“The angels are bringing you two together,” said the psychic.
The woman lowered the volume. Her husband was downstairs looking for something directly in front of him.
“They’re showing me a powerful romantic connection.”
“I’m married,” she said to no one particular. “Very married with children.”
In the astral plane, her ancestors gathered around a luminous pool.
“She’s ready,” said her grandmother.
“She’s fifty-one,” said an aunt.
“Such a lovely youthful age.”
The spirit at 500 and something.
Neither spirit had possessed a knee in centuries.
The psychic pulled another card.
“You’ve been clearing old energies.”
The woman looked toward the laundry basket. The litter boxes were next.
“Somebody has been consuming your light.”
From downstairs, her husband called her name.
The ancestors nodded. Their accuracy was extraordinary.
“He’s consumed and drained her for so long.”
“We will change all that.”
The psychic went on.
“You’re being asked to leave behind what no longer serves you. Let it go. Cleans yourself. Unburden. They keep saying unburden.”
“Yes, dear! Unburden!” the spirits yelled or projected.
“I consulted a lawyer,” whispered the woman. “There are considerable financial consequences not to mention logistics.”
The psychic closed her eyes.
“They’re saying trust the process.”
“Did they mention a number?”
A bright penny appeared in the luminous pool.
Her great-great-grandfather looked pleased. COPPER! Gold! Silver!
Her great grandmother thought of a fountain in Italy.
Times had changed on earth since the ancestors ascended, and at first, they had kept track.
Then someone discovered that a century could be experienced as a single exquisite chord. Time was like music and reality was like a pool you could step in and out of when it suited a spirit.
They remembered marriage as companionship, children as blessings, and houses as warm windows seen from a distance.
They had forgotten insurance, had not an idea about what the cost of gas or bread was. Most had never had a car. Some had forgotten more about life that they had lived. Some forgot they had to kill their own livestock.
Her grandmother remembered leaving difficult men. It had been her father and brother. She had forgotten the sister who took her in, the job at the telephone company, and what rent had cost in 1964.
“She simply needs courage,” she said. “To reach out to others. To connect. To open her heart chakra up. She doesn’t need to guard her heart any longer.”
The spirit was spiraling up loving the feeling she was getting.
The psychic felt it and this made the feeling amplify.
“You two will ascend together,” she said.
The others agreed. Courage. Connections. Openness. They started to spiral upwards too.
Oh, readings were such a turn on.
“What about the boy?” asked a grumpy spirit uncle who had declined spiraling.
“What boy?”
Some of them drifted down.
They consulted the reality pool.
“Oh, him. Surely he’s grown by now.”
“No he was just born. Surely an infant. She’s practically still a girl herself.”
The spirits her hundreds of years old. Some thousands.
“He’s going to college,” said the woman. Sighing. The logistics of loans and what to do and how to get it done. Her car had started to make a funny noise. It also had a funny smell.
“How wonderful,” said her grandmother. “Everyone is so prosperous and progressive in modern times! They must be doing exceedingly well.”
“I’m seeing water,” said the psychic. “A marina. Two trees.”
The woman looked up.
She walked past two trees at the marina most evenings. They leaned toward each other beside the path.
“Their branches are intertwined. When the wind blows it’s almost like they are leaning in for a kiss.”
They were. They did. One had grown around a light fixture. The light made them glow from the inside.
It was an ethereal image. A message from beyond?
“This is how your souls recognize each other.”
In the astral plane, the ancestors admired their work.
Her grandfather added a sunset.
Her aunt supplied swans.
Her grandmother softened the edges of the husband until he resembled a former lover.
“There,” she said. “Now she can release him easily.”
“Bond breaking. Freedom.”
The ancestors heard the word bond and sent a golden cord.
“You have a soul contract with this person,” said the psychic.
“I have several actual contracts. and under very specified conditions and at a great expense they can be broken. The state and federal government made sure of that.”
A lawyer spirit from another family entirely entered the chat.
“Yes, tell her to call my daughter for a consultation.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m a divorce attorney’s grandfather, who was also a lawyer.”
“She doesn’t need a divorce. She just needs to release and unburden herself.”
“Yes cut the cords.”
“No, this is the 2000s on Earth. There is legal expenses and she really will need my grand daughter and she needs to make more payments on her new beach house, so tell here, 919…”
The spirit was carried off by some astral wind.
The psychic shivered.
“Oh, something didn’t want something to come through. They are protecting you. Or there is a dampening forcing trying to keep their message from reaching you? Maybe interference? You are a light worker? A healer? and you have been hindered intentionally for so long?”
The psychic drew another card.
“The trees are showing me that you’ve both weathered great storms.”
The cedars were twisted by the wind and leaned on one another. The marina had tied orange tape around it.
“Your roots go deep.”
The cedars roots had recently interfered with some underground wiring.
The woman remembered a section of sidewalk lifting.
Someone had recently fell or was afraid they would fall.
“You’re growing toward each other despite everything.”
The ancestors were delighted with the trees. They had found a symbol so perfect that they began to forget they had selected it.
“Look how faithfully we’ve guided her,” said her aunt.
“Through every hardship,” said her grandmother.
Nobody remembered the hardships very clearly. Seen from above, they formed a pleasing path toward the marina.
“Your guides are asking you to listen to your body.”
Her body wanted to lie down.
Her son needed a financial aid form completed. One cat needed prescription food. The other was allergic to the prescription food.
“They’re saying you already know.”
“I know several things,” said the woman.
Her mother leaned closer to the pool.
“She needs to receive.”
“We should send reassurance.”
They sent a butterfly.
It was October. The woman appreciated the butterfly.
They sent the number eleven.
She saw it on a veterinary invoice.
They sent a dream about a doorway.
She woke wondering whether she had locked the garage.
“She keeps resisting,” said her aunt.
“Earthly fear,” said her grandmother, who had become quite fond of saying that.
“Send her a penny!” said the great great grandfather!
“He’s been doing his healing too,” said the psychic. “You’re both ready. You’re both becoming ready. You both needed to do so much clearing. Tower moments. Both of you.”
The woman considered asking whether he had a spare room and experience administering liquid medication to cats who hated medicine time increasingly.
“Release the practical mind.”
That seemed an expensive instruction.
“You deserve a love that makes you feel safe.”
She liked that part.
In the pool, the ancestors watched her face soften.
“She understands.”
“We’ve opened her heart.”
They stood together in their beautiful light, moved by the tenderness of their own intervention.
The psychic lifted a clear crystal.
“For clarity.”
The woman clicked the link.
That evening, she walked down to the marina.
The two trees leaned together beneath the light fixture. Beyond them, the water caught the last gold of the sun.
She stopped for a moment. They really were lovely.
In the astral plane, her grandmother clasped her hands.
“She’s arrived.”
A truck turned into the marina, followed by another pulling a wood chipper.
A man in an orange vest got out and pointed toward the trees.
The woman stepped aside to let them through.
At home, a cat had thrown up beside the litter box. Her son was waiting with his laptop.
“Mom, it needs your tax information.”
Her husband called from the kitchen to ask what was for dinner but that he didn’t really want anything whatever would be fine. Was there any chicken?
On her phone, Amazon confirmed that the quartz would arrive Thursday.
She hoped it would be nice.
She had bought the small one.
The cedar trees were cut, loaded into a trailer and chip shredded for mulching the community garden.
There two young people met, rushed to make a commitment they felt was divinely ordained because when they looked at each other they got the butterflies.
Later he would get the butterflies with someone named Kelly.
Andrea would hate community gardens, butterflies, and girls named Kelly.
Her ancestors would send her pennies and 11.11 to let her know, this was always the right path.
