Pandemonium (18 page)

The sound was like a faint, drawn-out squeak, repeating rhythmically like a rusty hand pump. Very faint at first, then growing slowly louder.
I sat up in my cocoon bed. In the windowless room I couldn’t guess what time it was, but it felt like hours since I’d threaded the chains through the bed frame and lain down, waiting for sleep. The manacles lay open and unattached.
I’d tried O’Connell’s sleep advice. She’d been wrong.
The sound grew louder—
chirr-up, chirr-up—
and then passed by my door and moved on.
I eased out of the bed, pressed my ear to the hallway door. I thought I heard the squeak again, very faint, then the sound of a door opening. A half minute passed in silence.
I turned and found my jeans in the dark, felt around for my T-shirt, pulled them on. I went to the door again. Nothing. I slowly twisted the knob and eased the door open.
The hallway was slightly brighter than my room, soft light coming from around the corner where the balcony overlooked the foyer. To my left, the corridor was darker, running perhaps twenty feet before it ended in an oversized door. I headed toward the light, in the same direction the sound had been moving. I passed O’Connell’s door, then two other doors, my bare feet quiet on the narrow Turkish runners. I felt like a teenager sneaking past his parents.
I leaned around the corner. The balcony was empty, the row of doors along it all closed. There was one door opposite me that was ajar, the room dark. Had it been open when Meg showed us to our rooms? I couldn’t remember if I’d looked down that way.
I stepped onto the balcony. I could hear no one on the stairs, no one on the floors above or below. I glanced down at the empty foyer, then at the open door. “Summoned or not, here I come,” I said to myself.
The circular window, hanging level with the balcony, glinted like a waking eye.
I trailed one hand along the polished banister until I reached the open door. “Hello?” I said, and rapped lightly on the door frame. I didn’t expect an answer, but I felt it was good to go through the motions, just in case I was cross-examined later: Did you knock before you went in? Yes, Your Honor, I even announced my presence.
I glanced behind me once more, then reached inside to the left-hand wall. I found a light switch, flicked it on.
Directly in front of me, the Black Well.
“Shit!” I said aloud.
It was only a painting, but it still took me a moment to calm down. I stepped inside the room, put a hand against the wall.
I was in some kind of cathedral-ceilinged library. The walls cut in and out, creating dozens of nooks and multiplying the wall space. Towering bookshelves alternated with narrow, green-draped windows, and the remaining spaces were filled by paintings and tapestries and glass frames of every size. In the center of the room were several fat leather chairs surrounded by long tables that held stacks of books, small glass cases, Tiffany-style desk lamps. The centerpiece seemed to be a podium holding an open book the size of my mom’s family Bible.
The Black Well painting hung on the wall opposite the door, in a dark frame maybe three feet wide and four feet tall. I walked around the crenellated edge of the room, distracted by all the exotics hanging on the walls: African masks; pen-and-ink drawings of mythological animals and armored knights; tapestries of unicorns and demons and lines of pilgrims; plaques and awards in German and French and English; black-and-white photographs of bespectacled men with pipes and dark-eyed women in large hats; honorary degrees; framed prints from old books, some illustrated with arcane symbols.
Most striking were the dozens of paintings, many of them multicolored mandalas but others art-nouveau-style renderings of fantastic characters: a winged man with a devil-horned forehead; a bearded man in robes; a long-haired woman naked except for a black snake draped over her shoulders.
But my attention kept returning to the Black Well painting. I approached it obliquely like a swimmer fighting the current, and stopped a few feet away.
The well wasn’t rendered exactly as it had appeared to me under the lake, but the painting caught the essence. Bands of black and red and purple spiraled and twisted away from the eye, promising an infinite regress. I put a hand out, hovering above the canvas. I pictured my hand plunging into it, the well sucking in my arm, my body. I stepped back, feeling nauseous.
Behind me, the chirp of rusty hinges. I whipped my head toward the door.
An old man pushed an antique wooden wheelchair into the room.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to—”
He held up a hand—to silence or reassure me, I wasn’t sure which—and rolled the chair toward me. It was an ungainly, slat-backed thing like a steamship deck chair mounted on rusting bicycle wheels. The man pushing looked as old as the chair. He was thin, all forehead and white hair, dressed in a loose white shirt and blue pants that could have been pajamas or hospital scrubs. His hair started at ear level and dropped to his shoulders, clouding into a white beard that fanned his chest.
“December of 1912,” he said. His voice was quiet but penetrating. “Dr. Jung experienced what some people call a break
down,
and what others call a break
through.
”
He pushed the empty wheelchair to a spot between a chair and couch. “The doctor referred to it as his Nekyia, his Ulysses-like descent into the underworld.”
Oh, Nekyia, I thought. Right. Of course.
“He said it was as if the floor literally gave way beneath him, and he
chose
to fall,” the old man said. As he talked he carefully adjusted the chair’s angle, backing and filling until it was aimed directly at me. “Into the depths. Into the womb of primordial life.”
He straightened, then nodded at the Black Well painting. “Can you imagine,
choosing
to fall into that?”
There was a wink in his voice. I couldn’t tell if he was laughing at me or trying to convince me he was in on the joke.
“You must be Dr. Waldheim,” I said. O’Connell had told me they were a married couple.
He shook his head. “No, no, I’m the other Dr. Waldheim. Call me Fred.” He walked toward one of the protrusions of wall I’d passed. He moved slowly, but he didn’t seem to be in any need of a walker. “After the doctor fell, he was introduced to several independent personalities who became his guides through the underworld.” He indicated the picture of the old man beside the naked girl and her black snake. “First were Elijah and Salome. They were the first to anoint him as the Christ—the Christ within each of us.” He smiled. “Well, maybe not all of us.”
He moved on to the winged old man with the horns. “This is Philemon, the doctor’s most important advisor. You notice the four keys he holds, representing the quaternity: the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost—and the Devil. Dr. Jung came to realize that the separation between God and Satan was an artificial construction of later Christians. The Gnostics understood that there was one God—some call him Abraxas, but he has many names—and that truth and falsehood were aspects of the same universal nature.”
I stood there, trying to figure out how I could get out of the room. The Black Well hovered just behind me, a dizzying void like the edge of a roof under my heels. “Yeah, well…”
“However…,” the old man said, drawing out the word. “The doctor could have just been, what’s the word,
whacked.
” He rolled his eyes toward the wheelchair and then laughed, a long, dry chuckle.
I forced a thin smile. “I really should get back to bed.”
“Wait, you’re missing the best piece.” He gestured toward the podium and the huge book on it.
The pages were old and thick, and looked like they’d been hand-bound to the leather cover. The leather was a dark, burnished red.
“Oh,” I said. “This must be that Red Book I’ve heard so much about.”
The old man laughed, delighted. “This is just a copy, but we’ve tried to make it as accurate as possible.”
One page was a large illustration, the other handwritten text. I moved around to the other side. The picture was of an angelic creature with a crown of stars and great wings behind it—like the Philemon character, but more refined. Someone had written in the margin:
Ka.
What kind of word was that—more Greek? The dense scrawl on the opposite page was harder to decipher, but at least it was in English. Someone had underlined this:
The archetype is a figure—a demon, a human being, or a process—that recurs constantly throughout history. It appears whenever creative fantasy is expressed freely.
“After the Nekyia he recorded his innermost findings about his experiences here,” Fred said. “The book’s never been shared with biographers—it could too easily be misunderstood by the masses. Gnostic texts such as these are like mandalas, wheels within wheels. But I have a feeling you would find it enlightening.” He made a flipping gesture—go on, go on—and I started turning over pages, just humoring him.
“The problem of possession concerned him from the beginning,” Fred said. “In 1895 he attended a séance in which his thirteen-year-old cousin Helly was controlled by the spirit of their mutual grandfather, Samuel Preiswerk—the first of many possessions. Later the doctor learned to call down personalities himself, exercising what he called the ‘transcendent function.’ However, soon after he began to fear that these archetypes, these ‘invisible persons,’ would overwhelm him, and he engaged in elaborate rituals to ward them off. He spent days building miniature villages of stone and sand, peopling them with tiny figures, token humans to attract the spirits. And then he destroyed the figures in a symbolic sacrifice.”
I looked up from the book. “And did it work?”
He shrugged. “Evidently.”
“So what do you want me to do? Buy some Legos?”
He laughed. “It might not hurt. But we’ve found that it usually helps just to talk.”
“Talk,” I said skeptically.
“Others have come to us in worse shape. You’d be surprised.”
“Like O’Connell?”
“Siobhan was only eleven when she came to us. She’d been possessed many, many times. The damage…” He shook his head. “In some ways the Hellion and the Little Angel are the cruelest of the demons, because they go after the children. But I think we were able to help.”
“Why’d she become a priest then, and not a shrink?”
“I think she found our methods a bit slow, and…indirect. We’re scientists. The church promised, Whoosh!” He shook a hand at me. “Get thee behind me! Boogedy-boogedy.” He laughed again. “It doesn’t work, but it’s quick. All we could offer was the promise of years of research.”
“Sure,” I said, thinking,
Years?
I didn’t have time for these people either. “Listen, thank you for showing me, well, all this. But I need to get back to bed.” I walked toward the door, making sure to angle around the wheelchair.
As I reached the door the old man called out, “Mr. Pierce.”
“Yes?”
“Siobhan told us you suspect that the barriers between you and your demon are crumbling. Your memories are bleeding over.”
I laughed, embarrassed. “I wasn’t in the best shape last night. I probably said a lot of things that didn’t make sense. I’m just a little stressed out.”
“For good reason.”
O’Connell must have told them everything—the jump into Lew, the memories I shouldn’t have, the wolf-out sessions. My growing fear that the Hellion was knocking down the walls that kept us apart.
I ran a hand back through my hair. “Did Jung really paint that thing?”
He nodded.
“Okay.” I turned away from him, took a breath, held it. Some destabilizing emotion threatened to wash me away. Fear, or maybe relief. I exhaled. “Okay.”
“Ah,” the old man said. “You thought you were the only one who’d seen it.”

“Let your arms rest at your sides,” Dr. Waldheim said. “Let your shoulders relax. Good. Now relax the muscles of your jaw, your forehead…Good.”
The Other Dr. Waldheim said nothing, but nodded encouragingly. The wheelchair was parked next to him, and beside that was the tripod holding the tiny digital video camera. They’d asked me if I minded recording the session, and it was fine with me; I was interested to see what I looked like under hypnosis.
I had no trouble relaxing—I was dead tired. It had taken me forever to fall asleep last night. O’Connell had finally woken me at noon, fed me take-out deli sandwiches, and led me back to the library, where she left me in the care of the Waldheims. The drapes had been pushed back, and bright lozenges of sunlight warmed the floors. Meg Waldheim’s voice was low and rhythmic, almost a murmur.
“You’re not going to lose control, Del. You’re not going to hurt anyone. You can come back any time. Do you understand?”
I said, “Sure.” At least I think I did. I may have only nodded.
Dr. Waldheim said, “All right, Del. Let us talk to the Hellion.”
The doctor, it turned out, was wrong about several things.
The next time I opened my eyes—when did I close my eyes?—I was wedged into a corner of the room, the edge of a bookshelf sharp against the back of my head, and books heavy on my chest and shoulders, spilled around and under my arms…and the Waldheims were staring down at me with frozen faces. For a long moment I couldn’t make sense of their expressions. Shock, that was clear enough. And sadness. But there was something else there—something deeper than sadness.
Grief.

12

O’Connell brought me meals as regular as a jailer, and took away trays almost always as full as they’d come in. It wasn’t that I was on a hunger strike, or that I was trying to prove some point. I just wasn’t interested in food. O’Connell would chat me up, trying to get me to tell her what I was thinking. Meg Waldheim stopped by a couple times too. I found that if I ignored them, they eventually went away.
On the morning of the third day O’Connell came to my room, but there was no breakfast tray. She was dressed in full Kabuki priest mode, her pale face floating like a moon over the expanse of black cassock. She leaned against the writing desk, blocking my view of the Waldheims’ laptop. “Enough of this,” she said, and yanked the electric cord from the wall. When the video continued to play on-screen—the laptop had a battery—O’Connell slammed down the lid. “Time to get out of bed.”
“I was watching that,” I said sulkily.
“Really?” she said. This was sarcasm. I’d been watching the loop of four-minute video pretty much nonstop for the past few days. I knew this was pathological behavior, Howard Hughes–quality OCD. However, my interest in sanity had gone the way of my appetite.
“Get up, Mr. Pierce.” That killed me:
Mr. Pierce.
“It’s time to take a shower, change your clothes, and leave your little spider hole.”
“Could you turn the laptop back on, please?”
She made a noise that was something between a growl and a stifled scream and shoved the laptop off the desk. It hit the floor with a terrible crack.
“That was Fred’s,” I said. It was only an old Compaq, but still.
“Get your arse out of bed, Del. Now.”
I closed my eyes. I didn’t have the energy to fight with her. Maybe later I could leave her a note:
Dear Pastor, You’re fired.
She yanked the covers off my bed. “You have forty-five minutes to get ready, Mr. Pierce.”
“What happens in forty-five minutes?”
“That’s when your mother is expecting your call.”
This got one eye open. “What? I can’t do that. Not right now. Listen, just tell her I’ll call in a couple days.”
“She said that unless she talks to you herself,
today,
she’ll assume you’ve been abducted and contact the police. Which is ludicrous, of course.” She pursed her lips. O’Connell may have thought she was a tough Irish girl, but she’d never gone toe-to-toe with the Cyclops. “She may be serious, however, and we can’t afford more legal trouble.”
“She’s serious all right,” I said. I put my arm over my eyes. “Listen, just bring me the phone. I don’t need to take a shower to—”
She gripped my shirt and hauled me to a sitting position. “Mr. Pierce…” She stepped back, pulling me off the bed. I would have crashed onto the floor but just barely got my legs under me. Which was how she tricked me into standing.
“…you’ve begun to
turn.
”
Her fists were still bunched in my shirt, ready to haul me into the shower like a drunk.
“All right,” I said. “Fine. You want to give me a little privacy?”
She cocked an eyebrow, clearly not trusting me.
“Suit yourself,” I said, and pulled up my T-shirt, which got her to release her grip. She watched me until the shirt was off and I reached for the waistband of my running shorts.
She turned and walked to the door. “I want to hear running water in thirty seconds,” she said, and closed the door behind her.
I sighed, went to the bathroom. The tile was cold on my bare feet. I crossed the small space and twisted the lock on the door that led to her bedroom.
The bathtub was a decent old-fashioned kind, sliding glass doors and two sprocket knobs, none of this single-handle hardware that made it impossible to set the water temperature. When it was hot, I pulled up on the plunger, and the spray drummed the bottom of the tub.
I walked back into my bedroom and shut the bathroom door behind me.
I carried the laptop back to the bed, set it on my knee. The lid crackled as I opened it. I rebooted, and while the rest of the screen seemed okay, the lower left section had turned black. Windows finished loading, though, and in a minute I had the video running again.
The subject sits on the couch. His arms are at his sides, forgotten. The camera is to his right, but he’s gazing straight ahead of him. He’s wearing blue jeans, a gray John Hersey High School sweatshirt unraveling at the cuffs, a blue T-shirt visible at the neck. His smile is slightly self-conscious. He needs a shave and his hair’s a little too long; the back of his head is roostering where he’s slept on it.
Meg Waldheim’s voice, off camera: Let your shoulders relax. Good.
She continues to speak, and the subject does seem to relax. The smile fades. His expression grows distant, as if he’s listening to soothing music.
Meg Waldheim says, All right, Del. Let us talk to the Hellion.
The subject doesn’t change expression. He gazes straight ahead, as if considering their request.
And then he lurches forward, throwing himself off the couch. He’s on all fours, his chest heaving, as if he’s gasping for air.
The side of Meg Waldheim’s head appears in the frame; she’s leaning forward. Tell us your name, she says.
The subject looks up at her. His eyes are wide in animal terror. He doesn’t recognize them.
Tell us your name, she says again.
The subject screams. The sound is raw, unmodulated. He scrambles away from her. Only his leg is visible now. And then he’s up, back in the frame, running and half stumbling for one of the outcroppings of wall. Suddenly he drops out of sight of the camera.
A dark blur as Fred Waldheim crosses in front of the camera. A moment later he’s back in view on the other side of the couch, moving deliberately to where the subject is, somewhere on the floor. He says something the camera doesn’t pick up. He raises one arm, and says louder, There there, we aren’t going to hurt you.
The subject screams, and this time he’s screaming a word at the top of his lungs, the same word over and over: Mahhhhhm! Mahhhhhm! Mahhhhhm!
Meg Waldheim, still off-camera, says again, What is your name?
This part of the video annoyed me. They must have realized his name by then—how much more obvious could he be?
“Del,” I said to the screen. “His name is Del.”