Just as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Parasite does, May Sinclair's novella The Flaw in the Crystal shows how dangerous playing around with occult forces can be for everyone involved. It is not just evil witches such as Helen Penclosa who end up in big trouble: after Agatha Verrall heals two of her friends using a pschic gift that she doesn't fully understand, things start to get unbalanced and out of control. She soon finds herself in a horrible mess of her own making.
May Sinclair gives a very detailed account of what happens next; she also has a lot to say about the Power that operates through Agatha. It is quite a challenge to identify the key points!
The regression of Rodney Lanyon
Agatha Verrall does not see her friend Rodney Lanyon for some weeks. She hears from him that his wife Bella is still well, so she assumes that he is too because he was only ever ill because of Bella.
Agatha has been using her gift to keep him away; she has removed his strong inclination for her company. This is another unwise decision: she now feels a longing for his company! Something similar to the conservation of energy is involved here: the feelings that she took away from Rodney are now hers.
These feelings become so persistent amd so unbearable that she cuts the thread that connects her to Rodney. She hears from him again: Bella is still well, but he has has gone back to where he was before Agatha started to heal him:
“She might have known it. She had in fact known. Having once held him, and having healed him, she had no right—as long as the Power consented to work through her—she had no right to let him go.“
But what right did she have to hang on to him?
The balance of power is now with Harding Powell
Agatha tries to recapture the calm, poised and elevated state in which she can easily hold the threads of both Rodney and her other subject Harding Powell in balance, but finds that Harding now dominates her mind:
“It was contrary to all that she knew of the beneficent working of the Power. She thought she knew all its ways, its silences, its reassurances, its inexplicable reservations and evasions. She couldn't be prepared for this—that it, the high and holy, the unspeakably pure thing should allow Harding to prevail, should connive (that was what it looked like) at his taking the gift into his own hands and turning it to his own advantage against Rodney Lanyon.“
Agatha is now very worried about Rodney. She writes to ask whether he is well again, but gets no reply. She thinks that Harding is somehow responsible for Rodney's failure to keep in touch.
Agatha Verral becomes ill again
Harding Powell is now so well that he is preparing to return to his stockbroking business.
Agatha starts to feel terrible, much worse than she did in the days before her power came to her. Her inner state resembles that of Harding Powell before she healed him; she is overwhelmed with unspeakable fear and horror. She becomes very afraid of Harding. This sounds very sinister:
“She knew, she knew what was happening. It was as if the walls of personality were wearing thin, and through them she felt him trying to get at her.“
She comes to understand what is wrong with her:
“It was not her own madness that possessed her. It was, or rather it had been, Harding Powell's; she had taken it from him. That was what it meant—to take away madness.
...In the process of getting at Harding to heal him she had had to destroy not only the barriers of flesh and blood, but those innermost walls of personality that divide and protect, mercifully, one spirit from another. With the first thinning of the walls Harding's insanity had leaked through to her, with the first breach it had broken in. It had been transferred to her complete with all its details...”
Agatha has paid a terrible price for wanting to help someone in dire straits: she has now got what Harding had. This is the second occasion on which she is overwhelmed by the feelings that she has taken away from her subject.
Of course, neither man is responsible for or even aware of what has happened: Agatha brought it on herself by playing with dangerous forces.
A new fear for Agatha Verrall
At least Agatha has retained enough of her sanity to understand what is going on. She realises that her ties have bound everyone involved in her healing activities together and that she has put Rodney and his wife in danger:
“If her doors stood open to him, (Harding) they stood open to Bella and to Rodney Lanyon too...And since the holy thing could suffer her to be thus permeated, saturated with Harding Powell, was it to be supposed that she could keep him to herself, that she would not pass him on to Rodney Lanyon. It was not, after all, incredible. If he could get at her, of course he could get, through her, at Rodney.“
Agatha knows that she could prevent more trouble from happening by cutting the thread that binds her to Harding Powell. She would then recover her health and the Lanyons would be safe, but Powell would become insane again. This would have a terrible effect on his wife Milly.
May Sinclair would not have known the expressions 'whack-a-mole' and 'zero sum game', but they describe Agatha's predicament very well. There will be suffering no matter what decisions and actions she takes or doesn't take.
Agatha Verrall is in an impossible position. What will she do now? How will she resolve the situation?
This modern edition of The Flaw in the Crystal, with Agatha Verrall and Rodney Lanyon on the front cover, was published in 2009:
