Destiny's Path

by Robyn Steele

  Chapter 22

  We all met at the Governing Committee’s headquarters to present what we had found and what we had learned and what and who we had brought back with us. There are twelve members of the Governing Committee. They were voted in every ten years. This committee had been in for nearly eight years. We hoped we could trust them.

  “We cannot let outsiders into our meeting.” Said the Chairman of the committee. “I don’t care if they are related. They are outsiders and those are our rules. We cannot break the rules for ourselves but enforce them for others.”

  “Do you not require witnesses for allegations?” I asked. “How will you make an informed decision on the need for a trial?”

  “Do not address this committee, outsider.”

  “I don’t mean to be disrespectful, sir. However, I would think the committee would make decisions only after knowing the facts. And I don’t know why you call me an outsider when my blood is the same as yours. Not only that, I am a healer.” I protested.

  “If you don’t mean to be disrespectful then I advise you to cease your discourse!” The chairman sternly warned me.

  I have never been an extremely compliant girl, either to my detriment or benefit, however one chooses to see it. “I will not cease! I have been a victim of ‘your people’ as you call it. They kidnapped me in my own country. I was gracious enough not to call the police and expose them there, even though what they did was a felonious crime. They kidnapped my dad. I GREW UP WITHOUT A FATHER! Certainly you do not condone their actions. They kidnapped several of ‘your people’ also and stole DNA from them! I, no we, demand to be heard by your committee. Our only other recourse is to be heard by the Italian courts and United States courts. Which would you prefer?”

  The committee was speechless for a moment. I looked at my parents and Cruz. They were beaming with pride and nodded their acceptance. The chairman did not look happy. I wondered what was behind his unhappiness. Could he be trusted? I honed in on my mind reading skills. Could that be why he didn’t want us here? I wanted to see if I could pick up any thoughts. Everyone was silent. I probably wasn’t the only one trying to read minds.

  “You can all leave now. We will discuss the matter of allowing you to stay among ourselves. We will give you our decision within the hour.” The chairman informed us. We all left the building but remained on the grounds. We all wanted to be close to see if we could pick up anything. Now that I wasn’t arguing with them I could concentrate my skills.

  I looked at grams to see if she had detected anything. She hadn’t. Maybe they were trustworthy. Cruz picked up my hand. Do you detect anything from them or did you hear anything?

  Not a thing. Neither did grams. I’m beginning to think we can trust them. I just can’t figure out why they are putting up so much resistance to having witnesses there. I would think that would help them.

  Talli, it’s just that they have lived with secrecy all their lives. They are not accustomed to outsiders in their lives. It’s a learned bigotry. Dad explained.

  I guess it’s just hard for me to understand how people can have such closed minds. I guess my openness is also a product of what I have been taught all my life. Just as their closed minds are a product of what they have learned. I just wish they would open their minds even a little.

  You know, Talli, you have been taught well. However, it is your mom and grandma that taught you to be open-minded and they are from this village. They aren’t even what some people call half-breeds. If they can learn to have open minds, maybe others can too. They just haven’t had the opportunity to develop that skill.

  Interesting that dad used a pun on the word skill. These people consider skills as reading minds and making spells and super strength and those sort of things. Maybe there is no difference in those kind of skills and life-learned skills. They both need to be learned and developed. Maybe these people can catch on.

  The committee walked out of the building. It was hard to read their mind or faces. I couldn’t guess what they were going to do or what they decided. “The committee has decided that letting the Teletrians who have witnessed these obscene events inside would be beneficial to our examination of the facts. We will allow you in. However, Talitha, we would remind you to show respect to the committee.” Oh great. I couldn’t assure that on their terms. My terms I would be respectful but they think if I speak my mind I’m disrespectful. “And we, in return, promise to show all of you respect.” Well that was a huge step forward.

  “I will be on my best behavior, Chairman.” I promised. Whether my best behavior is to their liking, I didn’t know.

  “Yes, we all will be on our best behavior. We just want ethical outcomes here.” Dad said.

  We presented all our evidence to an attentive committee. When we had finished relating everything the committee asked some questions to reaffirm things or fill in the blanks or clarify. The chairman spoke. “We thank all of you for bringing this to our attention and helping the victims escape. Since we have at least four people missing that need to be held accountable, our first order of business will be to find them. We have come to realize the value of the Teletrians, at least the ones who are present. You have proven trustworthy to us. However we do not know if we can trust other Teletrians. We realize the Teletrians who are present can be invaluable in helping us locate the perpetrators of these crimes. We not only welcome you to our community, we ask that you would assist us.”

  “We understand your reservations toward Teletrians. We have reservations ourselves toward people we don’t know. As you know, we have the need to protect our true identity from the rest of the world also. We appreciate your trust. We do not take it lightly and will not give you cause to lose trust. We accept the invitation to assist you and we will do whatever we can to locate these suspects and bring them back.” Dad told them. He knew he was speaking for all of us and that we all agreed.

  The committee offered to find housing for all of us. There were no hotels in their village. We thanked them but had made plans to stay with Aunt Cat and her children. The Harringtons stayed at Aunt Cat’s house and the DaMonicos stayed at Caio’s house. The others stayed at Concetta’s house. Not what any of us were used to for accommodations and our hosts were more crowded than they were used to. However, we were willing to make sacrifices to make sure these people were stopped. It was very humbling for all of us.

  We went to work immediately to search out Pietro and his men. The committee had a few leads to look for Necko. We were all using our specialties to help them. I thought this was nice that we were all working together. No outsiders among us. We were all just people working for the same cause. That was a big accomplishment.