Celeste Atwell: Baby Celeste told me to do that.
Why would you listen to a six-year-old? (The patient smiled at me as if I was ignorant.)
Celeste Atwell: Baby Celeste is not just a sixyear-old. She has inherited the wisdom of our family. Our family spirits told her what to tell me.
How do you know they told her these things?
Celeste Atwell: I know. I can sense when they are with her and she is with them.
Why didn't they just tell you directly? Celeste Atwell: Baby Celeste is special, very special.
Aren't you special to them, too? (The patient showed some agitation and did not respond.) Was there another reason, Celeste? Was there some reason that prevented them from speaking to you directly?
Celeste Atwell: Yes.
What was it?
Celeste Atwell: I had disappointed them. They were angry with me.
Who exactly was disappointed in you and angry with you?
Celeste Atwell: All of them. All of the spirits of my family, their souls.
How did you disappoint them?
Celeste Atwell: I. . .
What made them angry at you, Celeste? (Patient became more agitated. I gave her a glass of water and waited.) Can you tell me why you think you disappointed them, now, Celeste? I would really like to know.
Celeste Atwell: I let Noble die again.
How did you do that? Wasn't Noble already dead? How can he die again if he's already dead? (At this point the patient would not respond to any question. She kept her eyes closed and her lips tight. Her body began to tremble. I determined I had gone as far as I could for the first session.)
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Doctor's Feinberg 's Conclusion
Celeste Atwell suffers severe intense guilt and pain over the death of her twin brother, Noble. We have not established the reason yet, but my best estimate is she will and should remain under psychiatric care and treatment for some time and should be remanded to the psychiatric hospital in Middletown. At the time of her actions and at this time, she was and remains incapable of understanding the consequences of her actions or the difference between an illegal act and a legal act.
-- Doctor Clayton Feinberg
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From Baby Celeste's Diary
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A long time ago when I was in pediatric therapy, my doctor asked me to write down
everything I thought, everything I saw, and everything I believed happened and was happening to me. It was something I never stopped doing. It was truly as if I was afraid that all of it was a dream, and the only way to prove it wasn't was to write it down so I could read it later and tell myself, See, it did happen. All of it did happen!
1 "I'm With You Again"
. I wouldn't go until I had brushed my hair. Mama al-ways spent so much time on my hair while Noble sat watching, as if he were jealous and wanted to be the one to brush it. Sometimes I let him, but he would never do it in front of Mama because of how angry it would make her. He would make these long, deliberate strokes, following the brush with his hand because he needed to feel my hair as much as see it. As I looked at myself in the minor, I could almost feel his hand guiding the brush. It was hypnotizing then, and it was hypnotizing to remember it now.
"Mother Higgins said right now," Colleen Dorset whined and stamped her foot to snap me out of my reverie. She was eight years old and my roommate for nearly a year. Her mother had given birth to her in an alley and left her in a cardboard box to die, but a passerby heard her wailing and called the police. She lived for two years with a couple who had given her a name, but they divorced, and neither wanted to keep her.
Her eyes were too wide, and her nose too long. She was doomed to end up like me, I thought with my characteristic clairvoyant confidence, and in a flash I saw her whole life pour out before