Soul Searcher
By Gary Brandt
Copyright 2008
Over The Edge Press, 809 W Riordan Rd Ste 100 #405, Flagstaff, AZ 86001
e-mail otep@overtheedgepress.com
www.overtheedgepress.com
Alannah and Elina changed quickly out of their uniforms and got ready to head out for an evening on the town. Tonight they will dine in Capitol City and then cruise the town to see what they can find to entertain themselves. It has been three months since the newly transformed Elina joined Alannah in Crystal City and it has been a nonstop party. Alannah has spent a small fortune entertaining Elina and herself, but she believes it is worth it, and long overdue. Twelve millennia stuck in limited mind sets going nowhere deserves a celebration when you finally break free, and freedom is what Alannah and Elina are experiencing, with a fervor. Both girls are working at the all night diner, so their finances will be replenished, slowly, over time. For the time being, as long as Alannah’s bank account holds out, it’s continuous entertainment. Maureen, their new friend and partner in exploring the domains, is meeting them for dinner.
“Holy shit, Maureen! What in the world have you done?” Elina asked with a big smile as Maureen approached them in the restaurant.
“How do I look? Am I good enough to party with you guys now?” Maureen asked with an even bigger smile. Age regression therapy is becoming popular in the domains since the process was discovered and Maureen is studying to become a regression therapist.
“You look awesome!” Alannah said. “And you were good enough to party with us when you were 60. How old are you now?”
“I’m about 45 now.” Maureen giggled. “I found a relative who had an intact template of me at 45 in their memory and we used that for regression, just the same way as you regressed Elina from your memory. I’m searching for more relatives that may have a younger template, but if I stay forever 45 that’s plenty good enough. There ain’t nothing a 35 year old can do that a 45 year old can’t do better anyway.” They all laughed.
After dinner and after saying no to dozens of Capitol City gentlemen the girls danced with a few guys and then retired to a quiet corner table in the bar to discuss business. “Elina and I have the next two days off from the diner.” Alannah announced. “So lets get down to business. Where do we need to go to find Brionna?”
“I’ve located your sister Brionna in a domain of the mid twentieth century era. She is there along with a number of her children. I brought a small sketch pad so I can draw their images for you for verification. In fact, I have most of them done already.” Maureen said as she hands Alannah and Elina a small stack of sketches.
Alannah studies the images and asks “OK. The elderly woman you have drawn. I assume this is Brionna?”
“Yes. I estimate her age at about 90 years old, probably the same as her Earth age at the time of her passing.” Maureen explains.
“She was about 70 when I left. So she got in another 20 years. Makes sense, her being so pampered her whole life. I had to struggle every day just to survive and there she is in the lap of luxury, soaking up the good life. Remind me to complain about that when we get there.” Elina says with a grin and a laugh.
“A word of caution before we go. This domain has been totally resistant to contact with the modern domains. They are stuck in a 1950’s version of the old North America and as far as they are concerned that is where they still are. Anything that they experience that contradicts that illusion they either ignore or rationalize so that the illusion is preserved. She may recognize you as her sisters but since you, at your apparent age, would be an anachronistic contradiction, she will not be able to accept you as her sisters. It would destroy her illusion and she will more than likely just think you are someone else who looks like her sisters did when she was young.” Maureen explained.
“So then Alannahs hope of a big family reunion is out of the question?” Elina asked.
“Probably. At least not the way you may want it to be.” Maureen explained. “The only way to break her out of the illusion is to provide something more compelling than the illusion, but that is a difficult thing to accomplish.”
“I may know a way.” Elina said with a mischievous smile on her face.
“I don’t know any of these kids. They were born after I was gone.” Alannah says as she hands the sketches to Elina.
“Yes I know these kids. Is this all of them? There were more than these.” Elina says looking at Maureen for possibly more sketches.
“This is all that I feel are with her. My seeing ability’s are not perfect, so there may be more, or maybe less. We will have to go there to see. If someone who is not there is constantly on their mind I may see them as being there when they are really not, but I’m usually pretty accurate.” Maureen says.
“So you are basically reading her mind and pulling this stuff out that way?” Alannah asked.
“In a round about way, yes” Maureen explains. “I am reading feelings and images from a universal field of consciousness that all life is connected too. My skills as a seer are that I can filter out from the trillions of voices from the one I am looking for. You are also connected to this field as well but you perceive it as trillions of voices all at once. Your mind interprets that as just noise and filters it out. I have the ability to penetrate that filter and find one soul amongst the noise. There are only a few of us that can do that and I have been blessed with that ability.”
“I know these kids.” Elina says, going through the sketches one by one. “This one here is Albert. He was always a sweet boy, but I think a little slow. He passed in the conflict of 1917. That broke Brionna’s heart. She had two older sons who passed in the conflict in Cuba. They joined the Rough Riders when they were 16 against her wishes. They both ran away from home and joined and then she never saw them again. According to the reports I received, one died from a bullet and the other died from malaria. She also lost two more sons in 1918 or thereabouts, to the war in Europe. She was so depressed she could hardly function for years, but then became an active in anti-war movements, and helping other mothers find sons who were missing and assumed dead, but no one knew for sure. The women in these sketches are Elizabeth and Ruth, two of her daughters. They were still living when I left so I don’t know how they departed.”
“There is one more there Elina, that you set aside. Who is that?” Alannah asked.
Elina shot Maureen a smile and said “Maureen, you know who this last one is, don’t you?”
“I think I might.” Maureen answered.
“Should we tell her?” Elina asked
“I think we should. I think she is strong enough to handle it.” Maureen responded, smiling at Alannah.
“OK you guys, I’m starting to cry. What? Who is it?” Alannah asked.
Elina smiled at Alannah and said “One of these kids is not really Brionna’s, although she raised him until he was 16. He is her nephew, Thomas. He is your son, Alannah. The son you never met.”
Now tears were streaming down Alannah’s face. “Oh. Shit! I didn’t even think about that. I knew I had a child but never gave it another thought. Oh my God! What am I going to say to him? How is he going to respond to me?”
“You will be as much a stranger to him as he is to you.” Maureen explained. “If it is easier for you, and him, to not bring the subject up then maybe it would be better to just not mention it. He may recognize his aunt Elina, but if he is lost in Brionna’s illusion, then he may not know her as his aunt.”
The girls discussed their trip for tomorrow and finalized their plans. After the plans had been finalized they had a midnight snack, had a few drinks, danced with a few soon to be broken hearted young men, and headed back to Crystal City for a few hours of sack time before their new adventure.
Elina and Alannah awoke to the chimes of the apartment intercom. Their car was waiting for them and they were not even up and dressed yet. Luckily they had laid out their clothes and travel supplies before they went to bed so they hurriedly dressed and dashed out the door, brushing their teeth as they ran down the hall and spitting into the ash tray as they entered the lobby. Alannah handed the driver the address to Maureen’s house. They would go there first before traveling to the mysterious domain of Brionna.
“Good morning girls.” Maureen said as she stepped into the hover craft, handing the coordinates of Brionna’s domain to the driver. The car whooshed to cruising altitude and soon began a docking procedure at the interface of Brionna’s domain. “We are going to have to let you off here, ladies.” The driver announced. “This is a period specific domain and we can’t take our technology in there. In your travel pouch you will find currency specific to this period. They are called dollars. You can use them to hire transportation to your friends location. Have a good trip and summon us when you need to be picked up and we will come and get you.”
The girls exited the hover craft in a foggy area dividing the two domains. As they emerged from the fog they were standing on a residential street in what appeared to be a middle class neighborhood. Some of the newer homes were brick and some were older wooden houses. Not knowing which way to go they took off in a random direction hoping to find the center of town and a cab to rent. Then they spied a cab driver dropping off a resident and hailed the driver before he could leave the neighborhood. “Where to, ladies?” The cab driver asked.
“Take us to Cresida drive.” Elina said. “I’m not sure what house it is, but I’ll recognize it. I never actually saw the house but Brionna described it to me over and over again. She was all excited because she was working with the architect on a custom design. I’m sure she manifested that same house here in this domain.”
The cab driver gave her a funny look and said. “OK lady. The fare will be about $2.25 for the three of you. You girls got enough to cover that?”
Elina laughed and said. “Yes. We got ya covered on the fare. Drive on and let us know when we are on the block.”
The cab wound its way through the streets of what appeared to be San Diego California many many years ago. After about 20 minutes the cab driver pulled to the curb and said “Here you go girls. This is Cresida drive. It ain’t very long, you can get out and walk until you find what you are looking for.”
Elina handed the driver $3 and told him to keep the change. The girls walked past a number of nice homes until suddenly Elina said “That it!. That is the house that Brionna built. It’s gotta be. It’s just like what she described. Come one girls. Lets go knock on the door.”
“It’s got a door bell thingy.” Alannah said. “OK. Here we go. I’m pushing it. Let’s see what destiny has in store for us today.” There was a sound of a door bell echoing through the house and then the sound of several very small dogs barking and scampering over wooden floors. A young man, apparently in his mid thirties, approached the door, then stopped suddenly, then said “Holy Shit!” as he hurriedly came out the screen door and closed the wooden door behind him. “Aunt Elina! What the hell are you doing here? Oh My God! Is this my Mom? Elina! You’ve regressed!” Thomas said as he gave a shocked Elina a big hug. Turning and hugging Alannah Thomas said “Hi Mom. It’s good to finally meet you.” Alannah’s heart was beating so fast she was terrified that she would pass out. She held tight to Thomas just in case.
“Apparently you’re not part of this illusion, are you Thomas?” Maureen asked.
“No ma’am. I’m just visiting. I come and check on aunt Brionna from time to time. I live in a different domain where we are much more aware. That is why I hurried out here and shut the door. If you just walked in there I’m not sure how she would handle it. In addition to being lost in her illusion, she is also a bit senile, so we need to do this carefully. I’ve got a car, lets go someplace and get a cup of coffee or something and figure out how to handle this.”
Thomas took the girls to a donut shop where they could sit and talk and create a strategy for introducing themselves to Brionna, and catch up on old times. “I’m sorry for the hurried hello, Mom. I would have preferred a more formal meeting, but you guys didn’t give me any warning. I almost had a heart attack when I saw you at the door.”
“My heart fluttered a few times too! I’m sorry for the shock Thomas. I don’t really know what to say. I wasn’t there after you were born, so I don’t really know you. I intend to get to know you though, but that will take some time. I’m still in shock meeting you, especially from the suddenness of it all.” Alannah said, not knowing if she should laugh or cry or just run like hell.
“We seem to have nothing but time in these domains, Mom. I’m sure we will get to know each other very well. So? Why the sudden visit? What sort of mission are you guys on?”
“It’s sort of a long story, Thomas.” Alannah begins. “Apparently I was stuck in some sort of a zombie state for a long long time. All I did was eat, sleep, and work and the rest of life passed me by without my ever knowing it. I had no memory of the past and no concept of a future. A few months ago my employer insisted that I undergo reconstitution therapy to break me out of that trap. I visited my friend Maureen, here with us today, and underwent the therapy and much of my memory has now been restored. I’m Alannah again, instead of that zombie girl with the blank stare, that I was for so long. The very first thing I did then was go find Elina. Maureen and I found her locked in her own private hell and we got her out of there. Elina and I then spent a few months traveling the domains and having fun, and now we have come to find Brionna. I never expected to find you, Thomas. This is an unexpected bonus, but I’m glad it happened. It seems you can help us with Brionna. Tell us about Brionna, but first, tell us about you.”
“Well, as you know I arrived on Earth about the same time you departed. I am one of those lucky few who remember a lot of their past experiences. Even on Earth I could remember bits and pieces of my life as a San Deiguito, and ancient race of aboriginals who populated Southern California going back 10 to 12 thousand years before your time on Earth. I was drawn to San Diego, for that reason I believe, and it was my constant longing to go there the eventually convinced Brionna to move from Los Angeles to San Diego. It just felt like home to me. I knew that my Earth experience was all about adventure and I was an adventurous child. That eventually got me killed. When I found out that the Rough Riders were recruiting in preparation for an armed invasion of Cuba I just had to go, so I ran away and enlisted. I was too young though. I didn’t really know how to protect myself on the battle field. I stood up when I should have ducked and the next thing I knew I was here, in this domain.”
“So you came here with your full memory?” Maureen asked. “How did that affect you when you got here. Some who come here through war bring a lot a trauma with them.”
“Apparently this wasn’t the first time.” Thomas laughed. “I have been an adventurous spirit for quite some time, so I have ended up here through war more than once. I wasn’t traumatized by my death, but I did bring a lot of guilt, especially for the pain I caused Brionna. In addition to running away and getting killed I brought my cousin with me, Brionna’s son. Brionna’s first born, Charles, was my same age. We grew up more as twin brothers than cousins. Brionna had a number of miscarriages before Charles, so he was very special to her. The reason she got married at 16 in fact was because she was with child, but she lost that one and several more before Charles. When I was killed in action and Charles died of malaria, Brionna was devastated. If it wasn’t for her other children she would have ended her own life at that time. She was so angry with us boys, mainly me, for running off and getting ourselves killed. Charles, after spending a short while here recycled back to the planet for a new life experience there. Normally I would have done the same thing, possibly being his twin again, but my guilt caused me to stay here. I became a watcher and a guide. I would go to be with Brionna as an etheric visitor and communicate with her through an aspect of her consciousness outside her awareness.
“So the Brionna that I knew didn’t know you were there?” Elina said with a smile. “I think she did. In her letters she told me that once or twice she saw a ball of light and she knew there was a presence with her. During the 1920’s she started working with other mothers who had lost children in wars other disasters. She became a seeker of lost souls and would use psychic methods for locating missing solders and others who did not return from conflicts or who were lost in floods or storms or tidal waves. That was you, wasn’t it, Thomas. You were her spirit guide. In my darkest hours I could also feel a loving presence too. Was that you too?”
“Yes I was there with you too, aunt Elina. I was just joining the party, though. You don’t remember now, but you are one of the ancient ones, the first to live as sentient beings on Earth. You have many many old friends, so when I would visit you I would just be part of the crowd. Why you chose to experience such a difficult life was a mystery to your old friends, but I’m glad you did. You have enriched my experience in more ways than I can describe. Yes, Brionna did catch a glimpse of me on more than one occasion, and I had to back off a bit. People were starting to think that she was going crazy with all her talk of spiritual stuff. She even had ’sittings’, also called a ’seance’, to try to contact the spirits of the departed. So I just stayed in the background outside her awareness until things settled down, and then I would move closer and assist her again.”
“So how many of your past lives do you remember? I can barely remember much of my own life on Earth, much less ones before that.” Alannah asked.
“Pretty much I just remember my past life with aunt Brionna and uncle Pete. I do get flashbacks from before lives, but not enough to piece together a complete history, or even to separate them into distinct experiences.”
“So you have continued to be Brionna’s guide after she came here? Are you still feeling guilty?” Maureen asked.
“Yes and no.” Thomas replied “I do continue to assist aunt Brionna, but no, I have resolved my guilt an no longer carry that burden.”
“So you have paid your debt?” Elina asked.
“Debt?” Thomas asked “You mean like a karmic debt? There really isn’t any such thing. Not in the way it has been believed to work, where if I cause you to experience a pound of suffering then you must cause a pound of suffering in my experience to balance it out. It’s more like a second chance. You may cause suffering through youthful unenlightened behavior and then from a more mature place work to resolve the suffering you caused through loving sacrifice and forgiveness. There is actually no ‘law’ that says you have to do anything to resolve suffering you may have caused, but it is an effective way to grow and evolve. By creating loving sacrifice in these domains I have grown as much, maybe more, than I would have if I had recycled to the planet. My plan was to prepare Brionna to recycle with me and then to continue my relationship with her there. But before we could do that the Earth disappeared and we were stuck here. I had hoped that the great awakening which we recently experienced here would have snapped her out of her condition but it has not. She is still spending her time soul searching for her lost children. She has found some, but since Charles, Stewart, Robert and Margaret have recycled they no longer exist as those individuals to be found.”
“Alannah?” Elina asked. “How much do you think this has to do with our Mom and Dad? Brionna was devastated when they disappeared. She was only 17 when the letters stopped coming. She was 19 when she went looking for them and spent months roaming around California and Oregon looking for Dad, but had to come back because she was pregnant. I’m not sure she ever recovered from that. Then she lost Charles and Thomas in Cuba and Stewart, Albert, and Robert in World War One. I think that really screwed with her mind. She obsessed about finding lost loved ones.”
“I think you are correct. I was angry with Dad for just disappearing the way he did, as were you, but I think it affected Brionna the most. She was still so young, just a teenager, and even though she was married, she still needed her parents. Loosing them must have left a huge hole in her soul.”
“Yes.” Thomas said. “She has always been incomplete. In searching for missing souls she is searching for the missing parts of herself.”
“I have a plan then.” Elina said. “Maureen, you said that in order to break her out of her illusion she needs to have something more compelling than the illusion. I think I know what that is. We need to go back to the source, what started it all for her. We need to find Dad.”
“That just might do it.” Maureen said. “There are no guarantees, but there is only one way to find out. Are you girls ready for that? You have some intense emotions regarding him as well.”
“I’m afraid to meet Dad.” Alannah said. “But that has never stopped me before. It’s time we do this. For the sake of my sisters we need to do this.”
“Lets give it a shot then.” Thomas said, laying a few dollars on their ticket. “I will tell her that you are reporters, doing a story on finding the lost ones, and that you want to interview her. That will get her started, and you can take it from there.”
“Who are these young ladies, Thomas?” Brionna wanted to know.
“They are journalists, aunt Brionna.” Thomas replied. “They are doing research on finding the lost. They would like to interview you for their story.”
“Oh yes. The newspaper girls. I think I remember you now. I know I knew you from somewhere. If you’re going to take pictures though, then I want to go get my hair done first.” Brionna said, concerned about her appearance.
“We will have plenty of time before the story goes to press to add the pictures. For now we just want to talk to you about your efforts in finding the lost.”
“OK, sure. You came to the right place. Just look around and you will see my success. You have already met Thomas. They told me he was dead, killed in a war with Spain. But they were mistaken, or lying, because I found him, and here he is standing right there. These two ladies on the sofa are my Elizabeth and my youngest, Ruth. Elizabeth was working for the government in Hawaii and Ruth had gone to visit. Ruth was so excited to see the Island. Then the Japanese sent airplanes with bombs and the building they were in was blown up. They were assumed dead, but here they are. Standing there in the doorway is my shy boy, Albert. I got a letter that he was killed in action in Germany. Here he is though, so they were mistaken too. Come in, Albert, and say hello to the ladies.”
Albert comes in and gives Elina a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “My goodness, Albert. I just told them how shy you were and here you are kissing on one of them.” Brionna said with a look of shock.
“It’s OK Mom. I know this girl from a long long time ago.” Albert said, with a big smile and a wink for his aunt Elina.
“From school probably?” Brionna said. “Thomas, get some chairs for the ladies so they don’t have to just stand there. So that is my success story. I’m still working on finding the rest of my family that is still lost, plus a long list from my neighbors and friends that are looking for there lost ones. I do readings, you know, and many times I can find out where lost people are, and then they come home. I have been finding about one or two a week for my clients. Do you have a lost one that you want to find?”
“We do, but we will talk about that later.” Alannah said. “First, for our story, we want to get information about your first search. We understand that when you were still very young, a teen ager, that you went looking for your father, who had disappeared.”
“I see.” Brionna said glaring at Alannah. “You want to write a story about my failures. You see my success standing before you, so it would be dishonest for you to only write about my failures. You need to promise me you will write the whole story or I will have Thomas show you the door.”
“We will certainly write the whole story.” Alannah said with a smile. “That is why were are here, to get the complete story, and see where it takes us from there.”
“Very well then. I was so afraid. I was 19 years old and I had to travel by myself from Los Angels to that little settlement up in northern California. I stayed with a family there that I had known since I was a baby. The old house was vacant, except for some critters that had moved in. They showed me the place down by the river where Dad had burned everything. Mom died, they said, sort of suddenly. She got sick one day and was gone the next. She was part Indian from India and part Indian from her Dad being native American. So according to traditions he built a funeral pyre and burned her and all her belongings. He also burned all the stuff we left there too. He thought she would want to take it with her. Then without saying anything to anyone he packed up his few belongings and headed out, north they said, but nobody was completely sure.
“I paid a couple of guys there who worked with him to come along and we headed north looking for him in all the logging settlements there were springing up in California and Oregon, but nobody had ever heard of him and we didn’t have any pictures to show. Some said that he may have headed East. Nevada, Utah, and Colorado all had logging operations, which is what he knew how to do. I was running short of money, and time, since I was pregnant, so I had to go back home. I remember standing on a hill, crying, looking East into the rising sun, with my hands in the air just trying to pick up a hint, a message from God, anything about his whereabouts. I got nothing. I have never been so sad in my life I don’t think, having to turn back, and knowing nothing more than when I started.”
“That is such a sad story, Brionna.” Elina said. “I have a confession to make too. We are more than journalists. It is true that we came here to get your story. We also came to help with your soul searching. Our friend Maureen is also a seer and a seeker of souls. If you work together I believe that you may be able to determine what became of you father. Would you like to do a little experiment with us. I think it would be good for you to at least know what happened.”
“I don’t know if that would work. I typically work alone. What sort of experiment are you proposing that we do?” Brionna asked.
“It would work like this, Brionna.” Maureen explained. We will focus our minds to the same place and time and person. Then I will sketch what I feel, a face usually, and that will focus our mind even more. If we are successful there will be a flow of knowledge, memories that we have forgotten, things we have been unable to see, that will give us insights that we did not have before. It may be a little uncomfortable if there is a sudden flood off new information, but it is safe, no one will be harmed.”
“Well that don’t sound too bad.” Brionna said. “Lets give it a whirl and see what comes of it. Thomas. Help me to my table and dim the lights. I will do a reading on Dad and Maureen here will see what she can see and draw me a picture. I don’t suspect we will see much though, since he’s been gone so many years now. He would be over 130 years old so I don’t think he’s out there hiding in the woods someplace after all this time. It would be nice to know where they put him in the ground though. Maybe I could go there and finally close that chapter in my life for good. OK. Lets do it.”
Thomas assisted Brionna to her table where she performs her readings and set a chair for Maureen next to her. The lights were dimmed and the little group crowded around to witness whatever was about to happen.
“OK Maureen, I’m letting my mind flow back into time to the places where Dad might be. I’m looking through my memories of him like looking at an old picture book and trying to pick up some energy that might be his, still floating around there somewhere. Start your pencil a moving and see what you can sketch up and we will take a look at it.”
Maureen sketched for quite awhile. This sketch will have more detail that her usual sketch. She finishes and hand it to Brionna.
“Oh My! You are good, Maureen. I only had my memory of Dad which has faded over the years. But here you have drawn him like an old photograph. Yep. That’s him alright. Let me see. You also have drawn an axe and a water wheel. What’s that all about?”
“I don’t know. These were things I drew from your consciousness. These are things you may have been conscious of, but they were outside your awareness. You know these things, but you don’t know that you know. It’s up to you to determine what they mean.”
“OK then. Let me put on my thinking cap and figure this out. An axe and a water wheel. What can that mean? Well it ain’t no normal axe for chopping wood. It looks more like an axe a fireman uses to chop through a door or a wall or something like that. The water wheel is like one I saw down at the mill. They used it to turn the saw. Oh my gosh! I think I know. He didn’t go to the logging fields, did he? He was getting to old for that wasn’t he? He took a job as a fireman in a mill town. That’s what he did. So I wandered through all those logging fields looking for someone who was never going to be there. Oh wow. Oh my. It makes me feel all dizzy now. Come hold me Thomas, I’m feeling kind of faint.”
Thomas slid his chair close to Brionna and put his arm around her to keep her from falling if she were to faint. Maureen explained. “This is normal Brionna. Because we are both seers our abilities have combined that there was a rush of insight and that can make you feel dizzy and nauseous. It will pass in a minute or two.”
“I’m better now.” Brionna said. “Lets put our heads back together again, Maureen. I was feeling something so intense before that I had to disconnect. I want to go back to that place in our minds and I think with the both of us concentrating that we can see where he is now, where he was laid to rest. Come hold my hands, Maureen. That will help us concentrate.”
Maureen and Brionna held hands and closed their eyes. Brionna described what she was seeing. “I see him now, at least the back of him, walking down a road towards a lake. He’s walking slow, and now sitting down to rest. Oh this is strange. Now there are two. One of him is being loaded up on a wagon, as if he died. Another one of him is up again walking to the lake. I’m sensing two words. The one in the wagon is ‘there’. The one walking is ‘here’. Isn’t that strange? That sounds backwards. I think I’m seeing him in the afterlife, but the afterlife feels like ‘here’ when it should be ‘there’. Oh My! I’m dizzy again. Hold me tight Thomas. I’m feeling ill. I haven’t felt this way since I … since I …” Brionna laid her head on Thomas’s shoulder, relaxing, catching her breath, trying not to pass out or get sick.
Brionna’s strength returned after a few minutes and she stood and turned and looked straight at Elina. “I don’t think I got your name. You neglected to mention it, didn’t you? What is you name sweetie?”
“My my my name?” Elina asked, stammering and stuttering a bit.
“Don’t stand there with that stupid look on your face. I’m sure you didn’t forget it. What is your name?” Brionna insisted.
Elina gave Brionna a big smile and said “Sweetheart, my name is Elina.”
“And what is your name, girlie?” Brionna said looking straight at Alannah.
“I think you’ve already figured that out, pumpkin. I’m Alannah.”
Thomas helped Brionna sit down. She was feeling dizzy again. “Nobody has called me pumpkin in a long long time. Yes, I figured it out. I was about to say a minute ago that I haven’t felt that ill since I died. I’m dead aren’t I. That is why you guys are here. We are all dead aren’t we? The reason the afterlife felt more like ‘here’ than ‘there’ is because ‘here’ is where it is. We are in the afterlife, are we not? You guys all knew that didn’t you? Why didn’t you tell me? Thomas! Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I’m sorry aunt Brionna. I tried to tell you many times, but the state of mind you were in would not allow that. With Maureen’s and aunt Elina’s help your state of mind has been shifted enough for you to understand. I wouldn’t call this the afterlife though. I would just call it another life, a different domain of existence where we are very much alive, just not on Earth like we thought. So we are not dead. We are just in another life that is where we live when we are not on Earth. We have fashioned this place to look and feel just like the Earth we remember which is why it is possible to believe that we are still there. It makes it easier for some of us if we just believe that we are still on Earth. It made it easier for you to believe that, so that is what you believed, until now.”
The sisters, reunited, talked for hours and hours catching up on the details of lives lived separately. Alannah and Elina cooked a meal like their Mom used to make and they ate and then talked for hours more. Brionna’s house has many rooms so the girls spent the night. The morning would bring the start of a bold new adventure and they have much to discuss.
“So Elina. Your sister Alannah is how I remember her. You are not. Can you explain that?” Brionna wanted to know.
Elina explained. “When you saw me that last time on Earth I was 70 years old. That is how I was when Maureen and Alannah found me. It turns out, though, that our age can be regressed. Maureen is studying to get her license as an age regression therapist. Together with Alannah and Maureen they were able to regress my age to what Alannah remembered as my age. That is what you need for regression, someone close to you who has a memory template of you at a certain age. We only know ourselves as being the age we are now, so we need someone who has not seen us in a long time who has in their memory what we were back then.”
“That is very interesting.” Brionna said. “If we are going to be traipsing around these domains, as you call them, I could use a little regression myself. This old body is pretty worn out and I’m sure Thomas would get tired of helping me walk everywhere. Do you think we can regress a few years off this old body, at least to the point I can walk without help?”
“Maureen, is that possible?” Elina asked. “Can we shave off a few years for her? I remember her when she was 69. She was still pretty spry back then.”
“I think so. We can probably do better than that.” Maureen explained. “If we blend the memory that Alannah has which is of a much younger Brionna I’m assuming that it will probably split the difference, and we can get her back into her forties.”
“That sounds good to me.” Brionna said. “How does this age regression work?”
“I’m still new at it but lets give it a try. If it doesn’t work at least it won’t do any harm. What we will do is all stand close together, arm in arm, and try to let our memories be of an older time, when you were younger. Let your idea of who you are in form, your body, fade away, like turning yourself into smoke, or air. Let your image of who you think you are become like air, which doesn’t have a physical shape, but rather fills the shape of the container that it is in. Then let yourself re-form with the younger version that you will see of yourself from the memory of your sisters.”
“Lets do it then. Sisters. Take my hands.”
Brionna’s children watched as the girls gathered in a close embrace with Brionna. For a while nothing happened. Maureen chanted in low musical tones to focus their minds around a specific set of frequencies. After a while they started to get fuzzy, almost like there was just one person there, like they had all blended into one. As the fuzziness diminished and the individual girls started to come back into focus the children were amazed that instead of the hunched over frail grey haired woman, there stood a young woman with soft flowing shoulder length brown hair.
Brionna, feeling full of energy, danced over to a mirror to get a look at her new self. With a shocked look she turned and glared at Alannah. “Oh Sweet Jesus! Forty? I’m a bit short of forty, Alannah, and only you could have done this to me. I’m a little kid. My boobs aren’t even ripe yet. What have you done to me?”
“I guess the blending didn’t work. I remember you best from the time before I moved to San Francisco. You were barely 15 then. You appear to be about 15 now. During the process I was thinking that it would be to our advantage if you were 15, just like two other 15 year olds I know. That must have counteracted the blending.”
“Other 15 year olds?” They all asked.
“I guess I should explain.” Alannah said. “Our purpose in coming, as we discussed last night, is to get Brionna to join us when we go find Dad. It’s complicated, though. He is involved with some very powerful people, a royal family, and he is the head of this royal family. He has an adopted daughter and she is like the queen of the domains. She has a daughter and an adopted daughter which are known throughout the domains as Princess Penelope and Princess Anahere. They are both about 15.”
“So what does this have to do with meeting Dad.” Elina asked.
“Well, I think that because of his new relationships with this new family, and because of their political power in the domains, that we can’t just pop over and say ‘Hey Dad, whats up?’. We have to slowly work our way into his life again so it isn’t such a shock, so it isn’t disruptive to his new family.”
“And we do that how?” Brionna asked.
“Here is my little plan.” Alannah said. “We are going to create Princess Brionna. I don’t know how yet, but we are going to figure out a way for you to become Penelope’s and Anahere’s new best friend. Little by little you will reveal your identity to them first and then let them reveal your identity to Dad after you have already become part of their family, so to speak. That will soften the blow and allow you, and then us, to be accepted.”
“That sounds like a very devious and sneaky plan, Alannah.” Maureen said.
“It also sounds like a plan that might work.” Brionna said. “Unfortunately my appearance now is how Dad would remember me too. So I’ll have to lay low and out of sight from Dad in the beginning. That will be complicated. I think we can do it though. This is going to be exciting. This young little body is filled with an adventurous energy I haven’t felt in I don’t know how long. I’ll start packing some things. When do we leave?”
“You can throw all those grandma clothes away, Brionna.” Elina said with a laugh. “The first place we are going is shopping for some new outfits.”
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