Fury

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

“YOU’RE SAFE NOW,” PHOEBE told her, welcoming her into her basement apartment. “And where’s this young lover of yours?” she asked next, smiling.

“But how could you know?” Jennifer stood back, startled by the channeler’s question.

“Dance told me.” She kept smiling, looking up at Jennifer. “I think it’s wonderful!”

“Kirk saved my life, really. He came racing by in his little car and picked me up. God knows what would have happened to me if he hadn’t stopped.”

“He didn’t just happen by, Jennifer, as you must realize by now. People don’t meet by chance. It’s all planned and ordained. It’s your karma. Both of your karmas.”

She had her thin arm linked into Jennifer’s and was using Jennifer to support her as they walked into the living room, which on this cloudy afternoon was lit by a dozen small candles casting shadowy light.

“Where is your young friend now?” Phoebe asked offhandedly as she eased herself onto the small sofa.

“He’s flying in later this afternoon. He had an appointment in Chicago.”

“Good! Then you’ll be together in a few hours.” She seemed pleased.

“Why?” Jennifer asked, watching the small woman, wondering about the odd collection of questions.

Phoebe shrugged. “It’s always better if you are with someone who understands you, especially now while you are having such intense past-life regressions.”

“I have you,” Jennifer whispered, wanting to show the woman how much she depended on her.

“Thank you.” Phoebe smiled, nodding her thanks. “It is my privilege, really, to be so close to such a powerful source as yourself.”

“Except no one knows who I am! Or who I really once was, I should say.”

“I think it’s time we did force this spirit into the open, Jenny. We need to identify it.” She was not looking at Jennifer, but reaching down beside the sofa and pulling out a large box.

“Can Dance tell us?”

Phoebe shook her head. “Dance can’t help us. He operates on another level of consciousness. He isn’t a reincarnated spirit like Habasha. What I must do is contact directly the spirit that is using your body, trying to work through your consciousness.”

The channeler leaned forward and lowered her voice. She held Jennifer’s attention steady with the intenseness of her gaze, the look in her brown eyes. “The entity that wants to be channeled by you, Jenny, is also protecting you. He or she is waiting for the right moment, waiting for you to come into your full powers, so that you’ll accept him. So far, however, this spirit has only been protecting you from physical attacks. It is also clear that there is another reincarnated spirit, Jennifer, that is trying to kill you before you realize your full spiritual power.”

“But who is that person, or whatever. Is it Kathy Dart?” Jennifer had raised her voice. She was frightened again.

“I don’t know,” Phoebe said softly. “But this may help us.” She held up a game box.

“A Ouija board! That’s a children’s game.”

“Yes, unfortunately it is treated as a child’s game, but it is a dangerous toy and should not be used by adults, either, without training and experience.”

Phoebe set the board on the coffee table and opened it, continuing to talk as she took the board from the box.

“A Ouija board, or talking board, as it is sometimes called, is very old. In 540 B.C. Pythagoras used them in his seances. This board was reinvented in 1892 by a man named Fuld. It’s very simple, really, just a semicircle of the letters of the alphabet, and the words ‘YES,’ ‘NO,’ and ‘GOOD-BYE.’ ” She looked over at Jennifer. “Have you ever used one?”

Jennifer shook her head. “No, not even as a child. I seem to remember it was banned from our house—something to do with the devil.”

Phoebe smiled. “Yes, that’s the cultural superstition. And today among parapsychologists it is accepted that Ouija boards attract channel entities of the lower classes, unless handled by a channeler.”

Phoebe picked up a small platform supported by three inch-long legs. “This is a planchette. See how it’s shaped like a pointer? As I ask questions, the pointer will indicate letters to spell out a message.” She handed Jennifer paper and a pencil. “I’ll ask the questions, Jennifer, and would you please take notes.”

Phoebe lifted the board off the coffee table and set it on her lap. “I need to have physical contact,” she explained, placing her fingers lightly on the planchette.

“We’ll begin slowly,” Phoebe went on. “I’ll ask the questions and summon up the spirit. It may take several minutes after I ask a question for the spirit to announce itself,” she added. “You’ll see the planchette move. When the planchette indicates a letter, just jot it down.”

Jennifer nodded, but she was already tense.

“Relax, Jennifer,” Phoebe advised, and then she placed her fingers lightly on the planchette and, closing her eyes, asked the Ouija board, “Do you wish to communicate with us?”

Jennifer glanced from Phoebe’s hands to her soft, pale face, and then steadied her gaze again on the channeler’s fingers.

For several minutes nothing happened, and Jennifer realized she was holding her breath. She took a deep breath to calm herself and was about to speak, to tell Phoebe that she was too frightened and tense to go on with this, when the planchette suddenly moved and the pointed end of the plastic platform turned in the direction of the word “Yes.”

“What are you called?” Phoebe asked.

Jennifer kept staring at Phoebe’s hand as the instrument moved again and in rapid jerks pointed to more than a dozen letters.

Quickly, Jennifer scribbled down the letters as the planchette tracked across the smooth board, then read the words out loud: “I am one of many names.”

“You say you are one of many names,” Phoebe said, still with her eyes closed. “But what do you wish us to call you?”

PHARAOH

Next to the name “PHARAOH,” Jennifer wrote “Egypt.”

“Do you know Habasha?” Phoebe asked the board.

ETHIOP

“Yes, an Ethiopian. Have you and Habasha been reincarnated many times?” Phoebe questioned the spirit. Again the planchette moved.

YES

“And our Jennifer?”

YES

“Is our friend Jennifer in danger?” Phoebe asked, softening her voice.

The planchette moved quickly under Phoebe’s fingers. The heart-shaped instrument crossed the flat smooth surface on its own accord. It pulled back to the middle of the board, then sped again to the word “YES” and the symbol of the bright sun. Jennifer stared at Phoebe. The channeler’s brown eyes had opened and widened.

Phoebe continued with her questioning. “Tell us, spirit,” she asked calmly, “who wishes to harm our soulmate Jennifer?”

The planchette hesitated, spun freely under Phoebe’s fingers with a life of its own and quickly spelled out a message. Jennifer read the letters aloud as the planchette rapidly moved across the board: “T-A-M-I-T.”

Phoebe, her eyes closed again, paused a moment to frame her next question.

Her hands stopped moving. The heart-shaped planchette froze. Jennifer held her breath and watched Phoebe.

“Tell me, Pharaoh,” Phoebe said to the Ouija board, “who in this lifetime is Tamit?”

K ATH Y

“No!” Jennifer whispered, and the breath went out of her.

Jennifer looked down at the board as the planchette, moving under Phoebe’s touch, spelled out the story from the days of Ramses the Great, of how Amenhotep had fought a battle and killed the Ethiopian monarch to marry Roudidit. Then Tamit, the jealous daughter of Nenoferkaptak, had Roudidit murdered when Amenhotep was away at Memphis.

“And who is Amenhotep?” Phoebe asked.

KIRK

Phoebe Fisher pushed the Ouija board away and looked over at Jennifer. She looked worried now. The warm softness had slipped off her face. She seemed older in the winter light of the afternoon. “It is clear from what this ‘Pharaoh’ spirit is telling me,” she said carefully to Jennifer, “that an ancient drama is being played out today.”

“I just don’t understand why now.” Jennifer kept shaking her head. “It’s an endless puzzle. We keep going around in circles. Everyone used to be someone else; no one is who they are. I’m not me!” She looked at Phoebe, her eyes showing her feeling of helplessness.

Phoebe reached over to hold Jennifer’s hand, telling her, “You are frightened, I know, Jennifer, and with good cause. Your spirit has been in revolt against your rational consciousness. Your friends appear to be your enemies. Your whole world has changed beyond recognition. But you cannot let your fear become your prison. You must not lose hope, or you will not transform your life.”

Jennifer shook her head, still bewildered.

“To reach the light, you must endure the burning,” Phoebe summed up.

“I’ve had the burning,” Jennifer replied soberly. “And there is going to be more.”

“Yes, you must face your enemy.”

Jennifer nodded, then asked, “Will you help me?”

“I’ll try,” she whispered, her eyes not leaving Jennifer’s face. Then she said, “You could be killed, Jennifer.”

“Or I could kill again.”

Phoebe nodded. “You have no choice.” Then she stood up, saying, “I’ll get your coat.” The channeler stepped around the coffee table and limped into her bedroom, to where she had left Jennifer’s fur coat and luggage.

Jennifer pulled a tissue from the pocket of her jeans and wiped her nose. She was staring down at the Ouija board that Phoebe had left on the coffee table. It looked so innocent, she thought, nothing more than a silly children’s game.

She reached out and touched the smooth heart-shaped planchette, let her fingertips rest lightly for a moment on the plastic surface. Her hands trembled, and she felt a sudden bolt of energy rush into her fingers, up her arms. It took her breath away. She jerked her hand away from the planchette and sat back.

What are you? she thought, staring at the Ouija board.

The heart-shaped planchette moved then without the touch of her fingers. It traced across the smooth surface of the board spelling out an answer. But this time it was not “Pharaoh” who replied to Jennifer:

I AM YOUR SOUL

Jennifer sat very still as she watched the planchette spell out the answer. She was frightened again, holding her breath, but she was also thrilled, as if she were lifting up the edge of a forbidden universe.

Who am I? Jennifer thought next, concentrating on the board. Her eyes did not waver from the plastic planchette. Again it moved, responding to her silent thought, spelling out the words:

YOU ARE THE FIRST

Jennifer sat staring at the Ouija board, puzzled by the replies and not sure what to say. She heard Phoebe in the next room, heard her say something about the weather, the terrible winter New York was having, and Jennifer quickly directed her concentration to the board and asked: I am the first what?

The smooth marker slid across the flat board, spelling out one word:

HUMAN

Then Phoebe reached the living room, carrying Jennifer’s heavy fur coat, and saw that the heart-shaped planchette was moving effortlessly under the power of Jennifer’s spirit.

“What are you doing?” the channeler shouted, dropping the coat and stumbling forward, tripping on her deformed leg.

“Nothing! I’m not doing anything!” Jennifer exclaimed, jumping up and tipping over the Ouija board, terrified by the violence of Phoebe’s reaction. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do anything.”

“What did it tell you? Didn’t I tell you the board was dangerous?” The small woman had regained her balance and had pulled herself onto the arm of the sofa. She kept glaring at Jennifer, her eyes white with fright.

“I’m sorry, Phoebe. I didn’t mean—”

“What did it tell you?”

“Nothing. I mean

” Jennifer kept shaking her head, still terrified and upset by the channeler’s violent reaction. “I’m terribly sorry, but I didn’t understand. I mean—” Jennifer took a deep breath and, recovering her composure, said forcefully, “Phoebe, I’m sorry I upset you, but you shouldn’t have shouted at me! I’m a case of nerves as it is.” Jennifer glanced down and was surprised to see her hands were not trembling.

“What did you learn?” Phoebe demanded.

“Nothing! I was just asking a question.”

“You’re not trained to use a talking board,” Phoebe said again, watching Jennifer. Her face had lost all of its soft, smooth glow.

“I’m sorry,” Jennifer said slowly, not looking at Phoebe. She was afraid to trade glances with the channeler.

Phoebe stood again, fully recovered. The softness returned to her voice and she said, “I’m sorry, Jennifer. I just don’t want you to be misled. Ouija boards, as I mentioned, are often controlled by spirits of a lower order.” She bent then to pick up Jennifer’s coat, and Jennifer glanced at the board, directing her thoughts at the heart-shaped planchette, asking one last question of her hidden spirit: Who wants to kill me?

The plastic planchette began to move on the smooth surface when Phoebe jumped forward and swept the instrument off the board, knocking it across the room, where it skipped off the stone hearth of the fireplace and flew into the fire, sizzling at once in the heat of the flame.

“You must never—!” The channeler regained her stance and focused on Jennifer.

Phoebe was trembling, Jennifer realized. The channeler was the one who was truly frightened.

“I am trying to save your life, don’t you see?” Phoebe shouted at her.

Jennifer nodded, reaching for her coat. “I’m sorry,” she said again.

Phoebe reached out and touched Jennifer’s hands.

“Jennifer, I’m sorry I shouted at you. It’s just that you must be careful when you involve yourself in the spirit world.” She had both her hands on Jennifer’s arms and was looking up lovingly at her. “You will be careful, won’t you?”

“Yes, I’ll try.”

“Good!” And she reached up and quickly kissed Jennifer good-bye. “Remember, I love you. I’ll see that you are protected from your ancient lives,” she said, speaking softly to Jennifer, but the channeler’s lips were cold on her cheek.

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

JENNIFER GRABBED A TAXI on Columbus Avenue and told the driver she wanted to go to LaGuardia. Kirk’s flight was not due until after seven, and though she had time to go home to her place first and unpack, she was now afraid to go there by herself, especially after witnessing what the Ouija board had done, how the planchette had moved, spelling out her fate. What would it have told her if Phoebe hadn’t knocked the instrument off the board? Jennifer shuddered, recalling Phoebe’s act of violence, her sudden strange reaction to what the Ouija board was telling her. Phoebe’s behavior had upset her, Jennifer realized, as much as what had happened to her on the farm.

The taxi crossed Central Park at Eighty-sixth and paused at the stoplight on Fifth Avenue. Jennifer glanced out the window at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The lights were on in the Sackler Wing, and she could see part of the Temple of Dendur. The ancient Egyptian temple glowed in the soft yellow light, casting shadows the length of the immense wing.

Jennifer remembered how she had gone once to the museum when she was a teenager. It had been a junior-high class trip and she had got upset, wanted only to get out of the museum. Jennifer tried to remember what it was about, why she had been so upset by the Egyptian wing. It had been new then, built to house the Temple of Dendur, the small temple that had been saved in Egypt when the Aswan Dam was built. The temple had been removed from lower Nubia in Egypt, stone by stone, and rebuilt in the Metropolitan Museum. There was a pool of water in front of the temple, and a wall of windows overlooking Central Park.

It was a beautiful setting, Jennifer recalled, but when she had first come into the wing it had frightened her, upsetting her for some unknown reason.

Of course, Jennifer thought. Of course!

She leaned forward at once and tapped the glass partition of the taxi, telling the driver that she had changed her mind. She wasn’t going to the airport. She was stopping first at the Metropolitan Museum. She was going back into the Temple of Dendur to learn what secret of her past was locked away in her memory. She was going to let the ancient stone tell her what had happened to her on the banks of the Nile.

The new wing was at the rear of the huge Metropolitan, behind long galleries of Egyptian art and artifacts. Jennifer didn’t rush herself through the exhibition. She moved slowly, waiting for her memory to be triggered by the objects, waiting for some connection to her life in Egypt, to the earliest time of her existence. The Ouija board had told her she was the first human. Was this what it meant? Did all of her troubles begin here, in one of the great dynasties?

Jennifer kept moving slowly through the rooms, from the time of the New Kingdoms, back into the Middle Kingdoms and the Archaic Period. She glanced from object to object, scanned the artifacts that the Metropolitan had in its vast collection. She waited for some memory. It had happened to her at the Museum of Natural History. When she had seen the primitive hut, she knew that she had once lived in that prehistoric hut, slept under those mammoth bones and animal skins.

Jennifer pushed the door and went into a room of glass cases and burial objects. There were mummies sealed behind the cases, shelves of ancient linens and small Canopic jars.

She reached out and pressed her fingers against the cases holding the mummies. No sensation touched her. She felt only the cool glass. There were no memories of her past life here, she understood.

She kept moving through the deserted rooms. It was late, she realized. The museum would be closing soon. She glanced at her watch to see how much time she had left, then opened another door and stepped into the vast Sackler Wing with the reconstructed Temple of Dendur.

Now she felt something. Her attention was alerted. It was as if some memory was trying to reach her from her early lifetime on earth. She was suddenly not frightened. The recollection was comforting, as if she had finally solved her problem, found the missing piece in the puzzle of her life.

She moved forward, closer to the temple itself, keeping her eyes now on the huge stone structure.

There were few other people in the wing. A tour guide was speaking to a group of women sitting on a stone bench. She was aware, too, of two guides standing together by the windows, but she concentrated on the temple, focusing her attention and waiting for more memories to flood her mind.

She stepped up onto the level of the temple, walked around the small pool of water, and approached the front of the reconstructed temple. In the foreground was an archway, and behind that, the temple walls. The spirit called Pharaoh had told Phoebe that Kathy Dart, as Tamil, had killed her when she was Roudidit and married to Amenhotep. It was the days of Ramses, and Kirk had been Amenhotep, her husband.

Jennifer paused on her approach to the temple. If this was the first incarnation and she had been murdered, she thought, then why now, after all the other lives she had lived, would Kathy Dart still be seeking revenge? It was her spirit, not Kathy Dart’s, that had been violated!

It couldn’t be her first life on earth, Jennifer thought next. She remembered the images she had seen of herself when Kathy Dart had pierced her third eye. She had been a wild creature then, living in a jungle world. But what had the Ouija board planchette spelled out? That she was the first human.

Jennifer shook her head. No, Phoebe was wrong. Phoebe was hiding information. She had swept the planchette off the board. She hadn’t wanted Jennifer to know. But to know what?

Jennifer stepped closer to the interior of the temple and closed her eyes, concentrating on the temple, on her stone surroundings. When she opened her eyes again, she saw the temple women who sang and shook the sistra and crotals during services. They lived in the innermost sanctuaries of the temple and were called God’s handmaids. All of these virgins were daughters of the wealthy families, of kings and queens, and she was among the selected few.

Jennifer stood perfectly still watching herself, the other young women of the temple. They wore shifts under transparent white pleated robes that were gathered over their left breasts. Their right shoulder was uncovered. She watched herself as she moved in procession. She was wearing rings of solid gold and strings of gold beads. A black curled wig fell over her back and onto her shoulders. She had a tiara of turquoise and gold tied at the back with two tassel cords, and her head was crowned with a scented pomade.

She was a beautiful young woman in this lifetime, Jennifer saw, and she wondered how she knew it was even her. Yet she knew. And she saw, too, as she searched the faces of the other virgins that Phoebe Fisher was with her, another of the young women. She scanned the corps of singers. Kathy Dart’s spirit was not part of this divine harem.

The scene faded from her sight. She reached out, as if to pull back the ancient memory, but saw only her hand reaching into the vast wing of the museum. Behind her she heard the museum guard make a point to the tourists, heard a child’s happy voice echo off the high ceiling. She glanced around and saw that she was being watched by a museum guard. To mask her confusion and hide her bewilderment at what she had seen, she walked to the edge of the wall and sat down.

Her legs were weak and she was out of breath. She leaned over and dropped her head between her legs. She would faint, Jennifer realized, if she wasn’t careful.

“Are you okay, lady?” the guard asked, stepping over to her.

Jennifer sat up and tossed her hair back off her shoulder. She forced a smile. “Yes, thank you. I just felt a little funny.” The man’s face was swimming in her eyesight.

The man nodded and moved away, saying as he did, “Well, you looked a little odd there.”

“I’m fine now, thank you.” Jennifer took a tissue from her purse and wiped her eyes. She waited until the man had gone back to his post before she looked again at the temple. The gray stones of the small building looked the same. There were no young virgins, no divine harem. She had imagined it all, she thought. It was nothing more than a psychic episode.

She kept staring at the Temple of Dendur, the silent gray building, nothing more than a few ancient walls dug from the muddy banks of the Nile River.

She calmed down, pulled herself under control. She was all right, she realized. She didn’t have a psychic episode, she realized. She had seen herself as she had been as a young woman in Egypt. She had married Amenhotep—Kirk, in this reincarnation. She had seen Phoebe Fisher but not Kathy Dart. Why was Phoebe in her Egyptian days and not Kathy? The spirit of the Pharaoh said Tamit had killed her when she was Roudidit and married to the warrior Amenhotep.

The guard moved toward her again and signaled that the museum was closing. Jennifer nodded and stood up, collected her bag. She glanced over at the temple, half expecting to see more shadowy shades from her reincarnated life drifting through the vaulted arch, appearing like a whiff of memory. Nothing now surprised her. But there was no image, nothing but the empty gallery, the silent walls of the temple. Jennifer stood and followed the last of the tourists from the Sackler Wing, taking the exit doors and going through more long, low-ceilinged hallways and galleries filled with the artifacts from the Old Kingdom of Egypt, at the time of the First Dynasty, over twenty-five hundred years before Christ.

In the last gallery, Jennifer stopped momentarily to look at a huge map of Egypt. She wanted to see where the Temple of Dendur had been located on the Nile River, but what caught her attention immediately was the vast expanse of Lower Egypt and the names Kush and Ethiopia.

There had been great civilizations on the Nile River before the ancient Egyptians, and before those, man had traveled north out of the primitive jungles of Africa. She remembered what Kathy Dart had said in Washington, how her connection with Habasha had come from a piece of crystal found in Ethiopia. Habasha had been alive then, 4 million years ago, and his spirit was on earth even before that, over 23 million years ago.

Jennifer kept staring at the old map of Lower Egypt, at the vast expanse of the Sudan desert and the high plateaus of Ethiopia. It was here, deep in the the gorges of southern Ethiopia, where Habasha had lived, that man first stood upright and changed from a beast of the jungle to a creature possessing a spirit, having a soul, a reincarnated soul that he carried with him throughout time and filled with all the memories of all his lifetimes.

Phoebe Fisher had not told her the truth, Jennifer realized. The spirit of the Pharaoh was not her first moment in time. Her spirit, her oversoul, which had moved the heart-shaped planchette, had existed before the great civilizations of Egypt. It had said she was the first human!

She was like Habasha—that was the connection! She, too, like Kathy Dart, went back to the dawn of mankind, to the first moments of the human spirits, millions of years before the Temple of Dendur. She had been reincarnated as a member of the divine harem in the temple, had married Amenhotep, and died in Egypt. Her body, she was sure, had been mummified and ferried across the Nile to be entombed. But she now knew she had lived even before this great civilization of pharaonic Egypt. She had lived with Habasha. She had lived at the same time as Kathy Dart’s first incarnation. And now, she realized, Phoebe Fisher had been there, too. That was why the channeler had kept her from learning more from the Ouija board. They had all been alive together in their first incarnations on earth. And something had happened to them, there at the dawn of time.

Jennifer glanced around, suddenly afraid, fearing that Phoebe had followed her to the museum. But the Egyptian gallery was empty. The Metropolitan was closing.

The answer, she realized, would not be found here in the great dynasties of Egypt and in the days of Ramses the Great. Yes, she had suffered and died, murdered by Tamit, but this was not her first life nor her first death. She had to return to the prehistoric exhibition at the Museum of Natural History, where she first realized she had lived in the primitive hut from the Ice Age.

She walked out through the front doors of the museum and stood at the top of the stone steps, looking down at Fifth Avenue, crowded now with rush hour traffic. The city skyline was already aglow with lights and bright flashing signs. She needed to hurry. Kirk’s flight was due from Chicago, and she needed to be with him. But first she had to telephone Kathy Dart and Phoebe Fisher. She wanted both channels to meet her at the Museum of Natural History. She wanted them to walk with her through the Ice Age exhibition. It would be there, Jennifer knew now, in that prehistoric graveyard, that she’d remember what had happened to her spirit when they had evolved as humans and come down out of the trees to walk upright as man.

Jennifer smiled. For the first time in weeks, she knew exactly what to do. She knew how to solve the mystery of her past, of all her reincarnated lives, and she hurried down the stone steps, rushing to meet her lover, her great love, she realized, of all her lifetimes, and she smiled with anticipation, her face suddenly bright and shiny with hope.

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

THE FRONT DOOR OF her apartment had been replaced and the locks changed. Jennifer took the set of keys given to her by the superintendent and unlocked the door, but she didn’t step across the threshold. The apartment was dark.

“What’s next?” Kirk asked. He was standing beside her, still holding their luggage.

“I’m not sure. I thought perhaps Tom would be here. I called his apartment while I was waiting for your plane and just got his machine.”

“Is he at work?”

Jennifer shook her head. “No, I called his office, too.” She stepped into the room then and realized at once that something was wrong. She flipped on the entrance light and peered into the living room. Her furniture was in order, and what she could see of her small kitchen looked untouched. In the three days that she had been gone, the super had cleaned the entrance and the living room. There was no trace of the dog’s blood.

“Do you want me to look around?” Kirk asked, edging past her to set down their bags.

“No,” she said. She moved a few steps farther into the apartment and glanced to her right. “Do you smell anything?” she asked Kirk.

He sniffed the air and shook his head. “The place could use a little fresh air, though. Shall I open a window?” He stood with his legs apart and his hands deep in the pockets of his red jacket.

“No, don’t do anything. Please.” Jennifer was apprehensive, but she tried to keep her voice steady. She slipped off her coat and dropped it on the living room sofa, then turned toward her bedroom.

“Hey, Jen!”

“It’s okay, Kirk. Everything is all right.” She didn’t look at him.

The bedroom door was slightly ajar. Jennifer stepped over and pushed it with one finger. Light from the street filtered through the closed blinds and left dim streaks on the opposite wall. She could see the clutter on top of her dresser. Everything was just as she had left it. She moved farther into the room and looked at the bed. It hadn’t been touched.

“Hey, Jen, what’s going on?” Kirk’s voice trembled slightly.

Jennifer didn’t answer him, just held her hand up in a gesture for silence. There was someone here, she knew. She felt someone’s presence. But who? And where?

All at once, a breeze blew the heavy window curtains out, scattering the loose papers on her desk. Tom was here, Jennifer realized. She could feel his presence. But why would he hide from her? Was he waiting for her? Did he want to kill her?

“Tom?” she asked, turning and scanning the room.

Kirk remained standing in the bedroom doorway. He was afraid to enter, she guessed.

Jennifer opened the door to the bathroom. It was empty. Her towels were as she had left them the morning after the pit bull attack, crumpled on the floor.

“Is he there?” Kirk asked.

Jennifer shook her head, then reached over and turned on the lamp beside the bed.

“Are you okay, Jen?” Kirk asked, stepping into the room.

She nodded. “I think so. I feel him, that’s all.”

“Tom?”

“Yes.” She sat down in a chair and pulled off her boots. “It was so strong, I thought he was here.”

“Maybe he’s under the bed or something,” Kirk joked, pulling off his jacket.

Jennifer sat back in the wing chair. “Would you look?” she asked.

“Under the bed?”

“Yes.”

“Hey, Jen, quit kidding.”

“I’m serious.” She was smiling in spite of herself. “I get myself scared sometimes

Please, I know he isn’t, but I can’t look.”

Kirk grinned. “Sure!” He dropped to his knees and lifted the bed skirt, peeping underneath. “He’d have to be a goddamn midget.”

“Kirk

“

“Okay! Okay! No, he’s not there.” He stood up.

“I’m going to call his apartment again.” She reached over to her bedside phone and quickly dialed his number.

“How about a drink?”

“Good!” Jennifer said, smiling up at him as she listened to Tom’s phone ring. At the third ring, his machine clicked on, and she heard his message. He wasn’t home, but he’d call back as soon as possible. She waited for the beep, then left another message, asking him to telephone her. “It doesn’t matter when,” she said, “just call.”

Jennifer hung up and went back to the kitchen, where Kirk had found the liquor.

“Hold me,” she told him, and wrapped her arms around his waist, snuggling her face into his shoulder.

Kirk turned around and lifted her up, grabbed her bottom with both of his hands, and pressed her against him. She felt his erection at once.

“Let’s go to bed,” she said.

“No drink?”

“I want you, not a drink.”

He kissed her and began to unbutton her blouse.

“We’d better lock the door,” she told him, a little breathlessly..

When Kirk left her, Jennifer unzipped her jeans, pulled them off, and tossed them onto the back of a living room chair as she walked back into her bedroom. There she dipped her head to one side and took off first one earring, then the other, and set them both in a tray on her dresser. As she pulled her blouse up over her head, she thought she saw something move in the far corner of the room. With her blouse still tangled in her arms, Jennifer stepped to the wall and flipped on the light switch. There was nothing in the corner but a bookshelf, filled with her familiar night-time reading and a few framed photographs.

She could hear Kirk’s sneakers squeaking on the hall floor as he returned to the bedroom. Jennifer turned off the light, unsnapped her bra, and slipped into the bed.

“The barn door is bolted,” he announced, and paused at the doorway, surprised that Jennifer was already in bed.

“Come here,” she told him. She longed for the warmth of his body, ached to make love with him, and when he smiled lazily at her and unbuttoned his jeans, the sweetness of anticipation excited her more. She lifted her arms toward him, and he slipped into bed, under the down coverlet, and pulled her into his strong arms.

Jennifer felt safe, protected by his broad shoulders, and dizzy with longing as he moved to touch her. His mouth and hands were everywhere, and his eagerness made her more excited. She had never been with such an ardent lover.

In the darkened bedroom, Kirk’s face glowed with pleasure. Jennifer held his face close to hers and worked her tongue into his mouth. She wanted to consume him. She wanted him inside her. She wanted their flesh to be glued together. For a moment she was afraid that her passion would frighten him off.

With trembling hands, she reached down to guide him into her body. She liked leading the way, making her lover respond to her needs. Jennifer pushed Kirk back onto the pillows as she straddled him. He rose high and tight up inside of her, and she twisted her hips to create more friction.

She leaned down and licked his chest, then tossed her loose mane of blond hair across his face like a wide, soft brush.

“Do you like this?” she whispered, smiling down at him.

Kirk nodded, then reached up and pulled her down on top of him, probing her mouth with his tongue. Jennifer felt his erection swell as he came inside her. She let herself ride with him, waiting for her own orgasm, shifting slightly so that her right nipple was exposed, and she arched her back so that he could reach her swollen breast with his tongue. With a sudden shudder, she came, driving her body onto his. Her heart pumped wildly, driving her blood to the center of her body, where her muscles exploded in passion. She found that she had detached a part of her mind and was watching her body rock in its own selfish ecstasy.

Suddenly Jennifer grew teary. She turned her face into the pillows, then kissed Kirk tenderly in the hazy afterglow of her orgasm. She nestled closer to him, longing to stay this way forever, to hold him captive for her delight, and she shifted her legs so that his erection was pinned inside her.

Kirk was kissing her gently, nuzzling her ears, her closed eyes, the dampness on her throat. He was coming again; she marveled as his orgasm pulsed within her.

Jennifer wrapped her arms around him and kissed his hair. The only light in the room came from the street, filtered through the drawn curtains, but her eyes had adjusted to the dark and she could clearly see the shadowy figure emerge from the dark corner of the bedroom. It watched them, watched her, and then stepped over to the doorway and paused there. There was no hatred in the figure’s eyes, nor anger, only an immense sorrow, as if he had lost everything, lost her, lost his whole world.

“Jenny, what’s the matter?” Kirk asked, pulling back from her breasts. Her body had turned cold in his arms. “What’s the matter?” he asked again, frightened by the look on her face. He turned to see what she was staring at. But there was only the open doorway, a dim slanting light beyond.

“What is it?” he demanded, grasping her by the shoulders.

“He’s here,” she whispered, keeping her eyes on the doorway.

“Who? What are you talking about?”

“Tom is here.”

“Jesus Christ, Jenny, what are you saying?” Kirk sat up on his knees.

“I just saw him. He’s dead. He was here, watching us make love.”

“Hey,” Kirk said gently. “No one is here, Jenny; you’re driving yourself crazy.” He moved to the doorway and turned on the overhead light. “No one is here, I promise.” When he looked at his hands, he realized he was trembling. “Christ, Jenny, you frightened the hell out of me.”

“He was here. I saw him. His spirit was here,” Jennifer said calmly. She was no longer afraid.

“Look for yourself! We’re all alone,” Kirk insisted.

“You don’t understand,” Jennifer whispered, slipping out of bed. She knew he was frightened, but she had lost all of her fear.

“Jenny, come on! Where are you going?” He watched her as she got out of bed and moved toward her closet. He swallowed hard, watching her tall, slender body. “Let’s go back to bed,” he cajoled.

Jennifer pulled open the door to her walk-in closet and reached in to where she always hung her flannel nightgown. Before her mind could react, before she could scream out in horror, the tips of her fingers touched the soft film of his still-open eyes. She saw him fully then, saw that her kitchen knife had been plunged into his heart, saw his bloated, grayish tongue and his swollen white face, and saw that her dresses and blouses had been shoved aside. Tom was hanging from the metal bar by his own black belt, the one she had bought at Brooks Brothers and given to him for his thirty-sixth birthday. He had been dead for several days and he smelled of death.

And then she screamed.

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

JENNIFER LEFT KIRK ON the street, telling him only to wait for her, and entered the museum from West Eighty-first Street. It was after ten o’clock. They had spent most of the night and early morning with the police, at her apartment, and downtown at the office of the Justice Department, giving statements, explaining where she had been for three days.

They were due back at the Justice Department later that day for more questions, but Jennifer had told the police she had to meet someone at the museum, that it was important for her job. She didn’t tell Kirk that she had arranged for Phoebe Fisher and Kathy Dart to meet her when the museum opened.

She took the elevator to the third floor and followed the signs to the prehistoric exhibits. It was early, and the museum was virtually empty as she walked quickly through galleries, heading for the one where the prehistoric fossils were displayed. It wasn’t until she approached the special exhibit that she grew frightened. Stopping between two life-size models of reptiles, she tried to decide what to do next. She realized then that she had no plan for the confrontation. Phoebe Fisher had told her that she couldn’t trust her rational mind, but that was wrong. She had listened to Phoebe and to Kathy Dart; she had let her emotions dictate her response, and she hadn’t used her common sense. Well, she would figure it out as she went along.

Reminding herself to keep calm, she pushed open the glass doors and resolutely stepped into the darkened room, filled with artifacts of prehistoric man. She moved slowly past the glass displays of mammoth bones, the enlarged photographs of cave drawings and primitive sculptures. She kept herself from glancing to either side, afraid that seeing some ancient engraving would trigger a past life. She had to be alert. She had to be ready. She had to keep her attention focused.

She watched the few other museum visitors—couples, mothers with babies in strollers, school kids scribbling notes for a class assignment. She kept away from the center aisle and moved toward the rebuilt hut that dominated the exhibit.

It was here that she had first experienced the strange vibrations, here that she had told Tom the Ukraine model was built wrong. He had looked at her as if she was crazy. Well, she thought wryly, she wasn’t crazy. She was worse than crazy. She felt herself tense up, become more alert to her surroundings, to the other people in the gallery. She was an animal on the prowl. She kept walking, moving slowly toward the next gallery, the one built with the remains of man’s first family, the fossils of “Lucy” and the other early Australopithecus found on the banks of the Hadar River in the Afar Triangle of Ethiopia.

In the dark passageway between the two rooms, she caught a scent. She paused and sniffed the stale air of the closed rooms. Yes, she realized, someone was ahead of her, hiding perhaps in the next gallery, the large diorama that had been been built to resemble an African water hole. Through the thick leafy underbrush, she spotted several giraffes and the hunchback of a black rhinoceros, wallowing in the muddy African waters. And beyond them, reaching into the fig bushes, was a cluster of male and female hominid models, constructed by the museum to show how the first family of Australopithecus lived with the beasts of the African jungle.

Jennifer raised her head and snorted, then kept moving closer, keeping to the wall and out of sight as she approached the water hole. She was ready. Her blood was pumping through her body. Her neck muscles swelled; her nipples hardened. She kept moving.

Jennifer caught Kathy Dart’s distinct scent, then spotted her on the other side of the diorama, near a grassy plain that had been built into the horizon, as if one could step into the museum diorama and travel to the horizon. Kathy was looking away from her, searching the room. She was looking for her, Jennifer realized. She sniffed the air. She was downwind, and Kathy hadn’t caught her scent, hadn’t realized she had come into the exhibition from the rear exit.

Jennifer flattened herself against the wall. She watched Kathy Dart, waited for Habasha to stir, waited for Kathy to realize what she had finally understood at the Temple of Dendur, that all of them had lived together at the dawn of time.

Jennifer moved from the pocket of shadows and stepped closer. She was less than twenty yards from the jungle water hole when she spotted Phoebe. She was standing away from Kathy and also watching the main entrance of the gallery. They had expected her to come that way, she realized, and smiled, pleased that she had outsmarted them.

She knew she wanted to battle now, and this realization surprised her. She had been terrified before by her primitive strength; now, as she gazed around the strangely familiar diorama, she felt stirrings of recognition deep in the lymphatic system of her brain that stored and carried through time all of her emotional memories. Yes, she had been here before. Jennifer knew that now for certain. She had felt this earth beneath her webbed feet, she had once climbed down from those thick branches and reached with short and hairy fingers to pluck sweet figs from the low bushes. She snorted again and crouched low, creeping closer to her enemy, this tribe that shared with her family the muddy water hole, here by the edge of the great lake and in sight of the smoldering volcano.

She spotted a mother with a child in a stroller glance at her and scurry away, as the deer did in the forest, frightened by the mere sight of her and the others who slept together in trees and lived off the fresh sweet fruit of the forest.

Jennifer took a deep breath, thinking: I will draw Kathy Dart away from Phoebe. She will attack if it is me that she has been stalking.

Jennifer left the hidden protection of the museum wall, stepped into the center of the gallery and closer to the African diorama. Then she shouted and waved her arms to attract Kathy Dart’s attention.

Kathy saw her, smiled, and mouthed a hello across the wide water-hole diorama. Kathy did not rush her. Jennifer stared back at Kathy; she waited, breathing harder now, her body coiled and ready to defend herself.

“Are you all right?” Kathy asked, mouthing the words across the silent gallery.

Jennifer cocked her head. She heard Kathy and understood what she had said, but Jennifer was remembering another morning in a distant time, when she had come out of the trees to find a mate among the males who had gathered to forage for fresh sweet fruit. She remembered now how she had been killed. And she screeched, recalling her anguish.

From the corner of her eye she saw the black museum guard looked alarmed and was coming at her. Jennifer knew that man. She had seen him once before on a paddleboat in the James River. Jennifer moved at once, she jumped over the low railing surrounding the water hole diorama.

“Be careful!” Kathy shouted at her.

Jennifer stood up straight. She saw that the guard was talking on a portable phone. More guards were running toward the gallery, coming at her from the other exhibits. But Jennifer was in the middle of the African jungle now, standing in the underbrush, surrounded by thick, hanging vines, enormous mahogany tree trunks, and the posed figures of short, hairy hominids, dull eyed and dumb, who stared at her.

She hooted for their attention, to get them away from Kathy Dart, to let her fight this woman who also had stepped forward and come into the re-created ancient water hole.

“Jenny! Jenny, you don’t understand!” Kathy was saying. She spoke softly, as if to reason with her voice.

The museum guard glanced back and forth between the two women.

“What the fuck,” he swore, standing at the edge of the exhibit. “What in hell’s going on here?”

Jennifer squatted in the green underbrush. She felt the heat of the day, the wet air, and smelled the pungent odors of tropical evergreens rotting in the steamy heat of the equatorial jungle, mixed with the sweet smells of fruit and flowers. She could hear the jungle, too, the incessant noise of birds, flying squirrels, and monkeys swinging through the heavy overhang of vines. She saw the hippos wallow in the deep water and a dozen crocodiles slip off the muddy bank and slap the mucky water as they disappeared from sight.

Jennifer was not frightened by the crocodiles or a small herd of woolly mammoths thrashing through the trees and down to the water. She sprang out of the dense wood and, running forward, screeched again at Kathy Dart, startling her.

“Jenny! Jenny!” Kathy screamed, holding out her hands with her palms down, gesturing, whispering, and trying to placate Jennifer. “It’s not me. It’s not me that you want.”

Jennifer bared her teeth, hissed again.

“Jesus H. Christ!” The guard stepped over the low railing and reached for Jennifer.

“Get back!” Kathy Dart told him. “She’s out of control. She doesn’t know where she is.”

“But I know where the fuck she’s going,” the big man mumbled, approaching.

Jennifer hit the guard with her right forearm, knocking the man off his legs and sending him tumbling. He fell backward, hitting one of the poised figures of an early Australopithecus afarensis, knocking the plaster-of-paris hominid into the plastic lake.

In that moment, as she hit him, Jennifer saw Phoebe coming at her from the early morning mist. She had been hurt in a fall from the cliffs and was using now the short branch of a tree to support herself as she dragged her lame leg across the ground. Jennifer spun around to face the other channeler.

“Jennifer, come with us,” Kathy ordered. “We know about Phoebe. We’ve been trying to save you from her. Habasha was there. He knows.”

“Her!” Jennifer thought to herself. “Her!” She did not at that moment remember how to talk, and her anger and anguish came screeching out in the terrified sound of an animal of the jungle. She leaped forward, to the edge of the diorama, and turned on Phoebe Fisher, hooting and screeching, frightened and enraged, inside the prehistoric diorama, in the midst of the jungle heat, Jennifer recalled those moments of her very first life. She knew who she once was, realized, too, what had happened millions of years ago at the dawn of time.

Phoebe raised her steel-tipped cane above her head and rushed Jennifer.

“No!” Kathy Dart shouted, pushing forward and trying to stop Phoebe. The raised cane, like a primitive club, whistled as it cut through the air and struck Kathy Dart. The cane’s sharp point sliced across Kathy’s right cheek and dug itself deep into the thick muscles of her throat. The channeler, gasping for breath, grabbed her own neck in a stranglehold. The blood from her jugular squeezed through her fingers.

A woman screamed. Her screams kept coming and coming. They filled the gallery, echoing, gathering strength, as she ran in hysterical, blind bursts of speed, trying to escape, to flee the gallery like any frightened animal would.

Jennifer remembered. She had come scrambling out of her rubber tree, out of her high nest in the jungle, stirred by the needs of her swollen sex. She had come to mate on the forest floor, followed by the other females of her family, including the mother who had once nursed her from breastless teats, and her own child. She danced off from the first male who came after her, but watched over her shoulder while scrambling quickly on all fours. He kept advancing, screeching and waving his long arms. It was Habasha, Jennifer realized. It was Habasha in his first incarnation, and then, with a speed that she had not anticipated, Habasha mounted her from behind, entered, and ejaculated.

The other males were on her next, fighting with each other to be first. They were screaming, hooting, and dancing in a circle, sniffing her sex. The fig fruit was forgotten as the males kept after her. Pushing and shoving each other, they mounted her again and again, until, exhausted from their efforts, they slipped away into the heavy shade of the trees and slept. They had no fear. They were with their own kind.

None expected that one of their own would attack.

The old female had been chased away from their band for fighting with the others, and now suddenly she had returned. Screeching, she leapt from the tree and landed on all fours. Then, glancing around, she grabbed a mammoth bone and swung it, Jennifer saw again, at her. The bone glanced off her shoulder and hit her face. She howled in pain, and the other females, too, hooted and danced away.

The old female was white haired and smaller than her, less than two and a half feet tall, with a flat, hairy face, and a mouth misshapen by the swat of a saber-toothed tiger’s paw. She kept after her, thumping the long bone on the earth, then raising it up with both arms and swinging wildly. Then without warning, the female turned aside, struck her mother, then killed her child.

She screeched when her child was struck down, and baring her teeth, she charged the cast-off female, knowing in the dimness of her brain that this predator was more dangerous than warthogs or two-tusked deer.

Phoebe Fisher raised her cane to strike. Jennifer screamed, leapt aside, and attacked with her ancient rage. She raked her nails across Phoebe’s face, seized her hair, and jerked the head of the small woman back, exposing her pale white neck.

Her lost spirit possessed her now. She was living out her prehistoric revenge. She screeched and bared her teeth. She would rip out Phoebe’s throat and kill this beast.

“Jenny, no!” Kirk screamed.

He came running through the gallery and lunged at Jennifer, knocking her to the floor. Phoebe Fisher scrambled to her feet, swinging her cane. She caught the black museum guard in the neck. The cane’s sharp tip sliced him like a razor. Without a pause Phoebe stepped over Kathy Dart and lunged again at Jennifer, who was on the floor now and beyond the edge of the water hole diorama.

Kathy Dart stumbled to her feet. She was holding both hands to her cut throat, but the blood kept spreading between her fingers. She reached toward Phoebe, tried to keep her from killing Jennifer.

“Jenny!” she whispered, and her mouth bubbled up a mouthful of blood.

Phoebe struck again, swinging her cane down at both Jennifer and Kirk, who was down on the carpeted floor trying to shield Jennifer. The metal tip of Phoebe’s cane jabbed Kirk’s shoulder. He cried out and rolled away from Jennifer, leaving her momentarily helpless on the gallery floor.

Phoebe, raging, screeching, attacked again, aiming for Jennifer’s face, trying to drive the ice-pick tip deep into her eyes.

Jennifer’s ancient memory summoned their long-ago battle. It was at the African water hole that the first incarnated spirit of Phoebe had struck Jennifer with the mammoth bone, knocking her back into the deep water. She had tumbled and splashed, unable to swim, and then the crocodile had struck, seizing Jennifer’s arm and pulling her deep into the jungle pool.

Jennifer smiled. She knew finally who it was that had been trying to kill her now, before she could remember, before she could gain all of her channeling powers. Jennifer jumped to her feet, avoided a wild swat by the small woman, and seized the cane from Phoebe Fisher, then raised it herself as a weapon. She saw the sudden terror in Phoebe Fisher’s eyes. Jennifer knew that in one swift stroke she could kill her ancient enemy.

Jennifer stood poised, aiming for her mark. The old female had attacked her because she had mated with Habasha, attacked her because the other males had cast her aside. Now Jennifer would avenge the killing of her mother and first offspring.

“No, Jenny,” Kirk pleaded from where he lay, clutching his wounded shoulder.

Jennifer swung the light cane at the channeler, aiming the steel point at the small woman’s face, and as she did, Phoebe Fisher’s face changed before her. The beautiful, bisque white skin exploded in blood, and Phoebe’s small body jumped back, away from her. Jennifer missed her mark, and then she heard the sound of the museum guard’s pistol shot.

Phoebe Fisher bounced off a plaster-of-paris model and slid over the top of the plastic lake and disappeared into the grove of fig trees. She died in the mists of prehistoric time.

Deep in the heart of Africa, at the dawn of life, she had been the first hominid to kill another. She had come down out of the trees to kill the incarnated spirit of Jennifer Winters.

The death of the first human was murder.