Chapter 8: Preparations

Melissa looked at Mark and laughed. "Stop laughing, you'll hurt your mother's feelings," he ordered.

"Oops, sorry," Melissa answered.

Rachel tried to be patient as she explained, "They don't and can't read other people's minds, just each other's. They are, well, I guess you could say their minds are linked together."

"We don't need to tell the other neighbors, do we? I mean, they might not understand."

She looked at her daughter and frowned. "I seem to remember that the Church teaches us such things are akin with flirting with the Devil. I ... I'll have to ask Bishop Kennedy what to think about this. I just don't know."

"Melissa!" Mark's mental command startled her. "This is not the time to unload on your mother. Her whole world has been shattered to bits, first with her marriage and now with all this violence." Mark caused her to calm down and think about her mother's state of mind.

Melissa mentally agreed with Mark. "Mother, we definitely do not want anyone to know about this, at least not yet. The publicity would probably be very bad for us." Melissa talked to her mother in terms that reassured her that public disclosure was the last thing they desired at this time.

Melissa told her mother, "There is a little more to all this and we'll share with you later. We'll tell you more as soon as you have gone back to Coalville with us. I'll ride with you."

Mark told them, "That's a good idea, let's go." Melissa led her mother to their pick up truck with the camper shell on the back.

Mark called, "Wait."

They stopped. "What is it Mark?" Melissa asked.

"Blankets and quilts. Take a lot of them so that nothing gets scratched or dented. Those pieces are all in perfect condition. If we're going to sell them to museums, we want to keep them that way."

Melissa nodded to Mark and said, "Mother, you have that closet full of quilts you made that year you were in the quilting society at the church. We'll take them with us, all of them."

"All of them? Some of those quilts are probably quite expensive. I know the materials that went into them cost me a pretty penny."

"Believe me, Mother, when you see what they will be used to protect you'll have no problems with us using them, none at all. I promise you."

"Mom, we need to do the same. Both vehicles will have a few hundred pounds of gold in them. Remember, we have to protect them the best we can." Mark went to the hall closet and dragged out all their spare bedding. They carried it out to the van. Then Mark joined Melissa and helped her and Angela carry their quilts outside.

As soon as the bedding was loaded, they left to return to the Retreat. Once they accessed I-80, Rachel took the lead, while Angela and Melissa followed. "Everything all right?" Mark asked Melissa.

Her thought "giggled" as she answered, "Mother is in a daze. How do you think she will react when she sees the artifacts?"

"I don't know. I do know she must not be made aware of what lies underground at this time. That would make her head explode. [Mental image of a cartoon cranium blowing up] We'll have to take it slow, very slow with her."

Melissa agreed with Mark. Angela had lived a life completely centered on family and church. Mark and Melissa both realized Angela was not stupid. However a lifetime of religious conditioning left her blind to much of the real world.

The trip went without incident. As soon as they reached the turnout and parked, Mark opened both the cargo door and the side door of their van. Melissa opened the back door of their camper and the first load of gold statuary came floating through the air toward them. Angela screamed.

Melissa told her, "Relax, Mother, calm down. It's all right. These are gold statues and scrolls. We must be careful not to harm them."

"But, but that thing carrying them. It floated in the air." Angela was on the verge of hysteria. Her once safe and unchanging world had once again begun to turn upside down even more.

"Mother, you may have one of these statues to give to the church. Believe me, the president of the church himself will personally thank you. This is of great historic importance. The rest must go to New York, but you may choose one and donate it to the church. Mother, you will cause some excitement believe me." Melissa smiled to herself as she thought of the amount of unwelcome excitement any of these statuettes had the potential to cause all fundamental Christian beliefs.

Just then, Mark had an inspiration of his own, inspired by an aside from Teacher. "Mrs. Puffin, I suggest you take this silken cloth with the writing woven into it. That will prove this statue is not a fake."

He had queried Teacher. Mark learned the cloth was a shawl used in religious ceremonies and the words woven into the fabric itself foretold the coming of a great leader. It was written in a language akin to the ancient Sanskrit and Hindi Devanagari of the early Persians. Mark pointed out one set of symbols, and said, "That line foretells a great leader shall be born of woman. It's written in both the languages woven onto this shawl.

She relaxed and the wild look left her eyes. Here were things she could relate to. That she could give of a gift of great value to her church meant to her the world was still a safe place to be. She avoided the floating statuary and accepted the cloth and the heavy statuette. Mark began to load the individual pieces into the van, while Rachel made certain every item was protected and covered so no curious eyes could see their precious cargo.

When the last bar of gold and the last golden artifact was packed and they were ready to go. Mark asked, Teacher, is there a small handcart I could take with us to help me move all this gold when I need to?

One is coming. There was a pause, then, look to your right.

Mark saw a small flat shape float through the air toward them. It came to a rest at his feet. He received instructions on how to make it float high in the air or stay close the ground. It would accept mental commands from either Melissa or Mark. She had been "listening in" and learned how to control it the same time Mark did. "You do have some good ideas, sometimes, Marky." He sent her a mental image of him smacking her behind.

Don't you dare even think it, not if you want to remain alive. He laughed aloud. Angela looked around to see what Mark was laughing about and shook her head. Rachel led the way back to Salt Lake City.

Rachel drove the van into their garage and locked it. They went through the door from the garage into the kitchen. Angela backed up against their back door and locked the truck and camper up tight. Their garage was full of junk saved over the years. Carl had taken their car when he packed up and left.

Angela sent up a prayer and asked God to protect the over ten million dollars worth of gold stored in the camper backed up to their back door. She felt confidant God would watch over and protect the precious cargo. Well, unless it was His will not to...

From Mark's bedroom window he had an unobstructed view of the Puffin's back door. He asked Teacher to awaken him if there were intruders during the night. Mark laid the wand Teacher had provided for protection on his nightstand, opened his window wide and curled up on the bed with all his clothes on. If anything happened, he wanted the option to get into action at once.

Mark was excited and nervous. He felt too many things had begun to happen at the same time. He felt there was something missing, something important he needed to do or know that would help bring everything into focus. After a while he drifted off into a troubled sleep.

"EEEAGH." Mark heard what he recognized as Melissa's new battle cry. He heard a loud crash and a cry of pain.

He jumped out of bed, grabbed his wand and dropped out the window. He jumped the low fence separating their two houses just in time to see a body fall away from the driver's door of the pickup. Melissa's shadowy shape seemed to fly up and over the hood of the pickup. She ran toward the driver's door.

He saw another shape run from the side of the house toward her. Mark pointed the wand and pressed the button. The intruder fell. Melissa kicked out at the other one and was grabbed from behind. Mark pointed and "shot" the one she had just kicked and turned his attention toward Melissa again just in time to see her get struck by an intruder's fist.

"No!" Mark yelled at the top of his lungs and played the wand from one end of the assailant to the other. Although the intruder was down, Mark kept the wand pointed at him while he held the button down.

"He is near death," Teacher's warning came to Mark. He stopped all motion and shook his head to clear it, then released the button. Melissa was groggy as she got to her feet.

"Oof. I hurt." She rubbed her face. Her left eye had started to swell shut.

"Get the keys for your pick up and drive it over to my house and park it in front of the garage. Then you come back and we'll call the police. We'll say these guys tried to kidnap you. We'll accuse Walter Frost."

She nodded and ran inside. A minute later, she came back with the keys. She gave Mark a kiss on the mouth and hurried away. Mark stood there, frozen to the ground. He couldn't move. That kiss was the first time he had been affected in such a way. He was more than horny. He wanted to take her right there in the back yard, no matter who was near and dominate her into submission.

Melissa was linked to Mark. "Down boy," she told him, "that kiss was not a reward for saving me. When we're linked mentally there is some sort of resonating feedback. Teacher says that is how we begin to make babies.

"We wait for marriage before we do more than hug and nuzzle. Then we make babies, okay?"

Mark was reluctant to agree, until reason reasserted itself in his mind. He realized how easy it would be to get carried away and become sidetracked into a life of perpetual sex. This was even truer because of their prior closeness.

"Mark, if you had touched me when you went into sexual overload, I could not have resisted. We must be careful until after we are legally married. Oh god, I want you so bad that it's next to impossible to resist what we both feel. And now, with the magic of our headbands, well ... There's no question about it we must marry right away." Mark agreed.

Mark went to wake his mother, while Melissa woke Angela and then called the police. "Bring an ambulance," he told the police dispatcher, "These three baddies got put down hard."

"Captain Anderson here." The voice cut in, "I shall come out to your house forthwith. I want some answers."

Mark laughed, "Gee, he almost sounded like a real cop."

Melissa hung up and Rachel grabbed the phone and dialed Hank's home phone. It gave Mark a jolt in his belly, that she knew the man's home phone number. How did she get his home phone? Then he answered his own question.

"Sorry to wake you up, Hank dear, but we have another problem. We're at the next-door neighbor's house. It will be the one with all the police cars in front and the lights on. Come fast, please." She hung up.

Mark went into the back yard to check on the latest crop of intruders. One barely started to move. Without considering another course of action, Mark applied the wand to him. The man stopped moving. Mark went back inside and waited with the others.

A big man who looked as if he belonged in a "Terminator" movie came in without knocking. "I'm Captain Anderson. Now I want to know what is going on. What is so important that you have been burglarized numerous times? If I can't get an answer, you are all going downtown and stay until I do get an answer."

"And then you will add a few million dollars to the settlement the city will have to pay for previous malfeasance by members of the Salt Lake City Police Department." A disheveled Hank Caldwell stood in the door directly behind the captain. He had on his trousers over his pajama bottom.

The paramedics and a police car with two new cops stopped in front. "The bodies are in back." Mark called.

"Bodies? What bodies?" Captain Anderson exclaimed.

"They're live bodies, sir," Mark told him. "But they are definitely bodies."

He relaxed and asked with unaccustomed politeness, "What is going on here? That young lady has been struck hard."

"Very astute of you, sir." Hank became sarcastic.

Anderson ignored Hank's sarcasm and continued, "There have been some serious crimes committed and my police department has been made look like a bunch of buffoons. I do not like that and I will protect the good name of this department with everything I have at my disposal."

"Does that include cover-ups?" Hank was serious.

"There have been none that I know of." Captain Anderson replied.

"That's a lie and you know it." Hank was mad about something.

Then there was another interruption. "Hi Folks. It is I, Babs Harper, the local neighborhood snoop. This looks like more juicy news." She was dressed to perfection in her trademark black slacks suit. "I sent another cameraman around to the back yard to catch all the action there. Boy. Never a dull moment around you guys."