Ascension Seekers

by Amy Proebstel

  “I was a mess, wasn’t I?”

  “I won’t hold it against you,” Amanda teased.

  Bryon had the telepod ready for the transfer so Amanda remained silent until they reached the landing field. He opened the side door and said, “I’m glad you came to see me today, Amanda.”

  “I’m glad, too, Bryon. I have a feeling I’ll be seeing a lot of you and your wife in the next few days!” She walked out of the telepod and over to her own. She turned off the cloaking and palmed open the door. She waved farewell to Bryon as she entered her own telepod to go home.

  Chapter Eighteen

  BEHN REPEATEDLY PRACTICED the crystal skills while sitting on his bed. He had been careful to shut the door for privacy. He promptly became engrossed in both lighting and extinguishing a candle he had taken from his mom’s collection. There was something very satisfying to see a flame appear where there had only been a smoking black wick moments before. He extinguished it again and relit it almost immediately.

  He only had two more things to learn before he was going to talk to his sister about what he had discovered about their heritage. Juila had promised to teach him how to move an object the next day. For an instant, he wondered if he could try to do it on his own. Almost in the same thought he decided it would be better to be around someone trained before he attempted it. He was too ignorant in the matter to know what could possibly go wrong so he opted to continue lighting and extinguishing the candle.

  He had been so engrossed in his task that he failed to hear his door open. Valentina watched for several seconds before she spoke. “What are you doing, Behn?”

  Almost jumping out of his bed with fear, Behn sat up and looked at his sister with wide eyes. “I…I didn’t hear you come in,” he said lamely.

  “I got that. What were you doing with the candle?”

  Behn looked at the candle as though it would come up with an excuse for him and then he glanced back at Valentina. Here was his opportunity to tell Valentina everything. If he chose to lie now, it would jeopardize his credibility when he got around to telling her the truth later. He took a deep breath and said, “I think you should shut the door and sit down with me. I’ve found some things out about our mom and where we came from.”

  Valentina’s eyebrows came down over her eyes as she scowled at him. She followed his instructions and shut the door, but she was slower to go over to sit down. Her mind was thinking furiously about how Behn could have found anything out. All he ever did was go to school and then spend the afternoons tutoring Juila.

  What she had witnessed as she stood at his door had nothing to do with family discoveries. Valentina wondered if Behn were using a deflection technique so he would not have to answer what he had been doing with the candle.

  She sat down on the bed facing Behn and crossed her arms. “This explanation had better be good, Behn.”

  Behn faced his sister, but kept his gaze down on the comforter while he tried to figure out where to start. He really needed Val to believe him. It felt like he would only have one opportunity to convince her or else she would shut him out and never hear the truth. The fact that she really did not want to know about their mom since they had such a loving home with their adoptive family complicated it even further.

  Finally nodding as he decided what to say Behn looked up at his sister. “Have you ever wondered why we can’t take off our necklaces?”

  Clearly Valentina had not expected Behn to change the subject. She shook her head in confusion and asked, “What are you talking about, Behn? I want to know what you were doing with the candle!”

  “I’m getting to that! Just answer my question about the necklaces.”

  Valentina blew out a breath with frustration and replied, “You know that’s something which has always bothered me, and also the fact that nobody ever really seems to notice we’re wearing them in the first place.”

  “Exactly! We always thought of our necklaces as a gift to us from our mom, but that’s only part of the truth. They were actually given to us by a wise-woman at our mother’s request. The necklaces give us access to the elemental energy of the land.”

  “Wait! What are you talking about? What is a wise-woman?” Even as Valentina asked her questions she was starting to have a memory emerge regarding the strange title.

  “Let me show you something I’ve learned to do with the help of my necklace,” Behn said. He concentrated on the first skill he had learned and produced a palm-sized sphere of energy above his outstretched hand.

  Valentina hastily moved backward on the bed as she stared in amazement at the sphere which had not been there just the moment before. She looked up at Behn’s face, but could not make herself say anything.

  Behn took this as a good sign and moved the ball of light around the room beside the bed. He was careful to maintain impeccable control of the energy. When he believed Valentina had seen enough he carefully drew the energy back into his birth crystal where it disappeared. He felt a tingle go through him as the elemy returned to the earth.

  “What. Was. That?”

  “That was a demonstration of some of the things we learned from our mother before she sent us away. Try to think past your fear and astonishment and remember us sitting around a small wooden table with Jon and our mom. We each did what I showed you and when we were done, our mom clapped her hands, smiled, and told us she knew we could do it. Try to remember, Val! This is really important.” He stopped talking and leaned forward to show his sister how much this meant to him for her to recall the memory.

  It was hard for Valentina to dispute the evidence he had shown her, but for him to say she had done something similar when she was a little kid? No way! She would never forget something so amazing. She was ready to tell him he was mistaken when she suddenly did remember. The scene appeared in her head and she gasped in astonishment.

  Behn had been watching his sister’s expression. He could tell the exact moment when she believed him. This was going to be easier because she had the memory of their mom back.

  “Behn, how did you find out about this? What else do you remember?”

  “I remember everything, Val. Juila has been helping me to recall it all.”

  “Juila? Did you tell her about us? How could she help you?”

  “I told you I was going to talk to her about us. She’s been training me to use my birth crystal.” He picked up the pendant and admired the silver tree with its smoky grey crystals for leaves.

  “Okay, now I’m officially confused. How could Juila teach you the things we learned from our mom when we were little? You’re not making any sense, Behn.”

  “She can teach me because she’s from the same place we are. She and her family are going to help us find our mom, Val. Isn’t that great?”

  “What do you mean she’s from the same place we came from? I thought she has been living in South Africa. Somehow I doubt that’s where we’re from, Behn.”

  Behn could not help but laugh at his sister’s line of thinking. He answered, “No, we’re not from South Africa and neither is she. We’re all from a place called Tuala. Does that ring any bells? Can you hear our mom saying the phrase ‘what on Tuala’?”

  Valentina rested her chin on her hand as she leaned forward. There were so many thoughts swirling through her brain she was having a hard time concentrating on any one detail. Finally, she did recognize the phrase and she nodded her head in agreement. “Where is Tuala? Is it very far from here?”

  Behn chuckled at the understatement. This part was going to be tricky since Val was always so practical. “Yes, you could say it’s a world away. Literally.”

  “Behn, please stop being so cryptic. Where is it?”

  “I just told you. Tuala is another world. The way I understand it, Tuala and Earth coexist on different planes of reality.”

  Valentina laughed out loud and said, “Oh, Behn, you got me. I thought you were being serious!”

  Behn looked at her with a serious expression and said, “
It is true, Val. Tuala is where we’re from. We are not from Earth. Our mother sent us to Earth to protect us. I’m not sure what she was protecting us from, but I mean to find out when we locate her.”

  Valentina stopped laughing as Behn kept talking. She realized he actually believed what he was saying. “What has Juila been telling you? Maybe I should have a little chat with Juila for filling your head with such lies. And here I thought she was such a nice girl!” She started to get up from the bed when Behn caught her hand and pulled her back down. She looked at his hand and then back up to his face.

  “She didn’t lie, Val. Let me show you what else we can do with our necklaces. Maybe after you see more, you’ll start to believe me.”

  He jumped up from the bed and ran from the room. He was going to have to hurry if he were going to keep Val from leaving his room. A half minute later he returned with a glass of water. In his rush, he had sloshed water everywhere, but he could not worry about that right now. He set the glass down next to the candle on his nightstand.

  Before he showed her what he could do with the water he created a breeze which blew her hair away from her face. Her hands flew up and caught her hair up to keep it from tangling. “That was me creating a breeze. You felt it, right?”

  “Duh! What’s the water for?” Val asked. Her interest was piqued. She had never seen her brother act like this before.

  “That’s next. Okay, watch the water in the glass and tell me what you see in a second.”

  “I don’t see anything but water, Behn. This is ridiculous!” Even as the words were coming out of her mouth she thought she could see bubbles forming on the sides of the clear glass. She leaned forward and stared in disbelief as the bubbles became larger until all of it was moving as though it were boiling. She asked, “Is that water boiling?”

  “Yes. Now watch this!”

  Valentina did watch. Slowly the water stopped boiling and the outside of the glass started to turn white as if it were getting colder. Within another minute the water was a solid block of ice. She stood up from the bed and went over to the nightstand. She picked up the glass and confirmed it was freezing cold. “Behn, what have you done? How are you able to do this?”

  “It’s not anything special in Tuala. In fact all kids learn how to do this by the time they’re in the second grade. If you want, you can come over to Juila’s house with me and they can teach you how to do it, too.” Behn was excited to see his sister had expressed an interest in what he had learned. Unfortunately, he had read her wrong. She was not eager to learn, she was scared of what Behn had learned to do.

  “Behn, you can’t be doing this! What if our parents find out? What if the kids at school find out? They’ll call us freaks and then we’ll never have a moment of peace at our new school. Don’t you remember how bad it was at our last school? All of the kids made fun of us for being adopted. I can’t go through that again, Behn. I won’t!” Valentina set the glass down on the table with a loud thud. She crossed her arms and scowled down at her brother.

  “Jeez, Val! What is wrong with you? I tell you we are special and that we can do amazing things because we’re from Tuala, and all you can talk about is fitting in at school? Who cares what those kids think! We’re almost adults and then we won’t ever see them again. I’m trying to tell you that we have unlimited power with our necklaces and you don’t even care!”

  “Behn, you are going to stop seeing Juila. If you don’t then I’ll tell our parents you’re having sex with her!”

  “What? We’ve never had sex. Good grief, I’ve only ever kissed her.” Behn had no idea what Val was talking about. It never even occurred to him she would lie about his relationship to their parents.

  “Do you think our parents will believe you if I tell them otherwise? I’d tell them anything to keep you from going over there for her to feed you full of her own lies.”

  “They’re not lies, Val. They took me to Tuala and I visited the house where we lived with Mom.”

  Now Behn had her attention. She had seen their old house in her dreams many times, but she could only vaguely remember any details. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m telling you the truth. They took me to Tuala and I found our old home. They told me it’s called the Roanoke Colony. All of the people were gone so I couldn’t ask anyone where our mom had gone. Riccan’s dad is going to keep searching for our mom.” Behn stopped talking since he could not think of anything else which might convince his sister he was telling the truth.

  “Roanoke Colony?” she whispered. “You had me look up that term a couple weeks ago. Is that when you supposedly went there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you saying you think those people who disappeared in the 1500’s are our family?”

  “No, I think we are the descendants of those people. I think they accidentally found a way to go between the worlds and ended up in Tuala without knowing how to get back to Earth.”

  “Wow, Behn. I really think you’ve lost your marbles. I can’t take any more of this nonsense right now.” She stomped out of the room and slammed the door behind her.

  Behn knew when to shut up. He had planted all of the seeds and now he just had to wait for some of them to germinate. Even though his sister was mad, she would keep going over everything he had said and done. Eventually, she would come to the same conclusion he had: they were not from this world.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Valentina went directly to her room after leaving her brother. She desperately wanted to believe he was delusional except she could tell there were kernels of truth. Even as she fought to keep the memories from coming she was recalling the lessons with their mother at the kitchen table.

  She slammed her fist down onto the mattress of her bed. She did not want to be different! She was so tired of being teased by everyone! Worst of all, she hated that she cared so much what other people thought of her and her brothers.

  She hated herself for yelling at her brother and threatening him. He had done nothing wrong and she had treated him as if he had. She had even told him he was crazy. How could she be such a terrible sister?

  Finally, she realized she was jealous. She did not like the idea that Juila had been so instrumental in helping him to remember their past. There had been so many times where Behn and she had talked about all of their dreams and what they thought they recalled from ‘before.’ They always referred to the time prior to their adoption as being ‘before.’

  What if she were to go and see Juila on her own? Maybe she could get to the bottom of this after all. There had to be some other explanation about where they were from other than that they were from a different world; the whole idea was just preposterous.

  With her decision made, she got up from her bed and calmly walked back to Behn’s room. She did not even bother to knock. She opened the door and leaned into the room. “I want to go with you to Juila’s house tomorrow. I’m going to get to the bottom of this!” She did not wait to hear his reply, she simply shut the door and walked back to her room.

  What did she think she was going to accomplish over at Juila’s house? Was she just feeding into Behn’s delusion, or should she say Juila’s delusion? In any event, she was going to sort it all out until she was satisfied with the outcome.

  If they really were from a different world, then it would not matter what anyone from here said about them. They could return to Tuala and start their lives over. She really liked the sound of that until she realized she would have to leave her adoptive parents. She loved them as though they were her birth-parents. They had kept them all together when the orphanage had wanted to separate them. Their generosity was a debt which could never be repaid.

  She felt like a traitor for even considering the idea of leaving. While she knew she would not spend the rest of her life living with them, she always thought she would at least live near them.

  She wished she had shut Behn’s door and never confronted him about what he had been doing. If she had minded her own
business, she could keep living her idyllic life without any inner conflict.

  Unbidden, she could feel tears threatening because now she was faced with the idea of losing yet another family. First she had lost her mother and now, when her life was back on a good track, she was probably going to lose this family when they found out who she really was. This was the worst day of her life!

  Chapter Nineteen

  ALENA WONDERED IF Bryon were going to go back to work or come home after dropping Amanda off at the landing site. She knew something had happened with her husband and she was dying to know what it was. Just as she was about to give up hope, Alena heard the front door open and close. She hurried from the kitchen to confront Bryon only to be disappointed to see it was not him at all.

  Justan, Andera, and Kyelon trooped through the foyer with their school bags in hand. They waved welcome to their mother and continued on into the living room. They did not notice their mother’s frustrated expression since she immediately hid it from them with a smile of greeting. Of course she loved her children and was always glad to see them, but right now something big was going on and she was not in the know.

  Instead of joining them in the living room, Alena continued on to the front door and went outside. Since Bryon had walked to work today, he would either return in the company telepod or he would walk home after returning the transport. Either way, he would end up outside their house and not in the garage. She decided she was too anxious to remain cooped up in the house and she began pulling weeds from the front yard to keep busy.

  As she had suspected, Bryon had taken the vehicle back to work and now he was walking swiftly up the sidewalk to their house. Alena brushed off her palms onto her pants as she stood up to go greet him.

  He smiled as he saw her outside. Bryon knew exactly what she was doing and knew her mind was definitely not on beautifying the front yard. His pace quickened until Alena came up beside him as she turned and walked with him.