When Dove was done, they stood silent and motionless for an uncertain period—seconds or minutes—while the feeling, the spell, the powerful, indescribable sense of spiritual oneness faded. Never to be forgotten. Leaving not a sense of loss, but a rich residue of strength, love, and unity.
Again Ngunda chuckled. “I suggest you all go to bed now, and get a good night’s sleep. What you’ve experienced here this evening is marvelous for souls, but it needs to be assimilated quietly.” Again he chuckled. “In dreamland.”
He was answered by grins and chuckles. Someone opened the door, and the attendees began to flow out into the corridor, leaving Dove behind. It was Lor Lu who stood at the door smiling and nodding to them as they departed. When Bar Stool came to him, they shook hands, then embraced. “That was quite a goodbye,” Bar Stool said. He was grinning broadly.
Lor Lu laughed aloud. “Yes, it was, and it’s not over yet. Go to bed. You’ll have dreams like none you’ve ever had before.”
61
Night Dreams
Lee popped out of sleep and sat up in bed. She’d been dreaming—a dream that had both thrilled and frightened her, then slipped away at the moment of wakening. Briefly she tried to get it back, examine it, but it was gone, like air squeezed in a fist.
She looked around. Ben was not in bed, and it was still dark. The clock read 01:03. Sitting up, she swung her feet out, and with them located her slippers. She found Ben in the kitchen; he’d turned on the beverage machine. He grinned at her, a bright-eyed grin, but her attention hadn’t regained focus.
“You’re up early,” he said.
“So are you.”
He laughed. “Yep.” Placing his cup beneath the decaf spout, he pressed the button. The black liquid flowed till he took his finger away.
“What got you up?” Lee asked.
“I woke up and decided I was done sleeping for a while. How about you?”
“I—” She shrugged. “A dream woke me. I don’t remember what it was about.”
His grin widened. “How did it feel? The dream.”
She looked puzzled. “It was—a dream.” She gestured toward the decaf he held. “Do you plan to stay up?”
“Might as well. I’m wide awake. I’ll read for an hour and see what happens.”
Lee frowned. Ordinarily Ben slept like a baby until the alarm woke him. “I’m going back to bed before I get any more awake than I am,” she said.
He put down his cup, took her shoulders in his hands, and softly kissed her. “Go do it. I’ll be fine.”
As she left the kitchen, she heard what could only be the girls’ slippers. What in the world were they doing up? She felt a brief impulse to check, but shuffled back to bed instead, hoping to fall quickly asleep again.
She did. She had more dreaming to do.
* * *
The girls had started for the kitchen, then heard their parents talking, and stopped in the hall. When the voices stopped, they hurried back into their room and to bed, in case their mother looked in on them.
Several minutes later they got up again, and went to the kitchen. They found their stepfather drinking decaf, and reading. He looked at them and grinned. “Dreams?” he asked.
Becca nodded. “I’ll bet yours woke you up too. What did you dream?”
Ben looked at them. He was still grinning. “You tell me,” he suggested.
“Dove went to the astral plane tonight, didn’t he?” Raquel piped.
Ben put a finger to his lips. “Ssh! We don’t want mom to hear. She’d be upset. But yes, I think he did. I think he was telling us all goodbye, this time from the astral plane.”
“Then the Infinite Soul is being Dove now. Right, Dad?” Becca asked.
“I expect so.”
“What do we call him?” Raquel asked. “Still Dove?”
“I would think so, yes.”
“Can we have some hot chocolate?”
“That sounds like a good idea. You two and I have something to talk about.”
The girls got their thermal mugs from their hooks and drew hot chocolates. “We already know not to tell Mom,” Becca said.