joegoda | Nano Day 28 - Titled: The Pan Aspect

For Capi and the Readers. What a long trip it's been...

"Thanks," I said, adjusting the seatbelt and wiping drool off my face. "It's good to be back." I looked at the road up ahead. She was holding her own, but she was swerving just a bit. "Um. You want me to take over?"

"Why no, but thank you very much for offering." Angelina was still running her Aspect. "I'm finding this rather..." she looked over at me, smiling brightly, "exciting!"

"Well..." I wasn't exactly scared, but mountain roads aren't easy for beginners. "If you start to feel stressed, you stop, all right?"

"Very well, mister Chester." Again, that pat on my thigh. "I will. I promise."

We zipped on down the road. I have to admit, it was nice to be a passenger for a change. Angelina seemed to be doing incredibly well, considering.

"Now then, mister Chester." The Countess glanced at me. "About that chat." She was smiling. I was nervous. We may have made a cute couple.

"I want you to know," she went on, "That my intentions are honorable. I wanted to talk about Angelina and her family. But I wanted to talk to you while I was in control, so that Angelina wouldn't interrupt."

"But... you're Angelina." Okay, it wasn't the first time I was confused.

"No, I'm the Countess. That... Aspect that you talk about. Just as Pan is an Aspect of you." She focused on passing a truck pulling a boat. I was impressed. For only having been driving for about ten minutes, she was amazing. "What do you know about your own Aspect?" the Countess asked. "I've heard what you told Angelina, because yes, we inhabit the same body, and we use the same mind, but I am not, repeat not, Angelina. So, what do you really know about your Aspect?"

"Uh." This was different. "I know that I first discovered this Aspect of myself when I was, about ten or so. I know that he comes out when..."

She didn't let me finish. "It does not sound like you know very much, mister Chester. Let me fill in some gaps in your education."

She deftly moved around a combine, heading South, but taking two lanes.

"An Aspect is just not an odd part of your personality, mister Chester. An Aspect is a seed, it's a veritable recording of an entity or, in your case, a demi-god. In Angelina's case, a Goddess."

"A Goddess?" I asked. "What the hell are you talking about?" My mind backed up to a previous thought that I had. "Demeter?"

"Why yes, exactly so." The Countess said. "Demeter. Earth mother. The huntress." She looked down at the spot between the seats, where our trash had been collected. "I think we need another pit stop." She glance at me and asked, "Would you like some coffee? Perhaps something to eat? It is nearly six- thirty. You must be hungry."

I was. I told her so. I was still confused. It was possible that I was dealing with a truly crazy person, but, then again, it was possible I was not. The universe is a very strange place after all. If I'm talking to an Aspect of the Goddess Demeter, and that Aspect can give me more information about this oddity in my soul, then who am I to argue.

"Tell more of this Aspect of mine," I asked. Time for the teacher to be the student.

"Pan?" she shot to me. "You know all about Pan. Demi-god, born of human mother and God father. Master of Nature. You already know about him, so I don't know why you are asking." She nodded. "I knew him myself. I was waiting for him to come along."

"You were waiting for him?" Okay. I decided to just go on. What the heck. "Did you know he was in me?"

"No," she explained. "It doesn't quite work that way." The road ahead looked fairly empty. "I think we shall have quite a number of miles to go before we shall see your coffee, mister Chester." She smiled, and she sighed. Let me explain to you, in your own words, about how Aspects work."

"My own words?"

"Did you know, mister Chester, that you have the habit of repeating my statements back to me in question form?"

"I do?" I realized she was right. I do. I think it's because I had no idea what she was talking about. "Okay, I'll shut up."

"Oh, no, that is not what I meant at all." She patted my thigh again. "You will have time to ask all the questions you wish, after. But for now, please, let me speak and tell you about yourself."

"All right." I was wanting to keep my eyes on the road. The sun was dropping like a rock, the night was coming on, and I just knew that I'd be driving any second now.

"You yourself came up with the answer, and you even told Angelina about it. You talked about harmonic vibrations and how these vibrations are absorbed and reflected, yes?"

"Yes."

"We Aspects, and I assure you, there are many, many of us," she looked over at me and winked, "we aspects are not the old Gods possessing the bodies of normal humans. This much you have said, and this much is true. We are, rather, the vibrations of thousands of minds, human minds, who have, through the centuries imagined us, or dreamed of us, or written of us, or told tales of us. What we are made up of are the vibrations of these thoughts and stories and writings and dreams. We are the harmonics, the coalescence of those vibrations that were created. We are the stuff of songs." She looked over at me, to see if I understood.

"So," I said, "If I understand you correctly, Countess, Aspects are just... what, vibrations absorbed by an individual?"

"Oh, so much more than that, Chester" She dropped the cute 'mister'. Good. It irritated me. But then, she dropped the bombshell on me. "Tell me about your theory of harmonious and discordant vibrations. Tell me about reincarnation." She turned those liquid brown eyes on me and smiled that radiant smile.

"Reincarnation?" This was getting into strange stuff, but I figured what the heck? Since we were already into strange stuff, my little ideas weren't any stranger. In fact, considering all we'd been through, they were right at home. I told her about the vibrating baby theory.

The vibrating baby theory is an idea I had that was given that name because it involved birth, and the harmonics of the human mind, spirit and body. It's the only way I could possibly reconcile the concept of reincarnation within my mind. It goes like this:

Everything we are, do, and think as we live our entire life is reflected in all directions at once. Since everything we are, do, and think are nothing more, and nothing less, than vibrations of different types of energy, these vibrations radiate out and out forever and ever, amen. Vibrations, and I don't care what type you talk about, are either absorbed or reflected when they meet with another vibration or physical body. They are not ignored. They can't be. Absorbed or reflected, that is all. There is a third aspect, and that is absorbed AND reflected, but it's really just a mingling of the primary concept.

Working with the concept of harmony and discord, a physical body will either vibrate with the same frequency if that physical body vibrates with a harmonious frequency and will absorb the same essence of the first vibration, or, conversely, if the two frequencies are in discord, it will reflect the vibration and only be affected in the sense it does not pick up the essence of the first vibration.

Now, these vibrations, some of them, can carry an entire lifetime of knowledge an experience. Mass enough vibrations together and you have a life. That famous story where you life flashes before your eyes right before you die? If true, your entire life flows out from your conscious mind in a massed vibration, flying through space in all directions.

Some physical bodies absorb, some physical bodies reflect. Some of these massed vibrations carrying the sum total of a human life are reflected back to earth. It would be highly improbably, in my thinking, to imagine that in two million years of life on this planet, that two human beings would never vibrate with harmonies close to one another.

On two guitars placed across the room from each other, if you pluck a string on one, the string on the second guitar will vibrate, without having been touched. Play a cord on one, the cord will be transfered to the second without human intervention. It just is.

The same is for everything. That is why someone can enter a room and you will automatically like them, or feel you have known them before. You vibrate at the same frequency on some level or another. The same can be said for people that walk into a room and you immediately dislike them. You vibrate at discordant frequencies. You cannot like each other, or if you try, a very bad relationship will occur. This also causes some people to look at a very happy couple and wonder how the heck they got together. It's because they share vibes. Their frequencies are within the same musical range.

The frequencies that are bouncing around all the time, these vibrations of life that are being either absorbed or reflected... these can be absorbed by the harmonically receptive and very young brain of a baby, possibly even back to the embryonic stage.

These life vibrations can resonate inside the young mind and set up house, so to speak. As the child grows and experiences, some experiences may trigger memories of a life the child never had. Things, places and people may be very familiar to a child, when there is nothing whatsoever in that child's past to indicate any familiarity with these things, places or persons at all.

That is my 'vibrating baby' theory. A scientific approach to reincarnation. It might be pure and total crap, but it works for me.

She listened, politely and without interruption, through the entire lecture, because that was what it was. I have taught in public schools, and I also performed on stage. When I get my jazz on, it becomes a lecture, and I speak just as if I actually know what I was talking about.

We made one stop during my forty-five minute speech. The little town of Chiloquin, Oregon, was pretty small. Less than eight hundred people live there, most of them under the age of forty. We refilled my coffee with a good Columbian Blend and she, Angelina or the Countess or Demeter, or who ever the hell she was now, got another Coke. I picked up one of those 'heat and eat' sandwiches, a double cheese burger. Sometimes they taste like cooked cardboard, sometimes they beat the heck out of Mickey Dee. But then, in my opinion, cooked cardboard will always beat the heck out of McDonalds. This one wasn't too bad. At least it was food, and it was hot.

I finished my vibrational harmonics lecture in the van. I would have followed her around the store rambling on and on about it, but for some reason, every eye in the place was on her. From the second Angelina walked into the place, it was like every head was on a swivel, and every pair of eyes turned to her.

Well, to be fair, she looked great. Better than great, she looked fabulous and assured, she looked sexy and confidant. I can see the attraction. I could feel the attraction. I also knew it was part of the Aspect of Demeter to be attracted to her.

Wearing Demeter, Angelina could be just about any age. Earth Mother Demeter goes through every single stage of life, every single year. In Spring, she's newborn, in Summer, a teenager. Fall, she becomes middle-aged, like she is now. Just about my age, and I gotta tell you, she was very hot. Winter comes and she ages to the Crone stage. Demeter doesn't die, she simply goes to sleep, and when she wakes back up, she's gotta brand new bag, all shiny and new.

Rather than attract really undue attention, we just shopped. We picked up our few supplies and hit the road again. We were one hour away from Prospect. It was almost seven pm, it was night and we were going to be driving through one of the United States most interesting landmarks, Crater Lake National Park. Highway 62, out of Chiloquin and heading north goes right through it.

Chances of another ambush were very likely. Both of us were of an unspoken agreement about this. I think we've shown that we were ready for just about anything.

Besides, for a family of Gods, they were pretty damn lame. If I was leading the attack, and I was using my Pan Aspect to full effect, I'd be going and going like the Energizer Bunny at them, until they were whittled down and begging for mercy. This one attack at a time, and never in daylight just seemed... weak.

There is more here than meets the eye. There always is.

After I finished my dissertation on vibrational harmonics, Angelina, still in the guise of her Aspect, looked in the mirror. I thought she was looking behind us, but when I turned in the seat, there was nothing suspicious. She wasn't looking behind us, she was adjusting her makeup. She adjusted one slim eye brow, cocked her head at me and nodded.

"Yes, that would explain quite a bit. The Aspects, as you call them, have been around for quite a while. It was such that we were never very many, or never very close." She nodded again, and repeated herself. "Yes, that would explain quite a bit."

"Oh?" I was curious. "Such as?"

"As I said, the Aspects, such as we are, are not actual Gods and Goddesses, as you suspect. We don't possess those that we inhabit. Instead, we are much weaker forms than those Gods and Goddesses that were imagined by your ancestors." She paused, and considered for a bit.

"that's not completely true, either. The Aspects, in some form, are exactly as they were imagined and sung about and had stories told about them. We contain exactly not one whit more and not one whit less abilities and power than the person we are inhabiting imagines us to have."

She told me this in her Romanian purr, which was lovely to hear and very soothing. I had, up to this point, had a pretty tiring day, and I could feel myself slipping to snooze.

"No, no, mister Chester!" I felt a slim finger poke my ribs, and I jumped. "You cannot sleep. Not yet. Miles to go and promises to keep, remember?"

"Yeah," I muttered, "sorry. Maybe a bit more coffee."

While I drank, she talked. She talked about how, after a decade or so of stories of the Gods and Goddesses from around the world, the stories eventually began to take on a life of their own. How, occasionally, one or the other of them would find themselves away and aware, but living in the body of a human. Sometimes Demeter would find herself in the body of a male, who refused to believe that he was the nurturing type, so she would be trapped, unable to do any thing.

Not all of the Gods of the old world made it. Some stories passed out of memory and were never told again. But the ones that were repeated, over and over, the ones that children and sometimes adults would pretend to be? These were the Gods and Goddesses who eventually found out that they were awake. The vibrations of the stories and legends and the scores of worshipers that carried them around in their hearts and mind gave a sort of life to them. The vibrations set up by the thoughts and memories, the stories and songs, the chants and offerings. They created this life, which bounced around the universe, and became either reflected or absorbed.

Ever so often, a child was born whose make up, physically, was close enough to the vibrational harmonics of these imaginary creatures that the child would take on some of the characteristics. It happened rarely, but it did happen. Even more rare was a child born to whom the harmonics were just a natural fit, where the entirety of the child could absorb the entirety of the vibration.

Such a child was Angelina, who, through escaping of some form of emotional or mental trauma, would create another personal, a separate personality. That personality would, quite naturally, take the form of the strongest Aspect of a buried personal, which in the case of Angelina, was the Goddess Demeter. In my case, it was Pan, that horny little devil inside of me.

There were other children where the aspect persona was housed, but was never fostered, simply because the stimuli of their life was not enough to cause a desire or a need to escape to another personality or even the creation of one from simple fantasy. There really are children who live a normal life, free from the terrorism of parents, siblings or other children or adults. These children, who never suffer the fragmentation of personality, never have the chance to touch the aspect that lies deep inside of them.

Ah, the advantage of having lived a dysfunctional life.

"You mean to tell me," I asked, when she had run down, "That if I had lived a normal life, not gone into my shell to meditate at such an early age, or escaped into my own child fantasies that my Pan Aspect would never have developed?"

She raised one slim finger to make a point. "Quite so, or quite possibly so." She expertly took the turn from 95 onto 422 that connected to the Crater Lake highway and continued speaking. "There are quite likely cases where a child has had an accident and woke up to strange memories, and stranger abilities. There have also been cases where adults have had the same thing. What is required is the releasing of the original personality its hold on the body long enough for the buried aspect persona to assert itself."

"You guys have taken a long time to think this through, haven't you?" I continued to drink my coffee, but I was running low. I reached for her Coke, asked her "May I?", and she laughed.

"You are such a strange man, Chester."

"We have had centuries to think about this, indeed." She nodded. "Just so, just so. There have been a few times when we, the Aspects, have been enough in number to recognize ourselves among the normal humans." A brief flicker of... something passed over her face. "Of course, sometimes these meetings are not always... Sometimes they do not work out to the benefit of all."

She grew silent, and I let her have those moments. Sometimes memories can take a while to fade, and the emotions can grab hold. I could tell by her face she was looking far back at something that was not a happy time.

"So," I interrupted her reverie after a few minutes.

It had gotten very dark and I started to feel the buzz as we neared Crater Lake State Park. This buzz was different than having a tickle or a tingle that lets you know that someone is doing something near you or to you. This was a sense of power, like when you bring silver and quartz together. This was the sort of buzz you get when you are very hungry or very thirsty and finally get that bit of food or that drink of fresh water. It flows up and down your spine, filling you with the sense of incredible... self.

In my case, my awareness expanded, almost uncomfortably so, to the point that I could see everything in the night, and hear a hundred miles away, if I focused on it. Not that I would do it, the sound would deafen me or confuse me with the intensity. But I knew that it was there, and I knew I could do it. Heck, I knew that if I wanted to, I could float this van in mid-air and delivery it right to the doorstep.

Why didn't I? Two reasons.

One, I hate this sort of power drug. It starts out small and you only use it just a bit. Then you get to using it more and more and eventually it burns you out and you aren't good for anything, at all. You're burned up until your dead.

Two, I don't like to show off. I mean, I do, but only with things that everyone else can do. Why show off something that only you can do? Why brag about something that isn't possible for anyone else to accomplish? That gives other folks no chance at all of getting to where you are. I'm really no different from any other schmo. Really.

But it was kinda cool to see other sasquatch roaming through the forest, when they thought they were invisible. It was rather neat to be able to hear their grunts and purrs and humming.

The night air, though cold at thirty four degrees, flowed across my skin like soft velvet. Every breath I took filled me to my soul. I was home, or at least it felt like that. I've been told I was home before, only to find that home was more like a mobile home, capable of moving the second that it became uncomfortable for anyone else. Home is where you hang your head. In the end, I prefer my apartment.

"It feels wonderful, does it not?" Angelina asked. "Did you know that, when your Aspect is submerged, it cannot feel your skin?" She sighed breathing.

"No," I admitted.

"It's true. We cannot feel anything unless we have been allowed to come out and play." She smiled at me, her teeth flashing in the reflected headlights. she sighed again, but this was as sigh of resigned sadness.

"I know you have many, many questions you wish to ask me," she said. "I can tell this from your constantly probing mind."

She pulled the van over onto the small shoulder, put it in park and turned to me.

"As an Aspect, I cannot stay aware for very long and use any of my own abilities. It would use up this body at an incredible rate." She reached over and took my hand in hers. "The body would, indeed, burst into flames and would die."

"As a simple persona, like I am now, I can continue for many days, but it would cause the core personality, Angelina herself, to become submerged instead." She shook her head sadly. "This I cannot allow, as much fun as I might have out here in the big world. We Aspects are made up things, like shadow puppets. We are the imaginations of hundreds of thousands of people, and we can only come to life if the body we inhabit allows us to come to life by believing in us."

She smiled, raised my hand to her cheek and closed her eyes. This was not a young twenty something girl that I picked up along the road This was a woman, near my age, though thousands of years older, and I could feel her passion for life flowing from her hand to mine.

"Even our life is make believe, Chester. All of us. Every Aspect is just a fantasy, but a very, very real fantasy, none the less."

She took my hand from her cheek, opened her eyes and looked straight at my heart. Her eyes, brown though they may have been were shining in the night, liquid and beautiful. She raised my hand to her lips and gently kissed it.

"Such a simple hand," she said softly, the words flowing out like honey. "Such a complex person. Perhaps, once this is all over, we shall meet again, and discuss old times, eh?"

"What?" Her words, her eyes, the smell of her wafting through the van, The night air and the intoxication of the mountain was causing my head to swim. "What did you say?"

She let go of my hand, raised her index finger to her lips and kissed it. She passed that kiss over to my lips and pressed her finger against them.

"I cannot drive up to the house, Chester. Her father, a crazy man who built his own Aspect, has set wards about it, so that I may not enter. He does not know of me, but has created a protection to keep anyone from throwing their aspect while on his property. It is his safe house."

"You have to leave?" Apparently, I was struck with the stupid virus. Strong emotions, especially the seductive ones, tend to make most people incredibly stupid. That's why I avoid them.

She pulled back from me and nodded. "Yes, and it must be now. Angelina needs to go up to the door, not her Aspect." She looked at me slyly. "You can't use your Aspect there, either, you know."

"Which is fine by me," I said. "I think he's so rusty that he wouldn't know what to do."

"Do not underestimate Pan, Chester. He's far more powerful than any of the other Gods gave him credit for." She smiled that incredible smile and winked at me. "Do not underestimate yourself, either. You and Pan are two of a kind. It is possible that you and he... integrated, as you say." She shrugged. "I know he is very strong in you, but I also know that you keep him in chains." Again, that heartbreaking sigh, her breasts rising and falling like two icebergs bobbing on the ocean. "I must say goodbye now." She reached for the door handle and waited. "You have to drive, Chester. You have to get out of the door and take my place."

I nodded, feeling some sort of odd emotions twist and well up inside of me. Every instinct in me wanted to take her in my arms, lead her into the woods and see what sort of magic we could make. Every single instinct told me that it was right, it was proper and it would only lead to greatness for both of us.

As if reading my thoughts, and perhaps she did, she shook her head and smiled sadly. "It is not for now, my dear Pan. It is, perhaps, for later. For now, you must drive this van and be my hero."

Again, I nodded. I reached for the door handle of the passenger side like it was the hardest thing I had ever done. Five hundred years had come and gone since I last saw Demeter and I .... What the hell? Five hundred years? I had no single idea where that had come from. Or, actually I did. I considered shoving my Aspect down where he belonged, but then I shrugged and thought, what the hell? I let him loose.

I reached over and gently stroked Angelina's cheek. I saw a single tear run down from her eye and I said to her, "Never fear, pretty one. It has been a very, very long time and this time perhaps we will be together again when all this mess is over and one with. This one, this Chester is one of a kind. He won't let us down, and he won't lose himself."

I felt a sudden emptiness that always happens when Pan pulls back in. I looked over at Angelina, who had once again, become a twenty something. She looked very sad, but smiled bravely.

"I guess they like each other, huh?" She said.

"Seems like it, Angel." I reached for the door handle, and pulled it open. "Let's switch, okay?"

She nodded and got out of her door. When we passed in front of the van, her hand brushed mine and we stopped. "We make a pretty good team, you know."

I nodded, and remembered that she was just a girl, just a little girl, more than half my age. "Yep," I said, somberly. "That we do. And you're a heck of a driver."

She smiled brightly at this, some of the sadness fading from her eyes. "Yes! I am, aren't I?"

The moment broken, and I think it was broken by mutual consent, I climbed in the drivers side door. I waited until she was firmly buckled in, saw her wipe Demeter's tears from her cheeks. At least, I think they were Demeter's.

"Ready?" I asked.

She nodded.

"Good! Because I have no idea where I'm going." I put the van in drive and headed into Crater Lake National Park. We were thirty minutes from her home, give or take. "Let's go say hello to daddy."

The drive up Crater Lake Highway, or the Volcanic Legacy Scenic Byway, or Highway 62, depending on how much you want to show off bragging about your highway knowledge, was a twisting and turning drive through darkness. I'd like to say I could see the sights. I'd love to give a travelogue of all the wonders of nature I saw. I can't. It was too friggin dark.

Granted, I had slightly enhanced sight, due to all the crystalline structures I was driving through. One of the things about volcanoes is that they drive all sorts of crystals from deep in the earth to the surface. Almost all of the diamond mines, and possibly all of them, are either in, or near some ancient volcanic rock that was caused by an actual volcano erupting on that spot or was caused by some volcano eruption and tossing its cookies hundreds of miles away.

But even with enhanced sight, which would have allowed me to walk around in starlight as if it was twilight, I didn't see much. Twice deer jumped in front of the car, causing me to brake harshly, and I could have sworn that a pack or a herd or whatever you call a bunch of Sasquatch followed us for a few miles. Probably attracted to whatever scent that Harry left on the van when we slammed into him.

The drive through the park is about fourteen miles. It turns, it twists, it switchbacks. It goes up, it goes down. There is an eight mile stretch of road just North of the junction of highways 127 and 23 in Arkansas, driving to Eureka Springs that was great practice for this. It has the sort of curves and hills that just get absolutely boring after about the first mile and pretty soon I'm going "Please God! Just give me some straight road!"

Yes. That is what the drive through Crater Lake State Park on highway 62 is like at seven fourty at night. It just kept going and going and going. I thought it was going to drive me nuts.

"Are you always so cranky at night?" Angelina asked me.

"Nooo," I said, a bit testily. "This only happens when I drive through turn after turn after turn and hill after hill after hill. Boredom sets in, and then the Donner party decided to eat each other, rather than face another turn."

"Well," she said, testily back. "You won't have to worry about it much longer. The turn off to my house is just up ahead."

And we were doing so well, too. Even the best traveling partners will occasionally snap each other's head off. It's a given. Then, afterwards, over a beer or dinner, they'll apologized with a simple, "I'm sorry." and "Fergit it. Did you happen to notice that moron taking the exit the wrong way?" and then you'll both laugh and go on.

I had driven so long that it was making my teeth hurt. I had driven so far that I had not even noticed that we were now heading South on highway 62. We had completely left the state park and I was headed towards Prospect. I glanced at the clock and it showed five after eight.

"Um," I asked, "Did your father happen to say what time you had to be back today?"

"He said midnight," Angelina replied. She hadn't gotten over the grumpies and had her arms crossed. "I told you that, remember?"

"Hey," I shot back. "I'm old. Old guys forget things easily."

"I'll say." Snappy comebacks, snappy comebacks. Why aren't there any snappy comebacks when I need them?

"Just tell me where to turn, okay?" I sniffed. "Then I'll drop you off and we'll be done with this. You'll never have to see me again."

She didn't say anything for a while, but when she did, it was simply "Turn right here." Her words carried all the ice they possibly could. I got the feeling I said something wrong.

I bumped off the highway and onto a little dirt road that looked like it was nothing more than a goat path. Apparently daddy, for all his money, wanted to keep his secret hideout... um... secret. I didn't mention anything about it to Angelina. I had probably already said too much as it was.

Still, the emotional pressure in the van was getting way to thick and heavy, so I had to do something. I have a belief it is easier to push out one apology than start a thousand year old war.

"You know," I said, "It sure is pretty out here at night."

I was answered with the silence of the cold, cold grave.

"I would bet," I tried again, "that Harry and his family comes on a picnic out here."

Not a word. I did hear what I thought was a sniff, though. I took that for an agreement to keep talking.

"Now that your Aspect has come out, I would bet you'll see a lot of Harry's family."

"To hell with Harry." It was quiet, and it was low, but it was something. Even angry, it was something. Once the door is opened, might as well come in.

"I thought Harry was nice." I said, simply.

"Why would you say something like that to me?" Angelina burst out.

"Huh?" I asked. "Um.. because you told me you thought Harry was nice?"

"NO!" she cried. "Not that." Yep, there was a definite sniff there. "That other thing."

"Which other thing?" I was confused, just a bit. I suspected I knew which other thing, but I needed to get a definite. "I've said a thousand things. Which other thing?"

"I hate men." She said and folded her arms again.

"Fair enough," I retorted. "I hate women." And since I've already gone over this, I will not explain the six billion reasons why this is true, and I will not explain the six billion reasons why this is not true.

"You have to stop here." She said.

I thought she was being a butt head. "Why?" I asked snidely.

"Because the road stops."

And it was true. The road stopped right then and there. I slowed the van and pulled to a stop right before a very large drop off.

"Uh, okay," I said, a bit awed and a lot sheepish. "I don't remember this on the map."

"It's there," Angelina grumped at me, getting out of the van.

"Hey!" I called out. I shut off the van, turned off the lights and scrambled to catch up to her. "Hey!"

"What?" she said, turning to me. "What? I thought you were 'done with this'. You got me home, you can get back in your van and just drive away."

"Angelina," I started, but then dropped my arms to my side. What do you say when you've hurt someone's feelings, especially when you've... especially when you've grown fond of them. Yeah, okay. I said it, now shut up.

"I'm sorry." I had forgotten to say that, hadn't I? "I was being an idiot."

She stood at the edge of the drop off, looking into the distance. "Why don't you go?"

"Because you aren't home yet. Because it's night and I don't want anything to happen to you. Because you're important to me." How many becauses can you come up with? "Because... just because I don't want to leave you, alone."

She turned to me slowly, her face was wet and shiny in the starlight. Sometimes I hate enhanced vision.

"You know," she began, "I know every thing you and... and Demeter... talked about. I was there. It's my body, you know."

Ah. Emotions. Gotta love 'em. I should have seen this coming a mile away. In fact, I did see this coming, a thousand miles away, and thought I was trying to avoid it. How many times to I have to tell myself to leave the humans alone! Bad Chester! No cookie for you!

Still, I was in it up to my elbows, or heartstrings, which ever metaphor fits. "I do know, Angelina. Believe me, I know." I walked up to her and touched her elbow, just a little touch. She pulled away as if I had burned her.

"I have lived with my Aspect longer than you've been alive," I told her. "I know what happens when I let him out to do what he does best. Hearts get broken, lives get turned upside down, anger comes out and people get hurt. It's the way it always goes."

"So," she sniffed, her back still to me. "You make up for it by getting pissy and hurting them before you get a chance to get hurt yourself?"

"No," I defended, "no. Well... not always." I tossed my hands up. "Look, Angelina. I told you up front that I wasn't a nice guy. And I'm fifty years old, for Pete's sake! What sort of a romance would that be?"

"Who said anything about romance?" She wasn't giving an inch. "Maybe I just wanted to be your friend. Just because that stupid Aspect of mine wants to jump your bones doesn't mean I do." She put her fists on her hips and turned to face me. "I know you're fifty, buddy. I mean, really. You and me? Gross, please." She pointed a finger at me and said "It seems to me that you've had that little sex thing on your mind from the moment you met me."

"Sexual tension will always happen when you put two of opposite sexual inclinations in the same room." I doubt me saying that would have any positive effect. Instead, I lied.

"Not ever! I looked at you like a little sister, someone I was to protect."

"Oh?" She walked closer to me. "Oh? Is that true, Mister 'perhaps we'll be together again'? What do you think was meant by that? A game of cards? Some chess maybe?"

Oh yeah, she was a bit upset. But at least she was talking to me. Once that door is open, blah, blah, blah.

"Okay. Yeah, okay. Right." Once again, I threw up my hands. "You got me. You got me dead to rights, and I admit it. I'm attracted to you. You're an attractive girl, and an attractive woman, okay? I'm attracted to you, and I'm so sorry about that, Angelina. I'm an old, over the hill guy, who hasn't had a date or anyone to... um... be with in over three years. So sue me. I'm human." If you're going to play cards, best play best as you can. I'm a lousy card player. I can't bluff worth shit.

She stared at me. Maybe Aspects won't work on her father's land, but I swear she was giving me the deep into my soul look that Demeter did back in the van. There was no tingle, no tickle, not even the wild rush of power driving through Crater Lake gave me. But I could feel her eyes scanning me, checking for any falsehood.

"So, you're human," she said finally.

"Yep. Born and bred."

"And you find me attractive." Well, at least she was subtle.

"I said so, didn't I?"

"Don't snap at me now, Chester," she said with a knowing smirk. "You were doing so well."

"Yes, Angelina, I find you attractive." I do know when I'm beaten. I just don't always like it.

"Good," she said stepping forward. "Then maybe we can be friends. Think you can hold back on the sex stuff and let that happen?"

I will never understand women. She forces me to admit that I find her attractive, and then she just wants to be friends. As if I had to find her attractive to be her friend. What if I had not found her attractive, and instead would have rather been with a warthog than her? Wait... if I had rather been with a warthog, why would I have even been there? The answer is simple. I was there because she needed my help. Attractive was just a bonus. Still, I had to find her attractive to be her friend? I will never, ever understand the human race.

"I think I can manage that," I answered honestly.

Because I can, and because I have with many of my women friends. And yes, to me, they are all attractive, because in honesty, don't you have to find someone attractive to want to be their friend? Isn't it an attraction that draws you to them in the first place? I find all my friends, male and female attractive, so there.

"All right then," she said, holding out her hand. "Let's go meet my family." She stepped toward the drop off, and I saw there were steps cut into it, leading down. At the bottom was a very large house, set into the side of the cliff, about twenty or thirty feet down.

"Watch your step, old man." She looked back at me, and grinned. "I wouldn't want you to break you hip or something."

Noticing the sour expression on my face as I carefully made my way, she said, "Oh come on. I just wanted to make sure that my Galahad was pure of heart. Besides, you pissed me off. You don't have to be mean to me, you know."

"I know," I muttered loud enough for her to hear. "I just..."

"You just don't want anyone to get close to you," She observed. "I get it."

At the bottom of the steps there was a large flat porch. She stopped there until I caught up with her.

"I just want to assure you that I will not try, at any time, to seduce you." She smiled and grinned her catbird grin. "I can't say the same thing for Demeter though. She really likes you."

"Say what?" I hate to be speechless, but that was all I could come up with.

The house, or should I say, the mansion, was incredible. It was cut into the side of a cliff and it was two stories tall. It was impossible to say how deep it was set into the mountain, but I had the feeling that it was massive.

The front looked like one of those old Antebellum houses, like they had in the deep South during the Gone with the Wind days. Four tall Greek type columns held up a triangular peaked roof. The design on the gable was interesting. It looked like an all seeing eye from the Free Masons. Grandfather Chester was a third degree mason, and that's a whole other story.

The entire thing, door, steps, gable, all seeing eye, all seemed to be carved out of solid rock. I'm sure in the day time it got really, really hot out here.

Angelina pulled a key from her pack and unlocked the front door. It was almost nine now, after the drive and the argument and all the other delays. Maybe the family was asleep. Maybe they had gone to the movies. Maybe a trip to the local sonic three hundred miles away had overtaken them.

I should be so lucky.

She pushed open the huge door and walked in. "Come on!" she whispered loudly to me. I followed her into the entryway.

Yep, right out of Gone with the Wind, or some quasi-Gothic romance novel.

Of to the left was the sitting room, spotless, with love seat done in a cream upholstery with little red roses embroidered on it. There were two seats on either side of the love seat, a short mahogany table containing a few magazines and a spinet. I don't think I've ever seen a house with a spinet until I walked into Angelina's.

To the right, was probably the library or drawing room. There were two large doors reaching up to the ceiling, some fifteen foot above us. They were wood, those doors, and very dark wood. The sort of dark wood that demands knocking before entering. Must be Dad's office.

The hallway we were in led deeper into the house and I could see from where I stood that about ten feet away there was another large room, probably circular. It was all done in white and there appeared to be staircases that ran up either side to a small balcony. I caught the hint of what looked to be very old oil paintings on the walls. There was a piano in that room, and it sat on a large carpet of Persian persuasion.

Let your imagination go, is my best advice. It was big, it was mostly cream colored walls interspersed with old oil paintings, and it belonged to Scarlett O'Hara. Tara is my best description. It was, to be quite frank, rich. Standing in it, I felt definitely out of place, oh, most definitely.

Angelina smiled at me, beaming. She could see that I was impressed, and I was indeed. And intimidated, for sure.

"Mother!" she called out. "I'm home!"