“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

At mid-afternoon yesterday I lay down for a nap on the waterbed, so I could be close to Jane, who sat at the card table. She’d been having a rough time and I didn’t want to leave her alone. I fell into a deep sleep after setting the alarm for an hour. I woke up hearing her voice as she called out to someone who was evidently at the back screen door, which I’d locked as usual. I thought the visitor would be a neighbor. My eyes barely open, I stumbled out onto the back porch. As soon as I opened the kitchen door I saw I was wrong.

Standing outside the screen door, Fred closed his eyes and dropped his head down to his chest. I heard and felt nothing. “I didn’t get it,” I said. not roughly. “Tell me, how did you get here? Don’t you have any money? Where are you going when you leave here?”

I took him up on it. I opened the screen door. “Look, come in here and sit down and let me get you a coat. You don’t mind if I call the police?” “Not at all. Fred means you and your wife no harm....”

The water wasn’t hot yet. When I looked out on the back porch Fred was gone. The door was half open. I had instant visions of him wandering away, not really meaning to, but perhaps getting lost—and wearing my best coat. His bags sat there on the ramp Frank Longwell had made for Jane’s chair. A moment later Fred came back into view from in back of the garage. “I had to go to the bathroom,” he said, tightening the coat around him. He didn’t seem to be so cold now. I told him I’d called the police, and he nodded. “Fred means you and your wife no harm at all,” he said, speaking for Seth again. I told him I knew that. I still wanted to know what he was going to do when he’d left here.

How could he manage to arrive here without a penny in his pocket? I kept wondering if he had some money and change (at least) stowed in one of the suitcases, but he swore—Seth swore for him—that he did not, and finally I believed him. I also believed him when he finally sat down in the driveway and said he was prepared to die in the cold. He could have wanted to sit down from sheer physical exhaustion, yet I think more was involved. This noon, as I talked about writing these notes, Jane wanted me to call the police and ask what had happened with Fred. I wanted to also, but hesitated. My stomach felt empty. “Wouldn’t it be hell if Fred shows up at our door again?” I asked. “Maybe he’s from town,” Jane said. “Maybe the police will just let him go and he’ll come back.”