The Reality Conspiracy (20 page)

"Okay, good. It's like saying gravity existed long before that apple landed on Isaac Newton's head in the eighteenth century?"

"Right."

"And magic? What about magic?"

Jeff crossed his legs. He wrestled with a smug smile as he decided to be provocative. "I can emphatically state, with conviction if not authority, that magic does not exist. It's fantasy, pure and simple superstition."

McCurdy's tongue went tch-tch-tch. He raised his eyebrows and blew a plume of cigarette smoke into the air. "What would you say, Dr. Chandler, if I told you that you're wrong?"

Montreal, Quebec

S
lowly, a little at a time—here, a twitch of nerve; there, a flutter of muscle—the expression on the old priest's face was changing.

Sullivan watched in disbelief. In slow motion the cloudy eye widened. The closed eyelid raised. The dry chalk-white lips slid across yellow teeth and suddenly, like an image developing in a photographer's tray, Father Mosely's wrinkled face showed an expression of agony.

He's waking up!
Sullivan thought, his mind fighting to deny the miracle that was taking place before his eyes. He dropped to his knees beside the bed. Mumbling a silent prayer, he searched the pocket of his coat for his rosary.

There was noise behind him. He recognized the sound of Father LeClair's footsteps coming into the room. As Sullivan finished a Hail Mary he felt a hand resting on his shoulder.

"It is nothing, William."

Sullivan looked up at Father LeClair. He whispered, "Nothing? Look at his face, Father. He's moving. Both eyes are open. I think he's waking up."

LeClair shook his head. "It is nothing, William. Sister shouldn't have concerned you with this."

"Nothing? How can it be nothing?" Sullivan stood up. He felt himself becoming angry. "Look at him, for Christ's sake!"

"It happens sometimes, William. It is reflex, nothing more. These occasional overt responses torture the families of coma victims. They see a facial change, they see some eye movement, a muscle tremor, sometimes even a familiar smile. But it is nothing. It is reflex. In their comas these people can grin, they can grimace, sometimes they even make sounds. But, William, these things happen without consciousness. There is no association with real emotions or real experience. There is no thought of self, no awareness of surroundings, no—"

"But—"

"Please believe me, William. What you see is motor reflex, or it is the product of some glandular patterns ingrained into our species for thousands of years. It sounds cruel, William, I know it sounds cruel and I'm sorry. But you must accept it: the man you knew as Father Mosely is gone. His brain has irreversibly and permanently shut down."

Father Sullivan looked away, giving all his attention to what had become a heartbreaking expression of undiluted terror now frozen on Father Mosely's face.

And there was something else. There was no point in bringing it to Father LeClair's attention, of course, but Father Sullivan was sure of what he saw.

Teardrops, like tiny jewels, rested in the corners of the old priest's eyes.

Burlington, Vermont

Tuesday, June 21

K
aren couldn't seem to relax.

After dinner she'd tried sitting at the kitchen table attempting to write this week's letter to her mother. After three false starts she gave up, crushed the stationery into a ragged sphere, and tossed it, basketball style, into the trash. She got up, loaded the dishwasher, then absently opened the refrigerator and stared unseeing at its contents. "Why am I
doing
this?" she said, because she wasn't hungry at all. After pushing the door closed, she walked into the living room and put a new CD into the player, Ennio Morricone's soundtrack from
The Mission
. Before the first track could pick up steam, she'd flicked on the TV, then flicked it off again.

She just couldn't unwind, couldn't shake the persistent feeling that something was wrong. It wasn't the death of Dr. Gudhausen, though that weighed heavily on her mind. And it wasn't the tragedy of the Washburn family. It was something else, something closer. Something immediate.

She thought about Jeff Chandler, her new friend in Boston. He was a pleasant distraction. Frequently his smiling face had interposed itself between her eyes and whatever she might be working on. Jeff had promised to call her and he hadn't. Was it too soon to hear from him? Was she being impatient? Should she wait a few days more?

Or maybe she should call him?

"Darn it all," she said aloud, "I'm acting like some love-struck schoolgirl." But what could she expect? She was as inexperienced as a schoolgirl. During high school she had rarely dated. All through college, between her studies and her home obligations, she had always been too busy. And now, in her role as a young professional, she easily kept the world at bay. What dating she'd done was quick and antiseptic. Like her therapy sessions, her relationships were limited to a meeting or two and then—

Okay. She had to admit it. She lacked courage. But once something got started, well, who could say where the resulting whirlwind could carry you?

But Jeff seemed so very nice, so funny, so timidly sincere—Stop it!

Impatient with herself, Karen moved to her front window and looked out, searching the lakeshore panorama for something else to think about.

Trouble was, whenever she pulled her thoughts away from Jeff, her new patient Alton Barnes came to mind.

Alton Barnes.

Was he the reason for her nervousness? Was she overlooking something important? Had she missed some vital detail he'd disclosed to her.

Karen liked him a lot, saw him as a definite "type," one of those no-nonsense, intensely proud, kind-to-a-fault Vermonters, the sort who'd rarely seek the aid of a physician, much less a psychotherapist. Karen smiled sadly as she looked out at the lake. Their session yesterday had reminded her to write to Mother. Because Mr. Barnes, she suddenly realized, was just like her father.

The fact that Mr. Barnes had accepted a referral to therapy assured Karen that whatever he'd seen in the woods had frightened him terribly.

What could scare that kind of man?

What could be frightening enough to make him step forward to ask for help?

Initially, Karen had suspected a hallucination, but she'd quickly rejected the idea. No, Mr. Barnes had seen something. Something too horrible to recall. And that kind of fear looked out of place on Alton Barnes.

Karen had never seen any kind of fear in her father. Never. Not once. Even during those last days, when the cancer had rooted itself in every part of his body, he hadn't shown fear. At least none that a ten-year-old girl could recognize.

The last time she had seen him, his powerful six-foot frame had been replaced by some hollow-eyed changeling that seemed to be fashioned from sticks of wood and wrinkled parchment paper. It was a grotesque imitation of the father she loved.

On the last day, the doctor allowed her only five minutes with Dad. Odd how little space he required in the narrow hospital bed. She looked down at him, hating the thing beneath the sheets, not knowing what to say to it. Not knowing what to do.

Its lips were moving. She watched, fascinated, not understanding that it was trying to speak. When visiting time ended, she forced herself to lean over, readied her lips for a good-bye kiss. As her ear moved closer to his mouth, she realized he was talking. "Family'll all be together again, someday," he whispered, "so don't you worry." He paused then, as if trying to summon enough strength to continue. "Till then, you take care of your mama for me, okay, honey?" He'd been able to move his head just enough to kiss her on the cheek. His dry lips had felt like autumn leaves against her skin.

And she had taken care of her mother.

They'd lived together in the family place, with Karen commuting sixty miles every day to attend classes at the University of Vermont. Then she continued the drive, Bristol to Burlington, throughout her first year on the staff of the health center. The routine had become second nature: hot coffee and a muffin in the car, reviewing case notes on the cassette player, bringing home pizza or subs for a nine o'clock supper.

Only foul weather—when the snow-slick roads were too dangerous for driving—would keep her in Burlington overnight.

It was on just such a night that her mother had the stroke. Phone lines down, roads impassable, Karen didn't find her until eight o'clock the next night.

A lengthy hospitalization followed. Then long grueling sessions of physical and occupational therapy. Mom eventually regained some mobility on her right side, but she couldn't speak, and the doctors said she was not well enough to go on living at the family place.

With that, something had come to an end.

Karen thought of all the people she had counseled: good, well-meaning couples who came to her guilt-ridden and profoundly sad because they had to consider putting an ailing parent in a home. Having faced the same decision, Karen would never underestimate their discomfort.

Maybe the outcome was easier for Karen than it was for many people. Mom had made the choice herself. She would go to Florida for her "retirement." Now she lived in the same rest home as her sister Gladys. Karen understood Mom's decision: her mother simply was not willing to remain a burden to Karen.

They had sold the farm and divided almost two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. It met Mom's expenses and allowed a sizable down payment on Karen's lakefront condominium.

Karen blinked at the sunset and wiped the moisture from her eyes
. Gotta do something
, she thought.
Gotta get busy at something
. Mother was so generous, so prideful, always so careful not to trouble or inconvenience. Why then was it so hard for Karen to write her just one lousy letter a week?

What kind of person am I, anyway?

Repulsed by her dying father, neglectful of her ailing mother.

What makes me think I can help anyone?

How will I mess up Alton Barnes?

What have I done to scare Jeff Chandler away?

Bingo!—there was the problem.

Self-doubt had inspired uncertainty and inaction.

Gotta get busy. Gotta do something.

In the distance the sun, a bright fiery ball, hovered in the dark sky beyond Lake Champlain, above the silhouetted spine of the Adirondacks. Deep red rays lined the clouds and rippled brilliantly on the surface of the water. It was a beautiful sunset. Her wide eyes drank in the scene like a soothing tonic.

Finally, she knew what she had to do. She would make the phone call she'd been putting off since she got back from Boston. Why not?

There was nothing that said she shouldn't. Why was it any more his responsibility than hers?

After a short hunt for her purse, Karen removed her Day-Timer and looked up the number. She punched the keys, silently rehearsed what she was going to say.

Someone picked up the phone during the third ring. "Hello?" A woman's voice answered, catching Karen off guard.

"Is . . . is this Jeff Chandler's residence?" She felt as if she were stammering.

"Yes," said the voice. "Just a minute please."

"No, wait!" But it was too late. Karen heard Jeff coming to the phone. "Yes? Hello."

"Ah . . . Jeff . . . hi. This is—"

"I know who it is," he said. "Listen, I'm glad you called, but I can't talk to you now."

"But—" Karen feared that surprise, maybe hurt, was evident in that single word.

"No buts. Not now. Sorry."

Before she could speak again, he'd hung up.

Boston, Massachusetts

D
r. Ian McCurdy studied the hand on the table in front of him. He poked it gingerly, feeling the warm flesh yield and wrinkle beneath his fingertip. He ran the nail of his right index finger between two pink knuckles, leaving a thin white line that faded quickly and disappeared.

More adventurous now, he pinched the web of skin between its thumb and forefinger, tugged it, dug into it with opposing nails.

The hand was an alien thing, a five-legged creature that seemed locked in some anesthetic dream. It was an amputee-octopus on a dissecting tray. A starfish on a dinner plate.

McCurdy closed his eyes, breathing deeply to steady his nerves. What he was about to do was important. He knew that, yet he hesitated. And his hesitation, he confessed, was selfishness. And selfishness was sin.

Offering a silent prayer, he bent the hand's three longest fingers under the palm. Then he folded the thumb against them and taped the fist closed with eight feet of surgical gauze.

Now the knob of a hand was a girded fist with just the little finger extended. Its nail was ragged with tooth marks. Its cuticle was an imperfect crescent of opaque skin with a hangnail drooping from its left end.

McCurdy placed the hand on the tabletop next to a marble slab. The little finger, lying on the elevated marble, was an ugly white grub sleeping on dark stone. He positioned the wrist tightly against the table.