“Yes,” I answered to the unspoken but inwardly heard communication. I remember the light tickling sensation that seemed to fill my stomach. “Yes, I’d like that.”
I felt myself drawn. Drawn away from the familiar muskiness of the attic. I felt drawn to the clear air of glowing space. The earth seemed to fall away below me as I glanced about. I wasn’t frightened. Although I could see everything below, I was inside something, something that protected me. My pretend bubble, I thought.
“Oh. My... what?” I groped for words to express my wonder.
The huge spheres came into my view. Suspended in the emptiness of the sky, were dull aluminum colored globes, the same color as my mother’s old saucepan. The globe closest to me, almost blocked my view of other, more distant orbs.
“We store souls there.” an unseen companion’s voice echoed within my head.
“They live inside?” I turned and looked at the surrounding balls. Looked for windows. I really didn’t want to leave my transparent bubble for their metallic looking ball with no windows. I wanted transparent walls or windows, something to stare through to see inside, something for the people inside to look out of. But I couldn’t see any visible openings.
“How ... how do they see out?” I turned and gazed into the deepening blues of space. “They can’t see anything.” I felt my companion’s answered agreement.
“Nothing to look at anyway, little Barbara.”
Again I felt drawn. Drawn, without sensation of movement. I felt as if I were still held in my bubble as I watched the dull sheen of the globes move away from me. I know I didn’t feel afraid.
I looked down at my doll which I still hugged firmly to my chest. I’d thought that my friends looked a little like my dolly. That’s why I liked to take her along when they came. A warm breeze caressed me and at that moment I felt the rough wood of the attic floor beneath my knees. They’d gone again. I looked upward and peered through the shafts of sunlight spearing the attic vents.
“Bye,” I felt a tear trickle down my cheek as I tried to smile at the space above me. “I’ll miss you.” I whispered the words and hugged my dolly even closer to my heart. “Hope you come back.”
It was several days before I finally let the visitors slip from my mind. I wondered and half hoped the strangers would return, but it seemed as if they wouldn’t.
Too busy with that old war, I thought, like everyone else. They’ve forgotten me. So I tried to forget them and let the weeks grow to months and the months to a year. It was in May, 1945 that I heard my mother and father talk about the end of the war in Europe.
And it was in May, 1945 that the intruders returned.
That was the year I found myself again transported to a strange place in the bubble of light. When we went up that time I watched my mother come out into the yard to shake out a rug. Soon we were so far away I could no longer even see our house. During this visit they took me to the big round room. I was surrounded by the unseen visitors. I could hear their unspoken demands. I was just six but I knew what they were telling me to do wasn’t right. I felt heat rising in my cheeks.
“But I don’t want to take off my dress,” I looked for the being who spoke to me but saw no one. “Not in here. Not in front of everyone. Mama says I should only take off my dress in my bedroom or in the bathroom. I’m not a baby anymore.”
The words being spoken into my mind soothed me somewhat and in seconds, before I realized what had happened I stood dressed in only my white cotton panties. I looked down at myself and crossed my hands in front of my chest.
“Why are you doing this to me? I’ve been a good girl. This isn’t fun.”
Reassurance warmed my thoughts.
“Special light treatment.”
“A very special nutrient light.”
“Some of your people call it an ultra violet light.”
The ultra violet light was so strong that my panties looked to be a bright glowing white. I stared at the shining beige walls, then at the huge eye-like openings which circled the room high on the walls. Now I understood that it was okay to be undressed.
“Is this your bathroom? It’s all tile.”
The aliens projected laughter into my mind.
“Not a bathroom. Think of it as a doctor’s office. The doctor wants to help you.”
“I don’t like doctors.”
“Then it’s okay to call the room a bathroom. You can call your treatment a bath of light.”
Something was handed to me. My hands closed around the object. It felt rubbery, with glass in it. I held it up.
“What... ?”
The answering thought interrupted my question.
“For your eyes. Protection from the strong light.”
I felt pleased with that explanation.
“Oh, goody. Goggles. Like an airplane pilot.” I lifted the dark green, slightly sticky, stretchy material and stared through the heavy yellow green lenses set in the darker rubber. Hands lifted the goggles and placed them around my head to snap them into place.
“Now, you can stand in the center, on the mat.”
“Can’t I sit down?”
“Yes. In a moment. For about ten minutes we want you to stand up on the mat. For the rest of the treatment you may sit if you like.”
I traced my foot across the soft whiteness of the mat.
“Feels just like a warm blanket.”
The presence of the strangers and their thoughts slowly receded from the place where I was standing.
“Hey, where’re youall going? Don’t leave me here by myself.”
“Don’t worry, little Barbara. We will be just beyond the lights. We don’t need the treatment but you do, so we’ll leave but you must stay.”
“I don’t feel sick.”
“Oh, you aren’t sick. This is to keep you from getting sick. We have found something lacking in your body. The lights will replace the essential elements which are missing.”
I reached up to feel the goggles once again. Maybe they’d give them to me when the treatment was over. My regular doctor always let me take the tongue depressors home after he’d examined me.
“Well, okay.”
I took the light bath but then they wouldn’t let me take the goggles home with me.
I closed my eyes to stop the tears but I was even more unhappy when I opened my eyes to see that I was in the attic again. My mother was leaning over me.
She asked, “Did you go to sleep up here?” Her lips thinned and she shook her head. “I called and you didn’t answer.” I stood up and she brushed dust from my knees and my skirt. “I’ll never understand why you can’t just play in the backyard like a normal child?”
Chapter 3
THE TINY BOX
I hadn’t really forgotten my strange adventures in the sky but by the Spring of 1947 it had been so long since my “treatment” at the hands of my visitors that I rarely thought of my forays through space, anymore.
Mother and Daddy and I were planning to move into my grandparent’s huge house and I loved exploring their big place, especially the music room. I could be pretty sure that when I was in that room with the grand piano I would be the only one in there. I knew I’d miss the attic in our old house though and one of my favorite occupations was searching through the trunks and suitcases which were full of my mother’s discarded clothing.
I thought of her dresses as “lady dresses.” My favorite was made of peach colored silk. I’d gotten up enough nerve to put the dress on just as the sun was rising high in the sky. After a quick dance across the room I took off the pale silk and folded it to replace it in the tray of the humpback trunk. It was wonderful to touch and smooth the silk and satin dresses there. A navy blue and an emerald satin dress were nestled into the tray with the peach silk. I tipped the tray up to take one last look at the mass of bright satin, feathers and lace that filled the space below.
“Mama’s things are pretty.” As I talked I glanced up at the darkening window in the nearest dormer.
“I’ll choose the green dress tomorrow. To wear when I get to sit at Grandma’s piano.” I smoothed the satin and silk surfaces once again before I clicked the lid closed. “Gotta hurry. Mama’ll be waiting.”
The chicken was good but there was the spoonful of green beans that mama had put on my plate and the two slices of tomato. She would never let me be excused from the table if I didn’t eat the whole thing. I ate the beans. Not bad. Then the tomato slices. Pretty good. Lots better than I expected. Now for the porch.
“Can I go to the porch, mama?”
“May I.”
“May I?”
“Yes. But stay on the porch.”
“Can I go out into the yard?”
“Better stay on the porch.”
Just before I let the screen door slip from my hand I turned back and asked her the question I’d been holding back for a week.
“Mama, could I take one of your pretty dresses with me when we go to grandpas?”
“My dresses?”
“You know. The dresses in the attic. The ones you wore when you were a model in St. Louis.”
“We’ll see tomorrow. Don’t slam the screen.”
I flipped on the porch light, then allowed the screen door to settle quietly into place. When the light was on the porch seemed more like a platform for performing to me. Maybe the neighbors were looking at me even though it was afternoon. At least I was wearing one of my favorite dresses. The pale blue with the circular skirt. I lifted the side of the skirt and danced a series of pirouettes toward the side banister. When I closed my eyes I could see myself as a beautiful woman in a satin gown, a green satin gown. I could see myself dancing.
“Like Ginger Rogers, maybe,” I mumbled, and in my own mind the porch became my lighted stage. Whirl, glide, a tiny run and another whirl. Eyes still closed, I touched the banister at the far end then without looking I whirled the length of the porch, dizzying myself with my wild dance.
I tripped just a little and opened my eyes to the lush green of a wide meadow bordered by trees. The grass was the same color as Mama’s satin dress. The meadow looked like green satin. There was a flash of white, even whiter against the emerald green. Ah yes. My visitors were back and I was off my porch and out of my yard and standing in a green meadow at sunset, surrounded by a grove of trees.
The unseen beings behind me and around me, radiated comfort and protection but still, I felt uneasy, maybe a little afraid. Why were they here now? It was getting nearer to late afternoon back at my house and I just wanted to dance until my mother called me. Mama would worry. She’d warned me, “Don’t leave the porch.”
“Don’t worry,” the thought came from the presence closest to me. “You won’t be long. We’ll take you home in a moment.” I could feel the others agreeing with his reassurance. “Your mother will find you dancing on the porch when she comes for you.”
I relaxed a little bit. This was different than the times when I was just a baby, different from those two visits to the “doctor’s office.” The three of them were wearing the heavy linen-like cover-up suits they’d worn before. These were the ones I’d seen before. Back again. And they were talking to me like I was a big girl now.
“Are we going to see the big globes again?” I smiled at the being nearest me who was sending the waves of comfort toward me. Of them all, he was my best friend. I knew he was the leader of the group of three. The one on my left signaled “No.”
The one on my right, the one I knew best, the one who was the leader, lifted a lock of my hair. From the corner of my eye I could see my blonde hair curl around his hand. His touch against the skin on my neck caused me to shiver just a little. He was going to put something in my neck, he said.
“No,” I shouted out the word in the quiet of the meadow. “No. I don’t want it.” Now I was changing my mind. These beings weren’t “friends,” not really.
“It’s just a tiny little box.” Now they were all reassuring me with their thoughts. “A communications box.”
One of the beings took my hand in his. He lifted my little finger. “Look at your little finger,” he touched my fingernail so lightly that I felt no touch. “See? The box is less than half the size of your little nail.”
This kind of stuff didn’t feel like play any more. I shook my head and stepped away from the protective semicircle. I turned to stand facing them. They were making me kind of mad.
“Can’t I just carry it or something? I’ve got to get home. It’s getting late.”
They walked to form a loose circle around me.
“We’ll put the little chip just behind your ear. It won’t hurt.” He showed it again. “There will be a time in your life when there will be great catastrophes and upheavals on earth and this implant will allow you to talk to other people from other universes.”
“Under my skin?” Ugh. I hated that idea.
“Yes. You’ll never even notice it.”
I was then given some sort of vision of my grownup self working with people on a street. There were lots of injured people. I saw myself bend over one person after another, bandaging, comforting, and helping. Somehow I knew that the image of myself aiding injured people was set far into the future when I was in my sixties in age.
“I don’t like seeing myself as an old lady.” I took one step backward.
“Never mind the pictures. This is what will happen to you one day but it will be a long time before it happens so you don’t have to worry now. When you have this little piece imbedded in your neck you will be able to understand languages never understood before. That’s why we want to put the device behind your ear.”
“Why under my skin?” I looked directly at the one who was supposed to have been my friend. “Why? I thought you were my friend.”
“For the future. For the time when you need to know the languages of the universe.”
“You’re not my friends.” I screamed. I clapped my hands over my ears but I could still hear their words. covering my ears didn’t help. They could make me hear without letting their words go into my ears. They think words to me! It was the first time I’d realized that. I couldn’t keep from hearing them.
“The little device will allow you to talk to and understand persons from anywhere in space.”
“No. No.” I could hear myself screaming as they closed the circle more tightly around me. “No. I don’t want it!” Blackness overcame me.
“Mama!” I found myself facing the screen door of our house. I flung the screen door open and ran toward the lighted kitchen.
“Mama, mama.” I threw my arms around my mother and sobbed into her laundry apron. I could feel the pockets full of clothespins against my cheek. “It’s my ears. They stuck something in my skin.”
Mother looked down at me, a tiny frown forming between her brows as she examined each of my ears. “I don’t see a thing, Barbara. What in the world is wrong with you?” She lifted my hair and searched the skin behind my ears. She rubbed the back of my neck. “What is it?” She asked. “I can’t find anything wrong with you.”
I tried to tell her what I thought had happened but it was as if the whole incident were fast fading from my mind. All I knew was that I’d been someplace with three men in strange looking suits made of some material that looked like linen or heavy cotton and they had turned out to be not so very friendly.
Later that evening Mama told Daddy that I was... “quite a fanciful child.”
Chapter 4
THE MAN AT THE PIANO
In a way it was difficult for all of us to move from our wonderful old, brown, shingled Victorian house into my grandparent’s great big place. I especially loved our own house’s round tower which, on the second floor, was where my mother had had her dressing room.
I knew I would miss my best friend. She lived near me. Her Father owned a funeral home and she and I made it a habit to visit him every day after school. While she talked with her dad I went to the row of dead people, mostly older people, and touched each of them an
d wished them well. I’d never been afraid, only pleased that I had a chance to tell the dead people that someone cared for them, that I cared for them. But now my Grandmother was dead and my Grandpa needed us to move in with him. Maybe my Grandmother needed me to care about her also and I did.
On the other hand, there were some things about the move that I especially liked. One of those things was the music room. I had more or less decided, even before we moved, to make the music room my own special place and no one in the family seemed to object when I announced ownership.
The first week we were at my Grandfather’s house, I slipped into one of mother’s dresses, the emerald satin one, to prepare for my first solo entry into the music room. The hem of the dress which would have been knee length on my mother, touched the floor around me. I stared at the silken folds of green about my ankles. I stared and couldn’t seem to pull my gaze from the gorgeous, shining, green. Green grass? Why was green satin making me think of grass?
Something nagged at me, a memory that flickered into my mind and then left before I really caught it. My acquaintances from the bubbles? No. What did they have to do with my gorgeous satin dress? For a second I felt just the tiniest bit happy that we’d moved, then guilty that I’d thought such a thing. I shouldn’t be happy about never seeing them again, but I was. I knew they wouldn’t come here because I had never told them that we were moving.
Again something nagged at my memory but the pull of the room with the piano was too strong so I emptied my thoughts of everything but this moment. I just knew if I sat down at the instrument in that glittering emerald dress I could play music that would fill the room.
I lifted my silken skirt and stepped toward the concert grand. When I sat down I traced the golden word on the gleaming black wood with my finger. Steinway. Mother had read that for me the day before. She’d explained that my grandmother once sang with the opera at the Met, and that this very piano had been on the stage at the Met also. The Met is the short word for a famous place called the Metropolitan Opera House. Mother explained that my Grandfather had arranged to have the piano moved to the house in St. Louis so it would be there when he first brought Grandmother to Missouri from New York. Grandma had loved the piano and this room, mother said. Grandma was dead but now I loved the room, too.
Barbara: The Story of a UFO Investigator Page 2
