by Jim Johnson
She gestured toward the false doorway set into the brick wall. “That, Rachel, is a permanent tear in the Veil.”
I moved a little closer to the indent and stared hard at it. “I just see a brick archway set into the wall.”
“Close your eyes, and breath slow and deep, as you were taught. Find your center.”
“All right.” I closed my eyes and focused on my breathing. The air was cool, but not frigid, so I shoved my hands into the pockets of my hoodie and tried to stabilize my breathing so that I was calm and collected. It took a couple minutes to get there, but soon enough I felt like I was in a good place. The practice I’d had recently seemed to help me get to a centered space faster.
I sensed Miss Chin behind me. She asked, “May I put my hands on your shoulders?”
“Sure.”
Soon enough, I felt the light pressure of her hands on my shoulders, and then she slid them under my hair and rested her thumbs along the base of my neck.
“Now, continue to breath slow and steady, and try to empty your mind as much as possible. I’m going to trigger your third Eye, and this is a bit of a delicate process. Normally I would never do this, but in this case, since you are so very new to this, you need a little guidance. Even with the practice you’ve had with your friend Bonita.”
I nodded, and licked my lips. I was glad my shaking hands were hidden in my pockets. “Will it hurt?”
“You will feel no pain.”
Not exactly the answer to my question, but all right. I braced myself for whatever was to come.
“No, no, relax. Deep, easy breaths. Sink into it, but remain standing. Yes, there you go.”
I followed her instructions, and soon felt more comfortable with her behind me, her hands on my shoulders and neck. I could sense her breathing in rhythm to mine. I felt a tickling sensation, as if she was running a feather inside my neck.
“Now, keep your eyes closed, and visualize where you remember seeing the brick archway. Visualize... and now See.”
One moment I had my eyes closed and saw nothing but the darkness of my closed eyelids, trying to imagine the brick archway.
But then, I felt a squeeze along the base of my neck, and then a pinch, as if Miss Chin had slipped a needle into my spine. It wasn’t painful, as she had promised, but it was uncomfortable. Just when I thought I couldn’t bear it any more, I sensed a little snapping sensation in my brain, and then I could See.
Oh my God, could I See.
Chapter 33
JUST LIKE THAT, IN THE SPACE of a moment, my eyes and my Eye were opened to things I had never seen before—never even dreamed of before—except in some of the strangest, most special-effect-laden movies.
The archway built into the brick wall was now outlined in bright white light and the space in the center was occupied by a swirling vortex of spidery blue energy sparks like those I had seen in the Branchwood stairwell.
I stared at the glowing archway for a few moments, then turned to face Miss Chin. I had trouble keeping my mouth from gaping open, but after a moment to gather my thoughts, I said, “How did you do that?”
“Everyone who’s been Awakened and trained can see the ley if they want. I find it distracting to see it all the time, so I simply shut it off, much as you might shut off a newsfeed online. I know it’s there, but I only see it when I want to see it. As for showing others, it’s just a matter of knowing what buttons to push and how willing the recipient is to see what you want to show them.”
“You mean I don’t have to see this if I don’t want to?”
She patted my shoulder. “You’re a lot of things, Rachel, but one of the most important is that you’re an experimenter and willing to try and experience new things. I figured out pretty quickly that you’d be open to the idea, and sure enough…” She gestured toward the glowing archway. “You’re seeing things that have been in front of you all along. You’ve simply been given the means to see them, at least for a little while.”
I glanced back at the archway, at the white glow around it and the swirling blue energies inside. “You mean this might go away? I won’t see this when I want to?”
“This is just a temporary fix. With training and practice, you’ll be able to see it at will, much as I do.” She smiled and took my arm, and moved me closer to the archway. “It’ll be there for you whenever you want it. For now, for our first day of training, I wanted to show you ‘what’s here’ before I start training you in the ‘how to’.”
I nodded, though I tamped down some sudden frustration. This was so new and incredible! “I want to know it all.”
“I’m sure. I’ll train you as best as I can, but your own efforts and practice will largely dictate how far you go with your abilities.”
“Now.” She shifted to stand in front of the swirling vortex within the archway. “I have one more thing to show you. I want you to close your eyes.”
I nodded, and then did as she asked. I flinched, because while my physical eyes were closed and I could see the darkness of my eyelids, I was still able to see the glowing outline of the archway, presumably through my other eye, my third Eye. Oh, man. I couldn’t wait to talk to Bonita about this. And Malcolm, thought I was sure that would be a very weird conversation.
Miss Chin cleared her throat, and I wondered if maybe she could sense that I was distracted. She said, “Now, I’m guessing you can still see the energies. Is this correct?”
I nodded. “Yes! I can see the archway and the swirls of energy; even with my eyes closed.”
“Excellent. Now, Rachel, I want you to focus inwardly. Focus on the feeling of that inner Eye, how it feels, how it focuses, how you’re able to move it around much as you would move your physical eyes. Can you do that? Look left and right and up and down, but just move your inner Eye. Not your head or body. Relax your muscles.”
I bit my lip as I concentrated, and then forced myself to relax even my jaw and my mouth. I focused on how the inner Eye felt, as it shifted left and right and focused in and away from the archway. Once I had the sense that I could control its movement, I panned it around a little to get a feel for it, and then moved it around as much as I could.
It was very disorienting at times, and as I swung it around to look behind me, my sense of balance got junked up and I felt myself falling.
I hit the ground hard and yelped, and opened my regular eyes in surprise. Miss Chin shook her head and cursed in the harsh language. She knelt down next to me. “I’m so sorry. I forgot how disorienting the third Eye can be. Did you move it to look behind you or underneath you, perhaps?”
I rubbed my tailbone and looked up at her with a wince. “Yeah, behind me.”
She sat down on the bricks in front of me and crossed her legs underneath her. “I’m really sorry, Rachel. I haven’t opened up anyone’s sight in a long time and I forgot about that.” She rested a hand on my leg. “That’s not a beginner move.”
I switched to a sitting position opposite her and mustered up a smile. “It’s all right, Miss Chin. I bet that’s not going to be the first bruise or scrape I get from your training.”
She quirked up her mouth. “That may be true.” She patted the bricks between us. “Now, as long as we’re on the ground, close your eyes again and focus your new Sight on what lies below us.”
I glanced down. “You mean the bricks?”
She smiled as she folded her hands into her lap. “No, farther down, beyond the bricks. I think it’ll surprise you.”
I glanced at her and saw nothing on her face to suggest danger, so I also folded my hands into my lap and closed my eyes. It took me a few moments to regain the center I’d had earlier, but once I got settled in, my new inner Eye clicked on pretty easily and I was able to pan it around again and take in that glowing archway.
“Focus your Eye beneath us now, Rachel. Tell me what you see.”
Oh, right. I felt a flush creep up my neck and cheeks, but I guessed Miss Chin had her eyes shut too. Would a blush show up in the inner
Eye? I didn’t know. I did as she asked and adjusted my sight to focus below us. I took in the layers of bricks making up the platform we were sitting on and pushed past that layer to the concrete and brick and dirt below that.
“What am I looking for? I see shadowy images of dirt and brick and stone.”
Miss Chin said, “Keep digging down, layer by layer. You’ll see it soon enough. It’s impossible to miss.”
I gave her a skeptical snort, but focused downward again and kept pushing my vision through what had to be a water table connected to the nearby river. And below that, even more dirt.
Just as I was about to give up and ask Miss Chin for help, a distant glow filtered into view beneath me, growing steadily brighter the farther I pushed down. As I moved my Eye closer, I couldn’t help but open my regular eyes as wide as I could.
The blue glow coalesced into the image of a massive series of gridlines, stretching out in every direction, as far as my inner Eye could see before fading into the distance and blending in with the rock strata and other shadows so far underground.
I stared at the grid with my inner Eye, seeing the arcs of light blue energy coursing this way and that, holding the form of the grid and yet pulsing in every direction. I could feel power here as well: raw, pure power. And even though it felt raw, the grid it was set up in felt controlled, as if someone had carefully constructed it and set it up for use.
But for what sort of use?
I focused my physical eyes on Miss Chin. “It’s beautiful. What...what is it?”
Miss Chin lazily opened her eyes and focused on mine, a slow smile spreading across her face. “That, my dear, is the single most important thing I can show you.”
“That is the source of all our power, all our abilities. It’s the ley, a part of the living earth, and it’s there to be tapped into by those who know how.”
I could feel the latent power contained within the grid. I stared at it and asked, “But what can you do with it? There’s so much power here.”
Miss Chin chuckled. “There are any number of applications you can use with this power grid. But, I must warn you, knowing that it is here is not enough. It’s far too dangerous to use untrained. The sheer amount of power contained within that grid could kill you, or worse.”
I thought about what Malcolm had done, and shrugged it off. I tried a little smile. “What could be worse than death?”
I felt her touch my arm with her hand, and I pulled back my Eye’s focus to look toward her. She said, “I’m glad you asked that, because I’m going to show you something else. For now, it’s enough to know that the grid is there. We’ll build on that later.”
She guided my Sight back to the brick platform and had me focus on the inset brick archway again. She shifted her body to face the archway and I did likewise. Sitting together on the brick platform, I thought we made a silly-looking pair, but then I caught sight of the soft glow of the ward dome around us and was reminded that no one could see us.
Miss Chin said, “Now I show you a piece important to your calling.” She gave me a look that I could only describe as shrewd. “As I said before, I believe you are a Beacon, one who guides lost souls from wherever they are to the Holding, and, if they are ready, from the Holding on to whatever their final destination may be.”
I stared at her. “You mentioned it before, but it’s still hard to believe.”
She nodded. “Remember that your role is entirely voluntary. It’s not something you’re required to do.” She raised a finger. “But, the more you’re exposed to the mysteries of this world, the harder it’s going to be for you to forget what you’re capable of—of what abilities are out there in the world, waiting for you to touch.”
I nodded, knowing I had already made my choice, even if I hadn’t told her. I focused on the archway, excited to see what she wanted to show me. “So, what’s this glowing archway, really?”
She smiled at my initiative, and focused on the glowing archway as well. “This is a permanent rift in the Veil, one that’s been here for a very long time and has resisted every attempt to be repaired or closed. The Menders I know have long since given up on trying to close it, which is why I keep an eye on it.”
I nodded, sort of understanding. “As a Warden, to see if anything bad comes out of it?”
She nodded. “That, and to make sure no one accidentally stumbles into it. Hard to do, but possible.”
I frowned. “People can fall into the Holding?”
She nodded. “Oh, yes. People get lost in there all the time. Missing people aren’t just lost here on the mortal plane. Plenty of people have stumbled into a permanent rift and gotten lost, some forever. Wardens and Beacons go in to try and find them and lead them home, but…”
She sighed and shook her head, and for the first time I thought I sensed genuine sadness in her tone. “But sometimes they just can’t be found, and are lost.”
I blinked and thought that over. “So…it’s sort of like the Bermuda Triangle?”
She snorted and shook her head. “We’re dealing in reality here, Rachel, not fantasy. Now, focus, and let me show you.”
She closed her eyes and somehow I could sense her focus on the shimmering archway in front of us. I glanced below us with my third Eye, and got a faint glimmer of that strange grid far below us.
A thin trickle of blue energy arced up from the grid and into Miss Chin’s outstretched hands. She entwined her fingers into the threads, and they soon took on a greenish cast as her own particular aura color blended in with them. She pointed her hands toward the archway.
The green-tinged tendrils arced toward the gateway and merged with the swirling blue energies contained within the archway. As Miss Chin moved her hands and fingers just so, the various energies spun around and stitched together. As a new pattern formed, my eyes grew wider.
It looked just like the strange energy tube Malcolm and I had seen in the stairwell at Branchwood. I said, “I’ve seen this before!”
She said, “Then you have a sense of the general theory. With practice, you will have the means to create conduits such as this to the Holding, and then cross over from this mortal realm and into the Holding. That’s where you’ll guide lost souls, and where you’ll go when you are called to guide souls to their final resting place.”
“Will I need to be here, in this amphitheater, to do it?”
She shook her head. “No. The first few times, you may probably want to use a stable rift such as this one, since it requires far less energy to create and maintain, and since it’s familiar to you. But, in time, and with training and practice, you will be able to open conduits to the Holding anywhere, pretty much at will. That is your gift, as a Beacon.”
She waved a hand toward the spinning archway, and her green-hued energies untangled themselves from the blue energies and then dissipated into the air.
She turned around to focus on me. “But, I must stress again, that yours is a special calling, one of which most normal people have no understanding. If you were to open conduits wherever and whenever you wanted, you could easily draw unwanted attention.”
I closed down my inner Eye, feeling scratchiness behind my regular eyes. I felt more tired than I had in a long time. “So, do I need to come here at night?”
She shook her head. “Maybe, initially? But not necessarily.” She indicated the green dome around us. “I will teach you some warding and disguising spells such as this one, but you’ll want to think about creating a sacred working space for yourself that you can use whenever you want to delve into the Holding, when you’re not actively guiding souls there from wherever you happen to need to guide them from.”
I nodded, though I don’t think I was quite getting the whole picture. I shook my head. “ This...” I waved at the dome and the archway. “It’s just so much to take in.”
Miss Chin rested her hand on mine. “We can move as fast or as slow as you want, Rachel. The lost souls aren’t going anywhere any time soon. Once they start haunting
a place, they tend to stay in place, unless provoked or until they get bored.”
She nodded toward the archway. “And many souls in the Holding aren’t ready to move on. They’ll linger for some time until you or another Beacon goes in there and helps them out.”
I raised an eyebrow. “How many Beacons are there?”
She glanced sharply at me, took a long moment, and then shrugged. “No one really knows for sure. “I know of three personally who are still active, and another who has retired. I’ve heard of perhaps a dozen more second-hand, but I have to believe there are more.”
“Why?”
She shrugged again. “Simple mathematics. There are over seven billion souls on Earth. A hundred people die every minute, all around the world. That’s a lot of souls getting lost or looking for a way home.”
I nodded, making sense of it even through the fatigue pressing down on me. “So there are Beacons all over the world? I guess there has to be. I can’t be everywhere at once, can I?”
Miss Chin nodded. “Correct. There are Beacons of many nationalities and belief systems. Some may have a specific religious approach to their working of the weave—the energies contained below us in the grid—but in the end it’s roughly the same application of that power.”
I stared at her as she talked. “That ley grid is available all over the world?”
She glanced at her watch and then focused on me. “In a manner of speaking. The grid you saw below is a constructed pattern, built by some of our own Founding Fathers and Mothers. And even then, they had assistance from the indigenous peoples who were here before the Europeans arrived on these shores.”
I stared at her. “You mean…Native Americans helped build that grid?”
She nodded. “Of course. They were the Wardens and Beacons and Menders of this part of the world long before the invaders and settlers arrived, though they had different names for their roles and callings. I understand that it was difficult to get them to trust those few Awakened souls who crossed the ocean with the other settlers. But, in time, connections were made and alliances were formed that transcended political boundaries. Together, they built the grid you sensed below.”
