The Brethren

Book Six in the Willy and Tommy Series

LEMURIA
Wilhelmina Snodgrass belongs to a very unusual family. She comes from a long line of women that regularly travel through time to help right certain wrongs. Willy’s great, great, great, aunt, Georgiana Carbuncle, owner of the ‘Watusi Wig Factory,’ explained that the land the factory was built on was special. Thirteen thousand years ago, it was the location of Marianus’s home on Lemuria.

Marianus was the High Priestess of Lemuria, which was the neighboring land to the long extinct isle of Atlantis. The Lemurians were half angel, desirous only of a life a peace. This is why they didn’t interact with the greedy Atlantians. That is until a giant tidal wave washed over Atlantis and buried it under the sea. When the Lemurians learned of the impending disaster, they made sure to rescue many of their neighbors, so that there would be people left to repopulate the planet.

Willy and her best friend, Tomasina Andretti, just arrived back from that very time where they helped Marinaus open secret portals hidden throughout Atlantis so that many of its citizens could escape the disaster.

While the girls were in Atlantis they learned a lot of interesting things. The first thing was that old Mr. Grimstein, from the ‘Watusi Home for Seniors,’ was really born on Atlantis over thirteen thousand before their time. He escaped to the future using the tear in time that was once located in the Wig Factory basement. He was the reason that they were in Atlantis at all. Zach’s inborn greed caused all three of them to accidentally fall through the tear in time, again.

Zachar, as he was know on Atlantis, left his home when he encountered visitors from the future who had been taken prisoner on the island. When the prisoners told Zach of their lives, he became fixated on leaving his own time. The future was no where near as technologically advanced as Atlantis, but to Zach, it sounded like a wonderful place to live. So taking only the purple crystals that his mother had given him as a child, and the clothes on his back, Zachar walked through the tear in time and became Zach Grimstein, citizen of Watuis, Texas in the year 1940.

Another surprising fact that Willy and Tommy learned while visiting Atlantis was that by the time that the island was destroyed, its people had already been space traveling for hundreds of years. The planetarium on their island was full of images of planets all over their solar system as well as many others.

The Brethren, from the Atlantian Space Organization, traveled the heavens leaving imaging crystals behind everywhere they went. The crystals relayed ‘real time’ images so that whenever the girls visited the planetarium they saw different holographic visions of whatever was occurring on each planet at that moment.

The only vision that remained the same was from the last imaging crystal The Brethren left behind. When the girls saw the vision they were intrigued as it was the only image where they actually saw the space travelers. An attractive woman in her thirties appeared before them and announced, “My name is Akasha and I am superior commander of the eighth order of The Brethren. This is our last stop before returning home to Atlantis. We don’t have a name for this planet as we seem to have come upon it quite unexpectedly and it was not on our maps. While traveling towards home, we found ourselves in the center of a meteor storm where our compulizer was badly damaged. We believe that we were steered off course and fell into something of a black hole. I say ‘something of a black hole’ because there was not a complete lack of matter. There was some space debris. Within seconds of entering this hole, we were pulled into the orbit of this planet. We chose to land in order to fix our ship as well as continue our education.”

Willy and Tommy were fascinated by what they saw because the planet Akasha spoke from looked exactly like earth. There suspicions were confirmed when the commander continued her monologue, “There is some movement heading in our direction. It looks like we may have a chance to witness life on this planet before we leave.” Willy and Tommy couldn’t believe their eyes as eighteen horses galloped right towards them and on their backs they carried what looked like American Indians! Akasha commented, “How interesting. We seldom come across humanoid life forms and…” Before she could say anything else, the leader of the tribe shot an arrow straight at them!

Willy and Tommy knew then that The Brethren didn’t make an unscheduled stop on another planet. They made an unscheduled stop on their own planet, just in another time. Before the girls left Lemuria, Marianus confirmed that The Brethren would never be able to come back to Atlantis now that the island had been destroyed.

But before walking through the tear in time, back to their own present, Willy and Tommy met Marianus’s friend from childhood. Maya left Lemuria when she was fourteen-years old, never to be heard from again. Maya had a vision that sent her to Atlantis where she married and gave birth to one son before the Atlantians discovered that she was Lemurian. The Atlantians feared the Lemurians so whenever they discovered one on their island, the king ordered them executed.

Maya’s husband and young son were devastated when she was taken away. They never discovered that she actually escaped through a time portal before her scheduled death sentence. It wasn’t until Maya came back to see her son that he learned that his mother wasn’t dead. Maya embraced her grown child and promised to come for him and take him with her as soon as he returned to his own time. For you see, Maya’s son was none other than Zach Grimstein.

Before leaving, Maya handed Willy and Tommy necklaces. Hanging from the chains were crystals that she said would help The Brethren find them. Willy asked, “Why in the world would The Brethren need to find us?”

Zach’s mother explained, “They are traveling throughout time desperately trying to find their way home. These crystals will bring them to you and you girls must explain to them why they can never go back to Atlantis.”

Shocked, Tommy asked, “Are you kidding? You want two twelve-year-old girls to tell these people what happened to their home? Why can’t you tell them?”

Maya, who was dressed like an American Indian, answered, “Because they have already come to my time and left. They won’t return.”

Putting two and two together, Willy wondered, “Were you with the Indians that shot arrows at The Brethren in their last image?”

She nodded, “I was the one who made sure that they weren’t killed. I explained to the chief who they were and where they came from. That is the only reason that they were freed.”

Tommy inquired, “I don’t mean to be insulting, but why would the chief listen to you? I mean your story had to be pretty unbelievable.”

Maya explained, “He listened to me for two reasons. The first is that I became the tribe’s medicine woman when I saved the life of his only son. My Lemurian magic was such that they had never seen before.”

Willy prompted, “What’s the second reason?”

She answered, “The tribe that I made my home with used to be part of a larger clan called the Anasazi. Have you heard of them?” The girls shook their heads in reply. So Maya continued, “In their language they were known as the ‘ancient ones’ because their history extended back to the beginning of time as they knew it. They lived in beautiful dwellings carved into the sides of mountains. They were known for their craftsmanship of fine pottery, baskets, cloth and other ornaments.”

Willy interrupted, “What happened to them?

“My tribe doesn’t know for sure. They told me of a time when two hundred of them left the Anasazi village looking for another piece of land to settle on. Their number was growing so large that they needed to start building additional dwellings elsewhere. Seven of them, including the chief, traveled back to the village to let the rest know that they had found and begun construction on new homes.” She continued, “But when they reached their village there was no one left. They were all gone.”

“Gone?” Tommy wondered, “Where did they go?”

Maya explained, “No one knew. Over three thousand of their people seemed to have disappeared into thin air. The seven that returned set up camp in their previous dwellings and waited for someone to return hoping that the mystery would be solved.”

Willy asked, “Did anyone come back?”

“The tribe’s shaman walked into their camp two nights later. When they asked what happened to their people, the old man explained that the whole tribe had ascended to a new world together."

The chief demanded to know, “What do you mean they ascended to a new life? Are you crazy old man?”

The shaman replied, “I was given a vision in my sleep of a new land for our people. In my vision I saw a world of much abundance. There was food and water beyond imagination. When I awoke the next morning I led the tribe into that new world.”

The chief angrily demanded, “And where is that new world?”

The shaman arose from the fire and walked towards the ledge of the cliff. He called to them, “Come with me, I will show you.” And then he walked off of the cliff and seemingly disappeared into thin air.

"The chief ran to the edge of the overhang and looked down where he thought the shaman must have surely fallen to his death, but there was nobody there. The next morning, the seven men traveled to the base of the precipice looking for the old man’s body, but they never found it."
Maya explained, “The men went back to what remained of their tribe with stories that their brothers left this plane for another, although they never discovered what really happened to them. All they knew were that thousands of their people simply ceased to exist. So when The Brethren showed up out of no where, the chief was willing to believe that maybe they had come from the same world that his people had gone to.”

Willy asked, “And that’s why he let them go?”

“He let them go because he wanted them to take a message to the rest of his tribe. He wanted them to tell his people that they could come back, that he had found a new home for them.”
Tommy wondered, “Did the Anasazi ever come back?”

Maya answered, “They did not. Our chief still hopes they will, but I know they will not.”

“Why won’t they?” Willy asked.

“There are some things that should never be told, Willy. There are some things that must be lived first hand in order to really understand."

Willy responded, “No thanks, then. Once I get home, I’m not looking for another adventure.”

Tommy added, “Don’t worry Maya, she’ll help out. She always does.”

Maya smiled, “It’s time for you to go now. But remember you must assist The Brethren when you get there. They need you.”

Marinaus worried that if the girls carried the receiving crystals with them into the future that something might go wrong. After all, the copper wigs that they took with them on their last journey began to steal money from their town’s people. It seems that the leap between the two times was so great that the magic placed on the items from the past, morphed into something entirely different in the future.

So Marianus suggested that the girls bury the receiving necklaces in the ground next to the time portal. In there time, the location would be in the alleyway just outside of the factory. Willy asked, “But what if someone else finds them before we do?”

Marianus answered, “I will place a protective shield over them so that no one will even know that they’re there.”

Tommy wondered, “But what if they get washed away in a flood or something, how do we know that they’ll be there for us to find in another thirteen thousand years?”

“Girls, you have both been witness to my magic. Believe me when I tell you that the receivers will be safe when you dig them up in your own time.”

So they buried the crystal necklaces in the field, turned to say goodbye to their friends from the past and then walked up the stairs that returned them to their own time.