Stranger With My Face (12 page)

“When you’re through with them. I can wait if you’re in the middle of reading them.” My attempt at nonchalance came too late.
After my previous reaction it sounded absurd. At least, though, we were past the subject of Helen’s injury and Mrs. Tuttle’s
phone call.

“I was just skimming through it,” Jeff said. “I hadn’t planned on reading all of it. Maybe now I will, though.” There was
a moment’s silence. Then he said slowly, “You did go onto those rocks one evening, didn’t you? It was about a month ago around
dusk.”

“No,” I told him. “I didn’t.”

“I wasn’t serious when I asked you that about projecting. It was just meant as a joke.”

“I know that.”

“I did see you. Or I thought I did.”

“I’m sure you did think that,” I said. “Look, Jeff, there’s no point in discussing this. You don’t believe in astral projection,
and I don’t blame you. I couldn’t accept it either, until recently.” A question occurred to me. “What were you doing here
the night you thought you saw me? There’s no reason for anyone to come out this way unless he’s coming to Cliff House.”

“I walk here sometimes because you live here,” Jeff said.

It wasn’t an answer I expected.

We didn’t talk as we walked back toward Cliff House, but halfway there his hand found mine and closed around it. It was a
warm, strong hand, and I felt no desire to draw my own away.

When Lia came that night there was something different about her, something stronger and more intense. She wasn’t the same
person who had lingered at my bedside on previous nights to give me reassurance through the turmoil of my dreams.

“It’s time,” she said.

“Now? Tonight?” Of course, I planned to learn to project. Somehow, though, I had taken for granted the fact that I would be
the one to say when.

The decision was suddenly not mine to make.

“It’s simple,” Lia assured me. “You have the ability. You are from a people who have a heritage of spiritual power. Our mother
could travel anywhere she willed herself. She learned in early childhood. I taught myself to project when I was seven. If
we who share your blood can travel in this manner, you should be able to.”

“I’ll try.” There had been a time when I had almost done it. The night I had slept at Helen’s and had focused home upon Cliff
House. Had that been projection, or a form of dreaming?

“Before you start,” Lia told me, “you must concentrate on your destination.”

This I knew at once. I would go to Helen.

“Cast your soul into space,” Lia directed. “Lift away from your body. It’s a sudden thing. A leap. You must disconnect from
the physical and spring to the astral plane.”

She made it sound so easy! I knotted the muscles of my mind, and, with all my mental strength, I shoved upward.

I will myself—to go—to Helen!

For an instant I thought I had accomplished it. Then, with a rush of disappointment, I became aware of the weight of the blankets
upon my body and realized that I was in exactly the same position that I’d been in before.

“It didn’t work,” I said to Lia.

“Were you thinking in words?”

“Well, yes. I guess I was. How else do you think?”

“Erase them,” Lia told me. “Words nail you to the earth. You must lift, not with your mind but with your soul.”

I tried to do this. I pictured Helen, flat and far in a hospital bed. Her head was bandaged.

Helen—I’m with you—Helen!

With that, I was into words again, and back at Cliff House. Helen was far away.

Helen!
The very name was a word.

“Erase them!”

“I can’t think without words,” I protested.

“You can,” Lia said. “What if you had been born deaf and had never heard a human voice? You would still be able to think,
wouldn’t you? It is a different kind of thought. Pure. Free of restraints. Just lift—and go!”

“I’m trying.”

Despite myself, my mind insisted on articulating.
I am in the hospital. I am entering the room. I am with my friend
.

“Erase the words!”

“I can’t!”

But I continued to try until my mind became numb with exhaustion and I couldn’t think anymore.

I tried again the following night, and
the
night after that. Each time the results were the same. I began to feel as battered as though I had been hurling myself against
a concrete wall for hours on end. As my frustration mounted, I became irritated, not only with myself, but with Lia too.

“Why can’t I do it? You made it sound so easy!”

“Before you can move, you must detach from the physical body.”

“But how?”

“Let go! Release your hold on the earth! Let go of the words that are tying you down!”

There was something in her voice that was like anger.
Why?
I wondered. What was it to Lia if I did or didn’t learn to do this? She could leave her own body at will. She was free to
travel where she wished. Why did it matter so much to her that I be able to?

Lying on my bed with my eyes squeezed shut, I could feel the vibrations of her anger reaching to engulf me. They rolled over
me like icy waves, and I shivered, unable to comprehend what lay behind them.

“Try again, Laurie,” Lia urged. “Try again.”

“I am trying!”

I no longer knew if it was myself or my sister whom I was trying to please. With all my strength I concentrated upon willing
myself across the miles. I could see a building like a hospital, and in my mind, I moved toward it. I entered through the
front door and was in the lobby. Somewhere close by in one of the rooms off a corridor on a floor above, my friend was lying
in a stark, white bed.

Helen!
The name flashed into my mind, and I was in my bed again.

“I’m back,” I whispered.

“Back!” Lia was contemptuous. “You never left. To think about a place is not the same as putting yourself there. If you really
wanted to—”

“I do want to!” For some reason I was beginning to feel frightened by Lia’s insistence. I liked her better before when she
was gentle and supportive.

“If you want to, then do it!” The command seemed to fill the room.

“I’m tired.”

“Tired or not, you have to keep trying. It is the only way!”

And so I tried, and failed again. This time I knew I would fail, for I had no remaining energy. Lia must have finally realized
this, for she withdrew. She didn’t tell me she was leaving, but I felt her presence evaporate, and a sense of peace came over
me. My tension vanished, and I slept.

The next day was the twenty-fourth of December. Our tree had been up and decorated for over a week, but Neal and Megan were
still finding new things to hang on it. Meg spent the morning fashioning a long looping chain of red and gold construction
paper to twine around the overloaded limbs, and Neal sat at the kitchen table, gilding the largest member of his starfish
collection to go on top of the tree. Dad turned off his computer and honored the occasion by making cookies, something he
does every now and then because he has a sweet tooth. Mom, who had completed the oil for Natalie’s parents the day before,
devoted her morning to helping Mr. Coleson select a frame.

I wrapped my gifts for the family (Meg had wrapped hers the instant we got home from our shopping expedition) and was placing
them under the tree with the others when Mr. Coleson came down the stairs from Mom’s studio and paused at the doorway to the
living room.

“How do you like it?” he asked, displaying his purchase as proudly as though he had painted it himself. “Your mother thought
the natural wood would be most effective, and after trying it with some of the more ornate frames, I came to think she was
right.”

“It’s lovely,” I agreed appreciatively.

The frame they had chosen was a weathered gray with the deeply grained look of driftwood. The sea in the painting was also
of varied tones of gray dotted with whitecaps, and in the foreground a child in a yellow T-shirt, looking from the back very
much like Neal, leaned against a porch railing that might have been constructed from the same wood as the frame.

“I think so too.” Mr. Coleson beamed down at the picture possessively. Then, in a friendly manner, he asked, “How have you
been, Laurie? We haven’t been seeing much of you lately. You’re coming to Natalie’s caroling party tonight, aren’t you?”

“Oh—no—I don’t think I’ll be able to make it,” I said awkwardly. “In our family we usually stay home on Christmas Eve.”

“That’s refreshing,” Mr. Coleson said. “Sometimes I wish Nat weren’t quite so social. It’s party, party, party all through
the holidays. That’s how young people are, I guess, but sometimes it seems to be almost too much of a good thing.”

“I like parties,” volunteered Megan, who was sitting on the floor in front of the fireplace, gluing her chain together. “I’d
go to every single one.”

“That’s how Natalie feels,” Mr. Coleson said good-​naturedly. “Well, Merry Christmas, girls!”

“Merry Christmas,” Meg and I responded with different degrees of enthusiasm.

After Mr. Coleson had continued on down the stairs to take the painting to his car, Meg turned to me in bewilderment.

“Why aren’t you going? I bet Dad and Mom would let you. I heard them just the other day talking about how you never go anywhere
anymore.”

“I’m not going,” I said, “for the simple reason that I wasn’t invited.”

“Then why didn’t you say that?”

“Mr. Coleson was trying to be friendly,” I told her. “I didn’t want to embarrass him.”

“Did you not get asked because you and Gordon broke up?”

“Probably,” I said. “They were nice to me because I started going out with him, and now I guess it’s over with all of them.
Don’t worry about it, Meg. It doesn’t bother me. I’ve got other things on my mind these days.”

“It would bother me,” Megan said. “Nat Coleson is just plain stinky. If I were you I’d call her and tell her that if she’s
going to act like that—”

Her sage advice was interrupted by the ring of the phone.

Meg dropped her paper chain next to the glue bottle and scrambled hastily to her feet.

“I bet that’s her right now, calling to invite you! Maybe she just couldn’t reach you before.”

“I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you,” I said wryly.

The phone stopped ringing abruptly as Dad picked up the extension in the kitchen. A moment later his voice rang up the stairwell.
“Laurie? It’s for you!”

“See? I told you!” Meg exclaimed with satisfaction.

“I still don’t believe it.” I crossed to the wall phone and picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

“Laurie?” The male voice took me by surprise. For one instant I thought it was Gordon. Perhaps Crystal had fallen through
on him, and with a party tonight and no date, he was going to try to pick up the pieces of our old relationship.

Then the voice said, “I’ve got those books for you,” and I realized it was Jeff.

“Did you read them?” I asked him.

“Yeah. They’re weird. At first the whole thing sounded crazy, and then I hit this part about tests they’ve been running at
places like the Stanford Research Center. There was this guy named Swann. Have you heard about him?”

“No,” I said.

“The scientists at the center did a lot of experiments using him for a subject. For one of them they’d have him lie down,
and there would be a platform suspended over him up near the ceiling. There were a lot of different objects on it, and a side
railing sticking up so they couldn’t be seen from below. Swann would project himself up there. His body would stay on the
bed, but the ‘second self ’—that’s what the author called it—would float up to the platform and look over the rail. Then it
would return to the body, and Swann would sit up and draw pictures of the stuff up there.”

“Did it say how he did it?” I asked.

“There wasn’t a set of rules, but it talked about this special sort of energy he uses. When he’s out of his body he looks
like he’s asleep, but the scientists could tell the difference by measuring his brain-wave patterns.”

“I want to read about it,” I said eagerly. “Can I come over and get them?”

“I was thinking—” He paused.

“What?”

“What I was going to say was maybe I could bring them over tonight. Except I just remembered, it’s Christmas Eve. I guess
you probably have something planned.”

“No,” I said. “I’ll just be here with the family.”

“Well, maybe I’ll stop over, then. There’s nothing going on at my place. My dad’s going out on the mainland with this woman
he’s been seeing.”

“Why don’t you have dinner with us, then?” I asked him.

“On Christmas Eve? Your parents wouldn’t want an outsider there.”

“They’ll be glad to have you,” I said, hoping this was true. “Mom invited you over before, remember?”

“Well, I don’t know—”

“You’re going to be coming, anyway, to bring the books. You might as well eat while you’re here.”

“It’s not like I’m going to starve,” Jeff said, trying to make a joke of the situation. “There’s plenty of stuff in our refrigerator,
and I’m used to cooking for myself.”

“Then come early and make the gravy,” I told him. “That’s something none of us are good at. We’ll see you around five thirty,
okay?”

“Well, okay. Thanks.”

I hung up the receiver and went down to the kitchen to tell my parents to expect a dinner guest. The place smelled great.
Dad had two plates of sugar cookies cooling on the counter and was in the process of putting another batch into the oven.
Neal had his golden starfish drying on a piece of newspaper and, flushed with this initial success, was busy gilding a conch
shell. Mom was relaxing in a chair, doing nothing, looking happy and limp the way she does when one painting project is completed
and she hasn’t yet started on another.

“That was Jeff on the phone,” I said. “I invited him for dinner. I hope that’s okay.”

“Is this the guy who came over the other night and wouldn’t come upstairs?” Dad asked, frowning. “Who is he, anyway? This
is a special night, you know.”

“It’s the Rankin boy, Jim,” Mom said. “You remember, the one who got burned so badly a couple of years ago?”

“Pete Rankin’s kid? Sure, I know who he is. I’ve seen him in the village.” He turned to me. “Is he a particular friend of
yours, Laurie?”

“Yes,” I said, surprising myself with the firmness of my reply. “His father isn’t going to be home tonight, and I thought—”

“Of course,” Mom said. “Jeff ’s a nice boy. I’m glad you thought to ask him. What time did you invite him for?”

“I told him five thirty,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean we need to eat then. He does the cooking at his place, so we can
put him to work in the kitchen.”

“Those bachelor pads!” Dad exclaimed. “How do men survive like that? If one of us weren’t here to burn dinner for the family
every night—”

“Now, Jim, stop that,” Mom countered. “We haven’t burned a meal in ages.”

“Of course not. We’ve been eating nothing but sandwiches.”

“We’re all very busy. Including you, I might add!” And they were off and running, squabbling along in the way they do when
they’re both feeling on top of things. Neal looked up from his artwork and grinned. I winked at him, feeling happier suddenly
than I had in a long time. On the way out of the room I stole a couple of cookies.

I went up the stairs, glancing in at Megan, who was up on a chair, redecorating the Christmas tree, and continued on to my
bedroom. The first thing I noticed when I entered was the light. It was funny light, slanting in through the glass doors and
bouncing back and forth off the walls with a dizzying effect. I stopped and blinked. My eyes felt strange, as though my pupils
were expanding and contracting in rapid succession. I blinked again, closed the door, and went over to the bed.

I sat down on the end of it and found myself gazing up at Lia.

She was there, standing over me. In broad daylight. In early afternoon. She was there, not as a shadow, not as Megan’s “ghosty,” but real. Solid-looking. Less than a foot away.

“Why did you ask that boy over?” she demanded.

I stared at her, stunned by the fact that she was here in this absolute form. I almost felt that I could reach out and touch
her.

“Because I wanted him here,” I said.

“Why?”

“Because—well, he has the books—”

“He can’t come!” Her eyes were blazing, those almond-shaped eyes so much like mine, yet now so radically different. I knew
my eyes could never look like that. I knew I wouldn’t want them to. The fury in her voice was like extension of the anger
I had heard there before, but intensified.

I felt a flash of fear, but I kept my voice steady.

“I like Jeff. I’ll see as much of him as I want.”

“He doesn’t belong in your life!”

“He does if I want him there,” I said defiantly. This was a different sort of confrontation from any we had had before. There
was no shield of darkness to separate us. I would not be intimidated. “Who are you to tell me who belongs in my life and who
doesn’t?”

“I am your twin sister!” Lia hurled the words at me as though they explained everything.

“So what if you are? That doesn’t give you the right to run my life! You can’t tell me what to do! You can’t choose my friends
for me!”