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     I drove over the Bridge of Lions and took them to a small restaurant on the beach that specialized in crab cakes.  No one in my group had seen the ocean before coming here and they all loved it.

     We designed, made, and sold bathing suits in our shop and everyone had one.  Sometimes on Sunday we would all pack into the few cars we had and go to the beach.  We would take a picnic and have so much fun.

    
We were seated on the porch facing the ocean and while we waited for our order I told them what I had learned.

     “The area where our houses are located is owned by the government.  It is for sale, but we have
to pay for a survey which is $300.  The land itself is $150
an acre.  Do you think we have enough if we put together all of our money?
”

    
“Can we wait until Joe and the band get back from New Orleans and see how much we have then?  They should be able to come back with more money,” Ginger said.

     “The problem is that now the state knows we’re there because I made the inquiry.  They may make us move.”

     “Can you move a house?” Sandra asked.

     “It can be done, why?”

     “I was thinking about all the land right here on the beach.  It’s cheap.  There’s a sign down there a little ways off that says they want only $50 an acre.  I’d like to live on the beach.”

     We agreed on this and decided to look into this option and discuss it with Joe and them when they got home tomorrow night.

     I was very uncomfortable with the way Joe and the band looked when they came home the next night.  They were dressed in tight black leather pants and silk shirts. 

     They were wearing sunglasses and had their hair slicked back into what was known in the 50s as a duck tail.  They had a cockiness about them that scared me.

     For the first time since our group had been together we had conflict.  I
t
started when George
, one of the band members,
started telling us that they had decided we should all move to Nashville and buy some mansions.

     “It’s so much better than living like we have been living.  The band is making so much money now and we can afford to live like the other stars up there in Nashville.  They have servants and they have nice cars and anything they want.”

     Marion surprised me by saying, “Is that what you want, things?  Rory and I have lived like this, like you are talking about.  Believe me when I say, it is an empty life.

     “I wouldn’t change my life right now for all the new cars and jewels on this earth. 
What do you think, Rory?”

     “I’m with you, honey.  Listen people, we have lived both ways.  The way we lived before was nothing compared to the family we have created here.

     “Speaking for myself, I have never been more at peace.  We have gotten to know Edna, who used to be our servant.  She is a beautiful person and she watches our child sometimes so Marion and I can spend time alone while we try to make more children.

     “We would have never bothered to get to know Edna if we were still stuck in the life that you are striving for.  I suggest we all go to our own houses and talk about this with our own intimates.”

     “What do you want to do?” I asked Joe as soon as we entered our house.  “Because I’ll tell you right now, I will not go with you.”

     “But, Ashley, think how much more our kids will have if we do this.  Don’t you want them to have
more?”

     “I understand, Joe, I really do.  I was once where you are.  You’re caught up in the glitz and glitter of the entertainment world.

     “Our kids are happy and healthy.  I thought you were happy with what we have.  Please, Joe, don’t get caught up in this.  It won’t make you happy.

     “I don’t want to give you an ultimatum, making you choose between your fa
mily and the world of glamour…”

     I suddenly stopped talking.  I put my hand to my forehead and closed my eyes.  I don’t know why.  The last thing I remembered was that Joe tried to catch me. 

     All of a sudden I was in the dark tunnel again and I clearly heard one of the voices I had heard before but now it was isolated so that I could hear what was being said.

     “You have what you need to help them.  Just use what you’ve learned.  Joe needs to be shown the way.  They all need to be shown the way.”

     When I opened my eyes I was lying on the bed and Joe was holding a wet cloth to my head.

     “I thought I was in the dark passage of the cave again, and I heard one of the messages.  I heard it clearly.  You’re on the wrong path, Joe.  Don’t search outside yourself.  You know what I’m talking about.”

     He got teary and said, “Yes, I do know what you’re saying, Ashley.
”

     We held a meeting the next morning and Joe announced, “Ashley and I are staying here.”

    
And so the band broke up.  I had thought that George and Edna were becoming close but she refused to go with him.

     “I love the life I have now, George,” she said.  “I will not give it up as much as I love you.  I can’t believe you would give up this kind of life for money and things.”

     But George and two of the other band members were caught up in the glitz and glitter of the music world.  That left only Joe and Roger, a tall soft spoken man from Joe’s time.

     Joe and Roger found a couple of out-of-work musicians and formed a new band and played locally.

     We ended up buying property on the beach and having our houses moved there.

CHAPTER 37

     It was after moving to the beach that I started having the dreams and would wake up to find myself on the beach and walking into the water in my nightgown.

     The dreams were mostly sounds like someone whispering.  There was also the light I had seen when I died and the whooshing sound.

     That’s when I would wake up to find myself in the water up to my knees and I would be staring out to sea.  Just for a split second I would see a pair of bright red eyes off in the distance but they would disappear shortly after I opened my eyes.

    
I would return to my bed with Joe after changing gowns and I never told anyone.  It was always the day after one of these dreams that someone would say something or something would happen and I would remember one of the messages I had gotten when I was in the dark passage of the cave.

     The messages had come too fast and all at once
so
that I had been unable to separate them at the time, it was just a confusing mess, but now I was remembering them one at a time.

    
The first one was:
LOOK FO
R.
  I had been helping a customer in the dressing room who was trying on bathing suits.

     She had come out of the dressing room in a one piece and she said, “Does this make me look too fat?”

     “You mean too far?” I said and she looked at me like I had grown an extra head.  I shook my head as if to clear it and she went back into the dressing room.

    
After the customer left I walked around the shop thinking, “Too, far, too fat…look, look too fat, look too far,
look for,
LOOK FO
R.”

     I got it, but what did it mean? 
I’m supposed to look for something?  I hated it.  It was driving me crazy.

     I finally put it together later that afternoon when Sandra came into the shop with a letter from George and the other two who had moved to Nashville.

     “He brags about them buying a mansion together,” she read and the word mansion jumped out at me.

     I walked along the beach when later in the evening saying mansion to myself until I mispronounced it and said manson. 
LOOK FOR MANSON!
 
LOOK FOR CHARLES MANSON!  “
And what?” I said to myself.

     So in 1954, living in St. Augustine, Florida, on earth, I was supposed to find Charles Manson and prevent him from doing what he would later do?

     How was I supposed to find him?  I knew that in May of this year he was released from prison on parole for good behavior.  I had read all about the Manson family in my other life, and knew he lived somewhere in California, but that’s all I knew.

     One thing I did know about him was that his mother had been either 15 or 16 when he was born.  She didn’t want him and kept trying to put him in foster homes.

     He spent most of his childhood in foster homes and most of his teenage and adult years in prison for various crimes.  But I didn’t know what I could do about any of this.

     He was 19 in 1954 and I wondered if it was too late to save him.  I needed to talk to Irene.  She had always been my rock.

     I found her walking along the beach, picking up shells.  She had made some beautiful je
welry out of shells that we
sold in the shop.

     “Look at this shell, Ashley.  It has the tiniest little shells on it so that it looks like someone has already designed a piece of jewelry.”

     I took it in my hand, “It’s beautiful, Irene.  I love the peachy color with the teal green bands.”

     “But you didn’t come looking for me to look at shells.  What’s bothering you, child.”

     I laughed, “It’s been awhile since I’ve been a child.
”  I walked along with her thinking how to begin and decided to tell her about my dreams.

     “Irene, since we moved to the beach, I’ve been having dreams and walking in my sleep.”  I told her everything.

     She didn’t say anything, but kept picking up shells.  She was lost in thought.
  I
t
seemed like we walked at least five miles before she finally spoke.

     “You know, Ashley, you need to try to slow down.  It may take awhile to piece together all those messages you got all at once while in that dark passage inside the cave.

     “I don’t know what any of this is about or what you’re supposed to do, if anything, but I do think you were chosen for some reason.

     “Just let the messages come to you as you get them and don’t try to rush it.  The timing is already set by powers beyond our control.”

CHAPTER 38

     Irene had been right about the timing.  Once I quit worrying about things, everything started falling into place.

     I was during this time that
Joe formed a new band.  There were three members of our little community who timidly asked if they could join Joe’s band.  They were better than the original one and soon had offers from record companies in Nashville.

     As a joint effort they wrote a song entitled
“Razzle Dazzle
.”  It made it to the number one slot of the top 40.

     I didn’t notice the parallel at first but soon Joe got a call from his agent in Nashville saying that a man by the name of Charles Manson wanted to talk to Joe and asked if he could give him our phone number.

    
After talking it over with me,
Joe told him yes and when Manson called we invited him to come to Florida and visit with us.

     A few local people had joined us and had moved into the houses vacated by the three band members who had moved to Nashville.  Two of these were members of the band we had listened to on our
first day here in St. Augustine.
  They were black.

     Irene, once again, told us to let things happen that were supposed to happen and Joe and I no longer worried about Manson’s reaction to the two black men,
John and Joseph.

     Charles Manson flew into Jacksonville and Joe and two of the band members picked him up in the van.  As soon as I met him I could tell what a troubled young man he was.

     It surprised me that he was so shy and soft spoken.  He was polite when he met us but when John and Joseph were introduced, he looked like he wanted to kill them.

     “They are part of our community and members of the band,” I said and
M
anson looked at me and his eyes softened.
  “Oh, like Razzle, Dazzle huh?”

     The song Razzle, Dazzle was about everyone living in peace no matter what color or planet you’re from.  In fact, one of the phrases which was repeated in the song was Razzle, Dazzle, Black and White.

     One day Charles was helping me snap beans from our garden.  We were both eating them raw while we worked.  We were sitting on the front porch and he stopped working and sat gazing out to the ocean.

     He looked like he was thinking while he held a handful of beans rolling them in his hands.  He looked at me like he was going to say something then he looked back out at the waves again.

     “What are you thinking?” I asked him and he surprised me by reaching over like he was going to touch my face but as soon as his hand made contact he jerked like he had been struck by lightning.