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Chapter Five
( scroll down to start at chapter one.)
Ethan was already home. She looked at the clock, amazed to see so much time had passed. Her brother stumbled into the kitchen, holding his hand to his nose and sporting a darkening, bruised eye. Nana stood. Remembering the circle, she cut a doorway in it, reminding Leah to open the circle properly as she rushed to her grandson.
“What happened?” Nana’s loud voice filled the kitchen, causing Ethan to cringe a little.
He reached for a paper towel to hold up to his bleeding nose. “Fight,” he mumbled.
Opening the freezer door, Nana pulled out a bag of peas and handed it to Ethan. “Put that on your eye. I can tell you were in a fight. Why?”
Leah guided her brother to a kitchen chair. “Might as well tell all or Nana will take to the neighborhood to investigate. You know you don’t want that.”
Ethan grumbled something indistinct through his bag of peas and paper towel.
“What? I don’t understand?”
Her brother might have been a pain, but he was her pain, and no one should have been slapping him around. Anger bubbled to the surface, making her want to run out the door and find the big bully who had hurt her brother. Probably a sixth-grader, the hulking kid down the street whose parents had held him back a grade to bulk up for sports.
“Monica.” He whispered the name.
Doubting she’d heard right, Leah repeated the name. “Monica? The British girl who moved in after us?”
“Yes,” her brother answered, refusing to look up.
“She’s a girl,” Nana added, stating the obvious.
“A big, angry girl,” Ethan added, his cut lip garbling his words a bit.
Yep, she was big, and she did have an attitude. Leah agreed with her brother. It surprised her since she had thought British folks were happy and polite. Turned out, she’d gotten that wrong. “Why did she hit you?”
Ethan shrugged. “Emily had a book about fairies. It was surprisingly real, as opposed to all the made-up cartoon nonsense. Monica sat behind us making jokes about fairies not being real. I may have told her to shut up. Emily might have, too.”
“That set her off?” It seemed like a relatively harmless exchange children and adults often had, without any noses bloodied in the process.
“I dunno. We were getting off the bus, and she pushes into me and calls me a ‘ginger beer.’ I think she’s playing with me, like calling me a Coke or something. I say, ‘Same to you,’ then she starts swinging.”
Nana piped in, “I don’t know why she’d call you a ginger beer. Isn’t that like a root beer?”
Clearing her throat, Leah got everyone’s attention. “I guess it is, in a way. Apparently, it is a British slur for gay.”
Ethan lowered the bag of peas. “She thinks I am gay, and then I said she was gay?” His eyes flicked up, as if he was thinking. “She is a big girl with a bad haircut that makes her look like a boy from the 1950s. I bet I am not the first person to call her gay.”
Leah didn’t correct her brother for going right to the stereotypes. “Then you understand why it might upset her.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “Still, it makes no sense why she’d call me gay.”
Leah’s and her grandmother’s eyes met over Ethan’s head. He had no clue, really. The fact most of his friends were female wasn’t clue enough. Their father urged him to try out for sports, even though Ethan had no aptitude or desire. Still, Leah was starting to wonder about her little brother, who had better fashion awareness than she did. Now, she was heading right into the stereotypes. There had to be a better way to make sense of it for her little brother.
Resting one arm on the table, she angled her chair in Ethan’s direction. “Remember when we moved and how you had trouble fitting in?”
Ethan managed to bob his head in agreement while the bag of peas still covered half his face. “It was only a few months ago. Yeah, fifth grade is even worse with the gender polarization.”
Nana cocked her head like a curious bird. “What?”
Leah tried to explain. “He means the girls only hang out with girls and guys with guys.”
Her grandmother pulled the bag holding her deck of Tarot cards from her pocket and muttered, “That’s the way it is supposed to be. You are ten years old.”
She’d had the Tarot cards all along. It was peculiar she had chosen to read tea leaves for her. Had she not wanted to see things too clearly or had she been afraid of what she might find? Despite her belligerent nature, Nana wanted people to be happy. The best way to do that was to tell them only the happy things.
Ethan grumbled about the injustice of his place in life, not limited by a swollen lip and a pea bag. At least his nose had stopped bleeding. It was almost impossible to make out his words with the tissue wadded up in his nostril. “Sports. That’s all the boys ever talk about. Sports they watch on television, sports they’re going to try out for, games they might attend, and sports players’ stats. Yawn. I could understand if Monica had to listen to that. Still, she has girls to talk to who talk about everything.” Her brother threw out his free arm for emphasis.
Leah was tempted to add that in her experience females didn’t talk about much besides boys, other girls, and boys. Stella was an exception, which was one of the reasons she liked her.
Nana shoved the deck in front of Ethan, who automatically cut it, a little sloppy with one hand, but he still managed to stack one-half on top of the other. “Are you thinking of your question?” she asked.
For him, she pulls out the cards, Leah complained to herself. What was the difference?
Instead of turning the card over, Nana kept her cupped hands over the deck and asked another question. “Does Monica talk much to the girls in her class?”
Ethan fingered his lip, possibly checking the swelling, before answering. “I don’t know since we aren’t in the same class. I see her outside in the hall or in the lunchroom. When I see her there, she looks just as angry as she did before she punched me. The girls avoid her. Don’t blame them. If I hadn’t stood so close, I wouldn’t be freezing my face with frozen vegetables.”
Leah teased her brother, who was starting to sound more like himself. “I imagine those peas are cooked now, considering all the hot air you’ve been putting out.”
Ethan forced out a laugh at the same time Nana turned over a card.
The three of them stared at the Tower card. The old deck was familiar, as was the slightly leaning tower of stones that looked to Leah like it might tumble down at any time. Not exactly a strong symbol.
Ethan touched the card with an index finger and softly mouthed the word, “Change.” He looked up. “I know it indicates change, but what does it really mean?”
“It depends on the question.” Nana flashed a slight smile. “It could mean change is coming to your finances, spiritual plane, love life, or even health.”
Lowering the pea bag, he gestured to his darkened eye. “I’ve already experienced the health change. What else can I expect?”
“This might not be a good time for financial investments. You may have a few revelations or insights. Things are not always as they seem. Those you may depend on to be there for you might not.”
Ethan sat with a dumbstruck look on his face, staring off in the distance.
Seeing his expression, Nana hurried to offer, “I can turn another card for confirmation.”
Waving his hand, Ethan protested, “Don’t bother. I am not sure I can deal with any more happy revelations.” He pushed out his chair and left the kitchen without saying another word.
Leah watched her brother go, troubled at the lack of his usual happy demeanor. Growing up had a tendency to knock your feet out from under you. Her grandmother picked up the card and placed it back in the deck, reminding Leah of her frustration with the ambiguous tea leaf symbols.
“Nana?” She gestured in the direction of the deck. “Why no cards for me? You pulled out the deck as soon as Ethan had an issue.”
The deck disappeared into a silk bag and returned to the skirt pocket. “Ethan is a child who needs clearer answers, while you are a woman who needs to find her own answers and make her own destiny.”
You are a woman. Need to make your own destiny. Just yesterday, her father had informed her she couldn’t take the car to drive to Stella’s, despite having her driver’s license, because she was too young. “The other day I was too young, now I’m to pick out my own destiny. How’s that work?” Her voice grew louder with her frustration. Realizing she was yelling at her grandmother, she tacked on a “Sorry.”
Her grandmother reached forward to cradle a hand around Leah’s chin. “My child, I wish it were easier for you, but it isn’t. Destiny picked you, but you can shape your path somewhat. Something in your past life calls to you, unfinished business your soul must complete.”
“What?” Leah shook her head as if trying to remove Nana’s words. “How can I have unfinished business in the past? I’ve never heard of anyone returning to the past to tidy up things. This makes no sense.”
Nana’s face drooped with sadness. “I wish I could take this trial away from you, but it is yours. It will be the making of you, even though you are already a strong person.”
Trial? That never sounded good. She had an image of the dark-headed young woman, who she knew was herself, being dragged into a courtroom where a skeletal man in dark robes presided as judge and jury. There had to be a way to stop her unplanned trips. “If people travel back and forth through time, why can’t they remember it?”
Her grandmother gave her chin a squeeze. “Good question. It shows you are always thinking. There are many reasons why people do not clearly remember.” She emphasized the one telling word. “Often, they solved the problem in the previous life, so there is no reason to remember. They solved their karmic dilemma. Other times, only sections appear to us in dreams or a sense of déjà vu. Perhaps we see a stranger on the street whose spirit resonates with ours. It is someone from our previous lives in a different body. Our mind doesn’t recognize them, but our spirit does.”
“Is there a reason we don’t remember everything? Life would be easier if you could use past-life knowledge. How can you solve a problem if you don’t know what it is?” This time-traveling business was not only frightening her but also making her angry. Why couldn’t her old self tell her new self what to do? Of course, her old self didn’t seem to be lingering around to be of any use.
Nana stood and carried her used cup and saucer to the sink swaying slightly without the help of her cane. She strained off the tea leaves into one saucer to use in the compost pile. Papa teased her sometimes, calling it magickal compost, which yielded astounding vegetables and blooms. Looking out the window, she spoke. “I often wondered if it was like victims of violent crime whose brains bury the memories since living with the knowledge is too much. Then again, I heard a reincarnation expert speak on karmic destiny at the Spiritual Fair last year. You remember the fair?”
Leah remembered the fair as one of the few times she’d felt normal. Children dressed as elves and fairies had dashed through the various stalls that had sold everything from healing crystals to every type of incense a person could envision. The sheer volume of books addressing everything from reading auras to astral travel had staggered her imagination. A feeling of peace swept her with the memory. “Yes, I remember it.”
Nana continued as if she hadn’t heard the wistful quality to her answer, or she’d chosen not to acknowledge it, saving her some embarrassment. “He said most people who try to recall previous lives remember only the moment of death clearly. If it is a violent death, the emotional impact is especially strong. It is also the closest memory to the new person.”
“That makes sense,” Leah replied, picking up the plate of remaining cookies. Her other self in the other time had definitely had a violent ending. She didn’t even have to wonder about it. Would her current self prevent it or had it already happened? “Still, knowing what needs to be done would make things much simpler.”
Turning on the water, her grandmother half-filled the sink with water, squirted in some soap liquid and whipped it into lather with her hands. “It should all be that easy. You aren’t born knowing what you did wrong in the previous life and knowing what you should do with this one. With each life, we encounter other people on their karmic paths, often souls we knew before. Together we have to discover our destiny and learn what we need to know.”
Sealing the cookies into a plastic container, Leah asked aloud, “What if you don’t do the thing you are supposed to do in your lifetime?”
Grandmother’s voice, muted by the running water, still rang clear. “You have to repeat it in each new life until you get it right.”
She’d thought as much without Nana confirming it. Her lips twisted to one side. No one needed to tell her this was not her first time reliving this scenario. Apparently, she hadn’t gotten it right in previous lifetimes. How could she get it right this time?
Her life depended on her making it this time. If she didn’t die violently in the past, would it change her current life? Would she cease to exist? She had a feeling if she died in the past, she’d die in the now, too. Would her family simply have one less daughter and never even blink when they heard the name Leah? This time she had to succeed, and to do that, she needed knowledge. This called for research and a trip to the library.
A need to have more information for the essay was how she framed her plans to both her father and Stella. He even let her have the car, which was strange since the other day she had been too young. Had Nana said something? She’d chosen not to trouble her parents with her recent adventures. Not much they could have done. Her mother’s mental health already bore too much stress from the recent death of two of her clients. As a health care professional, she tended to take it hard when her patients died.
Her father would have given her a doubtful look. She understood he only pretended to believe to keep both her mother and grandmother happy. If they had been Jewish, he would have converted to Judaism. It was as simple as that. Or was it that simple? She used to bemoan her Wiccan roots, considering them an insurmountable obstacle to any type of future relationship with Dylan. Maybe they weren’t.
No one her age had any use for religion, or anything vaguely similar to mainstream kind. Oh, there were a few born-again kids at school who wore enough cross jewelry to prevent them from ever getting through an airport metal detector. She chose not to enlighten them. Their symbol had come from an Egyptian sun-god culture a mere six hundred years ago. Even if she had, they wouldn’t have believed her. They were so thoroughly entrenched in their Bible studies, contemporary gospel music, and Christian fiction that they refused to examine the very world around them. They took every word their minister said as gospel. Yep, they were the only ones who never had doubts or questions.
Some folks might have called it great faith. On the other hand, it might just have been laziness, the fear of examining life, and all it entails, on their own. She had even heard once, from one of her Christian friends, that to question anything could result in eternal damnation. That would certainly put an end to any thinking outside the religious box. What would they do if they were to found themselves caught in the same situation she found herself?
Would they think they were possessed? Losing their minds? Would they call for the priest or run out in front of an oncoming semi? Hard to know, but in the end this was a fight resting squarely on her shoulders. She might not like it, but that didn’t change the circumstances. This sudden knowing people’s thoughts would help.
Taking the keys offered by her father, she tried to probe his mind. Nothing. Had her ability gone away as soon as it had occurred? Great, what now? She’d found a magic tool, but lost it a second later?
Clik here to view.
Chapter Five
( scroll down to start at chapter one.)
Ethan was already home. She looked at the clock, amazed to see so much time had passed. Her brother stumbled into the kitchen, holding his hand to his nose and sporting a darkening, bruised eye. Nana stood. Remembering the circle, she cut a doorway in it, reminding Leah to open the circle properly as she rushed to her grandson.
“What happened?” Nana’s loud voice filled the kitchen, causing Ethan to cringe a little.
He reached for a paper towel to hold up to his bleeding nose. “Fight,” he mumbled.
Opening the freezer door, Nana pulled out a bag of peas and handed it to Ethan. “Put that on your eye. I can tell you were in a fight. Why?”
Leah guided her brother to a kitchen chair. “Might as well tell all or Nana will take to the neighborhood to investigate. You know you don’t want that.”
Ethan grumbled something indistinct through his bag of peas and paper towel.
“What? I don’t understand?”
Her brother might have been a pain, but he was her pain, and no one should have been slapping him around. Anger bubbled to the surface, making her want to run out the door and find the big bully who had hurt her brother. Probably a sixth-grader, the hulking kid down the street whose parents had held him back a grade to bulk up for sports.
“Monica.” He whispered the name.
Doubting she’d heard right, Leah repeated the name. “Monica? The British girl who moved in after us?”
“Yes,” her brother answered, refusing to look up.
“She’s a girl,” Nana added, stating the obvious.
“A big, angry girl,” Ethan added, his cut lip garbling his words a bit.
Yep, she was big, and she did have an attitude. Leah agreed with her brother. It surprised her since she had thought British folks were happy and polite. Turned out, she’d gotten that wrong. “Why did she hit you?”
Ethan shrugged. “Emily had a book about fairies. It was surprisingly real, as opposed to all the made-up cartoon nonsense. Monica sat behind us making jokes about fairies not being real. I may have told her to shut up. Emily might have, too.”
“That set her off?” It seemed like a relatively harmless exchange children and adults often had, without any noses bloodied in the process.
“I dunno. We were getting off the bus, and she pushes into me and calls me a ‘ginger beer.’ I think she’s playing with me, like calling me a Coke or something. I say, ‘Same to you,’ then she starts swinging.”
Nana piped in, “I don’t know why she’d call you a ginger beer. Isn’t that like a root beer?”
Clearing her throat, Leah got everyone’s attention. “I guess it is, in a way. Apparently, it is a British slur for gay.”
Ethan lowered the bag of peas. “She thinks I am gay, and then I said she was gay?” His eyes flicked up, as if he was thinking. “She is a big girl with a bad haircut that makes her look like a boy from the 1950s. I bet I am not the first person to call her gay.”
Leah didn’t correct her brother for going right to the stereotypes. “Then you understand why it might upset her.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “Still, it makes no sense why she’d call me gay.”
Leah’s and her grandmother’s eyes met over Ethan’s head. He had no clue, really. The fact most of his friends were female wasn’t clue enough. Their father urged him to try out for sports, even though Ethan had no aptitude or desire. Still, Leah was starting to wonder about her little brother, who had better fashion awareness than she did. Now, she was heading right into the stereotypes. There had to be a better way to make sense of it for her little brother.
Resting one arm on the table, she angled her chair in Ethan’s direction. “Remember when we moved and how you had trouble fitting in?”
Ethan managed to bob his head in agreement while the bag of peas still covered half his face. “It was only a few months ago. Yeah, fifth grade is even worse with the gender polarization.”
Nana cocked her head like a curious bird. “What?”
Leah tried to explain. “He means the girls only hang out with girls and guys with guys.”
Her grandmother pulled the bag holding her deck of Tarot cards from her pocket and muttered, “That’s the way it is supposed to be. You are ten years old.”
She’d had the Tarot cards all along. It was peculiar she had chosen to read tea leaves for her. Had she not wanted to see things too clearly or had she been afraid of what she might find? Despite her belligerent nature, Nana wanted people to be happy. The best way to do that was to tell them only the happy things.
Ethan grumbled about the injustice of his place in life, not limited by a swollen lip and a pea bag. At least his nose had stopped bleeding. It was almost impossible to make out his words with the tissue wadded up in his nostril. “Sports. That’s all the boys ever talk about. Sports they watch on television, sports they’re going to try out for, games they might attend, and sports players’ stats. Yawn. I could understand if Monica had to listen to that. Still, she has girls to talk to who talk about everything.” Her brother threw out his free arm for emphasis.
Leah was tempted to add that in her experience females didn’t talk about much besides boys, other girls, and boys. Stella was an exception, which was one of the reasons she liked her.
Nana shoved the deck in front of Ethan, who automatically cut it, a little sloppy with one hand, but he still managed to stack one-half on top of the other. “Are you thinking of your question?” she asked.
For him, she pulls out the cards, Leah complained to herself. What was the difference?
Instead of turning the card over, Nana kept her cupped hands over the deck and asked another question. “Does Monica talk much to the girls in her class?”
Ethan fingered his lip, possibly checking the swelling, before answering. “I don’t know since we aren’t in the same class. I see her outside in the hall or in the lunchroom. When I see her there, she looks just as angry as she did before she punched me. The girls avoid her. Don’t blame them. If I hadn’t stood so close, I wouldn’t be freezing my face with frozen vegetables.”
Leah teased her brother, who was starting to sound more like himself. “I imagine those peas are cooked now, considering all the hot air you’ve been putting out.”
Ethan forced out a laugh at the same time Nana turned over a card.
The three of them stared at the Tower card. The old deck was familiar, as was the slightly leaning tower of stones that looked to Leah like it might tumble down at any time. Not exactly a strong symbol.
Ethan touched the card with an index finger and softly mouthed the word, “Change.” He looked up. “I know it indicates change, but what does it really mean?”
“It depends on the question.” Nana flashed a slight smile. “It could mean change is coming to your finances, spiritual plane, love life, or even health.”
Lowering the pea bag, he gestured to his darkened eye. “I’ve already experienced the health change. What else can I expect?”
“This might not be a good time for financial investments. You may have a few revelations or insights. Things are not always as they seem. Those you may depend on to be there for you might not.”
Ethan sat with a dumbstruck look on his face, staring off in the distance.
Seeing his expression, Nana hurried to offer, “I can turn another card for confirmation.”
Waving his hand, Ethan protested, “Don’t bother. I am not sure I can deal with any more happy revelations.” He pushed out his chair and left the kitchen without saying another word.
Leah watched her brother go, troubled at the lack of his usual happy demeanor. Growing up had a tendency to knock your feet out from under you. Her grandmother picked up the card and placed it back in the deck, reminding Leah of her frustration with the ambiguous tea leaf symbols.
“Nana?” She gestured in the direction of the deck. “Why no cards for me? You pulled out the deck as soon as Ethan had an issue.”
The deck disappeared into a silk bag and returned to the skirt pocket. “Ethan is a child who needs clearer answers, while you are a woman who needs to find her own answers and make her own destiny.”
You are a woman. Need to make your own destiny. Just yesterday, her father had informed her she couldn’t take the car to drive to Stella’s, despite having her driver’s license, because she was too young. “The other day I was too young, now I’m to pick out my own destiny. How’s that work?” Her voice grew louder with her frustration. Realizing she was yelling at her grandmother, she tacked on a “Sorry.”
Her grandmother reached forward to cradle a hand around Leah’s chin. “My child, I wish it were easier for you, but it isn’t. Destiny picked you, but you can shape your path somewhat. Something in your past life calls to you, unfinished business your soul must complete.”
“What?” Leah shook her head as if trying to remove Nana’s words. “How can I have unfinished business in the past? I’ve never heard of anyone returning to the past to tidy up things. This makes no sense.”
Nana’s face drooped with sadness. “I wish I could take this trial away from you, but it is yours. It will be the making of you, even though you are already a strong person.”
Trial? That never sounded good. She had an image of the dark-headed young woman, who she knew was herself, being dragged into a courtroom where a skeletal man in dark robes presided as judge and jury. There had to be a way to stop her unplanned trips. “If people travel back and forth through time, why can’t they remember it?”
Her grandmother gave her chin a squeeze. “Good question. It shows you are always thinking. There are many reasons why people do not clearly remember.” She emphasized the one telling word. “Often, they solved the problem in the previous life, so there is no reason to remember. They solved their karmic dilemma. Other times, only sections appear to us in dreams or a sense of déjà vu. Perhaps we see a stranger on the street whose spirit resonates with ours. It is someone from our previous lives in a different body. Our mind doesn’t recognize them, but our spirit does.”
“Is there a reason we don’t remember everything? Life would be easier if you could use past-life knowledge. How can you solve a problem if you don’t know what it is?” This time-traveling business was not only frightening her but also making her angry. Why couldn’t her old self tell her new self what to do? Of course, her old self didn’t seem to be lingering around to be of any use.
Nana stood and carried her used cup and saucer to the sink swaying slightly without the help of her cane. She strained off the tea leaves into one saucer to use in the compost pile. Papa teased her sometimes, calling it magickal compost, which yielded astounding vegetables and blooms. Looking out the window, she spoke. “I often wondered if it was like victims of violent crime whose brains bury the memories since living with the knowledge is too much. Then again, I heard a reincarnation expert speak on karmic destiny at the Spiritual Fair last year. You remember the fair?”
Leah remembered the fair as one of the few times she’d felt normal. Children dressed as elves and fairies had dashed through the various stalls that had sold everything from healing crystals to every type of incense a person could envision. The sheer volume of books addressing everything from reading auras to astral travel had staggered her imagination. A feeling of peace swept her with the memory. “Yes, I remember it.”
Nana continued as if she hadn’t heard the wistful quality to her answer, or she’d chosen not to acknowledge it, saving her some embarrassment. “He said most people who try to recall previous lives remember only the moment of death clearly. If it is a violent death, the emotional impact is especially strong. It is also the closest memory to the new person.”
“That makes sense,” Leah replied, picking up the plate of remaining cookies. Her other self in the other time had definitely had a violent ending. She didn’t even have to wonder about it. Would her current self prevent it or had it already happened? “Still, knowing what needs to be done would make things much simpler.”
Turning on the water, her grandmother half-filled the sink with water, squirted in some soap liquid and whipped it into lather with her hands. “It should all be that easy. You aren’t born knowing what you did wrong in the previous life and knowing what you should do with this one. With each life, we encounter other people on their karmic paths, often souls we knew before. Together we have to discover our destiny and learn what we need to know.”
Sealing the cookies into a plastic container, Leah asked aloud, “What if you don’t do the thing you are supposed to do in your lifetime?”
Grandmother’s voice, muted by the running water, still rang clear. “You have to repeat it in each new life until you get it right.”
She’d thought as much without Nana confirming it. Her lips twisted to one side. No one needed to tell her this was not her first time reliving this scenario. Apparently, she hadn’t gotten it right in previous lifetimes. How could she get it right this time?
Her life depended on her making it this time. If she didn’t die violently in the past, would it change her current life? Would she cease to exist? She had a feeling if she died in the past, she’d die in the now, too. Would her family simply have one less daughter and never even blink when they heard the name Leah? This time she had to succeed, and to do that, she needed knowledge. This called for research and a trip to the library.
A need to have more information for the essay was how she framed her plans to both her father and Stella. He even let her have the car, which was strange since the other day she had been too young. Had Nana said something? She’d chosen not to trouble her parents with her recent adventures. Not much they could have done. Her mother’s mental health already bore too much stress from the recent death of two of her clients. As a health care professional, she tended to take it hard when her patients died.
Her father would have given her a doubtful look. She understood he only pretended to believe to keep both her mother and grandmother happy. If they had been Jewish, he would have converted to Judaism. It was as simple as that. Or was it that simple? She used to bemoan her Wiccan roots, considering them an insurmountable obstacle to any type of future relationship with Dylan. Maybe they weren’t.
No one her age had any use for religion, or anything vaguely similar to mainstream kind. Oh, there were a few born-again kids at school who wore enough cross jewelry to prevent them from ever getting through an airport metal detector. She chose not to enlighten them. Their symbol had come from an Egyptian sun-god culture a mere six hundred years ago. Even if she had, they wouldn’t have believed her. They were so thoroughly entrenched in their Bible studies, contemporary gospel music, and Christian fiction that they refused to examine the very world around them. They took every word their minister said as gospel. Yep, they were the only ones who never had doubts or questions.
Some folks might have called it great faith. On the other hand, it might just have been laziness, the fear of examining life, and all it entails, on their own. She had even heard once, from one of her Christian friends, that to question anything could result in eternal damnation. That would certainly put an end to any thinking outside the religious box. What would they do if they were to found themselves caught in the same situation she found herself?
Would they think they were possessed? Losing their minds? Would they call for the priest or run out in front of an oncoming semi? Hard to know, but in the end this was a fight resting squarely on her shoulders. She might not like it, but that didn’t change the circumstances. This sudden knowing people’s thoughts would help.
Taking the keys offered by her father, she tried to probe his mind. Nothing. Had her ability gone away as soon as it had occurred? Great, what now? She’d found a magic tool, but lost it a second later?