God laughs. It is a measured thoughtful laugh, with much love behind it, but nonetheless a laugh and . . . .
* * * *
It woke me abruptly. I sat bolt upright in my bed.
Ginnie slept blithely on, Daniel slept, the bedroom dark, the night-silence thick. And now the familiar tingle of an unseen hand slid up my arm, resting on my shoulder. Bael’s hand.
—Did you tell him, Leianna? Did you tell him he must let us heal the rift?—
—What? I think so. I don’t know! I’ve got to get back! I was talking to God.—
—What? What did Quatama tell you?—
—Not Quatama. God. I’ve got to get back. Did you wake me?—
—No, I awaited your return. I would not disturb your sleep. What did Quatama tell you?—
—He showed me. I was a babe, newborn. You were a baby, too.—
A different throaty laugh tickled my inner ear. —Your Naming Day. He showed your journey through the Well of Being.—
—Yes.—
—And. . . ?— There was slight hesitancy, a fear.
—You don’t know?—
—Know? I don’t know my own Naming Day journey and its results. These are things hidden deep within our cores, a master program motivating our outward selves. Do you think you could function as an individual, having consciously carried back the memory of the Universal Mind?—
A nebulous twinge of distrust toward Bael drifted through me. —You thought I would know.— I had felt that expectancy, distinctly. —And I thought . . . well, I thought I had remembered the journey and had told you of it in our other life, in Eliom.—
—You are special,— he answered me slowly. —I, too, thought you might remember, just a glimmer, having reenacted the journey.—
—Reenactment . . . —
“No,” I murmured aloud, then caught myself, glancing at Ginnie and Daniel.
—No,— I continued telepathically, —God spoke to me by my mortal name. First He addressed me as the immortal infant I once was. He commissioned me to do something. I can’t recall what. Something to do with keeping something, I can’t recall what. Then He answered a question I’d had before, when I was watching the reenactment as if it were a movie. Something to do with the grey mist. And God told me what it was. He said it was “the darkness before the light.”—
I sensed the amused tolerant smile on his face.
—Well,— I insisted, —that was what He said. If God wants to use a cliche, who’s going to judge Him?—
—It’s not the cliche that gives me pause. It’s the masculine pronoun.—
I stared into the darkness, puzzled.
—God is neither male nor female, Leianna.—
—Oh? You’ve caught God bathing in the buff, I suppose.—
He chortled. —No, but the angelfolk never described the Creator in sexually preferential terms.—
I shut my eyes, the need for sleep returning. —Well, people on Earth generally describe God as male.—
—Sheer ignorance. The Creator, our original Creator, has both male and female traits. The One understands both as part of Its Whole.—
I remained silent at first, the early dawn and my broken rest lulling me back to sleep. “It’s all right,” I whispered. “It’s a habit. God won’t mind.”
—What’s in a name?— Bael paraphrased. —That which we call God would sound as bittersweet . . .—
“’Sall right,” I sighed, barely hearing him, slipping back into unconsciousness.
* * * *
The viewing room screen is off. Quatama sits, relaxed, in his chair, as if patiently awaiting my return.
“God addressed me as I am . . . today,” I say. “How can He address me as an immortal babe, all those centuries ago, and also instantaneously address me as I am now?”
“The Universal Mind need not view time as you do, Leianna. Sometimes it is more important to understand the message, rather than when it was sent. Our Creator can be everywhen at once.”
“Did you stop the projection . . . the recall?”
“You and God stopped the recall, by means of the buffer.” He stands up, displaying the buffer, the skane prism in his hand, and places it in the red accordion file. He lays his hand flat on the viewing screen. The shiny black rectangle slowly emerges. That, too, is carefully returned to the file. “Do you recall the message?”
“Yes, but I don’t understand it? What is a keeper?”
“Ah, but what were Adenoy Dominey’s final words to you?”
“Something about fuzzy grey becoming blinding clarity. I don’t recall it exactly.” I try to smile and fail. “Have I done something wrong?”
Quatama reaches out, his hand lifting my chin, turning my averted face to his. “No. You do recall it, deep inside, in a place where sacred knowledge sleeps until understood and used. For now, I will remind you of the definition the Creator gave to you, as Leigh Ann Elfman: the grey areas of fuzzy thinking before blinding clarity of all aspects. But the final words asked of you were: Do you understand? That question only you can answer.”
Another smaller, almost insignificant question nags me. “Quatama, I know this is going to sound trivial, but the names of the angelfolk—Lucifer, Affaeteres, Michael, Eve, Ashtoreth and so on, they seem to originate from different Earth cultures much more historically recent than these ancient events in Eliom. How is it that the angelfolk had these names beforehand?”
Again, Quatama smiles patiently. “The Eliomese language was rich and varied. It contained many nuances that later translated into different Earth languages as the angelfolk incarnated. As mankind developed writing and other cultural tools, the linguistic trace memories of the Eliomese became homogenized within human languages, religions and myths, as did many other Eliomese traits.”
I nod. His explanation makes sense, although I haven’t the foggiest idea as to how trace memories continue between incarnations, despite my own doing exactly that.
“Time to return to Earth and sleep now, Leianna, for your mind, as much as your mortal body, now requires rest. I will prevent Bael from disturbing it.”
“He . . . he’s asked that we be allowed to heal the rift.”
Quatama studies me intensely. His eyes seem to bore into my heart, to painlessly dissect it and restore it to wholeness again. “Such healing lies not in your and Bael’s hands alone. You and he were victims of the rift, not its authors. But you, Leianna, may provide a light to guide him in his darkness. Tell him he will be monitored. Now you must return to Earth. The mortal dawn in your hemisphere is not far away.”
I hesitate, a final question on my lips too embarrassing to ask a spirit master.
Quatama’s own thin lips slowly stretch into a tolerant grin. “If he proves himself sincere, we will relax our vigilance . . . at times.”
I am about to explain, to tell him that my love for Bael has survived the centuries. But Quatama’s fluted laughter fills my ears, and I float on each note, homeward bound.
Descending, descending, until my mind floats in a peaceful void, and I am whole again, all of me stacked neatly within my mortal flesh, sprawled in slumber upon my Earthly bed.
CHAPTER 11
An