Deja Who (3 page)

“S
o what was it?”

“Wrong question,” she told Chart #6116. “‘Who was it?' would be more accurate.”

Chart #6116 rolled her eyes. “I never bought into that past lives crap. It's just one more thing to blame your problems on. I mean—I
believe
it,” she added when Leah raised her eyebrows. “I'm not one of those weirdos who say there's no such thing as past lives, that we're just here for one lifetime and then go to heaven or hell or wherever.”

Ah, the afterlife. You don't have to learn anything in your single solitary lifetime, and then you can live in the sky forever after! Unless you live in a lake of fire beneath the earth forever after. Well, there were stranger theories.
Tabula rasa,
for one. The goal of goals, an ideal so unlikely as to be mostly unattainable.

What would it be like, born with a clean slate? Nothing to
make up for? Nothing to relive or regret? It was such an amazing concept Leah couldn't grasp it. Like trying to explain the science of reproduction to a preschooler: “He does what? And then
what
happens?”

“It does seem to defeat the purpose of living,” Leah put forth with care, shaking off the daydream. “No point in trying to learn from your mistakes since this is your only chance to get it right . . . it calls a lot into question.”

“Exactly. I'm not a Denier. But
I'm
in control of
this
life. Whoever I was before, they had their time. Now it's my turn.”

“That mind-set can work,” Leah said carefully, “sometimes.” It depended on who the person used to be. And what that person used to do. If in her past lives #6116 was, say, a humanitarian who mentored needy children in her spare time, then sure. Except . . . “About seventy percent of the populace can remember some or all of their past lives. But it's fragmented, they get flashes. Or they remember it all but they don't feel it.” One of her patients had explained it as being akin to watching a movie. You might care about the characters on the screen, but no matter how the events unfold, it doesn't affect the viewer on a personal level. “Or, in your case—”

#6116 shuddered. “Nightmares. But they never bothered me before.”

You weren't escalating before.
“Sometimes a traumatic event will change how a person perceives their past lives.”

“Why are you talking like you're narrating a documentary? I know all this.”

Leah ignored the bluster. It was barely possible the woman would hear what she was really trying to say. “I've had patients who didn't have any sense of who they used to be, but then a
loved one dies, or they survive a violent trauma—assault, rape—and suddenly they're flooded with images of who they used to be.”

Then there were the others, the last group, the smallest percentage. About 5 percent of the population not only remember their past lives perfectly, and feel them on an emotional level, they are able to help others access
their
past selves. And to this day, scientists were still arguing about why.

Once upon a time, Insighters were routinely burned alive, thought to be in league with Satan. These days, nobody burned and Insighters were only in league with whatever HMO covered their patient. The meds helped, too, of course.

“Well, none of that stuff applies to me. I was getting along just fine and then I started having nightmares where I was the judge
and
the defendant. We even had the same terrible hairstyle!”

“Traumatic,” Leah replied, and managed to keep a straight face.

“You don't know the half of it. And then I dreamed I was on a cruise. Well, a slave ship. But it was like a cruise, because I was white, so I didn't have to row or anything, y'know? Food sucked, though. I kept waking up hungry. And seasick.” #6116 made a shooing motion, waving off nightmare-induced motion sickness. “So the meds worked. Right? I mean, obviously, you've got that ‘I've got a secret' expression all you Insighters are terrible at hiding.”

“Not all of us,” Leah mumbled. She made a mental note to work on hiding her expressions better. Just because she was jaded didn't make it right to be lazy, too.

“I always thought it was kind of a joke. Medication + Insighter = hello, memories! But I could almost feel you digging around in
my brain. Peeking. Spying.” Leah made no comment, just let the silence stretch out. A pity #6116 was only interesting when she allowed her paranoia to show.

“Peeking and spying,” she replied. “Yes, that's about right.”

“What's wrong with me?”

What isn't
wrong with you?

Don't worry, #6116. You're in good (bad?) company; there's plenty wrong with me, too.

Insighters had come along, evolutionarily speaking, shortly after man took up hobbies like cave painting and wearing the fur of the animals they clubbed to death. They weren't always called Insighters, but at least they weren't alone in that the names of their persecutors changed, too.

From shamans to witches (the Salem witch trials were a particularly bad time to be an Insighter), from pagans to Christians, from water dowsers to spiritual mediums, rhabdomancy to haruspices, and today Insighters. Tomorrow, Leah thought with morbid humor, “those weirdos who knew everyone's past life before we killed 'em all.”

Though they were accepted (with reservations) as essential medical personnel, her kind had rarely had it easy. People who knew things they shouldn't have always, always been feared. Leah could remember researching as a teenager, shivering at how in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, not only was it legal to kill an Insighter, there was a strict protocol to be observed: Pluck out the eyes first. Burn the rest. Bury the ashes. Salt the earth the ashes were in.

And never speak of this again. Can I get an amen, brothers and sisters?

Today it was about clean offices and HMO plans, receptionists and patient referrals. Once upon a time it had been the ducking stool and hot pincers; the modern version (paperwork!) was almost as bad. It was always unpleasant, but at least Insighting was no longer an automatic death sentence.

Unless, of course, you were the late, somewhat lamented Ginny Devon, formerly of Portland, Maine, now embarked on her fourth life, hopefully. Ginny Devon had been less than two years out of graduate school (doctoral thesis: “A Child Shall Lead Them: Children's Insights from Arthur Flowerdew to Shanti Devi”) when she was murdered by a patient's disgruntled husband, a serial cheater who didn't appreciate being told he'd once been Henry VIII.

He had waited for her to leave the office, smashed her car window with a recoilless hammer, used a water gun filled with gasoline to drench her face and hair, then tossed a match and settled down to await arrest. He explained to the arresting officers that yon crispy critter had no right to snoop through his past, and certainly no right no discuss it with his wife, who was in the middle of scoring half of his net worth, thanks to, as he described it, a “fireproof prenup” (he was apparently unaware of the dreadful irony).

He had explained to the grand jury that his wife had been out of line to hire someone to snoop through his past lives, like a PI who didn't have to go through legal channels to dig. They had indicted him by one vote. He then explained his thoughts on snoopy Insighters to another jury, which, to the surprise of no one (but to the resigned alarm of Insighters the world over), came back hung. He had been convicted the second time and the judge had passed a wrist slap: ten years, including time
served. Out in six. Extenuating circumstances. Temporary insanity. Only dangerous to snoopy Insighters, not the world at large.

Leah was probably safe from Chart #6116 but it wouldn't do to take that for granted. The lady in question had by now swung her legs over the couch, sat up, and puffed a hank of hay-colored hair out of her eyes.

Leah thought, not for the first time or the twentieth, that evil hid beautifully. Because Chart #6116, Alice Delaney, was gorgeous: tall and shapely, generous in the hip and bust, shoulder-length curls she could not stop touching, freckles, big blue eyes, and skin the envy of an Irish milkmaid. Quite bright, too: IQ 139. The best schools. The best food. The best homes. Chart #6116 was in her prime, and knew it, and took pride in knowing it, and looking it. “Is that why I'm having nightmares all the time? Because of who I used to be? How come not before? I'm not a kid anymore, f'God's sake; isn't this stuff supposed to pop up in your childhood?”

“Usually,” Leah admitted. “But as we discussed, major life changes can bring past issues to the surface.”

Her patient waved that away with a long-fingered hand that was beautifully manicured. “Nothing like that's happened to me. So why now?”

“Because now you're afraid of going to jail,” Leah replied, smiling. “You're wiggling like a beetle on a needle to get out of it, and I'm the ace you preemptively tucked up your sleeve.”
And if I had a dime for every time I met a patient this way, I would have three dollars and thirty cents.

“
What?”

“As I said. You're afraid of getting caught.”

Leah waited, betting on
I don't know what you're talking about
or a variation on the
how dare you!
theme.

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Not bad. Not especially imaginative, but not bad.”

“What?”

“You despise children. They're too noisy, they refuse to sit still, they never do as they're told. Or they will, but only after they've been cajoled a dozen times. Their parents are lax, you are essentially surrounded by brats.”

“None of that's against the law.”

“No, it's simply how you justified your crimes. You'd take their toys, their silly treasures. Useless things that the children would miss. You liked knowing they looked everywhere. You loved it when they cried. Somewhere in your house you have a sizeable stash of worthless junk that you gloat over.”

“That's not—”

“The stealing escalated to assault.” She didn't need the chart, which she closed and set on the low table to her left. “You'd catch them, slap them. Push them, kick them. Never in your own neighborhood, of course. You'd drab yourself down as much as you could bear—unflattering ponytails, I would guess, or wigs. Ugly clothing that hid your figure. Padding to make you look puffier than you are.

“But even that wasn't enough after a while. It wasn't enough to make them sad, to make them hurt. You had to make them
gone
. So you escalated to murder one. You keep a list, don't you? The children you don't like. The ones you have decided have wronged you, or don't like you, or ones you loathe though you've never met—they're all the same under it all, don't you think? Just a bunch of whiny brats.”

She was
staring
, which Leah was used to, so she continued. “You keep a list of names along with skim milk and chicken breasts and whatever new dry cleaner you've decided to terrorize this month. And you're pretty confident you didn't leave any crumbs. It isn't difficult to kill a child. It
can
be to hide the crime. But you took care. Even so, you're not
entirely
confident. Are you?”

Still staring. Well, that was all right. Better than screaming, or throwing things, or stabbing.

“So!” Leah gave the chart a brisk pat and straightened in her chair. “If there's ever a trial, your well-paid defense douche can claim that you felt remorse, you knew you were sick, you tried to get help, all those poor children, you tried to stop yourself, society's to blame, yak-yak. When sleep won't come, it is only because you're thinking about how awful ending the games will be. When you have night terrors, they're not about your victims. They're about being locked up. About never getting to have fun again. Never being the center of attention again. In prison, you'd just be another inmate.
That's
what makes you sweat. It's hard to know which is worse some nights,” Leah finished. “Isn't it?”

“You're not—” #6116 had frozen in mid-tousle, and now peered up at her through rumpled bangs. “You're supposed to help me.”

“No. I'm supposed to find your truth. That's what you paid for; that's what you're getting. And your truth is, you were a bad person then, you are a bad person now, and I imagine you'll be a bad person in the next one, too. That last is just my opinion.
That
you get for free.”

“No. None of that's—it's all lies. You're trying to trick me.”

“No.
You
tried to trick
me
. That's how people like you get caught. It's not enough to hurt and kill; you need to make a game of it. In all your lives, you considered children to be
things
, property, yours to do with as you liked. You knew it was wrong then, you know it's wrong now. You don't care. Hurting them . . . it's just too entertaining. Yes?”

There was a short silence, and Leah waited expectantly. Maybe #6116 would go the entitled route:
You can't talk to me like that
. Or something victim-y:
I can't believe you're doing this to me.

“You're just trying to bum me out.”

“No, I'm not.” Leah was honestly surprised. Chart #6116 sounded grieved, almost forlorn, which probably worked great when she wanted someone to pick up the bar tab. Or drop the charges. “This isn't a trick, or a game. These are your lives. I'm not sure you can grasp that, because in all your lives almost everything
has
been a game, and the more deadly serious the better, right? But you're not a good person now. And you weren't then. So I don't see how you can be in the future. What are you learning from your lives? What is the one lesson you consistently take away? To do what you like, regardless of the cost—especially when you're never the one who has to pay.”