by Shea Meadows
“I agree, Dad, but we had to get things squared away at home first. What with Chester sending threats and the Stealer’s indentured ghosts attacking us in our beds, we really couldn’t start any sooner. You’ve met Avery Sweet, correct?”
“Went to one of the retreats he and Moon taught together in Chicago about three years ago. I’m thinking we’ll need some camouflage; he might remember me because we went out to dinner with him, and you look enough like your sister to be her reflection in the mirror.”
“Great minds think alike,” Ricky agreed. “I have a short blond wig that Shelia let me borrow and spiffy blue contact lenses. I tend to wear slacks and Moon was big on dresses so I hope that makes us different enough to be able to blend into the crowd at the workshop.”
“I have some easy-in hair tint to change my hair and eyebrows and beard to black. My facial hair grows quickly and should change my look. I’m wearing big horn-rimmed glasses as well. It was three years ago and he meets lots of people every day. Maybe we can get away with it. How about you David?” George asked.
“We’ve never met so I’m good to go. I bought the tickets for the workshop on the internet and we’ll pick them up at the door. It’s in a big venue with no assigned seating. We’ll be close but not right up in his face.” David answered.
“So what was Moon’s input?” George questioned.
Ricky sighed. “She pretty much left it up to me. Maya, my spirit guide, will be there, and I have the etheric emeralds. They sharpen my ability to see the lines of ghost infestation. If Avery is innocent and controlled against his will, I’ll be able to see the ghost and dissolve its power over him, hopefully get some input as to who gave the ghost the assignment.” She shrugged. “If he’s planting ghosts on the people in the group, I’ll be able to see that too. I’m sure if he’s the Soul Stealer, Moon and the rest of the group will be there in a flash.”
“You’ve talked about the etheric emeralds, could I see them?” George requested.
“Of course, but I’d rather do that outside the car. They put off a pretty strong energy and David could go into an altered state while driving, which isn’t a good idea.”
David laughed. “You should have seen me with them at the house. I sat in the corner floating out of my body for an hour or so after I touched them the first time. It took me three tries before I could handle them without spacing. My tolerance is building but I sure wouldn’t want to operate heavy machinery with them in my pocket.”
“Wow! We’ll have to take them out when we stop on the way to Chicago for lunch. I know just the overlook in Wisconsin. Nice little walking bridge out in the woods that people usually don’t take the time to explore.” George said with a smile.
The morning drive was uneventful, and they were happy to pull off at a scenic roadside rest stop, surrounded by trees and having a walkway that went high up on the side of a cliff with a view of trees, gullies and streams below. They were the only ones on the walkway which came to a circular structure at the end overlooking a town in the distance.
They took out the contents of the lunch basket: cold turkey sandwiches, chips, grapes and canned juice kept cold in an insulated pack. While they ate, Ricky told her father about her meeting with the guides. He was so fascinated that he hardly took a bite of his sandwich until her narrative was done.
“So, what you’re saying is that you went to a higher frequency where Moon and her guides gave you the stones, and you were able to bring them back into this reality? Wow. I wonder if that’s how she got the traveling stones,” George commented.
Ricky shrugged. “To be honest, I never asked. I know she got them from Shri Kria Baba and took a plane to India to meet with him. Maybe he brought them from a higher dimension. He’s still alive but he joined us out-of-body.”
David chimed in. “They emeralds just showed up when she returned from the meeting. In fact, Beth Ann and I watched the bag of traveling stones float up the stairs to Ricky awhile before she came out of her trance. It was bizarre.”
George laughed and shook his head. “Just think, Ricky, if I’d told you two months ago when I visited you in Chicago that you’d be traveling without your body and meeting with spirit guides, you would have taken me to the Alzheimer’s unit.”
Ricky laughed. “Yup. Can’t dispute that. But maybe I’d have suggested a brain scan. Sounds more like delusions brought on by a brain tumor. I never thought my life would change so completely in such a short time.”
George collected the scraps and cans from their lunch and put them back in the basket. “Don’t I get a demonstration? Go over what the stones can do again, so I’m sure I have this straight. And maybe show me something that I can sense in some way.”
“Okay, in a nutshell. The main purpose of the stones is to wake up ghosts that have been entrained to the will of the Soul Stealer. When they come into contact with a crystal that has been attuned to the etheric emeralds, they come out of their delusional state, realize they’ve lost their bodies, and recognize that they have no reason to attack those carrying the attuned stones. Because of that, even though we have only seven stones altogether, we can charge multiple crystals and other gems with them to maximize their use.
“Also, since we have three of the stones with us, our travel should be safe. The stones put up a barrier around us, in the car, or our hotel, and in the seminar room when we meet Avery Sweet. I have added other programing to the stones with Moon’s instructions.
“Since Beth Ann and David are just starting to see ghosts and guides, I put in a vibration that increases the holder’s ability to see any non-corporal beings that are present in a space, in particular, those attached to people with bodies,” Ricky concluded.
“So you have to be holding the actual emeralds for that to work?” George asked.
“No, a cleared healing gem stone of any kind works just as well, as long as we’ve used the emeralds to attune them. I have noticed the effect is particularly strong when using the original seven stones.”
“Oh, almost forgot, these stones carry the high energy of love. If you use them in fear or anger, you might find them popping out of the third dimension altogether. It’s best to meditate before using them. Moon knows about your spiritual progress, and she assured me you could use them without a problem,” Ricky replied.
David nodded. “I’m just getting the hang of it. I don’t trust myself to work directly with the emeralds without Ricky around. I was a cop for too long not to have some anger around the edges. I deprogrammed a few crystals before I was able to clear out the fear.”
Ricky agreed with a smile. “David has made amazing progress. Moon recruited the right people for this project.”
“So, do I get to use them? Is there anything around here that will be evident to me with the stones that isn’t without them?” George asked.
Ricky centered her consciousness and held one of the etheric emeralds in her hand. She looked around the trees visible from the walkway and smiled. “Oh yes. Usually there’s someone to see just about anywhere; so many folks hanging around without bodies. First, look around without the stone and see if you pick up anything. Then, center and go into your heart. When you’re ready, I’ll hand you a crystal attuned to the emeralds, so you won’t have to worry about popping an emerald back to its dimension of origin.”
George sat down on the bench and gazed at the trees, making a swoop in all directions. As he did so, he moved into his heart, feeling the rhythm of nature in everything around. He went into gratitude for the transformation that Moon had catalyzed in Ricky and the loving support for her that he felt from David. Smiling, he reached to his daughter for the attuned crystal she held in her hand.
He felt his body growing lighter when he held the stone and noticed that everything around him blurred for a moment or two then the green of the trees became more vibrant than imaginable. He moved his gaze again across his surroundings. Wispy figures started to materialize in the forest: a woman searching for a child, both dresse
d in clothing from the 1800s.
Over near the gorge, he saw a young man trying to pull an older man from a stream that was no longer there in the present time. Somehow, he could see people in the town very clearly now. He saw several wispy figures sitting in the doorways of older houses. Down on the street, a man was being followed by a ghost of a different color. The being had a red hue around its edges and it was attached to the man by what looked like a tentacle.
He turned to Ricky. “There’s a ghost infested man down in the town. How close does the stone have to be to release him from the spirit?”
“Where do you see that?”
“On the main street of town. They’re in front of the bank at the moment. Oh, just going into the bank.”
Ricky shifted her gaze from the forest to the town and spotted a rather angry looking man with an even angrier ghost attached. “I’m going to leave my body and go talk to the ghost. Something is happening.” She sat down on the bench and closed her eyes. In an instant her astral body was in the bank standing next to her target.
The ghost was a tall, rangy being with thick unruly hair, a large mustache and torn jeans and tee shirt. If he’d had a body it would be shoving and pushing the people that got in his way, being a ghost, everyone just felt twinges of discomfort as he walked through them. Astral Ricky put her hand on his shoulder and he turned and glared at her.
“Whad’ya want lady? Me an’ my buddy are gonna empty this bank. Get out now or get hurt.”
No time to argue with this guy. Ricky held the emerald in his energy field and he stopped, mesmerized by its glow. The big man with the flattop haircut and the grimy overalls over a plaid shirt, hand clutching a gun in his pocket, stopped in his tracks as well.
The ghost looked around him, obviously trying to get his bearings. “I was in the boat fishin’ and got flipped by a swell, then I’m here. What the…”
“You’ve lost your body. I know it’s hard to take in but someone grabbed you right after you died and attached you to that guy in the overalls. Do you know him?”
The ghost’s face registered confusion and distress but he was silent for a moment. He reached out to touch her and she felt his hand on her shoulder. Then he tried to touch the man she’d pointed to and his hand moved through his companion’s arm.
“I kinda remember drownin’. Like a nightmare, then here I am. Probably still dreamin’. To answer your question, no I don’t know the guy. How come I can feel ya but not him?”
“I’m out of my body at the moment. Why did you want to rob the bank?” Ricky asked.
“I thought about doin’ that a lot. They robbed me so I imagined how sweet it’d be to return the favor. Was plannin’ it in fact.”
Ricky nodded. “That’s why you were recruited. Have you been following the guy around long?”
The ghost shook his head in confusion. “I think. I don’ know. Maybe. Seems we were talkin’ ‘bout it and he has a gun and everythin’, and they stole from him too. He didn’ have the guts to do it alone but with me helpin’, that made it work.”
“Okay, I get it. I think it’s time you left. There are all sorts of folks on the other side of that glowing door that will help you work through your anger and make a plan for the next time around. Why don’t you check it out?”
“What door ya talkin’ ‘bout? Oh, that shinny thin’. Makes me feel happy to look at it. Guess I’ll try it out. Bye now. Don’ be a stranger.” The ghost walked to a shining portal that rested about a foot from him and was gone.
The conversation took about a minute, during which time the security guard noticed the strange behavior of the man in overalls and signaled to another man. Both came up behind him and relieved him of his gun. He gave it up without a struggle, seeming dazed and overwhelmed. Ricky popped out as one of the tellers pushed the alarm button for the police.
In an instant, she was back on the walkway with her dad and David. She looked down and saw the etheric emerald in her hand and sighed with relief.
“How did it go? You’re shaking.” David was sitting beside her, one arm protectively around her shoulder. “I wish you’d have let us drive you down to the town. We’d have been there in five minutes. I’m your bodyguard after all.”
Ricky laughed. “Yup, and you guarded my body until I safely returned. If I’d brought it with me someone would have gotten killed. The guy with the body had a gun and was all stirred up by the ghost. I woke up the ghost and the guy stood there confused. They arrested him without a problem. Both of them didn’t have much love for the folks who run the banks.”
“You did all that in two minutes, forty-eight seconds,” George volunteered. “Were you able to find out how the Soul Stealer is connected?”
“I found out the commonality and could plainly see the astral connection, but there was no time to dig as deep as I should have. Scary thoughts started racing through my head. I wanted to interview the man as well as the ghost, to see if he’d ever worked with a metaphysical teacher, but he didn’t seem the type. That made me wonder if this was a for-profit job on the part of the Soul Stealer. I could almost feel him there.
“I started wondering if this was a show put on for our benefit or just a coincidence that we were around to witness it. Then I remembered how the etheric emeralds could disappear if they were exposed to fear from the person holding them. I was afraid I’d pop the stone right out of the third dimension. But it’s still here….still radiating.”
George sat down on the other side of his daughter. “Was that the first time you’d left your body without a guide visible to you?”
Ricky nodded. “I think that’s the other thing that freaked me out. Before, Moon was there, or Nellie, or Maya, my guide. Mostly I was doing it from the house with its big morphic field of spirit protection. First time for winging it, and I was all on my own in the middle of nowhere.” She looked down at the emerald, rubbing it lovingly. “I guess the guides’ intentions were strong enough in the stone to keep me safe.”
“We were here for you, Ricky.” David said as he kissed her gently on the forehead. “We were seeing you returning safely. That’s why Moon asked us to be your traveling companions. No one should have to do this work alone.”
George smiled in agreement. “I think Moon learned that lesson from her own experience. You need someone who loves you with you to be your wing man, or in this case, your wing men.”
Ricky stood up giving both of the men a hug, realizing more and more that David was becoming closer to her all the time. Not just an employee, or a friend, or a student, but someone she’d like to sit and cuddle with and maybe more…much more. He was so comfortable to be around but so exciting at the same time. Maybe Moon had been right about the making babies’ together part. She was right about most things.
A cloud of spirit fog lingered above the trees. It acted as a viewing portal for three beings who were watching Ricky, George and David from a distance. They sat in a dark room on the third floor of a two hundred and fifty year old house somewhere on earth. Two watchers were men, the other the female companion of the younger man of the two.
“Our plan was successful. We flushed out an etheric stone. Now we know Ricky has at least one,” the female said.
“There was fear there as well. We’ve introduced a new level of paranoia into the proceedings,” the older man said with a chuckle. “It has to be Shri Kria Baba’s doing. Moon showed me the traveling stones she got from him, back in the days when we were both working on the same side.”
“The body guard is a good distraction for the sister. She’s newly initiated to energy magic, and she’s starting to fall for her employee. Why did Moon give this task to someone so green?” the woman said with a shake of her head.
“Moon and the guides think they can manage it from the other side. They have no idea how big the group with ghost partners has become. They think sending Rachelle to Chicago will solve what they see as the problem,” the younger man opinioned “We warned Moon a year ago. I’m not b
othering with another warning. The sister gets what she creates. Not our fault.”
*
By dinner time, they were close to Milwaukee and decided to stop for Chinese food. They sat in a busy restaurant with dim lighting, trying to make out the shrimp from the vegetables in their stir-fries. George looked around with a bemused expression.
“Wouldn’t you love to bring out the stones and see if there are ghosts attached to anyone in this room?”
“I don’t know how to answer that,” Ricky said. “If we see some, are we honor-bound to release them? That’s really not our mission at the moment. Maybe we’ll send people out with stones in the future, just troweling streets and public places to see how wide-spread a problem it is. But I was told that we have to chop off the dragon’s head by finding out who’s doing this and why.”
David nodded in agreement. “I’m still nervous about what we did after lunch. Was it a setup? It seemed like too much of a coincidence to have a crazed gunman with an attached ghost acting out as we were testing the stones. I think the more we use them between home and Chicago, the more likely the defenses will be up when we get to Avery Sweet’s seminar.”
George ran his fingers through his short-cropped hair. “I see your point. As tempting as it may seem, we probably put a target on the operation when we drag out the stones without the protective energy of Moon’s house around us.”
“Exactly, Dad. The guides assured me that the energy field of the stones would protect us, but they never said we couldn’t be seen by those who know what to look for.”
“Well, everybody done eating?” David asked. “We should get going or we’ll lose our hotel reservation.”
The others gathered up their belongings and headed for the van for another hour and a half of driving through both Milwaukee and Chicago rush hour traffic. They were booked into the Freemont Hotel in Chicago, where the seminar was being held. It was scheduled to start at seven the next evening, and continue all day Saturday and until Sunday afternoon. They planned to meet Emily for breakfast Friday morning and then check out the area for any indicators of high ghost infestation.
