Ascension Seekers

by Amy Proebstel

  Daven sat forward and changed the patil screen to compose a message to Elder Debbon. He considered what he would say and then opted for the simplest message possible: Amanda needs our help. Please contact me at your earliest convenience.

  After the private meeting both he and Elder Debbon had been summoned to with Jehoban they had all agreed they would assist Amanda and her daughters in any way to help fulfill the prophecy. This request was bound to be the first of many.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Juila was impressed with her boyfriend’s progress in learning the different levels of crystal skills. She could tell he had been accessing more of his memories as he rapidly attained mastery of yet another level. When they had first started two days ago, Behn had been reluctant to open his mind enough to allow the energy to easily course through him. His lack of belief in himself had been his own worst enemy.

  Their first session had been an impromptu one after they had gone on a double-date to the movies. They had dropped Luke off at his house so it was just Jena, Juila, and Behn left in the car. Behn had not been able to come over after school like he had originally planned. Since they were alone together, Behn asked, “Is there something simple you could teach me tonight so I can start working on it on my own?”

  Juila and Jena looked at one another and spoke silently though their twin link. Jena nodded as Juila replied, “We need to start at the beginning. Do you remember what Daven showed you?”

  “You mean how the ball of light came out of his crystal?” Behn still found the sight to be truly amazing. The fact he actually remembered doing it himself for his own mother, meant even more to him. If he could relearn such skills, then he felt he could accomplish anything.

  Juila nodded confirmation and went on to say, “It’s the first lesson taught to little children before they go to school. It demonstrates the wearer of the necklace understands the power contained in the earth. By creating the ball of light, you demonstrate the ability to harness the power to your will.” Juila looked up into Behn’s dark eyes and saw he knew what she was saying. She believed he had probably heard similar words from his own mother as she taught him when he was little.

  Behn did remember. He just did not know how to accomplish the task. “How do I make it happen?”

  “Hold your crystal in your hand,” Jena told him.

  Behn reached into the collar of his shirt to fish out the circular pendant. He looked down at the smoky grey crystals suspended on a shaped tree. The symbol always made him think of the tree of life and now he understood it was to represent exactly as he believed. This necklace was a symbol given to the children of Tuala from Jehoban. The Creator of the Universe wanted His children to have a link to the power of the earth.

  “Okay, now what?” Behn asked impatiently.

  “Concentrate on the individual crystals. Imagine where they came from. Imagine the power of the earth which created their beauty. Feel yourself link to the power within,” Juila said as she leaned forward to see if Behn were following her instructions.

  Behn honestly tried to do as Juila had asked. He looked at the crystals and knew they had been created by a massive force in the earth. However, it was as far as he could get. He did not know how to link with the power. He could not remember what the particular aspect of it had felt like. Finally he shook his head in frustration and said, “This is impossible. I don’t feel anything!”

  “It takes practice and patience. I think you are trying too hard,” Jena offered.

  “Think of it like a meditation,” Juila suggested. “Keep working on it tonight. If you are still unable to do it on your own by the time we meet after school tomorrow, then I can try to link with your mind to show you.”

  Behn’s eyes abruptly left his crystal to look up at Juila. She had already proved she could be trusted with his biggest secret, but she was offering to get inside his head. He was not sure he was comfortable with the idea. He saw her blue eyes widen as she registered his reticence. Hurriedly he said, “I’ll work on it tonight. Hopefully, it won’t be necessary.”

  Chapter Three

  THE NEXT DAY, Behn came to their house after school. They went to the library and sat down in the oversized chairs. Juila closed the door to the library to keep their lesson private should any of their father’s help happen to come into the house. It would not do to be found out until they were ready to return to Tuala. They still had many things to learn about Earth culture before they would be ready to go home.

  “Okay, Behn. Show us what you have learned so far,” Jena spoke into the silence.

  Once again, Behn pulled up his necklace from under his shirt. None of them kept their birth crystals out where the people might see them and ask questions. Behn’s pendant was on a leather strap instead of the ornate chain which each of the girls owned. He took a deep breath and focused deeply on his crystal. After several minutes had passed and bead of sweat had popped out on Behn’s brow, he sighed and had to admit defeat. He had been just as unsuccessful the entire evening before.

  “Do you want help?” Juila offered. It physically hurt her to see him trying so hard and still not understanding the process. If he just let her show him, then he could speed up his progress.

  “No!” Behn cried out. “Just give me a few more minutes. Tell me what it feels like so maybe I can be more successful.”

  Stop it, Juila. Can’t you see he’s scared? Jena thought to her sister. To Behn, Jena spoke aloud, “The elemy has a tingly feeling. Once you start to draw it from the earth, you imagine it flowing through your crystal. Then you think about turning the energy into a sphere and pulling it outside of your birth crystal to float a few inches from it. Give it a try.”

  Behn nodded and appreciated Jena’s patience with his lack of progress. He was about to take Juila up on her offer of assistance when he started to feel a tingling sensation. With the notion in his head that this must have been what Jena was referring to, he managed to focus his attention to draw the energy into his crystal.

  It was rather pathetic, but he succeeded in creating the smallest sphere of energy imaginable. He looked up with a foolish grin and immediately lost control of the sphere. It began to careen around the room until Juila built another sphere around it and kept it from moving.

  “Okay, so we’ve established you are able to create the energy. Now we need to work on keeping you focused on maintaining control once you’ve unleashed the power.” Juila smiled to take the sting out of her words. She was actually pleased because Behn had done this on his own. Hopefully, because he had accessed the elemy, he would not have trouble repeating it for further levels of achievement.

  Next they taught him how to move the sphere to a second location at will. This took a little trial and error. Both of the girls had been on high alert to keep any further mishaps from occurring. The last thing they wanted to do was explain to their parents why the house had burned down from their lack of attention to detail when teaching Behn how to use his birth crystal.

  Finally they taught him how to return the sphere to his own birth crystal. This step was important for practicing on his own. They had him repeat the process several times before they felt confident letting him go home with his new knowledge.

  The next day they moved on to the fourth level of achievement which was learning how to create a breeze. Behn had been pleased with his prior success since he had been able to repeat the steps in the privacy of his bedroom at home without anything going wrong. Now he was not so sure of himself. The breeze seemed to be a different aspect of the energy unlike what he had been doing with the sphere. It seemed more elusive.

  Once again, Juila offered to assist him inside his mind. This made him want to achieve it on his own even more. While he really liked Juila and wanted her to be his girlfriend, he was not sure he wanted her in his mind. It just did not seem like the right thing to do. “Can you explain it to me in another way?” he asked Jena. She seemed to be the better teacher of the two of them.

  “Hmm,” sh
e said as she tried to think of an easier way to say what needed to be done. “Okay, imagine your mind is like a hand passing through the air very fast. What is left behind is the breeze from the disturbed air. Does that make sense?”

  “Yeah. Let me try it,” he said as he sat still in the library chair. His eyes focused solely on his birth crystal held in his hand. The smoky grey crystals reminded him of storm clouds so creating a breeze should not be a real problem. He could feel the elemy rise up to his pendant and then it seemed to be asking him what he wanted to do with it. He used Jena’s description to try to direct the flow of energy to create a soft breeze in front of him.

  Jena had a feather held up in front of her to be able to tell if he were successful. The tip of the feather began to sway to the side and then the lower part of the feather also moved as the breeze continued to gain strength. “Easy, now, Behn. You don’t want your soft breeze to get out of control. Imagine it remaining a gentle breeze and not a storm.”

  Behn nodded understanding even though he never took his eyes from his crystal. The breeze gentled and then stopped altogether. He looked up with a satisfied grin on his face and asked, “How was that?”

  Juila smiled back at him and replied, “It was perfect. You’re learning control which will be a very good thing with the lessons to come. Especially when we get to the fire lesson.”

  Behn gulped with nerves and then asked, “How many levels are there?”

  “Oh, there’re only twenty-seven levels taught to ordinary people who want to learn it all. The first ten levels are usually taught to each student by the time they get to the second grade. In middle school you take elective classes, not necessarily in any order. The rest are usually reserved for specific occupations instead of for the general public,” Jena rattled off easily.

  She loved learning everything she could about the elemental energy. As far as she had been able to determine, there was no limit to its uses except for the imagination. If you could think it, you could conceive it. Jehoban had always praised them for their intuitive nature when it came to working with the elemy. They enjoyed the approval immensely and sought to keep His attention with their new ideas.

  “That’s just great. So if I’m to understand you correctly, I’ve been struggling to do what a first grader could easily do. Right? Boy do I feel stupid.” Behn let go of his necklace and let it fall back to his chest as he realized just how dumb the girls must think he was for how slowly he had learned the first three skills.

  “Not at all, Behn. You’ve been doing a great job. It’s so much easier to teach children because they don’t have any beliefs to keep them from attempting anything we ask. The older we get, the more set in our ways we become,” Juila piped in swiftly. She hated to see Behn be so hard on himself. He had been a fabulous student for one so old. The only other person she knew of who had learned to use the crystal as an adult had been her own mother.

  “Yeah, Behn. Just wait until you see your brother and sister try to learn this stuff. Then you’ll know just how difficult a task we are actually asking you to achieve. Have patience with yourself. I promise you, you are doing a wonderful job,” Jena added once Juila stopped talking.

  “How many levels have you two learned?” Behn asked sullenly.

  The two girls looked at one another guiltily before Jena answered, “We’ve finished them all and then some. It’s kind of our thing, Behn. We’ve always been intrigued by the whole process and we’ve made a game out of it our whole lives.”

  “I guess I’ve got the best teachers then, huh?” Behn chuckled. If he did not make a joke of it then he would truly be discouraged by the level of achievement they had acquired even though they were the same age as he was.

  Juila thought she would propose her suggestion one more time. “Behn, if you’d let me link with your brain, then I could show you how to do everything we know and you wouldn’t have to struggle to figure it out on your own. It would save you a lot of frustration.” She stopped talking and waited for him to decide what he wanted to do.

  Behn had to admit he was tempted to know everything they knew with one fell swoop. Unfortunately, the honorable side of him thought of it as cheating. They had been able to learn it on their own and it had probably made them better for it. He could expect no less of himself. He shook his head slowly and answered, “I appreciate the offer, but I think I’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way. It may take longer, but it will mean more to me to do it on my own. Can you understand?”

  “Sure,” Juila said even as she tried to keep from feeling rejected by him. His reasoning sounded sincere and she supposed she could understand why he would want to take the hard route.

  “So…what comes after learning to create a breeze?” Behn asked as he tried to distract the girls from thinking badly of him.

  Jena answered immediately, “Boiling water.”

  “Really? That’s kind of cool,” Behn said with excitement.

  “Yes, but it’s actually very hot,” Juila joked.

  The three teens laughed together and the tension in the room dissipated.

  “Do you want me to go get some water from the kitchen?” Behn asked as their chuckles died down.

  “No need,” Jena said and held out her hand. In an instant, a glass of water was grasped in her fingers. “Use this,” she said as she set the cup down on the table between them.

  “How did you do that? Is it something I’ll learn, too?” Behn was very impressed with the display of seeming magic. He was starting to appreciate why the girls said they had been excited about the training they had received in Tuala. For once, he wished he had remained on Tuala so he would have been able to learn these things as a child with his mother and siblings. His adoptive family had been wonderful, but it never took away their dream of finding their mother someday.

  “Same process, different skill. It’s number twelve on the list. Something we call ‘creating’ where something is created from elements already around. We use it for putting together meals, mostly. It takes us seconds to put together a gourmet meal where it would take someone from Earth thirty minutes or more. We reverse the process to clean up the mess afterward. But, we’re getting ahead of ourselves. We need to teach you how to boil the water,” Juila said and then turned to Jena to give Behn the directions.

  “Okay, Behn, focus on the water. Imagine its molecular structure and each molecule moving faster and faster around each other. Now, just like the breeze you created, imagine stirring the water until the water begins to form bubbles as the vaporized gas is released.”

  Behn listened to Jena’s instructions. The way she described it sounded so simple. He probably could have figured it out himself as he loved chemistry and understood how the boiling process worked. He directed his focus to the glass of water and did as Jena had explained. Within a few seconds he could see the water was starting to form bubbles. The process seemed to stall as he lost his focus with his excitement so he renewed his focus on the contents of the glass until it was boiling continually.

  He smiled like a little boy and announced, “I did it!” He looked up at Juila first and then over to Jena. They both smiled proudly in return. “What’s next? I can really do this!”

  “Of course you can do this, Behn. It’s your birthright. Freezing water is next,” Juila spoke in a matter-of- fact tone.

  Jena continued her instructions by saying, “Okay, Behn, focus on the hot water. Again, imagine its molecular structure and each molecule moving slower and slower around each other. Now, just like the breeze you created, imagine your finger stirring the water until the ice crystals begin to form and cling to one another until it is a solid mass.”

  Behn was seeing a pattern of instruction and then had a question of his own before he attempted the next task. “How do you explain molecular structures to children in the second grade? You did say this was a task a second grader would learn, right?”

  “The children of Tuala are more in tune with the energy in the earth. They don
’t need to learn about molecules to understand the process. It’s hard to explain, it’s almost as if they use their intuition without hesitating. People from Earth need to know how something works before they can accomplish it, whereas the people from Tuala just expect something to work because they think it. It’s a terrible explanation, but it’s the best way I can think to say it,” Juila spoke kindly. She hoped Behn would understand the difference.

  He was starting to understand the vast difference between the two worlds. He hoped when he finally got to go back there, he would not feel too out of place. These lessons were bound to help him make the adjustment easier.

  Behn nodded and shifted his gaze from Juila to the still steaming glass of water. He tried to use his intuition and expectation instead of the process which Jena explained. With absolute belief in what he was attempting, he managed to freeze the water so fast, the glass surrounding the liquid broke into pieces with the sudden change in temperature. He looked up guiltily. “I’m sorry for breaking the glass. I didn’t mean for it to happen!”

  Both of the girls were starting to chuckle. Behn looked at them as though they had lost their minds. What about this situation could possibly be funny?

  “Don’t worry about it, Behn. I can fix the glass. Tell me what you did different?” Jena asked.

  Behn shrugged his shoulders and then answered slowly, “I guess I used my expectations instead of my reasoning. It appears to work much faster.”

  “Exactly. I’m glad you understood what I was trying to tell you. You’ll find each lesson will be easier since you’ve discovered the mental shift needed to complete a task,” Juila spoke with pride to Behn. He had been an eager student. She imagined his desire to learn had something to do with it, but she also knew he was starting to access the parts of his brain which had developed on Tuala until he was eight and was sent to Earth by his mother.