The Second Coming by John Dalmas

“But it’s a cult, right?”

She nodded.

“Define cult for me. Your own definition.”

“What good would that do?”

“Well then, let me try. A cult is a group that has beliefs falling outside those of the group that calls it a cult.”

“Oh cut it out, Ben!” Her voice was sharp, angry. “That’s sophistry!” She paused, frowning, the anger suddenly sagging. “You know, I can almost accept the stuff about past lives, even if it’s not true. If it works in therapy, as apparently it does—if it helps people—then a person can make some sort of case for it. But the rest of it—overleaves and the rest of it—that’s cult crap!”

His nod was acknowledgement, not agreement. “Nominally my mother was Catholic,” he said, “and my dad Jewish, but so far as I could figure out, they were actually somewhere between agnostic and deist. So it’s hard for me to really get your point of view. What were you taught in church and Sunday school?”

She took a deep breath, and exhaled through pursed lips. Beneath the surface of her consciousness, memories of lessons flickered. Hell and heaven, loaves and fishes, wine out of water. The Red Sea parting, the pillar of fire . . .

She spoke without looking at him. “I remember the last service I attended in my parents’ church,” she said quietly, “the church I grew up in. I was home from college, on spring break. After that I always found a reason not to attend—which brought me some lectures from my parents, believe me.”

She raised her eyes to Ben’s. “The preacher was new since the last time I’d been there.” Her voice was little more than a whisper. “He was an older man named Holst, and he opened the sermon with a story of his first parish. There was a young girl in the town who wanted to go to church, but her father wouldn’t let her. She begged him, but he wouldn’t change his mind. Then she got leukemia, and he still wouldn’t let her go. Finally one day her mother called the preacher. She told him her husband was away, and asked him please to come at once.”

Lee’s lips twisted. “The way he told it, the girl was dying when he got there, screaming ‘My feet are burning! My feet are burning!’ He’d gotten there too late.”

Eyes blazing with anger now, she continued, almost hissing the words. “That asshole! He told us she was descending into hell because her father hadn’t let her go to church!”

Lee sagged then, and for a moment said nothing more. When she did, the intensity was gone. “I don’t know whether he actually believed it or not. Maybe he did, and couldn’t help himself.”

She inhaled deeply, and sighed. “Most preachers would probably puke at a story like that. At least I’d like to think they would. But it really really got to me.”

Ben smiled gently. “I can see it did.”

“Huh!” The sound was half chuckle. “You noticed!” She straightened. “I’ll admit I never heard anything so repulsive from Reverend Haener when he was there. And our Sunday school teachers never told us anything approaching that. But compared to some of the things they did tell us, overleaves may turn out to be pretty mundane.

“So,” she said, “explain overleaves to me.”

“Hmm. Overleaves are parts of the basic personality.”

“Like . . .” She paused, fishing up a memory—something Raquel had said. “Like ‘old sage in passion mode’?”

Ben grinned. “That’s part of a set, yes.”

“Why are you grinning?”

“I’m thinking of Raquel. It’s a perfect fit.”

“Why not just say ‘personality’? Or ‘personality element’? Instead of confusing people with new terms?”

“Because the term personality hasn’t been functionally defined. It means different things to different people. That’s confusing. Overleaves are explicitly defined, and come without baggage. And they explain a lot of phenomena.”

“Why call them overleaves though?”

“I suppose because they overlie the soul, in a manner of speaking.”

Lee frowned. It was time, she decided, to nail this down.

* * *

Half an hour later they came out of the kitchen. She was far from sold on overleaves, but at least they weren’t alarming anymore. She could even see how observations could lead to the theory. So instead of going to the girls’ room, it was the phone she went to. She dialed, waited a moment, then spoke. “Hello, Susan, this is Lee. May I . . . may I come over and talk awhile? Privately? Something’s come up. . . . Thanks. I’ll be right there.”

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