“I’m not accusing you of anything,” she chuckled. “What I say to you is a gift. Do with it
what you will.”
“Thanks. Did Carlos suspect there was some kind of deception going on?”
“Like you do? Of course.”
“Why didn't that screw up Juan's credibility?"
“Juan knew how to polish an ulterior motive, which allowed him to lead Carlos into
participating in the sorcerer's culture until validating experiences made it impossible for him to
stay away. Carlos always struggled to rationalize Juan's ways into a sociological structure he
could accept,” Bonnie said, with a shrug, “but he didn't realize he had already made the leap into
the unknown.” She leaned into her explanation. “Your friend Sammi knew that committing to a
decision meant leaving his feet, after which all you can do is engage your destiny with dignity.”
She paused and explained, ”Initially, you tried to manipulate your fate by hunching low, then
you understood your commitment to your decisions at Goodbye. The part of your awareness
that’s designed to protect your physical journey still thinks I'm crazy, but there’s a deeper part of
you that knows you've already left your feet. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be bargaining for your
reason now. You’d be at the pub conveniently forgetting the special moments you can’t properly
explain, especially since we met.”
“I'm researching your premises like you asked me to.”
“You’ve softened your approach, but you’re still serving an ulterior motive.”
“If you say so.”
“I do.”
Before I left for the day, she gave me a book written by Lynn V. Andrews about her
unexpected journey of becoming a Medicine Woman, and another book each by Jane Roberts
and Carlos Castaneda.
By the end of the first month of Bonnie’s elaborate chats with her Universe, driven by the
impact and timing of my latest vivid dream and the escaped prisoner, a typical day consisted of
getting up at five-thirty, writing until eight-thirty, then showering before meeting Bonnie at nine.
In the early evening I jogged, then kicked back for some TV, or I might try editing my morning's
work. I say try because I was often interrupted by calls from Meg and Rachel asking me about
niggling thoughts seeded by Bonnie on Saturday. As a result, I added an official night session of
writing to my schedule—in lieu of having no better offers.
After a supper with Ed at a pub, on one of these scheduled nights I sat down to write, and as
happened often enough to allow it, my creative flow went into scenes that ignored established
parameters. Unusually, this time I found myself mentally trotting to keep up with what became
an historical hallucination narrated by an unidentified party in my dying character's thoughts.
Two paragraphs in, I knew it wouldn't fit in my work but I continued recording this internal
dictation as an investment in something I could somehow use later on. After an hour, my mind
emptied as if a tap had been shut off and I settle back to read what I thought was a rambling
parable about a band of wanderers seeking shelter in a town for the winter. To my surprise, the
story was clearer on paper than it had been in my mind because I had to scramble to describe the
scenes as they continuously unfolded, the essence of which follows:
