Michael stood in the doorway, hesitating. Lauren lifted her head and motioned him in. “I didn’t want to intrude if Henry was still nursing.”
“No, you’re fine.” She wasn’t shy about nursing her son anywhere. “Come sit down,” she said. “We’re not done talking.”
“I didn’t want to say anything in front of Mom.”
“I’m glad you didn’t,” she said. “So, tell us more about your work. How would we help? What’s involved?”
“And how do we do it safely?” Rowan added, as Henry sat down in his lap, patting his hands on his knees.
Michael gave them as much insight as he could on his work. “It’s a top secret project,” he cautioned. “I can only tell you so much. I’ve probably said too much already, but ... you’re my sister. I trust you.”
That made Lauren feel somewhat better about this sudden détente they’d come to. “You know we’d never say anything ... but we’re supposed to be making a television show. How can we accomplish both? Our Network was particularly interested in you. They wanted me to do the episode on my famous brother who works for NASA.”
“Well, technically, I am not an employee of NASA. I work for the private sector. I only have a grant from NASA to help fund my research. Even NASA doesn’t know about this part of our project. They think I’m developing a new radio telescope that may someday replace Hubble, and I am, but ... I have access to a large radio telescope array in South Africa. I mean, we can go under the pretense of doing something on the Morning Star Telescope, the MST isn’t a classified project.”
“Do you think your crash was an accident? I mean, it could have been a coincidence,” Rowan said.
“I don’t believe in coincidences either,” he responded. Lauren smiled faintly. “That’s one of the reasons why I’m so wary. We have security, not just our offices, but our housing too. We have armed guards and live in a gated community. I can arrange for housing. I have a driver and a security guard at my beck and call.”
“Does anyone know where you’re working?” Lauren asked.
Michael shrugged. “I don’t think it’s any secret.”
They sat looking at one another. No one seemed to be able to come up with the right answer. “If it makes any difference,” Michael started but hesitated. “Our father told me I had to make it right with you ... that I needed you to solve this.”
“Me?” Lauren recoiled.
“I think his exact words were, you need her as much as she needs you.”
* * *
Lauren lay in bed thinking through the events of the day, long after Rowan had gone to sleep. She was still angry at Michael; her mother too. But she was also angry at her father. He’d come to Michael but not her. How dare he? She had to think it was a dream. Michael had known their father and perhaps had manifested him into a dream-vision. Perhaps John Grayson was Michael’s Tsul’Kalu ... his vision guide. Tsul’Kalu had come to her at a time when she needed help. She was willing to allow that the dreams she had of him now were just that; dreams.
After several hours of laying watching the moonlight through the swaying trees, she finally surrendered and got up, pulling on a t-shirt and pair of shorts, slipping into her sneakers. Quietly she went downstairs, avoiding the floorboard by the back door that often gave her away when she snuck out as a kid. She found the door still stuck just a bit, and forced it open, escaping quietly into the moonlit night. It was cooler than she expected, and she wished she’d grabbed her jacket. Still, she walked out onto the deck and gazed out over the valley behind the house. A light breeze lifted the branches and she noted they moved like waves on the tide. The night air smelled damp; subtle notes of lilac and honeysuckle reminded Lauren of her youth.
She walked out across the yard toward the familiar path that was still there. It wound through the trees and down to the river. She stopped only when she reached the old hollow tree where the raccoon wizard had lived.
“You didn’t bring me any candy.” She turned at the sound of a familiar voice. The old raccoon was practically white. It was still huge, but it moved slowly; a waddling, limping gate as it came down the path behind her. It climbed up on the fallen sycamore tree with great effort, pausing as it sat on its haunches. “You haven’t brought me candy for many years.” The voice was trembling and faltered. “You have grown.”
Lauren stood with her mouth open as she tried to figure out if she was hallucinating. No, she was dreaming; had to be. “It’s been a long time,” she said. “I didn’t think you’d still be here.”
“I have been waiting for your return,” he said. “I knew you would come home.”
“How did you know this?”
“I know many things,” he said. “I am a wizard after all.”
“I think I always knew that,” Lauren said, giving in to the dream.
“Do you know the meaning of the word, wizard?”
Lauren pondered for a moment, rolling the word around in her mind, seeking the word in the ancient language. “From Middle English,” she said. “The origin word was wys meaning wise ... in Lithuanian žynystė, meaning magic, or žynys meaning sorcerer.”
“Well done,” he said. “We are all wizards, each in our own way.”
Lauren’s brow lifted.
“What do you know of God?” He asked.
“You’re a raccoon. What do you know of God?”
“Thou art God. I am god. All that groks is God.”
Lauren’s face contorted and she all but did a double take as she drank in what he was saying. “A raccoon who knows Robert Heinlein?”
“A wizard who is well-read,” he chuckled, scratching behind his ear with one paw. “But what makes me wise ... you as well, child ... is our ability to grok all.”
“It’s been a couple of decades since I read Heinlein for school. Remind me again what the whole grok thing means.”
“When Heinlein was writing Stranger in A Strange Land the world was a much different place.” He stretched out on the log and yawned before he continued. “It was the dawning of the age of Aquarius, the height of the counter-culture movement. This world was at war, and the warriors were blamed for the turmoil. He meant to speak to the times and making sense of the world on a higher level. So, grok means to understand intuitively or by empathy, but there was much more to it. It meant to fully comprehend on a higher level. Heinlein used the line thou art God, it is logically derived from the concept inherent to the term grok.”
“At the moment, I am not so sure I’m not hallucinating,” she said. “I’m standing under a full moon, talking to a raccoon ... about God.” She ran a weary hand over her face. “I’m definitely dreaming.”
The raccoon rolled over on his back and laughed. “To sleep, perchance to dream ...” the raccoon quoted, lifting up a paw, pressing the other to his chest as he lay on his back. “Aye, there’s the rub. Yes, Lauren, you are dreaming, but dreams are just the consciousness functioning on a different level of existence. Here, we are god.”
Lauren puzzled on this a moment. “But ... I am no god.” Lauren shook her head. “No way.”
“But neither are you a mere mortal,” he said. “You have long known this.”
“Oh? I have? Have I?” She bowed up, ready for a fight.
“We are all gods,” the raccoon said, sitting back up, crossing his hind legs, resting his front paws on his knees. “In an ancient text, a teacher once said, You are gods; you are sons and daughters of the Most High, but you will die like mere mortals; you will fall like every other ruler.”
Lauren’s heart flipped in her chest. “Thou art god ...” she muttered, her head swimming as the words ran through the back of her mind in every language her mind could comprehend. She stumbled backwards, feeling a force catch her and redirect her to the log. She recovered her balance, feeling faint. Visions of ancient texts blurred past the backs of her eyes and she came to fully understand not only the words but the deepest meanings of each of them.
“Thou art god,” a familiar
voice brought her back to the moonlit field, but this one had Mount St. Helen’s in the backdrop. Lauren turned to find Tsul’Kalu sitting beside her. The old raccoon was gone, and the kindly Bigfoot shaman she’d come to love rested his massive hand on her arm.
Without a word, she rose, throwing her arms around the beast, resting her head on his shoulder. He embraced her in the circle of his massive arms, and she felt warm and safe. When she finally turned him loose she stepped back, standing in front of him, drinking in the scene. “Is this a dream?”
“A single dream is worth a thousand realities,” he quoted, a beatific expression gracing his aged visage. A scar cut across the beast’s great face, and she remembered the day it was made, though it seemed like a lifetime ago.
“This one is,” she said. “I think of you all the time. I know you said you couldn’t be with me always, but it seems like ... like somehow, you always are.”
A grizzled smile broke across his face. “I missed you too.”
“Tsul’Kalu,” Lauren started to say, but stopped, not sure how to ask the questions running through her mind. “Do you know what’s going on? What’s happening to me?”
That all-knowing gaze returned to his face as he nodded with his whole body. “You are chosen,” he said. “Your gifts grow as the ancient gods find you worthy.”
“But ... I’m not the only one, am I?”
“We all have our gifts,” he said. “But not everyone pauses to listen, nor are willing to accept them.”
“And my brother?”
“Michael has earned his own gifts,” Tsul’Kalu said. “His path is not the same as yours, but ... when the two of you work together, there is no force in the universe that can stop you.”
“So is he the one that ...” Lauren was still struggling. “I mean ... you know ... one minute I’m here, one minute ... poof! I’m somewhere else.” She blinked and they were in the standing in front of the El Castillo in Mexico. The air was suddenly warm and humid, and the sky was ablaze with stars. A yelp escaped Lauren’s throat as she tottered a moment, disoriented. Tsul’Kalu caught her arm and steadied her, gently.
“Like that?” Tsul’Kalu asked.
Lauren gulped hard, nodding. “Yeah. That.”
“I must tell you, this is not your gift alone,” he said. “You are the vessel, but a catalyst is needed.”
“Michael?”
“Among others,” he said.
“So ... you got me here when Rowan was hurt? Before Henry was born?”
He stepped back and raised a finger. “That was not me,” he said. “That was a union of forces, forces that continue to grow stronger. Forces you will need as your journey continues.”
“My journey?”
“You will travel far and answer many questions,” he said. “You, Truth Seeker. But a word of caution.” He lifted his hand. “Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who claim to have found it.”
“Why must you always speak in riddles?”
“Because you always seek the truth in my words,” he said. “And because you seek, you will find.”
Lauren started to speak but found herself in lying in her own bed at George’s house. She sat up, gasping. Rowan reached for her, his hand finding her bare arm, pulling her back down beside him, drawing her into him. He was warm and comforting and she melted into him as he curled his body around hers. She rested her head on his arm and took a deep breath realizing it was still the middle of the night.
Rowan’s lips found her neck and she found his hands were searching her skin beneath the blankets. She sat up abruptly, pulling away. She got up and pulled on her sweatshirt. “Come back to bed,” Rowan said dreamily. “Lauren?”
“I can’t sleep.” She paused to check on Henry. He was warm enough and sleeping soundly.
“Lauren?” He reached for her as she came around the bed, headed for the door. She took his hand. He tried tugging her back to him, but she resisted.
“Sleep,” she said. “I need to talk to my brother.”
“At two in the morning?” Rowan called softly after her, but she left him to sleep.
Lauren grabbed her purse and keys from behind the sofa table. She threw open the front door while she was still trying to get her shoes on, and froze, nearly falling over, finding Michael reaching for the door. A yelp escaped her throat, and he jumped back.
“Jesus, Lauren! What the ...” he gasped, his hand going to his chest.
“What are you doing here?”
“I need to talk to you,” he said. “Where are you going at two in the morning?”
“I needed to talk to you,” she said, recovering, kicking off her shoes. She opened the screen door and held it for him. “Come in.”
“Is there coffee?” he asked.
“I’ll make some,” she said. “Want food?”
“God, yes.”
Chapter 9
“It happened again,” Michael said over a plate of pancakes.
Lauren knew exactly what he was talking about. He’d been taken. She took a moment to consider how similar their experiences were, but how different their explanations were. He was abducted, she was teleported.
“To me, too,” Lauren said. “Except ... I didn’t see our father ...”
“Oh?”
“Remember that old raccoon?”
“The one that got you shot in the ass?” Michael smirked.
“He told me he was a wizard.”
“A wizard, huh? Like Harry Potter?”
Lauren shrugged as she sat down across from him with the coffee pot. “But it wasn’t really a raccoon.” She held his gaze a moment, debating whether or not she trusted him enough to tell him what she needed to. The anticipation on his face encouraged her. “It was ... a Bigfoot.”
“I thought you said it was a raccoon.”
She took a deep breath. “Well it started out as a raccoon, and then turned into a Bigfoot.”
“Oh,” he lifted his brow. “A Bigfoot.”
“Not just any Bigfoot. Tsul’Kalu.”
“Tsul’Kalu?” He sat back. “You mentioned him last night.”
“I met him in Washington State ... almost three years ago,” she said. “He saved me when I had been kidnapped by a ... a hoax monger in a monkey suit,” Lauren said.
The words rolled off her tongue once he gave the slightest impression that he believed her. She told him everything, from the ancient god child in Peru to the gift of the ancient All-language. Her pancakes went cold in the telling of the events that led to Henry’s birth in Mexico, and the discovery of the lost calendar of the Maya and the treasure-trove of lost gold and the missing Wentworth ransom money.
* * *
The sun was rising when Rowan padded barefoot into the kitchen. Lauren, with her back to the entryway, heard him yawn as Henry fussed. “Mama.” She heard the baby’s little voice and rose to take him from his weary father. “Mama,” he laid his head on her shoulder and wrapped his arms around her neck.
“You’re up early,” Rowan said to Michael, reaching for the coffee pot.
Michael glanced at his watch. “You, too.”
“Henry’s always been an early bird,” she said.
“Lauren and I needed to talk,” Michael said. “She makes good pancakes, too.”
“Yes she does.” Rowan beamed.
“There’s more in the oven,” Lauren said over her shoulder, as she sat down. Henry leaned back against her, reaching for the plate. He was just big enough now to start eating soft solid foods, and he loved pancakes. He had four little teeth, with a promise of more, and Lauren broke him off a piece of her food and handed it to him. He wrapped his chubby little hand around it and gnawed on it.
“Sit down, join us,” Michael invited Rowan over. He brought his plate and sat down. “We need to talk.”
Rowan looked at Lauren dubiously. “What’s up?”
“We have to find a way to make this work,” he said. “Lauren and me. We’ve got to solve this puzzle ...�
��
“Together,” Lauren said. She couldn’t believe that, for once in her life she was agreeing with her brother. “I know there are risks, but I also know ... I know we’ll all do everything within our powers to protect each other.”
“Within our powers?” Michael raised an eyebrow. “That’s saying a lot.”
Rowan sat back in his chair, his jaw slack; his eyes wide. “Are ... are you ... are you sure?” He gazed sternly at Lauren.
“I’m scared, but this ... this is the right thing. Michael needs my help ... and I need yours, Rowan.” She held his gaze. “I can’t go without Henry, but I can’t go without you either.”
Rowan broke her gaze, glancing at her brother. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this,” he said. He looked back at Lauren. “Are you sure about all of this?”
“Trust me,” she said, reaching for his hand. “No one is more surprised by the recent turn of events than I am. But ... I have to do this. I have to. I have to find a way to make it safe, for you, for Henry; for all of us. I can’t explain it, but ...”
“Is this about your life-long feud to find aliens?” Rowan’s brows reached for his hairline. “Because it seems like Michael may have beat you to it.”
Lauren turned and looked at Michael, one edge of her lip curled up, and she softened, running a hand over Henry’s head. “You know what? I don’t even care who was first.”
Rowan shook his head. “Un-freakin-believable.”
* * *
Long after George left for work and the kids headed off to school, Lauren, Michael, and Rowan sat at the kitchen table, volleying what ifs at each other, trying to work out how they would accomplish the task at hand. Henry slept in the crook of his father’s arm now that his tummy was full, and he was content.
“How are we going to explain it to the Network?” Rowan finally came to the one question he was certain they wouldn’t be able to answer.
“You’ve got your camera equipment,” Michael said. “Right?”
The Alien Accord Page 9
