Oh, he’s gay, she thought.
“Nope,” he said.
That time she was certain she hadn’t actually spoken out loud.
She got another cookie and said, “The Boss, Le Seigneur, said some stuff to me and Nick about a School for Mysteries. What did he mean?”
Christophe turned off his tablet and set it aside. Apparently this question was pleasing to him. “The purpose of the cosmos is to evolve,” he said, “to increase consciousness, to become free, and then to use that freedom selflessly for the benefit of others. It is a big job, a huge, long-term effort.
“There have always been people who were more advanced in their understanding, more aware of things, and thus more capable of actively participating in the evolution of consciousness. The saying that it is lonely at the top is even more apropos at the highest levels of human consciousness. Recall that the finest specimens of humanity fell asleep at the Garden of Gethsemane.
Only the men, thought Phoebe.
“You are correct of course and that is a very advance and meaningful observation,” said Christophe. “So these awakened people naturally tended to seek each other out. They tried to congregate and form schools so the more advanced individuals could teach the pupils who had the greatest potential.
“During all the ages these schools are known to have existed. Although their teachings were held in the strictest secrecy, the existence of the schools themselves was not always a secret. Some of the schools and their teachers were quite famous, for example, Zarathustra, and some of them less so, like Alanus ab Insulus, or as his name is said in French instead of Latin, Alain de Lille. He was teacher at Chartres, which was the last of the great mystery schools.”
“Was Buddha one of the teachers?”
“Yes,” he said. “The mystery schools have been in many places around the world at different times. The most well-known ones were, in chronological order, in India, Persia, Egypt, Greece, Ireland, and France.”
“Does this have something to do with why we are going to France?”
“Yes.”
Phoebe waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. That, in itself, seemed ominous. He wasn’t afraid to talk to her about reincarnation, karma, and the schools for mysteries, but whatever was coming, he didn’t want to talk about. Phoebe excused herself and went to get some more milk.
The galley was next to the cockpit and the door was standing open. Phoebe peeked in. The pilot sensed someone behind him and glanced over his shoulder. “You’re welcome to come in if you’d like,” he said.
She crept forward into the small space that was crammed with electronics. The dashboard was massive and wrapped around. There were dozens, probably hundreds, of switches. How could anyone ever learn what they were all for? Just thinking about it made her dizzy.
“What kind of plane is this?” Phoebe asked.
“It’s a Gulfstream G550 V9,” the co-pilot said.
“How fast are we going?”
He glanced at a gauge and said, “476 knots. That’s about 550 miles an hour.”
“How high up are we?”
“Our current altitude is 47,000 feet.”
Phoebe was startled. She had no idea what number she’d expected to hear, but that sounded really high, like a space ship. She tried to cipher it out in the head and said, “That’s almost nine miles!”
She leaned forward to peer out. “The window feels cold.”
“It’s about -70° out there.”
“Minus seventy?”
There was nothing but water below them. No signs of solid ground whatsoever, and a lot of sky. “Where are we?”
“The middle of the Atlantic Ocean,” the co-pilot said. “It’s about 3,600 miles from New York to Paris. But don’t worry. This is a heavy jet, it has a lot of range. We don’t need to hug the coast. The smaller jets have to do that because they need to stay over land as much as possible. They don’t have enough fuel to make it straight across like we do, so they fly in an arc over Canada, Iceland, and Ireland.”
She looked at the dark blue ocean, then thanked the two men and went back to her seat. Christophe had moved to the back, so apparently class was dismissed. Phoebe flopped down onto the couch, sagged over onto her side, and promptly fell asleep.
Chapter 41
By the time Phoebe woke up they’d flown from daylight into the darkness. Phoebe tried to remember what day it was. It had been Wednesday when she went to sleep, but during the night it must’ve become Thursday. Christophe said they were getting close to France. Phoebe kept an eye out for anything she could recognize. She knew Chartres was near Paris and to the southwest of the great city, but she didn’t know if they were headed to some special landing strip there, or if they’d have to continue on to Paris to land and then double back by car or train.
She squinted into the darkness and made out a narrow band of glowing white on the horizon. She decided it might be the west coast of France. Within moments the plane flashed over clusters of light that must’ve been villages and towns but she couldn’t discern anything in particular as they zoomed toward the center of France.
It was still dark when they landed at a private airport outside Chartres. They were met by a young man who introduced himself as Phillipe. He took some paperwork from Christophe and carried it to an immigration official. Phoebe watched an animated discussion. There was a great deal of gesturing. It dawned on Phoebe that she’d arrived without a passport. After a few minutes of extremely lively debate, and much shrugging, Christophe and Phoebe were whisked away by Phillipe in his small white Peugeot.
“He is my wife’s cousin,” said Phillipe nodding toward the immigration officer, as if that explained everything. He drove them at astonishing speed along narrow, but well-maintained paved roads and into the city of Chartres. The streets became progressively more narrow. The most slender of them was little more than alley and was paved with bumpy cobblestones. Phillipe whipped into a parking space next to an elegant building faced with ashlar limestone typical of 18th century France.
He hopped out and opened Phoebe’s door for her before she could do it herself. “Madame,” he said, with a flourish. Phoebe was a little disappointed that they would be transacting their business, whatever it might be, in a regular building rather than the Cathedral, but she kept a lid on it.
A few minutes later she was glad she hadn’t spoken because they were headed for the Cathedral. The structures in the center of the city were built so tightly together it was hard to see that they were actually next to the Cathedral. She noticed this when it occurred to her to look up instead of horizontally.
Girl, you’re not in White Oak any more, she said to herself, as she took in the massive spires and flying buttresses.
There was an odd density to the air. It increased as they walked along the cobblestone streets, heading for the Cathedral. Like other well-known power spots like the Smokies or Sedona, there was a palpable difference in the vibes. It was becoming overpowering. They were approaching a holy place. Phoebe was afraid she was going to cry.
They came out of an alley and into the open space surrounding the Cathedral and she could see it. She hadn’t really known what to expect, but something about this wasn’t right. She had no idea why she believed this, but she was certain of it.
Phillipe and Christophe continued up the walkway and headed to the nearest entrance, but Phoebe balked, confused. She felt rooted to the spot and couldn’t make herself go any further.
Christophe came back to where she was standing and looked at her. “Are you having memories?” he asked gently.
Tears began to stream down her face. “This place…it’s not right.” She was feeling extremely disoriented, like she was losing her mind. She swiped at her eyes and said, “I don’t even know what I’m sayin.”
Christ
ophe stepped close to her and put his arm around her. “Just let it come. You are remembering. It is normal. It is good.”
“People died here,” she said, grief stricken. “They killed the monks here, didn’t they? And there was a fire. But not at this place,” she said, pointing at the Cathedral. “It didn’t look like this. It was over there,” she pointed to one side of the Church, to an area of lawn that now stood empty. “The good place was over there, not here. But I don’t know what it was.”
She wiped her face with her hands and sniffed, calming down now that the initial shock was over. “Can we go over there?” she asked.
Christophe nodded. He walked her slowly over to the patch of lawn that seemed important to her in a way she couldn’t understand. She stood there, utterly overwhelmed, a flood of tears silently streaming down her face. “I’m sorry,” she said, sniffing. “I know I’m being crazy.”
“Not crazy,” Christophe said, “You are standing on the site of The School of Chartres. It was here long before this Cathedral. You are standing on the place that was the center of Christendom for hundreds of years. But at the end of the 13th century, the school was attacked, the students were killed, and the building was burned, then razed.
“It is not permitted for me to say anything about your particular incarnations, but I can tell you we are also standing on a ley line. You are feeling that, I think, as well. There is a line that extends across Europe that runs through many holy sites. Some people can feel it, some can’t. We brought you here to see if you would remember. We thought it would help and we knew it would be easier for you from now on if you could. Now that you have been shocked like this, you will begin to awaken and sense your destiny, and remember your task for this lifetime.”
Phoebe stood leaning against Christophe and wailed, “They killed the teachers.”
“Yes,” Christophe said. “The very last of the holy men who had actual experience of the oneness of all things. The last of the ones who were capable of active contact with the spiritual world. But it was alright. They knew this change had to come and they were prepared for it.
“It was necessary for the world and men to go dark, all the way, so we could then learn to make our way back to God using our own consciousness. No more passive mysticism, no more intercession through priests, no more throwing ourselves at the feet of Christ and asking to be saved without any work on our own behalf. Those days had to end.
“Christ needs co-workers now, He needs for us to work beside Him as His brothers. And He is taking a terrible gamble to see if we will be able to step up to the mark. Romans 8:22 For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
“This is the only way for us to develop free will. That is our job—to reestablish our connection to Heaven through our own efforts on an individual basis.
“Because the angels do not have free will, they have never been tested in this way. They do not fully understand what it is like for us to be down here with a limited consciousness and exposure to evil. We are doing something the angels have the greatest respect for. And they need for us to succeed. Heaven is relying on us.”
Chapter 42
“All of creation is relying on us. It is up to us to chose to love, to be selfless, even to people outside our own families, even to our enemies, even though nearly everything in our conscious mind and this material world is telling us that that is a mistake.”
“I’m scared,” Phoebe said.
Christophe hugged her hard. “Who wouldn’t be? The future of the entire Cosmos is riding on it. But you had to wake up first. And now you have. That is something important. Now there is one more awakened human being on the right side of things. That is the way we have to do it now. One soul at a time.”
She could feel herself drawing strength from him, even though as he held her so tightly she could also sense for the first time how exhausted he was. He was tired beyond imagining, but it hadn’t diminished his beauty.
“You will become more conscious about things now. You will gradually learn to discern where your consciousness is residing. You will learn to be more objective rather than whimsical and subjective, not only about the small things, but even about your own existence.
“The biological mechanism of the body wants to live. That is all it knows. But the spirit knows better. It does not experience fear or death. The soul feels emotions, and mediates between our life body and our spirit. Our soul feels fear and greed and grief. But our spirit has direct knowledge and experience that it is eternal. We have to learn to maintain conscious contact with our spirit or we cannot function at a high level. This path is not for the weak ones.”
They stood together, clinging to each other, until Phoebe felt capable of turning around and facing the Cathedral. She watched all the visitors milling around, taking pictures, oblivious to the great dramas that had played out between God and the Devil on the humble patch of lawn a few yards away. And to the implications of those great dramas.
“When you saved Nicolas, we realized you had been sent to us. Even though you were largely unconscious, you stepped up and improvised an effective solution and did what had to be done. That is a priceless quality. Indeed, look at the information that is flooding the global consciousness of humanity because of what you have done in the last few days!
“Those of us who work with Le Seigneur try to locate as many of our brethren as we can, as quickly as we can. And then we do whatever it takes to jump start their memories of their previous preparation.”
“Like transporting me 4,500 miles and standing me on a patch of grass to see what, if anything, would happen?”
“Exactly,” he said.
“What about this necklace,” Phoebe asked, touching the chain around her neck. “Was that just a trick?”
“No, not a trick. We do need to deliver the lavaliere to an associate here. And we do not send these sorts of things in the mail. Miss McFarland, the sacred and the profane are always entwined. It is always a mixed bag, whoever you are dealing with and whatever you are trying to achieve. That is the fundamental nature of life on Earth.”
Phillipe was waiting for them at an astonishing triple doorway surrounded by hundreds of statues carved into the exterior wall. He was spring-loaded to give Phoebe a tour of the Cathedral. They walked up the wide stone steps to the doors. The place was massive. And cold and dark inside.
“This is the first great gothic cathedral built in the world,” said Phillipe. “It was built in a single great burst and has remained the most unchanged, the most intact, of all the great cathedrals.
“This building was mostly constructed between 1194 and 1250. A mighty impulse went out from this place. Chartres is the mother cathedral of Ameins, Reims, Rouen, Paris, Lincoln and Salisbury, Bamburg and Cologne.”
It seemed ancient beyond the thousand years of the stone structure. It felt, and smelled, incalculably old. Phoebe decided to test her fledgling confidence in seat-of-the-pants notions. “There’s something strong underneath here isn’t there?”
Phillipe gave a tiny leap of excitement at the chance to tell her about the crypt beneath the church and the cult of the Black Madonna. “There is a healing well inside the cathedral that was in constant use until the French Revolution when it was desecrated. The Black Madonna was also destroyed during the Revolution.
“This place was a shrine to the eternal feminine. The founding relic of Chartres is not a dead body or a piece of a dead body like most other cathedrals. It is a veil said to have been worn by Mary during the birth of Jesus. There are no dead interred in this place—not a single grave, or tomb, or crypt.
“That is because this is a shrine to birth, not death. It is a place that celebrates the task of each human being to develop their consciousness so that they are able to have a direct experience of the divine. This is not a place of
abstract scholarship or dull rote beliefs.”
He jabbered as he led them to one of the enormous stone pillars that held up the roof. There was a gothic door in the base of the column. Phillipe touched three protuberances on a bit of stone carving beside the door in a sequence and there was a soft click. He opened the door and led the way up a tight spiral staircase. Christophe brought up the rear and closed the door behind them.
They climbed until Phoebe had to ask for a rest. She looked up as she waited to catch her breath. The staircase seemed to go on forever. She noticed Phillipe didn’t bother to say, It’s not far now or We’re almost there.
She nodded when she was ready to resume the climb. Eventually they reached a landing and Phillipe opened another ancient looking wooden gothic door and led them into a small cluttered room. A beautiful, chic, silver haired woman was sitting behind a desk, wearing a nubby tweed Chanel suit and pearls. Phillipe introduced them. It was Chantelle.
She enquired about their trip. Phoebe was too out of breath to answer, so Christophe did it for her as he unfastened the clasp on her necklace and handed it over. Chantelle obviously knew and adored Christophe. Who wouldn’t? They had an intense discussion about restaurants and Chantelle recommended one for lunch and a different one for dinner.
Christophe asked if Armand was around. She said he was. Then he spoke a couple of very fast sentences to her in French. Phoebe noticed this immediately because he’d never done it before.
She realized he was intentionally concealing something from her and said, “Would it help if I moved back so you two could conspire in private?”
He shook his head, “Not necessary.”
Phoebe, Phillipe, and Christophe stood above the North Rose Window on an exterior walkway. They looked out across the city from their open-air perch. The dawn and the breeze were refreshing after the dark, still interior of the ancient building.
Carolyn Jourdan - Nurse Phoebe 02 - The School for Mysteries Page 16