Human Sister

first there were a couple of involuntary jerks—followed by his silent, raised eyebrows—but I kept calming myself and trying to accept my difficult new friends, the painful sensations.
    Now, six years later, there was a new job to be performed. Would I be able to tolerate the much greater pain of this algetor thing to protect Michael?
    “Yes,” I said, feeling both determined and apprehensive.
    “I’m glad you think so. And you’re probably right. But ‘probably’ isn’t good enough when it comes to protecting Michael’s life. We have to make every effort to be certain.”
    “Can you teach me?”
    “Indeed I can. For you, it will be easy. You are young, and you already are able to dissociate to an unusual degree the conscious parts of your mind from the parts processing sensory inputs and emotional responses.”
    Grandpa was referring to my ability to relive past events at will, even more vividly when I was a young girl, it seems, than I can now. I’d simply focus on the gray outline of a remembered scene, or on the sound of a word someone had spoken, or on the prick or tingle of a sensation, and then, suddenly, the wispy gossamer of memory would flash into bright realism and I’d experience the remembered event almost as if it were happening anew.
    “You mean my daydreams will seem even more real?” I asked.
    “Not exactly. Your daydreams are already quite real enough. Our purpose in having you learn to dissociate yourself from sensory inputs is so that you can block out the words, threats, and pain that might be used in an attempt to force open the doors to your mind where Michael’s secret lives.”
    Grandpa sighed. When he resumed speaking, all enthusiasm had drained from his voice. “The second step necessitates your having to work, at your own pace, with an algetor.”
    “You can get one?”
    “No. I’ll have to make one. I evaluated several designs a few years ago. When I evaluated them, I learned how they work. I should be able to recreate one here for you to use. It’ll take a little time to get some of the components, quietly, without raising suspicion. In the meanwhile, I’ll teach you how to hypnotize yourself. Would you like me to hypnotize you so you can see what it’s like?”
    “Right now?”
    “Yes. It’ll be easy for you. I’m quite certain of that. And you’ll enjoy it.”
    He told me to remember everything he was about to say and do, and everything I was about to feel as he took me through a standard protocol of hypnotic suggestions developed to assess hypnotic responsiveness. He had me relax the muscles in my right foot, then, in order, my right leg, left foot and leg, right hand, right arm, left hand and arm. On his suggestion, my legs and arms became heavy. My shoulders, neck, and head relaxed and also became heavy. I sank more deeply into the chair, as if I were drowsy, but I remained alert to what he was saying. He had me count slowly down from five, telling me that with each number I spoke I would become ever more relaxed and that when I reached one, nothing would disturb me.
    “Two, one…” He was right: The relaxation I felt at that moment was deeper than any I’d experienced. It seemed limitless and blissful. I felt as though I was nothing more than an aware conduit for Grandpa’s suggestions.
    He told me to stretch out my arms and hands in front of me. He said there was a force pushing my hands together—and an irresistible force did just that. He said my arms were becoming so heavy I could no longer hold them up—and they sank, leaden, onto my lap. He said Lily was there just as she had been when I was three—and she was there: a soft, white, whimpering bundle of love I cuddled and petted while she tickled my cheek with her wet little nose and breathed on me her milky puppy breath.
    Over the next few days, Grandpa taught me how to induce the hypnosis myself. He told me to pick an image I found relaxing, focus on it, then count down from five, progressively becoming more relaxed and more focused on the image and my breathing until, at the count of one, everything except the image and my breathing was gone.
    The relaxing image I chose was of a grape leaf, one with an intricate pattern of venation as seen from below while it floated green and carefree in a deep blue sky frosted with cirrus clouds. This was no ordinary grape leaf; it was a huge magic leaf that during many of my daydreams had swooped down out of a mare’s-tail sky to carry me off