Chapter 8

The actual process of ingesting the berries did not take place for several weeks.

First, I had to put my personal life in order. A brief call to my lawyer painted a story that I had been kidnapped, and that he should gather all my assets that could be liquidated to a sum of one million dollars. Then with Andre and Lyssa’s help, we arranged a drop off point for the money, after which I spent several days with the police repeating a very well-rehearsed story about how I had been kidnapped and by whom, all of which was designed to give the police something to write about but nothing to sink their teeth into.

My house and estate were secured and I moved many of my personal belongings out and let my good friend, the sheriff, and his family, move into the house rent free, to look after it and maintain it for a time when I might return.

I then closed my practice, saying that after my ordeal, I could no longer stay in that town. I told everyone I was moving to California, to practice with an old medical school buddy of mine. My lawyer was to continue to maintain my few investments that remained after the ransom had been paid and I would remain in contact with him by phone from time to time. Otherwise, any funds were to be used to further enlarge my estate and protect it from development and overuse.

And lastly, I called my ex-wife and left a message for her that I was moving away and out of her life, and that she would not be hearing from me again. I laughed to myself that this was the only way that I would ever get the last word.

And then the life of Josh Wilson, at least in a sleepy little North Carolina town, was no more. Only the memories of friends, and the legacy of land, would keep my name alive there.

As the final arrangements were made, Lyssa met me and flew with me to the retreat where I would begin undergoing the tests and procedures that would make me one of ‘The Family’.

As I walked out to the plane, a nice gulfstream, holding her hand in mine, I wondered if I would ever return to this town that had meant so much to me.

I had not realized it before, but I had been living my dream for much of my life, a dream of being a doctor, of living on a tract of wild and unspoiled land. This was the dream that had motivated me on many a night when I was on call, or studying for boards, and now I was leaving it behind.

I turned as we climbed the steps up into the airplane, and I half expected a crowd of people there waving their goodbyes. But no one came to say goodbye, no one knew that I was leaving.

I felt Lyssa pull me into the airplane and in a mindless haze I found my way to my seat. From a distance, I could hear the cabin door being shut and sealed and the engines slowly coming to life. I watched out the window as the ground began to roll away beneath us.

It was into a beautiful blue sky that we took off, and I turned and watched the hills that I loved turn into the Blue Ridge Mountains, and then slowly fade into a meaningless and unrecognizable pattern of brown and green and blue until, from emotional exhaustion, I fell soundly asleep.

It was night when I awoke and, for a moment, I didn’t know where I was, and then I realized that I didn’t know where I was. We were still flying, Lyssa had the autopilot on, and all I could see out the window were the twinkling of the stars above and the lights below.

“Oh good, you’re awake,” she said as she emerged from the cabin behind me. “I had to take a quick break and there is never very much air traffic around here.”

“Well, where exactly is here?” I replied stretching and moving around in my seat, trying to work the stiffness out of my joints that had developed from sleeping in a chair for an extended period of time. It reminded me of my nights during my residency, when I was never sure what was going to happen next, when I was tired all the time, and would often awake with brief moments of panic when the phone rang, or my beeper went off.

“Well, we should be crossing over from Mexico and getting ready to meet our in-flight refueling over Panama.”

“Ok,” I said with a bit of amazement that we would be refueling in air. I knew the military often did such things, but I didn’t know that private airplanes, such as this leer jet, could do such a thing, much less were allowed to. But as I was to find out, there was very little that couldn’t be accomplished with enough time and money.

“Well, is it too early to ask where we are going, since I am apparently not going to be allowed to set foot on the ground again until we get to where we are going?”