That night it rained, and there was thunder and lightning.
But there is no way on earth for me to explain what it was like to be in a tree house while bolt after bolt of lightning ripped through the sky and fell on the trees around me.
My fear was indescribable. I screamed even harder than I had the first night when I felt my platform bed tilting.
It was an animal fright, and it paralyzed me.
The only thought that occurred to me was that I am a natural coward, and when tension is too great I always pass out.
I didn't regain consciousness until around noon the next day.
When I let myself down, I found Emilito waiting for me; sitting on a low branch with his feet nearly touching the ground.
"You look like a bat from hell," he commented. "What happened to you last night?"
"I nearly died of fright," I said.
I wasn't going to pretend toughness or play at being in control. I felt like I must have looked; like a living rag.
I said to him that for the first time in my life, I had commiserated with soldiers in battle: I had felt the same fear they must experience when bombs explode all around them.
"I disagree," he said. "Your fear last night was even more intense.
"Whatever was shooting at you wasn't human. So at the level of the double, it was a gigantic fear."
"Please, Emilito, explain to me what you mean by that."
"Your double is about to become aware; so under conditions of stress, like last night, it becomes partially aware, but also totally frightened.
"It's not used to perceiving the world. Your body and your mind are accustomed to it, but your double isn't."
I was certain that if I had been prepared for the storm, I would have relaxed.
If my fear and my thoughts about the storm hadn't interfered, some force inside me would have come completely out of my body, and perhaps might have even stood up, moved around, or come down from the tree.
What frightened me most was the sensation of being cooped up; trapped inside my body.
"When we enter into absolute darkness where there are no distractions," the caretaker said, "the double takes over.
"It stretches its ethereal limbs, opens its luminous eye, and looks around.
"Sometimes experiencing it can be even more frightening than what you felt last night."
"The double won't be that frightening," I assured him. "I'm ready for it."
"You aren't ready for anything yet," he retorted. "I'm sure your screams last night could have been heard all the way to Tucson."
His comment annoyed me.
There was something about him I didn't like, but I couldn't pinpoint what it was.
Perhaps it was because he looked so odd. He wasn't manly. He seemed to be the mere shadow of a man, and yet he was deceptively strong.
But what really bothered me was that he didn't let me push him around, and that irritated my competitive side no end.
In a surge of anger I asked him belligerently, "How dare you run me down every time I say something you don't like!"
The moment I said that I regretted it, and apologized profusely for my aggressiveness. "I don't know why I get so irritated with you," I ended up confessing.
"Don't feel bad," he said. "It's because you sense something about me that you can't explain. As you yourself put it, I'm not manly."
"I didn't say that," I protested.
From his look, he obviously didn't believe me. "Of course you did," he insisted. "You said it to my double just a moment ago.
"My double never ever makes mistakes or misinterprets things."
My nervousness and embarrassment reached their peak.
I didn't know what to say. My face was red and my body trembled. I couldn't understand what had caused my exaggerated reaction.
The caretaker's voice broke into my thoughts.
"You are reacting like that because your double is perceiving my double," he said:
"Your physical body is frightened because its gates are opening, and new perceptions are flowing in.
"If you think you feel bad now, imagine how much worse it'll be when all your gates are open."
He spoke so convincingly that I wondered if he was right.
"Animals and infants," he continued, "have no problem perceiving the double, and they are often disturbed by it."
I mentioned that animals didn't particularly like me and that, except for Manfred, the feeling was mutual.
"Animals don't like you," he clarified, "because some of your body gates have never been completely closed and your double is struggling to come out.
"Be prepared. For now that you're deliberately intending it, they're going to fling open.
"One of these days your double is going to awake all at once, and you might find yourself across the patio without having walked over."
I had to laugh, mostly out of nervousness and at the absurdity of what he was suggesting.
"And what about children, especially infants?" he asked. "Don't they holler when you pick them up?"
They usually did, but I didn't tell the caretaker.
"Babies like me," I lied, knowing too well that the few times I had been around infants, they had begun to cry as soon as I came near them.
I had always told myself that it was because I lacked a maternal instinct.
The caretaker shook his head in disbelief.
I challenged him to explain how animals and infants could sense the double when I didn't know it existed myself.
In fact, until Clara and the nagual told me about it, I had never heard of such a thing. Nor had I ever met anyone who knew about it.
He rebuffed me, saying that what animals and infants sense has nothing to do with knowing, but with the fact that they have the equipment to sense it: their open gates.
He added that those gates are permanently receptive in animals, but that human beings close theirs as soon as they begin to talk and think and their rational side takes over.
Thus far, I had given the caretaker my full attention because Clara had told me that no matter who might be talking to me and no matter what he might be saying, the exercise is to listen.
But the more I listened to Emilito, the more annoyed I became, until I found myself in the throes of a bona-flde rage.
"I don't believe any of this," I said. "Why do you say that you're my teacher, anyway? You still haven't made that clear."
The caretaker laughed. "I certainly didn't volunteer for the post," he said.
"Then who appointed you?"
After a thoughtful pause, he said, "It's a long chain of circumstances.
"The first link of this chain was set when the nagual found you naked with your legs up in the air." He burst out laughing, with a shrill birdlike sound.
I resented immensely his insulting sense of humor. "Get to the point, Emilito, and tell me what's going on," I yelled.
"I'm sorry, I thought you'd enjoy an account of your doings, but I see I was wrong. We, on the other hand, have enjoyed ourselves immensely with your antics.
"For years we have laughed at the tribulations and hardships John Michael Abelar inherited because he walked into the wrong room and found a naked girl, when all he wanted to do was to piss."
He doubled up laughing.
I didn't see the humor of it. My fury was so gigantic that I wanted to lash out at him with a few punches and well-placed kicks.
He looked at me and moved back, undoubtedly sensing I was about to explode.
"Don't you find it hilarious that John Michael had to go through hell with the problem he inherited, just because he wanted to piss?
"The nagual and I have that in common: Whereas I only found a half-dead puppy, he found a completely crazed girl; and we both are responsible for them for the rest of our lives.
"Seeing what happened to us, the members of our party got so scared that they vowed never to take another leak again before they checked and rechecked the place."
He burst out laughing so hard he had to pace back and forth to keep from choking.
Seeing that I wasn't even smiling, he quieted down.
"Well... let's continue then," he said, composing himself. "Once the first link was cast; when he found you with your legs up, it was the nagual's duty to mark you, which he promptly did.
"Then he had to keep track of you. He used Clara and Nelida to help him.
"The first time he and Nelida came to visit you was the summer you had graduated from high school, and worked as a camp counselor in a mountain resort."
"Is it true that he found me through an energy channel?" I asked, trying not to sound patronizing.
"Absolutely. He had marked your double with some of his energy so he could follow your movements," he said.
"I don't remember ever seeing them," I said.
"That's because you always believed you were having recurring dreams. But the two of them actually came to see you in the flesh.
"They continued to visit you many times over the years, especially Nelida.
"Then, when you came to live in Arizona following Nelida's suggestions, all of us had a chance to visit you."
"Wait a minute. This is getting too bizarre.
"How could I follow her suggestion when I don't even remember meeting her?"
"Believe me, she kept telling you to live in Arizona, and you did; but of course you thought you were deciding it yourself."
As the caretaker talked, my mind flashed back to that period of my life.
I remembered thinking that Arizona was the place where I should be.
I did the southern horizon gazing technique to decide where to get a job, and I received the strongest feeling that I should head for Tucson.
I even had a dream in which someone was telling me I should work in a bookstore.
I wasn't fond of books and it was odd that I should be working with them, but when I got to Tucson I went directly to a bookstore with a 'Help Wanted' sign. I took the job typing up order forms, working the cash register, and shelving books.
"Whoever came to see you," Emilito went on, "always pulled your double, so you have only a vague dreamlike memory of us with the exception of Nelida. You know her as you know the back of your hand."
So many people came into that bookstore, but I vaguely remembered an elegantly dressed, beautiful woman who came in once and talked to me in a friendly way.
It was so unusual because no one else paid any attention to me. She might very well have been Nelida.
At a deep level everything Emilito had said made sense, but to my rational mind it seemed so far-fetched that I would have to be crazy to believe him.
"What you're saying is pure horse manure," I said, more defensively than I had intended.
My harsh reaction didn't perturb him in the least.
He stretched his arms above his head and rotated them in circles. "If what I said is really just a pile of manure, I dare you to explain what's happening to you," he challenged with a grin:
"And don't try to be a little girl with me and get all weepy and flustered."
I heard my cracking voice yell, "You're full of shit, you God damn-" but my burning fury ended right then.
I couldn't believe I was shouting profanities.
Immediately I began to apologize, saying that I was not accustomed to shouting or using foul language. I assured him that I had been reared in a most civil way, by a well-mannered mother who wouldn't dream of raising her voice.
The caretaker laughed and lifted a hand to stop me. "Enough apologizing," he said:
"It's your double that's talking. It's always direct and to the point, and since you have never allowed it expression, it is full of hatred and bitterness."
He explained that at that moment my double was extremely unstable due to being bombarded by thunder and lightning, but especially due to the events of five days ago when Nelida pushed me into the left hallway so I could begin the sorcerers' crossing.
"Five days ago!" I gasped. "You mean I was hanging in the tree for two days and two nights?"
"You were there exactly two days and three nights," he said with a malevolent smirk. "We took turns hoisting ourselves up there to see if you were all right. You were out but doing fine, so we left you alone."
"But why was I strapped that way?"
"You failed miserably trying to accomplish a maneuver we call the abstract flight or the sorcerers' crossing," he said. "The attempt depleted your energy reserves."
He clarified that it wasn't actually a failure on my part, but rather a premature attempt that had ended in complete disaster.
"What would have happened if I had succeeded?" I asked.
He assured me that success would not have put me in a more advantageous position but that it would have served as a point of departure; a sort of lure, or a beacon that would have accurately marked the way for a future time when I would have to make the final flight all by myself.
"You are now using the energy of all of us," he went on. "We are all compelled to help you.
"In fact, you're using the energy of all the sorcerers that have preceded us and once lived in this house. You're living off their magic.
"It is exactly as if you were lying on a magic carpet that takes you to incredible places; places that exist only in the magical carpet's path."
"But I still don't understand why I am here," I said. "Is it just because the nagual John Michael Abelar made a mistake and found me?"
"No, it's not quite that simple," he said, looking at me squarely:
"In fact, John Michael isn't really your nagual.
"There is a new nagual and a new era. You are a member of the new nagual's party."
"What are you saying, Emilito? What new party? Who decides that?"
"Power. The spirit. That boundless force out there decides all that.
"For us, the proof that you belong to the new era is your total similarity with Nelida.
"She was in her youth just like you are now; to the point that she, too, used up all her reserve energy when she first attempted the abstract flight.
"And just like you, she nearly died."
"You mean I could have actually died attempting it, Emilito?"
"Certainly. Not because the sorcerers' flight is so dangerous, but because you are so unstable.
Someone else doing the same thing would have merely gotten a bellyache, but not you.
"You, like Nelida, have to exaggerate everything, so you nearly died.
"After that, the only way to restore you was by leaving you up in the tree off the ground for whatever time it took for you to come to your senses. There was nothing else we could have done."
Incredible as it sounded, wha had happened gradually began making sense to me.
Something had gone dreadfully wrong during my encounter with Nelida. Something in me had been out of control.
"I let you drink from my intent gourd yesterday to find out if your double is still unstable," Emilito explained:
"It is! The only way to buttress your double is with activity, and like it or not, I'm the only one who can guide your double in this activity.
"This is the reason I'm your teacher; or rather, I am the teacher of your double."
"What do you think happened to me with Nelida?" I asked, still uncertain as to what exactly went wrong.
"You mean what didn't happen," he corrected me. "You were supposed to cross the chasm gently and harmoniously and wake up your double to full awareness in the left hallway."
He went into a convoluted explanation of what they had hoped would happen.
Under Nelida's direction I was supposed to shift my awareness back and forth between my body and my double.
This shifting was to have erased all the natural barriers developed through life; barriers that separate the physical body from the double.
The sorcerers' plan, he said, was to allow me to get acquainted with all of them in person since my double already knew them.
But because of my craziness, I didn't cross gently and harmoniously.
In other words, the awareness my double acquired had nothing to do with the daily awareness of my body.
This resulted in a sensation that I was flying and couldn't stop. All my reserve energy drained out of me without any restraint and my double went berserk.
"I regret to tell you this, Emilito, but I don't understand what you're talking about," I said.
"The sorcerers' crossing consists of shifting the awareness of daily life, which the physical body possesses, to the double," he replied:
"Listen carefully. The awareness of daily life is what we want to shift from the body to the double. The awareness of daily life!"
"But what does that mean, Emilito?"
"It means that we are after sobriety, measure, control. We are not interested in craziness and helter-skelter results."
"But what does it mean in my case?" I insisted.
"You indulged in your excesses and didn't shift your awareness of daily life to your double."
"What did I do?"
"You imbued your double with an unknown, uncontrollable awareness."
"Regardless of what you say, Emilito, it's impossible for me to believe all this," I said. "In fact, it's really inconceivable."
"Naturally, it's inconceivable," he agreed. "But, if you're after something conceivable, you don't have to sit here holding on to your doubts shouting at me. Something conceivable for you is to be naked and with your legs up."
He flashed a lecherous smile that gave me the chills.
But before I could defend myself, he changed his expression to one of utter seriousness.
He said softly, "To draw out the double gently and harmoniously, and shift to it our awareness of daily life is something without parallel. To do that is something inconceivable.
"Now let's do something thoroughly conceivable. Let's go and eat breakfast."