Fallen Masters (61 page)

Marcus sat alone now, completely depleted and utterly exhausted. He was depressed, mournful over his dad’s death, and missing his mom. His dad would never return.

Charlene sat closely next to Dawson, almost in his lap, on a large chair across from Marcus. They were
together,
that’s for sure.

Dr. Tyler Michaels was reviewing what had just transpired, his mind racing back and forth in time, gently shaking his head, and thinking,
If Karen could only see me now.

Bobby Anderson had his hands full dealing with the security issues of who wanted to gain access to Marcus Jackson—for interviews, for business arrangements, and who knew what else. Bobby still needed to protect the youth, since those who kidnapped him were still at large. Arrests were pending as suspects had been identified, and the investigation continued at a rapid pace.

He had established a ten-yard safety zone around the location. His hand-held phone was pressed against one ear and an audio bud was in the other. He was receiving information in both ears even as he observed what was going on outside the production trailer with both eyes.

Suddenly, the unmistakable voice of Rae Loona (who had been separated from the group), threatening one of the security men if he wouldn’t let her pass, could be heard above the general din.

Agent Anderson walked to the door and signaled to the guard that the nurse should be allowed through his security checkpoint. He quickly stepped aside.

Once inside, the scene struck Rae as something out of a Broadway play. A scary play, at that, populated with all kinds of characters and ghosts.

She assessed everyone in the room, and her maternal instincts immediately kicked in as she saw Marcus sitting alone on the couch, staring at the floor. It seemed he did not quite understand the magnitude of what he had just accomplished. She also guessed that he was reliving the loss of his father all over again.

And Rae sensed that he was missing his mom, terribly. She went and sat next to him and put her arms around him. “It’s okay to cry, you know,” she said softly. For once in her life, she wasn’t sure what else to say.

But that was just what he needed to hear. Marcus took a deep breath and let the tears come, releasing a torrent of emotion suppressed for so long. The cry was so visceral and so intense, it created an energy whirlpool effect that touched everyone nearby. Then another L.A. rolling brownout hit them—crazy, considering that the Oscars were happening, but that’s L.A.—the lights flickered a few times before going out.

The people in the trailer stood and sat in the dark, waiting and waiting for the generators to kick in, the only light from the red
EXIT
sign above the door. There was silence, except for Marcus’s heartrending sobs, as all were frozen in the red-tinted dark. In that moment, the
EXIT
sign began to glow much brighter, then brighter still.

All who were present heard a voice:
“Son?”

No one could mistake that voice. Marcus wiped his tears and looked up. Rae’s arms stayed around him for support—she hadn’t let go since he had started to cry.

CHAPTER

108

Marcus saw his dad, the President of the United States, almost in full corporeal form. POTUS radiated pure positive energy and light, and he smiled that familiar smile that had made tens of millions of Americans vote him into the presidency.

“Come, give your father a proper hug and hello!”

Marcus ran into his father’s arms—that is, his dad, not the President of the United States—and refused to release, absorbing every energy-infused second. He was not sure how this could be happening, but he did not question it in the least: His dad was with him now!

“I only wish Mommy was here for this.…”

Everyone in the makeshift green room heard a brief commotion outside before the door of the trailer opened. After having successfully run the security gauntlet, the former First Lady stepped inside just as Marcus was speaking, and she replied, “I am here.”

*   *   *

The First Family, dispossessed now of their historic role and torn from one another cruelly by violence, were together again for a brief reunion. “Amazing,” Rae breathed, stunned by what she was seeing.

Then, one by one, they stepped into view for all to see … the Fallen Masters.

Rae’s eyes opened brighter than ever before in her life. Her husband and child, who had passed so many years ago, also stepped into view with the other beings from the Other Side. She shook her head in happy disbelief, tears dripping down her face.

The spirits were glistening and
alive
with energy. They were
there,
no doubt. Rae reached out and touched them, first one, then the other.
Thank you,
she mouthed in a prayer to God, realizing her faith had allowed this to happen.

How all these beings could fit into such a small space was another amazing phenomenon, but everyone was there and no one felt cramped—and all could see one another in a radiant otherworldly light in the otherwise darkened room.

The energy in the room provided the narrative for those who were there. It seemed like everything was happening telepathically, that they were all able to understand who everyone was, with tacit knowledge of their entire backstories. No one said a word, yet all were talking at the same time.

Another pair of figures stepped forward, a woman who was not known to the others on the earthly plane and a man, also unknown. The whole thing was wonderful in its strangeness. These two were Asima and her guide, Ziryab, the Arabian Fallen Master.

“Even more amazing,” Rae Loona said, still breathless.

*   *   *

“Why?” Charlene asked the question that was in all their hearts and minds. “I mean—” She struggled for a moment, looking from Marcus to Dawson to her friends, and then to the Lady of Guadalupe, the President, and the other Fallen Masters. She knew this was a historic moment like none other. But
why
now, and
why
had she and the others been chosen to receive this special kind of revelation that so few human beings ever experienced?

She didn’t have to elaborate verbally. All the apparitions heard her loud and clear, and they were used to unspoken words of the heart, as was the source of her simple yet profound question.

“Because it was ordained that when the time came, your souls would be united—for a specific time and with a specific purpose—with others from the realm of Light. We are those others, and we are your guides. Everyone on the earthly plane has a guide, but not everyone is open to knowing or communicating with that guide.”
No one among the Fallen Masters spoke this response, but all spoke it, or
thought
it simultaneously, and it came through to all who were present.

In the same voice, as one, they reached out to their living counterparts with a simple message:
“You
chose
to hear us. You
chose
the path that would lead you, ultimately, to the Light. You had the will and the strength not to answer the dark energies swirling all around you.…”

POTUS remembered in that moment—and relived—his first immersion in the pool of consciousness and understood with even more clarity what that signified—for him and for all mankind.

Then it was communicated to everyone who Asima was and what she represented. Here was a woman who had stood against the forces of evil that threatened to take her son and the lives of many others by means of violence. She had given the ultimate sacrifice—herself—in order to preserve a precious life. She did so because she loved her son and had chosen to give him the opportunity to live, even as she ended her own time on Earth.

Ziryab beamed proudly, eloquently, as everyone acknowledged Asima prayerfully.

Then the room in which they stood opened to the Other Side, as if there were no walls, only light and space and another dimension of experience.…

Rae looked over at Tyler and smiled as she walked toward her husband and son—there, standing before her, waiting to greet her. “I told you, Mikey. We are go-ing pla-ces…,” she said with tears in her eyes.

For Tyler Michaels, this was the most moving and significant experience of his lifetime. He was happy for everyone. He looked over and saw Charlene talking to someone who seemed to be her late husband—and to her father. Dawson was next to her, reunited with a younger woman who Tyler knew instinctively was his late wife.

He was happy for everyone
else
but was not thinking this could happen for him, even though he had been communicating with a dead Swedish scientist as his Fallen Master. Talk about improbable!

Rae looked over at him as she hugged her husband. He heard her voice, even though she did not move her lips: “Mikey … anything is possible … as long as you believe.”

Tyler tried to believe. He wanted to. But even after having all these amazing experiences, he still found himself trying to analyze and scientifically decipher this mass hysteria of coincidences. Then his own guide, Emanuel Swedenborg, walked over and began communicating with him telepathically.

“For me,”
he explained,
“I had a passion for scientific inquiry that led me to an understanding of God, of the spiritual side of life, if you will. Then I discovered what was colored in the black-and-white. It came to me in that brief moment. And only then did I realize that I had wanted to believe. I had told myself that I couldn’t—but the power I sought had been seeking me and wanted me to believe, to give myself over to something far greater than myself.”

At that moment, a teenage boy walked into the light from somewhere beyond Tyler’s vision. He said,
“Hello, Dad. It’s Jeremy.”

Tyler caught sight of this perfect blend of himself and Karen—and just started to sob. He grabbed at the boy’s face and pulled him into his body to “feel” his essence, breathing him in, letting go of his regret for every wasted moment he had ever spent—or squandered—in the name of his ego and career.

He looked at Jeremy again, and that’s when he heard Karen’s voice:
“I told you God’s got a plan for you, Tyler. He’s got a grand plan. Just open your eyes and allow it to happen.”
The same words her mother had uttered at her funeral. She walked over calmly and serenely.

“Tyler, you couldn’t handle me coming here tonight with a baby version of Jeremy. So, we wanted you to meet your son and know he exists on the Other Side—if not in your world, he exists in mine. You will see him again. We will be together again. But find your purpose.”
She looked over at a smiling Nurse Rae Loona.
“Hello, Rae,”
she said simply.

By this time, Rae Loona was holding her own son, standing next to her husband, and of course smiling. She winked at Karen. In that moment
she
relived the night in the hospital when Karen, barely clinging to life, had asked Rae to take care of Tyler in case anything happened to her.…

“You honored your promise, Rae. I thank you,”
Karen communicated to Rae, her voice inside the nurse’s head.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, the one honored by so many in the world as the mother of us all, moved closer to Charlene St. John with a fluid grace that seemed other than human. The Blessed Lady smiled as she maternally touched her cheek. Charlene knew deep within that she was forever changed from this experience. Changed again. She turned and her late husband, Ryan, was no longer there, though the warmth of his loving presence remained—as it always would remain with her.

“Don’t lose your way, Charlene,”
the Lady told her.
“You are a beacon of Light for so many. Spread your message of hope and love with your music. Tell our story in song. Write the theme song for
his
book, which will then become a movie for millions to see.”
She looked over toward Charlene’s future husband—yes, that’s how it came into Charlene’s mind.…

In that instant, Charlene saw a flash of her future as Mrs. Dawson Alexander Rask, with three beautiful children, one of them adopted from a children’s hospital in Africa that Dr. Tyler Michaels would found in honor of his family—and the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg.

In that same instant … Dawson had his moment with C. S. Lewis, the esteemed English author who had inhabited his dreams and many waking hours of late.

“Your task is to
inspire
readers with spiritual and thought-provoking ideas—to inspire and to
teach.
Take them on your own journey of self-discovery. Finding your Narnia and the Shadowlands no longer in peril. Go there. Take others there. Be there. Even as you are
here
with the ones you love.”

Dawson turned to see Charlene. They exchanged a very intimate look of understanding with each other. From that time and forever, they knew what their future held for them—together—and they were excited to embrace it, without fear or guilt any more.

The red light of the
EXIT
sign flickered and resumed its steady glow. The regular lights in the trailer flashed back on, causing those inside to squint as their eyes got reaccustomed to the bright fluorescent glare. Rae, Dawson, Tyler, Charlene, Marcus, and the First Lady stood there in the no longer crowded space, much smaller now that the walls surrounded them once again. They all knew that the Fallen Masters would always be with them, even if they couldn’t touch or see them. Looking from one to the other, they knew they were changed—for the good and for all time. They had been given glimpses of the future, of their hopes and goals.

They would each get there, having taken a huge step forward this day.

Marcus Jackson smiled and hugged his mom.

No one said a word for a long time.

EPILOGUE

Mama G was exhausted, as if she had just taken a long, difficult trip. Of course, that’s exactly what she’d done. From her new vantage point on the Other Side, she observed her many friends through a pool of consciousness that Asima had led her to. Despite her bone-tiredness—or whatever spiritual exhaustion could be called—she was anxious about what was happening in the world she had left behind, and the people she loved. Especially Ruby.