Gaia Dreams (Gaiaverse Book 1) (28 page)

The other thing she noticed in the hours since
daybreak was that the numbers of horses with them was increasing. She'd looked
behind them a while back and been astonished to see so many. She knew all those
horses hadn't been in the stables! Janine hadn't wanted to bother her current
mount, a lively grey mare named Lily, but her curiosity won out and she finally
put the thought forth. Lily tossed her head around, and Janine would almost
have said she was laughing. The mare seemed to think it funny that her young
rider hadn't figured it out. Horses were sent to towns they passed by to spread
the word and gather more horses to go with their group. By now the message had
spread on ahead of them--again from the force outside them--so that groups of
horses were waiting to join them as they approached.

Lily helped Janine open up a clearer line of
communication in her mind so that she was more able to access information from
the horse collective without being overwhelmed by it. She learned they were
headed to a river and that today they had learned of some humans (other
people!) who would be available to help if it was needed. It wasn't clear yet
what would happen at the river. Janine tried to remember her geography but hadn't
a clue what river they were heading for--she'd never thought she'd make it out
of Nashville so long ago when life had seemed so dark and bleak. Throwing her
head back, she laughed. Janine was happy, headed into the unknown, feeling
safer with these traveling companions than she ever had with any humans.

Somewhere in the Sonoran Desert, Arizona

The ripped vinyl seats scratched Maria's legs as
the van jolted along the gravel road. The vehicle was what they found waiting
when she, Phoebe and Zack had arrived by cab at the small town Margaret had
directed them to this morning. Following her directions, they were hoping to
finally meet their hostess and get some answers.

"So, did you hear about Hutton?" Zack called out
over the roar of the engine.

"No, what?" Maria asked, closing her window to
the dust that was starting to blow in more frequently.

"Seems the oh-so-important Dr. Sheffield Hutton
the Third commandeered a plane early this morning and got the hell out of town.
Guess he missed the high life and all the amenities of Washington."

"Guess so," Maria replied. "Hey, is this even a
road anymore?" She had her hand to her brow, shading her eyes from the bright
sunlight.

Zack was peering ahead as well and said, "I
think there's something up ahead a ways, at least I hope so. I don't think this
is a real road at all--more like an idea of a road!"

Maria looked over her shoulder at Phoebe in the
back. She was sitting motionless, staring out the window. She hadn't said a
word all day and Maria was worried and unsure what to do. As she turned around
to face the front, the van was slowing and Maria saw a low stucco building
surrounded by desert vegetation. Zack stopped the van and they all got out and
started to walk to the building--which Maria assumed was a house--when they saw a
woman walking toward them across a rise beside the building, coming from the
desert.

She was tall, red hair flowing around her
shoulders blown by the wind. She had on a gauzy, long-sleeved tan shirt and worn
blue jeans with soft leather boots. As she approached them she removed her dark
sunglasses and they saw extraordinary green eyes staring them down solemnly.
Standing straight and still, she said, "So--you've come--finally. Not that it
will do a bit of good. Too late for all that now."

Maria couldn't think of a thing to say.

A sunny smile suddenly brightened Margaret's
features and she said, "But, enough about death, destruction, and disasters. We
can talk about those any time. Right now you're thirsty from the drive out
here. Let's go inside and get you something to drink." And with that she
marched briskly past them to the house. "Come along," she called.

"What the--?" Zack started.

Maria shrugged and said, "She's different, all
right. Let's go."

Inside, the house was furnished in a Spartan
manner. There were, however, a couch and a few chairs in a large room where
they all gathered with iced drinks of tea and lemonade.

Margaret said sternly, "I'm letting you have
these drinks, but you have to promise to drink a glass of water next. The
desert can be brutal in terms of dehydration. You have to drink plenty of
water."

They all nodded. Maria noticed that Phoebe
seemed more at ease. She imagined it was because the house appeared to be almost
empty, no knickknacks, no clutter anywhere, barely lived-in.

"Do you live here?" Maria asked.

"Only for the moment," Margaret replied. "It's a
kind of way station for me. I've been doing a lot of traveling this past year
and don't have a specific home right now."

Great, thought Maria. Not only is she a psychic,
she's a homeless psychic!

Zack spoke up, "Would it be okay if I brought in
the camera equipment from the van? We'd like to get you on tape. Then if your
next prediction has been on television and it comes true, people will believe
you and then they'll know--whatever it is that you need to tell them," he
finished awkwardly, only realizing then that he didn't know what the end to
that sentence was.

Margaret sighed. "I did hope we could have a
little chitchat before we got down to the nitty-gritty, but I suppose it's not
to be." She paused, and then said, "I'm not sure that my being on camera is
necessary."

Maria leaned forward and said intensely, "Oh,
but it is! When we have people on camera in an interview, they are believed so
much more! And if you want them to believe--"

"Oh, they believe now," Margaret said with grim
certainty. "At least some of them know something is not right, and that's a
start."

Maria looked taken aback. "What?" she and Zack
said in unison.

Margaret nodded, her red hair glinting in the
sunlight that filtered through the light cotton curtains. "Well, yes, of
course. Eight airplanes all at once...that would get people's attention, I should
think!"

Zack and Maria looked at her blankly, and then
Maria said, "Eight airplanes? What on earth are you talking about?" She turned
to Zack, who shook his head once.

"You didn't hear any news today, did you?"
Margaret asked them.

They both just stared at her wordlessly.

"Ah, that explains it," Margaret said softly.
She took a deep breath and then explained, "Today, this morning, eight aircraft
from eight major airlines here in the United States fell out of the sky and
crashed to the ground. Nobody has an answer as to why. Shortly after this event
took place, almost all scheduled flights were cancelled and many planes enroute
landed at the nearest airports they could find, out of fear that whatever had
happened to the eight could also happen to them. Some fear this is the work of
terrorists, but there is no indication there were bombs on board or that they
were hijacked. Instead, there have been many eyewitness accounts that speak of
something that looked like lightning coming up from the earth, not from the sky,
but from the ground, that reached up and struck the airplanes, bringing them to
a crashing, horrible end."

Margaret looked at her guests and sighed again. They
looked a bit in shock. The airplanes were not so many deaths, surely, as in
L.A. or Las Vegas or the hurricane that wouldn't die, but dramatic nonetheless
in the means. Of course, the other piece was that it was more obviously the
work of something 'else,' something not known, something possibly coordinated,
conscious. That was what they were all afraid to think, afraid to ask. The
problem was she didn't have time to bring these three along slowly.

"So, let me guess," Margaret said into the
silence, startling Phoebe, who almost spilled her drink. "You would like to
know if these planes came down as part of something connected to everything
else. The answer is yes. It's all connected. All the recent disasters are
connected. Beginning with the L.A. earthquake--that's when it started in this
country. The latest is the eight-plane crash."

"Oh, my God," said Phoebe reverently.

"No," said Margaret, "not God."

Zack gulped and then said shakily, "Are you
telling us--are you saying you know who is doing this?"

In answer, Margaret said, "Not
who
, but
what
."
She paused for a moment and then said, "There is a consciousness behind all of
this."

Cape Fair, the Samuels' House

"People are totally freaking out!" Harmony
exclaimed, walking through the back door of Jessica's house with her arms full
of groceries.

Jessica ran to grab the bag slipping out from
under Harmony's left elbow. "What do you mean?" she asked. "Is it the news
about the airplane crashes?"

Harmony made it into the kitchen safely with the
rest of the bags of food. "I don't know--I guess maybe that's it. Who knows?
Whatever it is, all around town I saw people packing up their cars and heading
out of town. It's bizarre! I mean, really--where are they going? Don't they know
this is the safest place they could be right now?"

A deepening look of concern came across Jessica's
face as she thought about what Harmony's news might mean. She said, "I thought
that we--our group--was supposed to save people. How do we do that if they're all
leaving town?" She began unpacking the groceries and putting them on the
shelves of the pantry.

Harmony said, "Oh, on a more positive note, you'll
be glad to hear I got my hands on a bunch of those jars for canning like you
wanted. They're stacked in the back seat of the car."

Jessica smiled and said, "That's terrific!
Canning fruits and vegetables now will help us out a lot." As Harmony walked
back out get the jars, Jessica's smile faded as she kept mulling over the idea
of people leaving town. She was muttering to herself, "It just doesn't make
sense to me, why are they leaving?" when Sam and Harry bounded in through the
back door.

"What doesn't make sense, Mom?" Sam asked,
flopping into a chair.

Jessica said distractedly, "Samantha, wipe those
muddy shoes on the mat outside the door this minute!"

Sam sighed heavily and then walked outside and
wiped her shoes on the mat. Coming back in, she said, "You didn't answer me,
Mom. What doesn't make sense?"

Jessica focused on what Sam was saying and then
said, "Oh. Nothing, kiddo, nothing for you to worry about. Why don't you and
Harry go play?"

Sam stood up next to Harry and said, "Who's
leaving? You said 'they' were leaving. Who is leaving?"

Jessica started to make up something benign to
say to her daughter and then stopped and thought it over. Sam was an integral
part of the group, even though she was just a child. Just--a child. A very
important, precocious, knowledgeable child. Who had otherworldly ways of
getting information and did not deserve to be lied to, Jessica decided finally.

"Okay, kiddo, you're right, that's what I said."
She bit back a grin at the look of surprise on Sam's face. Clearly her daughter
hadn't expected a straightforward answer. "Maybe you can help me sort this one
out. Harmony says that a lot of people are packing up and leaving town. And it
doesn't make sense to me because I thought we were supposed to be making this a
safe zone, to save people."

Almost immediately, Sam said, "Well, I knew some
people
had
to leave, or else where would the new people live?" spreading
her hands wide, palms up.

Jessica looked at her blankly and said, "New
people?"

"Yeah, you know, the ones that are coming here!"

Jessica replied slowly, "Uh, no, I didn't know.
Who's coming here?"

Sam shrugged and said, "Oh just some people and
some animals--but I knew they would need
houses
. So it's good that some
people are leaving so the new people have a place to stay--see?"

New people? Jessica's confusion was followed by
a logistician's need for information. Ticking off items on her fingers, she
fired questions at her daughter, "Could you be a bit more specific, Samantha?
Like who they are, how many, why they're coming, what they're going to do here,
what do we need to do to prepare--" She stopped when Sam put her hands over her
ears.

Chagrined, Jessica leaned down and hugged the
girl.

Pulling little hands away from her daughter's
ears, she said softly, "Oh Sam, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to badger you with
questions like that. I just get so frustrated not knowing what is going to
happen next. I'm really sorry I did that."

Sam hugged her back and said, "It's okay, Mom--but
I thought a badger was an animal. I think you don't look like a badger when you
said all those questions!"

Jessica laughed. "No? Well, okay." She got up
and started making a snack for both of them. "Listen, Sam, can I ask you one
more question--about the people who are leaving?"

"Okay," Sam said, sighing. "I can think harder
and tell you some stuff, if I kind of, you know,
think
about it like in
the dreaming."

Jessica paused and wondered what that meant, but
decided to pursue her question rather than explore the metaphysics of how it
all worked. She said, "Okay, here it is--do you know where all these people in
town are going, the ones that are leaving, where are they going to?"

Sam closed her eyes and became very still. "Some
of them are going to be with their families who live in other towns. Some are
feeling a...I don't know what to call it...a pulling, a feeling to go to another
place, so that is where they are going. Not all to the same places, to
different places."

After a few seconds of silence, Jessica
prompted, "Different places?"

Sam replied, "Yes--but some of the places won't
be safe for long, some of the ways to get to places won't be safe--" and her
voice trailed off as two big tears rolled down her cheeks.