Levels of Ascension BoxSet

by Amy Proebstel

  Another significant look passed between husband and wife. They recalled from their meeting with Jehoban that Amanda would know things about them which they would find amazing. This was yet another example of her unique talents.

  “I do know Copa. She and I have spent a considerable amount of time together since Ninan had been hurt. Are you trying to find her?”

  “Yes, I have some things I’d like to talk to her about. I’d like to arrange a meeting with her. Can you tell me how to get in touch with her?”

  “Sure,” Alena said as she got up from the table and walked over to the kitchen counter. She grabbed a piece of paper and wrote down Copa’s call sign for contacting her on the patil. She walked back to the table and handed it to Amanda.

  “Thank you so much! I hate to eat and run, but I really need to get going.” She folded the paper and put it into the pocket of her pants. Amanda would wait to see Copa until she had spoken to Riccan about it. She had realized how important it was to make sure her family knew where she was since she had stolen away to the asylum.

  Bryon asked, “How did you get here?”

  “I flew my telepod.”

  Alena and Bryon had the same amazed expressions on their faces.

  Bryon said, “I didn’t know people from Earth could learn to fly a telepod.”

  Amanda chuckled, pulled her pendant up from her shirt, and said, “And I bet you didn’t know we could also get our own birth crystals, either. Jehoban is full of surprises these days. I think we should start to expect the unexpected anymore!”

  Alena laughed at Amanda’s statement and said, “Duly noted! I think our lives will never be the same since you’ve come around, Amanda.”

  “I hope it’s only for the good,” Amanda replied fervently.

  “Let me see the paper with Copa’s address. Since you have a telepod, I can give you the coordinates to her house.” She wrote down the additional directions and handed the paper back with a grin. “I can’t believe you can fly a telepod! Do you realize how many Tualans can’t even do that?”

  Amanda tipped her head at Alena’s comment. She could not understand why it would be so hard. Then she remembered her husband had designed her telepod to be very easy and safe for a person to fly. Not everyone had the advantage of such advanced technology. She returned the directions to her pocket.

  Bryon asked, “Where did you park your telepod?”

  “In the landing field outside of town.”

  “Come on, I’ll give you a ride out there so you won’t have to walk.”

  Amanda rose from the table and said, “Thank you, Alena. I look forward to sitting down with you really soon.”

  “Me, too!” Alena could not resist reaching forward to hug Amanda.

  Amanda returned the hug gladly. She missed her friendship with this woman and hoped it could be rekindled just as she remembered it from her dream.

  Bryon could hardly wait for them to be alone so he could ask the question which was burning a hole in his brain. As soon as the side door shut on the telepod, he asked, “All of the people at the meeting with Jehoban are going to get their own samara, aren’t they?”

  “It seems like it. Please don’t say anything about it yet. Okay? I could be wrong.”

  “I won’t speak of it. Do you think it would be okay for me to tell Alena about my samara?”

  “Absolutely! I think it’ll make it easier for her to know you have one so when she gets her own, then she can be easier about it.”

  “I was a mess, wasn’t I?”

  “I won’t hold it against you,” Amanda teased.

  Bryon had the telepod ready for the transfer so Amanda remained silent until they reached the landing field. He opened the side door and said, “I’m glad you came to see me today, Amanda.”

  “I’m glad, too, Bryon. I have a feeling I’ll be seeing a lot of you and your wife in the next few days!” She walked out of the telepod and over to her own. She turned off the cloaking and palmed open the door. She waved farewell to Bryon as she entered her own telepod to go home.

  Chapter Eighteen

  BEHN REPEATEDLY PRACTICED the crystal skills while sitting on his bed. He had been careful to shut the door for privacy. He promptly became engrossed in both lighting and extinguishing a candle he had taken from his mom’s collection. There was something very satisfying to see a flame appear where there had only been a smoking black wick moments before. He extinguished it again and relit it almost immediately.

  He only had two more things to learn before he was going to talk to his sister about what he had discovered about their heritage. Juila had promised to teach him how to move an object the next day. For an instant, he wondered if he could try to do it on his own. Almost in the same thought he decided it would be better to be around someone trained before he attempted it. He was too ignorant in the matter to know what could possibly go wrong so he opted to continue lighting and extinguishing the candle.

  He had been so engrossed in his task that he failed to hear his door open. Valentina watched for several seconds before she spoke. “What are you doing, Behn?”

  Almost jumping out of his bed with fear, Behn sat up and looked at his sister with wide eyes. “I…I didn’t hear you come in,” he said lamely.

  “I got that. What were you doing with the candle?”

  Behn looked at the candle as though it would come up with an excuse for him and then he glanced back at Valentina. Here was his opportunity to tell Valentina everything. If he chose to lie now, it would jeopardize his credibility when he got around to telling her the truth later. He took a deep breath and said, “I think you should shut the door and sit down with me. I’ve found some things out about our mom and where we came from.”

  Valentina’s eyebrows came down over her eyes as she scowled at him. She followed his instructions and shut the door, but she was slower to go over to sit down. Her mind was thinking furiously about how Behn could have found anything out. All he ever did was go to school and then spend the afternoons tutoring Juila.

  What she had witnessed as she stood at his door had nothing to do with family discoveries. Valentina wondered if Behn were using a deflection technique so he would not have to answer what he had been doing with the candle.

  She sat down on the bed facing Behn and crossed her arms. “This explanation had better be good, Behn.”

  Behn faced his sister, but kept his gaze down on the comforter while he tried to figure out where to start. He really needed Val to believe him. It felt like he would only have one opportunity to convince her or else she would shut him out and never hear the truth. The fact that she really did not want to know about their mom since they had such a loving home with their adoptive family complicated it even further.

  Finally nodding as he decided what to say Behn looked up at his sister. “Have you ever wondered why we can’t take off our necklaces?”

  Clearly Valentina had not expected Behn to change the subject. She shook her head in confusion and asked, “What are you talking about, Behn? I want to know what you were doing with the candle!”

  “I’m getting to that! Just answer my question about the necklaces.”

  Valentina blew out a breath with frustration and replied, “You know that’s something which has always bothered me, and also the fact that nobody ever really seems to notice we’re wearing them in the first place.”

  “Exactly! We always thought of our necklaces as a gift to us from our mom, but that’s only part of the truth. They were actually given to us by a wise-woman at our mother’s request. The necklaces give us access to the elemental energy of the land.”

  “Wait! What are you talking about? What is a wise-woman?” Even as Valentina asked her questions she was starting to have a memory emerge regarding the strange title.

  “Let me show you something I’ve learned to do with the help of my necklace,” Behn said. He concentrated on the first skill he had learned and produced a palm-sized sphere of energy above his outstretched hand.
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  Valentina hastily moved backward on the bed as she stared in amazement at the sphere which had not been there just the moment before. She looked up at Behn’s face, but could not make herself say anything.

  Behn took this as a good sign and moved the ball of light around the room beside the bed. He was careful to maintain impeccable control of the energy. When he believed Valentina had seen enough he carefully drew the energy back into his birth crystal where it disappeared. He felt a tingle go through him as the elemy returned to the earth.

  “What. Was. That?”

  “That was a demonstration of some of the things we learned from our mother before she sent us away. Try to think past your fear and astonishment and remember us sitting around a small wooden table with Jon and our mom. We each did what I showed you and when we were done, our mom clapped her hands, smiled, and told us she knew we could do it. Try to remember, Val! This is really important.” He stopped talking and leaned forward to show his sister how much this meant to him for her to recall the memory.

  It was hard for Valentina to dispute the evidence he had shown her, but for him to say she had done something similar when she was a little kid? No way! She would never forget something so amazing. She was ready to tell him he was mistaken when she suddenly did remember. The scene appeared in her head and she gasped in astonishment.

  Behn had been watching his sister’s expression. He could tell the exact moment when she believed him. This was going to be easier because she had the memory of their mom back.

  “Behn, how did you find out about this? What else do you remember?”

  “I remember everything, Val. Juila has been helping me to recall it all.”

  “Juila? Did you tell her about us? How could she help you?”

  “I told you I was going to talk to her about us. She’s been training me to use my birth crystal.” He picked up the pendant and admired the silver tree with its smoky grey crystals for leaves.

  “Okay, now I’m officially confused. How could Juila teach you the things we learned from our mom when we were little? You’re not making any sense, Behn.”

  “She can teach me because she’s from the same place we are. She and her family are going to help us find our mom, Val. Isn’t that great?”

  “What do you mean she’s from the same place we came from? I thought she has been living in South Africa. Somehow I doubt that’s where we’re from, Behn.”

  Behn could not help but laugh at his sister’s line of thinking. He answered, “No, we’re not from South Africa and neither is she. We’re all from a place called Tuala. Does that ring any bells? Can you hear our mom saying the phrase ‘what on Tuala’?”

  Valentina rested her chin on her hand as she leaned forward. There were so many thoughts swirling through her brain she was having a hard time concentrating on any one detail. Finally, she did recognize the phrase and she nodded her head in agreement. “Where is Tuala? Is it very far from here?”

  Behn chuckled at the understatement. This part was going to be tricky since Val was always so practical. “Yes, you could say it’s a world away. Literally.”

  “Behn, please stop being so cryptic. Where is it?”

  “I just told you. Tuala is another world. The way I understand it, Tuala and Earth coexist on different planes of reality.”

  Valentina laughed out loud and said, “Oh, Behn, you got me. I thought you were being serious!”

  Behn looked at her with a serious expression and said, “It is true, Val. Tuala is where we’re from. We are not from Earth. Our mother sent us to Earth to protect us. I’m not sure what she was protecting us from, but I mean to find out when we locate her.”

  Valentina stopped laughing as Behn kept talking. She realized he actually believed what he was saying. “What has Juila been telling you? Maybe I should have a little chat with Juila for filling your head with such lies. And here I thought she was such a nice girl!” She started to get up from the bed when Behn caught her hand and pulled her back down. She looked at his hand and then back up to his face.

  “She didn’t lie, Val. Let me show you what else we can do with our necklaces. Maybe after you see more, you’ll start to believe me.”

  He jumped up from the bed and ran from the room. He was going to have to hurry if he were going to keep Val from leaving his room. A half minute later he returned with a glass of water. In his rush, he had sloshed water everywhere, but he could not worry about that right now. He set the glass down next to the candle on his nightstand.

  Before he showed her what he could do with the water he created a breeze which blew her hair away from her face. Her hands flew up and caught her hair up to keep it from tangling. “That was me creating a breeze. You felt it, right?”

  “Duh! What’s the water for?” Val asked. Her interest was piqued. She had never seen her brother act like this before.

  “That’s next. Okay, watch the water in the glass and tell me what you see in a second.”

  “I don’t see anything but water, Behn. This is ridiculous!” Even as the words were coming out of her mouth she thought she could see bubbles forming on the sides of the clear glass. She leaned forward and stared in disbelief as the bubbles became larger until all of it was moving as though it were boiling. She asked, “Is that water boiling?”

  “Yes. Now watch this!”

  Valentina did watch. Slowly the water stopped boiling and the outside of the glass started to turn white as if it were getting colder. Within another minute the water was a solid block of ice. She stood up from the bed and went over to the nightstand. She picked up the glass and confirmed it was freezing cold. “Behn, what have you done? How are you able to do this?”

  “It’s not anything special in Tuala. In fact all kids learn how to do this by the time they’re in the second grade. If you want, you can come over to Juila’s house with me and they can teach you how to do it, too.” Behn was excited to see his sister had expressed an interest in what he had learned. Unfortunately, he had read her wrong. She was not eager to learn, she was scared of what Behn had learned to do.

  “Behn, you can’t be doing this! What if our parents find out? What if the kids at school find out? They’ll call us freaks and then we’ll never have a moment of peace at our new school. Don’t you remember how bad it was at our last school? All of the kids made fun of us for being adopted. I can’t go through that again, Behn. I won’t!” Valentina set the glass down on the table with a loud thud. She crossed her arms and scowled down at her brother.

  “Jeez, Val! What is wrong with you? I tell you we are special and that we can do amazing things because we’re from Tuala, and all you can talk about is fitting in at school? Who cares what those kids think! We’re almost adults and then we won’t ever see them again. I’m trying to tell you that we have unlimited power with our necklaces and you don’t even care!”

  “Behn, you are going to stop seeing Juila. If you don’t then I’ll tell our parents you’re having sex with her!”

  “What? We’ve never had sex. Good grief, I’ve only ever kissed her.” Behn had no idea what Val was talking about. It never even occurred to him she would lie about his relationship to their parents.

  “Do you think our parents will believe you if I tell them otherwise? I’d tell them anything to keep you from going over there for her to feed you full of her own lies.”

  “They’re not lies, Val. They took me to Tuala and I visited the house where we lived with Mom.”

  Now Behn had her attention. She had seen their old house in her dreams many times, but she could only vaguely remember any details. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m telling you the truth. They took me to Tuala and I found our old home. They told me it’s called the Roanoke Colony. All of the people were gone so I couldn’t ask anyone where our mom had gone. Riccan’s dad is going to keep searching for our mom.” Behn stopped talking since he could not think of anything else which might convince his sister he was telling the truth.

  �
��Roanoke Colony?” she whispered. “You had me look up that term a couple weeks ago. Is that when you supposedly went there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you saying you think those people who disappeared in the 1500’s are our family?”

  “No, I think we are the descendants of those people. I think they accidentally found a way to go between the worlds and ended up in Tuala without knowing how to get back to Earth.”

  “Wow, Behn. I really think you’ve lost your marbles. I can’t take any more of this nonsense right now.” She stomped out of the room and slammed the door behind her.

  Behn knew when to shut up. He had planted all of the seeds and now he just had to wait for some of them to germinate. Even though his sister was mad, she would keep going over everything he had said and done. Eventually, she would come to the same conclusion he had: they were not from this world.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Valentina went directly to her room after leaving her brother. She desperately wanted to believe he was delusional except she could tell there were kernels of truth. Even as she fought to keep the memories from coming she was recalling the lessons with their mother at the kitchen table.

  She slammed her fist down onto the mattress of her bed. She did not want to be different! She was so tired of being teased by everyone! Worst of all, she hated that she cared so much what other people thought of her and her brothers.

  She hated herself for yelling at her brother and threatening him. He had done nothing wrong and she had treated him as if he had. She had even told him he was crazy. How could she be such a terrible sister?

  Finally, she realized she was jealous. She did not like the idea that Juila had been so instrumental in helping him to remember their past. There had been so many times where Behn and she had talked about all of their dreams and what they thought they recalled from ‘before.’ They always referred to the time prior to their adoption as being ‘before.’

  What if she were to go and see Juila on her own? Maybe she could get to the bottom of this after all. There had to be some other explanation about where they were from other than that they were from a different world; the whole idea was just preposterous.