Agatha Verrall, the main character in May Sinclair's novella The Flaw in the Crystal, discovers that she has a psychic gift: she can improve the mental states of both herself and other people by tapping into an internal power source.
As often happens, this activity starts well but ends badly. As we have seen from what happens to Austin Gilroy in Arthur Conan Doyle's The Parasite, even actions taken with good intentions sometimes backfire on the originator.
Rodney's Lanyon's recovery
The first recipient of Agatha's healing attempts is her friend Rodney Lanyon. He is in a terrible state because of the effect his disturbed wife Bella has on him. Not only does he improve out of all recognition after Agatha's secret interventions, Bella incidentally becomes much better too.
Agatha is delighted to hear from Rodney about this unexpected development:
“It was another instance of the astounding and mysterious way it worked. She must have got at Bella somehow in getting at him. She saw now no end to the possibilities of the thing. There wasn't anything so wonderful in making him what, after all, he was; but if...Bella...had been, even for a week, a perfect angel, it had made her what she was not and never had been.“
The future may seem bright, but what looks like the start of something big at the time often turns out to have been as good as it gets. This was the high point in Agatha Verrall's career as a healer.
The arrival of some more friends
Agatha Verrall has come to live in a remote place, one that Rodney can easily get to, so that she can concentrate on using her gift to heal him to the exclusion of everything else.
Agatha has told two of her friends, the Powells, that she moved to the area for her health. What a tangled web we weave...
After seeing how much Agatha has improved, Mrs Powell decides to come and live near her. This is for the sake of Mr Powell, who is in a very bad way indeed. He thinks that something terrible is after him; he is tortured by fear. His condition is feared to be incurable; he may well end up in an institution. Mrs Powell hopes that the location will do for him what she thinks it has done for Agatha.
Harding Powell: Agatha Verrall's second subject
Agatha visits the Powells and is so moved by Harding Powell's dreadful mental state and his wife Milly's desperation and distress that she decides she must do something to help him:
“His case, his piteous case, cried out for an extension of the gift...She could turn it on to Harding Powell without any loss to Rodney Lanyon; for it was immeasurable, inexhaustible.“
Once again, she doesn't ask for permission to do some healing.
She returns home, lies down and goes into the darkness. She draws Harding Powell into a psychic circle of protection. The next day she learns from Milly that Harding has recovered.
Milly attributes this to the location – after all, what else could it be?
“Agatha did not answer. She wasn't going to tell Milly what it was. If she did Milly wouldn't believe her, and Milly's unbelief might work against it. It might prove, for all she knew, an inimical, disastrous power.“
No let up for Agatha Verrall
Unfortunately, making people well does not always keep them well; healing has to be performed regularly otherwise the effects may wear off:
“...to ensure continuous results it had to be a continuous process...”
Discontinuing the healing would be disastrous in Harding Powell's case:
“...the process belonged to a region that was not of times or time. She wasn't afraid, then, of not giving enough time to it, but she was afraid of omitting it altogether. She knew that every intermission would be followed by a relapse, and Harding's state did not admit of any relapses.“
Agatha still needs to work her gift on Bella: so long as his wife stays well, Rodney will too.
This is the opposite of what happens in The Parasite: Austin Gilroy recovers when Helen Penclosa is so drained and exhausted that she leaves him alone, and he goes downhill when she is able to work her powers on him again.
Millie puts the pressure on
Agatha unwisely decides to tell Millie that it is not after all the location but a Secret Power working through her that is responsible for Harding's recovery. Millie believes her, and continually urges her on:
“She even began to give more and more time to him (Harding), she who had made out that time in this process did not matter. She was afraid of letting go, because the consequences (Milly was perpetually reminding her of the consequences) of letting go would be awful.“
While Agatha knows that Millie could have caused a lot of trouble if she had not believed in the gift and that her only concern is her husband's mental health, she finds the continual watching and waylaying, the peering and prying, the pressure to keep at it, very stressful. Things start to get out of balance:
“What did suffer was the fine poise with which she, Agatha, had held Rodney Lanyon and Harding Powell each by his own thread. Milly had compelled her to spin a stronger thread for Harding and, as it were, to multiply her threads, so as to hold him at all points. And because of this, because of giving more and more time to him, she could not always loose him from her and let him go. And she was afraid lest the pull he had on her might weaken Rodney's thread.“
Agatha has been playing with fire. She has become something of a puppeteer; the strings are tangled and one of the puppets is getting out of control. She will soon be in very deep trouble; her life will turn into a nightmare.
