Morgan stared down onto the silver desert, the moonlight slipping across the dunes, pooling in the smooth undulations across the expanse below. She thought of Margolis and her part in his death. The guilt was overwhelming. After all, she was a Jungian psychologist so surely she could have foreseen the traps that awaited them. Yet all her life, Jung’s images had been read as pure symbolism but if those mandala were actually real representations of physical places, what else could that be true of? She looked over at Jake, his face stony in the moonlight. Margolis was one of his men, and they had not even found another stone for their efforts. She needed to get to Faye soon for Pentecost was only a few days away.
Desert, Algeria.
May 25, 8.13am
Once they returned to the plane, Jake went down the back with Jared to debrief the men. There was a heaviness in the atmosphere, a grief but also a pragmatism. These men knew loss, but Morgan was determined to make the sacrifice worthwhile. She took the image from the box, trying to work out what the words meant. ‘It’s with the father.’ What the hell did it mean? It could be Jung’s real father, who was a great influence on him, or his God, but neither of those made sense with the timeline or with Jung’s own conflicting beliefs. Morgan sat looking at the words in a trance of concentration, tracing back her studies of Jung and how his career had progressed. He had written so many books with layers of meaning. But an idea niggled at the back of her mind, something she had seen once that lay just out of reach. She calmed her breathing, letting the feelings of guilt subside and focused inwards.
After a time, she sat up sharply, calling for Jake to come back to the main cabin. Her voice was high-pitched with the excitement of realization.
“I think Jung’s stone is in America,” she said, “at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. It’s the last place where he and the ‘father of psychology,’ Sigmund Freud were still on speaking terms.”
“What do you mean?” Jake looked tired and beaten. “This hasn’t come up in any of the research so far.”
Morgan was determined to convince him.
“Jung and Freud went on a trip together with other psychologists in the early 1900s. They were hosted by G Stanley Hall at Clark University, which is where psychoanalysis was introduced to the Americans. Think about it, Jake. At that point Jung still considered Freud to be a father figure. He was meant to assume the mantle of psychoanalysis in the Freudian tradition, but it was also on that trip that Jung started to go his own way.”
“Why’s that significant?”
“Jung wanted to include the mystic aspect of the human quest into his own theories. He believed in so many things that Freud dismissed, so Clark University was this turning point, when the father figure was no longer a father. It must be there. Don’t you see?”
Jake sat down opposite her, considering what she said.
“No, I don’t see. I’m beginning to doubt this whole Carl Jung connection, even with the painting. We’ve risked enough, Morgan. I’m not wasting time looking somewhere that might be wrong at this late stage. We should explore other options.”
Morgan would not be dissuaded.
“But I’ve been to the university hall where they held their meetings. There was a centennial celebration of the visit in 2009 which I spoke at. There’s a bust of Freud, pictures of the men together and most importantly, the twin image to this mandala.” She held up the one that had represented the maze they had navigated at the wadi. “One of Jung’s drawings was made into a framed image and put into the drawing room where they taught and discussed. It was an amazing time for them all, a life changing event for those men. Jung must have considered it pivotal to his career, so he put the stone there for safe keeping away from the prying eyes in Europe.”
Jake was studying the timeline of Jung’s life that she had sketched out and laid on the table.
“But the timelines are confused. How did the image and note get left at the wadi when the North Africa trip in 1920 was after Clark University in 1909? Jung didn’t have the stone with him at Clark.”
Morgan pointed down at the timeline.
“But look, Jung did return to America in 1924 and must have worked with some of his disciples to hide it then. He clearly wanted it hidden, but he left clues in locations that only his true disciples would understand. If he held the stone and knew the myth, he would have loved the role of the Keeper. He always believed in gnosis, a spiritual knowledge known only to the enlightened few, and he certainly kept secrets.”
“So it’s Massachusetts, then, you’re sure?” Jake said. “Because we’ve been wrong before and there are only forty-eight hours until Pentecost dawns in America. This is our last chance to get the final stone.”
Morgan closed her eyes for a second and when she opened them again, they were cobalt blue steel, the violet slash a deeper shade.
“Yes, I believe that this is what Jung meant. I’m getting this last stone, and then I’ll bargain them all for Faye and Gemma. I just want this to be over.”
Jake nodded, then moved to the cockpit to direct their journey towards America, to Massachusetts.
May 26
Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA
May 26, 10.02am
They arrived at the airport near Worcester having slept fitfully on the way over the Atlantic. Morgan drowned her nightmares in several cups of coffee and made a final study of the University plans. Jake organized the small group, Jared and one other man, Morrison, would accompany them, their cover as visiting professors with a hastily constructed back story. Morgan didn’t think they looked much like academics, but no one paid them much attention as they arrived at the imposing main entrance.
The red brick façade rose above them, four stories with large windows looking out over spring green lawns. Morgan glanced up at the clock, the Stars and Stripes flapping above it in the breeze. Her body screamed with jet lag. They had covered so many time zones in the last few days, she felt like her soul was still in transit from the desert wadi, and it would be some time before she was a whole person again.
They passed a statue of Sigmund Freud, sitting on a stone bench, book in one hand and cane in the other, a commemoration of the 1909 visit. Morgan ran her hand over the cool smoothness of the statue’s head, his austere face giving her pause. What if this was the wrong place? They no longer had enough time to make a mistake. She shook her head to clear the lingering doubt and they progressed into the University.
A meeting had been arranged at short notice citing investigation into Jung’s history, so they were escorted straight to the suite of rooms where the professor had lectured over one hundred years ago. It was a place to start at least. Jared and Morrison remained outside to watch the doors while Morgan and Jake went into the main dark wood paneled room. Deep red wing back armchairs sat around a fireplace that clearly hadn’t been used in a while. A square table centered the room on a circular rug of Turkish origin.
“It’s just like all the offices at Oxford,” Morgan said. “Great universities are the same the world over. Look, there’s the picture.”
Morgan went to the mandala that hung on the far wall, next to the famous picture of the psychologists. It was the same as the one she now unpacked from her backpack, red lines tracing towards the center.
“There’s one difference between the two mandala. Do you see it?”
Jake looked closer. “Here, the wasp drawn on the corner.”
Morgan traced the tiny intricate image with her fingertip.
“It’s strange because Jung didn’t use wasps much in his paintings and imagery. It seems out of place.”
She paused, deep in thought and then said with surprise. “Oh, the wasp symbol. It must be Wolfgang Pauli!”
“Wasn’t Pauli a physicist?” Jake said. “What’s he got to do with this?”
“Yes, Wolfgang Pauli was an Austrian physicist who won the Nobel Prize for his discovery of the exclusion principle, a key part of quantum physics. The man was brilliant but deeply troubled and there was a strange myth that surrounded him called the Pauli Effect. It seemed his presence changed matter and made things happen, like experimental equipment breaking as he walked past, but his creativity in science was phenomenal.”
“Do you think this Pauli effect had something to do with the stone’s power?” Jake asked.
“I’m not sure, but he certainly worked closely with Jung. Pauli had a breakdown and Jung interpreted his dreams. They also worked together on ideas about the paranormal and synchronicity so it’s possible he knew about the Pentecost stone and even experienced its power. Maybe he was the one who hid it here.”
Her eyes shone with the light of discovery and for a moment Morgan forgot the awful circumstances of why they were there, but then her eyes darkened again.
“Pauli feared wasps. He had nightmares about them and they appeared in the archetypal dreams that Jung interpreted. It’s a symbol of what he was ultimately scared of, a weapon of some kind, a destruction of all that’s good.”
Jake raised an eyebrow. “You think the Pentecost stone might be this weapon?”
“Maybe. We need to find it. Look harder.”
They searched the room carefully, looking for some indication of where the stone might be hidden. Jake lifted the mandala picture off the wall but the back was blank. They felt the walls around the pictures but nothing stood out.
Morgan turned around in the center of the room,
“What are we missing?”
Then she saw it. The room was square, with the round rug in the center, with a square table in the center of that again.
“Look, this whole room is a mandala, the circle in the square. The center is where truth lies. Help me move the table.”
They managed to drag the heavy mahogany engraved table to one side, then pulled back the circular rug. Underneath was a trapdoor in the stone floor with some kind of key mechanism. Jake tugged at it, trying to pull it open, while Morgan studied the markings etched in the top. It was engraved as a mandala, with twelve engraved stones spiraling into the center where a groove was hollowed out with a copper ring for lifting.
Morgan looked up at Jake with hope in her eyes.
“This has to be it.”
As she bent down to pull the ring, the noise of a scuffle and gunfire came from outside the door. They pulled their guns as the door burst open and six men rushed in, weapons trained on the pair. They were outnumbered.
“No need for any unpleasantness. You,” he gestured to Jake, “move away from the trapdoor.”
The man who spoke was tall with a rangy athleticism and a shock of grey-silver hair. He wore a black military style jumpsuit with sleeves rolled up. No academic posturing for this team. Morgan could see the pale horse tattoo on his forearm.
“Down on your knees.” He pointed with his gun. “You won’t be going on this part of the journey. Thanatos wants all the stones and it looks like the good Doctor will be finding the next one for us.”
As Jake moved he caught Morgan’s eye and nodded slightly, feinting away from her. Morgan hurled herself to the floor, commando rolling towards him. Shots rang out. Jake used the distraction to dive onto the man. Morgan drew her gun but too late. A bullet glanced her shoulder and spun her to the floor where she lay bleeding and weaponless. Jake managed to get in a punch before he was pulled off the man by two others. The leader slammed the butt of his gun into Jake’s temple, pistol whipping him to the floor where he lay on the edge of consciousness. Morgan knew their last stand had been useless and now she was alone. The leader walked over to Morgan, leaning over her panting form.
“You just made it harder on yourself.”
He put his boot onto her shoulder and leaned into the wound. She moaned, almost passing out from the pain, breathing faster as she tried to stay conscious. The silver haired man picked up Morgan’s backpack and checked inside for the precious cargo. With a smug grin, he slung it over his shoulder. “We’ll be taking the stones from here. Thanks for looking after them for us.”
Morgan rolled to her knees, clutching her wounded shoulder. “But what about the stones Everett has?”
“We’ll be getting those too before we return to Europe. The twelve will be together again, but in the hands of true believers, not filth like Everett. He’ll pay for crossing Thanatos.”