by Jojo Brown
Aunt Rachel repeated, “Just close your eyes and tell us what you see.”
I could not believe Adam was just going to walk away. I wanted him to get in the truck with us. I wanted so desperately to spend that extra time with him, now that he was able to talk with us. I wanted him to be at my side and help me with this mystery.
He just walked away from me. I stood there, shivering, watching him go. I was screaming on the inside that it wasn’t fair for him to leave me like that.
There was fresh snow on the ground, the light powdery kind that blows around easily by the slightest breeze. I was worried about Adam’s feet. He did not have boots on, just running shoes; I knew his feet would be cold.
As the thought flashed through my mind, I was watching his feet. That was when I noticed something very strange. The farther he went along the sidewalk, the less his steps compacted the soft snow.
I mean, at first, there were definite footprints in the powder, followed by very slight impressions and then there were none at all. Adam was not walking in the snow; he was walking on it. He was skimming across the top of the snow, like those insects, water striders, that travel over the surface of the lake in the summer, without ever getting wet.
Soon there was a visible space between the bottom of Adam’s feet and the glistening crystals on the ground. He was going up… rising… levitating.
He wasn’t just leaving me; he was leaving altogether. It was too much!
Someone else joined him, walking at his side, holding his hand. As I looked closely, I realized that I was looking at myself. It was me walking with my brother; I was standing there watching myself leave with Adam.
The other me turned slightly and smiled over her shoulder. “He is coming with me. I have waited for a long time. Soon we will all be together anyway… but I have grown impatient. I want this one small thing, now.”
At that exact moment, the welcome clouds enveloped me and everything faded away. The next thing I remember, I was talking to someone in the guestroom.
Twenty-five
As I slipped into bed, beside Chris that night, wearing the silky nightgown that he had slipped off to buy for me at the mall, I felt drained. We had kept at it until well after midnight. There was an urgent pulse in the air, feeding our need for answers. Somehow, I had the distinct impression that each of us had a lot riding on the outcome of this whole thing.
So far, many of my memories had surfaced. It had become apparent that I had never been as alone throughout my life, as it had seemed. I now clearly remembered some strange happenings, in my life.
I had always had the feeling that someone was watching me other than my father. As a child, I had imagined that it was the spirit of my mother, watching over her beloved child from the other side. Now that I knew that she was still on this side though, that was clearly not the case.
As we had delved deeper into my memories, I recalled times when I had been visited. When I was about eight years old, I woke from a sound sleep, to find an old man sitting on the side of my bed. He told me to get up and get out of the room, right away. I have no idea whether it was fear or trust that spurred me on; but I jumped out of that bed and raced for the hall, as fast as I could.
Within minutes, the ceiling above my bed collapsed. It seemed there was a squirrel’s nest in the attic, right above my bed; the weight of it was too much for the old ceiling to hold. If I had not left that spot right when I did, I would have been crushed under a massive jumble of ceiling plaster, leaves, twigs, and other debris.
I don’t know who he was, where he came from or where he went, but he was one of the many who saved my life through the years. Now that I remember more, it was becoming very clear that I had a lot of ‘spirits’ or ‘angels’ or whatever, watching over me.
There had been car accidents avoided at the last minute, because a feeling came over me that I needed to pull over, or take a different route. I had fallen out of trees, down the stairs and off the roof, suffering nothing more than a dislocated finger.
I still could not remember the night that my mother tried to kill me and I was no closer to the answer of what the amulet was or who Amy was, but I was getting a better idea about who I was. I was Ella, and for some reason that suddenly seemed to be important. I seemed to be important!
The last thing Dad said to me, before we all wandered off to our beds was, “Ella, you are on this world for a purpose. Someone in higher authority than any of us must have big plans for you.”
Even though I had no idea what he was talking about, his words gave me a feeling of security. As tired as I was when I slipped into bed, I was also exhilarated. The emotional roller coaster that I had been riding was soon going to pull into the station. I just knew it. All of the answers were right around the next bend.
Chris’ hand pressed flat against my stomach as he pulled me into his embrace. Curled up together with him in my aunt’s guest bed, I had never felt so connected to anyone as I did then. Feeling his warm breath softly moving the hair on the back of my head, his protective chest pressed against my spine and the rumbling beneath his ribcage as he spoke quietly in the night, lulled me into a state of pure relaxation
“How are you doing, babe?”
Wriggling ever so slightly closer to him and reaching back to stroke his hip, I answered him in a whisper. “I am doing great, right now. I just know that we are close, Chris, we are going to find all of the answers soon.”
“And, once we do … you and I can get on with the business of us.”
Turning onto my back and looking into his eyes, I felt a sense of puzzlement, “Us?”
“Yes,” he smiled. “Us. As in… you and I. I want to have a life with you, Ella, I love you, and I am sure you love me too. I want to start planning for our future, just as soon as we get the past sorted out.”
Cuddling into him, with my cheek pressed onto his naked chest, I listened to the rhythmic beating of his heart and knew that it was a song I wanted to listen to for the rest of my life. “I love you too, Chris, with my whole heart. I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you. Oh by the way, thank you for my pretty nightgown… it is so soft.”
Kissing the top of my head and holding me tighter against his chest, he whispered, “You are very welcome, sweetheart. One night, hopefully soon, I will take my time slipping the silky material up off your skin and thoroughly enjoy the gift that it holds. For now, let’s get some sleep. You need to recharge before facing whatever tomorrow brings. Goodnight, my love.”
I did not fall asleep right away; instead, I laid there feeling him slip off into slumber. His breathing slowed and deepened, his grip on me slackened and his heart rate slowed ever so slightly.
That moment was when I really knew what love was. It had nothing to do with passion or orgasms, flowers or wine. It didn’t even have anything to do long in-depth conversations. It was simply two hearts beating in time and a relaxed embrace.
In that moment, trust in each other was exposed, naked to the elements, but neither of us held the least bit of concern for its safety.
Twenty-six
The next couple of days flew by in a flurry of questions, asked and answered. Aunt Rachel led me into a hypnotic state, numerous more times and we all pored through the old photo albums and books.
Had I found out who Amy was by Friday night? Had I figured out what the amulet my Nanny gave me was for? The answer to both questions was a resounding no.
I had learned many things, though. I knew that Aunt Rachel’s weekly visits were more than family gatherings. She would ask me all sorts of questions, making me stretch my mind. She would play ‘games’ with me that kept my muscles toned and my mind sharp. The tests seemed to end when I reached puberty.
I also remembered the night that my mother tried to kill me, with the help of Aunt Rachel taking me back through the years. I remembered it with glaring clarity, which brought tears to my eyes and shivers down my spine.
It was a cool September evening when my six-yea
r-old self had wandered, bare-footed, into the spruce grove behind our house. My friends were all there waiting for me. They circled around me as I skipped into the shady alcove, at the center of the trees.
George, the ten-foot-tall dinosaur stood there, with his head lowered to the ground, awaiting my childish kiss. Clara and Carl, the couple from behind the toilet, who liked to ride in my pockets, were playing hide and seek behind the dandelion leaves. Oscar greeted me with his wise old ‘hoot-hoot’ from his perch near the top of one of the trees. Sampson slithered across my damp toes and wrapped himself around my ankles.
The list goes on and on. They all gathered there to see me. They came from the clouds and stars; they crept around the trees; they touched me, kissed me, and moved through me, as shadows.
They loved me and listened to every breath that escaped my lips, as though waiting to hear some profound statement. They never brushed me aside or told me to wait. They were always ready and willing to play any game I chose, any time. I had tested this, by insisting that Clara and Carl join me on the roof, two weeks earlier.
They were the perfect size to fit in my dollhouse, so it had to go up there as well. I stood in front of the house, bent my knees, and jumped with as much force as my small body could muster. Landing softly on the asphalt tiles, I laughed at the looks on Carl and Clara’s faces. They had both turned slightly green and hid deep down in my pocket as the feeling of flying upset them both. Nevertheless, they were both ready to play.
We had enjoyed nearly two hours up there, before my mother had discovered us. Somehow, she always seemed to know when I was doing something that she would not approve of. As in the past, she ranted and raved about it not being safe, that ‘normal’ children did not do such things. She was always going on about what was and was not normal, as though I were some sort of oddity.
I could never quite figure out what her problem was. I was her child … she had given me life. I was exactly who she had made me; I was me because of her… wasn’t I?
I would follow her around the house, asking her why she felt that she needed to explain to me what was normal, what was right, what was ‘accepted in nice society’. I begged her to come with me to the grove and play with my friends, but she seemed to be afraid whenever I spoke of them. It was almost as though she felt threatened by them.
I couldn’t understand that though; didn’t every mother want their children to have friends? Should she not be proud of me for having such a great assortment of friends? Should she not want to get to know them, herself?
That night, when I was in the grove, I was having a wonderful time. I was listening to the tree, telling a wonderful tale about the worms. They were having a difficult time with a new family of grubs that had moved in.
As I was talking to some of the friends gathered around me, trying to find some advice for the worms and grubs; my mother came crashing into the grove.
She screamed when she saw all of us gathered there. An odd kind of panic came over her as she rushed to sweep me up into her arms. She was yelling at all of my friends, telling them to get away from me. She pushed them out of the way; she doubled up her fist and punched George as hard as she could when he tried to lift me up away from the action. She stepped right on Clara, pushing her down into a wormhole recently vacated by a panicked worm.
She screamed at me that they were monsters, that I had to stay away from them, that they were not safe, that I was not safe when I was with them. They were yelling right back at her. They were yelling things like, ‘She is ours! No matter what you do, you will never be able to take her from us! We will always be with her, no matter what you do!’
I was so scared, I had lost the ability to speak or move. My mother lifted me, held me tight to her chest, and ran back through the trees all the way to the house. She yelled back over her shoulder, ‘I will see to it that she is beyond your grasp! You will never be able to use her!’
She slammed into the house, with my small body still in her arms. The force of her shoulder hitting the doorframe caused my face to smack off her collarbone, a small trail of blood trickled from my nose to her shirt.
Tears were streaming down her face; she was trembling and sobbing as she filled the bathtub, almost to the brim. She kept whispering to me that she was sorry, that it had to end; it could not continue. As she lowered my body into the tepid water, she kissed my brow and asked me to forgive her.
I closed my eyes, not wanting to see such sadness, on my mother’s face. Just when I thought I could not hold my breath for another second, I heard Carl whispering in my ear. “It’s alright child, take a breath; we are here with you, we will breathe for you, just stay calm.”
Cautiously, I opened my lips, fully expecting water to rush into my mouth. Instead, I felt another’s mouth on my own, blowing air into my lungs. I let my limbs float in the water, staying as relaxed as possible. I only panicked for a moment, when I heard my mother screaming again, from somewhere far off.
She had seen the bubbles rising through the water as I exhaled the gift of breath. I asked Carl if she knew that they were helping me. He told me that they had made themselves invisible again; it was better that way. He thought that she must think that I was breathing in the water like a fish in the sea.
She was so afraid; her fear had become an unbearable physical pain for her. I could not let her be hurt anymore. I had to do everything I could to end her suffering. I took one last deep breath and told my friends to leave me.
I told them that they were not allowed to interfere, anymore. I ordered them to leave me alone, to let the world have me, to let me find my own way. I pushed them away, just as she had done, and told them that it was time to go.
With a collective cry, I felt them all pulling away as I opened my mouth again and allowed the water to fill my lungs with excruciating pain. As I faded away, I heard my father’s voice coming to me from far away.
The next thing I remember … I was in the hospital.
Many tears have been shed listening to that particular tape recording. It was abundantly clear to me, that my mother was trying to protect me after all. She saw the others as a threat and to her that was the only way to keep me away from them. She was convinced that they meant to harm me in some deep universal way and convinced herself that death would be the lesser of the two evils.
My poor mother. All I ever wanted was for her to love me and accept me and that was the one thing she could not do. She had lived for all these years, still believing that somehow I was going to be forced to do something terrible.
From the psychiatrist’s transcripts, it was clear that she felt that I would somehow be responsible for a great worldwide change. Maybe she thought that I was going to build a new type of bomb or something. Maybe she thought I was going to start a cult of some sort.
I still had no idea! But I did have a better feel for who she was, why she had reacted the way she had and I knew that I loved her, unconditionally.
As soon as that memory came to the surface, it was as if a floodgate opened and all the memories from before that night came flooding through. Looking at old photographs of people, I clearly remembered telling them when and how they would die.
I remembered telling my uncle that he was only going to see his daughter from far away. Three days before my cousin, Sue, was born, a drunk-driver killed Uncle Archie. Aunt Rachel always said that her daddy was watching over her from heaven. That was about as far away as one can get.
I remembered telling old Mr. Simmons that he would have a fall that would change his life, for the better. He met his wife after he slipped on the ice and she was the nurse who tended to his broken hip.
When I was four or five, I insisted that my father bring the crops in from the fields a full two weeks earlier than usual. For some reason he listened to me. We had a very early winter that year, most farms in the area lost their crops to the extremely hard frost.
My mind raced with memories from a lifetime. I had given advice to fellow classmates tha
t ended up setting them on worthwhile paths, when they listened. I always knew when Nanny was having a hard time with her breathing or arthritis before she ever complained about it. When Sue got pregnant, I knew she was having a boy before she had even taken a pregnancy test.
I had to find out why I was the way I was. I had to find out why I could not remember any of it, until that moment.
Twenty-seven
It was close to midnight on Friday, when I looked into Aunt Rachel’s tear-stained face. “It’s time,” I told her, pulling the amulet from under my sweater.
“You are the one who came to the house to test me. You are the one who knew what this was all about, more than anyone else. You are the one who has to help me with this.”
I carefully pulled the chain free from the amulet and let it fall to the floor. Closing my shaking fingers around the warm disk, I looked around the room at the faces of those I loved the most in this world. “I don’t know what is going to happen, but I do know that it is now or never. Please, promise that you will all stay with me, no matter what.”
They all moved to sit close around me. One by one, starting with my father, they held their hands out in front of me, palms up. Overlapping their fingers, they formed a sort of living tabletop. I slid my own hand into place on the top and slowly opened my fingers, exposing the amulet.
Taking a deep breath, closing my eyes and whispering that I loved everyone there, I asked Rachel to tell me what to do.
“Just concentrate on the warmth, Ella. The warmth you feel from us, and the warmth from the amulet. That warmth is important, let it flow through you, let it fill you and flow out to encircle all of us. Do not be afraid of it, you can let it take you with it, you can trust that warmth, Ella, it holds nothing evil for you.”
With some initial difficulty, I did my best to follow her instructions. I felt the warmth of the amulet where it lay on my hand. It washed over my palm, along my fingers to flow between them onto the hands joined below mine. It traveled up my arm filling my whole being and radiating from me to everyone gathered there. I could feel it pulsating, almost as though it were breathing. The rhythmic pulses caused all of us to rock slightly, back and forth.
