Star Woman in Love (37 page)

“Good afternoon, ladies”, Akropolis said. “Do take a seat here, please. It’s always a pleasure to see you.”

The elegant yet sturdy man sat back in his padded leather chair, chain-smoking Havana cigars in his office overlooking the Étoile. He part-owned the company that had sold more medicinal products than anyone else in the business. His massive turnover depended on illness, fear and war. Since his encounter with Mr Harker in the early 1970s, he had been on the lookout for signs of a frightening prospect: one in which the human race would become immortal. He was advised that Cassandra Morgante was going to be the first human to activate her Star Body. If this happened, the process would be unstoppable across humanity. It had to be delayed, her transformation had to be hampered, and maybe then it could be stopped. Ever since, he had concentrated much of his effort on placing obstacles in her path. She was rather invincible from the start, unfortunately. But her weakness, men, had helped her opponents to distract her from her purpose. Her biggest weakness, of course, was Oscar O’Leary. As long as the two were kept apart, time would be on the side of the Dark Forces, in whose camp he resided.

Akropolis pulled his cigar away from his lips. “What news do you bring me?”

“He’s been behaving more strangely than ever,” Charlotte said.

She had separated from Oscar during the previous year and was now living in Paris with their daughter.

“He has become a real loner,” she went on, “and seems to be concerned only with his spirituality. His artwork is as hermetic and erratic as he. He is still in love with Cassandra, for all his denial. I found a page of his writing in which he reveals his feelings for her, and his sense of not deserving her.”

A knock came on the door. The secretary let in the mastermind behind the Counterplan.

“Hi Bob,” Akropolis said. “Do sit down. Charlotte was telling us that Oscar still thinks about Cassandra, and that keeps him connected to the Plan. It might make him evolve a bit too much for our liking.”

Harker walked over to the top of the oval table and sat on the vacant chair next to Akropolis.

“Good morning, ladies, Alexander. It’s high time, it seems, to intervene in a more forceful way. Cassandra has to be taken out of the picture for good. I believe that I may be the only person in the world who can do just that.”

“How?”, the other three enquired in unison.

“It’s a very secret mission, one which I cannot even disclose to trusted allies like you. Something is about to happen. Once it’s been set in motion, it will be unstoppable. The world as we know it is going to change as a result”.

Harker stood up, shook their hands and left the room, leaving Marina, Alexander and Charlotte to pick up their dropped jaws at this announcement.

* * * *

I had followed the scene from Shambhala. As soon as Robert closed the door of Akropolis’ office behind him, he found himself sitting opposite me in the Great White Lodge, in the company of all the other Angels. We looked alike in the glory of our radiance. Robert was your Replacement Twin Flame here, where we called him Lumiel. You had failed me, the High Council had determined, and I needed a soul mirror. I was now a fully Ascended Master, a complete Angel. It was my prerogative to visit the Earth whenever I chose, to be of service to humankind. What I didn’t know at this stage was that my Star parents had wiped your name from its entry in the Akashic Records. While I was here, it was as if we had never met. They had to do it; I was born to teach the world how to love, to impart the true meaning of human existence. If this were the case, then I would have to be able to let go of the suffering that you had brought me.

Yet, a nagging feeling resided in my heart, reminding me of how uncertain I was that the Plan was actually as kind to humanity as its crafters intended. I sometimes feared that I was party to forcing Venusian concepts on human beings who were by their nature dual and divided. But my fate was sealed and the Plan was pouring out of me like water from a spring. Shambhala needed the Plan for its continued existence. This required for me to be a vessel devoid of ego. All that remained of our past were strangely faint memories of fragments of happiness... So I forgot you in the end. Your reminiscence of our love was all that was keeping the spark alive at all in my heart. But it was fading. My humanity was like a ghost that couldn’t hold on to the flesh of my Light-processing body. What could I do but let you go?

Lumiel kept his eyes on me for the entire meeting. He understood my torment: he was my mirror in those long, lonely days of Light. I had to ask him.

“Will you help me?”

My telepathic communication reached him without being intercepted by the other Masters. He nodded back. He was aware that I longed to be human again. He didn’t tell me, but he knew how much you yearned for me and the perfection you had finally accepted I represented for you. My absences from the Earth were driving you mad.

What was the point to all of your suffering? And who cared about evolution apart from the Ascended Masters? Their presence in my life now made me feel like the prisoner of a destiny I couldn’t change. Free will and creativity were all that I was beginning to pine after. The freedom to make mistakes and clean up the mess afterwards. Only Lumiel understood that uninterrupted love and knowledge come with a price: you end up on your own. He hadn’t returned to Shambhala to embrace his original ancestry: he was here to set me free from the Plan.

I was alone in the perfect precinct of Shambhala where I was revered as the daughter of Venus and Sanat Kumara, the brightest Light on the White Island. They all needed me to maintain their vision, to keep the Plan in place, and humanity as a lesser species which could be taught to reach Enlightenment. Now that I was becoming tired of this, it wouldn’t be difficult for Lumiel to entice me to join his Counterplan.

He winked at me from across the table. At least I had found an ally who would help me on my journey back to you, although at this stage I had no idea that it was you I was reaching for. Shambhala was impenetrable to all thoughts of you, let alone your presence, until the day you would turn into a Light-Being yourself, if that ever happened. That’s why I had forgotten you in Shambhala, pretty much as Magne had made me forget about you when I was on Earth. It seemed that our demise was complete.

After the meeting, I looked for Lumiel in the Garden of Eternity. He was expecting me there.

He approached me and whispered: “Tell me, Meta, are you ready to descend?”

That would be breaking the rules, but I was; I wanted to escape Shambhala. Lumiel, the Rebel Angel, had been waiting on the sidelines for my eventual capitulation to the lure of matter, and my rejection of my role in the Plan.

“It might take some time in terms of Earth years, and it’s risky... someone might get hurt...”, he said.

I thought I had nothing to lose, so I disregarded his warning. “Well, Time is determined by karma and my sheet couldn’t be any cleaner... As for risk, I don’t even know what it means...”

Lumiel started to hum a familiar tune, carefully, so that the Masters wouldn’t hear it. It re-activated the memories of my past with you.

“Gonna get your girl, gonna take her down...”

My heart sank in preparation for descent into matter. To my surprise, I found myself in Dublin where I would be Cassandra for the following twelve months. There, all knowledge of you returned to wreak havoc with my life once again. This time, however, it was to lead me into temptation and betrayal.

* * * *

Paris, Père Lachaise Cemetery, February 2008

In the misty, cold air of a grey early morning, Paris had the stamp of a harsh winter plastered all over. Oscar wondered how they could call it the city of love. He had never felt at home there. His heart would feel all the more vacant and restless whenever he would visit. Yet, for one reason or another, he had often found himself in Paris during the course of his adult life. This time his art was the excuse. In actual fact he had wanted to spend some time with Morwana, his nine-year-old daughter. But the whimsical little girl had preferred horse riding to being with her dad. He should have expected it: he was becoming a stranger to the world, and also to her.

Wrapped up as he was in his thoughts, he walked absent-mindedly through the gate of the city’s monumental burial place. He had gained admission though the site was closed to visitors in the winter months. Exceptions were always made for him, a world-renowned celebrity who had wanted to paint there: reflections on death, and ponderings on genius. The two aspects also went hand-in-hand in his life. They were mirrored brutally by the desolate, heart-clenching sight of the labyrinthine cemetery stretching before him. The weather was dismal; all blustery wind and lashing rain. It was a miserable day in a lonely week during which Oscar was in Paris to see his estranged wife and their child.

He and Charlotte no longer lived together as a family. They had hardly managed to enjoy their married life in Dublin. He preferred the green pastures and ancient hills of his homeland, and the solitude of his heart’s ramblings. She hated the weather in Ireland and complained that she missed the sophistication of Paris, her adoptive city. She thrived on having people around her, on being the centre of their attention. Oscar’s depression was getting worse and he could only find some level of solace when he was on his own. He didn’t know why he felt a pull towards Paris that week at all, but something was drawing him to that cemetery. His troubled mind wanted to take him there to paint his heart’s landscape. He also really missed being around Morwana. This was the only justification for seeing the woman he had once thought he loved. Now he could hardly bear to be in the same room with her. He truly despised her. She didn’t understand him at all. She had only wanted his money and fame. But he had found out too late. Now he had to grin and bear it, and learn to live with the consequences.

He was aimlessly roaming the pathways among the graves. A strange force had brought him back to this place, and he feared the price of his actions. Memories of a time that seemed to belong to another man and another lifetime erupted unbidden from his heart, bringing pain. He was once that “other” man. He didn’t want to dwell on the memories of the life he had known back then. He knew the mistakes that he had made and the troubles they had caused. He was forced to make a choice back then. He of all people was chosen to take such an important decision. He should have chosen Cassandra, and not Charlotte. His father had always told him that he was thick. He had obviously made the wrong choice. He hated himself for being so weak, but now he had to live with the outcome. Life had become unbearable. His work had turned dark and cynical, just like his heart.

There was a storm outside and another one raging inside his head. He walked past the grave of the rock ‘n’ roll shaman who had died a sad bastard’s death in his bathtub. Never before had he understood the tragedy of the Lizard King any more deeply, any more directly. Those memories were tormenting him again. He couldn’t fight them anymore: Cassandra was back on his mind. How could he explain to her what he had done? How could he express how guilty he felt? How could he phrase his sorrow, his regret?

Memories were becoming seeds in his heart, taking root and pushing to explode into life. His heart remembered what it felt to be loved, and could put all the pieces together much better than his mind was able. After all, his mind had always been a scattered piece of work that only now was starting to figure things out. Over four decades had passed in his life and he was still feeling lost. All those years of hurting and being hurt, of going through the motions of an artificial flow made of chemicals, alcohol and dope. From such an early age he had been prone to escapism of one form or another. He and the Lizard King were one of a kind, weren’t they?

Darkness descended upon his soul and death became yet again an appealing option. Maybe he should stop fighting against it and surrender to his sorrowful heart. He thought about her, she who was once the light of his life. Cassandra. Her face was tattooed on his heart. The mark of her angelic birth was impressed on his life. A piece of her soul was inside his soul. He had tried to warn her off him from the start. He had told her that he was just a hurt-generating machine, hadn’t he? She had taken this bit of information with scant attention and had shaken it off. He had eventually found admiration for the strength and dignity she bore undergoing the worst types of emotional torture he had inflicted upon her. She was blessed with detachment, or so he hoped. How was she now? Could he hope that she thought that being without him was possibly worse than being with him?

There had been times when they happened to run into each other in Dublin, despite all of her efforts to avoid him. She was a ghost but he always found her, although she didn’t always realise it when he did. Remarkably, life without him was making her even more beautiful. She had long had the otherworldly aura of an enchantress. She had become famous. The entire world knew of her healing powers. The wisdom of her teachings had travelled across the oceans to the most remote regions of the Earth, spreading into the wisdom of the major religions and cults of the world. At least she seemed to be fulfilling her mission.

Her voice had become so soft and harmonious that no listener could escape its charms. Her beauty was memorable. Her pure heart was like soft soil where the memory-seeds of the lovers they had been were still planted in her secret garden, not to be fostered for him anymore. She had locked the door to her heart when he had turned it into a desert.