The Spiral Path (65 page)

H
e
was sliding down a spiral to hell, dragged into the abyss by the weight of his
past. Then he felt Rainey's cool hand on his forehead, her arms strong as she
pulled him onto her lap. He clung to her, so emotionally shattered that he was
beyond even the tortured memories that had made touch impossible for weeks.

At first her urgent words were
unintelligible. Gradually he recognized that she was saying over and over,
"It's all right, love. It's all right," as if he were a child.

Strange how such simple, meaningless
words could reach him. He whispered, "Rainey."

She hugged him so close he could feel
her heart beating beneath his ear. "What happened, Kenzie?"

"Walking the labyrinth ... made
everything worse." He struggled for more breath, as short of oxygen as if
he'd run five miles. "Anger. Pain. Confusion."

"Why confusion?"

How to transmute raw pain into words?
"Looking into the mirror at a face that isn't mine. Knowing that even
though I loathed what was done to me, sometimes I ... I felt physical pleasure,
and despised myself for it." He had to stop to breathe. "Owing Trevor
so much, yet I couldn't forgive him for being what he was."

"Is that ambivalence why you seem
to have been closer to Charles Winfield than Trevor?"

"Charles and I could be mentor and
student together without the ugly undercurrents there were with Trevor. Even
though Trevor never touched me the wrong way or asked me to role-play for him
again, I could feel him watching and wanting. I hated that because it reminded
me of every man who'd ever abused me. Yet how could I complain when he'd saved
me and never asked anything in return?" Kenzie shuddered. "Except to
be loved, and I ... I deliberately withheld that because I was so angry."

"And you feel the guilt of that still."
She stroked back his hair, her fingers cool on the throbbing veins of his
temple. "This afternoon I visited Tom Corsi, my friend Kate's brother.
He's a novice at a monastery not far away, and he knows about labyrinths. He
said that in periods of great stress, walking a labyrinth can trigger emotional
upheavals. Having had your life stirred up by Nigel Stone, everything was ready
to erupt this time."

"So I was playing with a loaded
gun, and it went off."

"Luckily Tom had a couple of good
suggestions for dealing with past horrors. He says that writing down the
ghastly memories will put distance between them and you, and make the past
easier to bear. It worked for him." Her gaze went to the surrounding
tiles. "He also said that walking into the labyrinth takes a person
inward. The center is for release of emotions, while walking out integrates the
experience. It's worth a try. I'll walk with you if that might help."

He closed his eyes. "It ... might.
But first walk to the center yourself. Then we'll go out together."

"If you want me to." She rose,
fingers tenderly brushing his beard.

Cutting across the circles to the
outside, she turned and composed herself at the entrance as he'd done. Then she
pulled the hood over her hair and entered the labyrinth, walking straight
toward him until the first sharp turn to her left. Her lowered gaze and dark,
flowing outfit reminded him of a medieval nun, or an ancient pagan priestess.

He clambered to his feet and watched as
the path took her back and forth. Twice she came so close he could have touched
her, only to move away again. The labyrinth as metaphor for their marriage.

Her pace gradually slowed. At the center
she lifted her head, tears coursing down her face. He raised his arms, and she
walked straight into them.

"Tom was right," she said
unsteadily. "This is powerful medicine. I don't know why it affected me so
much more this time."

"We have too much in common,
Rainey." He rubbed her back, trying to ease her trembling.
"Operatically dreadful childhoods. Not knowing our fathers, losing our
mothers young. The drive to be performers, you to prove yourself, me to lose
myself. We connect on so many levels that whatever affects one affects the
other, I think."

"Maybe that's why I just remembered
something I haven't thought of in years." She drew a ragged breath.
"Once one of my mother's druggie friends put me on his lap and ... and
touched me. I was horribly uncomfortable but didn't know how to say no to an
adult. Luckily Clementine came in before he went too far. She attacked him with
the fireplace poker when she saw what he was doing. I think she'd have killed
him if he hadn't run away. She held me and cried and said that I was safe and
it would never happen again. It was a minor incident, nothing compared to what
you endured, but I had nightmares about the man for years." She hid her
face against his shoulder. "Remembering gives me a faint, horrible idea of
what it must have been like to be you. Dear God, Kenzie, how did you
survive?"

"Because it didn't occur to me that
I had a choice." He rocked her in his embrace, wishing she'd never had to
endure an event that had given her so much empathy.

She sighed. "I want to be angry at
my mother for not protecting me better, but there's no point in anger for
anger's sake. What matters is learning how to release the pain." She
stepped back and caught his hands in hers, raising her tear-stained face. The
hood had fallen back, revealing the tightly drawn flesh over her exquisite
bones. "Why stir up the past if we can't let it go?"

"I don't know if I can let it
go," he said with painful honesty.

"Try." She closed her eyes and
began to recite.
"I will lift up my eyes unto the hills, from whence
cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, who made heaven and earth."

He involuntarily looked up at the
mountains, magnificent in their austerity.
I will lift up my eyes unto the
hills, from whence cometh my help.
Even if he didn't believe in religion,
the idea of God was appealing.

She continued through the psalm, the
poetic words flowing like music, until she reached the end.
"The Lord
shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even
for evermore."

"Amen," he whispered.

Wrapping his arm around her shoulders,
he guided her onto the outward-bound path. What had Rainey said about this part
of the labyrinth journey? Integration. He'd lived his life in a state of
separation--Jamie cut off from Kenzie, childhood divided from adulthood. His
deepest feelings severed from the life he'd created with painstaking care.

Since starting
The Centurion,
integration
had been forced on him, and it had been disastrous. Was it possible to accept
the whole of himself without madness or paralysis?

It had to be possible, because he
couldn't continue to dwell in the abyss. Rainey had thrown him a lifeline. It
was up to him to summon the courage and willpower to rebuild without the
suppression and detachment that he'd used as a shield for too many years.

By the time they left the labyrinth, he
was calmer than he'd been in weeks. He glanced down at Rainey. "How are
you doing, TLC?"

She managed a smile. "Better. Tom
was right, I think. The outward path does help integrate what's been stirred
up. The spiral can lead up as well as down."

Tucking her close to his side, he turned
to the path down the hill. She slid her arm around his waist, her closeness a
blessing. As they walked, he said, "Three years of marriage, and I haven't
the faintest idea of your spiritual beliefs, if you have any."

"Needless to say, Clementine didn't
believe in fettering my childish mind with dogma, but when I went to live with
my grandparents, they promptly enrolled me in the Sunday school of their
church. They also sent me to the local Quaker school. Though I've never thought
of myself as religious, whenever life has gotten difficult I've been supported
by a kind of bedrock faith that's kept me from going off the deep end, so I
guess that early training worked."

He looked up at the mountains again, the
peaks tinged with molten gold from the last of the sun. "Faith sounds like
a good thing to cultivate."

"Walking a labyrinth is a form of
seeking. Maybe faith will sneak up on you someday." Hambone had joined
them, so she paused to ruffle the dog's ears. "Will you try writing a
journal? Tom said it doesn't matter how well you write, and no one will ever
have to read it. In fact, he suggested burning the pages. The idea is to make
your journal a cheap, disposable therapist."

He'd heard about journaling. The point
was to dig as deeply into one's horrible memories as possible. Charming. But
maybe effective. "I will if you will."

"You drive a hard bargain, but it's
a deal. By the way, Marcus called. A death certificate for James Mackenzie has
turned up. An example of Trevor's intelligence friend at work?"

He whistled softly. "It must have
been. Sir Cecil was an amazing chess player who always saw a dozen moves ahead.
When he was creating new papers for me, he must have done a death certificate
as well, to sever all links between James Mackenzie and Kenzie Scott. What
about Nigel Stone? Is he standing by his story?"

"Marcus said he apologized, with
his newspaper's metaphorical gun in his back." She slanted a glance up at
him. "You probably could get him fired rather easily."

Kenzie thought of the hell Stone had put
him through, then shook his head. "I'll have Seth issue a statement
accepting Stone's apology, along with the suggestion that next time he have his
facts lined up before he goes public with his suspicions."

"You're generous. I'm all for
chopping him up and leaving the bits for buzzards."

"Bloodthirsty wench. But
considering that his story was true, it would be unfair to use my influence to
cost him his job." Kenzie smiled faintly. "Besides, you know the old
saying: Love your enemies--it will drive them crazy." After another dozen
steps, he said quietly, "Thanks for being there, Rainey."

"I will be for as long as you'll
let me."

He was too emotionally bruised to
consider the future. But at least now he felt that he had one.

CHAPTER 39