To Dance with the Devil

3

“So, how have you been sleeping?” Gwen asked.

Gwen Talbot is my psychiatrist. She’s a trauma specialist. I first worked with her when I was a kid, after the kidnapping. I’ve gone back to seeing her because my life has overflowed with trauma in the last few years. Gwen’s the administrator of Birchwoods, a very high-end mental health and addiction treatment facility, so she has limited time available to see patients, but she always manages to fit me in.

We were seated in her office, a large, beautiful space decorated in colors that matched the beach that could be seen through the wide bank of windows: sand browns and the blue-greens of the ocean. As I took in the view, I realized that there were storm clouds gathering on the far horizon. Gwen’s suit was the same gray as the clouds, a color that looked good with her silvering hair and olive complexion.

“Better, but not great,” I admitted. I have recurring nightmares, in part from what happened when I was a kid, in part from my up-close-and-personal meeting with a bat, and more recently from an encounter with a demon who told me he’d see me in my dreams. All of this makes sleep a very tricky proposition.

“Did you have a priest come bless the house as I suggested?”

“Yep.” Matty had been happy to do it. In fact, he did such a good job that it stung me every time I crossed the threshold of my bedroom. I’d also hung dream catchers that had been decorated with crosses and sprayed with holy water: one in the bedroom doorway, in every window, even on the mirror of my dresser. It looked more than a little odd, but the demon hadn’t actually manifested in my dreams in the week since I’d installed them.

“And has it helped?”

“It has,” I answered. “But I’ve been a little stressed out about the whole family therapy thing.”

“Ah. I see. It’s reasonable to feel apprehensive under the circumstances. But our goal is for you to be ready. Is there something in particular that’s bothering you?”

I looked from the windows back to Gwen and seriously considered her question before answering. “Not really.”

“We could reschedule,” she offered.

“No point.” I sighed. “I’m never going to be ready. I’ll just have to do it anyway.”

Never one to let me wallow in self-pity, Gwen grew stern. “That’s not quite true. You don’t have to. You have a choice, Celia. You need to recognize that fact. It is your decision to make. Your mother’s therapist thinks this would be useful for her. But I’m your doctor, my concern is you.”

I smiled at her. “Thanks. I appreciate that.” I did. But it didn’t change anything. No matter what I thought about my mother and whether or not I believed she could get well, I needed to do this if I had any hope of salvaging my relationship with my gran. And I wanted that, badly. Not long ago, the terrorists had tried to kidnap her to use against me. They’d failed, but it was a close enough call to make me realize that we really needed to work on the issues standing between us before it was too late.

I reached into my purse and took out the pair of pictures I’d been carrying around all day, setting them gently onto the desk where Gwen could see them.

Gwen looked at the pictures carefully. She seemed more interested in the one from Ivy’s birthday, so I said, “That was taken about a week before Ivy died.”

She nodded. I watched as she gathered herself, preparing for something. But when she spoke, it was to ask a surprisingly innocuous question. “Is that you in the background?” She pointed a manicured finger at a figure in the background, leaning forward so that I could get a clear view of the image.

I found myself giving her an odd look. Gwen had to know that was me—she’d treated me when I was that age. She knew what I’d looked like. So she must be trying to make a point—leading the horse to water, as it were.

I looked from the picture to her face. Her expression gave nothing away.

“Yes.”

“How much do you think you weighed, looking at this picture?”

I’d been young enough not to have reached my full height and was still pretty skinny. “Probably ninety pounds, less than a hundred, anyway. Why?”

“You’ve recovered all your memories of the kidnapping, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“So tell me, how much do you suppose your attackers weighed?”

I closed my eyes and actually thought about it for a moment. The biggest of the guys had probably been six two, and he’d been heavy, with a beer gut, and muscular, with the kind of calluses you get working construction. If I was describing him to the police, I’d put him at around 250. The others were both smaller, say, five ten and 180 pounds.

“Celia, I want you to look at this picture again. Do you really think that any girl that size, no matter how tough, could fight off three full-grown men?”

I opened my eyes and really looked at the girl in the picture. I knew it was me, but for the first time I looked at the girl in the image as if she were a separate person. Damn, she was tiny. She probably weighed half of the smallest of the three guys who had attacked her and her sister. She was a tough little thing, a fighter—you could see that in her eyes and the slant of her jaw. But there was no way she’d be able to fight off even one of those men, let alone three.

My eyes blurred. I couldn’t breathe. The realization hit me like a club to the brain or a semi doing ninety. It was just so obvious. That little girl hadn’t stood a chance in hell of stopping what happened or protecting her sister. I hadn’t stood a chance.

It wasn’t my fault.

For the first time I really felt that, really believed it.

Gwen moved the tissue box to where I could reach it but remained silent, letting me release the torrent of painful emotions. I’d blamed myself for so long—allowed my mother to blame me. These wounds never healed; the pain was raw, always just beneath the surface. Now I saw everything differently, but the adjustment was agonizing.

It took a fair amount of time, and most of the box of tissues, for me to pull myself together. Eventually, however, I blew my nose noisily a couple of times and began to get my breathing back to normal. As I regained control of myself, I felt the temperature in the room start to drop, a sure sign of a ghostly presence.

“Ivy, is that you?” I whispered. The light flickered once. It was a code we’d worked out the first time she’d manifested after death: once for yes, twice for no. Since ghosts cannot lie, it was Ivy.

I spoke to the air, to the ghost of the baby sister I love and had failed to save. “I tried. I tried so hard. I just couldn’t stop them.” I’d swear I felt small arms holding me, hugging me close.

“I did everything I could. But it wasn’t enough.” I turned to Gwen then, barely seeing her through the blur of the tears that were threatening to start again. “It wasn’t my fault.”

She looked at me, her expression gentle and compassionate, but said nothing.

“Mom blames me. I always blamed myself. But it really wasn’t my fault.” I was repeating myself. Over and over. I had to. It was the only way I could wrap my mind around a concept that was so huge and so fundamental to who I was.

The air swirled around me, making my hair float away from my face, drying cheeks still wet with tears.

I felt a surge of power—not magic, something different, more pure, strong enough to steal my breath. A slit opened, becoming a doorway hovering in the empty air six inches off the floor in the middle of the office. It was filled with light so bright I couldn’t look at it directly. I felt the ghostly arms of my sister tighten around me again and somehow knew it would be the last time I felt her touch. Then she released me. In my mind, I heard the echo of laughter. I saw the shape of my sister outlined against that brilliant white light. She turned back, her familiar features beaming. She waved once, then turned away, extending her hand upward as if taking the hand of some being of light. She walked into the opening and it closed behind her, leaving no evidence that it had ever existed.

My sister was gone. I knew that this time it was forever.

Gwen and I sat together in silence for a very long time, well after the bell had rung to end the session. I didn’t know if she had seen what I had. Awestruck, I was not coherent enough to ask. It was too much for me to process—the personal revelation that it really hadn’t been my fault combined with the certain knowledge that Ivy was gone. Ivy, who hadn’t wanted me to forgive our mom but had needed me to forgive myself.

Finally I pulled myself together. “Did you see that?”

Gwen nodded. “Yes. It’s not common, but I’m not surprised. After what you told me you experienced in the circle with Okalani, it seemed likely you’d be given the chance to tell Ivy good-bye.”

My “experience” with Okalani had included an actual angel, a spirit of light, fighting a demon who had taken the shape of a dragon. “Do you mean I can see angels now?”

“Only when they let you, I suspect,” Gwen said. “But you needed to see this, to know that Ivy would be well and happy, that she was moving on to a better place. To heaven, as it were.”

She said the word “heaven” as if it were in quotes. Obviously, despite what she’d just seen, Gwen was not a true believer. Then again, neither am I. Although, I have to admit, having been party to quite a lot of religious-based supernatural shit, I was beginning to wonder if my gran had it right.

“You’ve had a real breakthrough today. There’s a lot for you to assimilate. But there’s one more thing I want you to consider before the family therapy session.”

I resented that a little. I mean, something else? Seriously? Didn’t I have enough to digest? I didn’t answer, so she continued, her voice firm.

“Ghosts must leave this realm when their purpose is fulfilled. I know that Ivy had left you to care for your mother. But that wasn’t her purpose. Her purpose was to see you healed. Your healing was as necessary for her as it was for you. Ivy was not here for your mother. She was here for you.”

I pulled myself together. Gwen had a big budget meeting scheduled, and I needed to go. I was exhausted when I left Gwen’s office—physically, mentally, and emotionally wrung out. Still, I managed to drag my butt to my car. I tried to call Gran before I headed home, but she didn’t answer the landline or her cell. I left a message asking her to call me, then drove back to my house. Once there, I went straight to bed. And even though it was the middle of the day, I slept soundly and dreamlessly for the first time in ages.

I woke up at midnight physically refreshed. I could literally feel that a huge emotional burden had been lifted from my shoulders. At the same time I was sad. Ivy’s ghost had been with me for more years than Ivy had lived. She’d helped me through all sorts of trials and crises. She’d protected our mother from the other inmates in prison. Whenever I needed her most, she’d come.

I’d miss her.

I knew it was best for her. But that didn’t change the fact that I felt well and truly alone. Even when she’d been with our mom, these last eighteen months, I’d known she was still around. She’d visited me often and every time I’d really needed her. But now, knowing that she was truly gone, her absence was different, a permanent void.

On the one hand, it was an odd, sad feeling, and I knew it was one that would take a lot of getting used to. On the other, a load of terrible guilt that I had been carrying for so long that I didn’t really even think about it anymore was just … gone. I felt so light, like I might float away. I knew it was silly, but that didn’t change how it felt. I’d miss Ivy and grieve for her. But this time, when the grieving was over, I’d finally be able to heal.