Previously on "The Hypnotist":
Clementine awoke in a strange room, her memory blank. Through a cracked door, she witnessed Bastian deliver five children to Montefiore. The children suddenly transformed into demonic entities, brutally killing Montefiore. Bastian left with a mysterious box, leaving Clementine alone and strangely calm amidst the carnage.
Chapter 2
I can feel the icy breeze skitter across the ground, bending blades of grass and palm leaves that arch towards the house. It’s like a breath off the lips of the nefarious that hushes across the night sky, floating dark clouds across the moon like specters plodding over the heads of the naïve. The sensation cringes through the skin, sending ripples filled with foreboding that flutter to my constricted heart.
I swallow my breath, feeling the energy of the night. Pay attention to the signs, I always say. They exist inside the silence. In those moments when the mind is calm. You can feel them humming their truth like a distant train horn, signaling the coming of wrath. It’s what I have to prepare for, and that preparation means thinking with the heart and not the mind. I remind myself of this by repeating my mantra, Be my voice. Be my decisions. Be my strength. Talking to my God.
I received the phone call from my mentor, JC, around four thirty this morning requesting I come as soon as possible. Come to the house I’m in now- unfortunately waiting in the frigin foyer and staring out the window next to the door-to assist in a dire situation. Apparently, the owner of the house-some guy named Eduardo-held a sacred ceremony that began last evening and took a turn for the worse just after midnight. For those who don’t know, sacred ceremony is a term reserved for the practice of using Ayahuasca to assist in helping people overcome past trauma. The practice has varying degrees of success that mostly depend on the host. In this instance it seems Eduardo got a little more than he expected from one of his clients, a woman named Rose, who, according to Eduardo, took on a completely different personality and reverted to a childlike status while at the same time became violent. Both towards herself and towards Eduardo’s other customers. I could imagine their faces in that moment, tripping balls while Rose goes all postal on them. The situation probably caused some additional trauma based on that fact alone.
But they’re not my problem. My problem is Eduardo, whose bitching up a storm in the living room to JC about my ability to help Rose and-as I’m certain Eduardo is most concerned with-get him out of trouble. Considering Ayahuasca is illegal, and he’s holding a psychedelic party where one of his guests went off the deep end, I’m certain that if Rose winds up in a psych ward or hospital good old Ed is going to have a lot of explaining to do. Honestly, I’m getting a bit aggravated with his consistent gripe. My concern is Rose, who’s holed up in a bedroom by herself. He’s wasting valuable time. This crisis could be over already, and Ed should never host a sacred ceremony again.
Some people just don’t get it. Some traumas are too much for the mind to bear and in order to protect the victim the mind swallows the memory whole, casting it off into a dark chasm of the mind until such a day that the host is ready to deal with the situation. Unfortunately for Rose, ingesting a psychedelic can open that chasm and send the mind into a spiral where reality can feel broken. The result is a confusion between the conscious mind and its subconscious overlord.
I refer to it as a seed. A memory planted decades ago that one day takes root and turns every previous notion on its head. The result is chaos. Like a shock to the system, the seed brings confusion that can cause personality changes so profound even the closest relative would admit they were talking to a completely different person.
That’s not my daughter.
I don’t even recognize this person.
He did a complete one-eighty.
Just a few of the examples loved ones would say in such an event, leaving people wondering exactly how weak their relative is. Because of course there must be something wrong with the individual. Some character defect that led to the breakdown. Some phantom reason why. Someone to blame. Or is the reason as simple as saying the truth that as strong and as powerful as the human mind is, it is also equally fragile.
For the people who accept this truth, there is typically one of two ways to respond. Either compassionately or nefariously. When you’ve got someone in the palm of your hand, you can either set them free or crush them into oblivion. Whichever is chosen is a direct link to the individual’s heart. Manipulation is easy, but setting someone free takes patience, unrelenting compassion, and understanding that the deed is thankless, more than likely resulting in the person who had been freed despising the very person who freed them. As ironic as that is. It’s always amazed me how people loathe those who have their best interest in mind while worshipping those who hold power over them.
Is the mental breakdown beholden to a weak constitution, or the consistent battering of that fragile mind into oblivion? For what is sanity without reason? What is imagination without recourse to truth? Or should I say truths, for there are many, but how can anyone truly say what is truthful when everything they’ve ever known has been a lie? Once lies have been accepted as truth, breaking this cerebral hold can cause a catastrophic mental breakdown. Here is where the compassionate come into play. But even the compassionate know their limits. Perhaps, it’s about high time I learned mine, considering the time is just before dawn and I’m standing in some stranger’s house waiting to offer a helping hand when all I want to do is get and go but I know I won’t. There’s a sick woman in the next room. She’s the reason I dragged myself out of bed on a Sunday morning. My focus is on helping her, not the paranoid host bitching up a storm about why he’s skeptical of my presence.
It’s amazing how some guys no matter how big and strong or large and in charge they make themselves out to be, that once a crisis hits, they fold like origami then bitch over every solution that they didn’t come up with, which only perpetuates the problem. Some people love being in the problem. They can’t get enough of the problem. They’re addicted to the fuckin problem so, of course, they’re going to scoff and mock every solution offered by someone else.
If I didn’t have so much respect for JC, I would have put Eduardo in his place. I stole a glance into the living room, seeing JC-he’s the older heavy-set gentleman with glasses and a balding head-standing over this Eduardo guy sitting on the couch and dressed in all white with his head in his hands.
“I don’t know what to do,” he whines. Honestly, I’d like to punch him in his head. See if he knows what to do then.
JC responds with his answer. “Let Logan do what he came here to do. What are your options, Ed?”
I look in the mirror on the wall. The foyer is dark-as is the house-and my reflection is cast in that same darkness. My black shirt melts into the mirror as does my dark hair and the backpack over my shoulder, although the blue eyes shine in the mirror but I notice how pale I am. Considering I live in South Florida I shouldn’t be this pale but then again who has time to sit in the sun all day?
I wait patiently for Ed to respond to JC. Upon my arrival, JC explained the current situation in full detail from what he learned from Eduardo, who called him not knowing what to do. In turn, JC called me. Called me because I’m a hypnotist who specializes in treating symptoms associated with past trauma. Plus, I’ve seen a thing or two in my time, something that JC is well aware of, although we both like to keep the past to ourselves.
“I don’t know.” This is Eduardo. The hurried anxiety in his voice reflects the trouble he’ll be in should the current situation rear its ugly head. “What if he fucks her up even more?”
And there we go. Yeah, you’ve got a woman in the back bedroom that you gave a shit ton of psychedelics to who's clearly lost her mind and you’re worried that I’m gonna fuck her up. Some people really need a reality check. Honestly, I’m tired of hearing him bitch up a storm. I stepped into the living room.
“Listen, Ed, here’s the situation buddy and let me explain this to you in words I know your tripped out brain can understand.” Ed looked at me, his eyes the size of the moon. I grinned and continued. “What I can do is leave and allow you to deal with whatever the hell is going on in that other room. Maybe you should call the police or bring her to a psych hospital and hope she doesn’t sing like a canary when she finally comes down and starts to think clearly. I’m almost certain whatever hospital she’s in will then call the police to come and question her, and then what? Do you think she’ll keep her mouth shut about your little sacred ceremony? Gee, let me think…” I looked away, paused, then looked at him straight in his tripped-out eyes. “No, I’m pretty certain she’ll sing, considering you fucked her up beyond all recognition. Or you can shut the fuck up and let me do what I came here for. Either way, I’m fine with, but you need to decide now.”
Ed stared at me, assessing, thinking. He nodded, then turned away.
I threw my palms up. “Ahh, it seems we have a solution.” I locked eyes with JC, then turned to Ed. “So, tell me exactly what happened?”
There were tears in Ed’s eyes now. He sniffled them back and cleared his throat. “I’m not sure. One minute she was doing good, you know, taking the medicine and participating in ceremony and then…” His eyes went wide. “Complete transformation. Like a completely different person. She started talking in a different voice. Like she was possessed, but she herself… her body language…” His eyes narrowed, head shaking, wringing his hands together. “It’s like she became a child, but with this voice, this monstrous booming voice. Like there are two people in there. Or three really, but the person she was when she first got here was no longer there.”
“Do you know her?”
No response.
“Eduardo?” He looked at me. “Do you know her?”
He nodded. “We met six months ago.”
“Where and how? And what’s her name?”
“Rose. She’s… she’s um… you know.” He bobbed his head back and forth.
“An escort?” I asked when Ed vehemently nodded. I looked at JC. Unfortunately, most sex workers have suffered through past trauma. It’s possible the Ayahuasca touched a nerve in one of her memories and she reverted to a child like status. “Thank you, Ed.” I pointed to the door I believed she was in. “She’s in there, correct?”
Ed looked up and nodded.
“Okay.” I looked at JC. “I’m going in.”
JC nodded. “Good luck.”
I think I’ll need it. This may take some time. I had my hand on the doorknob when Ed whispered, “She keeps talking about the white lotus.” My hand froze. I think my heart stopped too as an icy chill rippled up my arms. I turned back to JC, his eyes wide through the glasses on his nose. Gave me that look that said I should probably rethink my decision.
But I didn’t, of course. I walked through the door, immediately noticing how the shadows crept across the walls with a rickety groan as the door opened. Rose was sitting on the carpeted floor with her back to me, rocking back and forth. I saw blood too and craned my head. She was cutting her arm with a kitchen knife, blood racing across her arms and dripping into pools on the carpet. I closed the bedroom door.
The room was mostly empty. A coffee table sat against a wall with three candles burning. Two windows on the opposite wall with the backyard in plain view where a bonfire was raging with the rest of Ed’s guests sitting and staring into the fire. The morning was still dark, sunrise more than a few hours away.
Rose turned to look at me. She was a tiny woman. I put her at just over five feet, with short blonde hair and the biggest blue eyes that revealed the hell she was reliving. As she stared, she dragged the knife across her forearm. She licked her lips when a shadow flitted across her eyeballs. It was her face that was the most telling, though. Her skin was the color of burnt ash and looked like it was deteriorating in front of my eyes. That’s how I see them, those demons feeding on their host. Swallowing their suffering like candy.
“Welcome to the game,” she said in that guttural voice Ed had spoken of.
I looked around the room-more to allow my thoughts to realign with what I just learned and witnessed-then walked around her to the window and opened it, letting in the icy wind that traipsed into the room. I took my power pendulum from my backpack, unfolded it, and placed it on the windowsill. I looked outside at the people around the fire, listening to the flames and feeling the cool winter wind. I breathed deeply before swinging the pendulum. It clicked back and forth. I turned to her then. “Am I speaking to Rose?”
Click.
She laughed. Her laugh rattled across the walls, rickety and clucking. I sat down in front of her, dropping the backpack to the side. “Rose, my name is Logan Reeves, and I’m here to help you.”
Click.
Another laugh, but this one was cut off quickly. She seemed to retreat into herself, as if assessing if she knew who I was. I looked at the knife and the cuts across her arm, seeping blood. Counted six wounds on her right arm and seven on her left. “My love, why are you hurting yourself?”
Click.
She looked around as if waiting for someone, then dragged the blade across her arm. Her voice changed then. She sounded like a child. “Rose has been bad. Rose must be punished.” She placed the knife over her skin, ready to make the seventh gash.
Click.
“Perhaps there’s another way we can solve Rose’s behavior.” Her head was down, eyes staring, lost, but her hand paused. I noticed how her arms shook, and her lips trembled.
Click.
“Would you like for me to try?”
Her jaw clenched. I could see the candle’s shadow flicker across her deteriorating face when the most god-awful whine escaped her throat, sending shudders filled with heartache to my heart. I can feel her pain. Her hands went to her head, the knife still wedged in her palm.
Click.
“Come, child, allow me to help.” I reached out slowly, taking her wrists in my hands, feeling her heartbeat that raced through my arms to my own heart. The knife dropped to the floor. I could feel how the steady rhythm of her heart synched in unison with the click of the pendulum.
Click. Ba-thump. Ba-thump.
Click. Ba-thump. Ba-thump.
“The eyes carry the heart of the soul.” She raised her eyes to meet mine. So soft and blue her eyes are with a depth to the pupils that reached back a thousand years. Tears in those eyes now, they cascaded across the dark, deteriorating skin. There was a glaze across her irises as if the soul was lost in suffering.
Click. Ba-thump. Ba-thump.
Click. Ba-thump. Ba-thump.
I stared into the dark cavernous depths those eyes revealed. Felt her heart beating as if it were my own. “Calm and relaxed. Nothing can hurt you here. We are together. We are one. Nothing is allowed in your heart than you don’t allow. Take back the power. Let go.”
Click. Ba-thump. Ba-thump.
Click. Ba-thump. Ba-thump.
Click.
“We are in a theatre. Sitting comfortably. Melting into the seat. Calm and safe when the movie begins. It’s a black and white film. We see images on the screen. The images are memories. They race across the screen as if on a conveyor belt. We can pluck one off the belt and look at it. Let it go and be free.”
I can see her memories. Can feel them, they're filled with fear and terror. On a farm. In a barn. She’s running from someone. Running to the barn. Running scared. The shadows follow her. They bend and stretch their nefarious arms to wrap their hands around her. She hides, crying as tears spill down those blue eyes. He’s standing over her.
“This is what happens to bad girls.”
His voice is thick and guttural as he stands over her. Her father. His face is contorted, much like what I saw in Rose. I rewind the movie to a memory of pure joy where Rose is on the beach and laughing with her mother, then fast forward to another memory from when Rose finally got out of the house and found Miami. Back and forth, rewinding and fast forwarding, finding the terror filled with emotion of hurt and fear in the center of her heart. I tap into it, dragging the emotion down into her feet and then out into the earth, sensing the flooding release of emotion spilling into the ground. In the interim, I can feel how her wrists relaxed in my hands. In the same instance, I offer a seed to the heart. It’s the scene from on the beach and the same from the first day in Miami. A sensation of freedom, peace of mind, and understanding.
“Now we see a mansion in the distance. A big, beautiful gleaming mansion. It feels good just to look at it. You open the front doors and look inside to see it’s filled with boxes. From wall to wall and floor to ceiling, there’s so many boxes that when you step inside, you have to squeeze past them. You begin to take notice of the labels on these boxes, and you realize they are all from the past. All the fear. All the hurt and pain. All the suffering. All the memories exist inside these boxes, but as you look at them, they seem so insignificant. It’s as if they belong to someone else. Or they’re from another life or from a movie you once watched, and they have no power. Just a box. You step forward and notice the boxes begin to dissipate. One by one they disappear and with every step more boxes disappear and now you’re standing in your mansion. Wide open room with the sun beaming through the windows. Tall ceilings. Plenty of free space. And you laugh and feel that peace of mind. Feel it in your body and in your heart, drenching every cell in your body with peace and calm. Grounding and strength like that seed in your heart that manifests in a present day of beauty and wonder. Knowing the past is gone and today the world belongs to you.”
I see her in the mansion, giddy as if she’s floating on air. Watching her from above, I guide her real body to lie on the carpet in the bedroom in Eduardo’s house. I can see the demon in the window outside the mansion, looking in, watching Rose dance in joy and splendor. His face looks like the head of a boar. He’s angry and screaming, pounding on the window, losing his grip on his host. Hating the sun and despising Rose’s new lease on life. Once she’s lying down, I open my eyes to the raging demon rippling beneath her skin. She’s in a trance, her eyes wide open but staring at nothing, although there’s a gleam in her eye as if she knows the darkness has lifted but the demon is running in fear, doing everything it its power to maintain control.
Click.
I reach into my bag, taking out the wooden sticks with the Kambo secretions on them. Take out the box of matches too and light one stick that burns with a bright glow that I touch to her arm, singing the skin. I take the knife off the floor and use the tip to lift the white powdery Kambo off the stick and apply it to the points on the skin that I burned. The demon is raging, swirling beneath her skin like a tornado. I need to act fast now. It’s possible the demon tries to stop her heart before he’s vanquished from her soul. I light another match and hold the flame to the Kambo.
Click.
Rose’s eyes go immediately wide, her mouth open with a scream that belts across the room, and she turns on her side and starts puking. Her chest heaves with a thick breath, and then she pukes again. The vomit flooding the carpet and filled with blood. I watch as she wretches, choking and gagging, her head bobbing back and forth, her eyes closed and wet with tears. Sweat dripping down her face as she hurls once again and out of her throat she vomits a parasite. It wriggles out of her mouth with blood-soaked vomit. Followed by another.
Click.
Parasites as long as a yardstick flood from her open mouth. I took a zip-lock bag and tongs from my backpack and walked over to the parasites. There are seven of them. I used the tongs to transfer those slimy, nasty fuckers into the bag as Rose drops onto her back, coughing as I seal the bag.
Click.
She looks at the bag with wide eyes, her chest rising and falling with thick breaths. The parasites wrap and coil around each other, bathing in her blood and vomit. “What the hell are those?”
The stare in her eyes is priceless. “These?” I said, tapping the bag. “These are the demons you’ve been hosting.” I offered her the bag. “You’ll need to throw them in the fire,” I told her. “Send them back to the hell they came from.”
It's only gotten better! Well done.
This was beautiful! It was very emotional.