2012 The Secret Teachings of the Next Door Neighbour

by Frauke and Simon Lewer

Paul stared in amazement. The Magur, her hand resting on that towering, granite megalith, stared implacably back at him.

  His gaze moved from the rough, granular grain of the rock, flecked with wide veins of opaque quartz to the expansive landscape around himself.

  They were sat upon a cone shaped hillock of short, cropped grass. As it descended downwards he saw it was ringed by smaller, pointed stones embedded in the soil. Beyond this circle, dense woodland sprang up and lifting his eyes to the horizon, Paul could see the unbroken canopy of forest stretching away in all directions.

  His mind formed a question, although he already knew the answer.

  ‘Where are we?’

  ‘We are in a parallel dimension, in my world, the world of the Magur as it was before the invasion.’

  How could that be possible, Paul thought? Another complete reality existing alongside his own? Even if he could accept the idea intellectually when she spoke of it, to actually be here blew his mind.

  He knew it wasn’t even worth asking how it could be as he wouldn’t understand the explanation. It was enough to accept that he was here, therefore it must be possible and thankfully, miraculously he had escaped what only moments before had seemed like certain capture, possibly even death.

  There was something profoundly different between this world and the one he had so recently escaped from. It wasn’t so much the absence of civilization; of people, buildings or traffic but a powerful feeling of vitality that imbued everything in it. Even though here too it was winter, there was a tangible, energetic emanation rising up out of the land, the trees and most particularly, the giant finger of stone next to him.

  This whole world seemed imbued with that fantastic sense of connection he’d felt the night of his bicycle ride.

  Paul stared fascinated at the space around the imposing megalith, aware of a dancing vibrancy within the transparency of the air, as if every molecule was electrically charged, buzzing with power, creating an ever changing, complex dance of geometry, cloaked like a halo around the stone.

  The Magur rose to her feet saying,

  ‘I was seen. I do not believe it will be long before they deduce where we are. It is time we were moving,’ and without another word she set out down the incline, using her staff to steady herself.

  Paul, looking over her shoulder toward the distant, tree-shrouded horizon, observed a pathway of incandescent, vibrating light flowing away from the hillock on which they stood, across the expanse of the forest toward a far point in the shimmering distance, and he knew without being told that there was Alesia, their journey’s end.

  Paul hurried to catch up with the Magur, bounding down the hillside after her. He felt energetic and strong as if a part of the indefinable power of this landscape was rubbing off on him and lending him its potent life-force.

  They passed the ring of standing stones and entered the forest on a narrow trail which wound haphazardly around the mighty trunks of oak, ash, elm and beech trees, the ground at their feet soft with fallen leaf-mould and the air alive with the chatter of birdsong.

  As Paul walked, he perceived eyes watching him from the shadows of knotted roots, from the depths of thick bushes and from the laced canopy of branches over his head.

  Yet as hard as he tried, he couldn’t see the invisible watchers.

  The Magur was reading his wonder with amusement.

  ‘They see you, yet you do not see them,’ she stated enigmatically.

  ‘Who don’t I see?’ asked Paul.

  ‘The elementals,’ she replied smiling.

  ‘What?’ Paul was confused. ‘You are going to have to explain ... what’s an elemental?’

  ‘The elementals are the energetic embodiment of the spirits of nature,’ she stated, ‘they are shy and wary beings even here. In your world, sadly, they are becoming extinct and are only remembered in folklore and children's stories. Their fate is tightly interwoven with nature. As you bring destruction to your natural world so the elementals in turn are lost.

  ‘I hope you’re not talking about fairies,’ Paul replied, ‘because if you are, I am definitely ... ‘

  The Magur cut him off,

  ‘Not wishing to over-stretch your limited credulity, I can tell you how to see them. It requires practice. You must look at them indirectly, focusing on the space around them. Try it,’ she suggested.

  As they walked deeper into the woods, Paul gave it a go.

  When he felt the uncomfortable tingling sensation of being watched he let his vision slightly blur, not focusing in on anything too specifically and within a couple of minutes he was sure he could see something. Tiny, flitting shapes jumped from branch to branch and wrinkled, grotesque faces peered out from the crevices of tree trunks, yet as soon as he moved closer, intrigued, they resolved themselves into twisting roots, rotting branches or sticky clusters of fungus.

  The Magur laughed as Paul dashed around perplexed by these elusive entities.

  ‘The Elementals live between dimensions and will not be so easily caught,’ she said smiling.

  As they walked the pathway they followed winding playfully past towering tree-trunks, Paul could feel right through himself whenever their way meandered off the ley-line and away from Alesia.

  In this world, a ley-line was something so real and powerful, so evident to his senses that it couldn’t be ignored. He could see it in the molecular dance in the air. He could feel it resonating inside the cells of his body, enlivening and stimulating him from his toes to his scalp and he could smell it in the pungency of the soil, in the cycle of rot, decay and re-growth.

  Why had they not simply entered this dimension before and made their way unhindered by pursuit through this peaceful, magical world, Paul thought to himself?

  In fact, couldn’t the entire mission be completed from this side, free from the menace and threat of the Agents?

  The Magur promptly answered his thought.

  ‘You are only able to maintain physicality here by following the concentrated power of the ley-line.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Paul asked.

  ‘I can show you,’ the Magur replied as they approached a large pond on their left.

  It was densely ringed with a border of straggly willows and tall bulrushes and just beyond them, Paul could see a couple of moorhens swimming in single file and a stately heron, balanced on one stick like leg, it’s eye fixed on the water below.

  ‘Walk to the pond,’ she suggested.

  Paul did as she asked, leaving the path and striking out at a right angle towards the water. He hadn’t gone more than twenty paces before he felt a weakness in his limbs and a slight nausea in his stomach. His vision was odd as if he was seeing everything through a clouded veil. He looked back at the Magur, standing, watching him from the pathway, staff in hand. Her form he noticed was becoming unfocused and insubstantial as if seen through a heat haze.

  Paul forced himself to take a few more steps, with every one the mist increased.

  He remembered his experience back in the Gare du Nord when she had dragged him through that unreal, soupy air.

  This must be what it’s like between worlds, he realized, neither fully in one nor the other.

  As Paul peered into the hazy mist, he became aware that superimposed over the pond in the woodland he could see the semisolid images of cars moving in front of him and the sketchy outlines of house roofs. He stopped dead. The Magur was right. Any further from the ley-line and Paul would find himself once again in his own reality. He hurried back to the Magur and they resumed their journey.

  ‘Besides,’ she said, ‘you are forgetting the placing of the crystal has to come from your reality. You have no choice but to return.

  ‘But,’ Paul thought, ‘how will I do it, get myself back to this dimension?’

  ‘As I have shown you. By harnessing your powers of belief and intention and letting your vibration rise to meet this version of reality.’

  She made it sound so much simpler than it was, Paul thou
ght. ‘But I didn’t get here, you did it! Can’t you help me again?’

  ‘You will be on your own at solstice,’ the Magur replied, ‘I will be needed on this side to open the door for you and make the dimensional crossing easier.’

  Paul sighed, she had an answer for everything and he may as well enjoy the safety and beauty of this world for as long as he could, after all, every step was bringing him closer to Alesia.

  In this world there was no traffic, no industry, no pollution and no warfare and Paul would never have believed without being here that it could feel so profoundly different.

  He thought of Julie, wondering yet again what she was doing now. She would love this place, the sense of tangible magic it contained.

  Maybe, one day, somehow, when they’d overcome the pettiness of their differences they could stand here, hand in hand, in the vibrant wonder of this ancient land.

  They walked in silent, companionable contentment, the leafless branches stretched above them seeming to rain down a benign peace on their heads. It was not just the elusive, ethereal elementals but the woodland was also filled with animal life.

  He saw a troupe of hairy black pigs trotting in single file through the trees ahead and a small herd of deer cropped the grasses of a clearing. Rabbits scampered across the path in front if their feet, their white tails bobbing up and down. But what was strange about the animals, he realized, was that they paid him no attention, merely looking at him for a moment, before carrying on about their business.

  It was as if, Paul mused, he had entered a world without fear, or pain, or separation, a world where everything; tree, rock, plant, animal and human, was imbued with a sense of connection and inner power.

  Suddenly the Magur stopped dead in her tracks, her head cocked, listening, the forest around them falling strangely silent.

  Paul felt it too. There was a change in the air, something was different. As they stood transfixed, their senses straining to pinpoint the disturbance, it came, like a wave of dread, rippling through the air, washing across the forest.

  Seconds later Paul heard it, a discordant, mechanical whine blown in on the gentle breeze and then, suddenly, shockingly, it was there, powering towards them over the treetops.

  A huge, gleaming, black craft, skimming swiftly over the canopy, so bulky it’s flight seemed a technical impossibility.

  Multiple rotors whirred at each end as the craft banked round towards them.

  At its front was a bulbous cockpit protruding like the giant eye of an insect and Paul felt in every cell of his body its malevolent intelligence scanning the forest below.

  The Magur turned quickly to Paul, surprise and fear in her eyes,

  ‘You must go back!’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Paul started to say as the Magur, seizing his shoulder with one hand, hit him hard between the eyes.

  Instantly the forest, the Magur and the looming space craft dissolved from his vision and Paul found himself thrown back through the world of intangible shadows, vague, shifting forms swimming around him, till suddenly he was back, sprawled on a carpet of virgin snow in his own familiar reality.

  The light was fading and the snow had stopped falling, the sun a milky disk sinking behind horizontal bands of cloud low in the west.

  Elodie: December 20th