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“You said ‘Have no fear.’ I thought it was a little odd. Don’t misunderstand me. I got the intention, but it was those words. My late husband used that expression often.” Ellie waited for a reaction from Luna.
“Huh. Interesting.” Luna kept sipping her coffee, waiting for Ellie to reveal more.
“Luna, dear, I know you have a penchant for spiritual things. Psychic phenomena, telepathy. It’s not a big secret. A bit on the down-low, but not classified information.” It was Ellie’s turn to pause.
Luna pursed her lips. “You are correct.” Another pause.
“And?” Ellie pressed on.
“And?” Luna echoed.
Ellie huffed. “Dear girl, I know about your extracurricular activities, if that’s what you’re concerned about. I can be quite open-minded about those things.”
“Oh, Ellie. I wasn’t sure how to handle this. I do have a small clientele, but I hadn’t decided what to do about them. My plan was to continue to do readings at my home or at the client’s house. But I was apprehensive about meeting them here.” Luna was almost apologetic. “You see, when I do a reading, I usually sketch at the same time. It’s almost like automatic writing, except I draw.”
Ellie leaned in closer to Luna. “Fascinating. Tell me more. Or better, show me. Please.”
Luna was stunned at Ellie’s interest and likely acceptance. “Are you sure?” Luna looked around the café. The couple who had been sitting earlier had left, and the place was empty at the moment. “I wasn’t quite set up to do it here. At least not yet. I wanted to find someone who could be my backup as a barista so as not to leave customers in the lurch.”
“That’s an easy fix. I’ll get one of the pages to stand guard, so to speak.”
Ellie had hired art students to work as pages at the center. They would be a source of information and assistance to visitors. There were usually two on the main floor and one on the second. She pulled her small walkie-talkie out of her tote bag. “Sabrina? Can you make coffee?” Ellie listened. “Splendid. Can you come over to the Namaste Café and hold the fort for . . .” She looked at Luna for a sign. Luna mouthedhalf-hour. “. . . a half hour?” Ellie nodded at Luna. “Thanks, Sabrina.” Within a couple of minutes, Sabrina appeared in the large glass doorway.
“Hey. What can I help you with?” Sabrina was a second-year art student at the university and eager to please her boss. A good recommendation from Ellie Stillwell could go a long way when she applied to renew her scholarship.
Luna got up and walked over to the counter. “You know how to run one of these?” she asked, jerking her thumb toward the cappuccino machine.
Undaunted, Sabrina gladly took charge. “I sure do. I did a short stint at Starbucks until I got the job here.”
“Fab. We’ll be over in the corner just in case.” Luna moved the easel to the other side of the café. “Follow me.” She motioned to Ellie.
Luna stood in the corner with the easel between her and the table where Ellie was sitting. “May I have a piece of your jewelry?” Luna asked from behind the sketch pad. “It’s how I do this. It’s called psychometry.”
Ellie removed a ring from her right hand. She had never taken off her wedding band and wasn’t about to do it now. But it didn’t matter which ring she chose. Luna was going to get some sort of energy from the ring. That’s how it worked for her.
Ellie handed the ring to Luna, who held it in her hand for what seemed to be an eternity but was in actuality less than five minutes. Luna held the ring in her left hand and began to draw with her right. She began to speak. “I see a retro, 1950s Formica table. On the table are piles of coffee cake. The table is in the kitchen next to the basement stairs.” She kept drawing. “I also see something that looks like a big black box in the basement. But it’s not a box. It’s more like a small room. And what’s up with the TV set? Keeps going on and off.”
Luna tore off the sheet of paper and rested it on the table in front of Ellie.
Ellie sat silently. The drawing was of a table that looked like the one that was in the kitchen of the house in which she had grown up. Complete with the pink chairs and a stack of cake. There was a large square with a smaller black square inside it. She stroked the page and looked up at Luna. “My mother used to bake coffee cake for every occasion. And my father had a darkroom in the basement.” Tears started to well. “And the TV?” She pointed to a sketch of a television with rabbit-ear antennae.
“My late husband had one of these in the garage. He refused to part with it. Kept insisting he would refurbish it. But it never happened. Every time I go into the garage and see that set, I think, ‘Richard, how could you leave me with this thing?’ And then I chuckle.” Ellie pulled an embroidered handkerchief out of her bag and dabbed her eyes. It had the initialsRS. It had been one of Richard’s. Ellie looked at it in disbelief. She always carried a handkerchief, but never Richard’s. She couldn’t recall how it had gotten into her handbag. She shrugged it off as something that could be easily explained. But for the moment, she was much more intrigued with what could not. How could Luna know about the coffee cake? The darkroom? And the television? She was nonplussed. Stunned. Speechless. She looked at Luna. “How?”
Luna shook her head. “I can tell you what, but it’s impossible to say ‘how.’ How is it possible? I don’t know for certain. But I do know that everything is made up of molecules, and molecules vibrate at different frequencies. Somehow, I am like a radio receiver and I pick up the frequencies that are being emitted from your ring.”
“This is fascinating.” Ellie stared at the rough sketch in front of her. “But how did you get all that information from a ring?”
Ellie puckered her lips. “On the one hand, it’s complicated physics, but on the other hand, it’s about tuning in.” Luna took the seat next to Ellie. “I like to compare it to cable television. Some people have premium, others have basic. But we all have a connection. It simply depends on what channel you tune into.” Luna looked at Ellie. “Does this make any sense?”
“Yes it does. I like that analogy. Cable TV.”
“Unfortunately, there are people who forget to turn on the set or forget to plug it in,” Luna joked.
Ellie patted Luna’s hand. “Can you tell me more? How do you interpret this?”
Luna thought for a moment. “In a nutshell, I think it’s your late husband letting you know that he’s with you in spirit.”
Ellie laughed softly. “Do you know that he begged me to bake my mother’s coffee cake recipe hundreds of times? I never wanted to because they were so fattening!” She sighed.
