My memory stalls for just a minute or two. Soon it all comes rushing back. The Halloween party. Humiliation and defeat. The taxi to the airport intercepted by Dean Harrison outside my dorm—her pleading, begging me to come home with her. “Please, I have so much to tell you. If you still want to leave after we talk, I’ll drive you to the airport myself.” Something in her voice—uncharacteristically full of emotion—convincing me to follow. Her house dark and brooding on the edge of the woods. Then the tea that smells like dandelion. It’s too hot to drink so I inhale the steam. The tea spinning counterclockwise again. Just like in her office, her spoon clicking the side of the mug before stirring. Moving in slow circles until my eyes droop. My entire body feels so heavy. And then I’m back in Cleveland. A city I just watched dissolve into dust.

“I’d ask you if you wanted some tea, but I think you’ve had enough for one night. It’s my way of helping you relax before the journey. Too many thoughts or too much anxiety and it doesn’t work. One has to be on the right frequency to travel between the planes. What do you remember?”

“I was in Cleveland. Nothing was right, but I saw my family. We made amends. They were all talking like Jesus. Then we crumbled to dust. How did I get back here with you?”

“You must be tired. Why don’t you get some sleep and I can explain everything tomorrow? I promise it will all become clear soon.”

“No,” I insist. “I want to understand what happened. Where is my family? Are they alive? Are they safe? Was I dreaming? Did I imagine it all?”

Dean Harrison inhales slowly before glancing up at the clock on the wall.

“Words fail this experience, but I’ll try. Reality is multilayered. There is no one reality. There are many, and they are intertwined. Connected. Multiple timelines running concurrently, all happening at once because time is an illusion. Existence is a vast, vibrating field of pure energy. What happens in one part of that field ripples, like when you skip rocks on the sea. Eventually the whole sea will feel the impact of that one rock you threw.

“You are a healer in the field, a Chosen One. There are many Chosen Ones sharing this work, mending cracks in the timelines. Holes, dark places caused by trauma and too much suffering. You can help repair these things. That’s what you were doing with your family: healing the ancestral lineage from wounds that have been passed down for generations. This work is done outside the laws of physics, where anything is possible. Buildings that have been torn down reappearing, for example.