“You’ve been shopping?”

Duran smiled ruefully, and shook his head. “It’s from a catalog.”

“I thought so. You know, you ought to get out more, Doc. You’re pale as a ghost.”

Duran shrugged. “I don’t have time. And, anyway, it’s like I said—a new paradigm.”

The “office” was a lot like the living room, but with recessed lighting and windows hung with heavy drapes. Neutral colors dominated—the walls a buttery cream, the furniture slipcovered in beige linen. Watercolor landscapes hung from the walls in tortoiseshell frames.

And so did Duran’s credentials. Like the oversized furniture and kilim-covered pillows on the couch, his bona fides were there to reassure his clients. There was a Bachelor’s degree from Brown, and a doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology from the University of Wisconsin. Flanking the diplomas were certificates from the American Board of Psychological Hypnosis and the Society of Cognitive Therapists.

“Why don’t you make yourself comfortable?” Duran asked, as he sat down behind the desk. “I want to take a look at my notes—and we can start the tape.”

“Do we have to tape?” Nico complained, tipping off her shoes as she flopped down on the couch.

“Yeah,” Duran said with a chuckle. “We have to. We really do.” Inserting a cassette in the tape recorder, he hit the Record button and, turning to his computer, began to type. “It’s not my idea, y’know—it’s the insurance company’s.”

“I’m not going to sue you, Doc.”

“Riii-ight,” Duran replied. “That’s what they all say.”

He had her in a light trance, reclining on her back with her limbs slack, eyes shut, expression neutral. Duran took her through the usual imagery-progression, his deep and soothing voice guiding her into and through an imaginary landscape.

“You’re on a soft, dirt path beside a cool stream, and you pause for a bit to listen to the water splashing over the rocks,” he said. “You see a leaf, caught on the surface of the water—it’s like a tiny ship—and you follow its progress as it sails downstream, caught for an instant against a rock, and then spinning free into the current. You watch it until it disappears around a bend and then look at the water—its miraculous texture, so smooth and silky as it rolls over the pebbles of the streambed.”

Nico frowned momentarily as he led her away from the stream, and winced slightly as she followed his instruction to crouch and duck under some “spiky” branches. Her brow furrowed with effort as she made her way through the “dense” vegetation. And then her faint and blissful smile returned as she crossed a meadow on a path that was “soft and spongy” under her feet.

“There’s a light breeze on your cheeks. It lifts your hair and bends the grass…”

As she was told, she opened a small white gate and walked down several flights of lichen-covered steps, descending through a dappled shade to a secluded pool. There, she sat on a fallen trunk of a moss-encrusted oak, watching the sunlight “sift through the trees and dance on the water.” Nico’s left hand rolled over the side of the couch, trailing against the rug, dipping into the cool water.

She was in her “safe place,” where nothing and no one could hurt her. Duran watched her chest rise and fall as he began to regress her. “Let’s go back,” he said. “To when you were a girl.”

“I am a girl.”

“A little girl. Twelve… eleven… ten. Do you remember?”

She shifted uncomfortably on the couch, and nodded. Duran was a few feet away, leaning forward in a wing chair, amazed at the way her face had changed, the wised-up and guarded neutrality giving way to a look of sweet and energetic innocence. She was a child again, and even her voice was childlike.

“Where are we?” he asked.

“South Carolina.”

“At your foster parents’?”

“Umm-hmmm. In our house. It’s a big white house, way out in the boonies.”

“Tell me about it.”

“You know.”

“Tell me again.”

Her brow furrowed. “It has columns. Big old white columns. Like rich people. Only the paint’s all peeling and you can see they’re not really solid—just slats of wood, glued together. And now they’re coming apart. So maybe—maybe it’s going to fall down.”

“What is?” Duran asked.

“The porch.”

“Okay… what else?”

“Trees.”

“What trees?”

“There are trees. Live oaks. The house is at the end of a little road—”

“A long driveway,” he corrected.

“‘A long driveway,’ with life oaks on both sides.”

“Live oaks,” he corrected.

“Right. That’s what they call them—except they don’t really look alive. They look old and dead. And everybody thinks they’re wonderful. Except me.”

“You don’t like them?”

“No. I’m scared of them!”

“Why?”

“Because…”

“Because of what?”

“They’re creepy.”

“‘Creepy’? What do you mean, they’re creepy?”

“On account of the cobwebs.”

“You mean the Spanish moss,” Duran told her.

“Unh-huh.”

“And what else?” he asked.

Nico’s brows furrowed as she thought about it. Finally, she shook her head.

“Didn’t Deck do something with the moss?” Duran asked.

Once again, she shifted on the couch. After a moment, she nodded. “Mmmm-hmmm.”

“What did he do?”

She turned her head toward the cushions. “He put it in his hair on the shadow-nights.”

Duran nodded. “‘And it was like’—what was it like?”

“Cobwebs.”

He leaned closer to her. “Tell me about Deck,” he said.

“I don’t like Deck,” she exclaimed. Suddenly, her eyes flew open, and she started to sit up. “But—you can’t tell him!”

“I won’t.”

“Promise!”

“I will. I do. Now, lay back. Close your eyes. You’re safe here.” Duran could see that she was beginning to hyperventilate. “It’s just you and me, and the wind and the stream and… Okay?”

She nodded.

After a while, he returned to the subject. “Why don’t you like Deck?”

She was silent for upwards of a minute, her chest rising and falling. Duran waited patiently for the answer, his eyes on her lips. Finally, she blurted out the words: “Because of what he does!”

“And what’s that?”

Nico squirmed. “He pretends we’re going to church with our friends, but it isn’t a church that we go to—it’s just a tunnel under the basement—”

“And what happens there?”

Nico’s body became very still. Then she shook her head.

“Didn’t you make movies, sometimes?”

She nodded.

“Tell me about the movies,” Duran said.

Nico frowned, then rolled over onto her side, so that she was facing away from Duran, with her eyes on the back of the couch. “I can’t,” she said.

“You can’t?”

She shook her head.

“Why not?” Duran asked.

“Because I just can’t.”

“You can’t remember any of them?”

Once again, she shook her head.

“But… I remember one,” Duran told her. “Wasn’t there one where… where you got married?”

Reluctantly, Nico nodded and, as she did, Duran saw her stubbornness dissolve into a mix of apprehension and unhappiness.

“So let’s go back to that,” Duran suggested. “The wedding. Tell me about the wedding.”

And so she did. Under Duran’s guidance, Nico recounted her older sister’s death in a pornographic film that starred the two of them, with a younger sister playing a supportive role. This was territory that Nico and Duran had visited often. It was the heart of the matter for Nico, and coming to grips with it was vital.

“I’m all in white,” she said breathlessly. “Dressed as a bride with a long train, and a bouquet of flowers.”

“What kind of flowers?”

“Baby’s breath and red roses,” she answered without hesitation. “And ferns. Rosanna is the groom—which is silly, because she’s a girl.”

“What’s she wearing?” Duran asked.

“A black tuxedo with a red carnation. She looks so beautiful! Adrienne is the ring bearer.”