by Smith, Skye
"If you need money, dear, I can give you some," said Nana hopefully.
"It's not the money, Nana, it is those." Maya pointed to the end of the bed. On the end of the bed were her transcript of the Aura user manual, and the ancient bog iron ring. "Don't you see? I will have access to a lot of psychos to practice on. I will have access to private libraries of ancient works that may tell me about that ring, and through that ring, our family's long dark past."
"You wouldn't. You mustn't." Nana could hardly get the terrifying words out. "You cannot kill these boys just because they are psychos."
"Kill them, no. Cure them, yes. My aura manual tells me that it is possible, well, like, if not to cure them, at least to make them less of a danger to society. Since I first translated those texts, I have wanted to practice the methods, but there was always one huge problem. Practice on who? Now I know who. On the psycho ruling elite-in-training."
Nana started to choke. Maya jumped up and patted Nana on her back. "Nana, be reasonable. Don't you see? Think of the evil that won't be a part of mankind's future if I succeed. Even if I succeed just a little. Oh come on, Nana. Can't you imagine how much evil in this world would not have happened if I had practiced on like, say, a sixteen-year-old Adolph Hitler?"
"Maya, this is crazy talk. I don't know how you got involved in such things, and I don't want to know, but you are planning to play about with the sons of the most powerful families in the world. Don't do it. It's too dangerous. Oh please, don't go. Stay here. Work on the Britta novel with me."
"Nana, it's my aura. It's all about my aura. You know that. I told you about the kiddy slave traders in India. Can anything be more dangerous to me than they were, those Russian Mafia guys? If I had run away, like, seventy kids would have been forced into brothels. Think of what that would have been like for them. A short life servicing greasy sex tourists from around the Arabian Sea."
Nana moaned. She had connected to Maya in a way she hadn't felt since her husband Peter had died. Now she was going to lose the connection.
"I have to go. I have to try. If for no other reason than I have the gift and the opportunity to make a difference. Please, oh please understand Nana. Don't try to stop me. Don't hate me. Don't cut me off." Maya started to sob.
Nana put a hand out and held Maya's. "This island is your island, Maya. I realize it now. Just as it was my 'home safe' place all of my life, so it should be yours. If for no other reason, then for your obvious connection to Britta. You will always be able to come here, to get out of the spotlight, to meditate, to collect your thoughts, to find peace. Always. Always."
They held hands in silence for a long time while Maya calmed down. Then she stretched, blew her nose and rinsed her teary face, and got on with her packing. Wendy would be here soon with a boat to pick her up.
"Maya, you pack, but listen to what I have to say," Nana said. "For twenty years my hobby has been tracing our family's bloodline."
“Why bloodlines?” Maya asked while bending to check under the bed.
“My gift, our gift is likely genetic and therefore from our bloodline. Perhaps somewhere in the dark past you and Erik and Karl share a bloodline. Commoners like us are usually only interested in the past three generations, mostly to determine inheritance. The ruling elite of the world are the only ones who concern themselves about bloodlines into the dark and distant past. The bloodlines of historical royals and nobility.”
“Hey, I totally get that,” replied Maya, making neat little piles of clothes on the bed. She was grateful to have something busy to do, to take her mind off her imminent departure. “It would be neat to find out that like, Erik and I had a common ancestor who passed these auras to us.”
“Our auras would have been of little use to the nobility. I quickly realized that I was more likely to find connections through the church, not the nobility. A thousand years ago, Maya, you would either have been made into a saint, or have been burned as a witch.”
“So what would the nobility have been like, wanting from bloodlines?”
“Magical powers, godlike powers. A thousand years ago people still believed the myths that the kings were descended from the gods. In Western Europe they all believed that Charlemagne was descended from the gods, and he must have had magical powers to have taken over most of Europe. All the nobility wanted a blood connection to Charlemagne, hoping to inherit his magic, and with it, some right to rule.”
Maya began folding her clothes for her suitcase. “Who can say that this Charlemagne guy, like didn’t have magic powers. Look at me. A thousand years ago wouldn’t my aura have been considered a magic power?”
“But Maya, I consider it magic even today. It is so far from normal, extremely abnormal." Nana bit her lip to stop the word 'freakish' from tumbling out. "Auras have never been explained by the scientists, and yet they exist. Erik, Karl and I have weak auras. They are uncommon enough to be rare. Yours, well your aura is magic for sure. There is no other word for it but magical.”
“So what other magical powers are there? What magic was the nobility looking for in the bloodlines?”
Nana shrugged her shoulders. “It either doesn’t exist, or it is kept very secret, or it is a power that is so rare that it is, for all intents and purposes, forever lost. However, just because something doesn’t exist doesn’t stop people from believing that it does.”
“Are we off topic? Are you off being a history professor again?” asked Maya affectionately.
“No,” said Nana, now smiling. The shock of learning of Maya’s plans for England was now wearing off. She was not teaching history, she was living it. “What the nobility may have achieved by marrying into the bloodlines of powerful kings, is to increase the likeliness of breeding rogue males. I mean, think about it. In those days before gunpowder, the nobility were a warrior class. Wouldn’t a warrior family cherish a rogue male as a son? After all, a warrior class would be a psychopathic culture, much as our financial industry is today.”
“So you're saying that there would be a lot of psychos that were kings and nobles, and they would want to bed the daughters of other successful psychos to breed more of them.” The penny dropped. "That would explain all the incest in the noble families. They were trying to breed super psychos." She shuddered, and sighed.
“Why not?” replied Nana. She thought back through her knowledge of history, but instead chose a modern example. “There was an study done last year by asking Wall Street employees about their bosses. From it, they estimated that one in ten of the bosses on Wall Street were psychos. In the general population the number is one in a hundred. Wall Street has ten times as many psychos as it should have.
Why would we expect the noble families of a thousand years ago to be different? A warrior king like, say, William the Conqueror, would surround himself with psycho warriors, and encourage a culture of psychopathy, just like the Wall Street corporate culture does today.”
“Uh oh. Both my psychiatrist and my monk warned me to be careful. Now I get it.” whispered Maya.
“Warned you of what?”
“They warned me that the biggest danger I present to psychos is not that I can give them a heart attack, but that I can identify them as psychos. No psycho wants to be identified as one. That, like, blows their cover. They would rather do me great harm than have me identify them. The monk told me that in his country, Burma, I would be hunted and killed because of my divvy skill.”
“Sounds like the Medieval witch hunts to me,” Nana speculated. “A thousand years ago you would have been a healer, using your aura and your hands to heal. If the local noble or priest was a psycho and he was afraid you might identify him as such, then they would definitely put you on trial for witchcraft and sentence you to burn.”
“But they didn’t know about psychos in those days,” Maya objected, “that is a modern term.”
“In those days the term would have been Demon. The devil’s spawn. Someone who does evil, and afterwards completely justifies it to themselves,
as if it were their right.” Nana reflected for a moment. “Thinking of it that way, I suppose you would have to include anyone who thought it their right to own and abuse slaves.”
Maya frowned. “You know, Nana, I'm about to go and touch hundreds of psycho - I mean - gifted boys. I'd really rather not be talking about how dangerous psychos are right now.”
“That is exactly why I am telling you this. I am a historian, and historians have been covering up for our ruling elite psychopaths for centuries. It is, after all, the ruling elite who pay the historians.”
Maya had other things on her mind. Her mind was fully busy. She didn’t want to play history word games with a woman who had played them for seventy years. “So you are part of the problem,” she accused.
“Or part of the solution. It is historians like me who are reviewing all the ‘bought and paid for’ historical accounts and are trying to tell the other version. The 'what really happened' version.”
Maya lost her patience and slammed her hand down on the table in front of Nana so hard a spoon jumped off the table and onto the floor. “Well, hell, it’s just too late! Who cares who the bad guys were a thousand years ago? What about the bad guys who are getting away with doing evil today? Like those slavers in India, or those bankers in Wall Street? One in ten a psycho. I believe it. I was on Wall Street last fall. I helped ring the closing bell on the stock market. The whole place reeked of charred toast.”
"Calm down, dear. All I wanted to make clear to you is that these boys you will meet in these elite English schools are not a random selection of psychos. Bloodlines, remember? They were bred to be psychos. Many of their ancestors will have been psychos. Their families are proud that they are 'gifted'. All I am saying is, be careful, be very, very careful."
A boat horn sounded and they both ran to the window. Joseph's classic mahogany Chris Craft was at the float dock. Maya shut her suitcase, collected her coat and side bag and then looked at Nana. They were both crying. She gave the old woman a hug, a long hug. She felt so fragile in Maya's arms. With old people you never knew if it was their last good-bye.
"Don't come down," Maya said through her tears.
"I wasn't planning to," sobbed Nana. "I have work to do. I have a novel to write. Before you come back here I must type up the diaries and from them create the framework of the novel. Filling in the adventures will have to wait for you and your dreamscapes. Oh Maya, dear, be safe."
* * * * *
Wendy, as usual, was impeccable. She stood like a Greek statue in the cockpit of the cruiser. Long brunette hair, perfect tan, tailored power suit, long shapely brown legs. She said nothing until Maya was beside her in the cockpit and her luggage aboard.
Joseph told them to hold on, or better yet, go inside the cabin. They both ignored him and stood straight and tall as he eased away from the float and pointed the bow out into Boston Bay. He had to take a second look, for they looked all the world like two Bond girls out of a Sean Connery movie. He eased the throttles carefully forward so they wouldn't lose their balance and lose the effect. They would hide inside soon enough, once they were out of the lee of the island and into the weather.
"Where are we going?" Maya asked, taking note of the heading.
"To England," replied Wendy immediately.
"No, I mean, why aren't we headed for the peninsula?"
"Because I chartered the boat to take us to Logan Airport. We have first class tickets on the next plane to Heathrow."
Joseph was right. As soon as they hit the line of whitecaps, the women disappeared inside. Standing like a Bond girl in a classic cruiser was weather-related. With them below, he could open up the twin motors and really get this old baby to stand up and howl.
Down below the women were in each other's arms. "Thank you for coming yourself," Maya said. She still felt tender from her good-bye scene with Nana. "I'm so glad you didn't send some huffy Brit psycho to pick me up."
"It's going to be okay, Maya. We have it all arranged. You will be protected at all times."
"I'm sorry to be such a mush-bucket. It's just that I've had a hard winter."
"In India." Wendy's words were not a question.
"You knew."
"As soon as you turn on your phone we know where you are." Wendy cursed herself for saying too much. Maya was skittish enough as it was. "That's how I knew you were here. Look, see this app on my smart phone?" She held her phone so Maya could see. "I'll bring in a map of the four blocks around my apartment in New York. Now watch what happens."
As Maya watched, little icons appeared on the streets of the map. When Wendy hovered the cursor above any of the icons a picture of a young woman appeared complete with a lot of personal information.
"This app is a stalker's dream come true," said Wendy. "It shows you where all the young women are around you. It matches the GPS signals from the phones, to the associated Fadebook pages and finds out which are young women, and then shows you where they are at this moment. It was a cheap download. Very useful to keep track of you."
"But that is disgusting. You're right. It's a stalker's dream come true. Why don't the police close it down?"
"Because the billion-dollar software companies argue that it only works because the young women don't have the sense to ratchet down their security settings," replied Wendy. Good, she had gotten Maya's mind off the trip to England. She knew how much Maya hated airports and airplanes. They wilted and bruised her aura.
Her aura. Wendy sighed. Twice she had experienced one of Maya's aura massages. Her aura was magical. If Maya were a man she would marry her on the spot. Maybe she should anyway. Don't women get married all the time now? Instead she held the younger woman, held her close to keep her warm.
"While we have this privacy, I should tell you about India," Maya mumbled. "Someone in England should know, just in case." And with that she told Wendy about the sex slavers, and the great fire, and her flight from the police across India, and the commando raid she had taken part in. She purposefully did not tell Wendy about the new ways she had learned to use her aura.
* * * * *
* * * * *
MAYA'S AURA - The Charred Coven by Skye Smith
Chapter 13 - To Windsor, England
Travel by jet is sometimes like being in a time tunnel. You enter an aluminum tube that screams through the heavens and exit in a place that could be in a different century from the place you started. Different in feel, different in culture, different in language, and yes, even different in time. When Maya flew back to the USA from Nepal, her first leg was Katmandu to Singapore. She entered the time tunnel in medieval, filthy Katmandu and exited in Singapore, the best run, most modern, and most pleasant big city on the planet.
There was no such time travel on her flight from Logan to Heathrow, and she was disappointed. In fact, there was very little at Heathrow to tell they were no longer in the USA. Heathrow was a modern bustling airport. The motorway from it was a modern bustling freeway. Even driving on the left side of the road did not shake her, because she had been months in India.
No such time travel, that is, until twenty minutes after leaving Heathrow. Their limo crossed a short bridge across a narrow bend in the Thames river, went through a village with thatched roofs, and then drove through quaint farmland on the flats beneath a huge and towering ancient castle.
"I thought it better that we stay in an inn until you are introduced to the school," said Wendy in her poshest English with just a touch of New York twang. "If you want it, I have reserved a separate room for you, but I think it may be advisable to bunk together. Your choice."
Maya did not take her eyes off the massive castle above them. Sheesh, like sheesh, it was in good repair. "Sounds good. Anything to lay down and get rid of the feel of air travel. But won't that like, cramp your style?" She smiled naughtily, well knowing that Wendy's duties as personal assistant to Sir Nigel, the executive headmaster, included bed duties.
"My style needs to be cramped. Or at least, Sir Nigel's
style needs to be cramped. It is supposed to be a clandestine arrangement. He is becoming too obvious."
Maya never took her eyes from the scenery. They were swinging onto a steep street that led uphill to a town just outside the walls of the monster castle. The car stopped at what looked like a medieval shop, complete with funny glass panes in the windows, and the driver jumped out to open the door for them.
"It doesn't look like much from the outside," Wendy said, "but behind the Olde English facade it is quite modern and quite spacious." She led Maya through the street door, followed by the driver with the luggage.
The first thing Maya saw was that the front of the building, with the cutesy window panes, was like a coffee shop and there were two quite large bovine women tucking into a tray of small cakes, including some that looked like chocolate brownies.
"Umm, Wendy, I need a chocolate fix. You check me in. I'm going to grab that window table and order tea." Maya was well versed in the decorum of English Tea. Not only from India, but from her Nana's cottage. She sat in the chair that faced out the window at the closest looming tower of the castle and just stared. This was so not Kansas.
There was still no sign of a server, and the sight of the two big women's plate of cakes was making her feel faint. "Uh, excuse me, umm, I just got off a long flight and I really need to eat some chocolate to make me feel better. Do you mind if I have one of your brownies? I'll give you one of mine when they arrive."
The woman nearest to her didn't even finish her mouthful of cake before she said, through the mushing of cake, "Why sure, honey. Help yourself. Where ya from? We's from Texas." The woman was old enough to be Maya's mother, and she immediately assumed that role. She passed the entire plate of cakes over so Maya could choose.
"Mendocino, you know, in California," Maya said a split second before she popped an entire brownie in her mouth and started to moan in chocolate ecstasy.