The ambiguous environment where Kate was stays with her for a while longer while she comes out of her reverie. She lies still, warm under the blankets, and digests her lifetime of slavery and illicit love. A sudden emotion strikes her. It is as though her life as Eshe has spilled over into the present. It still seems so real. Her heart aches for José; she feels her cheeks wet with tears.
Her phone rings, giving Kate a start. She reaches across the bed to pick it up. ‘Jason’ is displayed on the screen. ‘Hi, how’s it going?’ she murmurs and sniffs, trying to hide her sadness.
‘Hi, good thanks,’ he replies enthusiastically and is momentarily silent. ‘You sound like you’ve caught a cold. Or did I just wake you?’
Kate checks the time. Two hours from when she climbed into bed. ‘No, I’ve just been resting.’
‘How’s your migraine?’
‘Oh, yes, it’s not so bad now, thanks,’ Kate replies, remembering her excuse.
A pause at the other end suggests that Jason doesn’t wholly believe her. ‘Oh, okay. Well, I was just thinking about you, that’s all. Nothing to report.’ Kate is still trying to get a hold of her sensibilities. ‘Can I call you back in half an hour? I’m just about to sort my finances.’
‘Oh, sure,’ he says awkwardly. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you.’
Lying to Jason makes her feel guilty. ‘No, it’s fine. I’d really like to chat. Talk soon?’ Kate says ‘talk soon’ in a tender manner. The lift in Jason’s voice when he responds indicates he has accepted her excuse. Her second excuse.
Kate presses the end button and flops back on her pillow. She has only known Jason for five minutes. Her astral planing could frighten him off. No, she is not yet ready to reveal her strange and wonderful experiences to him. Perhaps never.
Her phone rings again. It’s Julianne. ‘Funny, I was just thinking about you,’ she says.
‘How cute. How are you placed for Tuesday lunchtime?’
Kate considers this. She is not sure about Julianne knowing all about her journeys, and decides not to bring up the subject unless her bestie prompts it. ‘All good. Same café?
‘I thought we could try the one on White Street,’ Julianne replies.
‘You mean the one where the lattes are a dollar cheaper?’
‘Cheeky bitch. But yes, that one. And since you think I’m cheap, I’ll shout. Again.’
Kate laughs. ‘Excellent! See you there.’
◊.◊.◊
No matter how much she enjoys his company, Kate is having second thoughts about continuing her friendship with Jason. It is difficult enough for her to get her head around her bizarre adventures, and she doesn’t know if she can handle any emotionally draining situations that are always part and parcel of a relationship once it sets in. She’s a modern woman. Just because she slept with him doesn’t mean she wants to reveal copious amounts of information about her personal life to him. Besides, it always happens. The minute a man becomes keen on her, she gets cold feet. I’ll deal with it later, she decides.
◊.◊.◊
The night is still young. Kate grabs something to eat then decides to engage in another meditation session. It is as if she is a seasoned self-hypnotherapist in a trained routine, and is soon catatonic. Gaius immediately comes through.
◊.◊.◊
‘Shortly after we are born, our new consciousness will have memories of our last past life. This is because our previous self has needed to move its consciousness into our new identity during the period of gestation to facilitate the transfer of essential information. This process happens shortly after conception; there is great energy uniting the psychic, primary-energy gestalt with the foetus. Our conception and growth in the womb are the only time during our physical life where there is so much pure energy being transferred in such a comprehensive and purposeful way. The energy charge during this time is intense, allowing for initial transformation into matter. The new identity’s foetus is busily receiving an almost unlimited amount of vital information. This phenomenal transference of information and vitality has largely been accomplished in the first trimester of pregnancy. Once the foetus’s intellectual information and physical make-up has been structured, its higher self, its soul, moves into its new physical identity at the same time as withdrawing its previous identity. This process happens during the latter stages of gestation, usually shortly before birth.
‘During our birth and soon after, we will perceive other levels of reality, and receive messages from those known to us in the past. This overload of information will cause us confusion. However, our confused state will eventually resolve itself once we learn to concentrate on our present physical reality, and since memories of our past life will have nothing to do with what is at hand, we will eventually dispense with them. In other words, when we are born, we will still have internal visual images and hear sounds and messages from our former life, but as they will not satisfy our immediate physical requirements such as suckling, we usually forget them. Nevertheless, they always remain in our subconscious memory bank.’
◊.◊.◊
In her unconscious state, Kate hears no more from Gaius. With soft, even breathing, she glides into another past life where she discovers herself in France, as an eleven-year-old girl.