Stealing Eternity

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Stealing Eternity

12 min readJan 4, 2015

Chapter Forty-Six

Saidi’s Part:

I’m rooting for Cat. I hope she sticks around since she’s more instrumental than others in this matter. Certainly in helping uncover so many things. And Gram, my dear friend Gram. Having my heart unearthed warmed my being, a necessity in the ups and downs of this seafaring trip.

###

“She’s happy here,” Gage said, “and she’s easy to work around. Thank you for telling me about her finding the locket then having it stolen. Aside from that, she’s both helpful and balances this team,” he said.

Shenser interrupted, “Oh, I know all that and more. Mostly, I wanted to see if we should try to find the locket on the astral plane? Retrieve it back, if necessary?”

“Well, Gage said, “Cat doesn’t need the locket to function. Everyone else gets along fine without it too. Though the locket could camouflage, an evil spirit appearing pure. They might use it detrimentally — somehow. Maybe they could use it as a conduit to this world, for access. I don’t know it’s all speculation.” He said, studying a cobweb in the corner of Shenser’s office. “You should tell housekeeping to do a better job cleaning around here. Maybe they would have found the necklace before Cat.”

“Go figure,” Shenser said. “As far as talent, she’s a natural and in no need of crutches or compasses. In the first 24 hours of working with us, she proved that by creating the widest aura. Then later by describing objects without struggle, and when her and I saw the same details remote viewing.” He remembered their vision and noticed Gage’s expression.

“It’s probably her nature that allows her to operate so freely,” Gage said. “She’s the queen of searches and hunts.”

“Maybe we should send her back in to find the locket?” Shenser said, “Except the elementals warned her about the danger, at least right then.” He cared deeply for Cat and refused to let her go alone. “Is there a way we can ward off the evil elementals, clear them from our path?” he asked.

“They took the locket knowing her fears.” Gage said. “Do you remember when we talked about getting rid of weak areas in our lives? They tuned in to her taking the necklace from you, and so they took it from her.”

“That’s right,” Shenser said, “using her weaknesses. So if she still has any of the klepto tendencies, they would gang up on her and use it against her.”

As Shenser talked about Cat, he noticed how Gage cared about her too. He wondered if she knew about his intrigue. Seeing Gage’s reaction made him jealous, and he didn’t like that feeling.

“I do agree,” Gage said, “that it’s too dangerous right now for anybody. I don’t want her going back. In fact, I feel a warning to put the float tank project on hold for now. The bad elementals could lay a trap for us or lead us somewhere we don’t want to go. Nobody wants to get lost while traveling in the Astral plane.”

“She had guides that helped her get around and they knew of Saidi.” Shenser said.

“Still, we don’t need the locket,” Gage said, “but maybe Saidi has helped her to navigate around somehow?”

“Should we put the search on hold for a while too?” Shenser asked. He felt the drive to locate Saidi diminish by the day. Having Cat around took away his loneliness. But mostly the evidence pointed to Saidi existing in another realm, not alive. The elementals also know her. In the beginning, of this project he just wanted to learn her whereabouts.

“I have another technique to show the team that will allow us to put the float tanks on hold for a bit,” Gage said, “until I feel we can resume that method. I want to talk to everyone about using the magnetic fields more in remote viewing. Cat will shine at that too, I’m sure.”

He continued, “plus using the magnets can work to repel the wrong kind of elementals — just like she’s used them in diving to repel sharks.”

Holy shit, how does he know so much about what Cat has used with sharks? “Okay,” Shenser said. “Will the elementals bother us with this new method? Or will we run into the same ones as in the Astral Plane?”

“They’re probably all over,” Gage said. “But I don’t know for sure. That’s why we’ll prepare for them,” Gage said. He continued, “We need to study how they behave. The theft that occurred demonstrates one response. Apparently the locket attracted them. So we can make sure we have a repellant to keep them away if they come close.” He breathed.

“They must have some electrical sensors to detect the heartbeat of their prey. Though it’s questionable if they can detect a pulse in an out-of-body experience considering our hearts remain with our bodies. It’s more by vibration.”

Shenser added, “Cat’s on her way over here shortly, and she’s concerned. Wanting to know if she’s still on the team after what she did. Even though I told her, I’m not holding anything against her.”

“Well, I don’t want her to go,” Gage said.

Whoa, that sounds pretty committed. What’s in it for him? Shenser wondered.

Gage continued, “She consistently produces results,” he said, “I’m not sure how she does it. She essentially masters whatever challenge we give her, her pictures, her recordings, and even flying in other worlds — whatever form of remote viewing I roll out to the team, she conquers.”

“I think our whole team has done remarkably well,” Shenser said, trying to take some of the attention off of Cat to see if Gage would ricochet back. And he did.

Gage said, “I haven’t noticed as much traffic and high scores of success from anyone else on the team. They’re doing great, but she’s exceeding. So to answer your question, we’ll keep her on the team and change to a new method tomorrow. And my guess is she’ll have just as much success even without the locket. Does that sound right?” Gage asked Shenser, his boss and the reason for creating this team in the first place.

“Yes, it sounds like a solid plan.” Although Shenser’s instinct warned him that he had better let Cat know that he cared for her greatly before Gage took over in that realm too.

“It’s none of my business, of course, why she took the locket,” Gage added, “But I don’t think it’s needed anymore on our end. Its purpose confirmed to you the possibilities of remote viewing and that we could teach others. And it probably served some purpose with Cat as well. I know it holds sentimental value for you, but the memory of it should work too,” he said. It certainly acted as a motivator in many ways for this whole team.”

“I don’t mind that she kept the locket; she’s not a con artist or that kind of a thief.” Shenser said, “I care about her and this,” he paused, “this incident showed me her motivation and what she did provides a comfort level to me like taking a psych course in women. I feel like I know how she thinks more now than before she came here,” he said.

Cat knocked on Shenser’s door as requested. “Hi there,” Shenser said, hoping she didn’t overhear him. “Come in, we’re just talking about next steps.”

Gage said, “In fact those next steps include you.”

With that, Shenser took her by the hand over to a chair in front of his desk then said, “Please have a seat.”

“Do I have to?” She questioned. “I just want to know how to recover the locket.”

Gage laughed, “You get straight to the point, don’t you?”

“Well I also want to know if I’m part of the recovery team or kicked off the team for what I did?” She said.

“Have a seat and we can talk about this?” Shenser said.

She sat down, some of her defensiveness abandoned in the interim. She said solemnly. “I realized when Shenser said the locket didn’t matter,” and she looked directly at him, “that maybe he intended to look for it himself.” She breathed. “Just so you know Gage,” the elementals spoke of the danger. So please don’t send someone unfamiliar with the area.”

“Here’s our decision,” Gage said…..”

###

While going through some photographs on her computer Cat showed Shenser, pictures of her father and mother. Then she asked him, “Did I ever tell you much about my Gram?”

“Some,” he said, “As kids I got a kick out of the nickname, as a form of measurement.”

She started, “When little, I couldn’t pronounce Gran or Granny, so I called her Gram. That name stuck and friends, family; everyone called her Gram.”

She remembered she had another photograph of her Gram in her purse. She fished out an old torn picture. “Here’s Gram standing in front of the pond. She made that fishpond herself with fresh seawater pumped in from the ocean.” Cat said. “She always lived on the beach, and I guess you can see why I love the ocean so.”

Time told its story along the worn picture’s edge, and a tear ran through it like a windy road. Gram stood out front of her house, Cat’s house, by the pond where Little Guy used to play.

Gram stood, wide-eyed and grinned, her brown hair blowing in the wind. Shenser could see the resemblance. She looked like Cat’s sister, which she didn’t have. Wearing overalls and holding a shovel and comfortable in the country. The pumps and pipes still exposed. Her sleeveless shirt showed a tapered muscular physique.

“She’s buff,” Shenser said.

“Where do you think I get my athletic body from.” she joked.

“I can tell you come from good genes,” Shenser said, “Seriously.” he smiled.

In the photo, Gram looked at something deeply. The pale blue sky accentuated her scrutiny. She stared as if looking into the future, awestruck and almost enraged. Like she knew her future, and she didn’t appear happy, even though her smile said something different. She gazed at something nobody could feasibly see.

Shenser felt like he had penetrated the mask of time temporarily. “She looks young,” he said.

“Yes and you know I’ve never seen her age beyond this.” Cat said. “It’s the strangest thing.”

“She’s intense and beautiful,” he said.“ Just then, as if caught up in that intensity, he found himself in strange surroundings, but Cat didn’t even know or see the bizarre travel that Shenser experienced, this for his eyes only.

The less appealing image of Gram snapped his attention to her shovel now in hand, transferring dredge into a pile down about 30 yards from the ocean’s edge. She worked with another holding a similar instrument. A metal detector propped up on the shed’s outside wall and explained the reason for digging a pond in the first place.

While digging Gram and another man, probably Cat’s grandfather, found at least one treasure because Gram unearthed a locket, and she wiped the dirt from its surface exposing an inscription. “Look at this,” she said. “It’s a locket with an “S” etched. I know the perfect person I’ll give this too. I’d keep it myself, but my name doesn’t have an “S” anywhere.”

Shenser’s heart skipped a beat or two.

Picking up the detector Gram’s grandfather said, “Let’s keep digging for other gold.”

More than likely because Shenser saw the locket, he heard, or thought he heard Saidi’s voice in his head. Just as suddenly he found Gram again in another location, still with a rusty shovel in hand. Though in this location her newfound treasures belonged to someone else.

Saidi told him of this work camp full of men, women, and kids and how everyone had a particular job to do. All wrapped around a gold mine all against their will. He stood there in the hot sun listening to the moaning and grunts, and to the noise of someone hacking phlegm from their lungs. To the distant shuddering of motors, to the sound of waves crashing in the distance, or did he imagine that?

He willed his heart to solidify, not to break. Don’t break, don’t break, he told himself. In this place, Saidi insisted he keep a tiny pliable piece of himself that nothing could ever damage.

Just as suddenly he flashed back to the current place. Shenser thought about Gram’s life. Including her experiences leading up to her change of heart as an Infinīte, including her history as a thief herself.

He knew this from Cat’s background check for the upcoming Daming ceremony. He had to check her history, as well as her families. He never told Cat that her Gram used to steal too. He didn’t know if it ran in families. He honestly didn’t think it did.

But the biggest takeaway came in knowing that if Gram could stop, then Cat certainly could. Gram had the help of the Eternal to walk away from a life of sticky fingers. Shenser planned on telling Cat about her Gram as a form of encouragement not bad-mouthing her but rather to show what she too can walk out of if she chose.

“This picture struck the wrong chord in me after her disappearance,” Cat said, “I remember getting a bunch of pictures out so that I could see her face. Somehow this reliable look in her eyes made me mad.” A gentle finger outlined her face on the photo. “The fact that she left and never returned pissed me off, so I ripped it out of anger.”

Shenser stretched his fingers out to inspect the photo. “Well, it looks like you thought about it and taped her back together.”

Before Cat explained to Shenser, he supposed, someone got mad and slashed the photo in two. Maybe when she went missing, Cat had a fit. He also supposed she wouldn’t look as happy now than she did in this picture.

“Yeah,” she said, “I regretted it the moment I held the pieces in each hand, so disappointing.”

“At least you ripped it in the right place,” Shenser said. The tear started by the pond and jagged through like a sea saw to Gram’s left shoulder. “You didn’t rip through Gram’s head. An excellent tape job too.”

She laughed, “Gee thanks.”

A knock sounded on Shenser’s door that ricocheted both of them from the torn picture and back to reality. Usually, friends and associates tended to walk right in without knocking. Terinar, his secretary, saw everyone who passed through so it never concerned Shenser.

“Could you get that, please?” Shenser said from the opposite side of his desk.

Dustin stood in the doorway and then they realized the time. “Oops, we need to get back over to the lab,” Cat said.

Shenser agreed and thought, time sure flies when you’re traveling. He hadn’t had a chance to tell Cat yet about what he saw concerning Gram.

###

Three years prior

Out of the darkness, the clanging noises deafened and daunted the Infinītes and threw them into confusion like dazed rabbits. Unfair. Unpredictable. They stood muted, stunned. Hiding in the decay with nowhere to go. Stagnant.

Undesirable and repulsive in a ruled state, everything strictly regimented — their patience blooming, from dread, apprehensive in dreadlocks, stricken and mocked.

Dimly hearing the muffled, drone of the tired voices, not visibly recalling in their mind the freedom they once breathed, like scattered leaves on parched grass, remembrance gradually fading into nothingness. As the dirt swept in the corner, resting in silence on a trail of tears.