Chapter 29
29
Quietly blindsided, I watched as Jonah, Dawne, Mikki, and Karen filed out. Dawne threw a last look back at Moon and Sol, maybe because she hadn’t had her postsession processing time like everyone else. But she slipped out too.
I settled onto a cushion, my chest still swirling with emotions: the sad, achy feeling now overlaid with a bright splash of surprise. How had Moon and Sol known about Ramit’s mother’s suicide attempt? I was assuming it wasn’t public knowledge.
The rest could be attributed to intuition and therapy practices. I knew I hadn’t channeled Ramit’s mother; Moon had been gently nudging me so that I’d known what to say. And the heavy sorrow? That was simple induction and projective identification. Clients could unconsciously place their difficult feelings inside of you like sticking a bag of rocks in your lap. If a therapist wasn’t aware of it, they could get caught up in it, thinking the feeling (fear, rage, disgust) was their own. In this session, Ramit had unknowingly transferred his own despondency to me.
“That was wild.” Ramit raised his eyes to Sol. “You sounded just like him. How’d you do that?”
Sol settled beside him. “I tap into the energy. I sounded like him?”
“I mean, without the accent, but yes.”
“Thea.” Sol turned to me. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m good.” The sadness was melting away. I needed to get answers from Moon and Sol, but maybe not in front of Ramit.
“You both did such an amazing job.” Moon sat so close that her spiced rose scent was cloying. “I’m so impressed.”
Her praise pleased me, despite my determination to remain distanced. There was something about Moon’s approving gaze that felt warm as sunlight.
“Ramit,” she went on. “I applaud you opening up. I know it’s not easy to feel exposed like that.”
“Yeah, it was…” He chuckled. “Supremely uncomfortable.”
“That shows we’re getting into those deep places.”
“So what happens now?”
“Good question.” Sol clapped his shoulder. “Now we have a great jumping-off point for your one-on-one tomorrow.”
I’d forgotten about the one-on-ones. That might be a good chance to dig further.
“Thea, do you have any reactions to Ramit’s session?” Moon clutched my hand; hers was warm and moist.
“Um… just glad I could be a part of it.”
“You’re a therapist.” Sol steepled his fingers. “You must have some thoughts about our methods.”
Everyone stared at me.
“They’re…” I shrugged. “Effective.” And possibly unsafe.
Moon chuckled. “You don’t believe it, do you.”
“Believe…”
“You’ve heard of the collective unconscious, yes?” She glanced at Ramit. “Well, first let me start with the individual unconscious. It’s the part of our brain that operates below our conscious awareness. We can only interact with it indirectly—dream analysis, freewriting, trance work. Jung thought there was also a collective unconscious, a great pool of information we all have indirect access to. We think this work dips into that well. Because we’re much more interconnected than we think. You wouldn’t believe how many attendees have a session where they channel a parent who then reaches out to them, sometimes for the first time in years . They can feel it, what we do here.”
“That’s really trippy.” Ramit shook his head.
“That makes sense.” I tried not to sound skeptical. Maybe they could make a case for this work, but it still didn’t excuse their lack of training.
Moon smiled. “Our patterns are powerful. They’re dynamics that go much deeper than we realize. Ramit’s pattern was particularly strong.” She tapped the top of my hand. “I have a feeling yours is too.”
Back in my yurt, I continued to puzzle over Moon and Sol’s knowledge of the suicide attempt. Or at least Moon’s knowledge—she was the one who’d named it. I thought of old-timey mind readers who could quickly suss someone out by reading their body language. Even today there were famous “mentalists” who claimed to read people’s thoughts. Could Moon be one of them, using a combination of techniques and intuition to pull out people’s family secrets?
If they were using tactics of psychics and mediums, then another possibility came to mind. I even knew the term—“rigging”—though I couldn’t remember where I’d learned it. It meant planting actors in the audience to “prove” your skills.
Was it possible that Ramit was a plant? That his session had all been planned beforehand? I’d briefly considered Jonah in that role, after all. Uneasiness clawed my gut.
A new Facebook message popped up on my phone. Wait—John Holloway? I clicked open the messenger app to see Pastor John’s tiny avatar.
I’m sorry you feel that way.
My breath caught in my throat. I scrolled up to see what I’d sent him.
You fucked up my life.
He’d decided to write back to me… and this was his response? The most infuriatingly gaslight-y phrase a man could say?
“Oh hell no,” I muttered and grabbed my backpack. I had evidence of our inappropriate relationship. I had fucking proof . I was going to take pictures of my diary and send them to this motherfucker and threaten to post them publicly. Would he sound so calm then?
Rage crackled as I dug around my backpack. I was an adult, not a middle schooler. He wasn’t going to mess with me, not anymore.
The diary wasn’t there.
I checked again, then opened the zippered pockets. I stood, looking around the small space. But even as I searched frantically underneath the bed, behind the desk, I knew:
Someone had taken it.