Hypnotizing Maria

past her airplane, climbing.
    “Nice landing,” he said. “You’re an awfully good pilot.”
    She didn’t reply.
    He watched down over his shoulder as the ambulance sped onto the runway behind her. It slowed as her airplane slowed, then stopped, doors flying open. The fire truck, red and square, trundled along behind, unneeded.
    As the control tower had enough to keep it busy, he said nothing more. In less than a minute his airplane was out of sight toward North Platte.



CHAPTER THREE
    T he story from the newspaper was pinned on the bulletin board at North Platte Lee Bird airport next morning: Pilot Stricken , Wife Lands Plane.
    Jamie Forbes frowned at that. “Wife” equals “nonpilot.” It’s going to take a while, he thought, for folks to understand there’s lots of women out there licensed pilots, and more every day.
    After the headline, though, the reporter told the story fairly straight. When her husband collapsed in the air, Maria Ochoa, 63, thought he had died; she was frightened, called for help, et cetera.
    Then he read this: “I never could’ve landed by myself, but the man in the other plane said I could. I swear to God he hypnotized me, right in the air. ‘Pretend you’re an airline pilot.’ I pretended because I don’t know how to fly. But when I woke up, the airplane had landed safe!”
    The story said her husband had suffered a stroke and would recover.
    Airline-captain role play works well for students, he thought, it always has.
    He stumbled, though, on what she had said. Hypnotized her? He walked to the airport café for breakfast, wondering hypnotism, remembering thirty years gone as though it had been yesterday.



CHAPTER FOUR
    H e had taken a seat in an aisle up front, row A, expecting when Blacksmyth the Great called for volunteers from the audience, he might be asked.
    Near the end of the show, it felt like fun to step up to the stage, though he doubted he could be hypnotized and wouldn’t be chosen. Two others, man and woman, joined him there.
    Blacksmyth the hypnotist, distinguished in white tie and tuxedo but friendly of voice and manner, asked the three to stand in a row and they did, facing the audience. Jamie Forbes was on the end closest to stage center.
    The showman stepped behind the volunteers, touched the woman on the shoulder, pulling her gently off balance. She took a step back to regain it.
    He did the same to the next in line, and the man stepped back, as well.
    Forbes resolved to be different. When the hypnotist s hand touched his shoulder, he tilted with the pressure, trusting that the man wouldn’t have much of a show if he let his subject fall over on stage.
    Blacksmyth caught him at once, thanked the other volunteers and dismissed them to a round of applause.
    Things had gone too far. “I’m sorry,” Jamie whispered while the sounds died away, “but I can’t be hypnotized.”
    “Oh,” replied the performer, softly. “Then what are you doing on this planet?”
    The hypnotist paused, saying nothing, and began to smile at Jamie Forbes. A murmur of laughter from audience—what was going to happen to this poor subject?
    Just now the subject felt sorry for the entertainer, thought better of walking off-stage, and decided that he might as well play along. He had warned the man, but there was no cause to embarrass him in front of a thousand paying customers.
    “What is your name, sir?” the hypnotist asked, loud enough for all to hear.
    “Jamie.”
    “Jamie, have we met?” he asked. “Have we ever seen each other before this evening?”
    “No sir, we have not.”
    “That is correct. Now Jamie,” he said, “let’s you and me take a little walk in our minds. You see these seven steps ahead of us, we’ll go down the steps together. Together we’ll go down the steps; down, down, deeper, deeper ...”
    Jamie Forbes didn’t notice the steps at first. They must have been plastic or balsa wood, painted to look like stone, and he walked them down with the hypnotist, step by step. He wondered how the audience could see the show when the volunteer was going to wind up practically underneath the stage, but concluded that was Blacksmyth’s problem. He must have some scheme with mirrors.
    At the bottom of the steps was a heavy wooden door. Blacksmyth asked him to step through, and when he did, closed the door behind him. His voice came clearly through the walls, describing for the audience what Jamie saw before him: an empty stone room, no doors, no