Chapter 28: The White Witch of Walden - Commitment and Belief

AN EVENING WITH WILLIE (continued)

As soon as I entered, Willie was on her feet and clinging to me, bending back and looking questioningly into my eyes.

"Did you tell her?" she demanded pleadingly. "Did you?" She searched my face. "You DID!" she accused. She let go of me and stomped around the room, holding her head. "Oh, what have I done? I've KILLED him!"

I couldn't take much more of this. "I didn't tell anybody anything!" I told her.

She spun around. "You DIDN'T?" She looked earnestly at me again, then tried to run past me. "My cards! I need to read my cards again!"

I reached out and grabbed her by the shoulders, lifting her off the ground and holding her out in front of me like a misbehaving child. "Stop this! If you don't stop acting like bad character in a soap opera, I'm going to throttle you! Now, I want some answers, and I want them now!" I set her down, dazed, and reached into my pocket. I held the email message balled in my fist, inches in front of her face. "Tell me how you knew about this!"

"I read about it in the ca..." Her features set in a mask of defiance and she turned away. "You don't believe! You don't care!"

I walked to her and put my arms around her slim body, her back to me. "What I BELIEVE has no bearing on this discussion. And what I CARE about is the truth." I turned her toward me. "Now, I want you to tell me! I won't contradict you, and I won't berate or degrade you. I won't make fun of you because of your beliefs." I paused and looked her in the eye. "I love you, Willie. And I respect you. Now, no more mystery, and no more melodrama! Tell me what's going on here! What do you mean 'I've killed him?'"

She looked up at me, silent and tearful for a long minute, then disengaged herself from my arms and sat on the edge of the bed, looking down at her dangling feet. "Everybody wants to know the future. That's all they care about. The present is what's important. What's happening NOW, and WHY it's happening... THAT'S what's important. The future is all twisty and uncertain. It changes. Sometimes, I read the future, and then the next time I read it, it's all different." I wanted to contradict, berate, degrade, etc, etc, but I wisely kept silent. She glanced up at me, and I put on my best "listening with intent interest" face. She sighed and looked back at her feet.

"I read about Brenda and the man you hate... I read about them in the cards a couple nights ago when Brenda and I were here alone. Then tonight, I read about the future. I saw you grab her, and hypnotize her, and I read about your... enemy on the computer. Only, he's not really your enemy. He's... not a nice man, and he's done some nasty things. But he's no threat to you, Frederick! He's just... there. Like a bird... or a worm. No threat. But then... in the cards... in the future... I saw you tell Brenda. Brenda saw your jealousy, saw your hate. And she... told Dee. And Dee... killed him."

"Aw, Willie," I said sadly, unable to keep the emotion out of my voice, "Dee couldn't kill a fly."

She looked up at me again. "Dee killed my husband, Frederick."

I took a deep breath and counted to ten. "Nobody killed your husband! I didn't! Dee didn't! A tree fell on him! I'm sorry it happened, but..."

"I'm not sorry. I hated him! But you don't know! You weren't there! You didn't see!"

"Dee was in our tent with ME!" I said, exasperated.

"Yes, and she was in my tent, too," she said calmly.

I took another breath. "You're telling me that Dee has some sort of supernatural power?"

She sighed. "I should first tell you of my experience with these things. My Auntie... her... field of expertise was with children. You see, when a young child is... gifted... in some form of psychic ability, he or she tends to be very lonely, sad, confused. We are different, and we FEEL that difference very acutely. Some of us MUST be slaves, for without a Master, our powers turn inward and drive us insane. Others are wildly independent. Auntie helped us, comforted us, taught us how to use our gifts; but also how to shield our abilities from others. She helped us cope. I lived with her all my life, but others... many, many others... visited us on the island. Their parents contacted Auntie, and they brought them to her so she could 'refine their powers.' Those that could pay paid very handsomely. And Auntie used the money to bring those who could not pay. She taught the children and overtly judged the parents who brought them. If the parents intended to use their offspring's powers for gain, Auntie... 'changed' them. By the time they left the island, they had only their child's best interests at heart.

"So you see, Frederick, I grew up being exposed to many, many special young people. They were all different; unique. And yet, they could all usually be placed into a few general categories. There were the 'seers, ' like me. Each could glimpse the past; the present; even perhaps, the future. Each had her (or his) own medium: the crystal, the bones, the tarot. There were other types, too.

"Dee's powers are really rather common; it's just that they are rarely seen in this combination. I'm guessing that you've noticed her most obvious talent. She knows what you want even before you ask for it; probably before you even know you want it yourself!" I was about to make another contradictory remark, but it froze on my lips. "You HAVE noticed it!" she said exultantly. "But what you HAVEN'T noticed is what she's done to Brenda... what she's done to me! It's... it's... wonderful!

"It happened to me on that first day we met... was it only three weeks ago? It seems like a lifetime! Brenda had lured me to your campsite, and we were talking and laughing. It had been MONTHS since I'd laughed. I didn't know I still knew how! And then, just like that; instantly; I felt her inside of me. At first, I thought it was Brenda; but then I felt..." She looked at me appraisingly, and went on. "... I felt the baby. It was the most amazing feeling! I was part of her. She was part of me. And I could feel the fullness, the heaviness, the... wonderful bloating feeling that was another life moving inside of me. It was very, very intimate. But I'd experienced something like this before. Three or four of the kids who visited the island were 'mind sharers, ' and I'd eventually learned how to push them out, or how to keep them from getting in at all. They meant no harm; in fact, it's really rather fun; but there is no privacy when you share your mind, and one has to be in the mood to want it.

"But then you came to the camp, and she left me. I looked at her questioningly, and she winked at me, but that was all. Then, after Rudolph came, after he hit me, after he hit YOU, he was about to hit Dee, too; and I think she did something to him. In fact, I KNOW she did. Because for the next week, he didn't hit me; not even once. He seemed afraid of me. Sometimes, he'd hold his head and just rock back and forth. Sometimes he'd yell for no apparent reason: 'Leave me alone!'... and I was GLAD. I was happy that he was tormented! Once, he left and didn't come back for almost a day, and it was wonderful, even though I was dreadfully hungry.

"Still, I saw no way out of my awful life with him, and I did something Auntie told me NEVER to do: I questioned the cards about my own end. I was not sad to find that it was coming very soon. I foresaw the tree... the very tree I'd been under while talking to Brenda and Dee! It would strike and kill me! You can't imagine how I felt when I sensed the presence inside me again at that moment. Dee had returned. She'd done it once already, even though Brenda has since told me that she was more than a hundred miles distant at the time. She'd found me, and she'd merged with me, and now she knew about the tree; about what was going to happen to me.

"Later, on the stormy night in the campground, with the wind howling and the lightning flashing and the deadly tree swaying above my head, I felt very much at peace. My nightmare life was about to end, and I was glad it was over. I knew that there were just seconds left, but Dee came back again and entered me. At first, I was overwhelmed by an incredible feeling. I didn't know what it was, though I know it now. It was an orgasm! She was cumming! And I was cumming, too! The orgasm made her stronger; more powerful, somehow. I was very curious, but resentful, too. These were my last seconds on earth, and I wanted to spend them alone. I pushed her out! Immediately, I felt her trying to get back inside me, and I knew what she wanted; she wanted to make me move; move out of the way of the tree. She wanted to save me! But all I wanted was to put and end to my tortured life. I pushed her away one more time, and I was mildly surprised when she did not try to intervene again.