Death Omen Read online

  “Sorry. That’s a long marriage to have break up.”

  “It was a long divorce. So slow it was like evolution. One day you wake up on your own island and you’re a new species and can’t mate with the old one anymore.” He paused, as if listening to his own words to check what he’d just said. “My point was, when you try to heal someone you love, you send your attachments to them the way they are, and your resentments. I tried to heal my wife as we were breaking up, but I couldn’t step aside from my feelings about her. It drove us further part. I had the sense to send my children to another doctor in my practice, but I couldn’t see straight when it came to energy healing, until I realized why it wasn’t working.”

  “Can’t blame you for trying, though. Jeezus. Thirty-five years.”

  “Yes. I went through all that to be able to teach you why you can’t heal your cat.”

  Both men laughed. Jamie said, “Yeah. Guess I’m too close to him. Love him too much the way he is. Think he suffers, though. Only times he’s really happy are when he’s eating or when he’s got me to himself. Going on tour next week, taking him, and boarding the parrots. He should be blissful for two months.”

  “Leaving next week? For months?” Don consumed another single nut. “If I were you, I’d see my doctor. I know you don’t like her, but you were worried, and so were the people who practiced on you.”

  “I’ve got an anxiety disorder. Of course I was worried. I’m worried right now.”

  “About what?”

  “Dunno. That’s why it’s an anxiety disorder.” Jamie started as Placido suddenly took off and flapped to the parrots’ play corner. Bouquet was half-dozing on their perch, and the green parrot had all the toys to himself. “Guess I could see my doc if I have to. She has walk-in hours once a week. Won’t be as pissed off waiting for her if I don’t have an appointment.”

  “Good. Now that we’ve got that settled,” Don sat up straighter, “what’s this about reincarnation?”

  Jamie hadn’t committed to the checkup, but he was satisfied that Dr. Don thought so. “Sierra doesn’t just go to a support group. She runs it. Can you picture her dumping her it’s-your-fault-you-got-cancer crap on people and calling it support? I forgot to tell Bernadette about that part. Told her about the soul group and their serious illnesses.”

  “Bernadette Pena? Who does that column on alternative healing?”

  “Yeah. We were talking about Sierra, and Bernadette’s curious if she could check it out, see if it’s a scam.”

  “So she’s looking for someone who can confirm the past life stories?”

  “I am, actually. She said it’s untestable.”

  “It almost is.” Don sipped his beer. “Can you imagine how many past lives we all have? Even if we take time out in between, there have to be thousands. If you did a hypnotic regression, maybe you’d access two or three lives at most, but that wouldn’t prove the ones Sierra claims you share didn’t happen. Not unless you both looked at the most recent life before this one.”

  “Any reason I couldn’t?”

  “It’s unpredictable. I remember the one before this. I was a peasant from Hunan province during the Chinese revolution. I knew the details when I was a toddler, even some Chinese words—”

  “Was mu one of them?”

  “No. And what I was getting at—”

  “Sorry. Interrupted you.”

  “Yes. What I was getting at is that even though I had incredibly vivid memories that showed up in dreams, I wasn’t hypnotizable. Not everyone is. I have good concentration, but I still couldn’t go into a trance.”

  “So, if I have ADHD, I couldn’t be hypnotized? I go into a kind of trance when I play didg.”

  “You’d have to be tested for hypnotic susceptibility. Or we could do the eye roll test. Being able to roll your eyes up so only the whites show has a strong but inexplicable correlation.”

  Memories of seers who could do this gave Jamie a chill. “Some of the shamans Dad studied did that. Old bloke in a village in India. Woman in Japan, too, when she had spirits in her. Sometimes Gaia Greene, my shaman teacher, her eyes do that.”

  “Do yours?”

  Jamie strained to look up. His eye muscles hurt. “Still seeing the ceiling. Guess my pupils didn't go up in my sockets.”

  “Far from it. So, you have a short attention span and you don’t have the eye roll. Do you need to recall a past life and test Sierra? You’ll probably never see her again.”

  Jamie didn’t want to admit he was considering that she might, just might, be right about something. It would feel better to try to prove she was wrong. He shifted the topic to something Bernadette had said. “If Sierra charges money, she might be taking advantage of sick people. Not just telling them she knew them, y’know? So I want Bernadette to debunk her.”

  “That’s a worthy cause. I hope none of my patients are in the support group. Generally, they don’t hide unconventional therapies from me the way they would a lot of physicians, but Sierra’s wacky enough that they might.”

  Gasser waddled in and mewed to be picked up. Jamie settled him in his lap. “Wonder who could find out who’s going. Can’t see how Bernadette could join the group. Quacks don’t normally like to have her visit. Bloke that ran a fake sweat lodge let her in, but he was taking all comers and that was her first column. She even e-mailed ahead and told him she planned to write about him and he let her in free. She said he got nervous when he realized she was Indian. Bloke was so ignorant he didn’t know they aren’t all named Star Eagle or something. He made such a stink about her column, I think anyone fraudulent would find some reason not to let her register now.”

  “Unless she could convince Sierra she has a chronic illness.”

  “Nah. Not a chance.” Bernadette couldn’t pass for mentally or physically unwell. Jamie considered everyone he knew that had a chronic health problem. There weren’t many. However, fortune teller Kate Radecsu, who ran Spirit World Fair, was paraplegic and a recovering alcoholic. Sierra might tell her she could walk again if she’d face her karma. Jamie couldn’t imagine Kate tolerating that crap, but maybe she could pretend long enough to scope things out. And Kate knew Bernadette. “Think I might be able to send a friend. It could get expensive, doing a past life regression for her, if she’s even hypnotizable, but at least she could hear what the message is, y’know? See if Sierra does any harm or if she’s just an idiot.”

  “The best thing would be for you to go to the support group,” Don said. “Sierra already thinks you’re sick and that you’re part of her soul group.”

  “Bloody hell.” Jamie took a swig of beer. “I’d rather drag my balls through broken glass.”

  Chapter Seven

  The next day when Jamie checked his planner, notes to call Kate and to see his doctor were scrawled across the other things on his list. At first, he thought Dr. Don had messed with his to-do list, but it was his own writing, bigger and sloppier than the layer that listed therapy, yoga class, and a meeting with his manager. He called Bernadette to suggest Kate could visit the support group and left it in her hands. The less he dealt with Sierra the better. Then he looked up his doctor’s number and asked when her walk-in hours were.

  The receptionist replied, “She discontinued them two years ago. Would you like to make an appointment?”

  Would he? Jamie felt flattened, but then, he’d had a few more beers than his customary one or two the night before. “Not really. I mean, is she ever on time now? Learned to smile, look up from her bloody laptop?”

  “I’m sorry if you had an unsatisfactory encounter. I can pass that on. We have an opening at eight a.m. next Tuesday. That’s the only one until the week after that. We’ve got an eight o’clock on Thursday that week.”

  “Nah. There aren’t two eight o’clocks in my day. And I’ll be out of town, anyway. Thanks.”

  The successful avoidances brightened his mood. Jamie did a little housework, bathed Gasser and set him in the sunny spot in the spare room on a t
owel, gave him Reiki, and put the parrots in their cages with hugs and kisses, promising a good long flight practice later.

  Riding his bicycle to Dr. Carl Gorman’s office, Jamie took back routes through residential streets for as long as he could, then turned onto six-lane St. Michael’s Drive. As always, he rode without a helmet, his straw fedora jammed down hard on his head to control his hair, and smiled and waved at people who honked at his wild shots across traffic to reach the left turn onto Calle Medico. There was something exhilarating about this little burst of risk-taking, though he couldn’t say why, other than it made him feel more alive.

  He barely had time to catch his breath in the waiting room. Dr. G never kept him more than five minutes. As Jamie entered the office, the long, lean middle-aged Navajo man stood and shook his hand, saying, “Good to see you,” then settled back into his chair, one ankle crossed on his thigh, fingers interlaced so his silver rings clicked. Gorman didn’t exactly smile, but there was warmth in his benign demeanor, a sense that he genuinely found it good to see his client.

  Jamie sat across from him, profoundly uneasy as usual. Gorman never put the desk between them. The open space vibrated with all the noise in the back of Jamie’s head, the things he never thought about but should.

  Gorman raised an eyebrow.

  Jamie put his hat on the table beside him, ran a hand through his hair, and noticed his heels drumming on the floor. “Um ... so ... think I’m doing all right, y’know, for me. Had Mae for the weekend and we didn’t fight. Met her kids and got on really well.”

  The psychologist’s rings clicked. He moved his head in what might have been an encouraging nod.

  “Took the workshop on healing and intuition. It was better for her than for me. Teachers were good, but I’m either too intense or bloody worthless. Dunno if I should have gone.”

  “Too intense, or worthless.”

  Repeated back, Jamie’s words sounded exaggerated and dramatic. But it was his genuine perception. Of course, if his perceptions weren’t distorted, he wouldn’t need therapy. “Worthless at medical intuition. And my healing work was too intense for me. Not for the people I was helping. It was great for them.”

  Gorman allowed a medium silence, his head angled slightly to the side, inviting more.

  Jamie took the hint. “It’s like something big comes through me and they have this huge catharsis, but I have it with them. Wears me out. At least it did this weekend. Been a little worn out anyway, though.”

  Gorman’s posture subtly altered, as if an internal antenna had tuned into that last sentence.

  His reaction made Jamie defensive. “Maybe I’m always that tired and I’m just starting to notice, y’know?”

  “Always that tired.”

  Jamie tried to recall the last time he’d been energetic. His bike ride. But that was adrenaline. His performances. Same thing. Between adrenaline rushes, he was tired. Exhaustion had made him sleep better than usual on the weekend, which had been good for his relationship, since it meant he’d let Mae sleep, but it hadn’t left him with any greater energy. Being with Mae and finally meeting her children had been wonderful. He should have been dancing on air.

  “Yeah. It’s strange. Nothing’s wrong. In fact, everything’s great. Am I getting depressed? For no reason? Jeezus. It can’t come back like that. I’m done with it, y’know?” Jamie folded his arms, massaging his forearms, provoking a zing of pain in his right ulnar nerve. He had the momentary puzzling impression that he was wearing a soft, bulky sweater that had gotten bunched up over his stomach, but he was wearing his usual Aloha shirt. The lump, the bulge, was his stomach. Things had a way of showing up in Gorman’s office, moving onto the front burner. He dropped his hands to his lap. “Thought I was done giving a shit about my weight, but I think it’s why I’m tired.”

  Gorman lifted his chin a millimeter.

  “Yeah, guess that’s weird, been the same weight for like five months or so. Just can’t figure out ...” A rush of anxiety rattled his nerves and narrowed his breath. Jamie knew he should put a hand on his belly, close his eyes, and feel his diaphragm move, but he wasn’t on good terms with his belly at the moment. What a mess his head was when he opened it. He closed his eyes and tried to do the breathing exercise without the hand. Not as effective.

  A soft, furry weight nudged its way into his left palm. The kitten. He opened his eyes and it went away. “Fuck.” He stared at his hand.

  Gorman broke from his usual therapeutic demeanor, leaning forward, frowning. “What just happened?”

  “Spirit.”

  The psychologist’s control was admirable, but his tone betrayed concern nonetheless. “A spirit touched you?”

  “Yeah. Not a ghost, though.” Jamie tried to sound reassuring. “I have ... guess I could call them guides. Visitors. I’m not hallucinating. I mean, I’ve got a lot of diagnoses, but ...” A nervous laugh.

  Gorman sat back, waiting.

  Jamie steeled himself for the revelation. As long as he’d been in therapy, he’d held this part of his story back. He picked up his hat and began rolling the edge of the brim back and forth.

  “I’ve had visions off and on since I was a little kid. Saw a friend die and it was like I got stuck halfway into the other side, or the other side got stuck open. I was fucked up for a year. My parents took me to a therapist, but I didn’t like her. I could see her soul, y’know? Something wrong with it. A shaman dad was studying fixed me, though. Shut it all off. ’Til January a couple of years ago. Saw someone die again and it all came back. Mae closed it off for me last summer.” It was the one time he had wanted her to heal him. He’d been chaotic and desperate, and had only known her a few days. “And then I nearly died ... y’ know, last time I tried to kill myself. That let in a whole world of spirits. And I could see souls, auras, even feel them sometimes. So I learned some shamanic stuff so I could get a grip. Control the visions.”

  A long silence followed. This usually meant the psychologist was processing as well as letting Jamie process, and preceded the possibility of more than a one-liner on Gorman’s part. Jamie tried to imagine being Dr. G. and hearing a client he’d presumably known well suddenly admit to seeing souls and spirits. Even Fiona had found the kitten odd. Not that Jamie had told Gorman it was a kitten. Maybe he should.

  “My guides are weird. This one’s a kitten.”

  Gorman’s eyebrows crept up. He was doing a good job of staying cool, but Jamie was so familiar with his expressions and mannerisms, he could tell the doctor was feeling his way into an unexpected space.

  “Really tiny,” Jamie continued, “like a newborn. Fits in the palm of my hand.”

  “You’ve held a newborn kitten in the palm of your hand?”

  “Yeah. Back when I’d just moved in with Lisa, we heard this little noise in the shrubs in our apartment complex and there he was. Like his mother had dropped him or something. He was so tiny, just this little ball of fluff. Lisa named him Sweet William. We had to feed him with an eye dropper.”

  “Do you still have him?”

  Jamie shook his head. Guilt pushed at his heart. “He died. Little over a year ago. Cancer. He was so young, and my head was such a mess, I never saw it coming. Jeezus. I hate talking about it.”

  He looked down. Though he could see nothing out of place, he sensed the spirit kitten in his lap, tiny paws treading on his leg. It rubbed its face against his palm. The sensation was real right down to the moisture of its nose. This face-rubbing was something William had done, one of his idiosyncrasies. What if this wasn’t some random kitten spirit, but William, back in his baby form, whole and healthy and new again? Had he forgiven Jamie for letting him get so sick and returned to let him know? Had Jamie accidentally summoned him?

  He met Gorman’s eyes. “Fuck. It is a ghost. It’s him.”

  The psychologist took his time before speaking. “I’m sure you know spirits are outside my realm of expertise. But for now, I’m not going to treat this as pathology.”


  Jamie felt a weight fall off him. “Thanks.”

  “What can you think of that might have brought this ... this image to you? Brainstorm, don’t filter.”

  “Doing music in the hospital, always around people with cancer, all sorts of people who could die. Did music in a hospice. Told you about that. Woman with cancer.”

  “Yes.”

  The patient had died. Jamie had managed not to slip into the other world, but he’d been to the edge with her. “Lot of people telling me to record healing music again. Guess that has something to do with sickness or dying, maybe, dunno. This nutcase woman at the workshop was talking about having had cancer when she might not have really had it. Kitten showed up at the workshop. I was taking it so I could do medical intuition with my pets. So they won’t get sick without my knowing. I’m a little scarred by losing William, y’know?”

  Gorman interlaced his fingers. The rings clicked. “What other pets have you lost?”

  “Just one. Grew up without pets, we moved so much, didn’t have a cat until we settled in Santa Fe. That one lived to be really old. Then she just walked off. Like she didn’t want to die in the house. Navajo cat, I reckon.”

  Gorman smiled. “And since she died outdoors like a Navajo, I’m guessing she doesn’t haunt you.”

  “Nah. Missed her, but I was living with Lisa by then and we had William. One that walked off was my parents’ cat.”

  “Is there anything else that could have brought up this kitten?”

  It had arrived to comfort him after Jamie had worn himself out healing others. Or had it come because of his reasons for taking the workshop, or because of his argument with Sierra about causing one’s own illness—or something else?

  “The crazy woman thought I was sick. Few people picked up something wrong with me, couldn’t tell what it was.”

  “Is it possible you are sick?”

  “What? Bloody hell. That I’ve got cancer?” Panic crowded Jamie’s heart and his breath. “No. Jeezus. I just rode my bike here, I feel fine—I—no fucking way. Not possible.”