Soulmates (23 page)

“Now you go,” Lo said. My mouth opened but no sound came out. Lo was Sandra—Rosemary's high school friend. The one Ray told me about, the one who had encouraged her to join Yoni decades ago. I hoped that even though she was upset about Rosemary leaving the fold, she retained some residual tenderness for a friend she'd had since she was a girl.

I felt I had been given an opening to tell her the truth. And though it made me wonder if I had lost my mind, I perceived a beneficent force field surrounding the room. I closed my eyes and took deep, soothing breaths so that I could better witness the vibes. I felt like Rosemary was there watching us, and her positive energy would protect me from censure.

“Can I be radically honest with you?” I asked.

“Of course. That is what we are here for,” Lo said, her eyes twinkling even more than usual.

I took a deep breath. “I'm not the person you think I am.”

“None of us show our true selves to the world. We are all just showing a version,” Lo said. “I know you feel unlike yourself, dear, but that's normal when you do as much inner child work
as you have been doing. I'm very proud of you.” Lo looked so kind that I almost couldn't bear to go on, but I had to.

“I used to be Dana Powell.” Even I could hear how shaky my voice was. “My husband. Ex-husband. Ethan. Kai.” I took a deep breath. Lo's expression remained blank, uncomprehending. “The man you knew as Kai. I used to be married to him. I came here to find out what really happened to him.”

“What do you mean?” Lo said. “He and Amaya just left. They had been experimenting with some questionable ancient rituals that were bringing negative energy to the environment, so Yoni asked them to go. They could be anywhere. A lot of people who leave the retreat go on to India or Bali to do additional spiritual work. And of course it would be very difficult to contact him if he's taken a vow of silence somewhere remote.”

I couldn't believe it. Was Lo really that isolated from the outside world? “Don't you know what happened? Ethan and Amaya are dead.” It came out more harshly than I wanted it to.

Lo's face fell. “That's not possible. I would have heard something.” She paused, thinking, and then said, almost to herself, “But Yoni did say after they left we were never to speak of them again.”

“It
is
possible. It was all over the news right after it happened. They were found dead in a cave near here. The police say it was a murder-suicide. But I don't believe that Ethan would ever murder anybody. And that's why I'm here.” I reached out and took Lo's hand.

Lo said nothing. I couldn't read the look on her face. “I've been trying to figure out what happened to Ethan, and in my research I discovered that his mom was a follower of Yoni's
years ago. Her name was Rosemary. Safflower's name was Rosemary before she met Yoni, wasn't it?”

I saw a flare of shock cross Lo's face. She didn't respond, so I continued. “And that Aries—Yoni—whatever you called him then, was Ethan's dad.”

Lo said, “But . . .” She trailed off. I waited for her to continue, but she didn't. I pushed forward, because if I didn't, I wouldn't finish what I had to say. “She married another man—the guy who raised Ethan—right after she left the commune. Did you know she charged Yoni with rape? I don't know how that's related to Ethan's death, but it just has to be.”

I could almost see Lo going back in time in her head, trying to rebuild her life's chronology when the story she had told herself for so long had shattered, realizing they didn't leave Mendocino so they could spread the good word about their new spiritual practices. They left the West Coast entirely because Yoni was running from the law.

“I didn't know any of that,” Lo said. “Ethan was such a gentle soul.”

“How could you know about it? Yoni's been keeping you in the dark about the entire world for forty years.” I was starting to get worked up now, and my voice rose.

“Keep it down,” Lo said tersely. She sat in silence for several moments before slowly removing her hand from mine. She closed her eyes, and I could hear her taking deep, soothing breaths, like she was physically processing what I had just said.

At last she opened her eyes and looked at me. “I think our session for today is over. I need to work through what has just happened, and I can't do that with you here watching me.”

“But I really think we should talk this through,” I pleaded, grabbing her hand again and holding it to my chest. “I need to know more about Ethan's last days here. It's so important for me to be able to put the pieces together so I can get the real story. So I can move on with my life!”

Lo yanked her hand away. Her voice became a hiss. “Please. Leave. Now.”

I was desperate to tell her more, to make sure she believed me, but I obeyed her. As I walked out of the room, I turned back to look at her. Her eyes were closed again, and she was shaking her head back and forth and chanting quietly.

I thought about leaving then. Just marching up to the front desk and asking for a ride back to Albuquerque. I wouldn't even ask for a refund—I'd just hightail it back to civilization as fast as I could. But I knew that if I left now, I would never find out what happened to Ethan. My money and time would be lost. I had no proof that Lo would use what I said for malicious purposes. I had to believe that the connection we had was real.

I decided the only course of action was to continue at the retreat as I had been. I went to breakfast with Willow. I attended my usual afternoon yoga classes. There were no more Yoni appearances—I saw him only at occasional mealtimes like everyone else. I went to dinner with Willow. After dinner, I listened to Willow, Bodhi, and Maria gossip.

The day after my run-in with Lo, I arrived at her workshop at the appointed time. I thought we could work through things together, but she wasn't there. When she didn't show up I went over to Coral at the front desk to see where she was.

“Lo didn't show up for our morning workshop,” I said. “Is she okay?”

“Let me check on that for you,” Coral said, plinking something into her keyboard. “Hmm, I have no record of a cancellation from Lo this morning. I'll look into it and get back to you.”

I went back to my room and tried to occupy myself with showering and paging through Yoni's “books” until lunchtime. I looked for Lo at mealtimes, but she wasn't there. I thought about asking Veena or Dew if they had seen her, but I didn't want to call any additional attention to myself, especially not from the ordained.

The next day at breakfast, I was assigned to a new morning class. The new class was called Brush Meditation, which involved using paintbrushes as a “contemplative tool.” That meant sitting in front of a blank piece of paper and making random brushstrokes, like elephants or gorillas do when their keepers are making them “paint.”

I tried to sleep at night, without much success. I was so afraid that Lo would turn me in to Yoni. After the bad press he got with Ethan's and Amaya's deaths, he wouldn't be brazen enough to harm me, too, would he? If he tried to get me alone and attack me, how would I get out of it? If I tried blaming the guru for anything, no one at the Homestead would believe me. I started fantasizing about escaping into the desert brush. I had no food or water. My cell phone was dead. I had money, but what good would that do me in this forbidding landscape? I had a disastrous sense of direction. I could picture myself wandering through the brush, totally lost, and ultimately slumping over from dehydration, dying out there like Ethan and Amaya did. I obsessed over
these visions until the sun rose and the shades disappeared into the ceiling.

The days went by like this. I wandered through my schedule, not fully paying attention to anything because I was so exhausted. I barely spoke, but no one seemed to notice. Willow loved hearing the sound of her own voice, so she was sated with random
mm-hmms
that I exhaled in the middle of her monologues.

I started seeing Lo at meals again, but she would avoid eye contact. Her eyes would dart down to her plate the second I looked over at her. Every time she looked away from me, it was like a stab in the gut. I thought our connection had been something profound—something that stood apart, unsullied, from whatever else was going on at the Homestead. But I was wrong. It was like getting rejected by my mother all over again.

Except for her refusal to look at me, from outward appearances, nothing seemed to be amiss with Lo. She seemed to be plugging along as she ever did, gabbing with Veena and Dew. I wasn't particularly worried that she'd inform on me; she seemed to want to pretend that our talk had never happened at all.

I was at the end of my third week at the Homestead when my stupor was interrupted by the juiciest gossip Willow and her pals had ever chewed over. We were at lunch one day, passing around a bowl of coconut chia pudding, which tasted like coconuts mixed with dirt. I was choking it down when Maria started flapping her hands in excitement. “Oh oh oh! I almost forgot to tell you the most exciting thing!”

Willow looked up from her pudding. “What?” she said, sort of harshly.

Maria ignored Willow's tone. “I heard from Songbird that someone is going to be ordained soon.” She smiled proudly, like a dog that had just killed a backyard gopher and dropped it at his owner's feet.

Willow put down her spoon. “Wow! Are you sure?”

“I'm pretty sure. Songbird wouldn't say where she heard it. But I know she's had at least one special session with Janus, and we all know Janus has Yoni's ear.”

“I don't know,” Bodhi said. “I've been here six months—longer than almost any of the other non-ordained residents. And I haven't seen anyone ordained in that time. I'm not sure anyone has really stood out.” The wrinkles between his eyebrows deepened and he started stress-eating his pudding.

“Well, I think a lot of people have been doing really important soul and body work, and that it's high time Yoni noticed,” Willow said. “Don't you think, Dana?”

Everyone turned to me for a response. I didn't care about who got ordained, and I didn't want to get in the middle of their bitchfest. But I had to say something, so I said, “Mm-hmm,” in what I hoped was a noncommittal way.

“See? Dana has also observed that
some
people are making a lot of progress.” Willow sat back, satisfied.

“I think you're a lock for getting ordained,” Maria said to Willow.

Bodhi blanched. “I actually think that Tarot has made the most progress,” he said quickly. “His dedication to his spiritual awakening is leaps and bounds beyond anyone else's. Did you see the way he came up with that mantra on the spot the other day during our Co-creation class?”

Willow looked like she was going to stab Bodhi with her spoon. “I haven't been impressed with Tarot at all,” she said. “In fact—”

I couldn't listen to this any longer. “I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'll be right back,” I said. No one responded; they weren't paying any attention to me.

I went into the cool, tiled restroom and washed my face. I looked in the mirror, which I didn't do much anymore. Who was I trying to impress? My dirty-blond hair had brightened a little in the New Mexico sun, but the ends were ragged without my expensive shampoo to smooth them. I had huge bags under my eyes from getting so little sleep. But otherwise I looked surprisingly good: my skin was clearer than it had ever been (probably from all that hippie food) and my eyes seemed brighter. I searched my expression to see if this experience had changed me in some fundamental way. If I looked older, or warier, or sadder. But I looked as much like myself as I ever had.

I dried my face with a hemp washcloth and walked back to my table. I was almost at my seat when I saw Janus standing there, talking to Willow. He had a concerned expression on his face, which lifted as soon as he saw me. “Oh, there you are,” he said, grabbing my upper arm. “We need you. Come with me.”

Willow looked up at me, confused and maybe a little jealous. I tried not to look terrified, but it took everything in me not to start crying. I scanned the room. People were starting to look at me, and I wanted to find Lo in the crowd. But she wasn't there. An empty space sat across from Dew and Veena. My stomach dropped. I said nothing and followed Janus out of the room.

Janus led me down a series of corridors that at first looked like everything else here: terra-cotta walls and deity pictures. But then we passed through a glass door I'd never seen before. He needed a punch code to open it, and it made a great sucking sound when he pulled at it, like the following corridor was hermetically sealed. After that, the décor changed. The walls were a rich purple and hung with the kinds of samurai swords I'd seen displayed during the sex ritual. The floor was laid with pristine blond wood. I could tell that the floors were heated because the boards beneath me felt almost the same as my body temperature.

We had been walking for several minutes when we reached a room without windows. The walls were covered with Indian throws and twinkled with little mirrors, reflecting the candles lit in the four corners of the room. Big pillows lined the floor, and next to each pillow was an empty trough. It looked like a hookah lounge for horses.

Janus led me to one of these pillows. He sat down on another one. We waited in silence for several beats, and I started to tremble. He noticed and patted my arm reassuringly. Then, through a door that had been covered by Indian fabric, Yoni emerged.

He bowed and sat down on a pillow facing us. “We've been aware of your actions here,” Yoni said, looking right into my eyes.

I wanted to defend myself but said nothing. What could I say? I looked over at Janus. But, confusingly, Janus did not look angry.

“You have made great progress, Dana,” Yoni said. “I've seen the work you have done. You do not gossip like the other magpies. Gossip hinders our self-work, because it is other-focused. You quietly go about your studies and seek to get rid of all the
negative energy in your life. You're a true penitent.” His eyes lit up as he spoke. He took out a tiny set of hand cymbals that were tied together with an orange ribbon and clanged them together three times.