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P R O L O G U E

Since her first whispered words, Addie Mae has been my guide into truth. Not the kind you tell other people when you’re feeling righteous. But the hardest truth—the kind you tell yourself when you know there’s been a lie festering inside for a long time.

We’ve been together longer than I expected. She held me captive, holding my heart with her surprising voice. Because of her, I now see magic where there was only coincidence, faith has replaced fear, and time has become the most miraculous gift. There is always a chance for change.

Addie Mae and I were joined by love, by a contract I suppose we made many lifetimes ago, or maybe merely in my imagination. We never know these things for sure until we join the Invisibles. But if I created her, so has she created me. I am transformed by her presence.

It wasn’t all her. I had to be willing to listen, rise above obstacles and insecurities, face fear and the darkness of uncertainty. Loneliness often flirted with me. Still, I was blessed. She was always there, reminding me that the best journeys take us through fog and fury as much as glory.

It was Mother’s Day and the phone rang. If I trace Addie Mae’s presence to its first guiding moment, I think this is where it all began. Not that I knew it then. All I understood that Sunday afternoon was that my father, whom I hadn’t seen in seventeen years, lay dying. A heart attack, his kidneys, the drinking—whatever we chose to believe. My uncle just wanted to let us know. We didn’t have to come. He understood.

I knew right away I had to go to Pennsylvania. My brother came to the same decision, so we got up early and drove two and a half hours down rain-soaked highways in anticipation. We could hear each other’s hearts pounding as we walked into the room and looked at our father’s frail, unconscious body. Relieved to relinquish his care to us, my uncle left and Bryan and I stayed with this sleeping drifter. A social worker asked us to sign papers. No, we didn’t want dialysis. No resuscitation order either. Let him go. Get this over with. I placed my hands on my father and practiced the healing arts I had learned. I willed God’s forgiving energy into him, cleared his aura, soothed his brow. A few hours later he was still alive and it was time for me to leave.

The next day I drove alone to the hospital and put my hands on him again and prayed. I don’t remember what for, but I know it wasn’t to save his life. I think it was really more to save his soul, to offer peace. Every day I returned, despite my family’s objections that he deserved neither my help nor my consideration. They were right, of course. But he wasn’t a bad man, just afraid of life and its obligations. He was trapped in the memories of his scarred childhood, and like so many others, he couldn’t find the courage to overcome it.

Then, one day, almost three weeks later, the seas of our blustery past parted and my father opened his eyes. It was as simple as that. For the time being, he had begged off death.

My other brother, Guy, flew in from the coast. In many ways, the three of us were meeting a stranger. We no longer needed him to be a father, no longer expected anything from his arms. Daddy had died years before. After initial clumsiness, we talked about our lives and the turns each had taken. I think we even laughed a bit.

Two weeks later, I checked him out of the hospital. As we passed through the doors, he turned to me and said, “I just want one year with you kids. That’s all I ask.” The doctors told me he could die at any moment.

That next year was a majestic journey. We shared our July birthdays. I helped him pick out a gift for my mother’s birthday in October. He spent Thanksgiving dancing at my brother’s house. My father was determined to have fun, determined to spend every moment he could with us. At Christmas, he was back, wearing funny reindeer antlers, fiendishly unwrapping presents like the little boy he truly was. He gave his old watch inscribed With Love On Christmas, From Dad to Guy. He did the same for Bryan, on the blade of a Swiss army knife designed for fishermen, because he knew how Bryan loved to fish. He gave me a large brass hourglass to remind me of what he had forgotten.

He was demanding of my attention and time, and it wore me to the bone. I cried a lot, and even prayed for him to die so I could reclaim my eroding life. But grizzled, raw wounds were slowly healing. My brothers and I talked more often and more intimately. Even my mother, bitter from decades of broken promises, noticed a light returning to our family.

He got his year, passing two days shy of Mother’s Day the following May. In a swirl of activity, as he lay on the gurney waiting for a bed at the VA hospice, he squeezed my hand. He couldn’t talk but his teary eyes said it all. “Thank you, Lynn. I love you. I’ll watch out for you.” He died the next day, redeemed.

As I left the hospice, I noticed a worn book lying on the bench nearest my car. The Call of the Canyon by Zane Grey. I sat down and leafed through its weathered pages. The spine cracked when I opened it like it hadn’t been held for years. I turned to the first sentence. What subtle strange message had come to her out of the West? I tossed the book into the back seat and cried the entire drive home. I was free. He was free. And I had done what I knew was right. I don’t think the sun ever looked brighter or more promising.

The next morning I awoke into the fleeting voice of an elderly, Southern, African American woman. For a moment, she helped me understand everything … and then it was gone. As sleep escaped and the dream and its memories evaporated, she showed me a mountain I would climb. I never saw her face but her presence felt familiar. My heart pounded, only the fragrance of her words remained.

I immediately jumped into a consulting assignment. It was supposed to be an easy gig. A civilized three days a week quickly turned into a five or six day a week grind, hungrily devouring ten- twelve- fourteen-hour days. Laced with the gruesome occasional all-nighter, offices filled with unhappy people, and a growing dissatisfaction with advertising, I quit. I ate badly, drank too much and came to the unfortunate realization that the road I had spent my life stumbling down was not only at an end, it had been the wrong road. I ran away from home.

I don’t know why I chose Sedona. I believe it chose me. Sedona’s like that and those who are called there hear its bewitching song. Soon I was on a plane with no plan, nowhere to stay, no friends, no reason.

Fifteen minutes outside Phoenix airport, my car blew a flat and I limped onto an access road that, thank God, hugged a small motel. I dragged my exhausted body into the lobby, called the car rental company and checked in for the night. Crawling into bed, I opened the book from the bench the day my father died. It was an old story about another woman from New York and her journey to sanguine canyons, to the same canyons I was being called to myself. And even though our reasons for following their call were different, we shared the same blind leap of faith.

At morning’s blush, a mechanic fixed the tire and I continued two hours north. As I was swallowed into the beautiful red rocks of Sedona, Arizona, I could almost hear them welcoming me, inviting me into a secret. I bought the local paper and spent the day looking for a place to stay. By day’s end I was exhausted by what I had seen, convinced I had made a terrible mistake. I crept into a lovely little bed-and-breakfast and cried. What the hell was I doing here?

The last ad I’d circled in the paper advertised a place that just happened to be up the road from where I was staying. A man named Wally, who was everything you’d expect a man who works the land to look like, met me at the gate. Wally took care of the property. Mark, the guy who owned the pretty Spanish-style house, was renting out the master bedroom suite with French doors that opened into a hummingbird garden. I moved in immediately.

Wally knew how to nurture just about everything. He was the one I called when I found a tarantula crawling across my floor. The name I screamed as a family of angry javelinas chased me across the cultivated lawn. He brought me fresh juice in the morning and salads at night; he taught me how to listen to whispering trees. A massage therapist lived in the apartment above the garage. I was in heaven. So in the vivid sunshine—away from my father’s death, designer suits and everyone’s expectations of me—layers of old life began to peel away.

At dawn I’d throw on a cotton dress, and sip a cup of coffee on my patio. If you’ve ever seen the sun rise over the high desert, you know the cleansing power of that miraculous sight. Faces smiled at me from everywhere—the leaves, the trunks of trees, rock walls. I was told the earth spirits were happy to see me. I should have been alarmed, but somehow I was comforted, intrigued. These smiling faces eventually retreated back into their own world, but by then my body was stronger, my spirit rejuvenated, my mind ready.

The desert exudes an amazing scent. Even slight fear becomes part of its mysterious fragrance. And as morning brushes the land and mixes with this fragrance, every atom shivers with anticipation, knowing that something that has never happened before will be happening that day.

I was given books to read on raw foods, solar energy, visualization. I gobbled them up. Soon I was taking herbs to cleanse years of accumulated toxins from my contaminated being, drinking ginger tea and imagining a different life. Every false thing about me was being stripped away.

Wally came by quite often to talk, bring me mangoes, quiet my spirit. We took long hikes in tender canyons. He taught me about the creatures and plants and energies that possessed the land. People I met talked about alien portals and spirit guides. Indian shamans walked barefoot through town and I heard of mountain men who still lived in caves hidden away within the ancient canyon walls. It was a place, a state of grace unlike anything I had ever known. When I talked to friends and family back home, I barely recognized their voices. I had passed through some slight crease in reality and was now living between worlds.

One night, I woke in the dark to an uneasy weight perched at the edge my bed. I remembered my father’s promise to visit me. I turned on the lamp and huddled fearfully. Through the curtained window I could see it was black outside. The birds were still silent, but something in the air promised dawn was approaching. I thought about her. It wasn’t much of a thought; just the memory of that dream, of the familiar warmth I felt towards her. I realized we were sitting within the mountain she showed me. Her tender spirit stayed in silence for a few minutes, until the first bird broke the morning with its hopeful call.

By now, magic filled each day. Every boundary I had been raised to respect disappeared among the mighty teaching canyons. I no longer felt surprise at unexpected voices coloring the wind, or prying eyes peering at me from the shadows of an ageless rock. As Christmas approached and the promise of warmth retreated, I understood it was time to leave. God had bestowed a great gift on me. But the rest of life was calling. As much as I hated to leave, I knew there was more for me to do in the world. I had no choice but to go forward, fuse my newfound self to an abandoned past and see what magical elixir emerged.

Once back in New York, I went back to advertising, though more and more I hungered to support businesses that strove to make the world a better, happier, more conscious place. I searched for others with the same calling.

Then, one afternoon, Addie Mae laughed, and every plan I had entertained evaporated.

It’s not what happened to me that matters.

I stopped, my heart pounded, and I placed these first words on the tips of my trembling fingers. I was afraid to look around, afraid I’d see her. She was that close. It was the challenging voice of that elderly, Southern, African American woman, bold and completely proud of her disturbing affect on me.

Wake up, child. It’s time. We’re about to take a long journey together.

I stared at the keyboard. I could sense her amusement at my fear. I listened to more of her words, let them splash into my computer, whatever she had to say. By the time she finished, a transformational covenant was born. I agreed to tell her story and once again faith guided my life.

There was a comforting promise to her voice even though I never knew where it was taking me. Like an endless, tapestried carpet being rolled onto a barren floor, each day I unfurled the sonorous colors of her words a little bit more. I asked for her name. She told me Aubrey was given by her daddy, but her first name, her God-given name, I had to discover myself. I changed it like I changed clothes while she accepted meager fragments of my time. Bertie, Sarah, Betsy, Luanne became hopeful chants. With great pride she told me the name of every other character she introduced. Jenny was my favorite.

One evening, I watched the television news commemorate the anniversary of the Birmingham church bombing that killed four little girls. Staring at me from the screen was a smiling, beautiful spirit with braids and glasses. Her name was Addie Mae Collins. Like a bolt of lightening suddenly illuminating the slumbering night sky, I finally understood. It was her name. Addie Mae would be given a life, a voice she was denied. And even though it wasn’t the one she would have enjoyed if evil hadn’t touched her, it was at least a life, the remarkable life of a glorious woman.

Addie Mae came with me to visit Wally in Taos, New Mexico. He was born a migratory animal that roamed with the emotional seasons tangled in his soul. This one had called him to Taos. It was late summer. I hadn’t seen Wally for a while, so my adjustment to his presence was uneasy. It was impossible to separate my love of nature from Wally. Not only because he had initiated me into its secrets, but also because he was so much a part of nature itself. I expected one day to walk out into a snowy morning in search of him, only to follow his deliberate footsteps until they dissolved between some narrow, bouldered passage into the tracks of a wolf or a bear or even the mystical raven. I didn’t want to leave. But Addie Mae was stronger. Her guiding wisdom promised it would be all right.

Let go, fool child. Can’t hold to anythin’ too tight.

I jumped back into the social whirlwind of December in New York, an experience near as magical as sunrise in the high desert. By now, Trusting the Currents was about half finished, although I didn’t know it then. All I knew were the words Addie Mae offered on any particular day, words I had to believe had a reason to exist. I wasn’t even sure if there was a story to be told or if Addie Mae was just offering a string of pearls to decorate my naked soul. It didn’t matter. I was grateful for her touch, her wisdom, the things she was teaching me about myself.

I finished another routine consulting assignment realizing the life Addie Mae revealed was swallowing my old one with each advancing page. It was at the first light of this realization that she decided we were going back to Sedona. For now, I had squeezed all I could out of New York.

Once back in Sedona’s intoxicating embrace, writing ascended to a trotting cadence. All I had to do was let go, pull my oars into the boat and allow the prescient current to take me. I was now being towed towards a conclusion rather than striving for one. Words flew from my fingers at a furious pace. Instead of patiently obeying as Addie Mae carefully fished her story from the swirling, indigo abyss, I was being drawn into experiences that reincarnated onto the pages.

On a blistering afternoon, a young dragonfly flew towards me while I relaxed on a rock cradled within the bantering creek. Eye to eye it lingered. I asked what it wanted. I already knew it was there to give me something. By now, I digested guidance from the most improbable sources. I offered my finger and it floated gently onto my skin. Drawing it closer to my face, I stroked its iridescent body. We stayed together for several minutes until it finally rose into a sultry gust, thrashed its angelic wings and disappeared into the clouds.

The following morning as dawn flooded my room, right where the previous day’s story had concluded, a dragonfly entered Addie Mae’s world, transformed her budding life and became the totem symbol of her inspiring tale. It seems I had graduated from simply telling Addie Mae’s story to living within it.

I wrote mostly in the morning, mostly in bed. Once again, I cared for my body. I exercised daily, ate well and each evening wandered through the desert seeking inspiration.

On one of those days, I sat in bed listening to Addie Mae. Suddenly, a woman called from inside of the house, asking if anyone was home. She was standing in the living room of the home I was minding for its traveling owner. I soon noticed she was blind.

“Who are you?” she asked, same as I was thinking.

She was well into her seventies, and moved slowly with a silver-tipped cane in the shape of a roaring dragon.

“My name is Lynnda. Edith is in Switzerland.”

“Do you mind if I rest? I’m awfully tired,” she decided.

I guided her towards the patio deck, which overlooked an enthusiastic, rushing creek.

“Join me, won’t you, dear,” she asked.

I reluctantly obeyed.

“Tell me about yourself.”

I didn’t know what to say. The person I once was had disappeared into Addie Mae’s words. “I’m writing something,” I replied. “A book, I think.” It felt like a lie as it slipped from my mouth. Truth was, I wasn’t sure what I was doing.

She stood up and leaned towards me. Grabbing my face between her hands, she stared at me with empty eyes. “You’re quite pretty, aren’t you?” She sat down. “Give me your hand.” For a moment she silently stroked the lines of my palm. Then, she revealed things about my self, my past, my future. “Time will be a wonderful ally if you allow its generosity.” She smiled, told me not to be afraid, that God knows my soul’s true purpose. She leaned into the fiery-eyed dragon and walked out. I never saw her again.

All through summer, scorpions prowled the house. I took to shaking out clothes and stripping my bed daily. I became terrified of getting stung. Unable to sleep one evening, I rolled over to discover one of these ancient desert lobsters watching me from the next pillow. The following afternoon, I met a young shaman who told me that scorpions represent transformation, life and death, reincarnation. He urged me not to be afraid because they were only messengers. If I would surrender my fear, trust my way to their gifts I would be given what they were here to share. It wasn’t until the Thunder Moon appeared that I understood his hopeful words.

Anointed “Thunder Moon” by past generations of Hopi Indians, it ushers in the summer monsoons, Sedona’s most haunting presence. Tempestuous clouds spit fierce, javelin light towards unimpressed mountains. Waterfalls appear like ghosts from the parched desert rock; bloody sunsets shutter each boisterous day. The full moon rose, bleaching the earth with quicksilver. I stood outside for several minutes watching stars bristle against the deep eggplant sky, spinning in fierce little circles demanding my attention.

When I returned to the house, a small shadow pierced my toe. It quickly scurried through the hallway, escaping outside. My foot stung as a lazy glow oozed up my ankle. Soon my leg was paralyzed. I called the hospital, and after receiving assurance of my survival, all fear dissolved. I knew I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

That night I dreamed of sitting at a small wooden desk centered in a large, dimly lit room. Over my shoulder stood a benevolent, cloaked figure pointing towards the seventeen-digit number I held in my hands. Without speaking, he communicated that the secret of life, the answer to all questions, was held within that one number. He cautioned the truth was not to be found within the digits, or by their particular arrangement, but within the spaces between. And, although we perceive only one space between each digit, there were actually three distinct layers of space, each layer embracing different information. He told me most would seek answers within the digits, but that I was to explore the space instead.

It always took Addie Mae a while to arrive after I had quieted. I think she waited for me to be comfortable in that deep indigo abyss from where she came. I watched out the bedroom window, waiting for signs, symbols of her past. The defiant way the early wind kicked at the leaves, a bright blue bird crying for its mate, or a lost, lonely cloud trapped in a boundless sky. By now, I had learned to translate these sparks from the other side. She taught me how much we are shown in a flickering moment, how many secrets are hidden in the ordinary if we only take occasion to notice.

Throughout our journey, Addie Mae was my guide, assurance that someone had gone before me. Whether it was by chance or fate, our lives touched. Addie Mae generously decided to share what she knew. She gently guided me into experiences that brought me closer to her understanding, closer to her wisdom, to the wisdom of the Invisibles. Close enough so on that one magical day, I could hear her whispers … and was finally ready to listen.

No matter how lonely and scary the path seemed at times, she let me know I was not its first traveler. I was never alone.

Neither are you.

O N E

It’s not what happened to me that matters. It’s what Mama said about Uncle Joe and the old house, and that little secret lying buried beneath the floorboards.

I’d mostly forgotten about the place. God knows forgetting was the best thing for me. But every now and then the wicked secret came out in a dream, or even sometimes just walking down the street on a beautiful sunny day.

I tried to ignore it, shoo it away like a swamp fly—like the ones that used to come around every spring near the water’s edge. They’d nest in the reeds and bushy punks where Jenny and I hid when Uncle Joe got into one of his mean moods. Big, blue shiny things they were, with teeth, or at least that’s the way I remember them. By the time Jenny and I came out of hiding, usually around dark when Mama would call us to supper, we were bit up to death. By then Uncle Joe would be sleeping, the whiskey once again showing us its kind side. Mama always did amazing things with the greens and cornbread and whatever meat she could trade for sewing. Each night we thanked the Lord for his blessings.

Mama was known for her sewing all over the county. It was probably the only reason we didn’t starve, and why those state folk who come and take away poor kids didn’t take Jenny and me. Those official types always said they were doing best by the children, but most cried awful and were never heard from again. Usually their mamas just had more. Sometimes the state never found out. Country folk knew it was better to birth at home so there’d be no trace. Schooling never mattered anyhow because the only thing expected from life was the farm, and what good was reading and writing for that? Mama had a special gift. The rich ladies from Taversville would buy the lace tablecloths and matching napkins Mama made. Local folks traded pig or chicken and the occasional clutch of fresh eggs for her fine stitchery. Mama was proud of her work, and we were proud for her.

Mama’s ample heart could swallow the entire county. She was always feeding neighbor children despite our own meager supplies, believing that God provided for those who sacrificed themselves for the sake of others. Even though there were nights my growling belly challenged that thinking, time proved her right. I hate to admit this, but it took me a long while to figure the virtue in all of her kindness. Once when skinny Reggie Robinson, who I’d known from birth, come sneaking around for some of Mama’s cooking, I angered at Mama giving up what should be mine. I hollered at Reggie to go on home to his own mama’s lame concoctions.

Mama jumped towards me with a face full of anger. “Addie Mae, you get over here, girl!” she demanded, as poor Reggie fled from the kitchen table and out the back door, bawling.

I wasn’t much of anything then, maybe eleven going on twelve, but Mama figured I was old enough for mercy to take hold. She stopped yelling, though I could still feel temper percolating inside. It was her disappointment that hurt most, blistering more than any rage she could have mustered.

I hung my head and skulked shamefully towards the table. “I’m sorry Mama, but that Reggie’s always hangin’ ‘round like we don’t know what he’s truly after. Maybe me or Jenny gonna want your cookin’ later.”

For a flash Mama looked at me like I wasn’t her daughter, like some other mouth released them harsh words. Then she smiled with her usual forgiveness, settling with me at the kitchen table.

“Givin’ up somethin’ ya own is hard to consider. I know that Addie Mae. All through life you gonna be forced to let go a things you reckon to be yours alone. Nothin’ belongs to nobody. We just borrowin’ from God and the land and them pesky spirits that try our nature. You gotta learn to give back if you don’t want God’s magic circle to be broken. When you offer somethin’ to someone in need, it’s like puttin’ love in the bank. One day that love will return just when you need it yourself, reappearin’ in the shape of your own heart’s desire.”

Mama sat there waiting for me to understand, waiting for that loving spark to catch fire. I’d like to say her words turned my thinking, but they didn’t. They only changed my behavior, which I guess was enough for her right then. I moseyed over to Reggie’s house and apologized, coaxing him back with Mama’s griddlecake kindness.

On most days Jenny and I would wake at dawn, Billy Milgrin’s prized Red cockadoodledoin’ so to wake the dead. We didn’t mind though. We were young and full of life, and for us, life began at dawn.

Mama was already up. Uncle Joe, usually sober yet, was out tending the fields. Morning was glorious, the sun coming up over those big strong oaks, turning the land all sparkly and new. The smell of coffee was somehow reassuring, though Mama never let us touch it. It was just one of them grownup things we reckoned; one of those things we’d get our own chance at in due time. And we sure seemed to have lots of time ahead of us.

Of course, chores filled most our days, either helping Uncle Joe in the fields as he got drunker and lazier, or walking clear past the Robinson place for water as we did but twice a week.

We never stopped talking. Our jawing began the day Uncle Joe showed up with Jenny after Jenny’s mama died in a terrible fire that also swallowed her baby brother. Rumor was Uncle Joe started that fire, be it by accident or not. But because Uncle Joe was Jenny’s stepdaddy and only family, they let him go, warning to leave town quick. So he did, showing up one morning on Mama’s doorstep.

I saw them coming that day. This big dark man with even darker eyes being trailed by Jenny who wore a pretty yellow dress covered in lilac flowers. With her long chocolate hair and blue eyes, she looked very different than me. I’d never seen blue eyes before. I once asked Mama why Jenny and me looked so different if we were cousins and all. She told me about Jenny’s grandma and how she got pregnant by a white boy passing through town. This boy was traveling the country doing God’s work, that’s what he said, and Jenny’s grandma was supposed to be one of his converts to a better God. By the time he left town, she was more than converted.

Jenny was the first one in the family to get the blue eyes of God’s work. This did not make life easy. Her mother did the best she could, protecting Jenny from the hate-mongers who called her the devil’s child. Black folk in this part of the country still had raw rememberings of the slave days, and Jenny’s blue eyes reminded them of this painful past. So, she spent most her days alone, walking along the river, listening to the birds rejoicing.

Jenny loved the woods and its coolness. Even on the hottest summer afternoons she found refuge near that glimmering river. Lying long on dark green moss, cheek pressed to the soft ground, Jenny would watch a parade of ants march over the hill as they made their way to the base of an old tree stump. She’d park there for hours, jawing to herself and her ant friends, watching the leaves frolicking above her head.

It wasn’t until her baby brother was born that Jenny had another soul to talk to. He didn’t speak of course, the tiny thing. He simply was, and when he smiled, Jenny imagined he loved her. On the occasional days her mama traveled to town for provisions, she’d let Jenny take her baby brother to the woods. Jenny loved sharing her magical place with that magical new life.

By now Uncle Joe was already drinking too much, blaming her mama for all his life woes. He hit her once or twice, always apologizing straight off then not touching a drop of liquor. It never lasted though. After a day or two he’d be railing on again about his fate in life and how much better he could have done than Jenny’s mother and that bastard child of hers.