The Witch's Ladder Read Online Free Page A

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