by Brandt Legg
It wasn’t difficult to find the way back to Tea Leaf Beach as long as I kept the ocean on my right. I drank some water—there was not much left. I started my gentle jogging until a small clearing opened, which the lion hadn’t brought me through. The break in the trees allowed moonlight to illuminate the meadow, and three deer on the far side were startled as I lumbered in. It seemed safe, maybe because I could see something coming before it was too close. I knelt down in the middle of the field to rest and think about something more than survival. My hands, wrists and face were cut and scraped by the five million branches over the last few hours. Rubbing my hands together generated warmth of my life energy and I took turns moving my palms over my injuries. After a while the soothing healing put me to sleep.
Why was I back at the African coast? Watching the slave ship being loaded, my mother crying, father defiant but frightened; however, this wasn’t being viewed from my perch hidden in the tree as before. Now I was holding a gun. I was white, one of the slave traders. “No!” I screamed and vomited bile. It was the cruelest of fates. My soul experiencing two simultaneous lives, which crossed as both slave trader and the son watching his parents torn from his existence. It was impossible to comprehend living as such a horrific person.
I jerked violently awake, shocked I’d fallen asleep. How long? I surveyed my surroundings, happy to see the small meadow and my Oregon moon. I needed to be as far from the slave trader as possible. There must be some way to wash that existence from my soul, which had always seemed so pure to me but now was dirty and ugly. All I wanted to do was claw my skin off and rip the slave trader out of me.
I headed back into the woods, not caring if I made it to dawn. Could I ever forgive myself? In how many other lifetimes had I been evil? Only the thought of freeing Dustin gave me hope, a step toward some kind of redemption. What a joke! How many lives had I ended or put into torturous forced servitude as the slave trader? How could I ever redeem my soul?
It was good to be back in the trees. They had sympathy; they did not judge me as a slave trader, even though I was certain they knew. If I couldn’t live with myself, I would come back and stay among the trees as a hermit until I could face a mirror again.
Any inkling I had of what time it was evaporated with the nap in the meadow, but I knew it would be darkest and coldest before dawn. I went on without thinking of the slave trader and then without warning collapsed to the ground sobbing. Screams I couldn’t recognize as my own wrenched out of me. It was too much. The ferns and undergrowth enveloped my body, and my face buried into moss and dirt. I don’t know how long I was there. The damp, numbing cold was more dangerous than lions or bears, and so was the slave trader. I didn’t care.
My thoughts were in a different world, following a slave’s journey when something nuzzled the back of my neck. I turned over, hoping for the mountain lion. It was a medium-sized buck. They wander into Ashland all the time. But this one was different, gentler and somehow wiser. He looked into my eyes as if I was the first human he had ever seen, and waited until I understood. When I rose, he leisurely moved away but looked back, to be sure I followed. This went on for quite a way. He walked slowly through the forest, continuing to look back every so often.
I was shivering uncontrollably. Walking was not helping, and my steps were increasingly difficult. He led me into an area of thick brambles and bushes. Two doe rose, startled as we entered the small space, flattened out with only enough room for the deer. The buck pushed at me in a way that I sunk to my knees. I couldn’t believe it but he actually wanted me to sleep with them. Their gentle warmth, as they curled around me, didn’t just save my life but gave me hope. If these special creatures cared, then how wretched could I be? When I woke, they were gone. I was warm, dry, and renewed.
Later, I came to the ledge the lion had leaped onto. It wasn’t the exact spot we’d come through; it was much higher here. I saw no way down and reasoned it was probably highest near the beach, which was lined with cliffs, so I moved in the other direction. The cliff went on forever, and I was getting cold again. In order to get back to where I started, I had to try to climb down.
It was probably only ten or twelve feet, but there wasn’t much to hold onto. I was doing pretty well until a rock crumbled in my hand. The fall wasn’t far, but the ground was rocky and uneven. Nothing seemed broken, except my ankle was twisted, legs and arms were bruised and it hurt to breathe. Lying on the cold hard ground, injured and shivering, I knew I was in trouble. I rubbed my hands together to begin healing but it was beyond my novice skills. I could move, even walk, but not far. There was dry kindling in this area as a break in the trees had allowed the sun to dry things out. Unfortunately I had no way to light a fire.
My dad had taught Dustin and me a trick to start one using a mini-mag flashlight and although my light was in my pocket, steel wool and a small wire were also required. The memory of camping with my dad brought the distinct feeling that he was nearby. “Dad, are you there? Can you help me?”
No answer, but I was sure he could hear me.
“Your friend Spencer got me into this mess.”
Nothing.
“Spencer can hear you, right? Could you go tell him I’m lost in the wilderness and maybe he could rescue me? Spencer, are you out there?”
The spiral of an Outview began to take me.
“Not now,” I said too late.
There I was in a bombed-out village. A German Panzer tank passed by the open doorway of the building in which I was hiding, making it obvious this was the Second World War. Thank you, Mr. Anderson, you taught me well. Two friendly soldiers approached from another room speaking in French, which was nowhere near as easy for me as history. Still, it was clear they were discussing some kind of plan to either attack or escape. Knowing the pattern of my Outviews, I figured we were all about to get killed. Then a third soldier approached. He was smoking a cigarette and offered me one. I looked up to accept and saw my father’s eyes. He handed me the metal tin of matches, winked and smiled. Seconds later came the unmistakable whistle of an incoming shell. We didn’t even make it to the floor. I rolled out of the Outview back into the cold night, onto the steep ground above the beach, coughing. It took a moment to realize that clutched tightly in my hand was the small tin box of matches. Stunned, I couldn’t take my eyes off them. “Thanks, Dad,” I whispered, tears streaking my cheek. He was with me. Lost in that moment was the fact we had died together in France during World War II. There would be time to think about that later. Right now, all I could do was bask in the miraculous happening of my dad coming back.
I was shaking again and needed to get warm fast. Taking a sharp rock, I dug a shallow pit and surrounded it with stones. After quickly gathering dry grass and twigs, I struck a match against the embossed striker on the bottom of the tin. Soon there was warmth and light. I made a good pile of wood to supplement the fire for some time. “Thanks, Dad,” I repeated several times before moving on to my wounds, concentrating on my ankle. Two hours must have passed. I drank the last of my water and kept very warm. Slowly the healing took affect. The bruises and new scrapes did not take as long as the ankle. The difficulty in breathing was the last to go. Because I didn’t know what was causing it, I channeled the healing energy around my torso and trusted it would cure what was needed. It did.
Exhausted, all I wanted to do was sleep but there was too much ground to cover, and I wasn’t interested in seeing the slave trader again. After piling dirt on the fire, I reluctantly began walking. How far to go? I tried to will my mountain lion to return, to carry me back. I called her with my mind. Soon the ravine that was so easily crossed on her back was before me, deep and wide. It was passable, but even in daylight if I was well-rested and with a full canteen, it would take more than an hour to make my way down the steep grade, one-hundred-fifty feet or so, then back up the other side. “Dad, you there? Got a bridge up your sleeve?”
No one came. No lion, no deer, no Outviews. Just me and the struggle. It must hav
e taken two hours until I finally crawled out of that hellish ditch. But I did it. It’s the part of the night I remember least. As the sky lightened, I found the path to the road. Twenty-four hours earlier, I had descended this trail with Kyle and Linh. It was a long time ago. I was different then.
26
Monday, September 22
Kyle and Linh were leaning against the guardrail as I came out of the ferns. Would they see the change, the absence of the confusion I’d worn for so long? I wondered how much to tell them.
Linh wrapped her arms around me.
“Got any water?” I asked.
Kyle handed me a full bottle.
“It’s all so incredible. You won’t believe any of it,” I said.
“Of course we won’t, but you have to tell us anyway,” Kyle said.
“Yes, we have the whole car ride to Merlin. We can’t wait to hear.”
“I’m sorry, guys. I just have to sleep,” I crawled into the backseat.
“No fair,” Linh said.
“Where’s Spencer?” Kyle asked. “Does he just live down there on the beach? Where’s his car?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
Two and a half hours later they woke me as we pulled into Aunt Rose’s driveway. “Did you guys eat?” I asked. “I’m starving.”
“We went to a drive-thru,” Linh said. “You didn’t even move.”
Rose was dressed in a purple and emerald green frock-kind-of-thing. “Tanya and I were just sitting down to eat. Any interest in bacon, eggs, and pancakes?”
“Aunt Rose, you must be psychic,” I said “Did I ever tell you that you’re my favorite aunt?”
“You’re sweet as caramel, aren’t you, Nate?” Rose led us through to a spacious kitchen. “This is my stepdaughter, Tanya Phelps, the best part of marriage number three, or was it four? Oh, who can keep track of these dramas?” she said, waiving her hand.
Tanya held up three fingers indicating she was from the third marriage.
“Tanya’s taking accounting at the local community college,” Rose added.
“It’s not like I’m going to Harvard or anything,” Tanya corrected.
“Accounting is math and that makes you smart enough for Harvard in my book,” Rose beamed.
“I’m turning twenty-three tomorrow,” Tanya said. “I’ve decided to give myself a gift. I joined a weight loss clinic, and I’m going to try and lose twenty-three pounds by New Year’s, right after I finish these pancakes.” Her short curly brown hair and green rectangle eyeglasses made her look more serious than she was. I liked her right away.
After breakfast we moved into Rose’s “reading room,” as she called it. I was eager to talk to her about my time with Spencer. Kyle and Linh couldn’t wait to hear, but I was hesitant to say anything in front of someone I’d just met.
“Tanya is a double-Scorpio and my best friend on the planet. Anything I know, she knows,” Rose assured me.
Tanya’s large, soft brown eyes seemed to have only three settings: surprise, amusement, and mockery. She was harmless.
“Do you remember Spencer Copeland?” I asked Aunt Rose.
“Sure, course it’s been forever ago, twenty years since I heard his name. He and your dad were inseparable, and their other friend, Lee, I kind of had a crush on, but I was in the good part of my second marriage so I let it alone.”
“Spencer said he knew you during a lifetime at Mesa Verde.”
“Did he now, well, that’s very sweet. Ask him to come by for some lemonade next time you see him, will you, Nate? Now that I think of it, maybe he was the one I had a crush on.”
I told them about the healing lessons and my long night in the woods but left out the mountain lion, World War II, the slave trader, and the deer. “And then there’s this,” I said, pointing to the crystal ball.
“What?’ Kyle asked.
“Watch.” I stared at it. The ball started rolling in its stand and then floated above the table. No one moved. It traveled quickly in a circle around Rose and then fell gently into Linh’s hands.
“Oh, Nate!” Rose cried.
“Amazing!” Tanya laughed.
“You’re Harry Potter!” Linh shouted.
“I guess this settles it. You’re not crazy, Nate. The rest of us are,” Kyle joked.
They were staring at me. “How long have you been able to do that?” Rose asked.
“Since yesterday.”
“It’s telekinesis,” Rose said.
“Sort of, but Spencer says it’s more complex. It’s called Gogen.”
Doing it for them made it real, and I sat there as amazed as they were, wondering what it meant, imagining all the possibilities, and remembering Spencer’s warnings about ego.
“Aunt Rose, can you tell me about the wind noise?”
“It’s the ancients,” she said. “They’re opening the channel. They wish to speak to you.”
“Do you hear it?”
“Not since I was younger.”
“I’ve got a million questions.”
“There is so much to discuss, so many things to show you. When you come next Saturday, we’ll spend the day getting into things. I promise.”
Kyle said we had better get going soon since we were going to stop at Mountain View to see Dustin again and then still make it back by a decent hour.
“We’ve got to get him out,” I said. “There has to be a way to use my gifts to get him out.”
“Nate, even before you showed up the other day, I’ve thought about every way possible to get Dusty out of there. And the only option that doesn’t bring a world of trouble with it is to get your mother to do it.”
“She won’t.”
“It’s easy for her. All it takes is the stroke of a pen. She’ll listen to you,” Rose said.
“Just raise her car up in the air and she’ll rethink the whole position,” Kyle suggested as we said goodbye to Rose and Tanya.
Dustin came through the same door as he did just two days earlier but was quite different. His words slurred and eyes glazed. “Are you okay?” I asked.
“This is your brain on drugs.”
“We’ll get you out this week, one way or another.”
“Is there a plan?”
“Yes, but you don’t want to know it.”
“I have to get back to Mount Shasta. Can you take me?”
“What do you need to do there?” I asked, concerned.
“Show you something. You won’t believe me if I tell you. I need to show you.”
“You’d be surprised by what I can believe.”
“I just need to show you,” he repeated, agitated.
“Okay, we’ll go.”
“When?”
“Let’s get you out first.”
“Get me out first, good idea. Did you see Rose?”
“I did. She said to give you a kiss for her.”
“I’d have died long ago without that woman.” For a moment he looked like I remembered him when we were kids, innocent yet brave.
27
It was a two-hour drive home to Ashland, straight down I-5. We’d hit Ashland about five thirty and meet Amber at the Station for dinner. We stopped on the shoulder for about fifteen minutes after two National Guard military vehicles came up behind us. Kyle barely got the Subaru off the road; soldiers were his greatest fear. After a brief meditation, and a fresh cigarette in his mouth, he silently pulled back into traffic.
“You two are such a part of all this, I can’t imagine not having you with me. School is going to feel so weird tomorrow,” I said.
“What are you going to do, Nate?” Linh asked. “The people looking for you, won’t they still be there?”
“Spencer didn’t even want you coming back to Ashland.”
“What am I going to do? Live at Tea Leaf Beach? I’ve got to convince my mom to get Dustin out. It’s the most important thing in the world to me.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to run into these guys? Do you think that your
new powers can somehow make you immune to their tactics?” Kyle asked.
“No, really, that’s not it.”
“Maybe you’ll get all cocky and start looking for a showdown with your father’s killer to avenge his death.”
“I won’t! That would scare the hell out of me. Don’t worry.”
“We are worried, Nate,” Linh began. “None of us knows what to expect back home.”
The Station was busy for a Sunday night, probably because the “concert” playing on all the big screens was a U2 show from the mid-eighties.
Josh, wearing an electric green T-shirt, waved me over. “Hey, welcome home. Your mom had to run to Sacramento for a used restaurant equipment auction we just heard about yesterday. You know we’re redoing part of the kitchen. It’s going to be so much better. Let me show you.”
“Yeah, Josh, how about another time? I really need to use a phone, and we’re starving.”
“Oh sure, use your mom’s office. Anyway, she’ll be back around three tomorrow.”
“Thanks.” I headed to her office and called Amber.
I looked suspiciously around the room as I made my way to our table.
“We got you a David Gray and some fries,” Linh said.
“Perfect, thanks. Amber’s on her way. My mom’s in Sacramento until tomorrow afternoon, so I guess the Dustin talk will have to wait until then.”
