Between ascension, p.22
Between Ascension, page 22
part #9 of Levels of Ascension Series
“Then why would he have blessed the union to begin with? It just doesn’t make sense.”
Juila thought about it for some time before she snapped her fingers when she came to the obvious conclusion. “Willian never would have come to Earth to meet Val if it hadn’t been for you. Don’t you think Jehoban would know that?”
“I suppose.” She was still not convinced, yet she felt a glimmer of hope at the idea of being useful for Jehoban’s purposes. From their special upbringing on Acaim, she always wished there was some way to repay Jehoban for taking them in and teaching them so much.
Taking advantage of Jena’s uncertainty, she added more thoughts to her original idea. “Maybe you two being so ill-suited was part of the plan so it would be easier for you to let him go. Or maybe it was to help him learn to be better to Val. If you really wanted to discover the answer, you know you could ask Jehoban directly.”
“I know, but that makes it sound as if I doubted His plan and I don’t want to go there. Besides, we have no idea if this is even the real reason, we’re just guessing.”
“It seems like a pretty good guess to me, and we can both agree that my instincts are usually correct.”
Jena quirked her eyebrows at her sister’s self-confidence. She did not want to admit to anything at the moment; she really wanted to be able to see the scenario from every angle. Just as their grandfather had requested, she wanted to be impartial in her review, especially because she was involved. If she ever wanted to become an Elder, then this could become an important lesson.
Just as swiftly as she had the idea, she slapped her thigh and smiled, startling Juila into looking up at her sister in astonishment. Jena jumped up from where she had been sitting in the window seat and could no longer keep still.
“What happened?” Juila asked, excited to see a change in her sister.
“I just realized something really cool!”
“What?”
“As long as I was going to be married to Willian, I never could have become an Elder because that was his destiny. I no longer have his restriction on my life. I actually could become an Elder if Jehoban wants me for the role. I’m free to allow my dream to possibly become a reality!” This was the best thing to ever happen in her life, and she had no idea what to do with it.
Juila also rose from the cushioned bench and announced, “Let’s go share the great news with our grandparents!”
Jena’s expression sobered slightly, and she held out her hand to prevent her sister from leaving the room. “I’d like to keep this between us for a little bit if you don’t mind. If Grandpa were to tell me I didn’t have a chance at becoming an Elder, then I’d be crushed all over again. Promise me you won’t talk about it in front of them.” She tipped her head toward the bedroom door to emphasize who she was talking about.
“Sure, Jena. I’ll promise whatever I have to if it means you’ll let me back into our link.” In the next instant, Jena’s innermost thoughts were in her own head again, and she sighed with relief when she saw the brightness of Jena’s soul.
Jena felt the same release as soon as she allowed the twin-link to resume its normal flow. At the time, it had felt important to have her own space, but now she realized their shared space was better for her emotionally. The warmth Juila projected on her was soothing and moving, more so than Willian had ever been for her.
“We need to make plans for our future.” Juila was suddenly overcome with the desire to strategize their options since they were both free for it now.
“I’m pretty sure your future includes Behn,” Jena replied drolly.
“If that’s true, then yours includes Luke,” Juila retorted instantly.
Clearly, that had been the last thing Jena planned on connecting with her life. She had been so consumed with the loss of Willian, she had found no other place for another relationship. Squinting her eyes a bit, she considered how her life would work with Luke in it rather than Willian, and she discovered it pleased her. “There’s only one problem with Luke, you know.”
“What?”
“He’s from Earth. At least Behn is from Tuala and knows about our powers and history. Behn is an obvious and easy choice for you to make. Luke…well…not so much.”
“Now you’re just making excuses. The difference in heritage hasn’t stopped anyone in the past. Our own parents aren’t from the same world, but they’ve managed to work it out.”
“Wow, that’s the biggest stretch yet, Juila. We know how strangely everything came about for them and we also know Jehoban had a big hand in their coming together.”
“What, you don’t think He’d do the same for you? We lived with Him for most of our lives, Jena!”
“You don’t have to tell me that, I was there, remember? Still, it would seem pretty petty for me to go asking the creator of the universe if He’d mind setting me up on a date. It sounds even worse saying it out loud!”
“Now you’re just making excuses. What about Barla and Captain Ahn? Or our father’s grandparents, Murisa and Edwin? They are family and from different worlds. Both times they managed to find one another without Jehoban’s direct intervention…well maybe. They did all have extenuating circumstances for why they were meeting, but that’s beside the point. They found one another against all the odds, and they’ve managed to make happy lives for themselves. You can too if you let yourself be open to it.”
Jena held up her hands in surrender. “Can you at least give me a minute to process the end of my relationship with Willian before you set me up with someone new?”
“Luke is hardly someone new! You’ve dated him several times, and you enjoyed yourself. I think that speaks volumes right there.” She could see her sister starting to get defensive, and she relented slightly. “Fine, I’ll leave it alone. I love you, Jena, and I just want you to be happy. If you hurt, then I hurt.”
“I know, and I love you.” She felt a release in her soul, something which made everything possible again. No longer was she feeling sorry for herself; instead, she was ready to look ahead to a future which still had to be written.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Petre woke up in the lumpy bed, feeling weak, cold, and disoriented. Without moving his head, he looked around him with eyes which refused to focus. He saw a strange contraption suspended above him, and he found himself mesmerized by the constant drip, of what looked like water, into the small vial. The vial was attached to a tube which dropped down, looped back up and snaked across the bed. Belatedly, he discovered the tube had been taped to the back of his hand, and his whole hand and arm felt cold.
The idea of the liquid falling from the bag going onto his arm began to concern him to the point of paranoia. The more he looked at it, the more convinced he became that it was slowly poisoning him. He had to get that thing off of him; it could not be allowed to keep dripping. He reached across his body and pulled the tape off and was even more horrified when he discovered the tube was actually inserted into his body with a sharp object. He pulled it out and let it fall to the floor where it began pooling the liquid around it.
Several drops of blood appeared where the needle had been, and he began squeezing his arm to encourage it to continue bleeding. He had to get the poison out of his arm before he was no longer able to control his motions. Already he felt light-headed and believed he was going to die. Spots appeared in his vision, and he closed his eyes, not knowing exactly when he passed out.
The attendant found him bloody and disheveled. He called in several nurses to get him cleaned and reconnected to the IV. He took a vial of sedative and a syringe out of his pocket and extracted a dosage ensured to keep the patient unconscious until they were ready to interview him. They only had a short time before Dr. Gascon would be returning and they had followed protocol precisely to keep the patient calm enough for his initial session.
Petre was certain he had felt people touching him. He wanted to tell them to leave him alone and let him sleep, but he could not get the words to form in his mouth. There was something very wrong with him, and he worried about keeping his promise to Lucinden.
He had to figure out a way to stop these people from whatever they were doing long enough for him to escape. The mantra kept going through his mind as the sedative entered his system and began slowing down his brain even further until nothing made sense anymore except sleep.
Chapter Thirty-One
DR. GASCON STOOD at the foot of the bed and looked down with a critical eye on this man who insisted he came from another world. As soon as his schedule cleared a little more, he was interested in hearing Petre’s story. Ever since Shemalla had gone missing, he had been searching for a new subject for his ongoing multi-dimensional disorder study and Petre would fill the slot nicely.
Just thinking of Shemalla again caused his anger to rise. He knew, yet had no way of proving, that Dr. Medin had been responsible for his star patient to go missing. The fact that she had gone completely off of the radar proved she had to have had help. It was impossible to leave without a trace and without assistance.
Dr. Medin was another sore subject, Stephen mused to himself. He should have seen she was getting too emotionally attached to her patients. Her notes had shown a clear pattern of belief which he should have found a way to dissuade. Dr. Medin had been his best hypnotist and had achieved the fastest results with their most delusional patients. The several therapists who had come and gone as her replacement were mostly disappointing who he’d sent packing after only a few sessions each. He would be taking on Petre himself; this was too important to screw up.
He left the room and made his way back to his own office. There was plenty to catch up on since he had been out of the office speaking on major depressive disorders at another psychiatric convention. Crossing in front of the empty desk in the outer room, he recalled how he had fired his last secretary, but a replacement had yet to be chosen. He sighed at the thought of training another woman to his exacting standards even as he sat down at his mahogany desk.
Putting up his feet on the edge of the desk, Dr. Gascon opened the latest stack of paperwork and photos from the private investigator. By the time he read the third line of the report, he had dropped his feet to the ground and began swearing. “Of all of the incompetent, stupid, people! How could he have been so sloppy as to get caught, and by a kid at that!”
He scanned through the rest of the report and slammed it down onto the desktop. He grabbed up the photos and rapidly shuffled through them to find the picture of the boy in question. Turning it over, he found only a first name of Willian as the identifier for the teenaged boy. Since he was in the vehicle with the Wilson triplets, it was being assumed that he was a friend of theirs from school.
What was not apparent was who the kids were visiting since there had been no recent sightings of Jena or Juila and Amanda was currently in Roswell, New Mexico. An idea triggered in Dr. Gascon’s mind, and he grabbed the report back up to scan through it. Yes, it did say Roswell. What was in Roswell and why did that seem so familiar to him?
He turned to his computer and searched through his old patient records. It took over an hour, but his diligence paid off as he found the patient notes from someone he had been thinking about earlier that same day. Shemalla’s delusions under hypnosis had her working in Roswell. Could it be too coincidental that Amanda would be traveling to the same town?
How come he had never investigated whether or not she had gone back to the town in the report? Most likely because they had been moving their facility and there were so many other problems to resolve, she had simply fallen through the cracks. Besides, she was a charity patient, merely a pet project of his, so finding her did not really warrant any extra expense. Now he was beginning to wonder if he should hire a private investigator in Roswell.
He would have to ponder it a little longer and decide later since his alarm was going off for his meeting with the Board of Directors. With a sigh of resignation for having to deal with the bureaucracy of hospital, he turned off his computer and put his special files away for future review. Luckily he had made several new acquaintances at the conference who had indicated their desire to make donations to further his studies, so the meeting would likely go in his favor.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
They might have been given the all-clear from Jena on pursuing their relationship; however, it did not mean Valentina felt comfortable forging ahead. She had resisted Willian’s attempts to come over to her house on two occasions by giving him lame excuses. Of course, this was only a short-term fix allowing her some time to think about the implications of Elder Daven’s summary of their situation.
Valentina was terrified of a future predestined with someone not of her own choosing. Of course, whenever she was with Willian, she could not imagine wanting to be with anyone else. This created the conundrum in her mind of choice versus chemistry; her mind told her one thing while her body told her something quite different.
As she lay on her bed, she vividly recalled Willian lying on top of her, passionately kissing her. Her memory was so clear that she began to smile at how wonderful the whole thing had been. Just a short time before she had met Willian, she had been a ball of misery in her room. She had Willian to thank for almost completely erasing the rape from her mind.
Almost, she told herself, as she could just as swiftly go back to the moment in time on the spaceship where she had not been in control of her body. This uncontrolled feeling for Willian did not make her feel dirty or used; on the contrary, it made her feel desirable and wanted for herself.
Was it herself Willian really wanted, or was it the elemy forcing him to want her? Would this be something which would last, or was it merely temporary? She was not about to throw her heart at something or someone which was only a phase. Willian already had a track record for discarding one person for another. Jena was gracious enough to let him go without too much hassle, could Valentina be so calm about it? She could not see herself behaving as well as Jena had, which made her feel bad all over again.
“Hey, Val, when are we going to Willian’s house to train? It’s been days,” Jon asked from the open bedroom door.
Valentina looked guiltily over at her brother and wondered if he could guess what she had been thinking. She was certain her face was turning red, and she sat up hurriedly to disguise it. “I don’t know; I haven’t really felt like it, I guess.”
“It seems to me that you’ve been avoiding Willian. Are you having second thoughts about him?”
“Would you be happier about it if I said yes?”
Jon had been teasing, and he instantly became concerned about his sister’s serious reply. He stepped into her room and said, “No. Val, I was just kidding. What’s wrong? Why are you suddenly changing your mind about him? Did he do something to you?”
Valentina hastily shook her head to keep him from thinking the worst. “No, it’s something Elder Daven said which made me question everything.”
“What did he say?”
“Something about this being my destiny. What if I don’t want a destiny? I’ve always wanted to have a normal life where we fit in. How come there’s always something coming up which makes that dream impossible? We’re never going to fit in; are we?”
Jon chuckled at his sister’s summary of their lives to date. He shook his head slightly and answered, “No. We’ll never be normal as long as we remain on Earth. I think we’d have a better shot at it if we moved to Tuala.”
“But don’t you get it? We’re foreigners there as well since we were raised most of our lives on Earth. We don’t fit in anywhere!” She slapped her hands down onto her thighs for emphasis.
“Maybe you should talk to Mr. Stel about it.”
“Mr. Stel? Why him? I’d think he’d be about the last person he’d want to talk to given what’s happened to Jena.”
“I think you’d be surprised. Anyway, I suggested him because he’s lived half of his life on Earth like us. He went to high school here and lived with relatives in the U.S. over the years. He might be able to help you figure out a path for yourself where you can fit in.”
“How do you know all of this about Mr. Stel?” Valentina leaned forward onto her elbows with her head resting in her hands. She tipped her head toward her brother in her interest in his answer.
“Jena told me about it while we were studying crystal skills together. I don’t even remember why it came up, but I think it might be a good solution for you.”
“Maybe.” Valentina’s mind was turning over various possibilities. For some reason, she had believed Riccan had only made a life for himself here on Earth for business. Never had she imagined he had family living nearby. This definitely changed some ideas she had been forming.
“What about our crystal training? Do you want to go with Behn and me?”
“I think I’ll skip it this time.”
“Okay, but I’m sure Willian will be disappointed that you didn’t come with us.”
“That’s not my problem.”
Jon’s eyebrows lifted in denial, but he refrained from commenting further. He knew when to leave his sister alone. He walked back to the door and said, “If you change your mind, we’re leaving in about ten minutes.”
“When did you guys make those plans?”
“Willian called here several times. After you had refused to meet with him, Behn decided to take the call. Willian asked us if we could all come over today and Behn agreed it would be a good idea.”
“Hmmph.”
Jon chuckled as he left the room and turned down the hall. He knew his sister could take a long time to come to a decision; he just hoped she would get there before she made things more difficult for herself or Willian.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Shemalla’s days had not been wasted on museum work alone. She had spent a considerable amount of time on her cell phone, working her contacts, and calling in favors to get April and Emily released from the system and into Chris and Diane’s custody. While the task seemed straightforward enough, there had been more wrinkles in the case than she had previously been made aware.
