A Mind for Mysteries

Chapter 2

2

Dr. Winifred Parsons, age sixty-eight, Winnie to those who knew her, had resisted her calling for most of her life.

She found ways around it: pursuing her PhD in Psychology, becoming Chair of her department, writing well-respected textbooks in her field of Consumer Psychology.

She did not, as someone like her might have, assume any role in the growing field of parapsychology, also known as Consciousness Studies, Psi Research, or other equally intriguing names.

The University of Arizona, where she had spent most of her esteemed career as a professor, had a well-known and highly-regarded program for studying parapsychology and consciousness-based healthcare. Students came from all over the world to learn what had been discovered so far—and what more could be discovered every single day—about the deep and mysterious workings of the human mind.

Despite the long and well-documented history of psi research conducted by scientists for over a century, some scientists still treated the topic as fringe. As mythology. As unworthy of receiving grant money and lab space and funds from the private sector or universities, when there were so many other, worthier and weightier discoveries that deserved time and money and attention.

But Winnie never felt that way. She admired her colleagues’ research. So much so, she herself was Test Subject Number 2143, a frequent visitor to the parapsychology lab and enthusiastic participant in all manner of experiments and studies.

As long as she could remain anonymous.

It was during one of those experiments that she met her husband Joe, gone now these past three years.

It was Joe’s idea that Winnie change course. Stop pretending. Finally do what she was meant to do.

Winnie had been clairvoyant ever since she remembered. Of course, in her childhood no one called it that. They said she had visions. Prophetic dreams. Spooky knowings. Or the catch-all term, that she was psychic.

But there were a wide variety of specializations within the psychic spectrum. Some people were gifted mediums who could communicate with those who had died. Others were medical intuitives who could identify abnormalities within a body as though they had X-Ray vision.

There were people like Winnie who could hear and see events taking place elsewhere as though watching them on a TV. Others could read minds. Some, using psychokinesis, could move physical objects through the power of their thoughts.

Winnie was not a medium. And despite trying, she had never developed the knack for psychokinesis. There were a lot of things she wasn’t. But there were also several things she was, besides clairvoyant.

Like other medical intuitives, she could sometimes detect disease by envisioning herself slipping past a person’s skin and into the internal structure of their body. She sometimes had flashes of visions that gave her foreknowledge of what might happen in the future.

Might, because free will was always a factor. More than once, Winnie had helped someone avert disaster simply by warning them what might come to pass.

But not everyone believed, and Winnie had to learn to accept that.

Even though at least three people had needlessly died after failing to heed her warnings. Their deaths haunted her, despite knowing in her heart that there was nothing more she could have done. Still, any loss of life was a loss to the world, and Winnie regretted it.

In addition to her other gifts, Winnie could see auras, what some people thought of as colored clouds of energy around all living things, plants and animals and people.

And this girl who had come to her this morning, Selena Martez, had one of the most damaged auras Winnie had ever seen.

People were sometimes scared to hear the truth. Winnie had to come to it slowly.

But Selena and her mother weren’t here for counseling. They hadn’t hired Dr. Winifred Parsons the psychologist.

They had come to Winnie the detective. The private investigator. Referred by someone Winnie knew, and who knew what she could do.

It was the only way she was willing to do business. Winnie maintained no website. She had no presence on social media. She didn’t print up business cards and stick them on the notice board at a popular coffee shop.

If someone contacted her, and was willing to pay her substantial fee, then Winnie would meet with them and at least give them her initial impression based on what she felt and saw.

She didn’t need the money. She and Joe had lived comfortably on their salaries, and in retirement Winnie still had plenty of wealth to see her through.

But she knew from her decades studying consumer psychology that if she didn’t charge for her services, and didn’t charge a lot, clients wouldn’t respect her. And what’s more, they wouldn’t believe her. When people pay a high price for services or products, they become invested in those services’ or products’ worth.

This car, this watch, this computer—they’re the best. Highest quality.

Otherwise people would feel foolish spending so much.

If Winnie was going to invest in someone’s troubles, she needed to know they would accept her advice. She had no use for anyone’s skepticism. She knew what she could do.

“Let’s sit down,” Winnie told the mother and daughter.

She wanted to see how they arranged themselves.

The girl had already bonded with Clover. That was good. It must be why Selena chose the longer couch rather than the smaller love seat, which someone feeling too open and vulnerable would have selected.

But Selena sat boldly in the middle of the couch and Clover jumped up beside her, stretching out to fill up the space, and rested her head in Selena’s lap. Selena’s mother, Liz, sat on the other side.

Winnie chose the dark blue chair across from them. She slid out of her fleece-lined slippers and tucked her feet under her, then settled into the deep cushioning of the chair.

“I’ll tell you what I see,” she said to Selena.

She began with the good news, or at least the features that were neutral.

She described the layers of colors she could see around various parts of Selena’s body: the bright red bands surrounding her waist and wrists—

“Is that bad?” Selena asked, worried.

“It isn’t bad or good,” Winnie assured her. “It’s just you.”

She described the sparks of pink puffing away from Selena’s right hip, the white band around her right ankle, other hues in various places.

“But I can tell you why you feel so weak,” Winnie said, finally coming to the critical information. “You’re leaking. Not only a little, but a lot.”

“Leaking,” Liz Martez repeated. “What does that mean?”

Winnie raised her hands to her own head to demonstrate. “All around here, it’s a dark charcoal gray.”

“Is that bad?” Selena asked again.

This time Winnie answered, “It isn’t good. But what’s worse—and I’m watching it right now—” She pointed to the right side of Selena’s head, the side where the dog was doing what she could by lying with her own head on Selena’s lap. “—there’s an open gap about eight inches long, and your energy is flowing out, like a big gash in a pipe.”

Tears gathered in Selena’s eyes, but through some force of will, they didn’t fall.

“I knew it,” she said softly. “Not that, but something.”

“What could cause that?” Liz asked. The color had drained from her face. She clasped Selena’s hand, maybe for her own security rather than the girl’s.

“There’s been some trauma. Psychological, rather than physical. The integrity of her mind has been breached.”

Selena’s dark eyes widened. Winnie could see the girl’s fear. But she wouldn’t try to diminish what she’d said, to talk around it as though it were normal.

It wasn’t. The danger to the girl’s psyche was real.

But Winnie could do something to try to repair it.

She had waited long enough for the girl and her mother to settle in and feel comfortable. Winnie couldn’t bear to delay any longer. Since she first laid eyes on Selena at the front gate, she had been watching the flood of energy leaving the girl.

Winnie unfolded her legs from underneath her and stood up from the chair. “Come here. Let me help.”

Selena slipped out from under Clover’s sleeping head and released her mother’s grip on her hand. She stood in front of Winnie on the thick blue and gold Asian rug between the couch and chair. Selena’s dark brown eyes looked directly into Winnie’s green.

Winnie made two claws of her hands, stiffening them into rakes.

Then beginning at Selena’s feet, she began combing through the aura, as though brushing burrs and mud out of Clover’s coat.

Comb, and flick. Flicking away the accumulated auric debris to keep her fingers clean.

Winnie took her time. This process should never be rushed. She raked inch by inch up the front of Selena’s legs, holding her fingers about six inches out from the girl’s body where the colors of the aura were most visible, then she shifted around Selena to the back and repeated the process there.

Over the years Winnie had met other clairvoyants with their own methods for clearing and repairing auras, but this way had always worked for her. She hoped it was enough to help Selena.

When the legs were cleared, Winnie moved on to Selena’s waist, chest, back, and arms.

Throughout, the girl stood calm and silent, sometimes watching Winnie work, sometimes closing her eyes briefly before snapping them open again, as though she’d accidentally fallen asleep.

The girl’s entire torso now smoothed of its ragged lines, all the way up to her shoulders, Winnie paused for a moment and stepped back. She wanted to see what progress they had made.

Dark charcoal-gray energy continued to pour from the gaping hole near Selena’s head. The energy field there looked tattered and delicate all along its edges.

Winnie would have to be careful. She didn’t want to rip the hole any wider. Instead she wanted to coax the wound closed.

She locked eyes with Selena. She could see on the girl’s face that Selena’s curiosity had given way to fear again.

“This won’t hurt,” Winnie assured her.

“I know,” said Selena. “I can already feel it. How much better it is already.”

“You can?” Liz asked, amazed. Selena nodded. From Liz’s vantage, the whole display must have seemed like nothing but theater.

Whether she believed Winnie had really done anything or not, Liz seemed relieved that at least her child felt better.

“But this…” Selena said to Winnie, lifting her hand to the right side of her head. Gray energy poured around it and between Selena’s fingers, like water coursing around the rocks in a river. “Do you really think you can fix it?”

“Not permanently,” Winnie said. All of her clients paid her for the truth. “We’ll have to find the cause first. But maybe I can slow it down for now.”

Selena drew a deep breath and closed her eyes. Winnie got back to work.

She felt like a seamstress, picking up loose tendrils of Selena’s gaping energy field and gently joining them back together. She worked slowly, methodically, pinching the tattered edges inch by inch, until she felt confident that the seams would hold. For now.

Then she returned to combing, smoothing, moving the stale, diseased charcoal energy away, hoping to encourage new life in the field, freshening it with contributions from her own.

Selena’s cranial aura was pale pink now, not as vibrant as Winnie wanted it to be, but it was an improvement. It was progress.

Selena’s breath had become shallow for a while, but now she seemed to be breathing normally again.

The girl opened her eyes. “Is it done?”

“You tell me.”

Winnie returned to her seat. Selena remained standing, breathing deeply, assessing.

“How do you feel, honey?” Liz asked.

“Better,” Selena said. “Much better. Except, here…” She pointed to her right temple. She was right: Winnie could see the spot, too.

A black dot, about the size of a quarter, hovered close to Selena’s temple, hard to see against her dark brown hair.

Winnie stood again and came closer. She reached out for the black dot, but it faded before she could touch it.

When she moved backward, the dot reappeared. She tried once again to capture it, but the spot faded out of view.

Winnie shook her head. “I can’t get it. But that isn’t necessarily bad. It might fade away on its own.”

“Does it hurt?” Liz asked her.

Selena rubbed her right temple. “A little. Yes. Like there’s a bruise here.”

She leaned over so her mother could examine it for herself. Liz gently smoothed back Selena’s hair and stared at the unblemished skin.

But Winnie could see the spot again, the same size and color.

She had never seen that after a smoothing. She didn’t know what it meant.

“That’s the first step,” she told Selena. “Now, it’s time to find out what this is all about.”