Levels of Ascension BoxSet

by Amy Proebstel

  For the first time, Amanda noticed all of the women were already wearing their matching white outfits. She tried to swallow with her suddenly dry throat and stood up. This would be her first time using a sanctioned Gate and she was actually more nervous about it than she had even believed she could be. When she looked around, the other women seemed relaxed about it, rather excited actually about the adventure they were about to undertake. She took heart at their objectivity and already felt better about their chances of success.

  When they all stepped down into the depression in the ground at the Gate’s vortex, Amanda wondered if there were a limit to the number of people who could travel at the same time. She also did not understand who would be directing their travel if Rasa was going with them. “Who’s going to operate the Gate?” she asked as they all waited to go.

  “I can do it remotely,” Rasa replied easily. “Is everyone ready?”

  With affirmative answers all around, Rasa closed her eyes and used her mind to activate the Gate to send them to Earth. She could not see the blackness around her, but she could feel the shift in their reality as they moved from one dimension to the other. As soon as she felt the elemy return to the Earth, she knew the transfer had been a complete success and she opened her eyes.

  The women around her were all wide-eyed with wonder at their new surroundings. Just as Willian had noted the day before, the branches formed a sort of cave around them which allowed sunlight to stream through in small patterns. They waited for Rasa to make the first move.

  Noticing the lack of movement around her, Rasa took the lead and stepped up out of the depression in the dirt and through the opening in the branches. She could hear the leaves rustling behind her as the other three women trailed behind her. When she reached the bench near the Gate, she turned and waited for everyone to catch up. Chelesa seemed oddly distracted and Rasa asked, “Chelesa, what’s wrong?”

  “Don’t you feel it?” she asked as she searched around for something.

  “Feel what? All I feel is the power of the Gate,” Rasa replied.

  “No, there’s something different. Remember when we went walking through the gardens at your Residence and I told you I felt a strange pull?”

  “Yes.”

  “It feels even stronger here.”

  “We can take a few minutes right now to look around, but we really need to worry about getting Neal.”

  Amanda turned to look at Chelesa when an idea came to her. She asked, “Does the thing you’re feeling seem a lot like the same thing you feel when you draw energy from the earth?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what it feels like. How did you know?”

  “Rasa, I think we’re going to have to take the time for this. This is something more important than we could have guessed. In fact, I think this might have been the reason we were all getting involved in this unlikely quest.”

  “What are you saying, Amanda? What do you think is here?”

  “I could be wrong, yet I think the samara meant for Chelesa is hidden here somewhere. We should spread out and try to help her find the source of the power she feels.”

  Excitement spread through the group as they focused their attention to feeling any power around them. Vinia seemed to hang back a bit not knowing if it were her place to be involved. The other women in the group seemed to have such a clear sense of purpose and she was still trying to find her way in life. This search seemed to bring her insecurities to the forefront.

  While the other women began to spread out, Vinia stayed at the bench where she sat down. She turned her head to check the progress of the women when her eye was caught by something sparkling in the sunlight. She got up to investigate. She lost sight of the shininess and had to return to the bench to better pinpoint the location. This time she went unerringly to the right spot and parted the ferns to find a crystal skull nestled in a hollow of the ground.

  “Amanda! Chelesa! Rasa! I found it!” Vinia announced as she stepped away from the samara since she still held fear in her heart for the one she had once been a keeper of.

  The sounds of footsteps in foliage converged on where Vinia had remained standing. Amanda was the first to say, “Where is it?”

  Vinia pointed to the ferns without moving from her spot.

  Rasa began to move forward until Amanda grabbed her arm and said, “Let Chelesa get it. She’s the one who felt it.”

  Rasa nodded and held herself back even though she desperately wanted to touch it.

  Amanda asked one more question, “Can you read auras, Chelesa?”

  “Yes,” she replied as she knelt down on the ground. She looked up at Amanda wondering why she would suddenly be changing the subject and asked, “Why?”

  “Before you touch the samara, look to see if the color of its aura is the same as your birth crystal.” Amanda’s theory was about to be put to the test. It would be way too much of a coincidence if it were the same color and not be the samara made for Chelesa.

  Chelesa focused her skill toward the clear crystal and smiled as she saw the aqua-green color perfectly matching her own birth crystal. “It’s the same,” she said even as she leaned forward and both of her hands cradled the sides of the smooth stone and she gasped at the surge of power entering her body and encompassing her mind.

  Amanda felt another click in her mind for accomplishing this important task. Seven of the thirteen samaras had now been found and placed with their rightful owners. No matter what else happened on this day, they had already accomplished more than she had hoped. The minutes ticked by as they watched Chelesa continue to commune with her samara. They were going to have to get going soon.

  The group stood transfixed by Chelesa holding the samara. Time passed and still nobody moved.

  “How long will this last?” Vinia finally asked.

  Amanda’s mind recalled all of the other times she had seen this same scene happen. “Rasa? Can you break their connection? If you don’t she could spend the entire day learning from her samara.”

  “I can try,” she said and used her healing skill to tie into Chelesa’s life-line. Immediately she could feel the added power of the samara and it almost took her breath away to discover how powerful a conduit the stone could be. With reluctance, Rasa began to unweave the strands which were not Chelesa’s so the link could be stopped. The work was different than anything she had ever tried before, yet it somehow seemed easy, as though she had done it many times before.

  Amanda could see Chelesa’s expression begin to return to normal and she used a stick she had located to knock the samara out of her hands. The stone fell harmlessly to the ground in the depression in the leaves.

  “That was amazing,” Chelesa whispered mostly to herself as she continued to stare at the samara which was to be her very own for the rest of her life.

  “What happened?” Vinia asked in confusion. When she had held the samara given to her by the wise-woman Copa, it had felt like a cold, haunting stone, based mostly because the stone had been carved into the ghastly shape of a skull. She could not understand why it would have been any different for Chelesa.

  “I saw the most amazing things! So many stories and people, too many to comprehend, and yet still totally incredible!” Chelesa answered as she looked up at the group surrounding her with the most serene expression on her face.

  Rasa asked the most obvious question. “What are we going to do with the samara? We have no way to carry it, and we certainly don’t want to leave it here unattended?”

  “From what I’ve heard, once the samara has been claimed by its true owner, then nobody else can take it without her permission. I believe it’ll be safe to leave here. Just to be certain, we could move it into the Gate’s enclosure,” Amanda suggested.

  Chelesa went to pick it up again to do as Amanda had said when she was stopped by Amanda’s panicked voice.

  “Don’t touch it with your bare skin, Chelesa! Pull your sleeves down to cover your hands or else you will be taken in by its power again.�
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  “Good point,” Chelesa said as she followed Amanda’s instructions. Even with the thin fabric between her and the stone, she could feel the power seeping into her, enticing her to let her skin touch it again. This samara was more dangerous than she had realized, more powerful and seductive than anything she had ever experienced before.

  She hurried her steps so she could limit the time she held the stone. Once inside the gate, she turned to the right and tucked it into a small space between two tree trunks. It was harder than she thought to walk away from her new treasure. She kept looking back over her shoulder, wanting to turn around and sit down with it and learn all of its secrets.

  “Come on, the sooner we finish this, the sooner you can come back to it,” Amanda said as if she were reading Chelesa’s mind. She grabbed the woman’s hand and began hauling her away from the Gate and down the small trail leading out to the crowds of Central Park.

  Of the three women with Amanda, only Vinia had been to Earth before. Even Vinia’s experience had been limited to the peace and quiet of Amanda’s home. Amanda had to walk behind the three women to keep them moving as they kept looking around and staring at all of the buildings, cars, and people.

  “Keep your focus, ladies,” Amanda practically chanted as she moved them closer to where they could catch a cab. When they reached the edge of the sidewalk, Amanda leaned forward and stuck her arm out until a yellow van stopped in front of them. She opened the side door and gestured for the women to get in. Getting in last, Amanda slid the door shut and told the cab driver where they wanted to go.

  Keeping in mind they were no longer alone, the women kept their comments about the surroundings to a minimum. Mostly they kept their eyes locked on the scenery moving by, occasionally widening them even more and turning to look at the other women. Amanda could only smile at their childlike enthusiasm for the escapade.

  The drive took just under twenty minutes with the traffic being rather light considering they were traveling to Queens. Before they arrived at the entrance to Creedmoor Psychiatric Center, Amanda instructed the cab driver to stop and let them out. She paid him to stay and wait for them to return shortly.

  “If you’re not back in thirty minutes, I leave, lady,” he said rudely.

  Amanda looked down on her wristwatch and nodded. “We should be back by then. I guess we’ll have to be if we want to get a ride.”

  The group of women swiftly gathered around in a circle with their heads together as they took out the map of the utility tunnels and tried to figure out where the best place to enter would be. They finally decided on the direction and hurried their steps. When they came to a small metal building with a ‘No Trespassing’ sign on the door, they knew they had found the right location.

  Rasa stepped forward and used a small amount of elemy to unlock the door. They entered the building and immediately began going down a sloping ramp to a lower level. The lighting was poor at best so Rasa created a sphere of elemy to illuminate their way. The sounds of their footsteps echoed off the walls around them as they went deeper underground.

  They came to an intersection where they consulted the map again and turned to the left. They made one wrong turn which they promptly realized since it was a dead-end, and they retraced their steps and went the right way. Other than the one mishap, they rapidly found the service elevator leading up into the psychiatric center.

  Amanda pressed the button and hoped it would not set off any alarms. The doors opened to reveal an empty car. As they had planned, Chelesa would remain in the access tunnel while the rest of the women filed into the lift. Chelesa would be able to communicate with Rasa should anybody come and start asking questions.

  Amanda selected the thirteenth floor and felt her heart begin to beat faster at each floor they passed. So far everything had been working out perfectly and it made her even more nervous. Surely there would be more people in the hallway when the doors opened. They would have to be as inconspicuous as possible.

  Amanda cried out as a wheelchair appeared in the elevator with them. Her eyes darted to Rasa who only looked smug at her ability to produce the chair so easily. She was glad Rasa had remembered her part of the plan since Amanda had been so nervous about meeting other people that she had completely forgotten about needing the chair.

  The panel above the door changed to the number thirteen. Amanda took a deep, calming breath and slowly let it out as she grabbed the handles on the back of the wheelchair. As the doors opened, she was ready to act the part of a bored attendant.

  She pushed the chair out of the elevator and casually looked to the left and the right. The halls were empty. It was too good to be true! She turned down the hall with Rasa at her side. Vinia waited in the elevator with her finger holding down the open door button.

  They could hear voices at the end of the hall, but nobody came out to confront them. Amanda found Room 1369 and tried to open the door only to find it locked. She hissed in frustration and looked over to Rasa to see what they would do.

  As Rasa had done at the utility shack, she reached forward and touched the doorknob. She grasped the handle and it turned with ease. She pushed the door in and saw Neal curled up on top of the bed. He appeared fast asleep and oblivious to everything.

  Amanda rushed forward with the chair and whispered, “Shut the door while we get him in the chair.” She positioned the chair right beside him and touched his shoulder. “Neal? Neal, wake up!” She spoke in a quiet tone and realized he was drugged to the point of almost comatose. She shivered at the recollection it brought her of her comatose memory of being treated by Dr. Gascon herself. Amanda shook him harder one last time before she gave up and turned to Rasa for help moving him.

  Rasa helped her move him to a sitting position on the edge of the bed. Together they hoisted him into the chair and then realized they were not going to be able to keep him sitting up in the chair. Surely they would be noticed if their patient was slumped over in the wheelchair.

  Amanda finally grabbed a hunk of the back of Neal’s shirt and held it tight against the edge of the chair. She nodded her readiness to Rasa who had gone back to the door to see if the coast were clear. They walked into the hallway and almost made it to the elevator when they heard someone behind them.

  “Hey!” a man’s voice yelled. “Where are you taking him? He’s not scheduled today! Hey, stop!”

  They could hear his footsteps falling faster as he tried to catch up to them. Amanda walked faster and turned into the elevator. She pushed the basement button and then the close door button and hoped it would be faster than the approaching man. The door slid closed and they started to descend.

  Amanda all but collapsed behind Neal’s chair in her relief. They had almost been caught and they weren’t in the clear yet.

  “Who was that? What happened?” Vinia asked of either woman.

  “An employee who now knows a patient is not where he belongs,” Amanda answered. “Can you make this elevator go faster, Rasa?”

  “I can try,” she said as she focused her mind on the cables of the elevator car. It took her a second, but she figured out the way the gears worked and she moved them faster until she saw they were almost to the basement. She removed her touch and let the elevator settle to it normal speed.

  They touched down in the basement and the doors slowly slid open. They could see Chelesa waiting for them and she did not seem anxious at all. Obviously, nobody had thought to send a guard down this far…yet. As soon as the doors were wide enough to get the wheelchair through, Amanda pushed the wheels over the bumpy threshold and began walking as fast as she could.

  “Two people go ahead of me and figure out which way we’re supposed to go. Someone stay behind me to keep anyone from catching us,” Amanda ordered as she continue to run. Her breath was coming in gasps as the impact of what they were trying to accomplish hit her hard. They still had to go up the ramp, out to the cab—if he were still waiting—and then back to Central Park. “What was I thinking?” she mutt
ered to herself.

  Faintly, in the distance, they could hear an alarm being sounded. The building had been alerted to the escape and now they were going to be hunted. The only advantage they had was that the utility shed was so far away from the hospital, they would probably remain unnoticed long enough to get into the taxi. Amanda wished she could see her watch to know how much time they had taken. The taxi driver had better stayed put otherwise they were going to be in real trouble.

  They reached the final ramp and Amanda struggled to keep going. Rasa came up behind her and took one handle while she pushed Amanda over to the other side. Together they pushed until they reached the utility shed door. Vinia was the first to exit the building, followed closely by Chelesa and then Neal’s wheelchair.

  The bright sunlight was hard to take after the dimness of the underground tunnels. Rasa took over the pushing of the chair as they went over the rough gravel path. Amanda glanced at her watch and saw they still had another five minutes with the cab driver. It was going to be close, they were going to have to go faster.

  “Hurry!” Amanda said in hushed tones as she stayed behind Rasa, protecting her back. She looked over her shoulder expecting imminent pursuit and was relieved to see the path was still clear. She looked ahead to see if they were able to view the parking lot where the cab should be and she was relieved to see it was still parked.

  They reached the van and Amanda slid the door open. Among the four of them they managed to maneuver Neal onto the middle bench seat. Amanda collapsed the wheelchair and shoved it behind the seat, apologizing as she jammed it into Vinia’s shins. “Back to Central Park,” Amanda almost yelled at the driver in her urgency to get going. He started moving the cab even before she finished shutting the door.

  “I was just about to leave, lady. It’s a good thing you got back when you did,” the driver said over his shoulder as he maneuvered his way back onto the route to Central Park.

  The women were silent as they each relived what they had just accomplished. Amanda had another fright when she heard sirens coming toward them. She held her breath until the three squad cars raced past them on their way to the psychiatric center.