I read the letter over again, then smiled
with a gasp of air, folded it, and handed it back to Aora. “There
is nothing there that I haven’t already learned. Why could I not
leave a way to help myself?” I asked Aora. She took the letter and
tucked in back into the painting.
“The help you need is in the people you
asked to be in your life today,” she said, looking back at me.
“People?” I repeated.
“Across your lives, you have found souls
that you felt safe with. Those souls chose to help you in this
life, and they play a role designed for their purpose in the
universe,” Aora explained.
“I cannot put my family and friends in
danger,” I said, looking down.
“If you do not teach them, they will
struggle in their ignorance,” Aora said.
“What am I supposed to teach them? To leave
their bodies, to see Auras, feel emotions, see truth? I don’t even
understand how I do it - how can I teach them?” My words fell on
one another through my frustration.
Aora tried not to laugh. “There is nothing
you can do that they cannot learn,” she said confidently. “There is
one among you now who has played role after role in your life. She
should be the one you teach first. As she learns, she will help you
teach the others.”
“Who? My mother? Rose?” I asked.
Aora shrugged her shoulders. “I only know
that her sun rests in Cancer,” she said. My mind raced though
birthdays and sun signs, trying to match one to a Cancer. Suddenly,
I knew which one she was. “Olivia,” I whispered. “But wait - she
can’t even see in the string. She’s from the dimension I was raised
in,” I argued.
“Everyone has your power; they must simply
find it,” Aora said quietly.
Frustrated and angry, I closed my eyes and
leaned against the wall. Aora gave me time to take in her
words.
“Alright...we teach our family to do what we
can do – then what? We all scatter and teach person by person? Will
this life be long enough to teach even one dimension?” I asked.
“Every soul impacts the universe like a vast
wave. Do not concern yourself with the how – focus on the end
result. For the universe to be in harmony, every soul must remember
the love that they are made of, remember what they were given at
that first breath, before they were told that the universe was
cruel,” Aora said, slowly smiling at me. “Come, they are waiting
for us.”
I walked silently by Aora’s side through the
other end of the hallway. It opened to the outside, the opposite
side of where I was before. Even though I’d seen the colors of this
dimension before, the beauty still took my breath away. In the
distance was a very large tree; its trunk was no less than fifteen
feet wide, and the branches were thick and stretched out beyond
imagination in every direction. The grass beneath its shade was
soft and light green. I could see Landen and Pelhan approaching the
tree from another direction; Landen seemed calm, but it was clear -
like me - that he didn’t completely enjoy his private
conversation.
When we reached one another, I took Landen’s
hand. Pelhan smiled, and as he took Aora’s hand, Landen and I were
captured by this beautiful tree; the energy that engulfed every
part of it was more than we had seen among any other piece of
nature.
“This has served as your bodies’ final
resting place on more than one occasion,” Pelhan said in a low
tone. I felt sick again. Somehow, it had escaped my attention that
for us to live another life, we must have died. Death was
terrifying - with or without the promise of eternal life.
Landen’s eyes moved to the ground, and mine
followed; we were looking for markers, names that we carried
before.
“You will not see any stones. You both
believed that your bodies were vessels given by the earth and
returned to the earth. At one time, you believed that if a stone
was placed above you, it would bind you to that body forever,”
Pelhan said.
Landen quickly looked at Pelhan, only to see
him smiling.
“You were very young souls when those words
left your lips. You know now that nothing that you do not allow can
bind you,” Pelhan continued, amused by our reaction. “I can only
hope that what we have told you today will serve you in the path
that you choose,” he finished, extending his arm for us to follow
him.
Landen I both looked over our shoulders to
gaze at the beautiful tree and the energy that surrounded it. As we
walked back to the courtyard where our family was, we took in the
beauty of the sky and the harmony of this dimension.
Just before we reached the others, Pelhan
said, “Do not wait for another invitation; the gate is always open
to you. We will always help you in any way we can.”
Landen nodded and pulled me closer. In the
courtyard, Livingston’s soul was gone. Libby and Preston had August
and our fathers sitting in mediation mode; I think I was more
amused by seeing Ashten comply with learning this than I was with
any other. Pelhan and Aora bowed and silently walked into their
home. Landen and I waited for the others to complete their
meditation; moments later, Preston’s eyes fluttered open while the
others remained still. He walked to our side and reached up for
Landen to pick him up.
“Today was a good day for you,” Landen
said.
Preston smiled and nodded. “We don’t want to
go to New York with you; we want to go home,” he said, looking at
Libby.
“Umm...OK...we’ll all go home,” Landen said,
looking at me for help.
Preston shook his head no and looked back at
Landen. “The others are waiting for you,” he said, smiling. “You
don’t have to sit in meditation to leave, to help another,” he
continued, putting his small hand on Landen’s face.
“Preston, we aren’t as strong as you,” I
argued.
“Yes you are. You can leave without the
others around you even knowing – you’ll see today,” Preston said,
smiling and looking down at me.
I looked up at Landen. He shrugged his
shoulders and smiled at me.
“Maybe you should go, to show us,” Landen
said, trying to make peace.
“I already have - it’s your turn,” Preston
said in a serious tone.
At times, it was hard to believe that we
were speaking to a six-year-old child; the wisdom inside Preston
and Libby seemed to reach the heavens above.
The others came back into consciousness.
Landen then sat Preston down, and he ran to Libby’s side and pulled
her up. “I told them,” Preston whispered to her. She then giggled
and smiled at me and Landen.
The others rose from their positions, and we
slowly made our way to the gate of the dimension. Everyone walked
in silence until we reached the passage that would lead us to New
York. Libby and Preston reached up to hug us goodbye.
“None of you are coming?” Landen asked,
reading their intent.
Ashten looked at Jason and August, then
shook his head no.
“I think we’re eager to get home and tell
Aubrey and Grace about today,” Ashten said.
“Are you going to teach Mom to meditate?”
Landen asked Ashten, amused by his words.
“Preston and Libby promised to help us.
Besides, your mother is way more open to things like this; she’ll
more than likely end up teaching me,” Ashten said with a laugh,
reaching for Preston’s hand.
August lingered a step behind the others,
looking proudly back and forth between me and Landen. “Make sure
you fall asleep together tonight; this dimension cannot protect you
the way ours can,” he said, putting his hand on Landen’s
shoulder.
Landen nodded and pulled me closer. August
nodded, then picked up his step to catch Ashten and my dad.
We stepped through the passage and found
ourselves on a roof top in the heart of the city. There were
beautiful gardens across it, hidden from the concrete jungle
below.
“Do you know where we’re supposed to meet
them?” I asked
“Dane said they’d be shopping and walking
through museums last night.”
“Where are we staying?” I asked
“Here. We own a condo here,” Landen said,
smiling.
I shook my head in disbelief, wondering for
a moment how many homes our family really owned across the
universe. We found a doorway that led to a stairwell. After the
first floor, we walked through a door that led to an open hallway.
Landen then reached in his bag and found a key and a paper with a
room number on it.
“What? You have so many homes, you can’t
remember where you are?” I teased.
Landen smiled. “No. Remember I was never
allowed here,” he said, raising his eyebrows.
I felt a tinge of anger run through us both.
We had tried everything in our power to overlook the fact that we’d
been kept apart through our childhood. We both saw it as lost time.
It didn’t matter that we had lives before and were sure to have
others beyond this one; we were both greedy when it came to the
time we spent together. It never seemed to be enough.
Opening the door to the condo, we saw
nothing less than absolute luxury. The entire back of the condo was
solid glass, giving way to the entire city. The front room was
vast, with large white leather couches. There were water murals
that trickled down the wall dividing the living room and
kitchen.
“No wonder they were so eager to come here,”
I whispered.
“My mother decorated this home. It’s how she
filled her time while my father looked for yours.”
“It looks so modern,” I whispered.
“She’s always been a little before her time
when it comes to interior design,” Landen said, winking at me.
On the table in the center of the room was a
note. It simply read:
We will be back by four – dinner?
“What time is it?” I asked
“Three.”
“That’s all? It feels like it should be
later,” I said.
Landen nodded and sat on the leather couch,
then reached for me to come to his side. “Did the kids not say ‘we
get to stay the night’ this morning? I wonder what changed their
mind?” I said, nestling in Landen’s arms.
“I think we all left there with a different
perspective,” he answered, playing with my long dark hair. I looked
up at him and saw his eyes lost somewhere in space.
“What did you and Pelhan talk about?” I
whispered.
Landen sighed deeply and held me tighter.
“He said that if I ever tried to stop you from doing something you
wanted to do – that I would lose you.”
I could feel his grief; it was as if he’d
already lost me in his thoughts.
“Landen, you are not going to lose me. We
belong to each other,” I said, kissing his hand.
“Pelhan said that I’ve made that mistake
before - and that we both paid the price,” he said, turning to look
in my eyes.
“You cannot carry the burden of mistakes
that we made. I’m more than sure that my stubbornness pushed you,”
I said, trying not to cry or think of a time that either of us
belonged to another.
Landen smiled a small smile, then stared
somewhere inside me. “He said we had to teach our family. That we
asked them to live this life and play the roles they’re in,” he
said, filling with dread.
“I was told the same thing. I got the
impression that if we didn’t teach them, we’d end up hurting them,
not protecting them,” I said. Landen nodded, agreeing with me.
“Aora told me to teach Olivia first,” I
confessed.
Landen tilted his head, a little confused.
“When is Dane’s birthday?” he asked.
“July first. Why?”
“Pelhan told me that there’s a Cancer that’s
always served as a protector not only to you, but that I should
also teach first. I thought he was talking about Marc because he’s
a Cancer. Honestly, I’d rather teach Dane,” he explained.
I laughed a little. “Why is that?”
“You saw how Marc reacted that day in the
field. He’s not ready for this,” Landen said, biting his lower
lip.
“Do you think he found her yet, his
soulmate?” I asked.
“He only left this morning. I think it’s
going to take him a while.”
“How long are you going to give him before
you look for him?” I asked.
“I don’t know. A week or so. He doesn’t want
any help. I think he’s made that abundantly clear,” Landen said,
stretching out.
“I don’t think it’ll be that hard to teach
Olivia or Dane. They’ve both seen so much in such a short
time...nothing will surprise them,” I said, laying my head on his
shoulder.
“Yeah, but think about Clarissa and
Chrispin. Chrispin is so angry; I don’t think he’s ready,” Landen
said, yawning.
“And Clarissa?”
“I don’t know. Clarissa never reacts the way
you think she will,” he said in a hushed voice. Silence took over
for a moment. I looked up at Landen; he looked like he was almost
asleep. I closed my eyes and let myself drift.
Chapter Nine
It seemed like only seconds had passed
before the breathtaking pain on my chest took effect; I had done
something wrong, this was my nightmare. It had been months since my
last one, but the memory of the pain never left me. My breaths were
short. I felt my skin boil. I tried to focus to find whoever had
called me here to face Drake and wake up. I started telling myself
that I’d been here before, that this was old news. As my eyes came
into focus, I realized that I wasn’t in Drake’s grey dimension,
like all the ones before; instead, I was in another time. The
weight on my chest intensified as images of me and Drake lying in a
field holding one another flashed by. Other images came as the
weight on my chest had all but taken my breath: a wedding, a
family, an entire life given to Drake. The necklace on my chest and
the ring on my hand sent a blinding glow in front of me, shielding
the images from my view.
I felt a strong pull on me. As my eyes flew
open, I was gasping for air. I was awake in the condo, and Landen
was on his knees in front of me, shaking my shoulders. I stood up
quickly and brushed off my chest. “Did you see one?” I screamed,
remembering the demons that I saw on my friends Jessica and
Hannah.