Nifty is a free site, but still requires funds to continue operating. Please provide a donation at https://donate.nifty.org/
This story is 100% fictional. Any resemblances to actual people (living or dead), organizations or companies, events are entirely coincidental.
Comments are welcomed and would be very much appreciated.
Asterisk (*) will be used for past events, dreams and thoughts.
A/N: I don't really believe in reincarnation but I find the subject very interesting and I got some knowledge in hypnotherapy. So apologies if I get something wrong and don't hesitate to correct me.
...... . ......
Chapter 06
The tree-lined boulevard invites the eyes to appreciate every detail of the place. Centennial trees bent high above. Flowers falling to the ground form colorful carpets. It reminds me of Wolkenberg. Of Kevin. Of the dream.
I've changed. Yes, I'm definitely not the same man I was two days ago. I'm looking for answers. I want solutions. But more than anything, I want to take away the fear I saw in Kevin's eyes. I wonder if I can.
I park the car in front of Dr. Hoffman's clinic. The place, a little bit far from the city centre, is part of an old neighborhood in Berlin. I admire the brick houses with small gardens. They all have a cozy aspect.
"What a nice place." I think out loud.
I'm used to see doctors in commercial and tall modern buildings. In contrast, Hoffman's clinic looks nice, with small door steps surrounded by plants leading to the polished wooden door.
I only managed to get an appointment by sheer luck. I called the number on the card on my way back to Berlin from Wolkenberg. Dr. Hoffman's agenda was already full. I insisted and his secretary said she would call me if one of the patients cancel their appointment. And they did. I got the appointment.
Hoffman opens the door as soon as I ring the bell. He's a man in his early fifties, good-looking and a little overweight. Wearing a white shirt and jeans, he's a far cry from what I expected.
"Hello, I'm Dr. Hoffman." he says, holding out his hand.
"Nikolas Dietrich, nice to meet you." I reply, shaking his hand.
We enter the house. He shows me a staircase. We go up to a large room furnished in a cozy manner. There's a sofa and two armchair, which gives the room an informal look. A table, with papers and books scattered on it. And of course, as I expected, a chaise longue. There's also a glass wall leading to a balcony that gives view to a colorful garden.
The doctor asks me to sit. I hesitate for a moment looking at the chaise lounge. In a way, I'm there as patient, but I don't know if I want to feel like one. So I decide to sink into a wide, comfortable leather armchair. Hoffman sits down in another, in front of me.
"My secretary told me that Julia has recommended me to you."
"Yes," I answer. "I've known her since she and Tim began dating. I was their best man." I'm at a loss to broach the subject that brought me there. I decide to speak at once, "She only recently told me about her phobia, and that you helped her."
Hoffman smiles. "People who have these types of unexplainable phobias and use hypnotherapy to cure it don't usually comment on it." he says.
"Why? It's not really something so bad you should be ashamed of."
"Yes, you're correct. But there are certain things in life that you shouldn't talk about too much." he explains. "During our section, we found out that Julia's phobia comes from the past, not her childhood, but further back. Another life. And many people don't believe in past lives. Those who have memories from another life prefer to be left in peace, without having to polemicize or having to prove anything to anyone."
I nod, "That's probably the reason why Julia never told me about her experience with you. Nor Tim, who always tells me everything. To be honest, I have never been that deeply interested in the subject."
"Are you religious Mr. Dietrich?" the doctor wants to know.
"Not really. But my father was. He told me once when he was a young, he liked to go to the church a lot. He was fascinated by the Latin rituals. When I was born, he wanted me to join the seminary."
"But you didn't join." It's more of a statement than a question.
"My mom didn't let me. She wouldn't let me talk about it. She didn't even want me get baptized. She didn't like to go to church. She always said that she felt trapped and suffocated inside the cathedral."
"Interesting," Hoffman comments. "Julia obviously felt the need to tell you about her experience. And she gave you my card. What was the reason?"
"Well, she didn't really go into details about her experience. She just told me that you helped her overcoming her phobia and that she believes you can help me with my case."
"Which is?"
"I don't know what's happening to me," I confess. I tell him about my dreams. The sleepless nights. The anguish on waking up.
"Is it always the same dream?" he asks.
"So far, yes. Except for last one. Last night I dreamed not about the young man's death, but about the moment I met him for the first time." I take a deep breath and confess, almost in a whisper. The doctor observes me in silence. "There's something else."
"Tell me." he says gently.
"I met him. In real life. He looks different, yes, but I'm one hundred percent sure it's him." After that, I pour everything out. The meeting with Kevin. Him running away from me. The second time I saw him. His sister, who in my dreams is the girl trying to save him from the fire. "I know it doesn't make sense. To tell you the truth, I have no idea why I'm so sure that Kevin is the same man in my dreams. I just know." I smile awkwardly. "It's an absurd, isn't it?"
Hoffman shakes his head. "No. Not at all. On the contrary, it's perfectly logical." His reply thrills me.
"How can someone I only know in my dreams really exist?" I question.
"Life is much more mysterious than most people think. To understand what you are living without considering yourself crazy, you have to open yourself to other possibilities." Quickly, he tells me about his training as a psychiatrist. And about his interest in past lives and therapeutic hypnosis. "I was amazed that conventional treatment was completely useless in some cases. In phobias, for example. There seemed to be a deeper cause, which I couldn't reach. After I started working with therapeutic hypnosis, I noticed a rapid evolution in the patients' conditions."
The doctor then goes on to talk about his discovery of past life therapy. "Julia wasn't the first patient I had with a phobia she didn't know the cause of. But she was the most interesting one. She was unable to get into a swimming pool. Even in a bathtub. She cried and shivered in front of a lake. She also had severe respiratory problems." He crosses his legs, remembering Julia's case. "I wanted to help her in any way I could. I decided to try a hypnosis treatment. Do you know anything about it?"
"Not much." I reply.
"The patient is induced into a sleepiness state," he explains. "Contrary to popular belief, a person in this situation, despite being very susceptible to what the hypnotist says, is incapable of doing anything against themselves or their moral principles. During hypnosis, it's possible to relive experiences from the past. Personally, I believed that Julia's problems, including physical ones, might be the result of a childhood trauma that she suppressed over time. I put her into a hypnotic state and had her regress back to her childhood. But we couldn't find anything there that could cause her phobia. So I asked her to go back even further in time. I hoped to discover something. Anything. Perhaps in her first days of life. But to my surprise she went even further back. She spoke with a different voice tone and in a dialect I could barely understand. I asked where she was. She gave the name of a village that I didn't recognize. She described her clothes and the people around her. Her references seemed very old. Many of them I couldn't identify." He pauses.
"What happened next?" I ask curious.
"I woke her up. We marked our next appointment and said goodbye. My first action was to try to locate the village she referred to. I couldn't find it. But that didn't mean anything. It could've disappeared, or become a town with another name. I searched for days, in vain. Then I consulted a historian. He told me that it did indeed existed, but not much is known of it. The village was destroyed and ceased to exist since the 16th century."
I'm impressed by what he's telling me. "Before the start of the next session, I asked Julia new questions. I asked her about the village and how much she knew about it." He continues, "but as I expected, she didn't even know that village existed until our first session and I could see that she was telling the truth. So once again I put her into a hypnotic trance. Again she described in details things around her."
"And the phobia of water, was there an explanation for it?" I ask.
The doctor nods, "During the hypnotic trance we came to the moment of her death in this previous life," he says. "One night she was accused of stealing. She was tied up and taken to a nearby castle. The local nobleman agreed to the execution. She was thrown from the top of the tower. She fell into the waters of the moat, trapped by the ropes. Unable to save herself. She drowned."
"That's terrible!" I can't control the tone of my voice. I almost scream.
"Many of us had terrible lives in the past." explains Hoffman. "That's why we have so many fears, so many unexplained reactions, even illnesses."
Now I understand why Julia or even Tim never told anything. They also probably thought I wouldn't believe them.
"You know, when Julia woke up, I was sure she would be scared or terrified. But the surprising thing happened. She actually felt much better. The memories of a previous life had freed her in the current one. During the following sessions, the shortness of breath gradually disappeared. The fear of water, too." The doctor smiles. "Amazingly enough, she has even learned to swim."
"About my case... In the dream, I promise to love this guy forever. It's strange, because I have never really fallen in love." I comment.
"Have you ever thought that you might be bound by this promise made in another life? Maybe this is why you are incapable of opening yourself to love." He observes.
"What if it's just my imagination?" I ask. Even after all I heard about Julia and have met Kevin and Heidi, I'm still searching for a rational explanation for what I'm experiencing.
"Would you like to try hypnosis and evaluate?" he suggests.
I want to find out. But I need to be honest with Hoffman. I need to open my heart. My mind. My soul. To strip away the shame I have to talk about my feelings. So I take a deep breath before talking, "Ever since I met Kevin, I haven't stopped thinking about him. Not for an instant. His reaction to me was very bad. It was horror, disgust. But whenever I think about him, my heart races. And yesterday, when I was with my Marco, my partner, I felt like I was out of place. I didn't want to be there with him. Which is weird because before going to Wolkenberg, I was planning in marrying him. We have fun, we get along very well. And I need someone by my side. Someone I can go home to." I look at the doctor, "I didn't want to admit it even to myself, but I don't want this someone to be Marco anymore. I want them to be Kevin." I confess.
"As I understand it, you have transported the love from the other life to this one."
"I guess so."
"That makes sense..."
"What do you mean?"
"You promised to love Kevin forever. They were vivid, intense words that crossed eternity. Your soul wants to keep its promise," explains the psychiatrist. "There's one thing I have seen with countless patients. The bonds of love are stronger than time."
If until this moment I had any doubts, Dr. Hoffman's words put an end to them. I want to decipher this mystery. So I ask him to hypnotize me.
I lay down on the couch. He induces me to relax. Little by little, his voice become more distant. My eyelids flutter, as if touched by a slight charge of electricity. In a moment, they become heavy. And I feel myself sinking into a dark world.
"Nikolas, you're going back a few years." I hear Hoffman's voice.
I'm in university. I'm looking at the old walls of the building. I receive the news of my father's death. Tim hugs me. I cry, thinking about the last time I saw him and now I won't ever see him again.
Encouraged by Dr. Hoffman, I go back further. I'm twelve. It's my birthday. My grandma baked a cake for me. It's just me, her, my sister, and my mom, annoyed by the small celebration. I want to blow out a candle. There isn't one.
"This is all nonsense." says my mom.
It hurts. On my sister's birthdays, she would spend even the money we didn't have to get her cakes and gifts. I didn't usually get gifts either, and this time is no different.
My grandma finds an ordinary candle. She cleans it and places it in the middle of the cake. The three of us sing a dull Happy Birthday song. It's a joyless birthday. Just like all of them. I feel like crying. I want to ask my mother what I never had the courage to ask, "Mom, why don't you like me?"
I go back even further into the past. I'm six years old. My father is leaving. Before he leaves, he rests his suitcase on the floor and hugs me. "Be strong. Take care of your mother and your sister. You are the man of the house now."
I can't cry. I just feel an immense anguish invading my chest. My mother is behind me. With her arms crossed. She doesn't cry either. She doesn't ask my father to stay. She lets him go, closes the door and tells me to go to my room.
Dr. Hoffman's voice comes from far, far away. I barely hear it. "Now you're going back even further in time, Nikolas."
My brain plunges even deeper into darkness. I can't feel my body. I stay for a long time feeling protected in a cocoon. There's no images. Only an immense peace. Then I hear noises. Screams.
It's nigh time. I'm holding someone's hand. We're running. Actually, I'm running and dragging them with me while they are trying to free themselves from my grip.
"Conrad, please stop." They say. "I need to go back to..."
"No." I stop, but still holding their hand tightly. I look at them. I can't see their face. They are wearing a long dark hooded cloak, almost covering all of their head. "You can't go back. They are coming here. They cannot find you. You'll stay in a hidden place until they find the which that killed my father."
The person removes the hood, reveling their face. It's dream-Kevin. He looks angrily and hurt at me. "Mother Kunegunde isn't a witch."
"Yes, she is. And you're not safe with her."
"Yes I am. And I'm not leaving her behind." He says trying once again to free his wrist from my grip.
"Listen to me, Johann. That woman poisoned and killed my father. She made him believe it was a medicine..."
"It is a medicine. I helped her making it..."
My grip on his wrist loosens. "What?"
"I don't believe she killed the Grand duke, but even if she did, I'm sure there is a good reason for it. And I won't leave her behind."
Disappointment fills my heart as I hear those words. I let go of him at same time I see soldiers coming our way.
"Your grace, are you alright?" One of the soldiers asks. I just look at dream-Kevin, - no, Johann - being taken by the soldiers.
"We found where the witch is hidden, please come with me your grace."
We go to a inn. It's an old wooden house in the woods. The soldiers search the rooms. They throw out beds, mattresses, pots, bottles, clothes.
"Find the old witch!" The captain of the guard commands.
I stay outside with him and the rest of the soldiers. Not long an old woman screams as she's dragged to me. She's struggling in the hands of the soldiers. She's thin. Pale skin. Long, shaggy gray hair. I look at her with disgust. This is the woman Johann is risking is life for...
"Kneel down!" The captain orders.
She struggles even more. She tries to run away. A soldier slaps her. A priest enters the inn, sprinkling holy water with a aspergillum as he goes. I follow behind.
There are bundles of dried herbs. Jars with viscous liquids. A snake preserved inside a glass. The priest holds out a book of primitive scribbles and drawings.
We leave the inn. The witch is tied behind a horse. Just as we are ready to leave, someone runs up to us. "Mother Kunegunde! Mother Kunegunde!" It's Heidi. She throws herself at my feet. "Please Your Grace. She's innocent. Let me take her place." She pleads.
For an instant, I feel like saying yes. Then I turn away, I don't want to be disturbed. The betrayal, disappointment and hurt caused by Johann darkens my heart.
So I leave. The witch tied to the horse's saddle by her wrists, howls in pain.
The image fades. Again I find myself surrounded by darkness. But not for long. I see myself in a dark room, lit by a few torches. The old woman is tied to a table with pulleys. A priest pours holy water over her to prevent the devil from entering her body and giving her the strength to face us.
Around me, some monks invoked the Most High. I step closer to her, "Why did you kill the Grand duke?" I ask. She doesn't respond. "Why did you kill my father?" I ask once again.
"That man..." She starts, her voice is weak. Almost a whisper, "is evil..."
I open my mouth to reply to that, but the priest talks first, "The only evil being in here is you. You slept with the devil and had his child." He raises his cross, "and because of your sin, God is punishing our land."
"Johann..." She wispers, "please spare him..."
She tries to look at me but the priest orders the pulleys to be moved. The sides of the table come apart, stretching the woman's body. She screams even louder. I do nothing. I just stand there, watching.
She looks at me. Our eyes make contact, "please... Save him..." She pleads. Her blue eyes filled with sorrow.
I recognize her face. She was reborn in the modern world with another identity. She's my mother.