She glanced at the broken pen and then at his face. “It doesn’t matter. The pen was of no great value, and I have others.” She began to replace the books in their proper slots on the shelf. “Would you please close the door? We shall not be disturbed for the next two hours.”
Quentin shut the door and leaned against it. “The other patients?”
“Each has his or her own schedule of chores and rest periods, and we generally have our exercise in the late afternoon, before dinner.”
“All very… systematic.”
She turned to him, propping her arms on the desk. “I find it works best with the mentally afflicted. Order is soothing to the troubled mind.”
And to yours, Quentin thought. At the moment, he’d gladly take a little of that soothing himself. He left the safety of the door as if he were walking into the mouth of hell. “How does one go about this hypnosis? Does it involve the laying on of hands?”
“No touching is necessary. It is not mesmerism, with the making of passes over the body.”
“A pity.” His hands dangled like useless things at his sides, and his mouth was cotton-dry. “What do you want me to do?”
“I have found that a subject is in the most receptive state when fully relaxed,” she said, drawing the drapes at the window. The room dimmed to twilight. “Please make yourself comfortable on the chaise longue.”
Quentin sat down, hesitated, and swung his legs along the length of the chaise. Johanna pulled her chair from behind her desk and set it a few feet away from the foot of the chaise.
“I will briefly explain what we are about to do.” She sat in the chair as straight-backed as the most rigorous arbiter of propriety, hands folded in her lap. “The man who first recognized the science of hypnosis was a Scottish physician by the name of Braid, who wrote that the hypnotic trance, into which I am about to induct you, is the result of a mental state of concentration in which all external distractions are excluded. In this state, the mind is receptive to ideas, even memories, that are ignored or forgotten by the conscious mind. As I explained once before, my father learned that it is possible under these conditions for the physician to introduce corrective thoughts and suggestions the mind would not routinely accept.” She drew in a deep breath and clasped her hands. “I shall guide you into that state with the use of specific techniques.”
It sounded a trifle too much like the sort of thing Braden had been known to do with the servants at Greybum, the Forsters’ ancestral estate in Northumberland. But that was no “science of hypnosis,” not something an ordinary human could manage. A man like Braden could overcome the very will of another, force him to forget rather than remember—a werewolf skill Quentin had lost somewhere along the way.
“Hypnosis also requires a kind of partnership between the doctor and the patient,” Johanna said. “There is nothing to fear in it.”
“Do you mean that you can’t order me to do something against my will?” Quentin asked lightly. “Perform Hamlet’s soliloquy while standing on my head?”
She smiled. “That is correct, as far as I have observed. That is why you must wish to be helped. Not all can be hypnotized. But your ability to go into a spontaneous trance, as you did yesterday, is an excellent sign.” Her smile faded. “If you trust me. You must trust me, and give yourself into my hands. Can you do that, Quentin?”
Wasn’t that what he’d been asking himself all along?
He met her gaze, all levity gone from his voice and his thoughts. “Yes, Johanna. I believe I can.”
She blinked, as if taken aback by his sincerity, and he let himself become just a little intoxicated by the remarkable clarity of her eyes. Like a quiet ocean, they were—never troubled by more than the gentlest of waves. How would a man go about awakening their first real storm?
Surely it wasn’t his imagination that she looked back at him with the same expectant wonder…