by YatesNZ, Jen
‘Perhaps we should give her a shot to settle her down.’
That voice, the one that had spoken of the dog, she didn't know, but it made her open her eyes.
The woman clutching her left hand was her mother—her mother but not Ianthe. The one on the right was her sister, Merryn, but the woman in a white uniform standing at the foot of the bed she'd never seen before.
Mum!
Merryn with Case beside her.
Oh God! How could it be that where she'd just been, a place most people deemed no more than a myth, seemed more real than they, than this hospital bed she was lying in? How could the grief she'd obviously only experienced in a dream feel as if it would tear her asunder?
A grief ancient beyond recognition.
‘No. No shot,’ she managed and the words felt strange on her tongue. ‘I'll be all right.’
If only I can manage to believe it was merely a dream.
Tears continued to roll down her cheeks and occasional gasping sobs wracked her body. Ellen caressed her hand, in which she clutched something hard and familiar, and wiped the tears as they fell.
‘Georgina darling, what's wrong? Do you hurt?’ she asked.
Like you can’t imagine! Squeezing her eyes shut and clenching her teeth against the pain, she ground out, ‘No. Not physically.’
She still held the crystal Qerlim had picked up from the floor of the Star Chamber. How—?
‘What do you mean? You're in agony!’
A great sobbing breath shuddered in her chest and Georgina raised her hand to look at what she held. A crystal. She gazed at it through her tears, memory tormenting the edge of her consciousness. The same—yet not. A crystal nevertheless. A soft growl drew her attention to the big white dog sitting beside Ellen, her strange light eyes watchful and knowing.
A wave of joy washed over Georgina.
‘Qerlim!’ she whispered and almost fell out of bed in her eagerness to wrap her arms round the animal. The moment the name formed on her lips she understood her mistake and grief welled through her again. Katja licked at her tears and Georgina clung to her, sobbing.
Ellen tried to gentle her, asking again what hurt so.
‘It's grief.—I'll tell you—shortly. How come—they let Katja in?’
Georgina settled back on the pillows, one hand nestling in the dog's fur and the other wielding the tissues Merryn pressed into it.
Ellen laid a hand on the dog's back and shook her head in wonder.
‘She's a very special dog. Aren't you, Katja?—I went home this morning for a rest when Merryn and Case came to sit with you. Katja met me at the door with the crystal in her mouth. She wouldn't give it to me and she wouldn't budge from the door. I didn't know what to do so I rang Merryn. She suggested I speak your name and see what she did. Well, she got very excited and tried to growl but mainly woofed with the crystal in her mouth so Merryn said I should bring her up here and see what happened.
‘She warned the staff we were coming and since they hadn't been able to find anything wrong with you nor any way of bringing you back to consciousness they were willing to try anything. We didn't tell them about the crystal. Katja wouldn't give it to anyone but you, so I held your hand and she dropped it in, slobber and all. I was able to get it to wash it then!’ Ellen laughed a little shakily. ‘But it worked. A few minutes after you held the crystal you started to come round. Oh George, we were so worried! You've been unconscious for four days!’
Georgina lay with her eyes closed, still too choked to speak. Only four days? She'd lived ten years of an ancient lifetime, in only four days? Lived and lost an entire lifetime. How could she ever explain it?
‘Have you any idea what happened?’ Ellen went on. ‘When I got to your house on Friday morning I could see you slumped in the pyramid pit. I let myself in but I couldn't wake you. We've not been able to find a mark on you. The doctors did a brain scan and everything seemed to be perfectly normal but you simply—weren't at home.’
Ellen's voice had become wavery and Merryn came to sit with an arm round her shoulder. Georgina looked from her mother to her sister noting the lines of worry and tiredness on both faces. Slowly she raised the crystal and stared at it for a long time, trying to sort her thoughts, calm her emotions.
‘Perhaps if Case gave me some healing I'd be able to tell you what I think—and where I've been.’
A slow smile softened Case's hawkish features and he moved close to sit with his hands on her shoulders. Merryn stared at her sister as if she'd asked for a triple whisky with a Black Russian chaser.
Georgina gave her a weak, watery smile between shuddery sobs.
‘I—uh—’ At last she simply shrugged. The changes within herself were too vast to be encompassed in a few words, the emotions too raw to allow them to form. ‘I'll explain—soon.’
A doctor bustled in, checked her blood pressure and heart, looked in her eyes and declared in a baffled voice that he could find nothing amiss apart from her obvious emotional state and he could give her medication for that.
Georgina shook her head.
‘I'll be all right,’ she insisted. ‘What I need most is a cup of tea and a meal. I feel as if I haven't eaten for days. And then I'd like to go home.’
When the doctor left them alone again, Georgina forced herself to speak between deep, wracking breaths. ‘The last thing I remember—is picking up the crystal and wishing it could bring me—comfort like you said it would, Merryn, but not believing it could. I went to sit in the—conservatory because I felt closer to Gould there—Oh! Oh—’ Georgina stopped and stared first at Ellen and then at Merryn, her eyes wide with sudden total consciousness. ‘Gould—Fran—have they—found the yacht yet?’
Neither Ellen nor Merryn spoke, but their eyes answered and Georgina felt the familiar wave of panic wash through her body. She'd been the cause of their deaths in Atlantis but she now held the knowledge that could save them in this world—just as her mother had seen in the crystal ball.
A terrified kind of excitement began to overlay the hopelessness of grief.
‘Get me out of here. Take me home. Now. Please!’
‘Georgina, we haven't given up hope!’ Merryn said quickly, leaning forward and taking Georgina's hands in hers.
Georgina shook her head and sucked in a shuddering breath.
‘Me neither, Merryn,’ she said, ‘but Mum said that morning that I had the knowledge to—to save them and I didn't know what she was talking about. Now—I think I do. I have a huge story to tell you guys—but not here. Take me home. Please.’
Within the hour they were settled in Case and Merryn's back garden looking onto the lower grassy slopes of Mt Eden, one of several small extinct volcanic cones on the isthmus of Auckland City. The rustic table was laden with crusty bread buns, salad, ham, fruit and a pitcher of chilled fruit juice.
Case crouched before Georgina with his hands on her feet.
‘You've been a long way out of your body, George,’ he said solemnly. ‘Your energy's very scattered and you feel quite jumpy. I want you to take some deep breaths and when you breathe out, imagine you're breathing through your feet. It'll make you feel more centered, more settled in yourself.’
As Georgina followed Case's instructions, Katja stood at her side, solemnly watching all proceedings. Georgina still held the crystal in one hand while the other was buried in Katja's coat. The dog was of a similar size to the wolf and when Qerlim had been in her winter coat she'd been as snowy white as Katja. Only the eyes were different. Was it fanciful to imagine Katja could be a reincarnation of Qerlim? Was it any more fanciful to see herself a reincarnation of Gynevra, or Fran of Phryne? Or Gould of Gotham and Torr of Taur?
Georgina leant her head back against the chair and closed her eyes. She'd recognized Taur in Torr the first time she'd set eyes on him. Reincarnation was a fact and no one now could ever convince her otherwise. She imagined Case and Merryn just smiling wisely at her when she told them, for of course they already knew. What woul
d Torr think? Where was he? Her heart lurched just thinking of him. Would she ever see him again? Could two days out of this lifetime be all they were destined to share? Her heart couldn't believe that.
But there was Fran and Gould to think of before she would allow herself to consider finding Torr. She'd once put him first in her life, many millennia past, and she still carried the scars. This time, if there was to be any chance of happiness for them it would only be when all other debts were paid. This lifetime was about ‘karmic payback’. She could imagine Merryn and Case smiling when she mentioned that, too.
It was evening and they'd long since moved into the warmth of the house before Georgina completed relating the epic of her out-of-body experience. They were gathered round the oval oak table in Case and Merryn's dining room. Ellen, with dark rings of exhaustion round her eyes, gently rocked the drowsy baby, Case cleared away the remains of a pizza dinner they'd had delivered, and Merryn was making tea for everyone.
Georgina, alternating between bouts of jagged crying and stoic wonder, was still remembering things to talk and exclaim about, like the identical birthmarks she and Fran had above their right breasts which, with a little imagination could be said to resemble a dragon.
The family had let her talk with little interruption but now as her thoughts and memories became more spasmodic and the incredible purpose behind making such a journey more apparent, they'd gone quiet. Merryn put the tray containing mugs of tea on the table and lifted the sleeping baby from her mother and took him to his bed.
When she came back Ellen had her arms around Georgina who was talking again between weary sobs.
‘In that lifetime it seemed I had everything Phree wanted but denied herself in the name of duty—Gotham, freedom to marry. It even seemed to her that I stole Taur's God-essence in that most sacred and important moment of ritual initiation. I guess one can understand why in this lifetime she's never let me, or anything else, stand in the way of what she's wanted. It makes such utter sense.’
Ellen leant back and surveyed her daughter, her tired eyes anxious.
‘I know my saying you had the knowledge to bring them back threw you for a loop but—what do you think now?’
Brushing the tears from her cheeks yet again, Georgina let her body relax and centered herself. Everything Gynevra had known was with her still. It seemed now she wasn't only Georgina Hackville but in the same body, in the same skin, she was also Gynevra of Poseidonia. The memories, the knowledge, the ‘knowing’, were now in her conscious mind. Her eyes glazed over and her vision turned inward and before her amazed family, she went into semi-trance. When she began speaking Case grabbed a sheet of paper to write down what she said.
‘The crystals the Atlanteans created were four-sided and when they exploded they split cleanly down the axes, the four triangular sections impacting downward into the earth with immense force, a force great enough to create volcanoes and destroy vast tracts of land. Each segment has the ability to generate the same energy as the original but, because the original was never programmed, it has no focus or direction. In effect, each segment becomes a rogue force, its energy never diminishing, and being amplified with further erratic outcome, whenever charges from two segments coincide. The result is a critically unstable field of energy that swirls, soars and fades, entraps and distorts, transmutes and transposes through dimensions. It's an energy field with capacity for immense positivity or negativity and there's no way of knowing at any given moment of time which polarity will be in the ascendant.’
Georgina stilled but her focus remained inward to that part of her that was Gynevra, to that place where she knew how to attune to a distant point on the earth's surface and read its energy. Merryn and Case watched her with delighted amazement while Ellen just stared in bemusement. This daughter who still looked like her socially insecure, introverted and business-like Georgina, had become a stranger.
‘For almost eleven millennia the segments of the crystal which destroyed Trephysia have lurked beneath the shifting sands on the seabed of what is now known as the Bermuda Triangle. The deeper the layers of sand and rock over the crystals the weaker and more scattered the energy. But there have been recent undersea disturbances—an earthquake. If we were able to look we'd see several fresh underwater land subsidences causing unusual currents that have moved the sands on the seabed with more force than usual. One segment of the Trephysian crystal has been partially exposed. This has caused the dematerialization of anything within its field, which is very volatile and very erratic.
‘The only way to overcome the force is to program the crystal segment to work with focus and positive direction.’
Georgina opened her eyes and looked down at her hands that were lying palms up on her thighs, with thumbs and middle fingers joined. Slowly she raised her eyes and stared round the room at her family.
Then she whispered, ‘I know everything she knew. I can do everything she did!’
‘You have the knowledge,’ Ellen said, her face pale with apprehension.
Georgina swallowed and nodded.
‘What now?’
Case looked up from the notes he'd been scribbling.
‘We fly to Miami and convince the US Coast Guard to allow us into the area to program the crystal.’
A shudder of panic ripped through Georgina, momentarily stopping her heart and scoring a tangled skein of horror-tracks through her belly. Talking to her family was one thing but—the US Coast Guard?
‘We?’
‘I seem to remember somewhere through this amazing story you talked of the critical need for balance when programming the power crystals. You can't do it alone. I've done a lot of work with crystal energy. I'm the obvious choice.’
‘She said it was dangerous,’ Merryn said, her face pale.
Dumbly Georgina nodded.
Merryn sucked in a deep breath but Case forestalled her.
‘We've got to get past the Coast Guard top brass first. Programming the crystal will likely be easy in comparison.’
‘How dangerous?’ Ellen asked, ignoring Case's attempt to red-herring the safety issue.
Georgina found her voice.
‘The energy could kill one or both of us if we fail to balance it correctly,’ she said flatly, ‘but there's no reason why we should fail. Gynevra taught the procedure to Taur. I can teach it to Case. What spooks me is explaining this stuff to Coast Guard officials. They'll just think we're nuts.’
‘Then we must convince them we're not. You've been given some very specific knowledge, George, at a point in time when that knowledge is critical to the lives of several people. Do you think that's a coincidence? I can assure you it's not. I can't promise you it'll be easy but I do recognize the Hand of Divine Guidance when I see it. We won't be alone.’
Georgina closed her eyes and basked in the quiet certainty in Case's voice. He was right. She just had to convince her sickly churning stomach.
Pressing her hands tightly against her midriff, raising her head and squaring her jaw, she said, ‘And because of Gynevra I won't walk away.’
Merryn stared at her sister, shaking her head.
‘I can't get used to you like this. It's like you're someone else, not Georgina at all. Gynevra of Poseidonia had an amazing presence, much of which you seem to have—absorbed! It's bizarre—and awesome! Do you really believe you and Case could succeed?’
Georgina let her gaze rest on her brother-in-law for a moment, then swung back to her sister.
‘Yes, I do.’
‘You're ‘seeing’, aren't you? You have the ‘knowing’, more clearly than any of us.’
‘It would seem what she was, I am. I think I've always had the ‘knowing’. I was afraid of it so I blocked it.’
‘Not surprising,’ put in Ellen, ‘when you consider Taur's edict at the very end.’
Georgina looked a little startled.
‘Could it happen like that? Could past life traumas affect us in this one?’
‘Oh and absol
utely!’ said Merryn swiftly. ‘Many now believe much illness or disfigurement in one lifetime is brought on by the soul memory of severe injury—physical, mental or emotional, or even of horrific death—in a past life. It's been well documented by hypnotherapists and the like. Can you not see the parallels between how you were with Phryne then to how you are with Fran now? If you were to commune with Gynevra about it, she'd likely tell you so.’
‘And have you accuse me of talking to myself? I don't think so!’
Their laughter was a little shaky but it was laughter nevertheless. Georgina looked round her family.
‘You guys are awesome. When can we fly to Miami?’
‘Your passport current?’ Case asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Then we'll be on the first flight we can get.’
‘I'll need to talk to Van. What's been happening at the shop?’ Georgina asked, her brow creasing with worry.
‘Absolutely nothing Vanessa can't handle,’ Ellen declared. ‘She's a priceless gem. You should probably think about giving her a rise, George.’
Georgina nodded.
‘I'd like to talk to her before we go though.’
Case said, ‘I'll let everyone know you're back on deck and just for once it'd be good if you took orders from ‘big brother’, took a couple of ‘Panadol’ tablets and got some sleep.’
‘I'm not arguing,’ Georgina said so meekly her family looked startled. ‘I've been on a very long journey and lost some very close family and friends,’ Emotion shuddered through her exhausted frame. ‘I'm having trouble comprehending they all lived so long ago scarcely anyone living now even believes they existed and yet the grief—is so real.’
Twenty-four hours later, Case slanted Georgina a grin from his seat beside her on the Air New Zealand 747 evening flight to Los Angeles.
‘You've survived your `ordeal by television reporter. U.S. Coastguard here we come!’
Georgina ground her lips between her teeth and tried desperately to calm her breathing. Speaking frankly to a skeptical television reporter for the National News was probably the hardest thing she'd ever done but telling herself it was practice for what was still to come had enabled her to go through with it.
