The Witch's Ladder Read online

  “Ms. Bradford,” said Doctor Lieberman, “Lilith can’t actually contact the dead, as much as the dead can contact her, or rather information about the dead comes to her. A Sensitive is not a medium. Lilith is capable of learning things about your husband without you telling her particulars, but she can’t actually speak with him.”

  “Of course, I’m sorry. That was inappropriate of me to ask, I know.”

  “Not at all,” said Lilith. “It’s perfectly all right. In fact….” She reached behind her neck, unclasped a strand of beads and handed them to her. “Here, I want you to have this. It’s a special necklace. It holds the power of hope, something we lose sometimes when someone close to us passes. Anytime you feel that hope is slipping away, I want you to remove a single bead from this necklace and drop it into water. It doesn’t matter if it’s a fountain, a lake, or even a puddle. Just drop it in and concentrate on the ripples. When the last ripple disappears, it’ll take with it your sense of despair and desperation and leave you with renewed hope.”

  Jean took the necklace and held it to her heart, unsure what to say. Lilith told her, “Don’t say anything. Just know it works.”

  The evening progressed with the workshop breaking up into smaller groups and conducting experiments independently. Jean hopped from one experiment to the other, observing, as Doctor Lieberman explained them to her. By the end of the evening, she felt comfortable enough to call everyone by his or her first name and found she bonded especially well with the two clairvoyants: Barbara and Valerie. Later, as the experiments ended and the groups began breaking up, Doctor Lieberman and the others took leave in staggered shifts. The last to leave was Travis Webber.

  By all accounts, based on my reports and what others have told me, Travis Webber was committed to the study of psycho kinesis. He never took an experiment lightly. If it were up to him, the workshop would practice twenty-four seven, with summer breaks consisting of field trips to Sedona where he could slip into one of Earth’s vortexes, find his Chi, and move objects with his mind from sunup to sundown. It was that dedication that fueled his decision to stay behind and work another thirty minutes on experiments after all the others had gone; and that which likely killed him.

  I imagined it was shortly before midnight when Travis decided to call it quits. From a thought-form experiment I saw later, I knew he grabbed his coat, turned off the lights and headed out. Once downstairs, he pushed open the plate-glass door and stepped out into the cold. His brisk walk across the parking lot had barely begun when he realized he’d forgotten his car keys upstairs in the room. He stuffed his hands into his pockets, turned and marched head-down back to the main entrance. He needed only tug once on the door before realizing that it locked automatically after closing.

  I know he cupped his hands to the glass the way Jean described she had done earlier that night. He rapped on the door, hoping someone was inside and might hear him. There wasn’t, of course, and he soon realized his limited choices. He could break the glass to get into the building and face the consequences with Doctor Lieberman in the morning, or turn and hoof it in hopes of catching a ride on a dark and lonely country road. I imagined neither seemed appealing.

  While still staring at the door he noticed a strange reflection in the glass. His brows gathered as he squinted in stiff focus at the blurred silhouette, watching it bleed into the darkness; melt into the shadows as if it had no flesh. He realized that nothing about the figure seemed even remotely familiar or friendly. And it came to him: the chilling realization that the mysterious figure was a reflection of someone standing behind him.

  He turned to confront the specter, when the assailant’s forward thrust knocked him off balance. He staggered back into the plate-glass, shattering it. His hands came up instinctively to protect his face, leaving his body open and vulnerable. He must have felt the push of cold steel tear into his stomach and rip through his chest to the bottom of his neck. Then he dropped to his knees. Steam from his gaping wound commingled lazily with the still, night air, and the smell of death—his death—lingered within its vaporous trail under his nose.

  Some miles away, still driving, Barbara Richardson felt an ominous sense of peril. She later told me she thought she was going to die. She turned down the volume on the radio and listened for sirens, horns or warnings of any kind. Yet all she heard was the wind whistling through her opened window.

  At the same time, Valerie Spencer told me she had already arrived home and was putting her key in the front door lock. She, likewise, reported the feeling of impending doom. An abrupt and unexplained horror gripped her from inside and squeezed her of breath. She gasped, dropped her keys and purse and clutched her stomach in reflex. And though it lasted only a moment, she knew instinctively that all was not right.

  The next morning, bright yellow crime-scene tape ringed the perimeter to the entrance of the research center. Reporters and news crews gathered a short distance away as the city awoke to the early headlines: Murder at the Institute of the Paranormal and Unexplained.

  My office had not yet released the details, but word had somehow leaked out that this murder was a particularly grisly one, revealing that the victim died of a knife wound and that the killer had cut the liver out of his victim’s body. I’m sure it made for great conversation over breakfast.

  I arrived at the scene around eight o’clock to meet with Doctors Lowell and Lieberman, the project’s director and coordinator, respectively. They both saw the murder scene up close for themselves, and one of them, Doctor Lowell I believe, was the one who called 911. We met in the great-room upstairs after my briefing with first responders, the CSI team and the medical examiner. I started the conversation with the standard promise that I usually made in high-profile cases. It’s a promise I had always been able to keep up until then. In the future, I think I’ll try to remain a little less committal about things.

  “I’m Detective Anthony Marcella,” I said, “Second Precinct. I’m here to tell you that I’ve got a crack team of officers working the case downstairs, and my partner, Carlos Rodriquez, is downtown working on putting together what clues we’ve found so far. It’s only a matter of time before we catch whoever did this.”

  “That’s comforting,” said Doctor Lieberman. “I don’t mind telling you how shook up we are. Do you think we should cancel our nightly workshops until you solve this murder?”

  I pulled back from the conversation and took up sentry at the window, craning to gain sight of the activity still buzzing below. The medical examiner’s team had already removed Travis’ body, but in a town like New Castle, any concentration of police uniforms outside of The Percolator gave great cause for chatter. For that reason, I expected the crowd gathered along the sidewalk out front would stick around awhile. “No, Doctor,” I said. “That’s not necessary. My guess is that this is a random act, probably committed by some lunatic fringe cult.”

  “A cult?”

  “Sure. It’s not so crazy. The fact that someone removed the boy’s liver indicates a sacrificial ritual took place. There are many cults out there today performing blood sacrifices to Pagan gods and voodoo spirits. Even a small town like New Castle isn’t immune to such things. In some cases, these cults make their sacrifices under a full moon. And unless I’m mistaken, I believe we had a full moon last night.”

  I rolled my eyes skyward, squinting as though I might still find the moon shining bright in the company of the early morning sun. “In my experience, it’s unlikely that something this heinous will happen again soon. A ritual requiring something as important as a human liver is probably a once in lifetime event.”

  “That’s certainly true for Travis,” said Doctor Lieberman. He smiled nervously before turning away to avoid judgment for the remark. I let it go.

  “I’ll step up patrols in the neighborhood while we try to find out who did this,” I said. “In the meantime, let your workshop put it to a vote. Let them decide if they want to continue meeting or not. If you ask me, I think they’r
e safe enough.”

  “That seems reasonable,” Doctor Lowell answered, and Doctor Lieberman agreed. “Naturally, the safety of everyone in the workshop remains paramount, but the experiments are also important. Our research grants depend on their successes.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I bet they do.”

  I thanked them for their time, crossed the room, shook their hands and showed myself to the door.

  Two

  Over the next several days, the workshops met and voted in open ballots to continue meeting as usual. They conducted no experiments, and instead devoted their time to talking about and remembering their fallen friend. Barbara explained to her group how she had sensed the peril that Travis faced while she was driving home, but that she didn’t realize the warning was for him and not her. Valerie also admitted how sudden terror and phantom pains had overcome her, immobilizing her on her doorstep at the instant Travis died.

  “It’s as if he were calling out to us for help,” she surmised, “but we just couldn’t interpret the signs.”

  Doctor Lieberman empathized, noting the paradox of their situations. “You people are in a unique position to feel the pain of others,” he told them. “However, you mustn’t confuse your gift for being able to remain in spiritual touch with other souls as being your responsibility for stopping that which is clearly out of your physical control.”

  Sadly, few found solace in his words.

  It was during those first few days that my partner, Detective Carlos Rodriquez, and I interviewed everyone in Doctor Lieberman’s workshops and found no cause to suspect any of them in Travis’ murder. After several weeks, we’d run out of people to question and found ourselves no closer to finding Travis’ killer than we were on day one.

  By the time the monthly whole-group workshop rolled around, all had grown eager to work again as one group. There seemed a heightened sense of fellowship among the group combined than what existed among the group divided. Chris Walker even mentioned that at one point, suggesting they alter their schedules to include the group meeting every Sunday instead of just once a month. Doctor Lieberman promised to take the idea under advisement with Doctor Lowell and get back with an answer as soon as possible.

  Meanwhile, the experiments that night were all lively. One in particular involved the twins, Shekina and Akasha, as they tried their telepathy skills on each other.

  “Okay, gather round,” said Doctor Lieberman. “We’re going to try the Rhine twist.”

  Jean leaned in next to Lilith and whispered, “What’s the Rhine twist?”

  Lilith said, “It’s a take-off of an old ESP experiment, sort of a card-guessing game where the subject has to guess one of five symbols without looking.”

  “You mean like ink blots?”

  “Yeah, only these symbols are less abstract, like circles, squares, stars. The twist comes in the way Doctor Lieberman plays Shekina against Akasha. He has the twins sit back to back. He’ll show Shekina the card, but Akasha must guess which one it is.”

  “Why does he do it like that?”

  “To spice it up,” she said. “Only it’s my guess that the two will screw with Doctor Lieberman’s head a bit.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “Like I said, to spice it up.”

  One by one, Doctor Lieberman revealed the Rhine cards to Shekina, who then concentrated on sending a telepathic image of the card to Akasha. The results were both amazing and entertaining. Not only did Akasha correctly guess the cards an impressive ninety-nine percent of the time, but she also identified them correctly even when Shekina purposely tried to send the wrong image to her sister. They repeated this experiment several times, with Shekina and Akasha switching roles as the sender and receiver. Later, the Doctor also included Gordon Walsh in the experiment because of his telepathic abilities, and though Gordon scored well, he proved no match for the combined telepathic powers of the twins.

  During a break in experiments, Akasha approached Valerie, who had taken a seat in the corner alone. “Are you all right, Valerie?” she asked in her South African, English accent.

  Valerie snapped to attention as if suddenly awakened. “Oh yes, of course, Akasha. I’m fine.” She smiled unconvincingly. “Guess I was daydreaming.”

  “Something troubles you.”

  “No. It’s nothing.”

  “Valerie?”

  “Okay. Maybe.”

  “What is it?”

  She gave in with a shrug. “The truth is I don’t know. I have an uneasy feeling, like something bad is about to happen. I can’t explain it. I mentioned it to Barbara earlier, but she said she doesn’t feel it. I don’t know. I suppose it’s my imagination. I’m letting it run away with me. Maybe it’s because the last time we all met like this… I mean, the last group thing when we were all together—”

  Akasha put her finger to Valerie’s lips. “It’s okay. I know what you’re going to say, but I think it’s all right to feel the way you do.” She nodded across the room. “Come. I want to show you something.”

  Valerie stood. Akasha took her by the hand and escorted her to the window. She pointed to the parking lot below. “There, do you see?”

  Valerie looked down. “It’s a police cruiser.”

  “Yes. They are looking out for us. And do you know what else?”

  “What?”

  She pointed again, this time down the street. “Do you see that car, the one by the van on the corner?”

  “Yes.”

  “That is Detective Marcella. He is watching us, too. So you see there’s nothing to worry about. They’re looking out for us very well, you know?”

  Valerie forced another smile and the two parted.

  As the meeting broke up, the members all made it a point to leave the building in pairs, touting safety in numbers. It must have worked. No one died, and for that, I was grateful.

  After arriving at the institute for the Tuesday night meeting, most were surprised to learn that Leona Diaz had joined the group to work on a special experiment with Doctor Lieberman. In that experiment, he tried to help Leona bilocate using hypnosis. Past attempts had succeeded in sending Leona to places like Rome, Beijing and Mumbai. From those successes, they discovered it was possible to facilitate the process of bilocating by planting the desire to do so in Leona’s subconscious through hypnosis. It proved exciting when successful, but the experiment often met with mixed results. Though Leona was an easy subject to hypnotize, on this particular evening, the experiment did not pan out, leaving most to conclude that no surefire trigger or mechanism for stimulating such a phenomenon existed.

  Doctor Lieberman, always the first to admit just how little was known about those who bilocate, maintained that many mysteries remained concerning what happens when a subject engages in bilocation. Even Leona admitted it’s something she did not fully understand. And although that particular experiment did not yield results, Doctor Lieberman did not consider it a failure.

  “Anything one tries but does not work,” he said, in his sometimes overly studious tone, “does not mean failure. It simply eliminates another possible approach to the problem. Therefore, every experiment is a success to some degree or another. The idea is to have fun first. The learning will come naturally.”

  Such perpetual optimism often irked Valerie and Barbara. The two spent most of that evening ignoring the experiments. They worked instead on their own projects and engaged in conversations of recipes and fashions. Before they knew it, time had slipped away; the others had gone home and both soon realized that they were alone in the building. What happened next came to light in an interview I had with Valerie, and through experiments she later performed in psychometry.

  Without mentioning the obvious, the two women put on their coats, turned out the lights, hurried downstairs and stepped outside. They said goodbye on the front steps, laughed at what they were thinking and patted each other on the back. Then Barbara made a curious comment about the moon, noting how particularly large and full
it seemed. Valerie glanced skyward just quickly enough to take note, but did not offer a reply. She hurried across the parking lot, fumbling through her purse for her keys and cursing herself for not having them out before leaving the building. She found them in a side pocket of her purse, and struggled to steady her shaking hands as she managed the key into the lock. The key slipped in. The door opened. She entered hastily. Once inside, she shut the door, locked it and started the engine.

  After seeing that Barbara had safely entered her vehicle as well, she put her car into gear, backed out, dropped it into drive and punched the gas. Her tires spun in a cloud of blue and white smoke as she hit the street. By then, the overwhelming sense of doom had returned stronger than ever, and she believed that nothing short of getting away from the research center would make that feeling disappear. With every mile, a measurable level of comfort returned, and with determination and a heavy foot those miles quickly added up.

  It probably wouldn’t have mattered, fate being what it is, but as she sped off in haste, Valerie failed to notice something crucial. Her thoughtfulness kept her in the parking lot long enough to make sure that Barbara had gotten into her car safely. However, in putting so much distance between her and the research center so quickly, she didn’t notice that Barbara hadn’t pulled out behind her.

  As her decades-old driving ritual demanded, Barbara sat in her car performing a pre-drive checklist, one she completed every time she got behind the wheel. Priority one on the list was to lock the doors, which she did. Next, a series of equipment checks that her father taught her to perform when she first learned to drive. Starting from left to right and always in the same sequence; release parking brake, turn off directional, dome light, radio, depress clutch, shift transmission into neutral and start engine. The last thing on her list before shifting into gear was to adjust the rearview mirror. This step was not on her father’s list, but then her father never moved the mirror to check his make-up when he arrived at his destination.