The Sword of Michael - eARC Read Online Free Page A

invasive? Has he come back to tell you something he didn’t tell you before he passed? Is he unwanted? Do you have unfinished business with him? How do you feel when he’s there? Is it cold, or warm, or nothing at all? When does he come…”
    She cut me off. “I get your point.”
    “I’m sorry,” I said. “If I sound testy, I don’t mean to be.”
    I had to check in with myself about that. Was I being cranky? Was there something else leaking in around the edges of this conversation? I sent my senses out, whispered “Tigre” and felt my white tiger’s presence and the ghost of a whisper, “Gone…”
    “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to rush you…I just felt something.”
    She looked around. Her eyes were wide in alarm. “Is he here?”
    “No,” I said. “You’re safe. There’s nothing here.”
    “Now…” Tigre whispered. “Something brushed through here, past your protection…”
    I have heavy duty protection on my house. Beyond heavy duty. Industrial grade. Something that brushed by my protection and then left with only a trace of a faint disturbance?
    “This will be more than what it seems,” Burt whispered.
    “Thanks, Burt,” I thought.
    “Tell me about your father,” I said. “What’s it like when he comes to see you?”
    Her face flushed. Anger. “I see him standing there. In my house. When I’m walking on the street. In my car, in the passenger seat when I drive…”
    “So you see him?” I prompted.
    “Yes,” she said. “But I feel him, too. The weight of his disapproval. His look.”
    The weight of his disapproval.
    “So it’s like a weight on you?” I said. “You can see him, you can feel him too? It feels heavy?”
    “Yes. Like a big heavy black blanket thrown over my head…I get all fuzzy, can’t think straight, I’m confused…”
    “Do you feel his thoughts, too? Hear them? In your head?”
    She looked away and studied, too carefully, the Tibetan mandala hanging on the wall.
    “Yes,” she said. “I hear him all the time. Sometimes faint, sometimes loud…sometimes he’s not there, but then just when I think he’s gone, he comes back.”
    “You feel this sensation at the same time? The heavy blanket feeling?”
    “Yes.”
    “When did he pass?”
    “Last year. In the fall.”
    It was spring now, so it had been six or seven months. Most souls cross quickly. Some linger in the part of the Spirit World called the Bardo or Purgatory, especially those with unfinished business. They also may linger if they don’t realize they’re dead, and they’ll cling to people or places they knew when they were alive. Those lost souls become confused and if they don’t pass over into the Light, they wither away to wizened vestiges as their soul essence slips away. They’re then drawn to the living and attach themselves to an embodied soul in a body, and they sip that life essence to experience life secondhand. That’s always to the detriment of the possessed. They feel tired, fatigued, suffer sudden mood swings, thoughts that aren’t their own, hear voices, feel odd sensations, see and experience strange phenomenon…all that cluster of symptoms can mean possession.
    But not always.
    And if it was, it’s not necessarily human in origin. There’s an epidemic of nonhuman energies possessing humans that every credible practitioner knew about, but the overall presentation of this case indicated that the suffering being attached to Maryka was the lost soul of a human.
    “What was your relationship like? When he was alive?” I said. I sensed the answer, but I needed to see the energy around her response.
    A flush of anger. “I hated him. He…”
    I nodded and looked away. It was important now to honor the wounded dignity she drew around herself.
    A long silence between us. I stared into space and whispered softly, “Mother Mary…”
    I’m not what most people would call a Christian. I know and honor the power of the Christ, but I have a special