by Dale Mayer
“It does actually,” Hunter said, but his voice had an odd echo because the barrier had sealed up.
She stared at him and then at Sebastian. “Bring Hunter through too.”
“Or we can both go to the other side, to join Hunter.” Sebastian grabbed her hand and stepped through where the barrier should have been. But, for him, there didn’t appear to be one. With her hand extended through the barrier, he gently tugged, and she came through the barrier with him again. Once they were both on the same side of the barrier as Hunter, Sebastian reached out a hand, and he could feel the barrier, but, when he pushed, his hand went right through it. The others tried to push their hands through it as well. But, for them, it was solid resistance.
“Interesting,” Sebastian murmured. “Why can I enter, and you can’t?”
“A barrier that has an affinity for you alone.” Hunter shook his head. “Every day I still find out something new and wondrous about this crazy world.”
“I don’t know about wonderful,” Lacey said, “because honestly this was intended to keep me out. And yet, Linnea was leading me here.”
“Why would she do that?” Sebastian asked. He hated that Lacey followed Linnea’s guidance so much, without knowing if she could trust her.
“She led me to the barrier, but I don’t know why. I don’t know what the barrier would mean for me.”
“Who’s putting up the barrier? That’s a better question,” Hunter said.
“But how do we know anyone is?”
“Signatures,” both Sebastian and Hunter answered at the same time. They turned to study the energy of the barrier.
“Signatures?” Lacey asked in confusion. “Are you telling me energy has a distinct identification, like a fingerprint?”
“That’s exactly what we mean. How you got that from the word signature though, I don’t know.”
“I remember reading something about it,” she muttered.
Sebastian studied the barrier, not seeing what he needed to find. “What about you, Hunter? Can you see anything? For me the barrier is invisible, since I can permeate it. But maybe you can see better what’s here, because it’s a barrier for you.”
“I’m definitely getting a sense of the energy,” Hunter agreed. “But it’s very faint.” He placed one hand onto the barrier and closed his eyes. Immediately the barrier vibrated.
“Oh, that’s a terrible whine,” Lacey cried out, placing her hands over her ears.
Hunter looked at her in surprise. He added more energy to his vibrational call, and she cried out again. He released his hand and asked, “You can hear that?”
She nodded. “At least I heard something. It was a high-pitched whining noise, like a motor running at too high a pitch for comfort.”
Hunter looked over at Sebastian. “What about you?”
Sebastian shook his head. “I didn’t hear anything,” he said. “Interesting that she could hear and feel the barrier but couldn’t see or cross the barrier. You could touch it and raise the vibration, but you can’t cross it. I can’t hear or see it, but I can cross it.”
“That’s all nice, fine and dandy,” Lacey said in frustration, “but what does it mean?”
“It means, we don’t know what it is,” Hunter said in a laughing voice. “So much of this stuff we don’t have answers for. We’re exploring and understanding more every day, and yet, every day something new like this pops up.”
“Can we carry on this path then? Linnea says I’m still supposed to go in this direction.”
“I’d be happy to take you through that barrier, as long as Linnea tells us why she wants you to go there.”
Lacey gave a clipped nod. “I’ll ask her.”
She bowed her head, and he could see her lips move as if she were speaking to Linnea. He exchanged a glance with Hunter, who just shrugged. They’d seen a lot of people communicate with spirits in many ways, from painting scenes, writing down what a spirit needed to say, to standing here and speaking with them one-on-one.
Lacey raised her head and said, “Linnea just says it’s important.”
“How important?”
“Very important,” Lacey said drily. “She’s not exactly forthcoming.”
“Which is also why I’m a little worried,” Hunter said.
“But, if we don’t go, we won’t find out,” Sebastian said. He grabbed both Hunter’s and Lacey’s hands and walked them carefully through the barrier.
On the other side he led the way forward, in case there were more barriers. He could feel a buzz as he went through, alerting him that an energy field was here. He studied the area around them. “I haven’t been in this corner of the site before.”
“Linnea is directing this trip,” Hunter said in a hard tone. “I’m not sure I trust her.”
“I don’t trust anyone,” Sebastian said. “In a human body or out.”
“How can you say that?” Lacey asked from behind them. “My mother was incredibly trustworthy.”
“Though we won’t see her here,” Sebastian said. “She’s a happy soul living out a happy soul life until her reincarnation back onto this place again.”
“Do we know for sure all souls come back?” she asked dubiously. “I’m not certain I like that idea.”
“It depends on where in your soul’s evolution you are while on this Earthly incarnation,” Hunter said in a cryptic tone.
For Sebastian, who’d heard all this many times before, he understood the confusion on Lacey’s face. He explained the little the psychic world surmised about reincarnation and the Akashic records. Sometimes people refused to learn their lessons, saying they would learn it in their next lifetime instead of putting in the work to learn it now.
“Sometimes people are born over and over again because they refuse to learn their lessons the first time,” he said. “And then you get people who move very well through their lifetimes, learning the lessons they need at every step of their growth, and this could be the last time you see them because, when they die and go through to the altered plane on the other side, there’s no need for them to come back.”
“That’s also kind of depressing,” she muttered. “Who’d want to be the one who sits up there all alone, waiting for the rest of humanity to join them? And who wants to be the humanity sitting down here for fifty lifetimes and still not getting anywhere?”
“But a soul’s journey is a soul’s journey and is individual to that soul,” Hunter said. “That’s why it’s so important to take the high road at all times on this Earthly plane, so you don’t add more negative karma that you have to fix later. Karma can be a bitch, and she always gets you in the end, even if it means adding another lifetime to clear these karmic debts.”
“I don’t like the sound of that at all,” Lacey muttered.
Sebastian approached a copse of trees up ahead. He could feel the coldness emanating from them. His footsteps slowed, and he held out his arms to hold the other two back.
“What is it?” Hunter asked.
“Temperature drop,” he said succinctly.
Hunter stiffened and stepped out to the side.
“Is it him?” Lacey whispered behind him.
“Who is him?”
“That same energy I felt at noon today. The jailor?”
“You tell me,” Hunter said. “Is it him?”
Sebastian stepped slightly away from Hunter so there was room for Lacey to join the two in the middle.
She stared at the trees and then nodded. “I think so. It’s dark—evil—energy, and I can feel that coldness. Nervousness. I’m not getting anything nice from it.”
“Neither am I,” Sebastian said. “But we can’t judge it for that alone. Sometimes very old energy that’s been lying here for a long, long time gives the same impression.”
Hunter whistled softly. “Not sure I like this at all.” He stepped forward and then took a couple more steps.
“Don’t go over there,” Lacey cried out.
“Why not?” Hunter as
ked.
“You’re the one who just said you don’t like this,” she said in exasperation.
“I don’t,” he said, “and, therefore, I want to find out what it is. Because, when you’re afraid of something, it becomes much bigger in your mind until you figure it out.” He motioned to the other side of a small hill. “There’s some kind of a cave-in here.”
The others joined him and looked. “It’s a fairly good-size cave-in.” Sebastian took several steps to the side to get a better view of what was going on. As he approached, the ground fell away under his boots. He took several steps back as sand, dirt and vegetation crumbled inward.
Lacey gasped. “Come away from there, please,” she cried out.
Hunter looked at her.
Sebastian looked at him, but, instead of listening to Lacey, he walked in a wider circle around to where he could see more of what was going on. “It has definitely caved in,” he said. “There appears to be some kind of an anteroom underneath. I don’t know how big it is, and we’d have to look on the map to see where in the archaeology site this is.”
“I can already tell you,” Lacey said, her voice resentful. “It’s some kind of burial chamber.”
The two men looked at her.
Sebastian said, “How could you know that?”
She shrugged. “Linnea is telling me.”
“Is that what she wanted you to find?”
Lacey nodded. “Yes. That’s what she wanted me to find here but she’s also not happy about it.”
“Now that you have, can you leave?” Hunter asked.
That was a good question because often entities, once they had a chance to show something to someone, felt their Earthly mission was done, and they could leave. She shook her head. “No, not yet,” she said. “She won’t let me leave yet.”
“Why?” Hunter asked gently. “Ask her why.”
Sebastian watched as Lacey bowed her head as if talking to Linnea. Then she took several steps toward the edge of the cave-in and pointed off to the right. “Underneath, on that side.”
“And what will we find if we dig there?” Sebastian asked. He kept his tone even because something was odd about Lacey’s movements.
She walked around to join him so they could both look in the direction she indicated. “She is in there,” Lacey said softly. “Linnea is in there.”
“Aah,” Hunter said with understanding. “She wanted her body to be found.”
Lacey shook her head. “No. That’s not it at all.”
“Then what difference does it make if she’s in there or not?” Hunter asked curiously.
“She’s not alone,” Lacey whispered. “Other women are in there with her. Lots of them.”
“How did they die?” Sebastian asked, his stomach sinking. “Did they all die in the Pompeii disaster?”
Lacey slowly shook her head, tears filling her eyes as she stared up at him. “No, they were murdered. All of them were murdered, except for Linnea.”
“Why not Linnea?”
She whispered, “Because she was trying to save them. She went to save them, but they had already been killed. And then the disaster struck, and Linnea died.”
Chapter 17
Lacey hated the words that came from her mouth. She tried to backtrack and said, “But I can’t know that for sure.”
“But that’s what she’s telling you?” Sebastian asked in a noncommittal voice, turning away.
“I think so,” Lacey said, rushing to catch up. “You’re walking toward that spot. Why?”
“I want to see this cave-in from a different angle.” He stopped, turned and crouched to look at the hill.
“Are you planning to excavate it?”
Sebastian shook his head. “No, you have to understand the paperwork involved in opening up a new dig site.”
“But this one’s already been opened,” she argued.
“It’s caved in,” he said. “That doesn’t mean everything is close to the surface. Or that we have the right to anything we might find.”
She glanced around and said, “Now where did Hunter go?”
Sebastian chuckled. “Hunter is always where you least expect him.”
She searched again, her gaze finally coming around to the cave-in. And, sure enough, Hunter’s head popped out from the inside. She wanted to rush to him, but Sebastian held her back. “Why?” she asked. “It’s not dangerous surely.”
“Hunter is looking with his other vision,” Sebastian said softly. “Let’s not disturb him.”
Slowly she let Sebastian pull her back to where he’d been standing. She studied Hunter, who seemed to be turning in a slow circle, looking at everything on the surface. “When you say his other vision …”
“He sees things too. His abilities are different than ours.”
“Ours?” she asked in a dry tone. “I don’t even know that I have any abilities.”
“You just talked to a dead person—isn’t that an ability?”
“Did I though?” she asked. “Or was it just my imagination?”
“That’s possible too,” he said as they watched Hunter disappear for a second time.
She tried to go forward, but Sebastian still held her back. “Is he destroying valuable items?” she asked, looking for any angle that would allow her to better see Hunter. “Ones you’re not entitled to excavate?”
“Whatever has been buried here has been buried for a long time,” he said. “It would be unusual to have a cave-in like this in the first place, since lava is not picky. Normally it destroys everything in its path. In this case the lava has fallen in below.”
“But now that it’s caved-in, don’t you want to see what’s inside?”
“Absolutely I do,” Sebastian said with a smile. “But Hunter gets to have his moment first.”
She tapped her foot impatiently as she waited and waited and waited. But Sebastian appeared to be completely unconcerned. “What if I’m wrong?”
“There’s no way to know for sure,” Sebastian said. “We can only listen to the voices from the past and surmise what might have happened. They could be telling the truth, but they might not be.”
“But why would a spirit have a reason to lie about something like that?”
“It’s hard to say,” he said. “Most of the time they believe what they’re saying, or they’re so hung up on a goal they’ll say anything to achieve it.”
She smiled. “That makes sense. I know there’s a lot of desperation in Linnea’s actions and words.”
“Anger?” he asked. “Or something else?”
“I’m not sure. Panic and a sense of urgency. I don’t really know.” And Lacey didn’t. The more she thought about it, the harder it was to figure it out. It was almost as if, now that Linnea’s spirit wasn’t here, her words were drifting away, fading from Lacey’s memory. “Is it possible the spirits can erase their words from your mind afterward?”
He made a startled sound. “You mean, like reach into your memory and pull away that memory?” he asked in amazement.
She winced. “Okay, I know that sounded stupid. But I’m having trouble remembering what she said to me.”
“That’s very interesting. How much of that is because you’re tired and worn out and so much is happening?”
“I don’t know,” she said, pacing aimlessly while she struggled to remember exactly what Linnea had said. “I can’t remember her exact words anymore,” she said, “and I really want to. I feel like I need to record everything going on around me.”
“You have the recorder with you, right?”
She checked her pockets and found the recorder and held it up. “But I should have recorded her words when she first said them to me, not now that my memory is failing.”
Sebastian pointed to the red light. “Has it been going for hours?”
She shook her head. “I don’t remember turning it on.”
He took it from her and hit the Stop button, then hit the Replay button. They listened as conversatio
ns from that morning played, somewhere around the time she felt the two entities and was involved in their push-pull actions. The conversation that followed was at lunchtime with the dark entity they’d both seen, then her talking about Linnea.
She stared at him. “I don’t normally record conversations with other people,” she murmured, afraid he may think she did something devious. “My voice has a weird static element.”
He studied the recorder in his hand, a frown deepening the lines on his face. “I don’t think you would do something like that. But I’m glad at least your side of the conversations were recorded because now we have something to remember those multiple conversations by.”
She backed up when he tried to hand it back to her. “No, you keep it. I don’t want anything to do with that.”
He pocketed the recorder and reached out a hand, gripping her shoulder. “It’s okay, you know. Remember these people have been gone a long time. As much as they’re terrifying, the effect they can have on us today is minimal.”
She stared at him. “Are you saying the people from that Mayan ruin didn’t end up dead because of whatever was happening down at that site?” She watched him take in her words as if they were a body blow.
He bowed his head for a long moment. “Ouch,” he said. “I was trying to make you feel better and to allow myself to forget.”
“Were the people possessed? Did they kill each other because of someone else’s influence?”
“Something like that,” he said, lifting his head, staring off in the distance. “But it sounds pretty horrible to hear you say it that way.”
“It is horrible,” she said. “I’m sorry,” she added, “It wasn’t fair of me to bring up those bad memories.”
He gave a hard laugh. “We need to remember because a repeat here could be devastating.” He shook his head. “I wouldn’t be alive today if it weren’t for Hunter.” He motioned at his friend, who’s head popped up aboveground again.
She called out, “Did you find anything?”
Hunted nodded. “Lots. Come and look.”
With a glance at Sebastian and his nod, she raced over. She fell to her knees just back from the opening so she could peer in. “This is a really large space.”