THE ISLAND OF CHARON
a novel in the series
"PLAYING ANOTHER REALITY"
CHAPTER 9. CHARON’S SECRET
9.3. WISH No. 3
It was already dawn, but before returning to the hut, I decided to hang my last lantern on the Tree, wishing to get out of there.
Approaching the Wish Tree, I noticed a male figure, sitting beneath it.
“I’m sorry, Alice!” the Beekeeper said softly and sadly, turning to me, “I didn’t mean to scare you at all.”
I sat down next to him. Now that almost everything fell into place, I wasn’t afraid of the Beekeeper anymore, but I would like to clarify certain details.
The Beekeeper was looking at the Ocean, which still had no waves.
“Why did you want to help me?” I asked.
“You’re a close friend of Sofia and Panagiotis, and friends of my friends are my friends. When Theodoros, whose father…”
“Theodoros?” I interrupted the Beekeeper in surprise.
“That’s the name of the Confectioner. His father is the noblest man, his mother is the kindest creature! And what a son! You see, he didn’t have enough sweets in the shop!”
“So, was that the Confectioner who wrote to me on your behalf?”
“Yes! You can’t even imagine what it was like for me here! We see and feel the happening on Earth with all what is close and dear to us. They correctly say, ‘The dead turn over in their coffins!’ Not the dead, of course, and not in coffins, but I couldn’t find a place for myself from such impudence! Thank God, Theodoros was arrested, although hardly for long. And I don’t really believe that one can change oneself at that age, especially having lost one’s mind.”
“And you decided to use the Portal when you found out that your account had been compromised, did you?”
“Yes, that’s right, Alice. It’s not welcomed here going down to Earth. Only in case of emergency and exclusively for the good… Sorry! I didn’t know that you had been seeing ghosts since childhood!”
“Why did I always see you in the beekeeper’s hat with a black net instead of your face?”
“That is exactly the image posted on my Internet page, and you never saw my face there. Everyone visualizes ghosts to one’s own taste and color. Besides, I was just the Beekeeper for you, not Georgios.”
“So, that’s why you went to pray in the St. George Chapel!” I exclaimed, delighting that the puzzle began to take shape.
“That should have led you to the thought I’m not one of the dark spirits! They try to stay away from churches!”
“Sorry! You’re right! How could I pay no attention to it?! So, the Confectioner wasn’t going to kill me, was he?”
“Well, neither was Marcos,” sighed the Beekeeper. “The poor soul, sold into the service of the Forces of Darkness even before incarnation, and not by strangers, but by his own grandfather the wizard!”
“So, when Mark fell in the bathroom…”
“Yes, at that moment he was possessed by a demon, or by a creature from the category of fallen spirits. I tried to prevent it, but…”
“I saw only you and Maria!” I remembered.
“Demons are quick creatures! He got ahead of me, slipping in a little earlier, while you were exchanging tenderness with Marcos…”
“And why didn’t you return to the Astral World after the arrest of Theodoros? Did you read about my impending death in the Tablets and decide to linger in order to…?!”
“I had no need to read the Tablets, although they are in the public domain, because the seal of Death flickered on you already too clearly.”
“How is it?”
“You see, Alice… In every particle of the soul, an astral particle, that is, in a particle of the Astral World, those very Astral Tablets, the destiny of a single person, for example, of Alice, as of hundreds of billions of Galaxies is already written initially. However, the information is retained by souls selectively: the particles pass all information through themselves, filtering and storing only the data related to a particular ‘their own’ soul. The same particles every second not only receive informational waves from the Divine Ocean or the Universal Data Bank, but also emit their own ones, thus making a continuous interchange so that the information is always up-to-date, thanks to which the Creator knows all about everything and everyone at any moment. Therefore, each person by his soul, or astral body, uninterruptedly and unconsciously broadcasts to the world the whole truth about himself, which is scanned at a subtle level by the souls of other people and essences. If the received information somehow ‘mutually’ concerns someone, it’s impossible to pass by each other.”
“Do you think that the Victim and the Executioner are doomed to meet sooner or later? And do they know their fate even before incarnation?”
“Certainly, I believe in predestination. At least, because my wish to save you didn’t come true. I hung lanterns on the Tree, too.”
“Does it mean that not all wishes come true?”
“It turns out so. Not all of them. For example, if my wish conflicts with your own.”
“I didn’t want to die!”
“And who wants to?! But there is a Higher Self, belonging to the Spirit, and a Lower one, the earthly Self, both united during life into a dual Soul. No earthly Self wants to die any kind of death at all. It clings to life in every possible way, first on Earth, and then in the Astral World, because it knows: after the death of the physical body, sooner or later the so-called Judgment will follow. I mean the division of the soul into the Higher Self, worthy of merging with the divine Spirit, and the Lower Self, unworthy and subject to destruction through the inevitable ‘second death’. However, your Spirit has chosen for your physical body the best death at the best time and in the best place on Earth, based on divine considerations known to the Spirit and according to the Creator’s plan. Therefore, my attempt to change the scenario of your fate by entering into a fight with the essence of Darkness, settled into Marcos’ body to commit murder, unfortunately, failed. But all done is for the best one.”
“You said that you believe in predestination. But to believe and to know is not the same thing.”
“Everyone will know the Truth only when, having buried the Earthly Self, one merges with one’s own Spirit, which is a part of the Creator and, therefore, dwells within the Divine Ocean, owning the complete and undistorted information of the Universal Data Bank. And yet, as you can see, I am here, in the Astral World, and not there…”
“Sofia told me you had passed into the Other Reality three years ago…”
“Time is a relative thing, as for the earthly standards, three years have passed, yes. The physical body is unable to return to the Past and to travel to the Future. However, here, in the Other Reality, you can get to any date and relive any event at any point in space as ‘here and now’. It’s scrolling in its cell of the Tablets ‘from Alfa to Omega’ an infinite number of times, always. Do you understand, Alice?”
“And how can I understand that you are you, and not a virtual projection made by my Spirit, which tries to help me solve some problems by means of illusions?”
“The Astral World is so dangerous, Alice, because it is dual and illusory. It is difficult to navigate in it for no less dual souls. However, the Spirit always, even during the lifetime of the physical body, has access to the Universal Data Bank, where true information is stored about everything ‘here and now’, as well as about any point in the Past and in the Future, any person and event that happens to any being. The physical brain, being created for perception of earthly signals, usually blocks information from the Subtle Spheres. Although some people, like you, for example, are able to feel essences and visualize them while in a physical body, but more often — in critical situations, on the verge between life and death, that is, between the worlds — physical and Astral. The Astral World is a bridge between the Lower and Higher Spheres, over the river that divides the Lower and the Higher Selves. In the Astral World the ‘visions’ seem to you at first equally real, you don’t distinguish them from earthly ones. But some of them are just illusions, made either by your Spirit to solve certain tasks of the soul, or by your Lower Self, which tries to create its own ideal world here, in the Astral, in every way clinging to its own life, because it doesn’t want to die, letting your Higher Self go to the Spirit. The Lower Self, having no access to the Higher Spheres, projects only its own, selfishly mundane, it seems to tempt you with earthly desires, mainly in the sphere of feelings and emotions, since the Astral World is responsible for them, and the soul is nothing but the astral body.”
“This is the reason to make a deal with black magicians, isn’t it?”
“At first, one is pushed to the Wish Tree, and then, as appetite comes during eating, to the magicians. To keep the dual soul alive in the Astral World, one needs energy. The Lower Self will try to find the energy corresponding to its lower or earthly level. Of course, a deal with Darkness for the sake of the subsequent settlement in a physical body of a still living on Earth person to feed itself with stranger physical energy is very convenient to the Lower Self.”
“Meanwhile the Higher Self is drawn to the Spirit, isn’t it?”
“The more light of the Divine Love has the soul, as well as the qualities worthy of the Higher Spheres, the less chance the Lower Self has to bewitch you.”
“However, besides the illusions of the Lower Self, in the Astral World there are quite real essences like you and me.”
“Of course, Alice. The Higher Self at the same time perceives the real creatures of all levels of the Universe, including the souls wandering in the Astral World. You see me, and I see you. I am not a fiction. We are both real. If you try to visualize me now in some form of a beast or another person, my appearance may change for a moment, but it will immediately return to its original. Because your soul perfectly understands who I am in reality, and every time colliding with my essence, it will automatically visualize the same thing. A fictitious phantom will crumble to nothing, because there is no essence behind it. You can give to illusions absolutely any appearance and change it constantly.”
“Despite the different terms of being here, we are on the same Astral level. But you must have your own island, right? Not the one I’m on now?”
“That’s right… Everyone has their own island here. Although it may not be an island at all… But something spherical, like Earth. Like any planet. I live on Ammouliani, visualized by my soul, because I was born there and lived there until school. Then my parents moved to the peninsula Athos to give me an opportunity of further education. By the way, why did you come to rest exactly on Ammouliani? Did you fall in love with my homeland, too?”
“I loved Mount Athos. I spent most of my life on Earth in anticipation of something global and bright, but at some point I realized that it was impossible to get not given to you from Above, even if you made every effort. It’s like fighting with the Creator. And that’s when the earthly began to pull away from me. To be honest, I would like to live an ascetic life on Athos, in a hermitage at the foot of the Holy Mountain, periodically secluding in Carouli… Women are not allowed there, but the bay near the Panagiotis’ house on Ammouliani looks directly at Mount Athos… Perhaps next lifetime… Actually, there’s nothing to keep me here. And why don’t you leave?”
“I am too much attached to someone who still remains on Earth,” the Beekeeper sighed.
“Have you already known what you need to do to leave the Astral World? How many lanterns on the Wish Tree does a ferry ticket cost?”
“It’s too early for me to think about it, Alice. However, probably the only true answer is known only to those who have already left. As well as to your Spirit with the Higher Self, of course…”
I got lost in my thoughts. A strange idea came to me. Having hung the 3rd and my last lantern on the Wish Tree, I said goodbye to the Beekeeper and returned “home”, to my astral hut, at dawn.