by Janet Rebhan
CHAPTER 21
“So exactly where is Vito now?” Thor said.
“Interesting question,” Sapphire said. “He will go through a lengthy debriefing before he can be rejoined with his higher self on this level.”
“And that’s like only one small part of his consciousness, correct?” said Aurora.
“Yes,” said Sapphire. “Vito’s higher self is here now. Only a portion of his consciousness incarnated as Vito Gamboa. He has the choice now of either healing this portion and assimilating it or forever casting it aside, but that is rare. Most people can be reconstituted at the very least.”
“So it was not his choice to play the bad guy?” Thor said.
“Good question,” Sapphire answered. “Most of the time, we incarnate to learn and grow through various types of challenges. Hopefully, throughout whatever trials and tribulations we experience, we take the high road. When we choose the low road instead, we fail. Yet this doesn’t mean all is lost. Various measures can be taken to heal our earthly extensions. Other times, a soul will incarnate and purposely play the part of the ‘bad guy’ in order to challenge another soul in his or her soul group; however, this is not the case with Vito. His higher self, I’ll call him Topaz, since he always wears this color, has some work to do with his earthly counterpart before they can be merged back together and proceed with another incarnation.”
“So Topaz is here now?” Thor said.
“Yes.” Sapphire smiled.
“Are you at liberty to tell us what his beef was with Caroline and Rachael? I mean, was it a past-life thing?”
“Everyone in our soul group has had many incarnations together. They no doubt had some score to settle. That’s really all I can say at this time. Perhaps he’ll speak with you directly one day.”
“And what of Caroline and Rachael?” Aurora asked. “They were destined to be together?”
“Yes,” Sapphire answered. “Some souls will move heaven and earth to be together. And these two go way back. Prior to incarnation, they make what’s called a soul pact. It’s an agreement, not only among the two souls in question, but also with the souls in their particular soul sectors or factions. They all agree to incarnate together and help out in whatever way they can to assist the two principle souls in finding each other and working through their particular karma. Some agree to assist from the other side—the heavenly sphere. There are limitations, however, to the assistance given from on high. The primary limitation being that once incarnate, a soul has a harder time intuiting guidance from above, Earth being such a challenging atmosphere. But also there is the limitation the two souls themselves put into place upon their own soul group. They want their group to go only so far in helping them out with their challenges. Like a board game, there are rules, and if you bend them too much, there is no point in playing the game and no reason to celebrate when a challenge is overcome. So to some extent our hands are tied here because it’s against the rules. The souls in question do not want much help. They are like the toddler learning to walk who wants your help but doesn’t want your help at the same time.”
“I knew it!” Thor said. “By the way, what did you say your Earth name was?”
“I didn’t,” Sapphire said. “But I will give you a hint.” She looked down toward the floor and once again seemed to be hiding a smile as she pondered. When she looked up again she said, “Some things we label gifts turn out to be curses, and other things we label curses turn out to be gifts.”
Thor frowned. “Oh, you higher selves, you’re always so mysterious!”
Sapphire laughed. “I just like to see you figure it out for yourself,” she said. She gave them each a hug. “Well, it’s been fun, but I really must go now. I’ve got to send off a rebirth that could go any minute now.”
“Say what?
Thor and Aurora exchanged puzzled looks, then turned and watched as Sapphire entered the elevator that appeared just behind her. Before the doors closed, she blew them both a kiss, and a trill of laughter could be heard resounding through the room long after they had closed again and the elevator had ascended through a black hole in the roof of the ballroom.
When Sapphire came out of the elevator on the other side, she entered a room with about fifteen other luminaries in attendance, each wearing jewel-toned robes of silk or satin. Two men dressed in white robes walked up to greet her and stood on either side, ear-to-ear grins across their angelic, childlike faces. They wore special name tags that read “Usher” and escorted her to a large throne-type chair on a platform at the front of the room. Before sitting in the chair, one of the ushers placed what looked like large headphones on her head, covering both ears.
“If you listen carefully,” the usher told her, “you will be able to monitor the baby’s heartbeat. Just remember, you will fuse your residual soul with her consciousness just prior to the final contraction that delivers her head. Do you have any questions?” Sapphire made a face and lifted the side of the headphones covering her right ear. “Well, if you do recall, Stephan, I’ve done this about a gazillion times already.”
The young man blushed, but Sapphire took his hand and held it up to the side of her face. “Just kidding, you are doing a great job. And I do actually have a question.”
Stephan beamed again. “Please, ask.”
“Would you all mind if I invite a couple of our supreme guides from the Park level just below? They’ve been very helpful of late, and I think perhaps it will give them some closure.”
“Sure, no problem,” Stephan said. “Do you want them here in the room with all of us, or would it be enough to have them remote view?”
“Oh, I think it would be more fun for them to join the party, don’t you think? Afterward, they can stay for cake and ice cream. You’ll find them in the ballroom where I just left them.”
“You got it.”
Sapphire replaced her headphones, closed her eyes, and settled back into her comfortable throne chair. The second usher brought her a large tufted footstool, removed her sandals, elevated her feet, and covered her with a blanket.
“Dim the lights, please,” usher number two called out. A couple of ladies in the back of the room spoke softly to each other in animated voices. Another small cluster raised their arms high and exchanged toasts with crystal goblets, the light clinking noise resembling the sound of feather-light wind chimes on a summer’s evening. The first usher began handing out smaller headphones to everyone in attendance.
The elevator opened, and Thor and Aurora were brought into the room by a third usher, who handed them each a pair of headphones and a glass of something sparkly.
“We’ll be cutting the cake after transmission. In the meantime, welcome, and enjoy the procedure.” He stopped, waved his hand in the air to dismiss the elevator, and returned his attention to Thor and Aurora. “Oh, and by the way, it’s strawberry shortcake with custard filling and real buttercream icing.” He paused, took a long hard look at Thor and Aurora, then said, “How do you like it down there on the Park level? I guess it can be a bit confusing at times, huh?”
“Oh, you know,” Thor replied, “most days it’s just a walk in the Park.”
The usher tilted his head to the side as if trying to hear something distant, then knitted his eyebrows together before shaking his shoulders and shifting his hip from one side to the other. “Well,” he said emphatically, “let me know if you have any questions.”
“Actually, I, uh—” Thor began.
A loud balloon popped from the far corner of the now dimly lit room, followed by hushed, high-pitched giggles. Thor overheard Stephan whisper something to usher number two about stopping the flow of glitter drink until after delivery.
Aurora looked at Thor. “That joke was really lame.”
“What do you mean? All their jokes are lame. In case you haven’t noticed, this entire level is made up of the most childish souls I’ve ever encountered.”
“Oh, and by the way, are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Au
rora said.
“Do you really have to ask?” Thor replied.
Aurora smiled gently at her protégé.
“Yes, I am,” Thor replied, taking a sip from his glass and placing his headphones around his neck. “That is, if you’re thinking Sapphire’s clue points to her having been Mary Anne Maynard in her last incarnation.”
“Precisely.”
“Yup. They truly are childish up here, you know that? She could have just told us instead of dropping hints.”
“Childlike. There’s a difference. And you’re one to talk,” Aurora said. “So have you figured it out yet?”
“Yeah, makes sense now. I mean, her life did seem cursed, but it looks like everyone has benefited in the end. And I do recall you telling me her sister, Leila, was her true soul mate. Good for her.”
“Yes, and so I’d say this case is now closed. Good job, everyone.” Aurora raised her glass high in the air, and despite her lowered voice when she spoke, everyone else in the room followed her in a salute, smiling and nodding in her direction as they did.
“So this is the soul group, huh?” Thor said.
“Pretty much. Looks like we have a few absentees, who are probably visiting other universes at the moment. But yeah, pretty much. I see someone in a topaz robe over in that quiet cluster in the corner.”
“Oh, you mean—” Thor looked over his shoulder, then turned back to Aurora. “This is awesome. Have you ever attended one of these before?”
“No, I’ve only heard about them. Why don’t we listen in? We may learn something. Afterward, we can make the rounds and find out who belongs to whom.”
“You mean which higher self corresponds to which earthly personality? Oooh, that would be fun. All this and strawberry shortcake too.”
“Yeah, it’s all in a day’s work around here. This soul group probably invented the phrase ‘have your cake and eat it too.’”
“Aurora, you crack me up.”
Thor and Aurora placed their headphones over their ears and looked out through the giant floor-to-ceiling window at a multitude of radiant white-and-yellow stars and hovering spheres in a spectrum of colors. As they listened to the rapid heartbeat of Nancy and Mitch’s baby girl, they saw a wavy pink flame linger briefly above Sapphire’s head before it moved out through the window and into the atmosphere, joining with another pink flame ascending from the lower levels. They watched as the two then became one large flame. It hovered briefly as if to wink goodbye before whirling into a fireball and taking a meteoric dive toward the little blue planet rotating slowly within a foggy galaxy fittingly called the Milky Way.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many thanks to friends, family, and colleagues who read and critiqued early versions of my manuscript: Tricia Hedman, Jennifer Smith, Susan Neves, Natalie Boyle, and Toni Weireter; and to my experts who contributed their valuable knowledge of law enforcement, emergency medical services, and the foster care system: Robert Rebhan, Melissa Padworski, Felicia Gordon, Clifford H. Balzer, and Dena King. Also to the authors who inspired me with their books about the afterlife, life between lives, near-death experiences, and reincarnation: Dr. Raymond Moody, Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, Dr. Brian L. Weiss, and Dr. Michael Newton, to name only a few. Thank you to my early editors Megan McKeever and Devon Glenn. And a special thank you to Brooke Warner, Lauren Wise, Samantha Strom, Crystal Patriarche, and Hanna Pollock at She Writes Press and SparkPoint Studio for guiding and supporting me on the road to publication.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Author photo © Lesley Bohm
Janet Rebhan is the author of the novel Finding Tranquility Base (2012). Born in Texas, she was sixteen when she moved to Los Angeles, where she pursued acting and modeling before studying creative writing at UCLA. Rebhan has two grown daughters and still resides in the Los Angeles area. For more information, visit her website at www.janetrebhan.com.
SELECTED TITLES FROM SHE WRITES PRESS
She Writes Press is an independent publishing company founded to serve women writers everywhere. Visit us at www.shewritespress.com.
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The Afterlife of Kenzaburo Tsuruda by Elisabeth Wilkins Lombardo. $16.95, 978-1-63152-481-3. As he stumbles through an afterlife he never believed in, scientist Kenzaboro Tsuruda must make sense of his life and confront his family’s secrets in order to save his ancestors from becoming Hungry Ghosts, even as his daughter, wife, and sister-in-law struggle with their own feelings of loss.
Size Matters by Cathryn Novak. $16.95, 978-1-63152-103-4. If you take one very large, reclusive, and eccentric man who lives to eat, add one young woman fresh out of culinary school who lives to cook, and then stir in a love of musical comedy and fresh-brewed exotic tea, with just a hint of magic, will the result be a soufflé—or a charred, inedible mess?
The Same River by Lisa Reddick. $16.95, 978-1-63152-483-7. As Jess, a feisty, sexy, biologist, fights fiercely to save the river she loves, Piah, a young Native American woman, battles the invisible intrusion of disease and invasive danger on the same river 200 years earlier—and the two women mysteriously begin to make contact with one another.
The Lucidity Project by Abbey Campbell Cook. $16.95, 978-1-63152-032-7. After suffering from depression all her life, twenty-five-year-old Max Dorigan joins a mysterious research project on a Caribbean island, where she’s introduced to the magical and healing world of lucid dreaming.
The Black Velvet Coat by Jill G. Hall. $16.95, 978-1-63152-009-9. When the current owner of a black velvet coat—a San Francisco artist in search of inspiration—and the original owner, a 1960s heiress who fled her affluent life fifty years earlier, cross paths, their lives are forever changed . . . for the better.