Ascension Seekers

by Amy Proebstel

  “What happened? Don’t keep me in suspense!” Alena grabbed her husband’s arm in her excitement.

  “It’s not something which I can just talk about. Let’s go into my office and I’ll show you what happened with Amanda today.” Bryon smirked at Alena’s puzzled expression. Very seldom could he surprise her and he was certain this was not something which she would ever guess.

  Alena cocked her head as she tried to figure out what could possibly be in his office which she did not already know about. She tugged his arm to speed him along.

  Bryon gladly went along with his wife. He could not remember a time when he had felt this happy. There was something about his samara which had changed him. He could not put his finger on it exactly, maybe Alena could help him to understand what he was feeling. “Have the kids gotten home yet?”

  “Yes, they just arrived about five minutes ago.”

  Bryon frowned slightly. He was not so sure the children should be in the house when he showed the crystal to his wife. It may just be he was being paranoid, but he could not be sure how the power of the samara could affect his family. “Maybe we could have them go to the marketplace or over to Tana’s house.”

  Alena cocked her head sideways and asked, “Is whatever you have in your office dangerous?”

  “I’m not sure. I just want us to keep it between us for now. If the kids are at home, one of them might come bursting into the office and see something which maybe they shouldn’t know about.”

  “Okay. There are a few things I need from the market. I’ll send them on their way,” she replied as they reached the front door and walked inside. The kids were still in the living room when Alena came around the corner. “I’d like for the three of you to go and get me some items for dinner.”

  Justan looked up in surprise and teased, “It sounds like you’re trying to get rid of us. What’s going on?”

  Alena laughed nervously and replied, “Wouldn’t that be just the thing! Your father just got home and he’s hungry. Now, you kids need to get yourselves to the marketplace and buy me the ingredients for glawlets. Andera, you remember what goes in them, right?”

  Andera nodded even as Kyelon jumped up from the floor eagerly. His favorite meal was glawlets with krumplis and sweetened foxl gravy.

  Alena went to the kitchen to get a few taj to give to the kids so they could buy the items. She came back immediately and handed the money to Andera. “Go ahead and get yourselves some treats while you’re there.”

  The three kids smiled as Andera put the money carefully in her tunic pocket. They were already planning which sweets they were going to get. After a flurry of noise and activity, the children trooped out the front door.

  Alena wasted no time in turning to Bryon and saying, “Let’s go to your office. Who knows how long the kids will be gone.”

  Bryon chuckled at Alena’s eagerness even as he turned to go to his office. He did not even have to turn to see if Alena were following him. He could practically feel her breathing down his neck in her excitement. Bryon walked around his desk and said to Alena, “Go ahead and sit down. I have a feeling you’re going to want to be seated when you see what I have in my desk.”

  Alena complied immediately and wondered what could possibly be so important.

  Without hesitating, Bryon opened the drawer and shoved the items off of the top of the towel wrapped bundle. He picked it up and set it on his desk with a flourish and a sense of mystery. Before he exposed the contents he looked up at Alena and remained watching her expression as he pulled the towel away to reveal the skull shaped crystal.

  Alena jerked back in her chair and looked up to Bryon with wide, scared eyes. “Bryon! Where did you get that? Why do you have it?”

  He was thankful to see he was not the only one to have a natural fear of the object. Now he had to convince his wife that it was actually okay to possess. Without touching the stone, Bryon sat down in his own chair and rested his chin on the steeple of his fingers. “It’s my samara, Alena. Amanda had me go back to the cave where I traveled to Earth when I was a teenager. We brought the skull out of the cave and she asked me to bring her here to our house. She convinced me to touch it, and I can assure you this samara was meant for me to own.”

  “Is that what it’s called: a samara?” Alena was rapidly processing what her husband was telling her. She still had no idea what significance this terrifying object would play in their lives and she was not sure she wanted to know.

  “Yes. Do you remember the legends we talked about years ago when I first told you about my journey to Earth?”

  “Yes. Are you saying those legends are true?”

  “Completely true. There are thirteen of these out there somewhere. Amanda said she and Riccan have three of them at their home on Earth. I think we might want to help Amanda locate the other nine of them if we can.”

  “Right,” Alena said with a great amount of uncertainty. She was not sure she was pleased to have one of them in her house, let alone go about the countryside looking for more of them.

  “Alena, I know you are scared right now. I was utterly terrified when Amanda first said we were going to go get it out of the cave. As you can see, I’m fine with it now.”

  “What made you change your mind?”

  “Amanda told me that each of the samaras is keyed to belong to one person. She has convinced me that this one is keyed to me. When I touched it, I somehow felt different.”

  “What do you mean my different?”

  “I can’t really explain it. Maybe you should connect with my life-line and tell me if you can see if anything has changed.”

  Perhaps for the first time in her life, since becoming a wise-woman, she was nervous about touching another person’s life-line. If Bryon’s were connected with the samara now, then she had no idea what kind of power to expect when she touched upon it. She had to do as he asked and she nodded assent. Very slowly and purposefully, Alena crafted a protective weaving around her own self before she allowed her energy to move across to the spark of life she associated with Bryon.

  As soon as she realized there was no danger to herself, she followed her senses to explore. Bryon’s life-line was definitely larger in diameter before, as if he were now more grounded than he ever had been. The colors were slightly more vibrant, but other than that, it was still her very own Bryon at the core. She withdrew her own energy, unraveled the protection from herself, and returned all of it to the earth before opening her eyes.

  “I see what you mean,” she answered finally. “Essentially you are the same, just more intense. I guess you’d say you were more deeply connected to the elemy than you were before. Does that make sense?”

  “Exactly. I knew you’d be able to explain it better than I!” Bryon grinned at his wife.

  “What happened? Did you touch the samara?”

  “Amanda insisted. It took everything I had to force myself to put my fingers on it, but then I did and I saw all sorts of visions. There were so many people and places which flashed through my mind I couldn’t even begin to explain what I saw. It was amazing, Alena. I can’t wait for you to get your own samara so you’ll know what I experienced.”

  Alena shuddered at the very idea. She tried to remain clinical in her approach to this new turn of events. “How long did the visions last?”

  Bryon chuckled as he said, “It felt like only a few seconds, but Amanda had me look at my timepiece. Almost three hours had passed. Can you believe it?”

  “What did Amanda do all the while you were enthralled with your samara?”

  For the first time Bryon looked confused. He had not considered how the time would have dragged by for Amanda. Surely it had been quite boring for her to watch him while he did nothing but stare into his samara. “I think she just sat there and watched me. When I came back to myself, she was sitting in the same chair you are. It didn’t appear she had moved.”

  Alena thought about Bryon’s statement and wondered to herself if Amanda had been ab
le to see what Bryon had been seeing. When she met with Amanda again, she would ask her about it. Until that time, there was nothing more for her to think about. Her thoughts were interrupted by Bryon clearing his throat to capture her attention.

  “I think we should do as we promised Amanda and make a list pertaining to the birth crystal colors of each person who attended the meeting with Jehoban,” Bryon said as he pulled out a piece of paper and a pen. He wrote down Elder Debbon’s name and then looked up at Alena with a questioning expression.

  “Let’s see, when I was in my wise-woman training with Elder Debbon as my instructor, I seem to recall his birth crystal was apricot with an iridescent moon. When his wife, Chelesa, joined the class I think I remember hers being an aqua green.”

  Bryon jotted down the colors Alena remembered and then wrote down Captain Ahn, Barla, and Rasa’s names. “Have you ever seen any of their crystals?”

  Alena cocked her head to the side as she considered his question. In all of the time she had spent with Barla while working on the orphan project, not only had she never seen her display a birth crystal, she had also never seen her use any skills associated with one. “I guess I don’t know what color Barla’s is, but Captain Ahn’s is dark grey, like storm clouds, and Rasa’s is clear except for two small stones which are a light blue. I remember the sun shining on it during our meeting and I thought it was strange that two of the stones would be a different color.”

  Bryon left a blank space next to Barla’s name and duly noted her husband and daughter’s colors. He grinned across the table at his wife and said, “I guess we don’t need to write down my own color since I have my samara.” He carefully wrote down his wife’s name and lavender for the color of her birth crystal. “Do you think we need to find out about Elder Daven and Nena? It would seem to be easier for Amanda to follow up on those two since they are her husband’s parents,” Bryon asked as he wrote down each of their names and left blank spaces next to them.

  “We can see if there’s a way for us to find out. If it doesn’t work out for us, then Amanda can ask her husband. I’m sure he would know his own parents’ colors,” Alena replied.

  “I guess that’s all we can do on this for right now,” Bryon said as he set the pen and shoved the paper away from him on the desktop. He looked over at his samara and grinned like a foolish schoolboy.

  “Do you think we should tell the people from the meeting about your samara? It seems like a pretty significant discovery.”

  Bryon shook his head and answered, “Amanda asked me to keep this to myself for the time being. She wants to check out a few things before letting anyone know about it.”

  Alena nodded even though she was not sure it was the best advice. However, Jehoban had told them to trust Amanda’s instincts. She nodded again as she reaffirmed the decision. “We should probably put that away since the kids could come back at any moment from the marketplace.” Alena believed her husband’s admission of the crystal belonging to him, but it did not mean she wanted to be staring at the grinning skull.

  Bryon chuckled even as he pulled the towel up over the clear crystal. He returned it to its new home in his desk drawer and he moved several paper items back over the top of it. Even as he was closing the drawer, they could hear the sound of the front door slamming.

  They stood up at the same time and smiled at one another with conspiratorial grins as they left the office with Alena in the lead. Each of the children carried a bag as they marched into the kitchen. With their backs to their parents, they never even noticed them coming out of the office and Alena was thankful for it.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Amanda flew straight home from the meeting with Bryon. She landed the telepod in the garage and went into the house. Even though she had not been the one to commune with the samara, she felt exhausted nonetheless. She headed upstairs to take a long, hot bath.

  As she was soaking in the luxuriant bubbles, she smiled at her achievement of the day. She had joined yet another person with his own samara. There were only nine left to be discovered. They already had a lead on one more with news of Behn’s mother.

  Now they just had to find out where she had disappeared. When they had gone to the Roanoke Colony with Behn, they had discovered the settlement to have been abandoned. She had no idea why they would have left, but she knew with everyone doing research on it, they were certain to figure it out in short order.

  She put Behn’s mother out of her mind and focused again on how she was going to get Neal home. When Alena had asked her about whether or not Neal wanted to come home, it had taken her aback. She had never even considered him wanting to stay. What if he had made a life or a family while he had been there? He might be happy in Tuala like her Aunt Barla. Who was she to say he had to come back?

  She had almost convinced herself to leave him alone when she remembered one important detail: Neal’s addiction to resh. No matter what his circumstances were in Tuala, he was being held captive by the drug. She had learned enough about its addictive nature to shudder at the idea of leaving him to suffer through a life of addiction. No, she was going to bring Neal home. If he wanted to go back to Tuala after seeing his parents, Amanda would gladly take him back.

  Her bath had gone cold. She got dressed and went down the back stairs to go into Riccan’s study. She wanted to send a message to wise-woman Copa to try to arrange a time to go and see her.

  Chapter Twenty

  VALENTINA DID NOT waste any time going over to Juila’s house the next day after school. She did have to wait at the gate to be let in since it was not coded to open for her car. She seldom drove anyway since both of her brothers also drove. Eventually the gate swung open and she sped up the curving road and parked by the front door.

  She did not have to knock on the door since Juila was already standing in the opening. “What brings you here, Val?”

  “I need to talk to you about my brother.” She did not see the need to say anything further as she walked over to entrance.

  “Come in,” Juila said as she stood to the side to let Valentina enter the house. “Do you want to talk downstairs or up in my room?”

  “Your room would be better,” she replied.

  Juila took the lead and walked up the stairs and into her room. She offered for Valentina to take a seat in the sitting area of her room.

  Valentina picked a spot and waited for Juila to also sit before she began. “Why are you filling my brother’s head full of lies? We’ve already had a hard enough time in life with our mother abandoning us. Behn has placed his trust and our future in your hands.”

  It was the last thing Juila expected to hear and was at a loss for words. Finally she answered, “I’ve never lied to Behn. What are you talking about?”

  “Tuala.”

  “Tuala is real and it also happens to be where you all come from as well as my own family. My parents are trying to locate your mom and when they do, she’ll tell you the same thing.”

  Juila had been so convincing in her speech, Valentina could easily see how Behn had been taken in by her story. She simply stared at Juila and could think of nothing to say to refute her.

  “What’s in this for you, Juila?”

  “Nothing! That’s why it wouldn’t make sense for me to lie about it. Think about it, Val, why would I risk exposing my whole family’s existence here on Earth just to impress my boyfriend?”

  Val paused to consider Juila’s argument and then reached into her shirt collar to pull her pendant out for Juila to see. “What did you tell Behn this was called?”

  “A birth crystal.”

  “Why would they call it that when it obviously has many crystals?” She looked down on the pendant to see the twisted metal making up the tree trunk and branches. The branches contained many crystals. Hers were mostly clear with some gold and black flecks in them. Sometimes she thought they changed color depending on the light.

  Juila lifted her shoulders as she also stared at Valentina’s necklace and sai
d, “I don't know, it’s just what they’re called. The crystals are your birthright and your connection with the energy in the earth. If you want, I can give you a demonstration.”

  Valentina immediately shook her head and replied, “Behn already showed me the tricks you taught him. I can’t see how they can be of any benefit, but I can see how they could get us into a lot of trouble.”

  “I’d have to agree with you on your last point. Behn has only learned the very basics. Jena and I can do just about anything we set our minds to using the power from our crystals. I really wish you’d let me show you.”

  Against Val’s better judgement, she found herself curious. “Fine! Show me something which will amaze me!”

  Juila took only one moment to consider when she grabbed Valentina’s arm in her hand and translated them both down to the library. She had used a considerable amount of power to make the transfer as fast as possible.

  No sooner had they appeared out of nowhere in the library, Jena came rushing in and asked, “What just happened, Juila? I felt you use a lot of power!”

  Juila waited to answer her sister since she was staring pointedly at Valentina.

  “Where are we?” Valentina asked with a quiver of fear evident in her voice.

  “We are in my father’s library downstairs from my room.”

  Val nodded silently. She had to admit to herself she had asked for a dramatic demonstration and Juila did not disappoint. Still, she could not see how this power would have any use to them on Earth other than to get them in trouble.

  “Do you believe me now?” Juila asked into the silence.

  “I believe you know something about power. I still don’t know what to make of your tale about Tuala. I guess we’ll have to find our mom just to get this whole thing straightened out.” Valentina saw there was a chair behind her and she sank down into it. Her legs felt rubbery and she was quite shaken by what had just transpired.

  Jena looked from Valentina to Juila and asked again, “What’s going on, Juila? What have you done?”