“Yes.”
“As humans lost faith, their need for gods and goddesses faded.”
“But on Earth now, there are several influential religions with billions of followers who believe in God.”
“There may be a few that truly believe with their Anam that there is a life after they leave their body and many more hope that there will be such an existence, but even fewer still know that they are infinite beings, part of the web of all things. You don’t have to believe in a god. You are god.”
“I wish everyone could have the experience that I did in the dark wood.”
“All can have that experience and know what you now know, if only they open their heart.”
I had wanted so badly to have these questions answered, and I was so riveted by our conversation, that for a while, I forgot why I was there. But then the vision of Jake and Fanny with my dad on a train came back to me.
“I’m so glad that you have answered my questions – things I’ve wondered about since I came here. But I’m not here with you just to have this talk, am I?”
“You tell me, young one. Are you ready to fulfill your destiny?”
“I don’t feel ready.”
“If you don’t feel ready then you are not ready.”
“What now?”
“Now Miss Emily, you delve deeper into the mysteries of Akasha.”
49. The Dughall Enigma
“We must talk young Emily about our friend Dughall.”
“I don’t think of him as a friend!”
“A wise human once said, ‘If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself’. You have learned much about yourself here in this land of mist and fog, have you not?”
“Yes, Goddess, I have.”
“Then it is time for you to learn about your enemy. Now, what do you think he’s after?”
“Oh, goddess, I thought you knew! You must know.”
“No one, not even a goddess, ever knows what truly lies in another’s heart. I have ideas about this dark one. But you Emily, you must understand him, understand him deeply.”
“I don’t think I want to know anything too deep about him.”
“His quest – if he is successful, it will surely lead to the destruction of your world – and perhaps even this one. If you are to end his quest, you will need to know something of the man that you are destined to meet.”
Brighid told me Dughall’s story. I learned about his enslavement as a child, the horrible life of his mother, his escape and the Umbra Nihili. It was hard to listen to it. I found myself at times feeling sorry for him but then as the story went on, I found my anger rising.
I lost my mom too – okay, she wasn’t a slave and wasn’t killed at the hands of another. But I watched her be tortured by the alien tar being. My dearest one got snatched from me too. I didn’t go on a murderous rampage!
“It is one of the mysteries of humans. Infinitely fascinating creatures.”
“What mystery?”
“That two different individuals, in similar circumstances, can choose such divergent paths. You walk the path of yellow bricks. This one, Dughall, he walks a path paved with the broken and scoured bones of his enemies.
“Now you know his story. What do you think he is after?”
I reflected on the story. It was clear to me that Dughall wanted power and revenge. But there was more to it too. After a while it dawned on me. Maybe he was more like me than I cared to think. And maybe like me, he wanted to be reunited with one he lost. As soon as I thought it Brighid’s robes shimmered ever brighter.
“He wants to find his mother,” I said.
“Yes, smart girl.”
“But why does he want to come here? I have been told – and learned – this is not the place of human spirits.”
“No, it is not.”
“Maybe he is mistaken. Maybe he thinks it is and boy will he be disappointed when he gets here! He’ll find nothing but mist and fog.”
“Ah, that would be the fates playing a cruel joke on one who deserves such a joke.”
“Do you think that is what will happen then, if he makes it here?”
“The portends of the future speak of another possibility.”
“Then what is it? What could he hope to find here?”
“Ah, that is one of the mysteries for which we will need to go deeper.”
“Mysteries? You mean there is more to this place than I’ve seen?”
“Much more to the mysteries, my Youngling. Much more.”
“You will teach me then, won’t you? If I’m to defeat Dughall, I have to know all there is to know about this place.”
“You will learn the mysteries that you need to complete your task. Perhaps someday you will return to learn more mysteries. Now, it is time.”
“Time for what?”
“Time to learn about the mystery of time.”
“Time is a mystery?”
“Time, space. Here, there. Yesterday, today, tomorrow. All just different names for one. If you learn this lesson, you will have a most powerful weapon, one that will help you defeat Dughall.”
As always in the Netherworld each question was answered with a riddle wrapped inside an enigma.
“More riddles Goddess.”
“What is life without riddles young one?”
I thought that I’d seen every strange thing there was to see in this place. I was wrong.
50. Put Your Boat In
“Your scientists say that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light,” said Brighid.
“Yeah, I think it was Einstein that came up with that.”
“Very limiting, isn’t it?”
“Well it’s a limit set by Mother Nature.”
“Nature set no such boundary. The true boundary is the one created by the human mind. Einstein – bright man. Very smart – but very wrong.”
“Wrong? You’re saying Einstein was wrong? So we can travel faster than the speed of light?”
“You can be anywhere that you want in an instant.”
“But how is that possible? We haven’t even made it to Mars!”
“Emily, you have seen the truth of my statement, yet still you allow what you’ve been told to limit you. Did you not see the web of all things?”
“Well, yes I did see it – or sense it really.”
“Yes, you knew what it was and could sense it with all your being even though you had left your human body behind. That is because you are the web and it is you.”
“Yes, I knew that – I could feel that.”
“Why then child do you question your ability to be anyplace within the web whenever you want?”
“You mean right now, if I want to, I could be on Mars – in an instant?”
“Yes, of course you could. But you may want to leave your human body behind for that journey. Mars is not particularly hospitable for humans.”
“But Goddess, how? How can I do that?”
“It’s a choice really, a decision. Your Anam is not limited by space or by time.”
“Wait a minute – time? Are you saying you can also travel through time?”
“Time is a fiction created by the human mind. You have seen for yourself here a world without time.”
“I’m not sure I understand what time is. It seems impossible to go back in time because the past is over. And it seems equally impossible to travel forward to something that doesn’t exist yet. And Madame Wong’s always croaking about being in the ‘now.’”
“Yes, Madame Wong is right – it is best to stay in your present moment and let the stream take you. But time is much like a stream. . .”
And with that, a stream appeared before me. It babbled over rocks and meandered through a meadow and then disappeared into a thick wood.
“Here, look at this stream, so very much like one you may find on your planet. Do you see how the water flows?”
“Yes, but it flows in only one direction.”
�
�’Tis true young one, ‘tis true. But what you see around you when you’re in the stream, do you agree that what you observe of your surroundings depends much on where you put your boat in?”
I had to think on that one a minute.
“So if the stream is like time, then if I put my boat in – back there, by the big willow. . .”
“Then that is what you observe. . .”
“And that’s like the past.”
“Yes.”
“But if I put the boat in way up there, by that big oak. . .”
“Then you are with the oak at that moment. . .”
“And that is like the future.”
“Precisely.”
“I can put my boat in the stream wherever I want to. So are you saying that the same is true of time – I can go to any time that I want simply by choosing it?”
“Your Anam is eternal. You already exist in all places that ever existed and all time that ever was or will be. Once you understand this truth – once you know it to be true - then yes, your Anam can go to any place that it wants to because, you see, you are already there.”
“Akasha. . .”
“Yes.”
I felt like I had to sit down. A sturdy chair appeared behind me. I fell into it and sat there in a stupor.
“Difficult lesson for humans. Your bodies and all your creations seem so solid, permanent and real to you. So hard for you to accept that you can cast it aside whenever you like and be wherever and whenever you want solely by your desire to do so. And even harder to comprehend that, with practice, you can even take that body with you. All the humans I have met over the ages, this has been the hardest lesson for them.”
I was barely listening to the Goddess at that point. My mind raced. If I could be anywhere or anytime that I wanted, I knew exactly where I wanted to be. Home – the one with a mother singing and painting vibrantly colored flowers and making Sunday breakfast.
“Yes, you can go there. But the past is a tricky business for the soul traveler.”
Her voice brought me out of my reverie. What was she saying about tricky business?
“What do you mean ‘tricky business’? I though you said I can go wherever and whenever I wanted to?”
“Oh you can but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you should.”
“But I was happy then! I want to feel that way again, if only for a minute or two. To see her smiling face. To hear her laughter, like a million bells ringing. To feel her hug. . .”
Tears once again sprang from my eyes. My longing to see my mother again was so great, I don’t think Brighid herself could stop me even if she wanted to.
“Perhaps the best way for you to learn the tricky business of which I speak is to experience it for yourself. Yes, humans do seem to learn best by doing, even if it is painful.”
“So I can go – I can go there now?” I could barely contain my excitement.
“You are already there.”
“But how, Brighid? How do I go?”
“The same way you let yourself be one with the web of all that is. You simply let go of your conscious mind, be one with all that is and then choose your time and place. You will be there instantly.”
I still sat in the chair and relaxed my whole body. I followed my breath as Madame Wong had taught me – focusing on the in and out – in and out. A gentle wave. I imagined a stream and I pictured myself in a rowboat. I pictured myself traveling down the stream. As I relaxed and focused on my breath and the stream, I felt the chair beneath me disappear, but I didn’t fall to the ground. Focus Emily. I knew that if I lost focus, I was likely to fall on my keister.
The boat followed the current down the placid stream. Soon I was enveloped by a thick fog and couldn’t see more than two feet ahead of me. It seemed like an eternity that I drifted slowly in that fog, all the while concentrating as hard as I could on the exact place and time that I wanted to be.
Then the mists started to clear and the fog lifted. I was no longer in a boat floating down a gentle stream. I was walking up a very familiar sidewalk toward a very familiar house.
This was like déjà vu all over again. The last time I did this – was it a few minutes ago or years ago? – my hopes were shattered. Will it be the same this time? Or will I finally have what I’ve hoped for?
51. The Slippery Slopes of Time
This time as I walked up the wooden steps onto the creaky porch, it felt different. This house – my house – was no longer shrouded in mist. This was utterly familiar. Same red door. Same snapdragons and sweet William in the front flowerbed.
My face lit up in a huge smile. I was home.
I opened the door and the smell of chocolate chip pancakes filled my nostrils. Coffee, bacon. Sunday morning breakfast at my house.
I practically ran to the back of the house to the sunny kitchen. I couldn’t wait to hug my mom once more and hear her laugh and smell her hair – all earthy and spicy at the same time.
But as I neared the kitchen, I stopped and listened to their voices. I heard my mom laughing as if at the funniest joke ever. I heard my dad chuckle and flip the page of his newspaper.
And then another familiar voice. I knew that voice as if it was my own. It was my own!
I crept down the hall and peered around the corner to get a view of the kitchen scene. There she was, flipping a pancake on the electric griddle. There was my dad, hidden behind his paper with a cup of steaming coffee in front of him. He wasn’t a zombie back then, but he did bury himself in his paper every Sunday morning.
And there, sitting at the breakfast bar counter, another familiar face. My own, only it was a seven year old me. I was holding court, trying my best to make her laugh. I loved to see her smile. And from the looks of it, I was doing a good job of it. I had my cheeks stuffed full of pancake and was acting like a monkey eating, cracking her up.
A dilemma. If I barged in there, they were going to be like ‘who the hell is this’. And I couldn’t very well pick up this life where I left it off – I was fourteen now, not seven. And this place – this past – it already had a me in it.
What do they always say in science fiction movies? If you go back in time, you can screw up the whole time line and change the future. What if my little seven-year-old self saw me and that screwed up her head to know her future?
My heart thumped loudly in my chest. I wanted so bad to run into my mom’s arms. There she was – so close! And it was really her, not a goddess or ghost of her. Her arms would be warm and soft and real, just like I remembered. I wanted just one more hug. One more look into her eyes. One more smile on her face just for me. Maybe there was a way.
I crept back down the hall and outside. I took a deep breath and then rang the doorbell. I knew my dad wouldn’t take his nose out of his paper to get the door. And my mom didn’t let me answer the door when I was little. She had to come, just had to.
I closed my eyes and waited. I tried to remember to breathe so I didn’t pass out.
I heard the door open. I opened my eyes. There she was.
“Hello. Can I help you?”
“I hope so,” was all I could choke out in a cracked voice.
“Do I know you? You look familiar.”
“You know me very well, Mom.”
She suddenly lost her easy smile and all the color drained from her face at once. She didn’t look frightened exactly, but she took on a serious tone.
“Emily?”
“Yes. It’s me. Seven years from now.”
She yelled back into the house, “I’ll be back in a minute. Liam, can you take your pancakes off the griddle?” as she shut the door behind her and stepped out onto the porch.
“I’m not even going to ask how, but I do want to know why. Why, Emily, have you come here?”
What to tell her? If I told her the truth, she’d know she was going to die. That seemed a heavy thing to lie on someone. And then the rest – to know her daughter would be in such grave danger.
“I had to see y
ou again.” Tears began to roll down my cheeks.
Then it came – the thing I’d longed for – her embracing arms. She enveloped me in her arms, my head coming to her shoulder, now almost as tall as her. I breathed in the warmth of her body and the earthy spiciness of her. She held me for a good long time, and I let her – let her hold me and stroke my hair as I cried and cried and cried.
I didn’t want to learn more about streams of time and Dughall and the Netherworld. I didn’t want to save the world or be a warrior or a priestess. I wanted to stay there, in that place, with my mother.
I could find a way to stay. I could be a long lost cousin – that’s it! A cousin that they took in.
“Emily, tell me the truth. No lies between us, ever. Right?”
“No lies.”
“Okay, then, why are you here?”
I couldn’t get the words out.
“Does something happen to me in the future?”
I nodded yes.
“I see. And so you came back here to see me again because you miss me?”
Again, I nodded my agreement with her words.
“But there’s more, isn’t there? You’re involved in something – big. How else could you do this – I mean be here?”
Still just a nod.
“Are you in trouble?”
“Not exactly trouble. Danger maybe, but I’m not the one causing trouble.”
“Good – I mean that you’re not in trouble. But danger, I don’t like the sound of that.”
“I don’t want to be in danger anymore. I don’t want to go back and save the world. I want to stay here with you.”
“Oh Emily, I know you do. I know you do sweetheart,” she said as she lightly stroked my cheek. “But you can’t stay here. This isn’t your time any longer.”
“I know, but I can be a cousin or something. We can make up a story, no one will know any better.”
“But if you have a mission in your own time and you don’t go back, who will complete that task in your place? And what if the task isn’t completed at all?”
I didn’t have answers for those questions. Okay, I had answers, but I didn’t like them. The truth was, there wasn’t anyone to take my place. I could see it now. I’m the only one in my own time and space with the knowledge to take Dughall down.
Emily's House (The Akasha Chronicles) Page 22
