grab his arms! Hold him!”
David squirmed in his bed, bucking his body, trying to throw them off. He tried to scream, but they’d already covered his mouth.
“Hold his head! Hold it!”
He struggled to raise his arms. They were lead. So were his legs. Hands poured over his face, pushing, pulling. He tried turning his head but they held it tight.
“How many did he eat? You said he had—will you hold him still!”
The grip on his face tightened.
Unable to turn, he watched, wide-eyed. He counted two, no, three of them. Ski masks, navy blue sweats. Two held him down, the third came at him with a gun—a silver gun with a red tip. They were going to kill him! They were going to shoot him in the face! They were going to—
David’s eyes exploded open. He rose in the bed on one elbow, searching the room, getting his bearings. It was the lodge. Their bedroom. The same knotty pine paneling, the same view of the forest from his window—only now it was bathed in bright morning sun.
Luke, what about—
He spun to his son on the other bed, not four feet away. The boy was sound asleep. He took a deep breath, forcing himself to relax, then eased back down into the pillow and closed his eyes. It was a dream. Another nightmare. Two in one night. Some type of record. He took another breath. Only then did he notice how stuffy his nose had become. He gave another sniff. Sure enough, like everyone else, he was coming down with something. He rolled over to look at the radio alarm:
9:56
This was no time to sleep in! He sat back up, calling to his son. “Luke! Luke, get up!”
The boy didn’t stir.
Still unnerved by the dream, he pulled aside his blankets, threw his feet over the side of the bed, and leaned over to shake him. “Luke, you all right?”
His son gave a muffled moan.
He shook him harder. “Luke.”
More incoherency. David stopped. What was he thinking? It wasn’t even noon. Did he honestly believe he could wake his son before lunch? Musing at his foolishness, he ran his hands through his hair, trying to clear his spongy thoughts—the price of the cold or sleeping in too late, or both. He gave another sniff, wondering if he still had some of those cold capsules in his shaving kit from the last trip.
He glanced back at Luke. As usual, the boy had twisted his bedding into a giant knot, a war zone of tossing and turning. David wasn’t sure when that had started. He never paid attention to that sort of thing until Jacqueline, his wife, left them. That’s when Luke’s nightmares started. That’s when he began his nightly ritual of padding on down the hall and sleeping with Dad. Even then, David hadn’t noticed any real problem until after Emily’s death. Then, everything Luke did was on his radar. Every friend he made, every time he left the house, every place he went. David had lost one child through his negligence. He wasn’t about to lose the other.
Nearly eighteen months had passed since her murder. And, for the most part, they were on the road to recovery— though the shrinks warned them things would never return to normal. “The pain will fade,” they assured him, “but the hole will always remain.”
So far they were right. And that was fine with David … and with Luke. Emily deserved that much. She deserved to be missed. And she was. Deeply.
Before her death and after Jacqueline had run off, the three of them did everything together. And on those rare occasions when David couldn’t be with them, brother and sister looked after each other fiercely—Emily taking the role of mother, Luke keeping a careful eye on a sister who battled with bouts of severe depression. Of course this didn’t stop them from fighting. Like cats and dogs. He’d always remember with fondness their river trip in Colorado. They had insisted on sharing their own canoe. Once they were secure in life vests and helmets, he thought it would be fun to watch.
He was not disappointed.
“We’re drifting to the right!” Emily had shouted from the front. “Paddle on the left.”
“I’m better on my right.”
“Change sides and paddle on the—”
“You paddle on the left!”
“Luke!”
“You’re not my boss!”
“Listen, genius, you’ve got to trade sides or we’ll—”
“You trade sides!”
And so the argument continued, neither giving in, as they turned lazy circles in the river until—
“Rapids!” Emily shouted. “Luke, there’s rapids ahead!”
Now, with their lives on the line (at least in their eyes), it was time to put aside all bullheadedness; it was time to practice maturity and cooperation.
Or not …
David, who stayed close in case there was real trouble, continued to watch.
“You turn left!”
“Luke!”
“You turn left!”
And so the debate raged until they finally hit the rapids … broadside.
“LUKE!”
Bouncing and bobbing, they slowly turned until they were actually shooting the rapids backwards.
“EMILY!”
They shouted, they screamed, they hollered. But neither yielded … until they finally hit a giant boulder more stubborn than even themselves. The canoe tipped, throwing them and all of their gear into the icy water. Fortunately, no one was hurt. And later, when they sat around the campfire shivering and trying to dry out, they were finally able to exercise and appreciate the hard-earned truths of cooperating with one another:
“It’s your fault the sleeping bags are soaked!”
“Is not!”
“Is too!”
“Jerk!”
“Moron!”
Or not.
David sat on the bed staring at his son. Eighteen months. And yet in that short time Luke had seemed to age nearly twice that. He suspected much of it had to do with Emily’s death. That and his recent entrance into adolescence. David was astonished at how quickly he’d begun irritating and embarrassing his son … something Luke never hesitated to mention—when he bothered to mention anything at all. Because now, for the most part, David counted himself lucky just to get monosyllabic grunts, interspersed, of course, by hours of brooding silence.
Glancing at the clock, he rose stiffly to his feet. He ran his hand across his face and noticed a slight crustiness on his upper lip. Great, whatever he’d caught was already making his nose run. He gave another sniff and started toward the bathroom.
He shuffled across the hardwood floor into the mirrored room. Motion detectors faded on the lights to reveal two green marble sinks, complete with gold-plated fixtures and a large Grecian tub to his left. He reached for a folded white washcloth on the counter and turned on the water to soak it. But when he looked up to the mirror he came to a stop. He leaned in closer. He touched his right nostril. Tiny flakes fell into his fingers. He pulled back his hand and stared at them. Only then did he realize they were not dried flakes of mucus.
They were dried flakes of blood.
nothin’!” Orbolitz shouted at Dr. Lisa Stanton’s glowing form. “I got nothin’!”
The woman turned to him. She wore a telephone headset. “We are talking to the mountain now—checking to see if the problem is in transmission or if it’s systemic.”
“Systemic?” Orbolitz barked. “This isn’t some garden patch, girl! Get ’em on the line.”
“Pardon me?”
“Put Dirk on line, I wanna talk to him!”
She spoke into her headset while motioning to the assistants at the back of the screening room.
Orbolitz turned to the large screen before him. Most of the people projected on it sat around a butcher-block table in the kitchen. Apparently no one had an interest in returning to the dining room where they’d experienced yesterday’s encounter. No problem, who could blame them. What was the problem, what infuriated him, were the images on the screen. Unlike the staff surrounding him, the people on the screen still had no glowing color, no halo, no nothing. And if he couldn’t see their glow, what made them think he could see their manifestations? That was the word the techies used, manifestations. It had a nice supernatural ring to it. Yet what they’d been studying these many many months was anything but supernatural. According to Dr. Richard Griffin, the first to head the Life After Life Division, it was simply theoretical physics amped up a few degrees.
Griffin had gained his confidence when he helped Orbolitz find donors for his various transplants. (As a diabetic Orbolitz tended to wear out organs faster than most.) Griffin accomplished the near impossible by finding perfect matches which assured minimal complications and virtually no antirejection drug therapy. The fact that it involved killing innocent victims—a college athlete, a mother of three, and of course Emily Kauffman—proved that he not only understood Orbolitz’s obsession to live forever, but that he had the lack of conscience necessary to pull it off. Too bad about the accident in the Virtual Reality chamber, the one that left him a mental vegetable. It had been a major setback to the program, and if he were still at the helm Orbolitz knew they would not be scrambling and playing catch-up like this.
He recalled the man sitting across the desk in his massive, windowless office, laying it all out very simply …
“We only call things supernatural that we don’t understand. Let’s face it, a hundred years ago we would have called radio and television supernatural.”
“What’s your point, Dick?”
“Today cosmologists believe that 96 percent of the universe is made of invisible material.”
“You mean stuff that’s transparent?”
“No, I mean matter and energy that we can’t measure. We know it’s here, we can detect it through gravity, but we can’t see it, we can’t touch it, we can’t hear it.”
“How’s that possible?”
“Most mathematicians believe our universe consists of at least eleven dimensions—some say as many as twenty-two.”
“Twenty-two dimensions? What happened to the good ol’-fashioned three?”
“Those are only the ones we can hear, see, and feel.”
Orbolitz gave him a look.
“Let me show you.” Griffin rose and cleared his boss’s desk, a slab of polished redwood carved from a single, giant burl. “The best way to understand higher dimensions that we can’t see is by dealing with the dimensions we can see.”
“Is this gonna be another one of your brain-bruisin’ lectures?”
“No, sir, it’s really quite simple. Let’s make believe there are people living on the surface of your desk, but that they live in only two dimensions. They understand length”—he motioned across the length of the desk—“and they understand width.” He indicated its width. “But they have no concept of depth, there’s no up or down in their world. Just length … and width.”
“Got it.”
“Now, how would these people describe you and me standing here in the third dimension?”
Orbolitz shrugged. “Couple o’ good-lookin’ fellas standin’ above ’em who—”
“No, sir. There is no above, not in their world. There’s only length … and width.”
“Then I guess they wouldn’t see us.”
“Precisely. We’d be invisible. But we’d still be here, correct?”
“Yeah.”
“Kind of like …” He waited for an answer.
“Ghosts?” Orbolitz offered.
Griffin nodded. “Or gods. We’d see them the entire time—wherever they went, whatever they did. They couldn’t hide from us.”
“’Less they built some sort of roof over ’em.”
“No, remember, there’s no up in their world So there’s nothing they could put over them.”
Orbolitz grinned. “I’m gettin’ it.”
“Not only could we always see them, but we could view the beginning of their lives”—Griffin pointed at one end of the desk—“just as clearly as we could view their ending.”
“Or anytime in between.”
“Wherever and whenever we chose.”
“To them we’d be, what’s the word … omnipotent.”
“Exactly. And what would happen if we, say, poked our finger into their world?” Griffin placed his finger on the desk.
“They’d get spooked.”
“That’s right. To them, it would be as if we’d suddenly appeared. And if we removed it …” He removed his finger.
“We’d disappear.”
“But in reality, we’d always been here.”
Orbolitz nodded, quickly piecing it together. “So you’re saying all these other dimensions, they’re above us—”
“No, you’re thinking three dimensions again. They wouldn’t be above, there is no above.”
“So the idea of heaven being above … or hell below is …”
“—the best primitive man could do to explain a multidimensional universe. But in reality, those higher dimensions are not above or below us … they are around us, sharing our space in worlds we can’t see.”
Orbolitz nodded, this time a little slower.
“More importantly, part of us is made of those dimensions.”
The nodding stopped. “You lost me.”
“From what we’ve witnessed in the VR chambers, there’s far more to us than what we see. You and I, we are also made up of more than three dimensions. There appears to be at least one other part of us that—”
“Our souls,” Orbolitz interrupted. “The part that leaves our body after death, the part we’ve been tracking.”
“Precisely.” Griffin motioned his arm to encompass the room. “Everything around us is made up of more than three dimensions …” He lowered his arm and slowly tapped his chest. “So why wouldn’t we be as well?”
Orbolitz sat another moment in the screening room, recalling the conversation. It seemed so complex then. And so elementary now. Man is made of more than 3-D, flesh and blood. He is also made of something else—the glow, the halo, that thing that departs the body after death. But what exactly is that glow? How does life affect it? Good. Evil. Our so-called “sins.” And, most importantly … what happens to it when it reaches its final destination, when it comes face-to-face with that awful, tyrannical Light that no soul they have tracked has been able to avoid?
“Mr. Orbolitz, it’s a fine morning to be seeing you again, sir.”
He glanced up to the screen and saw Dirk Helgeland, head of operations at the mountain. The heavyset man was all Irish, from his accent to his red hair and beard. But once again, Orbolitz could not see a glow.
“What’s happenin’ up there, Dirk? We’re getting diddly down here.”
“I’m thinking it’s not the goggles. From what I hear they’re working pretty well.”
“Down here they’re workin’ fine, but I’m seein’ nothin’ at your end.”
“As best we can tell, the images refuse to be reduced to any form, either digital or analog, making it impossible to—”
“English, Dirk—talk to me in English.”
“For some reason we can’t record the images on tape. Nor can we reduce them for transmission, or send them through cable.”
Fighting to stay calm, Orbolitz asked, “So what’s your take?”
“We’ll be needing more time to analyze its properties and—”
“We got time to analyze nothin’!”
Helgeland paused, then nodded in understanding.
“We gotta fire this puppy up and we gotta fire her up now!”
“I understand, sir.”
Orbolitz sighed in frustration. “Listen, you and the boys keep workin’ to see if you can dream up somethin’. Maybe ratchin’ up the grid’s power will help. What’s she set at now?”
“We’re in standby mode. Just under 2 percent.”
“We gotta start, son. No more delays. Get them fences turned on, put the pedal to the metal, and let’s see what she’s got.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What’s our first level?”
“We estimated that 5 percent would be a good place to start.”
“Then fire her up to 5 percent.”
“Give us twenty minutes and we’re good to go.”
“You got ten.”
“Ten it is.”
Well,” Albert teased from across the table. “Look who finally climbed out of the sack to join us.”
Rachel turned from the grill to see David enter the kitchen. Even at his morning’s worst he didn’t look half bad. And in the lighting … well, there was no missing how some of his features resembled Jerry’s.
“Sorry.” He gave an embarrassed shrug. “Believe it or not I’m usually a pretty early riser. Must be all this clean mountain air.”
“Or the pollen.” Savannah sniffed from the other side of the table. “I’ve never had such allergies.” As always she rolled and clicked another sugarless lemon drop in her mouth. But not just any sugarless lemon drop. Earlier, she’d made it clear it was imported from the Netherlands. She pushed out a chair with her rhinestone slippered foot and motioned to David. “Sit. Rachel’s about to impress us with her culinary genius.”
“You got that right,” Rachel said. She slipped a spatula under a row of bacon and lifted it to the platter. “What will it be—bacon, hash browns, and eggs with broken yolks or bacon, hash browns, and eggs with broken yolks?”
“Make mine broken.”
“An excellent choice.”
“Actually,” Reverend Wyatt corrected Savannah, “there is little pollen in the Cascades this time of year.”
“Talk to my nose about it,” Savannah sniffed, “’cause this sure ain’t a cold.”
“Tell me about it.” Albert sniffed loudly and swore, using the Lord’s name. The Reverend cleared his throat. “Sorry, Rev, nasty habit.” Turning to David, he asked, “So where’s Luke?”
David shrugged. “Should be up before nightfall.”
Rachel grabbed a pot holder mitt, opened the door to the stainless steel oven, and pulled out a platter of eggs she’d been keeping warm. Though last night’s rebuff had stung slightly, she knew it only came from David’s commitment to helping Savannah. And for that he couldn’t be blamed. Truth be told, she was glad he’d joined them. His quiet presence gave a certain stability to the group. And if there’s one thing she could use a bit more of right now, it was stability.
Earlier, she’d asked Osiris and her guides about the events … and about him. Their response was identical to yesterday’s. A simple warning:
Be careful.
Over the years, she’d learned to listen to their counsel. Not only because they were usually right, but because, as they had promised, they used their powers within her to help and comfort others. Still, everything had its price. Sacrifices had to be made.
And for Rachel, it was the baby …
She will distract you, Osiris had said. Prevent you from rising to your highest calling. In time, yes, children will be good. But at this moment you must concentrate upon an even greater good.
Of course Rachel had refused. All Jerry had ever wanted was to have kids. Lots and lots of kids. And who was she to deprive the man she so deeply loved of something he so deeply desired?
But Osiris and the others persisted in their reasonings … which eventually grew into demands … throughout the days and finally into the nights. Continual. Incessant. Demands that grew so loud it became difficult to hear her own thoughts. Week after week they continued, giving her no rest. That’s when she finally took a stand and insisted they leave. And that’s when they knotted her gut into such a cramp that she dropped to her knees and vomited— again and again, until she blacked out—on more than one occasion.
Still she resisted.
Until the beginning of the third trimester.
That’s when they entered her unborn child, making the baby kick at their command. That’s when they threatened to enter her infant’s brain, promising to make the child go insane by torturing it every day of its life. And they could. She knew it. She knew their powers. Only then did Rachel McPherson, the good Catholic girl, go against what she had always believed and held sacred. Only then did she break her husband’s heart and her own, by participating in a partial birth abortion, or something they described in more clinical terms as dilatation and extraction—a medical procedure where the doctors induced labor and then, piece by piece, crushed and killed little Jessica, the unborn baby they had already named.
But something went wrong. Terribly wrong. Later, as she lay on the crisp, clean sheets, the smell of antiseptic filling the room, her insides gutted, the doctor appeared. The look on the woman’s face immediately told Rachel something had happened.
“Mrs. McPherson …”
“What is it, what’s wrong?”
“There were … complications.”
“Complications …”
The doctor turned to Jerry. “Mr. McPherson, would you mind stepping out of the room for just a—”
“No, he’s staying here. What is it, what’s wrong?”
“There were complications.”
“You said that, what’s—”
“You were hemorrhaging—”
“What does that—”
“We were unable to stop it.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means we had to perform an emergency hysterectomy.”
“Wh … what?”
With measured response, the doctor continued. “You will no longer be able to have children, Mrs. McPherson.”
“Until I recover.”
There was no answer.
“You mean until I recover.”
“We had to remove your uterus, Mrs. McPherson. You will never be able to bear children.”
The news sucked the air from her lungs. But not just hers. When she turned to Jerry, all color had drained from his face. He tried to hide his emotion, to give her the support and comfort she so desperately needed. But even as he reached out and held her, even as she wept, she could feel his own body trembling.
Of course Osiris and the voices soothed and praised her for her courage—assuring her she’d done the right and noble thing. But no matter what they said, they could not drown out the other voice—the one of her own conscience that made it impossible to look into her husband’s eyes. The one that, despite his insistence that he would always love her, eventually drove her to pack her bags and leave … leave the only man she’d ever loved, because she’d killed the only baby she could ever have.
Blowing a tendril of hair from her face, Rachel crossed to the butcher block table with the platter of eggs in one hand and bacon in the other. She could feel David’s eyes on her. But, unlike Albert, he watched discretely and professionally. This both pleased and unnerved her … at times making her as self-conscious as some schoolgirl. Almost as self-conscious as she knew she made him.
“Here we go.” She set the platters on the table beside the toast and hash browns.
“All right,” Albert said, reaching for the food and digging in.
“Smells great,” Savannah agreed as she snatched a piece of bacon and started munching … until Reverend Wyatt cleared his throat and she glanced up. She stopped chewing. “Oh, right.” Setting down the bacon, she said, “Okay, everybody, it’s time for grace.”
“Grace?” Albert asked.
“Yeah, you know—prayer.”
“Oh, right … sure.”
“Reverend,” Savannah asked. “Will you do the honors?”
“Certainly.” The old gentleman bowed his head and the rest of the group followed. “Dear Lord … we thank Thee for the bountiful food which Thou hast provided and ask that Thou bless it and bless the hands that have prepared it. For it is in the name of Thy Son and our Savior that we pray, amen.”
One or two amens were quietly repeated as the group raised their heads and reached for the food. As they did, Rachel turned back toward the stove.
“Aren’t you joining us?” David asked.
She glanced back. “No, I’m really not that hungry.”
“Are you okay?”
She nodded, appreciating his concern and catching herself pushing a strand of hair behind her ear.
“Any more problems?” Albert asked, dishing up the hash browns.
“Nothing other than my embarrassment.”
“Why is that?” Reverend Wyatt asked.
She forced a chuckle. “Savannah brought me up here to help contact her husband. But it looks like I’m the one who keeps needing the help.”
“Nonsense,” Savannah said, rattling a piece of candy in her mouth even as she dabbed a thick layer of marmalade across her toast. “You had no control over those attacks, or whatever they were.”
“Just the same”—she started back to the stove—“after a good night’s rest I’m looking forward to getting down to business.”
“Good night’s rest?” Albert mused through a mouthful of hash browns. “Wouldn’t that be nice.”
“Tell me about it,” Savannah agreed as she dished up an egg, then decided on two. “I don’t know which is worse, my allergies or my dreams.”
“You’re having strange dreams?” David asked.
“Not if you call Rachel being attacked by an angel, computer boy here turning into a wolf, and me putting on a few dozen pounds ‘normal’.”
Rachel slowed to a stop. So did all activity around the table.
Glancing at them, Savannah asked, “What?”
David was the first to speak. “I … I had a dream exactly like that.”
“As did I,” the Reverend quietly agreed.
“Ditto,” Albert said. “Not only the angel and Savannah’s extra tonnage, but,” he nodded to Reverend Wyatt, “you had this giant sword in your hand that you were hacking everybody up with.” He turned to David. “And you, you were all misty and foggy.”
Rachel’s heart beat faster. He’d just described her own dream. Slowly, one pair of eyes after another turned to her as her mind raced, trying to comprehend.
“Has anything like this happened before?” Savannah asked.
Rachel shook her head. “No. Not that I’m aware …” She looked up and slowed to a stop. A purple, bubbling mist was forming around David.
The Reverend saw it, too. “What on earth?”
David frowned, not understanding, apparently not even seeing. But before Rachel could comment, she noticed the Reverend’s image waver until he was surrounded by what appeared to be dark clerical robes.
“What’s going on?” Savannah demanded. “Why are you dressed like that?”
Reverend Wyatt turned to her and caught his breath. So did Rachel. For suddenly, Savannah’s face glowed large and puffy with giant sagging jowls and a neck swollen to twice its size.
Seeing their expressions, Savannah raised her hands to her face. As she did, Rachel spotted the model’s left wrist. It had swollen disproportionately to the other. But not swollen as in sprained or fat. No, it had swollen into the exact size of her Tiffany chain bracelet. Only it was not around Savannah’s wrist, it was under it—each link, even the ropelike texture was clearly visible—all outlined and tightly wrapped under her skin.
Albert swore in concern as a shadowy snout began extending from his face.
Rachel closed her eyes, forcing the sight out of her mind. When she reopened them she was grateful to see that everything had returned to normal—everyone had returned to normal. David, Reverend Wyatt, Savannah, Albert— exactly as they had been … except for the silence and the shock on each of their faces.
“Tell me …” Savannah crunched her candy. “Tell me I didn’t see what I just saw.”
bring ’em up, too.”
“You’re not serious?”
“Course I’m serious.”
Lisa Stanton fidgeted before the massive desk. “That’s three additional people.”
“I can count. If they’re fixin’ to stir up trouble, let’s bring ’em all in. We got the space, right? Extra equipment?”
“Well, yes, but—”
Orbolitz leaned back in his calfskin chair, grinning at the idea. “Skanky white trash, a retard, and a religious fanatic. I’d say that’s more diverse than even we could dream up.”
“It could make for some intriguing interaction.”
“Got that right. And all friends of Kauffman. Should be kinda fun to see what they do to his head.”
“Or soul.”
Orbolitz smiled. “Or soul.” He swiveled to the bank of plasma screens filling the left wall of his office. Four rows of twenty-seven-inch monitors, each viewing a specific room, hallway, or gathering place in and about the lodge. Above the rows, dead center, was a crimson digital display reading:
09.00%
“How much time we got?”
“She postponed again.”
“She what?”
“She was concerned about last night’s dreams and this morning’s manifestations. Felt the group hadn’t fully ‘attuned to their surroundings’.”
Orbolitz shook his head. “What does that do to my little video meet and greet?”
“I suggest you have your video conference with them immediately afterwards.”
“I’ll make sure we have the camera crew present and standing by.”
“And those?” He motioned to the goggles behind him on the bureau below the mounted head of an eight-point buck. The glasses had been greatly streamlined from the last pair and made mobile with a self-contained battery belt. She glanced to them, and he noticed her normally tense body grow even tenser. He had his answer and erupted, “When are we going to get some results?”
“Mr. Orbolitz … they function perfectly. Better than we had expected.”
“Here!” he barked. “They function here! But what good does that do me?”
As always Stanton was careful to choose her words. “Dr. Helgeland assures us that all aspects of the mountain are working as expected. Everything is up to speed.”
“Except these!” He reached back and swept the goggles to the floor.
Stanton looked down, waiting for his temper to cool. With measured words she replied, “Sir, we’re trying everything—at the moment we’re experimenting with long-distance telephoto. But so far the manifestations refuse to be captured on any medium.”
“Useless,” he fumed. “Totally useless.”
“Down here, yes. The only way to successfully utilize them would be …” She hesitated, then tried again. “The only way they can serve the purpose for which we intended would be—”
“—for me to go up there.” She started to respond but he cut her off. “For me to go there and watch everything close-up and in person.”
She nodded. “Which, of course, would be too risky.”
“Not as risky as blowing all my money on some experiment that’s half-baked!”
The woman remained silent—which gave Orbolitz a moment to consider. He leaned back in his chair. “Then again, I really wouldn’t be the one in danger, would I? I mean, it’s not like I’m packin’ one of those receiver thingies. I’d just be an innocent observer.”
“Not so innocent, I’m afraid.”
He looked at her, then smiled. “You reckon they’d take my presence kinda personally? Might want to do me some bodily harm?”
“I’d say the odds are rather high.”
“But even those reactions would be interestin’, wouldn’t they? ‘Specially in Kauffman’s case.” Before she could reply, he concluded. “Well, let’s see what happens at the séance … and how they respond to my little greetin’.”
“Yes, sir.”
He gave her a wave of dismissal and she turned to leave. “Oh, and Lisa.”
She turned back. “Sir?”
“Get them makeup and hair people here early. I wanna look my best for the lab rats.”
“Yes, sir.” She headed back toward the towering pair of wooden doors with the giant oak trees carved in them. He watched, marveling at how all those brains could be wrapped in such a beautiful package dressed so poorly. Dressed poorly and wired far too tightly. No matter. She got the job done, and for Orbolitz that’s all that counted.
Once she’d stepped outside he reached for the intercom and buzzed his secretary. “Mrs. Halton, call the fellas over at the hangar. Tell ’em to start preppin’ the Gulfstream.”
The voice on the other end was thin and melodious. “Are you planning a trip, sir?”
“You know me, I always like to be prepared.”
“I’ll tell them, sir.”
“Thank ya, darlin’.” With that, he leaned back, propped his boots up on the desk, and thought.
no, no, no,” Rachel chuckled. “It’s not like we run around the woods naked looking for trees to worship.”
David gave a nervous cough. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to suggest that, it’s just—” He held back a fir branch, letting her pass along the path. “I guess I really don’t understand that much about Wicca.”
“Most people don’t. And you can’t blame them. With so many offshoots and homegrown varieties, it’s hard to know what’s real.” She paused, waiting for David to join her side.
The walk through the forest had been her idea—another attempt, she said, to calm and center the group for the upcoming session. David couldn’t have agreed more. After this morning’s mass hysteria, or whatever it was they’d experienced at the breakfast counter, along with the group dream, a little centering wasn’t a bad idea. Albert and Savannah had fallen back, slowing their pace for Reverend Wyatt to keep up, while David and Rachel had somehow paired off to take the lead. It hadn’t been David’s intention … at least that’s what he told himself. And, though being alone with her both pleased and made him nervous, he wasn’t about to let any type of attraction interfere with his purpose … at least that’s what he told himself.
They’d just crested a ridge to the north of the lodge and were working their way through ferns and over fallen trees toward a small stream below.
“Actually,” Rachel continued, “when all is said and done, our beliefs are quite simple. They can be reduced to three basic principles.”
“Which are?”
“First, we must worship at least one god and one goddess. We can worship more if we choose, but two is mandatory—one male, the other female.”
The statement almost brought him to a stop. “And you believe that? You believe in these … multiple gods?”
“I not only believe in them—but I speak with them and they speak with me … on a regular basis.”
He shot her a look.
“Ever since I was twelve.”
He had no idea how to respond. “And … this … ‘gift’ you have, in talking to the dead—”
“Comes from my gods, yes.”
“Do all Wiccans have this ability?”
She shook her head. “No, almost none. In fact, I actually started communicating with my deities long before I knew what they were. At first I thought they were angels.”
David nodded.
“But these are definitely not the dead.”
“Actually …” David cleared his throat. “The dead aren’t angels, either.”
“Really?”
“Separate creatures altogether. At least from what I’ve read in the Bible.”
“Hmm.” Her answer was noncommittal, but he could tell she was thinking.
As they continued down the slope toward the stream, he grew more and more certain she really believed in what she said. And over the last day and a half it had become obvious that something legitimate and unusual was indeed happening. But not necessarily in the terms she thought. This “communicating with her gods” was certainly a new angle. But, whatever was going on, he was positive they were not helping her speak with the dead. From what he’d seen in both heaven and hell, the barriers could not be crossed. And, from what he’d read in the Bible, God gave clear warnings that no attempts should ever be made to do so.
Still, if it wasn’t the dead she was contacting, then who? “Please,” he said, “tell me more.”
She laughed. “I don’t want to keep rattling on about myself.” Once again, she pushed her hair behind her ear, a nervous habit she seemed to be doing a lot of lately. “I’d really like to hear more about you and your family. And, if you don’t mind, your relationship with Gita Patekar?”
He looked down. “Maybe a little later.” He felt her eyes watching him and pressed on. “What are some other, you know, misconceptions about Wicca?”
“I suppose the biggest is that we’re worshippers of nature.”
“You’re not?”
She shrugged at his surprise. “Sorry. Though it wouldn’t be hard with all this beauty.” She nodded to the trees around them and the soaring peaks above. “The gods and goddesses may choose to infuse themselves into this splendor, but we worship very specific deities, not nature.”
David gave a nod, though he didn’t entirely see the difference. “And what about Jesus Christ? What’s your take on Him?”
She looked at him again. Then, somewhat gently, she replied, “It sounds as though Gita may have touched more than your heart.”
He glanced away, embarrassed. “She was a good woman.”
Silence grew between them. Again, he felt her watching him. After all this time, were his feelings about Gita still so obvious? Of course they were to him. He’d never met a woman so … pure. Knew he never would again. But surely he was capable of keeping his feelings more hidden than this.
“Yes,” Rachel quietly repeated, “she was a good woman. They don’t come any more honest and straightforward. A bit opinionated, perhaps, especially in the religious department, but definitely good.”
David looked at her. “You knew of her faith?”
“She shared it with me.” Then with a smile added, “More than once. And you?”
Again, David looked down, unsure how to respond.
Rachel responded with the slightest surprise. “You became a Christian because of her.”
He nodded, still feeling a little uncomfortable with the label. Not because he was ashamed of Christ—after what he’d seen in heaven, after Who he’d seen, the Man with the holes in His hands, he could never be ashamed. It was just the idea of being so quickly categorized—especially with the media broad-stroking Christians as narrow-minded, intolerant, card-carrying Republicans.
Another moment passed before Rachel finally came around to answering his question. “We believe Jesus was a great man, a good teacher—but as far as Savior of the world …” She shook her head. “We really don’t believe the world is an evil place that needs to be saved.”
“And yet,” he pointed out, “isn’t that exactly what Jesus taught? Didn’t He say again and again that His purpose for coming was to die for our sins?”
“I suppose …”
“But if you believe He was a great teacher and disagree with His purpose of coming to save the world—well, you really can’t have it both ways, can you?” He hoped he didn’t sound too argumentative.
She paused, then slowly nodded. “Then I would have to say he was a great teacher … but not infallible.”
David resisted the need to continue. He’d made his point. Besides, the day was too perfect, the mountains and air too beautiful to turn everything into confrontation. Especially with her.
They walked in the silence, savoring the moment, until Rachel spoke again. “There is something else we believe.”
“What’s that?”
“Not only is nature a beautiful thing to celebrate, but we believe all of its pleasures and desires are to be enjoyed.”
He glanced at her, but she would not look at him. He swallowed, noticing how dry his mouth had become. In an effort to change the subject, he asked, “You, uh, you mentioned three beliefs. What are the other two?”
“We also believe in the Wiccan Rede: ‘If ye harm none, do what ye will’.”
“I’m sorry, what does that—”
“We may enjoy whatever we wish, as long as we don’t harm others. There are no rules, no sins. If we enjoy something, we may abandon all restraint and indulge in it.”
The phrase did little to relieve David’s tension. Was she making a pass at him? He couldn’t tell. When it came to women there wasn’t much he could tell—a point his daughter had never hesitated to point out to him.
“And uh …” Again he cleared his throat. “The third?”
“We call it the Law of Return. If a person does evil, it comes back to them. If they do good, it also returns.”
“Sort of like karma?”
“Sort of. It’s called the Rule of Three:
“ ‘Be always mindful of the rule of three,
Three times thy actions return to thee.
This is the lesson which thou must learn,
Thou receives only what thou dost earn.’”
They finally arrived at the stream. It was shallow but six or seven feet across.
“Now what?” she asked.
He spotted some larger stones and started toward them. “Over here.”
Rachel sounded less sure. “Listen, you need to know, I’m a bit of a klutz.”
“You’ll be fine.” His take-charge attitude surprised him, and he wondered if he might be showing off a bit. They arrived at the stones, and he crossed them effortlessly and with a bit of flair. Yes, he was definitely showing off. He turned back to her and motioned. “Come on.”
“You sure?”
“A piece of cake.”
She looked down, tentative. Then, ever so carefully, she stepped onto the first slick stone. Then to the next. But she was already losing her balance. She squealed, taking the next two in rapid succession. “David!”
He moved to catch her just as she fell into his arms— warm and beautiful and lovely and—He quickly released her. A gallant idea, except that she was still clinging to him for balance.
Well, she had been clinging to him for balance. Now she was splashing into the water, rear-first, shrieking at the icy cold.
He was there in a second but far too late.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
He reached for her, but she slapped his hands away. “What is wrong with you?”
“Here, let me—”
“What is wrong with you!” On her own effort, she struggled to her feet, until they slipped out from under her, sending her splashing back into the water with another yelp.
“Rachel—”
Looking up at him, she cried, “Do you really hate me that much!” She blew the wet hair from her face.
“I don’t—”
“Do you?”
Before he could answer, she turned over and crawled on her hands and knees through the frigid water back to the bank.