However, her current occupation required something of a more personal touch. It was easier for a patient to trust someone that showed some traces of emotion. This had been difficult for Patricia to emulate.
She'd started with trying the stereotypical accouterments of a psychiatrist's office but that had only been partially successful. When people asked about a particular point, she was unable to give them more than a factual accounting of what it was since there was little personal attachement to her.
She was regarded as a asset to police and FBI investigations and certain abnormal cases she acheived wonderful results with. But few of her co-workers would ever have referred an ordinary patient to her. Which made her cover rather fragile.
And then she got married to someone involved in one of her police cases.
Her husband was a bounty hunter that was known to decorate his office with swords and commissioned sculptures in the shape of monster heads. Sometimes swords were slashed through the sculptures. Patricia herself had twitched the first time she'd been in Dante's office, before they knew each other, and lectured the bounty hunter about keeping a low profile.
In any case, Dante knew how one was supposed to set up one's working and living quarters.
Her husband one day redecorated her office as a surprise, and received something of a lecture for it. However, Patricia had to admit that she both felt more comfortable in her office afterward and, despite how...odd it looked, it seemed to work much better with actual patients as far as getting them talking.
What Dante had done was taken a number of items that Patricia kept stored in boxes and scattered them about her office. Thus surrounding her with things connected to her rather than just a random assortment of items Patricia had seen in other offices.
There were photographs and memorabilia from her time on this world, a good century and half by now.
Behind her desk were two sabres crossed in an x-shape. The both of them had been gifts, one from a cavalry captain in the civil war and another from a marine in Korea.
They were the only weapons in the room. They hadn't been, but Patricia had systematically removed every other weapon, not being too keen on the idea of having weapons within easy reach of anybody in her office. She only left the sabres because she considered it equally unwise to have no weapons on hand to defend herself and these were a quick levitate away.
There were a trove of other oddities, however.
A piece of twisted, reddish metal in the vague shape of a "z" was nailed to the wall by some photographs. It was a piece of shrapnel that had once saved Patricia's life from a rather unlucky SS officer. She'd never quite understood why she'd kept, sentimentality was rare for her.
There was an old kachina doll sitting in one corner, not at all like the mass-produced dolls coming out of the reservation of every conceivable tribe these days. It was authentic and not entirely unenchanted, and in retrospect she should have placed it within the office even before her husband decided to redecorate the place. The enchantment was weak, but anything was better than nothing.
Other items like that appeared throughout, most just harmless geegaws that she had collected from cases or missions through her lifetime. And there were photograpghs. Photographs dating back to the 1850's.
Most people looked at them and saw a variety of perceptibly different women that were probably related to Patricia, but anybody looking through the shadow would see that they were all of her. There were several photos of men in military uniform, but there were just as many of men in business suits, ceremonial photos at the completion of deal and such.
Patricia had also pruned these to remove any that showed things that shouldn't be shown. Her husband had received a severe talking too after this stunt, but most of the items had ended up staying.
Some of the more recent photos showed Patricia obviously. Or at least, the Patricia most ordinaries saw. A grim and dour young woman at her college graduation, and then her masters, passing medical school. And photos with several of the detectives she had worked with in the past.
And on her desk was her family, just like anybody else kept.
It was all very extravagant for her tastes, but it worked for those patients that needed some actual counselling. And her co-workers had commented that she finally seemed a little more human. Patricia had never been certain as to whether that was a compliment or not.
Patricia sat at her desk and reviewed her case files for the day's counselling sessions. Psychiatry was hard work for her, very hard, because of the need for empathy, but she was at least competent now. She was used to finding flaws in a person's psychology, but that had always been to exploit them. Finding ways to help people around or through them was something new to her.
She was only moderately distracted. She'd heard a rumor about giant spiders the night before. Things like that happened from time to time. What worried her wasn't the happening, but the happening at the current time.
The door to her office creaked open and her secretary stook a head into the office. Patricia looked up to the nezumi and silently questioned what the matter was. Natalie had had the misfortune to arrive as a child and end up in the neighborhood of a circus, and not one of the reputable ones.
The shadow was easier to pierce at a circus, and circus performers could often see through it as well. As a result sometimes the new arrivals ended up in the freak shows there. Some of the bardic ones even started them, those were generally okay, but Natalie had ended up with a bad crowd.
Patricia had rescued her from that situation and then trained her as an apprentice. Outside the circus she fell easily under the protection of the Shadow and just appeared as a slightly shy girl. Her seemingly perpetual nervousness aside, Patricia knew her to be a very professional operator.
"Dr." the girl said. "There are some people outside to see you. Dr. Jensen and some others."
"Is there anything else?" Patricia asked, noting something other than the girl's usual nervousness.
"One of them keeps looking at me like he recognizes me from somewhere," Natalie said.
"Well, show them in," Patricia said. "I wasn't expecting them to come to me, but something must have happened."
"All right," Natalie said, turning back to the waiting room.
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(Posted Sun, 25 Jan 2004 18:13)
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