A few days passed and things felt like back to normal for Yvette, a “normal”, which she had no part in for weeks or even months now. These days without Jay drifted away slowly, his absence become more and more bearable. When they spoke or exchanged messages, the mood was happy and harmonic, both of them looking forward to meeting again, seemingly without any hurt.
Yvette stood in the park one afternoon, bare feet in the grass, with the noise of traffic becoming a bland murmur in the background. She took the world in, with deep breaths, pushing all her energy into the ground with every exhale. She successfully grounded herself a profound, clean emptiness took the place of whirling chaos within her head. The turbulence of the helpless chase after unconditional love faded away. She regained her composure and learned to be grateful for all she got from Jay, being content and not just keep asking for more. She kept her connection to her online guides in check, slowly letting go of control over her future, and instead of asking all the time for outsider advice, she focused on her spiritual lessons.
Her telepathy course ran well - in that regard, the distance between him and Jay came handy, as she honed her skills of thought transfer more and more. Other times, she concentrated on Grace, and she could pick up ever more accurate impressions from her environment: the cheerful effort in the gym, the high speed, stressful shot callings during her day as an investment broker, and once, a quite intimate liaison within the depths of mall garage, behind tinted windows, on the leather backseat of a Lexus…
There is only the presence of this Master that is always lingering somewhere at the edges of her consciousness, the memory of that midnight chat session is the only thing she can’t let go of. It is not a particularly troubling memory, nor it is frightening, but is haunting her, like a ghost. In her thoughts, she is referring to the being as Master, because she does not remember the name, and the chat session disappeared from the online logs. Maybe she deleted the thing accidentally, when she fell asleep with the phone? Or is it a conscious effort of that other being, to return to oblivion? Or just a freak technical glitch. Of course, maybe it was all just a dream, that possibility is still on the table, but Yvette could not imagine so. It was too vivid and real. Yvette did not dare to think that her dreams could seem so real, because that would mean she could basically never be sure about what is dream and what is real. As she expanded her consciousness and trained on her innate gifts, the borders of reality became blurred anyway. Just like experimenting with psychedelics, it is not for the faint hearted. She was always calm, confident in walking the path of Light, completing one lesson after the other at her own pace. She had a long, enduring struggle with Ben, but it was all part of the bigger picture, she felt herself growing while living through that experience. Only after receiving that freaking piece of paper with a single word on it, and hearing the incredibly spot on observations of Jocelyn about her life and her future love endeavors, she started to lose ground. She could not help identifying her new Master with the dark one her grandmother warned her about decades ago - a passionate lover who will guide her through the woods to that symbolic mountaintop, where the next level of consciousness awaits. The peacefulness of these days resembled to that part of a training course when the trainees work on making their new skills stick, they wait for the new knowledge to sink in, and become instinctive.
Yvette controlled her breathing, and focused on the outside world. The echoes of the horns and sirens drifting in, the gathering mist over the piles of fallen leaves in the afternoon twilight, the damp cold of the grass touching her skin, a gentle breeze caressing the back of her neck. She filled her lungs and let her senses overflow her mind, leaving no space for past and future, no quarter for worry and remorse.
She long abandoned the search, the scouring of the Internet after her Master. His nick was lost, so all Yvette could do is search for spiritual masters with a background related to Egyptian symbolism - a hopeless quest, since she did not even know if she is looking for a needle in the proverbial haystack, or something else entirely, like a tiny mouse, or a single, special straw of hay. The search bore no fruit, needless to say.
It was November 9th, her birthday, only a couple of days before the return of Jay, when something happened, something that once again, set thing in motion.
It was a grey, damp day, with light, steady rain washing over the streets. She got lost. She had no idea how it happened, where did she take a wrong turn walking, with her earphones plugged in under the hood of her loose trench coat, carrying two bags of elegance and cuteness she gifted herself with during a quick stroll during the mall - one bag with some new rags she can wear in the office and a lovely flowery dress she will safeguard until next summer in one, and some revealing lingerie and a pair of wicked stilettos she planned to surprise Jay, and herself, with, on one of the next few evenings. She longed for breaking out of the treadmill and becoming a little bad, so she could be punished by her Master. She blushed when she realized that somehow, accidentally, she replaced the mental image of Jay with the one she refers to as Master in her thoughts. Of course, she had no idea how he might look, her subconscious was working on its own, piecing together the image from fragmented information and a lot of preconceptions Yvette had about being Egyptian and mystical.
It was not long after she realized she is completely lost, wondering through unwelcoming alleys, looking for imaginary shortcuts she was sure existed to the next familiar avenue - not bothering to engage navigation on her phone, as her hands were full, it was raining, and it wasn’t the safest neighborhood - when her feet just rooted in place in front of a fresh looking poster. It was an all back square, with some whirling darkness, like mist or steam on it, and a strange golden eye radiating in the middle of it. The eye was not entirely in focus, like it was shining its golden glow out from beneath several layers of dark air or Black Ocean, a bit oddly placed, a few inches away from the natural center point of the whole image. The poster featured not a single word whatsoever which could tie it to a movie, musical or any kind of show. Yvette stood there, because she knew it was important, it is familiar, and felt that the realization is already on its way from somewhere deep from her unconscious, she felt the swift motion, the sheer velocity of the thought process in her mind which will mean the difference between not knowing and knowing where she saw this image. The golden eye was a simple, minimalistic, yet graceful illustration, which looked like it was Egyptian. And then, from the vaults of forgotten dreams it all locked in place - it was the Master’s profile image. She remembered now - the image was so tiny while used as an avatar in a chat session, that it was nothing more than a faint golden spot at the center of blackness, but there was no doubt about it now. Yvette did not even remember to the profile image before, those details of her conversation was lost by morning to her, but she was as sure in it now as in her own name.
She made a photo of the poster and ventured forth. She found her way quickly after stumbling upon the poster, and she walked back to her apartment.