"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned... not because I loved, not because I cared, but because I forgot about the pain of those around me as I learned and lacked patience to wait for Your sign. Help me to do better, and not to hurt the people who love me most. I want to go home to be with them, wherever they are." She stood quietly for a long while, simply gazing into the font and trying to calm her spirit. The slight lingering smell of incense was soothing and soon she was able to move away, having made her peace with her circumstances.
Now the issue was how to get out of the church and be reunited with her family. She stared at the rows of votive candles and didn't move as one lit for her on its own.
"You heard me," she whispered, tears of relief washing her cheeks. Her attention went to the heavy doors that creaked open ever so slightly, and within moments she was through them and back out on the top step facing the wide street in bright sunlight.
Surveying the landscape for a direction, she walked down the steps with care and stood by the curb, wondering what sign would light the way next. Oddly, all resistance and defiance had seeped out of her, along with the fear. She was simply bone-weary. It felt as though the defensive, angry energy had collected in her feet and was now dripping from the soles of her sandals with every heavy step she took. It made her footfalls labored, and she walked like she had ten-pound weights on each foot. She could barely move.
With disinterest, she watched a cab drive by. But it stopped, backed up, and a young African man who looked to be in his early twenties, wearing a red, black, and green crocheted skullcap, dressed in a beat-up Army jacket, ragged yellow T-shirt, and dingy brown corduroy pants with black flip-flops on smiled and rolled down his window, hailing her.
"You need a ride, queen?"
Damali shook her head and closed her eyes. She was no longer invisible. What next? "Thanks, brother," she said in a tired voice. "My ends are short, got no cash. Thanks anyway."
"You've got money," he said, his fluorescent-white smile lighting up his dark, handsome face. "I take silver for a sister as fine as you. Come let me give you a ride and talk to me. It's lonely in the morning, yes?"
"Silver?" Damali chuckled. Men were such a trip, and she couldn't deal with some brother from around the way hitting on her right now. "Naw, I'm cool."
"Wit all dat silver in your ears, and gold in your hair, you can't part wit one little earring for a ride to Broad Street? It's only a few blocks."
She became very, very still, and then her hand gently touched her earlobes. When she'd been on the plane, she hadn't had earrings on. She looked at her wrists and almost gasped. Thick kundalini snakes with gleaming precious stones were wrapped around her wrists. She unfastened an earring, and she stared at the sterling Ankh in her palm. She glanced down at her feet and heavy silver ankle bracelets with hieroglyphics etched upon them were weighing down her legs. A large silver toe ring covered her right middle toe. Her gaze went back to the cabbie as she gently patted her head wrap feeling it bulge with hard objects within her hair. Plus, she'd never mentioned where she was headed. Even she didn't know the answer to that. "Broad Street?"
"Yes. That is where you are going, true?"
Damali warily eyed him and shrugged. "How do you know I'm going to Broad Street?"
"What is eleven and five?" he asked, raising an eyebrow with a sly grin.
"Sixteen," she said, coming closer to the cab, curious.
"And one and six?" he asked, chuckling.
"Seven," she whispered.
"And your man's birthday is November fifth, correct?"
She simply stared at the man.
"He is twenty-four, which would make it six. Six plus seven is what? Thirteen," he said with a smile. "And the year of his birth would be nineteen eighty, which is one, plus nine, equals ten, reduces to one, add the eight, makes it nine. And nine is three threes, a triple trinity, a very powerful number. If you want to go home, you have to go to Egypt in Philadelphia, and stand on an axis of the pyramid the Masons built-masswithson , mason, meaning child of Light. His birthday is not far away... you ready for the full lunar eclipse that will last his number-three hours and thirty-three minutes? Nine."
This man's strange babble made her brain feel like oatmeal. The numbers and dates were coming too fast, and he knew things he shouldn't have. She remembered what she'd been promised by the queens, though. Guides and shamans would come.
"What's today's date?" Tension had made her body so rigid that she could barely talk.
"October thirtieth. A three day," he said with flourish. "The month ten reduces to the number one, which represents the Creator as symbolized by the sun. Three is the trinity, forms a triangle, and is the offspring of the union of two. Add it to get four," he said with a wink, "and you have the number four, balance."
Damali thrust her hand into the cab window and offered the earring without a word. The cabbie nodded and chuckled and popped the automatic lock so she could climb into the back of his vehicle. His jabber made her head spin, but his references totally freaked her out. Regardless of all his mystical talk, all she knew was one basic fact: If today was October thirtieth, her team was flying into the night a day ahead of her on Halloween. She closed the door to the cab without protest.
"We go to One Broad Street. That is one axis, north, a point of power. City Hall is the other, south. Invasions from the north have conquered the south, but the greatest power is in the east where Khepre is reborn each morning. What used to be called the John Wanamaker Building is the other side of the triangle. If you look at it from above and draw the invisible lines, you can see the connection." He spoke without turning and then took a small stick out of his jacket pocket and began chewing on it like it were a cigar. "This city, like Washington, D.C., was founded by Masons. All the founding fathers were Masons, and have replicated everything found in the original seat of power. Now that is hidden in plain sight within the seat of authority in the most powerful nation. Open your eyes and go through the door, just like you did at the church, and find Egypt."
"Where are you from?" Damali whispered, her voice hoarse from shock.
"Ethiopia, where else?" he said, chuckling as he drove the short distance. He turned in his seat and handed her a card. "My grandfather is waiting for you. Find him and he will give you back your earring."
The cab had stopped in front of a massive structure that looked as much like a cathedral as it did a strange museum. "Thank you," Damali said quietly, taking the card and carefully studying it before she shoved it into her robe pocket.
The man smiled, lowered his eyes, and bowed slightly in his seat. "It was my honor to courier the Neteru back to her destiny."
"You think they're gonna be cool?" Shabazz asked Father Patrick, as the teams filed down the plane's spiral staircase to the cabin's main level. He used his chin to motion toward the closed conference room that held the stunned crew.