Chapter Eighteen
“I’ll be home for dinner Aunt.” Aggie had just given Edna the news that Ken had been rescued but Professor Lien was still missing. She was feeling frustrated that there were no likely avenues left to try to find him. “What I’m trying to come to grips with aunt, is how much time to allow before we...or dear I hate saying this...give up the search for him.”
“Aggie, I’d like to contact Chief Atian; I know he’s frail now, but he’s so wise. There’s another matter I want to talk to him about; can’t hurt. Anyway, dinner will be ready, anything in particular? Well we still have plenty of venison left. See you then sweetheart.”
Edna went into the kitchen and sat down next to the painting. She had placed it upright on one of the kitchen chairs. It was definitely the same scene she had witnessed before, when she held the Goomeri Bone. She felt a great pull, a temptation to go and pick up the bone again. Perhaps when Aggie gets back; I don’t want to join the list of missing persons. She reached over to the bench, picked up a tea towel and draped it over the front of the painting, then went to make her call to Canada.
“Edna, listen to the voice of your heart and do not be distracted by things not of your trust. If you make a choice and you have made it in harmony with yourself; it will always be the right choice. Dwell not on the consequence of other outcomes, be they better or worse than your choice; other results are not of your choosing and you can bear no ownership of them. My blessings on you my child, and also upon little Mourning-she-Coyote. I will be with my ancestors before the next full moon and my spirit will rise to the heavens and mingle with them. My wish is to die a warrior’s death. Nitatci notlokangan umetabegesin Edna; until we meet again.”
With tears in her eyes, Edna went back to the kitchen to prepare dinner. She would wait for Aggie to come home before telling her of her visions.
-oOo-
‘That’s so very interesting aunt, I have been holding this Pointing Bone in my hands for a while now and feel absolutely nothing out of the ordinary; neither does Dwarg. He knows there is something strange with its properties but cannot come up with explanations. Seems it only becomes ‘sensitive” to certain people; it sure was for Alex, and Dwarg denies that he used it as a type of GPS for him.”
“Well Alex’s uncle wasn’t much help; he simply said that the bone will do its thing...point.”
“Seems beyond coincidence that the pointing bone comes from Australia, Uncle Oskar comes from Australia, your visions are of Australia and this painting here; it’s certainly a scene with an Aboriginal woman and child. And this J. Robinson, there is no clue who he or she may be?”
“The closest I came to that name in the list of Australian artists was a June Robinson. I looked at some of her work on the internet, but most are of the traditional dot and stick paintings; nothing like this one. Old Shef says it was bought at auction out of Minnesota; so there’s no provenance to help with the origin of it.”
“Hmm, another coincidence; Minnesota is where Alex’s Uncle Oskar used to live as a kid. So tell me exactly everything you saw in your vision. You say you could actually smell the place?”
“Yes, the smoke from the fire, the dust; and even the heat, I remember breaking out in a sweat, even though it was only a few minutes. But it was that woman, this woman, who really scared me Aggie. She looked directly at me; as if I was really there. She had bright blue piercing eyes, almost hypnotic. The way she pointed to me and to something I couldn’t see. It really gave me a fright. And her voice, it was sharp and high pitched.”
“She spoke to you?”
“I suppose so Aggie, didn’t have a clue what she was saying, but I could tell she was getting upset that I wasn’t reacting to her.”
“Can you remember her words? any of her words?”
“Well, definitely not English; what I thought she was hollering was er, Thow Mung?”
“Hmm, languages I’m good at, thanks to Dwarg. Australian Aboriginals use language in strict context. Their words can be inflected to give different meanings. Thow Mung; it means Old Man. And those words would be common to the Bangerang and the Gandangara Nations. Can you remember any other words Aunt Edna?”
“Pretty sure she also said Moolawa Naan Moolawa; I remembered them because they sound much like Abenaki words.”
“Um...White Man See White Man. So in context and by pointing she said...Look, there is the old Man; a White Old Man, look.”
Both women just starred at each other; no one wanted to talk first; their thoughts and questions were exactly the same...Rienus Lien? Dwarg felt like a flatlander bumping into a tall pole; he could not analyse this or the other coincidences of the moment.
“Aggie, I must follow my heart; please pass me the Goomeri Pointing Bone, and my charm medicine necklace. Darn, is that your pink phone ringing? I’ll wait till you’ve finished your business sweetheart.”
-oOo-
“Ma’am, we’ve found Professor Lien, er, we’ve located Professor Lien; in Australia. He’s alive and well.”
“Yippee!!! AUNT! The professor’s been found! and he’s safe...Yippee!”
“Australia, you say Ernie? Please tell me everything.”
“He was found by an Aboriginal person, just outside a place called Alice Springs. And just like Ken Kain, he appeared out of nowhere, naked and confused, thinking he was still on site at Reggane here. Luckily, his rescuer took him to the US base close by, you know, Pine Gap. Well they took him and locked him up, in what I suppose would be close to a padded cell. Pine Gap is one of our worst kept secret, secret bases and they have had their fair share of demonstrators, UFO chasers and conspiracy theorists and thought he was just another one of them. During his questioning, the professor mentioned me by name and luckily one of the interrogators happened to be an old student of mine. He contacted the agency who contacted me. As far as I know, he is unharmed and well.”
“Oh that’s fantastic news, is there any chance of speaking with him on the phone?”
“Afraid not ma’am, secret stuff and all that; and there will be a lot of questions about his presence; my contacts with the CIA aren’t all that powerful, so his release may be tricky.”
“Guess I’ll have to call in a few favours Ernie. You know the weather in Central Australia is nice and warm this time of the year; ever visited the land down-under?”
“Well I did pack my sunscreen and shorts before coming to the Sahara, guess I may have a use for them after all.”
“Ernie, who else knows about the professor?”
“No one here ma’am. I wanted you to be the first to know.”
“Thank you. Please inform Jade and Alex. I’d rather like to tell Abdul and Aaron myself; after we have the professor back. Nevertheless, we can plan further when you come back to HQ.”
“Er, Ma’am...Professor Lien...in Australia?”
“Oh there has to be an answer, perhaps his nervous breakdown led him to wonder off or maybe his exposure to stray exotic particle beams disoriented him, and he went walkabout.”
“Walkabout?”
“Yes Ernie, an Australian expression. To go walkabout, means to take a break, a short return to tradition, a hiatus of sorts. Maybe the pressure of work got to him. How he managed to find his way to Australia?..well that’s anyone’s guess.”
“OK ma’am, the chopper is warming up and Jade is ready to take off from Reggane. I shall see you in a couple of hours. Good luck with your contacts in the agency.”
As soon as she had wished Ernie bon voyage, Aggie contacted the White House. Within 30 minutes, she had Professor Lien on the line. “Professor Lien, I know you will be confused and disorientated, but please be patient. I’m sending Ernie to go collect you and bring you back to HQ Lebanon. At this stage I can tell you that you’ve been exposed to some sort of radiation which has now been neutralized. I’ve arranged for your comfort and there won’t be any further interrogation. How are you faring?”
&nb
sp; “Oh Aggie, I’m so glad to hear your voice, I have so many questions, I don’t know what happened, one minute I was strolling to my cabin...” Aggie interrupted him.
“Please Professor, say no more until we get you out of there. You’ve suffered some temporary memory loss and you must relax for a while. I promise everything will be fine, but it’s extremely important that you rest and let your system recover. Please, please promise me that?”
“SSJH?”
“Indubitably Professor Lien.”
-oOo-
Dwarg, you’ve been remarkably quiet for a long time. Everything OK?
The truth was that Dwarg was beginning to realize that his host was very much further intellectually advanced than he ever imagined. She had mastered all these amazing events almost single handed. He was of some use with calculations and interpretations, but that alone was nowhere near the quality and level of the sophistication of her problem solving abilities. The Humans had a description of how he felt; he was becoming a.. Second Banana; and he knew it was of his own doing.
You have learnt so much Aggie. There have been times when I have difficulty keeping up with you, and your use of your knowledge. I fear for my usefulness.
No no no, Dwarg, don’t you dare, don’t you even invite those thoughts in; I won’t hear of anything even closely related to this. You are a part of me, I have accepted you unconditionally. I do need you in every aspect of my life. When you left me all those years ago, I tried many things to forget about you and your presence, even nearly died when going through my rites of passage. I know you belong to the Whisps’ Aura and must return sometime; but I am a Human and, unlike you, I will die. Please stay with me until I am close to that time. Please please tell me so Dwarg.
It will be so Aggie.
-oOo-
“Sorry aunt; looks like the painting and the bone were wrong; well maybe not wrong, but our thinking was wrong. Good to know the professor’s been found at last. I’ll send Ernie over to Australian to escort him back here. Wow, what strange happenings lately.”
“Sure is great news about Professor Lien, and how strange that he ended up in the land Down-Under. Aggie, I’ve still got these weird sensations when holding the Goomeri. It’s still trying to tell me something; my gut feeling is that the Goomeri Pointing Bone wants me to do something – if it wasn’t to point out Rienus Lien; well and good. But as we know, there’s far too many coincidences to brush this off as poo bah or speculation. Not everything in this world is explainable by scientists or priests or Whisps, eh?”
Aggie ignored the jibe. “Just let me look at this painting again aunt; there has to be something; a clue, anything.”
Aggie saw that the painting was acrylic on a Masonite board; “hmm that was the preferred medium of Aboriginal painters, also the artist used an off-white wash, I can see splashes of it around the border. The composition is a little askew; towards the top, the white billowing smoke looks like it had been blown by a light breeze, yet the woman’s hair looks like it had been blown by a strong wind. No dust being stirred up; hard to judge the time of day looking at the shadows, perhaps about 11 am. No discernible horizon, just an interesting progression of colour; quite clever and what’s this thing in the middle of the upper column of smoke, it’s brown, shapeless; no other colour like that in the painting. Aunt what do you suppose this could be?”
“Could be leaves off the tree showing through the smoke; perhaps not, there is no tree trunk or branches under that. Not a swirl chaos is it?”
“Dwarg is not impressed; that’s from him aunt, not from me.”
“Hmm, whatever happened to our smart little Dwargles? not such a clever Whisp now, are we? Anyway Aggie, pass me that Goomeri. What will be, will be. Here we go.” Edna placed it in her hand, closed her fingers around it, and immediately fell into a swoon.
“I’m seeing it again Aggie,” she whispered, “the Australian desert. I know I’m home here in Putney, yet I can see this hot and desolate place; guess it’s much like poking my head through a small window or looking through a movie camera on full zoom. There’s that woman, the woman in red, she’s just turned her head to look at me. Again with the pointing and those words; I can’t see an old white man – I can only see as far as the edge of the scene on the painting. I’m trying to turn my head to look where’s she’s pointing; can’t see anything, she’s yelling again Aggie, I’ll try to repeat them, sounds like yakorma.
Aggie touched Edna on the arm; “Gosh, another dialect; she’s saying come on or come here.”
“Now she’s pointing upward at something, at the smoke, no at that brown thing in the painting that we couldn’t identify. She’s now saying pekka pekka?”
“Ah...ghosts or spirits. Aunt do you think you can say or yell to her? Try saying wunna, it means I don’t know.”
Edna tried her best to yell out to the woman but could not get any words out; instead, the woman wailed, Burringilling, again pointing to the spot within the smoke coming from her fire.
“Thank goodness for Dwarg aunt. Burringilling is a spirit associated with progress or growth, you know, in the area of reaching the age of man or womanhood, it’s mostly related to initiations and ceremonies. The spirit can be part human, part animal and hides in trees or soil or clouds or smoke – and here’s something interesting; the Burringilling carries a magical tool – a talisman which gives him powers of transformation. With this, he can change the shape of the landscape, the weather and even himself. He has been known to transform himself into a young handsome man and ravish the women around him – he wants the resulting babies for some reason. The English translation of the word Burringilling means walking together.”
“Well that only makes things more confusing Aggie...so far she has told me that there is an old white man somewhere over there, and that there is a ghost spirit in the smoke and something to do with walking together; can’t just seem to make any sensible connection with it all.”
“This may sound silly aunt, but try to think those words to her; just like I do with Dwarg, you know, like a kind of projection, tell her wunna.”
Edna tried to concentrate and remembered her first conversation with Dwarg via Aggie. She thought of the word wunna and sent it off to the woman who was still staring at her. Wunna, wunna she thought, and indeed it seemed that the woman heard what Edna was trying to say. She placed her baby on some dry leaves on the ground, threw both arms upward, towards the Burringilling in the smoke, then crossed them as if she had captured something, then turned to the spot she wanted Edna to see. “Aggie, she’s yelling naan moolawa pekka Burringilling and again pointing to that damn place I can’ see.”
“Ok, she’s saying see the white man, he is in a partnership or friendship with a ghost, they are related.”
“Oh this is so damn frustrating, I don’t know what else to do Aggie; I think I’ve had enough of this; may try again later; oh heck, that woman is getting hysterical, Ok I’ll stay a bit longer lady.”
“Say the name Robinson to her and see if you get any reaction.”
Edna called out “Robinson!” The woman immediately screamed wildly, picked up her baby and ran away, out of Edna’s view.
“Whoa, that certainly brought on a reaction from her. Boy, did she get upset hearing that name; she didn’t even say goodbye. That’s it, enough for me for one day.”
“It may be a wild assumption aunt, but many spiritual people believe that by having their image captured by a camera or even a painting, is to place their spirits or souls in another world from which they cannot escape; they see themselves as not complete and to die in such a state would see their missing spirit wondering forever – or worse, have no spirit at all. No-one would remember what the deceased person looked like and in essence become a blank ancestor.
“Hmm, I wonder if this J. Robinson painted that woman and she believes that her own spirit has been taken away and put in the painting. I know this fear and belief is common among many peopl
es and races of the world; even amongst our own. Aggie, what about the baby?”
“I think the child is much too young to be effected by traditional magic and beliefs. And thinking about it all, I dare say that J. Robinson is not an Aboriginal.”
“Would he be the old white man?”
“Hmm, sounds reasonable, aunt.”
The Goomeri Pointing Bone : Sequel to Dwarg in the Seventh Dimension Page 18