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The repetition, the insinuating cadence, the firm, indomitable note of command gradually began to manifest an overwhelming lethargy in the child. Eyes tightly shut, head reposing on a shoulder, her hands slowly clasped together as if in prayer, and her knees gradually drew up to her chest in a startling approximation of a foetal ball, whereupon she remained rigidly still, neither moving nor flinching nor seeming even to draw breath, in effect, duplicating the perfect in-limbo attitude of a foetus floating in the womb’s juices.

The moment was electric.

‘My God,’ Janice heard someone behind her whisper, ‘she’s in her mother’s womb.’

In the observation booth, not a ripple of sound disturbed the steaming, foetid stillness as nineteen people were held captive by the incredible performance.

His face bathed in sweat, his eyes blurring from the room’s closeness and the strain he was subjecting them to, Bill could only stare along with the rest of them, uncertainty giving way to incredulity, as the weird behaviour of his child, his own little princess, unfolded before his stunned scrutiny. It was impossible, he thought. She was playacting. Had to be playacting. Wasn’t asleep at all. Just putting the old duffer on. Had a good memory of her birthdays, that was it. But - how did she know about things like foetuses? And what they looked like? Books?

Bettina probably. She was pretty damned advanced. And yet -it was weird, how still she remained, how deathly still - like one of those things in jars you sometimes see in doctor’s offices. Weird. His struggles and his doubts were now showing plainly on his face. And his fear. If this was on the level, it was wrong. All wrong …?

‘Back, back, back in time,’ the verbal metronome continued, urging, pleading, pushing, ‘back in time, back farther and farther to the time before you existed as yourself. Back to the time when you were not Ivy, not Ivy, not Ivy, back to the time when you were somebody else, somebody else, not Ivy, but somebody else.’

This was wrong. Bad. The way she sat there, not moving, hardly breathing, suspended in space, floating. What the hell was he doing to her? Where was he taking her? Was it possible he was really taking her back to another life? Crazy. Impossible. And yet—

‘… not Ivy, but somebody else, somebody else, back in time, back in time, back in time … back in time until you can remember, until you can remember, remember, remember, remember … remember the very next thing, the very next thing, remember, remember … you are not Ivy but somebody else … somebody else … not Ivy, not Ivy … but … who are you? Who are you? WHO ARE YOU?’

He’d stop it! Dammit, he’d stop it! This was wrong. Bad. He’d stop it now!

‘WHO ARE YOU?’

‘I want this test stopped, Mr Velie!’ Bill had risen to his feet and was swaying uncertainly. His head felt ready to burst.

‘WHO ARE YOU?’

‘I want it stopped!’ he demanded in a quavering voice, clutching the chair to keep from falling. ‘God damn it, do you hear me?’

‘WHO ARE YOU?’

‘Stop this test!’ he shouted. ‘Mr Velie, Judge Langley - do you hear me?’

But even if they heard, which was doubtful, none could act, for all sat mesmerized, shocked into silence by the spectre that was slowly materializing on the other side of the mirror. For now the child was sitting bolt upright on the couch, eyes wide open and staring, body rigid, expression startled, hovering between terror and amusement, warily seeking a-persona just beyond reach, moving tentatively, cautiously, towards the brink of some startling discovery.

‘WHO ARE YOU?’ the voice pursued relentlessly, pushing, thrusting, projecting her forward on her course.

Trembling, Bill tried to steady himself but collapsed into the chair, unable to speak, hardly able to breathe. He tried to close his eyes to blot out the scene but could not. He’d have to look. This was his doing - his goddamn doing - now, he’d have to watch it - all of it!

‘WHO ARE YOU?’

Suddenly, her face froze. Her eyes - bright, expectant - grew even wider, beseeching some distant memory which now appeared to be at hand, within reach. Her breath quickened. The lines of tension around her mouth relaxed into a gradual smile, spreading softly, suffusing the face with a light of such shimmering joy, radiating a warmth of expression so tender, so grateful as to be unmistakably that of a homecoming. She had arrived - at last. After long and weary wanderings, she had finally come home.

‘Mommy?’ the child’s voice rang out, clear and sharp. ‘Mommy!’ She laughed, in peal after peal of rapture and delight. ‘Mommy! Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!’

It was at this moment of arrival, of laughter and reunion, that Janice Templeton shut her eyes and began to softly recite the Prayer for the Dead.

‘O God, Whose property is always to have mercy and to spare, we humbly beseech thee for the soul of thy servant, Ivy Templeton, which thou hast this day commanded to depart out of this world…’

‘Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!’ the childish voice repeated in an unabating litany, but the tone underwent a subtle change. What had been gay, joyous, charged with a fervour of jubilation and rejoicing, gradually began to take on a note of anxiety and hysteria. ‘Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!’ the voice shrieked, graduating up the scale, in a rising glissando, from fear to fright to strident horror.

‘… that thou wouldst not deliver her into the hands of the enemy, nor forget her unto the end, but wouldst command her to be received by the holy angels…’

‘Mommy-eeeeee!’

In the observation booth there was shocked silence. No one moved.

Bill peered feverishly through the murky glass, his eyes locked on the distant face, hardly able to focus. What the hell was happening to her? She was laughing one minute, and now— It was changing. The voice — the face — was changing. It was breaking apart - fragmenting into panels and lines of fear … terror - breathless, welling terror … like kids wear on their faces coming down a roller coaster. That was it, she was swaying back and forth like she was moving - no, like the world around her was moving - like the couth was moving and the world was rushing by her…

‘Mommy-eeeeee!’ The word got swallowed up in a scream so high-pitched and intense that the wall speaker crackled and popped.

‘My God,’ someone in the room whispered as the screams sustained a strident peak and the swaying became more pronounced - back and forth, from side to side, forcing her hands to cling to the arms of the couch and her body to fight to stay upright, to fight this power that seemed determined to send her reeling through the air…

‘It’s all right, Ivy!’ Dr Lipscomb said nervously.

‘Eeeeeeeeeee!’

‘It’s all right, Ivy!’ he repeated, his voice rising, mustering sternness. ‘You will leave this memory now! You will move farther back in time away from this memory! Farther back in time, Ivy!’

‘Mommy-eeeee!’ shrieked the voice as her body swayed and teetered to and fro, wildly now, the muscles of her face drawn into knots, her head zigzagging from side to side, her fingers desperately clutching the fabric of the couch to keep from being hurled into space.

‘You will move away from this memory, Ivy! When I count to three, you will move back in time. One … two … three!’

‘Mommmm-eee! Crash-crash-crash-crash!’

‘One … two … three! Do you understand me, Ivy!’

‘Not Ivy!’ a voice in the observation room whispered hoarsely. A voice that was Elliot Hoover’s. ‘She’s not Ivy!’

‘Moooommmm-eeeee! Crash-crash-crash-crash!’

Her scream, rising to decibels of a stridency that overloaded speakers and eardrums alike, pierced the air in a single sustained note as her body, incapable of longer resisting its own violent, turbulent oscillations, thrust itself upward from the couch as if impelled by some irresistible power, sending her staggering to her feet and holding her suspended in space momentarily - arms outstretched, eyes bulging, the scream dying in her throat — before dropping her to the floor with a shocking suddenness and force that could be heard through the speakers. Head striking first, her body tumbled over in a bruising somersault, whereupon she remained in a crumpled ball, writhing and trembling in what seemed only partial consciousness - eyes half closed, a line of blood trickling from her mouth, and muted, pained moans of a terribly injured person rising and falling in her throat.

The effect upon the audience was staggering and unmistakable.

‘… it was smoking, and one of the back wheels was still turning…’

All around Janice, chairs scraped. People rose. A deathly silence held as all awaited the terrible aftermath.

‘O Lord, deliver her from the rigour of thy justice. O Lord, deliver her from long-enduring sorrow …’

Dr Lipscomb, stunned into speechlessness along with the others, recovered his professional presence and, dropping to his knees, placed his trembling fingers on the child’s pulse. His face mirrored concern. His voice ratified it.

‘You will now awaken, Ivy!’ he commanded in a tone that wavered with uncertainty. ‘When I count to five, you will awaken and feel rested and well. One … two … three … four … five … Awaken, Ivy!’

The child lay on her back, eyes closed, breathing hard, writhing, moaning.

‘You will obey me, Ivy! At the count of five, you will awaken!’

‘Not Ivy, not Ivy,’ Hoover muttered in a fever of anxiety.

‘One … two … three … four…’

‘O Lord, deliver her from the cruel flames—’

‘…five!’

Her eyes popped open. She sat bolt upright. Weak. Exhausted. Panting. Intensely alert. Senses keened. Eyes widening with alarm. Nostrils flaring. Smelling. Head twistmg about, rubber-necking, startled, birdlike, sensing an imminent danger. Face contorting in a kaleidoscope of expressions - fear, dismay, panic, horror—

‘… then … there was an explosion … not loud … like a puff .., and all at once the car was swallowed up in flames…’

The scream burst forth like a gunshot, built to an incredible crescendo, and sustained.

Behind the mirror, bodies flinched and breaths expelled to melt the inner tension.

Bill was on his feet, not knowing it, drawing the sight into his stunned mind. He felt something tightening in his chest.

‘One … two … three … four … five! Awaken, Ivy!’

‘She’s not Ivy, damn you!’ shouted Hoover, jumping to his feet, bringing the guard up with him.

‘One … two … three …’

The strung-out scream maintained its steady, piercing shrillness, mindless of the doctor’s importunings. Her body twisted away from his outstretched hands, slithering then crawling from their grasp.

‘… four … five! Awaken, Ivy!’

Stumbling to her feet, her eyes darted frantically about for a path of escape and, seeing the mirror, she quickly scampered towards the reflected image of her own fear-ravaged face, rushing to meet it, her scream suddenly fading, replaced by choking gasps which then erupted into the quick, explosive sobs and whimperings, ‘Mornmydaddymommydaddyhothothot!’

‘O Lord, deliver her from dreadful weeping and wailing, through thine admirable conception!’

A sudden hum of rising voices and a shuffling of footsteps forced Janice to open her eyes. Everybody was standing, watching the screens, pressing forward to get a better view of the picture, which, Janice saw, had lost the images of Ivy and Dr Lipscomb, though their voices, rising in opposition, were clearly heard.

‘Mommydaddymommydaddydaddydaddyhothothot!’

‘One … two … three …’

Janice took a deep breath, knowing that they must be at the window now, out of camera range.

A wailing shriek coming through the speakers, half of pain, half of horror, started the exodus from the recreation hall as the reporters gave up on the TV and hurried to the stairway.

Janice rose. It was time for her to go, too. She would neither hurry nor linger but descend the three floors at a normal rate of speed. It would take her just under two minutes to get there. She had timed it earlier. By then it would be over.

In the observation booth, all eyes clung to the scene being played just beyond the length of the glass— -The figure of the child, blurred, ethereal, rushing back and forth across the length of the glass—

- Her hands beckoning towards it, withdrawing, weeping, ‘hothothothot—’

- The doctor, ‘… four … five! Awaken, Ivy!’ moving to-i wards her, reaching out—

-The child screaming, struggling violently, furiously, eluding him—

- Her face wild, her breathing heavy, her eyes reflecting coruscating glints of panic, her senses sharpened now by the encroaching peril—

-Her fists balled into hard knots, mustering the energy of despair—

‘It was just horrible. I could still see the little girl screaming and beating her hands against the window …’ -Pounding the glass and sobbing, ‘Hothothothothot!’

‘I could see her through the flames as the car was melting all around the window …’

- A loud, shrill scream bursting suddenly from her throat, causing the line of jurors at the glass to jerk back in their chairs—

- ‘You will obey me, Ivy!’—

-Hoover shouting shudderingly, ‘AUDREY ROSE.’

- ‘One … two…’—

-‘They can’t hear you,’ Velie explaining. ‘Room’s soundproof.’—

- ‘… three … four …’—

- Langley watching openmouthed - his mind refusing to comprehend what was happening—

‘… five! Awaken, Ivy!’— -‘AUDREY ROSE!’—

- Panting, gasping for breath, helpless prey to a whirl of emotions beyond her control, clawing, bleating against the glass, screaming, ‘Daddydaddydaddyhothothot!’—

-Hoover shouting, ‘I’m here!’ and plunging over chairs and bpdies, stumbling down to the window—

- The guard withdrawing his revolver, indecisively—

- Velie shouting, ‘Put it away, Tim!’ decisively—

- ‘Daddydaddydaddy! ‘—

- Hoover’s body splayed against the glass, hands outstretched—

- ‘Hothothothot!’—

-‘… she screamed and screamed and tried to get out of the car…’—

- Bill frozen, staring mutely, a crazed and awful guilt in his eyes—

- ‘… and kept beating her hands against the window…’— -‘HOTHOTHOT!’—

- Dr Lipscomb, grim-faced in defeat, speaking up at the mirror. ‘I’ll have to give her a sedative, Your Honour,’ then hurrying in helpless frustration to his medical bag—’