Shadows From the Past

Cassie stands before the veil, as she has countless times before. Beyond it lay memory and emotions, all wound up into a twisty knot that the subconscious would spend all night attempting to untie. Dreams are the manifestation of that struggle.

Beyond lies the sleeping yet restless mind of her mother. Despite having spent years flitting from mind to mind on a whim every night, she feels this is a violation. Until her mother began interfering with her life, she never entered a mind with the intent to change it.

Cassie extends a trembling hand, and the veil parts easily, as if expecting her return. She lets out a quavering sigh and realizes this must stop soon. Her mother's mind is becoming used to repeated intrusion.

She steps past, feeling the chill which always accompanies the passage, yet it is attenuated as well. The haze of jumbled dream-thought begins to clear, and she is startled when she sees herself in the ballroom.

For a moment, Cassie feels she is reliving the vision from Thanksgiving, until it is clear this is an older self. After a few moments she understands. She is seeing the social engagement she had been forced to attend earlier that day, but from her mother's perspective.

The vision wavers and flickers, and ghostly after-images of herself follow it. They break away, each becoming its own entity. All appear as Cassie, but they may have well been strangers.

One holds her head high and strolls with an elegance so overly done it crosses into arrogance. Another takes the arm of a well-groomed boy and struts about with a haughty air, daring all to think they are somehow more attractive or more engaging than she. Yet another takes great interest in one of the Kendalls' business partners, listening with rapt interest as he drones on about how he made his billions, lavishing nothing but empty praise upon him.

They depart and leave the original Cassie behind. It is an exaggerated Cassie, wearing a dress so disheveled she may have well been rolling on the floor, or walking with a poise so awkward she stumbles with every other step as others titter. The real Cassie stares in disbelief. She knew her mother thought her below par, but did she really believe it to be this bad?

The scene dissolves and forms again. Now her mother is berating some staff member for some infraction. She cannot understand everything her mother says, as if something is muffling the words. This should not be happening; she should be seeing the memory as clearly as Dorothy remembers.

Dorothy sends the staff away with a disdainful sweep of her hand, but gestures for James, the head butler, to remain. Again, Cassie cannot hear what her mother asks as James nods or shakes his head in response. Upon the last question, he pauses, then shakes his head. Cassie shivers as fear sloughs off her mother's vision in thick, sticky waves, and the last question is exclaimed again. Again, James shakes his head.

Dorothy finally waves him away as well, and she stands in the upstairs corridor looking forlorn and skittish. She glances around her as if fearful someone is watching her, then dashes off. She runs down the marble staircase, and the last thing Cassie sees before the scene dissolves is her mother shoving the portrait aside to reveal the hidden button behind it.

Cassie has no idea what has happened, and it worries her. What is blocking her senses? Have they become dulled from her anxiety over the others, or had she traded some of her Dream Gift in exchange for Projection?

She drifts through more mundane scenes. Her mother chatting with her father's business partner; her mother placing orders with the staff for the next luncheon; her mother reading society magazines quietly in the drawing room; herself with her parents eating dinner. She sighs as she watches her past self's reaction to being told Harry will be ordered to chaperon her everywhere.

Finally, Cassie arrives in subdued light. It is her parents' bedroom, and her father is already in bed, his hands folded under his head as he stares at the ceiling. Cassie catches a swirl of nightgown about bare legs through the open door to the bathroom.

Cassie is about to pull herself from this memory when her mother says, "I can't emphasize how much I'm worried, Robert. I've feared a day like this would come."

Robert closes his eyes and lets out a slow sigh. "It has not come, Dorothy. You're reading too much into it."

Dorothy utters an exasperated sigh and barrels out of the bathroom. "Don't patronize me, I'll have none of it tonight!'

Cassie is momentarily stunned. Dorothy's nightgown clings to a body more shapely than she had ever imagined lay beneath her prim and proper conservative clothes. Cassie sees a distinct curve of hip and swell of bosom against the light material. Her hair is down, waves of gorgeous raven hair flowing over shoulders and back.

Or is she seeing an idealized version of her mother? The images she encounters in people's minds are never themselves as they are, but as they perceive themselves to be. Yet she would never imagine her mother seeing herself in such an intensely feminine way.

Robert sits up in bed, the sheet falling away from his broad chest. "I'm not, dear," he says in a gentle voice. "She did not even remember the doll house."

"So she says."

Cassie's eyes widen. She is not sure which stuns her more, the topic of conversation or that her mother would think she is lying.

"I doubt she remembers anything of that time," said Robert. "Most likely her only reason for going there was because her boyfriend prompted her."

Cassie gasps. Did her father just refer to Ned as--!

"Stop calling him that!" Dorothy hisses. "I never did want him around her in the first place, and I most certainly do not if he will prompt her into remembering such things."

Cassie stares at her father, willing him to say something which will explain everything and calm her growing fears. At first, Robert sighs and rubs his face, his typical gesture when he is about to bend to his wife's will. Instead, he forces his hand down and gives Dorothy a level look. "Try to keep them apart, and you will only drive them further together."

Dorothy appears about to retort, then shakes her fists and utters an exasperated noise. Cassie can almost see the air shimmer with a rising anger which has nowhere to vent. "Then we'll leave."

Cassie stares, and for a moment it is as if her heart has stopped and gone cold.

"We will leave within the month! We can go back to the east coast. We can leave all this behind and raise her in proper environment."

"Oh God, no," Cassie whimpers. "Please, no ... p-please don't make me have to..."

"We can't do that," said Robert in a flat voice. "And you know why we can't."

"I DON'T WANT TO DO THIS ANYMORE!" Dorothy screams, making Cassie flinch. "Don't you understand that?! I don't want to do it! I'm too scared! I-I'm..."

Suddenly, Robert is there, holding her. Cassie's breath catches in her throat as she watches Dorothy struggle at first, then embrace her husband with a ferocity that electrifies the continuum.

Cassie's eyes blur with tears at the rolling wave of emotion from BOTH. Somehow, she is in both their minds at the same time, or the two share a bond which runs far deeper than she had ever imagined. Never could she remember her parents ever showing such open affection for one another.

Now she understands why the memory is so clear and detailed. It is a synthesis of the memories from two minds. Yet her own emotions are in too much of a tumult for her to see the implications. Her heart aches at the sight of her mother's human side.

"I'm sorry," Dorothy breathes. "I didn't mean..."

"Shh, it's okay," Robert whispers. "It's all right."

Dorothy breaks off the embrace and wipes her tear-stained face. "You must think m-me some heartless monster now."

Cassie's heart lurches, and tears threaten to spill down her cheeks again.

"Of course I don't," Robert says. "Why would I?"

"I am worried for Cassandra, not just myself. I just want the best for her. I want what I feel is right for her."

Such words would have once sparked immediate rebellion in Cassie, but these sound more like a desperate plea than an edict.

"She can be so much, if she would just let me guide her. Then she will be safe. We all will. Now do you see why I worry about this boy she is seeing? I mean, really, Robert, you saw the results of the background check yourself!"

"What?" Cassie cries, and her anger rises again.

"Yes, and I saw nothing suspect about him," Robert says.

"But his family--"

"Is not everything."

Dorothy falls into a silence as stark as Cassie's surprise. Finally, her mother speaks in a halting voice, its tone somewhere between shock and fear. "H-How can you say that? You sound like her! She seems to care nothing for the Kendall name! She--!"

"That is not what I mean. This is not the same situation. If anything, his family is a name he should distance himself from, and from what I can see, he is doing a damn good job of it."

Cassie does not know how to react. Part of her hates the implied attitude that one should abandon one's family if they are not living up to some arbitrary code of honor.

"The young man I saw sharing dinner with us last night may not live up to our standards of refinement and poise, but I saw nothing in him which would suggest he has ulterior motives. And you know how I have a knack for sizing up someone."

Cassie lets out a ragged breath of relief. She knows this too, that one of the keys to his success is his ability to "read" another person and tell whether they were being honest or not. That he sensed something good from Ned means more to her than anything her mother could have said.

Dorothy's shoulders slump, and she leans her head against Robert's chest as he draws her into a gentle hug. "I hope you're right, Robert. I hope to God you're right."

"And Dorothy?"

Dorothy's fingers curl into his arm. "I know what you're going to ask me to do, damn you." She lets out a sigh and closes her eyes, trembling. "You want me to withdraw my last directive to her."

Cassie's heart leaps.

"Please," Robert says in a very soft voice. "It will accomplish nothing in the end and will only make matters worse."

"I just ... I just don't want her to remember..."

"Remember?" Cassie calls out in alarm. "Remember what?"

"I don't think anyone can affect that except herself," says Robert. "If she doesn't, she won't."

"Is this about that memory of me in the ballroom?" Cassie cries. "I want to remember it! Why can't I?!"

"I hope you're right," says Dorothy in a low voice. She straightens up and takes a deep breath. "Very well. I will not have Harry chaperon her any more than he already has."

Robert smiles. "Thank you. Now, come to bed, please."

Dorothy nods and sniffles. Her lips twitch until a genuine smile graces her face, the first Cassie has seen in a long time. In that moment, her mother's face is every bit as attractive as her body. The scene dissolves as Dorothy sheds her nightgown and slides into bed next to her husband.

Cassie is left floating in the void, her own mind racing. The relief that she no longer has to alter her mother's mind is lost among thousands of questions. Somewhere in this mind lies the answers.

No further memories will engage her tonight. Even Dorothy's dreams seem walled off to her now. The mind which had seemed so inviting now remains closed to her trespass.

She turns away and slips past the veil.

March 8th, 1976 - I live in mortal fear I will go mad before I can complete my work.

I look back on the last six months and feel I have achieved little. I cannot hold off a determined effort to break into my mind. My vagina is still sore from the prolonged session of mind-controlled sex I was forced to endure yesterday when my defenses collapsed during a foolishly conceived test for which I was obviously not ready. I still cannot resist without the aggressor knowing I am resisting him.

An inability to enter a proper meditative state or failing to generate and store the needed sexual energy is not at fault. Ever since my meditative muse and I became lovers, I have had no want of either teaching or loving sex.

It's the nightmares. Horrid things from which I waken either crying or screaming until my lover can calm me down. I cannot remember any of them! At first I thought I was dreaming about Rhonda, as my guilt has been never-ending since she vanished on Halloween night, but my psychic aura does not reflect this. My guilt and grief over her is no greater than it has been.

There has to be a connection between them and my techniques, as they always happen the night after I have practiced them. I must accept that and stop fleeing from it like a coward. I must place the ultimate trust in someone else to help me discover what these nightmares are, for I fear my only recourse is hypnosis. Only via trance can someone look past my mental censors and uncover what demons are haunting my subconscious.

I must be very careful. I must choose wisely. If I choose wrong, I will have handed myself to the Darkness, and Mara's death will be for nothing. It is times like this I wish I had not committed myself to journaling my life. I fear if someone were to find this, they could learn all my weaknesses and dominate me. I have lost track of the number of times I had considered burning this journal. That these pages contain the last memories anyone will ever have of Mara is the only thing which stops me.

When this is over, I wish to dedicate many more entries to her and the wonderful heart and spirit which lay beneath a tortured psyche. She deserves nothing less.