Emily's House (The Akasha Chronicles) (28 page)

“Yes.”

“But if I put the boat in way up there, by that big oak. . .”

“Then you are with the oak at that moment. . .”

“And that is like the future.”

“Precisely.”

“I can put my boat in the stream wherever I want to. So are you saying that the same is true of time – I can go to any time that I want simply by choosing it?”

“Your Anam is eternal. You already exist in all places that ever existed and all time that ever was or will be. Once you understand this truth – once you know it to be true - then yes, your Anam can go to any place that it wants to because, you see, you are already there.”

“Akasha. . .”

“Yes.”

I felt like I had to sit down. A sturdy chair appeared behind me. I fell into it and sat there in a stupor.

“Difficult lesson for humans. Your bodies and all your creations seem so solid, permanent and real to you. So hard for you to accept that you can cast it aside whenever you like and be wherever and whenever you want solely by your desire to do so. And even harder to comprehend that, with practice, you can even take that body with you. All the humans I have met over the ages, this has been the hardest lesson for them.”

I was barely listening to the Goddess at that point. My mind raced. If I could be anywhere or anytime that I wanted, I knew exactly where I wanted to be. Home – the one with a mother singing and painting vibrantly colored flowers and making Sunday breakfast.

“Yes, you can go there. But the past is a tricky business for the soul traveler.”

Her voice brought me out of my reverie.
What was she saying about tricky business?

“What do you mean ‘tricky business’? I though you said I can go wherever and whenever I wanted to?”

“Oh you can but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you should.”

“But I was happy then! I want to feel that way again, if only for a minute or two. To see her smiling face. To hear her laughter, like a million bells ringing. To feel her hug. . .”

Tears once again sprang from my eyes. My longing to see my mother again was so great, I don’t think Brighid herself could stop me even if she wanted to.

“Perhaps the best way for you to learn the tricky business of which I speak is to experience it for yourself. Yes, humans do seem to learn best by doing, even if it is painful.”

“So I can go – I can go there now?” I could barely contain my excitement.

“You are already there.”

“But how, Brighid? How do I go?”

“The same way you let yourself be one with the web of all that is. You simply let go of your conscious mind, be one with all that is and then choose your time and place. You will be there instantly.”

I still sat in the chair and relaxed my whole body. I followed my breath as Madame Wong had taught me – focusing on the in and out – in and out. A gentle wave. I imagined a stream and I pictured myself in a rowboat. I pictured myself traveling down the stream. As I relaxed and focused on my breath and the stream, I felt the chair beneath me disappear, but I didn’t fall to the ground.
Focus Emily
. I knew that if I lost focus, I was likely to fall on my keister.

The boat followed the current down the placid stream. Soon I was enveloped by a thick fog and couldn’t see more than two feet ahead of me. It seemed like an eternity that I drifted slowly in that fog, all the while concentrating as hard as I could on the exact place and time that I wanted to be.

Then the mists started to clear and the fog lifted. I was no longer in a boat floating down a gentle stream. I was walking up a very familiar sidewalk toward a very familiar house.

This was like déjà vu all over again. The last time I did this –
was it a few minutes ago or years ago?
– my hopes were shattered.
Will it be the same this time?
Or will I finally have what I’ve hoped for?

51. The Slippery Slopes of Time

This time as I walked up the wooden steps onto the creaky porch, it felt different. This house – my house – was no longer shrouded in mist. This was utterly familiar. Same red door. Same snapdragons and sweet William in the front flowerbed.

My face lit up in a huge smile. I was home.

I opened the door and the smell of chocolate chip pancakes filled my nostrils. Coffee, bacon. Sunday morning breakfast at my house.

I practically ran to the back of the house to the sunny kitchen. I couldn’t wait to hug my mom once more and hear her laugh and smell her hair – all earthy and spicy at the same time.

But as I neared the kitchen, I stopped and listened to their voices. I heard my mom laughing as if at the funniest joke ever. I heard my dad chuckle and flip the page of his newspaper.

And then another familiar voice. I knew that voice as if it was my own. It
was
my own!

I crept down the hall and peered around the corner to get a view of the kitchen scene. There she was, flipping a pancake on the electric griddle. There was my dad, hidden behind his paper with a cup of steaming coffee in front of him. He wasn’t a zombie back then, but he did bury himself in his paper every Sunday morning.

And there, sitting at the breakfast bar counter, another familiar face. My own, only it was a seven year old me. I was holding court, trying my best to make her laugh. I loved to see her smile. And from the looks of it, I was doing a good job of it. I had my cheeks stuffed full of pancake and was acting like a monkey eating, cracking her up.

A dilemma. If I barged in there, they were going to be like ‘who the hell is this’. And I couldn’t very well pick up this life where I left it off – I was fourteen now, not seven. And this place – this past – it already had a me in it.

What do they always say in science fiction movies? If you go back in time, you can screw up the whole time line and change the future. What if my little seven-year-old self saw me and that screwed up her head to know her future?

My heart thumped loudly in my chest. I wanted so bad to run into my mom’s arms. There she was – so close! And it was really her, not a goddess or ghost of her. Her arms would be warm and soft and real, just like I remembered. I wanted just one more hug. One more look into her eyes. One more smile on her face just for me. Maybe there was a way.

I crept back down the hall and outside. I took a deep breath and then rang the doorbell. I knew my dad wouldn’t take his nose out of his paper to get the door. And my mom didn’t let me answer the door when I was little. She had to come, just had to.

I closed my eyes and waited. I tried to remember to breathe so I didn’t pass out.

I heard the door open. I opened my eyes. There she was.

“Hello. Can I help you?”

“I hope so,” was all I could choke out in a cracked voice.

“Do I know you? You look familiar.”

“You know me very well, Mom.”

She suddenly lost her easy smile and all the color drained from her face at once. She didn’t look frightened exactly, but she took on a serious tone.

“Emily?”

“Yes. It’s me. Seven years from now.”

She yelled back into the house, “I’ll be back in a minute. Liam, can you take your pancakes off the griddle?” as she shut the door behind her and stepped out onto the porch.

“I’m not even going to ask how, but I do want to know why. Why, Emily, have you come here?”

What to tell her?
If I told her the truth, she’d know she was going to die. That seemed a heavy thing to lie on someone. And then the rest – to know her daughter would be in such grave danger.

“I had to see you again.” Tears began to roll down my cheeks.

Then it came – the thing I’d longed for – her embracing arms. She enveloped me in her arms, my head coming to her shoulder, now almost as tall as her. I breathed in the warmth of her body and the earthy spiciness of her. She held me for a good long time, and I let her – let her hold me and stroke my hair as I cried and cried and cried.

I didn’t want to learn more about streams of time and Dughall and the Netherworld. I didn’t want to save the world or be a warrior or a priestess. I wanted to stay there, in that place, with my mother.

I could find a way to stay. I could be a long lost cousin – that’s it! A cousin that they took in.

“Emily, tell me the truth. No lies between us, ever. Right?”

“No lies.”

“Okay, then, why are you here?”

I couldn’t get the words out.

“Does something happen to me in the future?”

I nodded yes.

“I see. And so you came back here to see me again because you miss me?”

Again, I nodded my agreement with her words.

“But there’s more, isn’t there? You’re involved in something – big. How else could you do this – I mean be here?”

Still just a nod.

“Are you in trouble?”

“Not exactly trouble. Danger maybe, but I’m not the one causing trouble.”

“Good – I mean that you’re not in trouble. But danger, I don’t like the sound of that.”

“I don’t want to be in danger anymore. I don’t want to go back and save the world. I want to stay here with you.”

“Oh Emily, I know you do. I know you do sweetheart,” she said as she lightly stroked my cheek. “But you can’t stay here. This isn’t your time any longer.”

“I know, but I can be a cousin or something. We can make up a story, no one will know any better.”

“But if you have a mission in your own time and you don’t go back, who will complete that task in your place? And what if the task isn’t completed at all?”

I didn’t have answers for those questions. Okay, I had answers, but I didn’t like them. The truth was, there wasn’t anyone to take my place. I could see it now. I’m the only one in my own time and space with the knowledge to take Dughall down.

“But. . . I miss you so much,” I sputtered out through huge tears.

My mom’s eyes misted too. This was pretty heavy stuff for her to take in. But she handled it with grace as always.

“Emily, listen to me,” she said as she put her hands on my shoulders. “You are my daughter, and no matter what time or place we’re in, we are always with each other. Don’t you know that by now? Don’t you know that I’m always here,” she said as she put her hand on my heart.

“I know, I know,” I said with tears still spilling down my face. “But it isn’t the same. No amount of enlightenment is going to take away the fact that sometimes I just want a hug from my mom.”

She hugged me tightly to her again. “I know, dear Em, I know. It must be so hard for you. We’re so close.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” I said, remembering in a flash my years of torture at the hands of Muriel.

“Muriel? Oh no. Well, please try to remember that you are stronger than her Emily.”

“I don’t know about that. She packs a pretty mean back hand.”

“I don’t mean just physically, Em. I mean you – your spirit – it’s strong. Muriel, well, inside, she’s quite weak.”

“I don’t think I have to worry about her anymore. Before I left, I think I taught her to back off from me.”

“So you’re going back?”

“I’m going to have to do the right thing here, aren’t I?”

She simply nodded yes, this time her eyes filled with tears.

“Don’t cry. Oh please, I don’t want to see you cry.”

“These are just a mother’s tears of joy and pride. Look at you! What a beautiful and radiant girl you’re growing up to be.”

“I don’t feel beautiful. Mostly I feel awkward and out of place.”

“Oh, that will pass. You’re almost through that, I promise. Stand tall and remember who you are – the real you – in here,” she said as she again pressed her hand gently to my chest. “And remember Emily, I’m always with you.”

“I know – I know that now.”

“Good. Now, I have to go back inside and tend to a precocious young girl and what is probably a pan full of burnt pancakes!”

“Yeah, he didn’t take those off, did he?” I said with a chuckle.

“Emily, take care of yourself. You’re stronger than you think.”

“Yeah, probably.”

We hugged then for a long while, this time without tears. Then she stepped away, turned her back and walked into the house. As she closed the door, I saw her smiling face one last time.

I stood there for what seemed like an eternity. I wasn’t sure it was physically possible for me to move my feet, but eventually I got them to walk down the sidewalk.

As I walked, I thought about my mom and how happy it made me to see her again. But soon my thoughts wandered to the Goddess and to Dughall and then to Fanny and Jake and Zombie Man. They truly needed me. They were counting on me, and I couldn’t let them down.

As I was thinking that, I soon realized that I was back in the mist and fog. I looked up and there was Brighid, her shimmering face changing and morphing.

“You found your way back.”

“You sound a bit surprised.”

“Perhaps. You long so much to be in the presence of the corporeal form of your mother – I admit that I doubted whether your devotion to your friends and father was enough to draw you back.”

“I’m not sure what drew me back, but I’m here anyway.”

“Yes, and I’m glad, young Emily, that you chose to come back. Did you enjoy visiting your past?”

“Well yes, in a way. But I see what you meant – it is tricky business. There was no place for me there. So I’m guessing if I go to my future it will be the same. I’ll already be there?”

“Yes.”

“I’m afraid I gave my mom too much information. She knows that she’s going to die. Will that affect the timeline? Will it change things?”

“It unfolds how it unfolds.”

“I’m not sure I’m ready, Goddess, to take on Dughall. I don’t know what to do yet. I feel lost.”

“You will know when it is time.”

“But that’s just it, we don’t have time! I need to act now. I’ve already been here – how long have I been here?”

“Emily, you know and yet you do not allow yourself to see. Didn’t you just experience with your own senses your ability to slip into any time that you want?”

“Yes, but if I’m already there – well, I hardly see the sense of it.”

“Ah, but for many months of your Earth time, you have been here, not there. Here in a place of no time.”