Between Darkness and Dawn by Margaret Duarte

Author:Margaret Duarte [Duarte, Margaret]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: visionary/metaphysical fiction; contemporary women's fiction; psychological suspense; psychology; self-empowerment; occult & supernatural; paranormal; spiritual life, alzheimer's disease
Publisher: Omie Press via Indie Author Project
Published: 2017-02-23T08:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

AT FIRST, WE THOUGHT we had been spared. But near the end of the session, Hal announced there was time for one, maybe two, more in the Open Seat, and only Ted, Jennifer, and I were left.

Hal looked us over, one at a time. “So, who will it be?”

Jennifer gripped my arm and started breathing in and out in short, shallow breaths. “Lordy, lordy, lordy.”

I patted her hand and stood. “I’ll go.”

An ear-splitting whistle from Kate. “That a girl.”

Hal addressed the class with a warning. “Remember, we’re not looking for a break through, but a break-in. By invading Marjorie’s privacy, we hope to help her re-establish contact with her lost and deadened feeling.”

Good luck with that. I’d been trying to do so for weeks with no success.

“You’ll do fine,” Jennifer whispered, the color drained from her face.

“Of course, she will,” Kate said.

Hal picked up a chair and placed it next to the Open Seat. “I’d like to try something new this morning.” He gestured for me to come forward. “Marjorie, you’ll be talking to an imaginary person, who’ll be sitting in the empty chair in front of you. If it helps, you can move back and forth between the chairs as you act out the dialogue between the two of you. Exaggerate it. Use ridiculous extremes if you like, but act as if you’re talking to a real person.”

“I don’t think I can.” My words came out low and a bit hoarse.

“You mean you choose not to?”

“Yes. I mean... No.”

His smile was understanding and encouraging, the kind of smile a parent gives a child when she’s first learning to walk. “You have to go out of your mind in order to use it.”

I eyed the door, wishing I could make a run for it. “I don’t know where to begin.”

“Your unconscious can be programmed to do whatever you want it to.”

I caught Jennifer’s eye. She managed a shaky smile and gave me the thumbs up.

“You’re going to talk to the personification of whatever or whoever bothers you,” Hal continued in a calm, hypnotic voice.

“The personification?” I looked him in the eye, hoping to make clear that I wasn’t easy to put under, if that’s what he was trying to do.

“Yes. Ascribe it with a personality. Give it a name.”

I thought of Antonia, who bothered me plenty. Ascribing her with a personality wouldn’t be that hard. Sad and outreaching. “Okay.”

Hal smiled, nodded. “Now tell me, Marjorie, what would you like to accomplish?”

“I’d like to help my mother.”

“Speak up Marjorie, so the class can hear you.”

“Help my mother.”

“In what way?”

“I want her to be happy.”

“You can’t do that for her,” Hal said with a note of criticism. “She has to do that for herself.”

“She can’t”

“Why not?”

“She’s dead.”

Several of the workshop members laughed, some hooted and clapped, but Hal frowned and narrowed his eyes. “If she’s dead, how do you know she’s unhappy?”

“I hear her crying.”

“A real psycho,” sneered a male in the group.

“Shut up, Ted,” Jennifer snapped.

Hal coughed—his way, I’d learned, of regaining the class’s attention.

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