Claiming Her. Marilyn "Mattie" Brahen
in my life.
—You’ve got the devil himself shadowing your steps.—
—Bael?—
—Baelzebub. —
—No, not the same,— I shot back. —A fantasy god created hundreds of years ago by uneducated mortals. By human ignorance.—
Daniel whimpered. I stretched, loosening my muscles.
Ginnie’s alarm clock buzzed. My sister moaned, tightened the covers about her, and tried to ignore the clock’s whine.
I got out of bed, bracing myself against the chill in the room. I walked over to Ginnie’s dresser and pushed in the alarm switch. “You’d better get up, Gin. School day.”
Daniel was also awake. I picked him up and carried him back to my bed, slipping my legs back under the covers and pulling the edge of the blanket around him.
“What time is it?” Ginnie mumbled.
“Seven.”
“Mmn.” In one continuous motion, Ginnie flung off her blankets and scurried to the bathroom down the hall, making chilly noises on the way. Daniel had begun to nod off again, lulled by the extra warmth of my blanket and my body heat.
I didn’t disturb him. I savored the quiet, the renewed warmth.
Terence approached me again. In my mind’s eye, I could see him clearly: moderate height, shoulder-length dark blond hair, watery blue eyes, stolid proletarian curves in his Anglo-Saxon face. A solid Englishman . . . yet not quite as proper a Brit as he’d wish to appear.
I had “met” him in New York’s Central Park in January, 1969, about two months after his death. He had played a trick on me when we met, but I caught him at it. He hadn’t expected me to, as he bent down to softly kiss my lips and lightly brush his hand across my shoulder and breast. He was new to the afterlife and, up till then, no other mortal had paid the slightest attention to his ethereal presence. He hadn’t known I was psychic. His curiosity made him follow me home to my Manhattan apartment where I lived in 1968 and 1969, enjoying my first taste of adult freedom, working as a typist and dating Richard. Terence promptly made himself at home in my apartment and kept humming a haunting strain of classical music, piquing my own curiosity when he claimed the musical passage was from his own composition. I finally tracked down the debut album of Terence’s work, which also became his only recorded work. His music had been beautiful, produced by a major label. The album blurb praised him as an emerging talent. But he, as a classical composer, while he welcomed the money, felt his success was a fluke. The critics had been scathing, and opportunities to perform his work live, the proper venue for classical music, evaporated. His compositions had contained descriptive fantasy elements, a sort of program music made popular in the 19th Century. He later found out that the record company had classified his compositions as instrumental pop music, which horrified him. He knew his work was not well-regarded by the classical community.
The scant articles I found on him agreed. Terence Dearborn’s brilliance, properly nurtured, might have developed into genius. But due to “a romantic temperament,” Terence had floundered on his first steps to success, insisting that the style of the 19th Century romantic composers was equally valid as a modern compositional form, but turning down other modern opportunities to prove it. A film company approached him with an offer to compose the background music for an upcoming fantasy movie. He refused the offer, again believing that the world trivialized his musical vision. He soon wore out the help and compassion of colleagues and friends trying to save him from himself.
One blustery night, late in the Autumn of 1968, having wandered away from a friend’s party and drunk on booze, pills and self-indulgence, he drowned in the sea off Blackpool. The authorities ruled his death a suicide. Terence said that it wasn’t.
He didn’t seem to regret dying at the tender age of twenty-nine. The afterlife suited him, no more worries over material sustenance and shelter. He continued composing on the upper planes and shared his love of music with me by helping me when I played my guitar, developing my talent.
But lately his constant advice on my personal life had become irksome. He was, after all, only my secondary guide, and inexperienced. My major guide was an older man named Emmett, tall and thin, always clothed in a brown robe.
Brown robe! The reenactment of my immortal Naming Day flooded back into my mind. A brown robe! Both Quatama and Gabriel had worn such robes. Michael—the man I now knew to be my immortal father—had been dressed in simple white. His face now came strongly to mind. Although identical to his brother Gabriel, both with cropped brown hair and quiet brown eyes, both with thin but strong jawed faces, I knew that Michael was also the major spirit guide who called himself Emmett. Like Michael, Emmett was quiet, shy, and wise enough to point me, not push me, as a guide.
But why the deception? Why the false name?
—Because you weren’t ready,— Terence broke into my thoughts. —To remember, love. And I know Quatama, too. He’s also my spirit master. He’s also Patrick’s. You remember Patrick, love, my poet friend.— Patrick was an older man with a mane of silver white hair, craggy features, and a barrel chest in an otherwise slim physique. He wrote lovely poems but apparently had never published them on Earth. He said he had been a doctor, but I hadn’t been able to verify his mortal identity. Now, however, he appeared to be a poet and only a poet. Heaven’s reward.
—Quatama is your spirit master?!— Terence and Quatama seemed an incredulous combination.
—Oh, ho! You thought he was exclusively your own, did you? He’s spirit master to many people. Don’t you know who he is? You’re a bit ignorant of other religions, love. I’ll have to guide you to a certain book, just to lay a clue before you, inexperienced as I am . . . or maybe I’ll just tell you, blow your mind a bit, though it may. He’s . . .—
Ginnie came back into the room, grabbing her school clothes from the closet. “Hey, Leigh Ann. How about going downstairs and starting some breakfast for us, so I can get out on time.”
I yawned, wondering what Terence had been pompously driving at. —Later,— I mentally told him, but received no response. “Sure, Gin.” Daniel stirred at the sound of my voice, let out his own tiny yawn, and opened his eyes. “Good morning again, pumpkin,” I greeted him. The baby giggled as I checked his diaper: dry and clean. “Come on, Danny boy. Let’s get some grub started.” I hefted him against my shoulder and got up. “See you downstairs,” I called as Ginnie slapped on her student nurse’s uniform, racing against the cold.
“Mom really ought to raise the thermometer,” she said.
* * * *
I put Daniel in his baby swing as I heated his bottle and perked the coffee. The kitchen thermometer read 69 degrees, but the air in the house still carried a nip. “Hard to believe it’s nearly Spring,” I told Daniel as I tested his bottle. The trickle of milk ran warmly down my wrist. I filled the toaster for Ginnie, lifted Daniel from the swing and cradled him in my arms, feeding him.
—I’ve been told not to tell you Quatama’s true ID,— Terence suddenly intruded.
—Back again?— I still resented his calling Bael a devil. I almost suspected Terence of jealousy.
—Well, I’m not, and he is,— he caught my train of thought. —Now, at any rate. It’s all well and good to say human ignorance created the job title, but you might remember you’re human as well, quite mortal, and in possession of a soul that might be a premium purchase.—
Resentment slowly metamorphosed into a deep desire to slug him. —I didn’t take you for the fanatical religious type.—
—I’m not. But I know the scent of eau de brimstone when it wafts under my nostrils.—
—These are beliefs created by a humanity terrified by the unknown. Heaven and Hell aren’t places of reward and punishment. They don’t exist that way except in the minds of the fearful. The only thing that really exists are levels, based on the soul’s advancement.—