Claiming Her. Marilyn "Mattie" Brahen
the stopping point, to gauge where to begin the next segment.”
“Yes, sir,” Rosemary says. She pulls a red accordion file from the previously empty drawer and places it on the desk. I peer into it. There appears to be a plain manila folder, lettersized, a shiny hard black rectangle approximately five inches by seven inches, and what looks like a diamond prism. “Everything in order?” she asks me.
“I wouldn’t know,” I tell her.
“You wouldn’t?” This clearly confuses her, which in turn confuses me. Why does she think I would understand any of this? This is the craziest dream I’ve ever had.
“It is not a dream,” Quatama says, and upon hearing that, I start to hyperventilate.
Quatama reaches out and touches my inner elbow. A cloud of silver sparkles seems to rotate around me, in front of my eyes, and I suddenly feel calmer.
“She doesn’t know,” Rosemary says, her voice hushed again.
“No. She doesn’t know,” Quatama agrees. “Is the viewing room ready?”
“I prepared it a second ago, sir. And the report on her intake limitations is in the small folder. The buffer crystal is also set and ready for transmittal.”
Quatama lifts out the onyx rectangle. “The record is detailed?”
“Nothing pertinent left out, master.”
“I will probably realign it for virtual reenactment later on. For now, we’ll let her start her past life recall from a spectator’s viewpoint.”
“The record is set to that option, sir.”
Quatama offers her a pleased smile, returning the black stone to the accordion file. “You’re a very efficient aide, Rosemary.”
She beams. “Thank you, Quatama. So many people find this service so helpful. I get excited just knowing I’m helping them to help themselves.” She says this so sincerely, I think I am back in the sixties. Peace, love, and brotherhood.
Rosemary’s eyes dart over, locking sharply with my own. “I did mean that.”
“Oh!”
Quatama is grinning, closed mouth. He appears to be holding in a gale of laughter. Picking up the file, he moves to the inner door, opening it outwardly. I see another corridor beyond. “Leianna?”
I head through the door, then turn back to Rosemary. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. I think it’s wonderful that you love your job.”
I get an amused smile in return.
She regards me, then Quatama. “You really did keep a tight veil over her, didn’t you?”
“Yes.” His smile remains ever patient. “But now we are lifting it.” Rosemary parts her lips, about to speak. “Please, no questions,” he tells her. “I do not have answers yet.”
* * * *
Beyond the door are smaller enclosed rooms. Some are apparently occupied, a small triangle glowing white on the center of their closed entrance doors. We reach one whose triangle appears to be clear glass.
Quatama touches the triangle; it begins glowing beneath his hand and the door opens, as if welcoming us. We enter what looks like a small projection booth: a white screen about three yards square fills the bulk of the wall beyond us, in front of it, two cushioned, quite comfortable-looking chairs. Quatama gestures me into the right-hand one, and places the accordion file on the wide seat of the other chair.
Lifting out the small manila folder, he scans the data inside, puts it back, and removes the tiny diamond prism. “It is skane, not diamond,” he says.
“Skane?”
“Pure energy, compressed and solidified. Very precious.”
He brings the sparkling prism over to me. “This will not cause you any discomfort.”
Still, I back perceptibly into the chair as he aims the prism toward my diaphragm. He stops, holds the prism flat in his hand and offers it to me. “Here. You can insert it yourself. Touch the edge to your solar plexus. It will disappear, its energy transferring into you. The energy is predirected. It will guard you against overstimulation of your neurological synapses.”
I take the prism from him gingerly and, with some trepidation, rest the edge against my stomach.
“A bit higher,” Quatama says.
I move it slightly upward and watch dumbfounded as its radiance begins to build rapidly until I hold nothing in my hand, now open and empty, my mouth gaping in wonder, as what appears to be sparkling atoms rotate slowly and seep into my astral body.
I feel a tickling in my stomach and a lightheadedness, and then these sensations stop. I feel normal again . . . as normal as possible under these circumstances.
“Good,” Quatama says. “Now we can begin.”
He removes the black stone from the accordion file, holds it before the viewing screen and gently pushes it into the clear white space. The screen gives way, as if it were wet sculptor’s clay, absorbing the opaque rectangle completely.
Quatama places the file on the floor between our chairs and sits down. “There is no need to show you your immortal birth. Many are embarrassed viewing that. My goal is to show you the people who shaped your first entry into eternal life, their influence upon you and yours upon them. You must understand the interaction between souls, for in the future, you may have to make decisions based upon the goals, needs and desires of those you interacted with in this particular lifetime . . . as well as your own needs, goals and desires and those of your loved ones in your current life.”
The screen begins to flicker, to take on shape and sound. Images congeal and sharpen, and I stare at Eliom, the Eliom I’d dreamt of, living with my father Michael.
The clay cottage with its thatched roof is outwardly similar to the other homes dotting the undulating rises and dips of the land, the hillscape of Eliom, more widely inhabited than the current landscape where Quatama and the other spirit masters reside.
The screen image alters, showing the interior of my and Michael’s cottage, much more gaily decorated, evidencing a woman’s touch other than my own. Refreshments—fruits, vegetables, and nuts, both whole and prepared in tempting-looking recipes, spicy breads and sweet cakes, and jugs and pitchers of what looks like honeyed wines or fruit nectars—are laid out on a broad wooden table. Wooden cutlery and plates and clay goblets also rest on the table.
All appears untouched, as if awaiting guests at a feast.
Thick cushions rest in corners of the front room; some cover a long wooden bench paralleling the laden table.
A young man descends from the sleeping loft above, turns and moves forward on the screen. He smiles gently down at something. The picture adjusts to show the object of his interest. He peers paternally into a small, ornately carved, wooden cradle, a tiny infant asleep within it.
The man seems vaguely familiar with his curly brown hair and soft brown eyes. I have no inkling of who the baby might be.
I hear Quatama’s light musical laughter again. “The child in the cradle is your own infant self, Leianna. The man is your father, Michael, before sorrow lined his face.”
A woman enters the room, from the backroom, the storeroom. She carries a bowl of bright orange leaves, placing them on the feast table. Her soft auburn hair falls in lush ringlets to the small of her back. She is short, small-boned, an aura of fragility about her. She turns to Michael, and I study her face, vaguely familiar, but somehow disturbing, as if those alarming green eyes, diminutive nose and softly curved lips have somehow caused me great pain.
“Your mother, Eve,” Quatama says. The light in the viewing room dims until we sit in near darkness, as if in a theater.
“Yes,” Quatama remarks. “Very much so. The darkness