his trembling fingers on the child’s pulse. His face mirrored concern. His voice ratified it.

“You will now awaken, Ivy!” he commanded in a tone that wavered with uncertainty. “When I count to five, you will awaken and feel rested and well. One … two … three … four … five.… Awaken, Ivy!”

The child lay on her back, eyes closed, breathing hard, writhing moaning.

“You will obey me, Ivy! At the count of five, you will awaken!”

“Not Ivy, not Ivy,” Hoover muttered in a fever of anxiety.

“One … two … three … four.…”

“O Lord, deliver her from the cruel flames—”

“… five!”

Her eyes popped open. She sat bolt upright. Weak. Exhausted. Panting. Intensely alert. Senses keened. Eyes widening with alarm. Nostrils flaring. Smelling. Head twisting about, rubber-necking, startled, birdlike, sensing an imminent danger. Face contorting in a kaleidoscope of expressions—fear, dismay, panic, horror—

“… then … there was an explosion … not loud … like a puff … and all at once the car was swallowed up in flames.…”

The scream burst forth like a gunshot, built to an incredible crescendo, and sustained.

Behind the mirror, bodies flinched and breaths expelled to melt the inner tension.

Bill was on his feet, not knowing it, drawing the sight into his stunned mind. He felt something tightening in his chest.

“One … two … three … four … five! Awaken, Ivy!”

“She’s not Ivy, damn you!” shouted Hoover, jumping to his feet, bringing the guard up with him.

“One … two … three.…”

The strung-out scream maintained its steady, piercing shrillness, mindless of the doctor’s importunings. Her body twisted away from his outstretched hands, slithering then crawling from their grasp.

“… four.… five! Awaken, Ivy!”

Stumbling to her feet, her eyes darted frantically about for a path of escape and, seeing the mirror, she quickly scampered toward the reflected image of her own fear-ravaged face, rushing to meet it, her scream suddenly fading, replaced by choking gasps which then erupted into the quick, explosive sobs and whimperings, “Mommydaddy mommydaddy hothothot!”

“O Lord, deliver her from dreadful weeping and wailing, through thine admirable conception!”

A sudden hum of rising voices and a shuffling of footsteps forced Janice to open her eyes. Everybody was standing, watching the screens, pressing forward to get a better view of the picture, which, Janice saw, had lost the images of Ivy and Dr. Lipscomb, though their voices, rising in opposition, were clearly heard.

“Mommydaddy mommydaddy daddydaddy hothothot!”

“One … two … three.…”

Janice took a deep breath, knowing that they must be at the window now, out of camera range.

A wailing shriek coming through the speakers, half of pain, half of horror, started the exodus from the recreation hall as the reporters gave up on the TV and hurried to the stairway.

Janice rose. It was time for her to go, too. She would neither hurry nor linger but descend the three floors at a normal rate of speed. It would take her just under two minutes to get there. She had timed it earlier. By then it would be over.

In the observation booth, all eyes clung to the scene being played just beyond the length of the glass—

—The figure of the child, blurred, ethereal, rushing back and forth across the length of the glass—

—Her hands beckoning toward it, withdrawing, weeping, “hothothothot—”

—The doctor, “… four … five! Awaken, Ivy!” moving toward her, reaching out—

—The child screaming, struggling violently, furiously, eluding him—

—Her face wild, her breathing heavy, her eyes reflecting coruscating glints of panic, her senses sharpened now by the encroaching peril—

—Her fists balled into hard knots, mustering the energy of despair—

“It was just horrible. I could still see the little girl screaming and beating her hands against the window.…”

—Pounding the glass and sobbing, “Hothothothothot!”

“I could see her through the flames as the car was melting all around the window.…”

—A loud, shrill scream bursting suddenly from her throat, causing the line of jurors at the glass to jerk back in their chairs—

—“You will obey me, Ivy!”—

—Hoover shouting shudderingly, “AUDREY ROSE.”

—“One … two.…?—

—“They can’t hear you,” Velie explaining. “Room’s soundproof.”—

—“three … four.…”—

—Langley watching open-mouthed—his mind refusing to comprehend what was happening—

“… five! Awaken, Ivy!”—

—“AUDREY ROSE!”—

—Panting, gasping for breath, helpless prey to a whirl of emotions beyond her control, clawing, beating against the glass, screaming, “Daddydaddydaddyhothothot!”—

—Hoover shouting, “I’m here!” and plunging over chairs and bodies, stumbling down to the window—

—The guard withdrawing his revolver, indecisively—

—Velie shouting, “Put it away, Tim!” decisively—

—“Daddydaddydaddy!”—

—Hoover’s body splayed against the glass, hands outstretched—

—“Hothothothot!”—

“… she screamed and screamed and tried to get out of the car.…”—

—Bill frozen, staring mutely, a crazed and awful guilt in his eyes—

—“… and kept beating her hands against the window.…”—

—“HOTHOTHOT!”—

—Dr. Lipscomb, grim-faced in defeat, speaking up at the mirror. “I’ll have to give her a sedative. Your Honor,” then hurrying in helpless frustration to his medical bag—

—“Hothothot … Daddy … hot … hot.…”—

—Her voice, scarcely sane, growing feeble, the pallor of her face reddening, taking on a ghastly hue—

—“Hot … hot … hot.…”—

—Coughing, choking, the words dying in her throat—

—“… hot.…”—

—Clutching her throat, collapsing to her knees, her eyes disappearing upward into her head—

—Mrs. Carbone shrieking, “Oh, God, she’s dying!” extending her arms to the suffering child struggling to survive on the other side of the glass. “She’s choking to death!” rising, pleading. “Somebody help her! SHE’S DYING!”—

—“DADDY-EEEEE!” the agony in her soul bursting forth in one long and final scream of anguish—

—Mrs. Carbone shouting at Hoover, pummeling his arm, “You’re her father! Help her! HELP HER!”—

—Hoover turning to his assailant, eyes widening, body tensing, his movements measured, deliberate, seizing Mrs. Carbone’s chair and, with a sharp cry, “AUDREY!” swinging it in a powerful arc against the far end of the glass, shattering it into a hailstorm of shimmering splinters—

The corridor outside the observation theater was clogged with reporters. Two tight-lipped Connecticut highway patrolmen stood guard before the closed door, indifferent to the litany of questions battering them from all sides.

“Please let me through,” Janice asked at the outer fringes of the gathering.

Upon seeing who she was, a hush fell in a gradual wave across the assembled group, and a path was cleared for her.

“She’s the child’s mother,” someone informed the patrolmen, who immediately opened the door just wide enough for her slim body to slip through.

The dimly lit room enveloped her in its suffocating closeness, offering her its quiet murmurings and air of deep, unredeemable gloom.

The floor was gritty with powdered glass, causing her footsteps to announce her presence as she slowly approached the men and women gathered in a semicircle, their bodies shielding an object of intense concern from her view. They were faces she had come to know well: Scott Velie, Brice Mack, Judge Langley, the court clerk (she never did know his name), Hoover’s guard (Finchley or Findley, she had once read), the twelve jurors, each face reflecting sensations of sadness, awe, and disbelief. Mrs. Carbone weeping into a handkerchief, people from the courtroom, people from the hospital, the three psychiatrists standing shoulder to shoulder, ludicrously, Janice thought, seeing no evil, hearing no evil, speaking no evil. And Bill—finally Bill—alone in the observation booth, sitting with his back pressed against the wall, dramatically framed by jagged splinters of glass, staring sightless into space, shaking his head from side to side as people whose burdens in life are too great often do.

“Mrs. Templeton—” The gentle hand, the kindly voice were Dr. Webster’s. His expression combined disillusion and grief equally. His stethoscope, still in place around his neck, glittered like a jewel. “It … it happened so fast … we tried … I can’t tell you how.…” His voice faltered, the words too painful to express.

Heads turned. A channel parted. Janice pushed through and for a panicked moment felt her breath stop, saw a wavering opaqueness begin to draw across her vision.

Someone’s hand gripped her arm. Steadied her. Forced her back to consciousness. Forced her to look down toward the floor at her child, at her own sweet Ivy, lying now so still and breathless in the arms of Elliot Hoover. Her eyes were open, reflecting a luster that seemed to radiate life; her pale lips were slightly parted, as if about to speak.

But it was Hoover who spoke for her.

“It’s all right,” he said, rocking the body gently back and forth in his arms. “She’s at peace now.” His voice was depleted, yet tranquil, and strangely reassuring. Looking up at Janice, and in the half-light, his face seemed worn, scarred by the marks of a long and grueling battle, yet at peace.

“It’s all right now,” he repeated, offering her the strength and comfort of his belief like a legacy from God to His beleaguered children, lending the words an emphasis and finality of a conviction so powerful as to be indisputable, while clutching the still and lifeless form of—

—their child.

End Papers

(UPI—FEBRUARY 4, 1975) AFTER A FULL MORNING OF FINAL ARGUMENTS, THE JURY RECEIVED INSTRUCTIONS ON THE LAW AND BEGAN ITS DELIBERATIONS IN THE TRIAL OF ELLIOT S. HOOVER THIS AFTERNOON AT 1407 HOURS. JUDGE HARMON T. LANGLEY, IN AN ALMOST ONE-HOUR EXPLANATION OF THE LAW TO THE JURY, TOLD THEM IN PART: “IT IS FOR YOU TO DECIDE WHAT EVIDENCE IS CREDIBLE IN THIS TRIAL. YOU THE JURORS ARE THE SOLE JUDGE OF THE CREDIBILITY OF THE WITNESSES AND OF THE EVENTS THAT HAVE TAKEN PLACE IN THIS VERY UNUSUAL CASE. YOUR FUNCTION IS TO CONSIDER THE FACTS AND TO DETERMINE THE FACTS.” LESS THAN 30 MINUTES AFTER IT RETIRED TO CONSIDER ITS VERDICT THE JURY SENT WORD THAT IT HAD REACHED A DECISION. THE VERDICT, ANNOUNCED BY FOREMAN HERMAN M. POTASH, FOUND ELLIOT HOOVER NOT GUILTY OF ALL CHARGES, WHEREUPON JUDGE LANGLEY THANKED THE JURY AND ORDERED THE DEFENDANT RELEASED. ENDS. FINAL FEBRUARY 4 1604N UPI.