Precious Bones (14 page)

Chapter 38

August 2010

If Dr. P
latt was a quack, at least he was one with money and good taste.  As he ushered me into his office, sounds of Mozart floating through the open door, I felt as if I walked into a womb.  The room was as comforting and pleasant as any room I had ever seen.  I sank into a chenille sofa feeling ensconced by the soft fabric and surrounded by colorful cushions.  The room itself was square with windows facing out over the canal which gave the impression of being somewhere in the country rather than in the center of London. 

There were bookshelves along two of the walls, filled with books that looked expensive and well-read, not the usual bookstore fare. 
Some of them were probably first editions, bound in soft leather with gold embossed lettering on the spines.  Many of the tomes weren’t in English, and I marveled at their exotic titles, trying to guess their origins.  The marble fireplace was not lit on this warm afternoon, but it added to the overall coziness, completed by a thick Turkish rug, Tiffany lamps casting pools of soft light on the deep armchairs facing the sofa,  and lovely landscapes -- that even to my untrained eye -- looked to be originals. 

Dr. P
latt himself looked remarkably like Father Christmas without the red suit.  He was wearing a button-down shirt and slacks, with a pair of expensive loafers, and half-moon spectacles perched on his nose.  He gave me a warm smile and offered me a cup of herbal tea from an oriental-looking teapot, then took one himself and settled into an armchair facing me.  He pressed a button on a remote control, silencing the Mozart, and invited me to speak.  I felt strangely comfortable with this man, and I told him my story starting with the day of the news story on television.  He listened carefully, never interrupting or asking any questions, and was silent for a few moments after I finished. 

“Cassandra, are you C.O.E.?” he asked suddenly.

“Yes, I was brought up Church of England, but I don’t go much.  Why?”  What did my religious upbringing have to do with anything?

“Just trying to get the full picture,” he answered pleasantly.  “You see my dear
; you wouldn’t be here if you could find answers to your questions in any other conventional way.  The fact that you have found your way to me, suggests that you’re a little desperate and scared, and you’re now open to things you might not have been open to even a few months ago.”

I nodded miserably.  He had the right of it.  I was desperate and scared
, and he had the power to reassure me or terrify me further with his analysis.  For a moment I regretted my decision to come, but it was too late now.  I would hear him out regardless of the consequences.

“You know, of course, that reincarnation is not part of the accepted Judeo-Christian doctrine, but there are many other world religions
which believe it to be true.  We aren’t meant to remember our past lives, but sometimes there is a glitch in the system, so to speak, and a person finds him or herself remembering things they shouldn’t.  It’s scary and confusing, but it does happen.  I, myself, have seen many cases, especially in young children, where they can describe in intimate detail lives of people they’ve never met, or were told about, by anyone they know.  These details have been verified and confirmed by relatives, written accounts and photographs.  What other explanation could there be?”

“I don’t know,” I mumbled.  I
’d heard of some of those cases myself, and thought them to be a bunch of hogwash.  Maybe they weren’t.

“Some of my patients choose regression as a method of finding out the truth, but I think that’s not necessary in your case.  You
’re already experiencing the past, so there would be no point.”  He took a sip of his tea, eyeing me over his glasses, and waiting for my response.

“So, you feel certain that what I am experiencing are memories of a past life?”

“So the evidence suggests.”

“If that
’s the case, why that life?  If a soul reincarnates after death, wouldn’t I have lived other lives since the sixteenth century?”  I was looking for logic where there was none, but I had to take this to the bitter end.

“You probably have lived since then, but your lives might have been ordinary and easily forgotten.  In my experience, a person
experiences memories of a past life only under certain circumstances.  Firstly, something triggers the process.  In your case, it would have been the newscast.  It jogged your memory, bringing something long forgotten to the surface.  Secondly, the memories are of something traumatic, something that left a deep emotional scar that has not healed over the years.  There are still unresolved feelings that haunt the soul.  I know this can be frightening and difficult to explain, but you needn’t worry.  The situation usually resolves itself.”

“So, there
’s nothing I can do?” 

“I think that you
’re already doing it.  Continue writing the story.  Eventually, you’ll get to the part that left such a deep imprint on your soul, and then you can work through it in this lifetime where you can look at it in a more detached way.  Hopefully, once you relive the tragedy you’ll be able to move on.  You will not forget, but you will be able to put it behind you and resume your modern life.”  He smiled and I felt strangely reassured. 

“Have you tried searching for them? 
It would help you, I think if you found some evidence that these people truly existed.”

“I did search for them online, but I didn’t find anything of interest.  There are plenty of Thornes and Carlisles, but they weren’t the right ones.”

“I see.  Well, don’t give up.  Something might turn up when you least expect it.  I hope I’ve been of help to you.  I don’t expect you’ll come to see me again, but I would like to ask a favor of you.”  He gave me an expectant look, and I nodded.  “I don’t just do this for money.  I am genuinely interested in the study of the human spirit and what happens to our souls after we pass on.  Would you please let me know how this works out?  I would be most appreciative.”

“Yes, Dr. P
latt.  I will let you know.  I have a feeling you will not have very long to wait.”

I paid my fee and the doctor escorted me to the front door
, wishing me lots of luck and a speedy resolution. 

Chapter 39

I’d been planning to take a taxi back home, but it was a lovely evening, so I decided to walk.  It would give me an opportunity to analyze what Dr. Platt had told me.  I had never given much thought to reincarnation.  My parents hadn’t been particularly religious, but we did go to Church on major holidays, and I was brought up with the usual notions of Heaven and Hell; which was not to say that I actually believed in either.  Did I believe in reincarnation?  Was it possible?  I suppose that if it was possible for people to believe in the Pearly Gates, guarded by St. Peter or a horned creature wielding a pitchfork, and throwing sinners on the fires of Hell, that anything was possible.  In truth, the idea that our souls were eternal and lived on in other people was sort of comforting, because then death wouldn’t seem so frightening and final.  However, remembering a past life was quite a different matter.  It could lead to confusion and even suffering. 

I remembered a program I
’d seen a few months ago.  It documented several cases of children who’d experienced memories of a past life.  There was a small boy who could recollect the harrowing experience of being shot down by the Germans over the Channel, and his downward spiral into the icy waters as his airplane burned around him.  Another girl talked of dying in a fire while trying to rescue her children from their burning house. 

One case in particular
, stood out in my mind.  It was that of a young girl in Sri Lanka, who was tormented by memories of a past life and was able to name places, names, and dates.  She claimed that she had lived on the other side of the country, and died by drowning at the age of seven when she fell into the river while playing with her friends.  She gave the names of her parents and siblings, and even drew a map of the place where she fell in.  It was close to a temple, and she slipped off a rock that jutted out into the water. 

Eventually,
the distraught parents placed an ad in the paper seeking the other family.  They were shocked to receive an answer, and the two families actually met.  The girl, who was now fifteen, was overcome at seeing what she thought was her real family, and she threw herself at the woman, crying and calling her “mother.”  The other family felt no connection to the strange girl, but they were able to verify her story, including all the minute details.  What I took away with me from the program, was that this poor girl was never able to reconcile herself to her real life, and was heartbroken that the family didn’t recognize her.  I had no idea what happened afterward, but it didn’t seem destined for a happy ending for anyone involved.  However, it did seem to prove what Dr. Platt had said.  It was possible.

I wasn’t sure if it would actually make me feel better to confirm the
existence of my characters, but I supposed I had to try.  I really did look them up on the internet, but I didn’t find any matches.  Where could I find a record of their lives?  After all, this was the sixteenth century, not the 1960s.  There were no archives, no birth certificates or marriage licenses.  The only way someone would be remembered through history, was only if they were famous.  They either had to be a politician, a traitor or a major talent.  Ordinary people’s lives were not recorded.  Suddenly, I stopped in my tracks.  Of course their lives were recorded.  They were recorded in church registers.  Births, marriages and deaths were dutifully written down by the parish priests, since that was the only legitimate record of an event.  I’d walked past the church in Carter Lane numerous times without ever thinking to stop in.  It was probably too late in the evening now, but I would drop by tomorrow. 

I was still smiling at my powers of deduction when I turned the corner of my block to see Adrian leaning against the gate of my house.

“Don’t you have a home?”  I called out as I got closer to him.  Adrian just gave me a sweet smile. 

“I do, but I like yours better.  I
’ve actually come with a proposition.”

“Why am I not surprised?  Come in, then.”

Chapter
40

I rolled down the window and took a deep breath.  The air was so fresh, it almost made me dizzy.  I could see the Black Cuillins in the distance, looking stark and forbidding against the blue sky, the hills a rolling sea of purple, covered by the blooming heather which looked like a giant blanket.   We’d been on this road for nearly half an hour and had seen no one, save an insolent flock of black-faced sheep crossing the road with a loud jingling of bells.  I felt as if we’d entered another world, where the nature was wild and unpredictable, and the people rugged and few. 

I still couldn’t believe that I had agreed to come to Scotland with Adrian.  Under normal circumstances I would
’ve refused immediately, but these were not normal circumstances.  Adrian tried to persuade me by saying that I needed to get out of London, and he had been so right.  As soon as we left the suburbs of the city behind, I began to feel better.  Suddenly, things didn’t seem as bleak, and I realized that I was greatly looking forward to seeing the Highlands.  I’d been on a holiday in Scotland with my family years ago when I was still at school, but we never made it that far north.  This place was a far cry from the Lowlands.  When I looked around, it was as if modern life had never come here.  The endless sky and the mountains looked just as primitive as they did during the time of the Druids, and I almost expected a ragged looking band of Highland cattle thieves to come galloping over the mountains, their broadswords at their sides.

All through the journey, Adrian and I chatted easily, feeling
relaxed in each other’s company.  He told me all about his friend, Graham McGee, whom we were going to visit, and his beautiful house overlooking Loch Morar.  They had known each other in the Middle East, and Graham had a package for Adrian sent by a mutual friend.  I asked him if he’d ever heard of a fine invention called the Royal Mail, but he just laughed and said he felt like taking a road trip.  We covered many subjects, but never touched on the one I really wanted to discuss.  Why was I there?  What made Adrian ask me of all people to come to Scotland with him?  Was he just feeling sorry for me due to my current situation or was there another motive?  I felt foolish just asking him, so I went on blabbering about my childhood and my years at Oxford rather than ask him for the truth. 

I was glad when Adrian pulled over at a
petrol station to fill the tank of his Land Rover.  I could use a trip to the loo and a chance to stretch my legs.  We’d been in the car since early this morning, and I was tired of sitting.   I came out of the rest room to find Adrian already back at the car.  He bought us some cold drinks and there was something in the shopping bag.  I pulled a sweater out of my overnight case, glad to have brought it.  The temperatures were distinctly cooler here.  I reluctantly climbed back into the car and put on my seatbelt as we pulled away from the gas station.  I noticed Adrian fumbling in the bag with one hand while steering with the other.

“What are you looking for?”

“This,” Adrian answered triumphantly as he pulled out a bar of chocolate.  I burst out laughing.  “So, this is the contraband you smuggled out of the store?  I had no idea you like chocolate.”

“It’s my one weakness,” he admitted with a very serious face.

“Oh, just the one is it?  There’s nothing else you care to confess?”

He turned toward me and gave me a slow once-over
, then turned back to the road.  “It’s not my only weakness, but it’s the only one I’m actually willing to admit at the moment.”  I suddenly felt very warm and pulled off my sweater again.  He chuckled, but didn’t say anything, popping a piece of chocolate into his mouth instead, and offering me the other half of the chocolate bar. 

“What a gentleman,
” I said, taking the offering.

“Always.”

We made it to Graham’s house by late afternoon.  The house was indeed beautiful.  It looked like a miniature castle with turrets and towers overlooking the stunning vista of loch and mountains.  Graham was a jolly fellow in his late forties who didn’t bat an eyelash at Adrian bringing along a woman, and asking for separate rooms.  I was shown to a lovely room on the second floor with a view of the loch.  The furniture was all antique with a huge four-poster bed and a carved dresser.  The room must have at one time belonged to a woman because the dusty rose curtains and hangings of the bed were very beautiful and feminine.  The cherry wood of the furniture was polished to a shine, and I could still smell the faint traces of polish trapped in the fibers of the rug.  I opened the window, and the rose curtains began to flutter in the breeze, filling the room with the sounds of insects and birds. 

Graham and Adrian had
disappeared into the study, so I took the time to take a shower and change before dinner.  Graham told me proudly that he shot dinner himself just that morning, and I made all the appropriate noises of approval, trying not to picture a bloody carcass being hauled into the old-fashioned kitchen.  Despite the disturbing image, the venison was delicious, served with roast potatoes and a vegetable medley from Graham’s own garden, accompanied by a full-bodied red wine from his extensive wine cellar.  I could tell that Graham McGee liked to live well.  He excused himself after dinner, leaving Adrian and I to our own devices for a few hours. 

We walked out of the house to a short pier that jutted out into the
loch.  The fiery orb of the sun was just beginning to sink behind the mountains in the distance, painting the sky with bands of fuchsia and gold, the surface of the loch a mirror held up to the sky to reflect its glory.  The first stars of the evening were just beginning to shyly twinkle in the twilight sky, and the warmth of the day was being replaced by a fresh breeze off the mountains.  I was glad I brought a light jacket and zipped it up, as I watched the shifting light of the sunset play on the tranquil water. 

I
’m not sure what made me do it, but I turned to Adrian and blurted out the question that had been bothering me the whole way up here.  “Adrian, what am I doing here?”  He turned to me giving me a lazy smile.  “You’re watching a glorious Highland sunset.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” I said accusingly. 

“I know,” he said looking out over the loch.  As I watched him, his face got grayer somehow, and when he turned to me his gray eyes looked almost black in the twilight.  He looked at me for a long moment and then turned back towards the loch.  When he spoke, his voice was so low I could barely hear him.

“I lost someone very dear to me four years ago.  I honestly thought I would never recover
, and then I met you and suddenly life was full of possibilities again, except you were already involved with someone else.  Then fate presented me with an opportunity and I grabbed it with both hands.  I know you’re not ready for a new relationship right now, but when you are, I’ll be right there waiting.”

“Who did you lose?  Will you tell me about it?” 

He didn’t look at me.  It’s as if he was talking to the sky and the silent loch.  I just listened quietly, letting him do it his way.

“My
fiancée and I were on assignment in Afghanistan.  We were driving through the desert when Kitty asked me to stop.  We were passing the ruins of a village, and she spotted hungry, barefoot kids hiding behind the demolished walls afraid to come out.   They were orphans looking for food, and Kitty was moved by their plight.   She took out her camera and set out across the desert toward the village.  I was a few feet behind her when the explosion knocked me out and threw me half way across the field.  Kitty had stepped on a land mine. When I woke up in a field hospital, I had a torn shoulder and a broken leg, but Kitty had been blown to pieces.  There wasn’t even a body to bury, just scraps of bloody muscle and bone scattered over the rocks. 

I never told anyone, but she was six weeks pregnant.  She
’d just told me a few days before and I begged her to go back home where she’d be safe.  She promised that she would go by the end of the following week once we got back to Kabul.  I woke up in that hospital concussed, banged up, but very much alive, and hated myself for surviving.  It should have been me that died, not her.  I should have gone first, but I stopped to take a shot of the mountains, letting her walk ahead of me. 

I gave the doctor a hard time, refusing treatment
, and raging at everyone, until he handed me his gun and left me alone.  He knew I wouldn’t do it.  I held that gun for a long time, but I realized I wanted to live.   I owed it to her to live.  So, eventually I healed and left the hospital, taking more assignments and turning into the hard, bitter bastard whom you met in March.  When I trashed your book and saw how deeply I’d wounded you, I felt awful, and suddenly I realized that I was actually feeling again.  I want to keep on feeling, Cassandra.  I want to live and I want to love and be loved, and I want it to be by you.”

I was speechless.  I knew exactly who Kitty Parker had been.  It was all over the news when she died in
Afghanistan.  I remembered the picture of a petite blond with expressive dark eyes and a wide smile.  She looked straight into the camera wearing khakis and a military jacket with a camera in her hands, the blazing sun of the Middle East baking the desert behind her.  Her photographs had captivated the nation, and she was mourned by the whole country.  She’d been only twenty-three.  I didn’t say anything, just came up behind Adrian and wrapped my arms around his waist, letting him know I was there.  He covered my hands with his own, and we stood like that watching the darkness descend on the world around us.