Page 127 of The Last Session

She nodded. “I know this must be a lot to process.”

My stomach growled. Moon held the banana up, and after a second I took it with my left hand and bit. The sweetness filled my mouth.

“Everyone goes through this.” She watched me. “The period of resistance. I went through it once too. But when you get to the other side, you feel so much better. Everything makes sense. All the pain lightens when you know it’s not your fault. It’s just your pattern.”

I picked up a piece of toast. “That sounds nice.” I said it sarcastically, but Moon nodded fervently.

“It’s like waking up. You’re finally living in alignment with your authentic self.”

And your authentic self has a fake accent?The words were on the tip of my tongue, but I held them in. I needed to do everything I could to get Moon on my side, to change her mind.

“For me, it was always a question.” She stared at me with her signatureexpression: I’d thought of it as intense, but now it looked deranged. “I had these impulses that didn’t make sense to me. I was a yoga teacher, trying to help people, trying to bring more peace and love into the world. But every so often I would just get this urge to destroy. To say something hurtful. To laugh at someone’s pain. Once I realized my past life pattern, it all fell into place.”

“Okay.” I tried to sound thoughtful. “Or maybe you’re just human. Everyone has aggressive impulses. And the more we push them down, the more they come up.”

“I was a murderer, Thea. And that thread still runs through me.” She heaved a sigh. “This is my opportunity to atone for my mistakes.”

“By harming more people?”

“By facilitating a sacrifice that will help the human race leap forward. Do you know how slowly humans evolve? The soul patterns we bring with us from lifetime to lifetime—they take so long to break. There aren’t many of these opportunities. I’m not going to let you waste it.” She held up a forkful of omelet, which I awkwardly took.

“I thought it was my choice?” I asked.

“It is. But you already said yes. And if you’d had enough time here, to fully open yourself up to the process, you’d go as willingly as Grace. But this is supposed to happen on the equinox.” Her eyes glittered. “I can feel it.”

Reasoning with her wasn’t helping. So I tried a different tack. “How did this all start? When did you meet Catherine?”

“LA.” Moon crossed one leg over the other, jiggling her slipper-encased foot. “She was really suffering over the death of her friend Sebastian Smith. I helped her, but it wasn’t until we moved here that I realized what my role really was.”

To throw her in a hole.

“So Catherine was—she went in that portal, too, right?” I asked.

“She did.” Moon nodded.

“Willingly?”

“Oh yes.”

I remembered Catherine’s anger at the hospital, her screams.You tricked me! How could you do that to me?

Moon was lying. Catherine had not gone willingly.

“And then,” I prompted, “she just appeared?”

Moon’s smile slid off her face. “I know you’re trying to get informationto save yourself, Thea. But I’m confident the portal will take you. So: yes. We had no idea until we started seeing headlines that she was hospitalized in New York.”

“How did she get there?”

“No idea. But it doesn’t matter.” Moon studied me. “She came right home.”

Because you left her no choice.

She stood. “I need to see to preparations for tonight.”

“Wait.” You weren’t really supposed to point out a person’s delusions to them, but I’d run out of options.

“What if this is all in your head?” I asked. “I work with people who experience this type of thing. One patient was convinced he had to save the world from aliens. You need help, Moon. You—”