Free The Secrets of Dr. Taverner by Dion Fortune Page B

trouble. I wonder whether you are aware of the mental processes that precede birth? Just before birth the soul sees a cinematograph film (as it were) of its future life; not all the details, but the broad outlines which are determined by its fate; these things it cannot alter, but according to its reaction to them, so will its future lives be planned. Thus it is that although we cannot alter our fate in this life, our future lies entirely in our own hands.
     
    "Now we know the record, we can guess what manner of fate lies upon this girl. She owes a life debt to a man and a woman; the suffering she caused recoils upon her. There is no need for a specialized hell; each soul builds its own."
     
    "But she is not suffering," I said; "she is merely in a passive condition. The only one who suffers is the mother."
     
    "Ah," said Taverner, "therein lies the crux of the whole matter. When she had that brief glimpse of what lay before her, she rebelled against her fate and tried to repudiate her debt; her soul refused to take up the heavy burden. It was this momentary flash of knowledge which gave her eyes their strange, unchildlike look which so startled her mother."
     
    "Do people always have this foreknowledge?" I asked.
     
    "They always have that glimpse, but its memory usually
     
    lies dormant. Some people have vague premonitions, however, and occult training tends to recover these lost memories, together with others belonging to previous lives."
     
    "Having found out the cause of Miss Cailey's trouble, what can you do to cure her?"
     
    "Very little," said Taverner. "I can only wait and watch her. When the time is ripe for the settlement of the balance, the other actors in the old tragedy will come along and unconsciously claim the payment of their debt. She will be given the opportunity of making restitution and going on her way fate-free. If she is unable to fulfil it, then she will be taken out of life and rapidly forced back into it again for another attempt, but I think (since she has been brought to me) her soul is to be given another chance of entering its body. We will see."
     
    I often used to watch Mona Cailey after she was installed at the Hindhead nursing home. In spite of its masklike expressionlessness, her face had character. The clearly cut features, firm mouth, and fine eyes were fitting abode for a soul of no ordinary calibre--only that soul was not present.
     
    It was Taverner's expectation that the other actors in the drama would appear upon the scene before very long, brought to the girl's vicinity by those strange currents that are for ever on the move beneath the surface of life. As each new patient arrived at the nursing home, I used to watch Mona Cailey narrowly, wondering whether the newcomer would demand of her the payment of the ancient debt that held her bound.
     
    Spring passed into summer and nothing happened. Other cases distracted my attention, and I had almost forgotten the girl and her problems when Taverner reminded me of them.
     
    "It is time we began to watch Miss Cailey," he said. "I have been working out her horoscope, and a conjunction of planets is taking place towards the end of the month which would provide an opportunity for the working out
     
    of her fate--if we can get her to take it."
     
    "Supposing she does not take it?"
     
    "Then she will not be long in going out, for she will have failed to achieve the purpose of this incarnation."
     
    "And supposing she takes it?"
     
    "Then she will suffer, but she will be free, and she will soon rise again to the heights she had previously gained."
     
    "She is hardly likely to belong to a royal house in this life," I said.
     
    "She was more than royal; she was an Initiate," replied Taverner, and from the way he said the word I knew he spoke of a royalty that is not of this earth.
     
    Our words were suddenly interrupted by a cry from one of the upper rooms. It was a shriek of utter terror such as a soul might give that had