Hangar 13

“So,” he said, not at all sure he was putting the theory together properly, “you’re saying this sound creates a doorway, a passage into the right lobe, where this opening is located?”

With a sigh, Ellie got up. “I wish everyone was as perceptive as you.”

Mac sat back, content as never before. The sound of water running and dishes being piled in the sink lulled him pleasantly. “You are able to go into this fourth dimension with the sound frequency created by a drum?”

“Yes.” Ellie pulled down a dish towel and placed it on the counter next to the sinks. “Come on, you can help dry, Major.”

He grinned and stood up. “Considering the great meal, it’s the least I can do.”

Ellie met his very male smile. She noted how relaxed Mac had already become. He was like so many people when first confronted with metaphysics: threatened and ignorant. Once she was able to explain the process in nonthreatening terms, most people lost their wariness. She didn’t expect Mac to believe her, but in order for her to answer the question he’d come to her to solve, he had to understand the basic mechanics of what she did.

As Mac stood beside her drying the dishes, he said, “So tell me—how does this all fit with the potential problem out in Hangar 13?”

CHAPTER THREE

Ellie scrubbed the skillet as she spoke. “Shamans—and shamanesses—have a very unique skill,” she told Mac as he waited patiently at the sink, dish towel in hand. “We operate in the fourth dimension.” She glanced up at him to register his reaction. “What we do is talk lost pieces of a person’s soul into coming back to that person. That’s what we call a healing.”

“Pieces of your soul?” Mac gave her a very skeptical look.

“Don’t judge what I’m saying yet,” Ellie warned. She rinsed the skillet in hot water and handed it to him to dry. “Our belief embraces the possibility that people, as they go through life, lose pieces of themselves to another person or situation. If you’re having trouble with the words soul or spirit, then consider it a loss of energy. People, when traumatized by a situation such as a divorce, the death of a loved one, the loss of a job or some other kind of tragedy, will very often lose a piece of themselves or their energy. Because of the shock, the ‘piece’ becomes stuck or lodged in that time period of their life.”

Mac slowly dried the skillet, scowling. “Shock or trauma creates this condition?”

“Yes.” Ellie took the bean pot and washed it. “And it’s shock or trauma as perceived by the person, not by the world at large. For instance, a child of six falls off her bike and breaks her arm. Now, for an adult, this might not be such a shocking thing. But to the child, it’s a horrible trauma. That little girl will, in all probability, lose a piece of herself.”

Mac shook his head. “What does this losing of pieces do, then?”

She smiled a little and handed him the rinsed pot. “With enough pieces of energy or spirit lost, people fall out of balance with themselves. It’s a highly unconscious thing, but people who have suffered major soul loss begin to automatically rebalance in not-so-positive ways. A woman who gets divorced and loses a large piece of herself to her ex-husband may begin to binge on food, or drink, or be stuck emotionally in the past, never able to let go of that time in her life.”

Mac put the pot aside and leaned thoughtfully against the counter. “Divorce is something I can understand,” he said.

“Most of us do, unfortunately,” Ellie said. She pulled the plug to drain the soapy water and rinsed her hands under the tap. Leaning over, she pulled a dry towel from a peg on the side of the cupboard and dried her hands. “There’re a lot of what I call ‘red flags’ that tell me whether or not a person has lost a piece of himself—or herself—in a divorce.”

“Such as?”

She smiled. “I can see I have your attention a hundred percent.”

“I’m interested,” Mac said, “but that doesn’t mean I believe in this theory of yours.”

With a shrug, Ellie motioned for him to sit down. She began to put the pots and pans away. “That’s fine. I don’t force anyone to believe as I do. But to me, a sign of soul loss is a person who cannot forget the divorce—the hurt, the anger or whatever negative feelings were created as a consequence.”

Mac pulled out his chair and sat back down at the table. He could see dusk begin to settle outside the kitchen window, a few high clouds turned red-orange by the coming sunset. “I’d think it would be natural to have all those feelings after a divorce.” He certainly did.

“Yes, but two or three years afterward? No, that’s not healthy, Mac.”

He scowled.

“Have you been able to adjust to it? Have you gotten on with your life? Or are you carrying the divorce around with you like a good friend?”

“Ouch.” Mac rubbed his jaw. “My life hasn’t been very good since Johanna divorced me,” he admitted slowly.

“And you still think about it and her almost every day?”

He eyed her warily.

“I’m not being psychic, Mac. What I can tell you from my experience is that you two have taken pieces of each other. You’re still living in the past with your ex-wife. You’re probably wishing you had back the ‘good old days’ before the divorce happened.”

He shrugged. “You’re right….”

“That’s a sign of soul loss.” Ellie rested her hands on the table. “In a divorce where no pieces were taken by the partners involved, both are able to get on with their lives. They aren’t constantly thinking about the partner, about their part in causing the divorce. They are able to live in the present and look to the future.”

“Johanna divorced me,” Mac admitted in a quiet voice. “I didn’t want to, but…”

Gently, Ellie reached out and touched his arm. “Then, to correct this imbalance, I would tell you to have a shaman take a journey and check out the situation. Your ex-wife probably has a piece of you, and you have a piece of her. That’s why the past is still living in the present with you.”

Mac felt the brief touch of her fingers on his arm. His skin tingled pleasantly. He was sorry it was such brief contact. Ellie’s eyes held such compassion for him and he sensed her sincerity. “You’d use your drum and do what?”

Rising, Ellie gestured for him to follow her. “Come on, I’ll show you my healing room.”

Highly curious, Mac followed her through her home. Down a hall, she opened the first door on the right. Mac stopped short, amazed. On the floor was a dark brown buffalo robe. A small table held a number of Native American items, including sage, a long brown-and-white feather and a pottery bowl that held ashes. More than anything, Mac was aware of the feeling in the room. At first, he pooh-poohed it, but as he moved toward the center of the room, an incredible sense of tranquility blanketed him.

Ellie quietly shut the door and moved to his side. She saw disbelief warring with what his senses were picking up about the room’s energy. She leaned down and retrieved a drum covered with elk hide. A butterfly was painted on it. “This is the drum I use when I want to put myself into the right-brain state.” She took the drumstick and began to softly hit the instrument.

Mac felt the deep, low-throated sound coming from the circular drum that Ellie held. At first, he consciously stopped himself from feeling anything, but as the steady, monotonous beat filled the room, he sensed something. And he saw a change in Ellie’s eyes; they became less sharp, seemed to lose their focus.

With a small laugh, Ellie stopped beating the drum and set it back down against the wall. “If I keep playing it, I’ll go into an altered state, and I don’t want to.”

Shoving his hands in his pocket, he turned and looked around the rest of the room. There was a picture on the wall, and he went over to it. “Who are these people?”

Ellie touched the dark frame of the picture. “The woman in the middle is my mother, the other woman is my sister Diana, and that’s my father.”

The woman in the middle had fierce black eyes; she wore her gray hair in braids, but otherwise bore an uncanny resemblance to Ellie. Mac studied her face for a long time. Ellie’s sister looked more like her father, with lighter skin, dark brown hair and brown eyes. The women were wearing some kind of ceremonial clothes; the father was in a suit, looking proud. All of them were smiling.

“This photo was taken on the day I got married,” Ellie said reminiscently. “I had convinced my husband to let us get married on the reservation, with my mother performing the ceremony.” She sighed. “Actually, it was a compromise. Brian let my mother marry us, but then he demanded that a ‘real’ minister marry us off the reservation.”

Mac felt Ellie’s sadness. “He didn’t believe in your mother’s authority on the reservation?” Mac gazed down at her and saw the pain in her eyes.

“No. Actually,” Ellie admitted, “that’s why we eventually divorced. Brian couldn’t accept my culture, what I do, the fact that I’m a shamaness and my life is devoted to the healing arts.”

“So the women of your family are doctors on the reservation?”

Her mouth twitched. “We are called medicine people or healers. I let the medical doctors call themselves doctors. And there’s a big difference between a healer and a doctor.”

“Such as?” Mac took his hands out of his pockets.

“A healer, where I come from, is interested in the whole person, Mac. Modern doctors treat only a single piece or part, and address only the disease—not the issues that go into that state of imbalance. Healers take into account all the things about a person’s life that may make them ill. There’s a lot of common sense and practicality that comes into play, too.”

Ellie pointed to the buffalo rug. “Let’s take off our shoes and sit on down, shall we?”