This is Installment Seven of the novel Rose and Justice.   It includes Chapters II.ix and II.x.  It is 4,869 words long.  As installments are posted, links for each will be added under the tab labeled “The Novel” at the top of this page.   Enjoy!

II.ix

Rose Jackson stuck her finger in the icing on the back edge of her birthday cake, then tried to smooth it down so her mother wouldn’t notice the indentation where the missing icing had once been.  Unfortunately, her efforts only seemed to make the situation worse.  She employed the index fingers of both hands and proceeded in pulling away an entire section of icing, leaving the chocolate cake exposed.  The deep brown of the cake looked even darker than it actually was in contrast with the yellow icing.  She crammed the newly-freed icing in her mouth with one hand and tried to fix the problem with the other.  It was not working.

“Rosalind Kate Jackson!  Get away from that!  How many times have I told you to stay away from that cake until your friends get here!  Now, what are your friends going to think when they see a birthday cake with a big old hole in the back end?  Go wash your face and hands, and don’t touch anything!  This entire house will be a sticky mess if you touch one thing between here and the bathroom!”  Marabelle shoo-ed her daughter away and did her best to salvage the confectionary Mickey Mouse.

Rose scooted out of the dining room with her hands held awkwardly up in front of her, a sign to her mother that she would touch nothing until she had washed her hands.  Her face had that same look she always wore, the one that always turned Phillip to mush, and the one Marabelle purposely ignored when she really wanted to discipline her daughter.  It was a look that could soften the hardest heart.  Phillip loved that look almost as much as he loved his daughter.  That is why Marabelle was the disciplinarian when it came to Rose.  In order to do right by her daughter, she had to make certain she didn’t look at her face when she really needed to get a point across.  The problem was that Rose sometimes felt her mother didn’t really see her.  Marabelle loved her daughter every bit as much as Phillip did, but in order to do what needed to be done out of love, she would create a gulf between them that would last for years.

The look was not the typical innocent face every guilty child innately puts on when caught red-handed.  Nor was it the defiant look that children used who didn’t have a mother like Marabelle Jackson.  It was a look of such simple confidence and acknowledgement that it took the person on the receiving end completely off-guard, even if that person had seen it a million times.  It was a look that said, “I’m listening.  I know I did wrong.  Tell me how to do it right, and give me the punishment I deserve; I can take it.”  When the look was combined with Rose’s big round brown eyes, perpetual contented smile, and the funny way she would always cock her head a little to the left as if to hear better, it was downright deadly.  Phillip loved it and was scared by it all at the same time.  He couldn’t imagine any 13-year old boy being able to resist it.

Rose entered the bathroom and stepped up on the stool she used to be able to reach the sink.  She briefly wondered how she would be able to turn on the water without touching anything.  She thought the conundrum through, then leaned forward and squeezed the cold water knob between her wrists, trying to turn it by moving her arms in opposite directions.  Someone much bigger than her had obviously used the faucet last because the knob was turned tightly off and wouldn’t budge.  She tried it a few times with no success until she heard her father’s voice behind her.

“Whatcha’ doin’, my little Rose?”

“Tryin’ to turn on the water so I can wash my hands.”

“Why are you doing it that way?”

“Because Mama said I wasn’t to touch nothing until I washed my hands.”

Phillip bit his bottom lip to keep himself from laughing, then said, “Anything.  I wasn’t to touch anything.”

Rose turned around.  “Why?  Did you stick your finger in the icing, too?”

Phillip burst out laughing.  “No, I didn’t stick my finger in the icing.”  He turned the water on.  “But, it certainly looks like you did, little Miss Sticky Hands.”  He leaned over his daughter and washed her hands the way he had taught her how, by soaping up his own hands and rubbing them on Rose’s.  They usually ended up doing more giggling than washing, but the job would essentially get done.  When they were finished rinsing, Phillip grabbed the towel and dried Rose’s hands, finger by finger.

“This is the finger you never point.  This is the finger you get in trouble for.  This is the finger somebody will put a ring on, one day way off in the future.  This is the baby finger, to remind you that you will always be daddy’s baby.  And this is your thumb, . . .”

Rose interrupted.  “The finger that’s not a finger, it’s your thumb!”

“That’s right, my little smart girl.  Are you ready for your party?”

Rose smiled.  “Yes. I been ready for the party all week!”

“I’ve been ready for the party all week.”

“You, too?  It’s gonna’ be lots of fun!”

“You are something else, you know that, girl?  Come here and give daddy a hug.  You’ll never get too old to give your daddy a hug, no matter how many birthdays you have.”  Rose squeezed her father’s neck and held on for a long moment, like she always did, which made Phillip’s heart grow bigger every time.  Phillip stood up straight, lifting Rose up in his arms as he did so.

“Daddy?”

“Yes, baby?”

“Will I ever have too many birthdays for you to pick me up?”

“You most definitely will.  But then you’ll be picking up your own little ones, so you won’t miss it so much.”

Rose thought about this a minute.  “Well, you can pick up my little ones too so you won’t miss it so much either, o.k.?”

Phillip grinned broadly.  “There’s nothing I’d love better, baby.  But, that’s a long way off.  I’ve still got a few more years of picking you up, Rosebud.  You haven’t blossomed yet.”

“It could happen soon though,” Rose spoke seriously, like a pint-sized CEO discussing a merger.  “I’m five, you know.”

Phillip gave a feigned start of surprise.  “Five?  When did you turn five?”

“At 7:35 this morning.”

Phillip walked down the hall, tickling the love he carried in his arms.  “That’s right.  At 7:35 this morning.  Not 7:32.  Not 7:33.”

“Not 7:34!”  Rose interjected, then they said it together, “7:35, on the dot!”

As they entered the living room, Phillip prayed he could be there for the next 50 birthday parties Rose would have.

II.x

            Chris Columbus stared across his desk at the two beings.  Malcolm was well known to him, and just about everyone else in this place.  He was a troublemaker and due to be sent back any day now.  In fact, when the two had first entered his office, Chris thought for certain that it was Malcolm’s time.  He had begun to smile at the prospect of sending Malcolm back to learn the lessons he still so desperately needed to learn.  As the official registrar of return trips at the return tunnel, Chris had seen all kinds of Beings return for many reasons, both voluntary and involuntary, and he knew Malcolm was destined for a few more earth sessions.  It wasn’t that he didn’t like Malcolm; everyone settled eternally in this place was accepting of everyone else.  He just knew that Malcolm would be ever so much more enjoyable after he learned a few more lessons.

But it was the other being who was requesting a return — a being still not even fully awakened.  Chris shook his head in frustrated hesitation.  “I must tell you that there are great risks in returning before you have fully awakened.  In fact, it could be downright disastrous.  I’m not sure I want that on my record.”

Romeo leaned forward.  “Look, all I know is that I have a true love and I have spent several miserable and futile incarnations looking for her.  In fact, I have been looking for almost 400 earth-years.  She is on the earth-plane now, and I must get there.  Do you want me to wait another 400 years?”

Chris paused, then settled forward.  “No, but that’s not my call anyway.  This is completely your decision.  I just have to make certain that I have informed you of the problem you could, and most likely will, encounter along the way.”

“Well, what are they?”

Chris let out a big rush of air.  “Well, when you return before you have completely awakened, you are almost certain to regress in your journey.  In other words, you will have to relearn lessons you have already learned.  You will not be as advanced in the understanding of the Light as you are now.  In fact,” Chris leaned further over the desk, “you might be downright ignorant.”

Romeo glanced at Malcolm, then turned back to Chris.  “Love conquers all, right?  I’ll take that chance.  What else?”

“Well,” Chris continued, “you are increasing the chance considerably that you will be born into a family you do not know.  Ideally, returners are placed with those whom they have known in a former incarnation.  Any rush job carries a great possibility that you will be placed with people you have never known before; in fact, you might be placed with beings who are on their first go-around, and that can be very scary.”

Romeo thought this over for a minute, then had an inspiration.  “Are you the one who registered Juliet’s return?”

Chris paused.  “I’m really not at liberty to discuss anyone’s return trip with you.  It’s against our most basic rule — the rule not to interfere with destiny.”

“But,” Romeo became excited, “if you know, you can tell me how to reach her.  Don’t you see?  You are the one who can take me back to my true love.  Doesn’t that mean anything to you?  Malcolm says that true loves are destined to meet again.  If that’s so, then won’t you be fulfilling our destiny to bring us back together?”

“It’s not quite that simple.  You see, your destiny is to learn all the lessons you need to learn on the way to getting back to each other.  Yes, you will eventually be together, but if I were to rush or hinder that in any way, then I would be playing with your destiny.  That would get ME sent back, and I can tell you right now, I’m not going there again.”  In his complete commitment to not interfere with destiny, Chris would not tell Romeo about the alchemist, though he was fully aware of the powers to be tapped in the Mystic Wood.

Malcolm was getting impatient with this runaround.  It was part of his plan for Romeo to get sent back as soon as possible, before Hal even knew he was Here.   He had to interject.  “Look, the boy is obviously desperate.  Just send him back.  Anywhere, it doesn’t matter.”

“The east,” Romeo jumped in.  “It must be the east.”

“The east?”  Chris smiled.  “My dear boy, the east is eternal, as is the west.  No matter how far east you get, you can still go east.  What exactly is that supposed to mean to me?”

Romeo thought.  “Well, where did you send Juliet?  Can’t you even give me that much?  Can’t you just put me close to her?”

“You do not yet understand the power of those who are fully awakened.  I am able to completely clear from my mind any information that might break a rule of the Light.  Do I know where Juliet was sent?  Of course.  But since I am determined to not interfere with destiny, then my mind will completely block that information from my consciousness.  So, although I know the information, I am completely incapable of sharing it with you because of the decisions I have made.  Do you understand?”

“Not really,” Romeo looked confused.

“It merely means,” Malcolm said, “that he chooses not to help you.  So, I guess it’s up to me.”

Chris gave Malcolm a look of warning.  “Be careful.  You’re not exactly secure in your position here, Malcolm.”

Malcolm shot Chris a go-to-hell look, even though they both knew it didn’t exist.  “She said the east.  So, if it were me, I would go as far east as I could.  There is a place on earth known as the Far East.  That is where I would go.  I believe the most influential city in that Far East land is Tokyo; that would be my choice.”  Malcolm spoke decisively and smugly.

Chris looked at Malcolm incredulously.  With the infinite wisdom of the Light within him, Chris knew good and well that Malcolm was misleading Romeo.  Although  leading Romeo directly to Juliet would be messing with destiny, deliberately misleading him was impairing destiny to the same degree, not to mention the added feature of an impure motivation.  Chris knew he was looking at a being who wasn’t long for the Light world when he looked at Malcolm.  He hoped he was given the assignment of sending him back; he would send him to Antarctica.

Chris interfered only as far as he felt he could.  “You seem to forget, Malcolm, that in requesting a voluntary return trip, he has no choice.  He is placing himself at the mercy and whim of universal flow.”

Malcolm leaned across the desk conspiratorially.  “And we all know that you can pick any place you wish.  It’s really not all that random, is it, Chris?”  Malcolm practically winked.

Chris cleared his throat.  “I have some input into the process.  But,” he hurried to add, “it is very limited.”

“O.k., then.” Romeo said.  “You heard the man.  Send me to Tokyo.  Please, sir.”

Chris looked long at the man across the desk, a man so desperate to have his plea answered and yet so completely unaware that it would be the worst thing that could happen to him.   Then he turned to the holographic map of the universe behind him, touched an area of the hologram, and brought Japan zooming into view.

Hal was lounging in the pool and thinking about Juliet.  He could see her anytime he wished, but tried not to be obsessive about it.  He knew that she had incarnated as Rosalind Kate Jackson and that she was happy in a contented but incomplete way.  She was a happy child in a loving family and did not yet feel the need for romantic love.  Yet he also knew that a being searching for a true love would feel the emptiness and hunger from a very early age.  He wished she could find that fulfillment, but knowing that she was given love and cared for eased his mind somewhat.

Hal had checked into D.C.’s life every so often, but the last time he checked, D.C. was a robust, albeit miserable 45-year-old man with twins in college.  He knew it would take several earth-years for D.C. to end that incarnation, and then several Light-beats for him to fully awaken as Romeo.  He had calculated that Rosalind would be about 32 when Romeo was ready to return.  It was a stretch, but true love would not let a few measly earth-decades stand in the way.  His work would not be needed for awhile and, thus, he floated in the pool.

A cherubim buzzed by.  Light-bugs, nothing but light-bugs, Hal thought.  Cherubims were not nearly as angelic as most earth-beings believed.  The fact that they knew about them at all was a huge mistake.  Many, many Light-years before, an Earth-bound agent had sent a fully-realized being back without having received a request for the return.  The trip should have been impossible, but a loophole caused the agent’s misprinted request to be processed, and that’s how Moses came to be floating in some bulrushes.  The loophole was sewn up by the Light immediately, but Moses was already there.  The Light makes no mistakes, so many pondered the notion that the Light had purposely designed the loophole.  It was the only possible explanation.  Yet many still saw it as a huge mistake.  Moses was so enlightened that he began to get bored with the earth-beings’ seemingly infinite ignorance.  So, he started making up rules just to make things interesting.  He decided that most of the blind people he naturally became the leader of didn’t even deserve to live, so he started coming up with reasons to have them all put to death.  If they touched the skin of a dead pig, put’em to death.  If they talked back to their parents, put’em to death.  If they worked on Sunday, put’em to death.  If they slept with someone of the same sex, put’em to death.  Basically, anyone who breathed needed to go back and start all over again according to Moses.  When the people asked who had given these laws, Moses created a being called God and blamed him.  When they asked who God was, Moses made up a story about a Master Creator who put these two people in a garden only to kick them out when they ate the fruit He had given them.  Moses knew that the Light had always been and always would be and that human life was just the incarnation of undeveloped Light working towards complete illumination.  But he was so pissed about being sent back, that he decided to throw a wrench in the works.

Those who had bothered to ask the Light knew that these “setbacks” were necessary to the learning process of the incarnate.  Humans had forgotten their spiritual purpose in the overwhelming physical task of evolving.  It was a “mistake” that had been made for a reason.  Moses wasn’t a rebel; he was simply fulfilling his purpose, just as every other incarnated being had done down through time.  The Light sent other messengers to lead the way after Moses:  Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, Galileo, Thomas Jefferson, Gandhi, Martin Luther King — they were all teachers, depending upon who cared to be their students.  Incarnated beings were moving back to the Light, although it sometimes seemed rather slow work.

So, at any rate, Moses had started the talk of the Cherubims and Seraphims, Light attendants whose presence was not meant to be known to the incarnate ones.  Those on earth believed them to be angels.  They were; but they were worker-bee angels, and for the most part, they were quite irritating unless they were actually working on a task.

This particular cherubim buzzed near Hal’s ear.  Hal swatted at it.  “Buzz off, cherry.”

“I have news,” the insistent cherubim buzz-whispered.

“What?  Hitler’s dead?  Old news.  He’s already been sent back as an amoeba, a giant leap up for him, if I do say so myself.  Synchronizing the energy of a single cell is about all he’s capable of at this point in his evolution.”

“Romeo’s here.”  The cherubim buzzed off, disappearing into the Light as quickly as he had come.

“Hey!”  Hal stood up in the pool.  “Hey, you little buzzard, get back here!  What did you say?  Where is he?  Get back here now!”

Hal had dance-walked as fast as he could to the Return Tunnel Registrar.  He burst into Christopher Columbus’ office with an impatience rarely seen up here.  If he had been on Earth, he would have been breathing heavily and possibly even wheezing, but here the only physical sign of his exertion was his wide eyes.

“Romeo.  Have you seen him?  Has he been here?”

“Whoa, Hal!  Don’t be so demanding.  You’re acting like a regular archangel.”

“Christopher, I’m not in the mood for jokes.  This is serious.  Have you seen Romeo?”

Chris pondered the intensity of Hal’s eyes, thought for a millisecond and then decided it was best if he responded forthrightly.  “He was here recently. . . with Malcolm.  He requested an immediate return, even before fully awakening.”

“Has he gone yet?”

“No.  I’m working on the details now, but there seems to be some kind of population control movement going on in Tokyo.”

“Tokyo?  He’s not supposed to go to Tokyo!  He’s supposed to go to Georgia!”  Hal experienced the closest thing to frustration that an enlightened being could feel — a slight twitch in his left eyelid, a rare remembrance of a limiting body.  If he had not been so focused on the issue of Romeo’s return, he would have recognized his need to control the situation.  Control was a strictly incarnate need.  It was also the birthplace of frustration.  Since light-beings knew that controlling another’s actions or behaviors was strictly against the Light, they also knew that any attempt to do so would only result in extreme frustration, the ultimate sign of being outside the law of the Light.  “Where is he now?  Which way did they go?”

“Hal, you know the rules about messing with destiny.  Surely, you don’t want to risk a return trip after all this time.”

“That was the plan, Chris.  I was supposed to guide him back to her all along.  And Malcolm . . . Malcolm!  Ooh, he almost makes me human in the way I feel about him!  He knew exactly where Juliet was going.  I can’t believe he would deliberately mislead Romeo, and I will definitely bring this up to the council.  But, I can’t waste time fuming.  Do you know where they are?”

“All I know is that they were heading in the direction of the forum when they left here.”  Christopher started to say something else, but Hal had rushed out as soon as he heard the word forum.

The forum was always the most well lit place in the eternal Here.  So many beings were gathered there at any given time that the radiance of their internal light would have been blinding to a human.  To Hal it was only a glow that kept him from seeing the other beings clearly.  The idea was that wherever the Light is strongest, the need to see other beings should naturally diminish; when there was Light, who should want to see anything else?  But Hal did.  He tried to focus as best he could on the beings gathered in the forum, but could only see general shapes.  Just as he was about to succumb to a human emotion — desperation — he remembered to close his eyes and focus on the vibrations.  Each being gives off certain vibrations, whether human or a member of the Light world.  Hal became still and centered his thoughts on Malcolm’s vibrations.  His were lower than most — a sure sign of his imminent return.

It didn’t take Hal long to feel Malcolm’s presence.  He was on the steps at the far end of the pool.  Hal dance-walked there as fast as he could.  It seemed to take forever to him, but in earth-time it would have only been a few milliseconds.

“Malcolm!  Where is Romeo?”

“Relax, Hal.  I don’t know.  Who do I look like?  Mercutio?”  Malcolm turned back to the Fountain of Liquid Refreshment.

Hal flipped Malcolm around as if he had grabbed his shoulder.  He hadn’t, of course.  He had merely thought it and it became so.

“Hal!  How dare you!  And you think I’m going to be sent back.  You know how the Light feels about the appearance of physical violence.”

“Malcolm, I’d just love to have a long discussion with you about the Light and return trips, but I have something else in my consciousness right now.  Take me to Romeo or prepare to hear from the council.”

“O.k., o.k., hold your unicorns.  The last time I saw Romeo, he was in the pool trying to swim himself into an awake state.”

“Your willingness to cooperate has been overwhelming,” Hal said and then winced inside.  Malcolm’s sarcasm was rubbing off on him.  He must remember to put distance between himself and Malcolm when this situation was over.  “I’ll deal with you later.”

Hal dance-walked to the pool and found Romeo swimming laps.  Most water-play here looked like synchronized swimming — even more so since Esther Williams arrived — but Romeo’s flailing was more akin to a Labrador puppy chasing a floating stick for the first time.  Hal leapt into the pool.  The earth-effect would have been a slow-motion splash, yet in earth-time he was by Romeo’s side in speed immeasurable by human instruments.

“Romeo.  Romeo, listen to me.”

“Who are you?”  Romeo continued to flail.  “I’m busy.  Can’t you see?”

“It’s about Juliet.”

Romeo stopped abruptly and faced Hal upright in the pool.  There was no bottom.  The pool was infinite, yet no being had to even tread water to remain in one position.  “What about Juliet?  You know something about Juliet?  Who are you?”

“I was Juliet’s guide when she was last here.  We discussed your situation thoroughly, and plans were made.  Malcolm has misdirected you.  I know where you are supposed to go to meet Juliet.”

“Not . . . Tokyo?”

“Oh, for Light’s sake, no.  Come with me.  We’ve got a lot to do and not much time in which to do it.”

“From the gray-speckled boulder, 12 paces along the path, 90 degree right turn and six paces to the patch of clary sage, turn three complete circles, look directly over left shoulder and walk seven paces toward the first mountain laurel bush you see, left turn four paces, right turn three, bend down between the two large elderberry trees and wait.”

Romeo watched quizzically as Hal stared at the mossy ground.  He had returned to the earth plane several times, always at the mercy of the registrar.  He had never heard anything of this alchemist person and sure didn’t know what part of the Eternal Here this boggy quarter could be.  He was about to suggest a return to the forum pool so he could continue to awaken when the door opened.

Bernard Oxley Millwright IV emerged from his moss-roofed home.  “You again?”

“Me again.”  Hal replied.  “We . . .”  He looked up at Romeo who was dumbfounded at the miniature person before him.   “We need to see the alchemist.”

Bernard Oxley Millwright IV stared closely at Romeo, investigated him in a way he had not done with Juliet.   “He’s not even awake.”

“He will be soon enough.  And, well, there are other factors at play here.  Just trust me, we really need to see the alchemist.”  Hal emphasized the word really to impart the level of need.   He knew that remembering the way to the alchemist’s cave was not enough.  If Oxley refused to lend his fairy magic to show the way, then they would simply never find the same hill, let alone the door.

Oxley fluttered his wings and crossed his legs.  He rose to about five feet and hovered.  “Stand up, Hal.  Might as well get off your knees while we discuss this.”  He turned to Romeo.  “What is it you’re trying to do that needs alchemy magic, and why can’t it wait until you wake up?”

Romeo hesitated.  Not being fully awake, he sometimes didn’t think clearly.  “I need to . . . go back . . . and find Juliet.  I have to find Juliet.  I’ve been looking for her lifetime after lifetime.  And now I finally have a chance, but Malcolm led me astray.  I’ve already registered at the return tunnel, but they’re. . . they’re going to send me to the wrong place, half a world away from her.”

“Hmmm.”  Oxley’s wings whirred slightly louder as he moved over to just a few inches from Romeo’s face.   He studied Romeo’s face as if it held a clue of some sort.  “That’s not usually the kind of magic the alchemist does.  It would require a new and unique incantation.”  Oxley flew back a few inches.  “You’re asking for a whole lot of magic, my good man.”

Romeo paused.  He looked Bernard Oxley Millwright IV directly in the eye.  “I’ll take whatever magic I can get.  There’s no way this can be made worse.”

Romeo took the final step down into the alchemist’s great hall and looked around.  He saw the Owl and the books and the tables and the mobiles of the universe.  But there was something else he sensed.  It was an energy.  It was Juliet’s energy.  She had been here, and he could feel it.  A part of her energy was still in this place, like a perfume lingering long after the source has departed.   He closed his eyes and let himself focus on the energy, breathing her in through the very pores of his skin.  When he opened his eyes again, Maria Claricy was standing directly in front of him.

“You can feel her here, can’t you?”  She asked.

“Yes,” he whispered.

“Come with me.  There’s no time to lose.”

© Deborah E. Moore – 2011

This is Installment Six of the novel Rose and Justice.   It includes Chapters II.vi, II.vii, and II.viii.  It is 4,146 words long.  As installments are posted, links for each will be added under the tab labeled “The Novel” at the top of this page.   Enjoy!

II.vi

            D.C. looked around at the other parents attending the Alabama graduation ceremonies.  He wondered if they realized how stupid they all looked, grinning with some extreme level of parental pride he had never known.  As soon as he had the thought, he felt guilty.  He knew that a good father would be smiling like he had won the lottery.  And the father of twins should be doubly excited — shouldn’t he?  Three of his five children now had college degrees.  D.C. 3 had finished college and was selling real estate in Birmingham.  Mary Jo had divorced and moved to Florida to escape Sonny’s harassment after she left him.  Clinton was a Navy lifer who sent periodic postcards from exotic, and sometimes not so exotic, ports.  And the twins turned out to be Harvard material after all; they were both graduating summa cum laude and had received full fellowships to Harvard’s Divinity School.  They seemed destined to spend their lives glued to each other.  D.C. wasn’t sure where they had gotten their brains; he was no Einstein and yet he was sure he was smarter than Sandy.  He often thought that there must be something even beyond environment and genetics that plays a part in determining the outcome of a person’s life.

So, instead of pride consuming his thoughts, D.C. sat through the commencement ceremonies wondering whether or not he really had the guts to leave when this was all over.  All five children would be gone and on their own.  Sandy would be devastated, but he couldn’t seem to muster the energy to care about that.  He knew he would either have to leave or die — and he couldn’t decide which sounded more appealing.

He really wished he had been able to care about his life.  The problem was that it had never really seemed like his life.  He had traveled through it like a ghost who is able to observe but never really experience.  At times he would have welcomed pain just to feel something.  Others saw him as a cool, distant, emotionless person; if they only knew how desperately he cried inside for just one emotion, one true understanding of love.  Everyone around him felt like strangers; he had been uncomfortable, even with his own wife and kids, for his entire life.  He was 46 years old and wished he could be 80.  At least then he knew this life wouldn’t have to last much longer.

He had often wondered about the purpose of his life.  He felt there must be one.  Didn’t every life have a purpose, like Reverend Jones at First Baptist always claimed?   Whatever D.C.’s purpose was, he felt it had eluded him since birth, that it was something he had to go in search of, and yet he was tied by circumstance to the place where he had begun.   He had fathered five children; perhaps that was the only purpose he needed.  Maybe one of the kids, one of the twins most likely, would make such an impact on the world that it would make his life worthwhile.  But even that, he thought, would not fulfill him or make his existence meaningful.  He had always felt his purpose was connected to something bigger, bigger than Cullman, or his marriage, or his kids – maybe even bigger than this life.

Sandy elbowed him when the twins’ names were announced and they walked across the stage.  He straightened up and began clapping politely while Sandy cheered wildly beside him.   She embarrassed him.  He smirked and rolled his eyes.  Then he turned to look at his wife.  She had that proud grin of the other parents, the pride he couldn’t feel, the emotion he would never have.  He stopped smirking and allowed her this moment.  It was probably the most loving thing he had ever done for her.

D.C. 3 had driven in from Birmingham for the occasion and joined D.C., Sandy, and the twins for an after-graduation celebration dinner.  Sandy had made reservations at the nicest restaurant Tuscaloosa had to offer, and D.C. about stroked when he saw the menu prices.  As usual, he said nothing and went along for the ride.  The twins continued to wear their caps and gowns.  D.C. thought they looked like overgrown hoot-owls, but again checked himself to allow others a moment they deserved.  For people who actually felt, who actually lived, graduating from college was probably a big deal and they should be allowed to make complete fools out of themselves if they wished.  D.C. had now made allowances for two real things in one day — he wondered what must be happening to him.  Was it middle-aged mellowness that caused him to suddenly accept others’ emotions?  Or was he actually starting to have compassion halfway through his life?

After they had placed their orders, D.C. settled back into his chair and looked around at the crowded dining room.  He could have taken pleasure in overseeing his successful brood, but instead he felt detached and intrusive; he was a stranger invited at the last minute to participate in an intimate family gathering.  He looked briefly at the far corner table that looked so much like his own — mom and dad, proud graduate still in gown (no cap), and appropriately proud siblings — yet he was incapable of seeing the mirror image.  His eyes moved to a middle-aged couple at another table, probably a retired doctor or lawyer and spouse, and momentarily watched them eat silently, nothing left to say after forty years of wedlock.

The third table his eyes moved to held his attention a bit longer.  Two men sat on conjoining sides of a four-sided table with their backs to the window.  A brief glance showed them to be dressed in business attire, talking intently, and a casual observer would see nothing more than two colleagues discussing the latest changes at their company or a businessman and his client ironing out the details on a big-dollar deal.  But D.C. had spent his life as an observer and looked closer than most would.  He began to notice the nuances a quick glance would overlook.  He saw two men looking deeply into each other’s eyes.  He saw gentle smiles and provocative laughter.  He saw one of the men pick up a packet of sugar to sweeten his coffee and the other man gently take it from his hands, slowly rip it open, and pour it into the cup.  The man who had taken the sugar then picked up a spoon and slowly stirred the other man’s coffee.  It was a simple act that had passed unnoticed by the rest of those in the restaurant, but D.C. slowly realized he was watching two people in love.  He was surprised that his redneck, good-old-boy, Alabama upbringing wasn’t sickened at the sight.  On the contrary, he watched the two and recognized love like he had never known it in his own life.  Two men who could be so visibly in love in a public restaurant in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, must really be in love.  Rather than being repulsed, D.C. could not contain the overwhelming sense of jealousy he felt as he watched them.  Something in them made D.C. suddenly aware of the lack of purpose he had always felt.  They had something he would never know, and if he allowed his Alabama to get the best of him, he’d kick the shit out of both of them for that reason alone.

“Daddy.  Daddy, your food’s gettin’ cold.”  D.C. 3 stuffed a half a cow in his mouth and chewed.

“O.k., I’m gettin’ to it.”  D.C. hadn’t even realized the food had been delivered.  He covered that fact like any proud southern man, by acting like he had realized it and was simply acting against the norm for reasons of his own, thank you very much.  He looked down on the well-done New York Strip steak and couldn’t remember ordering it.  He didn’t really even like beef.  But, what did it matter?  He sawed off a chunk and shoved it in his mouth.  He chewed a few times and let his eyes wonder back to the two lovers.  They were laughing about something.  One of them leaned back in his chair and turned his head.  He looked into D.C.’s eyes and held his gaze rather than turn abruptly away as most strangers would have done.  Normally, D.C. would have averted his glance, pretending that he hadn’t really been staring at all.  But his eyes seemed held by the man’s gentle look.  At that precise moment, D.C. realized he was not breathing.

D.C.’s gasps finally caught Sandy’s attention.  She screamed and began shouting for help.  D.C. 3 and the twins all jumped up and then realized they had no idea what to do.  A waitress ran over and helped by shouting, “Call an ambulance!  Oh, god, call an ambulance!”  The retired doctor turned out to be a retired lawyer whose sole focus at this moment was trying to determine if the restaurant could be sued.  The two men ran to D.C.’s side.  The one who had caught his eye pulled him up from his chair and grabbed him from behind.

“Trust me,” the man whispered in D.C.’s ear.  “I know exactly what I’m doing.”

The man wrapped D.C. in a hug from behind and began exerting force with his joined hands.  D.C. was no medical expert, but he knew immediately that the man’s hands were in the wrong position.  He was too high.  The thrusts were hitting D.C. in the sternum, stopping against bone instead of pushing any air up from below the ribcage.  D.C. began struggling to move the man’s hands downward.

The man just whispered again, “Trust me.”

D.C. heard the words ringing in his ear as he passed away from that life.

II.vii

Rosalind Kate Jackson made her grand entrance into the world in the eighth hour of her mother’s labor.   Her father giggled like a schoolgirl as he held her for the first time and ran the tip of his finger gently under her creamy brown chin.  She was lighter than his boys — more like her mother’s coloring — and yet looked somehow more African.  She was a regal queen of the Nile wrapped in a blanket, just waiting to be placed in a basket in the bulrushes or perhaps in a manger.  She was, from the very first breath she took, her father’s savior.  Phillip knew that Rose, as he would always call her, could be nothing other than his most beautiful and precious flower, his place of perfect joy, the justification for all his life had been.  After years of wondering why he had been born, he looked once at Rose and wondered why man was born to die.

He reluctantly left Rose with her mother and drove back across the causeway to check on the boys.  Their grandmother would be almost homicidal after a morning alone with all three boys.  They were decent kids, but they were kids, and mornings in general made them grumpy.  Phillip, Jr. would be twelve in a month, Paris was eight, and Peter had just turned four.  Although Marabelle now had four children, Phillip knew it felt like more to her.  With each child so evenly spaced, the last twelve years of her life had been a continuous cycle of pregnancy, nursing, diapers, the terrible twos, preschool, and then all of it over again.  Phillip did everything he knew to be the kind of man a father and husband should be.  Every Saturday for twelve years had been mom’s day off.  He took the boys marsh fishing, or to a band contest, or employed them in the building of the new deck or the room they had added to the house three years before.  With the difference in the boys’ ages, it was sometimes difficult to keep them all happy for five or six hours.  About the time Phillip, Jr., was beginning to get interested in action movies, Peter and Paris were still best entertained with animated features.  Phillip had trained Phil, as the oldest boy was called, to be a patient and understanding young man.  He was to help watch his brothers and be willing to put aside his own desires for the sake of the younger boys.

“Son, do you think I really want to see yet another Disney movie?”  Phillip had explained to his frustrated son one day not long before Rose was born.  “That’s part of the responsibility of being older.  They don’t understand.  You do.”  Phillip dried an errant tear from his son’s cheek and softened his tone.  “Hey, why don’t I pick you up from school next Friday, and we’ll go spend an hour or two at the pinball machines in the arcade.  Whaddaya’ say?”

Phillip had always been sensitive to his children’s needs and, true to his word, he was there when the school bell rang that Friday afternoon to pick up his number one son.  He knew when to talk gently and he knew when to lay down the law.  He had never spanked his boys; it seemed to him to resemble too closely the beatings his ancestors had received from the whips of their “masters.”  He valued the history of his family’s education and believed that a learned man could do more with words than any brute could do with a whip or fists.  And he believed strongly that the best way to raise responsible young men who would never lift a hand to a woman was to never lift his hand against them.  He smiled every time he looked over his boys’ report cards and noted their superior marks in conduct and citizenship.  To him, those were just as important as the A’s they brought home in science, math, and English.

Phillip walked through the front door of his home and suddenly felt his fatigue wash over him.  He hadn’t even needed to hold it at bay during his sleepless night; he simply hadn’t felt it.  Now his spirit released the hold it had maintained over his body.  He was home, and his inner core, associating this place with peace and relaxation, finally let his body take over.  He was tired, yet it was only 9:00 a.m. and his mother would be wanting to get back to her own home.  The boys would be rested and ready to rumble.  Somehow, Phillip would make it.  He knew he would feel better when he got the boys ready and headed back to the hospital, back to Marabelle and his little bud of a Rose.

Phillip kissed and thanked his mother.  He had to do so with her in motion.  It wasn’t that she was that anxious to end her sole possession of the boys; she was on her way to see her first granddaughter.

“Take your time, Phillip.  Why don’t you take a little nap?  Marabelle needs her rest and anything beyond that I can take care of.  Don’t feel like you have to rush back to the hospital.”  Cynthia Jackson whirled out the door and didn’t wait for an answer.

When she was gone, Phillip was surprised by the emotional response he had — he was jealous.  The first Jackson girl in five generations was certain to be claimed by every living member of the family.  He felt a strong desire to hold her in his arms and tell everyone else to back off — this was his girl.  He tried to stop this thought.  He knew it must be his fatigue talking since he was not prone to such possessiveness.  Yet, he couldn’t quite expunge the feeling completely.

He made the boys change from their jeans to slacks and button-down shirts and gathered all three in the large master bathroom for a small splash of cologne.  They were lined up before the vanity looking confused.  They couldn’t understand the fuss over their appearance, yet somehow, today, they liked it.  Phillip stood behind them straightening shirts, smoothing hair, and “stinking them up,” as Peter called it.  The four Jackson men were face to face in the mirror.

“Now, boys, listen to me. . . Phil, did you use deodorant? . . .o.k., listen up.  You’re going to go meet your little sister for the first time.  She’s just two hours old now.  She’s going to need you boys to look after her.  Your mama’s gonna’ need you, and I’m gonna’ need you.  Girls are different from boys.  They’re . . .well, they’re softer. . . and they cry a little bit more, and . . . well, they’re just different, that’s all.  I know you boys look out for each other, but you’re gonna’ have to look out for your sister in a different way.  You can’t pick on her like you pick on each other.  You have to be sweet to her.  Lord knows, you boys could use a little practice being sweeter.  Who’s to say but what this won’t even make you a little sweeter to each other?  That wouldn’t be so bad.  Anyway, a man’s always a better man when he’s got a woman to look out for.  And good boys are the ones who look out for their sister.  So, I don’t want you treating her like a new stuffed animal you just got for Christmas.  You are to treat her like a china doll, do you understand?  This is our Rose.  This is our baby girl.  God gave you a baby sister to teach you how to be real men.  And God gave Rose three older brothers so she’d have lots of Jackson men looking out for her.  See?  God knows what he’s doing.  Haven’t I told you that?”  Phillip turned his three boys to him and got down on one knee.  “Alright, let me look at you.  Wow, those Jackson men sure are handsome devils.  O.k., now do you boys understand what I’ve been telling you?”

“Yes, sir,” they answered in a chorus, and Phil’s voice cracked for the first time.

Phillip smiled and led his boys out to the car.  He held his eldest son back while the other boys climbed in the back seat.  “Phil, remind me sometime this week that there’s a little talk you and I need to be having.”

As Phillip drove to the hospital, he smiled.  He had always wondered if he could really face that first discussion about birds and bees and the like.  Now that he had a daughter, he could hardly wait to get Phillip, Jr., alone for a nice long chat.

II.viii

            Romeo struggled to awaken.  He knew he was back in the place of no struggle, yet he fought even against the peace to come quickly back to his fullness.  He didn’t yet know why he fought so hard to reach full consciousness, he just knew he must not loiter here.

Everything looked strange and familiar at the same time.  He was standing erect in the airy space, as if he had never actually laid down for this sleep.  He felt nothing except a slight lump in his throat.  He swallowed hard, twice, and felt it clear a little.  There were figures dance-walking in the distance that he thought he might recognize if only he could get a little closer.  He began to walk, and then run, and for the longest time he was getting nowhere fast.  He could feel a sparkling glow come from his eyes, but still felt the choking gall in his throat.  He was beginning to feel the light, sense the light, see the light, but it was only a dim candle beckoning from the distance.

Romeo ran as hard as he could, for days or months or years, he couldn’t tell.  Every time it felt like years, he ran a little faster.  Somehow he knew that now was not the time to tarry.  He was still in the phase of awakening where he seemed to know nothing, yet an intuitive whisper seemed to be urging him on.

The figures slowly moved closer and became more clear.  One moved towards him more quickly than the others, and he thought that being seemed familiar somehow.  He began to call to the figure.  He yelled with what sounded like a guttural groan.  He cleared his throat and yelled again.  He thought that maybe this time it was louder.  He continued to call out, feeling more strength each time, until the figure was suddenly standing clearly before him.

“You don’t have to yell!  I can hear you.”

“Where am I supposed to go?  I know I need to be somewhere, I just don’t know where exactly.  Please help me!”  Romeo pleaded with the figure.

“Calm down, everything in due time.  You still need to awaken fully, although you seem to be making great time with that.  You’ve been here many times before.  You know the protocol, and it will all be clear to you again very soon.”

“Please help me speed this along.  I know you can.  And somehow I know that I need to hurry.  There is no time to waste, but I’m not sure why.”

“You are right.  You must hurry and the reason is love.  Your eternal love is waiting for you back on Earth right now.  You mustn’t dally.  If we can get you fully awakened in a timely manner, we can get you back there and all that is good will be complete in you.”

“Who?  Who is it?”  Romeo pleaded.  “Was my love here?  How can I find that person?  How will I know her or him?”

“You will know her.  She is already incarnate again, and she is female.  She is waiting for you and before you left the last time, plans were made, plans to meet again.”

“Please tell me the plan.  Tell it to me now so that I don’t have to waste time on details when I fully awaken.”

“Well, it was sketchy, but the plan was that you were to meet in the East.”

Romeo paused and felt a new surge of awakening flow through his being.  “The east.  The east is the sunrise, the new light.  It is the east . . . and. . . . she is the sun.”  Romeo grew very excited.  “It is the east, and . . . Juliet is the sun!  Where is she?  Where is Juliet?”

“Calm yourself! If you get too excited, you’ll delay the awakening.  Everything in good time, D.C.”

Romeo looked confused. “D.C.? Who is D.C.?

“That is who you were in your last incarnation.”

“I . . .I don’t remember that at all.”

“You wouldn’t.  It wasn’t very memorable.  In fact, you know very little of the lives you have lived since you last saw Juliet 380 earth-years ago, give or take a few.  They just simply didn’t matter because you never reached your goal.”

“Are you saying that I have spent almost 400 earth-years looking for my true love?”

“Certainly.  And you would spend 400 more years if that was what it would take to find her.  Once you have a true love, you are never complete until you have reached peaceful perfection with that person in the eternal Here.  You will keep searching until you find.  It’s a comforting thought, really, the idea that you will indeed eventually find.  Until then, you just keep looking.”

“How many times have I gone back?”  Romeo was still not yet awake and couldn’t remember anything except that small memory he had of Juliet.

“Oh, gosh, I’ve lost count.  You’ve been all over the Earth.  You looked so hard and for so long that your last life was spent in one place.  You wanted to get out and search for her, but you were just too tired.  Funny, I never would have thought to go there for rest.  That body is so heavy.”

“Listen.  Can you help me?  Is there any way I can speed up this process and get back down there?  I’ve got to get down there.  If I remember the way time passes up here, Juliet has grown up quite a bit just in the time we’ve been talking.”  Romeo’s voice had an edge of desperation to it, a plea just below the surface of the sound that came through louder than his words, especially to someone who was reading his thoughts and paying very little attention to his verbal clamor.

“Well, there is a way.  As you know, there is always a way.  But it’s risky.  I wouldn’t suggest it as a first course of action.”

“I don’t care.  I’ll take the risk.  Just get me back there.”

Malcolm smiled smugly and replied, “O.k.  Follow me.”  Then he led Romeo to the return tunnel to register for a very un-magical return trip with bad odds.

© Deborah E. Moore – 2011

This is Installment Five of the novel Rose and Justice.   It includes Chapters II,iii, II.iv, and II.v.  It is 3,530 words long.  As installments are posted, links for each will be added under the tab labeled “The Novel” at the top of this page.   Enjoy!

II.iii

            D.C. had smoked since he was 17.  He knew it wasn’t good for him but was still dismayed to be breathing so heavily after climbing only one small flight of stairs.  He also drank in binges.  He could go for weeks without so much as a beer, but then the urge would strike and he would get roaring drunk, sometimes for a whole weekend.  Sandy and his mother often tried to drop small hints about his abuse of his body and how “so many people needed him to be around for a long time.”  He pretended not to hear them and always smoked more and went on a drunken binge after they nudged.  The idea of not being around for a long time actually appealed to D.C. in a strange sort of way.

He always believed that he would die at a relatively early age in some dramatic way, either a motorcycle crash or falling from a mountain he was trying to scale.  Since there were no huge mountains to speak of around Cullman and he didn’t own a motorcycle, these options seemed a little far-fetched, but they still seemed more real to him than living a long life and dying of old age in Cullman, Alabama.  He had even thought of the romance in being murdered, but since no one liked him enough to hate him, that also seemed unlikely.  Briefly, the idea of suicide had crossed his mind.  He had shuddered at the thought.  It seemed the last thing he could bring himself to do even as much as he hated his life.  The closest he could come to suicide was Marlboros and Jack Daniels, so he smoked and drank.

When the twins started high school, Daniel took up golf and joined the Cullman Country Club.  D.C. 3 was a senior at the University of Alabama on a football scholarship, Mary Jo had married Sonny Burtress right out of high school, Clinton went into the Navy, and neither of the twins seemed to be Harvard material, so he relaxed his feeling of responsibility a little and did something for himself.  The country club was a perfect escape.  He went almost every afternoon after work, even if he didn’t play golf on that particular day.  He would go to the lounge and talked to other club members or June Hensley, the bartender.  It was a great way to waste time.  It sounded like he was actually doing something, to say he was going to the club, but all he really did was wile away hours so he wouldn’t have to really live them.  That’s when Jack Daniels became a daily friend to D.C.  On Saturday mornings, he was the fourth for his daddy, Bart Kuntsler, and David Smoot.  They could drag out a round of golf until 2 or 3 in the afternoon, then they would adjourn to the bar.  He rarely arrived home before 7:00 pm.  Sundays he would try to last it out with the family, but usually found himself headed for the club by the time the Sunday dinner dishes were being cleared.  After so many years of being responsible, D.C. slipped comfortably into a life where a day without a buzz was hard to remember.

The difference now was that he rarely, if ever, actually got drunk.  He just wanted to get lost, and the alcohol was a good camouflage for his brain.  He was 39 years old and acted like a well-seasoned middle-aged man.  He counted the days until retirement and played the rest of the time.  Nothing seemed to give him any satisfaction, not even the golf or the drinking.  Oh sure, a cigarette after dinner gave some kind of temporary good feeling, but he had none of the fulfillment of ever accomplishing anything.  Even the kids — he could have jacked off into a cup and handed it to Sandy for all he had done in their existence.  He paid for the meals and the clothes and the summer camps and the doctor bills, but that’s all he had done.  He felt like his only purpose in life was to fulfill everyone else’s purpose.  He had lived his life according to his mama and daddy’s blueprint until the unfortunate mishap with Sandy and then he had lived his life trying to make up for that mistake.  He had never once done anything for himself.

He often thought of leaving the day the twins completed college, which was their mother’s dream for all her children, though only D.C. 3 had accomplished it so far.  Once he had no more responsibility, he could leave Sandy everything they owned and the money in his savings.  She could live fairly well off of that and the support she would get from both their families.  He could just leave.  Take nothing, maybe one small satchel of clothes, and hit the road.  He could hobo across the country on trains or hitch rides with truckers.  He would just disappear and go to parts unknown.  Sandy and his parents would miss him for awhile, but he knew they’d live and get over it.  His kids would fare well enough and remember him in whatever way it was that they thought of him.

But, the biggest difference would be for him.  He could escape.  He could be free.  He could go searching for whatever it was he thought was out there.  He could finally, after all these years, become.  Become the person he had never been and always wanted to be.  Become happy.

So while he marked a mental calendar with the months and years leading to a retirement watch, he also noted that Curtis and Carl would graduate from college in six years.  And if he had the guts, he’d follow them out of the nest.

II.iv

            Juliet and Hal had gone over their simple plan so many times that a mistake seemed highly implausible at this point.  She was to leave as soon as a full nine months had passed.  She had heard from the light and was surprised to find how uneventful that was.  It was almost like talking to herself from the deepest part of her soul.  In fact, once it had happened, she had a sneaking suspicion that it could have happened at any time if she had just willed it to.  She had made her reservations with Chris, and then she and Hal waited and planned.  Hal forced her to wait the entire term, convincing her it would be better in the long run.  Besides, the longer she waited, the closer in age she and Romeo would be in the next life.

Hal tried to keep Juliet’s mind off it, but the fact remained that Romeo could remain in his current incarnation for another 30 or 40 years.  That would make things a little more difficult, of course, but not impossible.  Hal assured her that he would keep a close eye on the arrivals list and inform Romeo of the plan as soon as he fully awakened.  Romeo had awakened quickly every other time, like suddenly awakening from a worn-off anesthetic, so it looked promising that he wouldn’t sleep too long this time either.

When the day of her trip arrived, Juliet was so excited she could hardly eat.  Hal forced her to gulp down a good breakfast.  The trip was difficult and taxing; she would need as much strength as possible.  She ate two large golden flapjacks and three eggs over-easy washed down with a glass of orange juice that seemed to never empty.  After Hal was satisfied that she could make the trip without doing any damage to herself physically, he walked with her slowly to the tunnel.

“It’s going to be very lonely here without you,” he said.

“I’m going to miss you, too, Hal.  Just think, only one more lifetime and I’ll be back with my Romeo.  Then we won’t ever have to leave.”

“Hmmm, yes,” Hal said thoughtfully.  He knew things would be different when she returned, whether with or without Romeo.  Their magical time was coming to an end, but the next time would be just as magical in its own way.  He loved her so deeply and so completely that all he could really think about was how much he wanted her to find Romeo.  By truly loving her, he desired the absolute best for her.  And he knew that Romeo was her best.  He would do anything to have them reunited.  But, still, he couldn’t help but be a bit selfish and wish he could keep her here for eternity for them to play in the baths and frolic in the meadows and talk and talk and talk.  Hers was the purest spirit he had ever known and he hated losing her.  But, the plan was set and when it was fulfilled, she would come back forever and never leave again.  Of course, he’d have to share her with Romeo, but Hal understood true love and knew that it didn’t subtract from any other love.

“I wish there was a way I could contact you while I was there,” Juliet interrupted his thoughts.  “You know, just call up your mind now and then and let you know how everything is going.”

“Some people can.  But, it’s very rare and a real burden to the incarnated being.  Besides, you won’t even remember me after your trip.”

“Oh, Hal!  I can hardly stand to think of that!”

“Well, it’s true.  But, if it makes you feel better now, I’ll be watching you as closely as possible.  Remember, I‘ll always be just a frequency away.”

“Well, that is a little better.  But, still, I wish you could go with me.  That’s the part I hate the most, leaving you here.”

“But, just think, I’ll be here when you return and neither one of us will ever leave again.”  Hal tried to smile.  This transition was just as painful for him as it was for the humans who remained on the earth-plane when a loved one returned to the eternal Here.

They reached the boarding zone and could feel the wind from the tunnel.  Juliet turned to Hal one last time.  “Don’t forget.  St. Simons Island.  Keep an eye on me from wherever you are.”

Hal brushed back a tear.  “I will.”  He swallowed hard and tried to keep his sadness to himself.  “You’d better get a move on.  There’s a woman in Georgia who’s going through laborious pains waiting for you to stop hem-hawing around.”  He smiled unconvincingly.

Juliet threw her arms around his neck.  “I love you, Hal.  I don’t know what’s worse, not having Romeo or leaving you.  It’s taking everything within me to walk into that tunnel.”

Hal hugged her back, then stiffened and firmly, but gently, pushed her back.  “It’s time, Juliet.  You must leave now.  I’ll be waiting for you.”

Juliet turned slowly and walked towards the tunnel.  She turned back several times on the way, but only saw Hal standing upright and stiff, like a sentinel guarding her procession.  For the first time, she wondered if she could abort the journey at this late stage, yet she knew she wouldn’t.  She had to go.  She had to find Romeo.  She turned again for the last time and then felt the wind grow stronger behind her.  She took no more steps; the tunnel sucked her in and she was gone.

Hal watched the tunnel entrance for a long time.  He was supposed to be above the realms of time and space here, but he felt such a deep loneliness now that she was gone.  He knew how to make the time fly past and knew she would be back in a much shorter relative time span than a lifetime feels like on earth.  But, still he missed her and felt the sadness a goodbye brings on any plane.

II.v

            Marabelle Quatrease Jackson wanted to pull every nappy hair out of the head of her husband, Phillip.  Her labor wasn’t long, none of hers ever were, but it was more intensely painful than any of her other deliveries had been, and they hadn’t exactly been joyrides.   She had arrived at Brunswick Memorial at midnight thinking she would pop this young’un any minute.  She thought she could handle the delivery gracefully since she was getting to be a pro at it, but instead she was growing tired of the ceiling of the delivery room and wished some benevolent doctor would just come cut her open and rip this thing out.  Phillip stood by her side being annoyingly helpful.

“It won’t be much longer now, baby.  You’re dilated ten centimeters and our baby’ll be here any minute.  Keep breathin’, baby.  Just like they told you.  You just keep breathing.”

She wanted to say, “I am breathing, Phillip.  I’m still here, aren’t I?”  But, she knew what he was really trying to say and worked harder to breathe the way the nurse had instructed her.

Phillip looked like it was his birthday, or Christmas, or every great day rolled into one.  He had been there for the birth of all their children, even though he had to fight the doctor to do so every time.  By 1974, the fight was starting to get easier.  Some men actually stayed in the room while their wives gave birth now, and the same doctor had delivered all their children, so he was familiar with Phillip’s position on the issue.  This would be number four, and Phillip just seemed to get more excited each time.  Having babies didn’t grow old to him.  Of course, he didn’t have to experience a human life being expelled from his sexual organs either.  Phillip and Marabelle had three sons, and it was Phillip praying for a girl this time.  Marabelle had realized long ago that boys were easier and had no desire to complicate her life with pigtails, explaining menstruation, and beating off young suitors.  Phillip relished the idea.

Phillip, Jr., Paris, and Peter were good boys.  Phillip, Sr., had been what some would call “strict” with his sons.  They knew they had better call adults “sir” and “ma’am,” open doors for ladies, and bring home good grades to assure admission into a strong academic college.  They would be good big brothers to a little girl and Phillip felt confident that he had trained them well for that particular role.  A daughter born into the Jackson family wouldn’t have a chance.  If she had some strong compulsion to be an unwed mother or drug user, she would have to get through an army of Jackson men to do so.

The Jackson heritage was something Phillip could have scorned, but instead he chose to parade it as a badge of honor.  George Jackson, Phillip’s great-great-great grandfather had been a slave on the Clarington Plantation just south of Jesup.  He had married a slave named Mary from the Moore Plantation six miles away in Broadhurst.  When freedom came, they didn’t know whether New York City was a hundred or a thousand miles away, but George Jackson did know a thing or two about raising the cotton he had been forced to pick his entire life.  They walked to Brunswick and inquired about tenant farming.  It seemed the cotton grown on the barrier islands had been about the finest anywhere and the plantation owners were in a bad way with no work force all of a sudden.   St. Simon’s had been the most successful of the islands during the pre-emancipation cotton-growing era and many of the former slaves were staying around to scratch out whatever opportunity there was in paying your former owner for the privilege to do the same work you used to at least get fed for.  George Jackson was a newcomer, but he was a hard worker and enough people had left the island for a better life somewhere to make a little room for him.

George and Mary’s second son, Julep, hated farm life and read every book he could get his hands on in an attempt to educate himself.  He married Felicia Donald and worked his entire life to give her what he knew she deserved, but it was hard on a stable master’s pay.   Julep was self-educated to a degree most college graduates didn’t reach, but all anyone seemed to want from him were his remarkable skills in animal husbandry.  He worked for the sons of former slave owners and said all the same “yassuhs” his ancestors had grinned through.   But, once or twice a year he would catch a ride on a shrimp boat and spend a month on Jekyll, an island you could see from the southern end of St. Simons.  Jekyll Island was owned by a group of the richest men in the world, Rockefellers and Vanderbilts, Morgans and Pulitzers.  They would come to the island to escape, live the simple life uninterrupted by business, reporters, or scandal.  Their idea of the simple life, however, included gourmet dinners in mansions they insisted on calling “cottages” and hunting excursions that entailed an entourage of people and horses.  It was for these excursions that Julep would go to the island.  His horseman skills were unequaled in Georgia, perhaps the entire south, and it became quickly apparent to the wealthy men who would temporarily employ him.  They paid him well and tipped him generously.  Every hunting season, they would offer Julep full-time employment on Jekyll and each time he would kindly turn it down between grins and “well, suhs.”  He knew full-time employment would mean the same barely livable wage the rest of the Jekyll Island staff was given.  No, he’d rather stay special and in demand.  And by doing so, he earned as much in two months on Jekyll as he did in ten months on St. Simons, which is exactly how all three of his boys managed to go to Morehouse University.

Julep and Felicia’s third child, Phillip’s grandfather, Franklin Jefferson Washington Jackson, studied physics at Morehouse and then returned to St. Simon’s and the only job he could get – as an apprentice bookkeeper for a large hotel not far from the lighthouse.

Franklin Jefferson Washington Jackson’s only son, William, broke the still new Morehouse tradition and went to Meharry Medical School in Nashville, Tennessee.  He returned as a doctor, settled into a family practice in Brunswick and lived his life on an income pathetic by the standards of most of his colleagues.  He and his wife, Cynthia, had six sons – Paul, Peter, Potter, Plato, Pan, and Phillip, the last being the anticipatory father making Marabelle crazy in the delivery room.  The first five became doctors and all settled in Atlanta where they had burgeoning practices and rolled in the dough.  Phillip attended two years of college as a pre-med major, then switched to his true love – music.  At the risk of being disowned by his father, Phillip worked harder than all of his brothers combined to become an accomplished musician.  He received a master’s degree in music performance and taught band at Glynn Academy.  During the summers, he played the resort hotels on St. Simons and Jekyll, now both connected to the mainland by causeways, with his jazz combo, The Jackson Four.  Phillip and Marabelle moved back to the island where his ancestors had lived when they got married, poor but happy in the modest house on the Island’s south end.

Phillip had provided for his family well, but as it grew he began to realize that he had taken the hard road.  He wanted his children to do what they loved, but hoped it wasn’t music.  It just didn’t pay.  He sent his hard-earned dollars through the mail for Morehouse sweatshirts for his three boys.  He drove them south for Florida A&M football games.  He took them along when his high school band played in a music festival at Howard University.  He mollified himself with the knowledge that he could have been a famous musician, but chose to provide a stable life for his family.

Phillip knew his little girl would be special.  She would have everything it was in his power to obtain.  He was a wonderful father and believed that it started from before his children were even born.  That’s why he stood at the edge of Marabelle’s bed and offered whatever encouragement he could offer.  Somewhere deep within him, he just knew his children couldn’t be born without him there coaching, sweating, and smiling through every labor pain.

Phillip knew that Marabelle loved him.  He had also been through the birthing experience enough times to know that her love wouldn’t be overly evident during labor.  He smiled every time she cussed him under her breath.

“Damnit, Phillip.  This is the last baby we’re havin’.  I don’t care if it’s a boy, girl, or puppy, this is the last one.  Do you hear me?”  Marabelle ended her question with a scream of pain.

“Don’t you worry, baby.  This is all.  You’re right.  In just a few minutes we’ll have our little girl and our family will be done.  Just keep breathing, baby.”

© Deborah E. Moore – 2011

This is Installment Four of the novel Rose and Justice.   It includes Chapters II.i and II.ii.  It is 4,138 words long.  As installments are posted, links for each will be added under the tab labeled “The Novel” at the top of this page.   Enjoy!

II.i

            D.C. felt restless all the time.  No one seemed to notice this; they just thought he was an antsy kind of guy.  He had held 14 jobs in the first six years of his marriage until he finally landed a position in the Cullman Water Department.  He hated it, but he had seemed to hate everything else he had done as well, so he made the water department a career.  He had also grown tired of the endless lectures from his father about “being a man” and “providing a good living.”  The security of working in city government held his father’s tirades off, and besides the benefits were good and he made enough to keep them about average in the Cullman social hierarchy.  The problem was that D.C. hated average, hated Cullman, and hated just about everything else about his life.

The kids were o.k.  After Daniel Christopher Carter, III, or D.C.3, had been born, Sandy seemed to be pregnant or nursing all the time.  Mary Jo followed D.C.3 by 16 months and Clinton followed her by two years to the day.  Then came the twins – Curtis and Carl.  D.C. was probably the only man in the world who had slept with his wife a grand total of four times and had five kids.  All four times, D.C. had been drunk.  It was the only way he seemed able to show Sandy any affection at all.  He was kind to her, she deserved at least that much, but she wasn’t much more to him than a casual acquaintance and the mother of his children.

God knows why, but Sandy adored D.C.  She was a loving and supportive wife and never seemed to be too concerned about their non-existent sex life.  She was really far too good for him, he thought, and therefore he lived with continuous guilt.  He was a pretty good dad, but wasn’t in the running for any father-of-the-year awards.  All in all, D.C. was pretty average himself, and he hated that most of all.

Mostly, he had never felt connected.  Not to his parents, not to Sandy, not to his hometown, and not even to himself.  He felt like the real D.C. Carter was out there somewhere waiting for him to join up and see the world.  When he was a senior, a few of his buddies talked him into skipping a day of school and going to Birmingham with them.  It was the only time in his life that he had ever been out of Cullman.  In retrospect, it was also the only time in his life when he had ever felt alive.  He had probably been the only man in America who wished he could go to Korea, but a bum knee from his football days made him 4-F.  His life here was like living in someone else’s skin, someone he didn’t even like.

He showed up to the right functions, went to the right church, signed his boys up for summer baseball leagues at the Dixieland Ballpark, and went to his daughter’s ballet recitals.  Most people seemed to like having him around, but didn’t go out of their way to make sure he was there.  He really wondered if anyone would miss him if he were gone.  He knew he wouldn’t miss anyone here.  Sure, he loved his kids, but they never really felt like “his.”  Not that he thought Sandy would ever fool around.  He knew she hadn’t.  His kids just seemed like strangers to him.  And it wasn’t just his kids.  He felt like he lived in the midst of strangers, even around friends he had known since kindergarten.  Or, more likely, he was the stranger, and everybody else was right at home.

He had never fooled around either, though most wouldn’t believe that if they knew about his sex life at home.  He’d had opportunities but never followed through on them.  He didn’t seem to care enough to do so.  Besides, every time he had ever had sex, it had been less than memorable and only increased his burden by one or two more mouths to feed.  No, Daniel found his release in other ways.

Every now and then, not in a regular sort of way but when the mood hit him, he would awaken before anyone else, throw on some pants and a shirt, and walk into the woods behind their house.  About a mile into the forest was a small bluff overlooking a cleared valley below.  It was a peaceful place, completely isolated, and as far as he knew no one else ever came here.  He would sit on the edge of the bluff and watch the sun rise directly ahead of him.   He never consciously understood what happened here, nor could he have explained it if he did, but in this place, watching the eastern sky begin to fill with light, he felt less alone.  The bluff at sunrise was the only place and time when he didn’t feel like a misfit to his own life.  He would alternately watch the streaks of dawn run across the sky and close his eyes to try to see the something else he felt was also here for him to see.  He retained just enough hope to believe that this couldn’t possibly be all there was, that a life experience as expansive as the early morning sky was available to him.  And as he sat there, D.C. would imagine the other part of himself he knew was out there somewhere.

II.ii

            “How much longer?”  Juliet asked with incredible regularity.  The answer was always the same – “Soon enough.”  Hal was vague in his answers, yet as precise as he could be.  He didn’t really know much better than she how long it would be, although he knew it would be here much too soon for him.  She felt stronger every day and knew so much more than she would have ever thought possible.  She was ready.  At least, she felt ready.

With each passing day and with everything she learned, she grew to love Romeo more and more.  She ached for him inside and felt incomplete even with all the beauty and perfection around her.  Sometimes her heart burned like it was on fire and she knew there could be no greater pain than living without the only one who could truly heal her ache.  Hal was a comfort to her, but even he knew that he could only do so much.  She would live with this burning until she could find her Romeo again.

“I think it won’t be long now.”  Hal’s answer finally changed.

“Why?  Why do you say that?”  Juliet became excited and started shaking Hal’s arm.

He smiled.  “Because the light is starting to shine from you.  You will hear from the light very soon.  I think, perhaps, it’s time to see the alchemist.”

Hal had told Juliet about the return process.  When a being was due to return by order of the Light for continued learning, they were sent back to a group of Beings they had known in previous incarnations in order to continue the work they had already done together.  After being contacted by the Light, the being would report to the return tunnel and wait for further instructions.  In these instances, you were pretty certain about the world you would return to and the people you would know.  But, if you were choosing to go back, you had no control of where you would end up.  You could simply show up at the return tunnel and request a trip, trusting that wherever you ended up would work out.  But, that was much like playing a huge Roulette wheel, and Juliet wanted to give herself a little better odds.  To accomplish this, you had to visit the alchemist who would work the appropriate magic to get you into the best place and situation for achieving your desired goal.

The path through Mystic Wood seemed to go every direction.  Up and down, left and right, circles around immense primeval oak trees, angular turns with mountain on one side and ravine on the other.   For awhile they followed a river that was singing an ancient Celtic song.  Juliet looked for another source for the music, but Hal confirmed it was indeed the river.

Large boulders rounded by years of river wear formed a natural stepping-stone bridge that Hal and Juliet used to cross the water and move deeper into the wooded mountains where the alchemist was said to live.  The alchemist was a master of transformation and must be consulted for a voluntary return trip.  Shifting from Here-spirit-being to Earth-human-being required a bit of magic.  Most beings never met the alchemist.  Even Hal had to ask directions from a seraphim who lived near the edge of Mystic Wood.

Juliet felt as if they were just going in circles, though she was too disoriented to be certain of even that.  Suddenly Hal stopped.

“There it is,” he spoke more to himself than to her, and then, as if trying to remember.  “From the gray-speckled boulder, 12 paces along the path, 90 degree right turn and six paces to the patch of clary sage, turn three complete circles, look directly over left shoulder and walk seven paces toward the first mountain laurel bush you see, left turn four paces, right turn three, bend down between the two large elderberry trees and wait.”

Hal seemed to have ended up about two small steps away from where he began.  Juliet watched him with questioning eyes.  She wanted to trust him completely, and she did in her heart, but this was beginning to test the strength of that trust.   Hal remained crouched in his spot like a large toad.

Just as Juliet was beginning to think she might need to take over the task of leading them out of there, a small moss-covered door opened in the ground beneath Hal.  It had been invisible just the second before, perfectly camouflaged by the intertwining of mossy tendrils.   A small man about six inches tall with emerald green knickers, a blousy shirt of creamy eggshell, a plaid vest, and a black velvet jacket emerged from the door by way of a ladder and stepped gingerly out onto the mossy carpet.  His mop of curly hair fell around slightly pointed ears.

“Good day.”

Hal straightened up, but remained on his knees.   He didn’t seem to be the least bit surprised to be addressed by such a small person.  He cleared his throat.  “Good day.  My name is Hal, and this is Juliet.  We wish to see the alchemist.”

“Of course you do.  It’s about the only reason your kind comes into the Mystic Wood anymore.  We used to be overrun with Beings like you, but then most of you stopped vibrating at our frequency.  My name is Bernard Oxley Millwright IV, and I shall show you the way.  Follow me.”  Bernard turned briskly on his heels and, as he did so, revealed two neat, tightly folded wings tucked close to his back.

Juliet was delighted by this little man and enchanted by this place.  The Eternal Here had flowers and trees and dirt, but this place seemed earthier, somehow, more moss, more mushrooms, more mud.  “Is this . . . is this earth?”  She just knew it couldn’t be so, but didn’t know what else to make of it all.

Bernard Oxley Millwright IV looked at her over his shoulder, but kept walking as he talked.  “Earth?  Sure, why not.  It’s all earth if you get right down to it.  There really isn’t a here or there or earth or not-earth.  There are just different speeds of vibration.”

“So, when you say that you used to be overrun with Beings like us . . .”

“Yes, well, apparently it used to be much easier for Beings in the human form to visit us.  We would make friends and sit and talk along the banks of the Singing River.  Then it seems the ones who couldn’t make the leap from human vibration to Mystic Wood vibration began telling those who could that they were a bit off in the head, as it were.  Fewer and fewer humans came to see us.  The last one I saw was a little girl, and that was many, many moons ago.  She told me herself that her mother had told her I wasn’t real.  I asked if she could see me, and she said yes.  I thought she believed me, but then I never saw her again.”  Bernard stared off into the woods and became misty-eyed for a brief moment.  “At any rate, humans will come back to us one day.  I’m sure of it.”

Hal and Juliet followed Bernard in silence for a few more minutes until he stopped at the base of the sudden rising of a hill.  He turned to Hal, “Reach down to just in front of where I’m standing.”  Hal reached down for the ground, not at all certain of what he was reaching for.  “There, do you feel it?  There’s the handle.  Now, pull.”

Hal pulled up a much larger door, but one hidden invisibly in the mossy ground the same way Bernard Oxley Millwright IV’s door had been.   Inside the door, they could see steps descending into the hillside and nothing beyond that.

“There you are.  Good day to you.”  Oxley fluttered his wings for the first time, shook a few drops of dew from them, and then lifted off the earth and flew away with his arms crossed in front of him and his feet crossed at the ankles.

Hal and Juliet watched him with their mouths slightly open, then Hal came back to the moment.  “All right, then.  I guess we should go see to your future.”

Juliet led the way.  They stepped through the doorway and descended 13 steps until they reached a large room which, although sensibly should have been a cave, was lit by the natural light of several large and inexplicable windows.  The only furniture in the room was a roll-top desk against the back wall, several long wooden tables, and bookshelves from floor to ceiling on two walls.  The tables were littered with open books, scales, mortars and pestles of various sizes, vials of bubbling liquids squatting over candle flames, and smudged sheets of aged parchment scattered about.

Beside the desk was a t-shaped perch on which sat a large Snowy Owl.  He seemed unreal, but then moved his head slightly and Juliet realized he had been watching them from the moment they entered the room.  The owl’s eyes were golden and unblinking and watched the two Beings in a such a way that Juliet knew there was a keen intelligence behind them.

Hanging from the high ceiling were orbs of various sizes hanging from mobiles and spinning and circling each other.  There was a large yellow orb with nine or ten smaller orbs circling it.  And there were other yellow and bright white orbs circled by countless smaller ones, every size, every color, forming an entire universe on this ceiling of this almost invisible cave.

This place was different from anything else Juliet had seen Here and felt quite certain she was not technically still Here.  It felt strangely familiar, as if she were seeing for the first time a place she had visited yesterday.

From one wall hung a considerable tapestry woven with the design of an astrological chart, except that rather than 12 signs there were 40 or 50 at least.  Next to the tapestry was a giant gong on a stand.

The air was hazy with candle smoke and incense.  The smell of patchouli and dragon’s blood mingled in the expansive room and permeated the wood of the furniture.  The alchemist rose from her writing desk as Hal and Juliet approached.  She greeted them with a warm smile.  “I am Maria Claricy.  And are you Juliet?”

Juliet was surprised beyond speech for a few seconds, but then found her tongue.  “Yes.  How did you know my name?”

Marie Claricy twitched her nose and crinkled her brow as if this was an odd and silly question and the answer all too obvious.  “The runes told me, of course.”  She turned to walk away, then looked back over her shoulder.  “Well?  Are you coming?”

Juliet turned to Hal who gestured her forward to follow Maria Claricy.  She trailed the alchemist across the huge hall that seemed to grow bigger the more her eyes were able to take it all in.  Juliet studied the woman in front of her as they walked.

Maria Claricy looked surprisingly young for someone so versed in her craft.  Juliet would have expected a decrepit crone leaning on a crooked walking stick, a large wart on her nose and missing teeth.  Maria Claricy was the polar opposite.  She had long blond hair, mounds of it, loose strands interspersed with random braids, billowing about her shoulders and down past her waist.   It seemed more than a head of hair; it seemed a visible, touchable aura that hovered about the upper half of her body.  Her clothes were layers of fluttering diaphanous purple and gold scarves tied and draped and twisted over a tie-dyed shift of deep blues, greens and reds.  She fluttered as she walked, her scarves like gossamer wings moving through the air.  Bangles and bracelets of silver and amethyst clinked on each wrist and from each bare-footed ankle.

From out of the hidden depths of her hair and across her forehead lay a silver chain with a single white Selenite stone resting directly above and between her vivid green eyes.  She smelled of lavender and rosemary and pine.  Her energy was warm and gentle, open and accepting.  Being in this room and in her presence felt like being hugged by the earth, and for a moment Juliet remembered her former home and all of its splendor.

Maria Claricy led Juliet to a small round table near the astrology tapestry.  In the center of the table was a large crystal globe.  Beside it sat a calico cat and a set of worn Tarot cards.  Maria Claricy shooed the cat off the table and motioned to a chair on the opposite side for Juliet.  When both women were seated, Maria Claricy clasped her hands together, her baubles tinkling around her wrists, and smiled broadly.  “So, now, tell me about this return trip you’re wishing.”

Juliet was still a bit overwhelmed with the trappings of the laboratory.  “Do you believe in all these tools of divination?”

“I believe in energy.  And evvv-rything is energy.”  Maria Claricy drew out the word with great drama.  “I could use the wag of the cat’s tail for divination if I so chose.  But when I use the Tarot or the runes, I am able to combine my energy with the ancient energy of countless oracles, alchemists and seers who have done this work before me.  So, why re-invent the wheel?”

“How are these things going to help me get back to Romeo?”

“I have no idea.  Once you,” Maria Claricy continued, “tell me what it is you want to do, then I’ll know what kind of magic we will need.”

Juliet paused.  She wanted to be sure she remembered every detail Hal had coached her through.  “I need to return to earth, the earth-plane, to meet again with my true love, Romeo.  He is there now.  I must return to that plane before he returns Here.  So, Hal and I have determined a meeting place.  St. Simon’s Island, Georgia.  I need to go to St. Simon’s Island, Georgia, and Hal will direct Romeo to request the same location for his next trip.”  Juliet paused, and then added more softly, “He’s been looking for me for 400 years and I’ve . . . been asleep.”

Maria Claricy sat back in her chair and crossed her arms.  She studied Juliet’s face intently, as if trying to decide something, then suddenly leaned forward and looked deeply into the ball.  “You do understand there is no guarantee you and Romeo will meet in this next incarnation.  We can put you in the same vicinity, that’s not a challenge at all, but once you have both become incarnate your paths may cross or may not completely at the fancy of destiny’s wind.”  Maria Claricy studied the crystal ball as she spoke, not really looking at Juliet or seemingly aware of her at all.  “Ooh, knife wound.  You must have hurt deeply.”

“I still do,” Juliet whispered.

Maria Claricy glanced at Juliet quickly, then back to her crystal.  “It seems that St. Simon’s Island, Georgia, is a bit of a resort area.  There are year-round inhabitants, but not many.  Metropolitan areas are so much easier.  Of course, if you’re not picky, I could probably get you in the mainland city of Brunswick with no problem.  Your first choice is not impossible, mind you, just fraught with more obstacles.”

Damn Malcolm, Juliet thought.  “What kind of obstacles?”

Maria Claricy lifted the crystal and sat it aside.  She pulled out a bag of runes and tossed them two by two on the table, studying the runes’ symbols and direction intently after each toss.  “Well, there is a greatly reduced chance that you will actually know the family into which you are born.  They may not be in your soul group.  Sex?”

“Um, excuse me?”

“Sex.  What sex would you like to be?”

Juliet wasn’t ready for the question, but tried to adjust.  “Female, please.”

“As suspected.  You do know I cannot guarantee the sex of the person you are trying to meet, nor can I guarantee that you will be female, although I will do the best I can.”

Juliet nodded.

Maria Claricy swept the runes off the table and back into their pouch.  She turned to a bookshelf behind her, opened a drawer, and pulled out a scroll of yellowed parchment.  She opened the scroll and spread it across the table.  “This is a list of women on St. Simon’s Island of child-bearing age.  Those who are married, involved, getting serious, or having an affair are noted as such.  Do you have a preference of anyone on this list?”

Juliet studied the paper closely, not sure what she was looking for.  “I’m. . . I just don’t know.”

Maria Claricy leaned forward and placed her hand tenderly on Juliet’s arm.  “If you knew anyone on the list, then you would recognize a glow from the name, even if it is different from when you knew them.”

“Well.  I guess any one will do them.”  Juliet gave a tight-lipped smile and shrugged slightly.

“Oh, don’t make it so easy on me.  I would normally love this situation where I could slough somebody off on one of the lesser desirables.  But, I like you.  And 400 years is a very long time to wait.”  Maria Claricy’s smile was that of a beautiful young maiden and a mother all at the same time.  “I can see you haven’t heard from the light yet, but your glow is getting strong.  It should be any day.  I’ll begin working on the spell and you let me know the instant you hear from the light.”

“Is that it?”  Juliet asked.

“For now.”

“But, one question.  If the person I’m trying to meet and I end up the same sex in this next life, will it create a problem?  I mean, if one of us isn’t . . . you know, . . . open to that?”

Maria Claricy reached across the table and took Juliet’s hand in her own.  It was electric, form on form.  The energy was completely different from when she had touched Juliet’s arm earlier.  “My beautiful girl, we’re all open to that.  Trust me, if you are able to find the person with whom you share a true love, you’ll adapt.  Anything else?”

“Once I hear from the light, how soon can I leave?”

“It’s best if you wait a complete nine earth-months.  You may override at any time, of course, but that’s very risky.  After seven earth-months, you’re pretty safe.”

Juliet and Maria Claricy rose and walked arm-in-arm slowly back toward Hal.  They had quickly formed a bond, much as a mother will bond with her child upon first sight.  Before leaving, Juliet hugged Maria Claricy for a very long time and with a very tight squeeze.  “You will help me, won’t you?  You will help me feel all put together again, won’t you?”

“Oh, my dear.  I will do my part, and you will do yours, and Romeo his.  And then there are the stars.  But, I will do my part, of that you can be certain.”

© Deborah E. Moore – 2011