Jttkkelle

Kemmbers
in

and Lawrence Pazdei. m.D.

NELSON / CANADA
Copyright © 1980 by Michelle Smith and Lawrence Pazder
All Rights Reserved
ISBN 17-601460-8

Originally published in the United States in 1980 by Congdon & Lattes, Inc.

Published in Canada by Nelson Canada Limited, 1980

Printed and bound in the United States of America

FIRST EDITION
To all who have the heart to hear

the cries of children

and the courage to stand up for them.

 contents

Statement of Pope Paul VI, November 15, igy2 ix

Comment of Remi De Roo, Bishop of the Diocese

of Victoria, British Columbia, September 28, 1977 ix

A Note from the Publisher xi

Foreword xv

Prologue xvii

Parti 3

Part II 199

Epilogue 293

Appendices 299

Acknowledgements 309

vn
 STATEMENT OF POPE PAUL VI, NOVEMBER 15, 1972:

Evil is an effective agent, a living spiritual being, perverted and pervert-

ing. A terrible reality. One of the greatest needs is defense from the
evil which is called the Devil.
The question of the Devil and the influence he can exert on individ-
ual persons as well as on communities, whole societies, or events, is very
important. It should be studied again.

COMMENT OF REMI DE ROO, BISHOP OF THE DIOCESE OF VICTORIA,

BRITISH COLUMBIA, ON SEPTEMBER 28, 1977:

The Church is well aware of the existence of mysterious and evil

forces in the world. Each person who has had an experience of evil
imagines Satan in a slightly different way, but nobody knows precisely
what this force of evil looks like.

I do not question that for Michelle this experience was real. In time
we will know how much of it can be validated. It will require prolonged
and careful study. In such mysterious matters, hasty conclusions could
prove unwise.
It may well be that for people today, to hear this message coming
from a five-year-old child is of particular significance.

IX
 a note from the publisher

ROM my
4/r. first meeting with Michelle Smith and
Lawrence Pazder, I knew that their book would be not only important
but also unusual. I felt that as readers began it they would want

information about the authors and the writing of the book.

Dr. Pazder's credentials are impressive. He obtained his M.D. from
the University of Alberta in 1961; his diploma in tropical medicine
from the University of Liverpool in 1962; and, in 1968, his specialist

certificate in psychiatry and his diploma in psychological medicine

from McGill University. In 1971 he was made a fellow of Canada's
Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons. He is a member of three
Canadian professional associations and of the American Psychiatric
Association as well. He practiced medicine in West Africa and has
participated in medical task forces and health organizations. He has
been chairman of the Mental Health Committee of the Health Plan-
ning Council for British Columbia. A member of the staff of two
hospitals in Victoria, British Columbia —
the Royal Jubilee and the
Victoria General —he is in private practice with a group of five psychia-

trists. His professional papers include a study of the long-term effects

of stress upon concentration-camp victims.
Two experienced interviewers journeyed to Victoria and talked to
Dr. Pazder's colleagues, to the priests and the bishop who became
involved in the case, to doctors who treated Michelle Smith when she
was a child, to relatives and friends. From local newspaper, clergy, and
police sources they learned that reports of Satanism in Victoria are not

\xi\
 Michelle Remembers [ xii ]

infrequent and that Satanism has apparently existed there for many
years.
The source material was scrutinized. The many thousands of pages
of transcript of the tape recordings that Dr. Pazder and Mrs. Smith
made of their psychiatric sessions were read and digested; they became
the basis of this book. The tapes themselves were listened to in good
measure, and the videotapes made of some
were viewed.
of the sessions
Both the audio and the video are powerfully convincing. It is nearly
unthinkable that the protracted agony they record could have been
fabricated.
In the course of preparing the book, both doctor and patient were
interviewed at great length —taken back over the story again and again.
Their account varied only in small, occasional details. Michelle's dis-

tress during these retellings, the fresh pain they obviously inflicted on
her, seemed to indicate that this was not some fantasy concocted for
commercial gain. Indeed, the authors' relentless insistence on adher-
ence to the transcript and on understatement, both in the text and in
the presentation of the book (the jacket text, the advertising, and so
forth), was hardly the mark of the charlatan.
I first met the authors two years ago and have had much contact
with them. During the final stages of the editing of the manuscript, the
authors came to New York and for nearly a month lived in my own
home —shared meals with my family, sometimes talked long into the
night with us. We came to know them well, in a way one does not come
to know someone over the phone or in the office. Even my normally
skeptical teen-agers found Michelle Smith and Larry Pazder the most
decent and modest and genuine of people.
Along with Dr. Pazder and the Church officials who know her so
well, I believe that Michelle is not a hysteric, not even a neurotic. She
seems She appears to be one of those
as clear as a glass of well water.
rare people, like Joan of Arc and Bernadette, whose authority and
authenticity are such that they can tell you things that would otherwise
be laughable — yet you do not laugh, you do not dismiss or forget.

Though the names in the byline are those whose experience the
book relates, the book is not written in the first person. It was decided
 Michelle Remembers [ xiii ]

that third person was the best way to convey this story — that since it

was two persons' story, Dr. Pazder's as well as Michelle's, an "I"

narrator would be awkward and limiting. Writing assistance was pro-
vided, but the book is principally the work of Mrs. Smith and Dr.
Pazder. Their transcript, which consists purely of their own words, is
the fundamental source material. Most important, the conceptualiza-
tion of the book — its tone, its level, its structure, its emphases is —
entirely theirs. Invariably they understood their own book better than
any of us who were privileged to work with them.

Thomas B. Congdon, Jr.

New York
April 22, 1980
 foreword

To be with human beings during their struggles and discoveries is an

experience that gives much to the psychotherapist. Both Michelle's
struggles and her discoveries were of a magnitude far greater than that
of most patients, and so were the rewards for me. It was my privilege
to witness as she risked the abyss, venturing far beyond her normal
memory pool, her imaginings, fantasies, and dreams, to somewhere at
the very core of her being. Perhaps it was what Jungians call the "base
of the psyche/' the meeting ground of our ancestral past and our
present, the source of myth and symbol, the juncture of mind and body,
heart and soul. Most have touched it only for fleeting moments; Mi-
chelle visited it for hundreds of hours. There, acting with the courage
that Rollo May says allows us to move in spite of despair, she grappled
with the polarities of life and death, love and hate, light and dark, good
and evil.

She unearthed and relived fourteen months of her past in astonish-

ing detail. Her deeply buried memories, virtually untouched for twenty-
two years, surfaced with a purity that phenomenon in itself. What
is a
she brought forth provides an understanding of how a child survives,
one that seems more profound than modern psychology's emphasis on
the effects of victimization. Her achievement —
the psychological te-
nacity of a five-year-old child in the face of sheer madness — will con-
front and inform many generations.

—Lawrence Padzer, M.D., F.R.C.P.(C)

[XV]
 prologue

z.HE tiny, two-passenger elevator lined with red

Smith up
velvet was slowly ascending, carrying Michelle to the resi-
dence of Sergio Cardinal Pignedoli. It was the fifth of February 1978,

and she had been in Rome for two weeks, she and her friends, knocking
on the door of every Vatican official who would listen, seeking an
audience for the shocking yet inspiring story they had brought some
ten thousand miles, from the far side of Canada. Crammed into the
little elevator with her was Dr. Lawrence Pazder, the psychiatrist who
had been the first to hear the story, which had poured forth during a
long and agonizing year. Tall, blue-eyed, and tanned even in February,
Dr. Pazder took Michelle's hand and squeezed it, as he had so many
times before when reassurance was needed.
Two other companions were below, in the cardinal's anteroom,
waiting for their turn in the elevator. One was Father Guy Merveille,
the elegant, black-browed priest to whom Michelle and Dr. Pazder had
turned when it became clear that her experience had ramifications far
beyond the bounds of psychiatry. The other was his bishop, Remi De
Roo, Roman Catholic bishop of the Diocese of Victoria, British Co-
lumbia. Skeptical at first, resistant to Michelle's story, De Roo had
become sympathetic to her and impressed by her and had insisted that
her experience required study. He had agreed that Father Merveille
accompany Michelle to Rome, to bring her story to the attention of
the highest Church officials, and he had given the priest a letter of
introduction. "Father Merveille," he wrote, "has been entrusted with

[ xvii ]
 Michelle Remembers [ xviii ]

an important and confidential task, the nature of which I have carefully

appraised and of which I hereby approve. I will personally appreciate

every consideration afforded to Father Merveille in the pursuit of his

task." Eventually, to deal with a matter of protocol, De Roo himself
had flown to Rome.
As the elevator rose, Michelle thought back on the year of painful
discovery she had gone through in Dr. Pazder's office and beyond —
that, twenty-two years beyond that, to the extraordinary, nearly incred-

ible events in her childhood. That was the trouble. Those events were,
indeed, nearly incredible. Would the cardinal believe her? Or would
he send her away?
The elevator doors rattled open and there, to greet his guests, was
Sergio Cardinal Pignedoli, Pro-President of the Secretariat for Non-
Christian Religions. He was a short, vigorous man, bald, with a fringe
of white around his head, and with expressive features, like those of a
veteran character actor. A prominent and powerful Vatican official, he
was widely considered to have good chance of becoming Pope some-
a
day. While they waited for Bishop De Roo and Father Guy, Michelle
peered into the cardinal's private study. Gorgeous paintings in heavy
gold frames. Cases and shelves full of dark-bound books. And photo-
graphs everywhere, of the cardinal with the various dignitaries he had
dealt with in decades of official travel.
They had been invited for breakfast. Breakfast, it turned out, was
tea and almond cookies amaretti — served by nuns. The conversation
began as the bishop introduced the case in brief and then asked Mi-
chelle to speak for herself.As she spoke she saw the cardinal's mobile
facebecome grave and then angry. "Impossible!" he interrupted. "I
know Canada. It is a civilized country. These things could not happen
there."
Michelle, taken aback, began to cry. But she did not retreat. She
kept talking, insistently conveying to the cardinal the personal odyssey
that had first appalled and then persuaded, one by one, the three
companions who had come with her from Canada. In time, and after
many cups of tea, Cardinal Pignedoli became less irritable than con-
cerned, less grave than absorbed —the change in attitude was clear in

his expressions and in his tone of voice as he questioned her. At the

 Michelle Remembers [ xix }

end he turned to Bishop De Roo and said: "So this is what you meant.
Now I see. You are right. This is serious. This is a matter that will

require our most careful attention."

Michelle's heart leapt. She had become well versed in the basics of
Vatican procedure, and she knew that when a cardinal expresses such
a sentiment, it was as good Three days later Archbishop
as done.
Domenico Enrici, the papal appointee from the Vatican Secretary of
State, called Bishop De Roo to his office adjacent to the Pope's cham-
bers. He asked the bishop to undertake a study of Michelle Smith's
testimony.
At last there would be ears to hear the remarkable things Michelle
had remembered.
PARTI
 eltapter I

UTORIA, the capital of British Columbia, is a

jewel of a city, a tidy metropolis on the edge of the Pacific that in its
primness seems more English than Canadian. Baskets of flowers hang
from its ornate lampposts. Its Parliament Building is outlined with
thousands of tiny lights at night, a conceit that would have pleased the
good Queen for whom the city was named. Oceangoing yachts tie up
in front of the ivy-covered Empress Hotel downtown. Schools of whales
frolic offshore. And the air blowing in from the sea is fresh and crisp.
Many Canadians consider Victoria a modern Garden of Eden. Not so
farfetched a notion-if one recalls that there was a serpent in the
Garden of Eden.
On Fort Street in Victoria is the Fort Royal Medical Centre, a
four-story building with shops on the first floor and, on the second floor,
offices belonging to five psychiatrists. Ten years ago, finding themselves
congenial professionally, the five had gotten together to share facilities
and insights. A founding member of this group was Lawrence Pazder,
who had studied psychiatry at McGill University and was a fellow of
the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons. A handsome man in his
early forties, Dr. Pazder was warm, manly, soft-spoken-what people
who live elsewhere consider the typical Westerner. He was lithe and
athletic, a tennis player and skier, and had earned a brown belt in judo.
His hair was brown, beginning to turn silver. On the midsummer day
m 1976 when the receptionist of the Fort Royal Medical Centre

[3 ]
 Michelle Remembers [4 ]
buzzed him to report a call from Dr. John McCracken, there was far
less silver than there soon would be.
Dr. McCracken was a general practitioner in Victoria. 'Tm calling
about Michelle Smith," he told Dr. Pazder. 'Tve had to hospitalize
her. She's having some trouble with bleeding. She had a miscarriage
six weeks ago and despite repeated D&Cs and medication, she contin­
ues to hemorrhage. Not only that, but her grief over the miscarriage
is extremely severe and persistent. I'm beginning to think the problem
isn't just physiological but that there's some sort of psychogenic aspect.
That's why I called you."
"It sounds pretty upsetting. Did you talk to her about my coming
in to see her?" Dr. Pazder asked.
"Yes, I did. In fact, she encouraged me to call. I know about the
work you did with her before and I'd be grateful for your opinion."
\Vhat neither doctor then knew was that Michelle, the night be­
fore, had been moved into the hospital ward in which her mother had
died of cancer. Michelle had panicked and had felt she was dying too.
The next morning she had asked Dr. McCracken to call Dr. Pazder.
The psychiatrist was shocked when he saw Michelle. A pretty
young woman of twenty-seven, with a heart-shaped face, a delicate
mouth, and bountiful brown curls, she had been vital and bright the
last time he had seen her-four months before, when she and her
husband, Doug, had brought some salmon he'd caught to Dr. Pazder
and his wife. But now the face was as pale as the pillowcase, and the
big brown eyes were full of tears.
She told him then about being in the ward where her mother had
died-by now she had been moved again-and she confessed her
apprehension about the bleeding. He allowed her to cry, to say what
she felt, and at the end of the visit she smiled faintly and told him she
supposed she'd survive. When he returned the next day, however,
though her color was improved, she still seemed distressed, and after
some gentle probing he encouraged her to tell him what was troubling
her.
"I had a dream last week," she said, her lips beginning to tremble.
It was clear to Dr. Pazder that this was no ordinary dream.
"A bad dream?
 Michelle Remembers [S ]
"Yes ...a very bad dream."
"That can be pretty frightening-a really bad dream.Do you want
to tell me about it?"
It was ten minutes before she could bring it forth.
"I dreamed that I had an itchy place on my hand ..."
"Yes?"
"And when I scratched it,all these bugs came out of where I was
scratching it! Little spiders,just pouring out of the skin on my hand.
It was just-I can't even tell you how it was. It was so terrible."
As a psychiatrist Dr.Pazder had learned how to listen to dreams
-to gauge the emotional tone, to pick up the reference points, to
discern just how serious the dream was.This one was nightmarish,but
it was more than that,it was blatantly symbolic. It connected subcon­
sciously to something very important; he was sure of that. There was
perhaps something wrong about the pregnancy and her acceptance of
it-there had to be something on that order to produce a dream like
this.
"It was really,really frightening," Michelle said earnestly,searching
Dr.Pazder's face for any sign that he might think the dream too bizarre
or consider her crazy.
"I can hear that it was," Dr.Pazder replied."Dreams like that have
a tremendous force,sometimes.They can be very hard to shake.If it's
okay with you,I'd like you to come and see me when you leave the
hospital,and we'll spend a little time talking about it.What we need
to do is find out what the dream is revealing from the inside.I think
that's important."
Michelle readily agreed,dearly relieved to see his concern. She well
knew how helpful Dr. Pazder could be. She had first come to him in
1973,while a student at the University of Victoria,impelled by prob­
lems that were rooted in her family background and upbringing.
Her grandfather,Cyrus Gilbert,* had left England shortly after the
turn of the century.No one knew exactly why.It may have been simply
because there was more opportunity in Canada,and he was a younger
son.He settled in British Columbia,where he prospered. When Mi-
*Cyrus Gilbert and Jessica and Eric Harding are not real names.
 Michelle Remembers [ 6]

chelle was a schoolgirl, she was aware that her grandfather was a
wealthy and important man.
Gilbert was over forty when his daughter Jessica, Michelle's
mother, was born. Possessive, domineering, a tyrant, he stifled Jessica,

and she rebelled, running off at eighteen to marry the first man who
asked her. The marriage, a disaster, lasted only a few months.
Jessica World War II and went to live in
married again after
Victoria, on Vancouver new husband, Eric Harding,
Island, with her
a highly successful sales representative. Some ten years older than

Jessica, Harding resembled her father in many ways. He had the same
kind of virile good looks, and he was every bit as domineering as his
father-in-law.
Jessica gave birth to a little girl. The Hardings had wanted a boy
and had his name all picked out, Michael Donald Harding. Disap-
pointed, they called the baby Michelle. They often spoke of how much
they had hoped she would be a boy. The birth was apparently very
disturbing for Jessica. She became emotionally exhausted, and devel-
oped medical complications. The child was taken away and lived with
the grandparents for the first six months of her life. The strain on the
maternal bonds was perhaps very great.
Michelle herself was an active, healthy child with a mind of her
own. She had a fresh, natural beauty, a sunny, open nature, an easy
smile, and trusting eyes.
Her parents' marriage was a stormy one. There were nights when
her father erupted in drunken rages and beat her mother. Michelle
used to cower in her bed, frightened that he might kill her mother,
feeling that she had knowing that she could not. There
to stop him,
were long periods when he disappeared from the scene, and Michelle
welcomed those times.
During those absences her mother was more loving, no longer
sharply impatient. There might be a hug for a skinned knee, a good-
night kiss, perhaps even freshly pressed ribbons for Michelle's stubby
braids. And stories. Jessica, when she was at her best, would spend
hours telling Michelle about Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella and
Hansel and Gretel. Michelle thought she had the best and prettiest
mother in the world; as for Jessica, she sometimes seemed more dis-
 Michelle Remembers [7]

concerted than pleased by her little daughter's open admiration.

Michelle attended school in Victoria where she did well, except for
her multiplication tables. And there was one small problem: She ate
erasers, the headmistress reported. One day Michelle was sent home
from school when they discovered she had stolen a whole box of erasers
from the supply closet. She could not explain why she had stolen them.
Her world fell apart when she was fourteen. Her mother died quite
suddenly of cancer, and her father disappeared, relinquishing custody
of Michelle to Jessica's parents. She never saw her father again. Her
grandfather sent her away to a Roman Catholic boarding school. As
one of the few non-Catholic students, she was not obliged to attend
religious studies or chapel. This made her feel like an outsider. Al­
though the nuns were consistently gentle and understanding with her,
it was a time of great loneliness. A few months later, her grandmother
died, and within the year her two remaining grandparents died. For all
intents and purposes, Michelle was alone in the world. When the time
came for university, she put herself through with the aid of a scholar­
ship and a number of part-time jobs.
At the university she majored in psychology and, reflecting on her
childhood, she began to realize that with a violent, alcoholic father in
her past and a passive, somewhat distant mother, she ran the risk of
falling into unwholesome patterns and repeating their problems. She
wanted to avoid that, to break the cycle, and so she consulted a psychia­
trist, Lawrence Pazder. She liked him immediately, partly because he
looked nothing like her idea of a psychiatrist. His style was slacks and
a sweater, his manner open and friendly, in contrast to the pinstripes
and wingtips and careful reserve that characterized many in his profes­
sion. And Dr. Pazder liked Michelle. He was impressed by her ability
to articulate her problems clearly and genuinely. Rarely had he seen a
patient so motivated.
She told him she had a collection of minor problems-fear of
airplanes; fear of spiders; fear of being alone. She sensed she had
over-idealized her mother and that her grief over her mother's death
was disproportionate and still largely unresolved. She wanted to marry
and have children, she said, and she didn't want to pass problems on
to them.
 Michelle Remembers [ 8 ]

Doctor and patient set to work, one appointment a week. As they

went deeper and deeper into Michelle's background, Dr. Pazder saw
how truly horrific her early life had been. Deep psychotherapy was
needed, and the endeavor extended over four years. Diligently they
worked through the problems. At the end, both of them were pleased
with the strides she had made. True, they had never been able to
understand why she used to eat erasers, but that hardly seemed to call

for further psychotherapy.

During this time Michelle became engaged to Doug Smith, a

stalwart and bearded young Viking from Nova Scotia. Dr. Pazder went
to their wedding. Later, they sometimes visited socially and talked
about the young couple's progress in remodeling a house they had
bought near Shawnigan Lake, some thirty miles from Victoria. It was
going to be a cedar-and-glass dream house on the edge of the forest,

with skylights to frame the moon and the stars. They all spoke of the
time when there would be children romping through the house, filling

it with laughter.
And now there had been the miscarriage. The bleeding had stopped
soon after Dr. Pazder's hospital visits, but deeper wounds seemed to
remain. Early in September Michelle once again climbed the steps to
the second-floor offices of the Fort Royal Medical Centre. Once again
she was greeted by Susan Austin, receptionist for the psychiatric group,
and once again was waved toward the door of the familiar office. There
it was —
all just the same. The gold carpet, the turquoise-plaid sofa, the

Danish sidechairs covered with black Naugahyde. At the far end of the
room was a thick rubber mat, covered in green burlap, for body-release
techniques; if a patient wanted to get angry, he could pound and kick
as hard as he wanted without disturbing the customers in the beauty
parlor downstairs. There was no desk, just two coffee tables, one of
which bore the doctor's telephone and his various folders and papers.
In this visit and the half dozen that followed, Dr. Pazder saw that
Michelle did not want to play up the terrible dream, and, taking the
cue, he did not emphasize it either. He just let her talk. With her usual
openness she described the growing pains of her new marriage. As she
talked, he took the opportunity, when it arose, to treat her grief over
the miscarriage. Most women who miscarry, he said, fear that it is
 Michelle Remembers [ g ]

somehow their own fault — that there is something wrong with them,
whereas, he said, 25 percent of babies conceived are in fact lost. After
several sessions Michelle seemed to be able to accept this reassurance
but at the same time to be in great frustration.

'There's still something bothering me," she said. "I still feel

blocked. We talk about the things I think are the problems, and then
I go home and spend half the night . . . wishing I could. ... I know
there's something I want to tell you, but I don't know what it is!"

Dr. Pazder was surprised. In his previous work with her, Michelle
had had the remarkable facility to open up, in an hour's session, to tell
him what the problem was, deal with it, and gain ground. But here,
something was really troubling her and she couldn't provide a clue.
T sit up at night wishing I could write you a letter," she continued.
"I actually try to write the letter ... to put it down on paper. ... I

could write so hard that my pencil would rip the paper. But then I look
at what I've written and there's nothing there, just slash marks with

the pencil."
She suddenly took Dr. Pazder's hand in both of hers and squeezed
it desperately hard. He was astounded. Dr. Pazder himself was quite

at home with touching; he had been reared in a warm and tactile

family, with plenty of hugging and kissing, and in his work he freely
offered an arm around a shoulder, if someone seemed to need comfort-
ing, or his big warm hand if an anxious patient reached out to him. It

was part of his personal and professional style and that of several other
members of the group. But Michelle hadn't asked for that type of
reassurance during the four years of sessions. Now she was clutching
his hand and shaking it.

"I know there's something there," she said, beginning to cry. "And
it's important — I know it's important!"
She reminded the doctor of a pressure cooker with a blocked valve.
There was high heat underneath it. It was boiling hard. The steam had
to burst out, or else the vessel would explode.
"I'm really worried," she said, sobbing now. "I keep wondering
what's happening to me. I thought I had resolved things in my life, and
now I'm feeling this pressure that is so much worse than any pressure
I've ever felt before."
 Michelle Remembers [10]

Over the next weeks Dr. Pazder tried everything, but all the normal
ways they had worked together were of no value now. The pressure
grew more and more intense. Whatever it was, though it was uniden-
tifiable, it was real, he could "read" it, it was there. He was stymied.

He considered himself a very thorough therapist, not the kind who pats
the patient on the back and says, "You're fine," or "Take these pills

and you'll feel better." He felt that in the earlier four-year analysis he
had dealt with all the issues of any significance. During her therapy,
he had been impressed with the unusual detailand consistency of her
childhood memories. They had traced all the threads and unraveled all
the knots. How could they have missed a matter of such apparent
consequence?
There was nothing to do but look again — to review what they had
previously covered, to take inventory, to see if they'd missed something.
As they did, he listened very carefully to see if anything was triggered.
Nothing was triggered. Nothing was of any help at all. And still the
incredible, overwhelming pressure to divulge . . .

—
Then, in mid-October, came the rash an angry red irritation that
spread across Michelle's usually unblemished face. It was like none he
had ever seen before, a very specific rash, sharply patterned. There was
no explanation for it. But, thought Dr. Pazder, the rash was surely
saying something, loud and clear.
"I'll tell you what," he said, realizing that he was about to go farther

than he usually did with a patient. He firmly believed that problems

should be solved during the office sessions, and that the psychiatrist
who allowed a patient to break into his schedule or into his private life

was risking the development of an unhealthy manipulation of doctor

by patient. But Michelle was different, and her plight was alarming. He
told her seriously, "I'll be available. If things get really bad, give me
a call. I'll make time for you right away."

That day, three hours after she had left the medical center with
tears in her eyes, Michelle found herself down at the waterfront; she
was in was parked. Across the Juan de Fuca Strait the
her car, and it

snow-covered Olympic Range glowed rosily in the sunset.

"What's the matter with me?" She stared at the water without
 Michelle Remembers [ 11 ]

seeing it. "He's trying to help me. I know he is. Why can't Ihim?tell

I want to tell him. It's important. My whole life depends on it. But
I don't know what it is I have to tell him."
She put her head down on the steering wheel and cried until she
had no more tears. It was dark and cold. Time to drive back to Shawni-
gan Lake. Doug would be worrying about her. She had better stop to
telephone him before leaving Victoria.

Four days later, Dr. Pazder received a call from Michelle. "I was
home this morning doing my usual things," she said, "watering my

plants, and all of a sudden it was just like something 'fit' inside. The
pressure went! And I was ready."
then I knew
"That's a relief, want to hear about it."
Michelle. I

"I don't know what I'm going to say," she went on, excitement in

her voice, "but I know I'll be able to tell you."

Dr. Pazder gave her an appointment that same day. When she
arrived, he received still another surprise: She was wearing black, all

black —black blouse and black pants. He had never seen her wear black
before. He quickly dismissed the thought of asking her about the
clothing. That would be pushing it. But it seemed an unmistakable sign
to him that something was up. So did her demeanor. She was somber
— ready. Her eyes were right there, he thought, and her manner was
serious. No small talk. She was like a high diver standing at the edge
of the board on tiptoes, just at the moment when everything was in
balance, the equipoise before a swift, sure motion. She had somehow
gotten over the barrier.
"Do you mind if I lie on the sofa?" she asked.
She had never lain down on the sofa before. It was as if the mere
act of sitting would be a distraction for her and that only by lying down
could she concentrate.
—
But Michelle was not ready not quite yet. She looked straight up
at the ceiling,and after a few minutes she began to fidget, the way a
child might. Then her eyes grew very wide, just staring. And in her eyes
Dr. Pazder saw a look he could only describe as frozen terror. As though
she had just seen fifty people murdered.
She said nothing, and neither did he. For twenty minutes she lay
 Michelle Remembers [ 12 ]

there, the look of terror never diminishing. Then her breathing became
difficult, and rasping. Her mouth began to tighten and her lips
short
turned white. At last her eyes closed, and then she started to rub at her
eyes and her mouth, as if trying to brush away cobwebs.
Through years of working with people Dr. Pazder had developed
his sensitivities to the point where he could "hear" tears in a patient's
voice several minutes before the tears started; where he could detect
a scream coming long before it came; where he could distinguish the

terror that was real — so real one could feel the chill. He was feeling the
chill as he looked at Michelle. This was for real.
He guessed that she wasn't going to be able to say anything until
she knew how he was going She couldn't take the chance that
to react.
he wasn't going to take it almost an hour
as seriously as she did. After
he decided she perhaps needed to come back up out of it, so that she
could see his reactions.
"It's okay," he said soothingly. "I can see that something is really,

really frightening. That's okay. You can tell me about it. I want to hear
it. And I'm really happy that
enough so you can talk to me,
it's close
because you're going to feel better when you do."
Michelle's eyes fluttered and then opened. Dr. Pazder waited until
her expression softened, and then he went on gently. "I think it's
important that we don't leave this for the next appointment. We can't
just leave you like this. Let's see. Tomorrow's Saturday, but that's all
right, I don't have much planned. If you can, I think it's very important
that we work on this tomorrow."
"Thank God," Michelle whispered. "I was so afraid you wouldn't
understand."

At home that evening, Dr. Pazder thought about the session with
Michelle. It was unnerving to witness that degree of terror, and for so
long. Not that he was afraid for Michelle. The only way people were
really helped, he believed, was to allow them to go into their feelings.

He welcomed the fact that Michelle was able at least to begin to touch
the terror. Most people who are afraid just stay there, locked in fear.
Michelle was not only touching it, she was also immersed in it —which
in turn told him that there was an immense amount of fear there.
 Michelle Remembers [ 13 }

Why? What had caused it? Nothing that they knew from her past
could explain it.

He had the strongest sense that he and Michelle were about to

embark on something significant. He telephoned her and asked if she
minded if he brought his tape recorder the next day. "I don't usually
tape my sessions," he said, "but I think that if whatever there is inside
you is strong enough to cause that much pressure, we should record it.
If you don't feel comfortable with it, we can stop and erase what we've

recorded. It's yours, so that would be okay."

"I don't mind the tape recorder," Michelle said.
"Another reason is that I don't think I should be taking notes by
hand. I feel I should be totally there with you, completely available to
you."
"I'm glad of that. I think I'm going to need you."
"But it's going to be all right, I want you to know that. I'll be with
you all the time, hearing every word, every sound, every feeling. It's sort

of like going back to a haunted house. You can't go back all alone
because it scared you before, too much, and all you'd have would be
the same person you had before —
yourself. If you're going back to a
haunted house, you've got to have someone you trust go with you,
someone you know it's safe with."
"It's safe with you. I feel very safe with you. But it's so hor-
rible. ..."
"Don't think of that tonight. What's important is that this time,
you've got someone to go with. That's what the psychiatric journey is

all about."
 chapter 2

w. HEN Michelle came back the next morning, she

seemed very quiet and somewhat apprehensive. She and Dr. Pazder
exchanged a few words and then she went over to the couch and lay
down. She could not seem to get comfortable at first, but finally she
propped one of the pillows behind her back. That seemed to be better.
It was as if she needed to have her back protected.

Dr. Pazder moved his chair next to the couch and quietly turned
on the tape recorder.
Michelle fidgeted with her fingers and then began talking about a
subject familiar to both of them from the therapy years before.
"I was going to try to talk about my weight a bit," she began,*
"because up until the last three weeks I'd been able to keep it under
control. You know —
normal. Just normal eating habits. But the last
three weeks, it's compulsive ... I was thinking last night, I was trying
to think about when I first started, you know, gaining weight and things
like that. I was thin at the start of Grade 1. Really thin. And by the

time I was in Grade 2, I was a blimp. And my mother up until then

had really a nice figure."
Dr. Pazder recognized the possibility that some family crisis at that
time had triggered a sudden gain in weight. It was common that whole
families would abruptly become obese when confronted by a problem

*This dialogue and similar dialogue in this book, as well as the indented material,
are taken nearly verbatim from the transcript of the tape recordings made during the
fourteen months of psychiatric sessions.

[is]
 Michelle Remembers [16]

affecting them all. He asked Michelle if she was saying that her mother
had become heavier then too.
"Yes, until then she never had a weight problem, ever. When I

think about being overweight I just get in knots. It really makes me

uptight. So, I thought, 'Well, maybe I'll figure it out sooner or later,

right?' I don't know. . . . Somehow it's connected with being small. Like
there's something back then that is really bugging me, something that's
unresolved. ... I don't know what to call it, a block or whatever. I don't
know what to say about it, it bothers me so much. It makes me feel
very nervous. I don't know what to talk about. So many things go
through my mind that it's just scattered. . .
."

Michelle had been sighing frequently, Dr. Pazder noticed, and now
the pace of her breathing was increasing.
"You see, I hoped . . . this is the most frustrating part of the whole
business. See, it's so hard to put into words. It's so hard to tell you how
I felt then." Michelle was beginning to cry. "You see, there's some-
thing in there to do with being ugly. I was ugly. I was! Oh, I got to
put it into words. ... I don't . . . it's all bits and pieces, like ... it keeps,
I ... it seems dumb but I can't talk about it." She stopped, then
continued.
"Can you come here, please? You don't have to touch me. Not too
close. want you a little bit closer than you were. I can't talk to
I just

you about it. My arms ... my arms it's like they're moving by . . .

themselves and I can't help it!"

. . .

"It's all right," Dr. Pazder said. "Let them go, let your arms do

whatever they have to do. Don't hold anything back."

"Can you promise me something?" Michelle asked, eyes wide.
"Can you promise me that when this is all over, we'll be able to put
the pieces together? They feel so far apart. Promise?"
"Yes, promise. That's why we're doing it."
I

"Okay," Michelle said, almost in a whisper. "Then I'll tell you as

much as I can." She sighed deeply once again. "I have such a hard time
to talk. . .
."

"Let it come, as much as you can. Don't judge it, if you can help
it. Don't try to make it anything but what it was. Just let it be what
it was. Just let yourself go."
 Michelle Remembers [17]

."
"Are you sure I'm not going to die? Are you sure? . .

"You'll be okay. I'll be right here. Just try to let yourself go."

Michelle stared in silence at the ceiling for some time. Her eyes
were full of fear. At last she closed them, hesitantly, and began to
deepen her breathing. It was a very labored breathing, as if she were
something way down inside.
fighting strongly against
As Dr. Pazder watched, her hands flew up in front of her face,
the fingers splayed wide and stiff. Her eyes squeezed almost pain-
fully closed. Her mouth opened round, stretching her white lips
thin. She drew a deep, deep breath. And then the terror broke. She
screamed. It was a cry so violent that it drove her down into the
couch.*
Dr. Pazder sat quietly as Michelle screamed, his hand on her head,
waiting.
After twenty-five minutes, the screaming began to ebb. Michelle
was shaking uncontrollably, almost convulsively. As the cries died away,
he could see that she was struggling to speak. She was straining to get
words out. He hoped the struggle would be a kind of birth. Perhaps the
screaming had to come first before she could speak. Perhaps the
screaming would release her.

It's . . . it's . . . it's all black. Black. It's black! It's all black.
No! Oh, please help me. Help me! Oh, help me! Help me! [More
screaming, which eventually dissolved into agonizing tears.] Oh,
God help me! Oh, God help! don't know what to I do. I feel so

sick. I feel like my heart's going to stop. Oh, . . . I hate this.

I'm on this bed. . . . I'm in the air. I'm in the air, and I'm upside
down. . . . There's this man and he's turning me around and
around!

"Who is the man?" Dr. Pazder asked softly.

"It's . . . Malachi."
*In the next office, Dr. Richards Arnot, one of the four psychiatrists who shared
the suite of offices with Dr. Pazder, was moved when Michelle's shrieks came ripping
through the walls, walls that had been double-insulated to make them virtually sound-
proof. "It was a piercing cry of genuine terror," Dr. Arnot told Dr. Pazder later.
 Michelle Remembers [18]

What's happening to me? I don't know if it makes any sense.

. .Oh! God, I hurt.
. I'm hurting. He's hurting me all. . . . . .

over, and something's really scaring me. His eyes are scaring me.
I can't stand them. They look crazy. No! Take them away. He's
hurting my arms. Ow. Ow. He's throwing me upside down fast.

It's hurting want to run away.my He's grabbing me

arms. I . . .

tight. ... I can't get away. No! I can't breathe. [coughing, . . .

gasping] He's got me by the throat with one hand. Help! . . .

Somebody's gotta help me. He's pointing me. ... He says . . .

he's pointing me. ... He says, "North west ." and he points . . . . .

me real hard. He turns me over and grabs my neck and points me.
I don't want to be all pointy. It hurts. Why is he hurting me?

It made me all sick. I hated it. I was so afraid. I thought I was

going to die ... I thought he was going to kill me. No! No! No!
Mommy! Mommy!
Help!
Where's my mommy? Why isn't she here? Mommy!
Mommy! can't breathe. I'm gonna die. feel sick. I'm gonna
I . . . I

be sick. . . . I'm sick all over. I'm gonna die. I'm so scared. Oh,
God, I'm scared.
He's done it over and over. Then he ... he ... he .. No! .

No! No! He grabbed me by the face. He's grabbed my fingers . . .

. he's squeezing them. I hurt. He said if ... if I ... if I want

. .

to stay alive ... I better be a good girl. ... I was so afraid! He

seemed so scary. He's bad. He told me ... he said, "You listen,
Michelle." He said, "You have to cooperate." I don't know what
cooperate means. I don't know.

The strange man Malachi had the little girl stretched rigidly, like
a needle. He held one hand to her neck and the other to her groin as
he pointed her, again and again, north, west, south, east. Then he
began to flip her, head over heels, in front of himself, catching her
rudely by the arms as she completed each somersault.

I . . . when I found out I and no one

couldn't get away . . .

was going to hear me . . . when they didn't care ... I ... I

 Michelle Remembers [19]

. . . I didn't want to get hit anymore. You see

had to change. ...
. . . thehad to do was not to hurt. ... I didn't want
first thing I

any more pain. ... I had to put on a happy face. ... I went all
numb. ... I made it black. ... I made a black wall all around
me and my teddy was there.
. . . Oh, I loved my teddy. I was . . .

so glad I could see my teddy bear. . . .

Michelle's crying became agonized. Dr. Pazder noted the degrees

of her increasing fear and feelings of abandonment.

It I could see my teddy bear.

was black and First he was . . .

really faraway down ... he was in a tunnel. ... I could see

. . .

him coming closer, and the closer the bear got the more I . . .

floated ... I loved the bear so much I wanted to become the bear.
... I wanted to crawl inside with him and be safe. Oh, my . . .

arms hurt. ... I feel numb there was nothing left of me, just . . .

my head ... no body. ... was all gone except my eyes and I . . .

my mouth was gone and my nose was gone and my eyes and my
ears were left ahhh. All that was left of my insides was
. . . . . .

a tiny warm spot. . . . I was!

That 's all

But every once in a while Malachi would come through my

wall. . . . I 'd hurt . . and then my bear would come back.
.

... I'd push him away so my bear would come back. Get out of
my way! I can 't see my bear!

Dr. Pazder recognized suddenly that this was not twenty-seven-

year-old Michelle Smith speaking but who? A child? Yes, of course!
. . .

In voice, in gesture, in language —

there was no mistaking it: a girl of
perhaps no more than five lay on the couch before him. He was awed
and fascinated —and moved.
Oh, God! Something's happening! I don't understand. ... I

. . . shut my eyes. ... I opened my

got frightened again. ... I

eyes to try and find my bear and you see the door's open and there
was a li —— li light in the hallway. . . .
 Michelle Remembers [20]

Michelle was struggling now, screaming.

I don't understand. . . . There were people . . . standing there!

They were looking in the door! They were laughing! They were
laughing! Oh why are they laughing? ... I don't understand.
. . .

It isn
. . funny! Oh, I feel so sick! ... I don't understand how
. 't

that could have happened. Where's my bear gone? Oh, . . . . . .

where's my bear? I want my bear. ... I want my bear. . . . / want

my bear!

Michelle's crying continued, but as Dr. Pazder watched, her color,

which until now had been ashen, almost blue, resumed a more healthy
tone. Her muscles became more relaxed. For fifteen minutes she lay
silent, her eyelids fluttering occasionally, as she ascended bit by bit from
wherever she had been. Finally she opened her eyes completely.
"Am I crazy?" she asked Dr. Pazder softly, her voice regaining its

usual timbre.
"No. You're not crazy, Michelle. I don't see you as crazy at all."

The tears began to flow again. "I'm so afraid that you're going to
tell me that I'm crazy. Do you believe me?"
"Yes, I do. You were obviously relating, almost re-experiencing,
some memory, about a time when you were a little girl."
terrible
"I was worried I was making that up, because it didn't fit together.
But where did it come from? It didn't ." Michelle allowed the . .

sentence to remain incomplete. She sighed heavily.

"I don't know. I'm wondering that myself," Dr. Pazder said
thoughtfully.
Michelle thought for a moment. "I should have done something
back then. I shouldn't have just floated away."
"You had no choice. You had no choice in that."
Michelle sighed again. "I feel so guilty about that bear. You know
why? Because it wasn't real." She dropped her voice to a whisper. "I
never had a bear."
"You didn't?"
"No. But I still love it. When I shut my eyes I can still see it floating
there. ... I feel so strange. . .
." Michelle's eyes were streaming once
 Michelle Remembers 21

again. "I never even knew about any of this before today. I just

. . . but now, when I think about it . . . about that time . . . I'm really

frightened. When I think back to that night and I still remember what

his face —what Malachi's face —looked like and everything ..."
"Who was Malachi?" Dr. Pazder interrupted.
"I don't know. He doesn't seem like any person I knew. His eyes
. . . they were horrible!" Abruptly Michelle shifted gears. "I'm not
going crazy?"
"No," the doctor replied.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"But I don't understand any of what was happening," Michelle
insisted.

"Don't try to, okay? You needed that teddy bear to hang onto. You
needed it, and it was the only safe thing you could have."
"I just wish I could make the scary parts go away. It wasn't just scary
like a nightmare, but a really serious scary. It was so serious — see? This
doesn't make any sense!"
"Stop trying to make sense of it, just let come out," Dr. Pazder
it

said gently. "We have to work with this. Afterwe work, you'll be able
to make sense out of it." He smiled at her. "Look, you're tired. Maybe
you should leave it behind for a few days."
"I am tired, it's true." But Michelle was not quite ready to end the
session. There were still a few things on her mind.
"That wasn't my own
in back there. And I know I was
house I was
very badly hurt. I know
body knows it. You know, for years
that. My
I wouldn't look up in the dictionary what 'cooperate' meant? I didn't

know for years. I got so angry whenever anybody said I wasn't cooperat-
ing. Do you think it will ever make sense?"
Michelle was repeating herself, but it was clear to Dr. Pazder that
his patient needed all the reassurance he could give.
"In time, it will all come together. We could guess some pieces, but
I don't want to do that. What happened
there was very frightening.
But what you were doing to protect yourself from it seems to be just
as frightening to you. It's important to know that those are the normal
things children do —they don't make you crazy. There's no way you
 Michelle Remembers [ 22 ]

could face that whole situation without having to cut your feelings off.

This is what we can do. We dissociate, separate from our feelings. We

build walls, we have fantasies. When you had your bear, you could get
away from what was going on, you could keep yourself from feeling the
pain.
"None of this," he went on, "is a crazy thing. Crazy would be if

you believed you had turned into a bear and went around thinking
other people were crazy because they didn't know you were a bear."

"Do you understand how I became very tiny inside?" She curled
up her index finger and peeked at Dr. Pazder through the minute
opening. "Like that! I just became a tiny, warm That was the only
spot.
place where I was really safe, where no one could touch me." Michelle
went on, as if compelled. "And you see, my inside ... my inside was
safe and protected —
no one knew it was there, but I did. My inside eyes
could sometimes see what my outside was doing. You see, I had my
inside and then I had my outside."
. . .

Four and a half hours had gone by. It had been a debilitating,
emotional experience for both doctor and patient. Nevertheless, Mi-
chelle looked far better now, at the end of the session, than she had
at its outset. Beginning to get these horrible memories — or whatever
they were —out into the open was obviously bringing her a measure of
relief.

"You did well, Michelle," Dr. Pazder said. "You'll be free of it in

time."
"That's what I believe," Michelle said, sitting up on the couch. "I
honestly believe that."
 chapter 3

before Michelle lay

M
the beginning of the following week.
down on
ICHELLE returned to Dr. Pazder's office at
It was clear to
the couch, that more was to come.
had been revealed in the Saturday session, although powerful and
both of them, even
What

distressing, was not distressing enough to explain why these memories

had been so thoroughly blocked. Indeed, Dr. Pazder thought, as his
patient quietly prepared herself for the next phase of the psychic
journey, the memories had not simply been blocked —they had been
totally buried.

"My life seems so scattered these days . . . and these memories,

they're so foreign," Michelle began, without prompting. "They're so
out of step with the way I've always thought of my
and I don't
life,

know how to make them part of me and still be whole. Do you know
what I mean?"
Dr. Pazder nodded. "Yes, it doesn't fit with anything I know about
you either. Right now, don't try to understand or make sense of it.

We'll do that in time. First, you need to let yourself go wherever you
have to. Just let yourself go back there. It's okay. You go wherever you
have to go. I'll be with you."
"But you see, I'm afraid that when I start talking, it'll start me
remembering things. I know some of the things that happened weren't
normal, weren't things that normal people do. . . . Oh! My arms hurt."
She began to weep softly.

The doctor could see that the process was starting already. "I don't

[23]
 Michelle Remembers [ 24 ]

know any way of bringing you and the memories back together/' he
said sympathetically, "without going back to them to where you think
you came apart. See if you can let yourself go back. I'll be right here
with you."
Her breathing deepened. Her eyes began to twitch beneath their
lids as if she were watching something, just as they had on Saturday.
'The air's like this," Michelle murmured, holding out her hands
and rubbing them together very hard. "Like this . . . grating ..."
It became clear from her next few words that Michelle was back,
alone in that room. Once again she spoke in the voice of a frightened
little girl.

I wanted to cover up ... to cover myself up ... I found

something to put on. . . . You see, I don't know why, but I felt

really ashamed, I don't know why. . . .

Michelle broke down into great, heaving sobs.

I got a big shirt. ... I was trying not to be there. You see,

it doesn't make any sense, but I thought that if I didn't see my

hands, I wouldn't be there. ... I had this shirt pulled over my
head. And I don't know why I thought I'd get away with it
. . . except I was so busy trying to keep my hands up inside the
sleeves, I didn't notice the people in the room!

Some women had entered the darkened space where the little girl
was a prisoner. They walked in a single file, oblivious to the child's
presence. Clad in the oversized shirt, she watched, in fear and awe, as
they went about their bizarre tasks —methodical, coldly efficient, each
of them doing One woman pushed the bed to the
a particular chore.
side of the room, another moved a bureau. Some of them went about
tacking up large black sheets on all four walls. Then the women began
to set —
up candles perhaps twenty or thirty in all. Someone draped the
bureau with a round black cloth embroidered in an intricate white
design. On top of the cloth were placed two silver goblets and a knife.
And more candles.
 Michelle Remembers [ 25 ]

I thought . . . Mommies! I thought. . . . Oh, boy! There's going

to be a party. . . . Oh, boy! But ... no! No! They're all looking
at me! They're staring at me! ... All of them ... all their eyes!

One of the women approached Michelle and picked her up. The
little girl's apprehension faded —she could not help but smile. The
woman was extraordinarily beautiful, with shining dark hair. Unlike the
others, who wore simple black dresses, this woman wore a black cape
with a hood. It set her apart. Michelle thought: A princess! Ah!
"How hurt you are," the woman cooed. "How sad! How sad am I

that you are hurt."

She's being like a mommy. And then she kisses me! She's
kissing me and sticking her tongue in my . . . mouth! It's stupid.
It's like a snake. She's not a mommy.
I thought she'd look after me. . . . But then they — they started
to talk about getting me ready . . . preparing me. . . . She started
rubbing me. . . . Some of the people grabbed my wrists.

I don't like them hanging onto my arms. I don't want them

to hurt me! I can't stand being pinned down! . . . Someone's
rubbing something on me, on my chest! It smells icky. It's mucky
... I looked and
had funny eyes and it it's the funny eyes.
it . . .

... It was like a mommy, but it had Malachi's eyes! Where's my

mommy? Those are other kids' moms! I don't want this mom.
You go away, I want my mom! . . . Please don't hurt me . . . and
she says, "I'm not going to hurt you." . . . They were all, like,

excited about something. ... I'm all mixed up! I'd seen my mom
make a birthday cake and I thought maybe they're waiting for the
cake. I don't understand. . . .

Michelle was screaming, begging, her fingers bent like claws,

whether in a gesture of panic or attack, Dr. Pazder could not tell. He
was deeply moved by his patient's struggle, and at the same time
realized that the onlyway he could assist the child and therefore the —
woman whom the child had become was to allow her to relive the —
entire ghastly experience, wherever it came from, whatever it meant.
 Michelle R emembers [26]

Help! . . . Help! . . . Help! . . . They were putting this stuff

. . . putting it in my eyes and my ears and my nose. Somehow it

was getting in me, every way.

Michelle wanted to close her legs, cross them, but the people held
them apart. She was unable to push away. The woman kept rubbing
the foul-smelling substance on the girl's body.
Several of them fetched a handful of colorful sticks —dark red and
brown, muddy yellow, dirty green, purple, and black. They handed
them to the woman in the cape. She held them in her hand for a
moment, pounded them roughly on the floor, then loosened her grip
and allowed them to spill to the ground. The other women had taken
up a chant. The woman in the cape studied the arrangement of the
sticks, selectedone of them, dipped it in a silver goblet, and inserted
it in Michelle's rectum. Again and again she repeated this ugly per-

formance, each time introducing the vile mixture from the goblet into
the little girl's body —her nostrils, her mouth, her ears.

They were poking me. It felt \ike pins/ They stuck those sticks
not just in my mouth. They stuck them everywhere I had an

opening! They just kept poking and rubbing. The inside of . . .

me hates them, but my outside keeps pretending it's just a differ-

ent kind of pick-up sticks. . . . They are putting ugly in me. I don't
want any more ugly in me. The lady is sealing it in now. She says
it's permanent. . . . She's making it permanent. Permanent!

Michelle was crying openly as she spoke, crying like a young child,

in uncontrollable, shuddering gasps.

I could hear them saying things.

'Try this ... see if this . . .

works." The lady kept turning the sticks around and talking.
. . .

I didn't understand what the words meant. She kept changing all

the sticks and saying something about getting me ready for some-
one. I couldn't remember the name. ... I never heard the name
before. ... I didn't understand what they were saying. . . . They
say they're doing all these things to me so I'd be ready for the
 Michelle Remembers [ 27 ]

other person. Something about they'd show God. ... I

. . . . . .

don't want Him

me, not like this! There was this dresser
to see . . .

and I saw them setting up more candles on it. Everything was . . .

black. Then suddenly everything had to be clean. They all got

. . .

washed. And every time one of them touched me, they'd go and
clean themselves. Then someone cleaned me off too. They . . .

laid me on that dresser ... it was all cold. ... I'm cold. ... I
thought I was lying on a birthday cake afraid afraid I . . . . . .

am the birthday cake! But I don't want to play their game any-
more!

The and placed on the bureau, made to lie down

child was lifted
The dresser had a mirror attached, which
inside a semicircle of candles.
reflected the steady glow of the flames.
Michelle noticed that the room now also contained men, along with
the women who had been there all along. They too were in dark
clothing. Everyone was chanting as if in a strange, ancient language.

I didn't have anything on . and they unbraided my hair and

. .

I don't like it. . . . There is a knife and cups they are real shiny. . . .

. . . It's like everyone has a stomach ache. They're moaning and

groaning. They have their eyes closed and they are making a
funny noise. I just kept saying inside, / see with my eyes, I listen
with my ears, I talk with my mouth, but nobody hears. I just keep
saying that over and over again. ... All I hear is my words.

Suddenly Michelle started, as if struck. Dr. Pazder leaned forward,

alarmed, but did nothing to break the mood.

No! I don't want to be cut! . . . Help me! . . . They're making

lines me with the knife. I'm afraid. It's like a line down the
on
middle of my face. Why are they putting that stuff on me?
. They're painting me with red stuff.
. . They're painting half . . .

of me dark. don't want to be a clown.

I I'm going to have . . .

half a red face and half a white face. They are putting red on half
 Michelle Remembers [ 28 ]

of me and the stuff in my mouth on the other half! . . . They're

all calling someone. They're all calling that guy and having stom-
ach aches. They . . . they all started running around the room and
screaming and yelling. I didn't move because I'm afraid the can-
dles will burn me. . . .

The whole group gathered in a tight half circle around the dresser,
gazing down at the little girl. Their eyes were wide, their faces expres-
sionless. Abruptly, almost as one body, they turned their heads from
her. And then they filed out, departing as coolly and noiselessly as they
had come in.

They're all gone ... all of them. . . . Everyone just left the
room. ... I blew out the candles. . . .

Michelle suddenly addressed Dr. Pazder directly. "Please," she

said, she no longer spoke in the child's voice, "I've got to stop for a
while. I've got to stop. . . . Help me. . . . I've got to come back again.
."
. . . It's so dangerous. It's really dangerous. . .

Her breathing began was no longer the heavy panting

to ease; it

that characterized the deepest part of her remembering. Her eyes

moved less quickly, though they remained closed for several more
minutes. Dr. Pazder recognized these signals: The young woman was
"ascending" and soon would be with him again.
"Do you understand now?" she said at last, opening her eyes, her
face full of urgent concern.
"Understand what?"
"That I'm ugly! Don't you hate me?"
"Nothing in the world could make me feel you are hateful. How
could I hate you?"
"I'vedone such awful things."
"No, you haven't," the doctor corrected her. "They clearly did

awful things to you. You did nothing bad." He paused, looking for a
response. "Do you hear me? You are not bad." Over and over again
he repeated this assurance, attempting to explain to Michelle to make —
her understand —
that these people had wanted to make her feel as
 Michelle Remembers [ 29 ]

though she were to blame, as though she had committed some horren-
dous act. 'There is no reason for you to feel this way," he finished, "no
reason at all." Privately, Dr. Pazder was convinced that the group
whoever they were —had been using very sophisticated techniques of
ego destruction.
He knew also, from his studies and from work he had done in
Africa, that the Yoruba tribe of Nigeria (among others) used cola-bean
pods in a fashion similar to the way these people appeared to use sticks:
to predict. He sensed that this might have been what they were trying
to do with Michelle. But how could she have known? And in such exact
detail? Dr. Pazder admitted that he was amazed.
As Michelle began to grow calmer, Dr. Pazder asked for more
details of the experience.
"How many people were there?"
Michelle thought, wrinkling her brow. She closed her eyes to visual-
ize the scene. "There was the lady in the cape . . . and then one
. two
. . three ... I can't be
. . . certain, but possibly thirteen. ... I

don't know. I can't swear to it."

"That's all right," Dr. Pazder replied. "It may come clearer later

on.
And then, almost in the same breath, they queried one another:
Who were these people? Who were they?
The small office was filled with an almost unbearable tension, as if

a live grenade had suddenly been placed between them, threatening to

explode in their faces.
 chapter 4

n R. Pazder sat in his

and thinking of Michelle. She was due any minute, to resume the
office, staring

amazing testimony she had embarked upon the day before. Once again,
out the window

as he had been so many times in the hours since he had last seen her,

he was struck by the persistence of the child's innocence. No matter

how bad things had got, no matter what they had done to her, she had
been able to hold onto that pinprick of strength and selfhood. Spread
a black cloth on a dresser and set out candles and the child would think

"Birthday party!" Show her blank-faced women in dark clothes and she
would respond with "Mommies!" Dr. Pazder felt sure, somehow, that
in future sessions, that "warm spot" would always be there. She would

always be able to hold onto it. It was critical for a therapist to have that
when working with someone. If you could find that place and touch

it, then everything would melt away.

else
It was also critical, he knew, that he maintain his objectivity. Had

he accepted her story unquestioningly, it would have been impossible

for him to give her accurate help. Yes, it was important that he encour-
age her to divulge her memories, however bizarre; but he also must act
as a measure of reality, a strong, knowledgeable presence who would
be able to monitor Michelle and to tell when she might be veering off
into psychosis. And so, in the three months he had heard her testimony
—some 200 hours so far —he had pondered, taking each new piece of
information and relating it to all the others, and to the whole. Con-
stantly he had searched for contradictions, for signs that what she was

[31]
 Michelle Remembers [ 52 ]

telling him was not authentic, but was perhaps a fantasy, a neurotic
flight into imagination. At every point he had stopped to ask: "Is this
consistent with what has come out already? Is it logical, given the
extraordinary dimensions of the experience? Could it be hallucination
or invention? Do I see a sane and competent Michelle telling me this?"
These had been his persistent silent questions, and they must continue
to be, he knew, until the work was done.
When Michelle arrived, she was drawn and tense, but resolute.
They talked a bit, before she descended into the past, about her fear
of returning to that time.
"I wish I could have a sort of link to the present," she said, "some-
thing to connect with so that when I go down there, I won't get caught
by it. Sometimes I'm afraid I'll get stuck and have to stay down there
forever."
Her voice was quavering, and Dr. Pazder knew she spoke from real

need.
"I could put my hand on your head again," he said, "the way I did
yesterday. And look, here, I'll pull my chair all the way over to the sofa,
next to you."
But that was not close enough. Still Michelle felt alone and endan-
gered. He experimented with sitting beside her on the sofa, and for a
while it seemed as if that would
But then the terror thickened
suffice.

her voice again, and they shifted so that he could sit on the sofa with
her head against his shoulder. This seemed to give her the closeness and
security she needed. It made checking the tapes and coping with the
telephone a bit awkward, but he could manage.
Again Michelle made her descent into the black pool of her past.

As she neared the depths, she was weeping, and Dr. Pazder's tape
recorder captured her words —the words of a frightened, five-year-old
child — as they issued through the tears.

I felt I'd go crazy in that room alone. ... I curled up in a little

ball in the corner and thought I was just a piece of fluff on the
floor, but every time I opened my eyes, I wasn't a piece of fluff.

... I had to get out of the room. ... I couldn't hide in the room.

I would have hid under the bed, but there was a bunch of stuff
 Michelle Remembers [33 ]

under the bed, and I couldn't get under. . . . And I knew they'd
look there anyway. I don't know. ... I think I went down the
hallway. I was going sneak-sneak-sneak, sneak-sneak-sneak, down
the hallway. I had to hurry. I had to go quickly. Because if I got

away downstairs, they'd forget I was in the house. I had to go

quickly .but you see, I had to go around the doorway to the
. .

kitchen, and over there was the doorway into the other room. Oh,
no! Something's wrong. They got knives! The men have got
knives and they are hurting each other. I don't understand. I'm
scared!

As Michelle, struggling for every sentence, pushed out her account,

Dr. Pazder listened intently, trying to understand the horror so that he
could help her deal with it later.* It was clear that after the men and
women had abruptly turned and strode from the room in which the
strange ceremony had taken place, Michelle was left alone and lying
on the cloth-covered dresser. When she dared to move, she found
herself looking into the mirror that rose from the back of the dresser,
and for the first time she saw what they had done to her. Her body was
painted in a ghastly manner — a thick red repulsive-smelling liquid
down one side of her and a scummy, uncolored liquid on the other. It
was terrifying for the child to see her body divided down the middle
and made grotesque. In her distress, she tried to escape — into the
mirror; she tried to climb through the glass into the world beyond it.

But the mirror was unyielding, impenetrable. There was no escape.

As she struggled, she lost her balance and, grasping frantically for

*For the sake of clarity and brevity, only portions of Michelle's sessions with Dr.
Pazder, which lasted over a year, have been chosen for detailed narration, and these
have been compressed. Certain painful and deeply buried revelations, such as the ones
in this chapter concerning the "lump" and Michelle's treatment by her mother, took
many fragmented sessions to coalesce. Only after repeated journeys into her depths was
Michelle able, in some cases, to supply crucial details that made events comprehensible.
For this book, however, considerable portions of Michelle's testimony have been
combined according to subject and theme and distilled into units called sessions, any
one of which may contain material actually drawn from a number of sessions. But the
atmosphere and procedure of the sessions were precisely as represented here; the
general sequence of revelation is as it was; and the indented excerpts from the three-
thousand-page transcript are faithfully reproduced.
 Michelle Remembers [ 34 ]

something to hold onto, she fell to the floor. Again she tried to hide,
under the bed — to no avail.

She looked for her bear, but he had disappeared. But that mental
—
image she had of her external self what she called her "outside"
turned into a friend. This pretend friend looked just like her, only she
was clean and her hair was neatly parted and braided. She was wearing
a dress with smocking, and she looked lovely. She was floating up near
the ceiling.
"You'd better get out of here/' her pretend friend advised. "Why
don't you sneak down the hall and hide in the basement?" That
sounded like a good idea. Michelle crawled over to the bed and pulled
herself up to her feet. She was dizzy. She knew she was badly hurt. She
—
was bleeding from her mouth, her ears, her nose, between her legs.
And she was so dirty she could not stand herself.
Outside the window, lights began flashing. She crept toward the
open bedroom door, then stopped. Malachi was out in the hall, opening
Through the opening, Michelle could see
the front door just a crack.
someone out on the porch. Black boots a policeman! Surely he would—
save her. But Malachi, talking smoothly, persuaded the officer that
there was nothing amiss, just a party that had become a little boisterous;
he would have the guests quiet down. The door shut.
Soon after Malachi went away, Michelle moved slowly into the hall,
now on tiptoes, as in a child's game: "sneak-sneak-sneak, sneak-sneak-
sneak .
." She was heading for the kitchen, hoping to find the stairs
.

But as she passed the living room, she was stopped by a

to the cellar.
strange and dismaying sight: Men and women were participating in
some sort of struggle, thrashing against each other as if they were
animals. The men had "knives" protruding from their bodies and
seemed to be using them on the others. Some wore pained expressions
on their faces and were groaning.

I've got to find my mother. . . . my mother? don't

Where's I

understand. I don't understand! I my mom. I want my mom!

want
I want my mom. Don't you
. . . see, that was my voice inside. You

see, I knew by their eyes that I had to be good, had to be my I

 Michelle Remembers [35 ]

outside. Their eyes were scary. I couldn't let anyone see me

crying. I don't understand. I don't understand anything I see
anymore. Some of the people didn't have all their clothes on.
What's happening? What's going on? I don't understand. So
much is going on at once. I don't know where anything started
and stopped anymore. I don't understand. Where's my mom?
. You see, my inside always tried to find my mom.
. . My arms . . .

hurt! Ow. But my outside was going around laughing and twirling
around. That was so everyone wouldn't know I was trying to find
her. Ow-w-w-w, my arms hurt, my arms hurt. [Holding her arms
and crying.] Ow-w-w-w, my arms hurt! But you see, I thought if
I was going around and around and saying things, they'd just

laugh and they wouldn't know I was looking for my mom, you
. . .

see. Because I knew . . . when I found my mom . . . it'd be okay.

Michelle reasoned that if they'd hurt her, they might also have hurt
her mother and that perhaps her mother was in trouble too. Michelle
reached the kitchen. More of the men and women were there.

I looked and there were two women by the table over there.
And then I thought one of them was my mom, because she had
hair like my mom . . . but she turned around and it wasn my 't

mom. Her eyes were funny. I hated them! I didn't know what to
do.

The child ran to the woman she thought was her mother, calling
out to her, "Mommy! Mommy!" When the woman turned around,
Michelle froze. The woman's face was sick and demented, the features
askew. She wore an awful smile, and her eyes crazy eyes. The woman
looked at Michelle as if she had known she were coming. She never
made a noise. Michelle jumped back and ran out of the room.

I was turning around in circles, I was dancing. You see, I'd

gone crazy too. I'm getting so mixed up. Where's my mom?

What's No! No no no! I don't understand any of it
. . . and . . .
 Michelle Remembers [36]

I wish I didn't understand it now. Oh, how I wish I didn't

understand. You see . . . it's not true! It ... I don't understand.
You see, I didn't understand those mommies. I don't understand.
Something's hurting my mom. Mom! Mom!

Turning in circles, the child had fled the kitchen and stumbled her
way to the living room. There was her mother, beautiful, her cheeks
flushed, her red hair spread out against the back of the large green chair
she was sitting She was wearing a skirt Michelle knew well
in. —black
and dressy, coming down to midcalf. Michelle tried to wave at her
mother without attracting the attention of the others, to get her
mother to see her. She couldn't. She tried and she tried, her heart
breaking, desperate for her mother. But Michelle couldn't make her
mother notice. Her mother's eyes were closed. She seemed to be in
pain. There was something under the skirt.

It's a ... a 1-1-1-lump ... a lump under her skirt. My mom

looked like she was being hurt. I didn't understand. No! No! No!
[She screams in extreme horror for some twenty minutes.]
I thought I was helping my mom. You see, I thought she felt

like I did. I thought she wanted to get away too. Oh! I had to help
her. You know ... I had to help her. No one was helping her.
They didn't even notice. My mother was my mom! I didn't mean
to. I ... I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Dear God! Oh, oh, oh! You see,

I had to stop it, you see, I had to make those people quit. ... I
can't get me together. I can't. Ow-w-w, my arms hurt. My hands
are numb, they \e all numb. You see, the inside was scared for my
mom, and the outside, it had to stop spinning around. And my

eyes are just . . . I .they didn't want to look. And I had to get
. .

through that in the air. I had to stop that in the air!

The atmosphere in the living room was heavy, grating. As Dr.

Pazder listened, he reflected that whoever these people were and what-
ever they were doing — ritual sex, apparently —they seemed to be mov-
ing toward some sort of controlled, deliberate frenzy, a kind of dissocia-
 Michelle Remembers [ 57 ]

tive state in which any sort of action would be possible. He found

himself petrified for the five-year-old child whose voice was calling to
him so urgently now.

You see, that's how . . . you see, I did pick that up. . . .

Ow-w-w! My arms hurt. You see, this isn't going to make any
sense to you at all, but it could have been a big spider or a snake.
The lump could have been that, and it could have been hurting
her. Oh! It was moving around! I didn't even think. I didn't even
stop and think. I just grabbed the No! I didn 'tf I didn't. . . . I

didn't even know ... I didn't even know when I grabbed . . .

except I know it was a bottle. ... It was on the table and . . .

it was just had to. I just had to smash

something to grab. And I

that thing under my mother's skirt. Oh! Oh! No! I smashed that
lump! Everyone turned their eyes on me. I hate those eyes. No!
No! They're all smashing smashing smashing . they're
. . . . . . . .

all smashing the lump! No! It got all bloody. It was just so awful
bloody.

Now all the people in the room had those dreadful eyes —Michelle
could see them changing. When they saw that the child who had been
the centerpiece of their ceremony, just an hour before, had hit the
"lump," they appeared to take it as a sign. Michelle recoiled, watching
horrified as they began to beat the lump with their fists, attacking
mercilessly, relentlessly.

I've . . . I've got to stop it. Someone's got to. You see, my
outside was really frantic. My outside hit it, but only once. It was
really frantic, and its face was all like that. But my inside wasn't
like that. I saw that blood. You're not going to want to know me.

I did awful things! I put my ... I put my hand ... on the . . .

lump. I did. It was all bloody.

As Michelle imparted this revelation, stuttering through her agony,

Dr. Pazder saw an astounding thing. Though deep into the experience
 Michelle Remembers [38]

of reliving the incident, she was extending her arms and reaching out,
as if to touch something in front of her, and as she did so, for just one
fleeting moment she smiled.

It was all bloody, and I wiped it all over my face. I wiped it

all over me. Then I ran around. That's why they didn't want me
to touch them. I wanted to wash them off. I wanted to put blood
on them. I was only trying to make everything okay. I ran all over
and put blood on all of them. They stopped! Everything went
quiet. They just stood there. You see, I had to make it stop. Do
you understand that?

Dr. Pazder spoke to the child within the woman. "I do understand
that," he said softly. "Very much."

It's okay if you don't want to touch me. It's all right. It'll be
all right. You
what I didn't tell you
see, Ow-w-w! My arms . . .

hurt! I was glad! I was glad! I felt happy inside. I smashed it and
I was glad. That's why I was smiling, and when I turned around

and I couldn't ow, my arms hurt! I couldn't understand why

. . .

the other people weren't happy too. I made everything stop! And
I was glad! I could clean everything up then. And when they all

stopped and everything went quiet, I thought they'd be pleased

with me.

The frantic child began to twirl. Then she started to pipe out
'Twinkle, twinkle, little star," spinning to the tune, hoping her mother
would notice her, smile, hold her.
Michelle was crying now, so hard that she was almost choking. The
sentences broke into phrases, the phrases shattered into single words.
And then nothing. It was nearly an hour before she could resume:

I hug my mom. She

went to she she yelled, Don touch . . . . . . 't

me! I I went to touch someone else, and

couldn't understand.
everybody backed away from me. Don touch me! I looked at my 't

hands, looked at all of me. I was filthy. I knew why they didn't
I
 Michelle Remembers [ jo ]

want to touch me. I just saw my mom. My mom was so upset.

Michelle, what have you done? was helping you, Mommy. was
I I

helping you.

Michelle had dissolved into agonizing sobs. Dr. Pazder tried to

comfort her, but her flailing arms and legs, her writhing body made it
all but impossible. It was as if she were fighting against a memory that
was too horrible to be borne yet that was inexorably forcing its way up
and out.

What have you done? No! No! No! Please. Please, Mommy,
hold me! Mommy, I'm scared! I'm scared! And that's when she
hit me and yelled. Look at your ugly face! Oooh, she's ugly! I
wouldn't touch any of it! It's disgusting! I couldn't help how I
looked. I didn't know how I looked until then. Get her out of my
sight! Get her out of my sight! I couldn't help it. She didn't want
to help me. She just smashed me across the head and yelled, Get
rid of her! Ugh! Get her out of my sight!

Once again, wild, desperate crying, a small child trying to deny the
unthinkable, total, brutal rejection by her own mother. Dr. Pazder sat
with her, saying nothing, while the sobs continued and began to ebb.
When she spoke again, it was in a thin, fevered little voice.

Everyone's afraid of me. I'm afraid of me. I'm afraid of me.

That's when Malachi threw me in the bathroom. He just picked
me up by the skin and threw me in the bathroom. I tried to make
myself clean. I scrubbed and scrubbed. My arms hurt. My legs
hurt. My stomach hurt. I felt so sick. I just scrubbed and

scrubbed. It felt like I would never be clean again. My hands are

all numb. . . .

I'm afraid. I'm afraid! I crawled into the bedroom. I tried to

crawl everywhere in the bedroom. I tried to crawl under the
baseboard because there was a crack and I thought I might get
under the baseboard like you see little mice do. Someone's got to
help me. Someone's got to tell me what happened. I heard them
 Michelle Remembers [ 40 ]

talking when bedroom. You see, there was so much

I was in the

noise they were worried the police was going to come because my
mom was screaming so loud. All of a sudden the door was opening
and closing, and all of the people were going away. And could I

hear Malachi saying that they'd just cover it up. What are they
covering up?

She peeked out the bedroom door. People were getting dressed and
leaving. Noone spoke. She watched them leave, and then she turned
back to her mother. She was sitting there, slumped into the chair. Her
skirt had lifted a little, and Michelle saw something that chilled her

heart.

I looked. ... I didn't want to see. ... I could see, it was awful.
The lump . . . oh, I feel sick inside. I feel sick, I feel so sick. What's
the matter with me? Now knowI I'm crazy. I shouldn't have told
you. ... I shouldn't have told anybody. I didn't want to tell

anybody, ever. . . . The lump . . . the lump had shoes! Red shoes!
 chapter 5

But Michelle had

7 DIDN'T want
told, and now,
to tell anybody, ever.
as she began to surface, to
. .
."

rise

back up from her place of reliving, Dr. Pazder was intensely aware of
the crucial obligation he faced: to help her integrate the unspeakably
horrible facts shehad unearthed, to understand them, somehow, so
that what had happened twenty-two years before would not destroy her
sanity today.
She continued to cry for over half an hour, covering her face much
of the timeand avoiding Dr. Pazder's gaze. And then the crying eased,
and her breathing was no longer quite so heavy and labored. At last she
began to speak, tremulously, still in the throes of her experience in the
depths, but very nearly now in her adult voice.
"I shouldn't have told you," she said. "I don't understand it.

. . . Please me what happened.

tell I feel just terrible. I feel like I did
trying to crawl away. Do you think that happened?"
"We have
to talk about it," the psychiatrist replied. "You're really
wiped out, aren't you?"
"If I told you, would you believe me? I did it. But please, oh, please
try to understand — I had to. I don't know what made me do it, exactly.
... I didn't want my mom hurt. I couldn't stand the smiling. I couldn't
stand the laughing. I couldn't stand the air. I couldn't stand my inside
and my outside being separated, and I couldn't stand turning around.
Oh, please, you've got to believe I had to do that. I didn't know what
else to do. It just happened."
 Michelle Remembers [ 42 ]

"I know it did."

"I'm afraid, " she went on. To Dr. Pazder, she really did look afraid.
"I'm afraid you're going to tell someone. Oh, please don't. You see, you
understand about my inside and my outside, and no one else would.
I hadsmash that lump."
to
"Of course you did. You wanted to stop what was happening. You
wanted to stop their craziness."
Michelle paused for a moment, making a great effort to collect
herself. "I'm afraid of myself. Who can I be, after all that? It was all

wrong there. I didn't want to hurt anybody. I just didn't know what
else to do."

"You
did what anybody else would have done."
"But I'm pretty sure
. . . something got hurt. They were all
. . .

smashing and smashing."

"We'll find out," Dr. Pazder said gently, "and then we can work
with it."

"Can you talk to me for a minute about my insides and outsides?

I don't understand anything about it. I don't understand why I twirled
around or anything."
"You had to. You couldn't face everything that was happening that
night and survive. It was too much for your whole person to face. You'd
have gone crazy. You had to pull away from the rest of you to survive.
Perhaps twirling some sort of spontaneous, innate behavior a way
is —
of centering yourself and protecting yourself from being overwhelmed
by what's happening around you. Then you could let your outside be
what it had to so you could handle all that. It was just too much for
anyone, let alone an abandoned five-year-old child."
Michelle looked up at the doctor. "Do you know that I didn't like
doing that — hitting that lump?"
"Of course I do."
"That was the most horrible thing I've ever had to do in my life."

"I'm glad you were able to hold onto your insides."

"I'm afraid to put them back together."
"We'll bring them back and it'll be okay. Your inside and your
. . .

outside have to meet each other again. All the pieces have to meet to
allow you to be one whole person again. You have to understand that
 Michelle Remembers [ 43 ]

those people were controlling your outside, so you had to give that up
—and inside was the only safe place to go."
wanted my mom so badly." Michelle began to cry again. "I
"I
needed her to help me. I felt she would hug me and it would be okay.
I felt so when she wouldn't."
... so ugly
"I can how you must have felt."
imagine
'There's just so much confusion. I know that maybe there isn't any
connection between how good I felt when I stopped them —the air,

—
and those mommies, and Malachi but it's all mixed up together."
"Yes, it will be for a while."
"My hands are all numb. I wanted to hold onto your hand, but I
knew I wasn't allowed."
"It's okay to touch me."
"But my mom made it sound like I should never touch anyone. I

don't know what to do. That's what my mom didn't understand about
me, that I needed someone to touch, even if I was ugly."
Michelle paused and looked away. Then she turned back suddenly.
"I feel so scared inside. Oh, God, I feel so scared. I hate all those
feelings. She kept confusing me so badly. I hate the confusion. Why
don't you want to go away? Oh, I hurt."
"Michelle," Dr. Pazder said, "no part of me wants to go away from
you. I understand what happened, I really do, and it will all be okay
in time."
"I want to believe that."
"Please believe it."

"My hands, I know why they're all numb. I want to reach out to
you and touch you, but I'm afraid to. I'm so afraid. That's why my
—
hands are numb they're afraid of being rejected too. That's why I had
to hang onto myself all these years."
"Your hands and face now are both covered in that rash. You keep
rubbing them like you're trying to get something off." He was alarmed
at the way she was abrading her face with her knuckles and wringing

her hands.
"You mean like the way I keep rubbing my face?"
"Uh-huh."
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. The thing that's on them . . . the thing that's
 Michelle Remembers [ 44 ]

on them back there ... is blood. I got to get it off."

"Leave it on! Leave it on. Don't run from it, back there. I want you
to leave it on and tell me what it felt like."
Michelle gasped softly. "Look," he
in fear. Dr. Pazder spoke more
said, "can you good that it was on them? When
let yourself feel a little

you put your hand on the lump when you told about that, for a slight —
moment there was a faint smile on your face. What did you feel then?"
Michelle lowered her eyes and was silent for a time. "It did feel a
little okay," she said, finally. "It did feel a little good. Was it wrong
to feel like that?"
"It was one of the most sane things you did all night. It was the
most sane thing that happened there."
She looked "Oh, please, this is such a secret. You
at him urgently.
see, I would wash the others. I wanted
thought the blood would . . .

to sort of cover up what happened. I was so happy my hands were

covered up. That's why I wiped it on all of them. I had to wash them
and stop what was happening."
"When you were reliving it do you know what your hands were —
doing while you were telling me about wiping the blood on them?"
"No, I don't understand what you mean."
Dr. Pazder took her hands and helped her to an erect sitting
position. "Okay, now I want you to show me how you wiped it on them.
Show me again, now."
Michelle balked at first and then hesitantly began to move her
hands in the up and down, side to side. "I just
air in front of her,
."
. wiped it on them
. . like this and this. . . . . . . . .

"What are you making on them?"

"Making on them? I don't know. You mean ... I don't understand.
Oh, I see. Crosses."
"Yes, crosses."
"I didn't realize I was making crosses on them."
"You were very clearly making crosses on all of them. I wondered
at the time where it had come from."
."
"You mean why . .

"Did you know anything about crosses as a little child?" From his

earlier years of work with Michelle, he knew that in her harsh,

 Michelle Remembers [ 4$ ]

devastated family, there had been no religious observance whatsoever.

"Not much," she replied. "Just what every kid knows. We never
went to church or anything like that."
"It seemed to have come from a very deep part of you. It is a very
symbolic and powerful thing to do," he said.
"Do you suppose that was what made them all back away from
me?" Michelle wondered.
"The crosses?"
."
"Putting crosses on them . .

"I don't know. What else did you feel? You were smiling. Was part
of you happy?"
"I . . . think so."
"Can you let yourself smile about it now?"
"It feels crazy to smile about it now."
"It's not a bit crazy."
"It was crazy to feel happy."
"When were you happy?"
"When I was rubbing the blood all over everyone, I think."
."
"Yes. . .

"I was laughing. It wasn't even a crazy laugh. It wasn't that kind.
I can't laugh right now, but I can let you know how I felt inside. My
outside was really frantic. My outside hit the lump. But my inside
wasn't like that. I saw the blood. . . . It's not ... no, you'll put me away!"
Dr. Pazder waited until she looked up, and then he held her gaze.
"You'll have to trust me here," he said gently. "It's important."
"My inside just went . . . I'll try to show you my inside. It was
watching what my outside was doing. And it went really quiet."
just

She took several deep breaths. "I was really quiet and then it felt
. . .

warm."
"Warm?"
"Yes. And then the amazing thing was that I didn't need the bear.
And it felt like a birthday party. This doesn't make any sense, you see."
"It makes a great deal of sense."
"And it just felt like it feels standing by a window with the sunshine
coming in. It doesn't make any sense. But, you see, the blood was warm.
The blood was warm . . . and it ... it felt good." She was crying, but
 Mich elle R em embers [46]

not bitterly; they were the tears of relief, of release. "And my inside
smiled. It didn't laugh. It just felt warm, like sunshine. Not crazy
laughing. wanted everyone to feel warm too."
I just

"Of course. It was the only thing you could touch in that room that
was normal and good."
"You think that was it?"
"Let me see your hands. I want to hold them."
"You don't mind?"
"Not a bit. They've changed a lot from the way they were earlier,

haven't they?"
"Yes . . . yes, they have. They're better."
"The rash has gotten very much less, and they look fuller, and they
feel warm."
"They haven't been warm for a long time, you know."
"Blood doesn't make them dirty."
"It doesn't make you ugly?"
"It doesn't make you ugly."
"Thank God you understand. Thank goodness."
 chapter 6

a N the
Pazder of a disturbing new thought that had come to her on the
weekend.
following Monday, Michelle told Dr.

"I was walking, just across the room," she said, "from one side of
the room to the other, and all of a sudden, all of a sudden ... all at
once a really strange connection happened. I was thinking of my part
in . . . feeling guilty . . . and all that blood . . . I'm afraid to say it. I

can't say it because I don't know what I'll do." She sighed heavily,
braced herself, and resumed. "The candles and the black, the color
black, and people dressed in black —and those eyes, and you know, the
."
stuff about that feeling in the air . .

"Yes," Dr. Pazder said, "I know."

"Okay, all these things that I'm . . . these words . . . they're all

connected, they all flashed together in my mind at the same time. And
it sounds to me like witches."

"Yes, it does sound like that."

"I was thinking that if these people were witches, it somehow
explains the things that happened to me, all the awful things. And then
I thought — it doesn't make any sense — I thought I had to see a priest."
"A priest?"
"I don't know exactly why, but it's such a strong feeling. It's not
that I think I have a devil in me, or anything like that. It's that, well,
it's more than just my life that's threatened, it's my soul, too."
"They're very much the same."

[47]
 Michelle Remembers [48]

"I know you're Catholic. I'm afraid I'll scare you away."
4

'How would my being a Catholic do that?"

"I don't know. Witches are against the Church, and maybe Catho-
lics aren't supposed to have anything to do with them."
"Don't worry about that."
"Maybe they weren't witches or anything, but they were doing
something funny that night. They all did everything for reasons. All the
things they did to me —they did them for a reason. . .
." For a moment
she seemed lost in the thought. "The reason why they hurt that lump,
it wasn't like a frenzy or anything. It was all deliberate. I know I'm
talking about it funny. I'm talking about it like I'm kind of detached
from it, but that's all part of making sure it's safe."
"It's okay," Dr. Pazder said. "I know it's okay."
Michelle sighed again. "Do you have any idea of the confusion I

have inside? I'm just torn by things that were so creepy and twisted.
I'm trying to tell myself that those things aren't real and aren't true
and aren't binding, and trying . . . not to feel so threatened. I don't
know how to deal with it all."

"You'll be able to deal with it."

"This weekend I was thinking, how can this possibly have happened
to me, in this day and age? I just couldn't figure out if it was just my
fears, or if the things that happened to me got all distorted and pulled
out of perspective. But every time I tell myself, 'Oh, Michelle, it just

got distorted,' I just get this really, really heavy feeling like there's

something really wrong here, something really wrong. It was more than
people just hurting each other or doing weird things to me, and so far
the only way I've been able to describe it is that like there was some-
"
thing in the air.

"In the air?"

"Except I know it's got something to do with the time of the year.
I can't tell you, the whole thing just scares me so terribly. The thing
that scares me the most is all the connections that are there. All the
pieces that don't fit in place any other way —they fit in place that way!
And I just don't know what to do."
Dr. Pazder looked at the face of the young woman and once again
saw the terror he had seen the day before the first descent.
 Michelle Remembers [ 49 ]

"It's like/' she went on, "as if I've got to go back and double-check
everything to make sure that it's really safe. I've got to get safe."

"Is there something about letting yourself get into these feelings,"
he asked her, "that makes you think you may be in danger?"
."
"It's only that . . Michelle began to cry. "It's that I'm afraid you'll
turn away from me. I know I shouldn't say that to you —you really care

about me. But I just can't die."

"Now, wait a minute," Dr. Pazder exclaimed, speaking louder than

he'd meant to, "you're not going to die."
"I'm afraid they'll take my soul away."
"No one can take your soul away. And they haven't taken it. That's
the one thing they can never take away. They can take away your heart,
and they can maim your body, destroy your mind, but only you can give
up your soul."
"I want to believe that."
"Your fear about death and their twisting that around, that's the
scariest thing they can do to a little girl. Part of you had to go along
with them, to save yourself. But that part is not where your soul is. I've
met your soul. I've looked into your eyes. And I know you're not a
person who's had her soul taken away."
Michelle's expression lightened.
"About getting a priest," Dr. Pazder continued, wondering mo-
mentarily what he was saying. Psychiatrists in general tended to regard
religion as something of a crutch, and as for bringing a priest into the
psychiatric situation —there was almost a taboo against it. But the
request for a priest had come from Michelle so intensely, and her
concern for her soul was so strong, that he felt he could not ignore the
entreaty. "Any time you want to see a priest, I can get one. I know a
priest who may be able to relate to what we're doing."
"Really?"
"His name is Father Leo Robert. He's not what you might expect.
He's young and he's got a beard and a great sense of humor — you'll like

him. I'll give him a call."

That afternoon, after Michelle had left, the doctor telephoned
Father Leo. "Father," he said, "I'm working with a young woman who
apparently had some pretty terrible things happen to her when she was
 Michelle Remembers [50 ]

five — involving some kind of groups, they were into some sort of cult-
type things, some kind of ceremonies going on. There seems to have
been a lot of threat to her as a child, a lot of guilt for a number of things
that happened. We've gotten to a serious place for her, and she is very
frightened. Today she said she wanted to see a priest. She's sincere and
I think it's genuine. I'd appreciate it if you could find a little time to
talk to her."
Father Leo readily agreed, and an appointment was made for the

following morning. On their way to it, Dr. Pazder gave Michelle

something wrapped in tissue paper — a small cross he had bought in

Rome along with others just like it for his wife and children. "If you're
feeling frightened," he said, a little self-consciously, "you can hold onto
this." She took the cross gratefully, too moved to speak.
When they arrived at Queenswood Chapel, she was surprised,
despite what Dr. Pazder had told her, by Father Leo's appearance. He
was tall and good-looking and wore a turtleneck instead of a clerical
collar, and jeans and boots. Not at all her notion of a priest.
He and sympathetically, but doctor and
talked with her earnestly
patient both sensed a certain nervousness on Father Leo's part. After
an hour, he took Dr. Pazder aside. "You're right," Father Leo said,
"she's obviously completely sincere, and she obviously has been
through something do whatever I can to help her.
really horrible. I'll

But there's one thing: The whole time she's been here, she's been
holding something tightly in her hand. I wonder if I could see what
it IS.

Dr. Pazder burst into laughter. "Michelle," he called, crossing the

room back to her chair, "would you show Father Leo what you have
in your hand?"
Michelle opened her fingers, and there was the little cross Dr.
Pazder had given her. Now it was the priest's turn to laugh.
"I'll tell you what," he said, when the mirth subsided. "I'd like to
say Mass. Let me say it for you both."
Michelle looked at Dr. Pazder, who smiled yes, and she nodded.
She was thrilled at the idea, and yet the tiniest bit apprehensive, as if

she were having a premonition.

The three of them entered the chapel by the rear door. There was
 Michelle Remembers [51]

no one else there for Mass, so the priest invited them to stand with him
at the altar. The Mass began, and Dr. Pazder soon noticed that Mi-
chelle was trembling.
After the Mass was over, Michelle and Dr. Pazder waited in a pew
while Father Leo changed out of his vestments. When he rejoined
them, Michelle started toward the door by which they had entered.
"Oh, no," said Father Leo to Michelle. "You may have come in the
back door, but you're going out the front door." And he unlocked the
big oak door and let them out.
Later, back in the office at the Fort Royal Medical Centre, the tape
recorder whirring, Michelle told Dr. Pazder what she had felt during
Mass. By analogy, she had been taken back to that first horrific night.
That time there had been by a black cloth; this time
a dresser covered
there was an altar covered with white. Again there were candles
. .and a chalice
. with something red in it
. . . and a man dressed . . .

in clothes with purple markings who read from a book with droning
. . .

solemnity. Rationally Michelle knew that Father Leo's Mass was as

different from the ritual of that awful night as, literally, white was from
black. Still, it was a ceremony, and the correspondences for Michelle
afflicted her at first with deep visceral panic.
But, she also told Dr. Pazder, the Mass had brought her relief. "It
was wonderful to know that there are forces stronger than the ones I'd
experienced," she said. "When Father Leo first started talking, I
thought, 'Oh, no, what do I do now?' But then I felt that God under-
stood. I felt like I'd walked a million miles and then I was given a
chance to rest. I finally could let God know how much I hurt.
"But I still have to face myself," she went on. "Father Leo blessed
me, but he didn't say anything about protection, and I still feel I need
it, and I think I'm going to need it a lot in the days to come."

When Michelle and Dr. Pazder began a session, they usually

chatted for a while, and Michelle often would mention something
that was on her mind, some topic or theme. Today, Christmas Eve,
Michelle advanced one such topic. "I think I'm going to talk about
hospitals," she said with a slightly confused smile. "I don't know why,
but I can't stop thinking about hospitals. I wish I knew what it was.
 Michelle Remembers [52 ]

Do you think I could have cut my hands with that bottle?"

Or, Dr. Pazder thought, perhaps the injuries inflicted on the child
the night the lump was bludgeoned were severe enough to require
hospitalization.
"As you well know," Michelle said, "I've always been afraid of
had the hardest time trusting doctors and nurses. I don't
hospitals. I've
know what any of this means. I'm just going to have to believe it means
something, right?"
"Right. Just let yourself talk about it now. Don't try to make sense
out of it. We'll do that later."
Michelle then went on to talk about her various hospital experi-
ences at length —her tonsillectomy, her emergency admission to a
hospital for acute stomach pains, her mother's death, and so forth. As
she talked, her breathing changed and she gradually began her descent.
"Oh, God ... I hate going back there. Why is it so hard?"
Dr. Pazder took her hand and held it tightly. "You've spent your
whole life holding all that down there in that dark place. Half of you
is doing everything it can to keep it down, and the other half is letting
it come and wants very much to get it all out so you can rest. Itknows
you have to face whatever it was. We can face it together. I just want

to listen very carefully and hear everything as it comes out."

"Why don't you eat your breakfast?" Michelle's mother was saying.
It was the next morning. The night before, Malachi had angrily
sent the child into the bathroom to clean herself up. She had tried, but
she couldn't; she was so upset, so weak, so hurt. And the substances
that had been painted on her had dried and were hard to get off, and
they made the washcloth dirty and the water dirty, and she began to
feel that she would never be clean again. She tried and tried she . . .

desperately wanted to make everything clean and neat and normal

again. Eventually she was told to go to bed, where she collapsed and
somehow went to sleep.
And now here it was, the day after, and she was sitting in the
kitchen, a bowl of cereal in front of her, with her mother. It was just
like a pretend. Her mother was acting as if nothing had happened.

"I said to eat your breakfast!" But Michelle didn't want to eat, and
 Michelle Remembers [53 ]

she couldn't bear the pretense, so she threw her cereal bowl on the
floor. Her mother was furious and sent her to her room. All day long
she stayed there, but at dusk she ventured out.

I'm not sure what happened or how it happened, but I was

afraid of something in that house, and went creeping out into

I

the hall and opened the door of a bedroom. And do you know
what was in that bedroom?

Michelle's voice was that of a scared five-year-old who has just seen
something dreadful.

Malachi was in there . . . and the lump was in there. Why was
Malachi dressing it? I'm afraid. Somebody help me! Help me!
And my mom came, and she's scary, her eyes look the same way
they did when she told me to go away. She shut the door and she
bent over and she had one hand on the door so that it was shut
tight,and she had ahold of me. But she was being so quiet. And
she said,Don 't go
. . in
. there! And I knew I could never
. . . . . .

go in there. I didn't want to look in her eyes anymore. I just

wanted to be a good girl. Yes yes, Mom, I just want to be a . . .

good girl.

Michelle went back to her room. In what seemed to be the middle

of the night she was awakened. Her mother and Malachi were dressed
up and were getting ready to go somewhere.

I was told to shut my eyes. . . . My pretend friend had come

back, and she said I was silly to keep them shut, but I didn't dare
open them. They said we were going in the car. My pretend
friend kept doing things like, she'd turn and stick her tongue out
at them. She made it a game. But I didn't think it was funny.

Michelle was led out of the house. She could hear foghorns they —
must be near the ocean. She opened her eyes, just for a minute, and
she saw the car: rounded nose, rounded back, and shiny black. She
 Michelle Remembers [54]

opened them once again. Malachi was dressed in a trenchcoat and a

hat. Michelle was told to get into the back seat and stay on the floor.
He carried out a woman. At first she thought it was her mother
the clothes were her mother's —
the fox collar, the pillbox hat with the
veil. Hands held the woman up and placed her onto the front seat in
was not Michelle's mother.
front of the child. It
Malachi got behind the wheel and started the car. They drove for
what seemed forever.

It No, no! I'm getting all mixed up.

didn't have a back door!
My hands are all numb. I see crazy faces and ... I can't do
anything. I don't want to be in the car with a dead person. Help
me! Help me!
It wasn't funny. You see, he shouldn't have left me in there

with somebody else. He's laughing. He looked at me and laughed

and then he got out of the car!

The car was rolling down the mountain road as Malachi laughed
his cruel laugh and jumped out. The car gained speed, and Michelle
saw that it was heading for a rock embankment. The car smashed into
the rock wall. The lifeless body in the front seat shot forward, then
came violently back. Its head spun freely around, all the way around,
as if the vertebrae were shattered, the face suddenly stopping inches
from the child's. Its eyes were rolled up into the head.

Make it go away. Make it go away! It's a mess. The head's a

mess!Make those crazy eyes go away! Help! Help! Make them
go away. I'm going crazy! I'm going crazy! That head just turned
around. It was all wobbly. It was all covered in blood — it was all

mashed up. The face was all mashed up. No

one will ever know
what that face looked like. It has a broken neck and the face is
turned around backward!

The car had burst into flames. Michelle clawed at the metal till her
hands bled. The car was full of smoke and she began to cough uncon-
trollably.
 Michelle Remembers [55 ]

I remember
lying on the ground. It was black and wet and
hard and there were black boots. There were ducks with black
. . .

boots ... I think they were firemen. I thought they were ducks
because they had yellow coats on. All I could see were black boots.
... I wanted them to be ducks. I kept pretending I wasn't there.
Malachi! He was there! Don let him near me! I knew I had to 't

stop screaming, I knew I had to be quiet. I didn't want to be hit

again. I had to cooperate or he'd kill me. I knew he would.

As she lay there she could hear Malachi talking. How could he say
those things? She was in pain, but now he was hurting her even more
by his words.

He told them ... he told them I was playing in the back seat.

I couldn't believe it. He told them it was because I put my hands

over his eyes . . . that's why. I wouldn't have done that. I wouldn't
have touched him. He was crying. He's so phony. He's only crying
because I didn't die!

A white car came, an ambulance. Malachi said he wanted to ride

in theambulance with Michelle. But she began to thrash and kick and
scream. He bent down to her and whispered, "Michelle, you keep your
mouth shut!" She began to vomit, and he pulled away abruptly.

They put something on my face. I couldn't stand it. I couldn't

stand them putting anything on my face. I thought they were
trying to choke me. They kept saying how difficult I was. I
thought I was difficult to kill! . . . Where are you?

The psychiatrist put his arm around the young woman's shoulders.
"I'm right here, Michelle, I'm right here."
"I've got to rest."
"Yes."
"Is it okay if I stop here?"
"Of course, Michelle. You've done well. You must be exhausted.
Try to leave it and come back up."
 Michelle Remembers [56]

Slowly Michelle ascended, weeping most of the way, heartbreaking

was an hour before she and the doctor were able to talk about
tears. It

what she had relived, so that he could help her understand it.
"Does any of this make sense to you?" she asked.
"It all makes sense."
"Oh, please help me. I feel so scared inside."
"It's a scary place."

"That's why I had my pretend friend."

"You couldn't cope with it any other way. I'm glad you had her."

"I can't cope with it now, either," Michelle stammered, and began
to sob again. "I can't even let myself be as afraid as I feel. Do you know
what that wobbly head looked like? It almost looked as if it were alive.

I want it to go away. I didn't start all that. I was just helping my mom
when I smacked that person on the head."
Dr. Pazder leaned forward. "Smacked what?"
"Smacked that person on the head."
"You know," he said, "that's the first time you've admitted that
—
lump was a person the first time with your eyes looking at me."
"I know," Michelle said. "I've always talked of it as a lump and
things like that. It takes me a while."
"It's so important for you to face all of it."

"I know a person was hurt. It was someone who had feelings, like
I had feelings. I didn't want her smashed by everybody there. I just

wanted to protect my mother and stop that craziness. But it didn't

work, and I guess blame myself for what they did to her."
I can't
"That's right, Michelle. It's good to hear you say that. You've been
too hard on yourself about it. You certainly were not in any way
responsible for what those people did back there. But it's like you've
said, that children always feel responsible for the wrongdoings of adults,
especially mothers. I'm glad you were able to face that yourself, because
that's how you free yourself from it. It's much more important than
my saying it to you."
In time the conversation turned to the events themselves.
"Do you remember the accident at all now?" Dr. Pazder asked.
"Yes, but I can't think about it without crying."
"That's okay. Just let yourself cry."
 Michelle Remembers [ 57 ]

seemed like the fire was all around me, and then it wasn't.
"It
... was around that head. But then I don't know.
It Then it's . . .

nothing and then it's all these black boots and I hear sirens."
. . .

"How did you get out of the car?"

"I don't know. I don't remember that."
"What day was it? Do you have any idea?"
"I don't know." She remained silent for a few moments. "Al-
though, before they made me go to the car, my mom and Malachi said
something like, They won't pay much attention to it, they'll just think
tragic this time of year.' didn't know what tragic was. thought
it's

it meant fire,
I

because that was what one policeman did say

— 'What I

a
"
tragic thing to happen at Christmas.'
"So it was Christmastime. What year was it?"
"I don't know what year it was. It was before I was in Grade One,
I think. I was in Grade One in 1956.
The psychiatrist stood and stretched and reached out his hand to
help Michelle up. "Let's leave it for now. This has been a very long
day. We've got a lot to talk about, don't we, a lot to go through?"
Michelle said nothing.
"We'll work it out."
."
"I know. . .

"You've got to drive over the Malahat, don't you? Those mountain
roads are icy and treacherous. Be careful on the way home, won't you?"
"Yes."
know what ."
"I you're thinking. . .

"I know."
"You're thinking that maybe the car crash happened up there on
that road."
"Yes."
"I wish I could drive you home, but I can't."
"I know. And don't worry. I'll be fine. I'll be very careful, you can
believe that." And Michelle smiled to ease Dr. Pazder's concern.
 chapter 7

JiT was the nicest Christmas that Michelle had ever

had. She and Doug were in their beautiful new home together. He gave
her an afghan and a pretty brass lamp —warmth and light, ideal gifts.

Michelle and Doug had spent a whole day three weeks earlier preparing
homemade mincemeat. They baked Christmas cake, shortbread, and
a variety of cookies.On Christmas Day, friends came over bearing their
own special treats. Everyone admired the big tree that they had all cut
down together the week before. After gifts and music, Michelle called
them all to dinner, a festive meal served on the best china and crystal,

tall candles lighting the happy faces. The food was traditional — turkey,
stuffing, potatoes, sweet potatoes, gravy, turnips, cranberry sauce. For
dessert, hot plum pudding with rum sauce, trifle, and the mincemeat
pie, aged in brandy.
The next day was Boxing Day, and more neighbors from around the
lake trudged through the snow carrying presents, many of them home-
made.
Later that evening, after all the celebrating was over and Michelle
and Doug were sitting by the fire having eggnog, she began to tell him
a bit about what she had discovered during her session with Dr. Pazder
on Christmas Eve. There apparently had been a car accident, she said,
and an ambulance had come to take the little girl to the hopsital. As
she spoke, Michelle began to cough. She couldn't stop. She coughed
all night, and the next day she went to her physician, who gave her

59
 Michelle Remembers [ 60 ]

some antibiotics. Still the cough

and by the time she arrived
persisted,
for her appointment with Dr. Pazder, her throat was sore, and she
ached all over.
Dr. Pazder listened to her severe cough — this wracking, whooping
cough —and he examined her throat. He felt quite certain the cough
had nothing to do with disease —
pneumonia, for instance and won- —
dered if it was connected to the smoke and flames of the car accident.
Again, perhaps, Michelle's body was remembering.
"We've got a lot to cover today," he said. 'Tomorrow I'm leaving
for Mexico, and at the end of our session we have to talk with Dr. Arnot
about his being available to you while I'm gone." Michelle had known
of Dr. Pazder's impending month's vacation with his wife, and Mi-
chelle was glad Pazder to have a rest, for he clearly needed it,
for Dr.
and glad too that she would have a rest from the agonies of unearthing
the painful past. She looked forward to a quiet, simple time at home.
Dr. Pazder, on his part, felt comfortable about leaving Michelle in Dr.
whom he
Arnot's care. Richards Arnot, the colleague in his group to
felt closest, was experienced and dealing with
at treating children
terror, pain, and body memory. The one thing Dr. Pazder wanted to

caution Dr. Arnot about: If Michelle's cough should get worse, he

should not put her into a hospital except as a last resort. Hospitals for
Michelle were unspeakably frightening.
Michelle then made her descent rather rapidly, and promptly began
the process she would later compare to "watching a rerun of an old
movie. That's how real it seems."

—
She was lying in a room draped with cloth white cloth on all four
walls. There were people around her, and they were wearing white.

Muddled by pain killers and shock, her child's brain concluded with
horror that these were merely a new and different group of people who
were going to hurt her. Two of them undressed her it was happening —
again. A man made her open her eyes, her mouth and probed them. —
A woman inserted something into her bottom. When she resisted, she
was told to cooperate.
Two men in black asked her questions. "What happened?" one
inquired. Michelle thought he meant, "What happened to the lady?"
 Michelle Remembers [ 61 ]

Remembering Malachi's admonition, she squeezed her lips tight shut

and refused to talk.

The white on one of the walls was pulled back, and out in the
cloth
corridor she saw a table on wheels and, on the table, a long plastic bag.
Instinctively she knew that the bag contained a body. And then the
white-clad person who had been standing by the table moved away, and
Michelle saw something that froze her heart: Resting on top of the
plastic-clad corpse was a pair of red shoes.

Again she awoke. This time she was in a room with green walls; the

upper half of one wall was and through it, out in the hall,
glass,

Michelle could see a clock. There was a crucifix on the wall; Michelle
did not know what a cross was, let alone a crucifix, but she was struck
by its form.
There were strings — tubes, really —
stuck into her arms and running
to upside-down bottles, one red,one white. In panic Michelle pulled
the tubes from her arms. A woman in white came running over and
scolded her, officiously putting the tubes back into her arms.

Once again she drifted up from unconsciousness. Everything

looked funny, the clock looked fuzzy — it was as if she were underwater.
And then she realized that she too was in a plastic bag. Am I dead?
she wondered.
She pulled out the tubes and pushed back the covers and crawled
out of the plastic bag. She wanted so much to sneak away but she had —
no idea where to go. She inched her way into the hall. Almost immedi-
ately hands seized her from behind, and two persons in white carried
her back to bed.
"She's a very difficult child/' one of them said.
"We're going to have to tie your hands down," said the other. Soon
her hands were tied to the bedposts.
"She just wants attention," the first person said.

"Good morning, Michelle." The child looked up and saw her

mother. Several people in white stood by as pale, beautiful Jessica
Harding came to the bedside and tried to show affection. But to
 Michelle Remembers [ 62 ]

Michelle her caring was plainly artificial, done not for Michelle's com-
fort but for the benefit of the people in white. Michelle pretended to
fall asleep.
"This must be terribly difficult for you," one of the people in white
said to Jessica.

Malachi was standing just outside the room, looking in at Michelle.

She recoiled in shock. He was talking to two policemen.
"She was one of my closest friends," he was saying to them, refer-
ring to the dead lady. He was pretending to cry. "I'll never forgive
Michelle ... no, that isn't right, she's just a child . . . but it seems so
cruel that a wonderful woman like that could be killed just because of
a child's misbehavior." The policemen listened, nodded gravely, and
walked away.
Malachi turned and started for the door to the room. With all her
heart Michelle knew that she must not allow him to enter, must not
let him anywhere near her. Without thinking, acting on blind impulse,
she yanked the red tube from her arm and let the liquid squirt freely.

Blood covered her face. Through the crimson bath, she looked out at
Malachi and then —out of pure detestation —made crazy eyes at him.
It worked. Malachi took a step back, then another, then hurriedly left

the room.
In Dr. Pazder's office in the Fort Royal Medical Centre — just a few
miles in distance from the scene Michelle had been recounting, but
precisely twenty-two years —
away in time the doctor watched as his
patient sat up, turned her head quickly to the side, and opened her eyes
wide in horror.

him like he looked at me that night," she said, almost

"I looked at
screaming. "They were his eyes. I just wanted to give him his eyes back.
I just didn't want him in that room. I thought to myself, 'I shouldn't

have done that.' Oh, God help me. Help me! All of a sudden I didn't
know who I was, and I was afraid to open my eyes again I'd be crazy —
forever. Those eyes in the car, the woman's eyes, they were full of crazy.
Are my eyes crazy? Am I crazy? Please ..."
"No, Michelle," Dr. Pazder said, "I saw your eyes, and I saw you,
and it was okay. They were scary, but they were your eyes, and I'm glad
 Michelle Remembers [ 63 ]

you had them. You weren't crazy. You were just terrified and fighting
for your life."

"No child should feel as guilty," she said a short while later, "as they
—
made me feel. It was wrong you don't make a child feel like that.
I was just a child!" Now she was openly screaming and pounding and
kicking against the mat she was lying on. "They made me feel so awful.

I was so mad at everyone!"

"Let it all out," Dr. Pazder said. "Let it go. It's okay to cry. It's

really okay. You've got a lot of crying to do."

"
"I do, I do
"You've got a lot of crying to do with that little girl, because you've
had to protect her and be so brave about it. Here, Michelle, I want you
to take hold of this doll. Do you remember it? You made it for me a

long, long time ago, for my other patients to hold onto when they felt

really bad. Here, you hold onto it now. Hold it close, just like you
wanted someone to hold you, a long time ago."
Michelle took the big soft doll and pressed it to her, beginning to
cry convulsively. As the tears came, she gave up the doll and hugged
herself.

"You've got to go back there, Michelle, and embrace that little girl

— that little girl who was so abandoned and wounded. The only thing
she really has and needs now is you. She needs you to look after her.

That's what you're going to have to learn how to do."

"What do you mean?"
"You've got to understand that there's a big difference between
then and now. Now you have her, and she has you. The hard part is

that no one can ever make up for what happened to you back there
. . . but you can love her, you can love her as much as she needs. We
all have to love ourselves again, all the time."
Michelle continued to cry, deeply sobbing, but now, more and
more, it was with relief. "I don't feel numb anymore," she said.

"No, you don't. That's good."

"I've never wanted to cry so badly in my life."

"You must let your tears come out. You don't have to hold them
back anymore."
 Michelle Remembers [ 64 ]

'Thank you so much for listening to me and understanding. Today

will make your going to Mexico a lot easier."
"I hope so."
"Could we talk about back there, if we have the time?"
"Yes, it's important. We do have a little time left."
"They put dead people in a plastic bag, don't they?"
"They can, especially if they are badly burned. Do you know why
you were in an oxygen tent?"
"That's what it was? I thought it was a plastic bag and I was
supposed to be dead. I wish doctors and nurses knew how important
it is not to say anything that frightens children. Ifsomebody had just
taken the time to explain things to me it would have made such a
difference. Do you see why I'm so afraid of hospitals?
"I certainly do."
"They put a black tube in my mouth and down my throat. Why
did they do that?"
"Well, from everything you told me,
I'd say you were likely bleed-
ing from your and the blood was draining down into
mouth and throat,
your stomach. Were you throwing up anything black?"
"Yes."
"Well, they had that tube down there to drain the blood from your
stomach so you wouldn't be nauseated and so they could keep a watch
on how much you were bleeding. It was black because blood turns black
in the stomach."

"Will my cough go away?"

"It does soundas if your body is remembering coughing from all

that smoke. It will probably get better when your chest gets better back
there. You know. . .
." He paused.
"Know what?"
"Well, it does seem that you are reliving everything that went on
back there, day for day, almost hour by hour. It's absolutely amazing.
It's almost too much to believe, but you're exactly on a cycle with this

moment twenty-two years ago. I mean, every psychiatrist knows of

anniversary reactions — for example, people who get sad and can't imag-
ine why, and then it turns out that something terrible, a death or
 Michelle Remembers [ 6j ]

something, occurred exactly a year ago. But this is the most astounding
anniversary reaction I've ever heard of."
"I know, like today I was really hot, for a change, really just pouring
sweat, and I very seldom do that. I wondered if it was because I was
in bed in the hospital/'

"It's possible you got an infection back there, like you can get
from burns. That might account for the heat. Or maybe you were
about to get one. Do you know whether that's it? I'm just asking
because I'd kind of want to know what to tell Dr. Arnot to expect
while I'm away."
"I wish I knew. I don't know what's going to happen to me. I don't
know how I got out of the hospital. It's absolutely blank."
"Well, maybe I'm wrong, but I feel relieved knowing you ended up
in the hospital. Hospitals aren't great, but at least you're in safe hands
and away from those people."
Michelle smiled. "I hope you're right."
"There are just a couple more things I want to say," Dr. Pazder
added. "In many ways it was a very symbolic place you were in,
where we were working today, and much of what was happening to
you was colliding with what had happened earlier like, for example, —
the lights and candles the stretcher and dresser and bed
. . . the . . .

white curtain and black uniforms . . . the colored tubes, needles,

thermometers, like the colored sticks . . . the bags and cups of colored
liquids . . . the strange talking . . . the smells . . . the way you were
treated, it was all so overwhelmingly symbolic. And I couldn't help
thinking about that dream you told me just before all this started. Do
you remember it?"

"Yes. It's exactly what I was thinking about when I told you about
those people sticking those things in my arms. I could feel little bugs
crawling under my skin."
"Our time is just about up. I'm leaving you the tape recorder.
You've been used to talking about your memories so much lately that

they'll probably come up a little, at least for the first few days I'm gone.
And it'll help you to talk — sort of like letting off steam. When I get
back we'll go over it and work with it. If you feel more comfortable
 Michelle Remembers [ 66}

using my office, come on in, but check with Sue first to make sure it's

available. I also want you to have my sheepskin coat to help you keep
warm and know that it's okay."*
"Thank you. I'm going to try to get a holiday too, if my body will

let me."
"Remember that Dr. Arnot will be there if you need him."
"All I need is a hand once in a while," Michelle said whimsically.
"Tea and sympathy, as Janis Ian calls it."

*Michelle had been using the doctor's old coat as a blanket to warm her against
the chill she often felt while in her depths.
 chapter $

7
recorder. "I feel pretty
S December 28/' Michelle said into the tape
silly, sitting here in bed with a hot- water bottle
and with your sheepskin coat pulled up to my chin like a comforter.
But a comforter is exactly what it is. I'm doing this because I've got
to tell you some things. Some of it'll make sense, some of it won't. Some
of it will just be words here and there. Reminders. Things I can't deal
with right now. . . .

"I keep getting little flashes into the future but I don't know what
they amount to yet. I think before you come back I'll probably know.
It's about eleven-thirty at night and I was getting more and more scared

and farther and farther away, so Doug suggested my trying to talk to

the recorder.
"I get so frightened at night. I think it's just being alone, alone
then, alone now; it hurts so much I hadn't thought I could get through
today. It's not just because you've gone. Being alone has a lot to do with
then, with awfully long nights alone in that hospital room knowing
there was no one I could reach out to. I also think I was probably quite

illand wasn't entirely sure whether I was going to make it through the
night —just me, physically, if I was going to make it. I feel that kind
of fear tonight —
like, am I going to make it till tomorrow morning?

"I had four or five friends call today. When I answered and I began
to try to talk, you know like, 'How was your Christmas?' and all that,
I couldn't do it. I just had to say I wasn't well and I would phone them

back later. I've never been like that before. I've always been able to

[67]
 Michelle Remembers [ 68 ]

somehow bluff my way through better than that. I can't bluff at all, at
least not today. It's too real. The pain I feel's too real, the loss —the
loss back then.
"I feel like I'm going to pass out. I think I'd better stop for a
minute. It's okay. I know what the problem is now. I got so paranoid
in that hospital about people hurting me that every time anybody came
near me I thought they were trying to be afraid
kill me. It's so hard to
for your life when someone's there and the minute they walk out the
door you're even more afraid because you're alone. Oh, what do you
do? What do you do? I think I spent a lot of those nights screaming
silently or pretending.

"Well, it's getting late and Doug wants to go to bed so I guess I'm
going to have to go. I wish I could hear your voice telling me it's going
to be all right. The fact is I just don't know it's going to be all right.

I don't know."

Thus began for Michelle the month that Lawrence Pazder would
be in Mexico. Bits and pieces of memory continued to surface while
her body began preparing for the new memories that lurked below. She
felt herself getting cold — a familiar sign that something was happening
back there; maybe she wasn't so safe in the hospital as she and Dr.
Pazder had hoped. The remembering hadn't stopped — it couldn't be
turned off for a vacation. Once the process was started, it had a move-
ment of its own. But Michelle couldn't allow herself to remember fully

without Dr. Pazder there to hearand help her deal with what came it

out. She was reminded of something she had written soon after the
remembering began:

I tried not to have it happen, but this process, I am realizing

more and more, is not consciously controllable. I kind of think it

is "me" inside trying to come out and be whole.

It's funny how it starts. It's the same every time. First of all

I get really cold, nothing keeps me warm, my whole body is cold,

I turn up the heat, put on an extra pair of socks, pull the afghan
over me. Warmth helps. I need the warmth.
 Michelle Remembers [ 69 ]

Then comes the wrenching in my stomach and chest, my

insides just keep grinding away. That's what surprises me, this is

such a physical thing, and if it weren't for the physical signs I

wouldn't have a clue. There's the rash, so itchy I can't help

wondering what it is trying to say. I used to put ointments on,
cover it up, hide it, pretend it wasn't there, make excuses, or
ignore it; but now I want to scratch! Now know I if I don't work
through the rash it will always bother me. I'm so inflamed, swol-
len, incredibly itchy, guilty, unclean, and
I feel tormented, angry,
definitely like wrong with me. The other thing I've
something is

realized is there is no possible way my rashes could have been any

other than the way they look, and here I just have to associate
— — —
inflamed anger red blood ooze. Where they show up and —
their patterns all explain something to me. My body is my only
clue. It's the one thing I couldn't compromise or rationalize. It

was there. My mind and feelings could go away but my body was
there and had to be there the whole time. could shut my eyes I

but my body could see what was happening.

You see, my "inside me" could shut everything off but there
was still my body and it had its own life "outside" of "me inside."
It is my outside that really knows. It's my eyes that saw, my mouth

that felt, spoke, and took in; my arms, they have memories too.
Before can let my inside "me" remember, my body's memories
I

have to come out. The reason the connections don't always seem
to fit together is because my arms don't have the same experience
my mouth had, and my eyes didn't feel what my stomach felt. I

have felt like I was fractured into so many pieces, but it was the
different parts of me remembering. I had to fracture that way.
You see, "me" could not look after it all at once!
And then it's so hard putting the body memories together.
That's why they came out separately, so that when my eyes, ears,
nose, mouth, arms have all told their versions, that is when "I"
will understand "me"; that is when I will be whole again.
Remember all those times I've begged you to help me put it

all together? Well, it's not just understanding it and putting

 Michelle Remembers [ yo ]

things together that way. I am beginning to realize that it is a

much more literal request —help put me, my body, the parts of
my body, my memories, and my body memories (imprints) back
together.

Still beset by the memories, Michelle again turned to the tape

recorder.
T've tried to do housework or work with my plants or do things that
distract me today, but I'm never completely there. There's always such
a large part of me that is trying somehow to work something out. I don't
really know entirely what it is except that it's there and it can't be
ignored. . . . I've had thoughts about New Year's . . . something about
a funeral."

"I watch the clock on the hospital wall so much. If I could get in-
side the clock and be its hands, I could quit being myself for a
."
while. . .

'There's a picture on the wall of a nice man and lots of little

children, like me, around him."

"A few funny things are starting to happen. It's got something to
do with the person that was there that night that was a nurse and things
being in my room. I hope you don't mind that I have to take away some
of the feelings in telling you about it now. That's the part I can't share
and I won't be able to until you come back."

"My mom's come back to see me, but it's all different. She isn't

even pretending to care. She just doesn't care anymore. I can't get
any feeling from her. I can't reach her at all, and I'm afraid to. I just

have to lie here and listen and watch very carefully . . . and just

... be ready. . . .

"She's got something in her arms. She's brought me something in

a box. . . . Things are starting to happen. . . . I'm screaming. . . . She's

doing something funny . . . something funny behind me. I can't stop
coughing. I'm choking! I can't breathe. I'm dying. I'm going to die."
 Michelle Remembers [ yi ]

On December 30, Michelle phoned Dr. Arnot to tell him that

serious memories were beginning to surface. He asked her to come to
the office, but he knew that for him to step in and attempt to work
with Michelle, to try to substitute for Dr. Pazder, to allow her to
descend all the way into these memories without his knowing precisely
how to monitor her or to help her climb back out of them would not
be wise. The
might be to break all the bonds and allow the
effect
process to run amok. And her gasping coughs were in themselves truly
alarming.
Dr. Arnot told her that under the circumstances it seemed best that
she try to phone Dr. Pazder.
"I really don't want to do that," she replied. But she desperately
did, and, the next day, New Year's Eve, after talking it over with her
husband, she placed a call to Dr. Pazder in Mexico. "Something's
wrong! It's not all over back there!" she cried across the thousands of
miles. 'The memories keep coming! I feel like I'm going to die!"
Dr. Pazder was shocked. He had been having a wonderful vacation,
full of swimming and sun. He had thought about Michelle but only
peripherally, as, for example, once when he had seen a pigtailed little

girl playing on the beach. He had not been worried about Michelle, and
he had been a psychiatrist too long to bring his patients' troubles along
with him on holiday; that did no one any good. But as he listened to
Michelle blurting out the fragments of memory through her coughing,
he was grateful she had called. When she said, "I'm not going to make
it," he believed her. There seemed every likelihood that something
dreadful was happening to that child again, and this time in the hospi-
tal. If the adult Michelle should happen to unearth that experience and
it should prove unbearable, it seemed possible that in some real way
Michelle might not survive.
"Thank God you called me," he told her. "It was the right thing
to do. I understand a little of what's happening. It must be very, very
frightening for you, but you're not alone. We can I want to talk.
talk.

I want to know what you're going through."

"Just for you to know, that means everything."
"The important thing is to stay away from the memories as much
as you can. Don't encourage them, but if they've got to come, tell the
 Michelle Remembers [ 72 ]

tape recorder. And we can talk on the phone every few days."
"That would be . . . that's so good of you. I won't call unless I really
have to."
"We can't handle too much over the phone. You can't go into all

that with you up there and me down here. But it's important for me
to hear anything really scary. Maybe even at this distance I can put it

to the side enough so that it won't hurt too much."

Michelle was greatly relieved that Dr. Pazder had heard and under-
stood. The contact between them made it possible for her to keep the
memories under better control, and she was able to enjoy the rest of
the month. She and Doug went to the movies. She set about repotting
her large collection of tropical plants, some two hundred of them. She
went out to the university, where she had taught a course in fiber
sculpture, and, choosing tones of white and gray and brown from the
stores of coarse, handspun wool, she wove a tea cozy. She was pleased
with it, if she did say so herself. Some of her fiber sculptures had sold
for more than a thousand dollars, and this little tea cozy was as good
as any of them. She took it to the Fort Royal Medical Centre, along
with an assortment of her best plants. years ago she had nursed Some
a number and she had a very special
of neglected plants back to health,
feeling about her "greenhouse." Each plant had a personality of its
own, this one liking sunny, open spaces, that one happier in a small,
shadowed nook. She learned how to care for all of them, she watched
them grow and respond to her attention. And she was rewarded her —
plants were thriving, lush, and beautiful. Now she wanted to bring the
joy of these natural, growing things into Dr. Pazder's admittedly drab
office.

But the memories returned.

"She's back. That lady is back. The one who was there that night
in the black cloak. Only . . . now she's all dressed in white. She's
smiling, but she scares me!"

"My mom . . . she keeps saying she's really sorry. She's doing
something. I can't breathe!"
 Michelle Remembers [ 75 ]

On the phone, Michelle would say again and again that she felt she
was going to die. Dr. Pazder suspected that this was still another body
—
memory like the coughing and the rashes, but far more extreme
... a memory of the process of dying. Asking few questions, merely
letting her know he had heard her and understood it was important,
he helped her allay the distress as best he could. And then, during the
call just before his return, she forced out a revelation that she obviously
had been holding firmly back.
'There is something really scary that happens with my mom,'' she
said, "when she comes to visit me. I don't know what it is, but I know
it has something to do with why I feel as if I'm dying." Then came
tears that were so achingly genuine that Dr. Pazder, despite the dis-
tance and his wife's obvious confusion as to why he was sitting with
the phone to his ear for a quarter of an hour without saying anything,
allowed them to go freely on and on.
 chapter 9

ico,
w, HEN Dr. Pazder and his wife returned from Mex-
they found themselves the guests of honor at a surprise party. The
hosts were their four children —three sons and a daughter, Theresa.
Theresa had baked the cake. Dr. Pazder had set aside four days to be
with the children and to work with Michelle before resuming the rest
of his practice. He had promised Michelle over the phone that if she
could hold off until his return, he would see her right away. And so the
following afternoon, January 26, he found himself back in his office.

Michelle was in the waiting room when he arrived, talking with Dr.
Arnot: "Boy, are we ever glad to see you!" Dr. Arnot exclaimed when
Dr. Pazder walked in. In the office was another surprise —the touches
of beauty Michelle had added —the plants, the unique tea cozy, and
also a macrame wall-hanging she had made. They livened up the place.
There was a lot of catching up to do.
"It's good to see you/' Dr. Pazder said, shutting the office door.
"It's really good to see you," Michelle replied. "I can't believe I'm
talking to the real you instead of to a machine."
"Just go ahead and talk."
"I'm not very sure about anything I've been remembering. I've got
to talk really fast and jump around, okay?"
"Okay."
"There's something that really has to be said today. I'm not sure
what it is. It's —
something to do with time I had this really panicky
feeling that time was important to my mother and her friends. I don't

\75\
 Michelle Remembers [76]

know if it was because I was being a clock, or what. But something

clued me into the fact that they were doing everything in some sort
of definite order/'
"You knew that?"
"I knew the dates were that's why New Year's Eve scared me
. . .

so much, the night I first called you. I had the strongest feeling that
it was more the end than the beginning. It felt like the end the end —
of me. I can't explain."
"Keep going."
"
"I felt I was going to die. Really die.

"I know you did."

"It was something that happened. . .
."

"Something to do with . .
."

"Something to do with" Michelle turned and twisted on the

— —
couch "something to do with my mother. ."
. . . . . . . .

"You said that on the phone, I think, the last phone call."
"I don't want to think about that."
"I wouldn't blame you."
."
"Iremember the clock. . .

"You said you actually became the clock."

"It was out in the hall. I looked at it all day long. And then I found
myself turning into the clock. That made me feel good. If you're
a clock, you matter, people are always looking at you to see what
you're doing. I was sort of running their day. They'd walk by and
think, 'Gee, I'm late,' and they'd hurry, and I'd think, 'Well, I'm
making them hurry! Or they'd worry about not having enough of me
— enough time. I was afraid / didn't have enough time. I liked being
a clock."
"It sounds like fun."
"It was fun. I was with that one. Clocks are never sad.
really pleased
Plus the fact that clock moved; was lying on the bed and couldn't I

move. It had a face that people liked and hands and a heart, because
it ticks . . . and it knew its numbers, That matters it was really smart.

to little kids. And clocks never run out of time. mean, I actually I

remember thinking that I wasn't going to die because I could hang on

"
with my hands and because I literally 'had time.'
 Michelle Remembers [ 77 ]

"It's wonderful how a child finds ways to hold onto its sanity."
"It helped a lot."
"I'm sure it did."
."
"No matter how bad things got . .

Michelle fell into a troubled silence, and Dr. Pazder wondered if

she was about to begin a descent. But when she spoke again, her voice,
though strained, was still her adult voice.
"On the tape, I told you about . .
."

"Yes?"
"I told you about something that was so bad, so frightening ... it

scares me. ... Do

on the tape?" you want to hear it

"I could hear it from you now, if you want me to."

"Well, I was in my bed. I must have been asleep. Or half a-
."
sleep . .

She was under sedation, Dr. Pazder speculated, groggy, perhaps

running a fever. "I was just lying there, and I heard this voice. 'Michelle
. . . Michelle I woke up, but I didn't open my eyes,
. . . Michelle . .
.'

and this voice said, 'Michelle, I'm your special nurse.' And I was so
happy and opened my eyes, and I saw this pretty lady all dressed in
white, and I started to smile and then it's horrible! ... I — . . .

recognized her. . . .

"It was . . . she was that lady! You know, the lady, the one who'd
been at the house the night the lump was killed the lady in the . . .

black cloak who did those things to me with the colored sticks. And
I got the feeling that she really was a nurse —she was so . . . efficient.

She went around the room, tidying up. She went over to the wall
just

and said, Tou won't be needing this crucifix anymore.' And she took

the wooden thing down from the wall."

Dr. Pazder went pale. Whoever these people were, Michelle's tor-
mentors, they were not ordinary cultists.
Michelle misread his pained expression. "Do you want me to stop?
I can't stop but I don't want to upset you."
. . .

"No, no, no. I don't want you to stop."

"I'll stop and go home, if you want me to." Michelle's voice was
tremulous, her face drawn with tension and then, suddenly, panic. "But
. . . what if I go home and she comes with me?"
 Michelle Remembers [ 78 ]

"Where do you have to get to, in this experience, to feel safe?"

"I don't know," Michelle said, whimpering.
"Well, let's just begin."
"Are you sure? Please, I can't ... I can't do anything, I'm so weak
now." She was crying. "I can't see you. I don't know what to do." The
crying was mixed with coughing and great gasps for air. She quickly
drifted into her depths and began the reliving.

Something's wrong. Why do I see my mom all dressed up?

She's in that really nice green plaid suit —dark green with yellow
stripes, mostly green with yellow and blue. It has a pleated skirt
and a tailored jacket, and a great big hat with flowers on it.

. . . She looks real nice in it.

One of the nurses is saying, "She's got to want to pull out of

it." ... I don't know where I'm going and I'm afraid. Oh, please
don't. ... I hate it. Oh, please don't. I'm afraid!
Maybe my mom has come to save me. She comes over and
sits down by my bed and she looks so pretty. Oh, my chest . . .

hurts! My chest hurts! I couldn't say anything to her. It was the

other me looking at her, I had my eyes shut.

Michelle paused for a moment, her body motionless, her face blank.
Then her alertness slowly returned.
"Do I have to tell you everything that's happening to see if it's not
true?"
"Yes, everything."
"I don't think it's true, but I don't know where it came from."
"It seems quite important to you."

She's leaning over saying something to me. I wanted her to

hug me. I could have hugged her back, I could've. And then she
said, I brought you something." And I opened this box
"Here,
and I there was a doll. ... I took it out of the box
. . . and . . .

underneath it there was a dead bird! It was my bird, my

. . .

budgie, all dead!

 Michelle Remembers [ yg ]

Michelle's sobs shook her body, and Dr. Pazder drew her to him
and held her while the agony played itself out.

Then she said, "Oh, Michelle, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry this had
to happen. And I'm sorry about . .
." But that's all she said. And
when she said that, something in her face just went away. I don't
think I ever saw my mom come back again. She was fiddling with
something beside my bed and she . Oh, my chest hurts,
. . . . .

I feel faint, I feel faint. ... I can't breathe. . . . She's just sitting
there looking at me. ... I can't breathe!

As he caught up in the terrible story, Dr. Pazder realized

listened,

that whatever had happened long ago was having a physical effect in
the present. Michelle had turned white and was on the verge of faint-
ing. She was gasping for air, struggling to breathe. Her pulse was slow,

but it was within safe limits, and he refrained from speaking to her,

afraid a voice might shock her. For ten minutes she lay like that on the
couch. Then, mightily to his relief, her color began to return, her face
came alive, and her eyes opened. And then she began to surface, crying
as she rose.

"I can't take any more," she said. "I didn't want to try anymore.
I just gave up. I was going to die anyway. What did it matter? It didn't
matter to anybody. That's what the truth was — I didn't matter to
anybody." And then, after a few minutes, she said: "But I must have
mattered if they wanted me dead."
"You matter," Dr. Pazder said, "a very great deal."
"I had to stop —
I know you want to go see your kids. I made myself

stop because everything was beginning to make sense."

"I'm very glad you can go back there and start picking it up again.
I thought it would take longer."
"There's too much of it to take longer," Michelle whispered.
"For what?"
"It'd take longer."
"Really? But you didn't get left behind today, did you?"
 Michelle Remembers [ 80 ]

"Hmm?"
"You didn't get left behind. You've allowed it to come up."
"Well, yes, but now I've made this connection and everything.
. . . But I know you've got to get home/'
"Tell me about it."

"Tell you about it? Well, okay. You know

I wanted to get out of

the hospital. Well, makes sense now. It was like I had to get out
it all

of the hospital New Year's Eve because the nurse was there. She
. . .

had a lot more power than the other people did. I think she had more
than my mom. She was sort of like the female counterpart to Malachi.
I'm not sure if it was Malachi who told my mom to bring those things
in or if it was her. But I can tell you something very definitely. I'd never
seen that doll before. It wasn't mine!"
Michelle stopped and put her hand to her chest. "I keep feeling like

I'm having a heart attack."

"A lot of pain there?"
"No, my heart just feels like it's moving around. I'm just scared.
Now you see" — she began to cough again "I feel so dumb doing that, —
the coughing."
"Talking about what happened in the hospital still gives you a lot
of trouble in your chest."
"The doll's eyes were poked out," Michelle continued, very dis-
tressed. "And I went to pick it up and its head fell off and the . . .

underneath part of the bird was all rotten! Aaggh, all bugs!"
"Bugs on the bird?"
Michelle was moaning. "And they crawled out from inside the
bird's head. I just smashed it away. But I couldn't say anything, because
my mom, she was such a blank but the nurse, she was looking at
. . .

me with those crazy eyes." Michelle gasped. "I couldn't yell at any of
them. I could just throw things. Then the room got wiggly, and I began
to vomit."
After a time Michelle forced herself to resume.
"She wasn't ugly either, the nurse. That's what's deceiving. She was
But then she did that
really pretty. thing to me. It was New Year's . . .

Eve. Of course I wasn't asleep. I was being a clock. I'd heard them say
 Michelle Remembers [ 81 ]

it was New Year's Eve,* and time is important on New Year's Eve, so
I was spending a lot of time being a clock that night. She said she had
to give me a bath." Michelle was panting, groaning, partially descend-
ing.

She started talking to me like she did that night —you know,
that she was being all like mommy. And she was
... a saying she
was there to look after me and make me better. She pulled my
clothes off. The other nurses didn't care, they just thought she was
giving me a bath. Eleven-thirty . . . she had this silver thing
. . . she knew ... it wasn't like those cups that night, it was much
bigger. And I just shut my mouth very tight, I wasn't going to
open it. And she thought that was funny . . . oooh . . . she told
me had I to put my legs like that, like when she was washing me.
She went and got that silver thing, and this long tube. She said
the doctor had ordered an enema. I didn't understand. You see,

I hadn't gone to the bathroom for days — I wouldn't let myself.

I didn't know what an enema was; I didn't know for years after
that.

As soon as she put the tube in my bottom ... it was so much

like that other night, with her and those sticks and that stuff. She
told me I wasn't allowed to move. . . . It's such a terrible pain
down there, it's like hot and cold. I couldn't go to the bathroom,
I wasn't allowed to do that. It's ten to twelve. . . . Oh, I hurt, I

really hurt. But I wasn't allowed to say anything, I had to be really

quiet. She said I couldn't go to the bathroom until midnight. I

felt like I'd lost control down there. ... I can't stand hurting like
Oh, what am I going to do? What am I going to do?
this.

At midnight she said, "You have to go to the bathroom right

now!" I could see the shiny thing, it looked like a toilet seat. She
was bringing it to me. I couldn't get out of bed. And just when
The dates during the hospital experience are uncertain. It later became clear that
Malachi, the nurse, and the others were using a calendar year that differed from the
ordinary. It appears possible that their New Year's Day was the thirteenth day of the
thirteenth month — that is, January 13.
 Michelle Remembers [ 82 ]

she told me I could go, she pulled the pan away. I went all over
the bed. She tricked me. And she smiled.
I had had to get out. But they put
to get out of the hospital. I

bars up that night. I woke up and there were bars around the bed.
I knew I had to pretend I was better, go along with everything,

that's the way I could get out of there. When I left, I wasn't very
well, but I pretended I was. I still don't know exactly when I got
out of the hospital.

In the second session after Dr. Pazder's return, Michelle dealt with
what would prove to be one of the harshest realizations she would have
to confront. In the session before, when Michelle was relating her
mother's dreadful visit to the hospital and then broke off into some
semblance of death, Dr. Pazder had been stunned by the mention of the
mother's "fiddling" with something behind or beside the bed. He had
two dire thoughts. Either the woman was trying to put air into one of the
intravenous tubes or she was shutting off the valve on the tank that
supplied oxygen to the plastic tent and the child's smoke-scorched lungs.
The latter seemed the likelier, in view of Michelle's desperate com-
plaints that she could not breathe, and her lapse into a comatose state.

In her depths and later during the period of integration, Michelle

went back over the experience, trying to add details. It was extremely
painful for her to face the growing knowledge that her own mother had
tried to kill her. But what astounded the doctor was that Michelle

revealed very little bitterness. Indeed, she experienced real grief for her
mother, never relinquishing the hope that when her mother had said,

"Oh, Michelle . . . I'm so sorry," she really had meant it — sorry not
only for what had already happened to her little girl but also for what
she knew was about to happen.
Michelle, however, was never able to explore sufficiently her experi-
ences in the hospital. The memories had come up haphazardly, most
of the time without Dr. Pazder there to assist or to integrate. And there
was no time to go back over these memories, because time past was
moving relentlessly forward. The child was having new experiences that
were propelling her on.
 chapter 10

"T>,ID you listen to CFAX this morning?" Mi-

chelle asked Dr. Pazder, wide-eyed, as she was taking off her coat. He
said he hadn't. "Well, they were talking about The Victorian and the
different things that are written in The Victorian, and the guy, the
announcer, said, 'Black magic is being practiced in Victoria and has
been for years, and if you want to read about it, get a copy of The
Victorian. '
And he was talking about how it really shocked him, this
cultism, and about a woman who'd been their victim. Poor woman

I wonder if she still lives here."

"Did you go buy a copy?" Dr. Pazder asked.*
"No way!"

The nurse said, "Get out of bed. You're leaving the hospital." The
child was terribly torn — between relief at escaping the place where so
many awful things had happened, and fear of the nurse and of what
might lie in store. But there was no choice. The nurse wrapped her
cloak around Michelle and walked her right out the front doors. They
got in a car and the nurse drove it away. They drove until they reached
a dirt driveway with tire tracks leading off through overgrown shrub-
bery and lawns gone to high grass and weeds. The car drew up to a
large, rambling, turn-of-the-century house in poor repair.

They entered. The windows were boarded shut, but Michelle could

This article is reproduced in Appendix 1.

[83]
 Michelle Remembers [ 84 ]

see in the dim light that there were no furniture, no carpets. And no
people. She was all alone with the nurse.
"In here," said the nurse, indicating an open closet door. Michelle
went in, trembling. "North," the nurse said solemnly to no one, and
shut the closet door. Michelle stayed in the closet for some time— she
did not know how long —and then the door opened. "This way," the
nurse said, leading her into another closet, across the room.
"West."
After a time in the dark, Michelle was moved again
— "south." And
then "east."
And then she was shown to still another door opening into black-
ness. But beyond this thresholdstairs, going down. Michelle went
were
down two and then turned back to plead to the nurse. The door
steps
closed in Michelle's face. She heard the lock click and footsteps recede,
then the front door slam shut, then the car start, then the sound of its
motor fade away.
The on the steps, in total darkness. She was
child stood motionless
silently frightened, but she was not hysterical. She stayed on her step

for a long time. Eventually she moved just enough to determine with
her bare feet that the staircase was narrow and made of rough wood.
The air was musty, the smell of a dirt floor somewhere below.
I'll take a step, she thought, but didn't. And then she did, slowly
extending her foot, trying to move her toe down the vertical board to
get to the horizontal one. But there was no vertical board. The stairway
had no risers, only treads, and her toe met nothing. For a moment she
thought she might lurch off balance and crash down the stairs into the
unknown awfulness at the bottom. But she steadied herself and sum-
moned her courage and bent her knee until the lower foot touched the
next tread. Then another, and another. She had no idea where the
bottom was, no idea when she might step off into she didn't dare
. . .

think what.
Her eyes at last grew accustomed to the dark. There was the slight-

est bit of light coming from somewhere. She could see the floor. She
crept down step by stepand then, when she reached the floor, she
stopped. She peered off toward the dark corners.
Are there monsters? she wondered. Quickly she felt her way down
 Michelle Remembers [ 8$ ]

and around and under the stairway. She huddled there.

// / don 't move, she thought, Vll be all right. Ill just be part of the
dust on the floor. If I move, it's so quiet here Vll just scare myself.
She became very hungry and then went past hunger.
She heard footsteps, somewhere up in the house. Hopefully, she
came out from under the stairs and crept halfway up. The footsteps
went away. She went back and crouched under the stairs again. She had
the strongest sense of needing her back to be protected.
Some time later — a long time? a short time? —she heard footsteps
again. Someone is going to come to save me, she thought. Oh, maybe
Vm going to get out of here. And then something inside her said: "Don 't

"
get caught by it, don 't let yourself hope too much.
The footsteps drew closer and stopped. A key turned in the door
lock. The door creaked open.
"Michelllle . .
." It was the nurse, calling in a long, drawn-out voice
in an eerie minor key. "Michelllle . .
."

The voice didn't scare her. It made her feel very alone.

The hunger was back. She was lying on the steps. They were her
world now; she had come to know them very well. Her head was on
a tread, and she found herself gnawing it, breaking off splinters with
her teeth and chewing them. The taste wasn't nearly as bad as she'd
thought it would be, and it was good to be chewing. More than that,
she was doing something. Taking care of herself. It eased her fear.

"Michelllle . .
." The voice would return from time to time. Once
Michelle thought she might answer, but just then the voice went away.
Again Michelle's hopes had been raised and dashed, leaving her in a
deeper desolation.!

She was desperately thirsty now. She had to go to the bathroom.

She squatted and began to urinate. On impulse she put her hands down
t As Michelle relived this scene with Dr. Pazder, her voice grew flat, monotonous,
uncaring, and he realized that she was moving into a kind of death of the spirit. They
were isolating her from everything familiar and disconnecting her emotions from all

normal references.
 Michelle Remembers [ 86]

and received the warm liquid into them, then raised it to her lips. It
was bitter but not impossibly bitter. She repeated the process until
there was no more.

The door opened wide and a shaft of light lanced down into Mi-
chelle's prison. It was dull but seemed dazzling. From her hiding place
under the stairs she could see big, booted feet going clunk-clunk-clunk
down the steps. Through the treads she made out the form of a large
man in a heavy coat, his collar up. The man was reaching toward the
ceiling. He was hanging ducks from the rafters. They were bleeding

onto the floor. And on the floor, was that a spider? She was dreadfully
afraid of spiders.
The man hung the last bird, then turned. It was Malachi. He left

without glancing around. It was as if he didn't even know she was there.

She awoke with a shriek. She'd been dreaming of spiders! In panic

she leaped to her feet and scrambled up the steps. She seized the
doorknob, and to her amazement she found the door was unlocked. She
imagined suddenly that there was someone just on the other side of the

door. That and she ran back down the stairs.

terrified her,

After a time, she inched her way back up. She touched the knob.
The door was still unlocked. She pushed the door the tiniest bit. She
saw nothing but a dim, empty room. But the room was the world again
— it rushed back in upon her and, deprived of all visual stimuli for so

long, she was nearly overwhelmed.

She entered the room. No one. No noises. She began to feel
strangely exhilarated. This was an adventure.
—
A stairway led up a broad, curling stairway and she followed it. —
At the top there was a door. She went through it into another empty
room. Coming from a window, where the boards that covered it had
worked loose, was a sliver of sunshine! Rich, brilliant, wonderful
. . .

sunshine. She forgot her caution and ran to it and pushed her face into
its path. After the endless damp of the cellar, it felt unbelievably warm
and nourishing.
She took one of the boards in her hands and tugged. It came free
 Michelle Remembers [ 87 ]

easily and fell into the room. And sun poured in. She could see her
arms, her dirty bare toes peeking from beneath her tattered nightgown
—she could She was a person again. It felt so good. The
see herself.
sun was so comforting. They had told her the sun was gone. Now I will
never believe them again, she thought. I'm a little cat, and I'm going
to curl up and go to sleep right here in the sun.

"Michelle!"
A hand seized her shoulder and yanked her away from the window.
It was a woman. It was her mother, and her mother was enraged. She
began hitting the child and at the same time trying to block off the
light. 'That's wrong, Michelle!" her mother cried out. "You're a bad
girl." And she led the child back downstairs.
They entered a large room with hardwood floors and shiny paneling
and a big stone fireplace. There were twisted, two-colored candles on
the mantel. The nurse was there, and so was Malachi, both in black.
Standing off in the corner were two wizened old people, watching,
never speaking. They made Michelle shiver.

"Poor Michelle," said the nurse sweetly. "You must be very hungry.
We have something for you." Malachi handed her a bowl, and the
nurse held it for Michelle to eat from. Michelle wrenched her head
away. The contents of the bowl smelled putrid. They said there were
ashes in it.

"If you eat this, you'll be allowed to go home," the nurse said.

Michelle would not budge; her jaws were tightly clamped.

The nurse was unperturbed; nothing could fluster her. "I know,"
she said. "You'd like a nice bath, wouldn't you? Eat this and you can
have a wonderful hot soapy bath."
Michelle was adamant. Malachi had told her before to keep her
mouth shut, and now, to spite him, she would do just that. She clamped
her hands over her mouth.
The nurse addressed Michelle's mother. "Give it to me," she said,

and Michelle's mother handed the nurse a doll.

Oh, no, not again, Michelle cautioned herself, there 's probably a
bird under it. I'm not going to be fooled again.
Suddenly the nurse flung the doll to the floor, smashing its head,
 Michelle Remembers [ 88 ]

and a seething glob of little bugs came out. Michelle screamed. The
moment she screamed, Malachi shot the horrible stuff in the bowl into
her mouth. It was like ooze, like garbage, asphyxiatingly pungent.
Michelle gagged but she would not swallow. The people in the room,
however, seemed not to notice that. They were obviously very pleased
with themselves. They thought they had won. The ritualistic task

accomplished, they gathered up their things and immediately left the

room and the house, the nurse dragging Michelle along with them.
They drove through the dark to a graveyard. Michelle was made to
stay in the car while the others went off. After a while they returned
and, without saying a word, got back in the car and returned to the old
house. Michelle was put back in the cellar for the night.
The next night and for the two following nights, there were identi-
cal expeditions, except that, each time, the graveyard seemed to be in
the opposite part of the city from the location of the graveyard the
night before.
The fourth night was different. As they drove, Michelle recognized
a street —Stannard Avenue. It ran along the lower border of Ross Bay
Cemetery.

The nurse had a cat with her. It was a really cold night, and
it seemed like I had only a nightie on. It wasn't even a nightie
— it was like a piece of sheet. I didn't have anything on my feet.

It was wet, it was

raining. Oh, I'm getting the shivers.
. . .

The had that black robe on again, the one with the
nurse, she
red thing on the back of it. We stopped inside the graveyard, and
someone got out and then I heard the trunk shut and I heard the
cat start to cry. I didn't know why the cat was crying. It sounded
like a baby. Why doesn't someone help? Please someone help!

She made me get out of the car. It was all wet and soppy. Over
in a corner there were some really old graves. I kept thinking that
ghosts were there. Or that people were dead, or that they weren't
really dead. . . . Over was this old grave, and
in the corner there

she pulled me was cracked on top, and she seemed

over to it. It

to be able to move a piece of it away. There's an empty hole there!

I thought graves were supposed to be filled in! I was sure there
 Michelle Remembers [ 89 ]

was a person down there. She had me by the arm and I couldn't
get away. I looked back to where the car was. I couldn't hear the
cat crying anymore.

Michelle, frantically worried, was now crying herself.

Oh, God! I'm gonna die tonight. I'm sure I'm gonna die!
She grabbed me, and . . . she put me down inside it and then

she pushed the pieces back together over the top of me. It was
worse than the closet. It was worse than the cellar. It was ... ah
... all mucky on my feet. I thought it was somebody! And it

smelled. I thought it was somebody all rotten down there and that
I was —standing on them!
For some time, lying on Dr. Pazder's sofa, Michelle wept, often
screaming, "Get me out of here!" and "I'm going to die!" And then,
painfully, she resumed.

Seems like I was down there forever. I was so cold. I was afraid
to cry; all those dead people were sleeping and I might wake them
up. I didn't want to breathe. ... I didn't want to smell anything.
If I moved my feet, my toes, I could feel that stuff. Aggh! I just

stood still. I kept thinking toadstools would grow on my feet.

I could hear the nurse outside. She was talking funny, saying
all those funny words. I couldn't understand what she said. And
she was moaning and groaning. I thought, Oh, no, what if she gets
sick and I'm left down here and no one ever finds me? I thought
maybe I could dig a tunnel. 'Cept I probably couldn't do that
I might dig into someone else's grave. . . .

Please, I'm not please ... I think I'm standing on someone

. . .

dead. ... I can't move. Help me! . . .

I think I must have stood there forever. And then the stones

started to move. And I thought, Oh, thank God! And the nurse
grabbed both my hands and pulled me out of it. She said, "Don't
bend your legs, come straight up." And so I came up straight, just
like a ghost. Just like Casper . . .
 Michelle Remembers [ go ]

The scene abruptly changed to another part of the graveyard, a

mausoleum. Around it were people dressed in black.

It was a big, dark old house and it had bars across it. And all
I could see behind it was rows and rows of white crosses.! All in
rows; they were She said to go into that house. All those
all tidy.

ladies are outside making a circle around the door. They have two
candles, a red one and a black one. They're doing a funny dance.
The nurse started talking funny again. She took off her cape and
put on the floor and ... it was inside out, and it looked just
it

like the one they had on the dresser that night. Oh, no, I'm not

going back there on that thing! . . .

She was all black. She was talking funny. ... I wanted to keep
my nightie, the sheet thing, on, but she made me take it off. I

felt awful. I felt so ashamed. I'm not supposed to be with nothing

on. . . .

She was turning all funny ways and standing up and kneeling
down. And then she turned around. And she was talking like that
funny talk. I didn't want ... I didn't want to step on the black
thing. What'll I do? I can't think of what to do. She made me
step on that black thing [gasping]. Do I have to tell you about it?
What is it you want to hear? . . .

She was dressed all in black ... it was like her skin was painted
black, but maybe it wasn't. Everything was black except her face.
I'm not a baby. I'm not a baby. She picked me up like a

baby! I didn't want her to. She kept mumbling in that funny
language and was sort of hissing and meowing, like a cat. I was
really scared! And I couldn't yell for anybody. There's nobody in
a graveyard. . . .

I thought, Maybe she 's sorry for me. Maybe she wishes I were
a baby. But then she turned me upside down. She made me keep
my knees on my chest. And she hung onto me and moved me
down really slowly. And all those ladies in black were hissing and
meowing and dancing funny, like cats. I was all wrapped up in this
+ Ross Bay Cemetery in Victoria has an area where nuns are buried, each grave

marked by a simple white cross.

 Michelle Remembers [gi ]

funny position. And she started licking me! I hated her! I hate
her!
And then she laid down on that black thing with my head
stuck between her legs . . . and she made me crawl out. Then I
had to stand up. And she held out her arms and I had to come
back to her.And she breathed into my mouth and my nose. What
can The door was shut. What could I do? She said, "You're
I do?
mine, Michelle. You're mine." She told me my new life was just
beginning. I thought, Oh, God, I hope I die!
And then she came up and said, "You must eat this last bit
of this," and she shoved it in my mouth. It was the stuff with the
ashes on it. And I suddenly got the feeling — maybe it was just a

feeling, and maybe I heard somebody say something now, this . . .

is terrible —
I had the feeling that the ashes were the lump, that

lady who got killed, the lady with the red shoes. It was the
strongest feeling. It made me sick, I had to be sick. I couldn't
swallow it.

And then she took me to the car. She made me walk in a funny
way, right up next to her, squeezed right against her side, and our
legs were supposed to go together; it was like we had three legs.

And she had her cloak wrapped around me. When we got to the
she made me pick up the kitty. It was dead. Poor
car, kitty. She
made me put it in the same grave I'd been in. I had to be sick

. . . and it just ended up all over me. I didn't care if it was on me.
I was just really glad it wasn't on the kitty.

Michelle surfaced, extremely upset. The graveyard experiences

were nearly impossible to accept.
"I don't know how I've lived with that for all this time," she said
through her tears. "I don't know. ... I don't know."
"I know," Dr. Pazder said, his voice choked. "It's terrible to hear
it."

"I don't know why, but I can't help it. It hurts! It hurts!"
Several sessions later, tormented and impelled, Michelle returned
to these same memories.
 Michelle Remembers [ 92 ]

We weren't alone that night. It's just pieces. . . . When we

went to the graveyard, my mom was there too. I've been trying
to stay away from a little girl, because she's really unhappy. I'm
just . . . I'm really worried about my heart. ... It was an important
time —my mom said it was our special time. She said she had a
lot of things to tell me. ... If that's what special times are, I never
want special times! Just like I don't want a special nurse. . . .

I don't like her anymore. I don't think I'll ever like her any-
more. She told me she was . . going to
. give me away! . . . . . .

That she wanted to and it was really important that I be happy . . .

about it. That if I cared for her at all, I'd be really happy about
it.

begged her and begged her, I pleaded with her! I didn't want
I

to be given away. I told her she couldn't give her baby away.
. She said I wasn't her baby anymore. I promised her I'd be
. .

really good. I'd clean house, I'd do anything if she didn't get rid
of me. She told me I wasn't hers. ... I didn't know what she
meant. And she told me . . . she told me like she was telling me
the weather. . . . She told me she never wanted me. She said she
never wanted me . . . and how I had to be happy about the way
things were. . . .

Then Malachi came and said, "Did your mother tell you?"
And I said, And he said, "Listen to your mother, what she
"Yes."
tells you is right." And he went away. . . .

I was standing there, and my mom came and grabbed me by

the shoulders, and she said, "Look at me! Did you hear what I've

been saying to you?" She said, "I don't want you!"

I didn't like her. She wasn't a mother anymore. She said she
didn't love me, that there wasn't any part of me that was part of
her . . . and I was to go be that other lady's. ... I couldn't stand
how much my heart hurt. ... I kept trying to think about the
toadstools, but it's really hard when somebody's talking to you like

that.
I knew that Malachi and the nurse were listening. I said to

her, I said, "No . . . please don't hurt me like this." I said, "No
. . . please don't do this to me. Please! Please!" It wasn't gonna
 Michelle Remembers [ 93 ]

do any good. I was clinging to her. I said, "Please, don do that! 't

Please keep me. Please keep me. I don't care if you don't love me.
Just keep me. You can't do this to me! Why don't you just kill
me? Why don't you just kill me?"
And she smacked me across the face. She said, "You listen to
me, I don't want to hear any more out of you!" She grabbed me
by the wrist. She 's the one who grabbed me by the wrist! The
. . .

nurse, she was in back of the car hurting the kitty. My mom
grabbed me and pulled me away, and . . . oh, no! No! No-no-no!
She was the one. It was my mom who put me in the grave! She
put me down in that mucky stuff. . . .

But the other lady pulled —

me up the nurse. My mother put
me down there, and the nurse pulled me out. I can't stand it.
... I can't stand how much my heart hurts. I can't stand it. I

wanted to kill them. I wanted to hurt them as bad as they hurt

me! And all those people with the candles . . . they knew my mom
had given me away. I ... must be ... I a really rotten child.

It was the end of the session, and both psychiatrist and patient were

numb. What can I say now? Dr. Pazder thought. What could anyone
say?
 chapter 11

(/hi
HESE things do exist in the world. Dr. Pazder
knew that from his own experience. In Africa he had encountered
beliefs and practices had he not observed them directly, he would
that,
—
not have believed could exist within humanity sacrifices, cannibalism,
rituals of every sort that responded to inconceivably complex psycho-

logical or mystical requirements. And in his own work as a psychiatrist

he occasionally had patients with dark drives and fears and desires that,
if encouraged by persons similarly afflicted, could surely have been

manifested in bizarreness and cruelty on this order.

It was difficult to think that horrors like these could occur in
beautiful and staid Victoria; the city, after all, was Canada's retirement
center, for "the newly wed and the nearly dead/' as the popular quip
had it. But human beings were human beings in Victoria, too, one
could be certain, with attributes both glorious and despicable and all

shades in between. Indeed, the very prosperity, perhaps even the tran-
quillity, of a place like Victoria, it sometimes seemed to Dr. Pazder,
appeared to nourish neuroses in some. He often thought of Victoria as
a hothouse for discontent among the comfortable and the bored.
for months now, part of his mind had been searching very hard
Still,

for some other explanation for what Michelle had described. As his
professional integrity demanded, he had been asking questions at every
twist and bend of this remarkable story. Was it a hoax, or an elaborate
fantasy? But he reached the same conclusion he had come to before
—Michelle's reliving was relentlessly genuine. It maintained its re-

\95\
 Michelle Remembers [96]

markable intensity. It was too consistent to be false, had too much

information, was too sophisticated from the psychological point of view
to have been made up. There was nothing about it that whispered
"crazy." It simply wasn't the kind of thing you fabricated if you were
crazy or hysterical. It was being relived. That still seemed very clear to
him.
Dr. Pazder reflected once again that he already knew Michelle very
well, after four years of psychotherapy. Hoax or fantasy made no sense
in terms of what he knew —and he knew a very great deal —about her
personality, the kind of woman she was. Lots of people had a preoccu-
pation with the occult, with death, with the weird —but not Michelle.
She was one of the most down-to-earth people he'd ever met. Nor could
he imagine that she was feeding his own predispositions. They'd never
discussed his sojourns in Africa; he'd never told her of the strange
things he'd seen. They never discussed his religious beliefs. She'd even
had to ask, last fall, when the subject came up, if he were in fact a

Catholic.
Beyond all that, he
he could recognize well-known patterns in
felt

the actions of Michelle's molesters. For example, if the ashes they tried
to make her eat before and after the graveyard experience were really
the ashes of the woman who had been killed —the lump—they may
have been trying to pass on, symbolically, the spirit of that person. In

West Africa, in a number of regions, it was considered important to

eat the flesh of another person. In the Christian Holy Communion,
there was great emphasis on consuming the body and blood of Christ.
Perhaps this business of the ashes had some relation to that, in a
contrary sort of way.
These people seemed to have been very concerned about Michelle's
eating the substance on her own volition. Obviously they could have
forced open the child's jaws. But they did not. They open
tricked her to
them. Was it that the child must be made to believe she opened her
mouth willingly? They seemed to be striving to create guilt. And they
had succeeded. Dr. Pazder thought with sadness of Michelle's self-
indictment: "I must be ... a really rotten child." It was so typical of
a child to assume the guilt.
There was also the business of walking away abruptly leaving the —
 Michelle Remembers [ gy ]

child, ignoring her, once they'd achieved their ends as when, once the —
child had been given the ashes, they swiftly turned and prepared to
leave for the graveyard. It was a subtle manipulation, he speculated. To
make a child feel she had done something bad, and then, instead of
scolding it as a parent would do, walking away from it, leaving the guilt
bottled up, unvented. How better to make a child understand that no
one cares than to turn one's back and walk away as if she were merely
an object. They seemed to know what they were doing.
The endless period in the cellar in the dark? It sounded like an
attempt to inflict psychological death — isolation, loss of sense of self,

total rejection. The placing of the child in the grave? Her first mother
gave her to death, and through her new mother, the nurse, Michelle
was reborn . . . forced down between the nurse's legs and then out. And
then "life" was breathed into the re-created child.
But why? Why all this? What possible reason could these people
have for using a child in this way? What kind of hell were they dwelling

in?

He had been spending more and more time with Michelle, often
as much as six hours a day, and each day made him see anew how much
pain she truly was in. He realized that her pain was affecting him
deeply. It was not just her pain now, it was also in some measure his
pain too. He was suffering with her. And he felt instinctively, like

Michelle, that he too must cry, must give vent to his own feelings. He
was a professional, yet and he was being touched
he was also a person,
by what he was hearing, profoundly touched. There was, however, a
professional consideration as well: If he didn't deal with his feelings
about this, he might unconsciously defend himself against Michelle.
He might unknowingly seek to avoid the pain of hearing her revela-
tions, might not encourage her to tell him as much, might direct her
away from sensitive topics, might deflect her testimony because it was
too difficult for him.
He dropped by the office of his colleague Dr. Richards Arnot and
discussed it with him. Even talking to Dr. Arnot, telling him how
moved he was by Michelle's experience, and her plight, and her cour-
age, he felt the tears begin. Dr. Arnot urged him to explain it all to
 Michelle Remembers [ 98 ]

Michelle and to ask her, in effect, to let him have his own feelings.
Michelle listened, not quite understanding, but willing to grant any
request from this kind, extraordinary man. When he began to weep,
she at first wanted to stop him.
"No, don't," Michelle said, and tried to wipe his tears away. But
then, after a time, she began to get the implicit point: Yes, her mother
—
had rejected her but here was someone who cared for her, who cared
—
enough to cry. Not in sympathy she sensed that he was not crying
because he felt sorry for her. It was empathy. He had entered her pain

and was there inside it with her.

—
By the end of the day nearly six hours later both doctor and —
patient were crying together. It was a very different thing than crying
separately. It was a coming together of the pain. Later, looking back
on that day, Dr. Pazder would conclude that it was this sharing of the
pain — this manifest evidence of her being cared for —that enabled
Michelle to go on from there, to accept his help in facing the horror

of what her mother had done, and all the rest.

She was still very upset about the time in the basement, especially
distressed about having drunk her own urine. "I can understand your
feeling," he told her, "but what else did you have to drink? People who
are lost at sea in a boat, people who are in concentration camps,
sometimes must drink their own urine to survive. You weren't crazy for
drinking it. It was the right thing to do."
Most of all she was distressed about the ashes. "Those are the kinds
of things you don't get forgiven for," she said. "God doesn't forgive
you for those kinds of things."
"Which kind?"
"For eating . . . especially for eating people who've been mur-
dered!"
"What sin did you commit?"
"I ate a dead person."
"Did you? Well, to a child having something in its mouth and
eating it are the same thing. Did you swallow it?
"No, I spit it out."
"Then you didn't eat it."
 Michelle Remembers [ gg ]

"I know that now."

''But I think it's still important to ask if it is a sin to eat a dead
person."
"It's not funny."
"No, I'm asking you a question. Is it?"
"Yes."
"Really? How do you know that?"
"I don't know. What about cannibals?"
"Cannibals aren't bad for eating dead people. Cannibals are bad for
killing them to eat them."
"Same thing, isn't it?"
"No, it's very different. Don't confuse their doing evil things with
your being evil. That's what they wanted to confuse you about."
"I am confused."
"You can go through a whole ritual, and if you don't commit your

soul to it and your heart to it and embrace it and take it on with every
part of you, you're just not there, you're just not doing it. Do you
understand what I mean?"
"Yes."
"That's very important. To be guilty you have to choose. You have
to be free to choose, but you weren't free at all. I don't accept that
you're guilty in any way. In any way at all. More than that, I want to
talk about whether you became committed to or taken over by any of
them possessed. That's what you're afraid about
. . . that they could —
do that. But the fact is, you didn't commit yourself to any of them.
"They wanted to give you warped ideas about where life comes
—
from and where it goes and for you to carry on with those crazy ideas.
That was wrong of them, unforgivably wrong. But you fought off those
ideas. You kept your sanity, your sense of the truth. And now, all these
years later, you must keep fighting off those wrong ideas of theirs. You
have nothing whatsoever to be ashamed of, Michelle. You have every-
thing to be proud of."

There was a difference now, a different air of seriousness about the

endeavor in which they were involved. They were aware that it might
go on for some time, that it could not be cut short, that it was some-
 Michelle Remembers [100}

They had
thing that would have to be lived through, right to the end.
developed commitment to deal with it, to try not to judge it, just to
a

go ahead. And now there was an even closer trust between them.
Michelle knew that Dr. Pazder understood, that he would not think
her crazy —that he was listening.
They had learned more about the process of Michelle's remem-
also
bering. There were two modes. The first was the deep level. She'd go
down and never leave that place, though she still would be capable of
speaking to him,when she was frightened and needed to have her
"anchor line." to him then, her voice would alter slightly,
As she spoke
changing back when she resumed.
The second mode was this: After she had relived an experience, she
could continue with it during the integration period, going on from

there. The remembering made all the memories available to her,

initial

and she could bring forth more of them, more and more and more,
filling in details. In this second mode, she would speak as an adult and

have the language of an adult available to her.

Their working postures had evolved They seldom used the sofa
too.
— it was not stable enough and trembling that Michelle
for the shaking
went through as she relived. They had moved to the mat. Sometimes
Dr. Pazder would sit on the floor beside it. At other times he would
lie back, a pillow under his head. It was the only way to work, consider-

ing that the sessions often went on now for five or six hours. No one
could sit in a chair that long.
In her depths, Michelle was like a child, and like a child she needed
contact. Dr. Pazder did not look upon her then as an attractive twenty-
eight-year-old woman. He knew that when she was reliving, she really
did need human contact if she were to get out a story like that.
Sometimes she would have her head on his shoulder. But he was careful
about the way he touched her. Her depths were even deeper now, and
he feared that touching her might severely distract her. As long as he
was close, in some kind of contact, that seemed to be enough.

The nurse was driving the car — it was long and black with running
boards and a silver statue of a springing cat mounted on its hood. She
insisted that Michelle cleave closely to her side, as if attached to her.
 Michelle Remembers [101]

And this insistence went on when they reached the house the house —
where the lady had been killed. Wherever the nurse went, Michelle was
forced to go too, her leg moving with the nurse's, as if they were joined
for a three-legged race. It was difficult and silly and then irritating for
Michelle. It made her muscles stiff.

The nurse read to her frequently, but in a language she didn't

understand, reciting passages over and over again, as if it were a class-
room and she were trying to teach Michelle something important.
"Here," she said, handing the child
a pair of scissors and a photograph
of aman. "Now, do what I'm doing." Then the nurse took another
photo of a person and poked her own scissors carefully into one eye.
Snipping very slowly, she cut a through the iris, and
little vertical slit

then another through the other She stood over Michelle while the
iris.

child tried to follow her instructions. Michelle was not an apt student.
The nurse often had to correct her.
"Denounce God," the nurse said to her. But Michelle did not know
what "denounce" meant.
"I don't know how," she told the nurse with a trace of defiance.
"Well, you'd better learn," the nurse told her. "If you don't learn
now, you'll be in big trouble later."

Michelle was put to bed at sundown and awakened in the middle

of the night. The sleepy child saw the nurse's cloak spread on the floor.
On the cloak was a bedpan — like the one in the hospital. The nurse
gave Michelle an enema, and when the child could wait no longer, the
nurse led her over, forced her to squat down —and then yanked the
bedpan away and The child found
flipped aside part of the cloak.
on the floor. But on the floor where the
herself helplessly defecating
cloak and bedpan had been were a crucifix and a Bible. When Michelle
saw that she had soiled them, she was horrified.
But her dismay meant nothing to the nurse. Once the two objects
had been defiled, she had flown into action, pulling a sheet from the
bed and gathering up into it various objects from the room. Unseen,
Michelle took her nightie and wiped off the book and the cross. She
felt she had to. And when she did, suddenly it was not so hard to keep
from falling apart from the guilt.
 chapter 12

J^M trying to tell you where I am. It's so awful.

I've never felt so strange in all the time I've been talking to you
about things and remembering things. Some of what's happening
there just about scared me to death.

Dr. Pazder spoke softly. "Just let yourself tell me about it as you
can." Michelle was breathing heavily.

I'm cold. When I wake up, we're not in the car anymore.
We're coming into this room, but it's not at the house. There isn't

any door ... remember an opening into this room. Wher-

I just

ever it is, there aren't any windows. At least I can't see any. And
there weren't any corners. It was round. It wasn't dark; maybe the
windows were just high. I don't know. I can see stones like
churches are made of. It's got a dirt floor, and the walls are all
dark, brownish, and it's like spiders would drop from the ceiling.

I didn't like that building. I don't like it at all.

It looked like a church, except I never saw a church with a

great big bed. There's nothing there except that silly round bed.
I never saw a church before, except in pictures. You know, with
churches and fields and cows and stuff, and families go inside
that's the kind of churches I've seen in pictures. They don't have
any stupid white things standing at the front.
I don't like this. I don't like the bed. It's cold. I like flannelette

[io3 ]
 Michelle Remembers [ 104 ]

sheets. These are shiny sheets with those stupid marks all over
them. Those marks really make me mad, you know?

The on the round bed were satin, marked with the same
sheets
thirteen-pointed symbol as the cloth that had covered the dresser that
first night. As Michelle looked around the room, the nurse ignored her

and went on making preparations of some kind.

The nurse is very busy. She takes her sheet full of stuff from
the house and throws it into the corner. When she wasn't looking
I stole and hid them under the mattress. You
two things from it

see, I wanted to get even with them all. I stole

wasn't very nice. I

that cross and the white book. That's what I had under the
mattress. I knew how much it would bother them. Especially
since I had cleaned it all off.*
I don't like that funny-looking white thing at the front. It's

ugly, with those little knobs on top of its head. That nurse is

always looking at it and mumbling.

Michelle later described the white thing as a hideous white statue,

considerably bigger than Malachi. It had the form of a man, with
openings for eyes and a mouth, but with horns protruding from the top
of its head. It stood on a stagelike area at the front of the round room.

The nurse lights some candles, and then she starts this funny
kind of moaning, like she's got a stomach ache. She's got her arms
folded across her front and she's bending down, moving her body
in circles.

Then she's got a finger. This is awful, but first I tried to

*By this time Dr. Pazder realized that Michelle had ample reason to know that
the cross was a significant symbol for these people. First, the nurse had dramatically
removed the crucifix from the hospital wall. Then, only a short while later, Michelle
had been tricked into defecating on the cross. The nurse had underlined the impor-
tance to her of this dirtying of the cross by abruptly turning and leaving the moment
it had been done. These acts were quite possibly a sign to Michelle that to the nurse

the cross was powerful and dangerous, and therefore that for Michelle it must be
powerful and helpful.
 Michelle Remembers [105}

imagine it belonged to a cat or a guinea pig or something. But it

didn't. She had it wrapped up with something. Whatever it was,

it was pretty messy, but she made it all go in this pan. It was like
blood.
I started to get nervous of the white thing. You see, she took
the finger. She did this stupid moaning and groaning and lighting
candles and ... oh, I got so tired of it. I can't be upset by it,

though. She takes the finger and rubs it on the white thing and
makes red marks. You see, she told me they were going to bring
the white thing to life.

One by one, a number of people came to the round room. First the
men came.

Every night was the same way, but a different man came each
night. It was always at bedtime. The nurse has her cloak on, the
one with the mark on the back like a spider, with a tail like an
arrow at the bottom. The man comes in with a white kitten.
Those poor kittens. They're always white kittens, and different
fingers and pieces like that to make the white thing red.

Michelle began to cry.

Kittens don't hurt anybody. I wanted to play with one. I said

I wanted it. It was crawling away. You know how kittens play. It
found a piece of dust and was chasing it and I said, "Kitty, kitty."

It was my fault. If I didn't say anything they might not have hurt
it. Why do they cut things? I thought it was still alive because
paw moved, and I thought
its head back where it
I could put its

belonged. They thought it was funny. It had something to do with

... I don't understand. The man had to have blood on him. He
used blood from the kitty ... he put some on the nurse! I don't
see how she could stand it. Not me! Not me!

After dismembering the cat, the nurse and the man picked
Michelle up and brought her to the round bed.
 Michelle Remembers [106]

They start like ring-around-the-rosy, where you join hands.

Then they take me and hold me up in the air and turn me around.
They're making me a pointy thing again. I'm frightened. They're
saying things to each other that I don't understand. They do it

over and over again, and all of a sudden, when they're finished,
they just throw me on the ground.
I hurt when I hit the ground. And then they do more stupid
stuff. I don't pay any attention. I just do my own little stuff. I

don't watch. I don't like it. I hated that bed. That ugly white
thing could see the bed.

This happened during the night. In the daytime, Michelle was

alone with the nurse. The nurse would read aloud from books and
sometimes speak, not to Michelle, but to the air, to nobody. At other
times the nurse acted the same way she had back at the house where
the lady was killed — as if she were trying to teach Michelle something.
Again she showed Michelle how to slit the eyes in photographs, only
this time she used what looked like a razor blade instead of a scissors.

Once she demonstrated on a small animal. Michelle couldn't see what

it was, exactly, but she could see that it was alive. The nurse didn't kill

it, but when she was finished it was bleeding.

But mostly she used pictures. When Michelle refused to learn, it

made her angry, so Michelle eventually obeyed. But as a protest against

having to hurt the eyes in the pictures, she would also make little cuts
in her own arm. It didn't hurt her to do that. The thing that was like
a razorblade was so sharp that she couldn't feel it when it cut her arm.

She obeyed the nurse, but Michelle didn't understand what she was
doing. The nurse showed her many kinds of photographs 'pictures
— '

of dead people and people, like at parties, and men and women to-
gether and stuff like that," all with their eyes slit. But Michelle did not
understand what the nurse was trying to teach her. The main thing she
remembered was the little book the nurse kept reading from, which
contained a picture of a man with red hair and a red beard. He seemed
to be someone the nurse knew well, but Michelle didn't think she liked
him.
Whenever the nurse got up to go anywhere, she made Michelle
 Michelle Remembers [107]

walk that funny way, up under her cloak beside her, their two legs
moving together. The nurse thought it was funny that Michelle kept
bumping into things, but Michelle hated it. She kept thinking that if
her mother could only see her, if she knew what the others were doing,
she would come back and help. Somehow Michelle kept believing that
her mother would come back and get her, and everything would be
okay.
Her mother did not come back. Day after day it was the same: She
was alone with the nurse during the day, and at night one of the others
would come, kill a white kitten, use Michelle as a pointy thing, and
throw her to the ground. This happened for thirteen days. Michelle
noticed because thirteen seemed to be their favorite number — all the
cloths and all the sheets had the design with thirteen points. Then it

came tobe a Saturday night, and Michelle's mother came back.

The place is all funny. There's all kinds of candles and some-
one's playing the organ. You see, there'sno door, just a place
that's dark ... a round hole. That's where the music is coming
from. I don't like the music. It bothers me. It sounds like grating
on a chalkboard. It just goes MMMMMMNNNNNNNN.
... It's all creepy.
That nurse has her black thing on. I was told I had to stay by
her. She gets me all dressed up in this red thing, just like a ghost.
That's the first time in ages I have anything clean on.
All these people are walking into the room in a long line, slow
like a funeral march. They're coming through that dark hole and
they all have black things on but you can't see their faces because
they have these big hoods. Everyone's carrying a kitten. I don't
like it. Then they get in a circle and start mumbling and moaning
like they all have stomach aches.
Then my mom, all in white. She acts like she doesn't see
I see
me, so my head out and yell, "Hi, Mom." The nurse
I stick

smacked me and told me not to be stupid. wasn't being stupid. I

That was my mom! know everything that had gone on. ... I
I

know from the hospital I'm never gonna trust her again. I know
that. But when I saw her walk in the room I thought, My mom!
 Michelle Remembers [108]

My mom! Oh, she's come to get me. I can go home now. But
Malachi was right behind her.

All the others were wearing black, but Malachi was painted red, like
the ugly white thing. The organ music sounded hollow and metallic.
Forced to stay under the nurse's cloak, stuck to her leg, Michelle felt

stifled, hot, as if she were going to faint. Her mother would not look
at her. The others started to moan and they all joined hands and said
funny words. Michelle wanted to go and hold her mother's hand, but
the nurse kept her by her side. The ugly white thing was up front and
it frightened Michelle. There was smoke around it that smelled funny,
and in the candlelight it looked as if it might be moving, wiggling, but
Michelle couldn't tell.

Finally the nurse released Michelle and told her to do the dance
she had been taught. The dance was funny, but she didn't mind doing
it because at least she got to come unstuck from the nurse's leg. She
just moved around in a circle, with her arms out and her legs together.
It was just like the way a top moved, and that was what Michelle felt

like: a spinning top.

Then all of a sudden, everybody's looking at me and my

mom's coming over. I knew it! I knew if I was a good enough top
she'd come and get me! The closer she got, I knew she was
coming over to get me. I hugged her legs; I hugged them really
tight and I looked up to see if she was smiling but she wasn't. She
wasn't even looking at me. She just looked kind of blank. She took
me by the hand, but I realized we weren't going anywhere. We
weren't going because the circle had all closed up again. Malachi
was standing up at the front of the room by that ugly thing, and
my mother was taking me up there, even though she knew I was
afraid of Malachi and the ugly thing with the red on it.
I knew I was supposed to keep quiet, but I couldn't. I said I

didn't want to be up there. She said, "You're not mine, Mi-

chelle." "Yes, I am! I'm Michelle Harding!" Then she said really
loud and clear so everyone could hear, she said, "You're not mine
anymore, Michelle. You belong to the Devil." And she said she
 Michelle Remembers [109]

was glad. Then she left me standing there with Malachi and the
nurse.
I'm not crying. I'm not gonna let anybody know it bothers me.
But you see, I hated them. I hated how I felt. That's what I hate.
Don't you understand? That's what's wrong! I don't care about
the things they did, but the way they made me feel, that's what's
wrong. I . . . I . . . I'm not just a nothing anybody can push around.
Anybody can come in that room and do anything they'd want to!

I'm not just a big joke everybody laughs at every time I get hurt.
It's not a joke! I'm not a joke. God, it's not funny. It's just not
funny, and if that wasn't bad enough I had to go and take that
red thing off and there am standing
I in front of all those people.
I guess they're gonna kill me now. I don't care. I don't care.

Malachi was not looking at Michelle. The others started doing this
funny dance, and the nurse was doing it with them. She would bend
down and walk in a slinky way, as if she were a cat, and then she would
jump up and turn around, and then she would walk like a cat again,
holding her kitten in her arms. Then Michelle got very scared, because
they bent and took the kittens in their teeth, holding the cats by the
napes of their necks. And then Michelle started screaming, because
now they were biting the kittens, and the cats were howling, and they
were pulling the kittens apart with their teeth, chewing at their paws
to make them come free, stopping only to spit out the hair. Then they
rubbed themselves with the cats' blood, slowly, as they continued their
catlike dance. Malachi picked up Michelle, who was screaming and
crying bitterly, and laid her on a stone slab. On a table behind Malachi
was the body of a baby, but so small Michelle couldn't believe it was
really born.

Why am I lying on this cold thing? How did I get lying down?
One minute I'm standing up thinking about how I could get those
things I hid under the mattress, then I'm lying on something cold
and it hurts my I guess this is where I get
back. I guess this is it.

cut up like the cats. Nooo! Malachi coming over by me and then is

he's saying some funny words and smoky stuff's going up in the
 Michelle Remembers [no]
air. He's all crouched over me. He's cutting that baby over me!
It's all over me. He's rubbing it all over me! Oh, God, there's stuff
all over me.

Michelle, nearly overwhelmed, was screaming, recoiling frantically

as her whole body trembled.
f

Now he's rubbing it on the white thing. I keep yelling, "It's

a baby! It's a baby! It's a baby!" I don't know. I ... I was

... I was dying. I was saying. Malachi keeps
I don't know what
saying something about something about a something coming
. . .

to life. I don't know. Malachi was hurting me. I couldn't scream.

Ahhh, he was choking me. His fingers were shoved down my
throat and he was choking me. I bit him. I bit his fingers. I'm glad
I But then I threw up. I threw all their timing off by throwing
did.

up. Malachi jumped away and started to jump around. He was

mad. I just went crazy. I started running around trying to get
away. All those people were just standing around like it didn't
matter what I did anymore. You see, I really thought they were
going to kill me anyway. I didn't care. I didn't have anything to
lose. I couldn't reach the white book, because all the people were
in the way. I didn't even know what I was doing. I was making
crazy eyes at them, running around and screaming.
My mom got treated special. She didn't have to do what
everyone else had to do. She wasn't allowed to get dirty! The rest

of them got mucky and would kill kittens and put blood on
all

their hands, but for some reason my mom was different. So I was
all crazy. I don't know why I did it. I went over to my mom and

I grabbed her robe. must have yanked awful hard because

I guess I

she fell her get up. You see, I was trying to

down. I wouldn't let

make her hug me. She was getting upset and everyone else was
getting upset because I was awful messy and I was getting her
messy.
I shouldn't have done what I did because I only got in trouble
for it later. Malachi just got angrier. time I'd seen him The last

angry like that he was hitting the lady over the head. He stooped
 Michelle Remembers [m]
down and grabbed me and everybody else had to . . . everything
is going on. That place is like a beehive. All the men are going
over to clean my mom up all the men are. Does that seem
. . .

funny? Malachi is so mad. He sure hit me. didn't feel it, though.I

I didn't feel anything.

The women are all angry. It's like the men are losing power.
Things aren't going to happen like they're supposed to. There's
not going to be candles every night and kittens getting killed. You
see, they've got to take away my games. The nurse said that.
When I heard her say that, I started to turn around and around
like a top. I was laughing. It wasn't funny. I don't know why I

did that. The nurse said, "I'm going to teach you!"

 chapter 13

M ICHELLE was so shocked by what she had

remembered that for a moment she wanted to believe she was insane.
As she returned to the present, she could do nothing but sob and cry
out, "What am I going to do? I'm crazy. I must be crazy. They must
be crazy. Things like that don't happen. I never heard of anything like

that."
For a while Dr. Pazder only comforted her, without trying to direct
her. He understood that what she needed was a refuge from the pain
inflicted years before, alive again in her now. Claiming to be "crazy"
was one refuge. Then, as she became calmer, she thought of another.
"I must have just made it up," she said firmly.
This was a possibility that Dr. Pazder had seriously considered, and
had ruled out, but he knew she had to face her own question. "Did you
make it up?" he asked her directly.

"What if I made it up and my mother wasn't like that and she loved
me?" Michelle went on defiantly, not answering his question. More
than anything, Dr. Pazder thought, she had been wounded by her
mother, by Mrs. Harding's public repudiation of the child. Even with
Dr. Pazder himself, whom she had grown so close to, it was hard for
her to admit that that scene had really taken place, so she was asking
him to help her deny it.

"Why would you make that up, if she had loved you?" he asked.
know," said Michelle. "If I tell you something, will you tell
"I don't
me whether or not you believe me?"

[113]
 Michelle Remembers [114]

"Yes, of course."
"I didn't make it up," she said fiercely.

"I believe you," Dr. Pazder answered. "Do you believe it?"
'i don't want to," Michelle cried, suddenly losing control again. "I
don't know how to cope with it. I can't stand it. I can't. I can't stand
it if it's true. Please, somebody, where does it come from? I never read
about any of that kind of stuff. That's not the way the world's supposed
to be."
Dr. Pazder understood her need for denial. The scene in the round
room had had of the natural order of
violated every sense Michelle
things —
how mothers and daughters felt and acted toward each other;
what human beings were capable of. As hard as it was for her to accept
her mother's betrayal, it was even more important to Michelle that Dr.
Pazder understand she had been the victim, not an accomplice.
"I don't want to be part of it," she sobbed. "Please, will you believe
that? I'd rather be in a concentration camp for fifty years. This makes
me feel so sick and ugly and scared. I hate it. I didn't want my mom
to be like that. I did not want it! I wanted my hair in pigtails. I wanted
to be clean."
Again Dr. Pazder was struck by the innocence of the child Mi-
chelle. As much as they had tried to reduce her to an instrument in

their rituals, eradicating her identity as a person, she had remained the
innocent child who only wanted her mother to love her. He wished she
could see that, but they could not work any longer that day. Michelle
was too exhausted. They agreed to talk more the next day, when she
had rested.

That night Michelle's recollections haunted her, running endlessly

across her mind. The next day she told Dr. Pazder that although there
was still a great deal she did not understand, she now had a sense of
pieces coming together. Certain elements of what she had experienced
stood out: the death-and-rebirth ritual in the graveyard, the white
statue in the round room, the nighttime visit of each member to the
nurse.
A pattern had been apparent to Dr. Pazder for some time, and he
 Michelle Remembers [ 11$ ]

was pleased that Michelle was beginning to recognize it. He asked what
she thought the white statue symbolized.
'The Devil/' said Michelle. "But they didn't call him that. They
called him Lucifer and they called him the Prince of Darkness." Then
she remembered a detail that had not come out in the previous day's
session. In the middle of the rituals of dancing and chanting, smoke
would surround the white statue and suddenly, mysteriously, Malachi
would appear on the platform next to the statue. It was an impressive
effect,one that added greatly to the atmosphere of the ritual.
Oneafternoon while the nurse was busy elsewhere, Michelle was
playing under the stage when she discovered a hole in the floor. She
crawled up and found herself inside the white statue, which frightened
her because she felt she was inside the Devil. Looking back, now, she
realized was a gimmick Malachi had used to impress the others,
it

Malachi and the nurse believed in the Devil, but they needed the
others to believe as well. Each of the others had to believe, then to
signify their belief. That was why each of them had had to come to
the nurse, each on a different night.
"It's like Malachi started it," said Michelle, "but the more people
that got in on the act, the worse it made it."

It was like a terrible synergy, Dr. Pazder thought, a combination

of forces that created a greater force. The same principle was applied
to the blood ritual that would bring the white statue to life.
"They couldn't just kill one person and pour all the blood on that

thing in the round room," said Michelle, following her idea through.
"Somehow that wouldn't be evil enough. Does it make any sense to you
when I say he had different fingers and a different arm?"
"Yes, it does. Where would they get them?"
"I'm not sure, but I think from the pictures they showed me that
they got them from accidents and hospitals. It seemed better for them
if the person who died had been bad — like a drunk driver or some-
thing."
One thing was becoming clear to both Michelle and Dr. Pazder.
However bizarre and helter-skelter the rituals might have seemed as
Michelle relived them, they were in fact carefully orchestrated, with
 Michelle Remembers [116]

each one built on the one that had come before. All their actions
seemed calculated to break Michelle's innocence, her belief in love, her
good feelings. By desecrating what was sacred, they would make room
for evil to take hold.
Dr. Pazder said, 'They were trying to make you part of it by all the
silly rituals they were doing."
Michelle shivered and shook her head. 'They weren't being silly.

They were serious. They do everything for a reason and they are very
organized. That night, with Malachi pointing me, and that nurse
first

with those sticks, and the silver cups, and the candles, and their killing
that lady ... it was all deliberate. They knew what they were doing.
They were trying to prepare me for something, and I don't like it. Do
you know what I mean?"
"Yes. I agree with everything you've said. They are carrying out a
calculated assault against all that good in you. Their methods are
is

sophisticated and seem to be based on a thorough understanding of the

workings of evil, of basic symbolism and human nature. It's a psychol-
ogy of evil."

For Michelle, it was a great relief to begin to see the pattern. She
thought of the enema, of defecating on the cross and Bible, of slitting

the eyes in the photographs, of seeing the kittens cruelly killed, of her
mother's betrayal and, worst of all, of the baby.* Though each had
seemed separate and distinct, each had celebrated hatred and death,
and all of them had produced the same emotion in Michelle, guilt. She

always felt it had somehow been her fault, and over and over she had
pleaded with Dr. Pazder to believe that she hadn't wanted any of it to
happen. Now she saw that her guilt her feeling responsible was — —
exactly what they had wanted. Once they had destroyed all her good
feelings about herself, she would be totally their instrument.

Dr. Pazder sensed that Michelle was now ready for one question
he had been wanting to ask. "Michelle, did they ever call themselves
a name?"
"No, not that I remember. Who could they be?"
* After much discussion, it became clear to Dr. Pazder and Michelle that live babies
were not used in these ceremonies; they were most likely premature fetuses or stillborn
babies, possibly stolen from hospitals.
 Michelle Remembers [117}

"I've been thinking about it for some time. They seem more com-
plex than ordinary cults or secret societies. Their rituals are very formal
and established. When you stepped out of line and got your mother's
dress dirty, they were furious. Nothing really spontaneous is allowed to
happen, you know? All that makes me think this group has a long
history."
"You mean you think they've been together for a while? But who
could they be? It's hard to believe that people could carry on like that

right here in Victoria."

"The only group I know about that fits your description is the
Church of Satan."
"My God. You mean, like Satanists?"
"Yes, exactly."
"You know, I never quite believed they really existed."
"Well, they do. There's a lot in the psychiatric literature about
them. Most people think they're strictly Dark Ages, but the fact is, the
Church of Satan is a worldwide organization. It's actually older than
the Christian Church. And one of the areas where they're known to
be active is the Pacific Northwest."
"That's really frightening."
"You know what I find hard to understand?" asked Dr. Pazder.
"How they carry out these rituals and still lead a normal life."
Michelle laughed. "Yes, me
as the bits and
too. This morning,
pieces were coming together, I had the same thought: How can they
do that all night and then get up and go to work the next day?" She
thought for a moment. "Of course, they don't do it every day. Their
timing is very important, you know. I've been looking at the calendar
a lot lately and I realized that Sunday is very important to them. They
have their big meetings every second Sunday, starting at 1 1 p.m. Satur-
day night. It all has something to do with certain special days in the
Christian Church, I think."
"I've sensed that, too," said Dr. Pazder. "We're going to have to
find a Church calendar 1955 and compare it to 1977. You may be
for
reliving all this on the same days that you lived it then. It really does
seem to be something like an anniversary reaction, but not the same
as anything I've heard of before."
 Michelle Remembers [118]

As she left that day, Michelle touched Dr. Pazder's arm. "Thank
you so much for understanding," she said.
"Thank you what you're giving me," he answered.
for
"What do you mean?"
"You give me a great deal. For one thing, you're teaching me a lot
about innocence and survival. In psychiatry we often focus on what
parents and situations do to children, and not on how children survive
them. We often ignore all the resources children have. But look at you:
When it seems you have nothing left, I'm always moved at how your
innocence has been your only ally and God knows it has been a
. . .

powerful one."
"I don't know," said Michelle. "When I'm in that crazy place, I

always feel so helpless."

"From the outside, you are," said Dr. Pazder. "But inside, you're
winning. You're keeping them from reaching the little spot inside you.
You mustn't focus on the terrible things that were done to you. Think
about some of the things you did. In the middle of everything they were
doing to you, you cleaned off the cross and the Bible and figured out
a hiding place."
"I stole them."
"You didn't steal them. You rescued them. You cried over the
kitten, and tried to put it back together when they killed it. You liked
the red dress the nurse put on you because it was clean; you wanted
something clean. Just when the nurse thought she had you trained, you
dirtied your mother's dress and ruined their whole ceremony. You
made your mother share the mess, even though Malachi hit you for it
and you knew the nurse would punish you. You're beautiful, Michelle.
You always reach out and find the goodness. No one loved you. No one.
That was part of their plan. But your goodness was still powerful, and
whenever you could you reinforced it with some little bit of goodness
from that crazy world around you. How can I tell you how good that
makes me feel?"
 chapter 14

S/H]
HEnurse had underestimated Michelle's resis-
tance for the last She would be sure not to let that happen again.
time.
In the days following the ceremony in the round room, she never
left the tiny girl alone. Her training was unremitting. Sometimes they

—
would sit together and look at photographs but they were all pictures
of corpses, and all the people had died violent deaths. One that Mi-
chelle remembered especially vividly was a photograph of two women,
dead in a car accident. The nurse said they were twins, but Michelle
couldn't tell because one of the bodies had no head. The nurse never
said, but Michelle had the feeling that it was these dead people who
had provided them with blood for their ceremonies with the white
thing.
Every day the nurse would take Michelle out in the car. The first

time happened, Michelle was happy and excited to escape the round
it

room, even if only for a little while. But it was all part of the nurse's
plan. They drove directly to a street where Mrs. Harding lived, and the
nurse parked and let Michelle watch. She saw her mother leave the
house and walk down the street, but the nurse kept Michelle from
jumping out of the car and running after her mother. Michelle could
see her mother, but only at a distance. After a few days, Michelle began
to wonder whether maybe her mother knew that she was there.
One day, after they had been parked for a little while, she saw her
mother coming down the street, walking with another little girl. The
girl was holding Mrs. Harding's hand. Michelle wanted to chase after

\U9\
 Michelle Remembers [ 120 ]

them, to take her mother back from the other little girl, but the nurse
smacked Michelle and forbade it. Michelle was not allowed to cry or
complain; she had to behave. She did not belong to her mother any-
more, the nurse told her, and they drove in silence back to the house
with the round room.
The next time she was taken to observe her mother and the girl,
Michelle didn't cry or misbehave; she didn't try to bolt out of the car
and run to them. She just sat frozen. All she wanted was to go home.
She just wanted to go home to her clean bed.
Eventually Michelle came to understand that nothing was the way
it appeared. No time or activity was
She would be taken for a nice
safe.

drive, The nurse would give

then tortured with the sight of her mother.
her a bowl of soup for lunch, but the bowl would have a mass of bugs
or worms at the bottom. Michelle would eat a few mouthfuls before
she saw them, then vomit up what she had already swallowed. Eventu-
ally she just refused to eat at all.

Sleeping was no better than eating. She was exhausted, but there
seemed to be no regular time when everyone would sleep. At odd times
of the day, the nurse would say, "Go to sleep now. Go to sleep." But
if she did, someone would soon shake her awake again —then tell her
to go back to She never dozed off on her own; she was too afraid
sleep.
that if she let her guard down she might be caught or tricked. She had
to "stand watch," constantly alert for any move they might make
against her. After a time, she became not only cautious, but also wise
—she understood their ways and was always prepared to defend herself.

The nurse tormented her all day, but the nights were even more
frightening. Every night the women came to the round room, and every
night they would "point" with Michelle. They seemed to know how
much that frightened her, how helpless it made her feel, but they did
it anyway, very slowly and dramatically. When they first arrived they

would ignore her and she would stay very still, hoping they had forgot-
ten her. But sooner or later she would look up and see them forming
a circle around her, and her heart would sink and her stomach would
knot. Then the first two would reach for her, but they looked at her
as if they didn't really see her. Numb with fear, she let herself be lifted
 Michelle Remembers [ 121 ]

quietly, and they would turn her body in one direction, then pause,
then her above their heads as if in offering, then lower her again,
lift

and the next two would take her. They, in turn, would point her to a
new direction, slowly lift and lower her, then relinquish her to the next
pair. It seemed endless to Michelle. She especially hated the lifting

part, which made her feel somehow vulnerable and in danger. As she
was lifted, she would shut her eyes tight, afraid each time that some-
thing would reach down and grab her and she would disappear.
One night, after the pointing, they took her back to the graveyard.
She had not been there since the night Malachi and the nurse brought
her to the round room. The nurse told Michelle that this was part of
teaching her.
Once again they bundled Michelle into the black car trimmed in

silver. As much as she hated being driven to her mother's house, getting
into the car at night was worse. As it hurtled through the quiet streets,
she always felt it was taking her down into a darkness she would never
be able to climb out of. That was what the graveyard was like — all

blackness except for the slanting moonlight.

They brought her to an open grave again. Michelle couldn't tell if
itwas the same one, but she was terrified of what might be at the
bottom of the pit. Slowly they lowered her, and she would have
screamed out, but her throat was so tight with fear she could only make
sounds as if she were choking. When she finally touched bottom, they
let her go and she almost collapsed, because her knees were too weak
to hold her. But there was nothing under her bare feet but solid wood
—probably but at least there was no mucky dirt, no creepy
a coffin,
stuff. For a moment she thought they might bury her alive, but she
could still see the sky. Except for a few stars, there was no light above
her; the women with the candles had stepped back from the mouth of
the grave.
She stood quietly for a few moments, shaking violently, trying to
curl herself into the little spot inside her that she knew was safe. She
was concentrating so hard on that, she barely heard the first muffled
thunk. Then she heard another, and another. They seemed to be
dropping things into the grave, but she didn't know what, and she was
 Michelle Remembers [122}

too frightened to reachdown and pick one up. Then something hit her
on way down. It didn't hurt; in fact, it was soft. Now two of them
its

came down and hit her at the same time. As she threw up her hands
to brush them away, it suddenly came to her —
they were dead kittens.
All around her in the grave were dead animals. The women up above
were throwing them down into the grave with her. This time Michelle
did scream, high, uncontrolled shrieks that in her terror she hardly
heard. She screamed for a long time, with only the graveyard and the
women to hear.

Michelle knew that the nurse and the other women were getting
her ready for something. The nurse read to her every day from the black
book, trying to teach her to repeat sayings and rhymes. They also tried
all the time to teach her to say the white thing's name. It gave Michelle
the shivers. She called it Malachi, but wouldn't call it anything else.

They seemed to accept that, but only for the moment. On Sunday, they
told her, she would have to call it by its real name. On Sunday, they
said, she would have to want the white thing or want Malachi; they
seemed to be talking about them interchangeably.
Michelle had no idea how soon it would be Sunday —she had lost

all sense of time in the round —

room but she knew the day had to be
close, and she was frightened. As far as she knew, any day might be
Sunday, and every time she woke up she tried to get ready for the worst.
Then one night she knew it was time. They took her from the round
room back to the house where the lump had been. Then everyone left
but the nurse, who stayed to get her ready. The nurse dressed her in
a red dress.

I think I was just was getting dressed up to go

pretending I

to a party. The only thing was, you put more clothes on to go to

a party. I'm glad I was finally allowed to be covered up by some-

thing. They came and got me when it was dark. What do you do
when you don't want to go somewhere and you feel like nailing
your feet to the floor so they can't take you out the door? But at
the same time you gotta smile and go along with it. It wouldn't
have done any good. They would have just ripped my feet off.
 Michelle Remembers [ 123 ]

They took Michelle back to the round room, but it looked very
differentfrom when she'd left it. In the weeks she had lived there, she
had come to know the round room. She never felt safe or comfortable
there, but she knew what it was like. Now it felt very strange. There
were shiny sheets on the bed, black velvet draping the rough walls. It

got very quiet when Michelle came in, and she knew it was because
they had been waiting for her. Flickering candles stood on the floor,

or in candlesticks. The dark, hooded figures also held small candles.

The flames up their

lit faces, but their eyes were hollow and so frighten-
ing that it was better for Michelle not to look at them.

I'd been and over again about what I had to do. They
told over
tried to tell me like going and knocking on a friend's door
it was
and asking if he could come out to play. But that wasn't it at all.
They wanted me to ask the same person to come back the . . .

one that had gotten in the air when that woman was killed. I
didn't want to ask. I didn't want to play with him but, boy, I'd
sure been told all week that that was what I was supposed to do.

With Michelle there, everything was ready. Dressed in their black

robes, they formed a circle around the child in the red dress and began
to "point" her. To keep her mind from what was happening, Michelle
played the game she had played in the hospital she was a clock, and —
she was telling them what time it was. She held her arms and legs very
rigid, the way the hands of a clock should be, and they seemed to like

that; it made their own game better. The pointing went on for a long
time, with each one taking his turn, and Michelle went on pretending.
They were all chanting somebody's name, but Michelle didn't listen;

she was too busy being a clock. First she was eleven o'clock; then she
was nine; then she was five; then she was one.
Suddenly the pointing was over and they threw her to the ground
in the center of the circle. All of them began swaying back and forth,

droning in a slow and sonorous voice, and the whole group began
moving in a circle together, not the way the clock moves but the other
way. Michelle had hurt her elbows when she fell, but the chanting and
the moving circle and now the organ playing frightened her, and she
 Michelle Remembers [124]

wanted to get out of the circle, right away. She ran from one to the
other, throwing herself against their legs, hoping someone would give
way, but no one did. They were too big and she was too small. She ran
faster and faster, but it didn't bother them; they were getting excited,
too. Whatever they were doing, it seemed to be working, because
Malachi was dancing about on the stage next to the white thing. He
was painted red, and Michelle thought he looked like a monkey, she
thought he looked stupid the way he was jumping around. They were
all in a frenzy, which seemed about to explode.

They all started creeping around. They were still in the circle,

but they were creeping and they were saying something about
. . . something about how they wanted the Evil One to come.
Everybody was looking at me. It gave me the creeps. didn't want
I

to be looked at like that. I wanted to rub their eyes out. It was

really stormy out. I could hear the rain and the wind. They kept
moving faster and faster. Then they started coming in close. I
didn't want any of them touching me. I nearly got suffocated, just
like by one of those snakes that squeezes you to death. That's

what's gonna happen to me. It was making my head dizzy and

I was so tired.

The next thing she remembered, she looked up at the front and saw
Malachi and the nurse standing there, as if something were about to
happen. Malachi was still painted red, but he wasn't jumping around
in that funny way anymore. He had crazy eyes, and Michelle didn't feel
like laughing at him. All of a sudden the air changed and Michelle felt

that MMMMMMNNNNNNNN, the grating and pressure she had

felt the first night as the procession marched in. The people in the
circle were still swaying and moving rhythmically, but they were chant-
ing louder and louder and they were getting scarier and scarier. Mi-
chelle looked up and saw her mother at the front beside Malachi; she
was sitting in a chair like a princess. Malachi said nothing, but his eyes

said, "Come here." Michelle resisted his fierce gaze, but then the circle

started closing in again, and she was forced forward.

 Michelle Remembers [125]

I've got nowhere to go but up to where Malachi is. I don't

want to, but I've got no one to say that to. I don't want to get
close to them. I knew what they wanted me to say, but I couldn't

even say wanted Malachi. I didn't. I didn't want to go near him.

I

Please make their eyes go away! It's like I'm paralyzed and every-
one's looking. And when I got really close there's something . . .

on the table. It's covered up. I can tell you that by this time I was
terrified of anything that was covered up. It was going to be a big

bunch of worms or bugs or something. What are they going to

do? I can't stand those eyes! I was so afraid of Malachi. He's not
saying anything. I'm so scared. I'm so scared of him. My eyes are
beginning to see double. I can see two of Malachi. They're both
red. I can't see straight. I don't want to lie on anything cold.

Michelle was forced to lie down on a slab of stone, and they started
taunting her, pinching her, and flicking their fingers at her. Then
Malachi approached. He was he didn't even seem like
so frightening,
Malachi anymore, just a red thing walking toward her, but she couldn't
run away; the nurse was standing right over her. The red thing grinned
down at her and began taking her dress off. Michelle didn't want him
to; she wished she had a white dress to wear. But then her dress was
off and she was cold. The others were chanting now at the top of their
voices, and incense filled the air. Michelle felt she was suffocating; she
couldn't breathe.

The red thing's hurting me. He's pressing on my stomach and

my chest. He's pressing the air out of me. He's pushing on my
tummy. It feels like my insides are going to squish out. The nurse
is doing something down below. I want to see if my insides are

coming out, but I can't see. I tried to kick with my arms and legs,
but someone pulled them apart. The nurse just keeps telling me
to stop. I don't want to. I don't want to, I don't want to! I'm
crying and telling them I don't want to. Then Malachi's gone.
They were poking something down there. I looked down, and
there was this little thing lying there. It was lying between my
legs, and I could see it was a baby! A baby!!
 Michelle Remembers [126]

Screaming hysterically, Michelle tore away and leaped off the stone
slab. They had put her next to a dead baby, and she didn't think she
could stand it without going crazy. Frantic with fear, she ran across the
room, through the chanting and made it to the round bed. The
circle,

cross was still under the mattress, and now she brought it out for the
first time. She had to help the baby. She knew they didn't like crosses.

She held it up high, and the room went wild. Everyone was shout-
ing angrily; again she was disrupting their ceremony. Michelle held it
tight in her hands,and even Malachi, the red man, couldn't get it away
from her. Then he seemed
to change his mind, and dragged her, his
fist around her fingers, back to the front, back to the slab where the

baby lay. Michelle still had the cross in her hands, and she thought it
was safe because she was holding it; Malachi couldn't take it from her.
Then he raised his fist, raising her arms along with it, and drove the
base of the cross down upon the body of the baby.

No! No! Nooo! The red man. No! He stabbed the baby with
it! Not withthat, no! Help me! Help me! I didn't mean it that
way. I'm not helping anyone. I'm not helping. Oh, the baby. You
can't stab the baby anymore, it's just a mess. It's all my fault. It's

all my fault. What am I going to do? What am I going to do?

They're mad. They're mad at me. They rubbed it all over me
. . . the baby. Oh, God! On my face, my chest ... I can't stand
it anymore. Oh, God, it's got to be the end. It's got to be. I can't
stand it! I wished I was the baby. I wished I was the baby. I don't
know what to do. I can't stand thinking of what Oh, please,
to do.
oh, please! Please, I don't know how to get out. want to get out.
I

I can't. I wanted this to be the end. It's supposed to be the end.

Please talk to me. Please talk to me. Please!
 chapter 15

£
/S/AAWRENCE Pazder had a knack for what one of
termed "creative tardiness/' Dr. Pazder him-
his friends affectionately
selfwould admit that punctuality was not a fetish with him. There were
so many people crowding in on his life —
colleagues, patients, family
members, friends, comembers of the many committees he found him-
self agreeing to serve on- —that there was always a call or an impromptu
visit to delay him. His openness and, more than that, his commitment
were such that fending off interruptions did not come naturally to him.
Colleagues, patients, family friends —they all learned to accept the fact
that this energetic and altogether engaging man, important in all their
lives, was unlikely to appear at the designated moment. It was best to

allow fifteen or twenty minutes. Perhaps half an hour. And then, well
before acceptance yielded to irritation, the tall, lithe fellow with the
high, broad Polish cheekbones and the warm, white-toothed smile
would come striding in, his expression a mixture of sheepishness and
self-amusement.
Michelle therefore was not surprised that Dr. Pazder was absent
when she came for her appointment that day in early spring. She simply
sat in the waiting room and had a chat with another of the psychiatrists,
Dr. Jim Paterson. When Dr. Pazder arrived she was surprised, however,
to see that he was unsmiling. In a way, she was relieved. Michelle was
in no mood to smile either.
"I don't think I can go on," she said when they had entered the
office and closed the door. "I have this terrible sense of foreboding. I

[«7l
 Michelle Remembers [128]

mean, it's really frightening — as if something really horrible is about to

happen."
"Any idea of what it is?"

"No idea. Except that . . . well, it's that I have this feeling I'm
moving into areas where it's really . . . dangerous. I don't mean just
physically. I mean ... I have the strongest feeling that I should talk
to a priest."
"Is there something you want to tell a priest, do you think?"
Michelle thought for a minute. "No," she said, "it's more that I

need something from him. Some sort of protection . . . something like

that."
Dr. Pazder could see that Michelle was struggling to understand
and define her impulse. He could also see that she was immensely
apprehensive —very tight, very edgy. It was clear that she was greatly
reluctant to make her descent — indeed, that a descent might be impos-
sible.

"What about Father Leo?" Michelle brightened. "I would feel

much better if I could see him. I don't know why. I just would."
Dr. Pazder picked up the phone and called the young priest, who
said that, as it happened, he'd be free in an hour and would come right
over.
While they waited, they spoke of other things. They examined the
old blue-leather copy of the St. Joseph's Missal that Dr. Pazder had
fished out of the glove compartment of his car, where it had languished
for some time, among the maps and Kleenex. It might prove interest-
ing, he told Michelle, to look over the schedule of feast days for the
years 1954 and 1955, when the five-year-old child was suffering through
the regimen of the Satanic year, and to compare it to the schedule of
feast days for the current year, to see how closely they corresponded;
there had often seemed to be correlations. The missal was old but not
old enough. Its tables of yearly ecclesiastical calendars began with the
year 1956. They would need another missal. Dr. Pazder would phone
his motherin Edmonton, he said, and ask her to send him hers.

Then Dr. Pazder spoke of another matter, and his expression made
Michelle suspect that this was the topic that had extinguished his usual
smile.
 Michelle Remembers [129}

"You were kind enough," he began, "to let me discuss this work
with my wife/' Dr. Pazder had been anxious to have his wife compre-
hend something of the nature of this extraordinary endeavor so that —
she would understand why he was seeing less of his family these days,
and spending so much additional professional time with one patient.
He had wanted his wife to understand how important the work was,
and to have her support. Because of the secrecy mandated by the
doctor-patient relationship, however, he could not have spoken about
the case —even to his own wife —without Michelle's permission. She
had freely, though uneasily, given it. "I told her it's a very exceptional
situation, one that is vital not just to you as a patient but also to
psychiatry, and that I thought that a major contribution to the psychi-

atric literaturewould surely come out of it. I said I had no idea how
long it would go on but that, for as long as it did, I would do my best
to arrange things so that the effect on our family life would be as small
as possible. I'd alter the rest of my schedule, and so forth.

"I tried to tell her something about the nature of your remember-
ing," Dr. Pazder continued. "I told her that you were totally reliving

a childhood experience, and that it was very stressful, and that after-

ward, it took time to integrate the information that had come out. But
there was just so much I could say without going too deeply into it and
saying more than I should say, even with your permission. I don't want
you to feel that your privacy has been intruded upon, or else you'd have
a hard time talking to me. So I gave a brief description, but, in a way,
that might have been worse than not saying anything at all. In a brief
description the things that happened to you and that are happening to
you now are almost unbelievable. I'm afraid I just wasn't able to say
enough about it so that my wife could understand and feel at peace
about it."

Michelle did not reply. Dr. Pazder began to feel that he had
perhapsmade another mistake in — telling Michelle about the mistake
he had made in telling his wife.

When Father Leo arrived, wearing his customary turtleneck, jeans,

and boots, he looked a bit harried, and Dr. Pazder commented on it.
"I've got no less than two weddings today," the priest said, "and a
 Michelle Remembers [ 130 ]

funeral tomorrow. But I was bringing Communion to a parishioner just

four blocks away, was no problem to stop by here to see you.
and it

Anyway, I'm interested in what you're doing, and if there's anything

I I want to do it."
can do,
Doctor and patient brought Father Leo up to date on what had
happened since the last time they had seen him the ceremonies, the —
rituals, the symbolism that the child Michelle was reporting from her
deep past. "We've gotten to be very concerned," Dr. Pazder said. "It

seems possible to us that these people were involved in something very

definitely anti-Christian. It sounds a lot like Satanism to us."
Father Leo had listened silently, spellbound. He cleared his throat.
"It does to me, too," he said. "It was in my mind from the first time
we talked."
"We don't presume to say whether or not this should be of concern
to theChurch," Dr. Pazder went on. "We're telling you about it on
the chance that it is. But more than that, we need your help. This is
an extraordinary thing, because on the one hand this happened a long
time ago, and probably a number of the people involved have moved
away or are old or maybe even dead."
"Or maybe they're not," Father Leo said.

Michelle tensed, and Dr. Pazder said reluctantly, "Or maybe not."
He collected himself. "Anyway, there's the present, but there's also the
past. Michelle has to go back down there, and she has the strongest
feeling that there's something very difficult ahead for her down there,

something maybe even dangerous."

"What I need to know," Michelle what protections the
said, "is

Church has for someone coming near these kinds of things. I mean,
is there anything I can do, or have, or whatever, that would that . . .

would take care of me. Do you know what I mean?"

"You mean to keep these people from hurting you? In the present
or in the past?"
"Both, I guess. I know about holy water, and I know about cru-

cifixes, but it's not that sort of thing, it's not on that level, it's not a
direct physical threat. At least I hope it's not."
"I hope so too. Well, I could say a Mass for you. I'd be happy to
do that."
 Michelle Remembers [131}

much. But what I feel the need of, a really strong

"I'd like that very
need, is some words to make people safe."
for a prayer or something,
"What she's worried about," Dr. Pazder said, "is if something evil
had a grip on her or on someone else, could you do anything about it?"
"That's what the rite of exorcism is," Father Leo replied. "To drive
out evil."
"Could you tell me what it says?" Michelle asked earnestly.
"Actually," Father Leo said, "I don't know it. There was a time
when it was taught to all priests, but now only a very few are trained
in exorcism. I was not. But, Michelle, it's clear you're not possessed,
and I'm sure you'd agree that there's no need for an exorcism."
"Oh, no, I agree. That's not what I meant. It's just that, well, I
seem to need to hear words. I want to have not just general words but
also specific words, words that were made to deal with this sort of thing.
I would give anything if I could have those words in my mind when

I go back down there. I wouldn't be so terrified then. I don't know how

to tell you, except that I know this is what I need." She stopped, her
lips quivering. "I know I've got to go back down there if I'm going to
be free of my memories . . . but I just don't dare go back down unless
I'm a little bit protected."
Father Leo stood and placed his hand on Michelle's shoulder. "I
get it," he said gently. "I'll see what I can do. I'm sure the bishop has
a copy ofAnd there are other people I can call. I'll get back to you
it.

later. Right now I've got to prepare for this afternoon's wedding." He

smiled. "There's a young couple who need some of the Church's

protections too."

After Michelle left, Dr. Pazder picked up the pile of mail that had
been left on his coffee table that morning and began to sort through
it. A long white envelope with a familiar appearance brought him
abruptly to full attention. It was from Dr. David Bolton.
Dr. Bolton was senior medical consultant to British Columbia's
Medical Services Commission. Just after returning from Mexico, when
it had become clear that the work with Michelle would not be over

swiftly and that it might in fact demand great amounts of his time, Dr.
Pazder had written to Dr. Bolton. His patient, he told Dr. Bolton,
 Michelle Remembers [ 132 ]

"presented a most serious process requiring extraordinary frequency,

duration, and intensity. ... At this time, she is experiencing a continu-
ous spontaneous flooding of repressed memories. She has required . . .

several hours on most days to work through her emerging memories and
feelings of abandonment and despair. With very intensive psycho-
therapeutic techniques, she has been able to continue reintegrating
herself and coping as a wife. . She does have the potential and
. .

resources to resolve the past, and this is clearly indicated in her work
with me.
"I have sought a second opinion because of the unusual nature of
her struggle and am engaged in frequent communication with my
colleague" — Dr. Pazder here was referring to Dr. Richards Arnot
"concerning her. ... He is in agreement with my findings and therapy.
Dr. Pazder had gone on to explain that the one hour a day that
British Columbia's medical plan covered was only a fraction of the time
he was spending with Michelle, and he requested that the commission
authorize extended coverage.
Now here was the reply. It was brief. The answer was yes. The
commission agreed that the case was exceptional and gave Dr. Pazder
permission to bill the medical plan for more time.
Itwas extremely welcome news. Dr. Pazder knew very well that he
would have provided the time anyway, permission or not. And he knew
that he would be devoting time well beyond the new limit the commis-
sion allowed. Faced with Michelle's need and impelled by his convic-
tion that this well might be the most important case he would ever
have, of far-ranging significance to his profession and those it served,
he could scarcely do otherwise. But the commission had lifted a heavy
part of the burden. It would make a real difference.
Slightly exhilarated, he picked up the phone. For some time he had
been meaning to call a physician named Andrew Gillespie. Dr. Gilles-
pie's offices were just two floors above in the same building, yet Dr.
Pazder had had a certain subliminal difficulty in getting himself to

contact Dr. Gillespie. Was it, Dr. Pazder wondered, that he was afraid
Dr. Gillespie might not tell him what he expected to hear, or that he
might?
Dr. Pazder dialed and waited as Dr. Gillespie's nurse called him to
 Michelle Remembers [ 133 ]

the phone. After the pleasantries were exchanged, Dr. Pazder said: "I
wonder, Doctor, do you remember a little girl named Michelle Hard-
ing? You were her pediatrician, I believe, in the early fifties/'
remember the child and her family, even though
Dr. Gillespie did
it was twenty-odd years ago. He remembered the mother, and that she

had a number of problems with Michelle from time to time. He

remembered Michelle's having had a tonsillectomy and he remem- —
bered something about a car accident (Dr. Pazder's heart missed a
beat), a car accident that had taken place just as she'd reached school
age.
Dr. Pazder asked if the child had been hospitalized.
Yes, said Dr. Gillespie, he believed so. He promised to search his

files in the basement and report back.

The call ended, the receiver back in its cradle, his hand still upon
it, Dr. Pazder sat stunned. He released a long sigh. The car accident.
The hospital. Just when Michelle said they'd happened. It was the first

outside confirmation of any of the details of her story. He found himself

more than anxious to know what other information the pediatrician's
records would supply.
In the next several days, Dr. Pazder continued his inquiries. It was
not that he was checking up on Michelle to see if she were telling the
truth; he was not making the inquiries in that spirit. It was more that,

as her psychiatrist, he needed to ascertain just how accurate her reliving

process was, if he was to help her properly. If the process proved to be
factually uncheckable, even unreliable, it would be necessary to know
that, but would not invalidate her testimony as an expression of
it

certain inner realities. There was, however, more to it than that. His
researches might turn up other bits and pieces of information that
could shed light on the dark events of Michelle's childhood, helping
him to help her more effectively, giving him concrete points to which
they could anchor the nightmarish revelations.
But too much time had elapsed. Officials at Royal Jubilee Hospi-
tal told him that the hospital's policy was to destroy all files after
fifteen years. It was much the same at Victoria General, which for-
merly had been named St. Joseph's Hospital —the files went back
only to 1967.
 Michelle Remembers [ 134 ]

Dr. Pazder then attempted to check the accident and the woman's
apparent death. He went through mounds of clippings in the morgues
of the local newspapers. A number of deaths had been reported around
Christmas of that year, but, since Michelle did not know the dead
woman's name, it was impossible to pinpoint any one death as the

significant one.
When Dr. Pazder called the local detachment of the Royal Cana-
dian Mounted Police, he was informed that they destroyed all records
after five years unless charges had been laid. The Department of Motor
Vehicles also destroyed records after five years. The Bureau of Vital
Statistics said they could not help him unless he could provide a

surname. Did they list individual deaths by type? Dr. Pazder asked
auto accident, for example. No, they did not.
And then came a letter from Dr. Gillespie:*

At your request I am trying to recall this patient. ... I recall

seeing her on two or three occasions. ... I wondered about the

mother's ability to cope. She was a kindly but rather ineffectual
woman, somewhat overweight. She was having difficulties . . .

with alcohol. Her husband was away much of the time.

I do vaguely recall that Michelle was involved in an accident
at around five or six years of age, for which she was admitted to
the hospital for care. I believe this involved a car accident . . . and
that Michelle had some difficulty with smoke inhalation, from
which she made a satisfactory recovery.
I do not remember the details, and I am sorry that we do not
have her old files. . . .

With kind regards,

A. E. Gillespie, M.D., F.A.A.P.,
FRCP. (C)

So that was it. There had been a car accident and the child had
been put in the hospital. And it had happened at the time Michelle
said it did. The appraisal of Michelle's mother and the statement about
*For the complete text of this letter, see Appendix 2.
 Michelle Remembers [ 135 ]

the missing father — these matched up, too. Beyond that, nothing could
be confirmed. The records would be of no assistance.

Nothing could happen until they again saw Father Leo. The day
after they had met with him, Dr. Pazder had phoned to see how he
was coming along. "It's a little amazing," the priest replied. 'Tm
beginning to think that no one in Canada has a copy of the exorcism
rite. I've called all over the place."

"We don't want to put you to too much trouble," Dr. Pazder
said, hoping the priest wouldn't take that as an invitation to stop
searching.
"No, no problem. Actually, there should be a copy in
it's okay,
Victoria. What if someone in the diocese got a call saying there was
a case of possession and they needed an exorcist? We ought to have
one on hand. I've canceled my appointments for the evening. I'm going
to stay with this until I find a copy."
A day later Father Leo called back. "I've found a text," he said with
satisfaction. "But it's in Latin, and my Latin ismore than a little rusty.
I can't read it. One of the older priests in the Chancery Office, Phil
Hanley, is a classics scholar, and he's going to translate it."
The next call came two days later. The translation was completed.
Father Leo said Father Hanley had stayed up one whole night working
on it.

"Is it the authentic rite?" Dr. Pazder asked.

"Oh, Leo replied. "It's from Rituale Romanum. It's
yes," Father
the text authorized by Pope Paul V at the beginning of the seventeenth
century."
"When can we see you?"
"I wish I could see you today, but I just can't. How about tomorrow
morning at ten? I'll come to your office."

For Michelle, there had been nothing to do but wait. Until she
heard those words from the lips of Father Leo, she could not think
about descending again into her depths and facing whatever it was
. . .

that would be there.There simply was no way she could bring herself
to; she knew this with total conviction, both mental and visceral. Yet
 Michelle Remembers [136}

again, as whenever the reliving process was blocked, the pressure was
building.
Her husband had a couple of days off from his job as a construction
foreman, and the two of them, without announcement, decided to
spend all that time together. They had seen too little of each other.
They went canoeing and took long walks, during which they talked
about everything under the sun. They spoke of a favorite dream to —
build a log cabin one day. They talked about the chickens they brought
up last autumn in the garage and how, when the weather turned chilly,
Michelle had insisted on sheltering one of the sick little ones in the
house. The next time, Doug said, they'd get their chicks when the
weather was warmer and raise them outside.
Doug book he was reading. Michelle listened with
talked about the
pleasure. Doug was an —
nearly a book a day. His
incredible reader
vocabulary was remarkable, and he loved to play with words, make
them do tricks. Michelle enjoyed his dry humor.
They reminisced about when met and, later, when
they'd first

they'd lived in a boathouse together. "Every morning when we got up,"

Michelle said, "there'd be that enormous heron nearby, standing so still
in the water. Do you remember? It was like waking up in the dawn of

Creation."
On one walk, through the rich, moist forest, when the conversa-
tion turned, as it work with Dr. Pazder,
inevitably did, to Michelle's
the mood had changed. Doug listened patiently, but it was as if it
were increasingly difficult for him As if it were too upsetting
to listen.
to hear about the horrible things that had happened to his wife when
she was a child; that, but also as if he had simply come to a point of
secret exhaustion on the subject. It was only natural for him, Mi-
chelle thought, to want an end to it all as she did — —
and a resump-
tion of the simple, close, uninvaded life they had once had together.
When they returned from the walk, Doug made a fire, and Mi-
chelle made tea. Later there was a chicken dinner, with flapper pie, a
local delicacy made of coconut, custard, and cream, for dessert. After-
ward they sat by the fire. Michelle wanted to talk, Doug was aware of
that. And Doug did not want to talk. He picked up his book and
 Michelle Remembers [ 137 ]

entered it, leaving behind the world of psychiatry and Satanists and
tortured children —the world, most regrettably, of Michelle.

"Okay," said Father Leo. "Let me read this thing. But first, let me
just point out what you already know, but I've got to say it anyway
namely, that this isn't an exorcism. It's not even a ceremony. I'm just

reading you some words. I don't even have any vestments on."
They all laughed at that. Father Leo's customary turtleneck was
hardly a prescribed ecclesiastical garment.
"And," he added, "you wouldn't call this a liturgical posture." They
laughed again. He was sitting on the floor.
"Okay," he said again, in a different voice, "I'll simply read this."
He opened a manila envelope and took out several sheets of paper that
were covered with handwriting. He picked up the top sheet. He began,

Holy Lord, Father Almighty, Eternal God, Father of our

Lord Jesus Christ, Who repudiates that receding, tyrannical,
and destructive fire of hell, and Who
Your Only Be- also sent
gotten Son into this world that Be quick
its roaring be silenced:
to hear, hurry that you may pull out man, made to Your image
and likeness, from ruin and the midday Devil. . . .

Michelle closed her eyes and let the words strike deep.

1 exorcise you, most unclean spirit. ... He commands you, Who

commands the sea, the wind, and the storms. Hear, therefore,
Satan, and fear, you who are the enemy of the faith, enemy of
the human race, harbinger of death, plunderer of life, rejecter of
justice, root of evils, promoter of debauchery, seducer of men,
traitor of mankind, inciter of envy, origin of avarice, cause of
discord, inciter of pain. . . .

Father Leo read quietly, almost in a monotone, but the power of

the phrases seemed to build upon itself and fill the whole room.
 Michelle Remembers [138}

Depart from me, you wicked, into everlasting fire. . . . You are
the Prince of Homicides, author of incest, headman of all sacri-

lege, master of all evil arts, doctor of all heresies, inventor of all

indecency. Go out, therefore, Impious

One, go One, go out, Foul
out with all your treachery! He rejects you to whose power all is
subject. He shuts you out, He who has prepared hell for you and
your angels, from Whose mouth goes out the sharp sword, Who
will come to judge the living and the dead and the world by fire.

"Amen," said Father Leo, closing the folder. "I hope it helps."
"I've got to go." He smiled and got up from the floor. He took Mi-
chelle's hands. 'Til be thinking about you. Call me if you need me."

When he was gone, the two looked at each other, eyes wide.
'That was really something," Dr. Pazder said huskily. "I had no
."
idea. . .

"It was so strong, such powerful language."

"It'shard to imagine that anything could ever stand up against it."
"Ihope not," Michelle said. She felt almost nauseous, for she knew
that now she would have to return to the round room and its horrors.
But it helped, it really did help, to have this vivid evidence that evil
could not range freely in this world, that there was a great force to
oppose it that there were protections.
. . .
 chapter 16

was scheduled
of Lent. When
told her that the doctor
M
for
ICHELLE'S
Ash Wednesday, the
she arrived at the
next session with Dr. Pazder
first

office,
day of the Catholic season
the secretary, Susan Austin,
would be a little late, but that Michelle should
go ahead into his office. There was something on the tape recorder that
he wanted her to listen to.
Michelle found the tape recorder easily; Dr. Pazder had left it out
on a table for her. She pressed the "playback" lever and settled down
on the couch to listen. Dr. Pazder's voice entered the room.
"Michelle, I want to sharesomething with you, something on
friendship written four hundred years ago by a man named Montaigne.
I think you'll like it.

It is not natural, social, hospitable, or sexual. It is not the feeling

of children for parents or vice versa. It is not brotherly love. It is

not the love for a female. It is beyond all my reasoning and beyond
all that I can specifically say. Some
power of destiny
inexplicable
that brought about our union. Such friendship has no model but
itself and can only be compared to itself. It is one soul with two

bodies. The experience is beyond the imagination of anyone who

has not tasted it. It is hard to find people — I wish I could speak
to peoplewho have had experience with what I am describing,
but knowing how far from common, indeed, how rare such a
friendship is, I have no expectation of finding a competent judge.

[139}
 Michelle Remembers [ 140 ]

That was all. The tape turned silently. Michelle wound it back to
the beginning and listened again. It was as if someone had set out to
put into words the special relationship that had developed between
herself and Dr. Pazder. She replayed the tape, stopping it every few
seconds while she wrote down the words.
She had just finished when Dr. Pazder came in. "How did you like
that?" he asked. "When I read it last night, I had to share it with you."
"It's really us, isn't it?" Michelle agreed.
Dr. Pazder was looking at her carefully. She seemed happy about
the Montaigne quotation, and she was wearing a red blouse —the first

time she'd worn red to a session since the remembering began. But not
all the signs were good. He noticed that her rash had come back, not
only on her face but also all over her hands. He had come to recognize
that as a sign of specific stress in Michelle. The session that was about
to begin would probably be a difficult one for her.

Michelle was in darkness. At first she thought she was simply in a

dark place — a closet, perhaps, or the basement of the old house. Gradu-
ally she began to realize the truth — that she wasn't in a room at all,

but in a cage. It was only about the size of a small table, and not quite
high enough to allow Michelle to stand up. The sides were wire mesh.
The wire went over the top, too, and Michelle would have been able
to see out except for the sides. There were wooden sides all around that
could be opened or closed. When the sides were up, as they were now,
it was like being shut up in a box.*
The world was closing in on her. For a long time the round room
had been the only space she was allowed, except for short trips in the

car. Now her world was even more claustrophobic, no bigger than a
wood-and-wire cage.
Michelle felt bereft. It was as if she had never had a father or a
Hearing about the cage, Dr. Pazder was reminded of the dreaded Ekpe Society
*

of West Africa. Kidnapped children were raised by its members in small, low cages
like animals. These "leopard children" could not stand but ran on all fours. Their teeth
were filed to points, and they were used as assassins. Of course, Dr. Pazder never told
Michelle about the correspondences he sometimes saw between her experiences and
the things he had studied.
 Michelle Remembers [ 141 ]

mother, as she had never lived a normal life of sleeping and eating
if

and There was only the cage, and it became Michelle's entire
playing.
world. She counted the wires, played with her feet, pondered the
freckles on her forearms —
anything to keep herself occupied, to keep
from thinking too much about being trapped and afraid.
When they finally let the sides down, Michelle saw that the round
room had changed too. It was filled with people all the time now,
people Michelle had never seen before, even at the ceremonies. Read-
ing from large black books, they kept up a constant chant, relieving one
another as they As they chanted they made a lot of signs, but it
tired.

was as if they were making them all backward. They said awful things,
and Michelle tried not to listen; she hated the sound of their voices,
and she hated having strangers see her in the cage. She was naked and
very dirty, and she had to use one corner of the cage as a bathroom.
It would have been easier without all those strangers there.

If only she could have ignored them. If she curled herself up, the

floor of the cage was big enough for her to lie down and go to sleep.
But that was impossible. The floor of the cage was covered with snakes,
dozens of them. They weren't poisonous, just the black kind she had
occasionally seen in the backyard at home, but there were so many she
couldn't bear the thought of lying down and waking up with them
swarming all over her. She couldn't even stand to step on one; the idea
of feeling it move under her bare foot was too much.
She tried to sleep, but whenever she dozed off some of the chanters
would spot her and start shouting angrily. They would reach through
the openings of the mesh and pull at her skin, pinching at her through
the wire. Pushing and pulling and pushing and pulling — it was impossi-
ble for her to sleep. They seemed determined tokeep her awake, and
Michelle realized —from things they said — that somebody was coming,
a lady, and that she, Michelle, would not be allowed to sleep until then.
They would keep chanting, and keep waking her, until the lady from
Vancouver arrived.

Michelle didn't know who the lady was, but she knew that her
—
coming had something to do with the snakes the snakes were some-
how like her. As if they were her sign. Michelle was getting into a
fearful state —
the sleeplessness, the snakes, the constant poking and
 Michelle Remembers [ 142 ]

pinching made her feel desperate. When they put up the wooden sides,
she would get to the point where she didn't think she could take it for
even one more minute, and when they let down the sides, she would
throw herself against the wire and try to wriggle out, just like a monkey.
She knew she had to do something. She had to find something to hold
onto before the lady from Vancouver came. Once she arrived, Michelle
would not have a chance.
Michelle's hair was long and thick. They wouldn't notice if she
pulled out hairs, one at a time. It hurt at first, but she ignored it,

intently collecting enough hair to make her plan work. She wound the
strands together into a skinny braid a little over an inch long. Then she
began the whole process again, and eventually made a second skinny
braid. Then she put the two together to form a cross.

It didn't stay together very well, so I pretended like you do

with mud pies. I went to my corner and pretended like you do
with mud. Am I making you sick? It does get hard if you leave
it alone for a while, you know, just like mud. Funny thing for it

to be made out of, but it was all I had.

Then I'm afraid I did a very disgusting thing. I took it and
stuck it under my
hair. I had really thick hair and it was really

snarly. Youwhenever they cleaned me up they always washed

see,

me off but they never combed my hair. I don't know why. So

nobody would see it but me. I don't know if it was the right thing
or the wrong thing to do, but it made me feel like I wasn't alone.

That was all Michelle could do to help herself. Then she just sat
in the darkness of the cage, waiting for whatever would happen to her
next.

Then she came. That lady from Vancouver came. She was
pretty. At first I believed she'd come to help me. I was a little

mixed up. They talked a lot about a prince of darkness, but I

didn't know him. I kept thinking there was somebody good in

there because all princes were good. She's really something else.

She's really pretty. I didn't know she was one of them at first. She
didn't look evil or anything. She had black hair.
 Michelle Remembers [ 143 ]

Her hair in waves around her face, and her complexion was
fell

She wore a fashionable blue suit, and her white blouse

strikingly fair.
had an ascot collar. She was a beautiful woman in her early thirties and
Michelle felt herself respond to the lady's beauty, but Michelle was
determined not to be fooled. In her mind she became a watchdog,
defending her cage, on her guard, surefooted and wary. The lady came
directly to the cage and spoke softly to Michelle. The lady said she
knew how horrible things must have been until now, but she would not
letanybody hurt Michelle anymore. Michelle was still the watchdog,
on guard, but she felt her defenses coming down. It would have
still

been so wonderful to be able to believe what the lady was saying.

She was just trying to make friends when she first came. Like
one minute she's talking to me like I'm a nice little kid, and the
next minute she's this ugly thing. She just turned her head around
and looked back at me and changed her face. It was the same face
I saw in the car that night. Its eyes looked like they go way back
and stick way out same time. Everything about it's unclean.
at the
Its nostrils are much bigger than they should be, and it has an ugly

mouth. She has this long tongue that can go way out, like a snake's
tongue. She's saying really disgusting things but they're all in a
different language. She drools a lot and her head starts to go all

funny and spins around.

Suddenly the lady turned her head again and her pretty face reap-
peared. She was nice and friendly once more, trying to make Michelle
like her.

She's pretty and she's sitting there acting really normal, talk-
ing to me about little kids' stuff, and she'll just turn away and look
back and all of a sudden it's just . . . it's just the ugliest ... I just
... oh, her eyes. Sometimes it looks like a man. I don't under-
stand. She does really disgusting things. Like where I went to the
bathroom she'll eat it or she'll rub it on me or she'll rub it on the
Then all of a sudden she's back being the other person.
floor.

Make it go away! Go away! Please, can't yell for my mom. can't

I I

yell for anybody. She just kept looking and coming closer. No! No!
 Michelle Remembers [144]

Go! I didn't want that face to touch me. I'm scared of that face
and all the dark places it has. Make it stop doing those things. It

snorts and drools and makes its eyes roll around in all different
directions at the same time. Make it go away! I can't stand it.
/ can \ stand it! No! It's going to drive me crazy!

Michelle came up from her memories and cried for a long time.
Now she knew why she had felt such a strong urge to hear the rite of

exorcism — it was because the lady from Vancouver was possessed. The
nurse and Malachi were evil, but they weren't possessed. That lady was
the only one, and it explained why everyone was subservient to her
taking care of her and bringing her things to eat. They all had to bow
down to her.
Dr. Pazder rubbed her forehead while Michelle cried, then asked
if she would like to come along while he attended Ash Wednesday
services. Michelle said yes —she didn't want to wait at the office alone,
but she felt a little nervous about it. Because of what she was involved
in, she felt who had a right to go to church.
she wasn't the sort of person
The Ash Wednesday liturgy was particularly hard for Michelle. The
repeated theme of "Ashes to ashes; dust to dust" aroused bad memo-
ries,and she felt none of the peace that acceptance of death was meant
to bring. But it was over quickly. An hour later, she and Dr. Pazder were
on the road back to Fort Royal Medical Centre. He turned on the
radio, just happening to tune in on the CBC's broadcast of Pope Paul

VI 's Ash Wednesday message. "The world is under the power of

Satan," Paul was saying. "We must do everything we can in our

individual lives and through prayer to fight him."
They looked at each other. As isolated as Michelle felt, it was good
to know that the struggle was real, that she and Dr. Pazder were not
alone.

When the sides of the cage dropped down again, all Michelle could
see at first was the light. The round room again was full of candles, and
she saw that the floor was decorated with the familiar design of a circle
and thirteen-pointed star. Afew people came toward the cage to clean
the snakes out. All this time Michelle had wished the snakes would go
 Michelle Remembers [ 14$ ]

away, and now there she was wishing they were back. The figures

turned on Michelle, then washed her off, quickly, not thoroughly, and
put a dress on her. She felt wobbly on her feet.

All these other people keep coming into the room, and they've
all got those black capes on. They're standing around that huge
circle and I'm being held there in the middle. They're really
calling someone, really loudly. Some of them get down on their
knees and they start going up and down, up and down. Then they
start turning me like a compass, like they always turn me. They're
waiting for it to get dark. I know. The only thing they're still

waiting for is the Prince of Darkness. As soon as it gets dark

... all of a sudden that thing jumped in the circle!

The possessed woman stood poised a moment, then began a wild

dance, jumping back and forth over Michelle's rigid body. The
woman's arms were fully extended, with her hands and palms outward.
Her knees were turned out too, so her movements were ugly and jerky
rather than graceful. As she danced, the chanting grew louder and
louder, and she danced faster and faster until the air began to grate,
to go MMMMMMNNNNNNNN. The lady was moving like a whirl-
wind, but the others continued their slower, rhythmic motions.
Then everything stopped, and the possessed woman stood over
Michelle, her legs straddling the child's petrified body. The woman's
face came closer and closer, and Michelle tried to concentrate on the
thing she had concealed in her hair, her little piece of safety. Then the
lady was on top of Michelle, and her snakelike tongue worked its way
into the small girl's mouth.

It was like a snake was in my mouth. And the next thing I

know, I feel all funny down below. I shouldn't have looked. I

shouldn't have looked. It was a snake! It was a real snake, and it

seemed like it was crawling out of me. I thought it was inside of
me and it crawled out. Nooof Get it off! I thought it went in one
end and came out the other! I think she's put a snake all the way
through me.
 Michelle Remembers [ 146]

The lady left the circle and joined Malachi where he was standing,
next to the white thing. Struggling and crying, Michelle was brought
before them. To her complete horror, Malachi turned to a table and
revealed another dead baby. Before Michelle's eyes, he sliced the fetus
in half, then turned to Michelle and rubbed half the body against her
stomach.

No! No! Take it away! They rubbed

I couldn't do anything.
it all over me. Why did they do that? Why did they do that? They

rubbed it on that white thing ... on the stomach. They were all
just on their knees and yelling and then everybody's getting up
and going crazy and dancing around. I couldn't just stand there
anymore. I had to do something. / had to do something. But I

made a terrible mistake. I yelled, "Mommy." I shouldn't have

said, "Mommy." They thought meant the mommy they'd given
I

me to. They thought I was calling her mommy!

The celebrants howled triumphantly. Crying, hysterical, Michelle

leaped up and ran from the circle. The possessed lady was dancing
again, jumping around as if she were crazy, but Michelle ran about
frantically, trying to get away, looking for a place to be safe. She had
to run, had to try to get all the snakes out of her body. She ran against
the walls, threw herself on the floor while the others danced and
rejoiced.

In the confusion, Michelle finally found a spot where nobody was

and she crouched there. It no longer mattered whether she was part
of the ceremony or not. No one noticed her.

I wanted to be back in the cage. I wanted my corner. It didn't

matter anymore. I didn't matter. I feel so sick. Oh, help me! God
help me. I can't talk anymore. I can't. That's all. I feel like

nothing. I feel that I'm worse than a snake! They told me the baby
was for me, for my birth. Please! Please! I didn't want it. I didn't
ask. I'm scared. I'm scared. Please don't leave me. Please, I'm so
scared.
 chapter 17

fusion. At first
M, ICHELLE's next session began in some con-
she told Dr. Pazder that she'd been put back in her cage
again. Then there was a silence, and she said she guessed she hadn't.
But she was feeling as if she were in a closed space that was hard for
her to identify. Michelle began to breathe heavily, and Dr. Pazder
could see that some knowledge was coming to her, and she was strug-
gling to speak.
"Please," she said, beginning to cry, "can you understand that I

don't want to be hurt anymore? It's hard for me to go there. I'm afraid.
I'm afraid of back then. Can you understand that? Do you understand
that the more I know, the harder it is?"
"I understand that," said Dr. Pazder. "I understand how frighten-
ing it is."

"Do you have any idea what they did? Do you know where they
put me?" She was sobbing now.
"No," he said. "Can you tell me where?"
"They locked me inside that white thing. The only way I can see
out is through those eyes, and they think that they're going to make
me watch. They pushed all the snakes in through the eyes, so they're
all at the bottom, and they put the rest of the dead baby in there and
told me that's what I've got to eat." Michelle sobbed for a few mo-
ments, unable to speak. Then she said fiercely, "I can't. I can't stand
it! It's not just being in there; it'swhat people think I am. Oh, I wish
I didn't know so much. I wish I didn't. I don't know what to do. I can't

U47]
 Michelle Remembers [ 148 ]

stay alive. I just can't. I don't want to be inside all those dead people,
with all their blood around me. I don't want to look out those eyes. I

don't know what to do. It seems the more I talk about it, the worse
it gets."
''It's okay, Michelle," Dr. Pazder said. "Just keep going where you
can."
"It's like someone's tearing my insides out. I'm so afraid. I don't
have a thread to hang onto anymore. They want to destroy me."
"But you're not destroyed," said Dr. Pazder. "They tried but they
didn't succeed. You're not destroyed now."
"I'm such a mess. Do you have any idea at all of what this does to
me?"
"Well, I'm trying to envision, a little bit, what it would be like
inside that shell."
It was like being inside a mummy, Michelle told him. They placed
a stepladder inside, and that was where Michelle sat. At the bottom
of the effigy were the snakes, and some She couldn't tell
sort of liquid.
what it was. Inside the effigy it was dark, with just a bit of light coming
through the eyes. There was very little space to move around in, only
a few inches on each side.
"Did you know where you were then?" Dr. Pazder asked.
"I'm inside the Devil," Michelle wept.
"No, you're not That's not the Devil. It's a hollow shell that they
made, probably out of papier-mache or plaster. Yes, it's covered with
blood. The blood of dead people. But the people aren't there; there are
no spirits in that blood. It just represents the evil that they did. The
evil is there in their hearts. But it's not the Devil, and you're not evil

because you were in there as a child. Being in that statue doesn't

change who you are."

"It might make me go crazy," Michelle whispered.
"No, it won't. It won't make you possessed, either, I promise you.
Who's going to let you go crazy? I won't. God, no. You're free now.
You can scream and nothing will happen. You can tell them to stop
it. It's not going to make you crazy. But we must do this. When you

open up as much as you have it's very important not just to look at the
memory but also to feel it and to go through it. It hurts, it scares, it
 Michelle Remembers [149]

does everything, but you're still okay. You are. I know that by your

sanity and by your goodness. This is a hard place to be going. But I

don't know any choice but to go there."
"I know," said Michelle. "I don't either."
"Since you have to go there, I will be with you. You don't have to
go there alone."

Michelle was imprisoned inside the effigy for a long time. The space
was so dark and so confined that sometimes she felt she could not take
another breath. At other times the idea of where she was — inside the
white thing —would seize her imagination until she felt she couldn't
stand it. And yet she was forced to endure, day after day, concentrating
on little details, daydreaming, the way she did in the cage, to keep
herself sane.
The next ceremony began without warning. They did not wash or
dress Michelle beforehand; they just left her in the effigy and let her
watch through itsThe chanting was less solemn than usual. It
eyes.
seemed almost lively. The candles were white instead of black. The
black-robed figures formed two circles, and each circle moved in the
opposite direction from the other. Suddenly, and in unison, all the
celebrants swept their cloaks back and revealed what was beneath:
children. A child clung to each celebrant's leg, much as Michelle had
been trained to cling to the nurse and walk around beneath her cloak.
The children seemed to know what to do. They moved in time with
the grown-ups, and seemed to be enjoying themselves. From Michelle's
vantage point inside the effigy, it looked like a bizarre game of ring-
around-the-rosy. Part of Michelle wanted
be out there playing, like
to
all the other children. But she wouldn't have, evenif she had been free.

She knew that what happened in the round room was no game, and
wanted to tell the other children that. Children will do anything if they
think everybody is having fun, but she wanted them to know that this
f

dance wasn t funny. She could see them looking at the effigy, knew that
when they looked up they could see her eyes glaring down at them.
They didn't know the trick; they thought the effigy itself was powerful.
Michelle couldn't let them believe that! They ought to be afraid. The
children did not know that Malachi and the others were waiting for
 Michelle Remembers [ 150 ]

the Prince of Darkness to come —

that they were helping him come,
and that having children in the round room was part of helping.
—
Michelle had to warn them but they had to see her first. She had
to make them realize who it was inside the effigy. She started to grunt
and scream. She made animal noises, growls, whines, screeches.
Suddenly the children stopped and looked up at the effigy. But it
—
was all wrong they thought it was the effigy come to life. They still
didn't understand that it was just a person inside. Michelle wanted to
burst out so badly she tried to smash the effigy apart, but it was no use;

the more noise she made, the more real the effigy seemed.
In her frenzy, she grabbed what was at hand —
the snakes. Scram-
bling to the bottom of the stepladder, she gathered them up by the
handfuls and pushed them out through the effigy's eyes. Some of them
squished as she forced them through the narrow holes, but she didn't
pause. The children saw the snakes flying out of the eyes, and they
danced faster and faster. Michelle had to get out and stop them. She
had to!
She rushed down the stepladder again and picked up more snakes.
And the decaying pieces of the baby. She shoved them all out the
mouth of the image. She was ridding the effigy of everything they had
put into it, and that made her feel good. Then she looked down at her
hands. Touching the baby had filthied her hands, and she had nothing
to wipe them on but her own naked body. All she wanted was to be
free of the effigy. "I want out!" she screamed, her voice lost as the

celebrants sang louder and louder. "I want out! Out! Let me out!"
All of a sudden she was outside. She didn't know how she got there.
But she was out. As she stumbled into the room, the other children
shrank from the sight of her, naked, her long hair matted, her body thin
and bony. Seeing the fear in their eyes, Michelle looked down at herself
and began to scream. Her lower body was streaked with red. She was
terrified that if she had to be in there any longer, her body would turn

red along with the effigy.

Everyone was standing still, shocked, staring at Michelle. They all

seemed scared, except for the possessed woman, who was very angry.
She came toward Michelle, her face turning awful, her lips whinnying
and spitting. Relentlessly she moved toward Michelle, and when she
 Michelle Remembers [ 151 ]

reached her she lifted the child up over her head and threw her
backward onto the round bed. Then the possessed woman leaped onto
the bed and, straddling Michelle, vomited all over. The children
shrieked, and Michelle was filled with disgust. While the possessed
woman kept Michelle trapped on the bed, the celebrants danced and
did strange things to each other, including the children. The children
thought it was all part of the game.
Michelle couldn't bear it. That was when she saw the snake. It was
lying on the where she had thrown it down from the effigy.
floor,

Screaming, Michelle dodged past the possessed woman and ran to the
foot of the effigy. She grabbed the snake and, before she could think
about what she was doing, put it in her mouth and ran around the
room, dangling it from her teeth. "Nnnnn! Nnnnn!" she went, shaking
her head, the snake flicking back and forth as she crisscrossed the room
in a crazy pattern. The round room was in chaos. Everyone was scream-

ing, and Michelle was screaming too. She would run up to a child and

shake her head wildly, the snake between her teeth. The children were
terrified, and at last Michelle felt she was getting through to them.
They were beginning to understand the horror.
It was then that Michelle saw her mother, dressed in a white robe,
standing quietly near a wall. Michelle stopped, poised, her body stained
with red, the snake struggling in her mouth. Then she dropped the
snake and flung herself at Mrs. Harding, throwing her arms around the
woman's knees, kissing her stomach, burying her face in the white robe
as she cried,"Mommy! Mommy!" over and over. No matter what her
mother had done, she loved her. She hugged even tighter, and the
woman seemed to like it. She hugged Michelle back, and that seemed
to make everyone happy. Michelle was so glad to have her mother
again, and then she looked up to kiss her.
"No!" Michelle shrieked. "It's not my mom. No! It's that lady!"
Michelle was utterly crushed. Slowly she turned to the effigy. She
—
knew there was only one place she belonged inside the white thing.
She crawled back inside. There was no escape.

That night Michelle and Dr. Pazder worked until after eleven,
talking about the things that seemed to distress her most that the —
 Michelle Remembers [ 152 ]

children, looking from the outside, had taken her eyes to be those of
the statue; that she had turned half red, like the statue; that she had
had up and crawl back inside. She needed to feel less defeated
to give
in the present, to reach beyond the anguish of the child, and to see

what that child had indeed accomplished.

For the first time she had telephoned Doug and asked him to come
pick her up. Both she and Dr. Pazder felt it would be dangerous for
her to try to drive alone as exhausted as she was. Doug had agreed, and
now they were waiting for him.
"My mother sent me her old missal," Dr. Pazder said, pouring
Michelle some tea. It covers 1954 an d *955> tne Y ears a ^ this hap-
pened. And it's very interesting. I want to show you what I discovered."

He drew a sheet of paper from his missal. "I wrote these down last

night." In his slanting script were the dates of the movable feasts, the
principal celebrations of the liturgical year. He had listed the dates for

1954 and 1955 and for 1976 and 1977. His chart showed there were
startling correlations.

1QS4 1Q76 1QSS 1Q77

Ash Wednesday Mar. 3 Mar. 3 Feb. 23 Feb. 23

Easter Apr. 18 Apr. 18 Apr. 10 Apr. 10

Ascension May 27 May 27 May 19 May 19

Pentecost June 6 June 6 May 29 May 29

Corpus Christi June 17 June 17 June 9 June 9

First Sunday
of Advent Nov. 28 Nov. 28 Nov. 27 Nov. 27

Michelle looked at the dates and sighed. The events she was
remembering had started in 1954, and continued into 1955. The
remembering itself had begun in 1976, and it was now just past Ash
Wednesday, February 23 of 1977. Michelle's memories were corre-
sponding almost to the day with events that had taken place exactly
twenty-two years before. And in those years the Church's important
dates fell on the same days they did this year. The days and dates were
 Michelle Remembers [ 153 ]

the same, only twenty-two years apart. She wondered, as she often had
before, why she was remembering all this now.
"Another thing that struck me," Dr. Pazder remarked, "was that
I don't know when these dates may correspond again. I've been able
to check up through 1996 and it doesn't happen within that time. It's
also interesting because it helps us to understand that these people
seem to move opposite from the Church. At Christmas, instead of a
joyous birth, they arranged a death. And for Ash Wednesday, when the
Church reminds though
us of our physical mortality, their focus,
twisted, on life
is and children. See?" He pointed to the date on the
first table. "That ceremony was on February 23 in 1955, which is where

you were in your memories that day. And Ash Wednesday fell on
—
February 23 this year too the day you told me about that ceremony."
"What I talked about tonight has something to do with these
opposites too," Michelle said. "It does have something to do with the
children. We're leading up to Easter now, and they're going to do
something opposite. They have to get the children all ready by Easter.
I'm so terrified for the children. I'd like to ask Father Leo to remember
them when he says Mass this Sunday."
"Well, we'll find out what these dates mean soon enough," Dr.
Pazder said. "But I want to say one more thing before Doug gets here.
And want you
I to listen hard. I don't want you to dwell on these dates.
I grant you, they are interesting. I think we'll find they are significant
in the context of your memories, and they may help us understand
more as we go on. On the other hand, the dates may be nothing more
than coincidence. We don't know. So don't let yourself get too worried
about it."

"Okay," Michelle said, but she was not at all sure she could keep
from being concerned.
When Doug arrived, Dr. Pazder told him how much Michelle had
gone through in the session. Doug helped her into the car, and they
started for home. He asked no questions.
 chapter 18

lentless.
M ICHELLE'S remembering had become re-
She and Dr. Pazder were working daily without respite, and
he was beginning to worry about her. There was little time to integrate
her experiences before she was flooded with new ones. One day, while
she was remembering, the five-year-old Michelle told him, "I don't
think there's a sun anymore. I haven't seen any for so long. Maybe it's
not there anymore." That day he decided it was essential to take a break
and get their feet on the ground.
The Pacific Northwest is beautiful in the spring, when the long
winter rains cease and the sun climbs high over the mountains.
Michelle packed them a lunch, and they drove to the top of a small
mountain near Thetis Lake, just outside the city of Victoria. The wild
flowers were blooming, and Michelle thought the trilliums looked like
a flock of little nuns flying low over the ground. There were birds in
all the trees.
Inevitably their talk turned to Michelle's experiences. But the sur-
roundings inspired them to put everything that was happening into a
perspective that gave a more hopeful meaning to Michelle's suffering.
At home again that night, Michelle wrote Dr. Pazder a letter:

I didn't quite understand when you started to talk, but the

more we talked the more
grew. Reflecting now, it doesn't
it

surprise me that we what we did, because the pure and

talked of
innocent things of the world were all around us, like arrows
pointing to the truth.

US5\
 Michelle Remembers [ 156]

We sat down, and you started to talk about the people in my

life, the people back there who had hurt me so badly.You talked
about them as evil people trying very, very hard to make evil
happen, to bring life to their wickedness.
All of a sudden the confusion isn't there. I understand their
deliberateness. I understand their planning. I understand what
they're trying to get me to do. It's much more than remembering.
It's insight into a desperate space.
I was talking to you about
all the details, all the rules and

regulations they had, the methods they had to follow. Had to.
You said, it's that "had to" that makes evil. If things just are,
naturally, you don't have to do so many things. But they had to.
I'm beginning to think they were more desperate than I was.
They can frighten you and your fear is their tool. The fear
. . .

that evil can exist without your wanting it to.

But it cannot. It just cannot. If you believe what they tell you,
then does exist. But if you don't, then it's impossible. I know
it

that. know how hard they tried. Isn't my life a testimony to how
I

hard they tried? The only way they could have reached me was
to love me. But they can't what they are.
love. That goes against
So I couldn't be what they wanted me to be.
where Evil can't exist
there's love. That's what they were trying to destroy. That's what
they were trying to break down. They were trying to make me
believe that love doesn't exist —
that my family didn't love me,
they didn't love me, even my body didn't love me. Nothing did.
If nothing was there, then evil could be there. But only if I let
it, and I wouldn't let it. Because I wouldn't, they could not
regenerate the Devil. With goodness, he's completely impotent.
I know that, and that is a very deep, profound knowing.
Not everyone can love as an adult. I think that's what getting
in touch with nature is all about. It's not getting in touch with
the trees and the grass and the flowers. It's getting back in touch
with what comes naturally — love, trust, innocence.
Love is the opposite of hate and evil. Love opposes hate and
evil.As long as love exists, the others can't. Knowing this, the
unfolding of my memories gives a validity to my life. Thank you
 Michelle Remembers [ 157 ]

for hearing and for letting me hear through my agony what I was
saying. Together we've arrived where we have, knowing what we
do. Thank God for that knowing. It's a kind of turning point.

From inside the effigy, Michelle sensed that the atmosphere in the
round room was angry and menacing. Ever since the last ceremony,
Malachi and the others had been glaring at the effigy and yelling things
in her direction. It felt like a storm. Everybody looked all black and
scary, —
and once in a while someone Malachi, the nurse, or the lady
— would come up close to the statue and all of a sudden their eyes
would be looking in at her. Sometimes she would forget whose eyes they
really were, and she would imagine that the white thing had turned

inside out and was staring in at her.

Inside the effigy it was even more confining and frightening than
before. After the last ceremony, the possessed lady had angrily seized
Michelle and tied her tightly to the stepladder, to be sure she didn't
burst out again at the wrong time. It was hard to sleep that way, and
it made when the spiders came.
her feel completely helpless, especially
Michelle didn't know where they came from, but one day there was
a mass of little red spiders. Were they real, she wondered, or just a
horrible nightmare? They swarmed up the stepladder from the pool of
red liquid at the base, and wherever they crawled, they left a thin red
trail. Michelle could hardly bear them. She couldn't just let them crawl
all over her; she had to kill them. But her hands were tied. They crawled
in her eyes, up her nose, and into her ears and hair. Michelle couldn't
stand She couldn't move; there was nothing she could do except try
it.

to shake them off. But moving just made them creep, which was even
worse. The snakes began to eat some of them —
but hadn't she gotten
rid of all the snakes? Her mind began to reel. In the dim light coming

through the eyes she could even see the spiders' legs hanging out of the
snakes' mouths. She didn't know how to stop it, didn't know what to
do. So she just went dead. In her mind she shut everything up tight,
even her nose. She told herself she had no skin, no hair, no eyes. She
want to have ears. The spiders bit her, but she didn't
particularly didn't
react; she adamantly refused to have any feelings.
The only things she couldn't turn off were the voices of the people
 Michelle Remembers [ 158 }

outside. They had gathered outside the effigy again, and to Michelle
their voices were like dripping water. It was so hot that sometimes she
felt as if the walls of the effigy were closing in on her.

Michelle was lying on her back. She was not inside the effigy; she
vaguely remembered having been untied and carried through a tunnel
away from the round room. She had never seen the place she was in
before, and she had never seen the man who now looked down at her
blankly.
He was very tall and he held himself erect, the way soldiers do. His
eyes were pale blue, his hair a sort of dark gray, and he had a receding
hairline. He had
terrible skin, all pitted, and the sharpest nose Michelle
had ever She thought that if he ever fell over, his nose would stick
seen.
right into the ground. He was called the doctor.
The room was little and had no windows. There was a big sink and
a metal table on wheels. Michelle saw that she was lying on a sort of

counter. The doctor thrust his arms under her body and placed her on
an old wooden wheel, like the kind her mother had used to wind the
garden hose on. He bent her backward around the wheel, tied her
hands to her feet, and spun her around. Michelle didn't understand
why he would do that, except that it hurt a lot.

The little room was a terrible place to be. They only brought her
there to hurt her, and Michelle was brought there again and again. One
day the doctor stuck something hot down Michelle's throat. It was very
painful, and when it was over it hurt for the rest of the day. Michelle
didn't understand what they were doing, but she was afraid that they
were changing her inside. That would be her punishment for shoving
all those snakes out the effigy's mouth.

On another day, Michelle was tied down to the table on wheels.

Cloaked strangers assisted as the doctor approached Michelle and did
something to her head. The pain was so intense she thought she would
faint, but she did not, and it continued. When he was finished she was

untied, turned over, and retied so that she had to lie flat on her
stomach. She couldn't see what he was doing, but she felt a searing pain
at the base of her spine. This time she did faint. When she awoke, she
was inside the effigy again, tied to the stepladder. She couldn't touch
 Michelle Remembers [ 159 ]

her temples or her spine to investigate, but her head and her back hurt
for days afterward. Again Michelle had the feeling that something was
about to happen. She was tense waiting.

They lit a big fire in a corner of the round room. The fire made it

even hotter inside the effigy. They never let it go out. Next to the fire

they assembled a whole collection of crosses —paper ones, wooden

ones, crosses made of dead holly. Some they ripped apart, some they
chopped up. They threw all of them into the fire.
Michelle saw that they had another dead baby, and she cried out
for them to stop, but they didn't listen. They nailed its little hands and
feet to a big wooden cross that they had saved from the fire, and then
they broke all the bones in its body.

It was sick what they did. It was sick. They hurt it so. I don't
care if it was dead. It still could hurt. Oh, the poor little thing.
Why didn't they do that to me? Why didn't they? Not a baby!
Not another baby! They just threw it on the fire, just like it was

nothing but a piece of wood.

Now they were draping everything in black. They were wearing

their black robes again, and their faces were painted white. The candles
were red. Abruptly, they all turned and faced the effigy, their eyes fixed.
Michelle watched, unable to move, too frightened to scream, as they
proceeded slowly across the room toward her.

They are putting me upside down in that red thing. I'm

upside down. I'm not right-side up anymore. Why am I upside
down? I don't want to be here. No! No! Help me! Please don't
do this to me! No! Don go 't away! Don't leave me here like this.

I can't see. I can't breathe right. I can't swallow like this. Don't
leave me like this. . . .

I'm going to die. What if I hang here for about a year? No

one will ever know I exist and the spiders will eat me up. I can't
stand it! Please come back. Please, somebody, hear me. Come
back! I'll love you. I'll love you. Come back! Come back!
 Michelle Remembers [160}

Michelle listened as the footsteps receded and a door slammed shut.

There was pressure all around her body, and a wetness against her skin
that she couldn't explain. She felt like toothpaste in a tube, and it made
her angry, angrier than she had ever been at anything they had ever
done to her. But the pressure was increasing, and she was terrified
again. It really hurt, and she was afraid she was going to be squeezed
to death.
left long by herself. She heard them shuffling in
Michelle was not
again, heard them gathering around the effigy. She could see nothing
but blackness, but she knew they were there, Malachi and the others,
dressed in black. Then the darkness was penetrated by a soft wailing,
like the sound a wolf makes under a full moon.

Something is happening. It feels like someone's thrown a pail

of wateron me, and now it's like
. . I'm being born. I have
. . . .

something thick wrapped around my neck.

My bottom comes out first. That makes me feel like my legs
are breaking. It hurts. No! No! I feel like I'm going to break in

half. I can't breathe. No! Help! I'm I'm I'm out! I'm out
. . . . . .

of that red thing. Malachi's cutting that cord around my neck so

it doesn't choke me to death. He says he is giving life to me.

Michelle's first thought was that she felt stupid. She had tumbled
out, bottom first, and there everybody was, all lined up and waiting. She
felt really clumsy, with everybody looking at her. They were like a

curtain of black, pierced by the white faces.

As they stared down at her, Michelle slowly became conscious of
what she looked like. She was on her hands and knees. The floor around
her was soaked with red liquid. Michelle herself was all red and wet,
and she thought she had lost her skin.
Her head was still hurting, and so was her spine. Now, out in the
light, with her hands free, she reached to see what the doctor had done

that had hurt her so much. At first she was puzzled. There were little

knobs sewn to her head, and a long tail coming out of her spine. When
she realized what they had done to her, she began to scream. In spite
of the pain, she reached up and ripped off first the horns, then the tail.
 Michelle Remembers [ 161 ]

Blood poured down over her eyes. And all of a sudden Michelle didn't
care what she did anymore, because she felt she was going to die
anyway.
Outraged, humiliated, and in pain, she ran to the round bed, where
she had left the white book so many months before. When she reached
under the mattress it was still there. She didn't really know what the
book was or why it was important, except that it was white and their
world was black. She sensed that, like the crosses she had made, the
white book would keep them away from her.
As soon as they saw what she had, they froze. The fire was roaring
in the corner, and Michelle had a feeling she knew where the book
would end up. But not to keep some of it with her,
all of it. She had
so she tore some pages out and them in her mouth. Other pages
stuffed
she pressed against her body, trying to make herself white again, and
they stuck because her body was wet with the red liquid. They were
coming at her now, coming to get the book, but all they got was the
cover, not the insides. As Malachi came toward her, she desperately
threw a handful of pages in his face and ran, scattering paper every-
where.
After the confinement of the effigy, it felt good just to run. But she
wanted to do more than that. She wanted to tear the room apart, to
destroy anything that meant something to them.
As they scrambled to gather up pages and throw them in the fire,
Michelle scurried to the stone table they had decked out with a special
cloth. Malachi's knife was there, and a lot of big silver cups. As Mi-

chelle threw the first cup into the fire, the possessed lady began to
shriek. But Michelle didn't care. She had always been afraid of the
possessed lady, but now Michelle was too furious to care.

I've seen so many people hurt. I saw that lady killed. I saw the
babies killed. I've heard too many things! I've been left alone too
long. Now it's everything at once, and I hate it! I just hate it! The
only thing I can do is throw their things in the fire. Most of them
don't burn right, they just smoke, but I don't care. I want them
to. I want everything to burn up.
 Michelle Remembers [ 162 ]

Michelle turned on Malachi. She was sure he would kill her, so she
had nothing to lose. That gave her strength. She looked straight at him
and screamed that she hated him and that from then on she wasn't
doing anything she was told, not ever.
Inexplicably they did not kill her. Malachi seemed angry enough to,

but she sensed there was some reason that they couldn't. Slowly the
group closed in on her. In their hoods and white paint, they all looked
like the Grim Reaper. They were carrying long sticks and poles, and
they poked and pushed at her, prodding her relentlessly, driving her
toward her old cage. But none of them would touch her. They just kept
at her inexorably, herding her with their sticks. There were so many
of them. Like a black tide, they swept her toward the cage. One side
was down, and she scrambled in.

They formed a line, and Michelle expected them to file out of the
round room in their customary procession. They did leave, but on the
way to the door the line wound past her cage. As each member went
by, he or she spat at Michelle through the bars and threw a handful
of ashes at her. Soon she was covered with spittle, but she was too proud
to cry. She just crouched there, glaring at them defiantly. When the
others were gone, Malachi and the nurse stood before the cage and told
her that she would learn how unworthy she was — that no one had ever
loved her, or ever would; that no one had ever wanted her, or ever
would. Michelle was nothing, he said, and nothings had no memories,
no pasts, and no futures.

It was a very long time that night, after Michelle had surfaced,
before she could bring herself to talk to Dr. Pazder. She was pale, limp,
exhausted. He made tea and held the mug to her lips while he sup-
ported her head. 'Take a sip," he said. "You'll feel better. Just a sip."

She had told him all this on Monday, the day after Easter Sunday 1977.
 chapter 19

M ICHELLE was concerned about

He had been working so hard, with her and with his other patients,
he was greatly fatigued. There was gray had not been
in his hair that

there six months before, and new lines around his eyes. She wished she
Dr. Pazder.
that

could do something for him, and then she hit upon an idea. As a
non-Catholic with a growing interest in the ways of the Church, she
had been intrigued by the fact that a Mass could be said for a specific
person
—"a sort of spiritual shot in the arm," Dr. Pazder had called it.
At first it had seemed strange to her — a Mass said for just one person?
And then Dr. Pazder had gone with her to Father Leo, and the priest
had said a Mass for them, and suddenly the practice had come to seem
meaningful. Now she conceived the notion of returning the favor, of
having a Mass said for the exhausted psychiatrist.
Father Leo Robert, however, could not be the celebrant. Having
completed that year's work as university chaplain, he had gone on a
world tour. But friends had spoken to Michelle with enthusiasm about
another priest, Father Guy Merveille, the new rector of Sacred Heart
Church. She decided to stop by to see him on her way to the Fort Royal
Medical Centre.
Sacred Heart was not an ordinary parish church. Strikingly modern,
a round building with huge glass windows, it sat atop a high hill in the
north end of Victoria looking out on a breathtaking view of the city
and the ocean. Father Guy was free when she arrived, and he welcomed
her into the rectory study.

[163]
 Michelle Remembers [164]

"I am here for a friend/' she said, "someone who has been very,
very helpful to me. I would like to have a Mass said for him. Is that
possible?''
The priest was tall, dark-haired, and serious, but when he spoke it

was with "A Mass," he said, "is always

a twinkle. possible. If you and
your friend can come this afternoon at three, I'll say a Mass for him
then."
They talked for a quarter of an hour, at the end of which Michelle
rose to depart. She noticed that the priest was observing her keenly.
"I think you have been struggling with negative forces," he said quietly.
"You're right, Father," she replied. "I have."
When Michelle told Dr. Pazder what she had arranged, he was very
touched. At three that afternoon, they presented themselves at the
Father Guy was waiting for them. Michelle introduced the two
rectory.
men, and they chatted a bit before walking across to the church.
There was a vitality to the service that everyone felt. "A really good
Mass, wasn't it," Father Guy said afterward. They agreed and thanked
him and stood talking for a few minutes. "I think we're going to know
each other well," the priest said. "We have lots to share."

down the hill, Dr. Pazder

Driving back said to Michelle, "I like
him. What do you know about him?"
"He's a Belgian. A Norbertine canon — it's an order based on mo-
nastic principles, but with an active apostolate. He got his M.A. in

sociology at Temple University in Philadelphia, and I hear he worked

with street gangs there."
"I likehim," Dr. Pazder said again.
"So do I," Michelle said. "I'm glad we're in touch with him."
"Speaking of being in touch, I think it may be time to go talk to
the bishop. What do you think? I know him pretty well, through
Church committees I've served on and so forth. I'd just feel better if

somebody in authority knew about all this stuff."

"I would too. I'd like him to know what we're doing. I mean, I

sometimes wonder if it's okay even to be talking about all this —the
ceremonies, the rituals — or whether we're dealing with things we
shouldn't. And if I had his blessing, his prayers, well, it would mean
a very great deal when I have to go back down there."
 Michelle Remembers [165]

When Remi De Roo was thirty-eight, he became the youngest

Roman Catholic bishop in Canada. Raised on a 480-acre family farm
in Manitoba with, as he had put it, "one hand on the tractor and the
other on a halter," he was ideal for the diocese of Vancouver Island,
a large, rugged area with many isolated missions tucked into the wilder-
ness. He was from the start a champion of the underdog, particularly
the Native Indians. "Why don't we see what we are doing to destroy
our own Indian people?" he once asked a conference. "We expect
them to conform to the image we set for them, and when they don't,
we marginalize them." Not doctrinaire, he tolerated limited use of the
old ritual form of the Mass modified by the Church since Vatican II,
alongside the new forms he preferred. "There's a place within the
Church for us all," he said.
Michelle had never met a bishop before De Roo was her first. —
What she saw as she entered his residence was a slender man with large
eyes and light hair. His manner was intellectual but by no means
austere; quite the contrary —he was most engaging. There was a quiet,
empathetic warmth that Michelle responded to instantly.
After some opening conversation, Dr. Pazder laid out the case for
the bishop briefly, in broad outline. And then, wanting Michelle to
hearhim say this as much as he wanted the bishop to hear it, he said:
"To come right to the point, then, I feel that, in my professional
opinion, Michelle is not crazy; in fact, she's a sound, healthy woman.
I've listened to her for many hundreds of hours for close to a year, and
four years before that —and I'm a trained listener —and so far as I can
determine, she is not making it up. I'm convinced that she believes it

to be true — that is, I believe she's genuine."

The bishop then asked Michelle some questions, letting her tell her
story herself, attending to every word. At the end of an hour he turned
back to Dr. Pazder and said: "Well, of course, I completely agree with
you. It's clear that Michelle is totally genuine. As to the truth of her
story —whether or not her dreadful memories are accurate — I'm in no
position to say. Nor can I speak about the ramifications of the story.
Nor should I; it seems possible that someday I might be called upon
to make judgments upon it, and I shouldn't anticipate those judgments.
"But I do want to say" —he took Michelle's head between his
 Michelle Remembers [166]

hands; her eyes were moist from the emotion of recounting her
experiences
—"that I
still

really am very sorry for all the pain you've had to

go through. You are a good person, Michelle, and you must not feel
ashamed what happened. You are in no way responsible/' He gave
for
Michelle his blessing, and then all eyes were moist.
The bishop offered to talk again at any time, and he gave them the
use of his library for such research as they might need to do into the
phenomena Michelle was encountering.
Michelle said that she had found it very helpful to have the spiritual
guidance of Father Leo at the most difficult moments of her travail,
and she wondered if, when there was more that needed talking over,
they might go to Father Guy Merveille.
"An excellent idea," said the bishop. "Father Guy is a very interest-
ing man with a very broad background. He has experience that other
priests have perhaps not had, experience that might well be useful in

dealing with these matters. Let me assign him to you and ask him to
keep me closely informed."
As he saw his visitors to the door, the bishop smiled and said,

"Michelle, you are appropriately named. As you know, it was Michael

the Archangel who drove Lucifer from Heaven."

The relationship with Father Guy flourished. He and Michelle had

long conversations, about the remembering but also about Michelle's
inner life, her own spiritual quest, her growing sense that she wanted
to become Catholic.
"I think it is important that you be baptized," Father Guy said, "for
all your own excellent reasons but also for your protection. It would be
better. One is always safer when one holds the hand of one's Father."
Michelle glowed. "Would it be all right?"
"Nothing," the priest replied, "could be more all right." His voice
was grave, but when Michelle studied his face, she saw an affectionate
smile. Diffidently, she brought forth one last misgiving: Would the evil

she was encountering in her descents taint the Church if she joined it

before she had come

end of the remembering?
to the
Father Guy replied emphatically. "It will be better for you to be
part of the Church while you are going through this instead of outside
 Michelle Remembers [167]

it. There is no reason for you to stand outside the Church if you truly
want to be inside."
He spoke to Bishop De Roo, who gave him permission both to
baptize and to confirm Michelle at the same time. The date was set
for June 28.
On June 24 Dr. Pazder and Michelle went together to Sacred
Heart Church. As they sat in the pew, listening to Father Guy cele-
brate Mass, Dr. Pazder noticed that the sacristy light, a little candle
burning cup suspended by a chain from the ceiling, had
in a glass

suddenly grown dim. "Did you see that?" he asked Michelle after the
service. "The sacristy light went way down. It's still way down."
"Maybe it's burning out," Michelle replied, glancing over at it. And
then she tensed. "What's that?" she exclaimed in a loud whisper.
A few feet away was a small wooden bench. Neither of them had
ever noticed it in the church before —and they would have; it was very
out of place in the simple, modern decor.
"Those symbols!" Michelle said, and Dr. Pazder, looking closer,
saw that the bench was carved with ornate designs. His heart skipped
a beat. They were precisely the symbols Michelle had described as
being sewn on the cloaks of the inhabitants of the round room.
They hurried to the back of the church, where Father Guy was
bidding farewell to the last of the worshipers. "Father," said Dr.
Pazder, "could you come here for a second? I want you to have a look
at something."
When little bench, his expression of
the priest stood before the
befuddlement changed to one of shock. "Oh, my God!" he said.
"What is that doing in here? How did that get here? I know those
symbols. We'll get rid of it right away!" He snatched up the bench and,
holding it at arm's length, quickly transported it from the church to
the grass outside.
They examined it. It was very well made, well fitted, finished with
many coats of varnish.
"What should we do with it?" Dr. Pazder asked.
"I can tell you what we'll do with it," Father Guy said. "We'll burn
it. It couldn't be more perfect — this is the feast of St. John the Baptist.
You know the Gospel — St. John was the bearer of the Light. It's
 Michelle Remembers [ 1 68 ]

traditional to have a bonfire on the feast of St. John — to signify the

bringing of the Light to lighten the world. We'll have a bonfire tonight,
and we have our fuel."
In preparation, Dr. Pazder and Father Guy knocked the bench
apart. Soon its sections were strewn on the grass. "Oh!" Michelle said,
and the others looked at her inquiringly. "Don't you see? There are
thirteen pieces!"

When Michelle and Dr. Pazder returned that night, Father Guy
was waiting for them outside the rectory door. In his hand was a sheet
of paper. On it, he explained, he had written a prayer, in both Latin
and English, a prayer meant to drive out anything evil in the fire.

They moved the pieces of wood to a suitable spot about ten feet
from the concrete wall of the church. Father Guy crinkled his paper
and stacked the wood around it. Just as they were prepared to begin,
Dr. Pazder said: "Could you hold on just a couple of minutes? I want
to get my camera."
Dr. Pazder, during his time as a physician in West Africa, had
become fascinated with African ceremonies and had taken countless
photos of them. Many ceremonies involved the burning of juju, little

dollsand amulets used in black magic, and replacing them with a cross
— way of trying to get rid of the animistic beliefs among West
this as a

Africans in the spirits of the jungle. Dr. Pazder had built up a very
extensive collection of photographs of such ceremonies, planning some-
day to use them in some sort of transcultural study. Now, as Father Guy
prepared to light the bonfire, Dr. Pazder felt strongly compelled to take
photographs of it.

"But your camera's all the way at your house," Michelle said.

"Won't take a minute," Dr. Pazder replied, already heading down

the hill toward his car.

"Now, Dr. Pazder, is this really necessary?" Father Guy called after
him. Father Guy had already come to know something about the
doctor's slightly flexible perception of time.
But the psychiatrist was climbing into his car. "I can't explain it,"
he shouted. "I just think it's important."
He was back in twenty minutes, breathless, with two cameras strung
 Michelle Remembers [i6g]

around his neck, and quite oblivious to the somewhat strained looks
that were aimed in his direction.

The ceremony began. Michelle stood to one side of the fire. Father
Guy, vested in white and wearing a white stole, stood to the other. He
said a prayer, then struck a match and touched it to the kindling. Flame
seemed to leap from the match, then into the air. Almost instantly
there was a tall column of fire, nearly six feet high far larger, far —
brighter than one might have expected. It burned with a fury.
Father Guy took his thurible, opened it, and spooned incense upon
the glowing coals within. Sweet smoke rose into the night air. He closed
the thurible and, reciting a prayer, swung it toward the fire, censing it,
cleansing it. He gave a Bible to Michelle and asked her to read the
beautiful, uncannily evocative words from the opening of the Gospel
according to John.

In the beginning was the Word;

the word was with God
and the Word was God. . . .

And all that came to be had life in him

and that life was the light of men,
a light that shines in the dark,
a light that darkness could not overpower. . . .

Father took a vial of holy water and, thrusting it forward again and
again, sent drops hissing into the flames. He recited the prayer: "In the
name of Jesus Christ I order any influence of evil, any power of evil,

to go back to where you belong/'

Abruptly there was a pungent, almost overwhelming odor. All three
of them smelled it — sickening, cloying. Dr. Pazder recognized it im-
mediately; it was a smell he could never forget. He had known it a
number of times in Africa, usually who had been drying
when natives
gunpowder in their had been badly charred. It
huts, too near the fire,

was the odor of burning human flesh. And then it was gone. There was
a rustling in the trees, yet the night was still.
Throughout the ceremony, he kept taking photos, one after an-
other, guessing at the apertures and shutter speeds, holding the cameras
 Michelle Remembers [170]

as still as he could to reduce the blurring that could result from long
exposures. By the time the fire had died down, the film in both cameras
had been finished. The men threw water on the last embers. Fifteen
minutes later Michelle was on her way home to Shawnigan Lake, and
Dr. Pazder was in his kitchen unloading his film and putting it on the

shelf by the door, where he would find it in the morning. He would

drop it off at the photo lab on the way to work.
Father Guy went into the church to divest. As he started out again,
he looked at the sacristy light. It was burning brightly again.

Michelle was baptized four days later. Every word of the ceremony
had weight. "God is light and in Him there is no darkness," read Father
Guy as he poured the water. As part of the ceremony of confirmation,
Father Guy then drew his stole and robe about Michelle's shoulders
— to symbolize her being taken into the Church.

The next day Dr. Pazder picked up the developed films and prints
from the photo lab. He looked at them on the spot. Some prints were,
after all, slightly indistinct; it was hard to hold a camera still enough
in poor But there was Michelle, reading the Gospel. And there
light.

was Father, sprinkling holy water on the fire. And there was the fire

itself, those eerie, leaping flames. But in the background what was —
that? That figure beyond the fire ... it seemed to be dressed in a long,
flowing gown, and there was a glow around the head.
He looked at other prints, of the shots taken just before and just
afterward. The figure was there, but never in exactly the same spot. It

seemed to be moving slowly from left to right.

Dr. Pazder was puzzled. There had been no one else there that
night. Certainly no one in a long robe. The air had been still. The
smoke had gone straight up — you could see that in the photos. What
was that figure?
He looked at other photos. The figure was gone, apparently drifted
off and out of the frame. But other images were visible — smaller,
fierce-looking images, moving, changing form about — thirty of them in

all.

Was it just one of the films that was peculiar? He checked. No, the
 Michelle Remembers [171]

images appeared on both, from the different cameras.

Dr. Pazder showed Michelle the photographs when she arrived at
his office that afternoon. He made no comment but watched as she
looked at one after another. She smiled at the picture of Father Guy
sprinkling holy water on the fire. And she gasped when she came to
the first photograph with the misty figure in the background.
They took the pictures to Father Guy. He studied them silently.

His mother, quite an old woman, who lived with him, picked them up
and looked at them. She stopped at a photo of the figure. "Yes," she
said after a time, quietly, as if to herself, "that's Mary with the child."
The pictures were put away. It was too much to think about. They
went back to their work, the remembering. But the photographs were
on their minds. Dr. Pazder's father ran a large graphic-arts business in
Edmonton, and was an expert on photography. A month later, on a visit
home, Dr. Pazder showed the photos to his father, asking him if there
was any way to explain these anomalies. His father said no, no way at
all. Dr. Pazder went to more experts. The answer was the same.
He had his cameras inspected. Nothing amiss there.
In the fall Guy built other fires, on the
he and Michelle and Father
same spot on the same sort of night, wearing the same clothes, burning
the same sort of wood, using the thurible, the vial, duplicating the first
occasion as well as they could. Dr. Pazder took rolls and rolls of film.
None of the prints revealed background images. At the end of each
attempt they would find themselves standing by the dwindling fire and
staring over toward the plain concrete foundation wall of the church,
at the place where, in those baffling first photos, the glowing presence
had seemed to stand.
 chapter 20

past days, she said,

She had felt a
a N June 30 Michelle called Dr. Pazder. For the
she had been afflicted by strange, distressing urges.
repeated impulse to get in the car and drive —some-
where, she didn't know where. She had kept twisting her hands harshly,
the one inside the other. Dr. Pazder did his best to reassure her.
And then, an hour later, she abruptly arrived at his office, without
an appointment, very upset. "I don't want to continue this remember-
ing," she said. "I'm not going to do it anymore. I wish I didn't even
have a tongue. If I could tear out my tongue, I'd never have to talk
again."
Dr. Pazder knew that the Satanists had used sophisticated tech-
niques of psychological manipulation to try to inhibit Michelle —not
merely to make her forget but, if she should remember, to make her
not tell. Michelle had found the strength to talk — despite them, she
was telling. But their manipulations had made it extremely difficult for

her. It was undoubtedly this extreme difficulty that she was reflecting
in her refusal to continue.
And perhaps there was more to it than that. A dreadful memory
was coming up, he sensed, undoubtedly the unbearably horrible mem-
ory that had impelled Michelle to seek spiritual armor from the
Church. It was forcing its way past the dire admonitions of the Sata-
nists, causing a tremendous emotional battle. seemed quite possible,
It

he thought, that her very sanity could be at stake. Such mind-control

techniques had unbelievable power, he knew. In Africa he had seen the

[173]
 Michelle Remembers [174}

influence of the juju dolls; if a person believed in juju, the dolls could
be used to make that person roll over and die, on the spot, without any
other intervention. He had detected some of the methods the Satanists
were using, but he had no way of knowing whether or not there were
others, perhaps even more baneful, of which he would have no knowl-
edge and which he therefore might fail to combat effectively. It was
an eerie, indeed terrifying contest that he and Michelle were engaged
in, struggling with the crudest adversaries, largely in the dark, across
a void of twenty-two years. The struggle was for her life —not her
physical was clear that the Satanists chose not to kill her but
life; it —
for her spiritual existence. For them nothing would have been achieved
by would come only if she gave herself to them.
killing her; the victory

Now it was desperately important that

Pazder told Michelle that
she not yield to the Satanist suggestions, that she resist them, that she
allow herself to ventilate the fearful memories. The Satanists had tried
to fill her with guilt —
it was one of their techniques. He had done a

study of concentration camp survivors —someday he would let her read

the professional paper that had resulted. He had observed for himself
the oft-noted phenomenon that these people who had been innocent
victims nevertheless suffered guilt — guilt over having survived when so
many others did not, guilt merely over having seen so much death.
Michelle, it appeared, had survived when others had not, and she had
seen much death. Experiences such as those were a psychic maelstrom
through which sane, decent people could not pass blithely. The great
necessity, Dr. Pazder said, was not to let oneself be destroyed by the
guilt but to touch the horror and deal with And then he did some-
it.

thing he very rarely did with a patient: He commanded her to continue.

The next day, after a two-week hiatus, they resumed their sessions.

Michelle: It's like someone is putting my insides through a

wringer, and having them all come out the wrong way. It's all confusion
and things being mixed up and things not being the way they're
supposed to be. I have to struggle so inside, just to have things come
out backward, hoping they'll be right in the end. Please help me sort

them out. I feel wrong because I want to go away. But the confusion
isn't my fault, it wasn't my fault what happened.
 Michelle Remembers [175]

dr. pazder: I want you to remember your confusion and to share

your remembering with me. But I don't want you acting on your
confusion — driving places or things like that. All right?
Michelle: It's like someone's got hold of my brain.
dr. pazder: You've got hold of your own brain. It's okay. If they
told you that, it's not true. Nobody has hold of your brain.
Michelle: But it makes me feel funny in my head. It's like

someone pushes a button. I'm afraid. I don't want to die but I'm
afraid I'd kill myself. I'm afraid of myself. I'm afraid I'll get in that
place where I don't have any feelings, and it will just seem like it's

the only right thing to do. I know it's not. They are trying to make
me end up farther away than I've ever been. It's got to do with the
way they keep counting backward. I don't want to count. It's like

when you're scared before an operation and they put you to sleep
and they tell you to start counting and you start counting. The
more you count the less upset you get. Then it's like all your feel-

ings are the same. Am I sounding funny? What's the matter with
me? Hang on to me, please. Hang on to me. Hang onto me! I
don't want to go away! Where are those things coming from? It's
not me. I don't want to go frozen.
dr. pazder: You're not going to go frozen by letting it come out.
Do you hear me?
michelle: I feel dizzy. What happened? Nothing's happened to
me, has it? I don't know what to do. I feel like I'm going to go in a

coma and die.

dr. pazder: It's okay. You're not going to go in a coma, and you're
not going to die. Let it come. It's okay.
michelle: There are things deep inside that don't feel like me.
dr. pazder: Let them out. Let them out so they're not you. They
don't have to be in there.
michelle (going deeper): What do you do when people have their
eyes shut and they don't hear you? ... I'm in a really heavy place. They
got people there that are like that.
dr. pazder: You can face it with me.
michelle: No! No! I don't want to watch anybody else die. Please,
I don't. It's making me wrong.
 Michelle Remembers [176]

dr. pazder: No, it's not making you wrong. It's just the memories
you have to deal with.
Michelle: They have this little bottle. They put a needle in it, and
then they put it in my arm. It makes me feel bad things. It makes me
go backward. It stops my feelings. It's like walking in my sleep, but
. . .

I wasn't asleep. It's like everything going dead inside and there was
nothing I could do about it. It was like being crazy and dead and not
having any control and not having any feelings and not being able to
move, and going to sleep and having my eyes wide open all at the same
time. My head feels so squeezed. Oh, God. Please, I'm not going to
go away, [long pause with much struggling] There's something wrong
withmy body. It's going somewhere. see that little bottle, and they I

make me count, and the same time everything inside me is going like
that, [screams] What's the matter?
dr. pazder: It's okay. You're scared.
Michelle: Those wires! Where are they coming from? It makes
my head feel funny. Am I crazy?
dr. pazder:No. No, you're not, Michelle. You're remembering.
Michelle: I'm in some kind of a room. I've never been there. It's
in that round room but it's real scary. What are they doing to me? It

makes me go all funny. I feel like a monster.

dr. pazder: You're not a monster.
Michelle: It doesn't destroy your brain? That stuff they put in my
arm, does it?

dr. pazder: No, it doesn't. Your brain is beautiful.

Michelle: I'm not crazy?
dr. pazder: No, you're not.
Michelle: I don't need to go and have a piece of my brain taken
out, do I?

dr. pazder:No.
michelle: I'm scared of what they are doing. No! It's got to do
with counting backward and dying. It's like they're saying I have to die,

I'm useless. I'm going to go crazy. make my body jump with

Then they
the wires. My head hurts. It hurts all my bones. Then you can't do
anything. You just get sick. It's so ugly, [crying] They make me jump
too. Oh, please tell me I'm not remembering.
dr. pazder: It's okay, Michelle.
 Michelle Remembers [177]

michelle: makes me crazy.

It

dr. pazder: No, it doesn't. Tell me about the wires.

michelle: About the wires? I know what they are now. They told
me then that they called that funny thing they call that person. . .

. . . they say he's electricity. He can take over electricity. . . . There's

a great big fire in the room. Oh, God help me. Oh, God help me. If

I tell you, I won't feel more like that, will I?

dr. pazder: You'll feel better. You always feel better.

michelle: It's so sick. Oh, God. I can't go there all at once. You'll
be nearby for the next little while, won't you, please? I can't live
with these things alone. Please. If I'm making it up, I want to die.
Really.
dr. pazder: That's what they told you. It's all right. You're not
making it up. You don't have to die.

They had taken Michelle from the round room down a dark tunnel.
The floor was unpaved. There was a bad smell that became worse and
worse as they went along. They came to the little room where the
doctor had sewed horns and a tail on Michelle, and passed through it

to the room beyond. It was larger, and the smell there was intensely
bad. The room was very hot, and Michelle realized that the big brick
structure in the corner of the room was an open hearth; she could see
the flames.
One bare lightbulb hung from the ceiling, illuminating a number
of stainless-steel stretchers. On several of them were bodies. Their eyes
were closed but they seemed to be alive. Across the room were four
coffins, three big ones and one small.
Michelle was strapped to a stretcher. The doctor came over and
looked down at her expressionlessly. Then he went to a table, picked
up some metal things — knives, it seemed —and went to one of the
bodies.

God help me! Oh, God! He cut off its feet! Oh, no, I don't
want to hear. I can hear him cutting its legs. I can hear him
cutting the bones up. Oh, no! How can I live with it? Can people
live with it? I'm sure I'm going to die. Oh, God, that's what
they're going to do to me next.
 Michelle Remembers [178]

The doctor continued his grisly work, methodically cutting off the
limbs in a certain order — at the ankles, then at the knees, at the groin.
Then the fingers, the hands, the forearms, the upper arms.

He's cutting it all up! Oh, God! It's on the floor. It's got no
head. He's got no head! Oh, no! God help me. I'm going to die.
I want to die so badly. I can't stand it. I can't stand it! Why can't
I go crazy? I'm going to go crazy.

When the doctor had finished with one body, he went to the next
and proceeded in exactly the same fashion, until the floor was running
with blood and red-stumped members were littered everywhere. And
then, just as matter-of-factly, he reversed the process. He picked up a
thigh segment from a woman's body and, with fine wire and a needle,
began to stitch it onto the torso of one of the males. Then, from still
another of the bodies, a lower leg. On he went, limb by limb, assem-
bling a macabre composite, until one body was complete. Finally he
attached thick black wires to its limbs. And suddenly, to the child's
absolute horror, the body came alive. Or it seemed to. It twitched and
jumped, then abruptly lay still, and then just as abruptly started jerking
violently again. It slithered off its blood-slick platform and tumbled to
the floor. One of its wires came loose, and sparks erupted from it as
it touched the wet floor.

The twitching subsided. The body lay still, the sparks ceased. The
doctor came over to Michelle. His face was blank; saying not a word,
he carefully taped black wires to her arms and legs. And then she felt

a searing jolt. Her whole body was a unity of pain.

Oh, God, please help me. I feel so guilty. I'm not a monster.
Oh, God. You don't do that to pieces of people! No! You don't
cut them like that. Please, that's wrong. Please put them together.
You don't cut people apart like that. You don't put them with the
wrong pieces. I feel like I can't live. Not with what I know. It's
not just in my head. It's all through me. My brain, it feels like

it's burning. They're making me do that twitch. Why can't I stop

it? Oh, God, help me! Oh, please! God, it's such a terrible feeling.
 Michelle Remembers [179]

[Crying out in terror] How can you stand to touch me? I'm
panicking inside. My insides are just panicking.

Over the next twenty minutes, Michelle sobbed her way back up
from the depths. "I have to talk for a minute," she said finally.

"Of course," Dr. Pazder replied.

"I can't stand any more, I feel so guilty."

"You're not guilty of anything. But when I think of what you had
to face, now I understand why you couldn't go there until you were
baptized."
"I need God to help me. I can't live with it." Michelle was silent,

then stammered out a question: "How . . . how did they do that when
the people were dead? How did they make them move?"
"You can make any piece of flesh jump like that with electricity.

It seems they were trying to make you feel that the Devil had the power
to do that to —
them and to you. It was horribly confusing for you,
especially when they kept shocking you too."
"It makes me feel like killing myself. It makes me feel like I just
can't stand it."

"You can stand it." Dr. Pazder's voice grew grave and measured.
"You must be careful not to let that experience make you think against
yourself."
"I hope it goes away."
"It'll go away. It's like your rashes or your pains. It'll go away. Right
now it's there because you've just come through it and it's very sicken-
ing. I feel it in my stomach too."
Michelle had stopped crying, but she still spoke with a tremor.
"Those people aren't people," she said, raising her eyes to look directly
at Dr. Pazder. "People who do things like that are monsters."

JULY 2

"I remembered some things after we finished the other day," Mi-
chelle said at the start of the next session. "I thought about that fire

in the round room. It's a really creepy fire. The more blood they put
in the fire, the creepier it got. It was sort of ugly and dead. I don't know
 Michelle Remembers [180]

if you've ever seen a drippy fire. It's awful. It has the strangest shapes.
"And remembered somebody in black. He was reading out of a
I

book, and the book was black. There was something about it that made
it seem like forever. I thought I'd die if he didn't stop.

"And I just kept feeling like I'm going to stop breathing. I don't
know what it's about. There's something about going around, and no
matter which way I turn I'll always come out facing the wrong way.
It's so hard to explain." Michelle remained silent for a moment, biting
her lower lip, then spoke again. "It's like everything is facing the wrong
way. You can't get out because everything's turned on itself."

JULY 3

"When I woke up in the morning, I was still in that awful room.

I was lying on the table again, and the doctor was trying to make me
open my mouth. He had some kind of cold silver thing and he
pushed and I had to open up. And then he began to do things
it in,

to my Sometimes he just pulled them out. It really hurt! I

teeth!
wasn't allowed to make any noise or to move at all. And then he had
a drill and he began ... to ... to drill them! I just lay there frozen.
I was paralyzed. . . .

"My eyes won't close. Maybe they sewed them open! Maybe
they're never going to close again. I won't move! I'm just lying here.
I can't move. I can't move!"

Michelle was weeping through the fragments of her sentences.

"They got a mirror and showed me how I looked. I didn't look right.
Some of my teeth are gone. They're gone! I want my teeth back! want I

my teeth back! They said I was never going to be the same again."*

JULY 19

Michelle (in her depths): I'm supposed to go to sleep, but I won't.

This doctor is still there. He's making me sleepy. He has a light or
something shiny. I'm supposed to look at it, and he's saying things to
me. He wants me to sleep. I'm afraid to sleep, because then I'll die.

*See Appendix 3 for the statement of Donald L. Poy, B. Sc., D.M.D., who 1978 in

examined the adult Michelle's teeth and found evidence of the trauma she described.
 Michelle Remembers [ 181 ]

He thinks I'm looking at the shiny thing, but I'm not. I'm looking past
it. Do you understand what I mean?
dr. pazder: Yes, I do.
michelle: You I watched him do that to someone else. He
see,

had children there, and he can make them look like they were dead.
I don't want to go dead. I look sleepy like they did so that he won't

get mad. The doctor did it to the children with a candle. He made their
eyes go up in their head, and they didn't breathe. They just lay there.
Then he'd say something and they'd wake up. I'd hear them talking
about how you couldn't tell the difference if you were dead or
not. . . .

If I go to sleep, I'll never get out of it, ever. . . .

dr. pazder: Sure you will.

michelle (suddenly brightening): My pretend friend, she's back.
I'm so glad I have her. She always used to tell me not to talk, not to

tell them anything. She says I shouldn't go to sleep. She says she'll stay

with me and keep me company, so I won't go to sleep. . . .

They're pushing me. . . .

dr. pazder: Pushing you?

michelle: Pushing me, trying to make me sleep.
dr. pazder: The doctor?
michelle: Yes. He keeps making my eyes go funny. They're stick-
ing things in my hands. I'm getting sick. They say funny words on me,
and they write them down in the book. . . .

There's something wrong with my hands! There's bugs on them!

Get them off! . . .

They're tying my
arms down. I want to rip them off. They're
scaring me. They're saying things. They're scaring me. I don't want to
die now! I don't want to die now. Now isn't the time for me to die.
It's not!
dr. pazder: No, no, it's not. You won't die. You'll be all right. Tell
me, what are they sticking in your hands?
michelle: They . . . the doctor has a bottle again.! He's got a
needle. He's sticking it in my hand. I feel really far away. It's done
tFrom further discussion it appeared to Dr. Pazder that the bottle contained
Methedrine and Amytal, or similar drugs.
 Michelle Remembers [182]

something to me. It's the same counting as before, but the doctor keeps
making me look at the shiny thing. I'm scared ... I can't get my mouth
to work. It sounds like other people's voices are coming inside my head
and staying there. They seem to be putting things in there, for good.
The doctor's got me frozen. I can't move. Something's scaring me.
dr. pazder: Breathe deeply. Let your breath go.
michelle: Somebody help me!
dr. pazder: Michelle, breathe! Breathe out!
michelle: Something's happened. It pushes people away. It's got
to do with a word. It makes me go like a record. You know, when a
record's run out? I'm going, "Ahhhh." Then everything's fine. Hi,
Mom! Hi. I'm Michelle. Come here, I'll give you a kiss, [sings] Where's
my doll? My doll. I'm fine. There's nothing wrong. No. Nothing wrong.
Nothing, [laughs] Nothing's hurting me.
Who said that? It's not me! It's in my head. Get it out of my head.
Help me. They keep putting words in my head. Everything's fine.

Nobody's ever hurt me. I won't tell anybody. Yes. Yes, I know. Yes.
I know. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. No. Nobody hurt me. Nobody hurt me. I did

it to myself. Isn't that funny. I did everything to myself. Yes. I'll forget
it. Yes, I promise. Oh! No! / won 't say that word! No! No! Please
somebody make them quit saying that word. Please. I'm going to die.
They got to quit saying it. . . .

No one can hear me. My mouth won't move. No one will hear me.
Please. Please. Everything's someone know it's
all right. Please. Please,
not all right. It's going slow, then Get away! Get that
it's going fast.

needle out of my hand. Quit doing that to me. No. I won't make
my head turn around. I won't! I won't do that! Oh, God, something's
going to happen. Got to get back. No. I'm not going to go squish.
No.
Mommy. Mommy! Mommy, please come. Mommy, where are
you? Mommy! want my mommy. don't care what she's like. want
I I I

my mommy. want my mommy! Please! Anybody! Please!

I

Everybody's walking away. I'll keep my mouth shut. I'll keep it shut.
I promise I'll keep it shut. Please. No. Don't leave me here. Please don't
leave me here. No. don't want the bugs on my hands. No. Please. No.
I

Don't go. Please. Come back. Come back. Please, I'll die. . . .
 Michelle Remembers [183]

I'm evil. Is that right, sir? I'm all poisoned. I know. I know. I'm
worse than everybody. I know. Yes, sir. I don't have a mother. No, sir.

I wasn't born. I won't get upset anymore. I won't go near anybody.

I'll keep my mouth shut. Don't hurt my mom. I don't know any-
thing. . . .

It's written down. They wrote everything down in the book. They
wrote my name. And all the bad things that would happen to me. They
wrote it all down. They'd know who I was. They said I'd be all alone,
all my life. . . .

They said I'd wasted almost the whole year for everyone. Everyone
had other things to do. They'd all had to waste their time on me. I was
the worse thing they'd ever met. All the people that have died, all the
things that have —
happened it's all my fault. I have to be taught a
lesson. I'm going to be sorry. I'm going to be sorry. I am sorry. I already
am sorry. I'm sorry to everybody. . . .

I don't want to be scared anymore. I can't take any more. I'm going
to go away like I was told, because I'm going to be lost anyway. I'm
so scared. I'm scared, [she was screaming and crying as she began to
ascend]
I went away deep . . . way down deep. I felt I was all apart. It's like
I left me. It's like falling backward, except you see yourself way up there
and you fall away from yourself. . . .

I can't take any more. Help me. Please. Please, don't lose me.
dr. pazder: We're not going to lose you.
michelle: Please don't let me get lost. Please don't.
dr. pazder: You're not going to get lost.
michelle: What's the matter with me? I don't make any sense.
dr. pazder: You do make sense. Yes, you do make sense.
michelle: I feel crazy.

dr. pazder: You're not. It all makes sense to me. Those are their
suggestions. They're just suggestions that they gave you; that needle is

clouding you up a little bit, but that's not going to last.

michelle: They can get you away from me. They can make things
really terrible.

dr. pazder: No, they can't get me away from you. They have no
hold on me. None at all.
 Michelle Remembers [184]

michelle: I'm not going to be left alone, am I?

dr. pazder: Don't believe that. The only things that have power
over you are the things that they suggest that you believe.
michelle: Something's really scaring me.
dr. pazder: Tell me what you've left out as much as you can. You
don't need to leave anything out, out of fear. When you do that you
get a little trapped.
michelle: It had to do with that shiny thing and the needle.
dr. pazder: It's the suggestion. It's like a hypnotic thing. But you
mustn't be afraid of that. Don't be afraid they'll hypnotize you down
there and you'll stay hypnotized when you come back up. We can go
there and bring you back, if we have to. What they told you doesn't
stay there forever. You're bringing it to your conscious by talking about
it. Their suggestions don't have power over you unless they are buried.
You have to let them out.
michelle: I didn't really let him hypnotize me.
dr. pazder: I know you didn't, because you weren't paying atten-
tion to him and looking at the shiny thing like he wanted. That's the
first thing about hypnosis. You had to want to follow his suggestions.
He couldn't make you. Not any more than he can now. They were
using two powers: the power of suggestion and the power of repressed
memory. They used a number of other sophisticated techniques of
psychological manipulation and control, such as brainwashing or condi-
tioning, to confuse you and make you remember backward, and even
to turn on yourself.
michelle: They're hard on me.
dr. pazder: I know. It's really hard.
michelle: It's very complicated. It keeps going back and forward
and inside out.
dr. pazder: I know.
michelle: Am I strong enough?
dr. pazder: Yes. Listen, trust yourself. You've been at this a long

time. You've done work more than anyone, I'm sure of that.
this sort of

Deeper and longer. I know you're strong enough for three reasons.
First, you got through it then, and then was really worse than now. You

were little and alone, but you got through it. That makes you strong
 Michelle Remembers [185}

enough. Second, because you have you now. You've done a lot of work

with you. YouVe got a lot of you at your disposal. Far more than you
ever had then. Third, you also have spiritual resources. Michelle, you're
a very strong person.
MICHELLE: I hope SO.

dr. pazder: You were going to tell me more about what they said,

and about that word you were trying to say.

Michelle: I know what it means. It's a word they use to get power
somehow, and to make things permanent. It's like saying, "In the name
of the Father,and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." But it's opposite.
I have to go right back to when they're cursing to remember it all.

That's so hard on me. It is. I have to trust I'll come back, you know.
dr. pazder: You will.

Michelle (in her depths): I keep hearing someone else's voice. It's

a man's voice. I don't like it. And that man is reading something from
that black book.
What's he saying?
dr. pazder:
Michelle: Something about a door and "seven times four" and
then "there's no more."
dr. pazder: No more what?
Michelle: I'm trying to tell you. I'm going all fuzzy. I don't
understand the words. They're all put together funny. ... So much
turning ... so much turning. "This black ... a piece of white . . . and
blood comes at night. Black, black,
. . . and it black. I'll open the door.
Turn around and there's no more."
dr. pazder: Try to say it.
Michelle (straining to speak): Ahey . . . ehey . . . ah . . . aaa
. hhh. Aaaa
. . ave ahhh ahhh . . . . . . . . . . . . Round, round, round
. long ago ... ffff ... fire ... ff ..
. . . fire . . . fire, fire, this
fire . . . this night . . . this night ...

It's black, dead white.

Everything is wrong way around.
Everything's lost, nothing's ever found.
So long ago, it's long ago. There's a fire.

There's a fire. There's a fire. Is hhhh . . . ahhhh . . .

 Michelle Remembers [186]

dr. pazder: Say the word.

Michelle: Agggai ahgi something. Aggga . . . ahhhh, ahhhh, a
door, a door, ahhhh . . . dirt . . . dogs . . . dark.

Never, never come back. Never see any light.

It'smade wrong by blood at night.
What's made wrong's never right.
Blood is right, blood is right. Ahhhh Ahhhh

dr. pazder: It's okay to say it.

Michelle: Ahhhhh . . . ugggl . . . ugg. It warms this fire, fire, fire,

fire, fire, fire, fire, ahhhhh. . . .

dr. pazder: You're okay. I'm here. Keep talking and saying what
you heard.
michelle: It's old. It seems so old.
dr. pazder: Yes.
michelle: Old, old. It's old. It's old. It's all murky. It's through
ahhh
fire, fire, that's someone else's voice. Fire uhhh
. . Comes. . . .

long ago, ahhhh long ago, long ago, dirt, damp, fires. Goes around
. . . goes into the ground.
ggggg, aaa hhhh, thhhh,
There's a ... a ... a ... ag, agg, a . . .

sssssss . .becomes faster] It's coming in black. It's coming

. [breathing
in black. It's come in black. Take you, black, never white, never right.

Only red will make right, fire, sssfire, come, come, come, come, aggg,
aggg ssssss
. . [breathing becomes very fast] agggg sssss cut to left
. . . .

. . . cut, cut . . . always wrong, never right.

Help, help. Far, far help. It's far. It's far, help. Help. Ohhh. God,
help! I'm not going to come back. Help!
dr. pazder: You're going to come back, all right. It's okay.
michelle: You're so far away. It's so awful. It's not going to be
okay.
dr. pazder: It's okay. Hey, it's okay. Look at me! It's okay.
michelle: I feel all weird. I feel guilty. I feel like I've been some-
where awful in that room.
dr. pazder: There is some word you can't say.
michelle: It's not English. . . . there are people, faces in black, and
the fire. . . . They're doing things with their hands.
 Michelle Remembers [187]

dr. pazder: Like what?

Michelle: A snaky movement like letters on me.
dr. pazder: What do the letters say?
michelle: I don't know, but the whole time they kept singing like
a priest does.
dr. pazder: Like chanting?
michelle: Yes, but weird. They're hissing at me. SSSSSSSS. I'm
not making any sense. I feel guilty. I feel like I've done something I

shouldn't have. Have I put myself in danger by saying these things?

dr. pazder: That doesn't put you in danger. That frees you. Curses
don't have a hold on you. Don't let them have a hold on you.
michelle: Do they make any sense?
dr. pazder: Maybe they're backward.
michelle: What happens to me when I go like that? What's going
on with me? I go funny. I feel all numb.
dr. pazder: Well, you are going down very deep to remember this.
They are also using everything they can to make you give up. It's a
horrendous struggle.
michelle: But they said so many things. Things like, 'There is no
way out."
dr. pazder: You have a way out. There isn't anybody to stop you
from coming out. Do you hear me?
michelle: Yes. I do hear you. Do I have a way out?
 chapter 21

Vhi
HE construction company Doug Smith worked for
gave him a week at a resort hotel up-island. It was just what he and
Michelle needed, a chance to do nothing very complicated all day long.
Get a suntan. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. The psychiatric sessions were
not mentioned; it was as if that had become a forbidden topic.
Dr. Pazder also felt the need for a holiday. For two weeks he, his
brother Ron, and their families, fished at Sooke and Deep Bay. Dr.
Pazder's oldest son, Lawrence, landed the prize salmon, a thirty-four-
pounder. They barbecued several salmon over evening campfires. At
the end of the two weeks, both families drove to Dr. Pazder's parents'
place in Edmonton, where the large Polish clan was gathering. His
father — a successful businessman, accomplished and amateur
violinist,

astonomer —and his mother — a wise —

and loving woman presided over
the traditional Polish feasts. There was singing and dancing until all
hours.
Michelle's vacation ended before Dr. Pazder's and, back in Vic-
toria, she found herself beset by the same heavy psychological pressures.
She drove to the Fort Royal Medical Centre to record some thoughts
for him, and while she was there, taping in his office, his colleague Dr.

Jim Paterson saw the open door and stuck in his head. For the instant
before her expression brightened to say hello, he saw the strained look
on her face. He went in and sat down, and soon the two were earnestly
conversing. A warm, fatherly man, the oldest member of the Fort Royal
psychiatric group, Dr. Paterson was easy to open up to.

[i89 ]
 Michelle Remembers [190}

Michelle told him how hard the therapy had been and hinted that
ithad taken a toll in her private life, her friendships, even her marriage.
Her nearly total absorption in it and the extremely long hours she was
devoting to it —both seemed to be distancing her somewhat from the
people around her. She was worried about that.
"Well," said Dr. Paterson, "you know what they say: Therapy is a

little like climbing a mountain. The struggle really comes just as you
reach the top. You know you're near, but you can't quite see over it

yet. Just keep on working the way you have been, and suddenly you'll
find that you're at the top of the mountain.
"You may he went on, "that partly because of this work
also find,"
you'll grow differently from the way you would have, differently from
the people around you. You might even grow away from some of them.
This is normal, and in the long run, as you meet new people, you'll have
a better basis for friendship."

The gentle, matter-of-fact way Dr. Paterson spoke was enormously

consoling. It gave extra meaning to the struggle. And it was also good
to hear from him these things she had also heard from Dr. Pazder. For
Michelle, the five minutes with Dr. Paterson were buoying. She put
away the tape recorder and drove back home.

Once again, the round room. Michelle was standing, not allowed
to move. She was supposed to listen, to pay attention. But she was so
tired. The man in black was still reading from the black book.
A knot of dark figures were proceeding toward her; as they emerged
from the subterranean gloom she saw that they had a child with them.
It was a girl, of about her own age. The child was terribly familiar, but

Michelle's fatigued mind could not focus on the question of where she
had seen her before. And then, in a sudden, sickening moment, she
knew. It was her pretend friend. How could they have captured her
pretend friend?
How had they known? How had they found out? Had they heard
Michelle talking to her? Maybe they'd seen her at the hospital and
recognized that it was she who had kept Michelle's spirits up, helped
her maintain her independence, nourished her determination not to
 Michelle Remembers [191 ]

give in. Were they so clever that they could even tell what one's secret
pretends were? That was the most frightening thing of all.

And now Michelle realized that her pretend friend had never left

her. She'd always been there, on one level or the other, always on hand
to fan the little spark of courage, to say the funny, sassy thing that
would amuse Michelle and take her mind away from the horrors, or give
her a fragment of understanding that made the ghastliness comprehen-
sible . and therefore bearable. But, before, she'd always been free.
. .

Now she was in their grasp. They had trapped her.

"Don't hurt her!" Michelle called out. "Don't hurt her. She never
hurt anybody." But they did not acknowledge her cries. They were lost

in the harsh, rhythmic litany recited by the man in black.

Once sure that they had Michelle's full attention, they turned to
the pretend friend. An old woman came forward and, with a knife,
started hacking away at the pretend friend's lovely brown hair. Two
other robed figures came forward and, scooping some sort of muck from
a bucket, slathered it onto the pretend friend's face and arms and
clothes. For a long time they appeared to be grappling with the pretend
when they were done they stood back and showed Mi-
friend's head;
chellewhat they had done: The pretend friend's teeth had been pulled,
and blood was running from her mouth.
The black cloaks again obscured the child. After a long time, they
again parted. The pretend friend was now lying on the ground.

She helped me so much. She's my friend and now I'm not

being her friend. They're cutting all her hair off. She always liked
her hair. She liked it neat and tidy. She liked it braided with
ribbons on the end. She always kept her clothes neat. She used
to play a lot but she never got dirty. Now they're,messing her up
and I can't help her. We swore we'd do anything for each other
and now I'm not helping her. I've broken my promise. They've
already made her eyes shut and they've taken all her teeth out.
She always had such a nice smile and all her teeth were straight.
I have to stand there. I have to just stand there. I feel like they're

cutting me apart.
 Michelle Remembers [192}

"Go "Give her a hug."

to her, Michelle," said a voice.
Michelle raced to the form on the soil and put her arms
little

around it. And then Michelle screamed. The pretend friend's head had
rolled to one side. It had been chopped off. So had her arms and legs.
Chopped off and then put back together on the ground so that the body
would appear to be whole.
Through her tears Michelle looked up at the faces surrounding her.
They were laughing that soundless, wild-eyed laughter she had first
seen so many months before, that first night when Malachi was holding
her above his head and pointing her and those people had stood in the
doorway, watching her agony.
Michelle was pulled away from the corpse, and several of the figures
began to pile the severed limbs on a white cloth. She began to scream
again, and a pleasant voice said, "You can go over and put her back
together again if you want, Michelle."

I tried and I tried and I tried. But I couldn't. None of them

would help me. Please help! Someone has to hold some of the
pieces together while I go get the rest of them. I don't have
enough arms and legs, I've got to go get the rest. . . .

I tried and she fell apart. See, they let me have her and she
fell apart. They thought it was funny. . . .

I was telling them to put her together again and they said,
"There's nothing there. It's just pieces."
I tried for the longest time. Iknew once I quit trying I'd lose
my arms and legs. got
It just to be more of a mess. Instead of
helping her I was messing her up more. It's hopeless. It's hopeless.

I feel like dying. That's how I'm supposed to feel. Please! Please!

My head's gotta stay on or they can put in ugly things. What's

going on? I don't understand. I'm really getting mixed up. There's
something wrong. I'm running out of time. I feel like I'm going
to faint. I'm going numb. I'm in trouble. Please help me.

"It's okay," Dr. Pazder whispered. "I'm right here. I'm with you."
"I don't know where I am."
"You're right here."
 Michelle Remembers [193}

"I'm just terrified. Will you keep me safe?"

"It's horrifying. But we'll put it all together. I want you to talk with
me about it."

"It makes me so scared it takes my breath away."

"Yes."
"It's that kind of scared. It's a really hard place to go to. It's a long
way away with the doctor and the drugs and everything." Michelle
didn't speak for a few minutes. She sat with her hands over her face.
Through them she said at last: "I guess that's how they found out about
my friend. . .
."

"I don't know. Who was the little girl they cut up?"
"I know that it was a real person. It wasn't all my imagination.
There was a little girl there who looked just like my friend, but they
messed her up. She wasn't an imaginary person."
"But I hope you understand that your imaginary friend is an impor-
tant part of you. She's still alive. You can't lose her. They tried to break

her apart from you. They tried to split you up, to split you apart and
keep you that way. They were trying to make you see yourself from a
distance. Do you understand that?"
"Yes."
"They were trying to destroy all the good you had in you. They
made you feel that you were responsible for destroying your pretend
friend. They tried to replace that good part of you with a broken, red,
messed up thing. But she's not messed up and she's not dead."
"Iknew that she was a pretend, but I really had to believe in her."
"Of course you did. She was very real to you back there. She also
is you, a deep, safe part of you. She is your idealized self —the part of
us we all have and treasure, and strive to become. They were out to
destroy that most precious part of you, with every possible means. It's

incredible that people mess around with people in that fashion. That's
really hard to believe, that people will do that much, but they certainly
knew what they were doing. It's a lot of time invested in a little person,

isn t it?

"Yes."
"They gave you all kinds of suggestions that were really aimed at
confusing you, mixing you up, making you feel you were crazy, making
 Michelle Remembers [194]

you go against yourself. They wanted you to believe you'd made your
friend fall apart. Then you'd have turned on yourself.
"There must have been other suggestions, too. A long time ago you
dreamed about bugs under your skin. There are no bugs under your
skin, and no one can put any bugs in. But they can make you feel that,

by suggestion. But you can go to a terrible place like that and return
—
from it intact as long as you keep your ego present as long as you hold
onto the special place inside that you have guarded so carefully all your
life. God only knows how you survived."

The next session was the following day, the first of September. The
minute Michelle walked into his office, Dr. Pazder noticed that her
rash had become more acute —on her neck, her hand, her arm. So they
began by speaking of body memories again, those physical signs of
deeply buried inner distress. "Your body," he told her, "seems still to

have a lot to remember. That's what's so hard about body memories

—you have to face them or they just stay."

The pretend friend's remains were gathered again in the white

cloth, staining it red. On top of the bulging cloth was set the child's
head. Nearby stood the effigy, once white but now completely red-
dened with blood; it had been placed at the center of a red circle that
had been painted on the floor. Michelle was taken and put in the circle
too.

The celebrants began to move around the circle, first in one direc-
tion and then the other, oblivious to the severed head and the horrified
child, their gaze fixed upon the effigy. The man in black read from his
book in a tone that rose above the droning of the circling figures. His
tortuous phrasings, his grating, malevolent inflections brought Mi-
chelle fresh panic. And
over and over again came that word, the
maddening, chilling, backward word of Satanic power.
The fire grew larger, roaring. The circle broke and the robed figures
were suddenly carrying the head and the bulging, red-stained cloth
toward the Chanting more intensely now, in thrumming syllables,
fire.

they threw the limbs upon the fire and at last, with a bellow, the head.

Michelle could not stand it. She had to save her friend. She ran to the
 Michelle Remembers [195]

fire and thrust in her hand. But the heat was too fierce, and she
withdrew, her hand badly burned. She was shattered. She had tried to
help her pretend friend, who had helped her so many times, but she
had failed.

Now the circle reformed. The chanting continued in another

tempo, verse building upon verse, climbing toward a crescendo. From
her place — in the shadows to one side on the earthen floor where she
lay forgotten —Michelle saw the figures closing their circle upon the
effigy. They clustered around it, then lifted it above their heads. In a
double rank they bore it toward the fire and, after a final, pulsing,

dissonant chorus, heaved the grotesque red image into the flames.

As he sat listening to Michelle pouring out horrors in the voice of

a child, Dr. Pazder found a prayer coming to his lips unbidden. "O
Lord our God," he said silently, "protect this child from all anguish.
Free her from the terror of the past. Keep her close. Let her believe
in herself."
Above, the picturesque waterfront of Victoria, British Columbia, with the
Empress Hotel at left. Below, Parliament Building. Experts believe that
Victoria and Geneva, Switzerland, are the two official centers of the Church of
Satan.
 i
J

1 '

usually absent.
This picture of Michelle at the age of four was taken in 1954, just before her
ordeal began.
The Fort Royal Medical Centre in Victoria, where Dr. Pazder has his offices.
It was there, during fourteen months of long and frequent sessions, that
iMichelle relived her dread experience at the hands of the Satanists.
Left, Dr. Pazder, with Michelle, in a
typical attitude — listening (but in atypi-
cal dress — coat and tie). Photo by
Beuford Smith/Cesaire.

Below, Michelle is shown during a

psychiatric session. Having completely
descended into the depths of her mem-
ory, she is speaking in the voice of a
five-year-old child —her own self at
that age —and recounting her experi-
ences in detail.
Michelle told Dr. Pazder of being taken to Victoria's Ross Bay Cemetery. The
lidof an old grave, such as the one above, was pried back, Michelle was
lowered into the grave, and the lid was replaced.
In this mausoleum, members of the Church of Satan performed a ritual in
which they attempted, unsuccessfully, to give Michelle a "rebirth into evil." As
the child was being led to the mausoleum, she saw the nuns' graveyard shown
below and, in the dark, thought at first that the headstones were people.
The Malahat, a mountain pass fifteen miles from Victoria. There, in 1954, a
car accident was staged, Michelle believes, one that nearly cost her life.
Twenty-two years later, coming to and from the psychiatric sessions, Michelle
had to travel this same fateful route almost daily. Below, Sacred Heart Church
in Victoria, high upon a hill overlooking the city.
The wooden emblem of the "Horns of Death," ancient symbol of Satan, that
1

was discovered in Sacred Heart Church. The pastor, Father Guy Merveil le,
burned it on the feast of St. John in fune 1977, as Michelle and Di Pazder
looked on.
Dr. Pazder, an experienced photographer, took these three extraordinary
photos during the fire ceremony. They seem to show that, as Father Guy (left)

led the service, a glowing presence appeared beyond him, moved slowly across
the grass behind the fire, and came to Michelle's side.
Michelle experienced "body memories" of her ordeal: Whenever she relived
the moments when Satan had his burning tail wrapped around her neck, a
sharply defined rash appeared in the shape of the spade-like tip of his tail.
Below, her arms were ablaze with rash when she remembered being roughly
handled twenty-two years before.
In one session Michelle drew pictures (shown on this and on the following
page) for Dr. Pazder as she emerged from the depths of memory. She tried to
show him some of the forms Satan was taking. But she found her drawings too
definite and distinct; Satan was vaporous and constantly changing.
January 1977: The first three clergymen to examine Michelle's testimony,
saying Mass during a break in their endeavor. From left: Father Guy Merveille,
Jesuit Father Amedee Dupas, and Bishop Remi De Roo. They listened to tape
recordings of the sessions and questioned Michelle closely.
 ¥ t~J ^ |{
'
I

February 1977: Michelle and Bishop De Roo at the Vatican with Sergio
Cardinal Pignedoli (center). Skeptical at first, the cardinal became concerned
and asked for a study of Michelle's story.

Except as noted, all photographs Copyright © 1980 by Michelle Smith and Lawrence
Pazder. Sot to be used without permission.
PART 2
 chapter 22

(/t
T was September 6 and everything was worse. Mi-
chelle's rashes were worse. She had a rash on the inside of her left elbow
now, another under her left armpit, one spreading across her chest. And
there was a very sore, raw, new rash on the right side of her neck. It
was dark red— ugly and painful-looking. Different from the other
rashes.

She was preparing for the return to those frightening depths. But
she did not want to go. She was resisting. 'There's something really
heavy there," she said to Dr. Pazder. Tt's like something's going to
happen. I'm afraid of it."

"It's okay. Just let yourself go. It will be okay."

"I don't feel very well. My neck really hurts. . . . Something's
wrong!" she gasped. "Something's really scaring me. Nothing is going
to take you away, is it?"

"No, nothing could make me go away."

"Please promise me something. Will you promise me something,
please? Promise you'll protect me."
"I promise."

"Please . . . ah, ah . . . I'm not supposed to know. . .

." Her voice
trailed off. She was deep in that place now.*
*By this point in her remembering, Michelle had developed the ability to commu-
nicate with Dr. Pazder readily while remaining in her depths. Because the remember-
ing thus became more like a colloquy, and because other voices began to enter, the
testimony now is usually presented as dialogue, not excerpt. Still, virtually every word
is taken from the transcript of the Smith-Pazder tape recordings.

{'99]
 Michelle Remembers [200}

Everything was black. And the black was moving. Surging like a
stormy sea. The people were all wearing black monklike robes, girdled
with black rope. There were many, people a huge crowdmany more —
—and seemed that they had gathered from all the corners of the
it

earth. Their voices carried foreign inflections, and as alike as they were
in their attire, their varied postures and movements gave the sense of

a great mixture of humanity. And these people were important. They

meant business. This was the most important thing in the world to
them. There was a solemnity, an even deeper sense of purpose than
before.
It was a long time before the little girl realized that she was in the

middle of three circles — circles of people in black moving around and

around. "Oh, God, I'm not supposed to be here. There's not just one
circle, there's three of them. There's a lot of people. The inside circle
is all drawn on the ground. The other ones go out bigger. It's got to
do with people that are bad. You make three circles. And inside every
circle, something happens. . . . You know when you throw a stone in
a pond and it makes rings? The on the inside
circle is where the stone
goes down deep. . . . That's where you get locked in."
She was gasping in terror, so frightened that she could hardly get
the words out.
"It's all backward. You go
and then you go outside in.
inside out,
And the different circles do different things. It's like one circle makes
you sleepy, and one circle puts a curse on you, and one circle does
something else. The people on the outside are all women," she con-

tinued, "and the people in the middle, I'm not sure which it is one . . .

of them's all men, and one of them's all women, and one of them's all
mixed up. Are you sure I should tell you this?" she asked.
. . .

"I'm not supposed to see this," she said anxiously. "I think I'm
supposed to be asleep. Is it all right if I just babble about it?"
"It's all right," he told her. "Just babble. Just babble."

The child drew a breath and conscientiously set about telling him
what she knew. "There's a lot of people around the outside watching.
I thought it was all black walls, but it's all the people standing around."
She stopped, the sound of her breathing loud in the quiet office.

And then the slight voice of the five-year-old started again.

 Michelle Remembers [ 201 ]

"I don't know. You see, at nighttime, people know things. The fire

tells them. Everybody turns way and everybody turns that way, and
this

sometimes it and sometimes it looks like horns, and

looks like a snake,
sometimes it looks ... it looks all bent and scary. But then it goes back
to being three circles, and it's got no beginning and no end. And there's
no way in and there's no way out." She said these last words quickly,
as if they frightened her so much that she had to get them out as fast

as possible.

"Am I inside a snake?" she asked suddenly. "Maybe I'm inside a

snake and they're not people." She seemed to hold her breath at this
thought, and then she went on a bit more confidently, making a valiant
grasp at reality ... at what must be reality. "They've got to be people,"
she said. "But when they bend their heads down, it's just all black. It

looks like a snake.

"There's no way out. There's too many layers. Inside every circle
there's a layer. Every . . . every . . . every . . . No! I don't want to go
through the circles. I don't. You go through the circles, and you come
back to where you started. No! No, I don't want to. I'm hurt. My arms
and legs hurt so much they feel like they've been torn off. Oh, I don't
know what to do. It's all fire. Everywhere I look it's fire. How will they
get out? You get out by getting burned. Oh, no!" She paused. "If you
stand in the middle, what happens?" she asked frantically. And then
she answered herself. "I don't know what happens."
The men in the inner circle had seized the child. Each one raised
her above his head and pointed her in the four directions — north, west,
south, east —and passed her along to the next. They handled her
cruelly, as if she were inanimate. She might have been a piece of wood.
"I don't want to get turned around. I don't want to go in the first

circle. I don't want to. No! No! I don't like it. . . . Now the next circle's
got me and I'm going the other way — all inside out, all inside out.
... I don't want to! I don't want to. I don't want to go in the next
circle. Please, I don't. I don't want anybody touching me. I don't like
the way they touch me. . . . They're all like snakes. Uhh. It's like they
all turned into snakes. Everything's happening so fast. . . .

"I've got to go back and forth," she shrieked. It's got to . . . it's got
to make a pattern. It's got to make . . . it's all mixed up. ... I don't
 Michelle Remembers [ 202 ]

understand. . . . It's hot. It's hot! I've got to know what to do. I can't
find my way out. I've got to go this way, then I've got to go that way.
You can only go back through the circles, uh, go backward. I don't
understand. I'm scared. I don't want to go backward. No! I don't want
to go backward."
Michelle was crying and screaming, reliving the terror and bewil-
derment of the little girl of long ago. The child was being passed back
and forth between the circles according to some predetermined and
meaningful design. She was trying desperately to remember just how
they were passing her, because she was sure that they were locking her
in, just as the doctor in the laboratory had tried to lock her in with his
curse. And
the only way she would ever get out would be to retrace the
way she had been passed back and forth. But it was too complicated.
She was too frightened.
Then in a frantic voice the child said, "Oh, no. I don't want them
to start moving again. They're going different ways. They all got heads
that turn around. I don't want heads that turn around. ... All of a
sudden everything is quiet."
Dr. Pazder heard the fear in her voice. The sudden quiet. Absolute
quiet.
The little girl was being held high over the heads of the crowd.
Up in the air, she was aware of the fire — it was growing larger. She
sensed the growing tension in the room. The electric atmosphere
that she had so often described by rubbing her fist across the palm
of her hand. The
had now become so highly charged that she
air

could hardly breathe against the pressure. The air was pulsing
around the room, expanding against the walls, a solid sheet of un-
seen intensity. And now it was still. No movement. No sound.
Their backs were turned to her.
In a voice thready with fear she said, 'They're all turned. Their
heads are sticking this way, and their feet are the other way. And then
they jump up and down, and their heads are looking at me, and their
feet are walking away. What's ... I don't understand. ... I don't want
to. ... I don't know. ... I don't know anything. . .
." Her voice was
slower, almost drowsy,and then she screamed. "Everybody's on their
knees. They're up and they're down. What's happening? Help! Help!
No! I don't want everybody going crazy! It's all jumping up and down.
 Michelle Remembers [ 203 ]

And why is everybody going around? I'm the only one that's still.

."
What's the matter? They're screaming and yelling. . .

There was a pause and then she said, ''It's time. It's time. They're
setting a clock. It's going . . . something's going to happen. ... I don't
want to see any more . . . oh . . . I'm afraid. I'm afraid. I'm all in pieces.
Something's wrong."
She spoke to Dr. Pazder across the years. "Something's wrong," she
told him. "Please. Put your hand on my wrist. On my wrist. You've got
to make sure I'm alive. You've got to make sure my heart doesn't stop.
Please, I'm too scared. They're going like that around and around. . . .

It'sgonna get closer. It's gonna get closer." Then, sounding weaker
than he had heard her before, she choked out her words between sobs
and coughs. "Way tiny going way tiny I'm losing my arms.
. . . . . .

I'm going tiny. No one will know. What's happening? My legs are . . .

gone. I've got no legs." The child had fled for a time to that small
. . .

core deep inside her.

Moments later Dr. Pazder heard a voice reflecting desperate terror.

"Oh, no! Help! Help me! It's all turning. All the circles. They're all

turning. Help! Please help! It's burning. It's getting bigger. The fire's

bigger. . . . No. I can't ... I can't run. . . . Help me!

"It's all black. It's all black. It's all black. All black!"

The next time she spoke, her voice had changed. It was heavier,
slow, and full of menace.

Out of the fire.

A man is born.

It was as if Michelle were echoing another voice.

And he walks.
Behind, the path is born.

It burns out the way.

It burns out the way.
Of destruction and decay.

And people will follow

Because they think they will see.

 Michelle Remembers [ 204 }

And all the time

Ha! They are following me. . . .

For Dr. Pazder, the shock could not have been greater. Pretty,
delicate Michellewas speaking in a deeper, harsher voice. The words
came extremely slowly, in a thudding, monotonous cadence, one at a
time. They echoed back upon themselves, as if they came from all
directions at once. The tone was weighty with menace. Unearthly.
Deadly. Dr. Pazder found it maddening.

You come from fire,

And to fire you return.

You come from fire,
The only way out is to burn.

When you burn,

You come to life like me.
You will never have any eyes.
You will never be able to see.
You have to burn them out first.

You have to burn to see.

Michelle stopped and began moving her head from side to side, as

if looking for something. Her words now issued in the little girl's voice.
"Where where is the white?" she asked softly. "Where's
. . . the light?
White where's the light?"
. . .

And then she resumed that dark, leaden tone:

There is no light.

Stupid people with stupid words.

Stupid people thinking that they can be heard.

"Where's the Where's the white?" the little girl inquired

light?
again. Dr. Pazder could see her eyes moving under the closed lids.
"Someone help me. Someone help help me help. Where's
. . . . . . . . .

my friend? Help me. . . . Help."

Her voice had grown fainter and fainter, and then she was fright-
 Michelle Remembers [ 205 ]

eningly still. Hardly breathing. Her face was icy white, and Dr.
Pazder could barely detect her pulse. He observed her carefully. It

was alarming. How long could he responsibly allow her to remain in

this state?

At last her head moved slightly. She began to speak. Her voice was
weak but also mild milder than he had ever heard it. "Au nom
still —
du Pere Au nom du Pere Au nom du Pere
. . . Au nom du Pere . . . . . .

. . .
"
etdu Saint Esprit. Michelle was weeping soft tears as she repeated
'Au nom du Pere et du Saint Esprit" over and over and over.
To Dr. Pazder's relief, her breathing increased, her color began to
improve, and her skin became warm as she repeated the words, 'Au
nom du Pere . . . Au nom du Pere ..." He was baffled. He could not
understand this constant repetition. And in French! He had been
working with Michelle all this time and had never heard her speak
French.!
"Help me," she begged. "Oh, the little children, the little chil-

dren . . . Les enfants . . . les enfants . . . les enfants . . . Au nom du

Pere . . . les enfants . . . ma petite, avec moi Mes petites
. . . enfants
. . . ma petite . . . mes petites enfants . . . Au nom du Pere . . . et du
Saint Esprit . . . "t
And then, sadly, she said, "I died. Ps dying. I'm dying. I dying. Die.
I'm dying. . .
." There was a short silence. When she spoke, her voice
had a tinge of wonder in it. "La lumiere! Allumez. La lumiere. . . .

Allumez. Allumez. Allumez. Jesu. Jesu. Jesu. fesu. Le . . . le . . . les

enfants, fesu . . . assistez les enfants . . . les enfants. Jesu. Jesu. Jesu.

Jesu, II est blanc. Oui, monsieur. Assistez. Assistez."

She began crying. But they were not sad tears. Not frightened tears.

Dr. Pazder could hear relief in her sobs.

"Ma mere. Maman. Maman. Ma mere. Ma mere. Oh, ma mere. Oil
est ma mere? Jesu. Jesu. Oil est ma mere? Votre mere. Votre mere. Votre
mere avec moi! Votre Mere, avec moi!
tThe translation of these words is: "In the name of the Father . . . and of the Holy
Spirit."
t'The children ... in the name of the Father ... my little one, with me ... my
little children ... in the name of the Father and of . . . the Holy Spirit."
S'The light. Bring light. Jesus ... the children . . . help the children . . . Jesus,
He is white. Yes, sir. Help. Help."
 Michelle Remembers [206}

"Merci. Mcrci beaucoup. Merci. Merci. Ma mere. Maman. Maman.

Ma mere. Ma Mere.W
"Help. Please, please, on my head. Please on my head. Stay with
me. Stay with me. Help me. I got to keep the red out. I gotta keep
the red out. I got to keep ... I got to ... I got to stay ... I got to
stay.

"Votre mere . . . votre mere . . . stay . . . avec moi. Restez avec moi.
Au nom du Pere et du Fils et du Saint Esprit. Au nom du Pere et du
Fils et du Saint Esprit. ({ No. No. No. Help. I can't be left alone. Please,
someone's got to understand.

"Help! Help!" Her voice came from a long way off.

"I'm right here, Michelle," Dr. Pazder said.

"Please, do you understand? Can you help me? I'm too far away."
"Hold on," he said. "I'm here. Nobody's going to hurt you I want
you to come back now and stay close to me."
But he could not bring her back. Her voice stayed faint and distant,

her eyes fast shut. She was not responding to the usual ways he helped
her return from the past. She kept calling for help. There seemed to
be a part of her that he could not reach. It suddenly came to him that
he must make spiritual contact with her if he was going to bring her
back at He began
all. to pray.
"I believe in God the Father . .
."

Silence. Not even a flicker of reaction. He repeated the words, and

then again. On the third try, her lips moved. And finally, tremulously,
she began: "I . . . I . . . believe in G . . . Go . . . God . . . God
... God the Father . .
."

."
"Creator of heaven and earth . .

."
"Cr . . . ere . . . cree . . . creator of heaven and earth . .

"And in Jesus Christ."

"He's Jesus Christ," Michelle whispered, eyes opening.

I
|"My mother. Mommy My mother . . . . . Oh, my mother. Where is my mother?
.

Jesus . . . Where is my mother? Your mother Your mother, with me! Thank you.
. . .

Thank you very much. Thank you. . . . My mother Mommy My Mother." . . . . . .

| "Your mother your mother stay. with me. Stay with me.
. . . . . . . . In the name
of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."
 Michelle Remembers [ 207 ]

"His only Son, our Lord . .

."

"He's our . . . our . . . our only Son. . .

."She broke down and started
crying again, but finally she managed to stammer, "He was His . . . His
."
only Son . . . our Lord . .

"Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit . .

."

"Who . . . who was conceived by the Holy Spirit ..."

"Born of the Virgin Mary/'
"Born of the Virgin Mary . . . She was His mother. . . . It's His
mother. .She was His mother. His mother looked after Him, didn't
. .

she? Will His mother look after me? They can't hurt Him, can they?"
She was crying still, half the little girl who was trying to emerge from
that place, and half the grown woman.
"No," Dr. Pazder reassured her. He went on, "Suffered under
Pontius Pilate ..."
"He suffered under Pontius Pilate ."
. .

"Was crucified ."

. .

"He was crucified," she repeated softly.

"Died."
"He died ... He didn't die. He didn't," she protested, crying
deeply. "He looks after little children. He looks after les enfants. He
holds their head when they're scared. When it gets really dark and . . .

people are trying to make everything red or black, He'll come, He'll
come. He'll keep them from getting cold, won't He?"
"Yes, love," Dr. Pazder said.
"He won't leave them, will He? He won't leave them. He'll tell
them about His mother. When they don't have a mother. He doesn't
mind sharing His mother. He understands when you're alone, that you
need a mother. . . . She'd hold you really close and you'd feel warm.
You wouldn't be dead." She was still crying. Then her tears intensified.
"She's come to help me. Everybody that comes to help me gets hurt."
She sobbed quietly for a few minutes, and then she reminded Dr.
Pazder, "You didn't finish."
"He died and was buried." Dr. Pazder picked up the prayer again.
"He died and was buried," she repeated.
"He descended into hell ."
. .

"He that's why He cares," she wept. "That's why He doesn't

. . .
 Michelle Remembers [ 208 ]

mind sharing His mom and Dad. He . . . He . . . He's got scars too,
doesn'tHe?"
"Yes, He does."
"I wish He hadn't gone there. Was He grown up?"
"Yes."
"He wouldn't want a little child there, would He?"
"He doesn't want anyone there."
"He descended into hell. ... He understands, doesn't He? He
understands about this."
"On He arose again from the dead."
the third day
"On the third day He arose again from the dead," she repeated the
words thoughtfully. "He came out of hell, didn't He?"
"Yes. He was there too."
"His mom would stay with Him, wouldn't she? His mom didn't
mind when He was all a mess, did she? She'd look after any little

children who were a mess, wouldn't she? . . . Women matter, you

know."
"He ascended into heaven ....," he continued.
"He ascended into heaven. He's got to go home. But He can
. . .

."
come back. . .

"And sits at the right hand of the Father."

"And sits at the right hand of His Father." She was calmer now.
Her face was peaceful. "His Father was glad to have Him home. He'd
hug Him, wouldn't He? He'd tell him He was sorry He had to be hurt,
wouldn't He?"
"Yes, I'm sure He would," Dr. Pazder told her and continued
with the prayer. "Thence He shall come to judge the living and the
."
dead . .

"Will He hate me?" she asked.

"He loves you. ... I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic
Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrec-
."
tion of the body . .

"The resurrection of the body." Michelle picked up the words

eagerly. "All in one piece, He looks after that, doesn't He?"
"No matter what we do, He looks after it," he agreed. "And in life

everlasting," he finished. "Amen."

"And in life everlasting," Michelle concluded. "It's life, not death."
 Michelle Remembers [20Q]

"Yes. With God, life never ends. It only does when we turn to the
dark."
They were quiet for a considerable time, while Michelle partially
surfaced. Then Dr. Pazder asked, "Did it help you, to pray?"
"It really helped a lot. I didn't know how I was going to get my
hands unfrozen. The more we prayed, the more I knew you understood,
and the more the feeling came back into my hands and feet."
"It was a place that was hard to know what to do," he said. "It was
the first time we prayed together to bring you back from that place."
"Sometimes you need more than someone to say it's okay," she told
him. "When you pray, it's like when you talk to me. The talking and
the praying let me know you understand. And when you understand
I get some freedom."

"Where did you learn to speak French?" he asked. "I didn't know
you spoke it."

"I can't. That's why I had the trouble about my degree at the
university. I never passed the language requirement."
"Perhaps that was something you heard as a child," he said. "Per-
haps you heard it in the hospital. They probably had some French-
speaking nuns there. I suppose that's possible. And ]tm is that
l

—
Spanish?"
"I just don't know."
"What about that other voice — that deep, deep voice? What was
that?"
"I don't know. He came out of the fire, and he was awful-looking.
Just awful. I can't you. And he had his tail around my neck!" She
tell

raised her hand to her collar, "My rash," she said, tilting her head so
he could see. "It really hurts. Is it worse?"
"It's pretty bad," he replied. "It looks really sore. The important
thing is not to scratch it." He paused, as if groping. "Can you tell me
a little more . . . about what happened? I'm pretty confused. I under-
stand about the circles and the passing you around. But then what
happened? Someone with a tail came out of the fire?"
"It was all black and red like a fire ... a fire in the night," said
Michelle, slipping back swiftly into her remembering. "And there was
this man. But he was like an animal, too. He's standing in the fire! He's

looking out at me from the fire! Oh, I can't stand it, I can't stand it
 Michelle Remembers [210}

— he's shooting fire out of his fingertips and now from his eyes! . . .

Oh, dear God. He keeps changing shape. It's so ugly. So ugly! I just
can't stand it. And he makes his tail fly around. It's a snake! No! It's
coming out at me! It's wrapping around my neck! It's on fire! It burns!
it burns!"
Michelle began to gag, and Dr. Pazder thought he might have to
keep her from choking on her own tongue. But she stopped gagging.
She wrapped her arms around herself. "I got so scared. I'm so scared.
I got frozen. Frozen cold. And I can't move. I'm burning and I'm
freezing to death. The fire doesn't do any good!"
And then slowly, Michelle's countenance lightened. "All of a sud-
den . . . it's like morning, and it's not scary anymore. It's not bright
light, but it takes the scary away. And there's a man and he's got white
on. He's really far away. Then he starts coming closer. When he gets
close, then I can't see the bad man that scares me anymore. ... I don't
seem to need to say anything to this man in white. I can't anyway,
because I'm so scared I can't open my mouth. I'm really glad to see

him.
"I started to cry. It seems like every time a tear came out, he
understood. my head and put his arm around my shoulder.
He patted
He's being my
friend. He didn't talk to me, but knew he had a I

mother. He said that she could be my mother, too."

"Did he talk? Or did you just know that?" Dr. Pazder asked.
knew that. He'd just go like that, and you'd know." Michelle
"I just
leaned over and stroked Dr. Pazder's face.
"He just touched you?" He was trying desperately to pin this down.
"Yes. He knew was I so scared that I needed a mother to stay there
with me, because I was going to have to be there a little longer. I tried

to tell him it was really awful, and she'd get hurt, because those people
hurt everybody else. But I don't think they can see her. He wouldn't
have left her there if she'd get hurt, because you don't do that to your
mom.
"And he told me that I'd know when things were right, because I'd
feel warm. And he's right. When things haven't been right, I've been
cold. . .
." Michelle was quiet for a moment, and then she continued.
"He had on ... it was the warmest white I ever felt. I was awful cold.
 Michelle Remembers [211]

I wasn't afraid of his mother. I wanted to hold onto her hand. I

just

didn't need a big hug. I just needed a hand to hold onto." She stopped
again. "It sounds stupid, doesn't it?"
"No, don't say that. It's not stupid. What did it feel like when he
touched you?"
"It just felt soft and warm."
Dr. Pazder involuntarily shook his head. There was something new
and astounding going on here. At the minimum it was a vision with
great psychological import. At the maximum — well, at the maximum
it was almost too much to think about. The professional in him came
to the fore, and he resumed his questioning, anxious to get as many
details on tape as he could while they were still fresh in Michelle's
mind. "What did he look like?"
"Ummm," she considered. "He didn't really look like a face, you
know. He looked more like a feeling than a face. That does sound
funny, doesn't it?" she asked in a little distress.

"No," he told her. "I understand."

"He looked like . . . this will sound funny ... he looked like all the
things in the world that you ever love. He looked strong, but like a

rabbit too, you know," she explained, "just like all those things. . . . His
hands are big and strong and smooth. And they just cared."
"Were you still in the middle of the circles?"
She nodded. "It was like being in the eye of a storm, because all
the circles were making storms, you know. When the good man came,
I wans't scared, and I knew it wasn't a trick. It was the first time in

a long time I felt like a little girl again. The first time I remembered
what color I was. I'd forgotten I had dark hair. I'd forgotten a lot of

things about myself."

There was a long silence while both thought about what had just

transpired. Finally Dr. Pazder spoke. "We've got to leave this for now,"
he told her. "We can talk about it more tomorrow. I've got to think
about it first."

Michelle straightened up and stretched. "I better go home," she

said.

He walked her to her car. "You know that was really strange mate-
rial. Who do you think you were talking to?"
 Mich elle R em embers [272]

"Who do you think I was talking to?"

He started to speak, then stopped. "I don't know. All I know is that
we both need to go home and get some sleep."
"But what do you think?" she persisted.
"I don't know. I don't want to had time to
talk about it until I've
think." After Michelle left, he got
and went home. All
in his own car
he wanted was for the day to end. He did not want to face the fact
that he was working with a patient who thought she was seeing and
talking with Jesus and Mary. And the Devil, for God's sake!
He could not asleep. There were a hundred questions going
fall

through his head.Had Michelle snapped?

Once he had treated a patient who had insisted that he was Jesus.
The man was crazy. But Michelle was not saying that she was Jesus or
Mary.
Was she putting this on to keep him interested? He could not
believe that. If she had shown any signs of being an hysteric, or of being
in this to capture his attention, he would have booted her out long ago.
No, she was serious. And her pulse had all but disappeared that day.
She had really gone through something back there, he was convinced
of that.
Was she having visions?
What was it?
It was too much. He lay there, his eyes open in the dark. He
believed that some people had seen the mother of God. He believed
that some people had seen the Devil. But in Victoria? The Devil? Jesus
Christ? One of his patients? He was not ready to cope with it.

He yawned and hoped that tomorrow they would be back with the
old familiar cast of characters —the nurse and Malachi and the pos-
sessed woman, even that vile doctor. He could cope with them. He
knew Michelle could cope with them.
"It's too much," he sighed to himself. "It's gone too far." And he
fell into troubled sleep.

Thirty miles away, Michelle was sitting at the kitchen table. The
memories were still with her. The light and the warmth. "If they hear
you, they will hear me," Ma Mere was saying. "Just as they hear my
 Mich elle R em embers [213]

Son when I talk for Him. La nuit est tres grande, ma petite. La nuit
"**
est tres grande et tres mauvaise. Allumez. Allumez.
Michelle smiled. When Ma Mere talked to her she felt wrapped
in love. But then she thought of what it meant. She was frightened of
what the future would bring, the future that was twenty-two years in
the past. She dreaded returning to that world tomorrow. Or today. It
was tomorrow already. Nearly six o'clock. Doug would be getting up
any minute now.
**The night is immense, my little one. The dark is very great and very sinister.
Bring light. Bring light
 chapter 23

VhHE following morning, for the

and Dr. Pazder were uncomfortable with each other when they met.
first time, Michelle

Michelle was wearing a purple turtleneck that came right up under

her chin. He looked at her carefully. 'Tour rash must be much worse
today." She nodded and pulled the turtleneck down to show him the
rash on her neck. This morning it was not only ugly and red, it also had
a definite shape. Like an arrowhead.
"Umm," he said, looking at it carefully. He put his hand on her
forehead. "You've got a little fever," he observed.
."
"I feel shaky," she said. "I . .

"Don't scratch that," he interrupted her. She had started to rub her
neck.
"You seem irritated with me today."
"No, I just don't want you scratching. It makes it worse. When you
scratch off a layer of skin, it gets itchy." He paused and then said, "Let's
go over some of the things we talked about last night."
"I'm having a hard time getting away fromThere was a great it."

deal to tell. The memories had not stopped last night. It had been a
night of wonder and fear. "It won't go away. That place. It won't go
away. I keep hearing conversations and things. It won't go away."
"What kinds of conversations do you hear?"
"Are you sure I should talk to you? Or will it just put me in the
crazy house?" She had started to cry. Her distress was evident. "Should
I just be quiet?" she asked miserably.

[215]
 Mich elle R em embers [ 21 6 ]

"Talk," he told her. "It's very important."

"But it sounds like I think I'm Napoleon. It sounds like I'm crazy.
But it didn't last night," she protested through her tears. "It doesn't
feel like it's crazy." The tears kept coming. Finally she asked, "Is it as
important as it was yesterday?"
"Of course he said warmly. "I want to hear about the new
it is,"

things, but first we both need to go back to that place and talk about
it more. I want to talk about anything that is connected to it so we can

understand it, so we can put as much of it together as we can."

Michelle's breathing became deeper. She felt less defensive. He was
going to listen. He was going to help her. She started to talk. "That
thing's got a tail wrapped around my neck. Should I tell you about
that?"
"Yes, just tell me what you can."
She looked at him. She wanted to talk about it, more than anything
else in the world. "Well, you know," she began, hesitantly, "the only
time that the tail wasn't there was when the light came." She stopped.
"I feel scared telling you this. Is it okay?"
"It's okay."
And this time she truly felt that it was. She reminded him that the
figure in white had called his mother. "She was very far away," Mi-

chelle told Dr. Pazder. "Like a star way off in the distance somewhere.
And then it got closer.

"And he was telling me that he couldn't stay there. But his mother
could. Does that make sense to you?" she asked. She had broken down
in tears again.

"Yes," Dr. Pazder said softly.

"I didn't want him I felt safe with him. Even with his
to go away.
mother there, want him to go away. I wanted to go with him.
I didn't
Why couldn't he take me with him?" She stopped talking. There was
a pause.

You have got to stay here. Michelle's voice had changed. Now there
was a new tone. It was a woman's voice, warm and gentle, but very firm.
"I don't understand," the little girl cried. "I didn't understand the
lady. She said she could be my Ma Mere. She took my hand and said
 Michelle Remembers [217]

to hold on really tight. She couldn't be there always. Not like that, like
standing there. Only for a little while. But she'd always know where

I was. She said to hang on."

The tears took over. Michelle could not speak for a long time. Dr.
Pazder waited. Finally she was able to go on. "She saw I was so scared.
She just talked to me. Like when you go to bed at night, someone will

hold your hand and talk to you so you aren't scared.

"I was too tired to stand up," the child's voice continued. "I just

held on tight. I listened and I didn't feel so tired. I kept feeling like
I was going to fall down. She said she could protect me.
"I wanted to hide behind her. No," the child said unhappily. "No.
I guess not." Dr. Pazder could feel the little girl's desire to hide and
her sad realization that it was impossible.
Michelle was quiet again. The next time she spoke, she sounded
motherly.
"No," said Ma Mere. "Not hide. Not hide."
"Ma Mere! Oh, Ma
Mere," the child cried, and then she spoke
directly to Dr. Pazder. "She said that I'd find she said to look until
. . .

I found ... I had to find ears. I had to find ears!"

She fell silent. There were no more words, only tears. And the tears
lasted for a long time. Finally, she sighed heavily, drawing air deep into
her lungs and expelling it slowly. And then her eyes opened. She
appeared to be mostly in the present again. As soon as Dr. Pazder felt

she could handle it, he started asking questions.

"Did you hear her talking?" His voice carried urgency. He really
wanted to know.
"She held my hand," Michelle replied simply.
"Did you see her?" he repeated.
"She stood there," Michelle said and pointed to a spot a few feet
in front of her.

"What did she look like?"

"She had on blue clothes. Light blue on her head and darker here."
She pointed to her body.
"Did she have a face?"
Michelle hesitated. "Well, not like that. You knew she was a
 Michelle R emembers [ 218 ]

mother. She had sad eyes. They hurt her baby. She'll always have sad
eyes because of that."
Dr. Pazder turned his head and looked around the office. He
saw the familiar surroundings. The worn sofa, the coffee table, and
the green plants reminded him just how remarkable this experience
was.
'There was something sad," Michelle was going on. T didn't
understand. There was something awfully sad. She knew it too. She
wasn't crying, but she knew it was sad." She paused for a moment, and
then she said, "My legs are all wobbly.
"She knew how afraid I was," she continued, "and how I wouldn't
stand up alone. She kept saying 'not alone.' And she said, The ears will
listen.'

"She held my hand all that time. It made me feel stronger." She
smiled reminiscently. "It makes me feel like two little skinny legs can
stand up. . . . They're awful skinny," she said, her voice growing smaller.
"And they hurt."
And then Michelle returned to the past. Dr. Pazder realized how
readily accessible the past had become for her.
"Be careful. Take care of it." It was Ma Mere speaking. "It's going
to be hard," she told the little girl. "It's not going to get better right
away. I'm sorry. Just a little while longer. Then it won't seem so bad.
And when the time is right, you'll find ears. And you'll find your eyes.
When it's must stand up to him." And then she warned
time, you
Michelle to be careful about what she said, not to speak to people about
what she knew before it was time.
There was a long silence, and then the child spoke again. "I don't
want you to go."
"Not for a little while," Ma Mere promised.
"She won't go for a little while," Michelle reported to Dr. Pazder,
wanting to be sure he understood everything that was going on. "I can
feel her close, all around my face. She's touching my face."

"Come," said Ma Mere. "Come, get strong. You must get strong."
"I'm afraid," the little girl said, weeping.
"It's all right."

"I don't want to be alone again."

 Mich elle R emembers [219]

"We have to be human/' Ma Mere told her calmly. "You want to

help your brothers and sisters."
"I don'thave any," the child cried.

"No, you have many."

"How can I help? I can't even help myself. I can't even get out of
those circles."
"You will," Ma Mere promised, "but only if you stay. Or else too

many people will be left in circles."

After a few minutes, Michelle told Dr. Pazder, "She says she'll stay

a little while so I'll know what to do. I'm standing there holding on
so tight, holding onto her hand so tight. Maybe if I held on tight
enough, she can't go away. I feel so brave standing there with her."
Michelle had been crying and talking at the same time. Now she
grew silent. When she spoke again her voice was hushed and full of
fear. "Nobody can see her, but all the people in the black robes are
really upset. Everybody's upset. They're yelling and screaming and
making noises with their teeth like that." She gnashed her teeth to
show him.
"What'll I do?" she screamed. "What'll I do? Don't leave me.
What'll I do?"
The woman took Michelle's tiny hand in hers. Gently she opened
the fingers and traced a small cross on the palm. When she was sure
Michelle understood, the woman stood back and watched the child
make the crosses in her own hand. The woman's voice was confident
and serene. "You go ahead," she told the child. "We'll do it together."
 chapter 24

Pazder. It
7,
was their next
just want to tell
session,
you one thing," Michelle told Dr.
one day later. "When I talk to you,
I don't know what's going to come out of my mouth. But I don't just
babble out things. I can feel them inside, and I can visualize the places.
But how come I don't know until I talk to you? I'm being honest with
you, but I don't always understand it. Most of the time I'm terrified
just letting my mouth open, and then to have to say that much to you.
... If you didn't believe me, I'd be crazy. Then what would I do?" she
asked desperately. "How would I ever convince anybody?"
"I —
happen to believe you" he was very matter-of-fact "for many
—
reasons," he said, "but mostly for what I feel with you. It feels real. You
feel real. You feel like you go into a place that is very real, and you go

back to it, and the door begins to open, and you begin to remember
things that happened. I listen very carefully, you know, to hear whether
you're coming from a place that seems like you're remembering. And
you are.

"You're describing it with what we call a visually eidetic memory.

You seem to see things you are describing, in detail. I hear you describe
what you see, and I don't hear it as a hallucination. It is too organized.
Too long-term. It fits into the pattern of your life too well. You haven't
been psychotic at any time. You aren't delusional you don't believe —
in any of this happening in the here and now. You go back and forth

to it. It doesn't grab you unexpectedly. You are struggling to work with

[221 ]
 Michelle Remembers [ 222 ]

what you remember. That's very different from a person who is delu-
sional."
Dr. Pazder stopped and sat forward. "I don't think it really mat-
ters," he continued, "whether people believe you saw Ma Mere or not.
I don't think that matters. I think the way you are expressing the
experience is very touching. It is authentic as an experience. You are
saying something about life from a deep, loving place. Is there a differ-
ence in its value as an experience if it comes from her or from you?"
he asked Michelle. "Is there really a difference?"

Michelle sighed. She had seen Ma Mere — she knew it. But it was
all so strange. As she was turning all this over in her mind, she rubbed
at her neck. Dr. Pazder caught her wrist gently. "No," he told her. "Try
not to touch that. You'll just make it itch more."
"It's my only evidence," she said worriedly. He looked at her, not
understanding. "It's all I've got," she said. "I know it sounds funny.
I'm not sure what I mean, but this mark on my neck — it's my only
evidence! The bishop has to see I just know it's important."
it.

"Okay." It was late afternoon. They had been working since early
that morning and they were both exhausted. But Dr. Pazder under-
stood that Michelle was not going to be able to rest until she had shown
the mark on her neck to the bishop. And he could understand why. He
had heard her scream when the thing that came out of the fire wrapped
its tail around her neck. And the mark was there. He reached for the

telephone.
An hour later, they were in the bishop's office. Dr. Pazder explained
as briefly as possiblewhat Michelle had been remembering during the
past forty-eight hours. "And there is a new rash on her neck that she
feels she must show you," he concluded.

Michelle rolled down the turtleneck of her sweater, exposing the

rash. The bishop it and then took a step backward.
looked closely at
It was meant something to him. It was also clear that he
clear that it

did not mean to comment on it at any length, although he appeared

to understand why Michelle had needed to show it to him.
He said very little, but he let her know that such manifestations
were not unfamiliar to him. And he told her that she was not to feel

that she was strange or peculiar because of these markings or her

 Michelle Remembers [ 223 ]

experience. And then he put his hand on her head and gave her his
blessing.That was enough. Michelle felt relieved. The bishop had seen
the mark and acknowledged its existence. She felt free to go on with
her memories now. The bishop's acknowledgment gave her a kind of
permission to continue, just as talking with Father Leo so many months
before had allowed her to go back into the past and start reliving her
experience with the possessed lady.
Half an hour later, Michelle and Dr. Pazder were with Father Guy
in his little den at the rectory of Sacred Heart Church. It seemed only
natural to meet with their spiritual adviser after leaving the bishop.
They told the priest about their visit to the bishop and about what
Michelle had been experiencing during the past several days.
"Do you want show him?" Dr. Pazder asked her.
to
She had no hesitation. "See what you think," she told Father Guy,
pulling the turtleneck sweater away from her neck to show him the
mark.
"Hmmm." He looked closer. 'The shape. I do sense something evil

touched here," he said somberly.

"It wasn't there — that mark — it wasn't there a week ago," Dr.
Pazder told him.
"It's where that thing's tail was wrapped around my neck."
"It looks like the end of the tail," Dr. Pazder said, "the way you
see the Devil in medieval pictures."
"It is the classic image," Father replied. "These things become
known."
"It's important for you to see it," Michelle said. "It's the only
evidence I have of what happened." She was so earnest that her face
was pale and strained as she spoke. "I didn't understand very much of
what was happening, you see. Except my body always remembers
before I remember with my mind. There was a very elaborate ceremony
with three circles of people. In the middle is a fire, and out of the fire
comes this ugly thing — a bad man. At first there's a snake around my
neck, and it turns into his tail."
"Oh, my goodness!" Father murmured.
"I thought my heart was going to die. I couldn't move because I
was so scared." She spread her fingers to illustrate how she had been
 Michelle Remembers [224]

paralyzed with fear. 'Then all comes a light. Not

of a sudden, there
like sunlight. It just . . . takes away the darkness. There's this man
walking toward me and he's wearing white. I start crying, and he
understands all the pain. He understands everything that happened.
... I want him
didn't to go. I was afraid. I saw a tiny light in the
distance. It was coming closer. I was afraid, but he said it was okay. He
left and she was there. . . . She took my hand and was telling me lots

of things.
"She told me a lot about women. She said she knew how afraid I

was, and she knew about the scars. She said her son had them too. And
she said it wasn't going to get better right away, but that she would
stay with me for a little while. She said a lot of things that I wouldn't
understand but that I would one day, when I found ears to hear me."
Father had been listening attentively, his face grave. "And is it after
that that this happened?" He pointed to the mark on Michelle's neck.
"The tail was around my neck all the time."
He nodded. "I see." He made no comment on what Michelle had
told him but turned and reached for his Bible. "Before you go," he said,

"there is something I want to read you." He leafed through the Bible

until he found what he was looking is from the first epistle for. "This
of Peter," and he began to read:
he said,

"No one can hurt you if you are determined to do only what is right;
if you do have to suffer for being good, you will count it a blessing.

There is no need to be afraid or to worry about them. And if it . . .

is the will of God that you should suffer, it is better to suffer for doing
right than for doing wrong."
 chapter 25

n R. Pazder would often look back upon this day

he would think of it as the day the war began. It was a cosmic battle
Michelle was describing, lasting many weeks, with the Devil and his
followers on the earthen floor of the round room, attempting to pro-
ceed with their dreadful and apparently crucial ritual, and, somehow
in the air above, other forces bearing down, disrupting the ritual with
an interference that was not physical but spiritual. In that battle, Satan
would attempt to use the child Michelle as his pawn. . . Whenever
.

Dr. Pazder would think of it all, the word that would come to mind
was "mythic." Not mythic in the sense of untrue, but of having the
elements and dimensions of the great traditional stories that mankind,
consciously and unconsciously, has distilled from life and passed down
over the aeons. The Book of Revelation, for example. Dr. Pazder would
often thumb through it, marveling at the brilliance of the St. John
images and their correspondences to Michelle's testimony.
"And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought
against the dragon; and the dragon fought, and his angels, and prevailed
not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great
dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil which . . .

deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels
were cast out with him. And when the dragon saw that he was cast
. . .

unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man
child. . . .

"He had two horns. . . . and he spake as a dragon. ... He maketh

[225]
 Michelle R emembers [226]

fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of man, and
deceiveth them that dwell on the means of those miracles
earth by the
which he had the power to do saying to them that dwell on the
. . .

earth, that they should make an image to the beast. And he had . . .

the power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of
the beast should both speak, and cause that as many would not worship
the beast should be killed."
And over and over again Dr. Pazder would return to John's famous
challenge: "If any man have an ear, let him hear."

The child continued to look about her, trying to make sense of the
strange world she was in. She was still at the center of the three
concentric circles of worshipers. To one
was a rough stone altar. side
To the other was the and in it stood a burning presence, his tail
fire,

wrapped around her tightly as he stamped and snorted, his face appear-
ing and disappearing in the flames. His mood had changed. He was
raging.
The marching circles halted, and in unison the worshipers in the
middle ring turned their cloaks inside out. Where they had been black,
now they were scarlet. The rings were black, red, black. A chant began,
not loud but quiet and serious. Omni, omnay, omnay, omni, omini,
omnay, omanay, omni, omini, omnay, omanay. The words were re-

peated over and over again. During the chanting, the circles began to
move again, all in the same direction, then all in the other direction.
And then they stopped, and the figures all faced the center.
From the flames came the deep, echoing voice. Slowly it spoke
again in bizarre rhyme.

Out of dark and fire red

Comes a man of living dead.
I only walk the earth at night.
I only burn out the light.
I go where everybody's afraid.

I go and find the ones who've strayed.

All the darkest forces, they are mine.
The darkest forces all entwine.
 Michelle Remembers [227]

Come my power. Come my strength.

Fire. Fire. Burn and burn.
Forces of darkness, turn, turn.
Turn around all the light.
Turn a light. Make it night.
Come, my evil friends alike.

Turn the light. Burn! Burn! Burn!

The words lingered in the air. Michelle could feel their pressure.

And then the horror of it overtook her.

"It's burning . . . it's burning!" she cried. "It's moving its tail

around. Angry! Angry! Angry! The tail is angry! The circles are angry.

They are angry at her. There's something wrong."

Michelle began to look frantically around her, moving her head
from side to side to watch what was happening.
"He's saying something. He's making all these signs.
. . . They're . . .

making their legs go, they're stomping the ground. They're making
marks on the ground with their feet. No! All all where the marks . . .

are . it's all on fire! It's all on fire. It hurts me. I won't look. I won't
. .

listen."

The child stood there in a panic, choking and gasping and crying.
Suddenly she stiffened. "Yes, yes. Yes, I listen. I listen. Yes, sir. No.
No. Don't want to be burned."
Again the leaden voice came from the fire.

There is no mother who'll always care.

There's only me to burn and scare.
There is no mother who walks on the earth.
There is no mother that gives birth.
There is no mother whose name is right.
There's only me with my fiery light.

The only light in the world to see

Is the light brought here by me.
The only light that grows is mine.
There is no light, no words divine.
There is no sign.
 Michelle Remembers [228]

There was no mother to give birth.

No.
The only word in the world is mine.

With great sweeping motions of his arm, the fiery figure drew a
large cross in the air — a Christian cross, with horizontal and vertical
members. And then, violently, he threw a cross of fire at it, his own
cross, with diagonal members. The fire billowed into the space where
the other cross had been.

That sign is wrong!

I break it up
And THROW IT OUT!

''Face the flame!" Michelle heard the horrid voice boom out at her.
"I'm facing!" she cried. "I'm facing!"
The room now filled with fire. The creature was throwing flame
everywhere, and streams of sparks that burned holes in the black.

Mine's the sign that burns,

That burns a path,
That burns a path of anger and wrath.
It's the only path for people to see,
A path that leads them down to me.

"Help me," Michelle called to Dr. Pazder. "Its tail is all wrapped
around my stomach. I'm being burned!" Her hands were stretched out
in front of her, and her body was contorting in pain. "There's a weight

on my chest. It's so heavy. I feel as if everything is being squeezed out

of me. I can't breathe. Get off my chest!"
After a period of struggle, she relaxed a bit. "Come here," she said
to Dr. Pazder, softly but with some urgency. He bent toward her, and
she took his ear in her fingers and pulled on it. She was pulling so hard
it hurt. "I need your ear," she said. "I've got to tell you a secret. It's

okay to tell you what I saw. It's okay?" she asked in a tiny voice, then
loosened her grip on his ear.

"Yes, it is," he told her in relief. "It's okay to tell me. It's okay."
 Michelle Remembers [ 22g ]

But she did not seem to hear. She was trembling. It was a violent
body tremor, and she was trying to speak. She was trying so hard. She
started to say, "Au nom du Pere au nom du Pere " but soon . . . . .
.

she was so frightened that all she could do was stammer. "I c-c-can't
move my legs. I ca . . . I ca-can't move my legs. I'm just so afraid! He's
squeezing me. He's squeezing my stomach! He's pushing me there. Oh!
Ma Mere!" she called. "Ma Mere! Ma Mere! Ma Mere! Ma Mere!"
She called "Ma Mere!" for close to ten minutes while the violent
trembling continued. Then she returned to the round room. "He
. . . he . . . he's telling the middle circle what to do. ... He ... he
. . . ow . . . tail ... his tail tells. His tail tells. His tail . . . tells a tale.

Tells his tail. Oh. My middle is the same as the middle circle. Oh, oh,
oh!" she cried.
"Your middle is the same as the middle circle?" Dr. Pazder was
perplexed.
"He ... he ... he tells them what to do. He tells the middle what
to do," she tried to explain. "I get so afraid just talking about it.

. . . My skin hurts so much. It goes all funny. My bones hurt. My

stomach gets sick. My breathing inside changes. That person being
there really makes a difference you know, it isn't like the tail is on . . .

the outside of my skin; it's like it's on the inside. That person makes . . .

my breathing go all funny."

"Can you describe him?"
"Big and ugly," she said, making a face. "Really big!"

"Has he got a face?"

"No. His face is more like the fire. You think you see it, and by the
time you look hard, it's already changed. You never really get a good
chance to look at it. His legs are long, and he has funny toenails. There's
lots of hair on his legs. They're strong. Sometimes all you see are huge
legs, and then a minute later you can just see a clawlike hand. At other
times he's just a dark space with glistening eyes, or nothing but gigantic
steaming nostrils. You never seehim all at once he's always distorted —
and he's not quite substantial, more like a vapor. You could never reach
out and grab him. He doesn't have any clothes on. It's all fire. It's just

so scary.
"There's something wrong." She was suddenly alert. "I feel some-
thing happening that's wrong. . . . It's looking at me. It's ugly. It's got
 Michelle Remembers [ 230 ]

its back on fire. Why doesn't it hurt him?" She began to moan. "Oh,
my back hurts. It hurts. He's got his foot . . . he's standing there and
he's . . . it's hurtingl His foot's all ... I don't want to hear. ... It turns
to look at me and it's all uhhh 1-1-1-like all black, and it's a fire behind
. . . and then it seems all red. His eyes, eyes . . . eyes . . . I'm scared.
Scared. I'm scared! He opens his mouth, and it's all full of fire. He's
got his foot on me . . . his foot ... his tail ... his tail. . . . He's going
to pull my head off!"

Michelle was screaming, frantically tracing the small crosses in her

palm. "It's all on fire! All on fire in the circles. Au n-n-n-nom du
Pere . . . Au nom du Pere . . . It's all . . . they're all ... I can ... I

can't. . . .

"Some-something's happening," she told Dr. Pazder across the

distance. "Something's in the air."
"Pressure in the air?"
Michelle only moaned.
"It's changing," she said. "It's changing. I don't hear so much
noise. It's like a storm. Like a storm. It's red and black. But there's light.
There's a light. It makes the fire mad! Mad! It roars! It's all black and
red. All around the room. Like a storm. It's like a storm and it's got
zzz-zzz-zzz-heeeeeeee-bbb-b-b-b-blackness, thhheeee blackness. He's
blackness. P-p-p-p . . . the black . . . the black . . . black ... he
. . . makes the storm. He's angry! He's angry! There's something going
'Wwwwhhhhoooooo.' " She tried to imitate the howling of wind. "He
makes it madder and madder, and . . . mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm
uh-uh-uh-uh-uh."
The child was almost speechless with terror, yet she kept pushing
the words out, trying to tell Dr. Pazder what was going on. The air was
swirling, gusting. She felt as if she were in the center of a maelstrom.
The round room was full of deafening noise, but there were noises on
high too, and a turbulence somewhere far above. She was in a precari-
ous no-man's-land —unprotected, vulnerable, frightened.
"There's a fight . . . ohhhh, oohhhh." She could not speak. All she
could do was moan. And then the words came, very softly. "I can't

breathe," she murmured. "I can't . . . can't breathe. It's quiet. Quiet.
 Michelle Remembers [231 ]

Quiet." Her voice faded away and then her breathing. There was no
more gasping. For a moment, everything was suspended.
"Ma Mere, Ma Mere/' It was a tiny voice. "Ma Mere, Ma Mere,"
she said the words over and over.
"Out Oui, mon enfant, " came Ma Mere's gentle tones.
il
Oui, ma
"
petite.

"Oh, Ma Mere, Ma Mere. You came back! Help me. . . . Help

me!
"Oh, ma Shhhh," she hushed her. "Shhhh. I came back."
petite.

"I'm "Ma Mere, I'm tired."

tired," the child sighed.
"You must watch just a little while. Just a little while more. I'm
sorry it's so hard. My coming makes him angry. But you needed to
know I'd come back," she explained. She looked at the child with soft
concern. "You have much to do. You must not tire now."
The child sensed the finality in her tone. "Please." She started
crying. "Please, please, please. I'm too afraid. Don't go yet. I'm too
afraid. I don't want that man to come back. When you're here, I can't
see him. Stay and I won't be afraid. Please. Please just stay a little while
."
longer. . .

"Our Father is looking after us."

"I don't understand," Michelle cried.
"Our Father loves us. We're all children."
"But you're grown up. A mommy."
"We're all children. We all need looking after. We all need to be
cared for. Our Father knows about all his lost children."
"What if they stay lost?" Michelle sobbed.
stay lost. There is always a light. That is why my Son
"They don't
died.So that we could see the light. Not the fire."
"But what if the fire's really close?" The child was desperate.
"What if the fire is burning you? It's burning me. Can he make it
better?"
Ma Mere stroked the child's arm. "It's what the water is for. That
is why our Father made the ocean and our tears the same."
"I don't understand."
"That's all right. You will. But you must . . . you must know whose
foot is on your chest. You must know who is hurting you."
 Michelle Remembers [ 232 ]

Michelle stiffened. "I don't want to know!" she shouted. "I don't
want to!" She was screaming at the top of her voice.
"Shhhh. Shhhh. It is very important. Many people do not know
who he is. That is why so many people get hurt. They are afraid."
"Like me," Michelle said.
"Not really like you."
"Like bunnies?" the child interrupted hopefully. She was desperate
to keep Ma Mere from leaving and was saying whatever came into her
mind, just to prolong the conversation. "Bunnies get very afraid and
their noses wiggle. And when they get sad — I always thought when
bunnies get sad, their ears must go down."
"You know, when my Son first left home, when he started to walk,
it was important to touch as many people as He could. That's what we
all must know. It is not where you go. It is not who you are or what
you are. It is loving as you go. It is walking out of the darkness. There
is only one way out. When you have ears, you will understand. We all

have to walk as far as we can and touch as many people as we can."

"But what if they won't hold hands with you? Nobody here will
hold hands with me," she confided tearfully.
"You don't want to hold these hands. If they wanted to hold your
hand, you would." There was a silence before Ma Mere spoke again.
"There is going to be a fight," she told the child. "Ears will help, and
hands will help, and hearts will help." She sighed and shook her head.
."
"But you must know. . .

must know what?"

"I
"There are two things you must know. One you are learning now
— that I will come back. And you must know who that person is. I am
not trying to frighten you. You must know who that person is." Ma
Mere touched the little girl. "He is called Satan."
 chapter 26

Hi/
JJe
"I'm scared of him," the child
E is called Satan/'
said.
The word fell heavily.

'Whenever you need help, you call my Son. He will be there."

*

"But He's dead!" the child exclaimed. "Does that mean Til be dead
too?"
"No." Ma Mere smiled patiently. "No. You will see. Call Him and
you will see. And you must tell your ears so they will know. It is the
way out. That is why there is water and a cross and the light."
The little girl nodded. She did not understand, but — in a way she
did understand.
Ma Mere paused and then added, "The timing is important."
"I don't think what you want me to in time," Michelle said
I'll find
doubtfully. "I haven't done much right lately."
"You will find what you need to find in just the right amount of
time," Ma Mere assured her.
"And what will do?" I

"You will know what to do." She caressed the child's cheek. "Don't
be afraid."
"Does your Father cry?" It was another delaying question.
"He cries with you," Ma Mere said. "He wants a world that is

balanced. But that can't happen unless people are willing to stand up
for Him."
"You mean like me with wobbly legs?" she asked. "Does it make
Him feel better if wobbly legs stand up?"

[233]
 Michelle Remembers [ 234 ]

''Much better," Ma Mere said warmly. Again she touched the

child's cheek. "I'm going to have to go," she said.
The child began to cry. "But I don't know enough."
"You will learn. You will understand," Ma Mere reassured her.
"And remember: You know who he is. Don't get confused. Call Jesu
if you need Him. Come, take my hand," she said. "Come, ma petite.

It is time."
"Oh, Ma Ma Mere!" The little girl repeated the words over
Mere,
and over. "Ma Mere, Ma Mere, Ma Mere!"
"The other," Ma Mere reminded her. "What told you," she I

added gently.
"
"Yes, Ma Mere. Au nom du Pere and du Fils et du Saint Esprit.
And the child bravely waved a tearful good-bye.
She cried for a long time before she spoke again. And when she
spoke, she was back in that blackness and infernal noise. "I know who
you are!" she cried. "I know who you are!"
The one called Satan began to roar, not at Michelle but at the
woman he could not see, somewhere above him. Frustrated and furious,
he held out his arms and stretched his gnarled fingers wide, and from
the fingertips a blinding, sizzling force flowed out toward the circles,
as if he were imbuing his legions with his own power. The circles went
around and around with renewed intensity.
"Look me!" Satan shouted at Michelle.
at
"I'm looking," she said. "I'm looking. I'm looking." Secretly she
was pleased. Looking was exactly what Ma Mere had told her to do.
She would indeed look —everywhere, not just at Satan but also into
those dark places where they hurt all those people.
The smoldering form began gesturing ferociously, making gigantic
diagonal Xs, invoking all his powers, the powers of darkness. The
worshipers knelt in place, and when he raised his hands they lifted their

heads. Those on the inside circle chanted in a strange language Mi-

chelle could not understand. Satan addressed them as his high priests.

The fire shot up high, spiraling, writhing. Again the air beat with
a heavy thrumming. It was like two storms, Michelle thought, one
above the other — both of them revolving but in opposition to each
other. The one below was a storm of blackness and fire, and the noise
 Michelle Remembers [ 235 ]

itmade sounded to the child like NYUNG, NYUNG, NYUNG,

NYUNG. The one above was a storm of brilliant light, and its noise
was WHOOSH, WHOOOOOSSSHHHH, WHOOOSSH.
Satan still was in the fire. Perhaps he was part of the fire. The little

girl could not tell. His shape was constantly changing. Sometimes he
looked like pure flame. Sometimes he was the hideous presence with
fire bursting from his eyes and fingers. And then her heart stopped: She
saw his face! But it was not a face. Just empty black. In that dark void
Michelle imagined she saw a thousand spiders and snakes, open sores,
dripping blood, people with claw marks on them, people with no eyes.
As she stared, she felt an astonishing thing —something like rain upon
her shoulder . . . water from above.
Suddenly everything went still —almoststill; from somewhere there

was a low, funereal noise, a pulsing hum. The worshipers saluted. It was
clear that something was about to occur.
A line of robed figures formed. Simultaneously, each flung open his
robe to reveal a child clinging to his body. The children were naked.
They stared at Michelle with glazed eyes, and she trembled as she
heard Satan presenting them as "the children of darkness."

Their eyes can only see the night.

They would be blinded by the light.

I set their hearts on fire.

To serve my purpose is their only desire.

To cling to me till they grow old,
To carry my message, to evil unfold.
To keep a circle of burning light.
To hold in the darkness, keep out the light.
See how they cling tight.
They cling to blackness like the night.
They cling to what is right.

From somewhere close to her ear, Michelle now heard another

voice, gentle, firm."Come, Michelle. Be strong. Stand up. Hold tight.
You will rest later. But first you must learn to face the dark. And
remember, know who that is."
 Michelle Remembers [236]

"I remember, Ma Mere."

The children began to move, strutting in circles around the peo-
ple they had clung to. As if at a signal they fell to the ground and
crawled on their stomachs, hissing, slithering among the legs of the
onlookers.
"Come, my children," called the sinister voice, "feed my fire."

The children rose quickly and dashed off to the side, then scram-
bled back again. Each was carrying a book. Michelle realized with
horror that the books were like the white one she had kept so carefully
under the mattress, her friendly book.
The book is His. It's written for blood.

No eyes can see what this book said.

What's written in the book is dead.

No eyes can see; not even a friend.
The books are mine in the end.
You can write all day; you can write all night.
But writing won't bring light.

I'll burn it out. I'll make it black.

I'll turn your words from front to back.
I'll burn each page; I'll eat each word.
And spit it out, never to be heard.
The fire will grow; their eyes will see.
The book of words can't stand up to me.
When they grow old they'll know and tell,

The only power comes from hell.

Fire, fire, burning bright

Divide the world with my light.

The fire spreads; it rips apart,

Join hands; it's the counterpart.

As a fire's fed, a fire's led
Across the world, the sleeping dead.

Three times seven, seven times three,

This is the time that belongs to me.
From now until then the seasons turn again.
 Michelle Remembers [237]

I can do much to destroy and then

Replace with words of hate and despair,
Words as stupid as love and care.

So feed the fire, children of hell.

Feed the fire so you can tell.
Feed a fire that'll spread for years.
Feed a fire. Feed, feed, feed a fire.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John

Burn in the fire and then you're gone.
Their words were lies; my children will see.
In the fire their word dies.

The only thing left burning true,

Is the light that shows me to you.

Michelle was stunned by the long, pounding rhythms of Satan's

speech. The very slowness, the relentlessness of the rhymes added to
their menace, as if the words were being underlined with evil.

The children began to tear at the books with their teeth, ripping
out pages and stuffing them in their mouths. Michelle now could see
that their teeth were pointed, giving them a ghoulish demeanor. They
would then run to the fire and spit the paper into it, then bite off more
and do it again.
Michelle urgently wanted to retrieve the pages from the fire. But
there was no hope of that. It was too enormous, too blistering hot. And
her legs were so weak now that she did not trust them to carry her.
The Beast was watching with glee, growling out his rhymes.

Three times seven, seven times three;

Now the year belongs to me.
Four times seven, seven times four;
Turn around and you are no more.
Four times seven make twenty-eight.
That's when the world will learn to hate.
My fire will have burned for all those years.
My fire will have burned out many ears.
 Michelle Remembers [ 238 ]

But I'll be back; you wait and see.

I'll be back to take the world for me.

Everything that's gone, must return.
I was thrown out; but / can burn.

Look at my eyes, and you can see

The fire burning inside of me.
Look at the children in them too.

That fire that burns. What is new?

Look at my eyes!

"No," Michelle screamed out in Dr. Pazder's office in her thin,

child's plaint. "I don't want to look at his eyes. No! Get him off me!
Get him off me!"
But Satan was implacable. He would not let her regain her own
voice, not yet. He still had things to say. Michelle found her throat
constricting as if in the grip of a remorseless iron hand, and her voice
was driven deep into her chest. "Now . . . turn . . . my . . . child-ren,"
she intoned in the cold, hollow bass,

Turn around. . . .

Crawl all over the world.

Turn my children, turn around.
Touch every piece of ground.
Touch everyone you can.
Make a beast of every man.

Dr. Pazder phoned Father Guy. The bishop had said the priest
had special knowledge, and Dr. Pazder now needed the benefit of it.
He had been listening to Michelle repeating Satan's strange rhymes
almost continuously for two weeks, and he wanted to ask the priest's

opinion.
"He speaks to confuse," Father Guy responded. "In Church his-

tory, we learn that it is usual for Satan to speak in rhymes. I have read
hisrhymes in French, in German, in Spanish, in English. I have read
rhymes from the Middle Ages. If you look up Satan in a theological
 Michelle Remembers [239]

dictionary, it will say that he is known to speak in rhymes. And the form
of the rhymes reveals his personality. They do not have an orderly
structure, but they are very intelligent. And very deceptive. They all
have meaning. When Satan was cast out of heaven, he did not lose his
intelligence."
"On the surface they can sound foolish, " Dr. Pazder commented.
"Yes, on the surface perhaps/' Father Guy said. "But underneath,
there is a lot there. Double and triple meanings. Satan will not humili-
ate himself to speak like ordinary people. He considers himself too
brilliant for that. Remember, he is speaking to his high priests. There
is important content there.
"People shouldn't dismiss these rhymes as foolish or stupid," the
priest went on. "The writer Hannah Ahrendt coined a phrase in an-
other context, 'the banality of evil,' and I think it has profound applica-
tion here. Banality, triteness, these are the superficial attributes of evil
—and its principal disguise. We expect it to be big and flashy and
glamorous. But it is small and mean and unoriginal. Nonetheless highly
dangerous, of course. Indeed, all the more dangerous for its apparent
triviality, its unnoteworthiness — like bacilli. No, Dr. Pazder," Father
Guy said emphatically, "it would be a great mistake to underrate these
rhymes — the very mistake Satan wants you to make."
 chapter 27

</t
T was the twenty-second of September, the height
of a glorious season in Victoria, with clear, blue days and crisp, starry

nights. But Michelle and Dr. Pazder hardly noticed the weather. It had
been one full year now since Michelle had started her fateful remem-
bering, an unimaginably painful year —
and still they were not finished.
Indeed, the process had grown more intense.
At the beginning of one session Dr. Pazder taped a short memoran-
dum:

We have a good deal of additional equipment here today. I

feel that careful documentation of what is happening is impor-

tant. We have a videotape recording machine, a sixteen-millime-
ter movie camera, an eight-millimeter movie camera, a thirty-five-
millimeter camera, a cassette recorder, and our familiar
reel-to-reel recorder. Dr. Richards Arnot is helping run the equip-
ment today. He is also here to witness the process.

Dr. Pazder wanted to document the changes in Michelle's facial

expressions and in the way she used her body to explain what was going
on, as well as the changes in her voice. He was somewhat nervous,
however, about Michelle's reaction to the camera and lights —and
especially to the presence of a third person. But they did not inhibit
her at all. After the first few minutes, she seemed to forget they were
there.

[241 ]
 Michelle Remembers [ 242 ]

Dr. Pazder was grateful that his colleague Dr. Arnot had agreed to
run the camera. It freed Dr. Pazder to monitor Michelle more care-
fully. And this was necessary, for she was being stretched to the limit,
in both past and present. Re-experiencing these frightening and myste-
rious events meant re-experiencing the physical debilitation that had
accompanied them as well as the terror. And accepting these extraordi-
nary revelations as part of her past was an exhausting process, which
she had only just begun.

Later, when Michelle's testimony was brought to the attention of

Father Guy Merveille and other authorities experienced in these
unusual areas, it was possible to deduce the design behind the seem-
ingly chaotic events Michelle recounted that autumn —the eighty-one-
day ceremony that lasted from September 7, 1955, until November 27,
the final day of the Christian Church's liturgical year. Satan, they
suggested, was beginning a Black Mass called the Feast of the Beast,
a rite that takes place only once every twenty-seven years. It employs
many of the same elements as the Christian Mass, but uses them in

precise opposition to that service, and it obeys a strict plan.

Horns

Sacrifice
Eyes
What He Sees

Nose What He Knows

1 What r
Mouth He Tells \
[
 Michelle Remembers [ 243 ]

The plan is based on the Horns of Death, the Satanic emblem used
on the altar cloths and the backs of cloaks. Just as the Christian Mass
moves in the form of a cross, the Satanic worshipers trod the form of
the Horns of Death, its shape that of the face of a horned pig. In
abstract (see diagram), the emblem is a long, vertical triangle, point
down, with curved "horns" veering off from the upper corners, and two
bars drawn across the face.
The Black Mass starts at the altar, which is at the juncture of the

horns in the forehead of the face. With files of high priests lining his
way, Satan leads a procession up one horn and back again; en route he
provides a Vision of Hell. Again from the altar, they proceed up the
other horn — for a Vision of Despair. They return to the altar, and a
human sacrifice takes place.

They proceed down the and when they reach the first cross-
nose,
bar, which represents the eyes, Satan begins to recite what corresponds
to the Gospel in the Christian Mass —
his perception of the world at

that time, his assessment of the current status of evil. Resuming the
procession, he takes a large wooden crucifix and whittles it to nothing,
from the bottom up, throwing the chips in the fire. As he does so, he
reaches the second bar, the snout, and there he delivers his Master
Plan,which corresponds to the Christian sermon. It is his design for
what should happen in the world until he comes again.
At last the procession reaches the lower end of the face, the mouth.
Satan instructs his priests and gives them fresh power through an
elaborate ritual of counting and the arrangement of relic bones stolen
from the sanctuaries of churches. New priests are initiated; they chop
off the middle finger of one hand to signify their fealty and belonging.
Finally comes Satan's parting words, his malediction. The Black Mass
is over. Satan departs, and his minions go forth into the world to carry
out his instructions.

Michelle felt there was something very wrong with her legs. They
had been growing weaker and weaker, but now they would work hardly
at all. She could barely stand. She wanted nothing so much as to
collapse, to let the smudged, scabby little knees buckle as they yearned
to do. But she forced herself to remain erect. If she collapsed, Satan
 Michelle Remembers [ 244 }

would bellow, she was sure. More important, she would be failing in
her promise to watch, to see everything.
Through heavy-lidded eyes she suddenly was aware that the awful
circles were parting, peeling back and out. The high priests were form-
ing two sets of converging lines leading away from the stone altar.
And now the Beast himself emerged from the fire! He was coming
directly to Michelle! Coiling his tail around her waist, he paraded along
on monstrous legs, dragging her up one of the paths defined by the rows
of priests. Gasping, Michelle saw that, wherever he stepped, his foot-
prints were burned into the ground.
"You see Hell!" he roared back at her over his shoulder. And as he
spoke, the walls of the round room faded away, and it seemed to the
child that she was in the middle of an enormous movie, with gigantic,
soaring images. Satan now was bestriding the world, like Paul Bunyan
in her storybook at home, and as he went, trailing Michelle behind him

and leading a long procession of black-robed worshipers, there was a

great rushing of wind, and the sky flashed and riled.
"You see Hell!" Satan thundered.
Below them, as if in some ultimate nightmare, Michelle could see
masses of starving people, bodies on battlefields, a million acts of
cruelty somehow made visual all at once.

There's people with arms that are bleeding. . . . There's people

with no eyes, and they're bleeding from their eyes. There's people
that's got no noses! And there's people that got ears cut off.
. . . An-n-n-n . . . and there's people with missing fing . . .

The nightmare changed abruptly, cutting off the dreadful vision.

"These are my armies of the living dead!" cried Satan, flinging his
arms wide, and at that signal countless figures in black, with chalk-
white faces, swept by and fanned out in every direction, as if Satan were
pouring a sinister black oil over the planet, covering it.

And then the rushing stopped, the movie stopped, the walls closed
They were back in the round room, the Beast dragging her
in again.

back down the path toward the altar.

Now Satan yanked the child out along the opposite path, between
 Michelle Remembers [ 245 ]

the rows of high priests. Again the walls blew away, and again she was
plunged into the heart of a vast, macabre, imagined cinema.
'This is the future!" Satan exclaimed.
Looking down, Michelle saw a city, in minute detail. There was a

man standing at a window high in a skyscraper. Behind him she saw

a luxurious office. The man was looking out over the city, but his vision
was turned inward. He was in despair. That was all she saw. A glimpse
of a man, of an emotion.
The skyscraper and the man disappeared. Now she saw a nice-
looking man, a good man who had made a mistake or come to the end
of his rope. He was wearing a baggy sweater and he was shuffling along
a street, oblivious to the autumn leaves and the glowing street lamps.
The man went to a telephone booth on the corner, and dialed a
number. The telephone rang and rang, but no one answered. He tried
another number, and another. No answer there either. He leaned his
head against the glass side of the booth for a moment, and then he
walked away into the night. He had given up. It was too late.

Another scene was summoned up. A woman was sitting on a sofa

in front of the fire. There was an empty glass in her hand. She was
listening to a phonograph record. The music came to an end, but the
record kept going around and around, wup, wup, wup. The woman . . .

did not move. She sat there holding the glass, staring into loneliness.
The child felt her despair.
People, people, people — sad, gray drudges, speckling every inch of
the globe. So many people, thought Michelle, they're running, but they
don seem to know what they're running after. They all look like they
't

want to cry.
And then they were back again, the vision over. They returned to
the altar.

Once the explanations were arrived at, sometime later, it all was
fairly intelligible —almost impossible to conceive of, to hold in the
mind, but But while Michelle was reliving it
at least intelligible.
bringing up from her depths and pouring it out for Dr. Pazder while
it

the video camera hummed, recording her gestures and expressions

it was confusing in the extreme. Just these two actions of the Black
 Michelle Remembers [246]

Mass, the Vision of Hell and the Vision of Despair, took Michelle five

weeks to convey — five weeks of painful extraction,

weeks of staring five

directly at bizarre, profoundly distressing images. Five weeks of patient

integration by a frequently baffled, frequently overwhelmed Dr.
Pazder.
Of all the memories, there was one that Michelle could not bring
herself to divulge. He felt she must, or she would risk suffering the
consequences of repressing a piece of disturbing knowledge.
"When you saw the people with the missing eyes and noses," he
said one day, "you were talking about some others who had something
else —
missing and then you stopped short."
"I can't tell that."
"Michelle, it would be good to tell it, if you possibly can. You don't
want to bottle things up, you want to get them out so they can't hurt
you anymore."
"I'm not supposed to tell."
Dr. Pazder could see she was severely frightened. And then he
realized that the Satanists had probably instructed Michelle never to
tell —whatever it was. But finally she told.
"All the people that were around me," she said, her voice quivering.
"Yes "

"They've
all got missing fingers! Should I tell you?"
. . .

"Don't worry about that. It's okay. It's important that you tell me
everything. They had all their fingers missing?"
"No," Michelle replied with asperity, "not all their fingers." She
held up her left hand and curled down the middle finger. "This one."

"The middle finger of the left hand. They all had that same finger
missing?"
"It's always the middle finger. I'm not sure if it's always the left

hand. And it's just the people around me, the ones I could see in the
inner circle. The ones we think are the high priests." She looked at Dr.
Pazder in terror. "Oh, God, I said too much. Am I going to die?"
 chapter 28

& ATANhad gone back into the fire. Now he

emerged, completely changed. For a moment he had a face, long-
nosed, eyes wide apart. It was the face of a pig.
The worshipers had changed, too. They all were wearing white.
They were ready for the first of the three required sacrifices.
From the dark tunnel came the noise of marching feet, and
soon a force of attendants surrounded the outer circle. Each was
carrying what appeared at first to Michelle to be a pole but then
was identifiable as an up-pointed pitchfork. And under each arm
they carried that object as necessary to the proper performance of
the Black Mass as bread and wine are to the Catholic Mass the —
body of a baby.
One by one the marchers approached Satan, with extreme defer-
ence, and, kneeling before him, unloaded the little corpses in a pile at
his feet. One by one he snatched them up and cut them apart, throwing
the pieces to the worshipers. Eagerly they reached for the bloody
fragments, sometimes fighting for them, and smeared their white robes
with the gore, staining them red. White to red, purity to death — it was
a basic liturgical dynamic.
And Satan addressed the worldwide representatives of his domin-
ion:

All the world tonight will hear,

All the ears of yours are near.

\H7
 Michelle Remembers [248]

My message spreads from mouth to man,

My message spreads from land to land.

Powers of darkness, powers of night . . .

Powers of darkness, powers of night . . .

The entire congregation was chanting now.

Strengthen our arrows for the fight.

Powers of darkness, powers of night,

Darken our shields against the light.
Prince of Darkness, Prince of Night,
Triumph wrong, full of right.
Bring your powers out of the night.
Make us strong for the fight.

A large red circle had been painted upon the floor, in front of

the altar. Satan took his place by the altar, flames running up and
down his back —and as he did so, a red cover miraculously appeared
on the stone; a monstrous spider picked its way across the cloth. A
vampire bat, with pointed, rumpled, squinting face and claw-tipped
wings, perched on the altar's edge. And on the altar itself there ap-
peared a shiny knife with its handle in the form of a snake. The
fire on Satan's back flared up angrily, and his tail shot out at Mi-
chelle, wrapping around her legs tightly so that she was compelled
to stand erect. It was just as well, in one way: She was on the verge
of fainting.
The worshipers were chanting:

It's time to change from black to red.

It's time to change from alive to dead.

Prince of Darkness, prince of Night,

Burn your fire, burn it bright.
Call your powers here tonight.
Help us celebrate the feast.

Of the coming of the Beast.

 Michelle Remembers [ 249 ]

The circles had re-formed, but now the worshipers were wearing the
blood-stained garments from the baby sacrifice. They bowed, they
knelt. The blazing image raised its arms on high.

In the name of the great Evil One,

The solemn mass has begun.
And now to start, we must end.
We must take up our sword and begin again.
To my fire must go a human part.
In death we live, in dying we start.
Bring forth, bring forth the sacrifice.

Bring me the one that's number twelve.

Attendants brought a large, wooden, X-shaped cross into the round

room. On it was tied a pubescent girl. Her eyes were dazed. The cross
was set upon the altar, and she lay there, legs spread, arms painfully
extended.
Satan swaggered to the altar. He sprinkled the girl with a white
power.

Lay her down in front of me.

Lay her down for all to see.
Here is one as white as snow,
Bound to beliefs that are bound to go.
And with this point sharpened by a fire,

I'll bring out the truth, I show who's the liar.

Seizing the knife, the Beast drove it into the girl's chest. With a
few violent strokes he cut out the heart and, scooping it up, he heaved
it into the fire.

Twelve times two, and then add four.

Cut it in half and then there's more!

With another strong stroke he cut the body in half. Michelle

froze as the innards surged onto the floor. Working harder now
 Michelle Remembers [ 250 ]

with the knife, he cut the halves in half, then cut the segments in
pieces and scattered them to the four directions. And then he
called out:

Bring to me the future to be.

Bring them forth and let me see.
Gather them round the altar of death.
Gather them round to feel my breath.

Thirteen women dressed in black veils came into the room, walking
strangely, as if sleepwalking. All carried little black bundles and, one
by one, placed them on the altar. As they turned, the red Horns of
Death symbol could be seen glowing on their backs.

What have each of you to bring

To me, your darkest king
Out from under your veil of black?
You have become my brides by giving death back.

The black bundles were in a circle on the altar. From the hand of
the Beast, a flame leaped to the altar, setting the ring of bundles on
fire. They burned fiercely and completely, leaving a circle of ashes. His
twisted fingers raised a handful of ashes to his face and he blew mightily
in one direction after another, breathing death out into the world, the
wind of death.
Again, the dull, heavy voice resounded in the room:

The sacrifice is done,

The feast has begun.
We begin by bringing death.
 chapter 29

£ IFE narrowed down somewhat. Dr. Pazder took

patients only in the mornings. Michelle would leave her work on the
new house and make the long drive to the office, arriving at two o'clock.
And then there was the setting up of the cameras, the lights, and the
recording equipment before each session, the agony of the remember-
ing, and the difficult work of integrating afterward. The occasional

trudge across the street for a bowl of soup at the end of a long day. The
drive home. And back. In the middle of October, Dr. Pazder dictated
a memorandum onto tape before they started work that day.

We are in the EEG [electroencephalographic] lab at the Eric

Martin Institute at the Royal Jubilee Hospital. The technician is

doing a long series of electroencephalograms with electrodes in

Michelle's scalp. I have set this up for several reasons. First of all,

to rule out any organic pathology. Second, to attempt to under-

stand the level of consciousness Michelle is working at. And third,

as a record for further study in the future.

Dr. Pazder had always felt that there was a real need to study the
neurophysiological parameters that accompanied depth therapy. He
suspected that there were measurable changes when a person entered
the depth where changes occur in psychotherapy. He had been follow-
ing the results of the work in biofeedback with great interest. He
guessed that there might be measurable changes in brain-wave activity

[251]
 Michelle Remembers [ 2 52 ]

—alpha rhythms, for instance — that could be picked up when a person

moved from cortical cognitive thoughts, which are shared back and
forth between patient and psychiatrist, to the subcortical areas of recall.
A change in the deeper areas, he thought, had to take place if a person
was to make a permanent change in his or her way of living and being.
Most of the methods employed in psychotherapy whether they —
were classic psychoanalysis, bioenergetics, primal therapy, Gestalt ther-
apy, or any of the other accepted techniques and approaches —had a

common goal: to help the patient move toward his depths and be able
to touch his core. Dr. Pazder wanted to see if it was possible to identify
at what level significant change took place and to validate this neuro-
physiologically.
He had explained all this to Michelle when he brought up the idea
of conducting a session at the same time as a series of EEGs were being
made. "Change comes from that movement in life that we all strive

for in our endeavor to free ourselves and each other to live more
lovingly. And it comes from the movement into our core. But before
one can touch one's depths, risk that journey, an atmosphere, a contact,
a relationship that is sufficiently trusting and safe is necessary.

"In a therapeutic setting," he said, "the task of the psychotherapist

is to create such an atmosphere and relationship through the use of

whatever tools and techniques he has acquired and is comfortable with.

Only then is the patient able to touch his core, to re-experience the
past. Then it is possible to make the journey forward in time and bring
it back into higher levels of functioning, into cortical life, to integrate

it. In my experience/' he told her, "true changes come only from depth
experiences, from re-experiencing and reintegration. I like to describe

the process as core realization."

Michelle had been as interested as Dr. Pazder in finding out if there
were any detectable neurophysiological changes when she entered her
inner depths or during the remembering. With her agreement, Dr.
Pazder had reserved the EEG lab for several hours that October after-

noon.
It was the first time they had worked outside the office. He was
concerned, just as he had been when they started working with the
camera, that the unfamiliar surroundings would unsettle Michelle. The
 Michelle Remembers [ 253 ]

EEG lab was a cold and forbidding place, full of strange apparatuses.
Michelle was lying there with the electrodes taped to her. And the
technician in the control room was watching her through the window.
Dr. Pazder need not have worried. None of it made any difference to
her, no more than Dr. Arnot's presence had when he had manned the
cameras.
They accumulated a foot-high stack of recordings during their
session that afternoon. When the neurologist, Dr. Charles Simpson,
studied them later, he found no abnormalities. Dr. Pazder, however,
felt there was an interesting correlation among Michelle's REM (rapid
eye movements), her alpha rhythms, and the level of her remembering,
one that should be studied further. A few days later he ordered a series
of skull X done on Michelle, just to be safe. These
rays also proved to
be negative, showing no pathology of any kind.

"I haven't told you what the dermatologist said yet," Michelle
reminded him after they had returned to the Fort Royal Medical
Centre.
'That's right." He had sent her to a dermatologist a few days before
to get a second opinion on her rashes.* "Let's get that on the record
now."
"Well, he asked me all kinds of questions, like what have I handled
and when did it first come. He kept asking, 'What kind of soap do you

use?' And he asked me what had put on it. I said hadn't put anything
I I

on it. That surprised him. He said, 'Almost everybody treats a condition

like this with something when they have it.' And I said, 'Well, I

haven't.'
"He told me it had to be a contact irritation — a vegetation or
some other —and
I would have to watch every-
sensitizing factor that
thing that I came That was the only way we'd find
into contact with.
out what was irritating me. I asked him if it could be anything inter-
nal, and he said it wasn't a nervous kind of rash. 'It's contact rash,' he

kept saying.
"And I asked what if it's not something I've touched. 'That's
*The X ray report and the dermatologist's report are in Appendices 4 and 5.
 Michelle Remembers [ 254 ]

impossible,' he told me. 'It can't be anything internal, because it's not
on both sides of your body. If it was anything internal it would be
symmetrical.' And I told him that you would be interested to know
"
that.'

"Contact dermatitis, mmh? That's what he said?" Dr. Pazder

asked. She nodded.
"Well, he's right, of course. It is a contact rash — but how could
we ever make him understand that the contact was made twenty-two
years ago?"
Michelle smiled. "Or," she said, "that it wasn't a plant I contacted
but the tail of Satan."
 chapter 30

kept returning to
the day before.
n AY by day, October drew to an end, Michelle
as
her memories and picking up from where she left off

It was time for the ceremony at the eyes of the Horns of Death,
the ceremony in which Satan would say what he sees —the opportuni-
ties for evil.

The circles grew quiet. They knelt on the ground. Satan took a large
book and opened it but did not read. Instead he began to recite:

Listen with attentive ears.

All the evil ones must hear,
How to gather at this darkest hour;
How to multiply our power.

Michelle had come to the point now where she felt she had no
feelings. She was numb, completely anesthetized by the prolonged
horror. She scarcely noticed now as a new vision began; she had grown
used to the amazing fact that, whenever the Beast spoke, he also was
able to project colossal three-dimensional images illustrating what he
was saying, in the center of which were his listeners, and that his voice
came from four directions at once. Earlier, she had been baffled as well
as frightened by his facility for issuing four different messages in oppo-
site directions simultaneously. She had learned that one must listen to
one message or to the other, but never to all, or one would go mad

[255]
 Michelle Remembers [ 256 ]

trying to make sense of the gibberish. Now, however, stunned by terror

and fatigue, these strange, disturbing manifestations had become the
commonplace of her tormented little life.

The spaceless, foreboding images sprang up before them.

These are the people lost in despair;

These are the people that no longer care.
These are the people who in their darkest hour;
Can be easily turned to find my power.

The ones that look for good,

but then find me;
They're the ones I like to see.

There comes a pointwhen everything's lost;

And for peace of mind a soul's the cost.

So I let them walk round and round.

A little turn here, a little push there;
A little less here, a little less there;
Deeper and deeper in despair.

Face yourself wrong, turn inside out;

Start to fear, start to doubt;
Start to look, try to find,
Then it's easy to find my kind.

No one can point a finger at me.

If no one will see.
you're careful
The secret ways, the black art,
A way to take and divide a heart.

The rhyming ceased, and then the circles parted to admit a new
arrival. It was a woman dressed in white. She came and kneeled at
Satan's feet. He spoke.

Have you come of your own accord,

To give up your soul, to take up sword?
Have you looked everywhere to find
 Michelle Remembers [ 257 ]

That what you want in life is mine?

I must see proof you'll do my will. . . .

The woman arose and approached the altar. She picked up the
snake-handled knife. Looking over at the Beast, her gaze fastened upon
him, she began to slash her clothing, cutting away at it until she stood
naked.
She raised her arms and, holding her long black hair with one hand,
sawed at it with the knife held in the other, sawing and hacking until
the hair was gone. Then she lay on the ground — face down first and
then on her back. She swung the knife over her head, around and
around, and then, smiling lovingly, she began to slash her face, mutilat-
ing it at random. Satan called out to the attendants:

Make marks on her body so all who see

Will know that she belongs to me.

The marks will heal but not the heart;

It's been forever torn apart.

She's given up. She's given her face.

Mine will be put there in its place.

The burning tail uncoiled from Michelle's legs and writhed freely.

It was a snake again now, a tail, a snake, a tail again. And then Michelle
saw that it was not one tail but two. One of the tails began to slither
into the circles, weaving along the ground among the feet of the
worshipers. The figures would break rank and approach the tail, engag-
ing it in an obscene, ritualistic dance. The Beast stood by the fire,

watching his own tail perform with the celebrants. Now the fire shot
up toward the ceiling; the dancing became more frenzied. Satan
laughed. The
merged to one again, and the one tail slid back across
tails

the room, withdrawn by its master. And then it lunged for Michelle.

I don't like his tail being around me! Ugh! It's wiggling. I

don't want it to move. It's wrapped around my legs and starting

to wiggle. I have to keep my legs really tight together. Oh, dear!
 Michelle Remembers [ 258 ]

No! He thinks it's funny. I want to die. If that tail does anything,
I'm going to die. I don't know what to do. I don't want his tail!

I don't! I don't.

Michelle caught her breath. "What's happening?" She turned her

head. There was a voice, a light. It announced itsname, but in the din
of the round room she could not quite make it out. She only knew that
it sounded much like her own.
"Michelle, I can only stay a minute. Ma Mere sent me. She wants
you to know that you are doing well. The Beast doesn't usually talk so
much. And for once that's good. It will matter to the ears."
"Tell Ma Mere that I'm going to be all burned!" the child cried.

"She says there won't be any scars," the light told her. "She won't
let your feelings be burned. She says you must be careful and keep your
eyes open."
"Please, please," Michelle cried, "tell her I'm not going to make
it!"

"You have to," the light replied, softly, calmly. "You have to. You
will. But you must first stay —and then and thensee find." And the
light vanished.
The noise increased immensely — the NYUNG, NYUNGG,
NNYUNGG below in conflict with the WHOOSSHH
WHOOSSHH above. The forces of light had come to save Michelle
from the forces of darkness. She had become a trophy of sorts in the
cosmic strife. Victory would be determined by whether or not she could
withstand.
Satan was furious. He roared so loud the sky seemed to crack, and
he threw flame from his fingers.
"
"How dare you interrupt the Feast of the Beast!
 chapter 31

i
was the high point of the
OR the followers of darkness, Satan's Master Plan
feast, the long-awaited moment when he
would reveal his intentions and his wishes for the next twenty-eight

years.* The ceremony took place in the nose of the pig face, and its

message was called "What Satan Knows."

Standing at the altar, Satan commenced the ritual.

I write a Master Plan

Of the destiny of man. . . .

Satan then picked up a large, wooden crucifix. During the course

of the ceremony, he would whittle away at the carved statue of the
crucified Christ until there was nothing left. Symbolically of the way
he works in the world —undercutting—he would start his whittling at

the foot of the cross and proceed upward.

First, cut away the feet;

Make a man feel incomplete.

*Michelle, in 1977, was remembering the Feast of the Beast that took place in
1955. The next Feast of the Beast, with its new Master Plan, is due according to —
experts on Satanism — five years after Satan's return to earth in 1977, the event thought
to have triggered Michelle's remembering. That is to say, in 1982, which would be
twenty-eight years from the beginning of the year-long ceremonies in 1954, and
twenty-seven years from Satan's actual appearance in 1955. Apparently, the Satanic
method of counting is inclusive, so what commonly would be twenty-seven years is

twenty-eight years by their reckoning.

[259]
 Mich elle R em embers [260]

Lose his footing, lose his ground;

Lose the way to walk around.

Pretty soon you have no knees;

Then you can't bend, can't say please.
Can't be humble, can't be small;
Have to stand up straight and be tall.

Taller than the rest;

Start to think that you're the best.

Then a hand might go away;

Without a hand it's hard to pray.
Where's the sign? Where's your cross?
Ha! It's getting very lost.

As he whittled, paring off countless slivers of wood, Satan flicked

the fragments to the hungry fire.

He had reached the loins of the corpus.

Then I chip away at the part

They say should be connected to the heart.
But I can separate it with one cut,
And make it separate, make it smut.
Leave barren a fertile place,

Just a body, with no face.

As the grotesque hands approached the upper reaches of the body

of Christ, Satanbegan to rail against the Christian Church.

You've grown so tall,

You can't be reached at all.

I'm the one that's accessible now;

I'm the one to show them how.

You're too far out to reach;

I'm right here, each to each.

My priests know which way to go;

The way I tell them, the way they know.
 Michelle Remembers [261]

Some of yours have lost their way;

Some of yours don't know what to say.

Poor little sheep out in the cold;

Come with me, Til mark you sold.

Some of it they cannot stomach;

So I cut it away.

If arms can no longer teach;

Then they can no longer reach.
Then the world is in my grasp;
And the breath, my breath, will be the last.

I always act, sometimes in haste;

But who cares if there's a little waste.
If I can reach a human heart,
I'll tear a human soul apart.
I just whittle away my time;
Cutting into the heart of the divine.
The Holy One, the One Most High;
Ha! Not for long, pretty soon it will be I.

He had reached the heart, the heart of Christ —and had splintered it

with his snake-gripped knife. And then he began on the head:

Thinking starts to be the first;

If they figure it out, they know my curse.

Get all caught up in their thought,
Forget about what they've been taught.

Think much, no time to pray,

so
It's what I say.
easier to listen to
In a world where there's only sense,
I'll make the most of my intents.

And finally, the eyes and the ears:

That's what's funny, funny to me,

They are losing their eyes to me.
 Michelle Remembers [262]

They say they listen all around,

But they never hear a sound.

As he finished the whittling and tossed the last splinters into the fire,

he uttered his coda

Slowly I whittle away.

That's one's gone, but another's been given.
Another's come along, so I'll start.

I'll start at the feet

Make a man feel incomplete.

—and then turned to his discussion of the political future.

I never leave anything to fate.

It's all set down, each has a date.

The sinister illusion was now a bottomless hole within a raging fire.

Falling into the hole, Michelle saw, were houses, cars, books, numbers,
paintings, animals, coffins —the whole world seemed to be tumbling
into the pit. For a moment Michelle thought she herself was beginning
to slide toward the edge.

Seventy-eight
Opens the gate.
On a day when twelve is black,
Everything will fall back.

Two times twelve and then add four;

Then there is an open door.

Pretty soon I'll have a chair.

No one will get to the Big House on time,

My gate will be open, the year will be mine.
That's the year of seventy-eight, that's the
year full of hate.
 Michelle Remembers [263]

First division, that comes first;

Then it's followed by a hearse.

Then you multiply your dead;
It's easy to get a bodyless head.

Seventy-nine goes down to the fire;

It's the time when the flames grow higher.

Division and fight, death and hate;
Seventy-nine is an open gate.

If I turn them face to face;

Black against black, race against race,
If I can hold the legs straight so neither can bend;
Then it's a fight to the end.

When the year is seven and nine,

Most of the world will be mine.
They don't even know what I'm about;
By 1980 they won't even shout.

"O-o-o-k-i- Okinawa . . .

. . . Per . . . Per . . . Persia, Russia, Iran will mate;!

They will help open the gate.
No time to see light, worry about fate.

All countries round about

Will and scream and shout.
start to yell

They think it means war,

But it's only a way inside the door.

All the countries around Rome;

The place they think is home.
All the countries you see, I set my traps,
Waiting for the boot to collapse.

Money and numbers and the power of hate;

These are the things on which I relate.

IThe publisher first read these rhymes in 1978. They were then exactly as they are
above.
 Michelle Remembers [264]

Numbers of people, so many, each one small;

Then so much money, the small are tall.

On and on went Satan, reeling off his seemingly absurd, twisted,

malign rhymes. Syllable by syllable he droned them out, until Michelle
thought her brain would explode and her heart would stop.
 chapter 32

M ICHELLE had been reliving for a

period in which Satan was in the nose of the Horns of Death, whittling
away the body of Christ as the Beast recited his
listened as carefully as she could, day after day, while
week the

Master Plan. She had

he ponderously
declaimed and harangued, laying out a vast scheme of evil intention,

concealed within the drivel of the rhymes.

On the last day of the time in the nose, soon after the Master Plan
was done, Michelle noticed that Satan had suddenly shifted from the
exhilaration of oratory to another of his rages. His eyes shot fire, his
movements were hectic. He was snorting, sniffing. An odd thought
came to her: He is using his nose. He knows. But what did he know?
What mad knowledge was driving him to fury?
All the others soon were sniffing too — sniffing each other, like

animals. There was someone who did not belong. There was someone
in that room who was not one of Satan's own.
The high priests started rubbing against each other in a studied,

formal sequence. They were watching for someone to make a mistake,

someone who did not know the routine, the way to rub, the steps to
take.

Someone has broken my circle of black!

If they have, put a knife in his back!

There was a great lowing in the Satanic congregation, a rising

moan, and one of the high priests staggered out of the inner circle and

[265]
 Michelle Remembers [266]

slumped to the ground. A knife stuck out from his back. The attendants
seized him and, lifting him above their heads, flung him into the fire.

Michelle heard sighs of relief and pleasure as the body burst into flames.
She had thought she was numb, but this fresh horror deeply fright-
ened her and, in panic, having nowhere else to go, she began to dig a
hole in the soil of the floor, determined to dig her way to the other side
of the world.But the dreaded Beast was there beside her, and as she
dug he kicked the dirt back in the hole.
'Try, try to get out," he mocked, and the worshipers began to laugh
and taunt.
She got up on her hands and knees and then pushed herself un-
steadily onto her feet. She stood for a moment, and then she started
to run. But everywhere she ran, the robed figures closed in. She threw
herself on the ground and tried to crawl through their legs, but there
was no squeezing through. She threw herself against the ranks of black,
but there was no way out. There was no point in running.

The fire was growing bigger. As she watched, the flames parted
around a blazing chasm. From deep within, she could hear childish
voices, the crying of infants:
''Mommy! Mommy! Help!" a little voice called. There was the
sound of running footsteps. A woman rushed up and pushed her way
through to the center.
"Mommy! Mommy!" The small voice was full of fright.
"My baby!" the woman cried. "I've got to get my baby!" The fire

grew higher and the black hole wider. Satan laughed.

The woman ran over to the black hole and reached down. As she
fell, there was a scream, an undulating howl. It stopped abruptly. And
that was all.

Satan laughed again.

People will do anything for a child.

They will kill and steal and run wild,

Fall into my pit.

He slammed his tail on the ground. It was like a thunderclap. The hole
closed up.
 Michelle Remembers [267]

In his Master Plan, Satan had spoken of All Saints' Day:

You'll know the day the march is begun.

It's the day they say all saints are one.

You'll know and feel it in the air.

You'll know and feel the despair.

Later, they would conjecture that it was the day before, Halloween,
when Satan's legions, marching from the four corners of the earth in
still another colossal spectacle, brought bones to the round room. And
Michelle, remembering it twenty-two years later, on Halloween of
1977, knew that at that very moment the marching legions were once
again rallying to the call of Satan, newly arrived on earth for another
five-year sojourn.

Into the round room came myrmidons carrying bones

Satan's
some large and glistening white, others small and gray.* Watching
the monstrous vision, Michelle saw people leaving their homes and
families, children leaving home at night, empty houses, streams of
haggard figures trudging the highways and byways —all of them com-

ing to Satan, all of them bringing the bones they were required to
provide.
The feast had moved now from the nose of the Horns of Death to
the mouth, for the final phases of the rite. The people in the circles
all had bones now, one large one in each hand, and they repeatedly
raised them above their heads and clacked them together hard, making
a sharp, hollow sound, then spun around and bent low and clacked
them again just above the ground. They beat them in a crazy rhythm,
a wild, insane dance of dead bones.
It was too much for Michelle, and to escape the terror and confu-
sion, she again took refuge in one of her familiar fantasies — of being
a puppy. She licked her paws, nudged an imaginary ball, snuffled, and
*It is believed that most of the bones were holy relics stolen from churches.
Throughout Christian history, unto this day, reliquaries have been broken into fre-
quently and their contents taken away. Newspapers refer to these incidents as "acts
of vandalism," but some Church authorities understand otherwise.
 Michelle Remembers [268]

yipped a little to herself. It felt so good, so comforting to be a puppy

again.
But on the edges of the fantasy intruded a stern reality. She knew
she should be watching, knew she was getting too deeply into doggi-
ness, into make-believe. She began to fear that if she kept on pretend-
ing she was a dog, the fantasy would become too real. In the attempt
to lose herself, she would in fact be lost.

The misgivings, the fear that she was playing too long, slowly
receded. She became absorbed in counting the puppy hairs on her
paws. There were so many hairs to count. . . .

"Not a dog," a familiar voice said. 'That's not the way out."
"Where is Ma Mere?" Michelle cried. "She said she'd come and
get me. I feel like I've been here forever. Is she mad at me for pretend-
ing I'm a dog?"
"No, not mad. But she was worried."
"Will you tell her my nose isn't working very good? I can't find my
way home."
"You are not a dog," the voice repeated, and Michelle remembered
his name. It was Michael.
"What am I, then? I have broken paws and my nose isn't work-
ing."
"No, you have hands, not paws. You must not forget where you are
and where you are going. It is dangerous. You must be careful. If you
play at being a puppy too long, you won't get out in time. Listen to
what they say and remember that she is holding your hand." And he
was gone.

The fire at Satan's back as he stood at the rough altar threw his
shadow against the ceiling of the round room. Michelle stood next to
him, held captive by his burning tail. The altar top was slightly tilted
—away from the worshipers, toward the Beast—and so Michelle could
see what he did upon its surface. On the altar was the large spider,
black, with a red spot in the center of its back. It clambered across the
altar cloth as Satan's long hands, covered with black hair and tipped
with gnarled, black nails, moved rapidly in the performance of a rite.

He was counting bones.

 Michelle Remembers [269]

For ten days Michelle conveyed Satan's counting rhymes, word by

word, line by line. At the end, she and Dr. Pazder and Father Guy
analyzed the rhymes. They consulted scholarly works on the subject
and telephoned certain churchmen with special knowledge. They dis-
covered that, for Satan, numbers have power in themselves, and his
counting is a way of controlling that power spiritually. And they arrived
at tentative explanations for some of those rhymes.

One and one equal two.

These are bones that once were new.
Add them up, you'll think it's right.
Add them my way, it makes a fight!

The way "you'll think it's right" is the way people normally add
one plus one equal two. But done Satan's way, an X is used instead of
a plus sign —
since the plus sign is also the symbol he hates, the Chris-
tian cross. The X between the ones makes them "fight."

One times three

Equal me.

Three, for Satan, is the sign of the Trinity. He himself is the one.
The times sign, an X, symbolizes his primal fight with the Trinity, a
fight he expects to win.

Twenty-eight
Is the gate.
Divide by four
And you'll reach the core.

Twenty-eight is the "gate" — the opening to the Satanic future

because it is every twenty-eight years that Satan returns to earth, and
because twenty-eight is traditionally Satan's number. He divides it by
four because four has always been a spiritually powerful number: There
are four seasons, four directions, four elements, four Gospels. The
quotient is seven, which is the largest nondivisible integer. Written in
 Michelle Remembers [270]

Roman numerals, seven is VII; Satan took the two Roman numeral
ones and laid them across the Roman numeral five, like this: & The
result was a schematic representation of the Horns of Death.

There are numbers I despise,

But I know them, and they make me wise.
I know what numbers are all about;
I count them carefully, I turn them about.

Six upside down

Helps me put on my crown.

The number Satan despises is three —because it stands for the

Trinity but also because, doubled Satan's way, it is thirty-three, Christ's
age at his death. Three doubled the conventional way is six, which
Michelle saw Satan write in Roman numerals: VI. When he turned it

upside down, he put the "I" under the inverted "V," like this:

y It represented himself with a crown. There is also the implication

that by taking three, doubling it, and turning it upside down, he had
upset the Trinity —and won his battle.

Then you take where I am equal . . .

This was just a fragment. Michelle was unable to convey the rest
of this rhyme, perhaps because of an interruption or a failure to hear.

"Where am equal" is the doubling of Satan's number, seven. He

I

writes Roman numeral seven by inverting the "V" and lining up the

I's beneath it, like this: 1 This represents a spear. Two sevens is two

spears, or double the power. Two sevens is also seventy-seven, for the

year 1977 — the year of Satan's return to earth.

At the end of the counting, which went on for days, Satan took

twenty-seven small bones. Twenty-seven is traditionally God's number,

and in Roman numerals, twenty-seven is especially powerful —two X's
and a seven (VII) —and he arranged them on the altar like this:
 Michelle Remembers [ 271

Building something upside down

So I can stomp it in the ground.

Outlining the resulting figure reveals it to have the shape of a

church, upside down. The three rows of six bones each represent the
apocalyptic number —666—the number of the Beast. The Book of
Revelation states: "Let him that hath understanding count the number
of the Beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six
hundred threescore and six." The construction symbolizes the power
of evil pressing the —represented by the two rows
Church of three (the
Trinity),the row two, and
of the one — finally into oblivion. He has
turned the Church upside down —wrecked it.

Sweeping up the twenty-seven bones, Satan crushed them in his

hand until they were dust. He took an ancient hourglass that stood on
the altar and poured the bone dust into the upper funnel. Then he
turned the glass upside down. Time ran out for the Church.
Michelle's attention was caught by the altar cloth. It was a white
cloth with designs in it, but now that she looked closely she saw that
the designs were not in the cloth itself. They had been created by
bones, tiny bones that had been sewn on, looking almost like lace,
forming a fringed border.
Satan was deeply absorbed in moving the bones about. It was like

a solitary game of chess that he played as he spoke. Under cover of his

hateful absorption Michelle had managed to move away from the altar.

Now the black-clad figures began viciously prodding her back to her
post.As they closed in on her, her head brushed the altar, and one of
the bones was knocked to the ground. It fell at Michelle's feet. She
 Michelle Remembers [272 ]

quickly stooped and, unseen by anyone, picked it up and held it tight

within her small fist.

The counting ended. It was time for the next phase of the final

ceremony.
 chapter S3

r.HE knife is ready. It is time to begin.

It has been poisoned and sharpened very thin.

Satan was announcing the initiation of new members into the high
priesthood. Thirteen men left the second circle and, threading through
the first, approached the altar. The thirteen men had removed their
robes and now stood naked.
One stepped forward and prostrated himself before the fiery Beast,

then arose and went to the altar.

Cut it off on the stone.

Cut through every bone.
As a sign you give to me.
You are mine for an eternity.

At this command, the man picked up the altar knife. He placed his
hand along the rim of the altar, the middle finger lined up on the edge.
Then he brought the knife down just above the main knuckle. Incredi-
bly sharp, the knife cut through effortlessly, and the entire finger fell
to the ground. From the other side of the altar, Satan handed him a
white cloth to stanch the blood: The cloth turned instantly red.

Turn what's white into red.

You have the power of the living dead!

[273]
 Michelle Remembers [274]

One by one, the other initiates came to the altar and severed the
same finger. The pile of fingers grew on the ground below, and when
the was done, the others picked up the fingers, carefully, as if they
last

were precious. Satan, counted them, and put them in a leather box.
Michelle suddenly realized that the Beast was looking at her in-

tently, glaring at her from somewhere within his empty black hole of
a face. He shouted at her with thunderous contempt.

I want that bone!

How dare you take my bone!

Michelle felt certain that Satan would kill her now. But something
made her determined to hold onto the bone. It was all she had to
protect her. She clenched her fist more tightly. She was as scared as
she had ever been.
"Shhhh. Shhhh. Listen. . .
." It was just the thinnest thread of a
whisper in her ear. "You must listen. You can't see me this time. But
listen carefully." It was the voice she had come to associate with her
friend Michael.
"He's going to hurt me," the child fretted. "I did what you said.

I wasn't a dog anymore. But he's going to hurt me. Please tell Ma Mere
I've got to get out of here quick."
"Au nom du Pere et du Fils et du Saint Esprit, " Michael said,
blessing thebone in the child's hand. "Be very careful. There is a place
where what you have heard can count. It must be before all the
numbers are gone."
"I don't know where to go," she said frantically. "I don't think I
can walk anywhere. My legs aren't working very good. How will I get
out of here?"
"It may be hard for a while, but she is watching. Hang on tight.

Hang on tight what you know."

to
The circles began to contract, to close in on Michelle.
of Satanists
She took a breath and started running, to one side, then the other, back
and forth, anywhere she could. In every direction were black robes, an
all but impenetrable wall. But as they closed in, the circles began to

jumble. Suddenly Michelle dropped to the ground. The worshipers,

 Michelle Remembers [ 275 ]

confused, encumbered by their long, heavy garments, were unable to

see the small child crawling at their feet. She quickly dug a hole and
buried the little bone. And then she was running again.
The black robes were everywhere now. She attempted to run by
them —and saw Malachi. But they grabbed her and brought her for-

ward. The Beast commanded her to open her hand. She did. It was
empty.
Satan's rage was swelling with every moment.

Give me back the bone that's mine!

Then everything will be fine.

Just go back and get the bone.

I will let you go back home.

"I can't. I don't know where I put it," Michelle said to the creature.
"You can have one of mine. You can take my bone."
Satan roared out a long, rambling curse, ending with:

There will be no place for you to hide

No nook, no cranny, no rest.

No place above, no place below.

You'll always have no place to go.

No longer able to fight back, Michelle collapsed. I'm not going to

stand anymore, she said to herself. I'm not going to walk, I'm not going
to crawl. Through her numbness she realized that Satan was telling her
that if she didn't produce the bone, he would hurt her mother.

Don't you care if she gets hurt?

"She didn't care if I got hurt," Michelle said. "I don't believe you
anyway!"

Her days are numbered.

She'llwander to and fro,
Never know which way to go.
 Michelle Remembers [276]

Across the room, Michelle saw her mother for the first time in a

long while. She looked sick. She was staggering as she walked. She really
did look as if she were going to die. And then the image of her mother
disappeared.
The monster signaled his attendants, who came quickly forward
and seized Michelle and stretched her out on the ground. They brought
a bowl and dipped a brush into it and painted Michelle all black. It
dried fast, and as it dried it pulled at her skin. Then they brought
another bowl and in it dipped another brush. With it the attendants
painted white lines on her body — a crude representation of a skeleton.
The eyes were blacked out entirely. The mouth was a large white circle.
They made her stand. She had to force her eyes open. She saw
herself in the shiny chalice on the altar and screamed.
 chapter 34

7
nounced when she came
V don't feel like saying anything," Michelle an-
in on Friday, November 25.
"Perhaps you should just say something about how you've been
feeling the past few days," Dr. Pazder suggested.
"I don't want to." She was not being stubborn. It simply seemed
almost impossible to talk, more of an effort than she felt capable of
making. She had been quiet and withdrawn all week.
'The weather hasn't been helping, has it?" Dr. Pazder asked sym-
pathetically.
"Mm-mm," she shook her head.
"It's been the coldest November that I remember," he said. "All

that snow. And a lot of rain."

"It makes your bones hurt," Michelle said almost under her breath.
"Your bones have really been hurting a lot, haven't they? You can
hardly walk. And your rashes are back these past two days. It's been
hard for you to work because they itch so much." He reached over and
took her left hand. "Umm, they're coming back on this arm, especially
on your elbow and your forearm."
She made no response, just sat quietly, looking unhappy. Then she
burst out, "I can't talk anymore. have nothing to say. It's like there's

nowhere else. It's just" —she paused

I

trying to find the words

— "it's just

a dead end/"
"Nothing else is happening?" he asked. "You're just lying on the

277]
 Michelle Remembers [278]

floor, painted black and white — it just stops there? There's nothing else
happening?"
"It's really a great way to get left, hmmm?" she said with a tinge
of bitterness.
"You mean that's it?" he asked again. "It's finished?" Michelle
made no reply. "I know one thing," he told her. "I know if you're left
in that place, you are going to be left in that feeling. You're in a place
of total exhaustion and aloneness. I can't hear what you're saying
without hearing where you are in the past, too. I can't see us leaving
everything where it is now. It wouldn't be good for you. Or for me or
anyone, in fact. I can't accept that. It's too serious. It's too important.
You've put too much into it."
He paused for a moment and then went on. "I know it's hard to
go there, but I nowhere left to go. I can't
can't accept that there's
accept that you are stuck, finished, that there's no ending, no way out."
"I shouldn't have said anything." Michelle was almost sullen. "I

was just trying to talk."

Eight hours later, Dr. Pazder dictated a memorandum into the tape
recorder.

It is seven-thirty now. We have been trying really, really hard

all day to go back to the place. Michelle has not been able to. And
we are feeling the pressure of time.

"You're frustrated with me," Michelle said when he finished, "and

I'm frustrated with me."
"I didn't say I was frustrated with you," the doctor corrected her.
"I said I was concerned. I am finding today very hard. Just as you are.
It hasn't been an easy day for either of us."
"I don't feel that I can live with what I know," she said with some
difficulty. "I can't stand living feeling like this."
"Whatever is there, it's really serious," he told her, "or it wouldn't
be so hard to go there today." He suspected that her inability to talk
was another sort of body memory. Perhaps something had happened
to her back there, something that had made talking either difficult or

impossible.
 Michelle Remembers [279]

T feel all clammed up," she said. "I'm so far away this time no one's
ever going to find me." She was completely despondent. 'They should
have called me 'X,' " she said, making a languid sign in the air as if she
were crossing out something. T was all wrong from the beginning. You
can never make wrongs right. Mistakes are forever. The best you can
do is try to rub them out and write over them/'
She stopped. Dr. Pazder waited for her to go on. The minutes
passed. Finally she sighed, "I don't care if I get hurt. And nobody else
does either. Should I tell you what happens, or should I just write it

down?" she asked.

T'd like you to tell me."
T'm going to die backward," she said. Her voice was completely
matter-of-fact. Tt's got to do with the numbers. . .
." In the blink of
an eye, she had taken that frightening plunge into the abyss. And then
came Satan's grating words.

If you say one word I say to you,

You'll say it all until it's through.
You'll run out of time, run out of space,
Run out at the mouth all over the place.
You can only go inside your head,
And if you go there, then you're dead.

So you see, I've turned it inside out;

I've turned you around, turned you about,
You always must come back to me,
The only way out is to see through me.

The more goes out, the more comes in,

You'll start to end when you begin.

T'm going to have a heart attack," the child cried. T know I am."

First we have to blacken everything out.

T don't know what he means," Michelle said. "Stay away from me.
Ow! No!"
 Michelle Remembers [280}

"What's he doing?" Dr. Pazder asked.

"They're covering up my eyes. I don't know. I can't see. Uhhh!
They're tearing something ... a paper. What's happening? Oh, I feel
sick. They're somebody's stuffed paper in my mouth.
. . . Mmm
Mmmmm Mmmmm!"
Michelle's hands were clapped over her ears. "What are they doing
to your ears?" Dr. Pazder asked.
"M-m-m-m-m-m-m-m . .
."

"Are they poking in your ears?"

"I can't hear," she cried. "I can't hear! I can't see! It hurts!"
"How are they hurting you?"
She could not answer. All she could do was moan.
"Have you got something in your eyes?"
"I can't be sick," she cried desperately. "I can't." She was silent,

the only sound in the room her panting and the whir of the camera
and tape recorders. "Got to be quiet," she whispered. "Just be quiet."
"Why do you have to stay quiet?"
"I don't feel good. I feel sick. I've got to get out! It hurts! I was
staying really still. I was all curled up. I was really still, but my head
started going inside. I've got to find my way out." The child was frantic.
"Got to find my way out. Got to find my way out. Shhhh! Shhhh!" she
told herself.
"Don't think about anything," she continued faintly. "Not about
anything . . . there's nothing to think about . . . it's okay. . What's
. .

my name? Haven't got a name."

There was a long silence. And then the little girl spoke in obvious
surprise. "I thought I was dead," she said. "I want to be dead." Her
breathing was very shallow, very fast. "I want to go to sleep. When
you're dead, it's supposed to be asleep here. Maybe that's all there is

left of me. Just a head. I don't want them to look inside my head."
She began to scream at the top of her voice, as if she were being
tortured. "I can't stand them touching me!" she screamed.
"Do you want to stop for a while?" Dr. Pazder whispered.
"I think so," she said tearfully. "I'm too scared. I can't stand it! I've

really ... I've gone crazy!"

"You haven't gone crazy. You'll be all right."
 Michelle Remembers [ 281 ]

"I don't understand!" she cried. ''Everything is all — it's all so sepa-
rated! I don't understand. done everything wrong."
I feel like I've

"You haven't done anything wrong. You've done well."

Michelle cried for a long time. When the sobs died away, they were
both exhausted. It was well after midnight when they left the office.
The next day was just as difficult for Michelle. Dr. Pazder spoke
into the tape recorder on Saturday, November 26, summing up their
frustrations:

It is now eight-thirty in the evening. We have been trying to

work, but our efforts have only brought pain and terror to Mi-
chelle.

Every day had been an agony. The little girl in the round room was
on the verge of death, and Michelle felt fragile, drained. She was
fighting for her life, tenaciously hanging onto the present because she
was afraid to go back to the past. But in the seconds that it had taken
Dr. Pazder to speak those few sentences, she had returned to the
remembering.
"I'm all messed up," she cried. "They took the things off me. Out
of my mouth. Out of my ears. I didn't move. I didn't open my eyes.
I just lay there for a long time." She was silent again.
"I don't understand!" she screamed suddenly. "I'm just ... all a
mess. I got blood all over! In my nose and my mouth ... I'm all black
and blue! I'm all a mess! Oh, my hair! Some
I'm all broken up. . . .

of my hair's come out! Where's my hair? I got no fingernail there

. there. It's gone. And my baby toe! My baby toenail's gone! Where'd
. .

it go? I'm all the wrong color. I'm all broken. I'm just lying there. I'm

lying. I don't want to move! ."

. .

Dr. Pazder could see the child almost as clearly as if she were on
the examining table in front of him. He had seen many abused chil-
dren. Children who had been locked up in filthy, dark rooms with little
or nothing to eat for days and weeks. Children who were black and blue
and bleeding from beatings. He had seen children who'd been tortured
in every way, but he had never seen a child as cruelly treated as this

youngster who was suddenly seeing herself as she was.

 Michelle Remembers [282]

"What is your name?" the Beast roared at the child who was lying
on the ground weeping over her pain and the loss of her baby toenail.
Weakly, she drew something in the dirt.
"I just go like that/' she told Dr. Pazder and traced diagonal X's
on his shirtfront with her finger. One X after another. ''He doesn't
mind that. It doesn't look like an X to me. I'm lying here and my eyes
can see them straight because I made them. And it's that,
" she said

with a little surge of triumph in her voice. She traced a Christian cross
with her finger. "But to him, it looks like . . . like his . . . like the way
he adds. You know?" And she drew an X to make sure the doctor
understood.
Wfyere does she get the strength? Dr. Pazder asked himself. A
minute ago she had been almost gone. Now she was enjoying her little

victory over Satan.

Again came the sulfurous voice, gloating:

It's taken you a long, long time,

But now at last you know your crime.
You never, never will belong.
And this is simply because you're wrong!
I cross you off and cross you out,
So you'll forget what you're about.

"I've been crossed out," Michelle cried. "He's telling my mom she
has to take me back."

You have to live with this ugly little one!

Until you can bring me a dutiful son.
It's your mistake, you'll have to pay.
I give her back. You can't give her away.

"I don't want home!" Michelle said, wailing. "I don't

to live at
want to." Dr. Pazder put her head on his shoulder and let her cry.

The strife between the evil and the forces of light was
forces
climbing to a higher intensity, and the round room was throbbing with
 Michelle Remembers [ 283 ]

the conflicting energies, the abrasion between the NYUNG NYUNG

NYUNG below and the WHOOOSSSHH WHOOOSSSHH
WHOOOSSSHH above. The child Michelle lay on the ground before
the altar, her skin stained a macabre black and white. She was very close
to oblivion. Her stomach was swollen from malnutrition, her flesh was
flaccid, her eyes vacant and lifeless.

What is your name?

Satan demanded the intolerable answer, and she gave it: "I don't
know," she said weakly. "I don't have a name."

Give me my bone!

"What bone?" the child murmured, mustering her last bit of resis-
tance. "What bone?"
The Beast, enraged, plunged himself deeper into the fire, and issued
a stream of sulfurous curses.
Across the chamber Michelle thought she saw her mother. As
Michelle watched, her mother fell to the ground, and from the spot
on which she fell there came a flash of light. Immediately Michelle
realized that that was where she had hidden the bone.
Then she felt a hand on her head, and the touch was ineffably
comforting.
"Look," said a voice. "Just look there." It was Ma Mere's Son.
Lying on the ground, Michelle turned her head painfully and saw
the crosses she had drawn in the dirt when Satan had asked her
name. "Keep your eyes right there," said the voice, "and hang onto
this."
There was something in her hand. She opened it. It was the frag-
ment of bone. Very small, very old, very fragile. She closed her fist
about it again and held it safe. I've got the bone, she whispered to
herself.
The atmosphere in the round room changed instantly. The gnash-
ing noise of the Satanists, the NYUNG NYUNG NYUNG, rose for
a moment and then ebbed, finally disappearing, and above, a clear,
 Michelle Remembers [284}

warm light invaded the stygian black. The trophy had been taken, and
the war was over — or, at least, the battle.
Now the began to die out, the grim atmosphere began to feel
fire

less intense. The heavy shadows were falling away. Then the sound of
tramping began again, this time less martial, more like shuffling. The
circles had broken; the high priests were moving into a loosely drawn
line of march.
She looked over at the Beast. He was watching from the fire,

supervising as his attendants packed the altar implements. Satan him-

self gathered the bones and wrapped them in the altar cloth. Then he
turned. The ranks of high priests and worshipers filed toward him, and
as each person approached he received a hissing shard of fire from
Satan's hands. With that the hordes turned their backs to the altar and
began to trudge away. The Satanic phantasmagoria had begun again,
and through uncomprehending eyes Michelle saw the marchers pour-
ing from the round room, some legions flowing out over the horizon
like flocks of tattered vultures, others sinking into the earth itself. As
they went, Satan rasped out to them his final charge:

The time is ripe, the time is near,

The time of the Beast, the time of year,
The time to come, the time to begin,
The time to spread, to thrive, to win.
 chapter 35

(/hi
HEY were back at the office after a few hours'
sleep. It was November 27, the Sunday of Advent, the last movable
first

feast of the liturgical year. And, as she had for the past week or so,
Michelle was resisting going back to that place. In the early evening,
Dr. Pazder dictated another progress report on the tape recorder:

We have been trying to work for over six hours now without
success.The power has failed several times. The wind and rain-
storm have come back stronger than ever. It makes it difficult to
hear and to record clearly. Michelle is finding it very hard to go
back into her memories. She is frustrated and irritable.

It was not that Michelle was not trying to work. She just could not
seem to get herself to take that plunge. But, at ten forty-five, she shut
her eyes and descended.
"All I have to hang onto is a bone,'' the child said, almost under
her breath. Dr. Pazder could hardly hear her. "When things hurt you,
you get grouchy. My bones have been hurting for a long time. I'm just
not in a very good mood. I feel bad now," she whispered to him across
the years, "because here comes a person I really care about and I'm
grouchy. I don't like people seeing me grouchy. And I'm all a mess. She
looks sad. I guess she's really disappointed with me. I'm scared. . . .

"Are you mad at me?" the child asked.

"No, ma petite, " came the soft voice.

[285]
 Michelle R emembers [ 286

"Well, I'm not very happy," the child grumbled. "I'm a mess.
Where were you? Why didn't you come back sooner?"
"I wanted to, ma petite, " Ma Mere responded gently. "I came as
soon as I could."
"Well, I don't understand!" The little girl was indignant. "I'm tired
and I'm sick. And I hurt. I'm not going to look at anything anymore.
Nothing matters," she shouted.
"If I had come any sooner," Ma Mere told her, "it would have hurt
you more."
"How? How?" the child shouted. "I'm a mess! I'm never going to
be the same again!"
"No, you probably won't," Ma Mere agreed sadly. She smiled at
the child and asked, "Do you have something for me?"
"Uh-huh," came the grudging reply.
Dr. Pazder watched Michelle stretch out her hand and open it.

"There," she said, "you better take good care of it. I haven't got
anything else." She started crying, and so did Ma Mere.
"Why are you crying?" the little girl asked. "Please don't cry. I

don't want you to cry. You're making me cry, and I don't want to cry."
And then the tears came.
"Are you mad at me?" Ma Mere asked quietly.
The child struggled to master her voice. "I don't think I'm mad at
you. I just feel mad. I'm grouchy."

"But you gave me the bone," Ma Mere said. "I know how you hung
onto it."

"Was I supposed to? I didn't even know if I was supposed to. I

didn't know."
"You did exactly the right thing."
"I thought you'd be mad at me! I wasn't supposed to be like a dog,
but I buried the bone, just like a dog."
"That's where it should be," Ma Mere told her. "It is much better
there."
"I saw," the child said. "Didn't I? Did I see right? Or did I do the
wrong thing? I'm all mixed up."
"You did exactly the right thing."
 Michelle Remembers [ 28y ]

"But now I'm a mess. I'm mixed up. I've got hair falling out. I'm
all broken!"
"Hairs grow back," Ma Mere assured her. "And we can fix bones
that hurt."
"But what about inside?" the distraught child cried. "I'm a mess
inside. I know I am. I'm too scared!" The little girl was crying hard.
"I'm too scared!"
Ma Mere looked at her tenderly. "The scars on the outside will help
you when you can hear someone."
"Hear what?" She did not understand at all.
"Be careful when you start to listen. Always follow what you hear
— here," and she touched her heart. "Everybody needs to cry, but not
alone. Don't cry about this alone. Be careful. I don't want you to get
lost."

"I don't understand."

"We'll put everything that you've seen and heard, we'll put it in

a safe place. We'll keep it safe."

"How will the ears know where it is?"

"There is a special time and a special place when all the things you
have seen and heard you will remember them exactly."
. . .

"I don't want to. I want to forget about them!"

"Shhh. Shhh. I know you do. We would all like to forget about
them."
"Does our Father know about what that bad man is doing with all
the little bones and stuff?" the child asked.
"He knows."
"Then why did I have to?" she asked in bewilderment.
Ma Mere rocked her gently in her arms. "Children hear best from
other children," she explained.
"How will I know what to do?"
"You will find a way. But you must be careful. The people here will

not like it when you can speak. They will like it less when you walk.
When you find a hand, hold on tight."
"Why can't you stay with me?" the child cried.
"Shhh. You are so afraid inside you are not hearing everything I am
 Michelle Remembers [ 288

saying. If you start going too fast or too slow, you may not get where
you need to be at the right time."
"But we've run out of time," the child worried.
"No," Ma Mere said confidently. "We have just enough time."
"Got time to talk about mouses?" Michelle was trying to stretch
out the conversation so Ma Mere would not leave.
"Got time to talk about mouses," Ma Mere said lovingly.
"They got whiskers, you know," the little girl informed her. "They
like to eat cheese. They all got funny little noses that go sniff, sniff,"

and Michelle wrinkled her nose and sniffed. "They got really big ears
and they sleep in little holes."

Ma Mere smiled. "You don't have to sleep in a hole." She picked

up a corner of the blue scarf that covered her head and touched it to
her tongue and began cleaning Michelle off in the age-old way of
mothers.
"I'm not a baby," Michelle protested.
"I know," Ma Mere smiled down at her. "But I'll clean you off a
little. I like to hold you."
"If you want to, I guess it's all right." Michelle's crankiness was a
thing of the past. She was delighting in Ma Mere's warmth and tender-
ness. Michelle sighed happily. "You smell good," she said. "Will I ever
smell good again?"
Ma Mere held her a little closer. "You never smelled bad." The
woman and the child were silent. The pain
Michelle was feeling better.
was ebbing. Her head felt clear again. She closed her eyes and pressed
her cheek against Ma Mere's shoulder. Michelle felt safe at last.

"What willhappen to my hair?" she asked sleepily.

"It will grow back."
"It doesn't feel like it will ever be the same," she worried. "I'm
awful scared!"
"I know."
"Are you scared, too?"
"I get scared," Ma Mere said. "I get scared when it hurts."
"What do when I go home?"
will I

"You will start to see and start to hear. You won't do make-believe.
You will make a bed that's good and safe. You won't see much of your
 Michelle Remembers [ 289 ]

mother. There's a special place where everyone feels at home. Watch

where you and keep track of the time. All of what has happened
go,
will count. You will not forget anything." Ma Mere was holding Mi-

chelle as she spoke. "Once you have told what you have seen and heard,
they won't forget. And you will tell more ears that hear."
Ma Mere was solemn. "Don't forget what I told you before. You
know who that one is. You know how he thinks. You know the way
he works. If you forget, even if you don't want to, you can lose the way."
"I don't understand," Michelle whimpered. Then she took a deep
breath and in a steadier voice said, "I have to stop saying that, don't
I?"
"It's all right."

"What about the bone?" Michelle asked.

"I will put it back. I know where it belongs. If you had not taken
the bone, things might have gotten much worse. You see, I could not
come and pull you out. It is not the way things work. He denied that
you exist. He had to put you out of his sight. He could not keep you
in the darkness. But it also caught him a little off guard when you took
the bone. He said many things that he does not usually say out loud.
But now you've heard them."
"I don't like everything always being so serious," the little girl
sighed.
"It is a serious time."
Michelle felt safe, and she felt quiet. The pain was going away. Ma
Mere was loving and comforting her.
"You will feel as if you've been asleep. You will have time to heal,"
Ma Mere promised. "You will feel funny at first. It will be hard to think
completely straight. But you will have help. I don't want you to be
afraid. But I cannot say that it is going to be all right now. Not right
away."
Michelle reverted to an earlier worry. "I don't want to go to live

with my mom."
"You can live with her," Ma Mere said calmly. "You don't have
to be what she is."
"I want your Son to come back. I didn't say thank you."
"He will," Ma Mere said. "And I'll be there. Remember: The years
 Michelle Remembers [290]

that the Evil One mentioned, and the numbers —they are important
to understand. But be careful. He may be around when you remember
me.
"I know you are frightened now. But you are going the right way.
And in just the right time, As much as you have counted
you will see.

on me, I count on you."

"Will it get better?" the child sobbed.
"There's a much better chance now." She paused. "Michelle," she
said,"your mother is coming to take you." Michelle looked up. Her
mother was walking across the room. It was empty. All the people had
gone.
"I don't want to go," Michelle cried. "I kept my promise."
"You kept it well."
"I'll keep it."

"I know you will."

Michelle felt calm. She was not frightened anymore.

Do you feel better? It was that soft, warm voice again.

"I don't feel as scared," she told him. "I tried as hard as I could.
I'm sorry I ended up such a mess. How will I ever remember all this

by myself?"
You will have help.
"You mean the ears?"
They will be much more than ears.

"What will the ears be like?" she wanted to know. "Like rabbits'
ears?"
No, my ears. He stroked her cheek. The feeling went way
like inside
the child. Her breathing became deep and regular.
"You don't mind answering questions?" she asked.
/ love to answer questions.
"I like to talk," she said happily. "But how will I know what to say?"

That is why you need two. It is easier to know what to say then. You
have learned what 's right. Don
f

t quit talking. When you ve got that, and

he touched her heart, you can knock on anyone i door and they will have
to answer.

"What if they don't?"

 Michelle Remembers [ 291 ]

Sometimes you will knock again. Sometimes you will find a new
door.
T probably shouldn't say this, but you know something?" Michelle
asked. "I know that you are her Son, because you keep saying 'you'll
know' just like her. I don't mind," she said, "but it's really hard with
so many 'you'll knows.'
He chuckled.
'Thank you for the bone," she said. "I'm glad you came back so
I could say thank you." She stopped, and herlips began to tremble.

"Are you going to go? Can I talk to you again?"

You '11 be safe in your bed now, and you definitely will feel good
again.
"Promise?" the little girl cried.

Everything I say is a promise.

"I'm so tired," she said.
Close your eyes for a while. Think about the bunnies and grass and
little lambs.
"I'd like to lie in the sunshine." Michelle sighed deeply, as if

settling herself to sleep.

/ know.
"Can I hold on tight?" she asked. He smiled and squeezed her
hand.

"I don't have any more to say."

"Hmmm?" Dr. Pazder was startled.
"That is all there is." Michelle's voice was calm, her tone final.

And that was all.

The remembering was finished.
 epilogue

old. When
A S this book goes to press, Michelle
she thinks back upon the years following her ordeal, she
does not draw upon her depths but upon her normal memory.
is thirty years

And
what she remembers is this:
She remembers that, at first, she was sick. She remembers being
kept home, being told she had measles, being kept away from everyone
in a darkened room. She recalls that she wouldn't eat, and that her

—
mother perhaps her father too; she can't remember if this was one
of the times when he had returned to the family —seemed concerned.
At least they gave her anything she actually wanted to eat. What
Michelle wanted was rather limited — just salad, tomato soup, vegeta-
bles (especially cabbage), and ice cream. It was all she ate for a long
time, maybe months.
Eventually she was allowed to start school. She knows she started
school late. The other children were somewhat ahead of her, and for
a while she felt left behind.
Had anyone noticed Michelle's absence from everyday life during
her time in the round room? She does not know. Did anyone question
her about it after her return? She cannot remember that anyone did.
Did she ever again see any of the Satanists, at home or in the company
of her mother? She has no idea. Since Michelle, as a child, had no
memory of the horrible things that had been done to her in 1954 and
1955, she had no reason to be aware of such people.
Nor did she have any reason to resent her mother. In fact, she

[293}
 Michelle Remembers [294]

realized as an adult that she had actually idealized her mother, denied
her shortcomings. Yet, as Dr. Gillespie recalled, her mother had found
it difficult to cope. Michelle stepped in and took over much of the
responsibility for running the household —the sewing, the cooking. She
enjoyed it, and beyond that, she was pleased that she was helping to
hold the family together. What was good in her life, she cherished.
What was not, she endured.
Jessica Harding died in 1963. For Michelle it was a turning point.
Her life was totally changed. Her father abandoned her forever, giving
custody to grandparents, but within a year all her grandparents were
dead. She was her on her own, dependent on her own resources.
In the early therapy, Michelle worked through the emotional tur-

moil resulting from her difficult family life. And then, in 1976, when
the reliving began, she was obliged to confront the underlying, heart-
breaking, reality. During her psychiatric sessions, she attempted to set
down on paper her feelings about the past:

I think I've figured out why I ache inside out so much. I am

in mourning. Yes, a part of me is dying — really physically, nau-
seatingly, painfully dying. It's a part of "me inside/' a part I had
to have for years. It's themy mother as wonderful
me who saw
and loving me terribly, the part who worshiped my mom and saw
me as the center of her world, the me who had a mom to play
with, to tell my troubles to, the me who had hot chocolate with
her on cold nights, who was tucked inand cared for. You see, for

years it was all I let myself be, my pretend me, my me the way
I wished and fantasized my life was.
But now, my body memories have killed my make-believe, and
I just can't get away from it. My body has told me the reality and
never again will have Michelle with only happy memories. I
I

believe that in the end the Michelle I find will be happier and
healthier even with her realities, but right now I don't know that.

I just feel such a tremendous loss, I feel afraid and alone without
my pretends to protect me. I feel so sad, it really hurts to let go,

to bury my make-believe world and try to live with my life as it

was. I don't want to but I know I have to. I have to be real no

matter what the cost.
 Michelle Remembers [295]

Michelle today is She is not a dweller in some psychic

very real.

limbo. The remembering no longer with her. She is a busy and

is

cheerful person. She has faced her past and resolved her feelings about
it. It is hard for her to forgive her mother, but she hopes her mother

will be forgiven. Michelle understands her and cares for her and prays

for her.
When Michelle has to recall that bad time, as she did during the
period in which this book was written, she feels fresh pain. But the pain
is manageable, and it goes away. To Michelle, the truth is very impor-
tant —worth the pain, worth the two years of her life she has spent on
it. She has traveled to Rome to convey its message, and she has at-

tended several psychiatric conventions with Dr. Padzer to talk about

aspects of her extraordinary experience.
A friend asked her what means most to her today, and she replied,
'The child," referring not to herself but to every forgotten or abused
child. Later, thinking it over, she wrote an amplification:

If we can no longer hear that child, then we have lost the

meaning of life. We must never abandon the child in
as adults
all of us— the innocence, the trust, the wonderment, the unyield-

ing hope and belief in good. We must keep it safely protected,

close to the heart, where all children should be, to return to if we
lose sight of who we are and where we began. This is the true part
of us that was there, unblemished, before we started to grow, the
part that no one can take away. It is that tiny, warm spot we all
possess, which helps us move beyond the darkness to the sun-
shine, not because we see it but because we know it is there.

Michelle hopes the book will alert people to the horror of hurting
children. The possibility that another child is now being prepared for
the next Feast of the Beast — it is the time for it —
is very much on her

mind.
To both Michelle and Dr. Pazder, the friendship of Bishop De Roo
has meant much. From their first meeting with him they have found
him acute and compassionate. When Michelle's remembering was
finished, he asked a priest and scholar, Father Amedee Dupas, to make
a thorough investigation. Working eighteen hours a day for a week,
 Michelle Remembers [296]

starting at six each morning, Father Amedee questioned Michelle and

listened to the tape recordings made of the key happenings. Bishop De
Roo also listened at length to the tapes. When Michelle and Dr. Pazder
went to Rome, in the company of Father Guy Merveille, and encoun-
tered a protocol problem, the bishop promptly got on a plane and flew
halfway around the world to assist them.
The bishop's study of the case is proceeding. For it, Michelle and
Dr. Pazder have organized the 3,000-page transcript of the audio tapes
and placed it with the bishop for safekeeping. They are not impatient.
They have every confidence that, in due course, Michelle's story will
reach all those ears for which it was intended.
APPENDICES
 appendix 1

from THE VICTORIAN,

Friday, January 28, 1977
—by Paul, Jeune

'Witchcraft In City' Claim

Witches practicing black magic sound like something out of a

—
medieval myth but they are right here in Victoria.

—who summon the presence the and make

Satanic witches of devil
human and animal —number almost ,000
sacrifices for their beliefs 1 in

the capital city, says a former Victoria resident who claims he and his
wife barely escaped the witches with their lives.

Len Olsen, now living in Vancouver but formerly of Victoria,

where he says he was a member of one of five local groups of witches
belonging to the Church of Satan of Canada, says the witches could
live next door to anyone —undetected.
Olsen said he and his wife got "caught up" in the underground
church through a friend.
'Their meetings were held in a church behind a bookstore in

Bastion Square. Another group had meetings in the home of the minis-
ter.

'Their meetings were miraculous, evil things — calling on the devil,

2 99
 Michelle Remembers [300]

chanting. And then a presence would enter the room, peoples' voices
would change and personalities would become evil."
About four months after their initiation, the Olsens were told of
a special meeting.
"At first I thought it was unusual. But at the meeting I became
—
more scared than I've ever been before they were holding a sacrifice
service around us. They tried to kill us."
Olsen said he grabbed his wife and managed to fight his way out
of the meeting.
The first place he stopped running was at the door of a church.
"I went to see the minister. After an hour with him I filed a report

—complete with my membership number—with the Victoria police."

City police chief Jack Gregory told THE VICTORIAN Thursday
that such a report had been filed but investigations turned up nothing.
'They're still in Victoria," said Olsen.

"Everytime make a trip to Victoria I see at least a dozen of the

I

witches. Many of them are prominent business people and a substantial

number are newspaper people. During the daytime they can't be picked
out from everyone else."
And they still work in Bastion Square, says Olsen.
'Their peddlar — or the man who tries to bring in new members
is a long-haired hippy-type character who carries a Bible under one arm.
"His method of enticing new members is to try and sell the white,

or good, witch routine. There are —

no white witches it's just a front.
And, for the most young girls."
part, they're after
Olsen said he hasn't been bothered by the witches since parting
company with them but "knows he's being watched."
"It's scary —
and for anyone who thinks they're going to play around
with witchcraft they're playing with dynamite."
 appendix 2

ANDREW E. GILLESPIE,
Consultant Paediatrics
Eort Royal Centre, Office No. 415
1900 Richmond Road, Victoria, B.C.

November 16, 1979

Dr. Larry Pazder,
225-1900 Richmond Rd.,
Victoria, B.C.

Dear Larry:
re: Michelle Smith

At your request I am trying to recall this patient. She seemed to

get into unusual episodes of poison ingestion. I recall seeing her on 2
or 3 occasions at the hospital emergencies, none of the poisonings
fortunately were serious. It was after the second or third episode how-
ever that I wondered about the mother's ability to cope. She was a
kindly but rather ineffectual woman, somewhat overweight, and when
I questioned her, realized that she was having difficulties with alcohol.
Her husband was away much of the time.
I do vaguely recall that Michelle was involved in an accident at

around 5 or 6 years of age for which she was admitted to hospital for
care. I believe this involved a car accident and that Michelle had some

[301]
 Michelle Remembers [302}

difficulty with smoke inhalation from which she made a satisfactory

recovery. I do not remember the and am sorry that we do not
details
have her old files. I suspect these were water-damaged during storage
as I had to throw out a number of boxes of old files on earlier patients
a few years ago. The present collection of files do not contain any
records on the family.
With kind regards.

Yours most sincerely,

A.E. Gillespie, M.D., F.A.A.P., F.R.C.P.(C)

AEG/ld
 appendix 3

DONALD L. POY, B.Sc, D.M.D.

1677 Poplar Street
Victoria, B.C.

November 19, 1979

Dear Dr. L. Pazder:
Re: Michelle Smith

On May, 13,1978 I saw Michelle Smith presenting with extreme

pain localized to the upper left central incisor. The radiograph did not
show any periapical changes, however the root canal of the tooth
appeared somewhat narrow indicating a degenerative change of the
pulpal tissues, quite likely resulting from trauma to the tooth at an
earlier age (6-10). On entering the pulp chamber necrotic tissue and
odour was encountered. Root canal treatment was started on the tooth.

Yours truly,

Dr. Donald L. Poy

DP/kp

303
 appendix 4

DR. HENRY JACKH, C.R.C.P. (C)

Consultant in Diagnostic Radiology
140 Fort Royal Medical Centre
1900 Richmond Avenue
Victoria, B.C.

Feb. 27, 1978

Patient: Smith, Mrs. Michelle

Referring doctor: Dr. L. Pazder

Report of X-Ray Examination:

Chesty pa and left lateral

The heart, great vessels and diaphragm appear normal.

The lung fields appear clear throughout.

Skull, 3 projections
No osseous abnormalities are demonstrated.
The pituitary fossae and clinoid processes are well calcified and
appear normal.
There is no evidence of any abnormal calcifications within the
cranium.

A. W. Taylor Lee, M.D.

[305]
 appendix 5

KEMBLE GREENWOOD
645 Fort Street
Victoria, B.C.

September 26, 1977

Dr. L.H. Pazder,
225-1900 Richmond,
Victoria, B.C.

Dear Doctor Pazder:

Re: Mrs. Michelle Smith

Many thanks for referring this patient to me on September 22. This

27-year old woman has developed an acute but quite superficial contact
dermatitis involving the back of the left hand and the left arm, and
spreading onto the bends of both arms and onto the neck anteriorly in
the past two weeks. The condition started on the left hand and left arm,
and may well have been aggravated by the use of medicated soaps
(Lifebuoy), and also an idiosyncrasy to some fraction of the steroid
cream which was applied. However, the appearance was strongly sug-
gestive of some type of vegetation contact initially, and there may also

be a photosensitivity element. The right hand is entirely spared, and

this is strongly against any form of toxic factor.
She should respond well to the treatment recommended, namely
the following:

[307]
 Michelle Remembers [ 308 ]

1 Allenbury's basic soap only for ordinary washing.

2. Savolitie soap flakes only for domestic washing jobs.

3. 1/2 strength Betnovate ointment as a topical application for

sparing use when necessary.
I have asked Mrs. Smith to check with me again in ten days.

Yours Sincerely,

Kemble Greenwood, MB., FRCP. (C),

FRCP. (ED.)
 acknowledgements

this work.
w
Their trust
E are deeply grateful to the
have been so generous with their love and
in us
skill in

has been a precious gift.

many people who
helping us prepare

and foremost, we thank Cheetie Malouin, who has been our

First
hand and loyal friend. Cheetie is that rare kind of person
steadfast right
who goes only where her heart takes her. We are thankful it led her
to us.
We are indebted to those who gave somuch of their time to the
transcribing of the tape recordings made during the psychiatric ses-

sions: Shirley Cole, Audrey Fraser, Colin Fraser, Peggy Little, Jim
Mylord, Terri North, Eileen Ihara, Bea Sheard, Barbara McNulty,
Mary Parson, and others.
For their spiritual care and understanding, we thank the Vatican
officials who received us, Father Amedee Dupas, Father Leo Robert,
Father Joe Jackson, and especially Father Guy Merveille.
We want to convey our appreciation to Dr. Rick Arnot, Dr. Jim
Paterson, Dr. Hugh Bacon, and Dr. David Welch.
We thank Dr. Andrew Gillespie, Dr. Kemble Greenwood, Dr. John
McCracken, Dr. Don Poy, Dr. Henry Jackh, and Paul Jeune.
The tremendous help and hospitality we have received from our
publisher, Thomas Congdon, and his wife, Connie, have touched us
deeply. And we are more than thankful to Gretchen Salisbury, a gifted
editor and valued friend, for her extraordinary labors.

309
 Michelle Remembers [ 310 ]

To an anonymous benefactor, who helped us begin, thank you for

hearing.
x\nd our fervent thanks:
to our friends who loved us without knowing anything, especially
Ed and Roberta Piotrowitz, Donna Barber, Carol Huddart, Claire
Gratton, and Jim and Julie Bowie;
to our families, with much love —Charyl, Archie, Ron, Lillian,
Marylyn, Lawrence, Theresa, David, and John, and all those we cannot
mention;
to Helen and Stan Pazder, devoted parents who have given so
totally;

to Doug, particularly, for his strength and support, for not question-
ing but trying to understand;
and to Michelle's mother, whom she still loves, and to Ma Mere,
for helping her to know that.
 (Continued from front flap)

manipulation. And then began the Feast of

the Beast, the three-month ceremony at
which the international high priesthood of
the Satanic Church gather to invoke Satan
himself.
ThroughMichelle's "reliving" we seethe
child at arough stone altar as Satan, stand-
ing in fire and chanting in bizarre rhyme,
delivers his Master Plan. On the verge of
being literally frightened to death, she is

befriended by a glowing presence— whose

identity will challenge both theology and
belief. Indeed, priests and bishops and car-
dinals, guarded at first, have become con-
cerned with Michelle's testimony, and the
Vatican has encouraged a study to assess
its significance.
Readers, too, will wonder. Some will dis-
believe; others will be touched, inspired.
But none will deny that, whatever else,
Michelle's experience is an unforgettable
metaphor for the indomitability of the hu-
man spirit and the power of innocence.

Michelle Smith has taught art at Camou-

son College in Victoria, British Columbia,
and is now finishing her degree at the Uni-
versity of Victoria. Lawrence Pazder,
M.D., after nearly two years as a doctor in
West Africa, took a graduate degree in psy-
chological medicine from McGill University.
He is a fellow of the Royal College of Physi-
cians and Surgeons and is in private prac-
tice in Victoria.

JACKET DESIGN BY LEWIS FRIEDMAN

JACKET PHOTO BY ALEX GOTFRYD
AUTHORS' PHOTOS BY ALEX GOTFRYD;
BEUFORD SMITH /CESAI RE

Printed in
The United States of America
 "All the things you have seen and heard,
you will remember them exactly."
— Ma Mere

© 1 980 BY MICHELLE SMITH & LAWRENCE PAZDER

The extraordinary photograph described in Chapter 19

Just after midnight on June 24, 1977, Father Guy Merveille (left), pastor
of Sacred Heart Church in Victoria, British Columbia, censed the bonfire
that is on the feast of St. John the Baptist as Michelle Smith
traditional
(right) stood by and watched. Dr. Lawrence Pazder felt impelled to
photograph the scene. He took a number of time exposures, and in
several of the photos there seems to be a glowing presence, apparently
haloed. Photographic experts have been unable to explain the mysterious
image.

ISBN: 0-17-601460-8