The Flock Read online

  Jo considered the possibilities aloud. “In class? No, I’m sure that Larry wouldn’t have conducted hypnosis in a high-school psychology class.”

  Lynn nodded, but added nothing to help.

  “I guess it makes sense, though, that he might have known hypnosis,” she speculated. “He told me that he had been a therapist in Sweden.”

  “When did he say those words to you, Jo?” Lynn asked again.

  “Well, I’m sure he wasn’t trying to hypnotize me,” Jo responded.

  “When, Jo?”

  Jo licked her lips. “I guess it was over at his apartment. I went there one time. But Larry was only trying to make me feel better.”

  Jo stopped. She brushed away the shiver she felt then, knowing that it was irrational to be concerned about Larry or about her memories of him. “I was over at Larry’s apartment during that time when my parents were living apart and so involved with their own problems. I was confused and scared. Larry was the only person I could depend on.”

  “What did Larry say to you when you were in his apartment?” Lynn prodded.

  Jo answered, struggling to keep her voice calm. “Oh, he just told me to let my muscles relax and listen to his voice and I’d feel better.”

  Lynn pressed further, but Jo now resisted getting near the memory that pulsed with warning. She couldn’t discuss it.

  Lynn backed off, and the session ended. As Jo walked from the clinic, she realized that Lynn had, uncharacteristically, not offered any information from the other personalities. Nor had she shared her own speculation.

  That was OK. Jo was sure that she had no interest in what Lynn had to say.

  DIARY    June 2, 1982

  The pattern is astounding. It seems that the sexual abuse by her father set her up as a continual victim, ready to be lured by other abusers with other pathology. From what the other personalities tell me, I think Jo was raped by her high-school teacher that day, and that he used hypnosis as part of his seduction.

  I have been given a batch of jigsaw-puzzle pieces from the various personalities, and these pieces suggest a particularly devastating adolescence. But the pieces have been handed to me in many different ways. Sometimes the abuse is presented in a straightforward manner, as when Isis told me about Ray’s sexual excitement in hugging his thirteen-year-old daughter. More often, the pieces appear as transference, like Jo’s reaction to my “professionalism” or to my attempts to hypnotize her. Still other times, the pieces are tossed my way without emphasis, so that it is up to me to separate what is relevant from what is not.

  It’s time that she started helping to put some of the pieces together.

  16.

  The next time I went in, Lynn had a plan. “Renee,” she said, “how would you like to do some detective work with me? I want to try to construct a whole time frame in Jo’s life.”

  I thought it sounded like an interesting project. Although I myself hadn’t experienced any of the time that Lynn wanted to talk about, I had monitored what the other personalities had told her so far. I agreed with Lynn that all the pieces supplied by the separate personalities seemed pretty jumbled.

  Lynn prescribed the end of the sequence we would piece together. “Now,” she said, “we know when you were born, right?”

  “Right,” I answered. “I became a separate personality when Jo went to bed with her psychology teacher. But I really didn’t know that he had hypnotized her until recently.”

  “That must have been a horrible experience for Jo,” Lynn said.

  “I never thought about that,” I said, then laughed when I considered the outcome. “It was sure a wonderful experience for me.”

  “Well, we’ll come back to that later,” Lynn said. “Now let’s figure out where to begin. How about when Jo’s parents separated?”

  “Let’s see, she would have been twelve or thirteen then,” I said, “but no personality has had much to say about Nancy and Ray’s splitting up.”

  “We’ll hear about it when they’re ready,” Lynn said. “Let’s start a little later. Let’s begin with Jo’s first memory of high school.”

  —

  JO LEANED BACK TO rest her head against the bathroom wall. Startled to find no support behind her, she opened her eyes to an entirely different world. She wasn’t in a school bathroom, as she had thought. She was sitting at a desk in a classroom.

  She clutched the book in front of her in an attempt to hold on to now. The psychology textbook lay open to page 72. A colored illustration in the book identified parts of the human brain.

  Jo saw that she was sitting among other students in a classroom. From the front of the room, a man in his late thirties glanced curiously at her through black-rimmed glasses. He stood behind a table that held a multicolored plastic model of a human brain, at which he gestured while describing the name and functions of each part. A laboratory area with tables and high stools filled the room to her right. To her left, she saw other students and a cinderblock wall. Some of the students watched the teacher; others just looked bored. The door leading from the classroom was behind Jo on her left.

  “Escape,” Jo thought, but where? If she ran from this room, where would she go? She didn’t know where she was. Since there were no windows, she couldn’t look outside for a clue. When she tried to remember what day it was, she realized she didn’t know.

  The confusion felt like internal quicksand, sucking her into panic. Jo shook her head and searched the room again. She noticed, above the man who was speaking at the front of the room, a yellow placard pinned to the bulletin board. It said “Mr. Dunlap.” “Mr. Dunlap,” Jo thought, testing the name with her tongue.

  Jo looked around the room again, searching for familiar faces among the students. She didn’t see anyone she knew, and the girls looked older than she and more sophisticated. They looked like high-school students.

  Bewildered, Jo looked down at her textbook. Maybe her memory would click once she found her place in the reading.

  Sheets of notebook paper next to the book drew her attention. There, in neat rounded script so unlike her own sloppy, jagged writing, Jo saw the date, “Oct. 24, 1971.”

  “Oct. 24!” Jo felt herself grow cold and sweaty all at the same time. “It can’t be. It’s April. It was just April.”

  She took a deep breath to calm her panic. “Remember,” she told herself severely, “stop being so stupid. Just try.”

  She looked down at the floor and spotted a purse sitting next to her feet. It must be hers. Surely something in there would jog her memory. Trying not to be conspicuous, Jo snapped the point of her pencil. She glanced at the teacher, but he didn’t seem to be watching her.

  Jo pawed through the contents of her purse. She dug frantically, hoping she looked as though she was searching for a pencil, desperate to find something familiar—something to connect her with now.

  She raised her hand from the purse in surprise. She had lifted out a small plastic bag containing marijuana. Where had this come from? She didn’t use drugs.

  Jo glanced at the front of the room again. The teacher was still talking, but now he was also watching her and looking at the bag in her hand. Jo dropped the bag back into her purse and put her head down on the desk, hiding her face in her arms.

  Jo closed her eyes and concentrated on her most recent memory. “Wasn’t it a minute ago?” she thought. Maybe it was yesterday.

  Yesterday, Jo had been a ninth-grader at East Junior High School. It was a morning in April. She remembered going to her first-hour class, Spanish with Mr. Hahn. When the class had started that morning, Jo had shifted uncomfortably in her seat at the front of the row. The students on either side of her recited along with the rest of the class while Mr. Hahn gave instructions in Spanish. Although Jo was an A student, she couldn’t understand what the teacher was saying. “Why can’t I remember?” Jo wondered in panic. Before she really thought about what she was doing, she bolted from the classroom.

  Now where? Jo slipped into the g
irls’ bathroom and splashed her face with cool water. She held her hands to keep them from shaking.

  Now what? It wasn’t safe to stay in the bathroom for long. Soon a teacher on hall duty would come in. “I’ll tell her I’m sick,” Jo muttered, and leaned against the cold tile wall. She felt caught in swirling confusion. “Maybe I am sick,” she thought, “maybe I should go to the nurse.”

  Jo liked the school nurse. Many times this year, the nurse had hugged her while Jo sobbed, hating her father for leaving, hating her mother for wanting to live away from him. While Jo cried, the nurse stroked her head, saying, “Poor little chickadee.” But last week, when Jo had again arrived at the nurse’s office in tears, she was sent to her guidance counselor.

  The counselor had looked at her over a stack of achievement tests and had asked if this was important. Jo had replied that everything was fine.

  No, she couldn’t go to the nurse and be sent away again. Afraid to move, afraid to stay, Jo pressed her head against the cold tile.

  A screaming bell jerked her back to the present reality of Mr. Dunlap’s psychology class. “I won’t move,” Jo decided, “I’ll pretend I’m asleep.”

  The room became silent as the last students filed out, laughing and talking with one another. When someone unexpectedly touched her arm, Jo jumped upright and stared, terrified, into the eyes of her psychology teacher.

  “Jo, it’s my free period. Let’s go back in my office,” he said. She gathered her books and followed him. Mr. Dunlap sat at his desk and motioned for Jo to sit in a chair at its side. He leaned back in his chair, tapped a pencil on his teeth, and watched her. Eventually he leaned forward. “OK, Miss Casey, what’s going on here?”

  “Wh-what do you mean?” Jo asked haltingly.

  “The marijuana,” he said.

  “It’s not mine,” she responded.

  “Give me your purse,” he said, and she clutched it tighter, not knowing what else he might find in there. Finally, Jo reached into her purse and handed him the plastic bag.

  “So, what do you think I should do with your ounce of grass?” he said.

  “Keep it,” Jo said, relieved to have a question that she knew how to answer. “I don’t want it.”

  The teacher studied her for a minute. “You seemed pale and upset in class today,” he said. “Is something going on at home?”

  Jo sat mute. She didn’t know.

  “Did you have a fight with your mother? With your father? Do you have any older sisters or brothers?”

  She relaxed slightly. “I have a sister, but she’s mad at my mother and won’t tell us where she’s living. My father won’t tell me where he lives either, but sometimes he calls or comes to see me.” Jo trailed off, wondering now if any of this was still true. Things had been this way in April, but now it was October.

  The teacher looked at her thoughtfully. “You really don’t have anyone to talk to, do you?” he asked gently. Jo shrugged, knowing that it wasn’t safe to talk about her problems. They told her mother what she had said, asked questions she couldn’t answer, or simply sent her away.

  He wrote something on a slip of paper and handed it to her. It said “Larry Dunlap” and had a phone number. “This is my home number,” he said. “Don’t tell the other kids that you have it, but you can call me if you need to talk. OK?”

  Jo took the paper and nodded. She didn’t want to think about talking to him; she just wanted to get away before he discovered that she had lost her memory.

  “Now, let me give you a pass to your next class,” Mr. Dunlap said. “Where is it?”

  “That’s OK,” Jo said, standing up and edging out of the office. “I don’t need a pass.”

  The teacher smiled reassuringly. “Don’t worry,” he said, “the marijuana is our secret. Really, you can trust me. This is a safe place for you to be.”

  Jo walked into a large unfamiliar hall. She picked a direction at random, and hoped that her memory would return soon. It had to.

  As she walked, Jo pieced together what she could. This was a different school from East Junior High. Psychology was a high-school subject, and the date on her paper had been October 24, 1971. She must be a tenth-grader now, and this must be John F. Kennedy High School. Of course. Entirely logical.

  “Is it really October?” Jo wondered.

  The hall she had chosen finally ended at a set of double doors. She looked through the screen-meshed glass in wonder. The trees, the wonderful forest just outside the building confirmed it. October.

  She slipped out the door and sat on the concrete step. Jo inhaled deeply, breathing in the smell of the dying leaves.

  She opened her large blue three-ring binder, looking for something that might jog her memory. She found her semester schedule, printed in precise letters and carefully taped to the inside cover. Period 1: English, Mr. Smith; Period 2: Spanish, Mr. Walker; Period 3: Geometry, Miss Hernandez; Period 4: Journalism, Mrs. Adams; Period 5: Psychology, Mr. Dunlap; Period 6: Gym, Miss Maloney. A list of room numbers ran down the right side of the sheet. Jo figured that she must have made out the schedule for occasions like this.

  So she was supposed to be in gym class. Jo hated gym. She was awkward—“clumsy,” her mother said—and always the last chosen when teams were picked. And then she had to endure the junior-high locker room, where the other girls had made fun of her underdeveloped figure.

  “Maybe I’ll stay here until the end of the day,” Jo thought. It was cool and peaceful near the trees, and Jo was much calmer than she had been earlier. Soon she’d be calm enough to remember everything.

  Suddenly a woman rounded the end of the building. “Hey, what are you doing here?” she called. Jo froze in panic and felt darkness descend once again. Another personality took over.

  “I’m just on my way to class.” Isis smiled at the teacher and rose gracefully to her feet. “My psych teacher kept me after class, and I stopped outside for some air. I’m going, I’m going.”

  Isis slipped back into the building before the teacher could protest. She hurried down the hall.

  Isis was one of the personalities who had been active during Jo’s six-month absence. She was the one responsible for the marijuana, and regretted losing it. She didn’t worry that Larry would report her; he’d probably smoke it himself. Maybe she could find a way to get it back from him. But right now she hurried to her favorite class.

  Isis walked confidently into the gym, knowing that Miss Maloney would not be upset by her tardiness. The teacher listened to Isis’s explanation—“Mr. Dunlap gave me the old ‘you-better-study-harder’ routine”—while continuing to referee the class’s basketball game.

  Finally, she turned to Isis. “It’s too late now for you to get into the game,” she said. “Why don’t you go into my office and wait for me?”

  Isis lounged in the office and thought briefly about what had happened an hour earlier, when Jo had awoken from her six-month-long sleep. “The glass box,” she murmured.

  Sometimes Isis felt trapped inside, watching through a glass box, while her body did things beyond her control. Other times, like now, she could do what she wished.

  What Isis wished was for the body to move gracefully. She was an asset to any team when the students divided up in gym class, but the team captains never knew what to expect when they chose Jo Casey for their side. Sometimes she was a star player; other times she tripped over her own feet. Isis felt bad when that happened, but it couldn’t be helped.

  When trapped in the glass box, Isis could only watch her body in dismay while it stumbled, muscles so tight that the body tripped itself. But when she was out, she made up for it. Isis loved ballet dancing and was now working to develop the complex control and skills needed for gymnastics competition. With Miss Maloney’s private coaching, she hoped to make the gymkhana team in the spring.

  Some of the students said that Isis was psychic. It was true that she was pretty good at guessing what other people had on their minds, and sometimes she could antici
pate what people were about to do or say. Isis herself consulted mystical literature and decided that she must be some sort of roving spirit. She figured that her “glass-box” periods proved that her powers were limited and that she was a visitor within this body, not an owner.

  Nevertheless, Isis enjoyed her visit, amused that so wise a spirit would find herself in the body of a gangly high-school girl. She wrote melodic poetry that pleased the English teachers, and she had some admirers among the students as well. Some of her classmates were a little afraid of her, but that was fine with Isis. She didn’t want many people close to her, choosing instead to maintain a spiritual distance.

  Miss Maloney entered the office as the students rushed to shower and dress before the final bell. “Well, kid, I don’t have much to clear away here, so we can leave as soon as the bell rings,” she said.

  Isis was pleased that Miss Maloney now took it for granted that they’d be driving home together. “Ready when you are,” she said.

  When Nancy and Ray separated, Jo and her mother moved into the apartment building in which Miss Maloney lived. The teacher provided rides to and from school and seemed to enjoy the company of at least this one personality. And Isis loved being with Miss Maloney.

  She liked watching the teacher drive. When Miss Maloney was busy maneuvering her little sports car through the traffic, Isis could study her with frank interest. She knew, with nothing said, that Miss Maloney was a lesbian. Isis knew she too was attracted to women rather than men, and longed to talk to Miss Maloney about her desires. But she couldn’t. Isis didn’t want just any woman; she wanted Miss Maloney. And she could tell from the way Miss Maloney sometimes looked at her that the attraction was mutual.

  —

  THE NEXT MORNING, Jo dressed quickly for school and then looked carefully around the apartment. She was still trying to retrieve six months of missing memories and felt even now that she was floating precariously in consciousness. Current reality seemed a jumble, but it was less frightening to wonder what had happened to last summer than to worry about what had happened to last night. She scolded herself. “I’ve been daydreaming again,” she said, “and this has got to stop.” Jo noted the changes in the apartment. Plants were taller; some furniture had been moved. She shook her head in disgust and frustration.