Between Now and Forever

by Margaret Duarte

  He looked into my eyes with such laser-sharp intensity that I thought maybe he, too, could read minds, but then he shook his head and said, “Shawn tried to re-circuit my brain telepathically without success. Psychic talent is lost to me, I’m afraid. And these kids will lose it, too, if they aren’t encouraged to keep the circuits open.”

  “What about their parents?” Were they using their kids’ special gifts as an excuse for bad behavior? I shivered at the thought. It would be hard enough to deal with seven gifted, unruly students, let alone their protective parents.

  “They’ll be on their knees in gratitude for what I’m attempting to do,” Dr. Matt said. “Can you imagine what they’re going through trying to raise children who, for the most part, are considered freaks?”

  My heart did an impressive flip-flop. All too well.

  “All seven of these kids have been diagnosed with either ADHD or some other form of brain disorder, so I’ve been planning to add an after-school class for some time now, run from three to five, Monday through Thursday, using one of our vacant facilities. It’ll be an alternative educational model that won’t compete with the rest of our school or cause our teachers to feel personally threatened or challenged. The students will still get their basics from teachers like Charles Lacoste, who are trained for, and capable of doing, just that. If all goes well, our Indigos will do better in academics as they gain a more solid emotional foundation. You see, it all works together. I’ve just been waiting for the right teacher, one qualified in ways that can’t be taught in a credential program or learned through classroom experience, if you know what I mean.”

  I pictured seven Jasons vying for my attention, which had me searching for something to fan myself with. I noticed a paperback on Dr. Matt’s desk, titled Being and Vibration. I’d read the book several times. Joseph Rael, otherwise known as Beautiful Painted Arrow, wrote about entering one’s own life more courageously, trusting one’s own truth, and daring to live it.

  “And that’s where you come in…” Dr. Matt’s voice sounded soft and confident like the voice of a psychiatrist or close friend trying to convince me of my inner potential.

  I grabbed the paperback and fanned myself. The floral scent of my deodorant was making me woozy. I put the book down and shrugged off my blazer.

  “I’m talking about kids who thought and spoke like adults at age nine,” Dr. Matt said, “born with knowledge and wisdom independent of age or experience. They’re way beyond what we’re teaching them in school. Yet, as you mentioned earlier, they lack the keys to succeed. Which leads to confusion and restless impatience simmering just below the surface or, in a worst-case scenario, explosive anger and aggression.”

  I sensed doubt in him. Though his eyes sparkled with a fervent light, his hand and body movements told a different story. Plus, he was talking too much, as if trying to convince himself, as well as me, of the value of this class. Was he a deluded mad man or a courageous visionary who dared to step forward, break with tradition, and stand up for what he believed?

  “I’m calling it an after-school learning lab, so it won’t sound too foreign for the mainstream.”

  First Light said a voice in my head.

  “First Light,” I repeated.

  The words floated between us like soap bubbles, iridescent, distracting. I had no way of knowing if the message had come from my birth mother or my sister Maya. Voices from the beyond sound alike, in the line of a bad telephone connection or static on TV—irritating and hard to ignore. “It signals the dawn of a new day. Better than ‘learning lab,’ don’t you think?”

  Dr. Matt’s lips curved into a “gotcha” smile. “So, you’re in?”

  An internal voice—my own this time—screamed, No, no, no. Better to start with a regular class, start out small. But then I thought of Jason and how I’d let him down. I sensed his helplessness, and a surge of protectiveness ran through me. Who besides Dr. Matt would speak up for these kids? No one, it seemed, but me.

  “Yes,” I said.

  He leaned forward, hands flat on the desk. “Great. I’ll give you two weeks to prepare.”

  “Two weeks?” My brain numbed at the thought.

  “Meanwhile, you can check out the building on the perimeter of our campus that I’ve reserved for this class. It’s next to a nature area, which I’m sure you can put to better use than we have during the past several years. Currently, it looks like a jungle.” He came from behind his desk and offered his hand, a good thing because I was having difficulty getting out of my chair. “The classroom is in the old art wing and hasn’t been used for a while. But don’t worry. The building is sound and in two weeks we can have it up to par.”

  You’re not alone, said a voice in my head.

  Ha. I’d heard those words before.

  Right before my world had turned from bad to worse, and I’d nearly lost my life.

  Chapter Five

  TWO WEEKS TO PREPARE. After just one day of substituting. My only references Dr. Tony Mendez and a thirteen-year-old, so unobtrusive, so unremarkable, he could virtually disappear into his surroundings. What had Dr. Matt been thinking asking me to take on this experimental class? What had I been thinking by accepting?

  Actually, I’d been thinking about Jason and kids like him, how lonely and afraid they must feel. As I had, until I’d learned to accept rather than fear my psychic abilities. But I’d been lucky. I’d had help. From my psychiatrist, Dr. Tony Mendez, and my sister Maya.

  Who would help these Indigos if not me?

  Showing up at West Coast Middle School as a substitute teacher confirmed my intention to control my own narrative and contribute in a meaningful way. Agreeing to take on an after-school class of Indigos clarified that intention. Now, it was time to put up or shut up, trust I was the right teacher for the job.

  I’d give myself one day to fret over my decision before getting to work. Because work it would be. To come up with a way to implement my teaching objective. Maybe I could call on Dr. Matt’s nephew, Shawn, for help. He seemed to have full confidence in my abilities. Maybe he had a plan.

  So, here I was back at Bayfront Park. My last visit had been in June with Truus, my adoptive mother, the day she’d called me a pagan squaw. She’d been referring to my Native American background—Esselen, to be exact, a Bay Area tribelet that has nearly dropped out of modern consciousness. Something she’d planned to keep secret; along with the fact that she’d adopted me. Which had seemed easy enough at the time. After all, my hair was blonde, my eyes blue, and my real mother had died after giving birth to me. But secrets have a way of wiggling free, like babies who have just learned to crawl. It’s only a matter of time.

  As before, I headed for The Great Spirit Path sculpture, intending to reread this visual poem of rock clusters for inspiration. The four stanzas of the poem, conceived by Menlo Park artist S.C. Dunlap, stretched over a three-quarter-mile trail. So, I had some walking to do. I took a brochure from the box installed along the path and scanned the numbered illustrations for the section of the poem that had inspired me most. Then I walked past the first forty-one rock clusters to number forty-two: Rest here.

  I sat in a lotus position, eyes closed, and took a deep breath, asking for nothing, expecting nothing. A cool breeze circulated around me, and yes, even in January with cloudy skies, the air currents felt comforting as they lapped at my face and ruffled my hair.

  I stood with the reluctance of someone leaving a holiday dinner, sated and ready for a nap, then walked to the next stone cluster: Talk here. And talk I did. Or rather, I prayed. “Send me your guidance, oh Lord, because I may be in way over my head.”

  I moved on to the next cluster, then the next, until I stood in the center of a large Medicine Wheel. To the Great Spirit everywhere.

  That’s when, just like in June, a hawk screeched from above. No gift of great wisdom. No directions from my dead mother (She was good at getting me into trouble not out of it). But one thing I’
d learned over the past ten months was to pay attention. Messages come at the most unexpected times in the most unexpected ways.

  “Ms. Veil?”

  A voice after all; one I hadn’t heard before.

  “Excuse me, Ms. Veil.”

  I opened my eyes and twisted toward the sound.

  “Are you okay?” A young boy stood nearby with a bike balanced between his legs. Black hair, no expression besides calm awareness.

  I didn’t recognize him, yet he knew my name. “Yes. I’m fine. How about you?”

  “Fine, thanks.”

  “Are you here by yourself?”

  The boy eyed me through what appeared to be a yellow glow. “My uncle fell back to meditate.” He fiddled with the handlebars of his bike as if he had something else on his mind.

  “Sorry. My brain’s in a fog this morning. I—”

  “You subbed in my first period class yesterday.”

  My mind scrambled for a name but came up blank.

  “You know, when the overhead blew.”

  I slapped the dirt off my jeans. “Yeah, that’s one for the memory books all right.” I stepped toward him and reached out my grimy hand. “Sorry, but with all the commotion, I don’t remember your name.”

  “No problem. If I’d wanted your attention, I would’ve gotten it.” He let go of the handlebars long enough to shake my hand. “The name’s Shawn.”

  Great. The principal’s nephew; how was that for a sign? “Nice to meet you.”

  He turned and glanced behind him. “My uncle and I come here a lot. It’s pretty cool, especially now that the winter bird population is at its peak. The bay is the most important west coast stop on the Pacific Flyway.”

  The kid sounded more like a monitor for the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory than a potential school dropout.

  “This used to be a landfill,” he said.

  I scanned the hills covered with grasses, bushes, eucalyptus, and pine, marveling at the transformation. “A good conversion of resources, I’d say.”

  He didn’t respond, just looked at me as if thinking about what I’d said. Which blew me away, of course. I wasn’t used to thirteen-year-olds thinking about what I said. Listening would have been nice, but even that was asking a lot. In fact, listening was a talent even I hadn’t mastered. Which was inexcusable, considering dead people talked to me all the time.

  “I hear you’re going to be our after-school teacher,” he said. “If you need any help” —he looked back over his shoulder— “um…”

  I didn’t know my number one fan well enough to confide that I had no clue where to begin.

  “That’s easy,” Shawn said. “Just show up.”

  Had he read my mind?

  He laughed at the expression on my face. “We need a place to hang out, you know, with fellow minds, away from the others.”

  Just show up? I shook my head. If only it were that easy.

  “It is,” he said.

  If he was reading my mind, I was in more trouble than I’d realized. How many of my future students could do that?

  “Usually only me,” he said. “And Codi, but not all the time. It’s easier out here, where there’s less interference. In school, there’s energy shooting in all directions, so it’s hard to concentrate. Take Jason, for example. He’s an energy robber.”

  “Energy robber?”

  “I tried to help when he started drawing on all that energy you were sending out yesterday, but things kind of backfired.”

  “The overhead.” I said.

  “And the world map and posters. We have this problem with control.” He spun the pedal on the bike with the toe of his sneaker. “You can block it, you know.”

  “Block what?”

  “People getting into your head.”

  I nearly choked on all the breath I’d inhaled at his disclosure. “How?”

  “I can teach you,” he said, “but it’ll take time.”

  “How much time? There are only five months till June.”

  He laughed. “Here’s Uncle Matt now.”

  Chapter Six

  SHAWN’S ADVICE ABOUT JUST showing up should have been a comfort, allowing me to relax, take my time. Instead, it energized me into action. Now more than ever, I felt the need for a plan. For starters, I wanted to know more about Indigos and Children of Now. Who or what were they, and why hadn’t I heard of them before? A trip to the bookstore was in order, followed by some research on the Internet. No problem. That would be the easy part. Figuring out how to handle these kids would be the challenge.

  Finding Indigos shelved under New Age/Parenting at the bookstore came as no surprise but was discouraging just the same. Such labeling would make it difficult, if not impossible, to confer about Indigos with folks in the mainstream, people who believed only in what they could see, hear, taste, and touch, the stuff backed by science. Unless safely locked between the pages of the Bible, the unexplainable didn’t exist for them. Then again, the beleaguered parents of these Indigos would likely be open to any reasonable explanation as long as it helped their kids navigate the school system—and life.

  Over the sound of the bookstore’s gurgling and steaming espresso machine, I discovered there were three waves of Indigos: Wayshowers, born during the late 1950s to ’60s, Generators, born during the 1970s to ’80s, and Children of Now, born during the 1990s to the present, which included my future class of thirteen-year-olds. Heck, it included the whole school. How did Dr. Matt differentiate between kids who were and were not Indigos? By their psychic abilities alone?

  I scanned the pages for suggestions on what to teach these kids, which included anger management, honesty codes, yoga, meditation, and creativity. “Train the brain to respond intelligently to sensory impressions.” “Train the mind to hear promptings of the heart and unfold the spiritual self, so it may emerge.” This was Celestine Prophecy stuff, great in theory, but hard to apply. Where would I begin?

  If Dr. Matt were a true believer in this after-school class, wouldn’t he have come up with more than vague references to providing an open environment, multitasking, and exposure to nature? He said all could be up and running in two weeks. All what could be up and running? A classroom, a nature area, seven troubled kids, and a greenhorn teacher?

  On my way to the register, I heard someone call my name. “Marjorie?”

  My muscles tensed. Damn.

  I turned to face my ex-fiancé.

  “You look good,” Cliff said, the surprise on his face disconcerting. Was he surprised to see me or surprised I looked good? Our last meeting ten months ago had been rather traumatic, as breakup scenes usually are.

  “You look good, too.” His looks had never been a problem. He was handsome, no doubt about it; wavy blond hair, gray eyes, sculpted nose and lips, model-perfect body. What more could a woman ask for? Indeed. How could someone so physically attractive be missing what I needed most, that one, essential ingredient—a loving, understanding heart?

  “Your mother said…” he began, then seemed to think better of it. “How’ve you been?”

  “I’m doing research for a class I’m about to teach.”

  His brows rose in the way I knew so well, a run-up to him saying something derogatory. “You? Teaching a class?”

  I evaded his question and the wisecrack sure to follow with a question of my own, “New hobby?”

  He followed my glance to the book he was holding, featuring the muscle cars of yesteryear. “Have to do something with my free time.”

  Free time? During our two-year engagement, he’d barely had time to take me out to lunch.

  He eyed the books cradled in my arms. My first impulse was to hide them behind my back, but that would only fuel his curiosity. Anyway, I was a big girl now, no longer beholden to the likes of Cliff. I held up the books for his inspection.

  “Indigo Children? What kind of New Age hogwash are you into this time?”

  I shrugged. No
t bothering to explain. He hadn’t responded well when I’d told him about my auditory hallucinations (his words, not mine); a wake-up call—or head-slap warning—that something was terribly wrong with our relationship. He glanced at the checkout counter and shifted his weight. “Your mother said you have a sister…”

  “Two, actually.” Cliff was behind on the news, which meant he and my adoptive mother weren’t as tight as they once were. “I found out I was adopted and that I’m one of three, a triplet. Veronica’s the oldest. She’s staying in Carmel Valley, waiting to hear if she’s been accepted into the DEA basic training program at Quantico. The youngest was Maya. She died four weeks ago and… I can’t talk about this anymore.”

  To my surprise, Cliff folded me into his arms and patted my back, his Burberry Brit Eau de Cologne—smoky, leathery—conjuring up a sense of luxury and elegance. The Cliff I used to know and love was sleek, cool, and unfeeling. Like the Mercedes he drove. “I understand,” he said, kissing my cheek. Then he added, “Heard you met someone.”

  I stepped out of his embrace. So, he knew about Morgan. Thanks, Mom. “Yes.”

  “A dairy farmer.”

  “Yes.”

  A tightening of his lips; otherwise no sign of emotion. “You left me for a farmer?”

  “No. I left you. And then I met a farmer.”

  A smirk which, as usual, evoked a sinking feeling inside of me. “Heard he has a kid.”

  No comment.

  “Okay, I get it. None of my business, right?”

  My answer, a sigh. Just thinking about Morgan made my eyes burn. I missed him and wondered if I was doing the right thing, trying my hand at teaching instead of marrying him and moving to the farm. But I had to know if I could make it on my own before choosing marriage. I had to know if I could align my personal growth with Morgan’s rather than lose myself in a relationship, as my birth mother and my sister Maya had. And I’d almost done with Cliff.