Levels of Ascension BoxSet

by Amy Proebstel

“You’ve asked for the truth and we’ve all told you exactly that. This. Is. The. Truth. We are not from Earth, we’re from Tuala. Our mother sent us here to protect us all from the leader of the Roanoke Colony who was going to let you die and was going to marry Val even though she was only seven years old. Our mother used a samara to send us to Earth so you might live and where we could grow up in safety.”

  “So, you’re saying Juila and Jena are from this Tuala place too? They’re not really from South Africa? What about their parents? Are they aliens as well? Come on, Behn, how far does this go?” Jon stood up again to make his point.

  Behn also stood up and stepped to within an inch of his brother as he said, “Yes to all of your questions. Juila and Jena are not from Earth. They have taught Val and me how to use our birth crystals just as our mother taught us when we were little. They have also taken us to the home we shared with our mother in Tuala. We have met our mother and she does look almost exactly like Mrs. Stel. We have a little sister name Danika who should only be eight years younger than us, but instead she’s fifteen years younger. Our mother, Vinia, was pregnant with her when she sent us away to Earth.

  “We can arrange for you to meet with her and then you can prove all of this for yourself instead of questioning us and our sanity. Don’t try to deny it, I can see that look in your eyes. You think we’ve all been drinking the Kool-Aid. You asked for the truth, you said you believe us, and now it’s up to you to hear what we’ve said and believe us.”

  “So how will I get to meet her? Will you take me to this Tuala place? What, do the Stel’s have a spaceship in their garage?” Jon asked sarcastically.

  “We have two of them actually,” Jena said practically. “They’re called telepods, not spaceships. We don’t need to go to space in them since it’s just another dimension and not another world.”

  “Okay, I’ve clearly heard enough. Let me know when you want to have a serious conversation about our mother,” Jon said as he stomped over to the door and pulled it open so hard it slammed against the wall.

  Behn was about to go after him when Juila put her hand on his arm and said, “Let him go. Once he starts thinking about everything we’ve told him, then he’ll start to remember.”

  “It is a lot to take in,” Jena added.

  “Fine,” Behn said sullenly. He wished Jon would have listened to them tell him more. “I think we should probably get you girls back home now. It’s getting pretty late.”

  “Can I come with you?” Valentina asked.

  Jon heard the four of them leave the house before immediately getting back on the phone. He knew it was later than he should call Sofia, but he really needed to vent to someone while his siblings were gone.

  “Hello?” Sofia’s voice answered on the fourth ring.

  “Hey,” Jon said as he sat down with relief on his bed. Already he could feel his pulse begin to slow just by hearing her voice. He proceeded to tell her everything he had been told. By the time he finished with the comment about the telepods in the garage he was laughing at how ludicrous the whole story sounded. He expected to hear Sofia laughing as well and yet she remained silent. “Hello? Sofia are you still there?” he asked as the silence continued.

  “It all makes sense now,” Sofia whispered.

  “What are you talking about? You can’t possibly say you’re believing this bullshit are you?”

  “Yes, Jon. I saw the telepod in the garage the night of the girls’ birthday party. They told me it was a top-secret project Mr. Stel was working on and they swore me to secrecy. It didn’t make sense at the time, but now it makes perfect sense.

  “Jon, they are telling you the truth. You are all from Tuala. The girls proved that when they used the elemental energy to heal my body. I told you something strange happened. You even said you felt energy surging through my body while you held my hand. You felt the power as Juila and Jena healed me.” Sofia’s voice rose with excitement at finally being able to explain all of the things which had been troubling her.

  “Unbelievable,” Jon said. “I’ve got to go,” he told Sofia as he hung up the phone without waiting for a reply. “I feel like I’m stuck in an episode of the Twilight Zone and everyone but me has gone crazy.” He threw himself back on his bed and stared at the ceiling in disbelief. Everything had been normal all day and now nothing was right, even Sofia had turned on him.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  CHECKING HER WATCH, Amanda could hardly believe it was as late as it was. When she landed in the garage at home, she saw Riccan’s telepod already parked. She hurried into the house, glad she would be able to talk about the samaras sooner rather than later.

  Immediately, she knew something was wrong. The house was in complete disarray with items strewn all over the floor. She stood in the doorway hardly breathing as she listened for any sounds of movement. More afraid than ever, she knew Riccan was probably somewhere in the house, possibly in danger or even hurt. Even worse, her children should have been home by now as well. What had happened here?

  She stepped carefully over the debris, trying to move as quietly as possible while keeping her eyes scanning the room for any movement. Furniture was overturned in the living room and Amanda tried to locate any of her family anywhere in the room. Without any further clues, Amanda continued through the living room and down the hall.

  The office was just as disheveled as everywhere else. Amanda’s mind went to the samaras. This surely had to do with someone searching the house for the powerful crystals. With this in mind, she rushed her steps to get to the library. As soon as she entered the room, she groaned with dismay as she saw the wall of books open leading to the secret room. She weaved her way around the mess on the floor until she could see into the hidden space.

  She must have made some sort of noise in her haste because she heard the sound of someone in the room before she saw anyone. She started to scream in fear when she saw it was Riccan. Amanda rushed forward and threw her arms around his neck and asked, “Are you okay? Are the girls okay? Talk to me.”

  Riccan hugged her before he removed her arms from around his neck. He held her hand while he backed her up from the bookcase wall. Pressing the lever, allowing the wall to silently move back to its original space, he answered. “I’m fine. The girls left a message saying they were going over to the Wilson’s house to study. We do have a problem, though.”

  “Oh, I’m so relieved to hear about the girls being safe. Did someone steal the samaras?”

  It was now Riccan’s turn to be shocked and he asked, “What makes you think the samaras would be stolen?”

  “They’re not?” She looked down and saw Riccan was holding the award from Ela Nena’s office. “What are you doing with that?”

  “No, they’re all still in there. I just checked to make sure. What do you think happened here?” He raised the award, and said, “I’ll get to this in a minute. Tell me what you know.”

  “I just found out Lucinden has been investigating abnormal power changes. I just thought with all of the samaras being held in one spot would certainly constitute a power shift in a big way. When I came home and saw the destruction, I just assumed they had been taken.”

  Riccan nodded his head at Amanda’s explanation. He had just had the same realization while he was at work. The more he thought about Ela Nena’s award, the quicker he came to the conclusion they were creating a dangerous situation. “I have a feeling this thing,” he shook the metal object in his hand, “maybe it has a tracking device still on it. I’m going to move it somewhere where it won’t lead anyone to us.”

  “Don’t you think they already have our location?” Amanda asked as she swept her arm around to gesture to the messes everywhere.

  “Maybe, but I don’t think so. I think this was a simple burglary. If it really were someone from Lucinden then they would have found the samaras. Whoever did this, never even noticed there was a hidden room so the samaras have remained safe.”

  “So who was in here? Are they s
till here? Have you checked everywhere? Shouldn’t we call the police?” Amanda suddenly felt very unsafe even with her husband right in front of her.

  “I’m not sure who it was, nobody was here when I got home. I’ve been through the entire house, the samara room was the last place I checked. I’m not going to call the police, but I am going to increase the security both in and around the house.”

  “How are you going to do that? It’s not as if it can happen overnight. I don’t feel safe here now!”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. Just like my parents’ Residence, I can set up ward around the property to keep anything like this from ever happening again. I’m also going to set up shields around the samaras, which I should have done a long time ago. I’m only sorry I didn’t think of it sooner. Now this,” he shook the award, “I’m going to take far away. Do you want to come with me?”

  Just the idea of being left alone in the house while it was turned upside down seemed like a terrible idea. Amanda immediately nodded and kept herself very close to her husband’s side. She had no idea where they were going, but anywhere else seemed better than home at the moment.

  Riccan could feel the trembling in his wife’s hand as it gripped his arm tightly. He had no idea this break-in could affect her so deeply. To help alleviate some of her fear he used his power to put each room back to rights as they either passed through them or by them on their way to the garage. He wished he would have done it before Amanda got home, but she had come back unexpectedly early.

  To put Amanda’s mind onto something else, Riccan asked, “Tell me about your day.”

  Amanda had to concentrate hard to even remember what she had been doing since her fear had become almost paralyzing. All at once she remembered and told Riccan about Jessica’s visit over Neal’s new treatment. She told him about Dr. Gascon’s involvement and what her new plans were for getting him out of the psychiatric center.

  Riccan frowned slightly. He wished Amanda would not put herself at risk so much for the man of her past. He did, however, understand her desire to make sure he got his life back after all they had been through. Amanda’s caring heart was one of the things which made her so perfect so he could hardly fault her for wanting to help. He was glad to hear Rasa was going to be involved since she had a lot more to lose if she were not discreet in her interactions with people from Earth.

  His plan to distract Amanda had worked to distract both of them. He found he had no idea where he wanted to take the award. Wherever he picked, it would have to be far away from their home. He needed to make sure it would be in a spot where nobody could get hurt if it were being actively tracked.

  They buckled into their seats in the telepod and Riccan entered in a course to take them back to Tuala at their current location. Once there he would decide where they would go. He hit the activation button and their surroundings became peaceful and black. Several seconds later, they reappeared hovering high in the air over lush, green trees near the ocean’s shoreline.

  Amanda looked out the window, thought she recognized the scenery, and asked, “Is this the Tualan equivalent to our home?”

  Riccan’s smile showed he was pleased with her astute question and his nod confirmed her guess. “Which direction do you want to go?”

  “Southwest,” she answered without hesitation.

  Riccan enjoyed flying straight since it was not often practiced. The feel of the controls under his hand made him remember all over again why he took up flying in the first place.

  After several minutes Amanda looked down and saw a school of dolphins in the water. She pointed and said, “Maybe they’d like something to play with.”

  Riccan laughed, reached down to the floor by his feet, picked up the award, and handed it over to her. “Feel free to give them some entertainment.”

  Amanda waited for Riccan to stop the telepod and hover near the water before she grabbed the metal statue. She opened her window and dropped the object into the water. She felt a great sense of relief to see it splash down into the water and sink below the surface. The dolphins were nowhere to be seen anymore, yet Amanda hoped they might come back to play with it. If they moved it far out to sea, then nobody would ever find it again. Maybe the tracking device would lead Lucinden’s men on a merry little chase to frustration.

  Riccan saw the look of satisfaction on Amanda’s face and was thankful he could give her back some sense of power. He pulled back on the manual lever to speedily lift the telepod up to get out of the ground effect of the wind interacting with the water. It was dangerous to be too close to the water because of unpredictable wind and water.

  Not really wanting to go home, and thankful she already had an excuse to go out, Amanda said, “I need to go shopping when we get back.”

  “What are you going to get?”

  “White scrubs.”

  “That’s kind of odd. What do you need those for?”

  “So I can blend in better when we’re getting Neal out of the hospital.”

  “Oh.” Riccan liked the idea less now that he had thought about it more. It was one thing for Amanda to do something slightly dangerous on Tuala where he could partially control the outcome, it was another thing entirely to risk herself on Earth where he had no pull at all. “Are you sure there isn’t some other way which isn’t illegal. You could get caught, you know. Have you thought about that?”

  Amanda noticed Riccan had not said anything about not going, he just did not like her current plan. She wished she could present him with several variations, yet they only had the one proposal. “I just can’t get caught. Besides, Rasa said she would use teleportation if it came right down to it.”

  “Even better, Amanda. Now you’re risking Rasa’s career as well as your own life.”

  “What are you saying, Riccan?”

  “Rasa knows better than to interfere in Earth matters. Just by her helping you she is risking her career. If she uses her powers on Earth she faces the penalty of having her mind swiped for misuse of power.”

  “Oh, I didn’t know it was so serious. It was Rasa’s own idea, after all.”

  Slightly mollified, Riccan added, “I’m sure Rasa will keep you all very safe. She has too much to lose now. I’m glad she’s going with you.”

  “Your confidence in my ability is staggering, Riccan,” Amanda said sarcastically as she rolled her eyes and shifted her head to look out her side window.

  Riccan wisely stayed quiet. He had done as he intended, he made her think about what she was asking of the others. Now Amanda would be even more careful in her mission. He tapped the glass panel and selected the home button as their destination. He removed his hand from the manual control and hit the activation button and took them home.

  Amanda did not say anything as she walked out of the telepod and across the garage. She opened the door to go inside, expecting to see the disarray. She simply stared as she saw everything was immaculate again as though nothing had happened.

  Riccan caught up to her and placed his hand on the small of her back to push her inside gently. “Don’t be so shocked. I took care of it all before we left. I figured we wouldn’t want the girls to come home to something so shocking.”

  “Oh, that was very thoughtful of you,” Amanda said as she kissed his cheek. It seemed more like a bad dream since everything was back to normal. “I’m going to run to the store. I won’t be long,” she said as she kept walking through the kitchen, picked up her purse from the kitchen desk, continued down the hallway, and out to the other garage to get to her truck. She pulled out onto the main road and waved as she saw the girls in a car heading toward their house. It was very nice to know they had been spared the ugliness of the break-in.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  AMANDA SMOOTHED HER scrubs outfit down her body one more time before she left the house and got into her telepod. So much depended on this mission going well, and she did not want to endanger any of her friends from Tuala. They simply had to succeed.

  The
trip to Manzanit went smoothly and Amanda found a landing spot even closer to the landing field’s entrance than she had the day before. She found a transport to take her to the Residence. Since they had not previously agreed to what time to meet, Amanda decided to be rather early so they could go over the plan again and make any changes they might have thought of overnight.

  The guards at the main entrance let her through without any protest so she at least assumed they were told to expect her. When the transport stopped outside the main door, Amanda paid with the shills she had put into her pocket for this purpose, and she stepped out wondering what she should do next.

  The door opened and Rasa stepped out to greet her. She laughed at Amanda’s expression and admitted, “The main gate guards were instructed to tell me when you arrived. There’s no mystery to my showing up to greet you. I did expect you to arrive early since this is such an important task for us to get right the first time! Let’s go inside and get something to eat. I’m sure you were too nervous to eat before you left, right?”

  Amanda nodded and felt herself be pulled into the building and led down the halls. She felt as though she were sleepwalking and everything was being taken care of for her. It was such a nice feeling she almost did not want it to end. When they got to the small sitting room, Rasa passed her a cup of hot steena tea and a small plate of fruit.

  She found herself relaxing as she listened to Rasa and the other women chat about their lives. She took a sip of the tea and found it exactly to her liking, she took another sip, then another. Before she knew it, the tea was gone as well as all of the fruit on the plate she had been given. Rasa was very intuitive when it came to reading people and knowing what they needed, Amanda had to admit to herself.

  “Okay,” Rasa announced as soon as she noticed Amanda setting her empty dishes onto the table. “We’re all clear on what our objective is for the day. I say we go to the Gate and get on our way. It might take us some time to get over to the psychiatric center so we should plan for that as well. Is everyone ready?”