Green Eyes

  As she wheeled him toward the house, Donnell felt strangely satisfied, as if some plaguing question had been put to rest. The fireflies pricking the dark, the scrape of Jocundra’s shoes, the insect noises, everything formed an intricate complement to his thoughts, a relationship he could not grasp but wanted to make graspable, to write down. Near the house another moth fluttered into his face, and he wondered - his wonder tinged with revulsion - if they were being attracted by the flickers in his eyes. He pinched its wings together and held it up for Jocundra’s inspection.

  ‘It’s a luna moth,’ she said. ‘There was this old man back home, a real Cajun looney. He’s blind now, or partially blind, but he used to keep thousands of luna moths in his back room and study their wing patterns. He claimed they revealed the natural truth.’ She shook her head, regretful, and added in a less enthusiastic voice, ‘Clarence Brisbeau.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Donnell loosed the moth and it skittered off, vanishing against the coal-black crowns of the oaks.

  ‘I was just remembering. He scared me once. He got drunk and tried to kiss me. I was only thirteen, and he must have been almost sixty.’ She stared after the moth as if she could still see it. ‘It was spooky. Stripes of light were shining between the boards of the cabin, dead moths on the floor, thousands clinging to the walls. Every time he gestured they fluttered off his arms. I remember him walking toward me, dripping moths, talking.’ She adopted an accent, like French, but with harsher rhythms. ‘“I’m tellin’ you, me,” he said. “This worl’ she’s full of supernatural creatures whose magic we deny.”’

  Chapter 5

  March 25 - April 17, 1987

  ‘Now don’t laugh, but I’ve been thinking about our patients in terms of spirit possession.’ Dr Edman folded his hands across his stomach and leaned back; the leather chair wheezed.

  Jocundra was sitting across a mahogany desk from Edman in his office: a curious round room whose roof was the glass dome. Shafts of the declining sun struck through the faceted panes, and dust motes swirled idly like the thoughts of a crystal-skulled giant. Recessed bookshelves ringed the room - you entered by means of a stair leading up through a trapdoor - and the volumes were mired in shadow; though now and then the light brightened, crept lower on the walls, and the odd gilt word melted up from the dimness: Witchcraft, Psychologica, Pathology. A chart of the brain was tacked up over a portion of the shelves, and Edman had scribbled crabbed notes along arrows pointing to various of the fissures. The shelf behind his head held an array of dusty, yellowed human crania, suggesting to Jocundra that he was the latest in a succession of psychologist-kings, and that his own brain case would someday join those of his predecessors.

  ‘During a voodoo ritual,’ Edman continued, ‘the celebrants experience tremors, convulsions, and begin to exhibit a different class of behaviors than previously. They may, for example, show a fondness for gazing into mirrors or eating a particular food, and the houngan then identifies these behaviors as aspects belonging to one of the gods.’

  ‘There is a rough analogue…’ Jocundra began.

  ‘Bear with me a moment!’ Edman waggled a finger, summoning a thought. ‘I prefer to regard this so-called spirit possession as the emergence of the deep consciousness. A rather imprecise term, easily confused with Jung-ian terminology, but generally indicative of what I’m after: the raw force of the identity to which all the socialized and otherwise learned behaviors adhere, barna-cling it with fears and logical process and so forth, gradually masking it from the light and relegating it to a murky existence in the…’ He smacked his head, as if to dislodge an idea. ‘Ah! In the abyss of forethought.’ He scribbled on his notepad, beaming at Jocundra. ‘That ought to wake up the back rows at the next convention.’ He leaned back again. ‘My thesis is that we’re stimulating spirit possession by microbiological means rather than hypnogogic ones, elevating the deep consciousness to fill the void created by the dissipation of learned behaviors. But instead of allowing this new and unfocused identity to wander about at will for a few hours, we educate and guide it. And instead of a houngan or a mama loi to simply proclaim the manifestation, we utilize trained personnel to maximize their potential, to influence their growth. Of course if we had a mama loi on the staff, she’d say we had conjured up a god.’ He chuckled. ‘See what I’m after?’

  ‘It’s hardly a scholarly viewpoint.’ Jocundra found the idea of playing voodoo priestess to Donnell’s elemental spirit appealing in the manner of a comic book illustration.