by Smith, Skye
"He's right," interrupted Wendy, "I've seen it happen."
"Exactly. And when they fall apart there are consequences. For instance, say one of my lads becomes a military officer. Say that he is given the order to attack. Say that he knows full well that it is suicide for his men. One with the true gift will follow orders, whereas a fauxpath may refuse. Yes, the fauxpath will have saved his men, just his men, in the short term, but at what cost? The battle, the war, the country?"
"The empire," Maya jested. No one laughed.
"Exactly," he continued. "Our students are not just boys who will become bank branch managers. They will become bank CEO's. They are born into the ruling elite. They will be pushed into positions of authority by their fathers. They must be prepared, and they cannot be pretenders. We, our schools, our countries need your divining powers. Don't you see?"
"Who are you guys, really?" Maya asked. "I mean, like, you have this whole dossier on me, so you, like must have connections to all sorts of government computers. You have agents in Vancouver, and Frisco, and like, LA. We are talking international here, because like, Canada isn't a part of the USA yet. Are you the CIA?"
She looked at their faces, but there were no clues. "What do you want, really? Are you the CIA recruiting me to, like, get rid of a dictator or something? Give me a break. I am supposed to believe that you are some high school principal?"
"You think this is some joke?" Sir Nigel was growing red in the face. "Do you realize the success rate of our graduating class? Do you know how many of our alumni attend the Davros economic meeting, how many multinational corporations are controlled by them, what percentage of the military command, NATO command? You think I am a jester?. How dare you."
"You didn't mention politicians," she interrupted, bating him. "Aren't there a lot of psychos in politics."
He cringed at her continual use of the word psycho. "Actually, with the modern flavor of democracy since '45, we tend to direct our gifted lads away from politics. Politics has become a platform for consummate actors. A place where narcissists and NPD's do well. It has become embarrassing. That is another reason we need your divvy skills, and soon. The fauxpaths are a liability. We need to weed them out and send them off to become politicians and real estate agents."
"You're forgetting the church," Wendy added.
"Another embarrassment. Those that fail in our school are directed towards the church. Their families hide them there, hoping to keep them away from women. Our gifted elite have other, less desireable traits than intelligence and motivation. They tend to be lustful, continuously lustful. Take this Michael Percy, for instance."
She wanted to laugh in their faces and make another run for it, but she was faced with the problem of their file about her. If she did not cooperate, what would happen to that file? They obviously had money and powerful friends. Like, a few minutes ago they had been given insider information to get out of some stock market stuff. They had needed international connections to assemble her file. She sat still and thought. Of course, thought was the answer.
"It is a big decision and I will have to think about it," she said and watched Sir Nigel's face visibly relax. "So, it's miserable outside, so why don't we spend the day in this room? You turn on that netbook of yours and connect me into, like, your school's network and let me have a poke around. Meanwhile, you can translate all of the Latin into English for me. American English. No university words. Okay?"
Wendy and Sir Nigel glanced at each other. Wendy shrugged. They had expected this. They were prepared. Things were going roughly as planned. Hopefully within the month Maya would be in residence at the school, and could divvy the entrants to the January term.
Wendy walked away from her post guarding Maya and made a trip to the bedroom. She came back with a pair of women's kid leather gloves. "Here love, put your gloves on. No sense in taking chances."
"How do you know that like, it is my hands are the danger to him?" Maya asked.
"I watched your face when he was translating the Latin. You are one of them, one of the women with healing hands." She smiled. "Don't worry, love. This is on the level. We are on the level. You'll see."
* * * * *
* * * * *
MAYA'S AURA - the Ashram by Skye Smith
Chapter 4 - Manhattan, New York
Self-respect knows no considerations. - Mahatma Gandhi.
Saturday actually turned out to be very enjoyable for all three of them despite the endless gray drizzle. The more they treated each other as business associates, the more amicable their relationships became. It was completely understood that Maya had a viable career in movies and could not walk away from the contract, nor did they need her to.
The most urgent need the schools had for her talents were during the qualifying of students for entrance into each term. She would be needed on site for perhaps only two weeks per quarter year. It was also not necessary to put her on salary, as she could be paid via a retainer contract. A contract that need not interfere with her studio contract, and would include repayment of all of her expenses such as hotels, airfare, and room and board.
Maya kept nodding her head agreeably as Wendy and Sir Nigel planned her future in England for her. Anything to keep them friendly until after the coroner's hearing. Mind you, she didn't sleep well. She had fears that there was a slim chance that they might exact some vengeance for those alumni that had already been 'put down' by her hand. Sir Nigel was, after all, a major psycho. She had never felt such swift and complete darkness from any man before.
Her random browsing of the school's network produced gold almost immediately. There was a picture of Sir Nigel as Executive Headmaster. There was a picture of Michael Percy on the alumni pages, class of '98. Also on the alumni pages were the who's who of what had become of past students. It was filled with Viscounts and Barons and Lords and Sirs, as well as foreign princes, and all sorts of corporate executives and military officers.
Within an hour she had signed out of that network and had gone onto the Web to use Google to find Saint Margaret and her sister Christina, and the Fens, and Bourne, and the Fen Frisians. Bless you Wikipedia. Meanwhile Sir Nigel doggedly translated the ancient pages, cursing the Latin he had forgotten, and frequently borrowing his netbook back from the girl so he could look up words.
By late afternoon, Maya had to make a hard choice. Should she immediately read the translations that Sir Nigel had labored over, or should she go shopping with Wendy to find a padded bra that would allow her to wear the turquoise dress to a Broadway show tonight. Shopping won. Duh. They carried the turquoise dress in the Dela Rankas bag.
On the way back to the hotel, they stopped at Wendy's apartment to allow her to change for the evening out. Actually, they both changed because Maya was borrowing some stilettos.
From the look of the apartment there was much more to Wendy than merely being a personal assistant to a high school principal, who in turn spent most of his time in England. It was close to Central Park, had three spacious bedrooms, and a luxurious feel. There were priceless silk rugs in muted colours on parquet floors, and the quiet gleam of tasteful antiques scattered around the rooms. Fresh flowers and the scent of lemon oil furniture polish added a subtle fragance to all the rooms.
"Oh, you poor innocent," Wendy answered Maya's curiosity. "You don't become a personal assistant for the salary. You put up with it for the perks. For instance, this is a company apartment where the executives stay if they ever come to New York, but I use it more than anyone. For instance, I make a bundle on the insider information I overhear. Get real girl. Milk this cow while you can. They need you, need you badly, and the wealth involved is unimaginable, never mind the connections. This time next year you could very well taking tea with the Queen."
They were running late, duh, returning to the hotel, so Wendy phoned ahead and stopped to pick up some takeaway sushi. There were sushi joints everywhere in Manhattan but Maya was shocked that it cost as much as sushi in Beverly Hills, and more tha
n twice as much as in Vancouver.
That evening the 'gifted' part of Sir Nigel strutted about in the theatre. He enjoyed being the envy of each man in the place. His ego was stroked by every jealous glance from other men. He had a gorgeous younger woman on each arm and he was making the most of it.
From the theater they went back to the hotel, but only to pack up and move to the comfort of Wendy's apartment. Not that Maya trusted the old psycho or his moll. After all, yesterday she'd had a very bad experience with a younger psycho/moll team. It was just that she had no choice, she thought to herself. She had to be cooperative. She really, like, had no choice.
* * * * *
On Sunday she spent most of the day reading Sir Nigel's translations and then researching them on the web. They boiled down to:
- Frisian healers in the Fens of England used auras like Maya's.
- The touch of a conquering Norman knight could sicken a healer.
- The touch of a healer could snuff a Norman knight.
- Normans priests were ordered by King William to execute all Anglo-Danish healers.
- Norman knights were ordered to marry-by-rape the widows of Anglo-Danish landlords.
- Norman armies were ordered to do a scorched earth genocide against Anglo-Danish peasants.
- No mention of healers for hundreds of years.
- Healers were burnt as witches in the 1600's in England.
- The Fens of England were depopulated and drained in the 1600's
- Women of alternate faiths fled to the New World in the 1600's
The most interesting page, however, was not from England, but from Massachusetts around the time of the War of Independence. In 1777 a midwife named Britta Otis was tried and convicted by a British Army court for causing the death of an English Captain. She had done so by stopping his heart with her touch. While she awaited the firing squad, she was rescued by colonial irregulars led by her father-in-law.
"How did your school library in England get hold of this page?" she asked.
"The deceased English captain was alumni," he replied. "The trial was in Massachussetts, but the documentation was filed in England."
Maya's original elation at finding a historical record of other women with her aura had now dimmed to the reality of 'so what'. The translations told her nothing about her aura, or how to use it, or how to control it, or even about its benefits or dangers. All it did was give her hope that somewhere in this world the knowledge that she sought about her gift might actually exist. But, darn it, like where?
"Are there still Frisian villages in the Fens?" she asked.
"The Fen swamps were cleared of peasant villages and the land drained and turned into farm land in the late sixteen hundreds," he answered. "Today’s Fens are absolutely nothing like what they were. The only Frisian villages I know of are in Freisland in the north of Holland."
"Would your library have anything written down by these healers? You know, like an instruction book."
"Love, they would have been illiterate. Their knowledge would have been passed from mother to daughter orally and from memory. That is why it was so important to the Normans to execute them. In that way they not only cut off the bloodline that might carry the gift, but they also cut off the passing of the knowledge."
"But that's horrible," she gasped, suddenly depressed.
"That is the history of the world," he explained. "Written cultures always replace oral cultures because they outlast them. The ongoing problem of course, is that true understanding is rarely captured in writing, and a conquered culture is ignored. Such understanding and knowledge has been lost. Lost forever."
This girl had a bright inquisitive mind, he thought. Too bad she had grown up in the backwoods of California. "When you are at the school, you could audit some of the courses. There are colleges near by. We would pay your tuition if you wished to attend." Anything to get her to work for him. "Could I ask you to show me the healing side of your gift?"
"Uh, a bit risky, don't you think, like, considering everything."
"I don't mean on me. Show me on Wendy."
Wendy walked over. "I'm game if you are."
"It means taking off my gloves."
"I'll risk it," he chuckled.
"No you won't," she replied. "If you want to be close by and watch, then go and find yourself a ski jacket and a woolen scarf. Clothing blocks auras. The warmer the clothing the better, or actually, the worse for anyone but psychos."
He grimaced at the use of the word, but went off to the front hall closet to find warm clothing. Wendy came close. "It's best if we are both nude. Does that bother you?" Maya asked her.
"Of course not. I am a great believer in spontanudity."
Maya laughed at the word scramble. She loved word scrambles. "Tell me. Do you enjoy having men watch you when you are nude?"
"Is that important?" Wendy raised an eyebrow.
"No"
"Yes, very much. I mean, I have always been aware that in the short span of years that I look this good, it's a waste not to show it off."
They watched each other undress. Maya shucked her clothes as indifferently as if she were stripping down at Wreck Beach, the clothing optional beach in Vancouver. Wendy carefully undid each button and snap, and tidily folded each garment or gently laid it over the back of the sofa.
They were totally different body types, one slim and still somewhat childlike, the other curvacious but with that toned edge that spoke of discipline in the gym. Totally different complexions, one fair, one dark. The only commonality was their height and their shoe size. They both shivered simultaneously. Wendy reached over and turned on the gas fireplace. It heated up very quickly.
Wendy lay on her back on the carpet in front of the fireplace. Maya assumed a meditation lotus position and pressed her hands together as if in prayer. Sir Nigel, in a yellow scarf and a pink ski jacket, sat away from the fireplace beyond Wendy's head. He couldn't help but notice the flickering firelight playing on two lovely bodies.
"I am meditating to raise the strength of the aura," Maya said softly. "Strength means range. Clothes block range either because the fabric actually does the blocking, or because the touch of the fabric overrides the softer touch of the aura. I don't know which." She closed her eyes for a moment, and took a few deep breaths.
"Okay, the aura is strong enough for a demonstration. I can judge its strength by its brightness and smell. Not bright to the eye. Not an odor to the nose. Both sensations go directly to the brain. The subconscious brain.
Now I am crossing my left arm over my breast and grabbing my right wrist. This concentrates the aura from my body, down my arms and into my right hand. Such focus means more range, but reduces its range everywhere else. Most of it goes through my hand.
Now I am hovering my hand over her skin. It is best not to touch the skin because the sensation of touch is so strong and immediate compared to the sensation of the aura. She will feel it first as sexual arousal. Some of my friends think that we are all born with a sense for auras, that they are natural. Their theory is that as we grow older we lose it, quickly. They think that the hiding place of last resort for the aura sense is in the sexual organs.
You see, hovering over her arms and legs and stomach does little, but watch what happens when my hand hovers between her legs."
Wendy moaned. "Oh, that is lovely, oh my. So gentle. So, so, ohhhh."
"Shhh, try not to think of anything. No words, just sensations," Maya soothed. "Now that she is feeling the aura, I can scan her body for darkness. The aura is like light. When it finds illness, it dims. I see them in my brain. Spots of gray, different shades of gray. Rarely black. Notice that now I am keeping away from the sexual organs. They are too receptive and block out other senses."
She scanned Wendy's body, slowly, completely. With time it took increasing physical strain to hover her hand, until eventually she could no longer hold it up. She took a break. "She is like, really healthy. The only darkness I could find was her
on her forearm. It sensed as a light gray, so perhaps like, an old wound that has healed."
Wendy's voice was from far away. "I once blocked a knife. It was a deep wound but missed the main muscle."
"Do you mind if I strengthen the aura and push some good vibes through you?" She had decided not to show them how she could focus and push her aura out for longer range, or how she could charge crystals.
"Please do."
"It may become sexual."
"Promise?"
Maya raised her aura a few notches and began again. This time, not to scan, but to pleasure, like an all over sensual massage. With Wendy it became sexual very quickly. Her entire voluptuous body became a vision of eroticism as she reacted to the pulsating waves of aura. Maya kept glancing at the antique clock above the fireplace. After five minutes she stopped.
Wendy did not stop, not for a few moments. When she opened her eyes she sighed, disappointed that it was over.
"This would probably be a good time for sex," Maya hinted to them both. Wendy looked at Sir Nigel and twisted her head inquisitively. He nodded. They retired to her bedroom.
This was her chance. She threw on her clothes and crept around the apartment, searching. She didn't know for what, but she would know it when she saw it. She found nothing. When the animal noises ceased from the bedroom, she went back to her papers and sat by the fireplace. Nothing. She thought back at what she had seen in cupboards and drawers.
There wasn't much. It was a corporate apartment, so was kept clean, like a corporate office. His passport. It was a diplomatic passport. United Kingdom. A high school principal with a diplomatic passport. What did that mean? He had just flown in from the UK, but there was no sign of airline tickets, or that his luggage had been through an airport. What did that mean?
