Between Darkness and Dawn Read online

  “A sculpture in the middle of nowhere? Sounds kind of far-fetched, even to me who’d seen it.”

  “In Big Sur, anything’s possible,” Anne said. “It’s a haven for musicians, artists, and writers.”

  “Like Jack Kerouac and Henry Miller,” I said. Part suffering alcoholics, part literary geniuses, Kerouac and Miller shared stream-of-consciousness narratives about life in Big Sur, to which, in my current state of mind, I felt oddly attracted.

  “You’re leaving out artists of the clay sculpture variety,” Anne said, “but I can remedy that.”

  “How?”

  “By taking you on a field trip.”

  My last field trip had been a high school excursion to Yosemite National Park, rushed, but full of good memories. “Okay,” I said, although there had been an exquisite example of local art right here. Before it disappeared.

  While Anne continued her inspection—which seemed rather a waste of time at this point—I toed the duff beneath my feet. What kinds of insects and animals thrived below the decaying needles, twigs, and leaves? I imagined centipedes, ants, beetles, worms, slugs, and spiders, quivering and slithering out of sight.

  The sound of rushing water and the raucous outbursts of what my visitor’s brochure had identified as a Steller’s jay joined with the tinkling of Anne’s bracelets in a series of mismatched rhythms and pulses that had my body itching to supply the missing beats.

  “By the size of the footprints alone, it’s clear that someone, besides us, has been walking around here,” Anne said, recapturing my attention.

  “You think someone stole it?”

  Anne shook her head. “More likely the artist moved it. Tell me again about how you sensed a presence.”

  Although the sun still cast its warm glow through the trees, my skin felt chilled. “I sensed a looming shadow and heard something moving and breathing.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Said, ‘Hello.”’

  Anne rolled her eyes. “Tell me you’re kidding.”

  “Then I ran like hell.”

  “See what I mean about going out alone?” Anne pointed toward a sunny spot of matted pine needles. “How about we sit down for a while and enjoy the silence?”

  Birds calling and water splashing hardly amounted to silence. Peace, maybe. Silence, no. Ignoring my previous musings about what lay beneath the forest floor, I sank onto the carpet of leaves and needles, which accommodated me like a favorite chair. I blew out my breath and, with it, my disappointment over the missing sculpture. The solution to the mystery would present itself, if not sooner, then later. Might as well relax and enjoy the moment.

  Anne sat in a perfect lotus position, eyes closed, her long skirt hiked up past her knees. She looked like a tripod, balanced as she was on her bottom and folded legs, which was good, because she appeared to be in some kind of trance, and I didn’t want her toppling over.

  My thoughts drifted to Antonia, long dead, but not silenced. I needed to know what she wanted. Her inability to move forward was as restraining as a mental ball and chain, her limbo, my limbo. Unless she instigated some kind of communication, I had no way of reaching her—and releasing myself.

  Anne opened her eyes. “Tell me about your mother.”

  A quiver shot through the fault plane of my spine like a low-intensity earth tremor. “Jeez, Anne. How do you do that? I was just thinking about her... At least about one of my mothers. I have two, my birth mother and the mother who adopted and raised me.”

  “You send out some powerful messages, easy to tune into,” Anne said. “I sense you were thinking about your birth mother.”

  I’d learned in the past three months not to question what I didn’t understand. After all, I was hearing voices when no one was there and experiencing unreal realities that would challenge even the most open minded. Yet, according to some reliable sources, I was not headed for the looney bin any time soon.

  “Go ahead, hon,” Anne said. “I’m a good listener.”

  Talking about Antonia saddened me, and I didn’t know where to begin.

  “At the beginning,” Anne said.

  Invisible needles pricked my skin. Who was this stranger I was about to spill my guts out to? I stared at Anne’s clear, open face and saw no malice there. Maybe sharing would help get me out of this midway place, this space of inertia, this in-between. “I don’t know much about my birth parents, other than that my mother had an affair with my father. His name is Bob Mask and he was married when they had their fling. My mother, Antonia, gave birth to identical twins...Veronica and me...nine months later. She must’ve told my father about our births, because he ended up raising Veronica. He took her to Maryland. Can you believe it? For twenty-eight years, my father and sister lived on the opposite coast, and I had no idea. Anyway, I stayed behind with my mother. And soon after, she died.”

  Anne closed her eyes, said nothing.

  I picked up a twig and started digging through the duff and litter in front of me. “For some reason, my father wasn’t informed of Antonia’s death after he’d left with Veronica, and I was put up for adoption. Gerardo and Truus Veil took me in as an infant and raised me as their own. It was quite a shock when I ran into my twin a couple of months ago in Carmel Valley.”

  I took a ragged breath, fighting the anger that overwhelmed me whenever I thought of all the years Veronica and I had missed being together. “I’m having a hard time with that.”

  “So is Antonia, I presume,” Anne said.

  “She’s dead.” I’d already told Anne this, but felt compelled to tell her again. Her comment implied that Antonia still felt pain and regret due to her past actions. I suspected this to be true, because of Antonia’s persistent haunting, but why would Anne presume such a thing?

  My twig had made it through the thick layers of outer duff and litter and was now piercing the earth. “Truus, my adoptive mother, doesn’t understand why I want to delve into the past and expose what’s over and done with. You’d think Antonia’s life meant nothing, instead of holding the key to a part of me I didn’t know existed.”

  “Understandable. Truus probably feels threatened.”

  “She’s not used to me questioning my spirituality, that’s for sure, or questioning who I am and what I can give.”

  “Ah,” Annie said, “pulling back the curtain of Oz.”

  “That about sums it up. Anyway, Antonia was a descendent of the Esselen tribe, whose territory once extended from Carmel Valley to Big Sur. That makes me part Native American. Learning about the philosophy and spirituality of my ancestors, and how they interacted with nature, is important to me. It brings me comfort.”

  “Paganism,” Anne said.

  “I prefer to call it Earth Medicine, but yes, that’s what my mother calls it. And when she says the word, she spits it out like it’s something dirty.”

  I sorted through the pile of coarse woody debris I had unearthed in my excavation—nonliving stuff in various stages of decomposition that bridged the living vegetation above the ground and the soil below. “Actually, she freaked out.”

  Anne chuckled. “I can imagine.”

  “I tried to explain that her Christian beliefs and those of the Native American didn’t necessarily collide.”

  “But she would have none of it.”

  “How’d you know?”

  “Elementary, my dear. I’d say many Christians feel the same.”

  “She thinks I’m communicating with the devil.”

  A slight scowl twisted Anne’s lips. Then it was gone. “Are you willing to explore and be surprised? Are you willing to discover new things about yourself and find your own sense of truth?”

  Explore? Discover? Get out of limbo? “Yes, that’s why I’m here.”

  “To experience, or to observe?”

  “Experience,” I said. “I’ve observed myself into a self-inflicted prison, always following other people’s rules and expectations, their roa
d maps instead of mine.”

  “Well then, it’s time to step into the storm. Because, my dear, your path will not be an easy one.”

  “Yeah, tell me about it,” I said, then caught myself. Had my life path thus far been any more difficult than that of most people I knew? Hell, no. I had so much to be grateful for.

  “Do you trust me?” Anne asked.

  “If not, I wouldn’t be here with you, now.” I said. “How about you? Do you trust me?”

  She smiled.

  “Oh, yeah, I forgot. I send off some powerful vibes.”

  “Now, don’t get defensive.”

  I jabbed the stick deeper into the ground. “How would you like it if someone could get into your head?”

  Anne glanced at the mound of rubble I’d uncovered, apparently not impressed. “I send out ‘vibes’ just like everyone else. Anyway, I can’t read your mind all of the time, only when your thoughts wave like red flags.”

  “Why are you helping me?” I asked. I’d been fortunate in making as many friends as I had in Carmel Valley. How could I be this blessed again? Was it true that people came into our lives to support us when most needed?

  “Everyone needs help now and then,” she said, “to steady them as they learn to become themselves.”

  “But you hardly know me.”

  Anne’s eyes met mine. “My dear, we’ve known each other since the beginning of time.”

  Her words made my skin crawl, but in a good way. “Anne, you’re so weird.”

  “You’ve got that right.”

  I chuckled. Shivered.

  “There was a time when women always helped women,” Anne said. “I mourn the loss of those times.”

  “I think Antonia, and at least one other ancestor, have been trying to help me.”

  “Ah, the voices.”

  “Jeez. You know about them, too?”

  She ignored my question. “What language do they speak?”

  “I hear them in English, which makes sense when it comes to my birth mother, but the other voice I’ve been hearing, Margarita Butron, spoke the Costanoan language and maybe a smidgen of Spanish. How I’m able to understand her, let alone hear her, remains a mystery.”

  “Do you see them as well?”

  I dropped my twig into the earthen hollow and scooped the dirt and duff on top. “I saw Margarita once, in a mirror. It’s a long story.”

  Anne smiled as if she knew how I felt. “Scary?”

  “More like spooky. It blurs the separation between what’s real and unreal. Everything isn’t as black and white anymore.”

  She nodded. “More like a foggy gray.”

  “Yeah, until the sun comes out.”

  “And it always does.”

  With dirt-encrusted hands, I patted the earth. “Yes, thank God.”

  Anne leaned forward and placed her hand on mine. “Did you seek help?”

  Swallowing became difficult. “Yes, a modern-day shrink, who specializes in transpersonal psychology.”

  Anne’s raised eyebrows prompted me to add, “That was my first reaction, too. Dr. Mendez believes that medical science and spirituality go hand-in-hand, and he talks about the collective unconsciousness and the holographic universe. Stuff I’d never heard of before, but that helps make sense of some of the crazy things happening to me lately. He steered me in the right direction, for which I’ll always be grateful.”

  “Thank God for that,” Anne said, making me wonder if. she knew more about transpersonal psychology than she was letting on.

  “So instead of drugging me and giving me months of therapy, he shipped me out of town on a journey.”

  “Were you afraid?”

  “At that point, my life had taken such a sharp turn that fear took a back seat to figuring out what to do.”

  Tears formed in Anne’s eyes, giving me the impression that she either felt my pain, or identified with it in some way. “So, you were all alone?”

  “Not exactly. I had a hitchhiker. A stray cat I named Gabriel.”

  “After the angel?”

  “Angel and messenger.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “With my soon-to-be adoptive son, Joshua.”

  Anne threw up her hands, the stacked bangles on her arm sliding to her elbow with a jingle that could’ve been mistaken for glee. “And the plot thickens.”

  “If by plot, you mean change, then yes, my life and relationships have changed due to the weird things that have happened to me. But when it comes to understanding, I have a long way to go. There seems to be nothing linear or forward moving in my life right now, no rational cause and effect, just roadblocks and wrong turns. Anyway, Joshua was mute and orphaned when I met him. But he’s not mute or orphaned anymore.”

  No request for clarification from Anne. “Do you miss him?”

  I bit my lip before answering. “Whenever I think of him, my heart hurts to the point of breaking, but he’s with Morgan now.”

  She placed a light hand on my shoulder. “The man you love?”

  As I lifted my grimy hands and sniffed the musty odor of humus and dirt, I realized there had been something therapeutic about my dig. “Yes, and maybe someday, I’ll tell you about him, too.”

  “So why are you here instead of with Morgan and Joshua?”

  Something in Anne’s voice caused me to glance up. “Because I’m not ready for a relationship until I figure out what Antonia wants and regain some degree of normalcy in my life. Before that, it would be crazy to draw the two people I love most into my world.”

  Anne looked away, and I wondered about her life. She must’ve suffered greatly to be so understanding of my pain.

  “When I think of them,” I said. “I want to end this search. I want to turn my back on the world and seek a safe haven where my sole concern would be to love Morgan and Joshua. To be safe, insulated, and isolated. I want to hoard my possessions, and my love.”

  Anne observed me without a flicker of judgment in her eyes. Bless her heart. “But?”

  “Then I’d become even more selfish than I already am, and I’d never know if I was destined to be and do more.”

  Anne placed her hand over the small mound of earth I’d patted into place like a fresh grave. “How do you plan to contact your birth mother?”

  This question was never far from my mind, a question for which I had no answer, other than to wait, hope, and seek solutions from outside of myself, as well as from within. “I don’t know. She’s dead, yet she isn’t. Sometimes she talks to me” —You are not who you pretend to be— “And sometimes I hear her crying, usually when I’m meditating in my Medicine Wheel.”

  “So, you practice the medicine of your ancestors?”

  “The Esselen didn’t make use of the Medicine Wheel, but it’s the best way I know how to experience, if not understand, the essence of Native American spirituality.” I pulled a fist full of stones and semi-precious gems from the pouch around my waist. “These are my marker stones.”

  “Good for you,” Anne said. “So, you found a teacher?”

  “My friend, Gentle Bear, led me through the first step of the Medicine Wheel. The direction of the East.”

  “The path of initiation,” Anne said. “And in Big Sur, you want to experience the second step of the Medicine Wheel, the direction of the South, where you seek the return of the trust and innocence of a child and the opportunity to re-capture the wonder of being alive.” She grinned, making me wonder how she could be so knowledgeable about a spirituality outside of most people’s radar.

  “As I told Morgan on our last day in Carmel Valley, if I don’t learn to trust again, our relationship won’t stand a chance. But that’s not all. I need to learn how to say no to what hurts me, so I can say yes to love. I crave security but something inside of me still needs to be born.”

  “Which hopefully will become a reality for you here in Big Sur,” Anne said. “Where energy messages are sent to
us from all of creation.”

  And where I hope to find the teachers I need. “Do you practice Earth Medicine?” I asked.

  “No, dear. Currently, we’re not on the same page, maybe not even in the same book. But that doesn’t mean we can’t help each other find what we seek.”

  “Are you married?”

  The twinkle left Anne’s eyes. “Not anymore and not in the way you think.”

  I was about to ask what she meant by that when she stretched out of her lotus position and rose to her feet. “Let’s get back to camp. Maybe later, we can figure out how to contact your mother.”

  We. I liked the sound of that.

  ~~~

  I returned to my campsite hungry and ready for a nap, but a nap I wouldn’t get. Not with three squatters inside my tent. At first, I thought that maybe I’d taken a wrong turn, but no, this was my Eddie Bauer-room-for-four palace. “Hey! What are you varmints doing in my tent?”

  The smallest of the three, a freckle-faced girl with curly blonde hair, squealed, and the two boys nearly knocked me down in their attempt to escape.

  “Hold it!” I said, hands raised. “You’ve got some explaining to do.”

  “We were just playing,” the tow-headed girl said, as if trespassing were no big deal.

  “You were playing in my tent,” I pointed out, “and in my private space.”

  “Well, you weren’t here,” she said. The girl couldn’t have been more than six years old, but she certainly had spunk.

  The two boys, around eight and nine, looked on, apparently happy to let the little girl, whom I assumed to be their sister, speak for them. But I wasn’t about to let them off the hook. I turned to the tallest, figuring he was the oldest. “And what’ve you got to say for yourself?”

  The brown-haired hoodlum looked me straight in the eye. “Sorry.”

  He reminded me of Joshua. Except Joshua would never have gotten into this kind of mischief. Neither would he have been squealing with laughter as these kids had been when I entered. Too bad.

  A quick inspection of my tent revealed that my sleeping bag and pillow hadn’t been disturbed. No damage done. “Do your parents know where you are?”

  “Mom got a job at the Big Sur Lodge and Dad in park maintenance,” the blonde pixie said. “Christopher’s watching us.”