Chapter 39
39
I stand in the open doorway.
There they are, Moon and Sol, their naked bodies gleaming in the candlelight. They’re on an animal-hide rug, treasures glittering around them. She’s on top, gazing down, lips parted in pleasure. Then she sees me and smiles. She holds out a hand, beckoning me. I step forward and Sol cups the back of my calf. But when I take her hand, something changes.
It’s not Moon anymore; it’s Jamie, Pastor John’s wife. And she’s already snatched her hand away, sneering with disgust. We’re not in a palace, we’re in a cheap hotel room, and they’re on a towel that barely protects them from the nubby, stained carpet. I try to back away, but Sol—now Pastor John—clamps down on my calf. At the sharp pain I fall to the floor. Pastor John stares at me, grinning hugely, and it makes my blood run cold. Jamie gets off him, muttering, and grabs my left arm. Pastor John stands and grabs my right arm. They start pulling me forward, towards—what?
Then I see it. A whirlpool in the middle of the hotel room, the water sucking inward, downward, making a sickening noise. The hotel melts away. We’re in the cave now. It was all a trap. I try to brace against the ground but they drag me forward and skin scrapes off my feet. I’m bleeding, and that makes the hole excited; the sucking noises get louder. As they push me to the edge, Pastor John places a huge hand on my lower back, and I look into the water and see rows and rows of teeth.
Not a hole.
A mouth.
“No!” I gasped, my eyelids flipping open.
Familiar golden sunlight streamed into the yurt. My phone beeped its alarm. I sat up slowly and picked it up. Still no Wi-Fi. My body was still tense from the nightmare, and now new apprehension flooded my system. What was wrong with the Wi-Fi? Didn’t that seem suspicious?
At least I still had SOS. The satellites reached even this remote place.
As I dressed, I tried to shake off the dream—a clear manifestation of the unease I felt in this place, where I’d spilled a traumatic memory to literal cult leaders. Catherine’s terrified face still shone in my mind. You should leave. And I would. I just had to figure out how to get her to leave with me.
I had a feeling trying to talk to Moon and Sol would be a lost cause. They were utterly convinced of themselves and their methods. I could try, but maybe I should focus more on Catherine herself. And I had very little time. Grace was set to drive us all back to the airport after lunch.
Walking to the bathroom, I remembered Moon’s parting words about my dreams. How had she known I was dreaming about the desert and the cave? Maybe the desert dreams weren’t that wild of a guess, given that we were in the desert. But the cave? I’d dreamed about it—twice—before we’d even found the cavern.
“Thea!” Moon accosted me as I exited the empty bathroom. “There you are. Ready for your one-on-one?”
“Oh.” I clutched my toiletries bag. “Right now?”
“Yes. The sooner the better.” Her tawny eyes shone. “Why don’t you grab some breakfast and bring it to the yoga tent?”
“Sure.” I tried to match her smile. This would be my chance to see if I could talk some sense into Moon and Sol. And, if not, try to gather as much intel as I could.
“Hey,” I said as we walked outside together. “I noticed the Wi-Fi still isn’t working.”
“I know.” Moon rolled her eyes. “It happens a lot, unfortunately. I’ll see if Steven can take a look at it.”
“Thanks.” I paused in my yurt to consider my plan. If I could convince Catherine to come with us to the airport, then what—I’d send her on a plane back to LA? In an ideal world, her parents could help set up treatment. But given that she’d used words like “force” and “controlling” to describe them, they clearly weren’t the right people to ask.
There were also private treatment centers in New York; maybe Catherine would agree to go to one of those?
“Hey!” Mikki was sitting alone at the dining room table. “Finally. What the fuck is going on?”
“Yeah.” I settled next to her. “It was a weird night.”
“So Catherine’s been here the whole time?”
“She has.” How to tell Mikki about what I’d seen? And should I tell her? After all, Mikki was a journalist. She hadn’t yet recognized Catherine was a celebrity, but when she did—what then? Mikki wasn’t bound by any rules of ethics. She could spread the news immediately, interfering with my plans to try to quietly get Catherine out.
“What’s going on?” She could tell I was holding back.
“I’m just trying to figure out how to get Catherine to come with us this afternoon.” I bit my lip. “I think she needs help.”
Mikki picked up her coffee mug. “She seemed… not-okay to you?”
“Yep. Like… scared and brainwashed at the same time?”
“Yikes.” Mikki blew out her breath. “Do you think she’ll listen to you?”
“I don’t know.” I scratched at the already heavily scored wooden table. “I have to go to my one-on-one with Moon and Sol. I’m not super hopeful, but maybe I can convince them that Catherine needs a higher level of care.”
“Hmm.” Mikki took a sip. “Did we ever find out why they had that bizarre altar?”
“Good morning!” Dawne swept into the room, her long highlighted braid streaming behind her. “That fire ceremony was so fun, right? Dance party!”
The night before felt so far away, of a totally different time. Mikki and I met eyes.
“Did anything happen after I went to sleep?” Dawne called over her shoulder at the coffee carafe.
“Nothing at all,” Mikki sang back, her voice light.
“Thea, come in!” Moon jumped up as I walked into the yoga tent.
I’d expected Moon and Sol, but the whole gang was there: Grace, Steven, Catherine… and Karen. She smiled warmly as I sat on a cushion. I looked away. It struck me that I wasn’t just surprised that Karen, a seemingly kind and kooky woman, had been lying to my face this whole time. I was also hurt.
“How are you feeling this morning?” Moon asked with that lilting accent. I wondered if Mikki was still planning to confront her about it today.
“I’m okay.” I felt the same sensation as when we’d started my session: anticipation tinged with fear. Not that I was going to share. “How about you?”
“Well…” She blew out her breath. “Terrified.”
“Terrified?” I echoed. Sol scooted closer to her, rubbing her back.
“Absolutely.” She shrugged. “We were planning to have this conversation with you today. To connect you with Catherine. But last night things went a little… off track.”
Catherine’s legs were crisscrossed, her elbows resting on her knees. Sure, she was tan. But hunched over, with greasy hair and wide, unblinking eyes, she again looked strange.
“You were planning to connect us?” I echoed again.
“Yes. Catherine was doing her internal vision quest, as we said, but she was also sequestered in order not to influence you. We had to figure out if you were who we thought you were.” Moon gestured at Karen. “It’s also why our resident Karen did what she did.”
“Oh, so your name is actually Karen?” I was unable to keep the bitterness out of my voice.
“It is. I’m sorry, hon.” Karen looked dejected. “I hate lying, but it was necessary. I needed to figure out if I felt the right way about you.”
“The right way?” I shook my head. “Why do I feel like everyone’s talking in riddles?”
“Thea, it’s okay.” Sol held out a hand. “We’re going to share everything with you.”
“Great. I can’t wait.”
No one said anything for a moment. Finally, Moon nodded at Karen.
“What do you think happens after we die?” Karen asked me.
I scoffed at the unexpected question. “I have no idea.”
“You were raised…”
“Lutheran.”
Karen nodded. “So you were taught about heaven and hell too. I always found it so severe. Not to mention unfair. What if I’d been born a Muslim? A Jew? It didn’t make sense that being saved was a matter of being born into the ‘right’ religion.”
This topic seemed like a random tangent, but I nodded. I’d had similar thoughts during my own crisis of faith in high school.
“Even after years in the convent, no one could give me a good answer.” She smiled. “The other sisters questioned my lack of faith. I’d always felt drawn to Jesus—his great sacrifice, allowing himself to be murdered to save the world. That seemed beautiful to me. But I couldn’t get past the concept of good people being condemned to eternal damnation. When I left, I considered myself agnostic. Until the dreams.” She noticed my expression and nodded. “Mine started when I moved to Arizona. Something about the landscape. And when Gracie came to visit, they were even more vivid.”
“Grace is Karen’s niece,” Moon explained.
Grace nodded, tugging at the end of her orange pigtail, her blue eyes on me. A chill trickled down my back. So not only had Grace and Karen known each other at the airport. Karen was her aunt . And now that I knew, they did look vaguely related, with the same round cheeks and high foreheads.
“So Gracie told me about this woman in LA who was really helping her.” Karen motioned at Moon. “When the retreats started, Gracie asked me to come. I wouldn’t have ever expected it, but I felt so at home here that I never left. And when Moon started talking about reincarnation, it wasn’t that much of a stretch for me. Early Christians actually believed in it too.”
I glanced at Catherine, who was staring at the ground. That day in the hospital, she’d asked me: Do you believe in reincarnation? Don’t you feel like we’ve met before?
“So you think we all knew each other in a past life or something?” It felt strangely relieving for the puzzle pieces to start locking into place.
“We talk a lot about patterns here, right?” Moon leaned forward. “How certain relational patterns keep showing up in our lives until we solve them? Well, it happens on a larger scale too. Sometimes we experience something that’s so traumatic that we bring it with us into our future lives. With our cohort, of course.” Moon gestured around the group. “All of us experienced the trauma together. That’s why we all have the dreams. That’s why we all ended up here. Because it’s time to finally resolve the pattern.”
I nodded. Now it was clear: These people were completely delusional. My plan to calmly discuss Catherine’s mental health now seemed laughable.
“So what’s the pattern?” I needed to get as much info, as much ammunition, as I could.
“You’ve already experienced it.” Moon shrugged. “Past life patterns show up in our current lives, but really they’re pale imitations. Echoes. Your experiences with your pastor and your bully—you must’ve recognized the crossover with Stargirl .”
The movie title shook me. So Moon was admitting it: Stargirl had something to do with all of this.
“Didn’t Stargirl intersect with your life?” Moon pushed. “The pharaoh and the guard? Pastor John and Adam?”
I swallowed, suddenly unable to speak. Because: yes. I’d noticed the similarities back then too. But it had to be a coincidence.
“Catherine dreamed it first.” Moon stared at me without blinking. “She told her father, who asked question after question so he could turn it into a big-budget film. You connected with it not only because of the current-life echoes. But because you lived through it.” She broke our gaze. “All of us did.”
“Moon,” I protested. It felt necessary to push back against this, if only to steady myself.
“Look. It happened right here.” Moon pulled out something from behind her: the black-and-white painting from the junk room. “Catherine found shards in the cave. I know you saw them down there. They’re from the Mimbres people, who disappeared almost a thousand years ago. We knew the pottery pieces were special—because they showed us . Gracie was able to channel the full design in this painting. Look.” She pointed to the two larger figures at the top. “You and Catherine. The twin priestesses, connected to the spirit world.” Her hand moved down to the figures with the staffs. “Me and Sol. The leaders.” She pointed out the figures behind the square. “Karen and Steven. Your mother and father.” She touched the striped, crouching figure. “Grace, the sorcerer.” She tapped the lone figure holding the arrow. “And Jonah, the guard.”
My head spun. Karen and Steven—my mother and father? Grace as the sorcerer? And Jonah ?
“So Jonah’s part of this too?” I asked.
“Yes.” Moon gently set down the painting. “We thought we’d talk to you first, and that you could share this with him. He’s here, of course, as he should be. But he’s resistant. We can feel it.”
Taking a deep breath, I thought back to the story of Stargirl : the priestess Thuya falling for the guard Hapi after initially disliking him. Her growing relationship with the pharaoh. The sorcerer telling the queen about Thuya’s connection with the pharaoh and her plans to run off with Hapi. The pharaoh—surprise!—stopping them, having Hapi killed immediately and Thuya left in the desert to die.
And then that strange last scene in the spaceship: Thuya holding a knife as she approached a new version of the queen. The camera pulling out to show a whole spiralic galaxy matching Thuya’s birthmark.
I hadn’t clocked it at the time, but Stargirl had been about reincarnation all along.
“But there was just one priestess in the movie,” I managed to say. My brain suddenly felt full, slightly foggy. This wasn’t real, of course. But it also awakened something in me, some excitement that burned like a pilot light in my chest.
“Yes. That was a mistake.” Moon gestured at Catherine. “Her earliest regressions—dreams—were of dying in the desert. But her eyes were closed. She didn’t see you, so she didn’t know you were there. But since then, she’s dreamed about you many times. Right, Catherine?”
Catherine nodded mechanically. Her wan smile looked painted on.
“Are you okay?” I asked her.
“She’s tired, Thea.” Moon sounded suddenly cross. “This has all been incredibly draining for us. Especially Catherine, calling for you in the spirit world, praying to open your mind. You showed up, yes. But we didn’t know if you’d stay. You have resistance too.”
I thought back to the times I’d sensed someone watching me through the lace curtain of the purple door. Had it been Catherine after all? Had she been meditating in the cave ? The idea of it made me shiver.
You should leave. I was pretty sure Catherine hadn’t been praying for me to stay.
“Thea.” Moon leaned in. “Do you remember what happened in the desert? Before you died?”
“Ah, no.” I shook my head. “I don’t.”
“ Think .” Moon’s voice lowered. “Your desert dreams. Can’t you see something off in the distance, coming towards you?”
And all at once I remembered: that undulating movement slipping over the hills.
“You can see it, can’t you?” She smiled and leaned back. “This is an enormous opportunity. Because it goes beyond our cohort. Sometimes something happens that’s so egregious, so agonizing, that the energy affects not just the individuals but the collective. That’s what happened when you and Catherine were brutally killed.”
“By you, right?” I cocked my head.
“Yes. In that incarnation, I was a taker of life. That was my role to play.” Moon’s eyes glittered with intensity. “And your role is much greater. You don’t remember, but something happened in the desert. You were offered something. A choice.”
“I don’t remember, Moon. I’m sorry.”
“But that’s why you need to stay.” Moon jumped up and crouched in front of me, grabbing my hands. “Just two more days. Until Ostara—the spring equinox. You’re here on the most balanced day of the year in order to bring balance to humankind. Once we resolve our healing work, everyone on earth will feel the effects.” Her honey-colored eyes pleaded.
“How do you mean?” I asked.
“Think of it like this.” Moon let go of my hands and sat on the floor, still too close. “If you’re a person with unresolved trauma, you might experience physical symptoms. Headaches, stomachaches. Right?”
I nodded mechanically. It was true: the mind and body were closely connected. I’d worked with a few patients whose health issues had improved or cleared up after they processed painful experiences.
“We believe that the same thing happens on a collective scale. Suffering, war, poverty: these are the manifestations of our psychic trauma. Our cohort went through a trauma together. If we’re able to heal it, there will be a ripple effect. Fewer people will suffer. Fewer people will die.” Tears shone in her eyes. I thought of the deaths she’d claimed: Had any of them been real?
“This is huge, Thea,” Sol piped up. “Bigger than you could even imagine.”
Catherine peered up at me through her curtain of hair.
“We know how this sounds,” Karen said. “You’ve only been here two days. This is all brand-new. But can you just take some time to think about it? If any part of you resonates with what we’re saying, then stay. At least for one more session. You’ll be amazed by what happens, I swear to you. And once we work through it, that’s it. The pattern’s broken. We can all move on.”
“And if I say no?” I asked.
“Then we’ll have to wait for our next opportunity, who knows how far into the future.” Moon smiled sadly. “And the pattern will haunt us for the rest of this lifetime.”
“We need you,” Grace pleaded. I glanced at her smooth, bare face. Grace was the sorcerer? How had they come up with that?
“We know this is a lot.” Moon got to her feet. “So we’ll give you some time to process. But if you want to come talk to me—or anyone—we’ll be around.”
“Okay.” I stood, a headache lurking.
Moon embraced me without hesitation. They all waited in a line to hug me—even Steven, who smelled like fried dough.
Catherine was last. She gave me that same weak smile, but this time it struck me as real.
You should leave. Was she happy because she thought I was planning to?