Mind of My Mind (13 page)

Had her last performance been so bad? Had following Eli's stupid advice hurt her so

much?

She needed more people. She took a deep breath and walked into view from one of

the choir doors. Today, of all days, she needed more people.

"Sister Davidson! Praise the Lord, she's here!" The cry went up in the middle of the

song, and the song would have died away had she not joined in and kept it going. Her

voice was a strong, full contralto that her audiences loved. She could have moved them

with her singing even if she had nothing else. But she had a great deal more to offer than

singing. If only there were more of them!

Eli Torrey gave her a long, bitter look. She knew the expression on her own face as

she looked back at him. She could see it as he saw it. She could see it through his eyes.

The hungry, drawn look that so many mistook for religious fervor.

Eli started to step away from the pulpit as the song ended.

She stopped him with a thought. Introduce me!

Why? She had to pluck his thoughts from his mind. He was only a latent. He could

not project in any controlled way. You think there's one person out there who doesn't

know who you are?

Introduce me, Eli, or I'll control you and do it myself. I'll run you like a puppet! She

did not bother to take his reply.

Furious as he was, he was too much of a showman not to give her the best

introduction he could.

The service.

She could have preached to her people in Chinese and it literally would not have

mattered. All that mattered was that she was there and she had them. From that first song,

they were hers. Not one of them could have gotten up and walked out of the church. Not

one of them would have wanted to. Her control of them was not usually so rigid, but,

then, she was not usually so desperate in her need of them. Their minds were full of her.

Their voices, the very swaying, hand-clapping movements of their bodies were for her.

When their mouths said, "Yes, Jesus!" and "Preach it!" and "Amen!" they really meant

"Rachel, Rachel, Rachel!" She drank it in and loved them for it. She demanded more and

more.

By the time the service was half over, they would have cut their own throats for her.

They fed her, strengthened her, drove out her sickness, which was, after all, no more than

a need for them, for their adoration.

Eli said she was playing God, perverting religion, turning good, Christian people into

pagans who worshiped only her. Eli was right, of course. He should have been. He was

one of her first and oldest worshipers. But his conscience bothered him, and, from time to

time, he managed to infect her with some of his guilt.

Behind her was a childhood spent in a home that was Christian before it was anything

else. Eli's home. Eli was a distant cousin of hers. Doro had had her adopted by Eli's

minister parents. Both his father and his mother were ministers. But in spite of the

pressure they had put on Rachel she had rejected much of their religious teaching. All she

retained was enough to make her nervous sometimes. Nervous and vulnerable to Eli. But

not now.

Now she drew all she dared from the small crowd, forcing herself to stop before she

was satisfied, to avoid doing them any real harm.

Then she prepared to repay them. The candidates for healing had already formed a

line in the main aisle.

And the healing began.

Eyes closed, she would mouth a prayer and lay her hands on the candidate.

Sometimes she shouted, imploring God to hear and answer her. Sometimes she seemed to

have trouble and have to try a second time.

Showmanship! Eli and his parents had taught her some of it. The rest she had learned

from watching real faith healers. It meant nothing, as far as the actual healing was

concerned.

In her years of healing, she had learned enough to diagnose quickly just by allowing

her perception to travel over the candidate's body once. That was useful in that many of

the people who came to her did not really know what was wrong with them. Even some

who came with doctors' diagnoses were mistaken. Thus she saved a few seconds of

looking for a nonexistent problem and went right to work on whatever was really wrong.

The work?

Stimulating the growth of new tissues—even brain and nerve tissues that were not

supposed to regenerate. Destroying tissue that was useless and dangerous—cancer, for

instance. Strengthening weak organs, "reprogramming" organs that malfunctioned. More.

Much more. Psychological problems, injuries, birth defects, etc. Rachel could have been

even more spectacular than she was. The totally deaf child gained hearing, but the one-

armed man—he had come to get help in his fight against alcoholism—did not grow a

new arm. He could have. It would have taken weeks, but Rachel could have handled it.

To do so, though, she would have had to show herself to be more than a faith healer. She

was afraid of what people might decide she was. Whether or not she accepted the story of

Christ as fact, she realized that anyone with abilities like his—and hers—would get into

trouble if he really put them to work.

Eli knew what she could do. And he knew all that she could make him understand

about how she did it. Because she had to tell someone. Eli was her family now that his

parents were dead. And he filled other functions. Doro had said he would. Cousin,

business manager, lover, slave. She was a little ashamed of that last sometimes, but never

ashamed enough to let him go.

Now, though, she was almost content. She had fed. It was not enough, but it would

hold her until the next night, when, no doubt, a bigger crowd would gather. Soon she

would send this small crowd home tired, weak, spent, but eager to return and feed her

again. And eager to bring their friends and families out to see her.

She accepted only a limited number of candidates—again as a matter of self-

protection—and that number was almost exhausted when the interruption came.

Interruption . . .

It was a mental explosion that, for uncounted seconds, blotted out her every other

sense. She had been standing, one hand on a woman in a wheelchair, the other raised in

apparent supplication. Now she froze there, blind, deaf, mute with shock. The only thing

that kept her on her feet was her habit of strictness with herself. Minor theatrics she had

always used. They were part of her show. Uncontrolled hysterics—especially of the kind

that she could have—were absolutely forbidden.

Somehow when the din inside her head lessened she finished with the woman in the

wheelchair, sent her away walking slowly, pushing her own chair, and crying.

Then, without explanation, Rachel handed the service back to Eli and walked away

from her bewildered congregation. She shut herself in an empty Sunday-school classroom

to be alone to fight the thing that was happening to her.

Sometime later, she heard Eli in the hall calling her. By then the battle was ended,

lost. By then Rachel knew she had to go to Forsyth. Someone had called her in a way that

she could not ignore. Someone had made a puppet of her. There was justice in that, she

supposed. She reached out to Eli, called him to her to tell him that she was leaving.

JESSE BERNARR

Jesse and the girl, this one's name was Tara, slept late, then got up and drove into

Donaldton. It was Sunday and Jesse's twenty-sixth birthday. He was feeling generous

enough to ask the girl what she wanted to do instead of telling her.

She wanted to get a lunch and go to the park lake. There, though she did not say it,

she wanted to show Jesse off. She would be the envy of the female population of

Donaldton and she knew it. Best to show him off while she had him. She knew she could

only have him until someone else caught his eye. When that happened, he would send her

home to her husband and her turn might not come again for months—might not ever

come again.

Jesse smiled to himself as he read her thoughts. Donaldton girls, even shy,

undemanding ones like Tara, thought that way when they were with him. They worked as

hard as they could to keep him and flaunt him—which was understandable and all right

as far as Jesse was concerned. But sometimes Jesse went after girls from the surrounding

towns. Girls who didn't know him even by reputation, and who weren't quite so eager.

He and Tara went to a little cafe and had a lunch prepared. There was only one

waitress on duty and there were two other customers waiting to be served when Jesse

arrived. But they didn't mind waiting a little longer. They wished him a happy birthday.

Jesse wasn't carrying any cash. He rarely did. He never needed it in Donaldton. The

waitress smiled at him as he and Tara took the lunch and went back to the car.

Tara drove to the lake as she had driven into Donaldton. Jesse had wrecked three cars

and nearly killed himself before he gave up driving. There was just no future in it for

someone who might at any time be hit by mental disturbances from other drivers,

pedestrians, whatever. It wasn't as bad as it had been during his transition, but it still

happened. Doro said his mental shielding was defective. Jesse didn't worry about it. The

advantages of his sensitivity outweighed the disadvantages. And Tara was a good driver.

All his girls were.

There were other Sunday picnickers in the park—old people sunning themselves and

families with young children. And there was a scattering of young couples and teenagers.

Donaldton, Pennsylvania, was small and didn't offer much in the way of entertainment or

recreation. People who would have preferred something more exciting wound up in the

park.

The people were well spread out, though. There was plenty of room. There was so

much room, in fact, that Tara was silently annoyed when Jesse chose a place only a few

yards from another couple.

Jesse pretended not to notice her annoyance. "Want to go for a swim before we eat?"