Feeling the Vibes (9 page)

Chapter Eleven

I
s this still India?” I asked doubtfully.

It
felt
like India, a hot, humid India, though, this time. The sweet, steamy air smelled like a greenhouse filled with flowers. It even
looked
like India, with monkeys chattering in the trees.

In the distance was a complicated-looking building with ornamental domes, reminding me of smaller dilapidated versions of the famous dome at the Taj Mahal.

But all the people in this India were so
white
! I thought in surprise.

Brice was doubtfully checking the GPS on his phone. “Yup, still India. We’re at an ashram ‘beside the sacred river Ganges’ it says here.”

I remembered Mr Allbright explaining that an ‘ashram’ was a special spiritual community where people spent their time chanting and meditating etc.

A young barefoot white woman ran past towing two glum looking kids. The little girls wore grubby saris like their mum. Flowers wilted in their unkempt hair.

“He’s here!” the woman sang out as she ran. “Guru-ji is home at last!”

Everyone stopped doing their yoga or whatever and went dashing after her. Despite not being Indian, all the women were wearing sans. The guys all wore Indian style PJs and love beads with their ethnic shirts.

Brice was still consulting his phone. “Thought so,” he said with a smirk. “It’s the 1960s. The Lurve Revolution.”

“Cool!” said Reuben. “They had some nice tunes back then.”

“What happened in the Lurve Revolution apart from nice tunes?” I asked.

Brice scanned the info on his screen. “Flower Power. Peace not War. Kids dropping out of college ‘to follow their bliss’, whatever the hell that means. Thousands came to India to find spiritual enlightenment, blah blah.”

Not to diss enlightenment, but what those kids needed was soap, water and a good meal, I thought, watching their blissed-out mother drag them through the heat.

We counted another seven grubby, long-haired hippie kids running around the grounds, some barely old enough to toddle, but no little
bodhisattva
.

“Are you quite sure this is the right place?” I asked Helix doubtfully.

Positive. Keep looking
.

We followed the hippie girl and her whining kids up steps, along weed-covered walkways, past weird little shelters ( “meditation pods”, according to Brice’s phone) until we arrived at the front of the ashram where a sleek limousine was just pulling up.

The youngest kid tried to free her hand. “I can’t run any more, Carol,” she whimpered. “My belly
really
hurts.”

“You’ll soon feel better now that Guru-ji is back.” Carol had closed her eyes in some private ecstasy. “Can’t you feel his energy?”

To my surprise I could! A truly sweet vibe radiated from the limo.

“I suppose
some
gurus were genuine,” said Brice doubtfully.

“Could it have been the guru’s vibe that pulled Obi here?” I wondered aloud.

The driver opened the limo door. The vibe was so intense now that I felt slightly dizzy.

The chauffeur went to the back of the limo and helped out an old man in dazzling white robes. His flowing hair was jet black, though his tangled beard was now snowy white in places. His dark eyes were twinkly and v. charismatic. He put his hands together in greeting, very small chubby hands, I noticed, with teeny wrists, like a child’s.

”
Om shanti
,” he told his followers in a surprisingly squeaky voice. “Peace be with you, brothers and sisters. I have brought some very special visitors here to our ashram. But we’ve had a long journey and we need to rest.”

Two more cars came swooping up the drive. Four long-haired guys with guitars got out. Other long-haired people got out: girlfriends, roadies, hangers on, but nobody looked at them, me included.

“Tell me I’m dreaming,” I breathed.

Brice shook his head. “No, it’s really them,” he said almost reverently.

We all gawped at the four most famous celebs in the history of pop. They looked disappointingly hot and grumpy, except my nan’s fave, who gave everyone the peace sign as he hurried up the steps and into the ashram.

”
Bodhisattva
alert,” said Reuben softly. “Bottom of the steps to the left.”

Distracted by rock stars, I had missed the serene little boy sitting in the shade of a flowering creeper.

My theory that Obi had been magnetised to this ashram by the guru’s vibes could be right. He sat totally still, absolutely mesmerised, like he’d literally been glued to the step.

I was about to rush to him, when Carol went hurtling after her guru. “Guru-ji! I really need to talk to you!” She caught pleadingly at his robe.

“Not now, little sister.” He gave her a not too-friendly smile.

“But Guru-ji, I’ve had a major breakthrough in my meditation!”

The guru freed himself nimbly from her grasp, vanishing into the ashram without another word. Carol stood staring after him like a little kid who’s been forbidden to bother the grown-ups.

I’d just met her, but it was pretty obvious that Carol’s life hadn’t panned out like she’d hoped. Being ignored by her guru seemed to be the final straw. She collapsed into a sobbing, quivering heap.

The other ashram members didn’t pay any attention either to the weeping Carol or her dismayed little girls. They were too busy whinging about having their exclusive retreat invaded by pop stars.

Only one person seemed concerned. The guru’s driver watched the little family with compassion before silently making his way over.

I slipped through the crowd until I was right in front of Obi.

“Hello,” I said softly.

“Melanie! You founded me!”

He looked so delighted that I hugged him without thinking.

“Oh!” I said in surprise.

“Ah!” said Brice. “That’s interesting.”

Obi’s human molecules had somehow reverted en route. Once again he was invisible to humans, also v. huggable by angels!

“We’ve got him; that’s all that matters,” I said happily. “The Agency will reconnect him to the whatsit, the temporal thingy, then we can get him to the monks.” (Then we’d be in BIG trouble, but I couldn’t think about that now.)

Carol was sitting up and blowing her nose. Hugely relieved, her little girls went to sit beside Obi (obviously they didn’t know he was there) and all three children watched the driver gently calming Carol.

“I love him SOO much, Dev,” she wailed. “I think it’s made me a bit crazy.”

Hello
, I thought unkindly.

Dev smiled. “Many people from overseas are loving this guru.”

“I’m always DOING this though,” Carol bleated. “I keep ON giving my heart to people, but they ALWAYS let me down.”

“All is change,” Dev said philosophically. “All is impermanence, madam.” He produced a ragged duster, swishing it over the bonnet of the guru’s limo, scattering tiny insects.

“Guru-ji’s getting so famous we hardly see him as it is. Now he’ll shut himself away all day with these rock stars. They’re not even true believers. They’re just doing it because it’s the in thing.” Carol started into a long rant about this latest betrayal of her trust, but Dev quietly interrupted her flow.

“Madam, how many years you are searching now?”

She looked startled. “Searching?”

“Yes, madam. I think you are searching a long time. But all this searching is only making you more unhappy.” His eyes strayed to Carol’s unwashed little girls.

“And your daughters, they are not happy also and they are not well, madam. The food at this ashram does not suit their stomachs. But this I think you do not wish to see.”

“So I should just go back home, is that what you’re telling me?” she said angrily. “Go home, get my hair permed, be an ordinary mum?”

“I do not know what is ordinary or not ordinary,” he said simply. “But I think what you are searching for, madam, you cannot find by running from ashram to ashram. If you find it, I think it will be only by staying extremely still.” Dev spoke firmly but with absolute gentleness.

Carol’s mouth opened soundlessly then closed again. She looked at her anxious little daughters, then she looked back at Dev and all her self-pity and anger just - went.

“Wow,” Reuben breathed.

“On your bike, Guru-ji,” Brice said softly. “This guy’s the real deal.”

It wasn’t Guru-ji, the celebs’ guru, who was putting out spectacular vibes. It was Dev, his driver!

Dev’s fabulously pure energy had jolted Carol back to Earth from Planet Guru, or wherever she’d been hanging out the past few years. Dev’s vibes had also attracted a lost child
bodhisattva
into his orbit, like a teeny, lonely asteroid being pulled towards a friendly star.

I wondered if Dev was one of those unknown souls Sam mentioned, who turn India’s pain into love and Light? Dev wasn’t famous. I doubt many people knew he existed, yet he was making a difference to the Universe, purely by living and breathing. By being himself basically.

Brice immediately texted the Agency to notify them of Obi’s new Space-Time co-ordinates. I know. Really brave. But the text mysteriously refused to go.

“Probably your phone got an energy overload in the tunnels,” Reuben suggested.

Brice tugged at his spiky hair. “It’s still getting info. It just won’t send messages.”

Dev was watching Carol walk away with her little girls. Hopefully they were going to pack their bags and get a life. He locked the car, smiling to himself, and strolled off to a row of bungalows. I suppose they were like the servants’ quarters. (I was shocked, actually, that an ashram, a supposedly spiritual place, would have servants.)

“Dev’s wife is having a baby,” Obi told us, eyes sparkling. “She’s called Saraswati and she’s really pretty. Come and see.”

We exchanged looks. How did Obi
know
this stuff?

“Well, it’s not like we’re going anywhere,” Brice said.

Adding our shoes to the row of dusty human shoes outside we followed Dev into his house.

They didn’t own a great deal, Dev and Saraswati: a string bed for sleeping, a paraffin burner for cooking, a plastic bowl for hygiene, but the vibes in that house were
a-mazing
. Dev and Saraswati’s vibes combined, plus the special vibes from their unborn child, practically took the top of my head off.

Saraswati had been praying. A tiny stub of sandalwood incense was still burning in front of a tin statue of Krishna.

“Has my child been behaving?” Dev was asking.

“He has been kicking me day and night,” Saraswati complained, patting her belly. “I think he was missing his father!”

Despite her scarily huge belly, Saraswati moved with the grace of a dancer. Her bangles jingled as she poured Dev a drink of cooling yoghurt. Obi was wrong; she wasn’t pretty. She was beautiful.

“So it
is
a boy then?” Dev teased.

I glanced at Obi and was taken aback to see his eyes soft with love. “Obi, who are these people?” I asked.

A bewildered little frown crinkled his forehead. He looked almost scared. “I told you,” he said quickly, “he’s called Dev and she’s called Saraswati.” Obi gabbled the names like a rhyme he knew by heart, but didn’t fully understand.

“But you seem like you really know them. And you said Saraswati was having a baby. How did you know?”

Obi’s face crumpled. “I don’t know.” The room spread and rippled like wet silk. Brice made a grab just too late. Obi had hopped times again.

Chapter Twelve

I
t had seemed like such a simple mission. Take a child
bodhisattva
to India, hand him over to the monks, go back home.

I’d forgotten that nothing on Planet Earth is ever simple.

“It’s my fault,” I said miserably as Brice wearily led us back to the time tunnels. “I was interrogating him like a cop.”

“It’s not your fault,” Reubs contradicted.

Brice agreed. “Now he’s unplugged from the time grid, I don’t think anything seems quite real to our little Obi Wan now except his feelings, which feel like,
gigantic
. That’s what Florentina said. She said it felt like she was one massive nerve-ending flitting through a world of dreams.”

This made sense. In dreams the least little thing can knock you off balance, even just being asked a question you can’t answer.

Knowing this made me feel less like a complete loser, but I really wasn’t looking forward to going back into the time tunnels.

Even supposing that the wrong thing is sometimes the only thing, using them twice seemed like pushing it.

Though they acted super-casual, the boys seemed equally uneasy.

Outside the familiar flashing curtain I took a breath and silently hooked up with my inner angel. “Helix, I’m so sorry, we lost him again.”

But she was unflappable as always. No probs, we’ll sort it this time.

Helix seemed so sure of herself, my heart leaped. “You can really stop him time-hopping?”

‘Fraid not, sweetie, but we can make it so you stick with him whatever. He’s seriously confused now, OK, so no matter what happens in the tunnels, stay v. focused.