Robbie watched from one of the recliners opposite the couch where Kelsey sat. “Are you a medicine man in this world, Nigel? We have them in Pritvhi. They are very powerful healers and extremely well respected.”
Nigel began to organize the herbs. “Blimey, no. But my mother was a Wiccan, you see. She looked left, right and center, and tried everything under the sun to keep my father and I from getting ill when we were together. I would sit with her for hours as she called upon Mother Earth to heal us. This woman knew her onions, but had she known the power of the opal was all we needed, then everything would have been aces.” He turned to Kelsey. “You can lay the tube on the table now.”
Kelsey placed it gently on the placemat.
“Now,” Nigel held out a pad and pen. “Normally this spell is to bind a memory. Sometimes we have a memory so powerful, we want to make sure we never forget it. In this case, it’s being used instead to help you remember something. There is a memory concealed so deep in your psyche that you have not yet recovered it. I’m not sure why it’s remained hidden from you, but it must be extremely important. So, let’s give it a welly and start this way. Kelsey, I want you to write down the names of who you were in all the past lives you remember.”
“This may take a while,” she mused and began writing.
Ten minutes later she was done and lay down the pen.
Nigel then lit a piece of charcoal and placed it in a deep abalone shell. Then he slowly dropped the herbs onto the hot coal, and they began to gently smoke. “Now hand me the paper, Kelsey.”
She handed him the sheet, filled with all the names of all the past lives she could remember, and he folded it up and gently placed it in the bowl on top of the herbs. A thick smoke filled the suite as the paper lit up and Desmond jumped over to the window and opened it so they didn’t set off the fire alarm.
Nigel then leaned over and handed Kelsey the glass bottle and the Black Salt. She gently sprinkled some salt into the bottle, and then read aloud the Wiccan phrase Nigel had written down.
With harm to none, I cast this spell. Black Salt of Earth and Fire, listen to my desire, heed my quest, this memory which haunts my sleep, bind it here where it will rest, let this bottle be its keep.
Kelsey glanced up and Nigel nodded. She added a second set of lines to the spell.
Black Salt of Earth and Fire, hear my plea, sift through my mind, let out this memory that haunts me, keep it here for me to find. This is my will, so mote it be, Blessed Be.
“Now, breathe deeply, Kelsey. In and out. Concentrate on your breath and then let your mind drift to your past. Try to look into the dark corners, the cloudy fogs. Try to allow your memories to come forward. When you feel ready, I want you to breathe out into the bottle and cap it.”
Kelsey took a few moments to collect her thoughts and then exhaled into the bottle and capped it. Nigel placed it in the sun and then turned to her.
“And now we wait.”
Chapter Fifteen
A man stood in the corner of Kelsey’s hotel bedroom, watching her sleep. She lay cradled in her boyfriend’s arms. The ceiling fan above them occasionally blew strands of her long hair into her face, and she’d stir. He observed her for a few more minutes, silently, and mixed emotions rolled through him. He had so much history with this girl.
He moved stealthily over to her and stared down at her face. She’d grown into a beautiful woman, just like her mother, and he sighed. He’d loved Margaret. This timeline had been one of the better ones, until it ended in violence like they always did.
Well, he’d done what he had to do then, and he’d do what he had to do now.
The man dipped his hands into the folds of his navy blue robe and removed a small satchel. He reached inside it and withdrew a folded cloth. He then drew the folds back to reveal a powdery blue substance. Slowly he walked towards Kelsey until he was next to her, but then froze when she moved. After she quieted, only then, with the softest of breaths, he blew the powder directly over Kelsey and watched her inhale it. The drug would keep her sleeping so he could do what needed to be done. The girl had always woken so easily.
He waited for a minute for the drugs to take effect and then reached inside another deep pocket of his robe and removed a blue labradorite stone. With the utmost of care, he placed it gently on Kelsey’s chest, careful not to jostle her awake. She didn’t stir.
He removed a second stone and placed this one on her stomach, and again she remained still. This stone was the black nuummite, a rare metamorphic rock and one of the oldest minerals on Earth.
Finally, he placed a third, jagged white stone called novaculite gently next to the nuummite. Used together they brought great energy and power.
With all three stones in place, the man’s job was done, but he found he couldn’t leave. Instead, he put out a tentative hand as if to touch Kelsey’s cheek, but paused mid-air. Steel yourself. With a resigned sigh, he hardened his heart and stepped back. With one more long, lingering look, he touched his Azurite ring and portalled back to Pritvhi.
* * * * * *
Kelsey stirred, but did not awaken. Her eyes fluttered behind her lids as she began to dream. She was back in the palace in Naraka, revisiting the very moment she told Mara that she wanted to leave the kingdom.
“I told you this already, Father. I want to go live in the human realm.”
Mara laughed derisively, and the sound echoed throughout the halls of the palace.
Tanha had known he’d do that. No one ever went against her father. No one, that is, except her.
“Tanha, if you leave, you’ll never have the peace and enlightenment you seek. Your very being won’t allow it. Every man who sees you will fall at your feet. They will crave and desire you, not even knowing why. No human will ever be true to you, because they’ll only be influenced by who and what you are. Your essence stains your soul, and no matter what you do, or how many lifetimes you try to live, you will never be able to escape your lineage.”
His words didn’t matter. So strong was her desire to live a human life that she was going to leave, regardless of what Mara had said. She removed the strand of exquisite black and pink pearls twisted in her hair and laid them at her father’s feat. Mara had gifted them to her years before and she loved those pearls, and he knew that. She also knew it would incense him and show him that she was not bound to him.
Mara had glared at her. “You leave and I promise I’ll destroy you in every lifetime you try to lead. Don’t challenge me, Daughter.”
Those words had echoed in her mind as she left. She’d left behind everything she knew. Every desire she’d ever felt. Her sisters. But she was excited, and for the first time in her existence she did not know what the next day would bring.
She wondered if Mara was going to stalk her for eternity as punishment for leaving him and concluded he would. Still, she went. She left the kingdom behind her, with the furious bellows of her father’s displeasure resonating through all the thirty hell realms.
And she continued to dream…
Kelsey hiccupped and splayed her fingers wide apart. Through the haze, she noticed her tiny veined thumb, and brought it to her mouth and sucked. It gave her a wondrous feeling that filled her with joy. For months, Kelsey floated in the protected, liquid warmth. Each day her body grew stronger and stronger, and her little world continuously exploded in wonder as sensations like sound and light developed. Gentle voices she’d come to adore spoke to her from outside her safe haven, and she felt at peace.
A gentle singing began and Kelsey’s heart soared with happiness. She couldn’t see the woman who sang to her, but she could feel her, and she knew it was her mother. Kelsey kicked and flexed in sheer delight, and heard her mother’s enchanting laugh float around her. And then came that warm, adoring sensation that went deep into her core, and she knew protection and love. A dark shadow in the shape of a hand loomed above for a moment and then covered the light outside of the womb. A gentle, tender pressure around her began, and K
elsey’s being flooded with pleasure from the massage the woman gave her own belly. The woman cooed loving words. My lovely Odgerel she would say repeatedly. Her mother began singing again, and Kelsey kicked contentedly in response.
But then the hand suddenly disappeared, and Kelsey’s world tensed as a contraction ripped through her safe haven. Kelsey froze and the compression around her intensified. For a moment, it was hard to breathe as the space around her tightened further. Something was wrong and her mother was scared. The woman stopped her singing and shrieked. Kelsey could feel her mother’s fear as her adrenaline raced through her body. Another voice sounded. The man she’d also come to love, her father, screamed the woman’s name. Adra! Get away! Swim! He was angry and frightened. Kelsey’s heart rate escalated in response to her mother’s mounting terror.
Kelsey heard more screams, a splash of water, and her world was jostled. She had little room to move around, and she clenched in fear. More screams sounded, and suddenly there came a searing pain and her safe little world filled with blood. She tried to breathe, but she was suffocating and the agony in her side was more than she could bear.
Mother, help me!
But there was no response. The light surrounding her began to disappear as darkness consumed her world. Kelsey reached out desperately for the woman she’d come to love, for their bond, for their link to each other’s souls, but she could not find her. She could not sense her mother any longer. Kelsey began to cry silently in anguish as her world slowly disappeared.
* * * * *
Kelsey gasped and sat up in bed. Three thumps sounded, as objects hit the floor.
“What’s wrong, Kelsey?” Desmond sat up next to her.
“Everything.” She jumped out of bed and flinched when she saw the three stones lying on the hardwood floor. “I think these were on top of me, Desmond. They fell off when I sat up. How did they get here?” She scooped them all up and moved into the living room of the suite, knocking loudly on the door to the bedroom where Robbie and Nigel slept. “You both have to wake up right now.”
They met her in the living space of the suite. Nigel stared at her knowingly.
“You dreamed, didn’t you? The spell worked.”
Kelsey nodded. “I remember.”
“What did you remember, Kelsey?”
She swallowed hard. “I remember my very first human life after I left Mara’s kingdom. I was a baby in a womb. I wasn’t even born yet and he found me and killed me. I could sense what it felt like in there. The warmth, the way I floated. The safety. It was wonderful, until something happened and I was in agony and died.”
“How did it happen?” Desmond asked.
“I think I was stabbed.” She bit her lip. “Desmond, I think I was the baby that Adra had been pregnant with. In fact, I’m sure of it.”
“The same Adra who was the Empress when she was human?” Desmond replied, stunned.
Kelsey nodded. “The woman called me Odgerel. I remember hearing it once recently. What does that name mean? What language is it even in?”
Robbie interjected. “What are you holding, Kelsey?” He stared at the stones gripped in her hand.
She opened her palm and showed them to Nigel and Robbie. “Did you give them to me, Nigel, as some form of protection or something?”
The older man seemed surprised and shook his head. “I didn’t.” He perused them. “You’ve got nuummite, labradorite and novacolite. Where did you get them?”
Kelsey grimaced. “I have no idea. They fell onto the floor when I woke up from my dream.”
Everyone fell silent at that news. Desmond moved over and checked the front door of the suite, but found it locked. Then he checked the windows. All locked. He turned to her. “Did you transport them from one realm to the next without knowing while you slept?”
She shook her head. “I couldn’t. I wasn’t in another world. I was dreaming.”
Robbie seemed troubled. “Something’s not right.” He turned and moved quickly into Kelsey’s room. The others followed. He walked slowly around the room, holding out his Azurite ring. Finally he turned to her. “Someone was here in your bedroom tonight. I feel their residual energy.”
He squinted as he glanced at her face. Without a word, he rubbed her cheek and then stared at his fingers. Then he sniffed them and crinkled his nose.
Kelsey moved to him. “What is it?”
Robbie sucked in his breath. “You’ve been drugged. You’ve got the remnants of a sleeping drug they give people in Pritvhi when they’re ill. Are you thirsty?”
Kelsey realized she was and became angry. “Who drugged me, Robbie? Was it a demon? Did they come into my room and attack me?”
He shook his head, moving to the kitchenette and getting her a glass of water. “It wasn’t a demon. It was a human from Pritvhi. They left a trail of aqua blue which we leave behind when we travel. I can feel traces of it.”
He handed her the glass and she drained it. “Can you follow them and tell who it was?”
He shook his head. “I wish I could. The trail is already too cold, but I know this. Someone portalled into this bedroom and drugged you so they could leave these objects on your person. They aren’t ordinary stones. The Labradorite is a stone of transformation. It strengthens intuition and helps to promote one’s psychic abilities. The nuummite is even more powerful. When you combine it with novaculite it can release past life imperatives and curses. But that’s not all, Kelsey. Nuummite has the power to assist those who wish to resolve issues with their own fathers.”
“The person who did this wanted me to remember who I was,” she said. She was angry someone had the audacity to drug her. “And they had the power to come here and portal into my room. Who could do that?”
“It would have to be a master or elder,” Robbie said. “Maybe they are not leaving me alone for a week like they said they would.”
Kelsey turned to Desmond. “I need to find out what Odgerel means. I believe it was my name. It’s important.”
Desmond moved to the computer and they all crowded around. He began to search the word, focusing on the different meanings, and then starting on the translations from different languages. After ten full minutes Kelsey stayed his typing with her hand and pointed. “Stop! There!”
Desmond had pulled up a list of Buddhist names in Hindi and had scrolled down to the girl’s names. Odgerel was there.
“Will you look at that,” Robbie uttered. “You were right. It is the name of a person.”
“It’s more than that,” Kelsey whispered, in shock. “It was one of the words Chuong Dolma wrote down.”
The meaning of the name Odgerel in Hindi was…
Starlight.
* * * * *
“The Emperor and Empress are searching for Starlight,” Kelsey hitched a deep breath. “I’m Starlight. They are my first human parents. They’ve been looking all this time for me!”
“And yet they want to kill you,” Robbie said. “That makes no sense.”
“It does make sense if they don’t know who she is,” Desmond said. “The prophesy says, It will be in this lifetime their paths will all cross together. Heed the signs. The girl needs to live. She is the only one that will be able to find the charmed one. She needs to seek starlight. And then the demon will die by her own blood and will be released. If not, all will be lost. They’re trying to find Starlight, which means they can’t feel your soul, Kelsey. They must not realize it’s been you all along.”
“And the Emperor and Empress wanted me to find the talisman because they believe Caim would be able to lead them to Starlight because he killed her in the first place.” She held the amulet up to her face and then squeezed the wooden thrush hard as she spoke to it. “You didn’t just kill them, Caim. You killed me when you murdered my parents.”
Kelsey paced, putting it all together. “And that moment is when everything changed. When paths were altered. None of us should have had the reality that followed. The Emperor and Empress would have been r
eborn as humans in their next lifetime. Caim would have been sent to the hell realms for murdering them, and my soul would have traveled to Xanadu and then gone somewhere else off to my next incarnation.
“I see it clearly now,” Kelsey said. “Someone told Ustha where to find Adra, and then she told Caim. He killed the three of us. Then Caim got sent to the Order of Angels, and the Emperor and Empress became Aranhats. I moved on, but never traveled to Xanadu because the Emperor and Empress would have recognized me. I was hidden. In fact, I must have been hidden every time. Who hid me?”
“Who would have the most to win if you lived until this lifetime, Kelsey?” Nigel asked.
“Or, who would have the most to lose if Kelsey didn’t fulfill the prophecy?” Desmond asked.
Kelsey breathed one name. “Kenmut.”
They all agreed.
Kelsey hardened her jaw. “Kenmut orchestrated all of this. He always knew I was the daughter of Mara, and since I was his descendant, he knew from the moment I came to earth whom and what I was. From the very beginning he knew what I might one day be capable of doing. He probably contacted Mara and started this entire continuum, all to defeat Ustha centuries later!”
“And I was sent to Pritvhi to be the one groomed to kill you,” Robbie said.
Kelsey stared at Robbie. “So he had help, didn’t he?”
Robbie nodded. “And I think we know from whom.” Robbie stared at his Azurite ring. “I have always felt like an outsider in Pritvhi. I could never put my finger on it, but I always felt I was treated differently. From the moment my master came into my life.”
“Which was the exact same time that our parents were murdered. When Benjamin Porter was murdered.” Kelsey stared at her brother. “You know what I think? I think Benjamin Porter was reincarnated as Master Dov, and he’s been training you all these years to kill me. I think he was the one that came into my room and drugged me and gave me these stones so I’d remember.”
Robbie exhaled loudly. “That’s impossible. Humans can’t reincarnate into an adult.”
The Search for Starlight Page 19
