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  “Let me tell you how I know,” Kathy offered. Her voice brightened and the audience stirred. They were going to hear a secret, Kathy’s secret. Jennifer recognized the anticipation. Despite her cynicism, she, too, wanted to hear the secret of Kathy Dart’s past lives.

  Kathy Dart turned to the green satin chair and sat down. Even seated, she seemed to pull the audience close to her. She took her time straightening her long white cotton skirt, letting the audience adjust to her new position on the platform.

  Jennifer glanced at her watch. She had been there for nearly twenty minutes. She should leave now, she thought, while there was a lull in the room, but the thought of standing up, of having everyone stare at her, kept her in her seat. It had been a mistake to let Eileen Gorman talk her into coming to this silliness. Jennifer glanced over and saw that Eileen was wearing a ring, and remembered that Eileen had married right after high school and hadn’t gone on to college. It had surprised everyone at the time. There had been some talk, back then, that Eileen Gorman had to get married.

  “I was, I guess, like any one of you,” Kathy Dart began again, “just going along with my life, living it day by day, trying to get by, to be happy, to find someone to love.”

  “I’m sure you have heard something about the power of quartz crystals. It certainly has been in the newspapers. Shirley MacLaine, in her wonderful books, talks about crystals and pyramids and how they have been important to her in reestablishing her past lives.”

  “I didn’t know it at the time of my first encounter with Habasha, but throughout history mediums have used crystals to align themselves with spirits, to capture the energy of past lives.” She paused.

  “I was a freshman at the time—this was in 1974—studying English at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, Minnesota, and my older sister, Mary Sue, who was in Ethiopia with the Peace Corps, had sent me a piece of quartz crystal. She had found it along the Hadar River, a tributary of the Awash River in southern Ethiopia.”

  “Some of you may remember that in 1974 Don Johanson, a paleoanthropologist working in East Africa with the famous Leakey family, found an early hominid and named her Lucy after the Beatles’ song ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.’”

  “Lucy stood three and a half feet tall, lived at the edge of the shallow lake, and died sometime in her early twenties.”

  “This all happened some 3.3 million years ago. But Lucy is very important in our lives—in my life especially—because she and her friends, all who camped and lived together on the banks of that Ethiopian river, proved that men and women had begun to bond, to share, to work together, to experience what we call human feelings.”

  “I didn’t know any of this, of course. I was just eighteen years old; I had a paper due on Jane Austen the next morning and was secretly praying that the gorgeous boy I had met at Sunday afternoon’s mixer would call and ask me out. You know how it is!” She said, shaking her head ruefully. The women laughed delightedly.

  Jennifer smiled, too, remembering her own adolescence.

  “Anyway, I was trying to work on my Jane Austen paper and in the mail came this small quartz crystal from my sister,” Kathy Dart went on, fingering the clear quartz that hung around her neck. “I held it in my fingers, rubbing it slightly—out of nervousness, I guess—while I sat at my dorm desk.”

  “It was a typical fall day in St. Paul. My window was open and I could hear kids on the lawn outside, and I was feeling sad that I was inside working on my paper when everyone else was having a good time—and then I heard a whooshing sound in the hallway. I glanced up and saw a brilliant blue-white light in the open doorway.”

  “I raised my hand to shield my eyes, and it was then, in the midst of this beautiful white light, that I heard Habasha speak to me.”

  She paused and looked down at her hands and the small quartz crystal. The room was silent. Jennifer realized she was holding her breath, waiting for Kathy Dart to continue.

  “He spoke to me then,” Kathy said softly, her head still down. “I can’t say whether it was really words that he spoke, or if he just telepathically let himself be understood. But I did understand him. He said simply, ‘Are you ready to receive me?’”

  “I remember shaking my head. I was too frightened to speak. And he went on, ‘I’ll come again when you are ready.’ That was all. Gradually the blue-white faded. Again I heard the voices of students on the campus lawn. Habasha was gone. I didn’t know his name, of course. I didn’t know why he had chosen me, but I knew something wonderful had happened to me.”

  She paused to look searchingly at her audience. “I didn’t see him again for ten years. He was waiting. Waiting for me to grow up and prepare myself to be his host in this world. He was waiting for me to agree to be his channel.”

  “I once asked Habasha why he had waited, instead of choosing someone else, and he explained that I had been ordained as his earthly host. Habasha and I are like runners in an endless race—passing each other and then stopping off somewhere, as it were, to spend a lifetime—and then in death flowing again in the endless cycles of the universe.”

  “And that is how Kathy Dart, of Rush Creek, Minnesota, the daughter of a dairy farmer, the youngest of eight children, came to be the channel for Habasha, who was first on earth at the dawn of civilization, living on the banks of the Hadar River, in southern Ethiopia.”

  “Habasha was killed on a sunny afternoon when a man rose up in anger and felled him with a blow of his club. His physical body died in a land we now know as Ethiopia, where my sister found a small piece of quartz crystal and sent it home to me. This piece of Africa that had once been part of Habasha’s world, that was linked to his spirit, his time as a man, was now connected to me.”

  “When I touched the crystal that day at my dormitory, I pulled his spirit back to me through time. But I wasn’t ready then. I wasn’t open enough to receive him.”

  “In 1984 I was married, living in Glendora, California, and the mother of a darling little girl, Aurora. I woke one summer morning and realized that I no longer loved my husband, that I hated my life, and that I had to do something to save myself.”

  “I got out of bed before dawn and walked into the living room and over to the picture windows that looked out on our quiet suburban street. It was getting light outside. I could see the long line of palm trees that marked our cul-de-sac, and when I sat down in the window seat, I noticed my African crystal. Aurora had taken it out of my jewelry box to play with, and I picked it up and began to gently rub my fingers across its smooth clear surface. I was crying. I remember seeing my tears splash against my skin, and when I looked up again through the picture window, I saw him. He walked down the empty street, coming to me, and this time I knew I was ready, knew that I had suffered enough to be worthy of him. I knew then that I was going to be his channel.”

  “I live now with my daughter and a few close friends on my family’s old farm in eastern Minnesota. It is there that we produce the tapes and books that reveal the wisdom of Habasha. It is from there that I travel to conduct these weekend sessions with Habasha.”

  “Now for all of you who wish to hear Habasha speak, we will have a trance-channel session this evening, and I hope you will join us. I know it will change your life. And now I must go, but to use the words of Habasha, ‘I leave only for the joy of returning.’”

  She stepped off the platform, taking the hand of a tall, thin, beautiful twelve-year-old girl who looked just like her, and walked out of the meeting room by the side exit. The audience rose and started to applaud. At the door, Kathy Dart paused, waved good-bye, and then dramatically disappeared.

  “Oh, Jennifer, isn’t she wonderful?” Eileen said quickly, as the applause faded.

  Jennifer hesitated. She had to admit that Kathy Dart had affected her, but she wasn’t ready to say how. “Well, it certainly was different!” She took a deep breath.

  “She’s just marvelous!” Eileen declared, standing.

  “Yes. Well. I think

/>   ” Jennifer stood. The woman’s presentation had dazed her. “I guess I don’t know what to think.” She turned to leave; she wanted fresh air.

  “Are you coming tonight? To the channeling session?”

  “I don’t think so. I mean, I have to prepare for my meeting. What does the word Habasha mean, anyway?” she asked, to change the subject. They had reached the lobby of the hotel.

  “Habasha? That’s his name. Kathy told us it meant ‘burnt face,’ which is the name for Ethiopians. He took it himself, because when he was reincarnated as the female Lucy, speech hadn’t yet been developed in the hominids.”

  “But Kathy Dart said he’s at least twenty-three million years old. I don’t understand. Lucy is only four million years old.”

  “Yes, I know.” Eileen nodded. “What Kathy said was that Habasha’s spirit appeared on earth ‘in human form’ four million years ago, at the dawn of man itself. Then, later, he has had other lives, other reincarnations. Just like us. But his spirit, or soul, is older than that.”

  Jennifer shook her head. The spell was broken. She no longer felt unnerved by Kathy Dart. She had been briefly swept away, but now she was all right. Jennifer was not like Eileen Gorman. She was not so overwhelmed that she had lost sight of what was reality.

  “Well, I don’t know who I once was, but I know for sure that I’ve never been a hominid, protohominid, or whatever they were called.”

  “But you don’t know, Jenny. You don’t know what you once were. And that’s what’s makes it all so exciting.”

  “Makes what so exciting?”

  “Channeling! Habasha will tell you who you once were.”

  Jennifer was shaking her head before Eileen stopped talking.

  “Not me. I’ve got enough bad memories just in this life. I don’t need to learn about more lives.”

  “Oh, Jenny, come on, give it a try. Come see Kathy Dart channel Habasha, and you’ll learn who you were in past lives.”

  Jennifer remembered the look on Kathy Dart’s face when the channeler spotted her, remembered how her body had flamed up with pain and passion.

  “No,” she said firmly. “I don’t want to know.” And she meant it. She did not want to know, nor did she want to encounter Kathy Dart again.

  “Excuse me,” a young man said, approaching them.

  Jennifer and Eileen both stopped talking and glanced up at him.

  The young man smiled. He looked like a college student, Jennifer thought at once. A graduate student, perhaps. She noticed his eyes immediately. They were gray and almond shaped, like her brother’s.

  “My name is Kirk Callahan,” he went on quickly, as if he were afraid they would bolt away. “I’m doing an article on Kathy Dart for Hippocrates magazine. And I was wondering if I might have a few minutes to talk with you about her, you know, and your experiences with channeling?” He kept smiling and had now focused his full attention on Jennifer, who was shaking her head before he finished talking. “Not me!” she said defensively, and then laughed. “Perhaps my friend will talk to you. I don’t know anything about any of this stuff.” She glanced at Eileen and said quickly as the elevator arrived, “I’ll call you later. ‘Bye!” And then she stepped into the elevator before the doors closed, happy to be away from all these New Age people.

  CHAPTER TWO

  JENNIFER LEFT THE HOTEL by the side door, jogged down the sloping lawn to the bottom of Rock Creek Park, and picked up the bicycle path that she knew was good for running. She turned right and followed the level path under Massachusetts Avenue, heading for Georgetown and the C & O Canal. There was some snow on the ground, but the path was clear and dry.

  The hour with Kathy Dart had made her uneasy, and she knew that being outside running would make her feel immensely better. It always did.

  There were only a few joggers on the path, and Jennifer easily picked up speed. She hadn’t run in several days, and she was surprised that her muscles were this loose. She unzipped the front of her blue Gore-Tex jacket and lengthened her stride.

  The C & O Canal was the best place to run in Washington. There was always room for both runners and bikers, and as she moved easily past other joggers, she held close to the narrow gauge of muddy water on her left. The path she was on was once the towpath used to help barges up and down the river as far away as West Virginia, but now it went only thirteen miles into Maryland.

  Jennifer knew she couldn’t run that far. She had never run farther than three miles in her life. She had first taken up the sport because it was important to Tom, and it gave her another way to be with him. Now she ran because she loved the feeling it gave her, of being in shape and in control of her life.

  She sped past a biker bent low over his front wheel. He was dressed in a tight black biking suit, with gloves and a black crash helmet. She caught his look of surprise as she swept past him, her feet now barely touching the hard-packed earth. He was breathing hard, gasping, and as she floated by, he rose up off the seat and pumped hard. She smiled and picked up her speed. For a few yards, she could hear him behind her, breathing deeply, and the slick sound of wheels on the hard earth, but gradually the sounds faded, and when she glanced back, she saw that the biker was disappearing from sight.

  As she ran, she tried to establish a smooth easy stride, as Tom had taught her. “Run within yourself,” he always, urged. Jennifer had never been strong enough to run with his ease and speed. But Kathy Dart had upset her, and she wanted to bum off her anxiety.

  She kept up the pace. She was well beyond Georgetown, running alongside the Parkway, and had outrun the other joggers on the path and even several dozen bikers.

  She should go back to the hotel, she finally decided; it was getting dark, and she wasn’t familiar with the canal this far beyond Georgetown. She slowed her pace and gradually eased to a walk on the running path. Now she felt the pain, and when she saw the marker beside the running path, she leaned over to read it:

  13 MILES

  Jennifer glanced at her watch. It was after five. She had been running for an hour and a half.

  “What did you do then?” Tom asked. He turned on his side in the bed to look at Jennifer.

  “Well, I tried to run back, but I couldn’t, I was in too much pain. I came up out of the canal—there was a tollgate there—and I went onto the Parkway and hitched a ride from some woman. She took me here to the hotel. She was terrific. I mean, not like a New Yorker.” With a groan, Jennifer moved to face Tom.

  “I can’t believe you jogged that far,” Tom said. He had pulled himself up on his elbows. “You’ve never run more than three miles, right?”

  Jennifer nodded. “I just felt like running, I guess, and also I was so tensed up by that channel woman.”

  “What?”

  “You don’t want to hear about her.” Jennifer moved again with great effort, favoring her sore right leg, and stretched out on her stomach. “I thought making love was supposed to relax you.”

  “It does. But you’ve got to do it repeatedly.” He nuzzled down next to her.

  “Easy,” she said.

  “It’s your legs that are sore, darling.”

  “Everything’s sore.” She cuddled close, wanting to be held.

  He had been waiting for her when she came back from the long run, and they had taken a shower together and then made love standing under the spray, their bodies lathered with soap! She had wanted to wait until they were in bed, but he couldn’t wait, wouldn’t wait, and she let him have his way.

  He came at once, before she was ready for him, and then he picked her up, and she slipped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. He carried her back to the wide bed, where they soaked the sheets and blankets with their wet bodies and made love again, and this time she did come, a long rolling orgasm that drained all the strength from her limbs. The intensity made her cry, and when he came, she had a second climax just as violent and wrenching as the first, and she wouldn’t let him slip out of her. She held him tight, as if he
were a secret prize she wanted to keep hidden forever inside her.

  They had fallen asleep then, still wrapped in each other’s arms, and when she woke, Jennifer felt the pain in her legs and thighs and told Tom what had happened.

  “What do you want to do?” he asked, whispering in her ear.

  “I don’t want to do anything. I just want to lie in your arms for the rest of my life.” And she meant it. She didn’t ever want to move. She felt happy when she was in Tom’s arms, when he was holding her and she had nowhere to go and nothing to do. But she sensed the reason for his question. Tom never asked anything directly; he was always trying to position her so that he could do what he wanted.

  “I’ve got a dinner meeting,” he told her.

  “Damnit!” She moved to look at him directly. His dark eyes, intense even in the dim light of the room, had always affected Jennifer strongly. She could not see his face. “Now tell me again,” she said.

  “Honey, I didn’t know myself until forty minutes ago. I had a message waiting when I got back to the hotel. The DA wants me to interview a new person down here who they’re thinking of hiring. Look, it’s only dinner. I’ll be free by nine, and we can come back and do some more of this.” He moved against her so she could feel his erection.

  “Don’t,” she asked, but she knew there was no authority in her objection, and she knew that he wouldn’t stop. She, too, wanted to make love. She couldn’t get enough of him this afternoon, and her desire pleased her. In New York they were always in a hurry, rushing to make love in the brief moments that they could spare from their work.

  “Turn over,” he told her, and when she heard the edge in his voice, her nipples grew hard. “This way,” he said, instructing her, and she let him pull her up by the waist. He was already kneeling on the bed.

  “No, honey, that hurts.”

  Tom didn’t answer her. His hands had seized her waist, and when she tried to pull away, he wouldn’t let her. Jennifer never liked it when he entered from behind so she couldn’t see his face, and it was only because he was so demanding that she let him.