Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 86857 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 290(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86857 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 290(@300wpm)
“I am Athelinda. Please remove your socks and shoes.”
I glance down at my feet then at her feet. Calloused heels, bunions, crooked toes, and thick yellow nails.
“I encourage you, if it’s in your zone of comfort, to remove all of your clothes and slip on a loose gown like mine.” She nods to the hooks on the wall and the sheer white gowns hanging from them. “We don’t want anything restricting your energy.”
I can see basically everything through her gown, but I nod once anyway, shuffle my feet to the wall, and remove my clothes. Coworkers have seen me naked in the locker room at work. I’m not modest.
After I pull the gown over my head, I meet her in the middle of the room and sit on the pillow opposite her, both of us in lotus pose.
“Let’s close our eyes, take a few deep breaths … in through your nose for four seconds and out through your nose for four seconds. Keep your eyes closed as we go through a few questions.”
I close my eyes, and when I do, I see the girls with the shaved heads. The hair hanging from the tree. The cemetery.
In for four … out for four.
I repeat this until she speaks.
“How long were you under the water?”
My eyes pop open.
“Close your eyes.”
Her eyes are closed. How does she know mine are open?
“How do you know about the water?”
“Your date of birth. You were born on a Friday in October. An autumn child born on a Friday will resurrect previous lives if submerged during their final breath.”
This is weird, dare I say crazy? I can see how people would bolt out of here with her logic, but I’m here because I’m struggling with my own brand of crazy.
“I don’t know how long I was submerged.”
“What did you see?”
“Long hair tied to tree branches in a churchyard. Then I saw girls with shaved heads being buried in existing graves.”
“Who buried them? What did that person look like?”
“I don’t know. I never see that person.”
When I hear her wrestling around with something, I open my eyes. Her shaky twig fingers retrieve a big book from beneath her pillow as she leans to the side. It’s weathered and mottled in shades of brown and says “I AM …” The binding whines in protest as she opens it.
“I see a lot of people with gifts. They don’t feel like gifts at the time, but they are powerful privileges that come with a second chance at life.” She flips through the delicate pages that look as fragile as an onion peel. “You, however, have not been granted a gift or any sort of privilege, I fear.”
I frown. This was not a good idea.
She stops on a page and moves her finger beneath the lines of script, mumbling to herself.
“I know what it means. I just need help getting rid of the memories.”
Athelinda glances up at me, yellow eyes narrowed into tiny slips. “What do you think it means?”
“I was one of the girls buried in the cemetery.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because I remember the feeling of fear and my head being shaved. I know where the bodies were buried.”
“Was all the hair hanging from the same tree?”
I shake my head. “But all the trees were in churchyards in Tennessee.”
She clears her throat. “And were all of the bodies buried in the same cemetery?”
Another headshake. “But all of the cemeteries are in Tennessee.”
“So you’ve seen many girls and many locks of hair tied to various trees?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve seen more than one cemetery?”
I nod.
“If you were one of the girls, how did you see more than one cemetery?”
I shrug. “Maybe I witnessed other deaths before mine. Maybe it was its own form of torture. If the killer was a psychopath, he enjoyed watching me suffer.”
“I’m very sorry, Josephine. But you were not one of those girls.”
“How do you know?”
“Because your element is water. You point west. Sunset. Autumn. Waning moon. Water. That’s why your spirit attempted to leave when you were in the water. And where you came from is how you died in the life you resurrected. We come from the opposite of where we are now. You came from air. Your spirit in that life left this world in air, not earth. These girls were buried in earth. They were not hung from air. That was symbolic of something else, not the manner in which they died.”
“They were dead before they were buried in earth. Their death might have been air.” I don’t know why I’m arguing with her. I’m not equipped with enough knowledge of elements and their symbolism.
“If they were dead before they were buried, and you were one of those girls, then you wouldn’t have visions of a cemetery. Visions of previous lives are from moments when we were actually alive. I’ve died many times. Trust me, I know.” She closes the book. “I can assure you; you weren’t one of the girls.”