A Toast to Starry Nights (37 page)

A pinch to the bridge of his nose later,
Dmitri sighed and said, “I don't want to force you to do something you are
against. I mean, I thought all women looked forward to their wedding day. You
are the polar opposite. My mind is boggled.”

“You aren't forcing me. I've already
accepted the fact that my cold feet are related to weddings, not marriage. I
want to be with you, now and always. There is no one I'm more open with or free
to be me. I love you, Dmitri, and I want to show your parents that America
hasn't been bad to you.”

Dmitri cracked a smile. “America has
been awesome to me. You are my family here, home is where you are. ” He lifted
my chin so I could swim in his eyes. “If you want to get married at the
courthouse, we can do that. I love my parents, but this is my life. When I take
you to Croatia, we can celebrate with them, there. We'll take the party barge
out on the Dalmatian coast. You will love it.”

The golden bait on the silver hook was
tempting. A
Get Out of Wedding Free
card, even. Although the offer
existed, I couldn't accept.

“That has merit, but no. Too late. I'
bet Jet already ordered the dresses, and now that I flashed my
invite-tit-tions, there is no escaping what she has planned. Accept your fate,
Dmitri.” I put my hand on his shoulder in a comforting manner as I broke the
bad news to him. ”We're having a wedding.”

A smile cracked my hunny's face. “I'll
brace myself.”

“Good, you do that. It's going to be
somewhere woodsy. And for the reception, golden masks in the old style of
Venetian Carnival. But in a woodsy Morocco.”

Dmitri started laughing after a couple
chuckles escaped his smile. “So you are determined to have a wedding, even a
bare basic affair... but you'll have a carnival fiesta for the reception?”

With a smile on my face I replied, “Hey,
in all fairness, I never said I was allergic to receptions!” In fact, the
celebratory aspect appealed very much to me. As I saw it, gotta eat my veggies
before I get cake.

And I do love me some cake.

C
hapter Nineteen

My office beckoned. With composition
book in hand, I sat at the desk which kept my laptop safe and charged. From the
little clay flower pot next to the charger's transformer, I pulled out a pen
topped with a silk flower and a comfortable grip. Deep within, I knew I'd be
needing it.

I needed to purge myself of the poison I
took today.

The heavy cardboard cover gave way to
reveal a page of blue lines. The empty space cradled invisible words which
would only appear when I used my magic wand of ink. Let the sorcery begin.

Neilsinhaur said to find threads of this
life and that. Okay... the center of attention thing. And the people--
Padraic/Dmitri, Mara/Jet, Bride/Willow, Moire/Nita and Uncle/Grandpa... I could
see those people easily within the constructed meditation. With that in mind, I
could almost make sense of my back assward relationship with Willow-- how I
seem the mature one while she's flighty, scattered and bossy. The
fifty-something teenager.

But the anxiety, the wedding anxiety
which keeps irritating me, that feeling could only be likened to when Ona found
out about the impending invaders. Total unease, complete with a
something-in-the-future-is-going-to-bite-me-on-the-ass sensation.

I was raped by someone my “betrothed”
permitted. And emotionally abused me for it. Ona however... somehow it just
doesn't equal out. The common thread being violation of our person. The scales
are totally different, though.

My hand stopped the waving of magic
ink-wand. It's so contrived, this ooh, explain it away because of something
imagined crap. With the fires of skepticism lit, I lifted the pen again and
continued on a new page. This entry, a rant about the two potential outcomes of
past life regression.

Real or Imagined. Real or Guided. Real
or Not.

The pen screeched its brakes--
Neilsinhaur did not guide me. I know he made a point of mentioning that fact
before, but with the foul feeling being so pervasive tonight, the good doctor's
words were back burnered. Until now.

No, he didn't guide me. Penn &
Teller's BS episode on Hypnosis didn't clue me in on that contingency. Shit.

As I see it, I'm on the fence. Either it
did actually happen and I repeated some really twisted patterns, or I imagined
it all, using my life as a template for Ona's. She lost her parents, moved in
with head patriarchal figure-- like I moved in with my grandparents when Willow
and her then-husband took off for a few years to the wilds unknown. Ona was a
total hussy where her man was concerned, just as I am to mine. And both Padraic
and Dmitri were men displaced from their homes-- although voluntary on Dmitri's
part.

I wonder if it were possible to find out
if Ona or any of them lived? I would consider that a solid piece to the puzzle
found, if the information correlated with the time period my regression
indicated. Until then, I am filing it away as a figment of my imagination. In
the same family of hallucinations that my grandfather experienced immediately
after his car accident. But way more disturbing.

Damn it. I need a second opinion.

Tarot time.

My cards, based off a fourteenth century
Italian deck, glittered with gold leaf as I removed them from the black silk
bag which kept them safe. A gift from Willow, originally appreciated because
each of the seventy-eight cards were an individual work of art. Later, when I
delved into the book containing the meanings, did I actually develop a want to
use them for their intended purpose. Not necessarily a means for telling the
future, more of a means to show other perspectives.

Two decks in one, the Major and Minor
Arcana. The Major dealt with things beyond our control, archetypes and parts of
life's journey. The Minor represents the things in mundane life, of trials and
tribulations. There were as many ways of reading tarot as there were decks and
people. I found my method to be as dependable as one could want.

While I shuffled the cards, I repeated
what I wanted to know in my mind. This reading, I focused on a grander picture.
How will the regression affect my life? Determined hands kept the cards face
down in my palm as I took groupings of cards and placed them elsewhere in the
deck, all the while repeating my focus question. Satisfied the cards weren't in
the same order as when I pulled them from their silken shelter, I cut the cards
and removed the top three cards to reach the ones underneath. These were the
ones to form my spread. Still face down, five cards were lined up. Three more
cards above, three below and one off to the left hand side.

Although I've had the deck for ages, I
preferred using a book when it came to individual card interpretation.

A memory forgets.

A book does not.

The first five cards represent the
situation in a grand scope.

With trepidation, my fingertips grazed
the heavy cardstock emblazoned with a creamy-gold filigree on black upon the
backside, and I flipped the first card over to reveal the face.

Ten of Swords. Super. I don't need a
book to know that I got the worst card in the deck. People get their knickers
in a twist about the Devil or Death... but those cards are from the Major
Arcana, that it's personal and internal transformation, of realizations beyond
our influence. The Ten of Swords isn't in the lofty Major Arcana and means the
lowest point one can go. The only other direction is up. Crash and burn, Baby.
Whoo hoo.

Second card flipped. Death. Hahaha, I
love when I choose awesome cards. Death, not physical. Demise of ideals and
hopes, a period of change and adaption. Sometimes illness. Hey, at least it's
not the Tower, right?

The Hermit hid under the third card.
Time for reflection, a period of withdrawal and contemplation.

Next card, Queen of Chalices. Generally
a female water sign in astrology. A woman of emotional loyalty. Happiness and
success. Being that I'm a Pisces, I take that card to represent me.

Last card, the Ace of Wands. Birth, the
start of something new. Freedom from restraints. Initiative, creative ideas and
self-realization.

Okay. Not bad. What did I learn? I'll
have a revelation after something shitty happens, then a firm foundation for
progress. Gee, that makes almost too much sense, I wonder why I use the cards
in the first place, other than to play Solitaire Captain Obvious...

I moved on to the top three cards
flipping them over, one by one. These were what I have going for me, or things
very evident.

Seven of Chalices. Wishful thinking,
cloudy thoughts. Potential danger of making rash decisions. Me, rash? Ha.

The Sun. Optimism, contentment and joy.
Accomplishment, success and fortunate marriage. I like that card, nice balance
to the shittastic first card of my reading. Okay, moving along. Ten of
Chalices. Lasting happiness, trusting family, honor and virtue.

So this first grouping of three cards
means I'm fucking confused-- which is right, because I am, but that's offset by
good things, like getting married. I can dig that.

My hand moved south. The lower three
cards were what I have going against me or things unseen.

High Priestess, the card of intuition
and secrets. Trusting one's gut instinct to navigate through mysteries. Also
means something will be revealed. Tenacity and wisdom.

Then the Knight of Swords made his
appearance and bitch-slapped the High Priestess. Misplaced confidence. Capacity
for great vision but possibly unrealistic. Ho hum. Nice way to throw a wrench
in the works. Also, being that the Knight is a court card, it generally
represents a male fire sign. Which Dmitri is not.

Last card of this section, the Three of
Coins. Success through time and effort, self improvement and artistic ability.
Dignity.

The last card lay by its lonesome,
waiting for me to grace it with attention. This card indicated the general
outcome. Five of Chalices. Sorrow, mourning. Possibly the loss of a loved one.
Failure to recognize the good in a bad situation.

Well, that sounds promising, doesn't it?

I looked down upon the cards spread
before me and noticed a full third of them were Chalices. In modern parlance,
they would be the suit hearts in a poker deck. The suit of all things relating
to emotions and the heart. So me, overwhelmingly emotional. Seems par for the
course.

My eyes didn't leave the spread out
tarot cards until Dmitri entered the room and asked what I was doing.

“Thought it was self explanatory.”

“Maybe, to a gypsy fortune teller.” Dmitri
made his way to his huge mahogany desk and sat in his computer chair. Then he
scooted himself to my side of the room and parked near my delicate maple desk.

For a long moment I looked him in the
eye before speaking. Could I tell him it all? “I did the regression thing
today.”

“That's why you were late tonight?”

“Yeah, and stopped by Jet's when I got
out of Chico to do some wedding planning stuff.”

Dmitri gestured toward the cards upon my
desk. “So past life then fortune telling, and then everything is fine?”

“It's not for telling the future. Just
another perspective on the situation.”

“Why is it even a situation? That's
borderline issue, right?”

“Maybe.”

Blue eyes bore into mine and Dmitri
spoke, “Will you tell me about it?”

“About what, the tarot cards?”

“You know what I mean. The regression.”

A huge breath of air filled my lungs as
I debated whether to tell him what I experienced in that doctor's chair. ”It
was horrible.” Try as I might to keep tears from falling, I failed on that
account. I could feel the trail down my cheek. “Beyond fucked up.”

Death, rape, torture. Just another day
in the neighborhood, yo.

“How so?” Dmitri's brow wrinkled with
his concerned frown. He reached out a hand to lay atop my own in a subtle,
comforting gesture.

“Ever have a dream that felt so real it
taints your day? It was a lot like that. But worse.”

“So you had a nightmare?”

I fucking wish.

“No. It was like a guided meditation--
but he only guided me to the door of my past life. When I walked over the
threshold, everything but the past life disappeared. I was fully that person,
knew the most trivial of things regarding that person's life. The shrink is
putting forth that the trauma from that life-- which in all rights was truly
traumatic-- as a lingering ghost of why I puked on you.”

“What happened?”

Oh, you know, to save my life, you
fucked me in front of a bunch of invading warriors, then you got sodomized. I
didn't know it was you until we were locked in a tiny room where you died and I
was left with the decomposing corpse and a corner full of shit until I too,
kicked the bucket.

I must have given a visible indication
of my experience because Dmitri then asked, “That bad you won't tell me?”