TIME AND TIME AGAIN The sequel to 3037 (16 page)

As the day progressed, the wine flowed and everyone who wasn’t in the band was dancing.  The kids went back to swimming after they ate.
  Later in the evening, after the children had gone to bed, we spread blankets on the thick grass and talked.  Everyone looked so relaxed and happy and I wondered how much longer we needed to be here.

Mu
ch later, when everyone had begu
n to yawn, we all said goodnight. 
We had invited everyone to stay in Homan, there was plenty of room.

CHAPTER 33

Joe and I had made love and were in a deep sleep
when we felt the earthquake-like feeling that meant that Homan was uprooting and we were leaving.

We went outside our house and found everyone else there.  Homan had become transparent again and we could see all the way around us.  This time it was much more spectacular for everywhere we looked we could see the other creatures “swimming” into space.

I could hear gasps, and exclamations from everywhere around us.
  I then heard someone say, “Look, it’s the outlaws.”  When I looked down I saw the eight people who had refused to even discuss any alternative to building the spaceships shielding their eyes while looking up at us.  I wondered if they had wished they could come with us.

I looked at Joe and said, “I need to go into the dark passage.  I don’t know why and I don’t know how I know this, but I have to go right now.”

He kissed me and
said, “Sure, sweetheart.  Go,” He gave me a little push.

I sat on the floor of the passage and found the quiet place I had found before.  “The student is ready,” I whispered.

“Ashley, as soon as we come to the next planet we will land.  The people from the planet below will decide among themselves who will go in which of my children.  Each one will occupy a different planet.  My love and I will be taking you and your group back to earth to where and when you were before I came back.  You will live out this life there.  Now go back with the others.”

“But wait, I have some more questions.” I said.

All I got was silence and so I decided to let it go for now.

I found Joe and told him what Homan had said.  “I’m sure going to miss these people,” was all he said and he turned away but not before I saw tears in his eyes.  I felt like crying also. 
That was one of the things about this journey we were on.  It involved a lot of loss an
d
heartache.  But it also involved joy.

I shared the news with the rest of the crowd and they began to talk among themselves trying to decide who was going with whom.  They argued and argued until finally Foe took charge and had everyone put their names on a piece of paper which she put into a bowl.

She had one of the little boys draw out eight names.  These s
he said would be in one group.  S
he con
tinued with each group of eight
until they were all gone.  They all seemed to be happy with the arrangement and I figured it was because of their scientific background, that this was an objective way of solving the problem.

These people would always be scientific and would probably accomplish a lot but now they were also able to take time to relax and have fun.  I felt that they were well balanced.

I found Seth later in his room and he was crying.  “
Is it because you’re going to be separated from Sig?” I asked him as I rubbed his back.

“Mom, I don’t know what to do.  I love her but I love you guys too.  I can’t go with you and go with her too.  What am I going to do?”

“I don’t know, Seth.  It’s a decision only you can make.  Whatever you decide I will stand by you, both your father and I will.  But you will have to decide soon.
”

After I left Seth, I went to find Joe.  He was talking to some of the men from the planet we had just left.  When he saw me he walked over and kissed me on the cheek, “Hi, gorgeous.  Did you come to drag me back home and into bed?”

“No, I’m worried about Seth.  He’s trying to decide whether to stay with us or go with Sig and her family.”

Then he said something that made me feel like an idiot, “Why not just ask the whole family to come with us?”

We did just that and it was settled and they were coming with us.  So, when we landed on a small planet that had two moons, everyone boarded their assigned living spaceships and lifted off.  We watched as the offspring “swam” through space and we all had tears in our eyes.  I wondered if Homan and his mate were shedding tears and how that would manifest itself.

Soon Homan’s mate lifted off also and then it was just us.  I cried while Joe held me and then we went back inside and into our house.  We lifted off as soon as everyone was inside and we were o
n our way back to earth, to 1956
.

CHAPTER 34

We landed where and when we left.  The same place, on the beach in St. Augustine, Florida, Earth; and the same date, June first 1956.  Our houses were where we had left them and it was as if we had never left.

Joe and his band were booked to play in a new cl
ub in downtown St. Augustine
that night and they took the new members of the band with them.  They were planning on introducing them and the new singers. Josie would also be singing.

Ginger, Sandra, Marion, and I went to inspect our shop and we found it just like we had left it.  We were excited to open it back up the next day and decided to have a big sale.

Seth was so excited to show Sig and her parents, John and Marsha (Seth had named them from the Snowdrift commercial of that time) around and Sig was excited when she saw the ocean.

The children went back to school the next day and we opened the shop and put out the sale signs.  Joe and the members of his band slept late after having played in the club until 3:00 a.m.  The rest of the adults went back to their jobs and life went on as it had before we left.

We had only been back for a little over a week when
the radio gave the forecast about a hurricane.  We started boarding up our houses and the shop and buying the prepackaged foods we didn’t usually eat and filling the bathtubs with water.

The city workers began cutting the coconuts out of the palm trees so that the palm trees wouldn’t act as a slingshot.  School was closed and the kids all thought it was a wonderful adventure.  The eye of the hurricane was supposed to come through St. Augustine on Wednesday and it was now Tuesday morning.

It was already getting dark and we were worried.  When I had lived here in my first life,
there had been a terrible hurricane in 1963 that wiped out all of the houses on the beach but it had come straight in from the ocean.  Most of them bounced along the coast.

This was supposed to be a mild hurricane and there was no talk about evacuating the beach but they were advising that we move inland.  I decided to go into the cave and seek advice from Homan.

I entered the dark passage and sat cross-legged on the floor.  “The student is ready,” I said.

“Ashley, you will all be safe.  Don’t worry.  I will protect you as always.”  He told me he would later join up with the rest of his family after
everyone was settled onto the planet where they had been taken.  “They will be here soon and then we will live in outer space where we were meant to live.  I will miss all of you humans but you will be fine without me, Ashley.”  I sat there crying
, “We will miss you too.  Thank you so much for all you have done for us.”

“And thank you.  If it hadn’t been for you humans I would have died long ago from depression.  I had lost the will to live.  Now I will be happy with my own family.  It’s the way it was meant to be.”

CHAPTER 35

During the raging winds and heavy rains and the lightening that lit up the sky with bright green, we huddled inside our small houses.  We sang songs and played games and ate the junk food we had bought.

One of the children suddenly yelled, “Look, everyone.  Look what’s happening.”  She was standing at the window looking out and when we gathered at the window we all laughed in delight, for out in the sky as far as we could see were
Homan and his family shooting through the sky.  It was so beautiful.  They had all changed from colorless transparency to every color in the rainbow.

It was like a dance, a very high energy ballet.  As we watched, we noticed some of the local folks venture out of their houses farther along the beach and watch.  The wind almost blew them down and they
had to hold onto each other.

All of a sudden Homan and his family got so close that they looked like one and then they burst off making trails of bright lights as they formed a circle.  They come back together and did it again and I realized they were putting on a show for us and that this was their final farewell.

I had already told everyone about my talk with Homan in the dark passage and we stood watching as tears streamed down our faces.  They came in tight together one more time before shooting off even faster and we could barely see them they had gone very high into the sky.  We could barely see them but could see that they kept coming together and shooting off forming bright lights until we could see them no more.

As soon as they were out of sight everything stopped, the winds the rain the thunder and lightning, everything.

“Well, it looks like they took the hurricane with them,”
Joe said.

The kids headed for the door but I stopped them, “It’s not over.  You can’t go outside yet.  We are in the eye of the hurricane.”

Hurricanes spin counterclockwise so that, if the eye come
s
through a coastal town on the Atlantic, the winds will come off the ocean, then the eye will come through. 
Then t
he winds will come off the shore out to the ocean.  So you will know which part of the hurricane you are in.

We rode the storm out and when it was over we woke up the next morning and walked down on the beach.  The best time to go shelling on the beach is right after a hurricane and we walked up and down the beach picking up conk shell
s
, sand dollars, starfish and thousands of shells of all sizes.

There was also a lot of dead fish and other sea creatures. 
We spent several days cleaning the beach. 
We would be able to keep the kids busy with the shells for many hours.

Ginger came up with the idea of making shell jewelry to go in the shop and then I came up with the idea of decorating some of the beachwear with shells.
  We made belts out of shells and then Sandra came up with the idea of making sandals and decorating them with shells.

Soon word spread and people were coming from as far as Miami to the South and Monroe Beach, Georgia to the North.  Our prices were very reasonable and some of the shop owners fro
m up and dow
n the coast ordered dozens of clothes and sandals.  We soon had to buy a warehouse and hire more people.

Our operation became so big we were one of the main sources of income in St. Augustine.  Joe and his band became so famous that they soon had records that went gold
.

At no time were we tempted to build mansions like other stars did, but decided to use the extra to help more people.  We funded the rebuilding of houses for people who had lost everything in earthquakes, floods
, hurricanes,
and tornadoes.

We built hospitals, homes for troubled teens and battered women’s shelters.  We built homeless shelters and hired people to run them.  We tried to save the world, even though we knew it was impossible.  But I like to think we did make a difference.

It seemed that the more we did to help others, the happier we were.  I was amazed at how that worked.

We lost Irene just after the hurricane and, as she was dying, she tried to explain that she was
moving to a higher plane and would no longer need a body.  She would be all light.
  We
still miss her and her wisdom.

CHAPTER 36

Joe and I had one more child, a little girl we named Irene.  We now have grandchildren and great grandchildren.  Josie had, once again, married George and they had the children and grandchildren I had met before. 
Seth married Sig and had one child, a little blond haired, blue eyed boy.  They named him Drake and he married a local girl.  They had six children.

Joe and I are now in our 90s and still active.  We retired just a few years back and let the later generations take over.  I still don’t understand the universe very well and probably never will.

I don’t know how long Joe and I will be around.  Irene was over 500 years old when she turned into pure light.  It was beautiful.  Her emaciated body was lying on the cot and she became almost transparent but with an inner light inside her.  As her body faded, the light took over then grew smaller but more intense until it
resembled a firefly except much brighter.  Then it floated upward toward the sky until we couldn’t see it any longer.