The Love That Split the World(22)
“Can I help you?” someone says behind me, and I spin to find Dr. Chan in the doorway. She has a short, blunt bob and a dappling of freckles across her nose. Without makeup or the structured blazer from her portrait, she’s barely recognizable. She looks about twenty years younger than the austere middle-aged woman I was expecting, and not quite old enough to be the person who holds the keys to unlocking Grandmother’s secrets.
“God, I hope so.”
Dr. Chan sits in the chair on my side of the desk, chewing the back of her pen, apparently deep in thought. The piles of displaced files surround her ankles like eager puppies; meanwhile my tailbone’s been balanced on one corner of the paper-strewn black sofa for the length of my life—with Grandmother—story.
“Fascinating,” Dr. Chan says finally, leaning down to dig through a stack of notepads on the ground. She chooses one and flips to a clean page. “I’ve never heard of anyone having such long conversations with Them—the Others—before. And I’ve sure as hell never heard of a full-on scenery change.” She scribbles at the paper until the ink starts flowing.
“So there are more than just the ones I’ve seen?” I stammer. “What are they? Ghosts?”
She laughs and splays her hands out. “Oh God, we’re so far from knowing that.”
“Well, have you seen any of them?” I ask. “Do you know Grandmother?”
“No,” Dr. Chan replies. “But I saw Others, when I was a kid. The black orb you described? That’s very common for people like us, Natalie. I’ve been calling that orb ‘the Opening.’ I think that’s sort of what it is: the beginning of the encounters with the Others. I can call it whatever I want, because no one else wants to touch this kind of stuff. Not in my field, at least. Anyway, there’s the Opening, and then there’s what I call the Closing. The equal and opposite event.”
“So it will stop?”
She tips her head back and forth. “For me, yes. For you? No idea. The research is all so new. I hate to think how long I’ll be dead by the time anyone figures this stuff out. But . . . well, you’ve described some very unique things.” She leans forward, elbows on her knees, and drums her nail-bitten fingers against her mouth. “Okay, so typically people who have these encounters are sensitive types—they tend to be somewhere between INFJ and ENFJ.”
“I’m not tracking,” I say.
“They’re different personality types,” she explains. “The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator—have you taken it before? Do you know where you fall on the spectrum?”
“My mom’s obsessed with that kind of stuff, and I try to avoid anything she might someday use to psychoanalyze me over breakfast.”
She waves a hand flippantly. “The I stands for introvert, someone who gets energized by alone time. Its counterpart is E, extrovert, a person who gets energy from being around people. The N stands for intuition, meaning you take your cues from internal sensations or sudden knowledge rather than concrete, observable facts. The F, feeling, indicates people who tend to make decisions based on emotion rather than thought. It’s an important trait, but so is the J, which stands for judging. A person who’s judging prefers to know what to expect at all times, to work with a schedule or outline or checklist, to make plans ahead of time rather than going with the flow.
“The combination of intuition, feeling, and judging creates people who are sensitive yet structured. They prefer boundaries and expectations, which is rarer for the intuitive, feeling type. It’s an odd mix of personality traits in and of itself, but then you throw in a little trauma, and bam! You’ve got someone with a disposition toward creative symbolic modes of thinking—e.g., vivid dreaming—and somewhat unique stress triggers and responses. Usually these responses manifest as nothing but brief flashes. Usually, but not with you. In other words, you’re super open, Natalie Cleary. You’re like the goddamn Florence Walmart on Black Friday.”
“Open to what?” I say.
“That’s the question you and I are going to try to answer. So this Grandmother person told you to come to me—any idea why?”
“I was hoping you would know,” I say. “I figured maybe . . . she’d come to you too, that she knew you’d be able to help me bring her back. Can you?”
“Probably not,” she says. “In fact, that last visit may have been your Closing.”
“Then what about what happened at school and at the football stadium—when everyone disappeared?”
She tilts her head back and forth again like she’s weighing a few internal arguments. “Okay, second theory: Your Closing happens in three months. Grandmother knows that something will happen, possibly within that time frame or possibly not, but you only have three months left to gather information and prepare.”
“So you think she’s sending me these visions?” I shake my head. “Why not just tell me what’s going on?”
“Who knows? But look at every single religion in this world: They leave room for visions and prophecies when, presumably, their deities could make things a hell of a lot easier.”
“Listen, Dr. Chan,” I say. “I appreciate your theories, but I really think the best thing would be to get Grandmother back. She can explain everything.”