An Echo in Time

Chapter 6 THE CONSTELLATION

Chapter 6

T HE C ONSTELLATION

Charli’s the last person who would ever raise her hand to go first, the last person to ever volunteer if someone onstage asks, but she’s doing all she can to act like she’s fine.

Frances puts her hands on Charli, pats her down, almost like a frisk. But it’s some kind of ritual, a ridding of negative energy. Charli exhales a giant breath to extinguish her anxiety. So much for pretending.

Frances asks everyone to close their eyes, and Charli obeys. A long tail of silence follows, which makes room for all kinds of noise in Charli’s mind. Who is she to think she could exact any sort of change in her family? She can’t even change herself.

Charli peeks to see Frances holding her hands out, palms up. When Frances looks at her, Charli quickly snaps her lids shut. She wonders if she could be ruining this experience for everyone.

“Charli,” Frances whispers, “why don’t you tell us a little bit about why you’re here?”

Opening her eyes, Charli looks down at the floor and wonders where to begin, how open to be. She finally raises her head. Finding comfort and safety in Frances’s eyes, she says, “I come from a long line of disasters, mostly on my mother’s side.” Charli elaborates, mentioning everyone she can think of who has suffered tragically, including her father, who might have suffered due to being absorbed by the awful that is the Hall family.

When she’s done, Frances asks, “I’d like for you to take a moment and lean into how all this makes you feel. Even if it hurts, feel it and listen to it as intently and thoroughly as you’d listen to your favorite piece of music—with all of you.”

Charli closes her eyes again and follows the instructions. She can feel a hole in her heart, the part of her she often ignores. To Frances’s instructions, she puts all her focus on that sensation of ... what is it ... emptiness? A lack of backbone? A family tree that looks more like a Christmas tree still up in the living room in March.

After a while, Frances asks, “Can you tell me how you feel?”

“Like it’s almost pointless, me trying to be different. Me, trying to fix whatever it is that’s going on. I feel so helpless.”

Frances moves closer. “Helpless in what sense?”

There doesn’t seem to be much room for skeptics here. Charli casts away her doubt and tells herself to give this moment her all. “No matter what I do or try,” she says, “I don’t have and will never have a fairy-tale life.” The hole in her chest grows like a tumor.

Her eyes swell with a rush of sadness. “Sometimes I don’t see the point. My dad’s given up. My mom’s long gone. Why do I even think that I have a chance?”

Frances sets a comforting hand on her arm. “I promise you do.”

Even in this bleakest of moments, Charli senses a glimmer of hope. “Point me in the direction. If that’s true, I’ll do anything.”

Frances gives a look of pride that Charli turns to fuel. By God, if all this is real, she’ll do whatever it takes.

“What does a fairy-tale life mean to you?” Frances asks.

Charli actually laughs, because she knows exactly what it means. “Oh, I can answer that one. Green lights. The opposite of my life, basically.”

“What kind of green lights?”

Charli latches on to the hope she’s feeling. “Green lights in everything: business, life. Love. I have friends who are getting married and having these big splashy weddings and talking about babies. And other friends who are becoming leaders in their field. I’m floating on top of the water like a dead fish.”

Tears gather like dark clouds. “It’s more than what my friends are doing there. I don’t mean to sound that superficial. I mean, I am annoyed by all of them, but it’s deeper than that.” Charli feels into what’s going on inside, putting all her focus on it like Frances instructed.

“It’s not easy describing the essence of what I’m feeling ...”

“No, it’s not.”

“But I ... I don’t think that I deserve any more than what I’m getting out of life. Sometimes I feel like ... no. Most of the time I feel like I deserve to be punished, that I’ve done something wrong.” Suddenly Charli is the size of an insect in her mind, and she’s squirming on the floor, and a big foot is coming down on her, and then squash. “God or whoever else is out there wasted a body on me.”

Charli’s eyes are on her shoes, as it’s too hard to look up. She’s never been so honest in her life. The sunken feeling doesn’t go away, but there is still that hope, like somehow this thing they’re doing could make a difference. If not, then like she told them, what’s the point anymore?

“You’re very brave coming in here and opening up,” Frances says. “Not everyone can do that.” She pauses thoughtfully. “Do you know of anyone in your family history who had misfortunes, who experienced red lights in their life, particularly in terms of love, family, and work?”

Once again, Charli finds humor in Frances’s questions. “I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have red lights in my family—at least on my mother’s side. My mother and her several failed marriages. Her father dying by suicide. Her mother wasting away afterward. My brother dying when he was only four days old, which is a lot of what made my mother the way she is. My father, and how my mother destroyed the big ball of energy that he used to be.”

Charli falls into a trance. Her lips are moving, she’s giving answers, but she’s not working to give them. Something in this room, something about Frances. She’s cracking open the wounds and letting the poison ooze out.

She can’t believe she hears herself add, “And as far as me, I grew up being emotionally and verbally abused by my mother. I hid it from everybody, my dad, my best friend ...”

“That must have been a heavy burden,” Frances says.

“Yeah.” Charli feels as if she’s going to be in trouble for ratting her mother out to these strangers. “She would threaten me, though. I didn’t have a choice.”

The heavy thud of the hammer crashing into one of Charli’s dolls shakes her insides. She closes her eyes to hide from her mother’s rage, but the memory comes at her like a rabid dog.

Her dad was somewhere in Asia. He was gone so much, Charli couldn’t keep up. She was ten years old, about a year after her mother lost the baby. It was a morning before school. Her mom was running around talking to herself while subsequently shouting out the morning to-do list. “You need to make your snack, Charli. Surely you can do something other than play with your fucking dolls. You’re ten years old, for God’s sake. What girl plays with dolls when they’re ten?”

The answer to her mother’s question was Charli. She played with dolls when she was ten. Like books, dolls were an escape, a way for her to disappear into an imaginary world where her mother couldn’t get her.

“Brush your teeth! Get your backpack by the door! And go change out of those awful sweatpants. Whose daughter are you?” Like now, Charli would close her eyes and wish away all that anger.

She was dressing one of her American Girl dolls in a ballerina costume when she saw her mother coming at her from the corner of her eye. Charli raised her arm to protect herself, but Georgina simply swiped the doll from her hands. As she collected the other three dolls on the table, her mother screamed, “What did I tell you? Stop playing with your damn dolls! I told you I’d throw them away.”

“No, Mommy, don’t throw them away.”

“Forget throwing them away,” Georgina hissed as she reached into the drawer where they kept a few tools. Drawing a hammer out, she waved it at Charli. “We won’t have this problem again, will we?” She marched toward the door that led to the courtyard.

“Where are you going?” Charli ran from her chair to chase her. “Don’t hurt my—”

“You made me do this!” Georgina holds one doll by its legs and brings down the hammer with such anger that she chips the concrete. The ballerina’s head turns to dust as specks of plastic fly up into the air.

Charli finally pulls herself from the vivid memory and swallows. There were similar bad moments in her childhood, but it’s that one that’s buried the deepest, like a splinter that will never come out. That feeling of loneliness is as fresh today as it was back then.

When she’s finally able, she looks up at Frances. “My dad knew she was awful—she was as bad to him, but he wouldn’t leave her. So the two people who were supposed to be there for me weren’t always there for me.” A sigh rises out of her, and she skips over a few years. “I finally picked up the pieces and found the courage to open a bookstore, but I lost the lease and ...” Charli looks away. “You get the picture.”

“You’re a brave woman, Charli,” Frances says. Someone sitting down starts clapping, then another, then another.

Charli swallows back the vulnerability that’s going to knock her to the floor if she’s not careful. She offers a smile to everyone and whispers, “Thanks.”

Once it’s quiet again, Frances says, “You’ve had more than your fair share of challenges, Charli. Thank you for sharing.”

Frances gestures toward the people sitting around them. “I’m going to ask you to choose someone who represents where the red lights in your family began. The occurrence that perpetuated the imbalance in your family’s constellation. This could have happened long before you were born, thousands of years even.”

“But I have no idea—”

“Choose based on your intuition. Think of each of the people you select as avatars that help your intuitive mind to re-create the imbalance that exists in your family.”

Charli looks around, notices how respectful everyone is, how seriously they are taking this moment. It’s a reminder to continue giving it her all.

“You can motion for them to come forward,” Frances says, stepping away from the center of the circle. “Once they’re up here, put your hands on their shoulders from behind, and guide them to where you’d like them to be.”

Charli becomes slightly afraid, like she’s going to mess up. “But I ... how do I know where to put them?”

Frances answers like she’s dealt with this situation a thousand times. “Go with instinct. There are no wrong decisions.”

Charli closes her eyes and recalls Frances’s request. Someone who represents where the red lights began. Once she has a grip on that feeling of pain in her family, she looks around the room. All eyes are on her.

She stops and looks at Frances. “I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.”

Frances takes a seat. “No one’s feelings will be hurt, Charli. Don’t overthink it.”

Charli nods, then returns to her mission. She bounces her eyes from one person to the next until she lands on a man who appears to be in his early fifties, with a scruffy beard and thick-framed glasses. He wears a faded baby-blue polo shirt tucked into high-rising khaki pants. If she had to guess, he’s a professor of history somewhere. Something within her says that he is the one. Hesitantly, she points her finger at him and waves him into the circle. He rises and joins her. It’s a little awkward at first, probably both of their first times in a constellation.

Frances helps. “Herman, Charli is going to tell you where to go.”

Charli walks behind him and puts her hands on him, feels his broad shoulders and collarbones. Doubt nips at her heels, but she pushes it away, and she guides Herman forward and then to the left. She has no idea what she’s doing, but she trusts the process. She puts him directly in the center of the circle.

“Great, Charli. Now I’d like for you to choose someone to represent you. Put him or her where you think they should be in relation to this person who represents the red lights in your family.”

Charli does so, more confident this time. She chooses a woman with short auburn hair cut in a forward angle who is probably a few years younger than her. A Chinese symbol is tattooed on her neck below her right ear. Frances calls her Millie.

Charli guides Millie without thinking and is surprised where she ends up. She’s unintentionally set the two people facing each other, about three feet away from one another. She steps back and glances at Frances for feedback. She’s gifted an assuring smile in return. Charli intuitively looks back at her choices. Her throat goes dry, and she’s not sure why. A twinge of fear runs through her.

Frances’s words come from behind her. “What does this feel like, to have him looking directly at you—or, in this case, looking at your representative?”

Charli swallows as she looks back and forth between Herman and Millie, absorbing their energy. “Awful, it feels like a military sergeant screaming in my ear.” She’s unsure how she’s answering so quickly, and her words surprise her, because the depiction seems so accurate.

“Let’s feel into that for a moment.” They pause in the quiet. Someone coughs. Another person shifts in their seat. Herman and the young woman stare at each other. He’s several inches taller and is surprisingly intimidating, far more than he was originally.

Frances must know this because she says, “Who is he?”

Charli shakes her head curiously. “I don’t know.”

“Is he a he?”

“Yes, most definitely,” Charli answers. She doesn’t know why she knows, but she knows with all of her. It’s as if she actually knows him.

“You may get a sense of a time period,” Frances says, “when he was alive. Or if he still is. Someone in your life now or from fifty years ago, one hundred years ago, three hundred ... if you do get that sense, let me know.”

It’s asking a lot, to figure out who this man is, where he came from. However, she can’t explain anything so far, so why not go with it? She looks at him again, his side profile. He doesn’t seem like the man whom she’d called up, Herman. He’s different, as if he is the avatar who has absorbed the person he represents. He’s ... he’s older. Then it hits her. She has this strange sense that he’s indeed dead, that he comes from a time long ago. She feels something else, too, something terrifying.

“I get this sense that I’m a part of him, like he’s definitely my blood. My family. But from years ago, like ...” She tries to tap more into this sudden well of information. “I don’t know when,” she finally says. “Long before me, that’s for sure.”

Charli awakens from this trance state she’s in and wonders how in the world she just gave this answer. But it feels right to her.

“Good, Charli. Lean into it.”

Charli continues to stare at Herman’s side profile, but she’s not seeing Herman. She’s seeing someone in her family—feeling him, even. Though Herman is standing perfectly still with a stoic look on his face, Charli sees another image—almost like the ghost of him—berating Millie. There is no volume to his words, but he’s screaming at the top of his lungs so harshly that spit is flying from his mouth. Charli feels like she’s standing in Millie’s place and is actually the victim of Herman’s verbal assault.

“He’s angry,” Charli says. “Like completely full of rage.”

Herman turns to her with a look of someone who is in way over his head. “Yeah, that’s how I feel.” He raises clenched fists. “Like I want to hit something.”

“That’s it,” Frances whispers.

Millie looks uneasy as well, almost as if she’s afraid of him. Though they might have been warned, no one in this room other than Frances could have known what they were getting into.

Frances doesn’t say anything for a while, and Charli isn’t sure what to do, so she watches both with a growing tightness in her shoulders, as if Herman might physically attack Millie at any moment.

Frances’s voice breaks the silence. “Choose someone who is the original cause of his frustration, his anger ... his whatever it is that you think he’s feeling. The aggressiveness. That’s how it appears. I saw you step away. Is he bothering you?”

Charli nods. “I’m sorry. I’m uncomfortable.”

“Me too,” Herman says.

A light round of warm giggles circles the room. Charli welcomes a bit of light, but she’s fully planted into this scene. Whatever is happening is hard to doubt or understand. The energy in the room has changed. It feels like there are dead people standing among them. The hair on her arms rises at the thought.

Breathing through it, she follows the instructions and chooses an avatar for the source of this man’s frustration. She picks a man in a sky-blue-and-white-striped soccer jersey. Frances calls him Fredrick. She’s not a huge soccer fan, but she recognizes soccer legend Lionel Messi’s name printed on the back as she places her hands on the man’s shoulders and guides him to a spot ten feet behind Millie’s left shoulder.

“It’s like I’m protecting the man behind me,” Charli offers. “Well, I mean, Millie is protecting the man behind her.”

Frances is so calm, as if she’s seen it all before. “That’s great, Charli. Feel that. You might even get the sense of how they feel toward each other.”

Charli stands back and takes in the scene—Fredrick looking over the shoulder of Millie to Herman. There’s an energy there, this kind of animosity. “Yeah, it’s almost like they’re enemies, and I’m standing in between them. There’s this really strong sense of responsibility that I have, this sense of wanting to protect him.”

She hears herself talking, but it’s like she’s been hypnotized. If she wanted to, she could snap out of it, but she doesn’t want to. There is something powerful at play, and her hope heightens.

Frances allows time to pass before speaking. “Okay, so remember Millie is your avatar. I’d like you to choose the avatar that belongs there facing Herman. It’s not you and Millie.”

Charli tries to put it together. “Do you mean that I have somehow been living my life facing red lights that weren’t mine?”

“Quite possibly. I’m seeing a constellation come to life that existed long before you. Which means that there was someone else originally facing these red lights. At some point in your life, you stepped into that role.”

A tingle races up Charli’s legs. She and Viv dabbled with a Ouija board in high school. This is that on steroids.

“This is real, isn’t it?” she whispers. “What we’re doing.”

Frances nods, as if there were never any doubt.

Charli resumes her work and scans to find the right representative. She lands on Letícia, who pops up when Charli nods to her. The newest of the chosen ones offers a kind smile, revealing a tiny gap between her front teeth. Lively curls dance over her tan shoulders. She wears a flowery sundress and leather sandals with gold buckles. Her pink-polished nails catch the light of the chandelier above.

Frances speaks to the woman with auburn hair who faces Herman. “Millie, you can step aside for a moment.” Charli guides Letícia to take Millie’s place. Letícia now faces Herman. The whole time, Charli is careful of him, as if he’s about to pounce on her. She can’t even bear to look at him.

Frances continues. “Now take Millie, who still represents you, and put her where you are in relation to these two people.”

Trying not to second-guess herself, Charli puts Millie off to the side, looking directly at the side profiles of Letícia and Herman. She steps back to see her work, reminding herself who the avatars represent.

Though he has a slight hunch in his back, Herman stands a few inches taller. He’s also wearing sandals, but his are way past their prime. He is the red lights in Charli’s family, but it’s more than that too. He’s an angry man from long ago. She can still feel him screaming at her, his spit landing on her face.

Letícia is probably in her early thirties. Her legs are as tan as her shoulders. She’s eyeing Herman with a fierce look. She represents the person in the family who first faced the red lights, somewhere way back in the past.

Fredrick, who represents the source of the angry man’s frustration, stands well behind Letícia, as if she’s protecting him. Millie, who represents Charli, is standing off to the side.

“Are you okay?” Frances asks Charli.

“Yeah, just thinking through things.”

“Let’s be with this moment awhile and see what comes of it,” Frances says.

The room goes so silent that Charli can hear herself breathe. The feeling of other entities being in the room amplifies.

The temperature in the room drops. It happens in an instant, and Charli is suddenly shivering. Her teeth start to chatter. “I’m cold,” she says.

“Me too,” Letícia says.

She and Charli look at each other with open mouths. In the corner of her eye, she sees Herman, and Charli can’t bring herself to look at him. She feels like he’s staring at her, but maybe he’s not. Either way, all this judgment and rage and fire radiate from him.

“He’s so mad,” Charli says, turning away from Herman as if he is a flame reaching out from a fire and trying to burn her. “It’s like he wants to murder me ...” She recalibrates. “But I feel like I want to look at him, like I have to.”

“It’s okay to look at him,” Frances says. “What is that anger like?”

Charli finally directs her full attention at him. Herman’s eyes are wide, and he’s burning a stare at Letícia, who is looking off to the side in fear.

Any last doubts of what Charli’s doing fall away as she sees and feels this exchange. If it gets any more intense, she’s not sure she can take it.

“His rage is a full-on ten,” Charli says. “Like no light whatsoever. Pure darkness.”

“Yeah,” Herman says, “I’m shaking inside. And I ... my leg hurts so badly. I can barely stand on it.”

Frances stands and takes a step toward the center of the circle. “Herman, stick with it if you can. Just a reminder that you should not act on any urges that you might have.”

A sheen of sweat collects on his forehead as he nods.

Frances puts a hand on Charli’s arm, and she jerks at the touch. “Sorry,” Charli says.

“It’s okay.” Frances offers a smile that soothes Charli again, gives her the courage to keep going.

“Now that you’re out of the dynamic,” Frances says, “looking in on it, could you pick a figure to represent the green lights that you seek in the present?”

“What do you mean?”

“Think of all the things you want, all that goodness that awaits you, and choose a person who can represent it, almost like how a flag represents a country.”

Charli takes her time and eventually gets a strange sense to pick a guy she’s not noticed before. His head is shaved, and his biceps push at the sleeves of his tight shirt like he’s just left boot camp. He’s probably in his midtwenties but has a serious look to him, as if he’s seen more than most at his age. If he’s been to war, then that would explain it.

“Where does Parker go?” Frances asks.

Charli laughs as she reaches up high to put her hands on his shoulders. “He’s almost outside of this building. Untouchable. Just like my green lights.” She guides Parker against the brick wall directly behind Herman, who stands between Charli’s representative and her green lights.

Frances asks Charli, “Is there anyone else who wants to join the system?”

Charli considers the question. When no clear answers come to her, she shrugs.

Frances returns to her seat and says, “Herman, what does it feel like?”

“I ... I ...” He stumbles over his words. “I’ve never been so angry in my whole life. Like fucking ... excuse me ... I see red.” He raises his fists out in front of him and says with a British accent, “Like I want to kill someone.”

At that exact moment, Letícia drops to the floor.

Charli and the rest of the audience gasp. The room once again goes silent. Dead silent. Adrenaline pumps through Charli’s body, causing her to feel dizzy.

On the floor, Letícia starts to cry as she pulls her knees to her chest. She calls out in desperation, “I’m so cold, so incredibly cold.”

Frances grabs a blanket from the back of a chair and drapes it over her. “Everything is fine; hang in there a moment.”

Charli can’t move a muscle, can’t even speak. The whole room must feel this way. What they’re witnessing isn’t possible, but it’s happening.

Letícia is actually crying. Her face is wet, and she’s wiping it. Her feet poke out of the blanket, showing the pink polish of her nails. Herman stands over her, still shaking with anger.

Frances steps to the center. “You’ve done an amazing job and set up a perfect representation of your red lights. Before we close, take some time and walk around, look at everyone, see what they’re seeing. Breathe their air.”

Charli does so, going from one avatar to the other. When she puts her eyes on Herman, Frances says, “It does seem like everything off balance in your world comes from here, doesn’t it?”

Though the terror he’s evoking is beyond any horror movie, Charli tightens her fists and stares him down. Whatever these red lights are, whatever it or he is, she wants it all gone from her life.

“You are tied to these people, Charli,” Frances whispers. “Tied to him. And he is what is standing in the way of your life.”

Charli looks down at Letícia, wrapped in the blanket and wiping tears.

“It seems like you have some sort of life debt to her,” Frances says. “Something is certainly off balance here, and I don’t know exactly what it is. Other than ... I think it’s clear that there was a death. Possibly a murder. He could have killed her years ago.”

It seems obvious as Frances says it. The woman on the floor is the victim of a murder. Charli feels like she’s both the murderer and victim at the same time.

“What ... what do I do?” Charli asks. “Did someone in my family kill someone? Is that man in my family, for sure?”

Frances inches toward her. “I think it’s possible, and it’s important to find out what is going on. The only way to get to those green lights is by releasing the truth of what happened here. Who is he? Who is she? This is your debt.” She touches Charli’s arm. “I believe you’ve been chosen to break your family free from generations of pain.”

Charli looks at her. “Why me?”

Frances smiles warmly. “I think you’ll find out. And what an honor it is.” After another beat, she says, “Let’s close here. Thank you, everyone. You can get up now and return to your seats.”

Once the dust settles, Charli asks, “Am I supposed to go play detective now and figure out what happened?” Everyone else listens for Frances’s answer.

“I think what we’ve brought to light has already caused a shift in your family. I can feel it, and I suspect you will too. But I’d encourage you to find out more if you can. We’ve found the source of your imbalance. The more light you can bring into it, the more order you can restore. It’s a cliché but a good one: the truth will set you free.”

“What? All I have to do is figure out who these people were and what happened? And then I’m living the good life?”

Frances shrugs. “That’s the simple version, but something tells me that if you can get to the bottom of what’s going on, you might set free some positive changes that are due in your family’s world.”

Could she really help her father? Could she change her state? Forget the therapy and self-help books. This is the answer; it has to be. “So my dad giving up on life. And all the bad things happening in my life, the way I ruin everything. Is there a way out?”

“Not a simple one, but yes. There are strong forces in your subconscious that are creating patterns of bad luck and even tragedy in your life. The same might go for a lot of your family members. But until someone does something about it, those patterns will never stop. Let’s take a break for now. As we explore others’ constellations, you might find more clarity.”

Charli has a million questions, a million concerns. She looks over at Herman, who somehow took on this evil energy that terrified her. He looks normal now, a sweet guy surely seeking answers to his own questions. Never in her life has she experienced something so out of this world.