CHAPTER 8
The idea that this nagging minor depression I had been experiencing was caused by homesickness was borne out the next morning when I woke up feeling more depressed than ever. The wedding had been wonderful, but it had brought sorrow instead of joy since each time I thought of being adopted, I knew it meant I would be spirited away to a place I did not want to live.
As usual, I woke early and went downstairs to the restaurant for breakfast. By now all the staff knew me. I have always been too gabby for my own good, full of fun and letting service people know how much I appreciated what they did for me. It really DID (and does) mean something when somebody brings me a cup of coffee or a donut or a plate of eggs. I try to telegraph to them with my body language and a kind word that they matter.
I had been in the restaurant long enough for my breakfast to arrive -- fruit and hash browns in deference to my newly adopted mother’s preference -- when Telasta came floating into the room in a diaphanous flowered gown. She was beautiful. I was glad she was in my life. We spoke briefly. All these years later, you might think this would be the ONE conversation I would surely remember, but I really do not. I remember the substance, but not the words. I told her that Last had come last night, I gave her the telephone number, and I gave her two of the three rings. I was wearing my ring. She told me to wait in the restaurant while she went upstairs and called Last, that she would send for me soon. We would be leaving very shortly.
Sooner than I expected, a man entered wearing a livery uniform. “Sir,” he addressed me, “are you Wil Dupepe.” I said that I was. “Then you must come with me immediately,” he ordered. Though I did not like his tone, he must be the man Telasta had sent. I asked the waiter for my ticket and walked to the cashier to pay for my breakfast.
“This has been a really enjoyable stay with you guys,” I said to her. “The limo is waiting for me, so I’d better go -- not that I WANT to. We are moving to Paris
“That sounds nice,” the young cashier said in response. “You should be happy about that.”
“No,” I told her. “I WANT to go home.”
“Where is home?” she asked
“Brazil
The driver was standing beside a taxi cab waiting for me. That should have alerted me that something was wrong. Papa always used a limo service. The windows of the cab were covered in aluminum foil so that I could not see inside the back seat -- another red flag. I DO remember being suddenly nervous, but by the time I had opened the back door and started to get into the cab, the driver shoved me in and closed the door. I was on full alert and tried to open the door or roll down the window and jump out. There were no door openers or window rollers on the inside of the door. I turned to try to open the back door on the driver’s side. Holding a gun pointed directly at me was Karl Ann Fissenships. “You would do well to settle down, young man. I do not want to have to clean your guts off the inside of this cab now, do I?”
“I thought you were in jail, Ms. Karl Ann.”
“Ah, so you know my name?”
“Yes, I heard some guy Arnold
“Then you and I should do well, Wil Dupepe. You keep your big mouth shut and your big ears open, we’ll do fine. Take your clothes off and hand ‘em to me.”
“What? I’m not taking my clothes off. You’ll shoot me and they won’t be able to identify my body by my clothes.”
“If you DON’T take ‘em off, I’m damn sure gonna shoot you, sonny. Best way to keep you from running away once we get out of this cab is to take your clothes. ‘sides that, I want to know what you got in your pockets.”
“You’re ROBBING ME, then? How much money do you want? I have plenty of money. I’ll pay you whatever you want if you let me go.”
“No, sonny. You’ll pay me plenty of money and I WON’T let you go. You ever heard of anybody getting the goose to lay the golden egg and then letting it GO?? Are you NUTS?”
So I took off my clothes. She found what she was after -- my check book. The way she looked at my naked body, Arnold
I kept thinking that maybe we would stop somewhere and I would get a chance to use Last’s ring to call for help. That possibility dissolved when she saw my ring and ordered me to hand it to her. I know I act tough and even at almost fifteen years of age I looked like a man, but the gun terrified me. Death can happen anytime. I was not ready for it to happen to me just yet.
Obviously I could not yell for help. I kept wondering whether Mom and Pop even knew I was missing, and how worried they were going to be when they DID find out. I must have been hyperventilating. I could feel my face turning redder. I turned my face to the window and curled into a ball, pulling my feet up under my buttocks and shoving my business down between my legs to keep from feeling so vulnerable. Then came a sting on my arm. Shocked, I turned in time to see Karl Ann pulling a hypodermic out of my arm. That’s the last thing I remembered for a long time.
When I woke up, it was dark. Someone was in the room with me. It was a man’s voice who said, “He’s awake. I can tell by his breathing.” They shined a flashlight in my eyes and I recoiled. No use pretending to be asleep anymore, so I asked, “How long have I been asleep?”
A woman’s voice -- perhaps Karl Ann, “Over 24 hours. You slept all the way through the flight and the car ride to this location. Don’t even try to get away. We know who you think we are. You believe we are your enemies. It may take a very long time to de-program you; but we are actually your friends. We saved you from those horrible people who were holding you captive.”
After that, I lost all track of time. They used sleep deprivation, electric shock, subliminal suggestion, and every other trick in the book to get information from me and plant information in me. They told me that Telasta was working for a foreign drug cartel, that she was a hired assassin who had taken out world leaders as they vacationed on their yachts. They showed me movies of small children who were wired with bombs, and they even showed me how these children would walk up to American soldiers and the bomb would detonate, killing the child and the soldiers. They kept showing me horrible events like this and they laid it all at the feet of Telasta.
When they were pretty certain that they had cracked my trust in my family, they asked me how many mermaids there are. There was still enough of my core personality at that time for me to want to protect Papa, even having serious doubts about Telasta, so I lied. “There is only one mermaid -- the mermaid Telasta,” I said. Later, when they had completely alienated my emotions from my family, I was too embarrassed to correct my lie. By that time I wanted THEM to trust ME. The regular brain-washing sessions, alternating between sleep-deprivation and electric shock lasted for at least six months. They did not have to shock me every time I touched my bedroom door. I stopped touching that door within the first week of those particular shocks.
Karl Ann instructed me to start calling her ‘Mom.’ After awhile it began to feel right. I was not allowed to leave my room for three years or more. They brought my meals to my bedroom. There was a toilet and shower and lavatory in the room. The window was covered with plywood with bars on the inside of that plywood. ‘Mom’ told me that the CIA had given me a new identity. I was to forget the name ‘Wil Dupepe’ and call myself D’Arcy Drouillet. She said it was important to maintain my new identity because I was on Telasta’s hit list. My location was a matter of national security, she said.
The thing that finally broke me was the day ‘Mom’ brought me a home movie. “I know this may hurt you, sonny, but it’s something you need to see.” She proceeded to show me movies of Telasta and Joaquin smiling and laughing, walking by the sea in Ubatuba, going to restaurants and movies both in the United States and in Brazil
This was the last straw of information that broke my spirit. I knew it had to be true that my folks thought I had run away from home. After all, I had told not only Last, but even the cashier that I did not want to go to Paris Paris
I cried for two days. Genuinely concerned that I might have a breakdown, Karl Ann sent her daughter Amber into my room to talk with me. Amber was very gentle, very kind, very beautiful. She talked softly and reassured me that I was now with people who cared for me. I was a little worried about not being in school, but something told me not to ask about that.
A week or so passed with Amber’s visits creating a warm sense of comfort. I was so tired of being afraid and of hating myself for not running away from home sooner. Papa and Telasta never even gave me a birthday party. Amber and Karl Ann acted like they really loved me. For the next years, these two people were my whole world.
Keeping my sanity was a real concern to me. ‘Mom’ told me from time to time that Telasta almost found me, but that the CIA had thrown her off my trail. The only reading material with which I kept up with the outside world were those trash mags Karl Ann read regularly and an occasional US News and World Report. Paranoia over being killed by Telasta drove me to do isometric exercises to keep my body in good shape. There was a pretty severe internal conflict. I was afraid to think good thoughts about Telasta. I knew that path would lead to punishment by electric shock or worse. At the same time, part of me held onto the knowledge that I would always love Telasta, no matter what ‘Mom’ or anybody else did to me.
Time had slipped away from me. I did not know what month it was, but by now I knew I must have had my 18th birthday. My hormones knew it without looking at a calendar. Amber had a wonderful face, beautiful hair, and a body to die for. She became my fantasy woman. Lacivious thoughts of her woke me up in the night. I was red-faced at my body’s reaction to dreams about her.
Karl Ann came to my room on the morning after my first erotic dream of Amber, certain now that I would not run away from HER home. I asked her if she would mind my using the laundry room to wash my bedding. Had it not been for my testosterone-laced dreams, I might never have expressed a desire to leave my room. ‘Mom’ was ready to trust her control over me at the same time that I asked for that trust.
“’bout time you started helping out around here, Mr. Wil. Sure! You can go down the hallway and the laundry room is the first door on your right. My room is right across the hallway. You stay out of my room, you hear?”
“Yes, ma’am. Could you please open the door for me?” I knew not to touch the door knob to my room. Pavlov’s theory had been proven through my reaction to that door.
“That door is open, Wil. You think it’s locked? What kind of people do you think we are? You open your own damned door around here. I am not your slave, you understand me?” Karl Ann’s tone had taken on a menacing note, and I did not know why. I only knew that I was not capable of opening that door. I sat on my bed and waited until Amber came home from school and came into my room to visit me.
“That door is open, Wil. You think it’s locked? What kind of people do you think we are? You open your own damned door around here. I am not your slave, you understand me?” Karl Ann’s tone had taken on a menacing note, and I did not know why. I only knew that I was not capable of opening that door. I sat on my bed and waited until Amber came home from school and came into my room to visit me.
I had my sheets and bedding on the floor, ready to wash. I put them in a pile so Amber would not notice the stains on my sheets. “What are you doing, Wil? Momma says you want to start helping with the chores. That’s so nice of you.” Amber’s voice always helped me to be calm.
“I would LIKE to do my laundry, Amber, but I cannot open that door. Would you open the door for me, please?”
Her reaction was much gentler than her mother’s had been. “Sure, Wil. Here, let me show you where the laundry room is.” She opened the door and left it open. I followed her down the hallway. We passed an opening to the left that led to what appeared to be the living room. Past that, Amber opened the bi-fold closet doors to the right, where there was a washer and a dryer in a space barely large enough for them. Above the washer and dryer was a shelf with a box of washing powder on it. Amber showed me how to turn on the washer and dryer, then turned around and pointed at the door across the hallway. “That’s Momma’s room,” she said, then pointed to the door at the end of the hallway, “and that’s my room. You already know to stay out of Momma’s room, but you can come see me if you want to.”
“Thank you, Amber,” I said shyly. She smiled and left me in front of the laundry closet, swinging her hips saucily as she went to her own room. I had an idea that she knew exactly what she was doing to me.
My days and nights were very routine after that. While I felt an uneasy affection for ‘Mom’, she could fly off the handle at the drop of a hat -- and she would drop that hat herself. Living here was the only security I had. I was full of fear over my security these days. I could not go back to Papa and Telasta. What would become of me if Karl Ann kicked me out? The best thing for me to do, I decided, was to keep a low profile and do everything I could do to help around the house. ‘Mom’ quickly took advantage of this attitude and taught me how she wanted her laundry washed, dried, and folded. Later she taught me to iron and clean house. I felt much safer now that I was contributing. Her reactions were still unpredictable. She hurt my feelings many times. I kept reminding myself that these people were the only people who loved me, and that I needed to be grateful -- not resentful.
Because I could never force myself to touch the door knob to my room, Karl Ann got in the habit of leaving my door cracked. That way, I could pull the door open by grabbing the wood without ever touching the knob. During the years I lived there, I decided never to touch my door knob again. Bear in mind, I had no problem with other door knobs -- only mine.
Frequently Amber’s and Karl Ann’s voices would float down the hallway to my room. While I had seen Karl Ann’s husband a time or two, he worked the night shift. I never met him, as he left at eleven at night and came back home around noon. ‘Mom’ always fed him alone in the kitchen and then he went to their room, took a shower, and went to sleep. Most of the time, when Mr. Fissenships left for work, Amber went into her mother’s room and they talked.
On this particular night, I became interested in their conversation for the first time. Slowly, I opened my door and stuck my head into the hallway. Karl Ann’s door was open, but I knew that she and Amber normally talked for about an hour before Amber went to bed. My name kept coming up in their conversation. That was what piqued my interest.
I took off my shoes and tiptoed down the hallway to ‘Mom’s’ door. If she opened her door, I planned to open the laundry door across the hallway and pretend to be looking for a shirt or something.
“You bettter keep your voice down, Momma. Wil has really good hearing, you know.” Amber spoke softly.
“His hearing ain’t THAT good,” she responded, but she lowered her voice anyway. “Anyway, like I was saying, I been cashing the boy’s checks for the last three years. Had to get more checks printed up when I ran out of the few checks he had with him the day I took him. He always signs those two-thousand dollar checks, ‘cause I cover the check up so he can’t see what it is he’s signing. I been sending those checks to family and friends all over the country to cash for me. I have to pay them some of the money, but it’s worth it. I do NOT want his people to find out where he is. I think I was smart to take out only two-thousand a month. If I emptied his bank account, it might raise a red flag. The way I been doing it, they could possibly REALLY believe he ran away from home. If I emptied his account, they would probably think he was dead.
You know there’s a long jail sentence for kidnapping. Since I quit the CIA six months after we nabbed the boy, I can’t very well claim any kind of immunity. I’m glad we got him in the witness protection plan before I quit, though. Even that mermaid was not able to find her son when he had a new name.”
“Yeah, Mom,” Amber’s low voice was easy to hear from where I stood right outside the door. “I am so proud you figured out how to make us a good living off that dumb-ass. All those brain-washing techniques you learned while you were in the CIA sure paid off.”
“Yes, they did, Amber, and now I’m telling you that you better stake your claim on that boy. You KNOW he has money, and he ain’t half bad lookin’. ‘sides that, he’s got plenty of meat where it counts, if you know what I mean.”
“Yeah, Mom, but he’s such a dumb-ass. He can’t even carry on a decent conversation.”
“It’s okay, Amber. You don’t need to TALK to him.”
“That may be true, but I don’t think he will ever believe the baby I’m carrying is his. Do you think he is so stupid he does not even know how babies are made?” With that, they both burst out laughing.
“He probably don’t,” ‘Mom’ said. “But I seen the way he looks at you. I bet he’d be glad to be your husband and give that baby his name.”
“Okay, then. I will talk to him tomorrow morning. Do you really think he’s ready to go outside the house? I’m a little afraid he’s going to freak out if I take him out of the house. We’ll give it a try. Let’s go back over the plan. I go in and sit on the side of his bed in the morning. I tell him I have a problem. Hopefully, he gets real sympathetic. I cry and tell him I don’t know what I’m going to do if my baby does not have a father. Hopefully again, he offers to marry me. I cry again and tell him I don’t want to ruin his life like that. Hopefully he assures me that this is what he wants to do, and that he will raise my baby like it’s his own. I tell him we need to go down to the café and celebrate.
While we are eating breakfast at the café, since he don’t know he still has money in his bank account, I tell him he needs to get a job to support me. Daddy says he can get him on at the plant where he works, and once he goes to work under his new name, I can take those checks that you ordered in Wil Dupepe’s name and learn to copy his signature. He won’t ever even know that his parents have been putting money in his account every month since you kidnapped him.
Once we get married, I am going to look into how much money he has in that checking account. They won’t be able to do anything to me if I’m his wife. Besides, Wil will defend me. He won’t press charges. If there’s enough money in that account, and if I find that out without suspicion, then I will use some of that poison you got when you were with the CIA and maybe we can live the rest of our lives with lots of money and no Wil. THEN we can stop worrying about getting him to sign a check every month. Are you sure they cannot prove Wil was poisoned?”
“Amber, I promise you. That poison cannot be detected in the most sophisticated forensics lab in the world. Let’s just take it one step at a time. I know you are tired of this stupid boy, but if he’s as rich as we think he is, your patience will pay off handsomely. Bide your time, girl. Bide your time. You’re getting ahead of yourself. If he agrees to marry you tomorrow, we will take it from there. If not, maybe we should go ahead and poison him now and take our chances with trying to empty his bank account.”
I had heard enough. I tiptoed back down the hallway, went into my room, and gently pushed my door to. My brain was about to explode. Did she think I really might believe I had made her pregnant? I didn’t think so, and it sounded like she didn’t, either. She had read me right when she thought I was infatuated with her. Yes, I had been; not anymore. Most of all, my brain was filled with humiliation over thinking for all these years that my parents had abandoned me. My mind must be stronger than I knew. In that one moment of realization all the brain-washing had been rinsed from my head.
I now knew the truth, and the truth was setting me free. It did not happen instantly. It was a process. I would spend the rest of this night preparing for the coming day. Like Amber, I was going to take it a step at a time. Maybe my parents would not want me, but whatever else happened I knew I was going to get myself free; and I was going to do it tomorrow.
Before I went to bed, I grabbed the doorknob to my bedroom and silently closed the door. My body might not yet be free, but my spirit was getting there fast.
Sleep was fitful as my mind went over and over Amber’s plan, countered by various imaginary responses I could make.
Morning finally came. Amber eased into my room at day break and crawled into my bed. She nuzzled against me provocatively. “Good morning, Wil,” she ran her fingers through my hair, her face inches from my own.
“Good morning, Amber.” I forced myself to smile.
When she read my reaction as that of a man who was smitten by her beauty (Telasta always said I was a good actor), she continued with her plan exactly as she had outlined in last night’s conversation with her mother. I put my own responses into action with a precision that would have made a master pianist proud.
When we got to the part where she told me she was ashamed to bring a child into this world without a father, I volunteered to take her child as my own. Her tears of appreciation and subsequent offer to take me down to the café so that we could make wedding plans allowed me to fake my own tears of ‘appreciation.’
“Why don’t you get up and get dressed and I will go tell Momma our good news, what say?”
“Okay. That sounds good to me.” My shower was perfunctory. It only took about 15 minutes for me to be fully dressed, waiting outside by the car when Amber sauntered out in the sexiest dress -- one she had probably saved for this occasion. I had never seen it before. My mind was healed to such a degree that I had been able to walk out the door without a second thought. Amber was saturated in her own plans, salivating at the thought of getting her hands on my money. An alarm should have sounded in her head when I went out that door. She was too greedy to hear it.
The greasy-spoon restaurant where we ate was probably something really fine in Amber’s mind. The grits were watery, the bacon limp, and the fried eggs were so runny that I could not eat them. Amber did all the talking. Now that I knew she considered me to be a poor conversationalist, I decided it was not necessary for me to improve her opinion. She presented her idea about my working with her father, and I readily agreed.
We went back to the house where I had been a prisoner for three years. It was more difficult than anything I had ever done to go back to that house now that I was outside its walls. As we pulled into the driveway, I made a mental note of the address numbers of this house.
We got out of the car. “You have made me so happy, Wil. There’s only one more thing we need to do to make this the best wedding ever. You need to get me an engagement ring. I bet I can talk Momma into lending you the money to buy me one.”
Thinking on my feet, this was the opportunity for which I had been waiting. “Go in and ask your mother if she still has that ring I had on my finger when she and I first met. If she still has it, it’s worth more money than this entire house. I would like to give you that ring if you know where it is.”
Amber‘s greed morphed her face from that of a beautiful and innocent girl into the witch I now knew her to be. “Ooooh! I forgot about that ring. She still has it. She tried to pawn it, but the pawn shop had never seen a stone like that. They were afraid maybe it could be traced and they would get in trouble for buying it.”
My blood boiled when she said those words. She was treating me like an old friend, but now I knew she had been in on my kidnapping from the very beginning. Nonetheless, I kept my equanimity, showing nothing on my face. “Good!” I said. “Then that’s settled.”
“Momma’s not home. She went to the grocery store. I know the ring is in her room, but we better wait till she gets home before we get it.” Amber was eager, I could tell. She was saying the words, but I could tell it would not take much to push her into getting that ring.
“Why wait for her? It’s MY ring, and I want to give it to you. What’s the problem with that?”
“You know, you have a point there. Momma won’t mind as long as it’s going to be my engagement ring. I’ll go get it. Wait here. I’ll be right back.” She ran into the house to her mother’s room and got the ring. Amber handed me the ring, though she wanted me to put it on her finger that minute so she could show off to all her friends. I told her I wanted to take it to the jewelry store and get it polished, and then I wanted to come back to her house and ask her to marry me properly -- on bended knee, ring in hand, in front of her parents. She bought my ploy -- hook, line, and sinker. I told her I would catch the bus and be back as soon as the ring was polished. Amber had a moment of uncertainty. When I told her I needed bus fare, she weighed her options, dug in her purse, and handed me two one-dollar bills. Had Karl Ann been there, she would never have allowed me this kind of freedom. This is the very situation she had always feared: I would come to myself and realize I’d been duped and would simply walk away. She would come home from her grocery shopping and throw a hissy fit, but the damage would be done.
No sooner had she given me the money than a bus appeared at the end of the block. I ran to the curb, smiling back toward her the most convincing lover smile I could muster. The bus driver must have seen this scene many times before. He stopped for me to get on, even though there was no bus stop in front of Karl Ann’s house. The bus doors opened, I put my foot on the bottom step, turned and smilingly waved at Amber, and gave the driver both my dollars.
As soon as I got on the bus, the old fear returned. I wanted desperately to get off that bus and use the ring. I remembered -- barely -- how to use it. I was afraid that if I got off the bus too soon, Karl Ann might see me and the jig would be up. I rode that bus to the end of the line. The driver finally had to ask me to get off his bus so he could go home.
Fear had become my middle name. No longer did I know WHO to trust. I was not even sure that any of my life before Karl Ann was real. There was a water fountain at this bus terminal. This was a very seedy part of town. Showing a ring like mine could be a dangerous thing to do. My desperation overcame my fear. I put my foot on the foot pedal that turned on the water fountain, held my ring in my right hand, and ‘dip-dip, dip-dip, dip-dip’ in the stream of water. Whatever was supposed to happen, or whatever I THOUGHT was going to happen, NOTHING happened. Somewhere in my fevered mind, maybe I thought my ring would begin to glow or perhaps a voice would be heard coming from the ring or something of the sort. I waited and I waited; sat on a bench and waited some more.
“Just one more thing I imagined,” I thought. “None of it was real. Maybe if I do it again,” I thought. I went back to the water fountain and did it again. “Maybe I remember the pattern wrong.” I sat back on the bench, put the ring in my pocket and my head in my hands and soon fell asleep. It was night when I woke up. I waked as I felt big strong hands lifting me into a black helicopter parked in the middle of the street.
CHAPTER 9
It was a big vehicle, this chopper. I knew whose hands were lifting me. It was Papa. I rolled out of his arms and onto the seat of the helicopter, woke up completely and rolled right back into his arms where he sat beside me. All I could do was cry. He was crying, too, saying, “It’s over now, Wil. Shhh. Shhh. You’re home. It’s going to be okay. On the other side of me, Telasta couldn’t do anything but cry and stroke my hair and face and my shoulders. She pressed her face against my back. She was making the most mournful/joyful noises I had ever heard. She was beside herself, making noises with her mouth and her backpack organ simultaneously. Lights were flashing in the road ahead, the street was closed off and filled with police cars. Nobody was in the chopper but Last and Telasta, Papa and me. There was another black helicopter that had landed in the road ahead of us.
“Wil,” Papa began tenuously, “I hate to interrupt this celebration with serious business, but do you know where Karl Ann has been keeping you? We do not want her to get away. You have been reported as a kidnap victim and Karl Ann has been on the most wanted list for four years. We need to shut down her ability to run, and we need to do it now. If she knows you have escaped, she will probably be trying to leave her hideout quickly. She might even be packing right now.”
“Yes, I know where she lives. Her daughter was in on the scheme, too. I don’t know if her husband knew anything at all. The address is 4015 Alta Lignum Drive . It’s in the Heights subdivision of Houston
I had not seen Papa’s walkie-talkie, but apparently my words had been broadcast to the F.B.I. or the state police or both. “You got that?” Papa asked as he keyed the mike again.
“Yeah, we got it Mr. Foxtrott -- Uncle -- Zulu -- Zulu. You want to bring your chopper for the takedown? Local boys are closing that street right now to keep her from leaving, but they are running silent. No point in scaring the natives, eh?”
“You want to see them take Karl Ann down, Wil?”
“Yes, I do,” I answered in a tired but resolute voice.
All the cop cars cleared the streets and both helicopters lifted into the air. Within ten minutes we were setting down directly in front of the house on Alta Lignum and a S.W.A.T. team already had the house surrounded. Five minutes later, Karl Ann and her husband and Amber were being goose-stepped out of the house in handcuffs and leg irons.
“I TOLD you not to let him out of your sight, you MORON
Papa and Telasta rode with me in a cop car while Last flew off in the chopper. As far as I know, nobody but us ever saw Last during this entire operation. There were formalities that had to be observed. I had to sign some papers bringing charges against the Fissenships (if that was even their real name). We knew we would have to return for the trial. The F.B.I. told us that the Alta Lignum house was being treated as a crime scene and forensic scientists would be collecting all the evidence needed to put this family away for a long time. The set-up of my bedroom with the windows covered with plywood and bathing facilities within the room and especially that heavy deadbolt lock on the outside of my door -- all this would go a long way toward proving I had been abducted. Add to that all the tapes and recordings of my brain-washing sessions and electric shock sessions and nobody would question why I had stayed long after my body had been free to go. My mind simply did not KNOW that I was free. It was a good thing that Karl Ann had been a sadist and wanted to watch my torture over and over again for her own pleasure, else nobody would really know what I had gone through.
My de- de-programming would take longer than I ever imagined. The roots Karl Ann had sunk in my head ran deeper than anyone could have known. At first, Papa wanted to sue the C.I.A. for their complicity in the kidnapping. Had they not changed my name, perhaps I would have been found much earlier. In the final analysis, we decided nothing would be served by going after anyone but Karl Ann and her daughter. Her husband had such a low I.Q. that it was quickly established he did not understand the ramifications of what Karl Ann was doing with me and to me. He was truly just a stud for her bed and a drone in the factory where he worked 12-hour shifts and gave all his checks to Karl Ann.
The forensics team that built the case within the Alta Lignum house were very forthcoming in their treatment of me. At the suggestion of the psychiatrist Joaquin had hired, they gave us copies of all the films and all the brain-washing and torture sessions. Papa would not let me watch all these films right away, but he and Telasta studied them interminably.
Once again I was in a time warp. We were living in a very nice house my family rented in the River Oaks section of Houston
Once my sanity returned, Papa and Telasta began taking me to the media room in this house to show me select excerpts from Karl Ann’s video chronicles. One of the things that had bothered me most was the videos of children with bombs tied to their innocent bodies. The words ‘Telasta did this’ kept resonating in my mind. Another big issue for me was the pictures of Papa and Telasta laughing and going to movies while I was gone.
I watched these videos with Telasta and Joaquin. With my peripheral vision, I could see that they were watching me intently as I watched the videos. The movie projector turned off and the lights turned on. “Look at us, Wil -- I mean, REALLY look at us. I look much older than I looked in those pictures, and even Telasta has aged a little. I don’t know how Karl Ann got surveillance tapes from the C.I.A. files back 30 years ago, but that’s what those pictures are -- old… VERY old. Besides the fact that she used old film, we have not returned to Ubatuba since you were kidnapped. For the past four years, we have done everything humanly possible to find you. There’s BEEN no smiling or having a good time. We have been too sick to sleep, let alone smile. It infuriates me, beyond anything you could possibly imagine, that she convinced you we were glad you were gone.”
This whole thing had taken a toll on Papa. As he said those last words, he put his face in his hands and sobbed uncontrollably. Telasta put her hand behind his head and her forehead against his temple and sobbed, also. I really had not realized how psychically damaged my folks had been by this whole ordeal. The ‘not knowing’ had to be torture for them. As they explained how the first scant information had unfolded, I came to understand their illusion that maybe I was participating in this scheme. After all, I was signing checks month after month. The idea that maybe I did not consider myself to be part of their family brought them incredible unrequited sorrow.
I could not share in this part of their sadness. All I could do was marvel at the way they used good judgment through the years of speculation. At one point in time, they told me, they considered cutting off funds to my checking account. That way, they reasoned, if someone was holding me just to be able to use my money, then taking away that incentive might make them release me. Then again, they thought, such action might also get me killed -- so they continued filling up my bank account.
“We share the blame for what happened to you, Wil. As more and more of Karl Ann’s story is revealed, your kidnapping had nothing to do with the C.I.A.’s interest in Telasta and everything to do with the way we flaunted our money. Karl Ann wanted the financial freedom that we have and she was willing to do anything to get it. Who knows what she might have done next had you not escaped when you did.”
“Oh, I KNOW what they planned to do, Papa. Amber planned to marry me and then kill me. I heard her say so. We always look at the bad without appreciating the seeds of good that lie curled right next to it. It was bad that Amber loved money more than life. It was SO good that I heard her talking about it to her mother. Her verbalization of how she truly felt is what shook me free from all the brain-washing Karl Ann had done. In the final analysis, maybe I’m stronger than I thought -- or maybe Fankin’s and Eld’s work is beginning to pay off. How long is it since you saved me? Six months? Seven months?”
“Something like that.” Telasta answered.
“How long before the trial?” I wanted to know.
“The trial is next month. Oh, and I forgot to tell you -- the child Amber is carrying is not yours. Our attorneys have met with the defense attorneys. They tried to use leverage concerning my being a mermaid. They wanted us to drop all charges in exchange for their keeping their mouths shut. I told them, ‘they STOLE my SON!, you son of a bitch. Let her tell anything she wants. There are still any number of witnesses, including the clerk for a federal judge -- Arnold Palazzo -- who heard Karl Ann say I was a mermaid AND a werewolf. I am now a citizen of the United States of America
“Federal judge?” I asked, surprised. “Arnold
“Yeah! Surprised us, too. He has lots of money and lots of power… and he’s a good man. It was the wrong time of history for him to be in politics and be out of the closet, so we helped him get back in the closet and we helped him get this great job. When he got out of law school, he went in private practice in Baton Rouge
“Couldn’t Last just go GET HER in the facet-aire? I want to see my grandma. I kept wondering why she wasn’t here.”
“Yes, and SHE kept wondering why we didn’t take you to HER.” Telasta laughed out loud. “You know my mother. You make a suggestion and she always has to amend it beyond all recognition.”
As we laughed, I felt for the first time in over four years like I belonged again. To cement the feeling, like he knew what I was thinking -- (and who knows? Maybe he did!) Last came through the door with a tray loaded with Earl Grey tea and a pile of maquitri cookies. “Ortel insisted her maquitri cookies are all you need at this point in your recovery.” Fankin and Ortel came directly behind Last, holding each other’s hands.
“You all have on clothes!” I ejaculated. “THAT’S what’s different. It’s been bothering me for weeks that something had changed. I’ve never seen some of you with clothes on before.”
The peals of laughter brought a re-visitation of times long past, and it did us all good. The cookies were, in fact, part of my healing. There’s something about smells that take us back to memories. I talked to Eld about this phenomenon in an earlier conversation, and he said that memories piggy-back on smell. He tried to go into chemical analysis and gave me a dissertation on the subject that went far beyond my ability to fathom. Out of politeness, I listened and nodded my head like one of those bobble-head thingies people put on the dash of their car. Still, the point was a good one and one I intended to use to enrich my life and my healing. I made a conscious effort from that point to always have a unique and rich smell in evidence during the important events of my life. What good is life without memory? Somebody -- I don’t remember who (ironic, huh?) -- said, “If you don’t remember it, then it might as well not have happened.”
As we sat visiting and having refreshments following Telasta’s revelation that the child was not mind, I held on to a thought until there was an ebb in the conversation. “Telasta, going back to what you said about Amber’s child not being mine -- I KNEW it wasn’t. It could NOT have been. Did you think it was?”
“Actually,” Telasta spoke carefully, as she was aware how delicate my nerves had been, “Amber told everybody it was your child. We had to rule out that possibility.”
The next few days brought a clarity of thought much clearer than my mind had been for the past four-plus years. According to Fankin and Eld, my maturation got part of the credit for this. I was now almost 20-years-old and STILL had not had a birthday party since my parents died. Instead of resentment over the fact, I began to see the humor in giving even scant thought to the omission. Still in a good mood, I sought out Telasta, and found her reading in a chaise in the grand living room overlooking a deep ravine. This room had windows that were thirty or thirty-five feet tall -- floor to ceiling -- giving a view of a majestic back yard. While not as beautiful as either house in Ubatuba, one must appreciate the perfection of each thing in life.
“Telasta, there you are! I have been meaning to ask you a question for about six years.” I couched in a chuckle.
“And I have been very resentful that you keep putting it off,” she chuckled right back as she closed the book she was reading, lay it on the floor beside her, and swung her legs off the chaise to sit with her feet on the floor.
I couldn’t stand it. I ran and sat beside her and embraced her -- holding her close for several seconds. I was now taller than she, I realized. Grasping her shoulders gently in each of my hands and holding her at arm’s length, I studied her face in minute detail. “My dearest Telasta, mother to us all, you DO love me. This entire mess has aged you more than I had noticed. I am SO sorry that this happened to you. I keep going back in my memory to the day I was kidnapped, and though I hate telling you, it’s something you should know. I could have, and should have stopped my kidnapping. When I saw that taxi, instead of a limo, an alarm went off in my head. The driver pushed me into the back, but if I had just looked into the back seat before I started getting in, I would have seen Karl Ann and would NOT have got in. Because I did not listen to that little voice in my head, you lost years off your life and those years were agonizing to you more than they were to me. After all, I KNEW where I was.
Another thing I must apologize to you for is that I gave up. My mind shut down. It was easier for me to go with the flow. You never gave up. You NEVER took the easy path of indolence.” I held her close and said in her ear, “This whole thing was my fault. Any other parent would have thought I ran away from home and would have stopped looking for such an ingrate. How did you know I was kidnapped instead?”
Telasta pushed me away and stood up. “Don’t be ridiculous, Wil Dupepe. Did you make mistakes? Yes! You were only fourteen years old -- not yet fifteen. Learning to listen to that small voice of warning inside yourself is a process. It comes with time … it comes with practice … and that means getting it wrong many times before you learn to get it right.
We knew you were kidnapped because of your conversation with the cashier at the hotel restaurant. You told her that you did not want to go to Paris
When I came downstairs to tell you it was time to go, I couldn’t find you. My sense of smell is as keen as any bloodhound’s, as you know. I SMELLED you in the restaurant and followed that scent to the cashier and out to the parking lot. Your scent changed in the parking lot. I smelled fear.
It was an easy guess that if you had been taken, the next step for a kidnapper might be to take you to a private plane. Your father and I drove to the private area of the airport and, driving slowly with the windows down, caught your scent outside a hangar known to be used by the CIA. We bribed one of the mechanics at that hangar to tell us where the plane had gone -- Houston
Back to the foolishness of your blaming yourself, don’t you think I berated myself every minute I was in that croaker sack all those years ago? I made a HUGE mistake by not running the minute I saw those brigands in the orchard. I was naked. Why didn’t I run? Do you think that maybe my big mistake was the best thing that had ever happened to me when in the end it led me to my savior and life’s mate Joaquin? If I could do it all over again, I would do it precisely the same. Had I missed the raping, I would have missed the loving. Maybe we pay for our great moments with painful ones. Perhaps we pay for our best decisions by making poor ones. One of the things I now treasure is your abduction. I hope you can understand how I internalize these things. Without your abduction I would never have experienced your homecoming, and that was maybe THE biggest joy of my entire life. Did I like it? No! Would I voluntarily go through that again? Certainly NOT, but since it had to happen, I must make sense of it. I must make peace with it. Finally, I must enjoy its inclusion in the events of my life. Without what happened, you might never have known -- at least not to the depth that you now DO know -- how much your father and I love you and how deeply ingrained your life force is within our own life forces. Not only are you part of the Dupepe family, you are part of the Ocean Society family. With the incredible amount of work done by the F.B.I. and ordinary people who took an interest in your story, you are part of the family of humankind. Your story and your very BEING have been adopted by people you may never meet.”
“You are your father’s daughter, aren’t you?” I chuckled lightly. Telasta smiled. Her eyes told me she knew exactly what I was talking about. Last was long-winded in his statements, also, but I really liked that both of these magnificent people were so thorough in their explanations. One never had to guess the meaning of what they said.
“Why have you never had a birthday party for me?” I tried to make this a light and airy question rather than coming across as confrontational. Knowing that this omission had been highlighted during some of Karl Ann’s brain-washing sessions should have made me more sensitive. Telasta had seen those sessions. By not being more careful with the way I asked the question, Telasta now knew that I gave merit to this Karl Ann-implanted thought. I should have picked a better time to ask, I guess. The question hit a nerve by the hurt look on Telasta’s face. I decided to do an end run and give the answer to my own question.
“Is it because every single day is special? Is it because members of the O/S have so many birthdays that isolating a single day is ridiculous? Is it because you never wanted me to think I was a treasure to you on one day more than on another? I have never given you a birthday party, either. In fact, I do not know your birthday. Everything you do is noble and right. I will never question the things you do -- at least not in a judgmental or mean-spirited way. Drawing closer to you is my full-time desire. I want memories with you and Papa. Do you think that maybe we could start having family birthday observances? Nothing fancy, you know -- just waking up and saying, ‘Happy Birthday.’ ”
“That would be lovely, Wil. My birthday is May 24 and Joaquin’s is April 17. I do KNOW the dates, and I really do not know WHY we never observed birthdays before. Perhaps it is a cultural inadequacy within the O/S, or maybe your explanations are correct. I’ll have to say, you were very gracious and kind with those explanations and they certainly hold water. Yes, I would like to start a family tradition of just such celebrations. I like celebrations. Any excuse for one is better than no excuse at all. Your birthday is December 7, as I recall.”
I laughed out loud. “That’s RIGHT! I thought you didn’t know, but you knew all along. I hate that I already missed BOTH yours and Papa’s birthdays.”
Leave it to Telasta to find humor in the most serious of events. “MISSED them?? Yeah!, for the last FOUR YEARS. You have one coming up in a couple of months. Maybe (wink, wink) your Papa and I will remember this birthday. You will be twenty years old. Can you believe you are still so young? I promise you, these lost years will seem as nothing later in your life.”
“Do you think that we could invite to my birthday party all those people who helped find me? I mean, don’t tell them it’s my birthday. Let’s just make it an appreciation celebration. I’d like to put the focus on all the fine men and women who put so many hours into finding me and into seeing justice done once they got Karl Ann’s address.”
“That is a really good idea, Wil. I have addresses for a large number of the people who volunteered. The ones Joaquin and I paid for their professional services will not be included, for they have their reward, but you will be surprised at the number of people who spent hours and hours of donated time, and only because they wanted to see a complete stranger find his way home.”
THE PLAN: REVEAL THE SECRET OF O/S
And yet they included me with an incredible amount of warmth. They hugged and kissed one another and shared a little news outside the house when they arrived at the same time -- before they made it to the living room where I waited. Once they got to me, I was hugged high and low. It felt like I was in a body sock, and it felt good.
Last came in shortly afterward. He had retrofit the automobile garage months before to accommodate the helicopter stage of the facet-aire. He always arrived here at night, and it took a few minutes to attach the cable to the chopper’s front hook and tug it inside -- out of sight.
Typical of Last’s personality, he came bouncing in scant seconds after Arnold and Teelee. They must have waited outside to give him time to catch up. Ortel and Fankin came in with refreshments. Eld had already gone back to his home on Perfection.
Most of this reunion was just so much blather, like all families everywhere experience during the first few minutes or hours (depending on the personalities involved) after they meet and greet. There was a pronounced change in the tone when Joaquin and Telasta came into the room. They had been in another part of the house for a good 30-minutes after Arnold
Telasta and Joaquin stood in front of the room. I had not known this was to be a solemn assembly, but clearly it was. Since everybody else appeared to be aware of this, I wondered why I had not been told. ‘Oh, well,’ thought I to myself, “Sit down and shut up. Pay attention!’ I picked up an orange from the fruit bowl on the table, punctured the skin with a fingernail, and brought it to my nose. This could easily turn out to be something I would want to remember, so I piggybacked the memory on the smell of orange zest.
“Friends, relatives, countrymen,” Joaquin began, “all of you with the exception of Wil have been told that we have some news to share. In fact, there are quite a number of things we want to tell you. Last has agreed to let us have the floor first, and then he has some stories to tell and some information regarding the state of the earth. You know how he keeps things close to his vest -- when he wears one, that is -- so there are facets to his speech of which Telasta and I are unaware.
The first piece of news is for Wil only, though we have all been involved in Wil’s story for the past four years. We have been involved in absentia, but we HAVE been involved. Wil, the Karl Ann trial has been scrapped. She and her daughter both pled guilty in front of a judge. We are satisfied that justice was done and your interests were well served. We asked that the old Hebrew law of ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’ be applied. Mercy would only have allowed these two to believe that doing awful things to others was acceptable, and they would have likely done harm to more people had we let them go free. The judge agreed with our assessment that they should serve ten years in prison. We are NOT willing to torture them as they tortured you, however. We trust we have served the spirit of right in this matter and that you are content. Are you?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
“Telasta and I suggest that this entire incident be put in a remote access of our memories and not mentioned again, if possible. Unpleasant things are unavoidable and the lessons we reap from such events are important. Once the lesson has been harvested and written into our subconscious, we need to move on without bludgeoning a dead beached whale. Agreed?”
I did not know protocols for these kinds of meetings. I had never been to one before. Everyone else spoke as one: “Agreed!!” and my voice came seconds late, timidly, “Agreed.” Everyone laughed good-naturedly -- AT me, not WITH me. I joined in the laughter -- again belatedly.
“The next piece of news is also for Wil. There is no way that we could tell any one of you without others of you being offended that we did not tell them first. Let me stand aside and allow Telasta to tell Wil.”
Telasta stood where she was, shifting her body slightly to face me. I knew what she was going to say before she spoke. There was something in her body language and something about the way her face lit up. “You’re pregnant!” I blurted out.
“How did you know?” Telasta asked. “Yes! You are going to have a sister. Don’t get too excited, but we believe she will be born on your birthday. Eld did an examination on me before he went back home. He is the only one besides Joaquin and me who knew. We have already sent out invitations to your birthday party, Wil. We will continue with those plans. I hope you don’t mind sharing a birthday with your sister.”
“Nothing could make me happier,” I replied.
Telasta smiled and continued, “Eld is registered as an M.D. with the A.M.A. He will perform the delivery. Don’t even ask how we were able to get him registered as a doctor. Of course, the only ones who will be allowed to see the baby are you all and members of the O/S. We do not have a name picked yet. We encourage you to offer suggestions. That’s all we had to say. I now yield the floor to my father.”
Last grabbed a folding metal chair and dragged it to the front. He jumped up on the chair so he could be seen by everyone. “In light of this amazing news, I move we end this convocation. Anything I had to say would be anti-climactic at this point. Most of what I wanted to say was for Wil, so I will get with him later. Agreed?”
We all chimed together -- and this time I was ON time: “Agreed!”
We were all so caught up in Telasta’s and Joaquin’s news that all other thoughts were eclipsed. It was lost on NObody that any birth within the O/S was joyful in an historic sense. This whole species of people was facing extinction without many more births. EACH birth was tremendously important. This little girl would not be able to have children for another 350 years. It would be a long time still before we knew whether the Ocean Society faced extinction. My sister would mature much slower than I. She would still be living with her parents when she turned 50. I was extremely happy, knowing that I would help raise this precious child. She was SO welcome to my world. Never has a child been more loved before she was even born.
Arnold and I were able to get a few minutes’ visit in before he had to drive back to Shreveport
“Tell me, Wil, are you really alright? I have spent many hours on the phone with Telasta and Joaquin since your escape from Karl Ann. They are worried about you -- worried not only that you have been under the influence of a sociopath, but worried that you spent so many of your formative years without the nurturing they felt you needed and deserved. So! Open up to me, my friend. I really need to know myself if you are back to normal.”
Beginning with a one-note laugh, I said, “Like I was EVER normal, Arnold
Arnold‘s response was perfect. “You were too young back then for any of us to know exactly WHO you were. You may know. If you do, you are the only one who does. I think I speak for everybody who loves you when I say that this whole thing has made me MAD! I agreed with the convocation not to discuss the what-if’s and wherefore’s of your abduction ad nauseam, but I do want you to know that we are all on your side and we all carry a great sadness as long as this terrible event adversely affects your mind and soul. YOU are the only one who will know when you are back to normal. It can never be the normal you might have had. I, for one, will accept knowing that you look forward to tomorrow. I will accept your eager anticipation of the rest of your life as a good substitute ‘normal.’ Let me know when you are there, and Chuck and I will take you on a road trip and teach you how to kick up your heels even at the advanced old age of twenty. You will like Chuck -- my other half -- and I know that he will love you as I do.”
He hugged me then, and I hugged him back. The fact that he had a physical reaction to my closeness did not bother me at all. He loved me. He said so. I appreciated that love, even if I could not reciprocate in kind. I loved him in my own way. “I have to go, Wil. Take care of yourself.”
I said that I would. I stood there as he headed for the front door, stopping to talk to Teelee for a few minute before he left.
“Are you in a trance, Wil Dupepe?” Teelee asked. Obviously I had been staring at the point where Arnold
“Gosh, I guess so, Teelee.”
“Let’s sit down in the corner over here and talk for a bit. Grab a plate with some of those fine hors d’ouvres and get some punch and I’ll do the same. No use to go hungry while we visit.” It sounded like a good plan, and we did exactly as she suggested.
There was a small table against the massive windows looking over the ravine. It had two chairs and was remote from the other conversation areas of the room. By sitting at this very private spot, Teelee was no doubt telegraphing everybody else to stay away. I saw her look up once and furrow her brow at Ortel as she approached. Ortel kept smiling, but changed direction and never came our way again.
She began: “Wil, we are not going to talk about what happened to you. Enough has been said on the subject. Though I am a very curious person, you have been immersed in thinking about that mess for many months. Once a wave breaks, it will never appear again. I have spoken to your folks about forming a new history for you and with you. According to land dwellers, you are an adult and should make your own decision. You must know that I do not view you as an adult. You aren’t even a quarter century old yet, for love’s sake. Nonetheless, for the sake of discussion, let’s pretend you are an adult.
It will still be roughly two months before your birthday party and before Telasta reaches her due date. Would you like to go back home to Ubatuba with your parents and grandparents till time for the party and delivery? I know Telasta wants this child to be born in the United States
“God, yes, Teelee! I’ve been dying to go home. Because of all the events that were still hanging in the balance, I did not think going home was an option just yet.”
“Alright, then. You and I need to start making some history. I cannot think of a better time for you to discover the type person I am than now. LAST!” Teelee yelled. She stood up and walked the 50-feet or so to the kitchen door. “LAST! Come here right now, please.” I saw Last come into the doorway, drying his hands on a dish towel. My ears are very good, as I have said, yet I could not hear the conversation as Last leaned over and Teelee whispered something in his ear. In a few seconds, Last leaned his body back away from Teelee, looked intently at her, cocked his finger and made a motion as if shooting a pistol toward the ceiling. His answer without words was clear: “ALRIGHT, then!!”
Teelee came back to where I now stood. “We cannot leave till nightfall. Last has the facet-aire in the barn/garage/whatever-you-call-it in a slanted silo he built. It is in the missile state, fueled and ready to go. He does not want the neighbors to see us launch. You sit right back down and enjoy your refreshments until we launch. I am going upstairs to your room and pack your clothes for the trip. Last is going to talk to your folks and arrange for Ortel and Fankin to look after this house if they can stay till December. If not, Joaquin will get one of his people to take care of things in our absence. Let this be a lesson to you. When Teelee makes up her mind to do something, she does not wait for the tide. You stay here while I help get things ready for the trip.” She smiled, gave a tiny wave, and danced into the kitchen.
The reason Teelee usually gets her way is that Teelee is usually RIGHT. Nobody else realized that the art of conversation was lost for me during the years I was gone. It took Teelee less than a day to diagnose the problem and then treat it head on. Just because I was with family for the past several months did not mean my homesickness had evaporated. Being with familiar people is not a remedy for being in a strange place. I sat thinking till near nightfall.
Papa came in and dragged one of the overstuffed chairs to my corner. He sat down, clasped his hands together and leaned forward with his forearms on his thighs. He looked younger than he had looked on the night he rescued me. Now that I thought about it, Telasta was looking younger as well. Stress had aged them. Their wonderful triple-helix bodies brought them back into perfect health once the stress was gone, I suppose. Being in his presence always made me smile. “Why are you smiling, son?”
“I didn’t know I was. If I am, it’s most likely because I always feel safe when you are around. Have I told you lately how much I love you? You were the best father a boy could ever want, even when you were human. I knew you hung the moon. Now that you have all this new ability, you make me feel even safer.”
“I thought it was because you are happy to be going home.”
“That, too.”
“I’m so glad Teelee is the matriarch of this family, Wil. Why Telasta and I didn’t see how much you needed to go home is a mystery. Leave it to Teelee to see the truth and push to make things happen.”
“No, Papa. You and Mom did the right thing. You spent a ton of time going through all the documents that helped you to know what I went through. I honestly don’t think we could have gone home sooner. All the psychiatric help you got for me and all the time we have spent in conversations here in Houston
“Oh, I think you will definitely make a difference. Last gave me a clue or two regarding what he wants to talk about to you. He has talked to you many times during our stay here in Houston
Last came running into the living room and interrupted our conversation. “Alright, kids, let’s get a move-on. It is dark enough. This facet-aire is black with no shine which makes it difficult to see. I even muffled the sound of take-off so it sounds more like a car than a jet. We are taking off at an angle, Wil. I don’t know if you remember that I wanted you to help me redesign Telasta’s silo for horizontal take-off instead of vertical, but…” Last nearly always came in talking and left talking. I butted in, since that was about the only way to get a word in with Last.
“Yes, I remember. I did not expect you to wait for my help for four years. It’s understandable that you went on and did the job.”
“Oh, no I did NOT! I said I would wait for your help and I did. I have decided, however, to take off at an angle. This makeshift silo I fabricated for the garage could only work at an angle. A vertical take-off would have tangled us in some electric lines; a horizontal take-off and we would hit the house next door. Like the bears in Goldilocks, I found a way that works just right. Come on! Let‘s load up. Teelee already loaded your stuff, Wil; and Telasta loaded yours, Joaquin.” As we stood and began to walk toward the garage, saying goodbye to Ortel and Fankin on the way, Last had apparently put a bookmark in the conversation. He took up right where he left off. “I KNOW you do not think that was ‘woman‘s work.’ Telasta will tell you in an instant that there‘s no such thing as man‘s work and woman‘s work. It‘s all just work. Just kidding. They are almost as eager as Wil is to get home. They knew the two of you needed a few minutes to visit alone. They were more than happy to take care of the menial details.”
We were soon on board the facet-aire. Last and Teelee sat in front, Telasta and Joaquin sat in the window seats in the next row and I sat between them. “Son, you could sit in the third row if you want. You might want to sleep. This trip will take at least 3 hours.” Papa said.
“No, Papa. Unless you want me to sit in back, I would really like to be close to the two of you for now. Oh! Telasta, do you want to lie down in Papa’s lap? Yeah, I guess I’d better crawl in back.” They laughed good-naturedly as I climbed over the seat into the back. Even Ocean Society women probably bond closely to their mates once they know they are pregnant.
The take-off was not nearly as bad as I remembered, probably because of the angle of ascent. It was still a pretty high G-force, which meant Last was as eager to get back to a world he knew as I was. He must have put this machine in overdrive. Unless my memory was inaccurate, he kept the thrusters on for a good minute longer than normal. When my blood finally stopped pushing against my backside, I commented. “Last, am I wrong or did you leave the thrusters on a lot longer than normal?”
“Oh, yeah, Wil -- good observation. We never had this much weight when you rode with me before, for one thing. For another, I’m ready to get home. I have had almost all I can stand of the way our land brothers do things. The way they build houses in such close proximity reminds me of Lemuria.
Maybe living in a 3-dimensional water world changes one’s perspective, but I believe the Ocean Society get along with one another better than land folk get along. We don’t actually STAY in our house on Perfection very much, because we weather the elements better than your kind. I mean, extremes of temperature don’t affect us much and water certainly does not bother us. We like to get out of a hail storm, of course, but most of us would as soon dive in the ocean in that occurrence. Still, communal living when we ARE in the house works really well for us. I cannot imagine most land people being able to live like that.”
Much as I liked Last, I knew I did not want to spend the rest of this flight in such weighty and lengthy conversation, so I gave a short answer: “Me, too.” I lay across the back seat bench and said, “I think I’ll go to sleep for awhile.” I don’t know whether there was no response or I went to sleep before hearing the response, but sleep would prepare me for the transition back to a ‘normal’ life.
When the wings pop out to make the facet-aire into an airplane, they make a very loud noise. I woke up knowing we were coming in for a landing at home. It was still dark, but there was a light in the cave below Telasta’s house. I thought there must be a sensor that Last turned on in preparation for our arrival, but as we flew in the opening, I saw movement on the landing strip. Toby and Corinth
I didn’t speak to anyone as we disembarked. Telasta took me by the hand and led me up the stairs to the main house, knowing that I was still basically asleep. She led me to the guest room where a bed was already made up and the covers turned back in preparation for my arrival. “You sleep here tonight, Wil. We can talk about future arrangements when you wake up.” I fell in the bed fully dressed and did not wake again till morning.
My pants and shirt were hanging over the back of a chair in the room where I’d slept, and my shoes were on the floor beneath that chair with my socks tucked neatly in each shoe. Someone had undressed me and pulled the cover up over me. It made me feel nurtured while at the same time emphasizing the difference in the species. No doubt Last and the others were accomplishing something while I slept.
I got up and dressed in clean clothes (someone had washed, dried, and ironed my clothes while I slept) and stumbled into the kitchen. “I smell coffee.”
Telasta was laying the table in the breakfast nook with her everyday china -- what would be anybody else’s special occasion china. “Yes. I looked in on you a few minutes ago and could tell by your eye movements that you were almost awake. Did you get a good night’s sleep?”
The sunshine coming through the window and the table setting and smell of coffee, birds on the patio out back, with a monkey playing in a tree top, all brought a low guttural laugh from me. “I feel like I slept for about four years, Telasta. I ought to call you ‘Mom’, shouldn’t I?”
“Call me anything, Wil. I pretty much missed out on getting to mother you, though in my mind you were my son every minute of every day. Do you still like scones?”
“I never DID like scones,” I laughed out loud. “You gave me scones on that first day after I spied on you. Don’t you remember we had to feed them to the birds? There was a reason they were left over.”
“Oh, my! You have a good memory. I don’t like them either, but I thought land people all liked them.” She laughed, too. “Let’s start some new traditions, then. How about some fruit? We have some lovely figs. I bet you never saw a fig like this before.” She opened the refrigerator door and pulled out a plate of almost black figs. One fig would have filled a pint jar -- that’s how big they were. “Toby and Corinth
Oh, here they come now. They must have smelled the coffee down in the hangar. You kids must have just come from swimming. Your feet are wet and you are naked. Go put something on before coming to the table. You know we try to observe land dress codes when we are here. I know it’s just us, but let’s try to develop good habits, shall we?”
“Yes, ma’am,” they chimed, giggling all the way to a second guest room. They were back and all over me within a few seconds. I was sitting in a chair at the breakfast table. They were both touching me and kissing me, laughing the whole time. “Wil! Wil! Wil! Wil! Wil!” they said again and again. “You’re home, you’re home, you’re home!” They sounded like Mynah birds, not knowing what to say, but saying what they knew. I laughed right along with them, giving as many kisses as I got. They finally settled down and got hot drinks.
“So, Celeste, YOU are the coffee drinker while Toby is drinking Earl Grey tea.”
“You know good and damned well my name is Corinth Corinth
“Where’s Traudie?” I asked.
As if on cue, a shy little creature who looked like a micro-miniaturization of Telasta stuck her head around the corner and said, “Here I am, Uncle Wil.” She was less than 2-feet tall, with a towel wrapped around her. “I need to put on some clothes and I’ll be right back.”
I felt like Alice
Getting re-assimilated into my Ocean Society family was as natural as riding a bicycle. The warm camaraderie and easy laughter helped me forget that we had lost so much time. We continued with general conversation when Papa, Teelee, and Last joined the group. Everybody was trying to catch me up on all the events of their lives over the past four years and struggling to understand all that had happened to me. Because money is not often used within the Ocean Society, the whole concept of kidnapping me in order to get money was foreign to Toby, Corinth
Once the conversation began going in a circle, covering ground we had already covered, Last spoke. “Alright, everybody, Wil is home to stay -- I hope! You will all have an opportunity to spend time with him every day you want to. Right now I need for everybody to go busy yourselves with your own projects while Teelee, Telasta, Joaquin and I talk to Wil.”
FINAL WORDS
Without a directive, we all automatically migrated to the living room. Teelee and Joaquin brought a couple of trays with coffee, fresh cups, and a bowl loaded with exotic fruits and set it all on the coffee table. The ugly chartreuse furniture had been replaced with beautiful flowered chairs and solid green couches artfully arranged in a way that supported easy conversation. Last took a chair positioned as the focal point -- that is, when all of the others of us took a seat, we each faced Last’s chair. Quickly I realized that this was by design, as Last would be the primary spokesman.
“You told Joaquin that you wanted to do something meaningful, Wil. You are easy to talk to, easy to look at, and fun to be around. You are also an integral member of this family with a sharp mind and worthy intentions. While that is all good, let us not be fooled -- we NEED you. There is a job that needs to be done. You may be the only one of us capable of doing that job. The purpose of this meeting is to try to talk you into doing what needs to be done.
I am long-winded, and I know it. Just because I talk a lot does not mean I need to edit my words better. It may mean that I have a lot of important stuff to say. I want each of you to be comfortable during this meeting, as it is not a formal meeting. If you want to get coffee or refreshments, all I ask is that you do so quietly while I continue talking. Agreed?”
All together we chimed, “Agreed!”
“One of the advantages to living such a long life is the information we gather. The disadvantage is that it takes a lot of work for the rest of you to understand how we come to conclusions as we do. The only way I can make this easy is to let you live in an ancient time through my words.
Even I, old as I am, did not live in the original Sumerian civilization which came before Lemuria and Atlantis. That is where we must begin.
As you know, everything experienced on this plane of existence is a wave form. This coffee table (he stood and walked over to the coffee table and knocked on it) is not solid. It is, at its core, a series of wave forms. Everything
has resonance, every voice (or wave form) speaks to every other living and non-living thing. If I hit a tuning fork against this table, then anything that is tuned to that note will begin to vibrate. Let’s say I have a hundred tuning forks set in holders in this room and I thump one of those tuning forks with my thumbnail. Not only will the one tuning fork sound -- they all will.
The earth’s tectonic plates slip against one another and groan. If their resonance is not cushioned or buffered by something, then the resonance from that rock will cause other rocks and tectonic plates -- pretty much all of this is rock -- to vibrate in harmonic sympathy.
Okay, if you have that concept, I need to go back to Maggle Atan Min Qrtschyi (pronounced ‘Kirtshee’.) We usually refer to him as ‘Atan’ or as ‘Qrtschyi’. He was one of the learned men of Old Sumeria who survived the cataclysm that predated the establishment of Lemuria. We never learned how he survived. He had many important things to teach before he died. He felt it was better to focus on the lessons and not on himself. One of the things he taught was why his civilization had collapsed and what we could do to protect ourselves from the mistakes Old Sumeria had made.
Old Sumeria was more technologically advanced than Lemuria ever became. They were masters of wave-form. They could fabricate material seemingly from nothing. They spoke of zero-point technology and understood it. Their highest science was quantum physics.
Atan had studied the creation of Earth in detail. The original masters of creation had brought one egg with them from their home planet. Scientists have not yet learned what we in the O/S have always known -- all life is related. Most life forms share the same genes. Depending on which triggers are actuated, an organism becomes plant or animal. Other triggers cause the growth of arms or wings, fast growth or slow growth, hair or fur, and so forth; but we all come from a single life force.
Earth’s electro-magnetic force impacts this genetic code. That was one of the reasons Atan’s people -- or the people who came before him and whose work and words he studied -- engineered pools of viscous liquid which were inserted into the crust of the earth. They placed this oil in strategic locations around the globe for at least two reasons: one reason was to buffer the electromagnetic flux of the earth; another reason was for lubricating the tectonic plates to prevent them from building up friction and releasing that friction in a burst. Without the lubrication to ease the stresses of tectonic plate movement, there would be terrible earthquakes. Without the pools of thick liquid to buffer the flux of the EM field, there would be mutations to the life code resulting in cancers and other diseases as well as mental illness. Weather patterns would also go wild.
Our civilization never considered removing the safeguard the ancients had placed in the earth’s crust. We were aware that the oil was there, but we were also aware of WHY it was there. It was not ours to use. It already had a use.
Lemuria found its own path to destruction. Old Sumeria chose the path of over-using anti-gravity, which freed the land from its moorings. I am using simplest terms, for I myself do not quite understand what happened. I do know WHY it happened, however. The great land shift that destroyed the civilization of Old Sumeria came from overuse of anti-gravity devices and the earth shifted. Some of it sank, some of it exploded, and all civilization was lost in almost an instant.
It didn’t take long for Lemuria and Atlantis to be lost, either, once the process began. Though the vibration which freed the land from its moorings in that latest civilization was not caused by something so refined as anti-gravity, our land dwellers became addicted to power. I am not speaking of political power, Wil. I am talking about energy -- electricity, sonar, and other man-adapted energy forms. Lemuria had wireless transmission of energy. While they solved the backlash this caused on weather patterns, they did not realize till it was too late that the earth herself was resonating to what was going on above ground. The short explanation is that the harmonics in the air found receptive minerals in the earth. It took a very long time for the alignment of earth’s harmonics with manmade wave forms, but once the sympathetic harmony was reached, it was unstoppable.
H. Bolden -- my creator and mentor -- saw the end coming at least a hundred years before Destruction Day. Lemurians borrowed energy from the EM field of the earth and the bill had to be paid. In the end, the survivors of the cataclysm felt they had made a deal with the devil. There were warning tremors that brought civilization to its knees. Still, they would not change their ways. They rebuilt, and they rebuilt exactly as they had built the first time. The build-up of energy in the earth’s crust was of monumental proportions. When the end came, Lemuria sank first. Less than 3 years later, Atlantis sank.
What does this have to do with you, Wil? What does it have to do with land humans today? I believe you know the answer.
We in the O/S are so isolated from land people -- for obvious reasons -- that we were not paying attention when they began to suck pools of oil from where they were placed to protect the planet. To tell you the truth, we should have noticed the warning signs of what land people were doing long before we did. The warning came as a color change. Specifically, the sky was becoming a lighter shade of blue. Fankin came to me one day shortly after you disappeared and asked me if I had noticed a change in the depth of color of the sky. In fact, I had noticed, but not consciously.
Fankin and I did a study in which we factored in every variable we could conjure to determine the cause of this alarming change in the sky. Here’s what we came up with:
Landed humans are putting us all in danger by depleting our oil safeguard in the earth’s crust. In addition to the lack of EM buffering, they are burning the oil and gas, thereby tying oxygen in bonds in amounts and kind never before experienced in human history. Because the ozone in the sky and the oxygen in the lower atmosphere are in balance, when oxygen is depleted by the constant burning of petroleum products, the long-chain oxygen in the sky (ozone) is leached out into the lower atmosphere to maintain the balance ratio. Ultimately there will be no protective ozone layer if this continues.
Survival instinct may be the mother of our destruction, but greed is certainly the father. I am aghast that land men created the myth that such large quantities of oil were the result of dinosaur body decomposition. There were never that number of dinosaurs to create that much oil. Since the O/S recognized how widespread this problem was, we have been buying oil-producing crops like corn and soybeans. We have remote oil-producing facilities and storage areas all over the earth. We had originally thought that perhaps we could simply replace the oil that was stolen from the earth with corn oil and other plant-produced oils. That, we have since discovered, is a losing proposition. Too much oil is being removed from the earth and we would have to buy too many depleted oil wells. No, we must first give man an incentive to stop what he is doing.
This is where you come in, Wil. We had hoped you might be able to write a book giving an alternate plan for energy production -- maybe telling people how to build their own back-yard power production plants like our peroxide barrels in Perfection. However, we have since realized that your people are too lazy or maybe they simply lack the vision to be able to use the sun, water, and air to make peroxide. Most of them certainly do not have the skills to fabricate an engine that uses peroxide as its fuel. Perhaps a few could retrofit a home generator to use peroxide. It is not enough; too little, too late.
We believe there’s a chance -- JUST a chance, mind you -- that telling the story of the O/S could have an impact on how people behave regarding this planet. Most of them will probably believe our story to be a complete fabrication, and that’s okay -- as long as the seed of truth is planted in regard to the danger for our planet. Getting people to think is a good first step.
Many of our people are anxiety-ridden over the way this plan ‘outs’ the O/S. They fear that land-dwellers will begin scanning the oceans with more scrutiny than we have ever seen. I tell them: ‘It simply does not matter anymore. Man is destroying the oceans and their pollution adds to the other damage that has been done to us such that there are only 10,000 of us left. If land people search to find one of us, it will be like looking for the proverbial needle in a stack of hay. If they do not stop what they are doing -- and quickly -- we will not survive any way.’
So this should be the end of your book, Dear Wil. When you write your book -- IF you write a book -- please end with my addressing your people, PLEADING with them to re-think what they are doing.
If they respond in a positive way, we will all be happier. Telasta has already begun writing her memoirs to sweeten the pot. She wants you to tell your land kinsmen that if they will do the right thing, she will reward them with her own book. Not only that, but if you would like for me to, I will also write a book of my own memoirs. We would love for you to publish all three books, Wil. It can be a trilogy. I would suggest that you name the 3 books thus:
Telasta (Wil Dupepe’s story)
Telasta in her own words (book 2)
Telasta -- Last words”
