Mind Over Mind

mind over mind

Karina L. Fabian

Mind Over Mind

Copyright © 2011 Karina L. Fabian

Cover Art © 2011 Charles Bernard

All rights reserved. Reproduction or utilization of this work in any form, by any means now known or hereinafter invented, including, but not limited to, xerography, photocopying and recording, and in any known storage and retrieval system, is forbidden without permission from the copyright holder.

www.dragonmoonpress.com

mind over mind

Karina L. Fabian

Dedication

To my husband, Rob, who tolerates my own craziness and taught me to believe in myself.

Acknowledgements

Mind Over Mind
started out as a story I wrote back in 1986 in part out of spite because my science fiction literature professor didn’t understand the analogy I was making in my midterm paper, so I decided to write a story for the final instead. He liked it and asked if I’d write the novel. I spent a year working on it, and in fact enlisted my roommate and her friends to help. Sadly, friends go separate ways and their names fade into the past, but I will never forget the encouragement and interest they showed.

The book utterly failed to interest a publisher, so I put it aside, went into the military, got married, had kids…When I felt ready to resume writing, I dusted it off, re-read it and decided the publishers had shown much wisdom!  However, I liked a lot of it, so I ripped it apart, drove the main character insane and rebuilt it as a trilogy. That was a fun year, and I have to thank my husband for putting up with me not going to bed until all hours because I just had to write the next line.

Peter Stampfel at DAW was the first to get the new book, and sent me a very encouraging note that I still have. While DAW didn’t take the book, he did give me the impetus to write the second in the trilogy.

Fast forward to 2010, and Dragon Moon. Gwen Gades loved the book, but hated the title (changed to
Asylum Psychic
.) She held the contract hostage until I had a better title. I went to my great friends at The Writers Chat Room (
writerschatroom.com
) who brainstormed with me until we came up with Mind Over…
Mind Over Mind
is the first;
Mind Over Psyche
will be next, with (I think)
Mind Over All
completing the set.

Gabrielle Harbowy, editor at Dragon Moon, did an awesome job with the edits, not just making or recommending changes but explaining to me why she was suggesting them.  She not only made the book better, but she made me a better writer.

Finally, I’d like to thank Jeanne Litt, who checked over the book to make sure I had reasonably portrayed the practice of neuro- linguistic programming. Not only did she make sure my intern Joshua did his job well, but she had waited nearly a decade from the time I asked her to the time I actually sent the manuscript.  How kind is that?

PROLOGUE

Ydrel threw himself into wakefulness with such force that he sat up in bed. Still, the nightmare images clung to his mind: the beat of a hundred hearts, the smell of sweat and fear. He clutched his stomach and fought the urge to scream.

A hundred bodies crowded around him, crushing him against the splintered wood of the boxcar.

No, this isn’t real!

No room to move. No air to breathe. Suffocating. Drowning.

No, this isn’t me!

Confusion and fear. Fear the trip would never end. Terror of what waited at its completion.

NO! These aren’t MY memories!

_*

Ydrel threw up shaky mental barriers. The visions faded, just slightly. He forced his eyes open, drinking in reassurance from familiar objects.

He sat in bed, an oversized twin, backed up against pillows rather than splintered wood. Pre-dawn light shone softly through the blinds. On the nightstand, Descartes regarded him with one button eye. The only thing left from before his mother died, he’d slept with that bear until an orderly commented on his “abnormal attachment.” Since then it had stood watch over him instead, braced against the lamp. Even now, without any orderlies around, Ydrel resisted the urge to clutch it close to his chest, but he reached out to touch one tattered foot.

On the shelf beside the window sat a portable boom box, a gift from his first birthday here—his thirteenth. Five years ago, today. The maintenance man had disabled the volume control after Ydrel played it too loudly. Thereafter, he’d found other ways to block out the moans and occasional screams that penetrated the closed door. Happy birthday.

The stereo held up several books. He was studying them in case
it
called. He both dreaded and longed for the calls. Each episode only gave them more reason to keep him here, yet there was something as familiar and comforting about
it
as his old bear.

He turned his gaze to the far wall and the framed pictures of a nebula and the solar system by his half-empty closet. On his sixteenth birthday, he’d been allowed to decorate his room and he’d chosen those posters and a mild blue paint to replace the still–lifes and the institutional burgundy-and-pink color scheme. While it had been a relief to his eyes, it was also a constant reminder that they never intended for him to leave.

This is my room
, he thought.
In the asylum
. Even after five years, he’d never call it home. He’d never give Malachai the satisfaction.

_*

Calmer now, his mental barriers in place, Ydrel allowed himself to examine the vision that awakened him
. Hundreds of bodies packed into a train car not suited for twenty. Most had traveling clothes, but had shed them against the heat. No room to move. The air was stifling and stale. No one knew where they were going. Some suspected, but said nothing. The destination was worse than the trip.

Ydrel sighed. Isaac was on the train to Dachau again.

Ydrel threw off the covers and dressed quickly in a blue t-shirt and jeans, socks and generic sneakers. Already Isaac’s projected fear was breaking down his mental defenses; Ydrel’s fingers trembled as he fumbled with the laces.

Once out in the corridor, he hastened to the old man’s room, forcing himself to keep his pace smooth, his face composed. Someone would stop him if he hurried or looked distressed, and any delay would be unbearable. As he walked he got into character. His stride lengthened; his face hardened. He held his hands relaxed but ready by his hips. When he got to Isaac’s door, he cast a wary look down the hall, then slipped in.

The old man lay on a standard hospital bed, his wide, wild eyes staring at the ceiling but focused on his inner horrors. His hands fluttered helplessly on the thin coverlet. He labored for each ragged breath.

Ydrel sat beside him and composed his own vision.

The train stops so suddenly that people would have been thrown down if they hadn’t been so tightly packed in. The sound of gunfire and shouts in German. The boxcar door opens with a rusty screech. Someone yells in Yiddish, then German: “Out! Now! Quickly, to the woods—to the south!” Relief from the press of bodies, then a new pressure as the flow of people pushes him through the door. Someone grabs his arm—

Ydrel grabbed Isaac by the arm as he pushed the new vision into the old man’s mind.

Isaac blinked, twisted toward Ydrel, then smiled, his eyes bright with tears. “Gideon! Old friend. Thank God!”

CHAPTER 1

Joshua Lawson gave his name to the receptionist and sat in a high-backed gilt chair in the waiting room. “Swanky place,” he muttered to himself, and again tried to quell his nervousness. The furniture, the thick carpet, the subdued walls with tasteful art, all spoke of a society he’d never been part of and money he’d probably never see unless he became a rock star like he’d dreamed. He crossed his legs, uncrossed them quickly as the sole of his shoe bumped the carved tiger on the chair arm, leaned forward, then back, then crossed his legs more carefully.

Relax, you want to make a good impression.

He was glad there wasn’t a mirror in the room. He knew what he’d see. His rich dark skin meant he didn’t flush with nervousness, but it would be apparent around the eyes and the tightness of his mouth. His hair was cut short in a style more conservative than he usually liked—last year, he’d had LaTisha’s initials shaved in the back—as was the new gray suit he wore, a going-away gift from his parents. He fingered the chili pepper tie tack he wore, a going-away gift from his best friend Rique Martinez. “So when you’re with all your
Rhode Island
colleagues you can remember your obligation to Chipotle.”

Like Joshua could forget the band Rique and he had been working on for the past three years. Mommarosa would have a fit, too. She was the one who pushed them to join the parish choir when they were kids, and then volunteered their garage band to play at the Holy Family Parish carnival.

“She’s like Mary,” Rique had complained, “thinks her son can make miracles. Only, my father was as far from God as he could be, and I can’t turn no water into wine.”

Perhaps not, but he could sing, and Joshua could make the synthesizer do anything he wanted. With Leon on drums, Austin on the sax or flute and Carl on guitar, they were a hit. Soon they got gigs at weddings and school dances. Encouraged by the approval he’d gotten for his songs, Rique started working more diligently on developing original music for the band, a mixture of Hispanic, Native American and pop. Mommarosa and his mom started sending tapes to agents, and now they had an audition in New York City in July. After the way he’d nearly blown things with the band during his relationship with LaTisha, there was no way he’d let them down on the eve of what could be their big break.

Besides, if the agent liked them, he could lose the suit and make his money doing what he really loved.

He turned his attention to one of the paintings—it was like something he’d expect to see in a museum rather than a hospital—and told himself how lucky he was to have such a good summer job when most of his classmates were trying to convince people to “biggie size” their order.
Meanwhile, I’m interning under a respected psychiatrist—one I’m actually not related to, for once—and I’ll make enough this summer to pay my expenses next year. I’ve got it made.

When Dr. Sellars walked into the room, he rose quickly and shook her hand. “Joshua Lawson, ma’am.” Rique would have teased him for that.

She smiled. “Edith. I prefer to keep things informal. Are you all settled in?”

“Yes, ma’am—Edith. I drove up a couple of days ago and got all moved into my apartment. Not like I had much to do; it’s bigger than the dorm, but not by much
.”

‘Course, not as big or nice as this room
.

She seemed to pick up the thought, and indicated the room with a wave of her hand. “So, what do you think?”

“Pretty swanky. Kind of how I’d imagine the Betty Ford Clinic.” He could have kicked himself, but fortunately, she laughed. She pointed to the door with an open hand, and they headed to her office.

“Well, our clients aren’t always the rich and famous, but they can afford some luxuries. The low intensity wings have a full gym, a pool—locked unless an employee is present, of course. But you’d have read all that already. Incidentally, you’re welcome to use those facilities in your off time. I’ll introduce you to Jean, the facilities manager, and you’ll check with her. The medium intensity wings are more restricted, of course, and the high intensity is more like what you may have seen at the Colorado Mental Health Institute in Pueblo—with better quality, of course.”

“Really.” He tried not to sound miffed. He’d done a lot of volunteering at the psychiatric ward there, and knew the care was sound, despite the clients’ not rolling in dough.

She paused at a door with a wood plaque bearing her name, opened it and let him in first. The office was as big as his living room, and boasted a couch nicer than the daybed in his apartment. More comfortable, too, he realized as he sank into it. Edith sat in the matching Queen Anne chair.

She continued. “You’ll need to keep in mind that this isn’t just a mental care facility. It’s a for-profit business. The families of our clients—and the clients themselves—expect a certain level of comfort, and we deliver that. That means top-quality care. That means a high standard of professionalism, including a strict dress code. It also means that though we’re on a first-name basis, you address clients by Mr. or Ms. until invited to do otherwise. And it means swanky facilities.” She paused a moment, as if not sure how to phrase what she wanted to say next. “I think that’s one reason your father asked me to sponsor you. This is a side of the psychiatric world he felt you needed to see. What are your feelings on that?”

Joshua had to stop and consider his next words. True, he regarded his father’s few wealthy clients as high-society whiners, but he’d promised to hold off on forming opinions of the clients here until he’d gotten to know some. Instead, he sidestepped the issue. “I hope my father isn’t the reason I got this job.”

“You’re nineteen years old,” she said flatly. “Your father is the reason I’d even consider someone so young, college senior or no. Your mother did an excellent job home schooling you; you’ve had opportunities most people never get, and you’ve done an impressive job of taking advantage of those opportunities. Your experience at the CMHIP and with your father’s practice convinced me, and enabled me to convince my superiors. Your papers were impressive, too. I’m frankly quite curious to see if the Neuro Linguistic Programming you and your father practice is as effective as you seem to portray it.”

“It is,” Joshua spoke with complete confidence. Neuro Linguistic Programming was a decades-old process around a simple concept: study your patients, discover their thinking process, then use their own tools to help them find their own cures. Joshua’s father was one of the pioneers of the method, and Joshua himself had been learning both from his father and from attending seminars with him since he was eight years old. He’d always been a very observant child, and it was easy for him to pick up people’s thinking styles by watching the eyes, listening to their words, noticing patterns in posture and tension. He’d been scurrilously practicing (on friends, sometimes on his own family) since he’d attended his first seminar. It was almost second nature to him; in fact, as they sat talking, part of him was studying Edith—her reactions, how she processed a thought before vocalizing—not intending to use the information in any way, just recording how she acted in an environment where she was calm and in control.

“So, you’re following in your father’s footsteps?”

She’d asked this during their phone interview. For a moment, he thought about telling her he actually wanted to live up to his nickname, Josh-a-ham, and be a professional musician, preferably a rock star, but psychiatry was steadier and more certain work. Instead, he gave her the same answer he did then: “My choice, not his.”

“Good. Come on, then, and I’ll explain your schedule as we go. I want you to meet someone, one of my special clients. We’ll get you a passkey card and a combination before you leave today, so you won’t have to do this again.”

“Isn’t all that security a little extreme?” He regarded the electronic lock and cameras as they passed the foyer.

“It actually is very handy. We once admitted a client for delusional fantasies that Mafia assassins were trying to kill him. Turned out he wasn’t hallucinating—the guards caught them trying to get in, impersonating friends of a client. They gassed them in the foyer.”

“Wild.”

“Mmm-hmm. Ydrel tipped us off. His name is really Deryl Stephens, but never call him that. He goes by Ydrel. He says it means ‘The Oracle,’ but I haven’t found a language yet it matches.”

“You looked? Sounds Jewish or Eastern European or something.”

“It’s not. He claims it’s his father’s language, so I thought maybe, but I checked with a linguist friend at Brown, and it’s just an anagram as near as he can tell. Anyway, Ydrel has been here more than five years. He’s eighteen today and we’re having a little party for him.”

“And he’s been here since he was thirteen? Man.”

“Don’t start feeling sorry for him. He’s got an uncanny ability to read people. That’s part of the reason we can’t break him of his illusions. And until we do, he’s just not safe outside.”

They entered a small room similar to the reception area, but with the addition of bright balloons, crepe ribbons and a banner:
Happy Birthday, Darrel!
On yet another comfortable-looking couch, a middle-aged couple sat nervously. Across from them, a young man leaned over the arm of a chair, talking intently to an old man in a wheelchair.

As Josh and Edith stepped into the room, however, the young man leapt to his feet, for all the world acting like he was reaching for a gun. The couple jumped, and the old man gasped with panic. When he saw Edith, he rolled his eyes. “Don’t you ever knock?!” he hissed.

Edith did her best to look chagrined. “Sorry.”

“Yeah, sorry. Someday you’ll be sorry with a hole in your head.” And he leaned back to the old man, speaking quietly in some foreign language. Slavic, Joshua thought, and decided he’d do his own internet search on “Ydrel.”

Then the young man glared suspiciously at him. “Who’s he?” he demanded. “You know the rules.”

“A friend,” Edith said.

The young man seemed doubtful, again glaring at Joshua. “All right,” he said after a moment. Then he called to a tall, thin black man—an orderly, Joshua guessed from the simple white uniform—and said, “Ishmael, would you?” He spoke a last time to the old man as “Ishmael” wheeled him out. When the door closed behind them, the young man flopped into the couch opposite the couple and buried his head in his hands.

The woman reached for him, then pulled her hand back and leaned a little closer to the man, who looked at Edith in askance.

“Ydrel, how long has he been like that?” Edith asked.

“Since about 5:30 this morning. He’s been kind of fading in and out for a while, though. It’s OK.”

Looking at the way the couple all but huddled together on the couch, Joshua thought it was far less than “OK.” Was this party their idea? If so, they weren’t getting the happy bonding time they’d probably hoped for.

“Mr. Goldstein is a Holocaust survivor,” Edith explained to Joshua and to the couple. “He has Alzheimer’s, and it takes him back to the memory of those days. Ydrel’s found that if he plays the part of a freedom fighter trying to help him escape, it keeps him focused away from the worst of the memories.”

“Really?” Josh was impressed. It wasn’t much different than the work he and his father did.

“More like psychic self-defense,” Ydrel retorted hotly. “
Really
. Do you know what kind of fear that man feels? What he projects? It hides in the shadows and behind doors and if I drop my guard for a second, it pounces. Then I’m the one living his fear, feeling his tortures. Do you know where he was this morning? In this boxcar, packed in with all these people and children were crying and there wasn’t enough air to breathe and people were passing out, only they couldn’t fall down because we were packed in so tightly—” His eyes widened and turned inward and he started to wrap his arms about himself.

The woman leaned her head into the man’s shoulder and he pulled her closer. Joshua saw a ring. Husband and wife, then. Ydrel’s parents? He wished he’d gotten more of a briefing than just “Ydrel’s turning eighteen.”

Edith sat beside Ydrel and laid a hand on his arm in a gesture both reassuring and restraining. “It was his life, Ydrel, his memories. And he survived it. And he has lots of happy memories, too.”

“Why can’t he project those?” Ydrel sighed, then shook himself and stood. He circled Joshua slowly, scrutinizing him from head to toe. Josh stood calmly; he’d had this happen before. “So, Joshua Abraham Lawson,” Ydrel drawled the name, “welcome to the land of the rich and loony, minimum security. Hope you’ll find we’re not all whiners using our money to buy attention. Did Edith tell you what it means to be working in a swanky facility like ours?”

Josh bristled. Crazy or not, this guy’s attitude stunk. He took on a parody of a Jersey accent. “You want I should call you ‘sir’?”

“Ooooh. Found a witty one, didn’t you, Edith? It means, at least to me, that as long as there’s money to be made off me, I never get to leave.” He continued to circle, just enough inside Joshua’s personal space to make him feel edgy. Even though Ydrel stood a couple of inches shorter than Joshua’s 5’11”, he seemed to loom. Joshua forced himself to relax, to move outside himself and stare ahead laconically, studying Ydrel with his peripheral vision. Edith watched, her face neutral, while the couple shifted nervously, but did nothing. Meanwhile, the young client continued to circle. “I’m a prisoner here, Joshua, as long as the money holds out and they can manipulate my family into fearing me—”

“Ydrel, that’s enough!” Edith scolded. She didn’t raise her voice, and in fact, sat down and regarded the client with stern gaze and crossed arms. She tilted her head toward the seat on the couch.

Ydrel stopped his menace and regarded Edith with a sad smile. “Not you, Edith. You’ve been nothing but kind. You just think I’m delusional. Malachai knows better.”

Joshua spared a glance at his “family.” Not parents, then? Or was Ydrel including others—siblings at home, maybe? They were silent through the exchange, but they watched Edith intently, waiting for some signal from her to tell them what to do. Maybe Ydrel wasn’t so far off in his assessment. Great.